Healer

Posted: January 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer, literature | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The body is a miracle, the way it heals. A factory of survival and self-repair.  As soon as flesh is cut, cells spontaneously begin to divide and knit themselves into a protective scar. A million new organic bonds bridge the broken space, with no judgment passed on the method of injury.

Wow. That’s pretty prose.  I wish I had written it.

I’d love to claim it as my own, but that would be wrong, and Lord knows I need the great karma wheel to turn my way. I can’t afford to tempt the gods of fate, as they seem to like toying with me.

Carol Cassella wrote that prose. If you’re a fiction fan and don’t know her work, I encourage you to get her books sooner rather than later. Whether you run to the bookstore or download onto your e-reader, get on it. You won’t be sorry. She’s an anesthesiologist-turned-author whose first book, Oxygen, is one of my all-time favorites. Her second book, Healer, wasn’t quite as good but I gobbled it up in hopes that it would be.  I liked her right off the bat, because she’s a Texas native and a Duke graduate. A girl after my own heart. She’s also the mother of two sets of twins (!) and how she got anything done, much less wrote 2 bestsellers, is a mystery to me.

I read Healer this summer, while I was trying to heal. I was struck by the passage above, and loved how dramatically it introduces the book. From the very first sentence, I was hooked. While I certainly didn’t set out to turn this blog into a space for book reviews, sometimes things happen that way, and I’m an equal-opportunity blogger, so there we are.

As a physician, Cassella understands the intricacies and magic of the human body. As an author, she’s able to capture that and express it so that someone like me, an impatient patient, can read it and say, yeah, that’s right–the body is a miracle!

I needed that reminder. I was so focused on wanting my healing to occur faster, I didn’t realize that the fact that it was happening at all was amazing.

Equally amazing is the education this experience (e.g., the “cancer journey”) has provided. I’ve learned a bunch of lessons I never wanted to learn, such as how utterly unfair life can be. I’ve acquired skills I never thought I could and hope to never have to use again. Anything involving packing a wound or administering IV drugs at home falls into that category.

I’ve certainly learned a new vocabulary. Not just the new definition of “normal,” either. Things like nosocomial (originating in a hospital, as in a nosocomial infection). Like debridement (removal of foreign material or dead tissue from a wound in order to promote healing). Like aromatase inhibitors (drugs like Tamoxifen that lower estrogen levels in the body by blocking aromatase, an enzyme that converts other hormones into estrogen). Like oophorectomy (surgical removal of the ovaries).

I’ve learned how to get a good night’s sleep in a noisy hospital. I’ve learned the difference between DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) and invasive breast cancer, and that they’re both plenty scary.  I’ve learned that an injection can leave a bruise for close to 3 months. I’ve learned that the practice of medicine is both a science and an art. And I’ve completely forgotten what it feels like to wear a bra.

Homework

Posted: January 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer, drugs, infection | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

I’ve been reading up on and researching reconstruction. Oh, to return to the days in which the only context I had for reconstruction involved the South rising again.

Alas, that’s not to be, and the horse is out of the barn, the worms are out of the can, and we can’t unring that bell. So now reconstruction means something entirely different.

It was supposed to be a pretty simple affair: tissue expanders put in at the time of my mastectomy, which would be filled with saline slowly and gradually, over a period of a few months, to allow my skin to stretch and accommodate a set of perky but modest implants (male readers, go ahead and groan at the mention of modest implants.) Why does one need her skin stretched for implants, when millions of women get the orbs jammed into their chests in a single step? Because those millions of women haven’t had their flesh scooped out down to the ribs. (Hope you weren’t planning on eating BBQ anytime soon.)

Back to the implants: my simple affair turned in an epic fail when the right tissue expander exercised some really bad judgement in allowing a mycobacterium to share its space. Ah yes, the infection. That dadgum bug turned my world upside down, and fast-tracked me from post-surgery superstar to sick, sick, sick. My recovery was going so well. I was convinced I’d be back on the tennis court in a month. Sigh.

Moving along to option B: the TRAM flap. It’s a big surgery (8-12 hours average) with a week’s stay in the hospital and 3-to-6-month recovery. Youch. I didn’t really get how they accomplish this surgical feat, so in the course of my research I watched a youtube video of an actual TRAM flap procedure. “Ewww, gross” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

In laymen’s terms, the surgeon cuts a football-shaped piece from your tummy, with the incision going from hip to hip. He or she (for this purpose, we’ll say “he” since Dr S will be the surgeon, but y’all know I’m all about equal opportunity so I must digress) then cuts the rectus abdominal muscle, in its entirety or partially, and  uses that muscle as the blood supply (e.g., blood vessels and small arteries) in the newly created breasts. Then he tunnels his way from the tummy incision up to the breast area, shoving tummy fat upward to create the new breasts.

After recovering from the grossed-outed-ness of watching this, I marveled at the ingenuity of the technique. Pretty cool stuff. But I admit it unnerved me for a few days. You may recall from previous posts way back when this all started that I HATE hospitals. I detest the smell, the noise, the lack of privacy, the parade of people in & out of the room, the clanking of carts up & down the hall, the cafeteria-style food, the machines beeping, the cords snaking everywhere, and the omnipresence of needles and IVs. I do like the morphine, though.

