Married with Children

Cancer and IPF are insidious enemies. They can lurk in the body, undetectable by scans and the human eye. They wage vicious attacks not just in the battlefield of the physical body, but in also in the more subtle psychological realm, assaulting the mind, spirit, and soul. It's the psychological warfare that's the toughest for me, especially when the attacks affect my abilities and perceptions of myself as a parent. Of all the things I am- wife, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, friend- my role as a mother is what defines me most these days and demands the most of me. Cancer and IPF often make me feel as though I am a terrible mother (and I don't think I was some superstar mother before I got sick), seeking to destroy my sense of self and achievement in this regard.

There are people who love children, people who were meant to educate, doctor, raise, counsel, and nanny children. There are people whose hearts melt at the site of a baby's cherubic cheeks, who long to one day have their own children, who have names already chosen and themed nurseries fully designed in their heads years before they are pregnant with their first child. I am not any of these people. I don't love all children and I don't have the need or desire to educate all children. I love my children. I need and desire to teach only my children. Before I got sick, and most of my life, I desired to be a teacher....but I think God knew exactly knew what He was doing when He led me down the path of being my children's teacher. I simply do not have the patience to teach more than my own children. I did already have my children's names picked out. Tristan was going to be named after my cousin Michael, but I didn't want to hurt my aunt and uncle with his memory, so we named him Tristan instead (yes, Legends of the Fall). I didn't decorate the nurseries with any frilly curtains or stencil their names to the wall or do anything else for that matter other than buy the required furniture. I wanted to have children of course because children seemed like a natural manifestation of mine and Kevin's love (and in his eyes all three children are his). Plus, my grandmother and my mother made me love my childhood and I felt the desire to give a semblance of that childhood to my own offspring. I wanted to have love thrive in our home through the creation of my own nuclear family like the love I had known in the nuclear and extended family into which I was born. But, if I am to be truly honest, I wanted to be a mother because it was something that everyone else did and what everyone expected of me, and I wanted to have that seemingly quintessential human experience (even though I had absolutely no clue whatsoever what being a mother entailed and the hardships it would present).

Since I have become a mother, more times than I can count, I've felt like a pretty mediocre one at best. There are mothers who have elaborate arts and crafts projects planned for their kids months in advance for birthdays and holidays, and who drill their children on rhyming skills by day and read with them something other than the usual Green Eggs and Ham and Good Night Moon by night, who seemingly never begrudge all the time they must devote to their children (because they love children and have known from the time they were six years old that they wanted children). Again, I am not one of those mothers. I literally received barely passing grades in arts in crafts in school and pretty much detest arts and crafts- being called on to make a snowflake out of tissue paper and then glue it onto purple construction paper caused me heart-palpitating stress in third grade; so no, I suck at decorating our home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and I don't encourage my children to make birthday cards for their friends because scissors, glue, markers, crayons, and all other manner of artsy and crafty paraphernalia (junk) means one big mess I will have to end up cleaning up. 

And if I felt mediocre at best before cancer and IPF, I often times feel like a downright failure as a mother post cancer. Fatigue, nausea, weird tingling and just the general strain of living with a black cancer cloud overhead not only makes me even less inclined to do all the things that I see supermoms doing, but it has destroyed whatever order was once in this household – a tenuous thing when dealing with children to say the least without cancer and IPF in the air. I succumb to whining pleas for snacks and treats because sometimes I just don’t have the energy to fight and because I just want some peace and quiet even for just 10 minutes. I agree to lay down with Tristan at bedtime and let them sleep in my bed sometimes – something I never did before – because I think that my time with them is in all probability limited and that I need to spend that time holding my children as much as possible. But children need rules, boundaries and consistency and when the rules are broken too often, the boundaries become blurred and consistency waivers, disaster reigns. And that is what has happened because of cancer. I break all the rules I once enforced so vigorously. It makes me feel terrible about myself, weak and a horrible mother.

I may not have been one of those mothers into all the arts and crafts stuff, but I was really into cooking for my kids. I mean really into cooking for them! I learned from my own upbringing that food is love and and my cooking and constant efforts to teach my children to eat a diverse, healthy, and constantly evolving array of foods was my way of showing them how much I love them. For me, food is the first step towards that goal, and I thought I was doing a pretty good job. Every since I was diagnosed, I've lost all desire to cook. 

Often, cancer robs me of whatever little patience I have. I’m not a very patient person to begin with. I tend to give orders and yell when my patience is tested and skip all the sweet talking and attempts at reasoning. Tristan, Kaitlyn, do it now! If you don't do what I say by the time I count to three, you are going to get in big trouble! You’ll hear that kind of yelling more often these days but instead of time out, I’ll threaten spanking. Compounding the stresses of cancer is Kaitlyn's transformation into a very challenging and petulant child who tests and pushes me at every turn (even though she’s an angel for everyone else). 

I have hope that I will return to cooking one day soon, that I will rediscover my joy in the process. My point is though that we as mothers sometimes put the emphasis on the wrong things, the things that really don’t matter at the end of the day – the holiday decorations and the fancy birthday parties and the most educational toys and pushing our children to read as early as possible – truly, what do those things really matter? Cancer has made me realize that what really matters is love and for me love shines through these days when despite me feeling so exhausted I just want to go back to sleep, I jump out of bed at the first sound of crying from the other room. It shines through when I’m so so tired but still manage to get up and get the kids ready for school. It is evident when I lie with them at night even if I’m breaking my own rules. Love for them lives in every word of this blog. I have faith that my children will remember what I do for them despite the cancer and that they will know without a doubt how very much I love them.

