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Saturday, April 26, 2014

So, bald...so bald.

I said I'd keep you posted at the end of Breaking Up With My Hair: maybe I jumped the gun, shaving my head - there is still plenty of stubble. Or would it have looked skimpy, and pasted on by now? 

Bald is both better and worse than I'd ever expected. Why do many things in life turn out that way?

Better: when a hot flash flashes, no big deal. Chemo stirs up hormones, starting a dance; flashes come mostly at night, and without layers of steamy hair, I'm quickly cooled. Showers are fast; so little to do! Hats and scarves prove exciting, challenging, altering, worth the effort. 

Worse: I don't feel like me. No, that isn't true. I FEEL like me; I don't look like me. I look like a bald man. I see this in the mirror sometimes: 


The other morning, dear husband walked in (I was in a chair, in my pink robe, huddled over my computer) and said I looked like Pema Chodron:

Both of these people are lovely; I just never thought I'd resemble them. 

Confronting my whole face is surprising, confusing. Hiding behind hair for years, it was rarely all out there at once. Now, no hiding. 

This wouldn't be bad for like a week. But this will probably be the case until Christmas or so, when I might maybe have something like hair, to be determined. I'll keep you posted. 




Friday, April 25, 2014

Two roads...

When a crisis comes along, roads diverge, reflection is inevitable  – as when my late husband died suddenly, and five years of achieving shared dreams diverged in one horrifying minute.  After reflecting, I sold the farm, boarded the horses, moved to Annapolis, and went back for a St John’s grad degree in the Great Books, seeking answers to the Great Questions: the good, the meaning of life, higher powers, purpose, desires, reality – all good stuff worthy of reading, sharing the Great Conversation with like minded scholars. Life-altering results ensued: a vocation, from vocatus, a calling. 

This cancer allows me two privileges I didn’t have then: I can control the process of the crisis, rather than being the victim of the uncontrollable, and I am privileged to have at hand the love and support of both my son and my husband, two deeply kind men who feed my soul, stretch my mind, play me music, and make me laugh. I have a flow of kindness coming from the most loving of friends and family, lifting me in myriad ways: flowers, food, handmade hats, silky scarves, gifts of prayers, poetry and service, baskets and bags of comfort and joy. I can take all this rich privilege and help myself to heal.  I use "privilege" intentionally - as defined: "something regarded as a rare opportunity and bringing particular pleasure."


And that, as Frost says, has made all the difference.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

The "C" Word

It’s 4:30 in the morning, and I’m worrying about Amish carthorses. 

I didn’t get to the mistreated carthorses directly. Before that came the lost Chihuahua found running up the road, skinny and huge eyed, probably confused as hell. 

Before that was the report that my child has been getting some C’s at school. My guilt at not paying more attention lately to his homework or studying looms large. What kind of educator am I; like the shoemaker whose kids have holes in their shoes?

But today, he is leaving for Costa Rica, a ten-day trip without me, and yesterday, the woman cutting his hair, who comes from Korea, was almost weeping as she told me about the ferry that sank, full of school kids on a traditional Korean class trip. Hundreds of children, from the same classes at the same school, from the same town, now simply gone. My heart groans at the horror of this. It is so ominous to hear it, the evening before he leaves with his classmates.

Children, classmates, Costa Rica, C’s, Chihuahua, carthorses…I don’t have to be an analyst to see the connections of all these C words.  My own C word, the word people used to whisper, hangs there, a conundrum in the midst of it all.

For me, my 56 years would suffice, and I know my dear husband would manage if he lost me, just as I did when I lost my spouse. But because of my son, only 14, letting this take me is non-negotiable, not until he is grown. That is, somehow, a comfort.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Hit pause...

For the last fifteen years, I've hustled for things: degrees, jobs, certifications, grants, awards, income, a home, my child's education. Never once have I regretted the choices I've made: to go back to school, get into this profession, raise my son on my own, valuing his education. Even when I so happily married my dear husband, in December, I never felt I would back off pushing, day after day, to learn more, find new ways to teach, create new projects, new challenges for my own learning, and for my son's.

That was then; this is now.

Six weeks after the wedding, just into the Spring semester, when that very young doctor sadly said that I had cancer, one of those movie sound-effect screeching brakes went off in my head. It went off, I noted it, and then I ignored it.

It doesn't matter, I thought. I can come back fast after surgery, get all my work done online, miss some office hours, maybe a class or two, but keep pushing. At the time, doctors were telling me, "oh, a lumpectomy, some radiation, Tamoxifen for five years." Not too disruptive. Just keep pushing.

Then things got rockier. The sentinel nodes were positive. Some other things were also not so good - numbers and letters. Staging: 2B. Not not 2B. More surgery to take more nodes. Oh, wait, a black spot on my shin; yes, that's a melanoma, we need to take lots more shin, maybe skin graft. While we are in, we will put in a chemo port.

Finally, after the second surgery, there was a day I felt I simply couldn't take it. I'd been hurting for months. I palpably realized how someone gives up. I thought of just refusing any more treatment and going into a hospice (which I pictured like a rambling, white country house with wicker wheelchairs, peaceful, birds chirping).

From where I am now, some weeks later, this sounds ridiculously dramatic. Obviously I was worn out, drugged up, and needed to stay in bed. And I did. What I came away with after that, and after the first round of chemo, is that I can pause the hustle. "Give pause" is a rich phrase; something that gives one pause is notable, remarkable, profound. Pushing has its place; so does pausing.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Breaking up with my hair.

