Happiness is a Warm Puppy

It's been three months since I've posted, and almost a year since my surgery. I thought I'd write an update about how it's going.

The title of this post was inspired by my dog, Caleb (and of course Charles M. Shulz). Caleb the corgi looks up adoringly at me like this frequently.

To be honest, he kind of adores me but really adores the treat I have in my hand... 

A lot of the day while I'm working he's sacked out, like this.

At other times, he's trying to steal a bagel off the table or is barking incessantly at squirrels. But most of the time, he's an easy, amusing companion.

Often I'm able to find moments of happiness through very simple means, such as noticing my dog, savoring a funny thing that one of my daughters says, or sitting in the sun for a bit.

Last year on days I didn't feel well, any small good thing seemed extra large. The world shrinks when you don't feel good - we all know this from times we've been sick. You notice the small kindnesses more when you're vulnerable.

There were some days when a walk around a couple of blocks was an achievement, and I noticed the flowers were beautiful. A friend would come over to spend time with me, and we'd sit on my patio, and I would listen as she would talk (holding up your end of a basic conversation can be exhausting when you're exhausted). These friends were lifesavers!

Even logging onto Words With Friends and seeing that six people had made their move and it was my turn, meant that there was something distracting and quick to do that made me feel connected to whomever I was playing. These games saved my sanity some days!

Before last year, I didn't pay attention to these kinds of small blessings very often. I didn't stop to really soak in something good that was happening. And that's one of so many ways that having had cancer has changed me and changed my life for the better.

The Upsides of Cancer

A few years ago a friend of ours successfully battled cancer and wrote a moving essay afterwards about the upsides. I read it then, and last year I asked for another copy so I could read it again.

I think it's safe to say that I've found most of the cliches about the experience of moving through illness to be true. I feel stronger, I appreciate and notice each individual day in a new way, I am less bothered by problems that used to seem large, and many of my relationships are stronger. I'm also less afraid and less risk averse.

I'm much more skilled at being mindful and I'm better educated about how to stay healthy.

I'm more sensitive to what people who deal with chronic health issues are going through and may need.

I've met some new people who are pretty amazing and inspiring.

In the four months since I've completed cancer treatment, I've been able to help three strangers who are new to cancer.

Next month I'm going to model in a fashion show/fundraising event that benefits women who are going through breast cancer treatment and need financial help. All the models are breast cancer survivors. 

I've finally reached a stage where a day will go by and I won't think about cancer once. That's a big milestone. I'm also mostly not bothered with anxiety about recurrence. It's there, but it doesn't take over.

Hair

Oh yes, the hair report.  Everyone wants to know about that!

Newsflash: it's growing! It's still blond and it's still short. I'm past the Rosemary's Baby stage and now have hair that's closer to the style of Charlize Theron at this year's Oscars.

It's thicker than hers and a little longer, and I haven't magically gotten 10 years younger or become a movie star, but other than that, I'm a dead ringer for Charlize.

 Another Cliche I Find is True

I have a lot less patience for busy work and doing things that I think are a big waste of time. I think this is because my ideas on time have shifted.

I used to live week in and week out, bouncing around from one obligation to the next with a vague idea that the time I had left on the planet stretched out sort of forever. No need to think about time's preciousness. I would lose track of goals, forget to have fun, not know where the time went, and take so much of what I had for granted. I think this is typical.

Now I want each and every day to count. Most days I feel a drive to pay attention to making the most of it. There are things I want to achieve, experiences I want to have, and places I want to go.

There are also quieter intentions I have around how I want to be in relationship with people and how I want to just be.

Hopefully I'll have 40+ more years to live this way.

So far my new regard and respect for time has meant that I take more deliberate actions, have more fun, and generally experience more "technicolor" in my life. Pretty great.

Many people my age don't have the opportunity to seriously consider their mortality, or don't take the opportunity even when it's offered. And I'm at a new and better place in my relationship with this inevitable reality because of my struggles over the past year.

There were lots of lemons last year, but now it's lemonade time.

Mavis Retires

Um, this isn't me. This is Mia Farrow.

After six months of loyal service, Mavis has retired to the upper shelf of my closet to contemplate what's next in her future.

Last month when I finished radiation treatment, I noticed three things: I was no longer bald, I was really tired of wearing a wig, and I felt a lot more relaxed about showing up in the world "as is". There was something about having cancer treatment behind me that made it pretty easy to leave Mavis at home.

Now my hair is a bit longer (although very short - think Annie Lennox, or Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby, and then make the bangs even shorter) and blond. It's sort of a sandy, strawberry blond I guess. Naturally my hair is white, and I wanted to try something different from my previous auburn color, so I decided to try going blond.

I'm getting used to the new look, and it cracks me up that even people who don't know me compliment me on my hair, like I cut it this way on purpose.

