I should really find a good novel or something.

I've been reading the archived messages from my metastatic breast cancer group. It was started in 1999, and the founders are all dead. They were articulate, compassionate women -- brave and terrified, just like you'd expect. It was a group created only for women with metastatic disease. There was some bickering about that -- women with early stage breast cancer felt left out.

Inside the mets group the women made not-so-funny jokes about the irony of being envied for their stage IV status.

There were a few women in particular who touched me. I read all of their posts... followed their stories... read about their deaths.

I read letter after letter from these women. They were so smart and so kind. Some of them were realistic and hospice-oriented, and others just fought & fought & fought and never gave up "hope". All of them died. Cancer cells don't care what we've vowed.

In a few years there will be women who search the archives and find the letters I've written. Maybe one of them will follow my story.

Monday. Hmph.

I have to go in for a ct scan today. After last Monday's unpleasant experience I'm a bit trepidatious. I'm going to work this AM, leaving after 2.5 hours to drive to the chemotherapy suite, where I'll be set up with an IV, then off to radiology for the scan at noon. Then I'll return to work.

Just the driving sounds exhausting to me at this point, but for several reasons I do need to go to work today.

I'll have a blood draw in chemotherapy on Thursday and chemo on Friday, in addition to an appointment in Interventional Radiology on Friday. So many trips to the hospital in the last few weeks! I tell myself that it's just temporary -- that it's just on accounta the periodic reassessment (scans), the infected port, the surprising late-onset lymphedema.

The worry is that it will just snowball. Little things start to go wrong, and then the larger systems fail -- or, some other unhappy scenario.

Of course, focusing on unhappy scenarios never made anyone feel better in the moment, and I don't suppose it will effect outcome. So...

I'll finish this coffee (a few minutes too late, according to my ct scan instructions, but oh well) and go to work, and get on with it, and I bet I'll even have some fun on the way.

Eric!

His plane has landed & he'll be home soon.

He needed to be with his family this week, and he was able to help his mother a great deal, but boy-oh-boy, it's been a long week.

I've appreciated all of the phone calls and offers of help this week. And I especially appreciated the latte that Janis picked up for me this morning and delivered to my door. I needed coffee but not company, and she understood completely.

Eric's almost home!

Take that, Avril.

It was a bad day in the chemotherapy suite. What was to have been a 2.5 hour day w/ a nurse turned into 6 hours, three nurses, three doctors, walks back & forth between buildings, a trek to the pharmacy, a couple o' stitches without any anesthetic, and somber (but ultimately unimportant) predictions. Enough of THAT.

I'm glad Eric's home tomorrow.

It would be good if every person could live someplace he or she loves. People would still be spread out. Folks love lots o' places for lots o' reason... sometimes because their childhoods were happy, or for reasons that are inexplicable to others.

I watched this video last night at youtube. It's worth watching, especially if you're a fan of the current crop of young, tormented, singer-songwriters. While the song isn't really about California, it did make me think about how much I love living here.

I love the natural beauty and the diversity of ethnicity, cultures, and ideas. I love the beaches, valleys, mountains, ocean, rivers, lakes, and I even have a grudging admiration for the deserts.

The inevitable hassles created by the crowding and the clashing & crashing of people with very different lives can make things hard, but no crashing = no fusion. I love living in a place where people are less likely to be fucked with because of who they love than anywhere else in the country. I love that there are times when I look around a restaurant and everyone's different, and the individual tables aren't segregated. It sounds impossibly schmaltzy, but I really do look around sometimes and think: look at all the beautiful people!

If I had Eric with me I believe I could be happy anywhere. And I know that most metropolitan areas have good coffee, bread, bookstores. And no one in the whole world has to agree with me, and yes, I'm sure that Gary, Indiana has charms that have not yet been revealed to me, and of course, yes, California is full of liberals and demoncrats (it's as if the rest of the country has never heard of the Central Valley) and when the big quake comes the whole shebang will likely snap off and sink into the Pacific.

The whole skewed body image culture in LA is twisted and there's too much gentrification in the Bay Area, and housing is impossible, and all of the roads are too crowded.

It must be clear by now that I correspond with people all over the country. Okay... whatever... I love it.

