Onward and boobward

No, I'll never get tired of the titty puns.

I'm feeling quite chestally perky lately. Maybe it's because I'm a bra owner again. Maybe I'm actually kind of pleased with how les girls look in les sweaters. It all has a way of lulling a girl into thinking this was all an elaborate ruse to begin life again in a new way.

Problem is, despite the high, I still feel like I have a shitload of work to do. Sometimes I feel like I haven't made any lasting changes at all. Like I'm some cancer survivor hack going through the motions but still doing the same garbage I did before.

I read something yesterday that said people have a much easier time relating to a cancer patient than a cancer survivor. To see the obvious sick, the treatments we've all seen movies about, the medical merry-go-round. It's all familiar, even if you can't actually know what it's like to lose your eyelashes or get a gazillion IVs until it happens to you. But understanding what it's like to be in recovery or remission, no matter how temporary, leaves most feeling a bit blank. If I had a buck for every "aren't you glad to be getting back to normal again?!" I'd have gold-plated nipples.

I understand, though. It's like telling someone who's parent died, "well, he/she was old, it was her time" or telling someone with any disease, "My mother/aunt/neighbour/babysitter died from that!" We're all looking for the right words to say in awkward moments. We're all a little alien when it comes to truly relating to each other.

So this survivor thing is interesting. I think about death a lot. Woody Allen a lot. But I also think about the loveliness of life more. I speak my mind more. I'm both less and more patient with everything. But I still get nervous about stupid shit. I still curse slow drivers. I still get ticked when I can't get 10 minutes to read the paper, write a blog, file my nails, or do all those other things women without children can lord over me. I still feel paralyzed in my job sometimes. I still wonder what it's like to nurse baby zebras back to life on a wildlife ranch in Tanzania rather than actually do it. I'm not bucket-listing it all over the place.

And that makes me think I have a shitload more work to do. But 2012 is right around the corner, and although I don't know if I'm going to live through that year (be it cancer or beer truck accident), I do know I'm more than likely to make it to December 31. So I'll make a few more plans and ride this perky wave a little longer.

The adventure of les girls

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On Tuesday I scrubbed myself raw with a surgical sponge and donned gown and paper slippers once again to get my boobs cut open once again. Reclining on my hospital bed in the holding pen, listening to the sounds of various razors stopping and starting on hairy chests, abdomens and legs and patients telling their health histories to nurses and then again to surgical staff, I was definitely less nervous than I was in February. I felt pretty proud of the champ I'd been post-op up to that point in my life - nary a bad reaction to anaesthetic big and small. Yep, quick recovery all around for this girl, so let's get this party started.

When young Dr. T showed up in his scrubs, he was even relaxed, joking about all the old blind people getting a peek inside my curtain and then not remembering a bloody thing anyhow because of all the drugs in the place. He whisked his little sharpies around my chest to mark the cut and fold lines and I barely sat back down again before the sides of my bed were lifted and I was told I was next.

Instead of going to holding hallway #2, I was wheeled right past all the other pre-op sheep and got into a traffic jam in the beautiful, light-filled, high-cielinged hallway leading to the operating rooms. It might be a disgusting bloody mess, but I was without glasses by that point, so blind to the details. I think I caught a glimpse of Dr. T sitting at one of the computer kiosks along one wall - likely looking up some last minute techniques on boobstoday.org.

We got jammed behind another bed and that nurse said to my nurse, "look at your client, all perky and looking around! My client refuses to open her eyes, poor thing." I narrowed my eyes to get a look at the lady, but only saw a grey-haired fuzzy image of a person curled up on her bed. My operating room was at the end and it was beautiful. All gigantic lights and buzzing hospital staff - all completely focused on me. I even had a student. "Do you mind if I observe, Mrs. McCart?" Very civilized, despite the fact that my teeth were chattering by this point.

My anaesthesiologist introduced herself and I was mildly disappointed it wasn't the tiny, efficient man who did me last time. He was good. Completely painless. This one jabbed into my hand and I felt the gush of the fluid as it entered my vein - like a faucet sputtering. The oxygen mask went over my face, but instead of emitting a calming stream of air, it was stagnant, and I was breathing in and out my own CO2. Before I had a chance to protest, I was out.

When I woke up, my heart was racing. I was in the initial "watch her closely" phase, so drifted in and out of consciousness without guilt as I listened to the nurses talk about bad television. When I finally got to my post-op recovery spot, I knew I had to perk up but my heart wouldn't settle down. Every time I reached for my water or turned my head on the pillow, it was like getting a jolt to my chest. And my nurse was concerned. Instead of being able to let me go home in an hour, she stayed with me for the next five hours, once giving me morphine in my arm, once ondansetron (my old chemo dance drug) after I asked for the fish and chip tray once too many times, and then, when I keep drifting in and out of it, administered two bags of liquid food when Dr. T checked in by phone and said I must be dehydrated.

