Ch-ch-ch-changes

I start radiation therapy today. I am not scared or anything. I have met my radio team twice now already- once to get positioned and another to get chest scanned and tattooed. I have four little freckle tattoos now to help them line up the beam. Not sure how I can turn those into something artistic later. Guess they will just be another souvenir of this awesome fun time. You know, because those crazy scars down my chest just aren’t enough. Honestly, I almost cried last Friday when I walked into the cancer center. I am just so sick of that place. I hate the stupid smiley greeter guy. I hate the receptionist people who keep asking for my $40. I hate the art work on the walls. I know that none of this is fair. This is the place that is saving my life. These are the kindest, sweetest people in the world. At least the radiation stuff is downstairs. The chemo stuff is upstairs and I hate that scene even more. And for all you folks that work there and may read this, don’t take it personally. I detest lots of places for no good reason. For example, I really hate the dentist office and Jiffy Lube and Chuckie Cheese.

So my vanity is really getting the best of me. I look in the mirror an insane amount of times during the day. I am constantly taking photos of the top of my head with my phone and then deleting them after I look at them. I am willing my hair to grow stronger and faster all the time. Right now, I have a small patch of fuzz. Is it dirty blond fuzz or gray/brown fuzz? I am afraid to ask. I return to work next week, and I am already feeling self-conscious. This post chemo thing takes the first day of school anxiety to an entirely new level. Do I continue to wear wigs? Do I face my students with my G. I. Jane hairdo, keeping in mind that I don’t have Demi Moore’s bone structure or slim frame? Do I draw on eyebrows even though it is obvious and ridiculous? I bet you are thinking who cares. You will tell me I am beautiful no matter what, and you will be right, but I still feel like a thirteen year old at a pool party whose body is uncontrollably changing and not necessarily for the better.

To top off my fuzzy hair that grows a micron a day, I also seem to be gaining weight. Great, right? No, people. I lost some weight courtesy of the red devil, but I want that weight to stay lost. Between the steroids and early menopause, my body is in survival, fat-storage mode. No matter how much I walk and swim and pretend I am a beach volleyball Olympian, and no matter how much I DON’T eat, the scales keep going up. Really, universe? This does not help with the body image issues afore mentioned.

All-in-all, though, I am getting my groove back. My energy levels are up. I am very excited about returning to work. I have done lots of back-to-school shopping for me and the kids. I actually skipped in Staples. I am so damn excited. I am excited for a new academic year, a new set of boobs, a new not-tired cancer free Anna. I am sad for my pets that have spent the last year napping with me in my queen bed nest for hours on end. I think Buddy, my loyal and cuddly Australian Shepherd, will miss snuggling with me and watching hours of bad reality television. Don’t worry, sweet animals. I hear radiation makes you tired so you and I will still have our daily naps. Only this semester, mommy (ß me) will get out of bed and actually cook her family dinner. Well, some of the time.

Let me call the wambulance.

Here is the truth. I feel pretty crappy. I constantly have a headache and my arms and legs hurt and I feel blah and tired and moody and well, you get the picture. My bathroom habits have not been normal since this junk began. (Too much info...I know.) I toss and turn at night. Always too hot. Sick of trying to sleep on my back. Sick of wearing hats and scarves and wigs. Sick of this cancer game, in general. The steroids they give me have me growing facial hair (ironic, I know) and eating entire tubs of ice cream. I am counting the days to normal.

And guess what? Thursday is the day. It is my last day of chemotherapy. Please, dear Lord, let it be my last day of chemo ever. Last few times I met my oncologist, I have reminded her of this impending milestone. She doesn't seem as excited. I am expecting balloons and confetti to drop from the ceiling on Thursday. I am expecting people to sing or at least a certificate of completion. I have a feeling none of these things will happen. Don't care. Celebration on Thursday even if it is just a double scoop from Dairy Queen afterwards.

