National Nobody Freak Out Day
Today, I would like to discuss Freaking Out, as in having a Spaz Attack, as in Flipping.
You know,
when your doctor’s office calls to remind you that your meds are delayed due to an insurance issue and you are like, “What??? I have cancer, motherfuckers!” and you work yourself into a coronary lather and find yourself on the precipice of an early, catastrophic stroke, and no one else cares? You know, when you could scream on the phone or into the void and get the exact same result?
Believe me, I have tried Flipping-the-Fuck-Out in response to the nighmarish bureaucratic mess that my American-life-with-cancer has become only to find, time and time again, that the American Healthcare Empire is unchanged, unmoved, unbothered by my Flip Outs, my Fear.
So I can continue to enjoy my last seaside afternoon (for now), and write, and enjoy coffee OR I can obsess over how evil American Healthcare is (it’s some serious devil shit). Either way, the outcome will be the same in re: Ibrance. I ain’t getting any this week. So I’m going to err on the side of enjoying my life today. I’m going to choose not to freak out.
I put a lot of expectations on this trip, and I know from years of experience and from my mindfulness practices that I should not do this.
In some weird way, I thought I could just come drop my concerns and questions on the ocean and God would simply breathe answers back into me, I’d dust the sand off my blue jeans, and amble back spiritually satiated.
Turns out God doesn’t do “give me.”
This morning I was telling Betsy about how yesterday, while meditating, “I saw white and freaked myself out.” Betsy laughed and nodded, “It’s that fear you’ll disappear into the feeling.”
That was exactly it, this sense of the Ego squirming. Um, I cannot seem to find the Ego area in this weird space of peace and light you have just conjured, so if you could kindly let me out, that would be great . . .
I have been intermittently freaking out since I was re-diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in January of 2020. Do you know how exhausting this has been? Let me tell you, it’s been exhausting.
I have publicly and privately freaked out.
I have freaked out on the phone and in-person.
I have freaked out repeatedly, and as far as I am aware, all of my freaking out has come to nothing. Nothing “good” that I currently have is a result of my Freaking Out. Freaking Out has not made anything easier for me.
My doctor’s office called to tell me the Ibrance was delayed.
There was an awkward pause as she waited for me to react.
I said nothing. What is there to say?
I didn’t react. What can I do? I am in another state. I am on the beach. I am drinking coffee. I cannot take down the Evil American Healthcare Empire today, so what can I do? Can I gather natural materials from the beach or purchase something from the nearby Von’s to engineer myself some “DIY” Ibrance? No? Well, then I will not freak out. I don’t freak out for free anymore.
I wonder how many cancer patients say “fuck it” to treatment not because of medication side effects but because of the psychological side effects of being trapped in the grotesque machinations of American “healthcare”? I have thought about saying “fuck it” to treatment for these reasons. Some days the fight feels kicked out of me. Some days the logistics of managing my American life feel tedious, insurmountable, not worth the effort.
Betsy and I were laughing the other night about a story she told me of a relative who, according to the family “died from being tired.”
“She was just tired,” Betsy said, and honestly, reader, some days I feel like I could just die from being plain “tired,” too. Oddly (or not?) my “death tired” has been exacerbated by my dealings with the American Healthcare Empire.
Today, I want to throw my phone into the sea.
My choice not to do this, I assure you, is only for the ocean’s benefit.