In addition to my extreme and unconditional hatred of all things hospital, I now fear them greatly and mightily because of the infection. I’m really, really scared. Like “want yo mama scared.” The risk of infection in any surgical procedure is estimated to be 3 percent. That’s pretty low, right? When you think about all the different surgeries done in all the different hospitals in all the different cities every day, that’s pretty low. But leave it to me to be the one person who gets it. Sheesh.

And leave it to me to get a rare infection that is not only hard to classify but hard to kill. Hence the never-ending 12-hour cycle of oral antibiotics. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation tells me I’ve been taking those two oral abx for about 140 days. And there’s no end in sight.

So you can see why I’m not exactly rushing back into the OR for my reconstruction.

However, the compelling reason to get in there and get ‘er done is the complications still arising from said infection. Dr Grimes, my infectious disease doc, thinks that undergoing the surgery sooner rather than later will help clear up some of those complications by way of cleaning out the unhealthy tissue and replacing it with fresh new tissue with a brand-new blood supply. Sort of like replacing your old, threadbare socks with a nice new pair.

That’s why I was doing my homework and scaring myself half to death, so that I can go into my appointment with Dr S armed with knowledge and ready to proceed. I took a lot of notes and tried to keep up with all the different kinds of flap procedures: pediculed vs non-pediculed vs perforated, etc. Then there are variations on the procedure called DIEP and SIEA flaps (Deep Inferior Epigastic Perforator and Superficial Inferior Epigastic Artery, respectively). Prior to my research, I had no idea what TRAM stood for but speculated, based on my limited knowledge, that it was “That’s Rough on your Abs, Ma’am.” Turns out it’s actually Transverse Rectus Abdominis Myocutaneius. Good to know.

I didn’t pay much attention to the DIEP and SIEA flaps, because the TRAM flap was the only procedure Dr S had ever mentioned. I assumed that’s what I’d be getting. We all know what happens when you assume…

Dr Dempsey pointed out, however, that the DIEP flap is the one for me because it spares the ab muscle, something I will want and need as I go forward in my long, active, tennis-filled life. The DIEP flap is a more complicated surgery (12-15 hours), though, and there’s not nearly as much info available on it as there is on the TRAM flap.

Here’s why: the DIEP involves a lot of microsurgery. Instead of transferring the ab muscle and its blood vessels to the breast area, Dr S will make that big incision on my tummy, but leave the muscle there, removing the blood vessels and arteries entirely and reconnecting them in the new breasts. Apparently he will have to cut a piece of a rib, too, to make this all come together. I choose to skip over that part and not even think about it. Yikes.

The DIEP is considered the gold standard of flaps. And the reason there’s not as much info available is that it is a more technically complicated surgery, and not many surgeons do it. But if you’ve read any of my posts about Dr S, you know that he is the gold standard of surgeons, so I’m in good hands.

Stay tuned.

Crazy lady on aisle 3

Posted: January 6, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

I went into Randalls yesterday, a grocery store at which I rarely shop, and came across the strangest, angriest, kookiest lady I’ve ever seen.  I’m still wondering if this really happened, or was a crazy-train dream.

Here’s how it went down: I was behind Ms. Crazy in the checkout line. Her roast or whatever cut of red meat had dripped bloody juice all over the floor where I needed to walk, and was also all over the conveyer belt of the checkout area. I didn’t say anything even though, as a non-meat-eater I was sicked out big time.

Ms. Crazy noticed it on the conveyer belt and griped at the sweet elderly cashier to clean it up. Hearing how she talked to this service provider was the first clue that Ms. Crazy is, well, crazy.

When Pat the sweet elderly cashier rang up Ms. Crazy’s assorted box of individually wrapped cookies, Ms. Crazy complained in a loud & ugly way that the store flyer advertises that product for $2.99 but it rang up for $3.99. Ok, mistakes happen, and I’m pretty sure sweet Pat isn’t the one responsible for programming the sale prices into the cash register, so back off Crazy Lady.

Pat consulted the flyer and found that yes, that product is on sale but Ms. Crazy got the wrong variety or wrong size or something. Ms. Crazy’s response was to bark at Thomas, the bag boy, to go get her the right kind of cookies.

Yes, ma’am.

He came back with what he thought was the right variety, but it wasn’t the assorted box, it was all Chips Ahoy, and Ms. Crazy and her family need the variety and excitement that only Chips Ahoy, Nutter Butter, AND Mini Oreos can bring. Did I say they need the variety? Pardon me, they deserve it. She didn’t say that, but I could totally tell that’s the kind of person she is.

So Ms. Crazy sent poor Thomas back to the cookie aisle to do her bidding. While he was gone, she looked at me, waiting ever so patiently behind her hot mess self. I was making an effort to be patient, for once, and didn’t huff or look at my watch or otherwise complain. But when Ms. Crazy rolled her eyes at me, as if to suggest the Randalls employees were disappointing her high expectation of — and God-given right to — exemplary service, my patience quickly evaporated.

