Happiness Is

Metamorphosis

Physical changes.  Emotional changes.  One is not easier or harder than the other.  But I’m going through both at the same time and the dials are turned nearly all the way up.

Physical update:  Radiation is done.  Skin is no longer peeling, instead freckling.  My left breast is smaller and higher than my right and I still don’t know if I care.  I have to wait 3 to 6 months to do anything anyway because the skin is still healing, but I don’t know if I have it in me to through surgery again.

Still getting Lupron shots once a month.  These keep my estrogen levels low so that if the cancer remains or comes back, estrogen is not present to feed it.  Low estrogen level puts me through menopause so I ride an emotional roller coaster.  My husband reminds me of this when I want to go to bed at 9pm because I hate the world and my therapist reminds me of this when I sit in her office and weep about my hair and wonder out loud why I am weeping about my hair.  So I have some very low days.  But they are matched with high ones and in the middle are beautifully ordinary days where nothing happens at all.  Those are my favorite. 

Hot Flash is now my middle name.  As such, my wardrobe consists strictly of layers – tank tops under shirts under sweaters topped with scarves and knit hats.  Because not only does my body temperature reach a boiling point once an hour, it also plunges to freezing within the same period of time giving bipolar a brand new meaning.

My doctor wrote me a prescription for a very mild dose of Effexor which is supposed to help mitigate hot flashes though it’s typically used to treat depression.  I took one pill a couple of months ago and turned into a zombie.  I decided I’d rather strip off my clothes every 60 minutes than be a zombie so I shelved the bottle with the 27 other meds I’ve been given this year.  When I opened the medicine cabinet and Willa saw my collection she said “Wow, mommy.  You have a lot of vitamins.”  I didn’t know she knew the word ‘vitamin.’

Sleeping is a joke.  Really quite comical.  When I get into bed I am freezing so I bundle up into the soft warm pajamas that Antha sent me for my mastectomy and shiver under the covers for a bit.  I want to sleep on my stomach to get comfortable but my breasts must still be healing inside because when I lay on them they grow angry fangs and seek revenge.  I have discovered that if I tuck a thick pillow under the lower half of my torso and place my head on another pillow, a little bit of space is created for my breasts to free fall.  Now I am comfortable and can fall asleep.  Until my first hot flash.  Then the covers come off, thrown (angrily?) onto my husband, and I roll onto my back, arms and legs splayed in a desperate search for cold air.  The hot flash passes, my body cools down, and I fall asleep again only to wake up an hour later from a dream that I am naked on an iceberg.  I am shivering because I have no covers on and my pajama top is pulled up to my chin.  The key throughout this process, repeated two or three times a night, is to not wake up.  For any level of consciousness invites a minimum two hours of fierce and rapid brain activity around completely mundane topics like frozen peas and Miley Cyrus.  It is then that I wish breast cancer had gone ahead and killed me.

And then there is the issue of my hair.  It is growing in, though it is still quite short, so I have what others are calling a Pixie Cut but since I did not actually cut my hair into this fashion, I am calling it a Pixie Grow.  Not to be confused with the cute pixie cuts that you might see laying obediently flat against the heads of Jennifer Lawrence and Pamela Anderson and Michelle Williams and who else?  No, my pixie wants to curl.  I have little hair flips happening all over but most notably above and behind my ears.  And these are not easily tamed with hair product.  Or even three or four hair products.  The hair at my forehead wants to curl up too so I can either wear it greased and plastered against my forehead or I can simply allow it to make a shelf.  A hair shelf.  My hair is winning and I am losing. When I look in the mirror I just say “Fuck it.”

Emotional update:  Dentist says I am grinding my teeth.  Holding tension in my jaw.  And sadly, even while consciously trying to relax, tension builds.  I spend more minutes out of everyday identifying and relaxing areas of tension than anything else.  But if I spend the next year doing this, I might just suddenly become a Buddhist and I would love to suddenly become a Buddhist without really knowing what one is.

