Introducing: my bod, my temple

I did it, yo! I carved out a new blog and I think I just peed a little from happiness and a great big ending.

It's all about starving the c-dawg with writing and good food and I hope you'll join me in saying goodbye to wiifm cancer and hello to:

my bod, my temple

I'll share tons of shizz with you there as I keep on give'n er and promise to give you the biz on all things cancer arse-kicking related.

Will you join me?

Don't call us, we'll call you

I had a shiny moment with my onc this week. Dr. A felt me up one last time, told me she was going on sabbatical in February for six months (did I break her?) and then said, "We'll call you in 2016."

I think I peed a little from my schoolgirl excitement and then I stood up, thanked her, shook her hand, thanked her again and hugged the hell out of her. She grinned, I grinned and then we parted for four years.

Before I left, though, I asked her a stoopid question that's been floating around my bean for awhile.

"Does having chemo also kill all the run of the mill cold and flu viruses for awhile? Cuz I have not been sick for over a year."

"No, you're likely just washing your hands more since having chemo."

Part of me thought, fuck you, I'm doing more than washing my paws. The other part thought, holy shit, my onc knows nothing about the lengths I've gone to to transform myself and give cancer the swift kick to the ballz it needed. And she doesn't really care.

I still love her, but it made me realize that I was experiencing another ending and a little beginning.

So I'm working on starting a new blog and will let you all know about the unicorns and narwhals I plan to post about when I get it all sewed up and running.

2011: I hardly knew ye

I started the year tit-deep in radiation burns, planning a trip to PS, and trying on a month of detox to set my bod up for the double cut. Returning to work felt like a gift (for reals), Hawaii with my entire family still something I squeeze with delight and miss constantly, and marking a year of daily juicing a victory.

With the new girls in place to round out the last 12 months and eight vials of blood taken last week to test my health and finally turn the knob on genetic testing, I can safely say I'm done with hospitals and needles for awhile.

I'm proud of some shit. I kicked the chemical habit in my house. We all drastically reduced our meat and alcohol consumption and most of us said goodbye to dairy for pretty much forever. No one is a true blue vegan or gluten-free baking goddess. Not even Kris Carr could make me like Aloe Vera juice. But I'm putting some interesting things down my gullet and making progress in some areas.

Nutrition been's complicated. Feeding my girls good things has been complicated. Trying to figure out what level everything should be for me and for Pete has been complicated. I'm almost ready to stop focusing on that for awhile. That is, after I get a little 21-day adventure cleanse out of the way in January.
2012 is about working on my fitness and writing. Everything else takes a backseat. The good habits continue, to be sure, but don't get any more mindshare than they do. I feel like as much as I focused on my bod this year, I didn't really get to push it to its limits. And I need to. And as much as I wrote in 2011, I need to do double time. It's the thing that keeps me sane and present and alone and I love that.

So, off I go to a new year's eve party at the only place I ever truly want to be: with my family. That karaoke machine isn't gonna sing itself, right?

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Yes, malls are tres terrible. The quality of Christmas chocolate is a crime. And jesus, there are women being set on fire in Brooklyn elevators. Life is messy and there's no Freddie Mercury to make us feel a little better about it all.

And yet...

Man, I love December. For the promise of a new year just days away. Starting over. I covet January like nobody's business and nothing can make me feel bad about that.

To the cancer babes, Trish, Freddie and Susan, who will forever share my milestones and continue to be braver and look much better than I ever will. We will all have a bonanza year. Mark my words.

To Sharon, Shirley, Ashlyn, Pam and Carmela, who are knee-deep in cancer shit, I cheerlead you every day. The desperate guilt I feel for getting my respite now is only tempered by the fact that we all know respites can end at a moment's notice.

To my mom, who keeps pushing me forward in the line - you're next, Carissa, go! - I can't ever express what it means to have a person in my life who puts up with my shitty moods, sharp tongue, and impatience to be my agent, my friend and the person I least want to let down.

To my girls. Who are as impatient and foul-tempered as I am and still manage to be pretty sweet, funny and interesting to grow up with. You're both the reason I'm taking guitar lessons and joining a running clinic and juicing every day and trying to live a purposeful life.

