keeping abreast | keeping a breast

september welcomes summer in san francisco. the fog disappears and the days are warmer. the natives go wild for it and tourists don’t have to buy cheap fleeces at fishermen’s wharf. as i now spend so much time in our newish house in san francisco’s mission, i realize it’s always sunny in the mission. when the fog is rolling in on ocean beach, i’m sitting in the backyard sunning myself. when the fog horn is blowing under the golden gate bridge, i’m moving my herb plants into the shade for a break. so i haven’t experienced the traditionally foggy summer that i’ve come to love and hate all at the same time, over the past 9 years here.

but in a way, i’ve been still living in the fog. my head, my feelings…all foggy. i see the world through frosted glass. i’m numb. it’s different from the mental sleepiness i still feel from chemo brain. and of all the things i’ve shared with you, admitting this seems like the most difficult.

is it because my body has been through physical hell? is it because i have no estrogen? is it because i don’t sleep through the night with hot flashes every hour on the hour? is it because of the drug cocktail i’m on? is it because 13 women out of the 270 in my support group died of metastatic breast cancer last year? is it because the 2 people i know who died in august, died because of cancer (stupid fucking cancer)? is it because my friend sarah, who is 2 years out of chemo and has 2 small children, was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer last month? is it because a woman, jen, a mother of 1 small child and whose blog i follow here entered hospice for metastatic breast cancer? is it because i have a pet scan tomorrow to make sure i’m not metastatic and to get a baseline for the future? is it because i’m too young to experience such grief in such a condensed way? is it because my heart is too full? is it because when i’m in the office, everyone thinks i’m “better” and i’m “back” because i have hair? is it because everyone thinks i should simply feel thankful to be alive? is it because on tuesday i slept for only 2 hours because of my third hacking upper respiratory infection this year, waited 60 minutes in line at the post office, 45 minutes in line for prescriptions at walgreens, cleaned up cat excrement on the carpet, crashed my computer 3 times, and put dishsoap into the dishwasher only to later walk into a kitchen full of bubbles (that was a doozy of a day but i didn’t cry, laugh, or react much at all…just floated)?

in cheryl strayed’s book wild, she comments that “grief doesn’t have a face.” it doesn’t. i seem to be coping fine but often feel like i’m falling apart, teetering on the edge of a great abyss, floating through life unable to really soak in and appreciate the incredible summer we have had seeing so, so many loved ones…and feeling anger rise up in my throat because i feel unable to  enjoy seeing loved ones. i’m doggy paddling.

the only other way i can think to describe it is like breathing in through your nose versus your mouth. through your nose, you can get a deep gut, lifted diaphragmatic breath. through your mouth, it’s shallow and isolated to your upper chest. i want to be a nose breather, but instead i feel like a mouth breather (a favorite insult of our friend mike m.).before chemo last week, i described my numbness to my oncologist. she knew right what the deal was and commented that i’ve had blinders on much of the past year, marching from chemo round to chemo round to surgery to radiation. now that i have a less regimented life and most of the acute treatment is complete, my blinders are coming off. i have to figure out who i am, what i am, where i find joy again, and what happened. and those answers don’t come easily.

her description was compassionate, honest, and acknowledged my difficult truth. it was refreshing.

as a society, we haven’t caught up to recognizing and accepting that the emotional impact of cancer can be greater than the physical impact…and we all know the physical impact suuuuucks. but, if i get cut open, you understand that i need time to heal. if i am ready to emotionally erupt, you are less understanding and expect me to bounce back quickly or bury it and move forward.

at a BAYS meeting, erin commented that her vision for the next book title might be aftermath. i support it.

my friend susy shared an article about the spoon theory with me, and it really resonated as a way to explain some of what life with an illness is like. you can read it here.  it’s an articulate way of describing how i feel as though i have limited possibilities and limited energy. i’d take it further and say i have limited patience and limited compassion too. and limited tears…they don’t come anymore.

