Horse Play and July 14th

My entire life when I was younger centered around my master plot of getting a horse. It was made clear to me that it wasn’t going to come by way of a real horse, so I would always pretend that I had a horse and at times I would go as far as to pretend that I was the horse, just to keep things fresh. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t put up a good fight to get a real horse though. I can remember coming home from school one day and part of my daily routine spanning 2^nd-4^th grade (as anyone’s was) was to read the “miscellaneous” and “animals for sale” classifieds in the Elko Daily Free Press. Why would I do this you ask? Well the obvious answer is that I was looking to see what horses were on the market, duh. I would compare prices, height in hands, calculate price per hand as compared to the other horses and breeds, then I would pretend that I owned these horses and I would name them. I was a total weirdo. The sad part is, I still do this, except I research the hell out of Frye boots. Ask any of my friends. I’ve become a local boot consultant. Anyhow, one particular day after school when I was perusing through the classifieds, I found a great deal on an Appaloosa Mare. She was very old and many hands tall. In other words, she was a big ole horse. I knew that she was the horse for me, so I picked up the phone and called the number. No one answered, so I left a message saying that I was interested in buying their horse and asked that they call me back. It was the perfect plan. I would set up delivery of the horse to my front yard so when my parents came home from work they would see a horse in our yard and because we didn’t have a trailer to drive her anywhere, we’d have to not only pay for her, but keep her! She wasn’t going to live in our yard naturally, because I already had researched the cost of boarding her at the local fair grounds. Screw you Gifted and Talented test for not qualifying me! I just devised a plan on how to school my parents into getting me a horse in my early elementary years. I am either extremely gifted or a psychopath, or both. Great. Things are starting to make sense now…I can’t remember when the horse owners called back, but they did. They spoke to my parents, and as you can imagine they were pretty confused, both parties. I did not end up with a horse. So, I then proceeded to pretend that I was my own horse (Plan B). I stopped reading the newspaper and started barrel racing after school. Except I didn’t have barrels (I used cans) I didn’t have a horse (so I used myself on rollerblades) and I didn’t have a score board to use to time myself (I used a stopwatch). I would proceed to “barrel race” myself I guess, up and down the sidewalk and try to beat my best time. What a gem I am.

Point being, I went to very strange realistic and imaginary lengths to try and get any time I could with a horse. I never would’ve imagined that 20 something years down the road that I would be blessed with the best horse experience anyone could ask for.

July 14^th Aiken Equestrian Rescue

We went to a horse rescue ranch this morning. I met a horse named Fia Mia. When I first walked up to her she glanced up from her trough and swished her tail. I glanced at her and walked down to see another horse whose head was peeking out of his stall. I stood there and gave him a pat and enjoyed taking in all of his “horseness.” I heard a snort and turned around. Fia Mia had her head out of her stall, so I walked down to see her. As I approached her, she hung her nose out and was waving at me in a sense. The closer I got, the farther she hung her head over the stall until our faces were about 4 inches away from each other. Our eyes locked and immediately, I had chills. Fia Mia pressed her cheek against mine. My eyes welled up with tears. I could feel a breakdown happening, so I stroked her nose and walked through the stables and out into the open field to take a couple of deep breaths.

We rode around the ranch and Marco loved feeding the horses and riding in the golf cart. When we made our way back up to the stables I stopped back by Fia Mia’s stall. Same thing happened, she walked right up to me again and layed her head on my shoulder and pressed her weight into me. It was the strangest feeling, I could feel her weight, but could also feel mine leaving me. Not my physical weight, but emotional weight was lessening. My shoulders felt lighter, my stomach and back felt lighter, my jaw didn’t feel tense. We stood in this entwined human and horse hug for what seemed like forever. Before I knew it, a rush of emotions come over me and my neck and chest feel wet. I had so many tears running down my face that it feels like I turned on a faucet. My eyes became cloudy and I couldn’t stop crying. Fia Mia would pull her head back and stare at me every once in a while, then would wrap her neck around me and pull me into her body. It was absolutely incredible. I let her hug me and I stood there and cried my little heart out, not caring who was standing around watching or what people who be saying or questions I was going to have to answer once I was done. I let all the bullshit go and stood there in public, being hugged by a horse and cried. Fia Mia absorbed all the fear, anxiety, worry, distress and whatever other toxic feelings were overwhelming me. That horse single handedly (even though she’s a large horse, get it?) let a wall come down for me and allowed me to take a real breath, not the short thick aired breaths that I had been surviving on for the past weeks.  There truly are no words that can even describe that moment for me, even reading this back over I think the writing sucks and doesn’t paint the picture of what it was like for me in that moment, and then I realize, that is the beauty of that memory, that makes it my own and unique. I can close my eyes and remember everything vividly, yet I can’t possibly put the moment into words What I can put into words though is that I did not journal any more on my vacation. I didn’t have to run upstairs and hide to release any feelings I was having, because there was none. I played with the kids on the fairway, chased Marco around the neighborhood, swam with him in the pool, smiled, laughed and enjoyed those moments that I had missing because I was too damn paralyzed with the unknown. Fia Mia gave me the gift of “being” and that is something that I will never, ever forget and something that I appreciate every morning when I wake up and see her framed face on my gallery wall. I got my horse after all.

 

 

July 11th and Pamela's Introduction

July 11^th

My first day in South Carolina I wake up sick to my stomach. I make it down the stairs and head into the hallway where I hear my mom, sister and aunt up talking. I assume my mom has already told my aunt (she was not aware of what was happening) what was going on and it seemed way too early to tackle that subject so I hied in the hallway like a weirdo debating whether I am going to go back upstairs or head into the living room and get it all over it. I take a deep breath and decide to face the music.

