Category Archives: Breast Cancer Humour

50 Gray

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No, this is not a post about Fifty Shades of Grey. My sister-in-law gave me that book for my birthday and I haven’t gotten into it yet. But apparently the whole thing is bondage and sex, which she must feel I could use some of at the moment.

Rather, this is about the planning session I attended this morning for my radiotherapy treatments. One “gray,” which was defined in honour of Louis Harold Gray, is the absorption of one joule of energy, in the form of ionising radiation, per kilogram of matter. It just so happens that my prescribed dose is 50 gray, delivered in 25 sessions. It’s bound to be loads more fun than mummy (that’s mommy if you are in America — I am not making a reference to dead ancient Egyptians) porn, delivered in 500 some odd pages. Not.

So I left my house at about 9:10 am and in it FIVE girls (my kids and my good friend’s three kids, because my friend had a doctor’s appointment at that same time and needed childcare), the housekeeper and the nanny.

For once in my life I left enough time to take the tube. And I even brought a book so I would have something to do on the tube. On the platform after exiting at Warren Street I caught site of the very nice woman and fellow survivor I had met while getting my nails done a few weeks ago (remember her from Why I’m Lucky?) and I even remembered her name. Is that proof enough for you that I don’t have chemo brain? I called out, she turned and we ended up walking all the way to the place together. She’d been there, you see. Been there; done that.

The planning session consisted of meeting with a radiographer (or whatever the appropriate term is) for an initial Q&A, during which I always ask about a billion questions and make things take twice as long. I can’t help it. Inquiring minds want to know.

Prior to that I was greeted by two very pleasant, well-mannered ladies who offered me a cappuccino and even took and rinsed out my thermos, which contained a yucky coffee I had brought from home and wanted to discard because I had inadvertently grabbed the housekeeper’s coffee and it had sugar in it. Blech. Taste bud shock. You would never get this service in the US. Would you? Tell me where if I am wrong; I’d love to know.

Then I went into the scan room where the team positioned me on this table with my arms above my head and then drew all over me and placed wires and whatnots on me and took measurements. Laser beams from the ceiling made marks on me so that they could tell if I was properly aligned. Pretty cool, really. There were three or four ladies with one dude in charge of the proceedings.

Here is a thought. The dude was young and good-looking, and there I was disrobed from the waist up, with my weird “newbs” out, and I didn’t even feel the slightest bit self-conscious. All modesty has gone right out the window with this thing. In fact I was making them all crack up. After my oncologist’s radiographer had put ink and wires all over me, she snapped a couple of photos of the area and I said “this isn’t exactly the nude photo shoot I had been dreaming of… but it will have to do.” She also asked me where I was from and when I indicated I had spent a good deal of time in Manhattan having grown up in Connecticut and been most recently from Boston she wanted to know if we really used the word “smock” in New York. “What?” I said. “Smock,” she repeated. I said I had no idea what she was talking about. Then she said that her husband had bumped someone at the airport and the man had called him “a smock.” Ha ha. “Oh yes,” I replied. “I believe the term you are looking for is ‘Schmuck,’ not ‘smock.'” Now if that doesn’t make you laugh you are truly brain-dead. The English. Good grief.

Anyhow then they took all that crap off me and did the CT scan — it was very quick. Following that, one of the radiographers made three small tattoos on my skin with a blueish ink. One in between my “boobs” and one on either side of my body on the rib cage. That helps them line me up with the lasers and make sure that I am positioned correctly for all radiation sessions. Although I wasn’t deliriously happy about being tattooed and having yet another reminder of all this cancer shit, I figured it made sense to let them do their thing so they get it right. Over time I won’t mind these marks much. They are just little blueish freckles.

After all the fun was over I had another session with a nurse who talked to me about potential side effects, mainly fatigue and skin effect (burning, blistering and breakdown — the three “B’s”). She indicated that the skin reactions are cumulative. Usually the skin doesn’t react right away. It generally happens after about two plus weeks in. I am hoping that this lovely 10% calendula cream called My Girls Cream (tee hee) that was sent to me by a fellow survivor in the US helps me sail through the treatments without too much burning or skin breakdown. Those photons can be mighty hard on a girl (or a guy for that matter).

Then I was done. Feeling pretty good about the whole morning. Not so long; not so bad.