My oncologist REALLY disappointed me the last two visits. When I asked her if I could take a little break between my last chemo and the start of the oral anti-estrogen medication I'll have to take for five years, she said it would depend on my radiation plan. Crazy doctor say what? She never, ever mentioned radiation to me before that moment. I would have preferred she just slap me across the face. I can't even figure out what the hell they will radiate. Under my arm, she says, where the positive lymph node was. Uh, Dr. V, that is where my boob expanders are. You know, the fake boobs that feel like air mattress plastic filled with water. Also, my heart is there. Ahem, do you people know what you are doing? And when, please tell me, am I going to get my *real* fake boobs? The ones that will transform me into the Baywatch beauty that I deserve to be.  Dr. V did not have answers for me. No, I have to meet another doctor, a radiation specialist who went to Harvard. I meet her tomorrow morning at 7:30am. Obviously, going by the appointment time, this new doc and I are not compatible. I'll let you know the final verdict on radiation.

Meanwhile, my bone scan showed no cancer in my bones. My latest CT scan showed no cancer in the brain. I have felt pretty lousy for the last six months so I am pretty sure the chemo took care of any remaining cancer in my lymphatic system. Yay! Radiation or not, I am many steps closer to fine. Thursday, I will have completed sixteen god-awful treatments. Here is me...patting my own back. I am, indeed, strong.

Yoga Mat Island

Ah, summer vacation. Even with this year, with my sleeping excessively and crazy schedule, I still both recognize and appreciate summer vacation. It is a time to relax, a time to be slow, a time to be still even.

I have started this summer with a series of spa appointments. It is my version of alternative medicine. Often while I get my facials and massages, Eastern music plays and my therapist uses lotions and potions that smell of eucalyptus and lavender and for me, this is as close to organic healing as it gets. I am not only comfortable with the human touch; I welcome it as long as it is in that little spa room. Oh sweet spa lady, please charm those toxins out of my body. Hydrate my skin with love and sweet smelling goodness. Even my pedicures and manicures have turned into necessary medical appointments, especially now that my nails have gone all funky with the chemo. I have weird rings on my nails. My oncologist threatens that some nails may just come off the nail bed…to not be alarmed. Oh hell, I think. So I go to my spa and have them painted bright corals and think I’ll appreciate these nails while I have them.

I also started going to a yoga class, too…yoga for relaxation. I have only been to two classes, but I know I am hooked. I love the poses. I love feeling the muscles in my body come to life. I love the slowness, the deliberateness of it. I feel so calm, so in control. When I am done with the class, I have the same feeling as after a massage, only I paid like $10 verses $100 and no one touched me. Well, that isn’t true. The yoga teacher has to touch me often to get my body in the right pose and sometimes there is partner stuff, but I don’t count that. I feel very isolated in yoga but in a good way. I feel like I am on my own little yoga mat island, where my body is a machine and not some defective effed up vessel. I feel so present, and I get to talk to God with my breathe and my consciousness and my spirit…and that bad mojo is just dissipating off of me AND it is dark so even though there is a mirror right in front of me reflecting my bald, uncoordinated self, I can barely see myself and in the low light and my all black outfit, I look strong. Plus, maybe, just maybe, this alternative Eastern medicine thing works, and I am cured!

Being a wanna be hippy myself, I have lots of friends and acquaintances recommend alternative medicine to me. Have I tried acupuncture/herbs/juicing/vegan diet/eating seaweed?...You get the picture. It isn’t that I am against it. I just trust Western conventional medicine as well. I goggled the latest chemo drug they are giving me, Taxol, and guess what? Taxol is a natural product, comes from the tree bark of the Pacific Yew. I think it must be synthetically manufactured by now. There are only so many Pacific Yews out there, after all. The thing is that it doesn’t get more natural than tree bark. So even my Western medicine is pretty alternative. Now who decided to go get tree bark and put it in a solution and inject it into my body twelve times is another story…and why this is seen as a good profitable idea (even though it is) and smoking marijuana is illegal is also weird to me. None the less, tree bark has bought me more time and now chemo doesn’t seem so brutal to me. It is just nature helping nature in a really weird, insane way.

Just like spa visits and yoga and chemo, good old Sunday morning church is also a part of my medicine. I really go almost solely for the Eucharist, truly believing that the little wafer and drop of wine are healing me. I figured I have covered all the bases. Meditation, reflexology, tree bark, and Christ’s body and blood. That should pretty much cover it. And as I lay silent and relaxed on my yoga mat, I hear the voice of the divine. “Be still and know that I am God.” I know, and now is a good moment. It is the best moment. 