To Pete, who grabbed my hand and dragged me outside for walks when I felt like dying. I chose to see myself as you did and managed to avoid the mirror and pictures of myself to keep the illusion alive. You never made me feel sick and you've been unendingly patient with my dark moments, even though they were about my fear of leaving you alone and that must have scared you shitless. Whatever I say can never be enough.

And to the friends and co-workers who surprised me with their caring, the bazillion messages, presents and genuine interest in my cancer bullshit... even the ones who were uneasy with it all. You made it feel less freaky and lonely. Which is really what any of us with the c-dawg are trying to feel every day.

You are all the reason I'm straining against my leash to get this fucking year over with so I can do, say, learn and become oh so many new and sparkly things in 2012. Bon appetit!

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

Installation complete. Click continue.

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.

Coming up to an end

I'm on the verge of another ending, or beginning, or just another excuse to buy new clothes.

This coming week I have my last round of Herceptin. Yes, it freaks me out a little. That new little drug is saving a shitload of HER2+ women's lives these days and it's been my job to imagine it's doing the same for me. After the Herceptin goes away, who's going to be the new warden? It's too much to think about being that vulnerable again, so I mostly ignore that feeling.

After Herceptin ends, I have one final heart scan next week to see how the ol' valentine is doing. Then it's one final CT scan to see if that little lung fun I had last fall is still kickin' around. I know I said/thought no more scans, but I was wrong. I kind of asked for the CT the last time I was at the onc. I asked why getting a final set of scans wasn't de rigeur in cancer land and Dr. A. said, "Well, let's get a final CT, then, to check your lungs." Shizz. Fine. Call my bluff.

That'll be in October. Shortly after that, I should be ready to go under the knife again to get the permanent new set installed and the current baby boulders removed. Actually looking forward to that little surgery. It might make me feel less like Barbie and more like... well, a girl with fake boobies.

You know - since going through this whole smashup, I definitely feel differently about the whole fake vs. real conversation. Some women spend this wicked energy spewing "they're obviously fake" statements at real and magazine women. Now that I'm in the fake category, I think - who the fuck cares? And if they are fake, how do you know what the story behind the fakery is? And if it is just cosmetic, again, who the fuck cares? Just another stupid division to keep the girl fight alive.

With all these endings and beginnings I'm thinking again about nutrition and what my next commitment needs to be. There's been huge progression, and I'd like to take it all to the next level and eat my chocolate sundaes in bed instead of over the sink.

Mahalo for the break

Hawaii was lovely and hot and relaxing and filled with nothing resembling green juice. I didn't get a shitload of time to ruminate/meditate/discombobulate on my own about life like some kind of has-been actress shuffling through her mansion, but I did get to think. And I do feel a little shinier than before.

Does work eat up time now that I'm back? Yes, but I'm enjoying myself. Do I still struggle to get permission from my girls to go to the bathroom by myself. Balls. You know the answer to that. My life is what it is. Part my design, part the design of the beings I've chosen to surround me. And I like it.

I've got plans, though. Especially now that I'm back on the juice every morning, have lost the puka dog, beer and chocolate-covered macadamia nut weight, and feel this strange surge beneath me (don't get dirty). I feel partly responsible and partly propelled by something else that will smack me in the face sometime soon. I hope it isn't another cancer. It feels like a good thing, but sometimes I can't trust that feeling.

What I know for sure? I wrote an article for work this week about my own personal cancer fun fair and felt that delightful rocket ship of love again from my colleagues, which included a few new branches out to cancer cousins. No matter what awaits with leather gloves to wring my neck or drive me fast around the next corner, I know there's purpose out there.

New Carissa? Perhaps not. But I definitely said aloha to the spark of something I didn't have before.

Caught in a bad routine

Six more sleeps until I say Mahalo to my old life and Aloha to the new Carissa. I'm positive it has taken much less than a two-week vacation in Hawaii to change a person. And here's the thing. I'm doing a lot of shit in different ways, but a lot of shit the same way, too. And that needs to end.

