I’m loving Christmas this year, and I have to say, what a difference a year makes. Last Christmas started the long descent into darkness. I did all the things they tell you not to and I obsessed over making our Christmas perfect. It started with Eleanor’s birthday and went right through Christmas Day. I drove myself crazy over creating memories. I felt the fleetingness of time and the thought “is this our last?” was never far from my head. Even though she is two years cancer-free. Even though her endocrine situation is under control. Even though she is THRIVING, the thought was always nagging me. I thought it would leave after Christmas last year; the stress would lift and the sadness would go with it. But it didn’t. It just sat with me. I threw myself into the process of buying our house. If we could get out of our rental, I could leave this feeling there with all the memories. We found our perfect-for-us house and closed on it in March. Our possession date wasn’t until the end of June (the price came down quite a bit for this concession!) so we waited. And waited. And Eleanor gave up her nap. And Penelope grew up fast. She got so strong and big and was on track to start walking around her first birthday, as normal babies do. It was so hard. It was crushingly hard. I didn’t know how to keep her safe. I didn’t know how to do anything around her nap schedule. I didn’t know. The difference between her and Eleanor was smacking me in the face every single time I looked at her. I found myself trapped. Trapped by Eleanor wanting to play with me all day. Trapped by Penny’s nap schedule. Trapped in our apartment. None of these things were that big, but I was seeing everything through this haze of anger and sadness. Kris and I began fighting more. All the negative feelings I would have been having during the day would boil over in the evening and he would be on the receiving end of it. I took some satisfaction in knowing I wasn’t taking it out on the girls.
We got the word in early May that we could move up our possession a full month. We jumped at the opportunity and immediately threw ourselves into packing and planning. It gave me purpose. It gave me hope. I made lists and filled boxes and labeled our belongings and brought old clothes to Big Brother. I looked around at my accomplishments and I had done virtually nothing. It was very frustrating. Kris took to saying, “Well once you’ve got your house, you will be alright.” He said it in a dismissive way, but I really hoped there was some truth in it. I have two distinct memories of the move. The first is a feeling of jubilation the day of the official move. Kris and I had hired movers and really didn’t have too much to do. We held hands and walked to Starbucks and sat in the sunshine. It felt like when we moved from Toronto a million (or three) years ago. We were just two stupid people in love. Well, two stupid people in love and looking after a neurotic dog! A few days later I went back to work on cleaning the place up for the next renters. The first time I walked into the girls room and saw it completely empty, something cracked inside of me. That room held so many memories for me. When we first moved in, it was our bedroom, and I slept in there with teeny tiny baby Eleanor. I remember crying one morning and being in so much pain from a bleb on my nipple. I was in tears as Kris left for work and I phoned the nurses’ hotline to find out if I had mastitis. The nurse on the end of phone asked who I was with and why they were having so much trouble breathing. I explained that it was my baby and she was a little stuffy. The nurse was skeptical with my answer. God, if she could have seen her. Her neck was so swollen from her Cushing’s Syndrome she could barely maintain an airway. Her heart was so enlarged it caused her pulse to race and further laboured her breathing. And we were just waiting. I told her we were waiting to hear about an appointment with a paediatrician. We had convinced ourselves that some pills would reverse the changes that had happened to our sweet girl.
That room also held all the memories of our first Christmas with our cancer baby. Kris had come home ahead of us and had cleaned the house and made the bed for us. Our bed felt like heaven after sharing a single bed with Eleanor in hospital! It was in that room that Eleanor fell sick with diarrhea a week before Christmas. She woke me up every few hours with a low moan and a full diaper. I was too tired to think much of it, but when Kris took her out early in the morning, he knew she was not okay and we rushed her to the hospital. We spent the next week in PICU and watched the soul leave a young man’s body. I can still his dad screaming as it happened. He called his near-adult son “sunshine”. I can still see his friends’ listless faces walking around the halls. Teenagers. Not quite children, not quite men. It was fucking awful. We got home for Christmas, but spent Christmas Eve back in the hospital because little Miss had pulled her NG tube out.