Now I'm off to the couch and my special, soft, blanket-of-wonder. I'll surf the internet and the channels on the tv... count the hours until Eric gets home... count my considerable blessings... that I found a place and a husband and circle of friends who would take me as I am.

How many days 'til Eric's home?

Eric's trip to Florida to sit shiva with his family after his father's death has spurred lots o' workplace conversations about family deaths, funerals, and cultural traditions.

Today at work I told the story of what happened the day I learned my father had died. I can't remember which one of my siblings called me, or what was said. Eric and I were having friends over for dinner. They were having dinner with us, and then leaving their toddler with us for the evening while they attended a dance concert at Zellerbach Hall.

I answered the phone, and was told that my father was dead. I was shocked. I hung up and told Eric and our guests what had happened.

Our guests said how sorry they were -- the woman asked me to tell her about my father, but I was really too stunned to speak -- I think they finished dinner, and I went upstairs and cried. And then they went to the concert and left their child in our care!

It all happened so quickly. They were gone before we could think to ask them to excuse us from babysitting duties for the evening.

There was much hilarity when I told the story today. Consensus was that the couple REALLY needed a night out!

I was very, very, sad when my father died. I hadn't expected it, and I cried every day for a long time. Still... I had already grieved the loss of a much-loved brother-in-law, my mother, and my brother... so I understood that however sad I felt, my grief would not be endless.

Plus, I was much happier in general than I'd been when I'd lost other members of my family. I was a happier person with a good life -- largely because Eric had loved & loved & loved & loved & loved me.

I've been staring at that last sentence for a full minute. It's so true!

And I've loved Eric back, too... I've loved him in the very best way I can, from where ever I've been, for a long, long, time.

Just a Tuesday

It's been an uneventful day. I laughed a lot at work... came home... now I'm surfing youtube and thinking about Eric.

I miss him something fierce, of course. Eric is my perennial booster pack, bonus game, special presentation and grand prize surprise. Any given post-work Tuesday is something deeply, deeply, good when Eric is here.

Tomorrow's Wednesday and I don't have to go to the hospital. Yay!

Argh.

I woke up at 6:30 am to drink a barium shake, and went to my 8:30 ct scan appointment. Unfortunately, they were unable to find a vein for the IV. I'm 41 years old and I've never been in a situation where I had to yell, cry, and scream "please" to get someone to STOP hurting me. I have a high threshold for pain and probably too much pride, but that was unbearable. I was undone.

Now I'm at work. They rescheduled me for another day, but I'm not so sure that I'm going back. (Okay. I know I"ll go back. But it's nice to dream.)

Sigh.

I never imagined that I wouldn't attend my own father-in-law's funeral. It just blows me away. I know it's the right decision. I'm tired, and sick -- I have a swollen arm, an infection, I did chemo two days ago, and I have four appointments at the hospital this week. Still, I can't believe I just put my darling Eric on a plane to go to his father's funeral without me.

I sent him with all of my love. I wish I could be there with him. I really, really, do.

Passing

Bob's favorite lunch -- candy bars, M & M's, and potato chips. :)

Eric's father, Bob Price, passed away in the wee hours of the morning. We're sad, but also grateful that he died peacefully, in his sleep. He was 72 years old... just 11 days shy of his 73rd birthday.

The funeral will be on Tuesday, and the family will be sitting shiva immediately following the service.

Saturday

It's quiet, post-chemo, Saturday. Eric's at a colleague's house, working on curriculum. I'm watching public television and drinking coffee. It's all about Lost Treasures of Broadway. Jerry Orbach. Who knew?

My father-in-law is quite ill. He's been moved to a hospice facility. His blood pressure is too low to receive dialysis, and without dialysis he'll be gone within days or perhaps a week or so. He's comfortable, which is a good, good, thing. The hospice was unable to control his pain at home.

Eric is sad about his father and worried about his mother. He's also sad and worried about me. And he's worried about his students, too -- how to teach them what they should know while under increasing pressure to teach to a bad test, and missing so many days due to my treatment.

My father-in-law, Bob, has a joking, grouchy, persona that has mellowed over the years. He had quite a bark when I met him, but he never growled at me. If he had any objections to his New York Jewish son marrying a crazy Californian with no discernible connection to her heritage, he kept them to himself.