I've been back to work for three months and oh how easy it is to slip into le routine. And routine isn't all bad. Teeth brushing. Looking both ways. Self-examination. Those are good routines. Becoming resentful about meal planning, endlessly juggling pick ups and drop offs, ignoring my running shoes. Bad routines.

It's so fucking easy, you see! People ask about my "new perspective" and "not taking things for granted" and it's true. After cancer, some things you'll never see the same way again. But 39 years of conditioning, personality development, reinforcement and comfort are hard to shake in a year, even after touching one foot over to the dark side and being terrified with what I saw.

Some of the me stuff I'm okay with. In fact, more than okay with. Like yesterday, I went to a birthday party with Frances and it was one of those "parents have to stay" dealios. Loathethoseparties.com. If I don't find someone fun to talk to, I get restless and agitated and well... I'm pretty okay that I'm like that. No need for therapy.

But then I pull some passive aggressive shite or get impatient with one of my girls over nothing and think, that's garbage. Why do I still have to be like that after all the bloody perspective I've supposedly gained?

It's not that I need a bucket list or anything trite like that, but in a way, I do. I want to know that if I go to my oncologist tomorrow and she says, "It's back" that I've lived with fucking purpose. I know this can't equal climbing mountains and birthing baby donkeys every day, but it has to mean more than dinner resentment and hanging my fine washables on the line.

So my list begins today. And it starts with two weeks away with my entire family in a tropical paradise, with nothing to think about but what to do with the rest of my life.

Oh, and did I mention I'm going to set off every metal detector in the airport with my tissue expanders? Hello, TSA!

I think I'll die another day

One year ago today I was picking hairs off my pillow, off the couch, off my caviar & blinis. Everywhere. I had the short buzz still, not yet Six Flags bald, but quickly heading in that direction. Everything's different today at 39, but I feel the same Rod Stewart fierceness to keep yelling at the c-dawg to get off my damn lawn. I'll never stop being cranky about that.

I'm not going to be all "I'm just happy to be alive" today, because aside for a few moments of sheer dark terror over the past year, I was always determined to make it, for however long I have. So I celebrated longevity by eating a scandalous amount of garbage food (with some green juice to keep away the guilty conscience) and enjoyed every last minute of my birthday. I'm a chocolate-loving human girl after all.

Aw, hell. I am kind of happy just to be alive.

Starving the c-dawg: one year later

As I await the latest banana bread incarnation to emerge from my oven, willing it to taste good despite the addition of protein powder and the subtraction of sugar, it feels like I'm just beginning the food journey that has seen me try out shit like this over the past year and still hold out hope.

A wiser woman would say, "give it up - if you're gonna eat it, eat the good stuff", but I honestly don't see the "good stuff" as good anymore. I'm pretty close to realizing that I need to eat good stuff regularly, so I have to CSI some reasonable facsimiles wherever I can. Yes, it means I make some craptastic recipes sometimes, but the great big try continues.

One year ago I was recovering from my first chemo cocktail and diving into every book I could find on the link between cancer and nutrition. A few good ones below:

Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips
Crazy Sexy Diet
Fit for Life
The China Study
A Cancer Battle Plan
Juice Yourself Slim
Detox 4 Women
What to Eat if you Have Cancer
The Complete Natural Medicine Guide to Breast Cancer

None of these books alone blew me away. I'm not the kind of gal who reads something and has an immediate and profound change of heart. I'm pretty measured in my beliefs and like to think about shit before I commit. And even then, I like the occasional guilt-free out. But I had to shift my mind to something proactive while I was waiting for the drugs o' death to do their work, so my mind was open back then and I was ready to imagine a new existence that would see me move beyond my 40s.

Since ingesting all the good and bad from those books and countless websites, discussion forums, videos and lectures, I feel closer to understanding how disease takes over any body and how to manage and ultimately curb that process.

Simply put, it's about eating your vegetables. And lots of 'em. But in that simple statement lives a crapload of work I've had to do around eating meat, dairy, sugar and white flour. I've cut out most of that stuff, but I do eat fish, some chicken and the odd piece of bacon and slice of cheese. I also eat a square of dark chocolate (a single square, mind) every freakin' day. Yes, I will die if I don't. It's in my contract.