Until I got home and found out that the five little devils had made two holes in my girls’ bedroom walls. The two five-year-olds barricaded themselves in Charlotte’s room and went at this rather soft part of the wall (I don’t know why it is soft but it is) with a pair of scissors and by the time it was discovered had hammered about a four-inch-high narrow gash in the wall out of which dust, dirt and debris (the three “D’s”) was falling out and staining the carpet (thank God for replaceable carpet tiles).

Meanwhile on the other side of the wall, the big girls had exacerbated a small dent that had already been in Isabel’s wall, which now also had the three D’s coming out of it.

All I could think was WTF. Are you kidding me? My girls are lucky I am too weak to give them a good beating. I told Bill about the episode in an email and of course he thought it was mostly funny. Which I suppose it is, in the long run. But seriously, holes in the wall? I told them if they want to fuck up their own house when they are adults they can do so but until then this behaviour is 100% unacceptable.

Here I thought the hardest part of my day was having radiation planning. But it wasn’t. I guess that is something to be thankful for in itself, no? After lunch, at which no one was allowed to get dessert (duh), we went home and things improved. My girls read and did art projects and ended the evening by putting on bathing suits and 3D glasses, getting beach towels and pretending to sun bathe (it was neither warm nor sunny enough for such) in the garden. And I retaliated by whipping up a killer marinara sauce (no recipe) in which I hid an entire zucchini. My kids hate zucchini. I still haven’t told them they ate it right up. Little blighters. Ha ha.

Zero Plus Seven

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Here we are seven days after my last chemotherapy treatment. I figure I have about another week or so of current side effects settling down and maybe a few new ones popping up and then I am on the downhill road to recovery from that mess.

Right now I am experiencing one of my least favourite, yet still manageable, symptoms. Pain under my finger nails. It makes it hard to do things with my hands, like open bottle caps and fire handguns and such. It is an annoying reminder that my body is still processing the last of the poison.

But to know that this is it, the last time, is truly a great feeling. I figure in a few days some dermatological nonsense will pop out somewhere and following that I will be pretty much home free.

Just in the nick of time too. My remaining eyebrows and lashes are getting pretty lonely and they would like to invite their friends to come back and play. I have given up on mascara and now just do eyeliner right in the lash line so I don’t look too much like my eighty-three-year-old father (sorry, Dad, you still look good, but I am forty-three years your junior and female and it isn’t the look I’m going for).

That and I fill in the holes in my eyebrows with an eyebrow pencil, which I have never previously had to do. Hell, I didn’t even own an eyebrow pencil before. I’m getting pretty good at it but it isn’t a skill I’d like to continue to hone. Some people say that post chemo their lashes and brows never really came back as thick as they were before. With my luck that will happen yet I will grow back a raging moustache and side burns and some industrial leg hair.  Attractive.

Wanna hear the latest thing? My dermatologist wants to biopsy the shingles scar on my head. Just in case. She said she isn’t thrilled with how it has healed. Really? Give a girl a break. I have been on chemo and it was a really nasty scab… so it’s still a bit discoloured. Geez. But okay cut me again. That and I am having a dark mole on my right forearm removed and biopsied. If that fucker even thinks about coming back abnormal I am going to go postal.

In other news we made a delicious recipe from The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen tonight. A Mediterranean salad with lentils, cucumber, red pepper, mint, parsley, a little feta and some other exciting ingredients. That and some super fresh melt-in-your-mouth halibut from the mean fishmonger (see All Dressed Up and No Place To Go if you aren’t familiar with the mean fishmonger). The last time Agnieszka (our nanny) was there though they smiled at her (both of them!) and she didn’t even have to work for it. We might get to the point where we take bets on what mood they will be in on any given day.

Smile or no smile I have been eating more fish. And I need to eat still more. Including the oily varieties that are crammed with Omega 3 fatty acids and come in tins and are quite fishy. I need to embrace the mackerel and the sardine. And I can actually handle that, though no one else may be able to handle my killer breath after such a repast. Aw, well. Not all of me can be sexy all the time.

Tomorrow morning I have my CT scan and tattoos (yes they make little tattoos like freckles so they know where to line up the machine every time) for my radiation. That ought to be a barrel of laughs. Maybe I will have them do some extra tattoos while they are at it. Submit your proposals now for what it should say on the back of my head before it’s too late and my hair has grown back. (I was thinking in terms of Leave My Fucking Shingles Scar Alone or something equally catchy).

Well, I have to get into that third Hunger Games book now and eat a piece of dark chocolate for medicinal purposes. Have a good night.

