My trip, part 2

Before they had a welcoming reception, we had our first workshop. It was lame, stupid, and a waste of time. I thought it would be one thing and it wasn't. A lot of people walked out. After that was the welcoming reception where a lot of people got together and had appetizers and drinks. That wasn't near enough to fill you up, so the 4 nondrinkers from our group ended up walking over to Chili's together for dinner. One baldie, one with just fuzz, and the other two with like an inch or two of hair. We were quite a group I must say. But it was great to sit together and chat and we all KNEW exactly what the others meant and felt. It was amazing. After we got back to the hotel, we split up. I went back to my room and enjoyed the hottest shower I could stand just because I wasn't paying the bill. Then my roommate showed up with a friend I ate with at breakfast. Jacki had a pyscho roommate and my roommate Dace was another lady that we immediately clicked. She didn't drink and so that was a relief. We sat in our room and talked and talked, the three of us, for hours. It was like almost 2pm when we finally turned the light off.

I have educated myself very well on breast cancer, so a lot of the stuff they taught at the conference was not news. But it was still nice to have it all validated by the experts. The morning group session was nice but nothing new. Then the breaks were spent chatting with new found friends and meeting more ladies from my support bb in person. There was never a bad word spoken, no people getting feelings hurt or anything because we all knew exactly what the other was going through. I haven't found that anywhere, not even in the church. There were women from all over the world. Ladies from Austria, Australia, Kenya, Israel, and other far off nations. All with the same problems and concerns. The next group session was so awesome. She was talking about what I really had questions about and I went and bought her book afterwards. Each person that spoke at the conference had breast cancer and most had written a book and was available to buy in the hall with all the other exhibitors. She made up for the bad session last night. Then a boring lunch, and on to session two. Having my lymph nodes taken out, there are certain exercises I can't do or should be very careful of. So I went to a class that taught what was okay and not okay to do. I'm going to go get a strength ball when I get the money again.

After a break and lunch, it was time for the third session, and the best one by far. Ronnie Kaye was a psychotherapist who had breast cancer and recurrences. She was supposed to talk on "Moving On: Discovering your New Normal". She tossed it out the window and asked what we wanted to know about. She talked to us from a survivor point of view and told us to watch out for PWACs(people without a clue).

I found so many truths that I needed to hear and learn from. I feel that people see me as Heidi and she has breast cancer written on her forehead and that's who she is. But I'm not, I'm so much more than that. These may sound simple and not make sense, but it was like a lightbulb going off in my head.
Here's what I learned:
*Don't just define me as just breast cancer, I'm so much more than that.
*Breast cancer occured to me, not who I am now
* I am not breast cancer
*Get your feelings validated
*When a friend on support group dies, remember it's okay to feel sad, but remember, This is not about me, This is not about me .
Because I really do feel sad when someone dies. More than just the sadness when someone dies. It's deeper than that. It's because I'm sad they're gone and also, because they had breast cancer and I could die of it too. I'm not immortal.

The other one is why do I feel so much grief over breast cancer? It's because of my love that I feel towards others, especially my family. I feel sad and upset because of what my family has to go through and what could happen if anything happens to me.

The other thing was when someone stood up and described when someone asks how she's doing, they do it in that "tone" and then they feel they need to tell them, "well I have so many treatments left, my chemo is under control, the side effects are doing this to me... " Ronnie cut her off and asked her if she was willing to be honest with herself. The lady said yes. Then Ronnie asked her, "How are you doing", and she said simply, " I feel like crap". Everyone cheered. So I thought about it. How do I feel about everything going on in my life, all the struggles, worries, and sickness and surgeries. How do I personally feel in my life. Well, I came up with, I am tired. I feel so exhausted from all of it. These are such simple things, but I needed to hear it and believe it. And I do now.

She talked about a lot more stuff, but those were the main points I wrote down. I didn't get her book, but I'm going to when I can again. It's called "Spinning Straw into Gold". Soooooo good. I could have sat there for hours and listened to her. Guess I might need some counseling after all. lol