Friday, December 31, 2010

Ding dong the year is dead

Shit, man, what a year. The first five months were bloody hard professionally, but so freakin' rewarding. I try not to be too sentimental or foggy-brained about work, but I had (and still have) a rockin' team and job. Full stop.

Then "the troubles" began in late May and I had the most brutal month of my life. I knew my diagnosis before it was delivered to me in Dr. B's office on June 22, and it was four weeks of feeling like one foot was in the grave and one was back on earth trying to hold it all together somehow.

The c-dawg ripped my old brain out that day and replaced it with mush at first, but it was mush that was willing to learn about how to do things a little differently to say fuck you to the numbers and the two big tumours in my breast. Six months later I feel grateful that things haven't gone as poorly as they could have. I'm here, I feel fantastic, and no matter what the official word is, I've made progress everywhere. According to me.

Now it's December 31 and I'm getting ready to begin a month of cell-cleansing to ready my bod for surgery and the future. And the best part of it all? I have an army of detoxers flushing out the Purdy's along with me. Awesomeness. A particularly big shout out to AJ, who despite a hectic work schedule and not even owning a juicer, has today agreed to join in on the "make juice not war" campaign in January. You rule and I love you!

In the darkest of moments in May and June, I felt the weight of death, disease and a battle I wasn't positive I could be graceful about, but I never felt alone. The whipped cream topping on the friends and family I see and speak to every day has been the support through this ol' blog. And by golly, that warms my tin heart and lizard brain.

Seriously 2010. You were kind of annoying. But I see big things for 2011. Smaller things in some places, but definitely bigger things in other places. :-)

Happy New Years Eve!!

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Back at the laser beam

I'm now officially a model student when it comes to positioning myself on my custom-made body form on the radiation table. As my cancer twin S will likely attest to, it's stupidly important to please the techs who buzz around you like measuring robots every day. Today I was as close to perfect as I could be, with only some minor pulling of the sheet underneath me by my big bad techs.

I recognized one of the whitecoats at the main computer today but didn't realize until I'd left that it was one of the moms from Frances' daycare. Strange to think she may be peering over my chestal area sometime soon - bloody small city.

Pete was in the waiting room with the girls, chatting up the other patients and escorts. One woman was there from Los Angeles with her brother, who lives on Galiano Island and was in for two treatments today. Mamma mia. I won't be complaining about commute times again. Another woman was there with her husband, who was on cancer part two after 10 years in remission. She said he had cancer in his gums after living for years with ill-fitting dentures.

"Smoker?" Pete asked.

"Oh yeah!" the woman responded enthusiastically.

Tomorrow I meet up with Dr. R, my surgeon, for another consultation. I'm going to try to needle a surgery date out of her, but really I just want to talk out my options again, six months after seeing her the last time. One thing she said to me the first time I saw her keeps running through my brain. I hadn't received my official diagnosis yet, but she had looked at the preliminary MRI results and said it looked like cancer. I was crushed and started crying like a baby.

"Until you get the official results from your doctor, just try to live your life. Don't go on a juice fast if you're not on one already. If you jog already, go for a run, but don't start a new routine now."

Spoken like a person who has never been faced with the c-dawg herself. Because all you want to do (after all the wailing and depression and the moments of laziness) is to do absolutely everything differently. I wish I could have been with that Carissa in the examination room that day. I would have told her to just go with what her gut tells her to do and mark that day as stage one of a kind of rebirth that will continue to confound, piss off, inspire and excite her six months later.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Angling for a big c-free 2011

A matter of days before the great detox experiment of 2011 begins in earnest for as many as 13 peeps. Super exciting.

I know that detoxing means different things to different people and this may even be detox numero uno for some. But whether it's to lose some Santa weight, kick the sugar or caffeine habit, get more of the green stuff into your gullet or just start some fresh eating routines for the new year, one thing we'll all be doing as part of this gig is giving cancer the finger.

See, after all I've read and learned over the past six months, it's us, not hereditary illness and the evil that men do that are making the c-dawg an unwanted visitor for so many people. And by this, I don't mean if you get it, you deserve it. I mean that we can't control our DNA or the fact that we live next to a toxic waste dump and suck on BPA-laden pacifiers, but we can decide to put the best shit into our bodies to counteract all the badness in the world. We do have control over this.

And this, somewhat disturbingly, means more than just following the Canada Food Guide and hanging on to the belief that what the man tells us is good enough. Get so much fruit and veggie goodness into you that cancer doesn't know what the hell is going on. Push your body into alkaline territory so disease has no choice but to say sayonara.

It'll be hard, but then it'll be easier and we'll all win by getting closer to being cancer-free in 2011.

Friday, December 24, 2010

A detox new year

The numbers are climbing people... I think we're up to 11 now, but I would love to have a few more fruit and veg heads for the new year. Even if you only do it for a week, two weeks, three weeks - if you have a juicer, let's give this thing a try on Jan 1.

To recap, we're talking water and fruit/veg juice for breakfast (and a piece of fruit or two if you're famished), a salad chock full of veg and as many cooked/steamed veg you can cram in your gullet for lunch, then a dinner of more raw greens with cooked greens and a piece of fish or chicken. No coffee, caffeinated tea, beer, vodka, red meat or shortbread, but you can cook with butter, drink red wine and have some dark chocolate for dessert. And that fruit/veg juice? As much as you want.

If you're on the caffeine and processed/sugary foods extravaganza (who isn't over the holidays), the first few days will be unpleasant - likely headaches, some stomach upset - but it'll subside. Soon you'll feel fab. If you're used to a big breakfast, it'll be a bit tortuous to turn that frown upside down and eat your biggest meal at night instead, but after a week, it'll feel oh so much better to be lighter in the morning. Yes, you'll be getting fibre. Yes, you can make the juice ahead of time and refrigerate it for up to 24 hours. Yes, you'll have to buy and wash a shitload of fruit and veg, but seriously, this is the way our bodies were meant to consume.

So give it a try, won't you? It's based on Detox 4 Women, a quick read and a book full of other suggestions (like dry body brushing to stimulate your lymphatic system, rebounding, and switching to Stevia instead of sugar if you have a sweet tooth). I've been doing the light breakfast thing for a week or so now and am good with that routine (and admittedly a juicing queen), but I'll be fussing with lunch and dinner right along with you and flushing the coconut tarts and brownies from my system, too. But if it helps us all have the cells of angels and a kickstart to living a long, cancer-free life, then really, is it not worth a bit of a try?

Merry Christmas, yous guys. You all rock my little world.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Replanning permission

The radiation techs had the same difficulty today getting excellent clearance of my lungs before zapping me, so they called in the big guns (the radiation oncologist), who barked out some numbers while the ladies shifted me this way and that on the table. But no dice. They decided that the original plan and tattoos were no longer as close to perfect as they liked and that we had to start from square one again.

So tomorrow I go in for my second planning CT. I missed today's zap and will skip tomorrow's and Thursday's, so will make those up with some double or triple zaps sometime between now and the end of January. Rama lama ding dong.

All this pokes at my brain with a resounding, "your boob has grown, therefore the cancer has grown!". I try to shove it aside and focus on my coconut tarts, but tonight it will poke a little longer inside of me before I put it in the "nothing I can do about that, so shut the fuck up, brain" pile, which grows daily.

I'd really just like to get on with things so I can get the stuff cut out of me already. All this waiting around feels like the wrong thing to do with an aggressive sort like my beloved c-ballz. Push it aside. Restart the planning. Get this thing fucking going.

Monday, December 20, 2010

I feel it all

After three days of being zapped, radiation is already becoming a bit of a drag, but I eat it up with my spoonful of cod liver oil and try to remember it's all good for me.

The Christmas crew is on this week, so measuring was a bit more slapdash. They were happy with the first zap, but when they moved the ever-seeing laser eye around to the side, they realized they didn't have a clear view of my tattoo on that side so had to remeasure the whole shebang. All this resulted in my right side turning numb and my eyebrow becoming so freakin' itchy I had to bite my tongue to keep from reaching up and scratching (no moving your arms, Ms. McCart!).

My parents came to the clinic to watch the girls and the girls entertained the oldies in the waiting room. Little kids are a bit of a rarity in the house of cancer, so no one seemed to mind Frances' snotty nose and Stella's smoker's cough. Plus, the girls were jazzed about going out for breakfast after, so it was all good.

Running through my mind the entire 20 minutes on the table was a question one of the moms from Stella's school asked me the other day: "What does cancer actually feel like?" Shite, man. That stumped me a bit and I babbled out an answer.

I mean, physically it used to feel like swollen, thick, warm skin. Then less so. During chemo it felt like twinges - which I think were side effects from the drugs. Now it still feels unusually heavy and a bit warm again, but in a different way, like the beginnings of a sunburn. And sometimes it feels like muscle soreness. But mostly it feels like nothing, which is the strangest feeling of all when you know there are a couple of golf balls in there taking up residence and hopefully dying a painful death on the back nine.

