Ordinary Reader has left a new comment on your post: "It's been a year and a half and maybe you've forgotten about this blog long ago, but I want to ask. How are you?

Hey there Ordinary Reader,

I had been neglecting this blog, and I apologize to you, and any other people who also was a dedicated reader here.

The question posed as to how I am, and right up until about a half hour ago, my answer would have been "lousy".

That is not the case now, and Ordinary Reader - I saw your message. And it caused me to sit down and actually think that through, *really* think about it, and how I am. And after I thought about it, I suddenly realized that, yes, I am doing just fine. And this is why:

I have spent the last nearly two years feeling sorry for myself, and ashamed of myself, for things that I had no control over. If you're a long-time reader, you'll have seen that I've had a couple of brain tumors, and had them removed, and that the second tumor was malignant, a stage 3 cancer. And I have been taking way too many medications and have been through hell, trying to beat the odds on staying alive. I was given devastating odds on survival. I have, currently, beaten those odds with the help of a phenomenal Hematology-Oncology doctor Marshall Flam, M.D. here in Fresno, CA. I did radiation, chemotherapy, and it sucked. However, I'm alive, and getting better every day.

And it was a long, long haul to get here, and I still have some problems. But then again, who doesn't?

But I've been hiding, and trying to be and do something I'm not. I have handicaps now that changed who I used to be. Some of those changes made me a much better person today than I was. Some of those changes made me become ashamed of who and what I am now. And today, I took a good heard look at myself, and realized that I have no reason to feel ashamed about the person I am.

I have spent most of my adult life trying to fit in, trying to make up for the person I was before that first surgery. I've been apologizing endlessly to what feels like the entire world for sins that happened 17 years ago. The ironic part is that I haven't been able to remember the majority of those sins, because my long-term memory was thoroughly scrambled like eggs from the first removal.

I'm finished now, feeling ashamed of the woman I've become. I've tried to remember what happened way back then, and attempted to apologize to the people I hurt. And now? Now, I'm looking in the mirror, and the woman I am is a good person.

I deserve to be happy, with the choices I make now. I deserve to look at myself, and accept that I'm not ever going to be a model, never going to do some of the things I used to do. And that's alright, because I can do other things, and maybe these new things will work out, or maybe they won't, but there's nothing that stops me from trying now.

I am looking at myself, and I am not ashamed to be me. Not anymore. Thank you, Ordinary Reader, for reminding me who I am.

--Controversy

I know there's no popularity contest, and *certainly* I should long since given up the hope of being treated as something resembling an equal, but evidently hope springs eternal. And because of this, I keep getting smacked, over and over again, and keep looking around and trying to figure out what it is that makes me just so unlovable, and unwanted that I get kicked around and ignored unless it's convenient.

This has been an incredibly difficult year for me. I keep hoping that somehow, eventually, she's going to love me just for me. I should know better and I kept trying, looking for something that resembled some kind of family. I guess the truth is that I'm always going to be the not-good-enough one. The one who was difficult and troubled, so wasn't worth the hassle. And in the end, the one that wasn't even useful at all, when the model she wanted in the first place came back.

Maybe she doesn't care when I ask and ask for someone to visit me, and no one ever comes unless there is some secondary reason to come here. In five years, the only time she's ever come to town was when something else happened to coincide with work or other business, and every time I asked there was never enough money for her to afford to visit. But she can afford to go to other cities to visit the one she wanted, can even afford to go across the country to visit her, stopping all over visiting all kinds of things...but not me. And I'd been asking for months.

I feel small, and broken, and not worth anything. The way I always end up feeling when I think about her. I have enough trouble keeping my head above water, without this constant feeling of drowning from all of the things that are lacking in me that makes me useless.

And the thing that hurts the most is that no one will ever care, and I'll continue to go on crying and nothing will ever change, until I can just walk away and be done with it entirely.

Don't take your pleasure from my pain...

I had a birthday over the summer, and as a result, I'm now 33 years old. Since I got sick at the beginning of the year, and off and one since then, I keep thinking about the past. My memory is always going to be spotty, two surgeries on your brain will do that to someone. But the truth is, it occurred to me at my birthday, there was no one there who knew me before I was 20.

