Category: Breast cancer

Today I was chattering along with my husband as we headed to Target to get a few necessities for the week.  We were trying to make a list, and I remembered a conversation we had earlier in the week, when my husband said that we were running low on our daughters’ shampoo.  So, I asked him whether we still needed “hair detergent” for the girls.

That’s right, folks, I couldn’t muster up the word for shampoo, so I called it hair detergent.  The look on my husband’s face was priceless.  He didn’t want to laugh at me, but he couldn’t help it and cracked up.

Those of us who have been through chemotherapy talk about something known as “chemo brain.”  This is, essentially, the aftermath of the poison they mainline into you, with hopes that the medicine kills all the lurking cancer cells before it kills the host, namely you.

Chemo brain is loss of brain cells, I guess.  And lately I’ve been wigged out that I got it bad!  Or is it just age?

Who out there on these internets has had any kooky moments like this lately?  Am I suffering from chemo brain, or is this just something that happens to folks in their 40s?

Let me hear about your “hair detergent” moments if you’ve got ’em.  Soothe my sorrowful brain cells with the salve of some funny stories.

Last time this year, I was undergoing chemotherapy, so I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing lately now that my hair is growing back, all fluffy.

I’ve also been reminiscing about my breast cancer surgery last August.

My mother came to town for the surgery and was an incredible help and support. She took care of two pretty frustrated twins, took them to swim lessons, tried to play with them, and endured some nasty behavior and nasty comments from them. [Note to self: two pre-schoolers whose mommy is in the hospital undergoing a radical surgery for cancer can have some POWerful emotions. And they will act accordingly.]

My mom cooked for us, cleaned up, took care of me, gave pep talks, whatever was required. She got us through the worst two weeks of my recovery. I’m not sure what we would have done without her.

After my mom left, my wonderful friend Lisa stepped in and coordinated a week of dinners for us because even though I was up and around, I was still pretty much useless as far as cooking or housework. Six people from my work (including Lisa) volunteered to bring dinner that third week post-surgery.

Each day, these generous and lovely women came to our home and delivered incredible, thoughtful, delicious dinners. And each dinner revolved around some form of chicken.

Every day, around the time that our friends were due to arrive, my husband and I wondered whether we’d be having chicken for dinner. Sure enough, the chicken would arrive.

In addition to receiving delicious chicken, each person would stay and visit for awhile. This was my favorite part of the whole week. One of the days, my friend Danäe brought Thai food, and we ate all together in front of the television watching something historic: Barack Obama received and accepted the nomination of his party to run for the presidency.

I have come to call this special week the “for six days, we eat chicken; on the seventh, we rest” week. I am overwhelmed with warm feelings and gratitude every time I think of that week and of the two weeks that preceded it, when my mom was here.

So, this is kinda Relay for Life, part 2. If you’re done reading about my cancer or about the Relay for Life walk-a-thon, it’s OK with me if you stop here. But the Relay for Life was one of those experiences that keeps on giving, so there’s a little more to share.

Monday is the day that my daughters get to show-and-tell in the Kindergarten class. The Monday after Relay for Life, they took in the medals they got at the Relay. They’re big, chunky things emblazoned with big letters that spell out SURVIVOR.

(After the “Survivor’s Lap” around the track, the Relay organizers are there, putting medals on all the survivors, giving them care baskets and flowers. It’s overwhelming, weird and sweet. When I put my medal on Dinah and gave my flower to Djuna, Djuna instantly asked where her medal was. Just as instantly, a breast cancer survivor standing nearby whisked her medal off and swooped it onto Djuna, saying that she had two daughters too.)

When the girls wanted to take their medals in for show-and-tell, I decided to stay and watch.

When they had their turns, they both said that they received medals because they helped their mommy get better from cancer. When they said this, both of them stood up at the end and raised their arms in the air, triumphant.

You *so* know that I got all choked up. Who wouldn’t? And I couldn’t help thinking how crazy it was that most of the Kindergarten kids bring in toys, stuffed animals, little treasures like shells and starfish (and that’s what my kids bring in on most Mondays), but that my kids have to bring in big medals that say “survivor.”

I wasn’t sure what to think about that.  I felt bad about it, that my girls should have had to endure something so hard at such a young age.  But I also felt fiercely proud of them.

I wanted to clap for them, but that’s just not what everyone does after the kids show and tell. The other kids asked them questions, like, “What do you do with your medal when you’re not using it?” and so forth. Dinah and Djuna politely answered their classmates’ questions and then took their spots on the carpet.

I was humbled by the normalcy of the whole thing, the easy sharing, the easy flow of the normal spate of questions from 5 and 6 year olds. But I was also struck by the fact that my girls don’t really understand cancer or what it means. They know that I was sick, they know that I took strong medicine that made me tired and bald. They know I had an operation, that I was gone from the house for three days for the operation, that I have scars.

They don’t really know that cancer causes death, though. I dread the day that they realize that.  I am afraid for them to make the connection that I had a deadly disease, that anyone’s cancer can return, that sometimes people have to fight it again, that sometimes they cannot survive the disease.  I want to protect them from having to know this as long as I can, but I know I can’t do it forever, of course.

I know how true it is that they deserve medals for helping me get better. I hope I can help them understand that, too.