When I think about what cancer feels like, even though it's by definition a physical thing, I think mostly of how it has tweaked my emotional life. It's changing me and no matter how it all turns out, it'll pile on more good shit than bad. Not saying I love the c-dawg - I still think it's a horrible bitch. But damn if I'm gonna let it boss me around anymore.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Detox redux - what to eat for breakfast

My first radiation appointment can be summed up in three phrases: name on paper bag to store gown I'll reuse each time; technicians fussing with my position to ensure laser beams of death don't puncture my heart (and only shave a little off my lungs); me trying desperately to hold back a coughing attack while tears of throat-stifling roll down my cheeks. I do it all again today (with a dose of Herceptin to boot) and every day until January 28. Let's hope today I can get into position in less than 20 minutes.

I wanted to post a little more on the upcoming detox-o-rama. I hope the lovely ladies (and bodacious boys) who are doing it with me are able to buy or borrow the Detox 4 Women book. It's got some good deets about the rationale and meal plans, but please don't feel the need to follow it 100%. I won't be.

I've been doing some dry runs of the breakfast/morning routine to see how much of a baby I'll be about it and how I need to tailor the food. Here's what I've been eating before noon:

At 6:30 am I drink 2 huge glasses of water (about 5 cups)
At 9:30 am I make and drink 1 huge glass of green juice (about 2.5 cups):
  • 1 stalk celery
  • 1/3 cucumber (regular but unpeeled)
  • 2 carrots (organic and unpeeled)
  • 1/2 lemon (organic and unpeeled)
  • 1 small beet (regular and peeled)
  • 1/2 bag of spinach
  • 1 apple (organic and unpeeled) - I use apple instead of Stevia or some other sweetener
* you can make this the day/night before (stays good for 24 hrs)

And that's it. If I can't wait until noon to eat lunch, I'll have a banana or other piece of fruit or veg. So far so good. Energy is through the roof - no heavy breakfast feeling, but peeing every 10 minutes.

Believe me - adjusting to a light breakfast goes against everything I've been taught and have practiced since the 1900s. But the idea here is that when you stop eating at bedtime, your body naturally switches into elimination mode and you want to help it do that as much as possible until noon the next day. So eat foods in the morning that can be digested quickly, not slowly, and you'll have digestive energy in spades as the day wears on. Make dinner your heaviest meal, not breakfast.

I know this will be Pete's most difficult adjustment. He's a die hard oatmeal fan. But if I could say goodbye to cereal a few months ago and now my muesli, it's possible, y'all. And those good enzymes your body/cells will be taking in? Sweet child o' mine. And it's only for four weeks. Do I have any more takers on this thing? We're up to nine now!

I'll post more on lunch soon...

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Quicker than a ray of light


Radiation day one today. I'm not terribly fussed about it, other than the fact that it's the beginning of my daily schedule not being my own for five weeks. Bummer. But all the boob propping-up procedures are rote by now. It's like before you have a baby you're all, "but they're my private lady bits, for me and Jon Hamm alone!" and by the end of it all you're like, "who else wants to take a look - you? you, sir? Don't worry, Jon's cool with it."

Now I'm desperate to know my surgery date so I can give myself the end point I need to make a decision on one vs. two. I still change my mind every day, with my kids weighing heavily on the two side and my confidence in my newfound alkaline diet on the one side. Now that I write that out it sounds bloody absurd. Kids vs. diet confidence. Hmmm... I mean, it's fucking radical to cut them both off, but it's also not terribly normal to get breast cancer at 37. Shite, man. Let's just drop it for now.

I had lunch with the lovely man who saved my professional arse when I ditched work to get cancer back in June. By all accounts he's doing a bang-up job and I can't say I'm surprised. I know he doesn't read my blog (bastard), so I'll tell you now that boy is one to watch. He's smart, funny, organized, a damn hard-worker and doesn't take much shit around these parts. He's also my bud, so when all this is over for me next year (in a good way), I hope he gets rewarded big time. Thank you, PB, for stepping in and being a true rock star over the past six months. I miss talking to you every day and I'll never have pho without you (okay, maybe I just lied about that last part).

So I'll be off now to get blasted by some deadly rays of light and hope the lasers kill these sucker dog tumours dead. Dead, I tell you!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

All I want for Christmas is hair

Only because my boy is adorable and I look like I have a mohawk and therefore kind of bad ass, otherwise you won't see a shitload of pics of me with my baby chick head...

Monday, December 13, 2010

Reimagining Christmas

I love Christmas. I don't wear a Santa hat around town or dress my kids in red & green underwear every day, but I generally walk around in a happy fog, smelling pine wherever I go. I think it's the winding down, the socializing, the baking and the eating, and it's the last two that I'm trying to toy with a bit this year.

Before the c-dawg came along, I was fully committed to moving toward a whole food diet - which included baking with butter and sugar and eating the whole fucking cake myself if no one else liked it. Since June, I've been playing with alternative flours, oils and sugars to see how it all turns out. It's mostly shite, let me tell you, and the resources on the intertubes are shite as well. I still visit the sites and bakers that use butter and sugar and white flour, but I hold out hope I can make a great cookie or cake without the homage to saturated fat, refined sweetness and gluten.

Today I'm finally getting around to making macarons (I know, all talk, no action on my part), which at least uses almond flour. We'll see how that goes. But Pete has a standing request for shortbread this year, so let's face it... I'm still married to Roger's and Island Farms for at least a few more weeks.

In other cancer news, I finally debuted my peach fuzz to the outside world on Friday at my work party. It was lovely to see everyone and it all made me miss work and the normalcy of getting an email on a Friday night for something needed by Sunday. It was also interesting to see the reactions of my Victoria peeps. Most everyone was warm and open and even fucking amazing about it all, but there were a couple of male colleagues who were kind of uncomfortable even speaking with me for longer than a moment, like I was going to make them feel my tumours. I tried to be all copacetic about it, but I'm thinking now there was nothing I could do to make them feel better. Ah well. I had a blast dancing in my hooker shoes and drinking more red wine than I have in ages.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Detox the world

Besides rubbing my fuzzy head to will my hair to grow faster and vacillating between wig and no wig for the big work party tomorrow night, I've been thinking a lot about detoxing in January. Every January Pete and I generally do a cleanse to deal with the black russian/egg nog/chocolate santa build-up, but this year (duh) feels a little different.

I have the month of January to get my cells in tip-top shape before surgery in February and although my intake is already riddled with the green juice and many things raw and annoyingly wholesome, I'm thinking of kicking it up a notch in the new year. My lovely sister-in-law in Edmonton sent me the book Detox 4 Women by Natalia Rose. The basic premise lands as close to what I've been aiming for as any other book I've read so far (and I've been consuming these tomes by the dozens, y'all). The nutshell version is four weeks of green juice for breakfast, salad/veggies for lunch and salad/veggies with fish/chicken for dinner, with a yes to red wine and dark chocolate.

It'll mean giving up my precious mid-morning muesli, but otherwise it shouldn't be too brutal to adjust to (with a few parts of the detox tailored to suit me). The reason I want to do it (and thanks, L, for suggesting we do it together) is that I want to recruit a bit of a small army on this thing. Whatever your thoughts are about detoxing, this one is really about molding your everyday intake into something that's immune-boosting and cell-happy. No supplements. No strange mushrooms drinks. No special orders from pretentiousfoods.com. It's about realizing that just because you're healthy now doesn't mean your bod isn't crying out for something better.

Anywho. Just bouncing it around right now. If no one else ends up joining me, I'll have sweet little L to share it with come January 1.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Out of the gutter

I received so many loverly emails, comments and phone calls after my last post that I felt like quite the wallowmeister. I'll admit I had a couple of bad days where I was cursing the c-dawg for visiting me and staying way too long. Sometimes I give in to the greater challenge that a couple of big lumps present and play out the scenarios for much too long.

The thing that gets me sometimes is that I look at my girls and think, I don't want a stripper raising them! Not that Pete would ever marry a stripper after my exit... maybe date one, but he'd probably marry some burgeoning film producer or accomplished novelist or some other such successful beyotch. And then I'd have to spend the afterlife haunting her ass. But after I come to my senses a little I realize that life is messy, none of us know what's around the corner, and for me to spend more than a moment dwelling on the potential cancer spread and all it could take away is completely missing the point of this whole exercise.

So thank you, my peeps, for all the support, and please know that I will continue to fill my bod with the green meds, visualize this beast taking a permanent hike, and try to be in the moment with Frances and Stella as much as I can without getting too 7th Heaven about it all. And if the stripper enters our lives eventually, at least I'll know the girls will potentially bring a new skill into adulthood.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Serenity now!

There's this thing called chemo brain - kind of like baby brain, but not as adorable. Anyway, I think I had it and now it's gone.

For five months I traveled along the windy chemo road, passing by picturesque side effect villages, stopping to experience the local life, and honestly not sweating the big bad cancer destination much. The majority of my brain space was occupied with just getting through this phase and thanking the goddesses for the good days. I had dark thoughts, to be sure, especially in the beginning, but my sleep wasn't disturbed much and my mind wasn't as endlessly busy as it usually is. Definitely a general fogginess and an odd kind of calm.

