It Just Keeps Getting Better
Thanks to everyone for your warm wishes for my procedure last Friday. I’m not sure whether you weren’t concentrating hard enough, or whether the fact that my new boots hadn’t arrived yet threw off my mojo, but the stent insertion was a no-go. Apparently, the cancer that is constricting the ureter has a death-grip on it, and no matter how my cute Dr. Kenneth Branagh tried, he couldn’t force the tube in. So when I woke up, not only was there no pain (and thus no need for interesting pharmaceuticals), but no success.
What’s next, you may ask. Well, just because I’m so very fond of pee, poop, private parts, the handling and the discussion thereof, my next step is a nephrostomy. Yes, the universe seems to think that the brief stint with the ileostomy wasn’t enough torture, so my next appendage will be a urostomy bag. Probably temporary, but who really knows. Probably done tomorrow, but I’m waiting for phone calls.
And maybe, if I’m really lucky, my next trip through a TSA checkpoint I’ll get to get a pat-down instead of a little extra radiation.
Today, though, I’m starting my new trial. I’ll be here at The Cancer Factory from 8 to 6, taking pills, peeing in cups, giving blood at regular intervals. Would you all mind focusing just a little more closely on your good wishes today? I could use a break.
The cookies, however? Are AWESOME. XOXOXOXO
Creeping In
Wow, this cancer is serious business. By my calculations I’ve been off of chemo for just three weeks, but I can feel things growing in there. A knot of lymph nodes in my neck that had gotten smaller during chemo is getting bigger again, and is now, literally, a pain in my neck. The pelvic tumors, which were actually responding to the chemo at first, are growing again and pushing on my left sciatic nerve. And, most disconcertingly, I’m finally understanding that classic ovarian-cancer symptom of “a feeling of fullness or inability to eat” — most of the time, it feels like my dinner consisted of six or eight large bricks. (Don’t worry; I’m compensating for the lost calories with french vanilla ice cream.)
So, is this the part where I start complaining? Maybe. I’m trying to keep my mouth shut around the house, because I know how upset it makes certain-members-of-my-family-who-shall-remain-nameless. And we’re all trying to keep our eyes on the prize: I’ll start this trial next week and the drug will do a bang-up job of knocking back the cancer’s growth and all my symptoms will fade.
I must admit, though, the cynic in me is starting to get up a good head of steam. The hope is still there, the belief in miracles, the willingness to place my life (again) in the hands of one of the most capable medical teams in the country. But combined with the respiratory stuff that’s been going on since the end of September, these new symptoms are stark reminders of just how close to the edge I’m riding these days.
In August, I asked my oncologist (one of the foremost experts in the field) to be honest with me. I said, “I know doctors don’t like to make prognoses, and I promise I won’t hold you to anything you say, but you have a lot of expertise with this disease, and I need to know. If I stopped treatment today, how long would I have?” (A part of me couldn’t believe I was asking this; I have spent so much of this illness focused on the fact that I will get better that even broaching the question of not was a shock.) She told me that I’d have about six good months, and around a year altogether. At the time, I thought, “Well, thank heaven I’m not stopping treatment. I need WAY more than a year.”
Only none of the damn treatments have worked. Do I have six good months left? The cynic figures I’d better really enjoy Christmas this month. Like, REALLY enjoy it. And then the hope side chimes in, “People have been sicker than you are now and recovered. Miracles happen every day.” Yeah, but they don’t, too. People who were diagnosed after I was are already dead. Maybe I’ve already used my miracles — IP chemo, my crazy HIPEC surgery, my previously stellar fitness level. That 35% five-year statistic wasn’t threatening to me a bit until about three weeks ago. Now I’m wondering about May. Whether I should have had a 39th birthday party. Whether it’s worth buying a new pair of flat-heeled black boots.
Though I’ve been sick for four and a half years, aside from acute times like post-surgically or during chemo, I’ve been able to live a relatively normal life. But now, I can’t ignore it anymore. Now, there’s always something.
photo credit here.
Let The Wild Goose Chase Begin
I'm comin' for ya, dude.
Hey! How was your Thanksgiving?
Really? That sounds nice… oh, mine? It was lovely, thanks. Yeah, everyone’s still speaking to each other… yep, kids got along and no one threw mashed potatoes. We missed the traffic by coming back Saturday night. So great to see everyone, but nice to be home.
What?
Oh, the scan results, right…
Um.