so there it is. it’s out there now. i know that if you’ve never gone through this, you cannot understand, and that’s ok. i cannot get mad at you for not understanding either, although sometimes i want to.  i have found talking with other cancer patients, especially young adults, helps me feel normal, that this is to be expected. a co-worker who is now a friend had cancer when he was very young; we talk a lot about this collateral damage. after sharing his own frustrations about what the reality is for life with cancer, and eventually punching a hole in a wall over other people not understanding, his mom’s advice was “don’t hate, educate.” i like it. so i’m working on getting my story down better, to educate about what this aftermath truly looks like.

i am hopeful that the fog will lift, that i’ll regain my mental ability to focus, to be compassionate, to open my heart, to feel deeply again, and to be present…beyond just being alive.

xom

“i have the biopsy results. it’s not good.”  i was careening up I-280 with the windows down on a sunny northern california afternoon, heading to the appointment to get my biopsy results. the nurse practitioner, irene, from the ob/gyn office called me. the week before, she was the one who confirmed my lump was something she “didn’t like the feeling of” and referred me to get a mammogram immediately.

my d-day, diagnosis day, was one year ago today, august 7.

when irene’s call came in and she got right to the point, i pulled off to the nearest exit and parked on the on-ramp. in the pit of my stomach, i already knew the news but thought hurdling through space at 80mph while hearing the words “you have cancer” probably wasn’t what we’d call “safety first.” she explained the diagnosis of invasive ductal carcinoma and ductal carcinoma in situ. i scrambled for a pen and scratched down then-foreign words. and that’s all she said, really. nothing about prognosis, stage, treatment plans, or whether or not i’d live. just those three little words, “you have cancer” (oh how i wish it were the other, better three little words instead). she wished me good luck and we hung up. i sat tingling, flushed and confused. the noise in my head was a juxtaposition with the stillness around me. for those of you who don’t know I-280, it’s a scenic drive, with coastal hills, dry scrub sagebrush, deer, and sunlight. a warm breathe before the city, especially if the city is foggy.

when i could see through my tears, i started driving again and called my brother lucas. lucas was 1 of the few who knew about what we had been going through. we had to make a gameplan for how to tell my parents. i would be seeing mike in 20 minutes and wanted to tell him in person at the doctor appointment.

i found the lump on my own while in nova scotia working on my MBA. i’ll never know if because i was holed up in a tiny dorm room with only time and spreadsheets and case studies, i found the lump and then it started to hurt. or it started to hurt and because i was holed up in a tiny dorm room with only time and spreadsheets and case studies that i noticed it hurt. i called my doctor the next morning, and she made an appointment for the day after i got back to san francisco, 2 weeks later. the office recommended that if anything changed, to see a doctor immediately in canada. after finding the lump, i jotted off a quick email to mike who was mostly off email that week. when we finally talked, he said, “don’t ever share news like that again with me in an email.” point taken.

the lump felt like my achilles heal. it was that dense. i could grab it and for awhile thought maybe it was just a tendon close to my chest wall or even a rib. because i could move it around, and because it hurt, the frantic googling i did indicated it was probably a cyst. but definitely could be cancer. but cancer usually didn’t hurt. so it was probably a cyst. none of this information prevented me from crying, snotting, howling alone in my tiny dorm room with only time and spreadsheets and case studies. for the next 2 weeks, i went about my business with my fantastic MBA friends, arinola and julia, walked the track, worked on assignments late in the library, ate weird fruit loop concoctions in the cafeteria, and cried when we departed our separate ways for the year. only i was also crying for something else at the same time. i went to illinois for a few days to visit my family. i pretended as though i would be fine, even though i sensed otherwise.

after irene referred me to get a mammogram, the earliest i could get in was 2 days later. mike took me to that appointment and i got my first uncomfortable mammogram experience, being stretched, pulled and squashed like i had never been. the tech was south african and made me feel emotionally comfortable, unbelievably, throughout it all as we talked about her continent and safaris and honeymoons. once the image was clear, i was whisked into an exam room. they wanted to do an ultrasound. it was here that i learned about a second lump that was actually larger and longer, but further recessed in my breast. i also learned some things, in retrospect, that should have confirmed the diagnosis without having to wait for the results. the technician was a breast cancer survivor herself, and she shared how amazing reconstruction is these days and how she had recently had her nipples tattooed on after a mastectomy with reconstruction. clue #1 if my brain was able to keep up with the facts swirling around me.