That was when Ms. Crazy noticed the bloody juice all over the floor. She asked me, Is that blood? I said, I don’t think it’s blood but juice from the meat you’re buying. Again, I didn’t say one word about how disgusting that is, or what a potential health hazard it is, or inquire about her feelings toward the innocent cow that gave its life to appear in her shopping cart or lecture her in any way about all manner of evil represented by that styrofoam tray full of flesh & muscle.

Not one word.

Fat lot of good all my restraint did me.

When Thomas had yet to appear with the holy grail of cookies, I jokingly told Ms. Crazy that I would give her a dollar if it would help speed up her checkout. She didn’t think I was one bit funny, and told me to, and I quote, “Shut the F*%# up.”

Yes, you read that right. She told me to shut up AND used the F word. In the grocery store.

Wow.

That is some serious insanity.

I was stunned, for sure. I kept my cool and told her that she had no right to speak to me, or anyone else, like that. She replied in a nasty sneering way, “Oh  no! Did I offend you? I doubt it.”

Ok. Right. I’m not even sure how to respond to that, so I took a step back and said, ok, back off, I was just joking anyway. She yelled something about how Randalls needs to fix the computer and correct the price right because what’s going to happen when the next person comes along and has the same problem? I told her I’m not real concerned about the next person, because hopefully by then I’ll be home and have my groceries unloaded and be on to the next task.

Well, Ms. Crazy didn’t like my answer one bit. Not one bit. She screeched at me (yes, she really screeched), “You’re in your Sugar Land bubble and just want everyone to hurry up, get out of your way because you’re next.”

I’ve often joked about the Sugar Land bubble, where all the kids are above-average thinkers, the moms all have perfect figures and keep a perfect house, the dads all have high-paying jobs and coach Little League and everyone drives a gas-guzzling SUV. God Bless Sugar Land.

But I’ve never suggested that the “Sugar Land bubble” entitles me to preferential treatment.  So there, Crazy Lady.

After she screeched at me, I held up my hands as if to say, Ok, whatever, and to signal my official disengagement. Thomas had returned with the offending cookies by this time, and it was time for Ms. Crazy to pay for her cartload of processed, trans-fat-laden crap. And she didn’t even have her credit card out, ready to swipe.

I swear, some people. Sure lady, hold up the entire line so you can get your cookies and be unprepared to transact business. Egads.

But that’s not all — when Ms. Crazy finally got around to digging her credit card out of her wallet, she suggested my shopping cart was in her way. And she said, “Move your cart or I will move it for you.” Wow, again. I asked her if she was threatening me, and she said it sure sounded like it. So I decided to treat her like the child whose behavior she was modeling and said, “As soon as you ask nicely, I will happily move my cart.”

Ms. Crazy clearly doesn’t like people who establish boundaries. She told me to move my f-ing cart and then she shoved the cart a little bit. Pathetic.

I really wondered about the right parting shot. I chose to let it lie and didn’t say anything, but I kinda wish I would have told her how sad it must be to be her. Or that it’s not nice to talk to people that way. Or that there’s lots of good mental help available, even without comprehensive insurance.

After she left, Pat the cashier apologized to me, and Thomas said the Ms. Crazy comes in there all the time and is always like that. I joked to them both that if she was waiting for me in the parking lot, I was going to call the police. They took me seriously, though, and Pat made sure I had my cell phone and asked Thomas to walk me to my car!

And people say nothing exciting ever happens in the suburbs.

The power of a great book

Posted: January 5, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer, kids, literature | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

I’m completely entranced by my latest book club book, a super fun story that has me itching to find out what happens next. Not in a suspenseful, dramatic sort of way, but more in the way of great character development that makes the characters seem like real people.

I thought I might get some reading time in while sitting with my aunt at the hospital today, but we chattered and blabbed the whole time instead. After running my errands and doing a few chores, I had about 20 minutes before Macy came home from school, so I raced to the car to fetch my Kindle and get to reading.

I was engrossed enough that when Macy barreled through the door it startled me a little. She wanted to run to the mailbox to see if her latest order from amazon.com had arrived. She too has been bitten by the reading bug and has devoured a new series of books. Her eager anticipation paid off and she was rewarded by the sight of a cardboard box in the mailbox.

Before long Payton was home, too, and barely got his backpack off his shoulder before announcing he was going straight to his room to stretch out on his bed and read. He started a new series just after Christmas, and I am thrilled that it’s something other than Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Nothing against the Wimpy Kid or author Jeff Kinney — I think he has a cute product — but I like to see Payton reading something a bit more substantial. 

Both of my kids are sucked into great books, and I couldn’t be happier. My mom, the former English teacher, would be equally tickled to see her progeny so captivated by literature.

My house is so quiet it’s a little unnerving — no thumping feet up and down the stairs, no phone ringing, no door slamming, no Nickelodeon laughtrack or video game sound effects. It’s pretty great.

Cheers to 2011

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

“The Old Year has gone.  Let the dead past bury its own dead.  The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time.  All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!” ~Edward Payson Powell

I have to admit, I didn’t know who Mr. Powell is, but I sure like his sentiment. About the New Year. About the past being just that — the past. About the ripe possibilities contained in a brand new year.

(BTW, Powell was a journalist and author in the late 1800s and early 1900s who died at age 83 while on a fishing trip with his daughter.)

