2012 in review

Posted: December 31, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

WordPress is outstanding. I give all credit to the Hubs for choosing WordPress as my blog home. Actually, he gets all the credit for this little blog’s existence. He bullied convinced me to transition from Caring Bridge to a “real” blog. I wasn’t sure I had the chops or the audience for a “real” blog, but he was right on both counts. See, I’m neither too proud nor too Greek to admit I was wrong.

After Trevor bullied convinced me to leave the safety of Caring Bridge for the wide-open world of “real” blogging, he set out to find the best blog host for me, and WordPress won that contest, hands down. Not to knock those blogs hosted by other, non-WPsites, of course, but WP never asks me to “prove I’m not a robot” by entering a string of jibberish into a little box before my comment can be published. WP never requires me to identify myself each and every time I want to post a comment on someone else’s blog. The brain that powers WP is big enough to remember who I am every time. There’ve been times when I’ve abandoned a comment I was planning to leave on another blog, after carefully composing it (or just rattling off a stream-of-consciousness thought) because the process of proving I’m not a robot and having to enter my credentials took too long or crashed my computer. Not so with WordPress.

I got a handy email from the dear folks at WP the other day saying this: “The stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.”

They provided this cute graphic as well. Thanks, WP; now I don’t have to troll googleimages to find something to pretty up my post.

The good people at WP crunched a lot of numbers and came up with this analogy for my little blog:

19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 100,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report. Thank you, stat helper monkeys, for this annual report. What a cool gift. Those helpful monkeys laid out my all-time most-viewed post for me. How interesting. If someone — or some monkey — asked me to pick what I thought my most-viewed post was, I’m not sure I would have thought of this one. But I’m not a stat-crunching monkey, now, am I? I’m someone who still counts on her fingers sometimes, and who always resorts to a 20-percent tip in a restaurant because the math is just easier. What I don’t know about stats and numbers and most-viewed posts is a lot.

I’m humbled and tickled and perhaps a bit surprised to see how far-reaching this little blog has become. My heart is warmed by the blog friends I’ve made through this little blog. Women and men around the globe from all walks of life, united in one thing: the need to pour out our hearts onto the WP screen, to try to make some sense of the curveballs life has thrown us. Whether cancer or life in a foreign land or the pursuit of a goal right here at home, my blog friends write about the stuff that is foremost in their minds and filling up their hearts. Through good news (the latest scan was clear!) and bad (the dreaded mets), through everyday events and life-changing ones, we share. We comment. We connect. We come together.

And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.

As we shed this year and look forward to a brand-spanking-new one, I will take some time to reflect on this little blog and all its stats and numbers. As I prepare for a year-end blow-out celebration with dear friends and lots of champagne, I will think of my blog friends around the world, and I will raise a glass to our shared experience. While I’d just as soon not have been diagnosed with breast cancer at the tender age of 40, had I not, I wouldn’t have started this little blog and “met” all of my wonderful friends in the blog-o-sphere. While I still fervently maintain that cancer is not a gift, it does happen, and we deal with it. We curse it, we cry about it, we blog about it. We come together.

Readying myself to bid adieu to 2012, I think of the year ahead and hope it’s full of good health, dear friends, yummy food, sunny days, bottomless glasses, cherished children, and beloved pets. I wouldn’t mind getting back on the tennis court after 4 long months of rehab for my newly-repaired knee, BTW. I’m thinking of things I want to do in the New Year, tasks I want to tackle, skills I want to acquire, places I want to go. In the immortal words of Mark Twain, I’m thinking of catching the wind in my sails. Mark_Twain_Quote_Explore_Dream_Discover

Letting go

Posted: July 25, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: , , , , , | 13 Comments

Because I really love words, I often come across a quote that speaks to me. I usually scribble it on a receipt or piece of scrap paper at the bottom of my purse, or I hastily type it into the notes app on my phone, with every intention of revisiting the quote and why it caught my attention. Sometimes the revisiting results in a blog post, but more often than not the note languishes until I clean out my purse or go to make another note on my phone. Then I wonder, where did I find this quote, and what did I intend to do with it? I blame cancer and infection and their long-reaching tentacles for compromising my previously functional brain.

The latest scribble in the bottom of my purse is a good one:

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.” — Tao Te Ching

Ah, yes, the letting go. I’ve never quite understood the idea of “just let it go” when bugged by something. While I don’t endorse fretting and harumphing, I wonder what manner of insensitivities would be committed if people just turned the other cheek and acted as if nothing wrongful had occurred.

Needless to say, I’ve never been particularly adroit at just letting things go.

When someone cuts in front of me in line, I point out that I was there first. When a doctor keeps me waiting for hours in the waiting room, I mention that while I understand that things come up and emergencies do arise, my time is valuable, too. When my son’s All Star team was wrongly accused of misdeeds this season, I let the accusers know that their underhanded tactics did not go unnoticed. When a member of my inner circle acts unkindly, I don’t hesitate to bring the errant behavior to her attention.

Sometimes speaking out changes things: the line-jumper realizes he/she isn’t the only person on the planet. Sometimes it doesn’t change things: doctors overbook themselves, 12-year-old baseball players are punished because of so-called grown-ups’ selfishness, and friendships run their course.