Now that the fog has lifted, my brain is on fucking overdrive. Let's start with the case of this blasted 38-year old woman in Toronto who was a writer and mother and blogged for Chatelaine about her HER2+ breast cancer. She lasted all of two years before the cancer attacked her lungs and eventually took her. Back in the summer I had read a little excerpt about her and cried like a baby, then forgot about her and went on my merry chemo way.

Then yesterday, while I'm drinking a mug of green tea in the final minutes before going on a spa adventure with Pete to celebrate the end of chemo, I pick up the Globe and land on the woman's obit and begin crying like a baby again, torturing myself by visiting her canceriscrap.com blog and trying to pinpoint where in her treatment it all went sideways so I'm not caught off guard by the signs with my own experience.

And the spa day? Lovely, but as Pete fought back the snores of the extremely relaxed, my mind raced the entire time, swirling around waiting for radiation and what the cancer was doing in the meantime, waiting for surgery and what the cancer would be doing in the meantime, how long a spread would take to kill me, how I could possibly prepare for that and how having a positive outlook was bullocks when the cancer was taking over your body. Oh man, the mind never stops, even when I'm otherwise busy.

If this is the end of chemo brain, gimme serenity now!

Friday, December 3, 2010

Bedtime for chemo

Yesterday I saw a respirologist, Dr. S., to make Dr. A. feel better about canceling round eight. Dr. S. said that although there was no detectable tumours on my lungs from the CT, I had what's known in the breathing biz as "ground-glass opacity". This really just means there's either fibrosis or some kind of inflammation in my lungs, which is usually treatable or goes away on its own or could lead to bad stuff down the road.

He confirmed that I did indeed have pneumonia, so the cancer clinic did right by me to prescribe antibiotics, and most importantly, that canceling round eight was the best decision. My never-ending cough and low-grade fever, along with the pattern the cough followed (disappearing when I was on steroids, then coming back after chemo) and the rash I got on my forehead all point toward a rare and serious reaction to docetaxel that would have worsened if I had another dose of it.

Dr. S. listened to my chest and heart again and ordered some basic lung capacity tests for sometime in January to record a baseline, but he was comfortable that I was recovering on my own and wouldn't need any other meds or treatment. He also sang Dr. A's praises (which many others have as well), saying that she was thorough, absolutely anal about paying attention to side effects and spends an inordinate amount of time researching options for patients and discussing possible treatments with other docs. So there's a serious worker bee under her ultra-cool demeanour. Almost six months into this jazz, I suppose I should surrender a little to her expertise and stop wanting her to be my buddy...

... but not before I complained to Dr. S. that it made me very uncomfortable when Dr. A. asked what I thought about canceling round eight. What the fuck do I know? I've had a dry cough when I get a cold for my entire life, I want to get everything I can out of chemo before I abandon it... don't ask me now what I think! I think I'd like a chocolate bar and a martini, dammit. Dr. S. agreed that the question was unfair and then spent another 15 minutes just chatting with me about what chemo does to your body and how people have misconceptions about what pneumonia looks like and how I felt about this whole experience. And this was at the end of his day, 20 minutes past when his office usually closes.

I walked out of the joint feeling pretty great, and completely fine about ending chemo at round seven. But it also made me feel a little bossy. So this morning I called to bug Dr. A's office about filling out my long-term disability form before the end of the year and called my radiation onc's office to poke around about setting a surgery date in the new year. I'm getting a little tired of waiting around in cancer land. I got shit to do, people!

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Tattoo you

Me and my boob got all planned up today to move on to the next round of the cancer game: radiation. I got to go to a new wing of the clinic (yeeha!) and meet a gaggle of new technicians, who, strangely, all spoke with English accents. It was very business-like, with the techs moving my orb this way and that as I reclined on the CT scanner, all to see how the laser beams of death would need to penetrate my tumours but not my organs.

Dr. K, my radiation onc, stopped by very briefly before I entered the scanning doughnut to check that all was well and I was feeling as comfortable as I could. He's a tiny German man with Christopher Lloyd hair and I'm quite fond of him. By that point, my arm was numb from holding it over my head, my hip was sore and the body form they shoved under me was digging into my baby chick head.

"All good, Dr. K."

The technicians were a bit fussed that leftie wasn't as perky as she could be, but after two babies, two rounds of breastfeeding, and some serious moshing back in the day, one can't expect the same elasticity as a 20-year old might display. Deal with it, techs.

When the 15-minute scan was complete, it was tattoo time. Three little freckles for my chest to mark the spots where the frickin' laser beams would enter every day for five weeks. They felt like painful little IV pokes, but I survived. After a quick and brutal web cam shot to further ID me, I was outta there. I don't have my first radiation session until December 16, even though I complained that it was too long to wait. Seems getting radiation is all the rage these days, so the planners, scanners and lasers are a bit backed up.

So I wait, and once again wonder if every little twinge is growth or recession. T'is the sweet life, I tell ya.

All this tattooing is making me think about getting an actual one when all this is through. I told Pete maybe I'd get a picture of a breast tattooed on my mastectomy site so I wouldn't have to get reconstruction. He didn't seem to think that was a great idea. There's always the spider web on the neck idea, or maybe permanent socks on my feet. All viable options, but maybe I should keep trolling the interwebs for ideas.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Graduation day

My heart scan came back a-ok, so guess Dr. A. will have to find another reason for my speedy heart rate. Went ahead with the Herceptin injection this afternoon and got my diploma from the chemo nurses to show I have officially graduated from chemo university. Sweet.

Next week I begin the prep for radiation post-grad studies, which begins with a CT scan to map out my innards so the death rays don't hit an organ.

And tonight, Pete and I are kid free, my blood counts are great (except for my red blood cells, which are pathetically low), so we're heading out for dinner at the Superior to raise a toast to five months of being friends with the c-monster. Cheers!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

And... that's a wrap?

Got my CT scan results back today. No cancer in my lungs. There must be a better word than "phew" for that. But Dr. A. isn't happy with what she saw in in there or the fact that I've had this bloody cough for more than a month now. She thinks I may be one of the rare birds who get a particular side effect from docetaxel (one of the chemo drugs) that could affect my lungs long term. If I go ahead with round eight on Friday, the drug could do permanent damage and I could end up with lung issues now or in the future. She even wants me to see a lung specialist now to ensure I don't have any damage that needs to be treated immediately.

Nothing's certain with any of this shit, of course, she's just going on the info she has gathered, the fact that I was otherwise healthy before cancer and what she knows about the drug and its sometimes brutal effects.

Then she asks me what I want to do.

Shit. I know can be opinionated, but at the best of times, I like to think a bit about stuff before I commit to giving my two cents (or in this case my million fucking dollars).

"If I don't go ahead with round eight, I'll be robbing myself of one last hit of the hard stuff to knock cancer on its ass. And if things go sideways later on, I'll always wonder whether one last dose woulda helped me out. But if I do go ahead, I could come out of this thing with flying colours only to end up with permanent lung damage. Not much of a choice here."

Dr. A. just smiled benevolently and stayed silent as she always does.

"I say skip round eight." Was expecting the heavens to open and the goddess of breasts to come down to confirm my decision was the right one, but nothing. All I heard was the doc in the next room saying loudly and slowly to her patient, "Do you feel hungover today or are you still drunk?" Ah, the motley crew of cancer cowgirls/boys.

I know I'll never feel 100% sure about that decision, but it's done. So what does all this mean, other than a very anti-climactic end to chemo? Well, first I have another little peculiarity. I have a rather fast heart rate these days. It was 125 when I went in to get my fever checked last week. It was 112 when Dr. A. checked today. And even though it was still around 100 when I had my first visit before a chemo drug ever entered my veins, Dr. A. is worried the herceptin (the other chemo drug I'm getting these days, and will continue to get for several more weeks) is having an effect on my ticker, which is THE side effect of herceptin.

Because I've never had cause to think about what my regular heart rate is and I'm only 38 so haven't had a shitload of tests done on my heart as part of growing older, I have no real history to offer her. So she won't give me another dose of herceptin until I have another heart scan, which will be tomorrow morning at 7:30 am. The lovely tin injection and 45 minute repose on the machine. Love.

If that turns out to bring bad news, then who knows what next.

The other change is that radiation will now need to happen stat. Technically, I'm ready to receive it as early as Friday, but have had no prep, no tattoos, no body mold, no "teach". But if there's one thing I've learned about carrying the cancer card, things get fucking done around here, man, with no messy wait times.

So... um... I'm finished with chemo then? My hair can begin officially growing back (although I already have some decent sproutage already), I can move to a new wing of the cancer clinic (I hear the wi-fi is terrible in radiation, though) and get to know a new set of cancer wizards. So, yay! This calls for a new pair of sexy and hard-to-walk-in shoes... oh wait.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

I heart shopping

Another one of the lovely side effects from the c-dawg is the feeling of an extreme belt-tightening on ye olde bank account. My basics are being taken care of, to be sure, but beyond that, I've had to train myself to ignore my Visa and live like a nun.