I have to be careful what I say around him. One time I said I liked jelly doughnuts, and two dozen appeared the next day. I once said in his presence that I'd never had an ice cream cake, and one appeared that evening.

Until he became too sick to do so, he picked out a valentine for me every year, as he did for his two daughters. They were "For my daughter" cards, and I know that he meant it.

I'm sad that he's dying. He's been sick a long time, and it's been hard to watch him become diminished. In recent years he's become much more emotive -- he called me when he learned of my diagnosis, and told me how upset he was, and that he loved me -- and Eric says that the last time he went to visit his father, he absolutely lit up with joy when he saw Eric.

Anyone who's ever participated in a "death vigil" knows what an emotional and tense time it is. Such a common experience, but still strangely solitary.

Update from Cancerville

Greetings from the blue recliner!

I'm receiving chemo even as I type. It's been a blechy day in the chemotherapy suite. My port has become infected (not to mention painful), so I've started antibiotics. I've been told that I'll most likely have the port taken out. I don't know where they'd place another one -- possibly my arm?

Anyway, no port access today, that's for sure! So I've had an IV in my wrist -- ouch -- for the last four hours. Hmph.

Minor inconveniences but they pay compound interest.

It's not so easy to type (or, for that matter to think), so I'll make this a short entry. I suspect that all three of my regular readers just sighed in relief.

G'morning

I'm drinking coffee and getting ready for work. Eric and I are driving separately today, so I can leave a few minutes later than usual.

Last night I met Tom for glorious sidecars. It's hard to imagine a better way to end a work day!

It's a three day work week for me, and next week is totally screwy on accounta all of my appointments. I'm still figuring out how to have cancer and work full time. Having summers off helps, of course. And two weeks in the winter, and a week in the spring, and all of the three day weekends.

I'm already obsessed with summer, even though I have no way of knowing how I'll feel or what life will be like!

Statement of Beliefs

Just another work day. Crazy Nurse hovered quite a bit, peering deeply into my eyes. She's looking for messages from the great beyond. She read my aura a few weeks ago. I was doing something mundane and she chimed in with her take on the light she saw emanating from me. It made me laugh!

On Thursday I need to go in for a blood draw, and on Friday I have the 6.5 hour mega-chemo. Next week: On Monday I have a CT scan, and on Tuesday I have physical therapy and on Thursday it's another blood draw and on Friday there's more chemo. That means that next week I don't have to go to the hospital on Wednesday.

And I probably just jinxed myself!

It's a good thing I don't believe in jinxes, or messages from the great beyond, or colored light that emanates from people filing papers.

I believe in friendship, and love, and Eric, and vacations (not listed in order of importance).

Feels like Sunday.

I'd be a healthy person, if not for cancer. That sounds pretty dumb, but it's how I feel. Here I am, just a few days out from my skip-the-chemo week, and I feel so much better. I don't feel young and carefree. I don't feel GREAT. But I feel better.

Before I started the chemo my bones were screaming, and since I've started the chemo I feel tired and icky.

Clearly, cancer is the problem.

But it's not going away. I just pretzel myself around it.

It was a really, really, nice weekend, but I'm still glad to be home. Work tomorrow! I can hardly believe it.

And we have tomorrow off, as well!

Another lovely day in Monterey. Point Lobos State Reserve was bee-you-tea-full. We saw sea lions, harbor seals, otters, and deer. In fact, I was dancing down the trail and singing "Shake Your Groove Thing" when Eric went into full-on shush-mode and pointed out the two deer.

They weren't at all bothered by the singing and dancing, and we watched them for a long while.

We ate our picnic lunch at a table that overlooked the ocean, and saw many, many, spouts of water from whales.

We walked & walked & had a really nice time there.



We weren't very interested in the various Retail Experiences available to us here. Carmel was a buncha fancy stores, and Monterey is a buncha slightly less fancy stores. You can't swing a cat on Cannery Row without hitting a purveyor of fudge. And that's just an expression, Corinne. There was no actual swinging of cats!

We had a nice dinner at a restaurant that claimed to be Hawaiian, but was really PanAsianCarib. I had a coconut encrusted chicken breast with a lilikoi glaze, sticky rice, black beans, and plantains. Eric had a fish soup w/ coconut, ginger, and lime broth, fish, shrimp, and udon noodles. Deelish!