When I’m not taking care of the kids and the house and my body and my mind, you can find me volunteering at the school.  Last week I started reading with other peoples’ kids during their lunch hour, to give them a little extra practice.  They are all sweet, even the ones who are completely out of control, and I don’t mind being called Lady Gaga for no discernible reason.  Then I’ll go down into the chaos of the lunch room to volunteer.  The Kindergarteners and 1^st graders have twenty minutes to sit down, get their lunch, eat their lunch, clean up their lunch, and get the hell out so the next 200 kids can come in.  The parent volunteers help them open yogurts and thermoses and BPA-free boxes and get them water and forks and remind them to sit down and stop running around and EAT!! even though it’s only 11am.  Then we sweep up entire grocery stores of food that have ended up on the floor and separate the trash into recycling, compost, and garbage.  We wipe down the tables and clean the floors before the next group of kids sits down.  And I cannot explain why it is my favorite part of the day.

 

I also cannot explain why I don’t like talking to my friends anymore.  I don’t return phone calls and I’ll respond to an email weeks after I’ve received it.  I find it very, very hard to discuss my current life with anyone who is not actually in my current life.  I also don’t like the idea of dragging people down with all that I continue to go through.  And then there is the anger and frustration that I have cancer and they don't.  So I am this now and they are that still and do we really have anything in common anymore? 

I don’t feel like the same person.  And I don’t look like her either.  So I am in metamorphosis.  And it’s really, really...uncomfortable.

Last Day

25 Days.  Finally.  Done.  

My radiation treatment drew to a close this afternoon during an all-too-appropriate rain storm in midtown Manhattan where scaffolding was my umbrella.  Similarly appropriate was the shot I took in my right butt cheek earlier in the morning, to start the day off right.  My skin is red and sensitive but not peeling.  Nurse Barbara tells me I will be tired all week and my skin will get worse before it gets better.  But doesn't everything?!  I don't care.  Not having to go north of 14th Street for another month is the greatest gift of all.

So I was sick in bed all weekend.  (What did you do?!)  I caught a virus a few weeks back that I have not been able to shake.  As my radiation technician put it, my "immune system has been a little busy."  Nurse Beth tells me it's going around and many of her patients have been worried that there is something terribly wrong with them because they get it, feel better, and then get it again.  As did I.  And the cure is to stay in bed for a week.  Who does that?!?!  It's not as fun as one would imagine.  It's not all movies and books and catching up on email and phone calls because my head hurts and I can't read or think and I hate all actors right now because I'm not one anymore.  

But my super-hero husband and his mom came to the rescue and I got two days in bed.  I was restored enough to get up this morning to make breakfast and lunches for the kids and get them off to school dressed, with teeth brushed, homework in their backpacks, and snack for 30 kids for Michael to carry.  After that, all I needed was two Advil and a taxi to get me uptown for my shot before I came back downtown for a nap.

Nurse Beth didn't recognize me, she's not the first, and I haven't been able to shrug these off yet.  Now that my hair has grown in a tiny bit, I am going out without my scarves on.  Some mom friends saw my head last week during a hot flash, saw that I have hair, and told me to stop wearing my mom's kerchief from 1976.  But now if I run into someone who is not expecting to see me, they don't seem to recognize me.  Or maybe they do but they are so overcome with disbelief and sadness that I had cancer and my thick long hair is now completely gone, not just hypothetically hiding under a piece of fabric?  Because I don't know for sure, I don't know whether to introduce myself or just play along or... what would some other options be?  Should I be wearing a name tag?

Also, as pathetic and superficial as it sounds, I really do miss my hair.  I know the little pixie cut is "cute," but I'm not sure how well I pull off cute.  I've never been a "cute" girl, my name is not Zooey, and I look ridiculous in knee-high socks.  I much prefer a black leather jacket over a black ensemble with some boots.  Add a pixie cut and sunglasses to hide behind, and I end up looking a little angry.  Not cute at all.  Plus, it's not even a hair cut.  It's hair growth.  Yuk.  My wig will be another option as soon as October decides to stop acting like mid-June.  But there's definitely no such thing as global warming.