Thing is, it's awfully difficult to ignore the call of Captain von Trapp sometimes. And I swear, I was really looking for a cheap winter hat to cover my baldie. Instead I let myself feel crappy for a moment about my CT scan today and came home with these:


You see, there's a Christmas party coming up, and I refuse to look anything like cancer girl (except for perhaps donning a wigmeister for the occasion). The hat can wait, as can paying off my Visa.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Münchausen mania

Took a little unplanned trip to the hospital and cancer clinic on Friday. After a month of barking like a seal and checking my temperature religiously, I finally registered the dreaded threshold number this morning. I was sitting all pathetic-like in my living room, reading and drinking sencha tea, dreading the hot dog day festivities I had promised to lend my time to at Stella's school, when I felt my temp spike and my eyes droop. After a quick check under my tongue, I confirmed the magic number at 38.4.

The cancer clinic told me to come to the hospital for blood and urine cultures and a chest x-ray, then set up an appointment with an onc for a follow-up this afternoon. Lovely Pete came home from work to drive me and I shivered my way through the trip, feeling like a cancer patient. The x-ray was uneventful, except for the six (!) layers of clothes I had to remove to reveal my chest to the machine.

The blood culture was a new thing. Two different pokes, many, many vials and then mixing even more of my blood in four special mini-Tabasco bottles filled with some kind of sludge to tell whether I had an infection.

When I arrived at the cancer clinic I was treated like royalty. Special room away from the chemo riff raff, favourite Chilean nurse, even favourite onc (not my usual Dr. A.). While we all waited for the preliminary results of my bloodwork and x-rays, I had a million more tests, questions and temp checks, which did not produce the 38 degrees. I was beginning to feel like Baron Münchausen, but Dr. B. made me feel like I was a little less sociopathic.

He told me about three potential scenarios: I wasn't tolerating the Docetaxel well and may have to skip treatment #8; I may have a lung infection that has to be treated with antibiotics (he doubted this one because he said he saw nothing on the prelim x-rays); or, I could have a viral infection that my body is too damaged by chemo to fight off. He said if my white blood cell count turned out to be too low, I may have to stay in the hospital to be pumped full of fluids. Woot woot!

Finally the official x-ray and blood results came back. My white blood cell count was fine and my neutrophils were at 9 (normal range is 5-7), so my body was doing a good job of fighting whatever was going on. The radiologist's report showed something small in my right lung that they couldn't rule out as an infection. So Dr. B prescribed a hardcore, normal person's antibiotic to kill it (which will again kill the good stuff in me, too) and recommended I get some acidophilus to repair the good bacteria in my system. No hospital. No cancellation (yet) of round #8. He also ordered me a CT scan for next week to get a better look at the infection in my lung to rule out any other nasty stuff before next Friday. The last time I had a CT I sneezed through the whole scan, so let's hope I can keep it together next time.

I'm still coughing like an idiot and muddling through the hours with a blazing headache, but my chills have subsided for now. I swear I didn't make up the 38.4, even if it was nice to finally get a bit of attention for what ails me.  Just don't get me started on what that other "nasty stuff" could be. For once I don't wanna know.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Conjuring up some cravings

We're going on one solid month of this wretched cough and fever and it's getting me down today. The layers and layers of clothes, alternately shivering and sweating in bed, the endless coughing jags at night and all day. Enough already.

I finally broke down and saw my GP yesterday, which makes it the first time ever I've seen my GP for a cold. I'm officially Woody Allen. She did all the necessary checks and declared me sick with a cold, but not likely infected with anything. "Turn on your humidifier," she recommended in her no-nonsense way. She wrote me out a req for some bloodwork to see where my Neutrophils were at, but I don't have the energy or inclination to get it done today.

After weeping like a little girl into my green juice this morning and having Stella tell me on the way to school, "It's probably just your cancer AND a cold, Mommy," I decided to lay low today and try to conjure up some cravings on my quick trip to the grocery store. That's the annoying thing about working the usual culprits - caffeine, sugar and white flour - out of my system over the past few months. Cravings, even when you want to cuddle up to them, are buried a little deeper.

What I really, really want is a huge steaming bowl of Shao Lin noodle soup from Broadway in Vancouver with a plate of the gigantic bready dumplings they serve. The chances of me getting that or even traipsing down to Chinatown to seek out an alternative are nil. So I reached deep in the frozen food section and like any other red-blooded Canadian girl, tossed a bag of french fries and some perogies into my cart. Potatoes much? To top it off, I'm making macaroni and cheese tonight, so if you see a bald chick walking around with an acute case of carb face, you'll know I've emerged from the deep.

Now let me get back to my tent on the couch to read Vogue, watch Gossip Girl and generally do all the things that add zero value to my life. I need a break from the sick, y'all.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Don't leave me, chemo!

Recovery from round seven has so far been slower than usual. We're nine days in now and I'm still punking out in the evenings with a slight fever. I have the cough that never ends and although my teenage acne is subsiding, thanks to some recommended hydrocortisone cream to counter the allergic reaction, I haven't quite burst out singing to "I feel pretty" yet.

I have only one more round of this beast to go, but already I'm feeling a bit anxious about leaving it behind. To start with, it's giving cancer the biggest kick in the arse it's going to get before being cut out of me. I have a lovely aggressive type that likes to do its own thing in a big way, so the end of chemo feels to me like leaving the front of the store unattended for a few weeks. Stupid idea, right? Apparently chemo, like a good security guard, continues to mind your merchandise long after it ends, and as much as I like to say I have one more round left, I still get another three months of Herceptin pumped into me after round eight. Herceptin isn't great for one's heart, but it'll leave the rest of my body relatively intact (save for the cancer).

So radiation should begin sometime in mid-December, along with the three-week schedule of the Herceptin injection, then surgery in the new year (January? February?). It's the surgery part I'm beginning to obsess about again. My mind still changes daily about what the final surgery decision will be so I'm trying to get completely focused on ending chemo and spending the two months or so before surgery getting my body in the best shape it has ever been so recovery will be swift. Right now I'll assume that radiation will make me sore and tired, but that's it. And the day that I no longer dwell on freakin' side effects? Madre de dios. Let it come to me soon.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The vegification of the vegged out

Another crappy night with Miss Frances, courtesy of the time change + the absence of her soother. For close to a year we've been talking about shipping the silicon monster to a fictional character named Wibbly Pig. After watching Stella give up the thumb spontaneously last Christmas, I was determined not to push girl #2 to leave her oral fixation behind prematurely. So for months we've been dancing around the fact that it's just not cool to be three and still sleeping with a pacifier.

Then last Wednesday, less than two months after her third birthday, she said to me after breakfast, "I want to send my soo-soo to Wibbly Pig now." So we did.

She's mostly been a good sport about it, but wakeful as shite. So since she came back from staying with her grandparents on the weekend I've been stumbling around in the middle of night with all my brutal aches and pains getting water and trying to convince her that her bedroom is not scary. She rewards me by waking up super-early to greet the daylight savings day with me with a bucketful of tears. Awesomeness.

How I did this when I went back to work a couple of years ago is beyond the beyond, but different times now, folks, and I have the days to nap and otherwise schlep around the house in my slippers as the wind whips around my neighbourhood.

I'm really, really trying to wrap my head around a new veggie life. I'm immersed in the China Study right now, which talks about the scientifically-proven benefits of a plant-based diet (stats, y'all). Very interesting, and everything is taking hold in small steps, but I still can't conceive of the "I went vegan overnight" statements I read from the hardcores out there. It's a process for me. And man, do I know how lucky I am to be able to figure it all out while I'm not working.

So despite still feeling like garbage, I managed to juice yesterday and today. It tastes divine, it's doing divine things for my bod, and if it helps me get closer to eliminating the need for tasty animal flesh from my diet, then bring it on. Pete is being such a good sport about all this. He wants to try everything, and occasionally rebels against a meatless menu, but knows this is all good stuff for us. He drinks my juice like it's the best thing he's ever tasted and offers a break from the nicoise salad-making to traipse us all over to White Spot for a veggie burger. A keeper, he is. Now whether I'll turn him into a veggie or not remains, people, but the needle has shifted.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Taking a sickie

Decided to give in to the wretchedness today. Made it on the walk to and from Stella's school, giving the usual "good, good!" reply to the chorus of mommy requests for my state of the nation post-round seven. Even made it to Thrifty's for some muesli and salad nicoise ingredients. Why I'm making a salad for dinner on a day when Frances got up at 4:50 a.m. and I feel like eating nothing but bread and jam is beyond me, but there you have it. I'm focused.

But moving my body like the oldest woman in the world and have the spotty skin of a 14-year old boy to go with it. Haven't had a pimple since this whole chemo parade started more than four months ago, so don't quite know what to do with this vicious case of hormone overload. Assuming it's a side effect. Ignoring it like a good student of cancer.

Haven't juiced yet today and feel the poorer for it. I've got a bucket full of beets, carrots, apples and celery on my back deck and a fridge full of peppers, spinach, chard and lemon. My beautiful new juicer, which is a miracle of plant-squeezing loveliness, is beckoning me, but my fingers are so torn up from the peeling and cleaning it's only a matter of time before a bacterial infection takes hold.