Kids Say the Damnedest Things

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Yesterday I had the best day. I accompanied my five-year-old and her grade on a field trip to the American School’s very large park in north London where the kids watered, raked, weeded and played until they were dirtier than dirt. I was the official class chaperone.

The weather held and was terrific. A cool breeze at first and some light haze but that burned off, giving way to a peach of a sunshine and a nice, dry, warm day.

On days like that (when I have something in the morning, or in this case, all day, at the school), I hop on the morning bus with my younger daughter. There’s space, so why not? My daughter was so excited that I was coming she was positively quivering with energy. And couldn’t suppress a smile to end all smiles. Those are some of the best things. That delight and excitement in a young child, especially when it is due to your very presence.

Being outdoors with the pre-K (called K1 at ASL) and their teachers was one of the highlights of my year. I loved observing and getting to know some of the other children in my daughter’s class and the other K1 class and it was wonderful to spend some QT (quality time, come on) with the teachers as well, particularly since the end of the school year is upon us and soon they will be teaching new little persons.

But one of the best parts was experiencing the funny things kids say. They are just so honest and there isn’t a lot of psycho-drama. Around noon I found myself eating lunch in a small group of girls. One girl looked at me (I had on a leopard print scarf — of course I did) and remarked “why are you bald?” I thought it was interesting that she assumed I was bald under the scarf. How did she know there wasn’t hair under there?  I thought about my response. Being careful, because this wasn’t my kid. “Well, I had to take medicine that made my hair fall out,” I responded. “Why would you want to do that?” The kid asked. “Exactly,” I thought.

So excellent. And a very good point.

After the gardening, snacks, lunch, nature walks and play ground time were all over, and after the bus ride back to school, during which my kid almost dozed off, so exhausted was she from the rigours of the day, we re-entered the classroom. I hung out and observed the kids do their thing, including practicing for a big concert that’s happening tomorrow morning. Guess I’ll be back on that school bus real soon…

The teachers put on some special music at the very end of the day and the kids started to dance. I got into it with the class and the teachers and shook my thang. I love to dance and i am not afraid of making an ass of myself in front of little (or big) people. So I did the twist and boogied and shimmied away with them. The kids found this hilarious and were laughing and dancing with me.

That’s when Charlotte announced cheerfully: “my mom can’t shake her boobs anymore.” Oh yeah? Just wait Char, they’ll be bouncing again one day. Not much, but a little. Let me just finish killing it and then we can get to the fun bouncy part of this adventure.

Kids say the damnedest things. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My Stay Puft Marshmallow Man

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The end of the school year is drawing to a close. And with it the end of chemotherapy. You may think that this is cause for celebration, and for many reasons, it is. Only somehow that isn’t entirely how I’m feeling.

It has been a remarkable year at the American School in London. What my girls have learned, how they have grown and what they have accomplished in about eight months astounds me. Living here has opened up a new world for them and allowed them to gain perspective that comes, I believe, only with the experience of living abroad. Once they transitioned to their new school, having made friends and gotten to know their teachers, they blossomed like well-tended flowers in a hot house. They are lush and gorgeous and powerful. I stand in awe of them.

One reason I’m sad the school year is almost over is that the girls must let go of this year’s teachers and classes and plunge into the great unknown of the summer. But I think I am the one who will have the most trouble letting go, really. The school has provided stability and routine but it has also served as a community of friends, teachers and other staff who poured forth so much help and support that my cup literally ran over and I started to feel guilty about all the meals I was receiving. Guilty that I wasn’t unwell enough to need or accept this help. That it should go to someone more needy, more deserving. Like I was a faker.

The other reason is that the end of school means the end of chemo. What? You say. The end of chemo is cause for celebration! Cause for champagne and party hats! Right. But the strange thing is, having focused so much of my energy on getting through chemo, it has become my routine, my life, my situation. The end will be one big boring-ass anticlimax. And it will mark the beginning of a new era.

The new era has two flaws: (1) it will be filled with the monotony of daily (or at least five days a week) trips to radiation; and (2) there will no longer by any cancer-fighting toxins coursing through my veins, seeking out and destroying any rogue cell daring to remain in my body.

On a lighter note, it will also mean the end of posts about what I will wear to chemo (see What I Wore To Chemo Today and Party in the Chemo Suite). “What I Wore to Radiation Today” and “Party in the Radiation Room” just don’t have the same ring to them. And because radiation will be five times weekly for five weeks, could get old rather fast.