another doctor came in and informed us of the biopsy they wanted to do. they could squeeze us in later that afternoon. we thought at the time this is how things worked and they wanted to be on the safe side. but again in retrospect, they suspected cancer and wanted to move fast. mike and i went to ella’s, one of our favorite brunch places in the city; it was a quiet lunch and we tried to keep it light, reminiscing about all of our memories in that neighborhood and how incredible the chicken hash is (it is).

i have this medical condition called a vaso-vagal response. it’s triggered by all things medical. when i draw blood, get a shot, and sometimes even get an exam, i get sweaty, light-headed and can pass out as my blood pressure drops. when getting my wisdom teeth out, they had to stop the procedure because my heart rate and blood pressure dropped so significantly, so quickly. i can even have this response to someone else’s medical experience, when witnessing or even hearing about it (sorry, lisa, for that while we were at lauriol plaza in DC!)

i started to get worked up about getting a biopsy. i reckoned it was going to be painful, and the unknown is frightening. the doctor extracted cells from each lump with 2 separate biopsies, inserting little titanium biopsy clips as she pulled cells out. it does hurt, but perhaps the bigger issue is the loud pop the biopsy machine makes when it does its job. the tech held my hand and talked me off my sweaty fuzzy-headed ledge, and i didn’t pass out (meaghan – 1; vaso-vagal – 0). the doctor gave me her cell phone number and told me to call her over the weekend with any issues or questions. i walked out confused, bruised and with a few ice packs strapped to my breast.

we spent the weekend waiting for results. we went to a random italian restaurant in south san Francisco. we talked about the what ifs. we bought a lot of shit we didn’t need. we ate tacos with my cousin gus. we finally got me a smart phone. we called my brother lucas. we called my boss. we drank tequila. we drank wine.

on my test results day, mike was already in the waiting room and had this hopeful smile on his face when i walked in. he said, “i have a really good feeling about today. i woke up thinking that everything is going to be alright and we’ll get good results.” i lost it. i shook my head, “no” and managed to get out that “i already know, and it’s not good.”

we were shuffled back to see a nurse practitioner, sarah, and given the full run down of diagnosis. she had nice kleenaxes in her office. it was cheery. she gave me a heart-shaped pillow made by breast cancer survivors to help with comfort after surgery. and she was calm. i hate her job. she already made appointments for us at the surgeon and fertility specialist, both the next day. we talked about medical oncologists and what i would want out of one; sarah made us a list and offered to help set up those appointments too. we left, more floating out of the office to our car where we sat and cried. and shook. both wondering, will i live?

and you know the rest. but now you know the beginning, my cancer creation story as it were.

what do i wish today? well, i wish i never had cancer. i wish no one had cancer. sure there are silver linings, but they are not because of cancer, they are in spite of cancer.

i also wish that someone had told me these things, that i will: live through this. learn things about myself. lose some friends, gain some friends. work through the guilt and pain to get over letting go of said friends. be offended by comments. be amazed by comments. cry. find myself comforting others who are crying. recognize that i can’t possibly understand what they are going through, as they say the same thing to me. experience very long days full of uncertainty and fear and physical pain and emotional turmoil. cry. ask “why” and not get an answer and be frustrated and want to punch a hole in a wall to fill the hole in the pit of my stomach from the crater that cancer gave me. laugh. be cared for. feel better after caring for someone else. be exhausted. walk to not be exhausted. hate myself. love myself. be vulnerable, because i am vulnerable. push my body to the physical limits of what it means to be alive. then watch my body bounce back, sometimes quickly and other times slowly, or not bounce back. have a new understanding of “digging deep.” be determined to have more energy than is humanly possible. feel panic when i forget simple tasks or can’t hold more than one thing in my mind at a time. learn how to ask for help, fail at that, and try again. be grateful i have a good therapist. be grateful i have a good husband. be grateful. appreciate my creativity and willingness to dabble with ways to make myself whole. screw insurance red tape and bureaucratic processes to get the best care i can. be overwhelmed at the many professional and unprofessional opinions of what i should be doing. realize that i am only given one body in this life and i’m the only one who can take care of it. have a new depth of gratitude for meals that taste good, bowel movements that are normal, showers that are hot, and sleep that is comfortably uninterrupted. find a new community. feel uncannily alone. meet nurses and doctors who will make me feel like my life is worth saving. learn things about other people and their hardships. work on my listening skills. be confused because i inspire others. accept that i inspire others and work to be my best self for both them and me. have a life rich with experiences that are separate from cancer. live through this. live through this. live through this.