And the reason for that, because in high school I actually *did* have friends, is that the "friends" I had, have all decided that they hate me now. Not one single solitary one of them has ever explained to me what it was that I did. One of them, Jerusha, told me that I nearly ruined her life...and when I asked what it was that I *DID*, she refused to explain. I remember that she liked to party, had a drinking problem, and hated her parents...none of which had anything to do with me.

I'm fully aware that before that first tumor was diagnosed and removed, I was irrational, unreliable, and difficult to put it mildly. But I was also the girl who has completely miserable, most of the time. The one who ran away from home, because it was *that bad*, and not a single one of any of my "friends" asked why it was that I had no free time, and wasn't allowed to do any of the things that their parents allowed them do.

And now, the people who I actually *did* do something that might have hurt then, those people have been apologized to, and at least I attempted to make amends.

And yet, most of the people who 'knew me when', continue to hate me. People who take glee or some sort of satisfaction to continue to spread rumors and talk crap about me, for things that happened 15 years ago. I have a reputation for being a god-awful backstabbing person, someone not to be trusted, and who would ruin people by association.

Someone who was once a friend said that they could see me running toward a disaster, and didn't want to be caught in the fallout. What made me wonder about Sara was that she, also, never bothered to see if there was something *wrong*, that might have been causing me to do so many completely off the wall things.

As it turned out, in 2004, I learned that my lack of impulse control, my inability to be rational, to lose my temper at the least provocation, all of that was because I had a lump the size of a golf ball on three sections of my brain. As soon as all the extra pressure was removed, my entire personality changed, literally overnight.

And yet, the trash-talking persists. People talk to *other people*, not to *ME*, and they seem to enjoy insuring that my life will continue to be difficult. This town is too small for me not to run into people, virtually anywhere I go.

My life was difficult when I was younger. I was angry and unhappy, and when I finally grew up and managed to put myself back together, even if it took brain surgery to do it, I discovered that my past will apparently never be left in peace.

I've gone through hell, still not exactly living in a rose garden now, but it still won't let it rest in peace. I have *earned* that right, and yet it remains.

I just wish they would stop using me as a way to make themselves feel better about their lives. Wish they'd forget they ever knew me, or knew anything about me, because the choices I made, and the person I was, she doesn't even exist anymore, and hasn't existed for a long time.

Grow up, and leave me alone.

Old people.

Hi Blog-readers!

Yeah, that actually sounds as though I'm in a good mood, and that things are going better lately...well, to be fair, I *am* doing half-way better. I'm finished with radiation, and I won't need more (apparently), but I'll still be on chemo for 10 more months, at least. Downside? The dose is so much higher than my original dose that I spend a lot of time trying not to puke.

My psychologist recommended pot, since my anti-nausea stuff isn't working very well. It pretty much holds the nausea long enough to get the pills into my system, and the rest of the day, I want to throw up.

But I'm hanging onto the fact that the radiation is done, and that it was successful.

Completely different topic: I live in this town that in all actuality, is a fairly good size. But it feels for all the world, anytime you go anywhere, it seems as though we live in a town of 3000, instead of the million plus that it actually is.

The only places I don't run into people I used to know, or who knew me, are at my oncologists offices. Apparently, everyone I once knew have nice healthy lives. Must be nice. Yeah, I suppose I'm a little jealous.

So, yeah. This town...I wish I could move away, but the doctors are here, or in San Francisco, for what *I* have problems with. Which leaves me with really limited options for where I could live, and still reasonably healthy.

Oh...and hi stranger, I miss you.

Who knew? Oh, YOU knew!

It's funny, I was sitting down today to write out this post, when I realized that most of you are probably not picturing a woman curled up on a recliner, which has been set up specifically for me to be able to kick back under my desk. But, I do. Sit all curled up in this kind of setup.

For the last few months, I've been using my Mac to listen to posts, and pretty much not actually typing anything, so that was the more practical solution. I'm happy to report that I'm playing WoW again, which requires my desktop PC, and a lot of other boring things. But that does indeed mean that I'm kind of getting better, and being able to type and to think on my own. For the sake of speed, I get a lot of things word to me still, but for the most part, if I'm willing to spend the hours it would require it, I *could* actually read most things now.