Yeah, those didn’t come out like we hoped. Like, really not like we hoped. Lungs: measurably worse. Pelvic tumors: growing. Hydronephrosis (back-up in my kidneys) worse. New lesions in sacrum and pelvic bones.
You see why I’ve been avoiding you.
On the “Action Items” side of the page, however, we have now two solid Phase I trial options (thank you, cancer research funding), one of which I’ll be starting next Wednesday. Pending my visit with the PPMD (urologist) tomorrow and scheduling my stents. Yes, lucky me, I’ll be getting ureter stents again so I can pee. (Jeez, now I’m not only like an old woman but an old man, too?) The study (Option #1) is an oral drug, taken (yea!!!) with food daily, so no fasting, no infusions (looking hard for the silver lining)…
As opposed to the study drug from last summer, this one attacks signaling proteins on multiple pathways at the same time, so there’s a higher chance of success. The study worked well for an ovarian patient (she was on it for ten months) at The Cancer Factory already, although eventually she progressed and has now moved on to another study (my Option #2). So there’s a reasonable hope that this will give me some more time.
Another bonus is that Option #2 has openings forecast for a few months yet, so if Option #1 doesn’t show results, I can slip right on to Option #2 after about three months or so.
What? Well, we don’t know what else is out there yet. That’s the problem with studies. There are new ones coming down the pike all the time, but we can’t really predict what or when.
So, yeah. That’s where we are today. No, I’m handling it okay. (Just don’t talk about the kids.) I haven’t started buying plane tickets yet, but I’ve stopped shopping for high-end, life-long couture, since I’m not sure I’ll get my money’s worth out of it. And no, I will NOT bequeath it to you new-with-tags, so quit asking.
God bless black humor.
I Got The Fever
Jeez, just when you think life is getting a little predictable.
Week 4 of Cycle 2 snuck up on me. I was pleasantly surprised to discover, at my Monday appointment last week, that it was my week off of the Magical Mystery Drug. Skipping home an hour earlier than expected, with food in my tummy and a song in my heart, I anticipated a light and relatively carefree week of getting back into shape, tasting my food and drinking cool fresh water, spending time with my boys, and a long-anticipated family reunion weekend on the beach full of champagne, good company, and steamed fresh lobster.
Ha ha, said the universe, guess again.
Monday night at around 9:30, I started feeling like I was getting a fever. That’s weird, I thought, I don’t get sick. (Well, apart from the obvious.) Checked with the thermometer: yep, 101. Tylenol PM, bed. Tossed and turned all night, but by morning, it was gone. Felt better Tuesday morning, although not well enough to make it to yoga. No sign of fever, until about 5pm. After checking in with the team, they said if the fever went away that evening with two Advil, I was okay, but if not I should come in to see them Wednesday. Which of course I wanted to avoid like the plague.
Wednesday dawned sunny and fever-free. The boys and the dog and I spent the better part of an hour and a half in the woods hiking, feeling pretty smug. Until I lay down for my nap, and felt the fingers of fever starting to creep up my neck. I ignored them and tried to go to sleep, but I knew it was futile. Called the team and they said, “Come on in.”
Which is always fun with two kids. But they were fed copious amounts of bagged snacks and watched the Cartoon Network while I saw everyone, peed in a cup, gave blood cultures from port and periphery. I stumped everyone with my lack of symptoms, but that night the fever was back again.
And Thursday night. Good news: Mr. W makes dinner and cleans up from it. Bad news: Friday morning I get a call that I have a UTI. A UTI? With no symptoms? Oh, yippee, back on high-grade systemic antibiotics again. And they do nothing to kill the fever.
So I muscled through Friday and Saturday with nightly fevers, the usual fallout from antibiotics, and no energy. It was great to be on the beach and see family members from far and wide, but I wish I’d felt well enough to enjoy it.
And when I’m sick-sick, not just chronic-sick, nothing else gets done. No reading, no exercise, and as you might have noticed, no writing.
Let’s hope this… whatever is gone by tomorrow, so I can deal with a day at the hospital, the fallout from CT contrast, and more Magical Mystery Drug. And write about something a little more interesting than boring crap like my internal temperature.
Extended Stay
A very dear (and possibly quite intoxicated) friend emailed me this afternoon with a link to Christopher Hitchens’ beautifully worded essay about his cancer diagnosis, saying it reminded him of my writing. While I am highly flattered, and definitely aspire to that level of proficiency (not to mention professional success), the essay did strike a number of chords.