But you know how you really know you are a cancer patient?  It's when you are on the radiation table, receiving your final treatment, and you find yourself dreaming about the kale salad you are going to eat for lunch.  Then, still on the table, you have a hot flash.  And then, still on the table, these lyrics come through on the speakers from the Cancer Center playlist:

"Cause you had a bad day 

You're taking one down

You sing a sad song just to turn it around..."

The nurse who comes in to take the sheet off your naked boob hears the end of the song and is mortified.  She apologizes on behalf of everyone but you tell her it's ok because it actually made you laugh, not cry.

And that's how you know you are a cancer patient.

BECAUSE LIFE IS NOT ALL RAINBOWS AND CUPCAKES!!!

(Right, Boehner?!)

Sick Again

And miserable. Too much crying and feeling sorry for myself. So I am playing this awesome game that my girl Katharine made for me.

When I get five in a row, I'm supposed to buy myself something nice. In the past twenty-four hours, I've bought out the fifth floor at Barney's. 

Two More Days of Radiation

Three through Eight

I just don't know how to put this eloquently - this is really fucking depressing.

Or is this just a mood swing from my menopause?  Or am I just tired from radiation?  Or is having cancer just depressing and there's no way around it?  Yes, I think that's it.  I think I just have to walk right on through.

So radiation.  Here's the deal.  After I change into a hospital gown, I take my arm out of the left side and lie on a table in front of a large machine. The technicians find the three tattoo marks on my chest and line up my torso while my left arm is raised above my head and my head is turned to the right, out of the line of fire. The machine is programmed specifically to my body and my scans and X-rays so it knows exactly where to aim so as to avoid my heart and lungs.  When I'm all aligned, the technicians leave the room, reminding me not to move a muscle, and they close behind them a huge vault door so they are not exposed.  To the radiation. That is aimed perilously close to my heart.  Then the machine is turned on and some sort of large disk moves around me into four or so different positions. A loud sound goes off for roughly two seconds or 24 seconds or 34 seconds and I don't feel a thing.  Except fear, but who really gives a shit.  Four minutes later the gang comes back in and I'm all done and they will see me tomorrow.  And the day after that and the day after that.  I should probably start bringing them bagels.

When I go to change, I notice in the mirror that my left breast is a little swollen so now I am beautifully aligned.  Today was the first day I noticed redness and I'm told that will only be getting worse but they gave me a calendula lotion that I apply every day and then some.  I leave The Cancer Center and the concierge who checks me in gives me a great big smile and a wave and says "See you tomorrow, sweetie!"  It is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.  I walk home to get in a nice 45 minute cardiovascular and plug into some podcasts.  Sometimes I hear gut wrenching stories that remind me that I could have it worse.  A lot worse.  But in this particular frame of mind, that is not consoling.  

I have your emails to return and texts to return and phone calls to return and I might get to those but I might not.  I am so so sorry.  I'm not a very good friend right now.  I don't know what I am right now.

Two

My Grandad Seikaly died of a stroke at the age of 62. So did his father. So this morning when my dad woke up and said the room was spinning and then he felt dizzy for another hour, neither one of us felt like taking any chances.  We put the two girls in a cab with us and headed to the emergency room at St. Luke's.  Because hospitals don't scare me anymore but losing my dad does. 

A few hours, and many "Wash your hands!" later, we head across the street to my mother-in-law's apartment to eat lunch. Dad was discharged. The doctor determined he was not having a stroke.  We were both very, very happy to be wrong.  And the girls were very, very hungry.

Shortly after returning everybody home and giving dad a rest, Della and I made our way up to The Cancer Center for my second radiation session.  I don't need assistance, but it is very nice to have the company. It's also a nice 45 minute walk and I made up for my missed my therapy session this week by talking Della's ear off.  I was too worried about dad to think at all about radiation but maybe that's the way it should be. And then I got the news I've been waiting to hear for months (ok, years).  My sister Kate is having a girl.  I jump up and down on the sidewalk and scream and maybe even squeal, I don't remember.  But I leave the worry state and move over to elation.  Then I breathe an extra sigh of relief because there was a good chance my brother-in-law was going to kill me for prematurely shipping 27 boxes of girls clothes to his house.  But now I get a medal. 

I also see this on my way to The Cancer Center.  Not that I believe in signs or anything.