Posts Tagged ‘Project Pink Help and Hope’

Ann’s Diary: To Kate, William and Me

I hate to be a party pooper but I will not be watching the royal wedding today.  I have to exercise, eat right, drop the kids at Spanish, walk the dog, organize my closet, bake for my friend’s dance performance concession stand and make sure I have clean underwear for the weekend. Yet I wish Kate and William well.

In fact I wish them more than that, I wish them luck– because being celebrities in this day and age looks like a hell of a lot of work for not much reward.  I mean, who can relax with the eyes of the world on your every move, the paparazzi snapping your foibles for eternal eyes to see, and heaven help them when the lights go off if the Queen is anywhere within 50 miles of them, hoping for an heir. (Could you get that visual out of your mind long enough to enjoy your new husband? )

But I will be celebrating just the same today, April 29, 2011 because I got some fantastic news this week:  my tumor markers are WAY DOWN.  Last February they hit well into the 300’s and yesterday they came back in the 100’s.  Now there’s a reason to party–at least for me.

Yesterday when Kate Middleton should have been drinking bubbly, being oogled by her family and forcing down the butterflies that all brides-to-be have in the 24 hours before betrothal, I was lying flat on a slab encased in pillow-like straps having a PET scan.  PETs make sure my metastatic breast cancer hasn’t traveled to sites unknown in my body–which the awesome tumor marker numbers I just got wouldn’t reflect that because they’re only tracking breast cancer–not, say, a new liver cancer.  That’s why I need that scan– to make sure everybody’s behaving themselves inside me.  (Let’s call the PET scan the MOM scan for bad cancer–I’m watching you, so behave!)

And as I was lying there looking up at the cracks in the ceiling of the PET mobile, waiting to be mechanically delivered into the tube for my 40 minutes of radiation fame I thought about Kate, and William, and the Queen and the whole lot of them–the whole royal gang–and I wanted to feel bad for myself: as in boo-hoo, how come she gets to be royal and I get to be radiated–

but I couldn’t.  I tried, believe me, because what better moment to compare and contrast and be the winning sad sack?  But I just couldn’t do it.

Instead I thanked Richard my PET scan tech for being so nice, I grabbed a hot steaming latte from the local fresh-brewed place and I bought myself a few pretty things for summer at a retail store.  And I went on with my plebian day.

And then later on, when I found out that my tumor markers had come back so low, I thought–I am beating this freaking disease! Wow, I  guess that means that in the world of cancer fighters I AM royal!

So here’s to Kate Middleton:  may she enjoy her new life as Princess of England.  May she never need a PET scan and may she drink champagne as often as celebration warrants in her new crazy, flash-bulb ladened, lucky life. I wish them both–the future King and Queen of England, a long, healthy and happy life.

And I wish myself the very same thing.

Posted April 29th, 2011 by
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Ann’s Diary: What Rocks My World

I just want to remind my friends how much I love them.

I know it’s weird to put that out in a blog but hey–blogging in and of itself is weird so why not throw it all out there.  They helped me this week in ways only friends can do–by showing up. How and when they did that is immaterial to the theme here–it’s just that they did.  And I love them for it.

Sometimes in life things don’t go the way we hope, and we are left stunned and mute or else angry, crying and loud. I was all of those things this week–and kind of still am.  But my friends keep reminding me that it’s not about what’s wrong, it’s about who we are and that we are that matters.  And that makes things right.

So, to all of you, including L, L, D, K, L, C, M, N, S and especially to my husband–my hero–thank you for being who you are, and for showing up for me this week in ways that had less to do with your physical space and more to do with your presence in my life.

You rock my world.

Posted April 15th, 2011 by
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Ann’s Diary: My Cousin Sarah

I had a cousin when I was little named Sarah.  We lived 8 states away from each other, saw the other rarely if ever, and never spoke on the phone. We were a year and a day apart in age and worlds away from each other in gifts–she a tomboy, spoke her mind, unafraid to defend herself in a fight;  me a Lipsmacker lover, cautious and worried, and always afraid to defend myself in a fight.

Yet somehow, every time I saw her–at the occasional wedding, Catholic holiday or old relative funeral, was like was coming back to the pool after too long in the sun—”aaaaahhhhhh.” She was one of my dearest friends and though I had 4 of them at home I saw Sarah as a sister. My sister. And any time we were together, I knew I was going to have a blast.
Then we grew up.  Time took us traveling–she moved a few times, we both went to high school, then college and graduate schools and then off to big cities and new friends.  Throw in our respective climbs up the career ladder–hers in marketing and mine in TV journalism,  and a romantic relationship or two and we lost touch.

Sarah moved to New York and I moved to Virginia and in the days before cell phones, Twitter and Facebook you could easily lose touch with someone via a lost phone number and a canned voice saying “that number is no longer in service. If you need help, hang up and dial your operator.” I would have done so to get Sarah back in my world but like me, my operator had no idea where she had gone.
Besides, I was too distracted to find out.  Concentrating on becoming the next Katie Couric I had little time to track down lost friends.  So my Sister-cousin–my partner in holiday crime– slipped away from my world, along with at least 3 old boyfriends, 7 neighborhood pals and every single person who signed “friends forever” in my junior high yearbook.
Three decades later my film, the Breast Cancer Diaries, aired on Discovery Health and within a few days I got an email on my film’s webpage from a familiar cyberface:  my cousin Sarah.  She’d seen the film and felt compelled and excited to be back in my life–having just see my world collapse and watch me fight my way back over 9 months of cancer hell condensed into a tight 72 minute documentary. I almost cried reading the note.  As our Irish luck would have it (our mothers are sisters and both have ties to the Old Sod) I had moved within an hour’s plane ride of her. Suddenly, magically, we were back.

It’s hard to put into words what our present friendship feels like for me.  Though I’ve never had a long lost twin I can only imagine that this is a scratch-the-surface take on it.  When I say that Sarah was my special cousin as a child I’m not gilding the lily–I’m dead serious.  And when we lost touch it was one of those things that when people would say “do you have any regrets?” would pop up in my head, right along with dating that tall dark and dreary guy I wasted a year of my life on post college.

So as I write this blog I am happy to tell you that Sarah and I are about to embark on a trip together.  It involves an airplane, a fancy hotel, miles of sandy beaches, and two girlfriends laughing it up.  We haven’t been side by side holding hands and getting into trouble since we stole Nana’s pecan tarts from under Auntie Ann’s nose just before Christmas dinner back in 1975.  But this friendship, pock-marked with my cancer, her failed marriage and our devastatingly long absence from the other’s life, is about to enjoy a rebirth like you read about in What To Expect When You’re Expecting.

And just like we used to, I’m expecting that the two of us are going to have a blast.
Posted March 29th, 2011 by
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Project Pink Diary | Help and Hope | No. 5

Do ask, do tell. 

Ask for help if you need it, ask how to help if you can give it. I had a friend who wanted to do my laundry—and I didn’t like the idea of my soiled duds laid out in front of her.  4 weeks of chemo later, I was so tired I was happy to let her do my dirty work.

Posted August 4th, 2010 by
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Project Pink Diary | Help and Hope | No. 4

All cancers are not made equal.   

Some cancers are much easier to beat than others. Figure out what you’re up against and then beat it to the ground with education, medicine and hope.  And remember what Maya Angelou says:  ”I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.”

Posted July 30th, 2010 by
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