1st Roller Derby Bout

If you have stuck around my blog for the last 9 years then you know about 4 years ago I began attending practice with a local roller derby league.  It quickly went from I'm going to just see about this to Mission Pass Minimum Skills (MSTs) and actually roll in a bout (game) with the team.  Just as I was rolling into my 1st derby-versary and passing MSTs, I injured my left ankle.  It was one of those everything but break it things. A high ankle sprain that took months to heal and years to get over mentally.  Then the team I was practicing with imploded and part of the fall out was my ousting from the team.

Details are hazy even now as to what was really going on verses what was being said.  In the end the team kicked me to the curb and then imploded and while still around I am not really welcomed to rejoin.  So that was St. Patrick's Day and one month later I found out I was pregnant!  I worked hard to finish my dissertation before the baby, Baby Lala, was born.  Then just took time in general to heal.  In that time my love for derby and my want to play did not go away.  It got stronger.  I couldn't let it go.

I turned to my derby wife, who had so suffered in the team implosion, and as luck would have it she hadn't been able to let derby go either.  We did reach out to try to rejoin our former team.  We were turned away.  What are a couple of strong leaders like us supposed to do?  Start our own league!  Thus was born the Lufkin Derby Dames!  While we work to build a team, we are fortunate enough to have kept old derby connections and were invited to bout with the Gulf Coast Roller Girls from Lake Charles, LA!  We missed the first bout of the season due my dad's cancer but yesterday we rolled out.

I played in my very first bout!  While my derby wife and I weren't out their together for my first jam, she was on the bench cheering me on.  DH was in the stands cheering and filming.  Baby Lala fell asleep pretty early on and GymGirl decided she wanted time with her cousin and stayed home.

It was fun.  It was hard.  I have skills to work on.  The team won a real nail biter against the Mobile Derby Darlings.  It was so much fun.  Teams were pretty evenly matched and all of the other players were so supportive.  We hit each other.  We threw some shady hits but everyone left smiling and ready to set up another game for next season.

Before we started warming up I was pretty sure it was a mistake to have me out there but as we warmed up and I didn't completely suck at it I relaxed.  There were other ladies playing that were really new too so I had equals to compare myself too rather than just vets to be in awe of.

If you are thinking of join a roller derby league for a practice I say do it.  Strap on some skates and try it.  I can't promise you will love it but I can promise you will have an experience to build on, a story to share. Do something that scares you.  Do something that helps you grow.  Do something that changes your life.

Cancer surgery #1

About 3 weeks ago, my dad went in for a surgical consult and to meet with the rest of his cancer team.  The simple consult turned into emergency surgery.  There was a second mass that had suddenly become life threating between the weeks of transferring care from one hospital to the next. 

We had decided to spend the 2 nights between appointments in Temple to avoid having to drive the 6-hour round trip between home and the hospital 3 days back to back.  As a result, my mom was at the hotel with my girls, while DH and I took dad to meet the surgeon.

It was a very scary time for me.  We walked in expecting to just talk and it turned into being admitted into the hospital and signing consents for surgery the next day.  We asked lots of questions and then we waited for the room to be available for my dad.  We were in the doctor's office about 3 hours.  After the consent was signed, DH left to go inform my mom what was happening.  As he was leaving he asked me to walk with him.  It was the first time I was able to show just how scared I was.  I don't remember if I cried or not at that point.  He hugged me tightly.  He was in charge of explaining everything to my mom and then calling my brothers.  I was left with my dad trying to stay calm and asking questions.

The entire staff at the hospital was friendly, professional, and most importantly helpful.  No question too stupid to ask.  Nothing too small to be unimportant.  Once they got my dad in his room, they began the process of inserting an IV.  This was the only time I got pissed at the nurses.  I know we were at a teaching hospital but the nurse trainee made my daddy bleed all over his pillow as she inserted the IV.  I had to step out as they did a full body scan of my dad.  This was when I lost my shit.  I just started crying not uncontrollably.  I cried enough to calm myself and get my face straight.  They had made my daddy bleed.  He was in so much pain from the tumor.  We had to talk about the possibility that he didn't survive and what he wanted to happen.  It was not easy.