So I took a nap at 10:30 a.m. and just got out of a hot bath after doing nothing in between but eat some leftover leek and potato soup and watch an episode of the Barefoot Contessa. Ugh.

To sum up? I feel wretched today and I'm wallowing in it before I have to trot off to pick up the girls for Stella's hip-hop class this afternoon.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Feeding the dexa monster

I punched through round seven yesterday with all my Friday chemo cousins and what seemed to be the D-team of nurses on duty. There was a lot of "oh, which round are you now?" and "what do you do with the frozen gloves?" and "hmmm... I don't seem to have the right [insert med supply item here]". Glad it wasn't my first round or my veins and I would be ready to bolt.

I did get one decent answer out of my nurse. I've been a bit stressed at the ultra-high neutrophil levels my bloodwork has been returning the past two times and all I could find on my reluctant web searches were two maudlin options - bacterial infection or cancer spreading. Joy. I had asked Dr. A. last time whether I should be worried, but she said no. I wasn't satisfied. I asked my nurse yesterday and she said the pre-chemo steroid I take, Dexamethasone, was commonly responsible for a spike in neutrophil levels, especially if you first start taking it before you get your bloodwork (which I did). Relief.

So I did a little investigating on my friend Dexa and it's an interesting one. Besides the usual treatment of inflammation and recreational use for some athletes, it's also responsible for a huge increase in appetite (check) and is used in some third world countries by prostitutes who want to fatten themselves up quickly and charge their customers a higher rate for more flesh. With the pancakes I downed yesterday morning at John's Place and the pecan pie and peanut butter cookie at 10 pm at QV's last night, I think I'm on my way to upping my rates a little more, too. But we won't tell my naturopath about that stuff on the food diary I agreed to fill out.

Today I'm puffy, my injection site is beginning to balloon and my teeth are getting that good ol' wooden feeling they get, but I'm determined to get out today and walk it off. Before I raid my pantry again, of course.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

You asked for it

My onc appointment yesterday afternoon wasn't as terrible as I expected. Dr. A came through (very reluctantly and couched in all sorts of disclaimers about numbers just being numbers) on some semi-tailored stats, fed through some three quarter-assed computer program from the States. It showed the number of deaths that occur out of 100 women who are my age and have my type of cancer and how that number goes down with each aspect of treatment. I say three quarter-assed, because it doesn't yet account for the relatively recent introduction of Herceptin to the mix, which is showing to have a significant effect on survival rates. Dr. A added that part in herself.

So here's the gist:

If I did nothing but live in harmony with my sweet tumour friends, I'd have a 75% chance of kicking off within 10 years. Which I find an interesting stat, because it means that 25% of women who are my age with tumours bigger than five centimetres who refuse any treatment actually survive past 10 years. Who are these women and how can I meet them?

With the chemo blast, that 75% goes down about 30% to a 45% death rate. Chemo is my friend.

With post-treatment hormone therapy, which includes the Herceptin I get during and after chemo, only about 25% will move on to the hereafter. And surprisingly, radiation only takes it down another 3% or so, so all told, the chances of me taking a dirt nap from this dealio in the next decade is about 22%. Felt completely fine about this news yesterday. I mean really, I could bite it crossing the road to my bulk food store. I could meet my maker (if she exists) if a frozen ball of airplane waste landed on me while I grabbed my In Style magazine out of the mailbox. So a 78% chance of lasting a few more decades after this lovely visit from cancer is totally cool with me.

And man, with the celery, red pepper, tomato, beet, lettuce, lemon and apple juice I'm drinking right now, I'm gonna outlive all the sucker dogs out there.

Three more days of feeling fantastic until round seven. Can you believe it? As much as chemo has been an arse-licker, I know it'll be a breeze compared to the stress of surgery in the new year. So let's drag these last two out a bit, shall we? I much prefer getting my 30% Rockette kick to the face of death than the 3% nose flick of radiation.

Monday, November 1, 2010

A natural woman

After 38 years of near-perfect health (aside from this nasty bout of cancer I have now), I went all anti-Carissa and added yet another healthcare professional to my team roster. I saw a naturopath today, Dr. S. She's young and friendly, lends out her books to patients and gave me her email address. She actually wants me to contact her if I have questions without having to come in for an appointment. It's a revolution, people.

When I arrived at the joint and saw a big cabinet full of pill bottles, I feared I had stepped into supplement central. Not that I'm averse to them - I've been reading up on the good & bad supplements for cancer over the past four months - but I didn't want a new doctor to equal a new monthly bill for pills and powders. With the juicing and the mostly vegetarian diet I'm on now, I'm getting plenty of the good stuff these days without extra help.

Dr. S checked my ears (no potatoes), my temp (textbook), my BP (90/60 - the usual low), my weight (3 lbs lower than my scale - I like her more already), and palpated my abdomen for any alien-like creatures nesting there. We spent about an hour just talking (I said it was revolutionary, no?) about my diet, my family, my stresses, my activity level, my emotions, even my brothers (I said they they were suitably Italian-Irish in their avoidance tactics but gems nonetheless). I talked more about myself in that hour than I have over the past four months of treatment through the cancer clinic and the past 38 years of seeing a GP.

I think Dr. S was a little disappointed that I wasn't a smoker, that I didn't eat Twinkies for breakfast or gnaw on a porterhouse for a bedtime snack, but I threw her a bone with my daily mid-morning consumption of shredded wheat + all bran cereal (but with almond milk, y'all). She asked me to cut that out and replace with steel-cut oats, homemade muesli or honey-sweetened quinoa. I can do that. She also recommended I step up my vitamin D to 2,000 IU/day, boost my vitamin B complex to 50 mg/day, buy some L. Glutamine powder to boost my immunity and recovery time through treatment and gave me some probiotic powder to help repair my digestive system from the chemo blowout sale I get every three weeks.

She didn't load me up with any other supplement recommendations, but lent me a naturopathic guide to breast cancer prevention and care, the address for a blog on wholesome cooking (nourishingmeals.com), told me to email her with any concerns or questions and ordered some bloodwork so she could see my levels across the board and get to know me better. She also said I was doing so very many things right.

In the end I felt validated, inspired and a little more loved by the healthcare industry, and all within a five-minute drive from my house. S'about time, I think, especially since I have to meet with my onc again in about 45 minutes and those appointments are never about making me feel great.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Dialing back the fright

Seems appropriate that as things get scarier out there for Halloween, my bod's beginning to return to a less frightful state. Hair is beginning to grow back, lumps are shrinking, and as I get a bit more sleep each night, my face looks less and less haggard.

Over the past week I've had a cold with a wicked cough, and because my GP suspected a bladder infection when I went to visit her last week (despite having no real symptoms other than leukocytes in my pee), I've been on some wicked antibiotics. I'd been putting off the GP visit because I didn't want to discover I had some other dreaded disease while I was battling the c-dawg, but I'm a big girl, I am, so I finally went. Everything seemed otherwise fine (unless I get some bad lab results back), so off I go to remain simply cancer girl and nothing else for a spell.

I've also spent the past week trying to convince Stella that the cold has nothing to do with the cancer, but she's not buying it. She's been talking about it a lot lately.


"When it's Christmas time, you won't have your cold anymore because your cancer will be gone." This is a remnant from when we thought I might have surgery by Christmas.

"I wish you didn't get cancer. Because I didn't want that to happen to you."

But mostly the talk is good. Both girls are cheering on my hair and rubbing my peach fuzz when we kick back in bed to read books at night. It all feels like it's going in a positive direction unless I have that stupid opening line swirling in my brain that goes, "After a brave two-year battle, she finally succumbed..." I can usually beat that one back, but it's that part of me that doesn't want to be caught off guard by the thing that dare not speak its name that revisits it occasionally. Scary stuff indeed.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Assembling the troops

If you had asked me five years ago to see a naturopath I would have scoffed a little. I haven't grown up with the hugest of faith in doctors in general, so pair that with a reluctance to get too touchy-feely about myself and my health with anyone other than... well, myself, and you have a pretty cynical chick when it comes to alterno-practices.

Fast-forward to me as a card-carrying cancer girl and my story has changed a bit. I feel like going through the Cancer Agency at 38 must feel a lot like going through the Cancer Agency at 78. In other words, the care is standardized and specific to the cancer not the person. Which is fine for the part of me that's focused on just getting rid of the arseholes in my breast. Slash, burn, poison, kill. Good stuff.

But to be 38 and not ask how did I get it and how can I make sure I don't get it again would make me some kind of zombie. And the standard "we're not really sure" answer is not really good enough.

So I read, ask questions, chat with other survivors and try to figure out what fits me. If I didn't get such a sick feeling from labeling myself a vegetarian or a vegan or a juicer or an insert-your-rules-laden-name-here, I might be closer to adopting something that works, but joining a group and following their program doesn't cut it either. I waver, I dabble, I talk it up and pick it apart. But nothing feels right yet.

So I'm taking another ride in the "it's all about me" plane and stopping next at a naturopath's door. I know absolutely zero about them, other than they follow a whole body and natural approach to health/healing. And spending 90 minutes in a consultation with a health practitioner seems obscene, but wtf. If not now, then when? I might as well assemble all the soldiers I can for this battle, no?