Luckily no one mentions anything to me about it and I’m thankful. We eat breakfast on the porch and I tell my mom that I’ll talk to Linda (my aunt) when and if I’m ready. My mom says that was fine and she feels hesitant saying anything because she doesn’t want to ruin our vacation. I agree because I haven’t seen this side of the family in almost 9 years and I’m not sure if it would be worth it now to say anything, even though Linda is the only person in my family who has ever been diagnosed with breast cancer and it would be helpful to speak to her, but I’m not sure about the timing. I mean, when is the correct time to slip that information in? “Hi Linda, I’ve missed you, it’s been so long. Sure, I’ll take some French toast for breakfast. By the way I have Breast Cancer. Do you have any orange juice?” There is no way to approach this without it being incredibly awkward. Lord knows I would drop the bomb on her then offer to make her a sandwich since that seems to be my M.O.

The day goes on and we take the kids to the pool and it becomes a great distraction. After dinner my sister takes the kids on a walk down to the pond and my mom takes her wine (lucky bitch) out to the porch. Linda and I are alone in the kitchen and the timing just seems right. Each time I attempt to ask her to talk, my stomach fills with knots and I start sweating. Finally I suck it up and ask if I can talk to her about something. I start rushing through and fumbling on my words because I want the words out just as fast as I want this cancer out of my body. I think that I am secretly hoping that the faster I say it, the faster I will beat this thing, like it’s a magical correlation of a cure. Insurance companies would sure hate that hidden cure! As my verbal vomit continues to happen I see tears well up in her eyes and then something happens in terms of her response that has not happened to me yet. We both just start hugging, then laughing. It feels so good to laugh. I used to laugh really hard almost every day, one of those days seems forever ago now. Linda totally gets it. She starts telling me all of these funny stories that happened with her prosthetic and people’s reactions to awkward situations with it. She shares her experience with telling those around her, their responses and her treatment. It was in this interaction that I received something that no one else has been able to give to me…understanding. It was so relieving to hear someone else talk about their experience, and to sit and listen instead of having to beat a dead horse about it. Where does that saying come from by the way? “Beat a dead horse?” I would never do that, for one it’s creepy. Why are we beating something if it’s dead? Isn’t that a diagnosable mental disorder? And second, why a horse? Horses are the best, if we have to beat a dead animal, why can’t it be something like an armadillo or a snake?

Our conversation was like a surge of energy for me, I was laughing, listening and actually enjoying talking to someone rather than trying to pretend to enjoy myself. Linda gave me a gift that no one else has been able to give me…I now feel 100% ready to move forward and get this shit cut off of my body.

Let’s go back when I mentioned my aunt telling me funny stories about her prosthetic. She assured me that they, too, would happen to me and boy they happen on a daily basis. Rewinding to her though, she tells a funny story of being a teacher and pulling up to school in her car. She was wearing a turtleneck that day. She gets out of her car and goes around to the other side to get her books out and as she leans back up after bending over she notices that her prosthetic has crept up into her turtleneck and left a huge lump in her neck. She frantically was trying to push it back down into its rightful location as school was ready to begin. She also dove into a pool in Mexico and her prosthetic ejected out of her suit across the water. Sure enough, when she guaranteed that the same would happen to me, she was right…and now I would like to introduce the comedy portion of this entry called “Darn you Pamela!”

First off let me introduce you to Pamela, my prosthetic. I have two sizes:  C cup and a D cup. Darin has named my C cup Pamela and my D cup Dolly. Pamela was worn while I was still pregnant and after delivery I had to put her up on the shelf and pull out the heavy artillery, Dolly. Let me tell you that these things look like giant cotton balls and in no way resemble the shape of a breast. When I don’t wear it, it’s obvious (one side C/D cup one side 4^th grade girl), but when I do wear it, I have a very strange sized boob competing with the natural one. Either way, it’s a circus. Pamela is a trouble maker. She doesn’t like to stay in one spot and is constantly getting in trouble for roaming about the cabin. She is a gypsy prosthetic. For six weeks after my surgery I couldn’t wear anything on my phantom boob side, well I wasn’t supposed to wear anything. But I found ways around it (more to come in another blog). I would pick Marco up from preschool, run my daily errands and just hang around with one boob and a big pregnant belly. I was very attractive. On the day I got Pamela, I popped her in and went to pick Marco up from preschool. When he saw me he comes flying up to me and in front of his teachers and classmates be shouts, “MOM! You got a new boob! Hey guys, my mom got a BOOB!” Was I embarrassed? No. Was I mad that my 3 year old just called me out? No. Did I find it hilarious? YES! Plus, what an observant little guy. His teachers started laughing and his friends peeked up from playing and looked at me unimpressed. On another day, I went outside to Marco’s playground to get him. He comes flying off the slide clearly with an ulterior motive. I squat down to hug him and he reaches down my tank top and pulls out Pamela quicker than I can grab her and holds her up above his head and takes off running. Pamela has just been mugged at a preschool. Marco shoves Pamela up his shirt and starts running around yelling that he just got a new boob. This time, his friends are impressed and they all start chasing him. How in the hell is a piece of gross lopsided cotton more fun to play with than playground equipment? I am helpless against this gang of thugs and watch poor Pamela get smaller and smaller in the distance.  

In my first post I talked about letting things go. These experiences have helped me let go of any sense of normalcy that I wanted. Besides, being normal is boring. Plus, if I am in the .01% of people that will be diagnosed with Paget’s while pregnant, my life is going to be anything but normal. I should’ve starred in Pure Luck. More to come on “Darn you Pamela!” but coming up next is the most incredible experience with a therapy horse that you can imagine…