I have devoted so much much space on this blog talking about the fear and anxiety that has arisen out of my diagnosis and prognosis. Very little of that fear is focused around me. Rather, I worry most about my husband and my children. To some degree, my worry circles around how they would fare without me, about how crippling their grief might be in the face of loss. Even so, I have faith, given their youth and the inherent resilience as well as the promise of time (with all of its miraculous healing powers) that comes with youth and given the support of family and friends, that my husband and children would move on with their lives and even thrive. So much of my worry revolves around harm to them. 

I want nothing more than to be always honest and forthright here, in the interest of painting a more three dimensional picture of our relationship, I must confess to you that Kevin and I drive each other nuts from time to time and we fight. I’m not saying that we don’t have an extraordinary love and all that good stuff — because I absolutely do believe that most people don’t find the kind of love Kevin and I have, that he is my soul mate, my kindred spirit, etc., etc., etc. But no marriage is perfect. We’ve fought about one thousand and one things, at least. He likes to leave receipts on the counter (that drives me crazy, does he not know where the trash is?). And, I am always trash talking myself. These things tend to get under our skin and cause us to argue, but our arguments never last long. I will usually end up calling him an "Indian-giver" and then our argument turns into laughter. I guess this is how we have managed to last so long.

We have definitely had our share of heated debates, though. Then, there are the bigger and darker disputes that come with having a lifelong lover, the sources of tension that cloud and have the potential to destroy any union if not handled with care, the unflattering, shameful aspects of even the most healthy of relationships that no one wants to unveil for all to see. Some of them stem from personality traits or deep-seeded issues brought on by past experiences and relationships that have left our insides broken and bereft (i.e., what many colloquially call the baggage we carry on our backs), while others may arise from fundamental differences in value systems, while others still are a hodgepodge of both. Kevin and I have had lots of fights that would fall into this broad category. I’m not going to get into mine and Kevin's baggage. It isn’t my place to share with the world my husband’s baggage without his permission — he’s been incredibly generous in not busting a fuse at the amount of time he gets in my blog — and it isn’t my intent at this time to share with you my baggage (although you can probably guess if you’ve read some of my other posts). So I will just focus here on the (much more humorous in retrospect) fights we’ve had over our differences in values and opinions.

Cancer hasn’t made me and Kevin see eye-to-eye on the issue of my parents, personal space or anything else. It hasn’t rid me or Kevin of our annoying habits nor has it miraculously obliterated our respective baggage. If anything, I feel like cancer tends to intensify every experience, emotion and personality trait. If you’re by nature a pessimist, it will bring out the pessimist in you. If you’re by nature a fighter, it will bring out the warrior in you. Anniversaries have a special poignancy as never before. And yes, it’s made Kevin and me fight a little more frequently and a little more fiercely. The stress and anxiety of living perpetually under the dark cloud that is cancer, combined with the unrelenting physical and mental fatigue and other side effects from treatment, creates ripe conditions for all kinds of eruptions. Thankfully, cancer also accentuates the good things in our relationship and personality. It’s made me and Kevin quicker to forgive and more willing to compromise. It’s made us hug each other more often and tightly. It’s made us love each other a little more.

I can understand why many who would choose not to read what I write because I’m writing about cancer and the possibility of death, seemingly very depressing topics. But in truth, I’m writing about much more than my cancer and the possibility of my death. I’m exploring the universal themes of life that we all experience as human beings. I have no interest in writing about the technical side of cancer or about the boring ins and outs of my life, and you would have no interest in reading such material. I like to think that I write to remind myself and to teach my children about strength, faith and love. It’s my sincere hope that you find some truths in what I write that will help you either now or in the future.

Thank you to all who are reading and supporting the writer in me. Thank you for seeing that my posts are not intended to be depressing. Thank you for seeing the inspiration and hope in them. Thank you for reaching out to me and telling me so for it heals the hurt from those who don’t read or otherwise don’t understand. Thank you a million times over.

Love you all and truly mean it and God loves you too,

Shanna xoxoxo

The song I want played at my funeral. You have to listen to these lyrics. They are so me!

LUNGevity National Hope Summit: I'm participating in an event to raise money to fight lung cancer—and I need your help!
I'm planning to attend LUNGevity Foundation's National HOPE Summit in Washington, DC, in May - it's a special conference just for lung cancer survivors like me. If I can raise $1000 or more in donations, LUNGevity will cover my travel expenses, including US round-trip transportation and hotel accommodations.
Proceeds from this fundraiser will benefit LUNGevity Foundation, the leading private provider of research funding for lung cancer. LUNGevity Foundation is firmly committed to making an immediate impact on increasing quality of life and survivorship of people with lung cancer by accelerating research into early detection and more effective treatments, as well as providing community, support, and education for all those affected by the disease.
Please join me in my efforts to stop lung cancer—the leading cancer killer—now!
http://lungevity.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=15728
Official prayer warrior page for my fight against lung cancer: facebook.com/hope4shanna

Official blog Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/shannabananahealthandfitness

My Go Fund Me Page (any and all donations will help with my medical funds)gofundme.com/hope4shanna2016