I’ve enjoyed your comments, your compliments and all your efforts to remind me to look at the bright side, keep my chin up and keep going. I am, I do, and I will. I promise.

But there’s a secret I’ve been keeping from you and I am ready to let it out. It’s taken me a few weeks–almost 8 I suppose–to be able to do so, and all I can say in my defense is that I’ve never been a she-who-lives-with-breast-cancer person before so you’ll have to forgive me my missteps. Anyway, here we go:

my cancer is rising.

Okay, there it is. And the world did not fall apart like I’d feared–this is a good thing.

I’ll specify and explain: when I got back from my fabulous New England book tour, I had my usual blood draw–and got the slam of my life. My tumor markers had risen–and not just by a few points, they’d gone up by 50 points. That’s a lot.

So now they’re back at the level they were when I first found out I had cancer last year. Which SUCKS.

And, as you have already figured out, the blues hit me full force in the face–and continue to do so to this day.

Now here’s the good news: I’m making progress. The first big step is now, admitting it to you. For me that’s big because I’m ready to face it publicly–and stop hiding out with Will and Grace (although I can’t promise they won’t be holding my hand this holiday, you know how I lean on those two.) More good news, my doctor is on it. She’s helping me figure out what’s going on, what might have changed, and how to best handle it so we can get those numbers down again. Together we are going to do it. And by together I mean all of us–you, too.

So here I go again–asking for your help. I know, it’s the holidays and you’re busy–wrapping, baking, holly and jollying. I’m with you on that! (minus the baking of course)–but here’s what I need you to do:

HAVE A WONDERFUL, FANTASTIC, FABULOUS HOLIDAY SEASON.

That’s what I’m going to do–blue or no blue, I am NOT letting the Cancer Grinch steal my Christmas.

Happy Holidays to you all…

Before you read into that let me just say I wasn’t sitting around my house awaiting a phone call or drawing Xs on the wall to mark off the days until I got one. I admit initially I was hyperventilating as only I can, climbing the proverbial walls and wondering what had happened to make my pal say the things she’d said to me. At one point I thought maybe this was the end of us.

And then I thought: absolutely not.

Here’s why: we’d been through college together, 9 moves at least between us, 2 marriages, 2 children, several whoopie pies, 2 languages, breast cancer and family estrangement. This is a very good friend–and this was out of character for her. I had to hang in there.

We went through about 2 months of not speaking, and then one day I woke up and just said “enough. This is ridiculous.” I wrote her saying “I am sorry I hurt you, I didn’t mean to. You are my friend. I love you.” And we began to talk again–not discussing what had passed between us.

I was okay with this because I love her dearly. But still confused, I lived hoping that the whole stupid misunderstanding would disappear from my memory forever–but of course it never did. (I’m pretty good but I’m not that good.)

A year later and still no apology, I came to a place where I officially realized something that remains true to this day: some things in life I do not understand. One of them is corn dogs, one of them is hot yoga, and one of them was this strange blow-out in our friendship. And that’s just the way it is.

And here’s something else I had realized at the same time: people can only do what they can do when they can do it. Like water seeks its own level, people can only rise to the occasion based on what they’ve got inside them. I could have confronted my friend and said “okay, where’s my apology?” but to force it out of her–to me–would have made it all worse. I just wanted her get there on her own, so it was real–

and then this week–2 years almost to the month when it all began–we were together driving and the conversation naturally flowed toward that awkward time of our friendship a few years back–

and she apologized.

I could have crashed the car in delight!

But I didn’t–instead I put it in park and just hugged her. I was so happy I cried, which she was already doing. Of course I’d forgiven her a long time ago, so I didn’t need to say that–what I did say was, “I’m sorry, too.”

Because another thing I’ve learned is that, regardless of who is more at fault, it always takes two to tango–even if one is stepping on the toes of the other. And I’ve never seen people consciously plotting to step on their partner’s ‘toes’ anyway–unless it’s a bad soap opera or one hell of a twisted “Dancing With The Stars” episode. I just see people doing their best. Sometimes their best isn’t what I need or want–but they are doing their best, just the same.

I waited two years for an apology–and I’d have waited 22 if necessary.

I still don’t understand how life works: I still think corn dogs are scary and you will never see me at yoga class above 89F–but life in all its mystery has taught me a few things: 1) if it’s all your child will eat for lunch then a corn dog can be a life saver. 2) Hot or cold, yoga is crucial for the body and soul,

and 3) there’s no friend like an old friend to remind me that forgiveness given freely is always the best forgiveness–

whatever the time frame it takes to finally give it.

It appears the answer would be no, as the most I’ve done this week is laundry. But I know that question is very subjective, based on what the definition of “job” is that you’re using.

I do take a monthly stipend– barely visible on a W-2 form–for what I do here at Project Pink. And I have books I am writing that are available online and selling, subject to guerilla marketing that goes as far as my Facebook and Twitter accounts. But as far as “I’d like to grow up to be”? Nobody says “an unpaid writer.” So I supposed in that sense I do not have a job.

Which then makes it hard to find good writing inspiration on days when I am fighting the blues–as I have been for about a month now. I don’t want to write about the blues–I mean, I did that already a few times, and how many times can you do that without sounding like a whiner?

But a blog is a “daily web log” as the definition goes, and if you really read my daily inner mental web log you’d run screaming for the exit–cuz it hasn’t been pretty lately. There’s cancer, of course. And then there’s the rest—the bills, the weird economy, disciplining the children, my aging parent, rats in the garage, why don’t the kids pick up their rooms, blah blah blah–you probably have similar things on your list, hopefully minus the cancer. And I’ve been good about putting it all in perspective but recently it’s like I push back one thing and BANG something else grabs me and I’m back on the couch watching Will and Grace reruns and praying for tomorrow.

