When we were driving away from my parents house parker shouted from the backseat "a bear! a flying bear!"
I pulled over and looked at parkers finger pointing to the sky and sure enough dangling from a helicopter was a bear. It was not the strangest sight i have ever seen, but it came close.
So this is the new year. I don't have any weighty goals, no resolutions. I know what i won't do. I won't smoke. I won't let this unquiet mind break me.
I will do every single thing i can to be calm and at peace. I will seek out the positive in every person and every single moment.
The night before my doctor's appointment last week i had the strangest dream. It was long and simple. I walked up to a man i had a crush on and i lay down and put my head in his lap, he placed his hand on my cheek and softly chuckled. We sat like that all night. My dream lasted all night. Just like that, simple, at peace, cherished.
I want to be cherished this year. I want to fall madly in love. I want to be wrapped in arms and legs and giggle furiously.
It feels like an impossible dream. That kind of love doesn't happen anymore. That is a love of youth and innocence and freedom.
I once watched a woman smash a raccoon's skull with a boulder to put it out of it's misery. I was a young girl and the image has never left my heart.
I want to teach my children the value of life. The beauty in the mundane. I want to take them to the beach and marvel at every grain of sand as it runs through our fingers. I want to take them to visit my 96 year old grandmother and show them how every line is beautiful, each wrinkle telling the story of a life lived – the glory of old age.
I want to wake up every morning to the rushing sounds of footsteps and childish excitement bursting forth in my new house.
My mum likes to tell the story of moving across canada, before i was born, and my brothers guinea pig (smuggled on) escaping from it's shoe box on that orange canadian airlines 747 and running between the feet of passengers creating a "wave" of jumping and screaming. I like this story.
My life has been so shifty lately. I imagine sitting still this year. Happily settling in for the long haul.
it rains in vancouver. it rains in vancouver ALL the time. i remember this from when i was young. i sleep a little better with that rain pounding above my head.
Let me think, let me get this all straight for you.
I went to my appointment on thursday afternoon in a building that my father and i both agreed seemed very post-apocalyptic, floor to ceiling glass for 8 stories. Leather sofas repeating floor after floor.
I was a bucket of nerves, had been for at least a week. All butterflies and irritable.
I filled out some forms at the "Mouth and Mucosa" clinic. Trying desperately to ignore those words, instead having them repeat in my mind over and over.
mouth and mucosa. mouth and mucosa. mouth and mucosa. mouth and mucosa.
The exam room was unremarkable, just like any other dentist office. I waited as medical students darted past the doorway, making deliberate sideways glances at me.
The doctor came in and we went over my referral, yada yada, boring. He has me put those coat hanger things on the sides of my mouth and pull it open like a turkey ready to be stuffed. They examined me using words like "very interesting." They took pictures with normal light, blue light and with my mouth died blue. Then they asked me to participate in a study, i said yes, which meant more scraping and taking of tissue and cells.
Then it was done. mouth and mucosa. mouth and mucosa.
It was done and the doctor sat down to talk to me. I am going to explain this as best i can. It is a little confusing and i have two doctors in my family helping me wrap my head around medical technology.
I don't have cancer. Good news. What i do have is some high-risk cell abnormality in my mouth that can be termed "dysplasia." How i understand it is thinking of a line. If "A" is a healthy mouth and "C" is cancer i am sitting at "B." I will never be an "A" again because to remove the abnormal cells surgically would result in a serious speech impairment or with lasers a high risk of aggravating underlying cells into becoming cancerous. So, the concern is that i have high risk cell abnormality and i am on a line that leads to cancer and that i am extremely young to have dysplasia in my mouth. The doctors have no concrete idea of what the rate of crossover to cancer is for this condition, hence the "Study" that i am participating in.
What does all of this mean? Well, it means that for the rest of my life i will hop on the ferry every three months and go through that same photo, photo, photo, scrape, scrape routine. I will be followed very closely and just wait and see.
Somewhat frustrating and somewhat a relief.
Thanks for all your thoughts, well wishes and prayers. I am heading home tomorrow and will begin my new years.
I had a good holiday.
I feel almost silly saying that, but i did. I love my little family with all my heart.
Things are moving along. My house is almost done – they started painting today. I have bought fixtures, appliances, paint in a billion colours, countertops, cabinets, flooring. I didn't realize how much all that was stressing me out until i finished. I finished and now it all just needs to be put together. A matter of weeks. Crazy.
I'm still all up in my head most of the time. Processing, healing, moving forward. I feel most lonely in rooms full of people and, sometimes, in the middle of the night when all is dark and quiet and there are no puffy with sleep childrens faces to check on.
I have a healthy life to start as soon as i get back from vancouver on sunday. Better food, more food. A roller derby team made up of a bunch of moms. Hiking up and down the damn mountain, physically and mentally. Perhaps even a(nother) new counselor.
So? Onwards.