Posts Tagged ‘Project Pink Diaries Help and Hope’

Ann’s Diary: Isn’t it Ironic

This morning my friend came up to me and said, “I’m pregnant.” My mouth dropped open.

She’s around my age–late 40′s I would guess–and she has two kids almost grown. She wasn’t expecting to be….expecting.  I stood there gaping as she said… “all the nausea I’ve been having?  It’s the pregnancy.” I couldn’t say a word. NOT a word.  Boy was her life about to change…

“April Fools!” she quipped, laughing and rolling her eyes.  ”I’m NOT pregnant!” WHOOAAA did she get me!  I was already buying her a shower gift in my mind–a year’s supply of Geritol and Ibuprofen.

But the April-fooling was not over for me.  I went home after working out to take my usual shower before I headed to Monday chemotherapy for metastatic liver/lung/brain breast cancer. As I shampooed I noticed a tangle in my hair.  When I pulled it to loosen it, the entire clump of hair came off into my hands. My hair is falling out; chemotherapy style.

I am sure I remember doctors telling me  this wouldn’t happen, since this is a lower dose of chemo weekly than I had the first time my hair fell out in 2004. I even texted my husband when out of the shower to ask him and he confirmed that a few doctors had indeed said my hair will thin but not fall out entirely. So I checked with my oncologist but she confirmed it will fall out.  There was no use complaining. I either heard it wrong or she said it wrong. Now it is what it is.

I’m gonna be bald again.

I know losing my hair is not the be-all end-all.  I’ve done it already, I remember.  What I do know is that without hair I will look sick.  And THAT ladies and gentlemen, blows.

The best thing so far in this diagnosis is that I don’t look sick.  People can’t believe I’ve really got cancer.  That is awesome for me.  It lifts me up. It helps me stay strong.  I love being the physical representation of the middle finger to metastatic breast cancer.  Here, you big bully, look at me;  I got this–and YOU DON’T.

But as a bald woman with no eyebrows or eyelashes, I will be unmistakably SICK to the world. Sh-t.

What news to digest on this the National Trick Day of the year. The irony is not lost on me–or my hair.

 

Posted April 1st, 2013 by
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Ann’s Diary: Yoga Fail

I remember the day news anchor Katie Couric looked into the camera on the day she’d returned to work after losing her husband to colon cancer and said something like this:

“And to all of you who endure inconsolable loss and stand gaping as the world keeps moving on without you I say this: I understand.”

That was 15 years ago, and today not only do I remember those words, I live them.

This morning I was ready for yoga.  I haven’t done it since the “big news” of my brain/liver/lung metastatic breast cancer 3 weeks ago–mostly because I haven’t had the time. I was on that treadmill of “what do I do NOW” and busy getting it done. Now that I’ve done the brain radiation, the port, and am on chemotherapy round 2, I was ready this morning to get back to 9 a.m. yoga.

But driving there, I got in a tiff with someone. Then I got bad news about stuff on the homefront. NOT medical. But personal stuff–you know, in the running-of-the-house-and-family category that encompasses but is not limited to bills, kids grades, broken appliances, etc.  Or as I like to call it, the” we-know-it-doesn’t-matter-in-the-scheme-of-things-but-day-to-day-you-can’t-avoid-it-in-real-life”–

until you get a diagnosis like mine and that entire category of life blows up.  Paying off a credit card bill is not as important to me now as planning a family vacation–which puts yet one more emotional divider between me and the non-sick world.

So back to yoga–

there I was, trying to get into the class, but dealing with this “day-to-day” junk that was important and not important at the very same time. The yoga instructor said “grow your breath” but mine stuck in my throat.  She said “jump to the top of the mat” and my feet dragged like logs. “Think of someone you need to forgive” but there were too many choices in my head and I was the biggest one. Then I started feeling sorry for myself. That is the classic sign for me to abort the mission. If I’m going down that road I know I’m losing ground. I rolled up my mat and left the class. No yoga today.

I had prepared myself for possibly leaving yoga but not for emotional reasons. I thought the chemo might make it tough to stand the high heat in there. But It was heat of another kind–the unexpected–”the head trip of life as a woman who may or may not see her kids graduate high school”–that’s another way to put it–that got me. I drove away cursing.  I had so wanted to do yoga.