Don’t get all depressed on me. I am not really sorry that chemo is almost over. I never ever want to do it again. It has been, for lack of a better word, disgusting. Still now, about six weeks after my last dose of AC (doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide), the former of which is, disturbingly, bright red, I hesitate when I reach for the mug in the cabinet with the red apple on it. I prefer its green, yellow, pink, blue or orange sibling. I’ll get over it though. And sometimes I use that red one intentionally just to show it who’s boss.

Chemo will end and then radiation will be over in the flashiest of flashes. And that will be that. There I will stand, Emily Rome, breast cancer survivor, having completed almost the whole shebang (there’s the matter of being on Tamoxifen for five years and more reconstructive surgery later this year… but I’m not too fussed over that at the moment).

And what then? What will I do with myself once these treatments are over when thoughts regarding their effectiveness begin to fester?

That’s when it hit me. Why it is so hard to have or to have had a life threatening illness.

Anyone at any time can be walking down the street and be struck by a falling branch, felled by an undiagnosed congenital heart defect, hit by the proverbial bus. And although these things can happen, normally we don’t spend a whole heap of time worrying about these theoretical unknown causes of our death (unless we are of the unusually morbid persuasion). Because they are theoretical. And unknown.

But when you have something that you can name, it becomes this thing, this presence. Even if it isn’t going to get you, it follows you around like luggage.

Did you ever see the movie Ghostbusters? If you are American and you haven’t and you are over the age of thirty then you are a loser. Anyhow whatever your excuse I don’t care — go rent it right now and watch it. Oh — I like my popcorn buttered and salted, thanks.

You know the scene, after the dumbass EPA lawyer (William Atherton) has let all of the ghosts out of containment and all hell’s breaking loose and the end of the world is nigh. The Ghostbusters (Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson) are on top of 55 Central Park West and have been instructed by Gozer to choose a destructor (like, of the world). So Venkman (Bill Murray) orders the Ghostbusters to clear their heads and not think of anything so that the destructor can take no form. No sooner have the words left his lips, however, than Gozer announces that the choice has been made. It seems Ray (Dan Aykroyd) didn’t clear his mind at all but rather thought of something that couldn’t possibly harm them: to wit, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Oh humour me and watch THIS.  Don’t you just love the (Chinese?) subtitles?

Well then. All that was a rather clumsy, long-winded way of trying to explain that when you have a life-threatening illness, even though you might live until you are 99 or get hit by that bus at 25, the destructor has been named. It has been named and it’s in the room with you. Somewhere. Forever.

At times you won’t think of it at all. You’ll forget about it. Other times it will rear its ugly head and be all up in your grill. Big, scary and possibly wearing a sailor outfit.

Cancer is my Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

But just because it has been named doesn’t mean it’s going to get me. Nope.

I know just what to do after school lets out and chemo and radiation are over and I’m just chilling with my new ultra-short hair-do, maybe on a beach in Cape Cod, if all goes well.

I’m going to have me a fuckin’ marshmallow roast to end all roasts. I like mine burnt to a crisp. I like to kill ’em before I eat ’em.

Now if you’ll excuse me. I’ve got to see a man about a beach bonfire permit.

 

Party Dress and Party Hair

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I was thinking back today to my thirtieth birthday party in Manhattan. It seems like ages ago. Bill and I were working as M&A associates at large NY law firms at the time and we hadn’t any kids. We decided to have a small party in our 800 (on a good day) square foot apartment on 26th Street and Sixth Avenue. Back when the Chelsea Flea Market was just across the street, now long since displaced by another high-rise apartment building.

Here I sit ten years later, faced with trying to decide what to wear to my fortieth birthday party this evening (celebrated a week late so it wouldn’t be two days after chemo). For the past couple of days I have half-heartedly shopped for dresses but for some reason I just haven’t been in a shopping mood. I ain’t feeling it.

That doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to my party. Au contraire. I am totally in a party mood. We are dining at an Italian restaurant (Zafferano) in Knightsbridge. We’ve hired the private dining room in the wine cellar for a small group.

Anyhow, in weighing my “hair” and dress options for tonight I couldn’t help but think back ten years ago to that thirtieth birthday. To a younger, different, cancer-free me. I love any excuse to dress up, so I took the long brunette extensions I had used for my wedding up-do (you realise that those Oscar-worthy do’s involve extensions don’t you? No one has that much hair…) and had a hairdresser create a high, slicked-back ponytail for the occasion.