And I feel not a shred of guilt about it when I do.

I have this ideal state of eating in my mind, based on all the research I've done, with these main points:

Veggie juice, water and green tea until noon
Raw until dinner (salads, nuts & seeds, olives, hummus)
Grains, protein & veg at dinner (heavy on the brown rice, beans & quinoa, lite on the potatoes)
High fiber in the evenings (fruit, muesli) 

With this ideal state, I play the field a lot. But 95% of the time I stick to the first and last points (juice and muesli), which makes me feel better about the stuff in between.

I don't want to obsess. But I do want to continue to make progress. I ask for stuff at restaurants now (no cheese) plan my holidays differently, and think a bit more carefully about what I eat at parties, but I don't deny myself. If someone bakes a gigantic loaf of bread and gives me a knife and butter, I'll eat it and love every minute of it, but I don't do it every day.

We all know this is one big experiment and no one will know how it all turns out until I kick off and donate my bod to science. But in the meantime, I haven't had a cold in 9 months, my weight has reached the sweet spot where I don't have to think twice about calories or fat intake anymore and most days I have the energy of jackrabbit.

I'm definitely not done, though. There's the ongoing sugar addiction, there's the continuing challenge of getting enough iron, and there's that odd-smelling banana bread that has five minutes left in the oven.

Remains of woman found off Ten Mile Point

I’m always looking for any new excuse to give cancer another kick to the nards. So last Sunday, after downing a dozen raw oysters and a couple of kir royales, I went to the same post-diagnosis beach in Ten Mile Point that I cried my sorry eyes out one year ago and tossed my beloved/despicable chemo sweater into the ocean.

The plan was to build a sacrificial fire, but Pete and I decided to heed the warnings to avoid having Bif and Fifi come out of their beachfront mansion to wag their perfectly manicured fingers at us.

So I spread my long grey sweater on the shore, grabbed a big rock, tied the nubby sleeves around and around it and stood at the edge of the water while Pete took pictures.

 

After a couple of good swings, goodbye sweater.

It sank like a hot damn and I felt a little lift inside of me. Four months of layer upon layer of clothes to keep warm while the cocktail of death beat the cancer out of me. Hair in the shower drain. Hair on my pillow. Hair on the deck with an over-eager husband and pet clippers. Endless scarves and hats and an eternally cold neck. Stubborn veins. Sickening smells. Doubts and death thoughts and miniscule victories. All wrapped up in an ugly Gap sweater on sale for $9.99.

I hope someone finds the blasted thing in a few weeks or months and thinks some woman must’ve jumped or fell. I hope someone feels a moment of horror as they imagine there are limbs or hair or bloated skin inside. It’s a little piece of cancer in there and it’s floating out to Japan.

I thought about my new cancer cousin, who has recently begun downing the chemo martinis and how it seems endless when you’re in it. There is so a series of little endings, and for me it looks something like this beach in Cadboro Bay.

Cancer anniversary

So it’s been a year. Twelve months since I held that magical lottery ticket in my hand, the numbers already drawn, and yet was still hopeful there had been some terrible mistake. The stupid thing is, I expected my name to be called eventually and now ask myself, was I okay with that happening at 50, 60 or 70 instead of 37? Ask my mom how she felt when she got her cancer suitcase handed to her and if there wasn’t the same anger and fear there. Circumstances different, yes. But the news is never welcome and the whole scene never plays out like you think it will.

And while I feel like I’ve learned a shitload and made some fantastic changes in my life to try to ward off the beast for the rest of my days, there’s ever more to do.

And there are more women going on this trip every day. Four in my immediate circle alone – all ranging in age, all varying in circumstances, but all faced with uneasy decisions, clearcutting treatments and vague promises from cancer land. I think about these women more than myself these days and feel a fierce mother bear thing about what’s been taken away already. The physical stuff we all deal with somehow, but the feeling that something is always resting on our shoulder, to varying degrees, will never go away for any of us. It can colour a good day, slap your face while you’re laughing about something, kick you in the ass when you’re making plans, and trip you up when you dare to imagine there could be a day when the c-dawg will be put to sleep forever.

