Today was a doozy. I mean... a doozy!
To give credit where credit's due - I'll give that today was a doozy because yesterday was a doozy. The information I got at the doctor's office yesterday threw me for a serious loop and I didn't get much sleep last night.
(Lack of sleep + lack of Ativan = a very dark and stormy day in the life of me.)
Here is the story.
I was having a fairly decent, pretty predictable morning at work when I went into the bathroom to go about my business and had promptly had a high-speed come-apart. I was washing my hands, when I looked up at myself in the mirror and a sob ripped out me. - It was a combination of seeing how tired I look and the sudden awareness that even when I go about the normal, mundane tasks in my life, I am not in charge. - I was staring myself in the eye when I doubled over in a crying fit. I had to grab the sink for support, and my first thought was "Where did that come from?!", followed closely by, "Holy COW, am I glad that this happened while I was alone in the bathroom!" I cried huge, ripping, gulping sobs for about two minutes and then told myself that I had to get a grip. I knew I just needed to make it back to my desk and pop an Ativan, and in half an hour or so I should dry up and be back to normal.
Only... I didn't have my purse at work today. Which meant, I didn't have the Ativan.
As soon as I got to my cube and remembered that I'd left my purse at home, the sobbing started again.
I mean, full blown, could not be contained, hiccuping sobs. At work.
Christian asked me through the cube wall if I was okay. (I love her. I was clearly NOT okay, but she knows me well enough to know that I'm an emotional creature and just because I'm crying doesn't mean that anything is actually wrong.) Only, today, there was something wrong. There were a lot of things wrong. So, I went around the wall to her desk and for the second time in a few weeks, knelt down inside her cube and poured my broken heart out about the things that scare me and overwhelm me. I told her that I didn't know what to do, because on top of the list of Stuff That Makes Me Cry, I couldn't stop crying on my own and I didn't have drugs with me to calm me down. She listened, and she told me that she'd fix what she could. And then she did.
Christian moved the entire contents of her desk to the front of the office, to the space that I'd been asked to occupy, because that was one of the things on my list of Stuff That Makes Me Cry this morning. She talked to our boss, who was out of the office in meetings, and explained that she was moving instead of me, and assured me that not only did she not mind, but that she wanted the window seat up there. Bless her sweet soul, forever and ever. Amen.
Of course, I still cried off and on for the majority of the day. Sometimes hysterically, and sometimes quietly. I got emails and stop-by-the-cube visits all day long from the women who wanted to check in and ask if there was anything they could do. (One of the girls is a fellow fan of Ativan and completely understood the existential meltdown I was having without the help of prescription drugs. I will love her forever for not only being a kindred spirit who's sometimes in need of anti-anxiety medication, but for being honest about that and obviously empathizing with how I was dealing with the lack of drugs today.)
Until today, there were a handful of people in the office who knew about the cancer. After today, it's no secret. (Also, any misconceptions about how I am able to hold it all together have been completely thrown out the window.) Now we all know that a) I have the cancer and b) I need medication to not cry. (By which I mean: sob. Uncontrollably.)
Never again will I leave the house without that little bottle of prescribed calming nectar. Never. Ever. Again.