Every January, the dawn of a new year is exciting and full of potential. Many people make (and quickly break!) resolutions in an effort to shrug off bad habits and assume good ones. Personally, I abstain from resolutions. I’m more of list-maker and goal-setter year-round. Not that there aren’t things I’d like to improve upon, for schizzle. But I’m wise enough in my advancing age to know that a promise made at the tail-end of one year for sweeping change in the next is an unrealistic proposition.

January is one of my favorite months, as it signals the end of the hectic holiday season– which typically is not my favorite time of year– and it ushers in the celebration of the entrance of Macy into the world. (I feel the same way about May, and the celebration of all things Payton.) 

This year, this fresh new year, of all years, I’m not looking for sweeping change. The last 6 months notwithstanding, I have to say my life is pretty sweet. And even when I factor in the calamity that ensued since May, I would have to give myself an above-average grade in coping, managing, and reinventing.

Not to toot my own horn, but I think I handled it all just fine. There was a decent amount of bloodshed, but all of it was mine and I didn’t cause it to happen to anyone else (namely Dr S, who could have suffered at my hands more than once!), so that’s a good start. I made some new friends, always a good thing, and learned an entirely new vocabulary. I like to think I passed the “Eleanor Roosevelt test” in which a woman is like a tea bag: you never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.

So I won’t make any resolutions for this newly minted year. I will resolve, however, to keep on keeping on. To not let the turkeys get me down. To keep on truckin’. To mind the gap. To live free or die. To do unto others. To keep calm and carry on.

And my new favorite platitude: 

Don’t let the door hit ya…

Posted: December 31, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: baseball, breast cancer, drugs, food, infection, kids, pets, tennis | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

As we prepare to bid adieu to 2010, I took a stroll down memory lane in the months since I joined the club of which no one wants to be a member. There were some great moments in the first few months of 2010, or BC (before cancer), and I made it my mission to ensure that the months that followed had the same. Two weeks before I was diagnosed, life was grand, as evidenced by the happy girls in this photo of Yvonne’s birthday dinner at Stella Soli. So fun! Who knew that something wicked this way comes?

The day before my surgery, Macy and I had the great good fortune to meet Jeffrey, a baby mockingbird rescued and rehabilitated by our friends the Hoovers.  I’m sure I had a million things to do to get ready for the big day, but meeting Jeffrey was high on the list, and I wasn’t going to miss out on the chance to have this sweet little guy hang out with my favorite girl.

An awful lot of people did a whole lot of nice things for my family and me, following my surgery, including but certainly not limited to custom-made cupcakes,

an apropos coffee mug for my cup of Joe (the photo is small but the mug says “cancer” with the red circle & slash mark,

and home delivery of my all-time favorite coconut cream pie. You know you’re in the inner circle if you’re invited to share a slice of my cousin Tom’s homemade heaven. 

One of my first post-surgery outings was around the corner to dinner at the Cremers’ for Keith’s famous crab towers: lump crabmeat topped with a most delectable avocado-mango salsa atop a bed of greens with a citrus-y vinaigrette.

Dinner at their house is always good, because he and Jill are both fantastic cooks and there’s always plenty of bubbly on hand. 

Y’all know how much I love my bubbly.

Some may say I love it more than my kids, but that’s not fair.

We all know it would be a tie.

Two weeks after the surgery, but before the dreaded infection showed up, it was my birthday. Those who say it’s all downhill after 40 may not realize that to a cancer patient, each and every birthday is a gift, and I met birthday number 41 head-on with a welcome embrace: Mexican food, margaritas and the cutest cake ever with my girls. None better.      Who cares that I still couldn’t wash my own hair at this point? Not me! I was happy to be upright and out of the house.

A week after my birthday, the bottom fell out of the extraordinary recovery I was experiencing post-surgery. We were at a joint birthday party for 3 June girls (but there were no joints at the party; that’s how rumors get started!), and I didn’t feel good. After two weeks of slowly but surely making progress and feeling better, this was weird. What was really weird was waking up the next day to a huge red rash and blisters at the surgery site on my right side. You don’t have to be a doctor to know that is not good.

In the time that I was hospitalized the first time, Payton made the All-Star team 

and embarked on one of the most memorable summers ever, for baseball. Memorable because the team did so well (District champs, Sectional champs and on to the State championship in Tyler) and because the boys chose to show their support for me very publicly by wearing pink sweatbands all summer. These warriors in pink tore it up on the baseball field and made this mama so proud.

I only made it to a couple of games but got to follow along with all the action thanks to an iPhone app that allowed Trevor to “broadcast” the games to a website that I followed on my iPad from the hospital. I will never forget the look on the nurse’s face when she came into give me a shot of morphine and I told her I needed to wait (I never turn down the good drugs) because I wanted to keep my wits about me and follow the game. Also memorable was the wound-care specialist who had two sons go to State as All Stars who called me from home at 10:30 pm to see if Payton’s team won. They did.            

In between hospitalizations, I spent a couple of hours one day in my backyard in the sunshine, watching Harry frolic in the pool. After being cooped up in a dreary hospital room and feeling lousy, the fresh air, sunshine and unbridled canine joy were just what I needed.

