Belligerently "Peppy" . . .?

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I have done some personal re-labelling of the tried and true "emotional stages" of breast cancer. The current template:

* Denial and Shock
* Anger, Rage
* Stress and Depression
* Grief and Fear
* Acceptance, Adjustment
* Fight and Hope ... blah, blah, blah...oops! I mean, etc. etc, etc....

I cannot speak to the standard emotional/psychological appellations (above), but for me personally, I have had the pleasure of working through:

* FREAKED-OUT
* DENIAL, and
* PREPARATION

Preparation has been my favorite so far because it really allowed me to show off my strengths: the researching; the cross-examinations of medical professionals; the organizing of the data; and the strategizing of the course of action. I love that kind of stuff. Especially when it includes tabs, annotations, indices and spreadsheets.

Over the last two days, however, I believe I have now entered a stage that I am fondly calling:

BELLIGERENTLY PEPPY


There are external factors over the last two days that launched this new stage, i.e.: the myopia of certain unnamed curmudgeons I find myself embroiled in battle with (professionally); the idiocracy of the current health care debate that only punctuates that the human species, or at least the American strain, values profit over decency; as well as the ambiguity of the practice of medicine -- I got the preliminary pathology results yesterday and among other things it appears that the tumor was much larger than anyone expected. Let's put it this way, if I had had no tumor in my left boobee I WOULD NOT HAVE HAD A LEFT BOOBEE!

This new stage is confusing, however.

On the one hand, the immediate and general response has been...Oh! TC must be feeling better, she is "ripping people new ones" again! And, I do feel strangely energized by the present fury and frustration I am feeling.

Conversely, I feel extremely drained by that same energy it takes to keep these fires stoked. And that fact alone pisses me off.

For now, I suppose I will just accept on face-value that the former "energizing" fury is the PEPPY; that the latter composes the BELLIGERENT; and just see where this takes me. And, if I am feeling more peppy than belligerent, just hope that I might feel enough momentary compassion to forewarn!