the question of, “will i live” is unanswerable. and now that i’m on the other side of the most intense treatments, i realize the question we had wasn’t “will i live” it is “how will i live.”  how will i live? how will i feel? how will i put one foot in front the other? breathe in and out? go to the grocery store? find meaning out of my life? make the most of the time i have, even if that time ends up being 32 years long?

none of the medical professionals, therapists, friends or family can answer that. how i will live is one of the things only i have control over. sharing my cancer creation story is helpful for me today. all people and things have a creation story, the story of their birth, their generation, their people. i love creation stories, because they help illuminate roots and meaning. they help you trace how you got to where you are and articulate self-identity. they establish worldviews and the symbols into those worldviews. they also contain profound truths, but so plainly stated. so in a way, it’s only fitting that my cancer has a creation story, because i’m not the person i was on august 6, 2012. a new and different life was created on august 7, 2012. figuring out how that particular life will be lived is what comes now.

xom

i can’t believe it’s been close to a month since my last post. the journal is a form of therapy and self-care that i’ve talked about with you before, and when i don’t write for awhile, i get cranky. crankster cranypants.

since june, we’ve had incredible quality time with friends from all over the country; friends have been there for us this last year and when they couldn’t be there, they showed up later. better late than never in my book.

when people ask how i’m doing, i’m good…mostly because i’m alive. but the image that pops into my head is this medieval tool, the one that’s swung around and around to gain centrifugal force, until it’s hurled through the air to land with a thud. after some intensive googling, i learned that it’s called a flail. how perfect. because in many ways, i feel like i’m flailing around, free falling and waiting to hit ground, after a year spent in the spin cycle.

i read this week about a rule of thumb for cancer: after the most intense treatments are over, it takes the same amount of time you were in treatment to feel some semblance of your own body and energy levels. i believe it fully, as i have fits and starts of energy and fatigue, digestion and no digestion, pain and no pain, sleep and no sleep, and hot flashes and normal temps.

because survivors are still relatively new in oncology, the field is playing catch up on what survivorship means. for example, no one puts a survivorship plan together for me outlining what to or not to do and what to watch for. in fact, at ucsf, i don’t get to move to the survivorship clinic until 5 years after active treatment. many cancer patients describe this flailing feeling too. we are cut loose from active treatment and the protective cocoon of regular care with a “good luck.”

depression and anxiety are shown to peak after the most intense treatments are complete. this stems from a few things. a sense, and fear, that we’re not fighting the cancer anymore. an emptiness and space that was formerly taken up by these efforts. when in treatment, we’re singularly focused on getting healthy, often without time for emotional processing. so now what? life creeps in, or in my case, floods back in. things on the to-do list compete for focus, and it can be easy to get consumed into work to cope and avoid thinking about reality, even if it feels disingenuous to the whole experience. cancer also illustrates human vulnerability and lack of control and life’s uncertainties. cancer strips away physical abilities, femininity, self-esteem, and identity. friends and family want to celebrate that we’re back to ‘normal,’ which can further contribute to feelings of loneliness.

given this, it quickly becomes clear why cancer patients have a depression rate of 25%, compared to the general population’s 7%. while i am able to get out of bed and go about my day, i can relate to broader feelings of anxiety, sadness, and loneliness.