One of the best days of all was in early July, in between hospital visits. I had been to see Dr Darcourt, my third oncologist, and learned that he agreed with all the research Trevor had done: no chemo! Celebration was in order, and when Amy & I ordered champagne at lunch, our sweet waiter at PF Chang’s asked if there was something special to celebrate. He had no idea but we filled him in! 

Another highlight was getting to spend the weekend in Galveston with Christy & Alexis, who were kind enough to teach Macy how to fish. And fish she did: that girl caught the biggest fish of the trip! Later that night, I caught a baby sting ray (not my intent, for sure). I still feel bad about that poor little guy happening by the tempting lure on my fishing pole. All’s well that ends well, though, and with some help from some more seasoned fishermen, the little guy was freed. More importantly, I had a fun weekend with great friends that approximated a return to what most people consider a normal life. 

Despite the idyllic setting, that weekend was just an approximation, though, of normal life, and the infection would puzzle and vex not one but two set of infectious disease doctors. After two more hospitalizations and a new team of ID docs, we got a handle on it, and although the last thing I wanted was to go back to the hospital, and to the Medical Center at 10:30 on a Sunday night no less, I wasn’t alone in the joint. 

Macy loaned me her beloved Froggy to keep me company, and he took his job seriously. He didn’t left my side until I was allowed to go home, and then he went straight from the suitcase into the washing machine lest he brought home any nasty germs from the hospital. We’d had quite enough of those in our life.

Early August was bittersweet: I was on the mend, literally, but still on IV antibiotics at home and not well enough to travel to Boston for our annual vacation. After already having missed my Duke girls’ trip to Lake Tahoe in early June and all of the State championship in Tyler, I was beyond sad to miss this trip, which is always the highlight of our summers. Leave it to Macy, though, to bring me a fantastic souvenir: Continental Airlines had unveiled a new drinks menu on her flight home from Boston, and she got me a pomegranate martini mix and, once home, brought two glassed full of ice, two lime wedges, and one shot of vodka. My favorite girl and I had a welcome-home drink together. Of all the bevvies I’ve consumed, that one may be my all-time favorite.

A few days after school started, and a week or so out of the hospital, Macy & I had tickets to see Jack Johnson play at the Woodlands pavillion. After a string of disappointments all summer, I was determined to make it to the show. It poured rain on us and traffic was horrendous, but we made it and had a great time. What would be an already-sweet occasion was all the better because I was there, upright and out of the house!

I got through the rest of August and September without incident, and was starting to think maybe, just maybe I would be able to actually make and keep some plans that didn’t involve a hospital.

October marked my first foray into Breast Cancer Awareness Month as a survivor. While always aware of the fact that every October is earmarked and punctuated with lots of pink ribbons, it’s a different experience on this side of a cancer diagnosis. I was tickled pink (sorry, couldn’t resist), when Payton’s baseball team played in this tournament. 

Next up was an event that was huge for me: the Witches’ Open tennis tournament at our club. I went into my double mastectomy in the middle of our tennis season, not knowing how the surgery would affect my game. Of course it never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t get my game back, the question was how much and how soon. So playing in the Witches’ Open was a stellar event. Not only did I play with my longtime running buddy, Staci, but we won! I’m pretty proud of our little trophy.

That same night, still basking in the sweet glow of victory from the Witches’ Open, I made a return trip to the Woodlands pavillion for the Maroon 5 concert. Talk about a perfect day: tennis then a road trip & dinner with super fun girls, then the show. That great day slid into a great night, and again I was beyond happy to be upright and out of the house. 

As if this month hadn’t been great enough, the last Friday night in October was the icing on the cake. I gathered by BFFs for the first annual Pink Party. Prepare to be seeing photos of this event every year for the rest of my life. It was that good. Many a nights laying in the hospital bed, I thought about what I was going to do once I finally got well enough to do something for my friends to show my appreciation for all the love and support they’d so freely given during the worst time of my life. The Pink Party was all I had envisioned it would be, and the fact that I was able to put on the dog for my girls was monumental for me. 

Next on the calendar was Thanksgiving, and at the risk of sounding totally hokey, I had an awful lot to be thankful for this year. At first, as we approached the holiday, I tried not to think too much about it, for fear that reflecting back on all that had happened would overwhelm me. Then I realized that’s whacked, and instead of avoiding it, I should be relishing it–every bit of it. Another major triumph for me was making my mom’s famous crescent rolls. I’ve made them before with limited success, but this year, they rocked. 

After Thanksgiving of course was Christmas, and the first ornament to go on our tree was this one: the cocktail shaker that says “Shake It Up.” I intend to do just that in the New Year.

And for the record, it was Macy who picked that ornament to go on first, in my honor. That girls knows me so well. Like most families, we have lots of cute and meaningful ornaments in our collection, but it makes me smile that she chose this one to kick off our Christmas season.

So as 2010 draws to a close, I can’t say that I’ll miss it. Unequivocally, it has been the hardest year ever. But amid the chaos and confusion and abject misery, there were a whole lot of bright spots. Those moments and memories outshine the yucky stuff.

The little zookeeper

Posted: December 24, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer, kids, pets | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Those of you fortunate enough to know my daughter Macy know she has a love for animals that’s as big as Texas. She’s said from her earliest days that she wants to be a vet and a zookeeper. I can think of no other vocations more suited to her, and despite the fact that she may end up at Texas A&M (oh, the horror!) for vet school, I support her.