In the meantime, I've healed very well from radiation and am completely thrilled to be doing something else with my time other than heading to the medical center every day.

What Now

Now that I'm done with the Big Three (surgery, chemotherapy, radiation) I just have a couple of things to do, cancer-treatment wise: herceptin (an IV infusion every three weeks through this June) and tamoxifen (an oral medication I started a couple of weeks ago and will take for at least five years).

Herceptin doesn't bother me a bit, and it's a wonder drug, so I don't mind at all that there are 8+ infusions left. I'm assuming that when I'm done with it in June I'll get the chest port (aka alien tracking device) removed. I'm looking forward to that.

Tamoxifen is an estrogen suppressor and affects women differently. So far I haven't had problems with it. Hot flashes are the most common side effect, and there are various other possible effects that are similar to what women entering menopause naturally can go through. The serious side effects are rare, so I'm not going to worry about those.

Ready For Healing

Merry Christmas at the Conservatory

Today I finished radiation therapy. It feels great to check that one off!

The affected area has gotten more and more sore, and because I try not to complain in the blog too much or get too graphic, I'll just sum up my experience in one word:

Ouch.

But it's going to get better soon, so I'm not letting it get me down very much. Plus I'm going out for a celebratory cocktail with my sister-in-law tonight, so I have that to look forward to.

There's always something to look forward to.

I sense a few "how this experience has changed me" posts coming sometime, but for now I'm focusing on healing, readying myself for the next step, and enjoying each and every day to the absolute fullest.

Almost Done

Rainy Day at the Conservatory

24 radiation treatments down, 6 to go!

Overall this hasn't been very difficult. I'm a little tired, and just in the last week the "sunburned" area has gotten sore in places, but I'm doing very well.

That said, I'm really looking forward to being done next Thursday.

The day after I complete radiation I go in for my quarterly MUGA scan, which measures the efficiency of a certain function of my heart. This is required since I'm taking herceptin, a drug which can damage the heart. The scan itself is easy.

And then on Monday the 17th, because apparently I can't stay away from the hospital for a single weekday, I have a herceptin infusion (not difficult but takes awhile) and an appointment with my oncologist, when I assume I'll hear all about tamoxifen, the estrogen-suppressing drug I'll take for at least five years.

Then I'll be back to visiting the hospital just once every three weeks for the herceptin. That will be good!

The Hair Report

I hope to be ready to retire Mavis next month sometime. My hair is growing in nicely, but I'd like to wait until there's a bit more of it before getting it colored and showing my short 'do to the world.

The rest of my hair is back in full swing. My eyelashes, which did not get the memo about falling out until after chemo was done (!), are in the process of coming back in.

The body is amazingly resilient.

And now I'd like to put in a plug for the God of Makeup for making it possible for me to go through this whole ordeal looking pretty damn good.

Fun Stuff Completely Unrelated to Cancer

B. and I mark our 25th anniversary of togetherness tomorrow, and we're celebrating by spending the afternoon after my radiation appointment together downtown, eating dinner at our favorite restaurant, and staying at a downtown hotel for the night. Nice.

I love the Christmas season, and I'm thankful that I'm done with the major treatments before Christmas this year. I'm shopping, we're baking, we're getting our tree next week, we're getting together with people, we've got the holiday playlists going - it's all good.

Tattoos and Trees

I'm officially The Girl with the Tiny Purple Tattoos, although the three barely discernible dots don't make much of a "look at me with my cool tattoos" statement.

I've had seven radiation treatments (only 23 to go!), and so far it's no big deal. Every weekday at 1:30 I'm there for about 10 minutes, then I go back to my regular life.

They play a lot of Dean Martin in there, so afterwards of course I find myself wanting a vodka tonic. I'm not sure if listening to the King of Cool is clinically proven to soothe the jangled nerves of cancer patients, but it's a good distraction from the beeps and whirs of the machine.

One of my favorite city parks is near the hospital, so I'm making it a habit to stop by every day after the treatment for 10-15 minutes to connect with nature.

Walking among stately trees is a nice antidote to spending time in the windowless radiation department. On rainy days I visit the conservatory, which has been around for 100 years and is filled with orchids, succulents, and everything in between.

In addition to trees, a conservatory, an art museum, ponds, and city views, this park has a dahlia garden (my favorite flower).

Would I be noticing the beauty of dahlias on a sunny November afternoon if I weren't going through cancer treatment?

Seems doubtful.

Next Steps

Chemo Done

The final chemo treatment was a little over two weeks ago, and now I'm feeling much more like my normal self. I can't tell you how exciting it is for me just to feel normal. Chemo is such an invasion of the whole system, and I'm ready to be left alone. I'm also very grateful that I avoided some of the side effects I was most dreading, such as neuropathy (which can be permanent).