so, i’m developing a survivorship roadmap for myself. more on that soon, with ways i’m adjusting my life to minimize risk of reoccurrence while also still having joy and pleasure (it will be a constant struggle no doubt!). things i actually can control. i’m also working on a set of my own rules of thumb or commandments for my life, that can be touchstones for how i continue to make sense and meaning of a life-threatening experience. in the meantime, i started compiling the continued treatment and appointments that i need–which is dramatically much less than it has been–with detail support from my organized friend kate. here goes:

• tamoxifen pills – daily
• physical therapist – weekly
• acupuncture – weekly
• chemo – every 3 weeks
• zolodex shots – every 4 weeks
• echocardiograms – every 3 months
• medical oncologist – every 3 months
• ob/gyn who specializes in breast cancer side effects – every 3 months
• fertility doctor – every 3 months
• integrative oncologist – every 4 months
• MRI or mammogram – every 6 months
• radiation oncologist – every 6 months
• breast surgeon – every 6 months
• plastic surgeon – every 6 months
• dietician – yearly

i’m a fairly organized person, and this is absolutely overwhelming. bananas even. mike and i talk extensively about how we can bottle up our learnings for patients and families who come afterwards. playing a role in patient advocacy and navigation comes to mind. perhaps my next career is clear. dunno. big, soul-searching existential stuff is for another day…ok? as i’m in this state, an emerging goal is to take time and look around. i’ll report back what i learn.

maybe the attached jellyfish pic from a trip to monterey bay aquarium with my family last june is a more starkly beautiful, acrobatic rendition of the flail. let’s go with it for now.
xom

today marks 4 months since my mastectomy.  looking at the post-surgery picture my mom snapped (thumbs up, total cheeseball move) and one mike took last week, it’s a profound difference.  i don’t even recognize myself. in a transcendent out of body moment, part of me actually believes it is not me. 

all the cells that were beaten down, hanging on by a thread…well, they got their shit together and pulled through. everything is regenerating in my body. no, things are not back to a new normal yet, especially energetically, emotionally and mentally, but it’s a huge (like, HUGE) improvement. 

it’s also profound to be here in nebraska. i’ve never been embraced so fiercely, tenderly, authentically, and fully. i’ve never felt such a sense of belonging. if everyone felt this way, i have a sense that the world would be a different, better, whole place. in a way, this is what this group of people is trying to do with their lives’ work anyway. 

there are many things that cancer and its life-saving treatments take away.  hopes, digestive functions, dreams, vitality, breasts, brain cells, dignity, hair. it also takes away opportunities and plans. one of which was to help organize this meeting. having nebraska on the horizon has motivated and pissed me off enough to get me to today…to feel as though not everything was taken away, and there is a lot of living still left. 

i know, i know. it is sounding very dramatic. but in a way, it is. drama is by definition a story involving intense conflict and emotions. i’d say these past 10 months kinda sorta count. only, my story isn’t over yet. (not) the end.  mary pipher, tonight’s speaker and author, read us a passage from her book, the green boat “…hope is not about outcome, but about process. hope is energy created in the process of acting as if we were hopeful.”  she also shared a quote by the neuroscientist dan siegel: “the mind functions best when it feels hope.” very fitting on many levels, as i regain and establish new hopes. 

so…profound. that’s all i got. thanks to cgbd and this community and alan for the embraces. it’s still hard for me to fully wrap my head around your emotion because all i did was live. better than the alternative but i don’t think i had a choice.

xom

at first i found your reactions to my 15 year cure news surprising. but then i realized a few things. i’ve known about it for a month and have had space and time to let it percolate, sit with it, and internalize its implications. similar to what i’ve written in the past, i’ve always had this sense of impending doom anyway, waiting for the other shoe to drop. so it fed into that mental paradigm. as i’m out and about more in the world now, i see you, and you see me, and i look normal, non-cancery, just a chick with a short hair-do. so with this visual, the 15 year cure news is discordant. it doesn’t add up. 

i hope the 15 years comes and goes without incident, but i’m not yet confident that’s my story. just being honest. 