And while I blather on about this crap, my dear mother, who has difficulty eating eggs with too-yellow yolks and in general trying new-fangled foods is leaping into the juicing thing and even ordered two Breville Compacts for me and her today. Possible to love her more? Didn't think so until today.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Beta-carrot goddess

The biggest thing the c-dawg took away from me on June 22 was my feeling of control over my own body. It was not enough to be not overweight, not post-menopausal, not sedentary, not eating a processed food-rich diet, not living next to a chemical waste dump and not getting drunk every night. Once the docs assure you there were no targets on your back for this thing, they're also quick to tell you there was nothing you could have done and now that you have it, there's nothing but simple exercise, good diet and sleep to help get you through it.

Bullocks.

And not bullocks because they're wrong, but bullocks because it all leads to making a girl feel pretty useless and it's not the whole story. I did all that before, doc, and now I've got two tumours in my breast. If we all have cancer cells in our body, how can we do a few things to let them know they're not welcome to procreate?

I'm pretty convinced that making an effort to eat mostly plants is one of the keys. And my little juicer is helping me explore the wonderful world of raw. Here's two juicing recipes I've been grooving on so far. If you have extra, store it in a mason jar. Be sure to fill right to the top before screwing the lid on tight (prevents oxidization) - keeps for 12 hours in the fridge.

Beta-Carrot Goddess Juice
* deliciously pink and sweet and great for first thing in the morning (makes two 8 oz glasses so I drink the other in the pm)

2 apples (skin on)
1/2 beet (peeled)
2 small carrots (skin on if organic)
1 small parsnip (skin on if organic)
1/4 lemon (skin on)

Green Machine Juice
* so green it'll make you weep, but the pineapple makes it utterly drinkable (makes one big glass)

1/3 pineapple (skin on)
1 small chunk of broccoli stem
large handful of spinach
handful of watercress (leaf and stem)
handful of kale (leaf and stem)
1/4 medium zucchini (skin on)
1/4 cucumber (skin on)
1/4 lime (skin on)

If you actually attempt to juice, let me know! So happy to hear about you, NC, and your green morning smoothie. Love that I have a twin out there, girl.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Another uneasy decision

I saw my radiation onc today, Dr. K, for another consultation. He recommended that although surgery was a viable next step, radiation was recommended. It's all up to me, of course, but the decision is never about certainties or hard evidence.

The type of cancer I have looks and acts like inflammatory breast cancer (best not to Google image that one) in that it presented itself as a superficial change (redness, swelling, heat) before a distinct lump appeared (or two in my case) and it was super-fast growing. Technically it's not inflammatory, but they pushed ahead with chemo first as if it was. And in typical bad-ass inflammatory style, they're now saying radiation would be best to shrink the arses down to nothing before cutting the offending breast off.

My surgeon, Dr. R, says she'd be happy if I decided on surgery next, but is also fine with radiation. It's not black & white. And again, it's up to me. But of course she'd say that - a surgeon would never admit they aren't ready to cut.

In all, the docs are happy about the shrinkage, but not dancing in the streets. They want both tatas to look exactly alike or very similar before they break out the bubbly.

So around three weeks after my final chemo in late November I will begin five weeks of daily radiation - about 30-40 minutes each day. My skin will be destroyed, which will make surgery and eventual reconstruction a bit more rough (and rough-looking for you modelling agents out there), but from what it sounds like, that's the biggest drawback to having radiation before surgery. If so, I can take that.

And if I'm going to be all pro and con about it all, I'd rather be recovering from radiation treatments at Christmas than laid up and boobless, unable to lift my kids. Oh, the things I do for you, cancer. Heart you!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Juice douche

Fair warning now, people. I may become a juicing douchebag.

Hells, I know that the opportunity of time has steered me down the path of juicing fruits and veggies to starve the cancer cells and create some clean fishwater in my bod. I know if I were working full-time I would likely still be floundering with how to make myself feel better, more energetic, more excited about la vie while still having small people in the house to limit my movement. I know this, dudes. So I will take advantage of riding the cancer train while I can.

I've been juicing for a week or so with an old Braun. It's not bad, but you still have to cut things up to get them down the shoot and blasted into your glass. Yesterday a Caddy Bay neighbour dropped off his $600 Kempo, with magnets in the juice catcher and a billion fiddly parts to clean. It's lauded by the vegans of the world, but mother fuck it's annoying. If I had to use that baby all the time I'd go back to eating carpaccio for breakfast.

So now I'm looking for a juicer to call my own. After days of research, I'm zeroing in on the Breville or the Juiceman Pro, but at $300 and $180 respectively (and the Juiceman is bloody hard to find in Canada), I feel the preemptive pain in my bank account. Add to that the need for a new blender for smoothies (mine has difficulty chopping a banana) and this whole dealio is adding up quickly.

Breville
Juiceman Pro

Where it all started was about a year ago when I had this idea that I was going to break out and start my own juice fasting company. I had become enamoured with Blueprint in NY. I'm a sucker for cool products and I liked the way the ladies at Blueprint had made a name for themselves in a rather niche market. Problem was, I'm not a nutritionist, a dietician, a cook or an entrepreneur and Victoria has 350,000 people instead of 19,000,000. Plus I'm a lazy bastard who likes the idea more than the application.

Anywho, since then, I've been obsessed with juice fasting companies and the handful of them that have popped into the spotlight in the States over the past several months. And then here I am. Cancer girl, reading a shitload about the benefits of juicing, not just to trample the Standard American/Canadian Diet, but to smoke out the c-cells once they've taken residence... and well, it all adds up to a current obsession with the liquid gold.

I'm a baby in this thing (not a zygote, tho), and am learning more about combining, storing, and the like, and the obsession is only growing. So if you have a lead on a fab juicer, let me know and I'll hop on my cancer train to seek it out. But don't tell me about your fab juice company idea or I'll kick your sorry arse.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Sans kids

Four months après cancer diagnosis and I still haven't gotten used to being my strange hybrid version of a stay-at-home mom. Frances is still in daycare from 8 to 4:30 and Stella is in school from 9 to 3 and then in after-school care from 3 to 4:30. The arrangement works out for rest days, appointments and just generally getting shit done, but I've also had to keep the spots (and keep paying for them), despite being at almost half my salary, so when I do go back to work, I'm not left childcare-less.

It's like being a lady who lunches without the lady or the lunch part and there's a truckload of guilt that goes along with it all. I still find myself explaining it to the mothers of Caddy Bay, who have already established their bonds with the other stay-at-homes. In the end, I'm glad my kids have some extra socializing time so that perhaps they'll end up more normal than their mom.

I get along okay in this world most of the time and wonders of all wonders, manage to have friends and not say stupid shit most of the time. Any strangeness I feel with the planet is 99% me and just an adult extension of never feeling quite the right fit amongst humans. I need only to look at any picture from my 20s, wearing some blasted pleather shorts jumpsuit amongst the jeans and sweatshirt friends of that time to remember that I've had challenges, and fuck it, I wanted people to know! 

I continue to marvel at how Pete, who's messed up in a much more charming way than me, manages to have these deep conversations with people he barely knows, opening up his heart, revealing secrets, and generally being this strange creature who is comfortable in his skin and yet would rather kick back by himself. And then me, who acts like she'd rather be alone, but actually loves being around people. It's stupid, and it's meant that my attempts at trying to explain away my cancer & me situation usually end up being about quips or untruths rather than anything authentic. But that ain't likely to change soon.

So I meet with friends, family, shop for groceries, clean my house, walk my dog, rest, read, juice and get an extra 90 minutes in the afternoon to get dinner ready while the kids are hanging with their friends. So bad?

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Get outta my house

So the juicing thing. Yeah. I'm trying to make my body inhospitable to cancer cells, and one thing most intel doesn't go on to say beyond the holy trinity of diet/exercise/environment is that shifting your body's pH and eating more alkaline foods can not only keep cancer at bay but can kill the sucker dog cells dead.

The obvious alkaline helpers include your garden variety fruits and leafy greens as well as some nuts and spices. The acid dogs include the usual soda/booze/most dairy/most meat/most grains - the fun stuff. But trying to cram all the right leafy greens and fruits into a single body that's been hell-bent on producing cancer cells instead of killing them is not an easy task. Especially when the sense of taste has been blown off one's tongue. Hence the juicer. For the past couple of years I've been reading up on this jazz, and every once in awhile, the juicer has come out of the basement to entertain us for a spell. Hopefully this time it's here to stay.

The typical cocktail includes cuke, celery, some kind of leaf (lettuce, beet top, kale) and something to sweeten, like pear or apple. It's not fantastic to drink but it's okay. Getting it all bought, stored, chopped, juiced and cleaned is a pain in the arse, but really, is that my complaint? And it takes me beyond worrying about the twinges in my breast (bad cells dividing?), the high WBC count in my last blood test (bad cells dividing?) and whatever fucked up universe might await me (bad cells dividing?) and into the sphere of control.