Hitchens speaks of the discovery of his illness as “…a very gentle and firm deportation, taking me from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady.” This international one-way trip is the most shocking transition, especially for people (henceforth known as “patients”) who were previously healthy and unencumbered by medical interventions any greater than the occasional Advil. With diagnoses like ovarian cancer, what you think at first will be just a brief visit turns out to be a longer stay, with an extendable visa that might last the rest of your life.
For the past few years, I’ve envisioned myself as I always was: a mom, wife, cook, fashion fiend, friend, sister — exercising, writing, cleaning, driving, living my life — who also happened to have cancer. This summer, however, the paradigm has shifted. Now I feel like I’m a cancer patient who also occasionally writes, walks the dog, folds laundry, and makes dinner. My treatment and attendant side effects have gotten more insistent, more interruptive. I have to have my daily meds, straight from refrigeration or a cooler, at the same time every day. Within three hours, I need to be near indoor plumbing. By mid-afternoon, I need a nap. Water tastes horrible, so I have to bring my own beverages. Comfy shoes. Short walks and a place to sit down. (I’m starting to sound like my grandmother. Who’s 103.) I can no longer be the same person I was in that other country.
A part of me longs for the early stages of my illness again, that optimistic sense of purpose and determination, the adrenaline-charged vigor of the attack. Like a Saturday morning, the future was still hazy but full of potential; the fear of the unknown can be enervating but at least it’s a plan. Hitchens is starting chemo for his esophageal cancer, and I wish him health and strength to get through the journey. I miss the innocence and blind optimism and faith in medicine that carried me through that first summer with cancer. But the wisdom and perspective of the ensuing years I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Okay, maybe a clean CT scan. Or a book deal. Hitchens? Throw me a bone, eh?
Photo credit here.
Cancercoaster
Last night my husband and I were watching that new Tony Robbins series on NBC. The episode featured Tony helping a couple break out of their ruts: at their wedding reception in Mexico, the exuberant groom had dived into the shallow pool to swim over to where his wife and her friends were dancing, and broken his neck. Quadriplegic since that day, they had ceased to be newlywed husband-and-wife, and become nurse-and-patient. During the course of the show, Tony had the excited husband and terrified wife skydiving over Fiji to show them that there’s no limit to what a paraplegic can accomplish but his imagination. (It was a pretty great show, and I’m a cynic. But I dig transformations. Jillian’s my homegal.)
At one point Mr. Wonderful and I were talking about the wife and the role she’d settled into, and how she was paralyzed herself by her fear of losing her husband altogether, her sense of injustice at having to suffer through a life so different than the one she’d imagined. In mid-sentence, Mr. W started to well up, and as I grabbed his hand, he broke down. He said he was remembering the night of my first surgery, and how he’d been feeling all the same things: angry with the doctors; helpless at my illness; terrified of our new future and what it would bring; sad for me and what I would have to go through.
After a long hug, we moved on, but I realized that in addition to cementing our dedication to each other, the moment represented just another stop on the wild ride we’ve been on since 2006. Cancer diagnosis? Down. Find the right oncologist and a plan of attack? Up. IP chemotherapy? Way down. Finish treatment? Up. Nine months of remission and a big thank-you party? WAY up. Recurrence? Doooooown. You get the picture. Cancer patients and those who love them learn an incredible amount in the simple task of waiting: waiting for test results; waiting for scan results; waiting for the surgery date.
I’d love to say that a zen-like patient peacefulness is the result of all of this unpredictable change. But our reactions to the ups and downs have yawed wildly as well. Sometimes I’m able to accept a recurrence notice with resigned determination, while my mother bursts into (prohibited!) tears. Sometimes I come home from a simple office visit and a blood draw and snap at everyone in the house and Mr. Wonderful calms me down and gives me needed space. Other times he rages against his lack of control and we argue about something stupid like taking the last cold Diet Coke out of the fridge (a hanging offense).
I’ve had a busy month in the up-and-down department. From the down of intractable lung mets and decreased physical activity, I sprang back up with the great PET scan results, confirmed by CT last week. But not all the way up, because my left leg swelling kept increasing, and everyone (including me, in tears on Monday) feared it was another blood clot, which would mean blood thinners, which would make me ineligible for the trial that was saving my life (way down). Yesterday I had an ultrasound that showed no trace of a clot, meaning I am cleared to receive lymphedema massage and continue the trial (up Up UP!)
