Hitting the Life-Reset Button
Every so often, life gets chaotic enough that I need to call a truce, a time-out. Too many obligations, too many dust bunnies, too much stress – I’m not myself anymore, and mama needs some sunshine.
We got back Tuesday night from eight days in my Happy Place, and I feel like I rebooted. I’m not sure the majority of my restored good attitude wasn’t due merely to the fact that I wasn’t cold anymore, or that the inside of my dried-out nasal passages no longer felt like I had stuffed porcupines up there, but i’m betting the beach and the family time had a little something to do with it.
Really, how often do members of our go-go modern society really get to check the heck out? To reduce the magnitude of our daily decision-making to whether to have a Corona or a rum punch before watching the sun set? Unspeakable luxury has nothing to do with white tablecloths and marble vanities, and everything to do with the freedom of mind to let go. 
Our vacation distilled life down to the essence: a place to lay your head, a spectacular view, modern plumbing, good food, plenty of outdoor activities, swimming, and time with my family. No computers, no phones, no TV or video games… read a book and fall asleep to the crickets and the surf at 9:45. Wake up with the sun, HUNGRY, eat a big breakfast (prepared and cleaned up after by someone else, v. important), spend all day exploring (or, hey, napping) in the sun, eat more good food, go to bed. Repeat.
If you haven’t taken a break in a while, I really urge you to try it. Get a massage. Go out for a meal. Take the afternoon off. Take the week off. Try something new and scary. Reassess what you really need to be happy. Grouchy is no way to go through life. It’ll feel like a different world when you get back, I promise.
Cancer? What cancer?
Still Looking For The Perfect Genes
Got a letter from the Cancer Factory yesterday – my tumors are not genetically eligible for the EGRF or HER2 receptor studies now underway at that esteemed institution. So I keep on with the Avastin and Cytoxan and see what other groovy trials are available next month.
Kinda feel left out, though, you know? Like a rejection letter from my first-choice college. Damn, now I have to go peel the sticker off my car window.
Kindred Cancer Wise-Ass Nails Advice List
This is bloody hysterical. My only regret is that Glenn Rockowitz wrote it first!
Cynics Don’t Do Laughter Yoga
Went to a great conference at The Cancer Factory on Saturday, for survivors and patients under 40. The vibe was good, the kids were hip, and the morning session I went to, on Mindfulness, was fabulous. Bagged lunch eaten and new friends made, we shuffled back into the main meeting room for the first session of the afternoon. Laughter Yoga. Now, I’m all about laughter, as you can probably guess from various posts herein, but I’m afraid I’m better at laughing at people than laughing with them.
Our enthusiastic moderator started us off with a quick description of the restorative and oxygenating power of laughter, and the history of Laughter Yoga, which started at a clinic in India and has now spread to Laughter Clubs all over the world. (Look for one in a neighborhood near you!) Apparently, even fake laughter can raise your mood and improve your breathing and outlook on the day. And lord knows I tried. But she had us getting up and walking around the big open chair-circle (never my first choice) and running up to each other, pretending to shake hands with an electric clown-buzzer while making eye contact, and laughing uproariously. Sort of fake-it-’til-you-make-it laughter.
I’ll admit it was sort of goofy at first, and the bizarreness of it all got me to laugh a few times. She let it go for three or four minutes, then we returned to our chairs for a breathing exercise and wind-down. Aaaaaaaand then she explained the next mock-hilarious encounter for us to enact in random pairs. And on it went. The second exercise I definitely wasn’t trying as hard. By the third, I was out. Sat in my chair and felt the eighth-grade-wow-this-is-so-lame vibe creeping up over the back of my neck.
I was a leeeetle bit jealous of the folks (a smaller and smaller selection of the whole for each subsequent farce) who were still participating, as their personal insecurities/strange-o-meters were low enough that they could whoop it up. But the longer I sat there watching, the less I felt like laughing, and the more I felt like leaving. I was comforted by the sight that I was not alone in my unease.
Am I immature? Or was it just naptime and I had run out of cancer-fighting pep for the day? Probably both. All I can tell you is that I could practically feel my blood pressure inching upward, until the leader finally congratulated us all on our spectacular job and we closed our eyes for a few more deep breaths.
It certainly wouldn’t be a club I’d run out to join to help me relieve stress. Color me snide.
Cancer Fashion Forecast, Spring 2010
After spending a few months immersing myself in the fashion trends for Spring 2010, I’ve noticed a bit of a difference between the way healthy people dress and the way cancer patients dress. And since I feel an obligation to my public to keep them well informed in this area, I give you:
The Carcinista’s Cancer Fashion Forecast, Spring/Summer 2010.
Cargo pants: Where the well-dressed trendsetter this spring will run right out for a pair of slim, cropped, drawstring-hem “safari” pants to wear with platforms and a silk tank top, the cancer patient will find the cargo indispensable for chemo days when you’re too tired to carry a handbag. The drawstring waist accommodates fluctuating sizes due to carbo loading, and the pockets will hold seven different hospital IDs, your insurance card, your cell phone, sugarless gum, and Prilocaine cream for your port. Forget the silk top: drips from the IV could stain. Instead, layer up with the most recent walk-for-a-cure tee and a hoodie to keep the chill of the waiting room off the back of your naked neck.