But as Katie Couric so prolifically said to “me” all those years ago, regardless of my situation life will go on around me–even as my world spins in and out of control.  Some days I’ll handle that motion, and other days I won’t.

Here’s one thing I know: there’s a yoga class next Wednesday at 9 a.m. with my name all over it.

Posted March 27th, 2013 by
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Ann’s Diary: Darlin’s Grandson

When my godmother died I really missed her.  That was more than a year ago and I’m still right there in that place. I really still miss her.  I still want her to show up.

Darlin was a classic.  She was a spark.  She had a shock of white hair on her head that was stylish before going gray became stylish.  She was beautiful.  She always dressed to the nines, wore the best shoes, and taught me that Aerosoles, while a comfortable shoe, could actually also look classy.  She had more than 40 years on me but usually looked as good if not better than I did–because she always dressed the part.  Always.

One of my lasting memories of Darlin is her pulling around the corner in her gray/brown Toyota Corolla.  I remember that like it’s my own reflection: that poof of hair, those big Audrey Hepburn sunglasses, gripping that steering wheel and waving to me as she drove off to her hairdresser, the manicure place, her adult education classes or her volunteer job at the high school.  Well into her 80′s, Darlin still did it all.

When she died in 2011, all that went away. And while I had her in my life for all of my years–she was my next door neighbor so I grew up with her, literally–and I should have been more grateful than anything to have enjoyed such a treasure and for so long, I admit to being crushed.  I wanted Darlin back–I still do. And all those memories, that clothing, that hair, that way of dressing to the 9′s and seeing that car drive-by…I still wish she’d show up.

Recently Darlin’s grandson moved nearby to me. Now we see him often. And we love him. Ryan is an extension of his grandmother, a familiar face because his features and mannerisms flow from a DNA swirl that include Darlin’s very own double-helix strands. And because his childhood visits to Darlin happened in the yard next-door to mine, I saw Ryan-the-toddler a lot. Now, he’s a fine young man and I find I share an emotional connection with him that maybe is due to Darlin and maybe it’s due to Ryan. But whatever it is, I like it.

So I was thrilled when Ryan moved near by. We began to invite him over to Sunday dinners. I looked forward to him arriving that first Sunday, to get to know him as an adult but also to be near the memory of that tremendous person that due to his bloodline Ryan represents for me–my godmother.  And though I knew his 23-year-old self would not be sporting gray hair, Audrey Hepburn glasses nor an easy-walking pair of pump heels with a matching outfit, I knew Ryan would naturally bring a part of the spirit of my godmother back into my life and into my home–I couldn’t wait to see him.

But when he pulled up–parking his vehicle in front of my home now thousands of miles away from the neighborhood I once shared with Darlin–I was struck dumb.  He jumped out of the car and gave me a bright smile: “Hi Ann!”  But it wasn’t his smile that got me–it was the car he was driving…

it was Darlin’s. Unbeknownst to me, he’d gotten her car after she’d passed away. It was the same one I’d seen daily for years out the window of my parent’s home–that steering wheel she’d wave to me from as she buzzed off to whatever adventure she was to find that day.

Tears welled up but I fought them off. For Heaven’s Sake, Ann, the kid will think you’re insane!  But as I hugged Ryan and welcomed him into my house, my home and my own family’s world, I looked over his shoulder at the gray/brown Corolla staring back at me and sent a silent shout out to Darlin:

I knew you’d show up.

 

 

Posted January 31st, 2013 by
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Ann’s Diary: Funk-y Town

When I was young there was a disco song that started with a techno/disco beat and began with the words “Gotta make a move to a town that’s right for me..”  The song was called “Funky Town.” Do you remember it?

I danced many a Saturday-night to that song at the clubs where my friends and I wanted to shake and wiggle on the crowded floor.  At the time it was all in fun, grooving the hours away on the psychedelic, spotlight lit dance area.  The tune “Funky Town” was anything but meaningful to me back then. Heck I was there for the dancing.