It's so nice to get away!

Holiday

The bay in Monterey is such a pretty shade of blue!

It was a bright, crisp, clear, day. We slept in a bit -- past 8:00 AM -- drank coffee and hit the road.

It was slow going. We stopped for breakfast, and then took a detour in Gilroy. Boy, does that town smell like garlic.

The aquarium is very, very, cool. I don't LOVE aquariums in general, but the Monterey Bay Aquarium is just plain impressive. The penguins, sharks, and the huge, 700 lb, sun fish were highlights.

Plus, there were totally crazy, semi-transparent, flashing rainbow light tentacled, mini jelly fish. Seriously.

We walked & walked, and I was feeling pretty darn tired by the end of the day.

Tomorrow we're taking a picnic to Point Lobos State Reserve. Neither of us have been there before, and that makes it extra special.


Eric (because he's Eric) brought stuff to make me hot chocolate tonight. He sure is a good egg.

I like vacations! Even short ones are swell.

Hooray for Friday!

Tonight we're planning tomorrow's trip to Monterey. The Monterey Bay Aquarium, Point Lobos State Reserve, the the Seventeen Mile Drive... it's all sounding good to us. It's a pleasant, quiet, way to spend the evening!

There was an unfortunate bit of excitement when we arrived home from work today. I don't even want to write about it in complete sentences. In fact, it was so icky that it's inspired me to write my very first haiku:

first, a funny smell.
next, eric in the crawl space.
why, dead possum, why?

After we boil the house in bleach everything will be fine!

It's unusually cold in the Bay Area these days. I'm hoping for a brisk, beachy, walkish, hand-holding, relaxing, scenic, smiley, weekend. I think it's doable, too!

Well...

My onc says that the swelling in my arm is due to lymphedema. He gave me a referral to a physcial therapist. It's a bit of a drag, but it's also not a big deal.

Eric (smart, handsome, funny) and I are going to Monterey this 3-day weekend. It'll be grand, what with pretty walks on the beach and all of that lovely together-time.

That's all I have to report today!

Grumbling.

Work was tiring today -- busy, busy, busy.

This is the lowest low point of my cyclic chemo adventure -- the tuesday after the friday after the 3rd week of chemo in a row.

This week is s'posed to be my one week off from visiting the doctor or the hospital or the labs. It was a lovely thought, but now I have to go in to see my onc tomorrow, as he suspects a "structural problem" due to the unilateral nature of my swelling.

It'll be a quick trip and betcha nothing will come of it but inconclusive tests. Still, it was nice to think there'd be a week without appointments or missing work or hospital parking garages.

It's not the end of the world, but it is the end of this day, and I'm just as happy to let this one go.

Laundry List

My nose is bleeding. It has bled every morning, afternoon, and evening for days and days. It's so ordinary now that I sometimes forget about the crumbled, red, tissues until I see someone coming. Then I gather them quickly.

My nose bleeds and my mouth is metallic. It tastes like I'm sucking on dirty pennies. I can't taste salt, which seriously hampers my ability to enjoy salami. Ever tasted unsalted bacon? It's no treat.

My eyelashes are gone, and I never made a single wish. My eyebrows are making a noble last stand. I bought an eyebrow pencil and figured out how to use it. It makes me look more "normal", but I always forget to draw them on before I leave the house. I've never had to "put on my face" before walking outside, and I won't start now. What a life that would be!

My left arm and hand and fingers are swollen. Could be lymphedema, could be a blood clot, could mean more cancer in my lymph nodes. Ultrasound to follow. We shall see.

My fingers are blistered, but not as badly as before.

The skin on my hands breaks easily. I cut my tongue on toasted bagels and normal chewing can grate the inside of my cheek.

I don't heal very well (blisters aside). The incision from my port has not healed completely yet, and that surgery took place five months ago. Avastin inhibits the growth of blood vessels, which stunts the growth of those vascular-rich cancerous tumours, and other kinds o' growth & healing as well.

It's all small potatoes, but when added together it becomes a kind of constant, buzzing, discomfort.

It's better than the bone pain I had before I started Taxol. It's better than cancer-running-rampant-and-unchecked. Progression of this disease is inevitable, but later is better than sooner, given this array of side effects.