My vision is still a little wonky, but it's a lot better than it was originally. My speech on the other hand, is still messed up. I don't remember it was like that the first time, so I'm just kind of having to put up with it, and hope like hell it will get better.

Change of topic: I've spent the last couple of weeks getting paperwork from all over town. Upside, I can actually read what I'm picking up. Downside, there is a LOT of stuff missing. But missing or not, I've finally started calling important people, to attempt to sort out the crap of the last couple of years. One can hope.

But this is a long enough post now, because I'm freezing and hungry. I was basically checking in, so that the people who are still reading my blog, can get a note saying I'm getting better, slowly.

:)

I'm still not dead.

Getting knocked down with cancer and brain surgery and not being able to read has definitely made it cut down the amount I write on my blog. That's kind of depressing, now that I'm thinking about it.

I finished the first round of chemo and radiation yesterday, and I guess I was expecting to wake up this morning, feeling just fabulous, and instead when I woke up, all I wanted to do was sleep...and then possibly sleep some more. Knowing that things may never get back to 'normal',to have it smacked in the face aren't exactly the same. So I'm tired, and still feels like shit. Yippy, right?

I can sort of read again now, about a thousand percent more than I could when I came home, at any rate. But what used to be enjoyable, and something I liked to do, now is just tedious and requires so much effort, that I don't even want to, most of the time.

I still have nightmares, and a lot of thing still hurts, even though I don't spend a lot of time telling that to anyone. There isn't really a point, because I keep getting the impression that this might just be the way my life is going to be now.

The truth is that I spend a lot of time crying, when there isn't anyone around to see. I have huge amounts of depression, and would just give up and stop doing anything at all, expect that everyones well-meaning concern. There are so many people who are just so *concerned* about how I'm doing, and how I'm feeling, and want to help, that even if I wanted to go and take a break for a while, and deal with stuff in my own way, they would all be upset, or offended, and the fallout wouldn't be worth it.

So I smile, and I do all the things everyone expects me to do, because it takes less energy than hiding out.

The "me" that I used to be, it's not even in here anymore. Maybe I felt this way the first time I was recovering, but I don't remember how that went. I don't really remember a whole lot about any of it, until I was recovered and felt fine and normal.

And I know that that it's only been three months, and that tumor was a lot bigger this time, and I should expect to have more problems, and I need to be patient, and things will get better. I *KNOW* this. But it's *my* life, and every day that what used to be normal, still doesn't improve, I get a little more pessimistic, and want to just give up.

I wouldn't blame people, the ones who have always read my blog, stopped following it. Pretty much all it's been for the last several months has been whining and complaining about my life, and feeling sorry for myself. I don't have any idea how much longer that's going to be this way.

I wish I knew how long *I* was going to be like this.

I'm home?

To it's been a long while, well maybe not so long, about three weeks, since I came home from my brain surgery. Things....didn't go the way everyone expected.

As I sit here typing, I cannot read. I also can't write anything with a pen. The reason that I type, is because some type of memory typing lets me do this.

The truth be told, I feel defeated, about pretty much everything most of the time. I go through each day more or less faking it, as though I'm alright. Well, I do until I fall apart, and then I cry. I can't even come up with the actual words I want, because I can't correctly spell them.

For all intents and purposes, I might as well be blind, only I can see. And it hurts me. I go to sleep, and I keep hoping that I will wake up, and I will be fine in the morning, but it keeps not hopening.

I have all these walkers and a canes and my balance is all screwballed, and I'm so fucking sleeping all the time, no matter what I do, and I just want to be DONE already.

I was supposed to go up there, and they were supposed to fix me, and I could come home, and go back to school, and everything would be normal again...and then now? This? This is not me...I'm not me anymore. And I hate it. I can't do anything for myself, and I hate it.

I think about lawsuits and chemo and radiation and still being sick for god only knows for you long, and a lot of the time I just want to give up utterly. I'm told that's all perfectly normal...yay. Which is kind of depression too.

This is probably not making sense anymore, because I kind of lost my train of thought...so I'll stop now...I just had to say SOMETHING, so that I could remind myself that I'm still in here, that I'm still me, even if it didn't seem that all the time...maybe I can't get my worlds out while I'm speaking, and maybe I can't use a pen....but maybe, eventually, I'll be able to be me again...if only still here....