When my heart rate finally slipped below 100 and I had gotten up to pee without losing my saltines, they fairly kicked me out of the joint, in the sweetest way possible. But not before mentioning, in an offhand way, "it says on your chart they gave you epinephrine while you were under... that might account for your elevated heart rate."

Really? You think adrenaline might elevate my fucking heart rate? So did I go too far under? Did my notoriously low blood pressure drop my heart rate too low when they were mid-cut? I'll ask Dr. T when I see him next week. But I'm not impressed. My post-op rep is in tatters.

In the meantime, les girls are here. Don't get all excited. I'm still the son of a nipple-less goat, and these puppies do not look anything close to a beautiful set, but they're slightly less cartoonishly high than what I had before. They're slightly larger and a tad softer, and they're attempting to fold under a little at the bottom, like a normal breast. Dr. T did the best job he could with the left one especially, considering the massively radiated/tight skin and long mastectomy scar, and the right would never pass as normal, even to Mr. Magoo, but it's done.

I may have a moment someday when I weep over the fact that I'll never have normal looking breasts again, but for now, as I come off the T3s, say goodbye to the toilet hugging from my post-op day and the drug haze the couple of days following, I feel another closure. And it is good.

Don't label me, bro

As I move ever closer to the eve of my surgery and my new role as "fake boob girl part deux: the legend of curly's gold", I think about the labels that cancer slaps on a person (sick, dying, diseased, fragile, bald) and how, from the days of shunning the ubiquitous Club Monaco sweatshirts of my junior-high youth, I effing hate labels.

I know it's not very fergilicious of me to not want to tote around a bag that yells Coach!! And some of the wellness babes I look up to would likely think I was a puss for not wearing my "vegans do it better" t-shirt. But I'm pretty okay with that. Even if I decided to never eat another egg or fairy-thin slip of prosciutto again, I would not, could not don the label.

I don't want to be part of any tribe other than the one that lets me read, think, watch, say, eat and do what I want. I'm figuring out this stuff for me and my family, and although I know the community aspect is important, it makes me wary. This is why I love Victoria. Your neighbours will help you out without a moment's hesitation but ultimately, they stay out of yo bidness. Like all the best parts of a small and big city wrapped up in a lovely package.

So yeah, I'm looking for like-mindedness, and people on a similarly questioning path, but I ain't wearing no damn Club Monaco sweatshirt, y'all.

Now with fewer preservatives!

The deeper I try to get into a chemical-free life, the more disturbed I get by the proliferation of the shite in the products we put on and around our bods. And what's even more crazy-inducing is that not everyone is concerned about this. That whole "they wouldn't lie to us" mentality that drives me around the bend and makes me feel like a grade A conspiracy theorist. Because we know as much today as we did 50 years ago about drugs/chemicals/nutrition, right? No advances there. No tobacco awakening. No sir. The man will take care of us. The thing is, they don't know for sure this shite contributes to disease, but then, given the choice, why not move in a cleaner direction?

Hell, I know it's tiring to have to think of this shit all the time. You think I don't slap myself in the face every time I go into Sephora and visit the three lonely shelves that are chemical-free while weeping over the pretty pretty that in good conscience I can't buy anymore? But it's getting less painful.

Almost 18 months later and I've managed to purge my hut of most things non-organic in the cleaning and beauty product district. I went into the fetal position after throwing away the formaldehyde-laden but perfect shade of black mascara I've been using for years to move my love over to the new Tarte Amazonian Clay mascara that truthfully, kicks the ass of any mascara I've ever owned. And I know it's a fucking pretentious name. I'm sure there are virgin tears and baby sweat on my lashes now, and I welcome it all.

I still have a handful of products I'm too attached to to give up yet - mostly lead-laden lipsticks - but I'm getting there. I'm aiming to be chemical-free by the end of year, which seems bloody first-world and privileged as shit, but I have to do something while the man figures out whether putting preservatives on my pits is having any effect at all.

All I ask is that the next time you read in a magazine that "you can rest easy, because there have been no conclusive tests to show the link between parabens and cancer", be worried that the question was ever there in the first place and the research is so very young.

A new set

I've been pestering my plastic surgeon to meet with me again so we can begin to talk about installing the new set. Dr. T's office finally got back to me today with an appointment date and the surgery already scheduled for November 8.

A bit sooner than I expected, but I'll take it. It's time to make the transition from Barbie to Posh. I'm ready. What I'm not so keen about is having to go under and invite the knife back into my life. I have this fear that they'll stitch me up and there will be a cancer cell or two hanging around the incision, waiting to organize and attack as my healthy cells are busy healing.

