from the inside out

I always end up thinking about this scene from Anastasia when it comes to the effects of stress. For those who haven't seen it Bartok (the bat) is talking about how Rasputin needs to learn to control his stress or he'll end up like Bartok's cousin Izzy who "just keeled over... mid mango!".

I always feel like I'm being overly dramatic when I say I believe I would have died early in that relationship had I not left. But the evidence points to it being fact.

This was taken at a concert 3 months after the end of treatment. My face is still very swollen but it should have gone down weeks ago. I couldn't understand why my body was taking so long to heal. 

This one was taken around Thanksgiving, about a month after I finished treatment. My radiation burns are just starting to heal and while my hair has always been fine, it was thinning from the radiation and chemo. Or at least I thought it was.

Even before the cancer diagnosis I was constantly exhausted and stressed.

This was a trip to visit my mom's family in South Dakota shortly after our engagement. If you look closely you can still see my face and chest are red from crying.

My heart rate has always been on the fast side, but it was regularly sitting between 104 and 110 bpm. Even reaching 120 when I was stressed or upset. My doctors in Indiana even had me see a cardiologist to make sure that everything was alright.

My nails normally grow fast and strong but they kept snapping and tearing off which I had never really dealt with before.

I had been in enough pain prior to surgery I could barely eat. I had a very active job at a daycare and I kept dropping weight. I checked off every box for "You may experience more nausea if" on the list of side effects from the chemo I recieved. I couldn't keep anything down. But even after treatment, although my calories were closely watched, I kept losing weight and I no longer had weight to lose. I wasn't trying to lose weight. Why was it still coming off?

...

And then I moved.

That swelling in my face he said he was "SURE I was exaggerating and it was nothing" turned out to be an infection raging in my mandible from where radiation disintegrated part of the bone.  It required antibiotics, weeks of hyperbaric chamber treatments, and a medication that has to be specially compounded to aid in bone healing that I still have to take.

A couple weeks after the move I was washing my hair and running my fingers through with the expectation of a fair amount of dead hair coming out in my hands as that had become "normal". Except it didn't. I put in more conditioner and started trying to pull out the dead hair. Nothing. Now I was confused. I got out of the shower, cleaned out my brush, and combed my hair. Still nothing. 

I went to put the brush down and noticed my nails needed trimmed. For months they had been breaking off and I would file down the rough edges as they did. Now they had grown enough to need cut. 

I gave myself a once over in the mirror. My hair was coming back in. My nails were back to normal. My skin was clearing up and I had color back in my cheeks. I had stopped losing weight and was getting a little definition back in my muscles. My energy levels had been close to normal for a week or so. I finally looked healthy. I was ecstatic. But then the why hit me. 

Why did all of this suddenly happen all together? My treatments had been done for months. Literally the only thing that had changed was... no. 

It couldn't be. Was it? 

The only thing that had changed was that I had left.

I was furious. All sound ceased to exist outside the thrumming of my my own heartbeat in my ears. I had tunnel vision as I stared at the black and white tiles of my bathroom floor, swirling in and out of focus as I tried to process. I couldn't concentrate, my breathing was shallow and my teeth were gritted. Tears of white hot rage brimmed. I felt violated.

I had blamed all of this on cancer treatments.

Chemo that actively poisons your body for the sake of killing cancer cells. Chemo that's so toxic you're told not to kiss anyone on the lips, and be sure you flush twice for 24 hours after treatment because your bodily fluids turn you into a walking, talking biohazard. Told to be cautious about germs because even a common cold is dangerous when your body is already fighting literal poison.

Radiation treatments that left me so tired I spent more time asleep than awake. That charred my skin. That fried all the baby hairs off my face and hairline. That left me so unsteady on my feet that I was having my mom stay in the bathroom while I showered in case I fell.

I don't doubt some of these started as side effects from treatment. But the fact they lingered for nearly a year after points to something else.

I looked for more evidence hoping to prove myself wrong. The after visit summaries proved very helpful. I scrolled through appointment after appointment from my doctor's visits in Indiana. Pulse BPM: 103, 102, 109, 114. Then my first appointment here. Before I had even decided to stay. 

BPM: 72. 

I sat and cried unsure if I was more angry at him or myself. I had my answer. The reason why I wasn't healing. 

I wasn't in an environment where I COULD heal. 

In that moment I was angry at him for creating that situation. But I was so disappointed in myself for unwittingly allowing it. My actions or inaction had told him that this was acceptable. That it was permissable to create an environment that's effects on my body mimic and catalyze those of chemo and radiation. 

My husband was having the same effect on me as cancer treatment. 

I still get angry with myself questioning how I let it all happen. Logically I understand it wasn't my fault, and that he chose to take advantage of me when I was increadibly vulnerable. Emotionally, things are a bit more murky. 

I remember telling him over and over "I feel like you expected me to die and when I survived you didn't know what to do. That I spoiled your story of the poor lonely widower who lost his bride tragically young, and now you're angry that I survived."

Part of me wonders if he wanted that narrative so badly that he was resigned to be willingly neglectful to the point it couldn't be blamed on him if I died, but he could have the story (and accompanying sympathy) he so desperately wanted.

I do not doubt that had I stayed, he would have eventually gotten exactly that. I don't doubt the abuse would have continued to drag on. That eventually my body just wouldn't be able to keep up. 

I'm not sorry for surviving. 

I won't apologize for finding strength I didn't know I had. I'm not going to apologize for my existence. And I will NOT allow anyone the power to be a stressor to the point that I'm the one to keel over mid mango.