I wore a knee-length beige, slightly see-through, ruched Diane Von Furstenberg dress with spaghetti straps. I might still have it somewhere. That and a groovy vintage gold-tone necklace from a secondhand shop on 23rd Street. I know I still have the extensions, but that concept wouldn’t work out so well at present, would it?

So what should I wear? An old dress or a new dress (and if new time is running out… the party is in fewer than four hours)? If old what will still look good? There are a number of dresses from before but I haven’t tested them all with my “interim set.” And what about the matter of my head? Do I go bald and beautiful or scarf it or maybe try the little black hat with a flower? Or should I bring Gabriella (read Cold Cap: From Rapunzel to Rambo if you don’t know Gabriella) as my second date?

Decisions, decisions. Whatever I choose I will let you know. I really need a killer ensemble.

Because I plan to party hard tonight.

 

Upchuck

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Tuesday afternoon I got a call from the school nurse that my older daughter was in her office complaining of a stomach ache. It was right before my younger child was about to be dropped at home by the school bus, so I couldn’t leave home and come to the school. Had to tell the older child to sit tight and take her regular bus home. She was a good sport. In the English spirit she kept a stiff upper lip and made it home mostly in one piece.

I gave her a mild dinner and by the end of the night she was doing fine and happily went off to school the next morning. The Force is strong with that child.

Yesterday morning I was scrambling to get ready for a breakfast to benefit breast cancer in Clapham (southwest London) where it is très français, hosted by my beautiful and effervescent new French friend and fellow survivor. The phone rang. It was the school nurse again.

This time it was the younger child, who had thrown up on the school steps after the bus ride to school. She tends to get motion sickness from time to time (like the day after we arrived in London last summer when I had the swell idea to take the kids on the double-decker Original London bus tour, during which Charlotte threw up right on me at point-blank range and when asked why she didn’t warn me, responded: “the throw-up was the warning”). Anyhow, I didn’t think much of it, particularly since Charlotte told the nurse she felt fine après puke and wanted to stay at school.

She made it through school all right but of course she was not fine. Duh. She had the same 24-hour tummy virus her sister had had the day before. At Charlotte’s swimming lesson, she started complaining of tummy pain and then had to be carried half way home (thank God my law school roommates are in town visiting and had come to the lesson, since I could not have carried Charlotte and my purse and the backpack with swimming gear all at once).

Once we were home, my friend bathed the child to help spare my ailing hands (dry and hyper-pigmented with two very slow-healing boo-boos — a mess). These people flew all the way to London for a few days without their four kids and they voluntarily came to a children’s swimming lesson and then had to carry and bathe a 45-pound kid (that’s three stones and a pebble). Or maybe they just really wanted to see me bald in person.

After the bath, Charlotte put herself to bed at 6:00 pm — when I went to check on her and offer her some plain pasta for dinner, she was already fast asleep. I thought maybe I hadn’t heard the last of her but I went downstairs to hang out with my friends and get Isabel some dinner. Charlotte didn’t make a peep during the entire visit. “Think she’ll go twelve hours?” My friend asked. “Maybe,” I said.

The minute they left the house, of course, my husband, who had come home early to hang out, heard crying and raced upstairs. Sure enough, Charlotte had woken up and vomited all over her bed. I mean all over. It was on her pyjamas, pillow case and pillow, stuffed animals, duvet cover, bottom sheet, side of the bed and rug. And it was some nasty smelling vomit, too. Really acidic. The worst, I do believe, I have ever smelled. Thank goodness parents are immune to their own kids’ vomit.

We started the tedious process of removing all offending items from the room and balling them up in preparation for washing. Bill carried the bulging wad of ickiness downstairs while I somewhat creatively remade the bed, throwing in a waterproof zip-up pillow case, which was leftover from being a maternity patient, on the fresh pillow for good measure.

When this was finished and Charlotte was safely tucked away it occurred to me that I didn’t mind at all. I didn’t mind cleaning up the throw-up. When you are a parent you don’t really mind these things. You clean up seemingly infinite poop and pee and puke. I might have whistled as I worked had it not been getting late.

I’ll tell you why.

Because I was well enough to help her myself. I wasn’t lying in bed downstairs while all of this went down. I was right there on the front lines, wiping her face, picking up chunks and opening the window to air the room.