And in typical Cadboro Bay fashion, I made contact with the parents of one of Stella's school friends and they want to lend me their super-duper mega-expensive juicer that channels the enzymes and such. "Designed for cancer girls, darling!" Rockin' good times.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Riding the 'roids

Yesterday's session was only four hours instead of six, so after the torturous frozen gloves came off, Pete and I took off to stock up on veggies to juice for the next few days (oh yeah, I'm juicin' now, baby).

Cancer weekends without the girls are strange. I feel like I'm simultaneously getting a break and being punished somehow for being sick. So to deal, today I got rid of all but a small handful of baby/toddler clothes. At least eight bags went to charity, and I feel oh so grown up. No more babies for me - oh no - the slight inkling is now all but gone. It's been building up, but mostly it was floating the idea lately that I may end up removing my ovaries at some point in the near future to further reduce my chances of the big c travelling down below to another estrogen hotbed.

Maybe it was the huge glass of cuke/romaine/celery/pear juice I had just previous, or the super steroids I'm still on to keep down any inflammation, but bagging those sucker dog clothes up didn't make me the least bit teary-eyed. I prefer to get my juices flowing from the stuff that's right in front of me - like the fact that Stella draws me with a scarf now, with rockin' earrings and my awesome Madonna concert tee:

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Effing statistics

I had my pre-chemo onc appointment yesterday and finally got the cajones to ask the statistic question.

You see, I've been deliberately avoiding the google, the scientific reads, the delving into the numbers of it all because I just didn't want to go there. But I asked Dr. A a seemingly safe question about having a bi-lateral versus single mastectomy and whether having a risk factor of a new cancer cropping up in the right being in the single digits really had any credence when I'm already in a fairly rare category.

She then told me, in so many soft-spoken words, that it's the cancer I have that I need to worry about, not the cancer I could get sometime in the next 60 years. There's still a possibility there could be cancer cells traveling through my bloodstream, waiting to take up residence elsewhere in my bod. So I asked.

"What are the chances of recurrence?"

"The chances of death from the cancer you have within the next 10 years is 30%. The chances of recurrence of this cancer within the next 10 years is slightly higher than that."

Oh.

You see, I did read something about that particular stat, early on in my post-diagnosis days, but like I said, I've been avoiding stats, so had pushed them out of my lizard brain.

So what her words sounded like to me were, "get off your high horse about living to 100, bitch, it's the next 10 years you can't fuck around with."

And lovely Pete had to go and hug me after the doc left the room, even after I asked him not to be nice to me.

"I'm being nice to me," he assured me.

I'll admit it. I wallowed in this news yesterday afternoon and evening. I saw my girls at 16 and 13, motherless. I saw every trip and flight of fancy I've been mulling around in my head completely useless. I saw any shred of worry I've ever had about Pete being 10 years older than me and possibly kicking it first entirely needless. It was me who would be propped up in a sun chair, a blanket over my withered legs, without ever reaching 50.

It felt like all the positivity and fight I've been cultivating over the past four months was sucked out of me. But I'll get over it. See, that 70% is a big number. And despite already feeling on the wrong side of numbers lately, this is one I'll court like the harlot I am. I'll get there. I just need to keep figuring out how I'll do it.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Taking off the meat dress

I've been reading a shitload of books, articles, and blogs about cancer over the past four months and one thing they all have in common is the recommendation that meat not play a part of the c-blasting diet. Here's the gist of the arguments against:
  • meat eaters (especially red meat) have a higher probability of getting colon or prostate cancer, but there may be other aspects of a heavy-meat eater's diet, like mucho fat or lack of fibre, that's to blame
  • meat uses up the two critical enzymes trypsin and chymotrypsin, which allow the immune system to kill cancer cells (vegetable proteins do not use up those enzymes)
  • meat causes the accumulation of fecal matter in the colon, which hinders your body's ability to absorb as many nutrients as possible
  • and if you're eating regular old supermarket meat, it contains hormones or nitrates/nitrites, which have been linked to every imaginable type of cancer
So the story isn't great, especially when you look at regions of the world that consume little or no meat. The cancer rates drop dramatically. There's some argument that grass-fed beef is acceptable, and hormone-free meat in general is okay occasionally, but most of those in the know don't seem to need a lot of prodding to suggest that all nutrients could and often should be gained from a meat-free diet.

So slowly but steadily, I have been eliminating the fleshy goodness from my daily bread. Really, why be the one to prove anyone right?

It's been both difficult and easy. Easy to stop buying it, but difficult to erase it from my cooking vocab. My secret Santa husband still sneaks a pork hock or two into the freezer when I'm not looking, but mostly, we've gone through the stuff around the house and are transitioning to meat-reduced or meat-free meals.

Does this mean I'll never have a piece of bacon or veal chop again. Hells no. But four out of five dentists can't be wrong.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Countdown to number six

My sixth chemo round seems to be sneaking up a bit more quickly than I expected. My tongue, which was burnt, then dry, then sore, has now completely healed. My feet, which felt like raw meat, now only feel a bit tender when I get up in the morning. No more hot flashes. And chocolate tastes good again. So let's start it all again on Friday, shall we?

The only other strange thing I've noticed over the past couple of days is a few twinges of pain in my breast. Can't be a good thing, but not sure how much I need to worry about that. I pushed myself over the weekend a bit - taking two big walks with some decent inclines - and last night I felt crushed and depressed. I thought it was a cold coming on, but today I felt fine again. In general, I feel like I'm in a strange state right now.

I read an article that a cancer cousin sent me the other day about how post-treatment was a bitch. The roller coaster of mistrusting your body and trying to figure out what the new normal should be makes many a survivor feel pretty crazy, and without the good excuse of having cancer. In other words, the world moves on from your disease and you can't. It definitely gave me pause. I had no idea how I would react to the diagnosis and treatment and now I have no idea how I'll react to life post-cancer.

I do know that these last days before the next round are all the same. I go into a bit of a frenzy of forced self-discovery. What am I afraid of? Let's explore it! What food am I craving? Let's eat it! What have I always been meaning to clean/sort/fix/write/organize? Let's fucking do it all, man!! Nesting on overdrive.

But I'm not dreading Friday. I know I'm not allergic to the latest cocktail. I know I likely won't get any nausea. I know I can deal with the stabbing pains and puffiness and general geriatric feelings for two weeks before it's all better again. I'm getting used to this gig.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Continuing my ride on the grateful train

Not a day goes by that I don't thank the goddess of friendship for bestowing on me such beautiful gals as my pals. The loveliness keeps coming every day, in gestures of kindness and uber-amazingness.

TL is my lovely cousin and massage enabler, sending me off for a rub and chakra session last Wednesday and indirectly getting me to take the ever-loving scarf off to get my bald in on the action. Makes me want to kick you like a donkey like the good ol' days, T.


Miss Susan blew me away on Friday with her unbelievable generosity and shedding of hair. Her son's entire school came to see the hairdressing extravaganza and just before the shaving began, her beautiful boy put up his hand and said, "if you're shaving your head, I wanna shave mine, too." Not a dry eye, people. Not a dry eye. I've been in a happy fog since then, still finding it surreal that there's a lady love like this in my life.

Saturday I met with H, who I haven't seen in forever. From the very beginning we got along like a house on fire, which is a rare thing for me indeed, and we've been friends for 12 years now. She's divinely funny, sharp, beautiful, strong and a big softie. Our lives became disconnected, like so many of my friendships over the past several years, but here she was today, only recently finding out about my little friend cancer, and cramming for our meeting today by reading my blog. Sitting and talking for more than two hours would have been ice cream enough, but the girl put together a basket of my favourite things, which she could have only known by picking them out from my rambling posts. Unbelievably thoughtful.

So pumpkin pie today, hells yeah, but my friends are the whipped cream dollop of gratefulness in my life.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Hair today

My friend Susan will shave her head today to support me, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and, I'd like to think, ultimately to say fuck you to the c-dawg for so often taking more away than it gives.

I've mostly gotten used to being sans hair, but I don't walk around outside, save from a few impromptu door answering occasions, without scarf or wig. I'm not over the vanity of it all and don't know if I'll ever embrace the baldness enough to go grocery shopping on full display. I get enough looks of pity with the scarf and don't have the same energy I did at 18 when I traipsed around in hot pants and bustiers, daring people to look at me (sorry 'bout all that, Dad).

I've been thinking about regrowth lately, now that I'm just over six weeks away from my final chemo treatment (if all goes well, it'll be November 26, y'all). I'm actually looking forward to rockin' a short cut for awhile, a la my style icon Kate Lanphear:


And then maybe red, a la Joan:

Either way, I know I'll never look at my locks the same precious way again. 

I feel simultaneously guilty and all warm and glowy about Susan's grand gesture today, but mostly I feel supremely lucky to have a girl like her in my life.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Good boob, bad boob

This morning when I dropped Stella off at school I saw one of my chemo nurses. She's this cute, kind, youngish, thickly-accented Portuguese woman, and I felt this big weight lift off of me as I chatted with her about my side effects. She knows about me! She cares about this shit!