i started the daily pill tamoxifen and the monthly zolodex shots on june 6. easing into menopause has never been so great! i kid. if my life goes as my doctors and all of us want it to (e.g., long), i will have entered menopause 3 times. by my late 50s, i will be a menopausal pro. maybe that will be my second career–menopause coach. the title needs some work. 

the zolodex shot is pictured here. it is, in fact, that large. the nurse hannah’s hands are not freakishly small. i had no warning about this until i arrived at the infusion center, where the tech asked if i wanted my ice pack. huh? she said, “oooohhhh….this is your first one? i’ll get a nurse.” eek! fears instilled! as i was icing down my stomach, i learned that i have a choice each month: get the shot straight up (or in, that is, at a 45 degree angle), or get a shot of lidocaine to numb the stomach area before the zolodex shot. i’ll take “none of the above for $400 please.” 

after some hemming and hawwing, and some tears, i chose the shot straight up, right into the belly fat i had been icing to numb it a bit. the bruise it left is just now fading. mike said i’d have to withdraw my entry for the swimsuit contest with that blemish. thanks, husband. 

and life moves forward. next time, i’ll bring a friend and we’ll get a foot massage up the street afterwards (thanks, jamie). 

i entitled this post up and down, because life is feeling that way especially so right now. a BAYS member gave me the idea after she reflected on a week that was a microcosim of life. in a nutshell:

• we lost another BAYS member, chi, who was also a contributor to the book and wrote about seeing her two young sons grow up. you might read her passages with a different kind of sorrow now.
• a fellow board member, betsy, of the canadian environmental grantmakers network, also passed away. stupid f-ing cancer.
• the supreme court ruled that myriad genetics cannot own a patent on the BRCA genes, setting a precedent and a path to lowered costs of genetic testing. no one should ever have to fight with their insurance company again to cover the $4000 or more test.
• my radiation burn is really healing fast now, with just part of the skin left to peel off. it seemed to just happen when i woke up this weekend.
• i went on my first work trip since last june followed by another one today, and i survived and was even energized by it, seeing everyone’s shining faces. and deenergized by it, realizing how much work and travel i’ve been punting until now.
• katie couric and ken burns are turning the cancer tome, “emperor of all maladies,” into a documentary series, which will highlight how far we’ve come and what’s promising for the future. i read that book the year before my dad, mother-in-law, and father-in-law were all diagnosed with cancer. it has some eery significance for me.
• i hit 10,000 steps four days in a row on my pedometer.
• we cooked dinner with fresh herbs from our garden.
• and on thursday, BAYS launched our book at a party in san francisco. many contributors did readings. we bore witness to each other’s stories, laughed and cried with humor and with pain (i’m a faucet these days) and left with a new appreciation of love, turning experiences into words into a book into life’s lessons.

 and these are just the headlines, leaving out the moment to moment swings. we go down, down, down, up, up. then down. then up (and kind of down simultaneously). hopefully the balance is up eventually. 

speaking of up, i’m writing this post from 35,000 feet in the air above the great plains. as we descend into nebraska, it’s one of my favorite sights–a quilted patchwork of farms. it reminds me of home. i miss everyone there. 

in the last email exchange i had with betsy, she said something to me that i keep rereading and wish the same for all of you tonight and always: “i am holding you close in my heart and mind with every intention for your complete healing, for peace and strength.”

xom

stick a fork in me, i am done! toasted, radiated, all stocked up on my UV rays. 

i had 25 radiation treatments that spanned every day, monday-friday. i still got treated during the UCSF strike and thank my techs who crossed the picket line and my doctor who categorized me as a high priority case. i’m so *lucky.* when i finished on tuesday, i got to ring the bell and decorate the aging radiation machine with stickers (that mike got me for my birthday, because you’re never too old to get stickers) (after staring at it day in and out, that machine really needed some sprucing up). i also got a congratulatory certificate signed by all the techs who i got to know over the 5 weeks. the radiation oncology department sure knows how to make a girl feel special. 