Please understand: I know that I need help. I needed help yesterday at swimming when I couldn’t carry Charlotte and was trying to save my hands by not doing a bath. I need help all the time and have learned to ask for it when needed and accept it when offered. And I am not a person used to getting a great deal of help — or at least I wasn’t until now. You become accustomed to it because you have no choice.

There was just something about taking care of my child, changing her bed and making her clean and comfortable and safe that made me think: Boy am I fortunate to have been able to clean up that puke. I reflected on all the times we did it in the middle of the night when she was a little baby and a toddler. Padding into her room together to assess the damage and then stripping the crib and starting midnight laundry.

Those aren’t bad memories. They are priceless. They are killer.

And they made me think of all the moms and dads who are ill who are not able to care for their own children. And how hard that is.

I am sending them all my love right now. Won’t you join me?

Party in the Chemo Suite

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I’m coming to you live from the chemo suite, people. So inspired am I.

Today there are a lot of drawn curtains (lame — I like to spy on my fellow sufferers and make faces at them) and someone is hacking up a lung (makes you want to run out and get a big juicy steak, doesn’t it, and eat it off the floor). Unacceptable. What this place needs is a couppla disco balls. Maybe a conga line. The choreography might get a little complicated with all of us on a drip, which hangs from this metal coat rack thingy on wheels, but it’s nothing me and Paula Abdul couldn’t work around.

My blood work came back and I am — naturally — good to go.  White blood cells up from my immune booster that I jab into my stomach the day after every treatment. Actually I kind of enjoy that. I should have been a nurse (well I do share a birthday with Florence Nightingale and that’s about all we have in common) or maybe a torturer.

Now they are pumping me full of steroids and then antihistamine (like Benadryl) and anti tummy upset and lots of sodium chloride mixed in to flush the line, all to ward off any unpleasant reaction to the Taxol. A lot of people are allergic to Taxol, which is derived from the Pacific yew, by the way. Did you think that everything “natural” was good for you? Don’t be a dumbass. What about poisonous mushrooms? One bite and you’re dead.

I don’t care for the Benadryl. Although it doesn’t put me to sleep (this is because I am defective and cannot nap during the day no matter what they do to me), it makes me a little sluggish, so I am chugging a flat white (I described this in What I Wore To Chemo Today so you had better catch UP), which my awesome friend Paige brought me from Gail’s, my fave coffee shop and bakery. I am also chugging tea. It’s England so everyone drinks tea constantly — it’s really true. And water. This makes for a lot of trips to the loo wheeling my coat rack to and fro. But it’s good to take in fluids. Flush the system. Stretch the legs. Sashay around in my absurd outfit.

Ooh goody. My machine is beeping. That means the bag of sodium chloride is empty and it will soon be time for the poison. Linda, Uma, Katniss? Get ready, girls. Get your gold cuffs and your Hattori Hanzo and your bow and arrows because we’re gonna fire it up, beeyotches.  (Read Chicks I Dig Vol. 1 if this makes no sense to you).

Speaking of artillery, does anyone know where I can get me one of those long leather (nylon would do as well) belts with bullets in it so that I could incorporate that into my outfit? Can you get that shit on Amazon?

So the stuff is going in now, slowly over three hours. I thought I just had a tinge of metal mouth, which I did not experience two weeks ago. It is one of my least favourite side effects so I am plenty pissed off about it. These things can be cumulative. But I ate my lunch and that tasted fine, so maybe I am imagining it. Grr.

My bum is falling asleep. I need to do some gluteal clenches while I’m sitting here. One… two… three…….. Might as well multitask. And this really is the ideal environment for that. I mean, what else can you do? Sit here and think about cancer? Bo-ring. So I write and I talk incessantly when there is someone to listen, and I visualise the chicks I dig doing violence to any remaining cancer cell.

I imagine one trying to flee from Uma’s sword. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, MF. You have met your maker and she happens to be hot. Hot and lethal, that’s a great combination. Oh, sorry, she just eradicated your ass, as lickety-split as she plucked that eyeball out of Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah’s character in Kill Bill), the other eye having been plucked out by Pai Mei, who trained both Driver and Kiddo in martial arts the likes of which I could really get into. It was kind of mean when Kiddo then stepped on the eye-ball and squished it. But I respect that decision.