I looked at the small stains on the carpet from where formula had dripped out of the feeding pump. I looked in the bathroom where I had sobbed alone in the shower. I looked in the empty closets that had once been packed with medical supplies. I looked in every corner and my heart broke. Whatever I had been holding on to to get through my days slowly slipped away. I quit. I didn’t want to do it anymore. I had this gorgeous new house that was full of potential. I had a creative, talented, ambitious, supportive, handsome husband who worked his ASS off so I could stay home. I had a striking (and slightly unstable!) dog. I had two gorgeous, HEALTHY girls. I had it all. And I didn’t want it anymore. Kris and I were fighting all the time and I started confiding in my friends that I didn’t want to make it better. I didn’t care if we fell apart. I started avoiding social outings. I wouldn’t get out of my pyjamas. I couldn’t get to sleep at night and I couldn’t wake up in the morning. On the rare occasions that I went out for an activity and enjoyed myself I would chastise myself for later. I became my own worst enemy and fell down a slippery slope of depression. The thoughts that encircled my head became darker and more frightening. I convinced myself that everyone was better off without me, that I was the cancer now. I was toxic waste ruining my daughters’ lives. I became intensely angry. Everything set me off. I would go from calm to WHITE HOT RAGE in seconds with no warning. I yelled at the girls. I was so scared of hurting them. We spent days driving in the car so I could keep them separated and keep them restrained and keep them away from me. Kris started taking the dog to work to alleviate some stress. He started coming home earlier. We would have long talks about what to do, how to fix it, and never find answers. For months these feelings plagued me. I just wanted to die and be done with it all. I had never experienced anything like this in my life. I had down periods, sure, just the same as everyone else, but they never made me want to die. I had struggled with anxiety in university, but it wasn’t like this at all. This was nihilistic and morose and all-consuming and exhausting and DEPRESSING.
And that’s when I realized I was sick.
I booked an appointment to see my doctor. I was completely honest with him and it scared me shitless. Saying all those things aloud made them real and all the more terrifying. He was so compassionate and understanding. He explained that this was a major depressive episode and the best way to get through it was to start on antidepressants right away. I could start counselling down the road, but the most important thing was to stop the feelings of harm right away. I completely agreed with him; I was a danger to my children, my husband and myself at this point. He spent well over an hour with me and gave me a prescription as well as a repertoire of tools to stop the cycle of negative thinking. I felt so empowered after months of feeling powerless. Kris took the next two weeks off work and we spent time together as a family. We went to lake and barbecued and took walks and watched movies. Kris took so much of the burden of the kids off of me and allowed me to recover. It was practically perfect. It was the first days of the rest of my life. It was the acknowledgement of everything that had happened and being able to move forward. It hasn’t been easy. I decided to give up nursing while I was taking these pills (Penny was 15 months at the time) and Penelope became intensely attached to me. We always marvelled at how independent she was and suddenly she became so sucky! We put her to bed in her crib every night but between 10 and 2 she wakes up crying for me. I take her into my bed so she doesn’t wake her sister, but it means that I don’t sleep very well and poor Kris moves to the couch. It’s one of those things I am hoping she will grow out of, but it’s just too stressful to change it now. I’m trying to keep my stress to a minimum as there were lots of moments during the fall that were particularly high stress and I found myself reverting back to my negative thinking. I journaled quite a bit (obviously writing is a huge outlet for me!) and I talked through these moments with Kris and my close friends. I keep practicing the tools I have been given and I have gotten a lot better at coping.
Which brings me to this Christmas. It has been incredible. I had no idea Christmas could be like this. Well, Christmas used to be like this before I had kids, but I thought that once you had kids it was just a crap-fest of stress and anxiety and sleepless nights and no fun. This year has been awesome! Sure, it’s stressful and expensive, but it’s also fun and magical and oh-so-rewarding. Hearing Penelope scream “OHMY! GOSH! CHRISTMAAAAAAS!!!” whenever she saw Christmas lights made me belly-laugh. Seeing Eleanor’s face when we talked about Santa coming was heart-meltingly adorable. Going to church and singing carols made my spirit soar. I had no idea it could be this good. I had no idea LIFE could be this good. So thank you antidepressants and thank you to my GP. I’m facing 2015 with an optimism I haven't felt in awhile because (for the first time in forever) I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of the darkness and the history that lurks there. I’m not afraid that this Christmas and birthday season will be Eleanor’s last. Sure, it could be, but probably not, and I’m not going to live anxiously anticipating the worst. Life is too goddamn short to be scared all the time. Life is too short to be SAD all the time! I feel incredibly liberated and incredibly lucky.
I’m not sure how to end this, so I will add some amazing pictures of my amazing family and say that I hope whatever you are facing in your life, that you have some amazing people to help you through it. I have these knuckleheads and some beautiful old friends and pills that have changed my life. I sincerely hope you do too.
