Something New

So I have this cancer thing going on, and I have to say it is pretty much the pits. I'm trying very hard to make lemonade, but some days are very trying.

Earlier this summer, I kept having the thought that I never get sick, that this is so out of the ordinary for me. And then this very wise woman said to me that we repeat and repeat and repeat our life experiences, and then, if we finally get it right, the goddess gives us something new. I'm more into God than the goddess - to each her own - but this thought totally resonated with me. Something new. That's what is happening to me - something brand new. And so I have been trying to keep that in mind as I go through each new experience.

I am someone who loves routine. I am not a person who asks for help easily. If I need help, and I am wildly self-sufficient, I have maybe two people that I will turn to. These last few months I have been completely overwhelmed. Besides the fish and dogs, (the cat ran off when she saw things were going downhill) I have these three gorgeous children to take care of. I decided it was time for something new.

Friends I know wanted to organize meals for our house. Normally I couldn't have stood it. It's too much work - we don't really need it. But the fact is that I do need it. So I decided to look at it as something new. Let people bring food to my house. It won't hurt. They've been bringing dinners now for the past two months that meet our crazy egg-allergy rules. I never would have asked for the help before and I can't tell you how grateful I am to have it.

I cannot drive myself to my chemotherapy treatments. When they started, I couldn't bear the idea of someone that wasn't close to me (i.e. my sweetie) going with me. I didn't think I could be sick in front of anyone. But as it has turned out, people are driving me and it is just fine. I have had someone different take me almost every time, and I have had wonderful days with these fantastic men and women. I am in awe the way they have gone out of their way for me, whether getting heating packs for my arm or running a mile to get me a sandwich I craved. Not a bad lesson in something new.

And then, last weekend, I got the most delightful gift. We had a family wedding and suddenly, as I was on my way to the rehearsal dinner, I felt great. Not simply fine or ok, but really and truly great. And I continued to feel great all through the weekend. Definitely something new!

I'm trying not to think to much about what's ahead, or how all of this is going to impact my family in the long run, but I think we've all got to be better off if I can keep letting go of all the old baggage and keep embracing something new.

P.S. Sorry for the trite little flower picture – I promise to find something with a little more bite when I'm feeling better.

The Gratitude Experiment

As someone who has always been wildly and continuously healthy, I decided that my illness is God's way of giving me the gift of something brand new. Once I started thinking about all of this as a gift, it got me thinking about all the other gifts that have come my way in recent weeks. And thus the gratitude experiment was born.

Sometime each day, especially when it is a day that I feel like crap, I am trying to think of five or six things that I am especially grateful for. There are lots of them – from the fact that my chemo is working to the wonderful dinner someone brought me last night to my beautiful children and the lovely cards and messages that are coming my way. Or the energy that helped me write a new chapter, an incredible sunset, the gentle neck massage I got from my husband and the gorgeous flowers I received from a dear friend. The gifts are everywhere.

In the past, I have tried to remember to be grateful for the things I've been given in my regular life, but most of the time I'm just caught up in the muck of life. So right now, in the interest of doing something new, I am doing the gratitude experiment. I find that there is something incredible about methodically cataloging the big and small gifts received each and every day. My mind gets clear and energetic and I feel especially, vividly alive.

So here's a little gift that I would like to give back to you, in the hope that you won't have to learn this particular lesson in the way that I am. Try the gratitude experiment. See if it works for you. Maybe you could get something out of all this without having to have the cancer - wouldn't that be fabulous? Or rather one more thing to be grateful for?

My Unexpected Summer

The night before my sweetie and I took our kids on a surprise vacation, I got my own surprise. It was midnight, we were getting up at 3:30 and I wanted to go to sleep. But I couldn't, because the honey was busy doing who knows what with the light on.

So I said to myself, breathe, relax, we're going on vacation. Think about something else. And that's when I decided to do a breast exam. I know, who does a breast exam before going on vacation? Me, I guess. And my surprise was that I found a lump - a big, fat, somewhat hard, lump. I made my sweetie stop what he was doing and come over to feel what I thought I was feeling. We both freaked. And then we decided to pretend nothing had happened. Because we knew that if we stopped everything to check it out, and there was bad news, then there would be all kinds of things to do, and we'd never go away the surprise vacation. One week in the grand scheme of things wouldn't matter. So we got up at 3:30 as planned, woke the kids at 4, went on the vacation and it was truly wonderful. And then I came back to reality.

I have an aggressive stage II breast cancer. In the last seven weeks, my life has completely changed. I strip for anyone. My boobs have been shown so many times that my kids are lucky I'm wearing a shirt. I'm bald and I keep forgetting about it. I am trying to keep my head covered in an effort not to scare small children (or myself, for that matter). It's not elegant or pretty. I have "folliculitis" aka nasty oozing itchy stuff on my scalp which I hope will be cleared up soon with my new potions from Dana Farber.

I have become a champ at taking uncomfortable tests. I thought I was a total wuss. Among the battery of tests I had to go through was an MRI. That's the thing where they shoot you into a tiny dark tunnel.

I really don't like closed in spaces. It's just a little paranoia left over from a summer spent getting stuck in the Brooklyn-Manhattan subway tunnel under the river in a hot, dark, packed subway car. But I'm a trooper when it's a good cause.

I made it through my first MRI by pretending I was having a gentle massage - pretty impressive considering that my boobs were forced down these crazy slots and there were incredibly loud electric sounds every few seconds. (Ok, in the middle I had to stop pretending I was getting a massage and instead imagine being a test subject in a crazy sci fi movie.) I made it through.

But then I had to have a second MRI - this time while lying on my back. Now I'm scared. One of the nurses suggested that I "take a little something" before the test. It would help me calm down. I thought that sounded like a fine idea, so grabbed the newly prescribed bottle on my way out of the house. I first go to my first test of the day, a second biopsy. Waiting with my coffee, it's time to take the happy pill prior to the MRI. I yank the pill bottle out of my bag, ready to get happy. And then I look more closely at the bottle. By mistake, I grabbed the dog's hormone replacement therapy! Cursed canines! They follow me everywhere. But what do you know - turned out they were happy pills.