Which brings me back to my post on Friday about good support. By talking openly and honestly, and patiently listening without judgement, Mr. W and I have been able to weather the vagaries of this unpredictable odyssey. It’s definitely been a long learning process, with exemplary moments and embarrassing blow-ups. Often, the patient-listening-without-judgement has had to come in the form of an outside party, namely our therapist, who I maintain is a priceless aid in my recovery. But the result has been the smoothing out of the rough places that used to trip us and send us (and by “us” I mean our whole support team) spiraling off in different directions – now we hold each other up and ride on together.
Certainly the clichéd “fullness of time” has lessened the height of the peaks and the depth of the valleys. I prefer to think of it as a mosaic, or a Seurat painting: up close, each tile or spot of paint seems powerful, distinct; but with distance, the whole image becomes easier to see, the emotional shapes easier to recognize, the cohesion and strength of our family more visible.
I’ve never liked roller coasters. Too fast, too scary, too much stomach-in-the-throat. Since I have to be on this one, I’m glad I have reliable hands to hold onto. Who are yours?
Photo link.
Family Friend Supports Cancer Research; Please Help!
Dorcas Ann Casey, on the right, with her mom.
Hi All:
I have a favor to ask. A good friend of mine, Dan Pike, is competing in the Ironman Lake Placid this weekend (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run!) in memory of his cousin Dorcas Ann Casey, who lost her battle with synovial sarcoma, a rare soft tissue cancer, in 2008. Dan is raising $25,000 to support the Dorcas Ann Casey Fund that will benefit synovial cancer research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Dorcas was the source of much comfort to me during the early stages of my cancer fight; she sent care packages with comfy slippers and yummy candles; she sent books of inspiration and letters of support. She and I had a rollicking time the last time I saw her (with my GI-Jane-short hair) laughing at the random ridiculousness of the whole cancer trip. I was so sorry to hear she’d lost her fight.
If you’d like to join me in supporting my dear friend Dan in his heroic task this weekend, please visit the link below which whill take you to his page on Fred’s Team, Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s site for fundraising.
To donate online:
http://mskcc.convio.net/site/TR?px=1771450&fr_id=1370&pg=personal
To contribute by check, please make checks payable to MSKCC, noting “Pike Ironman/Fred’s Team” in the memo line, and mail to:
MSKCC
Attn: Elise Cook, Annual Giving Officer
633 Third Avenue, 28th Floor
New York, NY 10017
Thank you all for your help – let’s keep fighting to get to a place where cancer is just a distant memory. Please feel free to forward this to anyone you know who will help!
Photo courtesy Dan Pike.
Help Me Help You
Over the past couple of days I’ve answered a few cancer babes’ questions about their support teams. These ladies have been relatively new patients, and while dealing with their own fears and worries about their new diagnoses, they are feeling the changes in their relationships with their spouses, significant others, or family members. Reactions have ranged from anger, to cool distance, to hovering, to quiet resignation. They’re all okay, for initial emotions, but the reactions surprised the patients and added another worry to their lists. I’m saddened to hear of the insecurities they’re feeling, right when they need to feel safest and most secure.
In a perfect world, when we are diagnosed with a serious illness, our loved ones would rally to our side, offering support without need for recognition, organizing teams of ride givers, casserole bakers, and garden weeders while maintaining enough distance so we could rest and recuperate without concern. They would have easy and affordable access to support groups that give them the chance to vent their own frustrations and receive advice and affirmation from others who have been down the same path. Their emotions recognized and validated, they could be the supportive, understanding, flexible caregivers their sick ones need most.
Last time I checked, this world was far from perfect (really!), and being the perfect patient or the perfect caregiver may not be possible. But with support, understanding, and strong communication, we can learn to help each other through. I’ve put together a list of tips to help open the lines of communication, and a few resources to go to for advice or help.
- Ask each other how you’re feeling, what you’re scared of, and what you need from each other. Some people think the best way to support a sick loved one is by remaining stoic and swallowing their own fears. It sounds so simple, but sharing what you’re thinking about with your closest allies will not only help them recognize what they are feeling but also understand that you feel the same way. Make sure to see things from their side of the illness; while you’re worried about losing your hair and not being attractive anymore, they may be thinking about losing time at work, feeling like they have no control over the illness, or betrayed by your absence. None of these feelings is “wrong” – it’s only important to identify it and talk about it.
- Try to include your caregiver in decisions about your treatment, to give them a sense of having a little control as well as an opportunity to ask questions of your medical team (with your permission, of course). I know it was helpful, especially in the beginning of my disease when I felt like I’d been run over by a freight train, to have a family member at appointments and treatments with me to ask or answer questions that I had forgotten or spaced on.