I'll get over the angst. Especially now that I know my Frances bean has to get surgery on her neck in a few months. That just opened up a whole new bundle of worry. She has a thyroglossal duct cyst, which is basically this smooth cystic lump on her neck, under her chin. The ear/nose/throat doc said today she was likely born with it, that the ultrasound we had taken last week was inconclusive as to whether the lump was cystic or solid, and that it didn't matter anyhow, cuz it should be removed, along with the tiny bone it sits on, so it doesn't become malignant when she grows up. So tiny Frances has to get her neck sliced open and a cyst removed, staying overnight in the hospital. Ballz. Let me count all the ways that freaks the shit out of me.

But she's a tough bird. She'll take it all in and look up at the doc with her big eyes, all trusting like, and I'll lose it.

So I get new boobs. Frances gets a new neck. We're fallin' apart (or rather being put back together) here, people!

To celebrate this new Frankenstein existence, Pete and I are escaping to Point No Point this weekend for two days of being unplugged on the wild west coast. Bliss.

No evidence of disease

When I first met my oncologist, Dr. A., I wanted to run screaming from the exam room. She was reserved, a bit awkward, and not at all chit-chatty about the fact that we'd need to become BFFs over the coming months if I was going to trust her judgement. She sat in a chair practically across the room and spoke in hushed tones, rarely a smile. It was all a bit too much for me then, and I asked my surgeon, who I loved, if she could recommend someone else (she had recommended Dr. A. in the first place).

Since that first conversation with my surgeon when she convinced me to stick it out with my new onc., I have heard nothing but respect and love for Dr. A from the other docs and nurses I've met. "She's who I would want", "She's conscientious to a fault", "You could not have been assigned a better oncologist." I believe in all that now.

Yesterday, Dr. A. walked into the room in her usual gangly way and she had a gigantic gummy smile on her face. She had the nerve to ask me about any residual side effects of Tamoxifen, future medication options and about how I was feeling in general. Then she finally unloaded the goods.

"Your CT was all clear. No evidence of disease anywhere."

Um. Does fucking fantastic cover it here?!

Pete grabbed my leg like he did the time I was diagnosed. Relief. Release. Begin again.

We fairly skipped out of the place, which is obnoxious if you've ever been to a cancer clinic. And I felt a giant slap of guilt with the glee, because I thought of friends at different stages and the women who would hear that same day for the first time that they had cancer. But something huge died in me yesterday and I'll take that death as a good one and be over the moon about all this.

This feels new, this existence now. Like I've earned a do-over. It's a bunch of shit, though, from Steve Jobs, to the books I'm reading now, to work, to friends, to disease still surrounding everything. It's not about "getting back to normal" or "returning to my old life". It starts here, baby.

Waiting for the pink to catch up

So much of having the c-dawg kickin' around is about waiting. For the next set of scan results, for the side effects to take or not take hold, for people to stop telling you stories about the cancer relative who got away. Honestly, I know people die from this shit every day and tell a survivor or survivor-in-training that you know someone who succumbed does not help the waiting. I understand the need to share. I do. But give me more of the triumphs than the tragedies.

I'm also waiting for all the "cancer patient" references to end. When you are one, you don't want to be called one, and when you aren't one, it's like calling somebody's sister ugly. You know she's narsty-looking, but only you can say so, y'all.

It's officially pink month around these parts, and I know a big part of it is fantastic awareness-building, cure-finding, breast feeling-upping, and general boobie-talk that doesn't get discussed at other times of the year. An entire month to dedicate to telling cancer to stfu is a good thing. Sometimes, though, I think all the "we just want to pop a pill and get on with our day!" talk is only moving cancer into the realm of other diseases and giving the power to big pharma and not to women and girls.

Here comes the nutrition and environment smack talk again, right? Do I think I got cancer because I wasn't as fit, well, mindful and conscious about what went into my body as I could have been? Partly. I think I'll never know exactly what it was because it was a big ol' combo of internal and external factors plus something in my body that was hospitable to the environment of disease. What will continue to chap my ass is the generally themed discussion about the inevitabililty of cancer. That it's a natural disease of aging (hello 37! Plus, that's just ballz), or unfortunate happenstance (hello so many women I know in my neck of the woods alone - the numbers tell a different story). That talk gets us all thinking that it's the medical community's job to find us a good ol' fashioned cure and that we're not responsible for taking some control over our own bodies and feeling empowered.

This isn't about blame or karma or bad genes or randomness. It's about taking something from this disease and making good from it. About not just turning the other cheek, but now making every decision about my life like I'm finally in control of something real. And it's not about thinking that if I just become a yoga-obsessed, marathon-running, meditating veg-head,  I'll never get cancer again. It's about not hoping someone will save me. I ain't down with that mindset. And whether I die next week, in five years or in fifty, I will never count on someone else to provide me with that hope.

To Sharon, Ashlyn, Shirley, Trish, Freddy, Kathryn, my mom, my grandmother, and every other woman in my present and future who will get a visit. This whole pink thing is about you and I wish nothing but an end to all the fucking waiting. You've made my life shinier.