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.