This is Elle Driver when she is about to try to inject a comatose Beatrix Kiddo with some red shit to kill her for good. I would pluck someone’s eyeball out too if they were standing over me with red shit. That looks just like chemo medicine numero uno, which was that same colour and some really naaaaaaaasty stuff.

On a separate note, Hannah is killing the ole one-eye look, dontcha think? Let’s hope that’s a look I don’t have to rock, but given my retina’s tendency to misbehave I have had to wear the occasional eye patch after a procedure. If it ever happens again I’m going to commission a Louis Vuitton eye patch with my initials on it. Not really, but it would be hilarious to see the salesperson’s reaction. All horrified yet awkwardly trying to be polite, as I stand there looking earnest amidst a sea of shoppers who just want the latest Neverfull. But I digress… blame it on the Benadryl or the chemo or whatever. Though Florence Nightingale did say “I attribute my success to this — I never gave or took any excuse.” So just blame ME. I don’t care.

Three hours after the Taxol drip started I’m outta there. Now I’m back home.

So do you want to see today’s outfit? Come on, do ya? I’m afraid it was not possible to top the last one but I made a valiant effort.

I know, the pic isn’t great quality but I was pretty far away from the computer so deal with it. I like to think of this look as Coco Chanel meets sixties biker chick (the boots have buckles and zip up the back). Badass from the neck down but sort of classy from the neck up. Classy badass. It’s the new thing. My fabulous new French buddy lent me the cute black hat. It has that je ne sais quoi, non? The flower is one of my recent acquisitions from H&M. You don’t have to pay Chanel prices, dear.

Well, now that I have killed it for the sixth time I have to make my meds chart so I don’t do the wrong thing. I have so many pills and fluids in me you could shake me and I’d rattle and slosh. But I am doing fine.

Because today I am one step closer to putting this puppy to bed.

I’ll leave you with one more quote from Florence Nightingale: “How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.” A lot, however, can be done under the spirit of KILLING IT.

So take that, MF.

 

Why Laughter Really is the Best Medicine

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Approaching life with humour is not something that I learned to do. It is something that I have always done, from the time I was a wee one. I cannot take any credit for being that way. It was Mother Nature’s gift.

In fact, I do not know how one can learn to see things through that lens if it doesn’t come naturally, but I suppose it must happen. Maybe on the heels of a life changing event, such as, a-hem, a cancer diagnosis. Any of you who were born all serious and buttoned up who later learned to see the funny in things please pipe up and tell me how that came about (and how it’s working out for you).

Now don’t get me wrong. Not everything is funny. Some things are just plain ole horrible or sad or grotesque or infuriating. And that’s life. But a lot is funny that might not appear to be on the surface. Living life that way is all I have ever known and it is sure one helpful tool when the gauntlet has been thrown down.

Some things would be funny to almost anyone, such as the time my mother and I were in an argument about God knows what (I was a teenager so…) and as things really hottened up I noticed that she had a glob of sour cream on her eyebrow, at which point I burst into laughter and the argument was over.

Other things are funny to one person and absolutely unfunny to the next, such as the time one of my good college friends, Jen, was looking to see if her roommate was in the Georgetown Kinko’s (now FedEx for you youngsters). Squinting to combat the glare, she approached that window slowly but surely until she misjudged and walked right into the plate-glass, slamming her forehead into it, clapping her hand to the area and yelling “ow!” Having seen this unfold (and after making a snap determination that first aid was not required), I fell right on the sidewalk when my knees buckled due to uncontrollable laughter. I know my mother would not have found this funny. But I did. Sorry, Mom.

A third category is things that are probably not very funny to most people, but are to a select few of us weirdos. Like the fact that after brushing off (so to speak) hair loss, deciding to shave my head, and embracing my new look, I promptly got, on the back of my head, simultaneously, a case of the shingles and a red bumpy rash due to being immunosuppressed by the chemotherapy. So I went from being bald and badass to bald and rashy and rather un-badass in a matter of days. Lovely. But to me, kind of funny, because what can you do?

Things brings me to a public service announcement: If you are over a certain age, had the chicken pox as a child and have not been vaccinated for the shingles, you might want to get on that. Shingles isn’t tons of fun, but I was lucky and mine was not that bad, considering that one description I read (on the internet — oops) indicated that the site felt like a hot ice pick was being inserted into it intermittently. That might not have been funny to me either.