radiation ended about the same that it started. that is, pretty uncomfortable. pictured here are the 8 (!) different creams i graduated to and through during the course of treatment to help with the burn. right now, i’m having a hard time finding the right outfit that doesn’t rub under my armpit, which is super burned, raw, and peeling. looks like a roasted beet (ew). my PT suggested i find one of those fantastic 80s-inspired tanktops with the big arm holes. goodwill, here i come. probably better than the bathrobe i’ve been loitering around our house in. 

my burn will peak this weekend and then slowly start to subside. some women i know are still tan in their radiation field over a year afterwards. i’m all for a tan, but not one so purely lopsided and hard-earned in a dark UCSF basement. 

so far, my expander has held up ok. the doctor said we’ll won’t know for certain that we’re out of the woods until the next surgery in 6-12 months, where my expander is swapped to the final silicone implant. if my skin heals from that, it’s a good thing. if it doesn’t heal, the implant comes out, i’m down a nipple, and we’re back to the drawing board. lots of time to chew our nails about that. 

my arm didn’t swell up too much during radiation, just a little bit because of general inflammation given the sunburn. nothing on the lympadema spectrum, so i’m thankful for that. 

i’ve been in many conversations recently, in support group, with women in the radiation waiting room, with mike, about the tattoos we are stuck with. these tattoos help to line up the radiation lasers each day. sure, they are the size of a freckle. but they are blue. i don’t know many who opt for the blue freckle tattoo (read: i’m positive there has never been a conversation in the tattoo parlor that went: “oooh! i’ll take the blue freckle tattoo! my destiny! so beautiful! and i love it so much i’ll take 7 of them haphazardly placed all over my breasts and torso!”). the women in my support group have been sharing perspectives on this and in general getting marked up with black sharpees for things like radiation and surgery. i should probably invest in sharpee stock since it’s a large part of my life now. being marked up with sharpees feels like you’re in a funhouse. only it’s the opposite of fun. and they are really hard to scrub off of skin like your chest that doesn’t get used a lot. right before my mastectomy surgery, my plastic surgeon, still in his winter coat, had me stand up and he free-handed a line down the middle of my chest. i didn’t think to quiz him on his art class grades, despite that he would use that line to carve into my chest soon thereafter. i also recall how he whipped the sharpee out of his jacket pocket; maybe everyone in that field carries a stash around similarly to how my grandma GG stashed kleenaxes in every pocket, or cat whiz stashes used wine corks under the bed. because, well, you never know when they will come in handy. 

some have chosen to get tattoos over the blue freckles. i’m still deciding what makes sense for me. the one that bothers me the most is right smack dab in the middle of my breasts, staring up at me every time i shower and change. as if my mismatched breasts weren’t enough. 

from here on out with radiation, i have to avoid the sun and check in with my doctor each week to see how things are healing. i also have to sleep. the only way i can describe the exhaustion toll of it all is arduous. my body seems to be working double time, my cells are weary. it’s a feeling of exhaustion that is akin to working in the hot sun from 9-5 each day. different than chemo, where the exhaustion is more like being in a long, long free fall where your body is tensely rigid, bracing yourself for the impact of hitting the bottom. yikes. 

i keep saying this, but it’s true that i have so much more to share with you. i could post every day about some new experience or insight. but i’m tired. so for now, i’ll leave you with a little playlist that got me through the winter and chemo when i was most tired. it’s the unofficial start of summer now, so tired music isn’t entirely appropriate. but save it for a rainy day. and when you do, please think of my new friend cherie who passed away last week from metastatic breast cancer. she was beautiful and carried the wisdom of generations with her, sharing it with me in the short time i spent with her. (easiest if you right click each song and open in a new window)

tired – adele i dream in blue – the stray birds all my days – alexi murdoch the stranger – lord huron a candle’s fire – beirut hide and seek – imogen heap i wish it would rain – the temptations lean on me – bill withers / nicholas david from the voice wanting memories – cantus, a capella midday – yusuf islam half of what we know – crooked still midnight train to georgia – gladys knight and the pips open – rhye sleep please come to me – matthew barber 

xoxom

ps thanks for all the support on the book. i’m so happy that you’ve been enjoying it.