I hate to be a downer so I will stop right here and just assure you that I am getting through. I’m still fighting the blues but I am fighting–which is the only way you can ever get to the “winning.” As far as my friend goes, I told her to tell her daughter that yes, Ann has a job: she is a writer. But I didn’t suggest that her sweet little girl actually read this blog because allowing a 9 year-old to wallow in a 46 year-old’s wah-wah-wahs would definitely put me on the Naughty List this Christmas Season.

But I told my friend I will keep on doing my “job”–blogging, writing, fighting, beating cancer, living– because that’s what I do. Like Winston Churchill said, “when you’re going through Hell, keep going.” And since I’m going through Hell–or at least my own little version of it–that’s what I plan to do,

keep going.

it doesn’t take into account the people for whom the drug works.

It’s the same argument that In 2009 led the US Government Task Force to advise that women not have mammograms until they are fifty and to forget self breast exams all together.  In studies the incidents of mortalities did not change with or without the exams, it said.  Yet, that does little to shed light on the individuals for whom breast cancer self exams and mammograms are the reasons they are alive today–like me.

I remember watching Nancy Snyderman on the Today show when that bomb was dropped.  She was in the hot seat trying to explain the seemingly outrageous advisement.  She called the stories of hope, the ones where people could actually trace their lives back to an SBE or a mammogram, “anectdotal” stories.  I’ll never forget that–I know what she meant but all I could hear was that she called my life “anectdotal.”

Sure I may not live as long as you will, but I know I am here today because 6 years ago during a self breast exam I felt a lump.  My kids have memories of me that 6 years ago, at ages 4 and 1, they never would have had.  Ask any psychologist the long term effect of a child losing a parent, and a mother specifically, at such a young age and they’ll roll their eyes with that look of “it ain’t pretty.”  And I know, my mother lost her mother when she was 8–not to breast cancer, to something else–but she’s never been the same since.

There’s a lot still to consider in this debate, most notably the cost of this drug–which is outrageous.  And this country is in no position to dole out drugs that studies say do not produce the kind of results that make the debt worth it.

But out there are women who credit Avastin with giving them another day to hug their kids, check their email, see their next patient, or file that motion for dismissal.  So if the FDA is now recommending to disapprove its usage for breast cancer patients, then I can assure you anyone interested in the incidence of “anectdotal” lives lost to this decision has a guaranteed study in the making on their hands.

Which means this is a sad day for sick people everywhere.
And I hope you never become one of us.

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 16TH, 2010

Which is the antithesis of a blog: a blog being a daily web log (hence “blog”) of what’s going on in the mind, world, and daily existence of whomever is the author.

BUT…

just because you have a blog doesn’t mean what’s going on in your mind, world or daily existence is worth writing about, much less reading about. Hence we get a lot of blam as I call it: blog spam. Blam is just junk that people feel compelled to throw out there to keep readers engaged. Engaged in what? I’d like to know, but engaged just the same.

So here I am, telling you that today, a week before Thanksgiving, when I should be talking about all I’m thankful for, and all I am glad about, and all the precious words that would make you feel similar to that–quite frankly I don’t feel.

Today I got nothing. That’s the way the cancer cookie crumbles, I’m afraid. I got nothing.

Tomorrow, however, is another story. Tomorrow, as Scarlett O’Hara reminds us all, is another day. And tomorrow, tomorrow, as Annie sings it, is only a day away.

So I’m hoping for better: better mind, world and daily existence commentary–better blam, or better yet, no blam at all–

Tomorrow.

I want to thank all of you who did something to help; whether a walk, a donation, wearing pink or hugging a fighter. To you, in big bold letters– I say THANK YOU.

Now you can go back to your regularly scheduled lives.

But for the one in eight women around you–and some men too–the pink beat goes on. We have to face this beast every single day, like it or lump it.

So we’ll pick up our pink and soldier on, but know that we are grateful to you for the time you took this October to stand by our side and ‘represent’ as the kids these days say…

But mostly we hope we are all still here next year when the pink makes its next October appearance. We hope this friggin’ disease hasn’t stolen us away in its cowardly, dastardly, life-squeezing way–so that we can stand next to you in those aisles filled with soup cans, and those walks straddled with sneakers–to once again remind the world that breast cancer, like pink ribbons, is EVERYWHERE–

and until we eradicate it, we will be, too.

That’s a talk show hosted by my friends Rob Caldwell and Kathleen Shannon, whom I worked with for several years when I was a reporter and anchor at WCSH6 in Portland, Maine.

(Ann Murray Paige and Rob Caldwell, ‘pink tips’ book signing at UNE, Portland, ME.  October, 2011.)

I recently sat down with Kathleen at my book signing at the University of New England to talk about my new book, ‘pink tips’, and it was SOOOOO good to be back with my old friend again.

(Kathleen Shannon, Harry Harris, Ann Murray Paige and Donna Harris, UNE, Portland ME. October, 2011.)

You won’t see this on air, but behind the camera was my other dear pal, Harry Harris, whom I worked with when I was the bureau reporter in Lewiston for 3 years in the mid-90’s. And as a bonus, his fantastic wife and my friend Donna Harris was there, too.

(Ann Murray Paige and Harry Harris. UNE, Portland, ME. October, 2011.)

If you can check out the show, please do.  And know I am so happy to be back on air–if only for one night–on WCSH6/WLBZ2!