- Diversify your list of helpers. I’ve spoken before about the priceless lotsahelpinghands.com – by giving others the chance to do for you you’re also lightening the burden on your chief caregivers. They need to live their own lives in addition to caring for yours.
- Recognize their efforts and make sure they get a break. As a recipient of numerous SpaFinder.com gift certificates, I am a big proponent of the extravagant pampering appointment: it’s customizable; it appeals to both genders, whether your hubs needs some manscaping or just a massage; and it’s something that most people won’t buy for themselves.
- Spend some time with them and don’t mention your illness. It’s so easy, like always discussing the kids with your spouse even on date night, to get pigeonholed into talking about cancer. That’ll just get everyone down. See a movie. Go out for dinner. Spend an afternoon loafing around the local bookstore. You had a relationship with this person BEFORE you got sick – maintain it and it’ll be there AFTER you get well.
While you’re laid up (and there will be plenty of that), spend a little time on the internet looking at resources to help you support your caregivers. Whether they’re joiners and would love to get into an IRL support group, an online forum, or would rather just read some helpful tips to get them through, there are plenty of places to look for more information. Here are some of the best that I’ve found:
- American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org). There’s a whole section for caregivers, with tips for getting through and a section on finding local support.
- American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (www.aamft.org). Marriage and family therapists not only help couples with their marriages but entire families dealing with crises, traumas, and major illnesses. I chose our therapist from the list on this site based on his experience with young children. (He hasn’t met our kids yet, but knows our family well should I croak it and they need support.) Many therapists will accept medical insurance, and many carriers cover a certain number of sessions per year as adjunct treatment to your illness.
- Ovarian Cancer National Alliance (OCNA) has a great online support community (http://www.inspire.com/groups/ovarian-cancer-national-alliance/). For patients, family members and caregivers, it’s an amazing group of people dealing with and supporting this disease. Post a question, ask for advice, or just kvetch about how crummy you feel – all comers are welcomed and supported with open arms.
- And, for that matter, Inspire.com has online support groups for other cancers, too. Top-notch.
- Gilda’s Club (www.gildasclub.org) has joined forces with The Wellness Community. With Clubhouses in cities all over (although, unfortunately, not mine) and now a thriving online forum, The Living Room, support is available for everyone in the family.
My parting thought? Talk. Talk to each other, about the easy stuff and the tough stuff. Talk about how you feel, what you’re afraid of, how you’d like to be supported. Be open to hear things you might not like; be honest about what’s going through your mind. Talk like it’s the last chance you’ll get. It probably isn’t, but there’s no time like the present. Cancer has certainly taught us all that.
How To Help A Cancer Patient, Part III
Last week we started talking about useful products to keep in your (now-crowded) cancer-patient bathroom to help you get through treatments, etc. and back to your regularly scheduled life. Here are some more favorites.
Comfort
Most patients, even newbies, have some idea of what to expect with surgery recoveries and treatments. There were some big surprises for me, though, and at the risk of sharing too much, I thought I’d pass along some trade secrets. It might get a bit graphic – apologies to the uninitiated.
Your bowels may never have been a problem until you were diagnosed with cancer, especially those of the lower abdomen and pelvis. But starting with CT prep (barium shakes) and moving right through surgery prep, anesthesia recovery, and on to chemo, there will be days when you can think of nothing else. (As a life-long poop-o-phobe, this was a horrible adjustment for me.) Start by asking the radiology department to give you Gastrografin instead of barium shakes before your scans. A flavorless vial of liquid that you mix with the juice or Crystal Light flavor of your choice, Gastro is orders-of-magnitude more palatable than that thick white crap. Not only does it go down so much easier, but it doesn’t seem to run like a Roto-Rooter through my lower intestines for the following three days. If your hospital/clinic doesn’t carry it, start complaining, loudly, until they do. I don’t care if it costs more – make the people who write the checks take a few swigs of the banana-flavored “Smoothie”, and they’ll be on your side in a jiffy.