Eric makes me hot chocolate and brings me ice packs. He's smiling right now. He's laughing because he was looking on the table for a napkin on which he'd drawn a heart and written "I love you". He was going to hold it up to show me just now, but I'd already used it for one of my bloody noses. That made us laugh.

All of the stuff I write about love and happiness and fun is true, and co-exists with all of the discomfort I describe above. Life is good. Could be better, though.

2006 in Review

It's done! I wish we'd taken more pictures of our friends and gatherings, but we didn't. Oh well!

2006 in Review

It's a quiet, at-home, day. I can't believe that I have to go to work tomorrow. The last two weeks went by very quickly and busily.

That's better.

Having Eric home is the best! Chemotherapy yesterday was ooookay. I was there for hours & hours... six of 'em, to be exact. It was weird being there without my adorable husband, but what's a girl to do? I surfed the internet and napped and read People Magazine. I worked on the 2006 in Review website... a little something to go along with 2005 in Review.

But now Eric's back. He got home late last night, and I was delighted to see him. We both slept like rocks (if rocks snored), and woke up happy.

Today is a lazy day.

Wishing Away Hours

I miss Eric. He's in Florida, visiting his parents. His father is not well, and I encouraged him to go. I'd encourage him again. But, boy, do I miss him.

I had a bone scan yesterday. It was fine... a bit of a pain. I needed to make two trips to the hospital. First I was given an injection of a radioactive tracer. The technician couldn't find a vein and eventually had to call in the "best". I would like to go directly to the "best" in the future. My arm is a relief map of bruises.

I had to return three hours later for the scan. The scan itself was just 20 minutes on a table that slowly moved beneath a camera. No biggie. Sure is different, though, without Eric waiting for me the hallway.

When I know Eric's waiting for me in the hallway -- looking worried and smiling a little and focused expectantly on the doorway -- it's all just a little bit easier.

Tomorrow I'm going to chemotherapy. Hopefully I'll just sleep through most of it. And tomorrow night Eric is home, which is a good, good, thing.

Poetry Alert!

I love poetry. I started reading poetry when I was a teenager but I'm not sure that I enjoyed it. It was more pretense than anything... something classy I thought I should like. A funny thing happened on the way to Snootville, though -- I became a better reader of poetry, and found favorites, and eventually I was smitten.

I've fought the temptation to post poems here, on accounta it's already the least read blog on the planet. I can't afford to alienate any of you. But... I'm posting this poem, because it's the truth. A good poem is news, and here's some:


Emigration

Try being sick for a year,
then having that year turn into two,
until the memory of your health is like an island
going out of sight behind you

and you sail on in twilight,
with the sound of waves.
It's not a dream. You pass
through waiting rooms and clinics

until the very sky seems pharmaceutical,
and the faces of the doctors are your stars
whose smile or frown
means to hurry and get well

or die.
And because illness feels like punishment,
an enormous effort to be good
comes out of you --
like the good behavior of a child

desperate to appease
the invisible parents of this world.
And when that fails,
there is an orb of anger

rising like the sun above
the mind afraid of death,
and then a lake of grief, staining everything below,
and then a holding action of neurotic vigilance

and then a recitation of the history
of second chances.
And the illusions keep on coming,
and fading out, and coming on again

while your skin turns yellow from the medicine,
your ankles swell like dough above your shoes,
and you stop wanting to make love
because there is no love in you,

only a desire to be done.
But you're not done.
Your bags are packed
and you are traveling.

-- Tony Hoagland, Sweet Ruin

Fun while it lasted. For reals!

I can't believe how much energy I had during Camp! The difference was striking. I was able to dance and laugh and drink champagne. I walked up and down the stairs a bajillion times a day. It was great timing.

Just a few minutes after the last campers left today I was in bed... slept for several hours... woke up weak and with a fever. It made it even harder to say goodbye to Eric who is flying to Florida today.

I miss him already. I went downstairs (without vim or vigor) and made myself a cup of hot chocolate. It's not as good as when Eric makes it but it's better than nothing.

When I finish it I'm off to bed.

Day One

Good morning! I'm posting a few pics of the completed circle, and then I'm going to take ibuprofen and drink coffee. Happy New Year!


"They're [rotten banana peels] perfect!"