Because both of my brothers live about 4 hrs away from us, I am in charge of all of the care.  Each time the surgeon called to give us an update, I was the one who had to talk the call and then translate the information for my mom and grandmother, aunts, and uncles who all showed up to be there with my dad. 

I was on the phone with the surgeon hearing all about there being a 2nd cancerous mass.  How this was a very rare presentation.  How this might change the approach to treatment if this cancer mass is different from the other cancer mass.  I was scared.  I knew I had all eyes on me.  My family watching my face for clues until I got over to them with information.  I cried while on the phone.  I know being rare in the medical world isn't good.  I was praying for a fat lump but no it was cancer.

Things we know 3 weeks later:  Dad would not have survived much longer with that mass in place.  He pain was a sign it was getting ready to perforate his intestines.  Once that happens, we would have had hours.  The cancers are the same type of cancer but are two separate occasions of cancer.

I can see now just how close to losing my dad we were before the surgery.  The surgeon moving quickly saved his life.  It is still not easy.  Next week, we should have the start dates for treatment.

You don't fight to keep people

I have been told in the past that I let people go too easily.  I don't fight to keep people in my life, personally or professionally.  I usually just let people vent that feeling towards me but I don't usually have a response.  What am I supposed to say?

Do I let people go?  Absolutely.  If someone wants to boot me from his/her life, should I really be fighting to stay in his/her life?  The one time I did explore this issue with Soul-sister, my explanation was this:

     If someone is a friend, I have declared them my friend, then I am obligated to 

respect that this person thinks their life would be better without me. 

 If someone says they want to leave, should I make it harder on

 them to leave?  That doesn't seem fair.  Cutting a friend out of 

your life is not an easy decision, why would I want to cause

 the person more pain by demanding they stay?  

I guess there is a part of me that feels that if I beg someone to stay and they still leave then I would hurt even more than just accepting their good-bye.  There is, of course, a part of me that believes I deserved to left by all of my friends, that I am too awful to deserve friends.  

I don't know.  Maybe I should fight.  Maybe I should make promises and compromises.  Give up me in order to keep them.  Here are some of the problems I have with those ideas:

1. If I make a promise, I plan to keep it.  Can I really change myself enough to keep the promises required?
2. Is someone who wants me to change, worth keeping in my life?  If they don't want me as I am, do they really want me at all?
3. If the road that brought us to this impasse in the first place comes up again, won't I just get dumped again?  Better to break it off now rather than later, no?

So anyways, I don't fight to keep people.  I will fight with people.  I will grow with people.  I'll learn from being left.

That does not mean that I don't feel the absence.  Even now losing Soul-sister hurts.  I run into former friends and it feels like I'm dying.  People who knew me.  I let them in.  They said you don't have enough good in you to keep you around.  People who were family who are now strangers.  People that I said "I love you" that now won't meet my eye.  It hurts.  I haven't heard from Soul-sister in about 4 years and even now I cry over the loss.   Did I let her go?  Yes.  Did I fight to keep her?  No.  Do I miss her?  Yes.  Can we ever reconcile?  I don't know.

There are times I describe being painted into a corner.  You make decisions that put you in a fight or flight position.  Once you lash out or leave, can you ever go back again?  Now that those "friends" have left can we ever find our way back to each other?  I guess only time will tell.  I know I have lost friends permanently so there is no chance to reconcile.  That makes me want to reach out.  Apologize.  Compromise.  Life is short and tomorrow is not promised.  Can I forgive the past?  Can I move past the pain?  Even if I can, would they be willing?  

I did reach out to Soul-sister when I finished my doctorate.  She was the most excited person when I started the program.  The response was cold.  It hurt to be dismissed but I respect that our lives simply do not intersect at this moment.  Maybe someday we'll run into each other in a coffee shop somewhere and the cold and pain will wash away and it will be like we were never apart.  Maybe . . .