Twenty or so years later, I was recently having coffee with a friend when we hit upon the topic of funks.  Unlike the whimsical, magical “Funky” place in that 1970′s disco song, “funks” are not funky–nor fun.  They are sad places that sometimes show up in a life when things aren’t going right, what should feel okay doesn’t, and what used to be happy is sad.  I’ve been in funks from time to time as the ups in my life descend into downs, so I knew just what my pal was going through–at least I knew the feeling.  Everyone’s “funks” have their own original recipe depending on whose life they’re catering.  The one thing I knew to be universal about funks is that they stink.

I gave my friend a hug and told her–”I get it.  I know.  Funks are awful.  And though they pass, while they’re here they’re a _itch.” And she agreed.

Later on that night I was thinking about our conversation about funks–and thought about that song Funky Town.  It made me shake my head to think that years ago anything funk-y was usually funn-y to me–a blast, a groove, a musical riff that got me up and moving on some far-away dance floor from a time long gone.  Now here it was, that same word–almost: just the subtraction of one sometimes-vowel and the entire beat broke down to a sad stop.  Not fair. But that’s how life’s melody plays at times.

The good news though I realized, after I’d bid goodnight to my pal and had hopped into my warm, grown-up bed, is that while she and I–and maybe you–are no longer shaking to the beat of a disco song with a throng of other 20-someting sweaty club-goers from yesteryear, we are far from alone on the FUNK dance floor of life.  While a whole lot of us are pushed onto that emotional parquet now and then–and we have to find our own groove to get the hell off of it–that music won’t last long. There are better beats coming up–just wait this one out for the next one to play..

and play it will.  Funks happen, and unhappen. Sad moments are a part of life’s dance mix:  a brief tune within a longer set of hits, happy tunes and oldies but goodies. That’s the way we all grow–and go.  It’s life.  And fear not: as the Funky Town song of the 70′s says, eventually the funk has “gotta move on.  Gotta move on..”

..and leave us to dance to a better, happier and healthier song of life.

Posted January 31st, 2013 by
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Ann’s Diary: The Non-Blog

For those of you on pins and needles awaiting my latest post, here it is–

yet after you read it you may think those pins and needles were better.  I’ve had less to say in these last few weeks than I’ve had in many months–why I do not know.  Such is life I suppose.

I guess you can’t be awesome all the time, prolyphic constantly or happy forever.  Some days stink.  Occasional dips in productivity occur. Glitches in the plan stall results.  And sometimes I just don’t have anything to say.

Much has happened to me during this time of non-productivity, though.  I had a nice visit with out-of-state family, for one.  I had my ovaries out for another.  That’s kind of a strange list: of things coming and things going;  a revolving door of what endures in life and what has to go.

The family visit was pleasant–the ovary surgery not so much.  The actual surgery was fine, and I must give a shout out to my charge nurse Elaine who took such good care of me that even though I was in the cattle-call of surgical pre-operating areas–that place where a drawn curtain between you and the guy having his what-evers adjusted next to you, that “wall” designed for patient privacy but like fake mountains on a Sound Of Music high school theatre stage are no way near the real things and make the surgical experience just that much more uncomfortable from the start–I did at some point end up feeling like the only patient in the crowded, noisy room.  Well done, Elaine.  I hope you know you’re awesome.

And here I am two days post surgery and I’m feeling really well–a huge bonus to what might have been a bad week. I’ve got friends taking good care of me and a family surrounding me with whatever I need to heal.  It’s all good. I suppose I could be writing about that.  Or my hope that this ovary surgery does the trick and gives the cancer such a disadvantage that it gets up and LEAVES–that’d be a good blog.  Or just how lucky I feel that I had so many people praying for me and working on me from afar to make sure I soared through my usual anesthesia issues–I hate drugs in general, anesthesia worse–and this time I had zero after-effects–

But I gotta say, I’m just not there.  I’m in a place where lots has happened and that’s good, and lots will happen and that’s good too–

and for me, it’s all sitting around me, to be looked at, appreciated and enjoyed–but not necessarily to be blogged.  Not today, anyway.

And that is what it is.

I’ll see what happens tomorrow.

 

 

Posted January 25th, 2013 by
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