Getting a little ahead of myself, again.

Keep in mind that we already have two dogs and three fish in our house, and that on any given day I’m meeting myself coming & going just keeping up with the necessities of getting through the busy day. So when Macy asks for another animal for Christmas, I heave a big sigh and think, what’s the best way to change the subject?

This isn’t the first time she’s asked for another animal. In fact, every time we go to the pet store she lobbies hard, and that girl is persuasive. Factor in my own love of animals, and we’re lucky we don’t have more of a menagerie around here.

I knew we were in trouble this time, though, because the only thing on her Christmas list was an animal. Uh oh.

A note about this child: from the moment we saw the sonogram image of her in utero we knew she was different. Different, good, that is. That first image showed a beautiful profile with her tiny wrist laid flat against her forehead in classic Scarlet O’Hara pose, as if from the very beginning she was thinking up some form of drama to unleash on the world.

Macy has never been like other girls. She never liked the Disney princesses, and to this day can be heard muttering under her breath when she comes across one of them on TV, “That Belle is so stupid.” When all the other little girls were having a Tinkerbell-themed birthday party, Macy wanted a barnyard theme. When all her little preschool classmates were tottering off to ballet class, she was in the backyard, digging for worms and filling the birdfeeder.

So it should come as no surprise that this fiercely independent girl not only goes her own way (despite the crowd), but has stayed true to herself for all of her 8 years. Her love of all creatures is here to stay.

While her first choice for a new animal was a chinchilla, the $150 price tag turned me off, and Trevor has a strict “no rodents” rule, so she moved on to a turtle. I told her that, while fascinating, turtles stink and I’m not sure they like to be handled, so she may be disappointed with a hard-shelled creature. Next up was a bearded dragon. Considering they grow to be 3 feet long and eat live mice, the answer was not just no, but no way.

Cue the leopard gecko.

Macy has taken care of a friend’s leopard gecko, the beloved Rico, so she (and we) knew what they were all about. So I went to Petsmart last week to look into it, see what all we would need to make her Christmas dreams come true this year.

There was a sale on leopard geckos. I love a good sale. However, that also meant, as the reptile lady pointed out, that they were selling more of the geckos, so I might want to go ahead and get mine and avoid the risk of coming up empty-handed when I was ready to purchase. Tricky sales technique, and it worked.

I brought the little guy home and set up his tank, with the two lamps and fake plants, the cave and the water dish. I put the mealworms in the fridge and thought about the best place to hide him. I settled on the guest room closet and when the kids got home from school, told them to stay out of there.

All was well. Or so I thought. I snuck up to the guest room to feed him the mealworms twice a day and to switch the lamps from day to night light. I thought I was being pretty sneaky. But a few days ago, Macy came downstairs with a very long face and a worried countenance.

After some coaxing she finally came out with it: she’d been looking for her clipboard and found the tank in the guest room closet. She was afraid she’d be in trouble, but truth be told, I was relieved that I was no longer in charge of the gecko’s care. I didn’t realize how stressful it was to keep him under wraps and alive until Christmas.

So we moved him from the guest room to Macy’s room, and she was tickled pink to know that she was the proud owner of a leopard gecko. We were busy getting his lamps plugged in in her room and so it was a few minutes before she decided to lift the cave and lay eyes on her new creature.

This is what she found. (Don’t look if you are squeamish.)

Sorry it’s graphic, but that’s life, people. The new gecko had dropped his tail. Apparently it’s common as a defense mechanism (when they’re being hunted) or in times of stress. Guess this little guy was stressed about his new home.

Ewwwww, gross.

But the little zookeeper wasn’t grossed out, she was worried. She was afraid he was going to die. Cue the tears. Merry Christmas, everyone.

After some quick Internet research, she was reassured that he was ok, this was something that just happens and that his tail would grow back in a month. We made another trip to Petsmart to treat him to some live crickets (gecko comfort food), and all was again right in our world.

This isn’t Macy’s lizard (didn’t want to subject him to even more trauma, so we skipped the paparazzi), but this is what his behind looks like.

Kinda creepy, if you ask me. But as the little zookeeper later explained, it’s all part of life, for a gecko.

Now that’s some bank!

Posted: December 15, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The photo isn’t great, for which I apologize, but hopefully it’s good enough for you to see the amount payable to the American Cancer Society: a whopping $93,545.00

Yowza. That’s quite a check. It’s from the Couture for the Cause, which you loyal readers will remember was the premier Fort Bend event at the end of September in which funds were raised for the fight against cancer, and in which yours truly participated in the fashion show.

You may recall the tremendous amount of trepidation I felt toward the event. If not, let me remind you: I really, really, really didn’t want to do it. I had only been out of the hospital a few weeks, and was not in runway shape, to say the least.

However, as with most things we force ourselves to do, in order to stretch our comfort zones or become a better person or whatever reason for the torture, it ended up being one of the absolute, bar-none, best-ever experiences of my entire life.

As much as I’d like to claim responsibility for that huge sum of money raised, the truth is that beyond the $100 ticket that Trevor bought to attend the event, I didn’t have a whole lot to do with it. But next year, I will. Because I will be hounding everyone I know to pony up, buy a ticket, and come to the event. I plan to do the fashion show again, and I expect you all to be there.