When we parted, I got choked up - likely another brill byproduct of my hormonal shifts, but it felt like more than that. I realized again that I'm on the back nine of my chemo game and closer to either radiation or surgery next. Both stress me out for completely different reasons. The idea of going with radiation and delaying surgery even longer makes me feel like I'll be switching from using a chainsaw to using a switchblade to cut down my cancer tree. The idea of going with surgery next sends waves of panic through my brain as I continue to struggle with the decision to cut off both or just one.

I've developed a nasty case of favouritism when it comes to my breasts. I can barely look at, let alone touch the diseased one and yet speak often and lovingly to my disease-free one. If I get the left removed and implanted (the likely choice), then at the very least, the right will need to be reduced so I don't look freakish, so it'll be some form of surgery whether I like it or not. And by the time I get the surgery, whether it's in December, January or February, I won't have my genetic testing results back so won't know if I have the breast cancer gene and thus will not have all the info I need. And even if my chances of getting cancer in the right breast are in the single digits, why take the chance when, on the surface and at my age, my chances of developing cancer in the left were supposedly in the single digits, too?

It seems ridiculous to base my decision on how I want to feel when I wake up from the surgery. Nobody feels good after waking up from a big cutting session. Whether I have one or both boobies when I come to seems irrelevant when what I really want to know is, how can I make sure this fucker never comes back? Then I get all superstitious and such and think, here I am worrying about one vs. two when right this very minute, the cancer could be rebelling against the chemo and spreading to my brain. That'll teach me.

Like I said - I'm stressed. And no closer to knowing what to do.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Girly girls

Been pondering beauty in general and a couple of babes have reminded me lately that my mind is everywhere at once about this stuff. And I'm kind of okay with that.

On Friday I opened a package from my babelicious friend Karen. She sent me the sweetest trove of cosmetic goodies from the beauty mecca that is Sephora, with the most thoughtful note attached. Beyond reminding me what a lovely person she is, inside & out, I got a most needed nudge of "good god, Carissa, you're still a girl and should play a little more with making up your mug." I adore products, I adore Sephora, I adore looking pretty. But with the eyebrows disappearing, the eyelashes not growing back when they fall out and the skin generally looking not up to scratch, I've begun to ignore myself a little, relying on the yoga pants equivalent of lazy makeup sessions in the morning.

No more, KD. I've been laying on the scrumptious gels, liquids and polishes since Friday and will no longer leave the house with a see-through face. Thank you, gorgeous girl.

Then there's my equally babelicious friend Susan. She has been raking in the donations on her path to this Friday, when my homegirl will shave her locks for the love of a friend and the loathing of cancer. Susan is a hairdresser, so getting all bald and stuff is like an architect burning down his showhome. And yet, I know the selfless, unbelievably thoughtful and rama lama ding dong friend that is Miss Susan, and she likely never thought of how this whole plan might affect her business. I'm tickled she's doing this, and I'm hoping to take a swipe on Friday, but man, this girl has months of awkward grow-back to deal with, without the handy excuse of cancer to explain away any beauty question marks.

On any given day I feel puffy, bald, pale, shrunken, or just plain beige. There are a billion things to say about the pressure to look great, even when you're blasting away the cancer cells, but I'm seriously stoked about getting a bald sister on Friday and plan to look dead cute when I go to the head shaving extravaganza.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Thank you for letting me be myself

Having cancer is a little like getting to go to your own funeral - in a totally good way. You get to see, hear, and experience the soft underbelly of this gigantic and unexpected lovefest for none other than you. And man, it feels good and strange and you feel completely unworthy of it all. At least I do.



Today was the Run for the Cure and there was a team Carissa in Vancouver and one in Victoria and it all felt a little surreal. I mean, I feel it every day - I do. Rarely a 24-hour period goes by that I don't speak to, visit with or read an email from people I like and respect and sometimes even barely know. And to say it makes a difference in my outlook is completely underselling it. That I feel an obligation to beat this cancer dealio so I don't let everyone down is a good feeling to feel. I know that so many women feel alone while they're going through cancer, and loneliness is not a great immune booster.

Total honesty here, though. I haven't always been a good friend to everyone who deserves what that word should mean. I've been distant, closed up, busy, withdrawn, ambivalent, fickle and cranky, sometimes all in one day. And mostly since my kids cropped up from wherever babies come from. I haven't always adjusted well to my time being not of my own and rather than figure out how to fit friendships into the equation, I've shut down many a times and rolled into a ball. I've chosen to tune out for my free hour at night, or spend it with my oft-ignored man instead of calling, emailing or making plans with the friends I haven't connected with in weeks. If we're talking deathbeds and funerals here, it's a big regret of mine and I'm sorry to the friends I've hurt with this nonsense.

And still I get the love delivered to me in a brown paper package tied up with strings. I get slapped with the cancer stick and it's these friends who reemerge to make me think about this life and what it means to really be supported through the bottom of the bottom.

And it feels unbelievably good.

So for all of you who ran, walked or donated in my name today - thank you ever so much. You're like these beautiful honey bees working hard to concoct the magic stuff that makes me thrive. You remind cynical me about the pure romanticism of good-old fashioned friendship and it makes me wipe away big fat tears.

I am touched to know you. I am stronger with you on my side. And I will never ever forget your kindness.

Pete
Stella
Frances
Mom
Dad
Aunt Jen
Tasha
Dave
Finn
Ezri
Susan
Rob
Jacob
Luke
Shay
Amber
Faith
Lillian
Charlie
Cindie
Eluned (where were you, girl?!)
Janice
Christy
Patrick
Sharon
Michelle
Nicholas
Leslie
Nicholas
Ron
Nicola

You rock my world.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Am I a survivor?

With a brief, but recurring chat I had with my mom last night, I've been thinking about the s-word (survivor) and what it means to me.


When I was first diagnosed, I was a bit pissed off that there were rules around being called a survivor. Like having cancer and getting up every damn day wasn't enough - I also had to somehow reach a milestone... of what? 100% cancer-free? Five years in remission? Some kind of signed and sworn statement from my oncologist saying I could join the special club? Well, fuck you, yet another girls club with stupid rules. Besides, isn't a survivor just someone who continues to function or prosper in spite of opposition, hardship, or setbacks? I'm one now, beyotches.



The thing about my mom, though, is that she has never felt comfortable being thought of or singled out as a survivor. Yes, she had breast cancer. Yes, it was removed. Yes, she's cancer-free now. The idea is simple to me, but I think the word survivor for her conjures up some special sphere of privilege or pedestal-like behavior, which is so not my mom. And it gets me thinking about the word, too. Despite not wanting to be left out of any exclusive club, the badge of survivorhood is not necessarily one I feel I've earned and wear with any kind of obvious pride. Or maybe just not yet.


Yes, I'm going through chemo and still getting up to get shit done every day, but what's my choice? Yes, there is a boatload of crap ahead with radiation and surgery and recovery/diligence (whatever that looks like) ahead, but again... what's my choice? I guess I could lay in bed and waste away, but let's put things in perspective here. I live in the first world, in a lovely city, in a nice neighbourhood, with a great family, fabulous friends, a huge support network, an awesome workplace and basically no other excuse not to try to beat this thing down at every turn. There are way, WAY worse things I could be going through right now, so what right do I have to wallow in any way?


This Sunday is the run for the cure, and although I'm not quite ready to talk about how much it means to me that there are two team Carissas in two different cities running/walking for me that day, I do know that like my ma, I continue to function, in spite of any hardship or setback, so survive on, motherfucker.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Getting closer to a few moments

I suck at being sick. I'm not a good wallower. I can't sit still for very long, and even when I'm walking around on my tippy toes because my heels feel like raw meat, I'm not great at taking it easy. So I'm trying to ignore as much as possible the side effects of round five, annoyed that it's day five and I still feel like shite and trying to figure out the things I can get away with doing today without it leading to total collapse by the time Pete and the girls get home this afternoon.

The thing is, I actually am figuring some shit out. You know how sometimes you beat your little head against a wall over a thing for years - maybe not every day, but enough to make it a roadblock or at least an annoying truism about yourself? That stuff is starting to dissolve around me. I get little moments of "oh, that's what that's about!" or "Crap, that does not need to go on anymore." Some of this might be just about not being 20 anymore, and I'm sure my mom is snickering right now, thinking, "all in due time, my dear, Carissa", but that's the point. I haven't given myself enough time until now to understand a bit more about what it's all about.

And please. I ain't no enlightened guru or holier-than-thou "follow thy secret and thou shalt see" idiot. I hate that crap. The Oprah stuff drives me a bit batty and I'm not into the self-help industry. I think I analyze myself and my motivations on my own enough and I'd rather the rest of us not get so caught up in talking about our own navel-gazing. Boring, really. So I'm trying not to let this cancer dealio make me into something more insufferable than I already am. I don't want to drag a cross around town or be any more didactic than I already am about shit, but if I stop for a moment and think about what this is all doing for me, there are definitely hints of getting at something deeper for myself.  And, well, I'll take that.



It's Frances' third birthday today. My lovely little baby is gigantic now and I feel unbelievably happy to be here for it, even as it takes me ever longer to make myself presentable in the morning. Heck, eyebrows and eyelashes are for suckers anyhow.