OM.

The Watcher

Caleb wrote this for school. He is my son and 10 years old.

THE WATCHER

Hi, I'm the watcher; I watch all that moves and stays.

The most interesting thing I've seen was the battle of disease, it's always the disease verses hope. If anything the most dreadful battle is cancer verses hope. I remember when I first saw them both. I saw cancer first; he was like an invisible man wearing a cowl and tunic. The tunic was all black with smoke trailing around it; the black smoke was the souls he killed. His cowl reached down to a cape that was completely black except for the symbols in the middle, it was a purple ribbon with a circle around it and a cross slashing through it. When I saw him he was choking on an innocent civilian, he was begging for mercy but no one helped.

Then hope came, light came out of the clouds and it came down as a big circle of light and it absorbed cancer. Ever since then hope won most of the time. And I hope that he will absorb all of cancer and there will be no more.

I am the watcher, I watch all, and I have hope.

Sunny Side of Life

Yesterday was a great day. It was one of those memory days. You know, years from now when my kids think of their family, they will think of this day. My oldest son had a small awards ceremony in a beach town. We toured a beautiful college campus, went to his ceremony, took ridiculous amounts of photos and then checked in at a beach hotel. We swam in the pool. We walked on the beach. We ate a delicious gourmet dinner and got ice cream later. We swam some more. Everyone was so happy. Later, at night, when we went for our final 9pm swim in the pool, Caleb asked me to race him underwater. When I told him I didn’t want to get my head wet because of my scarf, he told me to just take the scarf off. His words, “Mom, nobody cares if you wear something on your head. Nobody even cares.” That was a great moment. Another was when Levi commented walking down the beach, “I’m glad I won that award so we could have this great day.” Modest one, that kid.

Caleb’s comment about my bald head got me thinking. Here I thought cancer had robbed me of something, stripped me of my true identity. It turns out though that my family has always seen the same me. Cancer has allowed me to truly seize the day- to take insane photos of my kid getting a certificate, to relish a late night swim, to savor that scoop of mint chocolate chip. Thank you, cancer.

I am in such a good mood that I am not even dreading tomorrow, chemo day. They graciously moved it a day later for me so I could have my mini-vacation. It’s okay though. While I am looking on the sunny side, I am going to think of all the good things this situation has delivered to me.

1.      I get ridiculous amounts of mail and mostly, this is a good thing. I will single handedly keep the United States Postal Service in business. Every day I open my mailbox, I get a few medical bills, yes, but I also always get a few get well cards. I have been saving all my cards and get well letters in a box. Someday, when this over, I will make a collage or something of all the sentiments. For now, I just open the box periodically and marvel at all the people that love me. Thank you, cancer.

2.      Last year around this time, I was visiting Jenny Craig every week and buying overpriced, reduced calorie frozen food. Last week, when my old Jenny Craig lady called to see if I wanted to start the program again, I was able to tell her, nope. I vaguely told her that I was able to lose that final fifteen pounds “on my own.” I am down the weight and my foobs look perky. Thank you, cancer.

3.      Because I am spending every week in the cancer center getting several hours of chemo, I get a lot of reading time. I am very up to date on ALL the latest magazines. The cancer center has them all, too. I also have been able to watch lots and lots of Netflix. Thanks to cancer, I have watched some great television that I might have otherwise missed including Samantha Who, Downton Abbey, Hot in Cleveland and most seasons of Lost. That is $8 a month well spent.

4.      Because of all the meals my friends have so graciously prepared and delivered to me, I now have an insane amount of Tupperware. I also have some great cooks as friends.

5.      Chemo makes you super dry. For the first time in my life, I have actually been through entire tubes of lip balm. I don’t like wasting things so for whatever reason, this makes me very happy. For all you friends that gave my Burt’s Bees and the like, I used them all completely. Thank you! AND I now know my signature scent is peppermint. (Not Chanel No. 5 or something from Estee Lauder…just peppermint). I have always wanted a signature scent.