So back to humour. Humour is why I am actually looking forward to my sixth chemotherapy treatment tomorrow. When I strode in two weeks ago in my ridiculous leopard-print outfit (see What I Wore To  Chemo Today if you haven’t read it yet), I made a lot of people laugh. And that made me laugh, and made me happy. Then it really wasn’t so bad to be there. It lightened the mood, made us forget a little bit why we were there.

The only thing that isn’t funny about the whole thing is now I feel a mounting pressure to come up with an equally groovy outfit to wear to chemo tomorrow, and I don’t know if I can deliver! So I am going to distract myself by making some cancer-killing roasted Roma tomato soup from The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen, an excellent cook book that my friend Dee  got for me. Whether you need to kill it or just cook up some tasty meals (don’t let the c-word in the title put you off).

Ciao for now.

Eye Bags

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Okay, people. I have serious eye bags. Not acceptable. Despite a generous amount of eye make-up ( I even did in the crease with a darker colour!) I do not look rested and when my husband came home he announced that I looked tired. Not hello, not how are you. Just “you look tired.” Great.

Well that does it. I am going to have to go to bed. Now. Sorry folks but if I try to keep up at this pace I may end up on a drip and I have got to try to stay on schedule. Don’t want to throw things off, screw up all my plans to jet set all over Europe this summer. I wish.

Plus, I have to save up my energy so that I can write a nifty post tomorrow, which, you guessed it, is the day before chemo #6. Sort of snuck up on me there. Time flies when you’re having fun… and I really have been. So. Much. Fun.

I have all sorts of important things to do like plan my next chemo outfit, write a good post about killing it with lots of unnecessary profanity in it, and so on and so forth. And I need to look good, because that is a big part of it. Looking good and feeling good. Or at least as good as possible. Being a cancer patient is easier when people say “you look great!” What have you been doing to your skin? What you don’t want is the dreaded duo: (a) you look tired and (b) you’re too thin.

So you have yourselves a groovy night and if you are having a drinky-poo have one for me too, would you? Because I have to get my beauty sleep.

G’night.

Writer’s Block

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It has occurred to me that at some point I may get writer’s block. In fact, it is almost a sure thing. How could I not at some point struggle with what to write on this blog or how to write it?

I was thinking about that yesterday. Then I considered that, provided I stay on schedule, only one month from today I will receive my last chemotherapy treatment. After which I will have five weeks of radiation, five days a week, which should prove anticlimactic comparatively (from what I have heard). More on that later.

I thought, dang, what if I have nothing interesting to write after chemo is over? No more interesting chemo ensembles (see What I Wore To Chemo Today)… No more entertaining other patients in the chemo suite with my antics and bad behaviour (oh I forgot to tell you that the last time I was there this one dude kept coming up to me and telling me he was really feeling my outfit and he was there with his wife, who was the patient!  Shameless!)… No more bizarre, unexpected “side effects of the week” (more on that later too)…

I mean, every time I gear up for and go to chemo I am inspired to write something. There is a ton about it I haven’t even told you yet and I still have three treatments left. It’s just excellent fodder for the blog. So it will be a real shame when it is all over. Not. Chemo sucks. But I won’t be too hard on it since it is killing the hell out of anything floating around in there that doesn’t belong.

I suppose when I do radiation I can still yell “die, motherfuckers,” and imagine my heroines (see Chicks I Dig Vol. 1) going in there with their signature weapons and obliterating any microscopic cells that dare to remain near the original site of the tumours. (That and cross my fingers that the radiation doesn’t burn my skin too badly and otherwise complicate the final stages of my reconstruction, because in the end I would really like a nice “set” out of all of this nonsense.)

I just don’t want my posts to become boring. Or predictable.

When my hair grows back I won’t be able to write about being bald anymore and all of the interesting things that go with that particular side effect. Or take anymore badass “I’m bald and I’m killing it” pictures. But I suppose I will have been there and done that, so maybe that’s not the worst thing. I mean how many times can I take a picture of my bald self looking pissed off and post it and think “I really like what I’ve done here.” (A lot actually — you should try it sometime it is pretty great.)

Who knows where all this will take me. I just hope that you’ll continue to tag along. I need you. I want you. I have to have you.

Speaking of which where are you right now? Are you in the US or the UK? Kenya or Kuwait? Why do you read this? Do you know me? Did you once? Is or was someone in your life touched by cancer? Are you a survivor? Are you just curious? Tell me… I’ll be right here. Killing it.