On the other hand, anesthesia of any sort, various chemo agents, most narcotic pain relievers, and nearly all anti-emetics push your GI tract off the opposite cliff. (My gal Kelly Corrigan refers to it as “tear-jerking constipation” and is not wrong.) With the chemo protocols, it’s really smart (and pretty easy, once you figure out your patterns) to prepare your body ahead of time: lots of fiber, fruits and veggies, and plenty of hydration the day before your treatment. Once you’re on the chemo, make sure you keep your nausea under control (take the Zofran before you need it), but maintain your system with Senokot (or the drug-store generic) – I used to take one to two pills, three times a day, for the first week after treatment. If senna isn’t enough on its own, and you’re DRINKING tons of water and GETTING SOME EXERCISE (yes, even just a stagger down the block), you may want to add Miralax. I personally couldn’t stand this stuff, but have heard others swear by using it routinely. On occasion, I needed to escalate to Milk of Magnesia, and there were two post-anesthesia occasions when I had to ride the Fleet train. My advice: get on top of your symptoms early, and keep adding more aggressive interventions until the problem is solved. Skip the middle-of-the-night run to the 24-hour Walgreens at all costs.
Jeez, I’m just having a little freak-out that I’m actually discussing all of this. (See earlier comments about poop-o-phobia.)
When all of this colon fun gets to be too much, ask your doctor for Anusol. Take warm baths with Epsom salts. Stock up on Tucks and Prep H. ‘Nuff said.
Nausea
The stomach gets really hammered during cancer stuff. Fasting for blood tests. Heartburn from chemo. Nausea from nearly everything. There are lots of options to get you out from under it, so don’t stop trying until you find a solution that works for you. My first oncology nurse, a 30-year veteran, God love her, told me when I was feeling nauseous, to eat something, and that might cure it. If eating didn’t make it better, then medicate it! I was lucky enough to have Emend covered by my insurance, and it was fabulous during my first round of chemo. Last summer, I got IV Aloxi as a pre-med before my carbo/taxol, and it worked just as well, without me having to remember to take it. Zofran makes me a little nervous, because although it’s very effective, and widely prescribed, it bungs me up like a cork. Ativan is lovely, if you can swing it, but there better be another responsible adult in the house if I take it. (Great for naps and bedtime.) These anti-emetics are so effective that even after four years of treatments, etc., I have only actually thrown up once, and that was when I was trying to avoid taking Zofran. Silly rabbit.
Heartburn during my IP chemo often felt initially like nausea, but once I started taking Prilosec every morning the nausea disappeared. If you’re feeling nauseous, you might want to start with heartburn meds and escalate if those don’t work (especially as they won’t terrorize your colon like Zofran).
Sleep
One of the best (?) things about cancer is that I’ve been able to catch up on my sleep. Daily naps that I used to feel guilty about when the boys were toddlers are now necessities, and the family accommodates my soporific indulgences with good-natured ribbing, if not stocking feet. Thus I recommend a good pair of earplugs, which make napping anywhere, any time effortless. Next time you’re on an airplane, buy their blanket/earplug/neck pillow set, and you’ll have a Nap Kit ready in case of an emergency. All for less than $10.
Only sometimes you won’t be able to sleep. The steroids that come along with so many treatments can make sleep a tantalizing illusion, even when you’re exhausted. For you, I have no personal recommendation other than Ativan or Tylenol PM, which gave me just enough sleepy oomph to drift off and ignore my lower-back pain last spring. I’m sure there are better options out there, I just haven’t needed them myself – I hear Ambien is fantastic.
That seems to have exhausted my expertise for meds of all sorts. I can’t believe that we spend time talking about these issues, but cancer babes (and dudes) have to stick together and get through this. I’d love to hear about your favorites. Never know when I might need to use them, right?
How To Help A Cancer Patient, Part I
How To Help A Cancer Patient, Part II
Cancerversary
A lot can happen in four years. A college education. Marriage and a baby. A vast improvement in a hack tennis-player’s backhand (I hope).
A complete rearrangement of priorities, expectations, and attitudes. Oh, and internal organs.
Four years ago today I had my first surgery. Apparently, everyone but me knew it was going to be cancer. Not sure whether I was naïve or doing ostrich impressions, but there it is. The world changed.
I’d love to give you a neat list of all the things that I’ve learned since 2006. How to look for the silver lining; how to treasure each moment, to live in the present. But most days, I don’t manage to do those things, just like any other person. It’s only in hindsight that I (or anyone else) realize how fun/special/poignant each moment is, good or bad, painful or blissful, alone or together.
I have, however, discovered that inside my laissez faire, go-with-the-flow semi-slacker self lies a bit of a lioness, fiercely protecting my family from harm and loss and managing to eke out a few more years for myself in the process. Revelatory? Possibly. Hard? Definitely. I cry every week, but that’s still outweighed by the laughter. Which is actually a pretty good measure of any life, sick or well.
Here’s to four more. Thanks for listening.
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.
The Carcinista 