Nautical style: Striped sailor pants might look great with a cute scoop-neck tee and wedges on your way to a cocktail party, but since standing up for two hours and making conversation is probably out of your reach, count on the wide-leg silhouette to cover persistent lymphedema and the fact that you’re wearing slippers to the pharmacy. [Side benefit: what's more nautical than a pirate? Sport your 'do-rag with confidence.]
Ruffles: Feminine details abound on the runways for S/S’10 – use them to your advantage! A cute top with an a-line shape will not only disguise the muffin top that has developed since you can’t catch your breath long enough to work out, but the soft detail around the neckline will remind the world that you’re still a girl, despite your lack of eyebrows, lashes, and hair. Not to mention disguising the scar left from your port insertion procedure six months ago that won’t heal due to your low blood counts.
Maxi-dresses: Still a hot silhouette from last summer, the maxi has it all for cancer chicks. Empire waistline holds up breast prostheses; a-line skirt to the floor hides everything else. Bare shoulders let your scorching skin breathe during hot flashes. Where else will you find a legitimate garment that’s more like a nightgown?
Wedges: A heel that even a weakened babe can adore, they’re easier to walk in than a pump but still give you an extra three inches of height (spread out those pounds!). Closed toes and heels on espadrilles camouflage your parched skin and the fact that it’s been over six months since your last pedicure. They’re not only the perfect excuse not to have to take the dog out (“Can’t walk on the lawn in these shoes. Sorry!”), they also double as weight-training on those days you really need to maximize every move.
Boyfriend jeans: See cargo pants. When your waistline is four different sizes in three months, don’t even try to pick a size. Rock the baggy-pants trend like you’re doing it on purpose.
Soft pastels: Delicate colors won’t overwhelm pale skin; sweet shell-pink flatters ghostly complexions of every color, and minimizes the effect of dark under-eye circles. Careful, though – too close to lavender and you risk calling attention to the IV-stick-attempt bruises on your forearms.
See, girls? You can still follow the trends, even from the comfort of your own barcalounger. And while you’re sitting still, it’ll be so much easier for your support team to admire how stylish you look. I think retail therapy should be a required co-therapy with the standard chemo stuff, don’t you?
Mercurial
The weather has an inordinately strong effect on my mood. For as long as I can remember, it seems that a sunny, warm day brings out my doingest, most optimistic and energetic self; grey and cold, especially rainy and cold, drive me underground with a furrowed brow and a short temper. According to my therapist, this is giving too much power over my life to the vagaries of Mother Nature, especially here in New England - you know, “if you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes.” I should be much stronger than giving up a potentially good day in the face of crappy weather. Not to mention that this puts me in a pretty foul mood from, say, January through April.
Nonsense, I say. Ask Louis Armstrong: when you’re smiling, the whole world smiles with you. Why shouldn’t the weather affect us the same way? I understand that I should be able to keep a civil and patient (I’m thinking specifically of my reactions to the short people in my house) tongue in my head on a truly gale-ful day in February, but I think it’s okay to grouse about it, too.
Potentially this has more to do with my dog-walking habits than any other reason: he and I have established a (lucky dog!) schedule wherein we spend 45 minutes to an hour every day in the local state park, a hundred-acre wooded and fielded dog’s paradise that could possibly give Mt. Washington a run for its money as the windiest place on earth. We’ve been there on hot days in the summer when you couldn’t stand to go outside after 10 AM, and on blustery days in winter with eighteen inches of snow and howling northwest winds, when I wore nearly every piece of clothing I own. But once in the woods, even on the snowy days, we find so much peace and quiet and kumbaya-good-for-you-hug-a-tree-nature that despite my hothouse-flower disposition I keep coming back.
Good excuses for my weather focus abound: neuropathy makes my hands and feet ACHE unbearably in the cold weather. I’ve gotten so temperature-sensitive that long underwear are de rigueur on any day below 40 degrees. But the less time I can spend at the park, the rammier and more annoying the dog acts for the rest of the day. So we go.
I imagine that, before our climate-independent lifestyles developed, before we slipped from warm house to warm garage to warm store and back to warm car, when you had to leave the house to do just about everything, most people felt better on days when they didn’t have to rub the ice off the seat in the outhouse. When being really cold was a bit more life-threatening than just needing an extra four ounces of latte on the next Starbucks run. So call me a throw-back, but I’m going to stick to being temperature-sensitive. I’ll try to maintain a civil tongue in my head, even when it’s freezing out.
My family, it must be said, are very excited that we’re having a warm and early spring.
I'm a two-and-a-half time ovarian cancer survivor who is not only determined to make it to sixty but also to look damn good while getting there. My two boys, husband, and dog are counting on me to get out of bed every day, so I might as well wear something cute and make each one COUNT. I'd love to hear from you about your odyssey - sharing makes it all easier to take. And laugh at.