The one thing everyone seems to know about chemo is that the receiver goes bald. This one side effect of many is most visible, and it flouts our fundamental concept of femininity.

I had a friend, years back, who would shave her head a few times a year to celebrate leaving her patriarchal marriage for a woman. Her husband always insisted she have long flowing hair. She jettisoned the hair and the husband for happiness.  

Now I  have a young friend who shaves her glorious head when she wishes for change, most recently after a breakup. It is, it seems, a liberation and an expression of control, both things women struggle with in their lives.  She takes my hand and rubs it over her stubble, sleek as silk, warm and cozy as a puppy. 

My hair has been a friend and a bane at once. Presumptions are made about blonds; I've offered students a point of extra credit if they can tell me a blond joke that makes me laugh. I seek to exploit the stereotype, mocking my occasional blond behavior. But I have always been aware that I live in a culture that rewards my straight blond hair. I have probably gotten away with things I shouldn't have, more than a few speeding tickets in my youth, better seats on planes in my business travel days, and probably many a thing I wasn't even conscious of, like better grades and jobs. 

So becoming bald will be revelatory, much like when the right side of my face suddenly caved in, paralyzed by a rare form of shingles that attacked my facial muscles. I learned fast how someone who looks and sounds funny can be treated. But I also learned about the random compassion of strangers and near strangers; living in a tiny Scottish village at the time, I was prayed for, smiled at, and given the choicest fish by the fishmonger who drove around town twice a week, honking near my door. The Arbroath smokies I was sold were the plumpest and juiciest, and my cod was practically wiggling. 

Becoming bald will have its lessons, too. I know I will miss running my hands through my hair when I'm bored or flirting, and will have to seek new ways to express a few things. Unlike my sudden facial paralysis, I'm gradually breaking up with my hair, being nice to it one minute, and distaining it the next, putting a bit of distance between us so that when it starts falling onto the computer keyboard, I can walk in and shave it off, remorseless. 

I'll let you know how it goes. 



Tuesday, April 8, 2014

"How is your son handling it?"

Last evening:
Love Child (LC): Mom, did you get that medication permission slip for my trip to Costa Rica?
Me: I gave it to you last week!
LC:  Hmmm...where is it?
Me: Ack!  I had to take it to the doctor! I had to get it signed! I had to pick it up! I put in in an envelope with Mr. Steinberger's name on it and gave it to you!
LC: And you did all that with CANCER!  Here it is. I'll give it to him tomorrow....thank you.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Just found this. Charles Bukowski:

For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can’t readily accept the God formula, the big answers don’t remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God.
We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state and our educational system.
We are here to drink beer.
We are here to kill war.
We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
We are here to read these words from all these wise men and women who will tell us that we are here for different reasons and the same reason.

Wanting great food, but...

Traveling through the cancer/food blogs led me to a range of ideas; I found this sunshiny chef writer, Rebecca Katz. http://rebeccakatz.com/  Her site says: "the science & alchemy of yum." It says she is "an MS, author, educator, and culinary translator." (I have to think about that last bit.)

I saw this creation, poached coconut ginger salmon: http://rebeccakatz.com/category/protein-building-foods/



I thought how much I might like to make that creation. Then I read the blurb. It says it's infused with lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves.  

Now, I do love them both, and in the past, I grew huge lemongrass plants. But I don't have anything like that now, and they don't sell lemongrass at the Giant grocery store, and definitely not the Kaffir lime leaves. I'd have to drive out to that "international market" that really is Asian, and see if they had some. It's not on the way to anywhere. 

So the stress of finding what it is I'd need in Fredericksburg, Virginia, while I'm feeling pretty punk, off and on, from chemo, means there is not much likelihood of me getting this on the stove. 

Maybe if I lived in NYC again, and kaffir lime leaves were on every street corner...

So, FOOD?

Lots of STUFF written. What's useful?

http://www.npr.org/2014/04/07/295800503/chemo-can-make-food-taste-like-metal-heres-help

http://youtu.be/afVXfM-Jtb8

http://www.livestrong.com/article/288040-nutritional-drinks-or-powders-for-cancer-patients/

http://www.livestrong.com/article/329102-protein-and-chemotherapy/

http://www.livestrong.com/article/347549-easily-digested-foods-for-cancer-patients/

http://www.livestrong.com/article/337720-foods-that-taste-good-to-chemotherapy-patients/

Sunday, April 6, 2014

What came next:

So after biopsies, two rounds of surgery: lumpectomy, lymph node dissections, and an extra fillip: excision of a melanoma on my shin. Implant of a port for chemo.

Chemo: a frontier. Unknowns right, left, forward. Steroid highs, hormone flushes, aliens rumbling around every organ, taste buds blown. Body earthquake.

Flows of kindness, flows of love, from so many. Weeping with the knowledge that this is undeserved.

Weeping with frustration; I'm not the woman I'm used to. This woman is flawed, probably her own fault, by truly bad habits and behavior. No kidding oneself; cells don't lie.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

In the beginning...

I got married on December 15th, 2013.

On January 31, 2014, I was told I have breast cancer. It was a short honeymoon...

I'm 56. I have a fourteen year old son. I have my parents. I have a job I love. I have friends I cannot imagine not having. So I'm going at this the best way I can, my way.

When I start a new class at the college where I teach, I always refer to it as an adventure. An adventure isn't always great, and it doesn't always go where we hope it will go. But there is always something to be learned, and something to be gained by having taken it. Many times, there are unforeseen, unexpected riches. So I'm calling this my Breast Cancer (BC) Adventure.