I’ve been told that people admire my willingness to speak up in the face of blatant wrongdoing. “I wish I was ballsy like you” or “I’m too chicken to say what I really think” are among the comments I’ve heard on this topic. I’d love to take credit for being brave and outspoken, as if it were planned and orchestrated for the greater good. The truth is, however, it’s not something I plan; it comes out because I don’t have a very reliable filter. I’m not so good at letting it go.

Change does come from having cancer and facing all of its myriad unpleasantries and challenges. I have learned during the course of my cancer “journey” to let some things go. While I won’t insult you with the platitudinal idea that cancer has made me a better person (I was just fine before, thank you very much), it does have a way of forcing things into perspective. I will never go quietly into the night with the idea that any of this is fair, but I won’t fight it, either. Sometimes bad things do indeed happen to good people. Sometimes life intervenes to rearrange the order of things, to shake things up a little, or a lot. I’ve learned a lot on this cancer “journey,” from the technical to the philosophical, from the underside of fear to the crushing tyranny of bad breaks and complications straight through to the unmitigated joy of coming out the other side, battle-weary and scared shitless yet proud in the knowledge that no matter what this beast flings at me, I can take it.

I will likely continue speaking out against what I perceive as the injustices in my life; a tiger doesn’t change its stripes, after all. I will nag the line-jumpers of the world until they see the error of their ways. I will savor Tao’s words and reflect on the idea that in letting go of things or friendships that may not be working, I open myself up to receiving something even better.

Quote for the day

Posted: April 24, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: literature | Tags: , , , | 9 Comments

“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” — Emily Dickinson

This is what I think of on my 19th wedding anniversary. Not something flowery and romantic. Sadly, that’s not how I roll. I’m sure there are countless quotes out there in the universe about love and marriage and all that mushy stuff. My tastes, however, run to Miss Dickinson and her adage. This quote always makes me think about a door flung wide open and a million different possibilites — all of them fabulous — tripping over each other trying to get in. 

Different strokes, y’all.

Digging deep

Posted: November 4, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer, drugs | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The last week has been rather trying.

Ok, it’s pretty much sucked out loud.

This time last week I was puking like a freshman pledge at a fraternity party, and the fun didn’t stop until I dosed myself with Phenergan and Zofran and conked out for the night. Little did I know that that was a harbinger of what was to come.

The preventative course of antibiotics has quite simply kicked my ass. I’ve never been one to run from a fight, until now. I’m done. I’m out. Let the countdown begin so someone can drag my sorry carcass out of the ring.

I’ve spent the vast majority of this week in my bed. The entire week. This is rather unusual for a busybody like me, but there was no way around it. My body said, enough. I got up for the necessities: sustenance, teeth-brushing, and potty breaks. Oh, and to drive carpool. Gotta go get the kiddies! Yesterday I picked up the kids in my pajamas — a first for me. I know some moms who do that on a regular basis, but I had never once done it, and today may well be a repeat performance. One of the teachers in the pick-up line, an adorable & energetic kindergarten teacher, stuck her head in my car to say hi and giggled at me in my jammies. She said,”Oooh, I want your life.” I looked her straight in the eye and said, “No, you don’t.”

Trust me on that.

Never have I been laid so low by the workings of modern medicine. Not when I had chicken pox in grade school and had to miss the school carnival (a belated thank you to Rick Dodd for bringing me cotton candy from the event). Not when I had mono in middle school and thought I was near death. Not when I got my tonsils out in high school and would have slipped quietly out of this world if someone had just pulled the sheet over my head.

I have never felt this sick.

I seriously considered calling my dear, delightful doctor yesterday to say that I highly suspect the antibiotics are poisoning me.

My whole body hurts. My bones ache. My lower back feels like it’s being pulled in all directions. My eye sockets feel too big. My tummy is in serious turmoil. The back of my mouth feels like something died in it. My tongue feels fuzzy. My brain is switched off yet my head is spinning, and the idea of making a simple decision is overwhelming. Nothing sounds good, nothing tastes good, yet I’m convinced that there’s something out there that will make this all better. Fresh-squeezed orange juice? No. A grilled cheese sandwich with spicy mustard? Sorry. An angel food smoothie with extra antioxidants? Good try, but no. Macaroni & cheese? Hah. Yogurt with lots of blueberries? Puh-leeze.

The only thing that’s gonna help me in this dire case is time. As the sage Boy George once said, “Time, oh give me time.”

Time to heal. Time for the drugs to run their course. Time to patch up my desiccated digestive system. Time to get past this latest round of shittiness.

(I really hope it happens fast, too, because my favorite girl & I have tickets to see Taylor Swift tomorrow.)

It’s time to dig deep, to look to wiser women than myself, and to seek comfort from whatever source in which it may reside. Today it’s Harriet Beecher Stowe who speaks to me, whose words assure me that I can get through this:

“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”

I’m waiting.

Never, never, never

Posted: October 21, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments

My sweet friend and lymphedema guru Tammy has a sign in her treatment room that I’ve looked at a million times and always find strength in it. Since I’ve been having a rough go lately, I thought I’d post it but then couldn’t find the photo I have of it. So I did a google search, thinking I’ll buy the sign as a little pick-me-up for myself, a “love gift” as my runnin’ buddy would say. Can’t find it. Anywhere. If I asked Tammy where she got it, she’d probably give it to me, so I’m not going to ask.

I did find a reasonable facsimile, and here it is. Meanwhile, the search will continue, and I will refuse to give up.