Yesterday, I went to the Relay for Life at UCLA. Typically, I donate money directly to the causes I especially care about, rather than participate in events.

I have heard lots about the Relay from family and a good family friend who have done the Relay for years, and I donated money when I could and looked forward to seeing the pictures from the event each year – the tents, the t-shirts, the team, the triumph, the luminarias.

But then I got cancer. My mom did a walk-a-thon last year, and my sister was considering one too. I wasn’t planning on doing the Relay until my step-brother, who goes to UCLA, told me that was going to be captain of a team, and he asked me to come participate.

I thought about it for awhile because I wasn’t sure how it would all feel; I finally decided that yes, it would be good to go, for about a million reasons.

The whole thing came so fast that I barely had time to get nervous or to think about how it would feel to take the “survivor’s lap” or to stand out as a cancer survivor in a big crowd of people. I thought about it a little, and I just didn’t know what to think, but then suddenly time was a-wasting, and I had to put a badge on my Facebook page to start fundraising!

I didn’t put out too many calls/e-mails for fundraising because so many people have already done so much to help me and my family through my year of treatment. On top of that, I wasn’t completely comfortable asking for money in these difficult economic times.

Putting a badge on my FB page helped me feel like I wasn’t targeting anybody specifically. I just used the status update a couple of times to let folks know that I was fundraising, and it brought in an amazing amount of money, fast. That, and some generous contributions from family when my sister (also a generous contributor) sent around the link to my Relay for Life page helped put me over $500 in just a week.

For anyone who has never been to a Relay before, the UCLA one took place in a large stadium on campus. The different teams had tents set up just inside the stadium’s track, right on the outer edges of the lawn. The middle of the lawn was open, and folks played croquet, frisbee, catch, etc.

Once the Relay started, there were always folks walking, trotting or running around the track. I left in the late afternoon, but there were plenty of folks there who were planning to stay the night, alternating between walking the track and sleeping.

My step-brother was captain of his team, and he brought a tent, sleeping bags, board games and more to keep the 24 hours comfortable and fun for all. He was a great host, and along with his girlfriend and my other step-brother, they all did their best to make me and my husband and our daughters feel welcomed and supported.

I received a purple t-shirt that said “SURVIVOR” on the back, so it was easy for event coordinators to spot me and call me over when there were events in the survivor’s section. They had food there, crafts, gifts and photo ops.

Sometimes I can’t even believe that I had cancer, so it’s very difficult to explain how it felt to be a part of the survivor’s group at the Relay. First of all, I can say that the volunteers who ran the event were incredibly kind and genuine. In fact, one of the volunteers was a former student who lost her father to cancer years ago.

Seeing her there, and also some of the other young people who lost parents to cancer, was powerful. My former student is a bright, capable, mature, sweet individual. To think that she came into her own while growing up without her father helps me come to terms with my fears.

None of my doctors (and I have several) has ever indicated to me that I have a negative prognosis. But there are no guarantees for those who have finished treatment for cancer, and I am well aware of this. So, it is very difficult for me to shake off the fear that I am just about to die from breast cancer. Of course, the worst part is fearing that I might not be there to raise my amazing, beloved daughters.

But seeing the folks there, all with their different cancer stories, made me face the fear and put a face on it. And the face wasn’t terrible; instead, it was the face of a former student, of one of the event speakers who lost her mother, of other young people at the event who have clearly been touched by cancer … children who lose a parent can grow up to be whole people, nice kids who go to college, have friends, passions, a good life.

While I don’t want to think of these things, I do. I have to face the fear in order to be present in the present moment. I have to come to terms with scary thoughts in order to be able to stare down the cold fear, everyday.

At the Relay, it was good to have a lot of warm hands reaching out, coaxing me to the other side of the chilliness.

A difficult part of life after cancer treatment has been getting used to my new body. The truth is that I’m not completely comfortable writing about this subject right now, so I am only going to outline the basics here.

I do feel comfortable saying that it’s weird and complicated and that my body is just, well, different. I have weird aches and pains that I don’t like to talk about much. What makes them weird is simply that they’re different from my pre-cancer body, which was also just a younger body.

It makes me think of one of my favorite folk tales, an Irish tale about the selchie, the seal maiden. In the luminous musical version we listen to with my daughters, there is a part when the seal is stranded on the sand and loses her seal skin. Then she turns into a human girl. She tries to swim back out to sea to retrieve her seal skin, but she cannot because she does not know how to work her new body.

Of course, the challenge is not only because I feel as though I have a new body. The real challenge is that every one of my new aches and pains feels like it must be cancer. It’s very difficult to deal with these aches and pains without worrying.

But I do try.

I went to dance class tonight (I take modern dance classes) and was so happy to see someone who hasn’t been to classes in years. She has been facing some very complicated health issues and only now has returned to class. I could tell that she was feeling frustrated during class, but she looked as lovely as she ever did, with gorgeous dancer’s fingers and hands, very natural and graceful.

Watching my friend make her way through class inspired me. And my teacher offered me spot-on corrections to get me through.

There are moments, during dance class, when I am happily lost in the movements and the music, and for a few seconds, I never had cancer. It’s thrilling. And then I return to myself, my new body, my new normal. And that’s OK too. It really is.