In reflecting back on how scared I was to do the show, and how uncomfortable I was in my outfits (but loved every inch of the shoes!), I’m grateful for a whole lot — for having the courage to do it even though I didn’t want to; for having parents who raised me to honor a commitment even though I didn’t want to; for being upright and out of the hospital, not attached to an IV or a wound vac; for the great and true friends who were there that night to cheer me on; and most importantly, for life and the ability to savor it.

Lenny, the director/producer of the event, sent an email the day after the shindig, to the volunteers and models. He wrote something pretty special, and I want to share it:

Please know what a personal and professional experience last evening was for Tamara, me and my fashion team. We love our work in the fashion industry. I am grateful that through the almost 60 – 70 events me and my team produce a year that we are able to help important causes raise awareness and more importantly dollars for worthwhile causes. But the true joy of our work is the people we meet and get to work with along the way. Tamara, me and my team spent all of last night after the show while packing things away recounting very special moments each of us experienced with each of you. We are grateful for those moments and they will mean much to us for a very long time. This event  honors and celebrates a special group of people who have experienced or are experiencing cancer. While there are many stories I will share one from last night. One of the models was very gun-shy about participating in this event. She came into the fitting at Tootsies tentative and not all certain about modeling in the show or that we would find anything flattering for her to wear. Her experience with cancer is fresh and current, recently having surgery. During the hair and make up prep period I started seeing how excited she was getting. She especially loved her hair. During the show I remember her beaming as I sent her to walk the plank. After the show she shared what an amazing and fun time she had by modeling in this show and said she would see us next year. And she will.

Thanksgiving

Posted: November 29, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer, food, kids | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

There’s a lot to be thankful for this year. I’ll skip over the obvious (that I’m kicking cancer’s @$*) and the flippant (that Dr S still takes my calls, after all the grief I’ve given him), and skip right to the heart of the matter: that this year the rolls were a success.

Y’all may have heard that my mom was a fantastic cook. Everything was homemade, even the hamburger buns & English muffins, when I was a kid. The holiday meals of course presented her with her moment to shine. And shine she did. That woman made the entire Thanksgiving meal — turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes & gravy, cranberry stuff, sweet potatoes, crescent rolls, and at least 2 kinds of pie (with from-scratch crust, of course). And she made every bit of that homemade food the day of the meal. She didn’t believe it tasted quite as good made in advance. She repeated this feast for Christmas, too.

Needless to say, she was a serious over-achiever.

The problem with over-achievers is that they cause normal people to think they may be inadequate. If you know someone like this, I’m not sure if it’s best to spend as much time as possible with them, hoping & praying their wonderfulness rubs off in some kind of cosmic osmosis; or if it’s best to surround yourself with idiots instead so that you always feel good about yourself.

We’ve suffered through 5 years of holiday meals without my mom, and I’ve attempted to make her crescent rolls since, but it hasn’t gone well. Yeast bread & I don’t get along. I wasn’t going to try it this year, of all years, but both of my kids asked, independently of each other, if we were having YaYa’s crescent rolls for Thanksgiving. Ain’t no way I’m saying no to that.

My mom’s recipes are funny. As in ha ha, the joke’s on you because she often left things out completely (the chicken crepes recipe that contains no chicken comes to mind), or she gave instructions that left a little to be desired, as in: continue mixing until it seems right. How the hell do I know when it’s right?? That’s the most vexing part, is that she did know. Me, not so much, at least when it comes to yeast breads.

Now I’m a pretty decent cook, and even I’ve been stumped by her recipes before. Thankfully, the crescent roll recipe is pretty straightforward (at least by her standards). She’s not real specific about what temperature the water needs to be when mixing with yeast. Nor is she overly fussy about exactly how much extra flour you may need to add to keep the dough from being “too sticky,” and of course that descriptor opens up a whole ‘nother can of worms. She often included little editorial comments in her recipes, too. My favorite is the butter cake recipe that calls for a pound of sifted powdered sugar. She made a note in the recipe that she was heading to Williams Sonoma to get a new sifter right now!

I made the bold move this year of not having a back-up plan if the rolls didn’t work out. Every other time I’ve attempted them, it’s been with a package of Sister Schubert’s rolls in the freezer. But one thing I’ve learned post-cancer is to dream big, so I was gonna make those rolls without a safety net.

Did I mention we were dining with friends and their family? 18 of us in all, I think. My contribution to the shared meal was rolls. Homemade rolls. And green beans. So woosheegaga, I really needed those rolls to work out.

I have to cheat a bit when I attempt to make my mom’s rolls or pie crust; I roll them out on my cheater’s mat. Over-achievers don’t need the mat. My mom had a huge marble slab (way before the ice cream store) that she used to roll out all her dough. No measurements on her slab like there are on my mat.

The idea is that once the dough is mixed up and given a chance to rise, you say a lot of prayers and make appropriate sacrifices then roll the dough into a big circle, and cut it into halves and halves again until you end up with a dozen triangles.

Then you carefully roll them up, starting at the wide end, to form a crescent roll. Gotta be gentle, though, because if you handle them too much, they bake up tough. In which case, you might as well pop open a can of Pillsbury crescents and consider yourself a major loser.