6.      Because of cancer, I have met some fabulous people. From my doctors to survivors to fellow patients, I have connected with people that I might never have known. I used to ride by all those medical buildings and wonder who goes in there. Now I know. I go there and so do some wonderful people with their loved ones and magazines and crocheted hats. I am so much more aware now of other people…so much more compassionate. Thank you, cancer.

Last night, my family all slept very tightly in a hotel room in two queen beds. I loved it. I loved having Ken so close. I loved being able to watch my boys sleep. In a weird way, we have been lucky. If cancer hadn’t entered our lives, I might not know how much my husband loves me. I am in awe of his great big heart. There are nights that I fall asleep holding his hand and when I wake, he is still holding my hand. I am calling my parents more often. We are taking the time to really talk to each other. I am so conscious of all the love and support I get from my friends and family every day.

I’m so silly. Cancer didn’t take away “Anna” at all. It unveiled me and has revealed to me this wonderful world. So there’s the silver lining. Let’s see if I am still celebrating cancer tomorrow…

Passing

So I have a step father-in-law that is a professor. Years ago when he was teaching African American studies, he wrote a chapter for some book. We were at the beach that summer, enjoying family and summertime. He asked me to read his chapter. I remember it was on “passing.” I had never heard that term before then. “Passing” refers to a person classified as a member of one racial group but attempting to be classified by another. In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, some people of mixed race “passed” themselves off as solely white. While reading his chapter, I immediately thought of an old movie Imitation of Life. I had watched that movie sometime in my childhood. VCRs had just come out. My family had gotten one, and we found ourselves in the video store picking movies every Friday night. My mom directed me to all the classics. I watched all the Gidgets, Where the Boys Are, and…Imitation of Life. It was fun to see the old movies with my mom. I distinctly remember Imitation of Life. It was about a light-skinned daughter that spends her life trying to pass as white, much to her mom’s shame. I cried and cried during that movie. All of these memories- reading the chapter, the movie, the idea of passing- came back to me today. They came back to me with a huge wave of melancholy.

I am on my sixth month of living with cancer. Much of this time, I have concentrated my efforts on just showing up. The months after surgery and of the red devil, showing up took all I had, but the good news is that I am feeling better and better every day. This second round of chemo is much easier to handle. (I am done with the red devil and am now receiving a drug called Taxol.) Because I am feeling better, I have graduated to wanting more than to just show up.

Saturday, my kids were invited to go to a water park all day to celebrate their service as acolytes to the church. Temporarily forgetting myself, I committed my entire family to go. I want things to be normal. I want to celebrate my children. I want to see them laugh and run and come down a waterslide, but when I got there and faced a full day in a sunny, crowded water park, I had second thoughts. I probably spent an hour in the changing room. I had my bathing suit and rash guards and scarves and big floppy sun hat. I had my big sunglasses. I quickly found a chair in the shade, under an umbrella and I got through the entire day, trying to “pass” as someone healthy. I hoped that my big gigantic hat hid the fact that I have no hair. I slathered SPF100 on me with hopes that the sun wouldn’t react with the chemicals in my body. I tried not to rub my leaky, runny left eye and I let Ken and my sons fetch me multiple cups of water…and we had a fabulous day.

Sunday, we went to church. I put on a nice dress and I actually wore my wig. I hate the wig, but again, I was hoping to appear healthy. I was hoping that this Mother’s Day we could forget about this stupid sickness and its aftermath. I wish I had picked out a more subtle wig from the onset to be honest. (I bought two very red-haired wigs, one short and one long). In the beginning, I was thinking I’d be very Samantha-Sex-in-the-City with a pink wig and flamboyant scarves, but these days, I just want to go to the Olive Garden without everybody looking at me. I just want to pass. Every day for the last couple of weeks, I have just wanted to pass. I don’t want to appear tired. I don’t want to be bald. I don’t want to be late to things because I got tied up in the bathroom. No, I don’t want that.

I hated that girl in that movie. How dare she shame her mama like that. She should be proud of her race, proud of her mama. I feel like a hypocrite now. My hatred for pink ribbons is another way I am trying to pass for healthy. I lie to myself. I am a girl with breast cancer. This Friday, I will go with my son to Lakeland’s Relay for Life. His entire class is going. They have raised awareness and money for this disease. They have done this for me and others like me. On Friday, I will walk the laps and I will not hide. I am hoping I have the courage to go bald. The truth is that it is exhausting, this “passing”. It is exhausting and it makes cancer something shameful, and it isn’t shameful at all.