I keep writing cuz it never leaves me. And I’m not bright enough to deal with it any other way. If I spell it out, it’s less scary and the hands around my neck loosen a little more.

But I live my life. I drink my green juice, eat my veggies, cut back on everything acid and try to fit rebounding and running into every spare second. I’m more patient, more open to people and things and experiences and focus less on retirement and more on the next six months. The mental shift continues and I’m always trying to find ways to balance the immediate with the plan and enjoy the in between as much as possible.

And really – I’m lucky that I even have the opportunity to ruminate about all this stuff. None of us know what’s around the corner. None of us can plan the end. None of us, when it comes down to it, have the luxury of time. We all have cancer inside of us – and I mean that literally, not in some new agey way. The cells are there. They’re waiting to misbehave and form alliances. We know (or at least I’m fuckin’ telling you) that living well – eating whole, staying alkaline, being active, loving & being loved – is the key to warding off all disease, so I’ll keep going as long as this stinkin’ world will have me.

Scan-free, free as the wind blows

I've finally reached another big milestone in the cancer awards ceremony. No more scans. All the results may not be in, but as far as I'm concerned, it'll be slouch-sock day in hell before I get another tin injection, breath into a tube or have a host of electrodes taped to my chest. I'm done.

My veins are calloused now, like for reals. There is no such thing as a painless poke anymore and likely never will be again. So although I still have a handful of Herceptin injections left to do over the summer months (nothing zexier than an IV bruise and a bikini), and perhaps one more bloodwork request, I should be free of all extraneous pokes. I can live my life in blissful ignorance again - pretend I chose the pixie hair and was born with tiny boobies. Act like it was all bloody up to me.

With my last test yesterday, I was waiting for the show to begin and heard the song Judy in Disguise playing in the lab. When I was six I used to shake my hips to that song and swing my Holly Hobby purse like a madwoman, demanding my parents watch me until the music stopped. Riveting stuff. If I can grab a baby toenail amount of that innocence back and erase every hospital visit from my memory in the meantime, I'm golden, Ponyboy.

You tell me that it's evolution

It's been awhile, I know. This is the thing about having a job - blogging becomes rather back-burnered, even though I know it is the thing that has led me out of the big wallow and documented my cancer tour in all its glory.

By no means has the c-boat docked for good. It got a new paint job and lido deck, but it's there. Always there. The good thing is, I have no idea if there are any nasty cells in my bod regrouping and laughing at me and my sequin shirts and head hair. I say good, but it's also momentarily terrifying. Because I know that if it comes back, It will be nastier, untamed, and I'll doubt all the work I've done to get to this state of juicy wellness. I didn't feel sick the first time around, and fear a little every day that I'll miss the signs this time. It's a delicate balance between feeling myself up at every traffic light and thumbing my nose at the whole thing so I can just live my life. Aware and yet not aware.

Then I get word of another friend, colleague, woman of the world being smacked in the face with the cancer stick and I think - wow, I'm through that for now and feel lucky. And fuck if it doesn't make me angry that I somehow didn't get rid of it for everyone else.

Work has been a salve. It's normalcy. It keeps me focused on participating in another world where I can make another kind of difference. It's been an adjustment, though. My time is gone again. It gets sucked up so quickly and I need to fight this go round to make it all turn out the way I want. I'll figure it out. I will.

In the meantime, in so many ways I'm still the same annoying Carissa. I argue about stupid stuff. Lose my patience. Rock out to live band karaoke. Eat shit more than I should. And doubt my parenting skills every day of the week. But whatevs. My moments of understanding that this life is sparkly and I must sparkle in it exactly the way I want to are so there now - much more than they were before.

I still have a shitload of work to do. Exercise anyone? When the fuck do I fit that in with two clingy girls around my neck? Meditation? I do a few minutes every day, but I need more. Going vegan? I'm getting there, one less bacon slice a day.

And I'm not alone, right? There's you and you, and then you over there. And like KS said on Tuesday night re: my man about the house, "Your husband is a friggin' saint!" I mean, the guy ordered a sandwich today and asked the waitress to hold the cheese. If that isn't a revolution, people, I don't know what is.