The yeast dough gods were smiling on me, though, this year, and Pillsbury wasn’t part of the peaceable domestic scene.

These rolls certainly weren’t as pretty as they were under my mom’s reign as kitchen queen. Some were fatter than others, and some had a much more definitive crescent shape. A few didn’t want to stay tucked together, and needed a little extra attention.

But they turned out ok, and I don’t think I cussed one time while making them–a new kitchen record for me. They don’t taste quite as delicious as they did when my mom made them. But they’re pretty close. And for that, I am thankful.

Portrait of a survivor

Posted: November 23, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

When you think of a breast cancer survivor, what comes to mind? A granny all decked out in pink? A joyful gal in a ball cap crossing the finish line at the Race for the Cure? How about a sad sack sitting in yet another hospital waiting for yet another test? You might think that surviving the diagnosis, the surgery, the treatment(s) and any subsequent complications means you’re done, right? Wrong. You’re wrong. It doesn’t end there, and there’s no prize for getting through it.

Welcome to the next phase of survivorship: the constant vigilance required to ensure the cancer isn’t making a repeat appearance. Although I’m just getting started, I’ll quit my bitching just long enough to say I am grateful that my doctors are vigilant, that I have good insurance, and that I can get the majority of my tests done 10 minutes from home. That said, it’s still a giant suck-fest.

Today’s test is a CT scan to check 2 little spots–1 on my liver & another on one of my lungs. These little gems were uncovered during a CT scan the last time I was hospitalized, in mid-August. No one seems too worried about them because they are so small, but once you’ve had cancer, you learn the hard way that there is no sure thing. There is no guarantee. A spot is a spot, no matter how small, and a spot is never a good thing once you’ve had The Big “C.”

Hence today’s CT scan. I’ve never had an abdominal scan before, so I didn’t know that in addition to the fasting and IV contrast (where they inject dye into my veins), I also get to drink the dye. So instead of my daily cup of coffee (which, by the way is the #1 reason I get out of bed each morning), I had to gulp down two big cups of Sprite mixed with contrast dye. No ice. No vodka. That’s just mean. I don’t like Sprite on a good day, and by good day I mean one in which the Sprite is mixed with vodka. Lots and lots of vodka. The only good thing about drinking these 2 vile cups is that I could have burped loud enough to seriously impress a room full of middle-school boys. Too bad the waiting room was full of old people, who either wouldn’t hear it or would think it was rude to launch into a Buddy-the-Elf style burp.

After the Sprite-fest was the IV contrast. Ugh. I really don’t like needles, but have had enough of them in the last 6 months, whether IVs or blood draws or shots or port flushes, to kinda get used to them, but I still don’t like them. My veins on the left side have been used so much that they rebel. They act nice at first, so right after the big stick, to pierce the skin and enter the vein, it seems as if it’s going to work, but just as the nurse is threading the needle higher into the vein, that vein says, nope, no farther. The nurse typically digs around a while before giving up and moving to the other arm.

Cue the complication: because my infection was on the right side, and because I’m working hard to avoid lymphedema (swelling from surgery or trauma that can be permanent and that is seriously contraindicated with tennis), I’m supposed to avoid getting my blood pressure taken or blood drawn from my right side. But that’s my good side! That vein hasn’t been used & abused so much that it pouts and throws a tantrum like a toddler who’s way past nap time.

Sigh.

Luckily, the nurse was very nice. She listened to my long, drawn-out story about my bad luck on the right side and bad veins on the left, and rolled up her sleeves to try and make it work. Work, it did, with just a little big of digging on her part. After the IV it was time to lay down on the CT machine. No big whoop. No trick there, just suck it up because it’s hard plastic instead of Tempurpedic. And then the fun part: injecting the contrast. If you’ve never experienced this, let me be the first to tell you that if you have to go through this, remember: as the dye enters your vein and travels throughout your body, you will feel a warm, wet sensation. Don’t panic and think you’ve wet your pants. Don’t worry too much about it because before you know it, the “did I wet my pants?” sensation is replaced by a crushing headache and the feeling of wanting to simultaneously vomit and pass out. It’s also ok to want to cry for yo mama. The good thing (!) about all this is, it doesn’t last very long. So before you know it, the “wet pants, gonna puke, but wait I might pass out” feeling is over, the scan is done, the nurse yanks the needle out from your vein, and you are free to go. Come back in three months, though, to do it all over again.

So the survivor vigilance is a lot of work. It’s hard enough to live with a monkey on one’s back, wondering if/when the cancer is going to recur. It’s hard enough to wonder, am I doing enough? Asking the right questions? Worrying about the right issues? Researching the right stuff? It’s hard enough to put complete trust, and thereby one’s life, in the doctors’ hands. They are human, ya know. As schooled and trained and rich in experience and purpose as they are, they’re still human. So as much as I do trust them, there’s always that little voice in the back of my head wondering, what if they’re wrong? What if they made a mistake?

Nobody said it would be easy, but I really didn’t think it would be this hard. That’s why I have this cute little pillow on my bed, to remind me that yes it’s hard, but dadgummit, I am indeed a survivor. Period. 

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