People Watching

So here we go again. As I sit in the cancer center waiting room, it strikes me how similar it is to an airport. First you check in, and then they take your blood. If your lab work comes back okay, they give you a ticket to ride, literally. They give you a slip of paper with your chemo orders on it that you pass to a nurse, then you sit in a waiting room and wait for a chair to open up in the infusion room. Not much to do except read House Beautiful, glance up at Price is Right and people watch...unless you are Ken, who kills his time in the puzzle corner. Then they call your name and you are assigned a recliner and plugged in for the long ride.

I am going to describe my fellow cancer patients to you. In order to protect their privacy, I'll speak in stereotypes. It is the same sort of crowd every time.

There are the old married couples. One member of the team is the cancer patient and the other is the loud, busy advocate- making sure their sweet honey bunny has plenty of warm blankets and their favorite starlight mints and a word search book. They discuss common everyday matters. Did you remember to turn off the coffee maker? So and so called and will meet us at Perkins for lunch. I love these folks. They always bless my heart and ask about my kids.

There are the single ladies. Characteristically, these ladies are also the I-embrace-the-pink-ribbon types. We are talking head to toe pink- pink shirts, pink hats, "Save the ta-ta's" buttons, pink bags. They sort of remind me of Gator fans only they are Team Komen all the time. They talk loud on their cell phones and chat up the social worker. God bless them, too, because they hand knit me pink hats right there on the spot and make me spell my full name so they can add me to their church prayer list. I imagine they lead their ladies auxiliary group, too, given the courage they have to wear their cancer like that.

Occasionally, there are the young hipsters with cancer. They spend the entire time texting or whatev on their cell phones. They wear flip flops and are quiet and get every look of sympathy in the room. I particularly appreciate one young guy last week who was next to me. Because he wore flip flops, I was able to study his feet and noticed he, too, had dark areas on his toe knuckles. (I am not sure "toe knuckles" is the correct terminology.) Here I was thinking I just had really dirty feet or spending too much time in cheap Payless shoes. Turns out, toe ridges are a side effect of chemo. Thanks, random Abercrombie guy.

The saddest cases are the fight-for-my-right to party types. I see a lot of super skinny people denied chemo because their blood counts aren't good or something. Contrary to what you might think, most people fight hard to get the chemo anyway. One, the crap is saving your life and two, you are already there and mentally ready to go. They had to already stick you to get the blood work. Who wants to come back and do it all again tomorrow? Uh...nobody. One time this guy got all plugged in and quickly asked for a coke and some Cheetos. He was scarfing those delicious orange snacks down when the nurse returned and snatched them away, telling him that his blood sugar was sky high. Poor guy was begging for that damn coke, just like I've heard some beg for the chemo. Most of the time, when it gets confrontational like that, the nurses get the doctor. The oncologist will chew your butt right out in front of everybody. If you keep at it though, they'll give you your chemo, Cheetos, coke, anyway. We own these bodies after all. Hell, I think if you demanded it enough, those nurses would bring you a Bud Light and a cigarette.

What do we all have in common? Well, besides cancer. Just like a long flight, all us patients got our eyes on the bathroom. You have to stake out the bathroom right away. There are two restrooms for like thirty people. We are all hooked up to fluids, we all get our soda and snack, and we are all here for a couple of hours at least. It takes a lot of planning. You have to get the nurse to unplug your iv, and then you have to be ready to roll your drugs and it's stand through very crowded recliners and bags and people to the bathroom...and you have to beat your competitors. Otherwise, you could be waiting fifteen more minutes. Sometimes people get stuck in there for whatever reason. Oh the drama.

Today, I am among another stereotype- the cancer patients with their iPads. All of us in the "green" group today are busy touching away on our screens. We got one sleeper in our group, today. (I call them sleepers...they are the ones that get Benadryl in their iv). I opted out of Benadryl today, too much going on in the infusion room...plus it slows down my fast break to the bathroom.

We are one motley crew here. Bless our hearts.