Radiation 

But of course there's more to go. Yesterday I had a consultation with the radiation oncology team and learned about the plan.

Many times women who've had a mastectomy can skip radiation, but if there is lymph node involvement and/or the tumor(s) extend beyond 5 cm, radiation is advised. Well I could check both of those boxes, so radiation it is. Plus I'm young and healthy (I know, 45 isn't exactly young, but in the cancer world it is), so I think that means I can take it and am at low risk for getting some things that could bother older or sicker patients.

I go in on Monday for a "planning session" where they scan and x-ray the area and there's a lot of set-up. I get three tattoos that look like pen dots (and being tattoos, will be permanent).

Then 1-2 weeks later I'll start the daily radiation appointments. I'll go in every weekday for six weeks. The radiation treatment itself takes just five minutes, but counting travel time it will probably take a little over an hour out of my day to attend to this.

The main side effects are fatigue, which is cumulative, and getting a "sunburn" on the skin that's being irradiated. For me that's the whole right chest wall and lymph node area.

I'm not sure how uncomfortable the skin is going to get or how much peeling there will be, but it sounded like most people aren't restricted from moving their arm or have to take major pain medicine. I'm also not sure how tired I'm going to get, but I was told that walking daily (which I'm already doing) helps significantly. So I'm going to go into this assuming it's all going to be manageable.

Plus, it's not going to be as hard as chemotherapy! Everyone seems to agree on that. It's good to have the most arduous chapter behind me.

There are other possible side effects that aren't nearly as common, and I'm just not going to worry about those. I was told that the big studies have shown that the benefits (namely reducing the chance of the cancer coming back in that area) outweigh the risks for patients like me, so I decided to trust that and go ahead with it.

How I'm Doing

While I'm not exactly looking forward to radiation, I've accepted that it's what I need to do. My perspective on what is "difficult" has changed this summer! That can work to my advantage. In fact, my perspective on what constitutes a "problem" or something to worry about has also shifted this year.

I need to guard against doing too much too soon, as I don't have all my energy back and won't for some time yet. This is not what I do best.

The Return of My Hair

I'm looking forward to watching my hair grow back. Not all of it fell out, but enough that I look pretty darn bald. It's supposed to start coming back in a couple of weeks. At first it may be downy and/or curly. I don't know when it will be long enough for me to feel comfortable to color it (oh so much gray!) and wear it short - I'll just have to see how it goes.

In the meantime, Mavis is on the clock.

Home Stretch

Five chemo treatments down, one to go.

If my chemo regimen were a marathon, I'd be at about mile 22. I'm not a runner, but it doesn't take too much imagination to guess that at mile 22 one is tired. Very, very tired.

I think that going through chemo has a lot in common with running a marathon, except for that whole I-didn't-actually-want-to-do-this thing. Plus there's no souvenir t-shirt.

I feel relieved that there are 22 miles behind me, yet the final 4.2 miles loom in front of me and there's another really big hill to climb. So this week it's time to slow my pace, hydrate at the water station and gear up for the last push.

One big difference between my experience and running a marathon is that I'm doing this alone, not in a group of other runners. For a variety of reasons I deliberately decided against joining a support group of people going through cancer treatment. I don't regret that decision, but since I don't know anyone currently going doing what I'm doing, many parts of this journey have been lonely experiences.

On the one hand it's been very important to me to keep living my regular life as much as possible, and that's been really helpful. Doing normal things with normal people helps me feel normal, and feeling normal feels good.

Yet cancer treatment is an alternate universe that you have to be in to really understand, and it's an intense and highly emotional experience. In that way it feels similar to becoming a new mom. And when you're a new mom, it's affirming to meet other bleary-eyed, hormonally-challenged women who have suddenly become a food source and are thinking about the things you're thinking about, like what kind of pacifier to buy and how not to go completely crazy.

I think I've found a way to address my need for this new kind of community (women who are doing or have done the diagnosis/surgery/chemo/radiation/survival shebang) without committing to sitting around and talking about it a lot with strangers, and that's through exercise programs for survivors.

I've started going to a Qigong class offered by a local cancer education and resource center and I've joined a group that offers all kinds of different fitness opportunities (triathlon training, yoga, weight training, dragon boat racing, the works) to female cancer survivors, which I'll explore more after I'm done with radiation. These are free programs, which I'm very much appreciating.

In the meantime, "normal" life goes on. M. started high school and C. started middle school a couple of weeks ago, and emotions have been running high around here. B. is in a very busy time at work. I have clients to see, family and friends to keep in touch with, a dog to walk, and so on, just like you.

But I'm pacing myself, trying to rest when I need it (that's still extremely difficult for me!) and feel happy to be coming into the home stretch of this challenging race.