40

I turn 40 tomorrow. One of those milestone ages that seem about as close as the moon when you are younger. I turn 40...I GET to turn 40.

I turn around and have no idea and every knowledge of how I got here. 40 years of memories, some so clear I can see them as if a movie reel in my head. My life is nowhere near what I imagined it would be at 40, but then, is almost anyone's?

I shed tears tonight...not because I'm turning 40 (I want to shake...throttle the people who bemoan birthdays, who hole up in their rooms and rage against the extra candle) but because I want to turn 41, and 42 and 45 and 55 and 65 and 75. You start to feel greedy asking for years, asking for time that so many give not a second thought to, that most expect.

I still don't know many things. But I do know that even on days when I lose my shit, sometimes on the very days I least deserve it, my smart beautiful son tells me I'm the best mama in the world. I know that every day I watch this little sweet stunning girl who fought inside of me, grow and talk beyond her short years. I know that I am lucky in the spouse department...that I have a husband who never waivered for me, who was as blindsided as I by the past two years yet has never once winced or blinked at the baldness, the scars, the uncertainty. I know that I try...to be a better mama and wife, to really appreciate the fact that my days with them are a gift to me.

I know that this year my word is Brave...I need to be brave, to take chances, to not be afraid of what could or could not happen.

I know that I have lost way too many people - people who didn't get to turn 40. I know that they will never ever be forgotten to me.

I know that I need to give myself grace, to know that I can't humanly ingest every day and moment like I should - that even after all of this crap I'm still human and nowhere near a saint or a poet.

I know that this body with its trail of scars and Frankenstein-assembly that I never could have anticipated or imagined is mine. It still, for the most part, works. I am lucky.

I know that I still do not love this curly hair that I've been left with, with the grey that's been growing since I was 20...but I appreciate it every day.

I know that while I have been unlucky in certain aspects, I have been very lucky with many more.

I know that I will take any candle I am blessed to get. And I want more.

Just keep swimming...

I wore a bathing suit today. In public. In front of strangers.

I wore a bathing suit even though nothing except a modest wear suit would cover the scar rainbowing across the left side of my chest...even though nothing covers the severely puckered skin near the center of my chest where my skin just didn't heal right.

I wore a bathing suit even though I felt like every eye was on me, and not for the reasons they were on me in my 20's.

I wore a bathing suit because my husband was so excited to tell me yesterday that a spot opened up at the community club.

I wore a bathing suit because it's been unbearably hot here for over a week with not much relief in sight and we now had access to a pool.

I wore a bathing suit because my son said "Mama, will you please go to the pool with us?"

I wore a bathing suit because I got to play with my son in the water for over an hour..and no one pointed at me or stared overtly. (some kids were a bit confused when they saw the scars though, but that's okay)

I wore a bathing suit because I was able to stretch out my still nowhere near fully mobile arm and it didn't hurt.

I wore a bathing suit because I want my daughter to always know it's okay to look however you are going to look and I want my son to know that a woman's worth is not in how perfect she looks.

I wore a bathing suit because I'm here, and able to, and I don't even forget that.

My friend.

My friend died last night.

 

That's really the weight of it. She died. She was here, we talked almost every day for a year and a half. She disappeared from all of us about a month ago, shut off communication at the news of stage 4, went into the hospital this past weekend and is now gone.

 

We sat in a virtual waiting room yesterday, waiting for news, sharing pictures, stories, laughing, crying...many of us strangers to each other, but connected by this one person. Holding hands and passing tissues and clinking glasses in salute over hundreds or thousands of miles. It was...surreal.

 

How do you mourn someone you've never physically met but were closer to than some people you've known for years? How do you forgive someone for shutting you (and most everyone else) out in the last month even though you completely 100% understand why? How do you forgive someone for leaving you when they were not supposed to, when you were both, having such very similar circumstances, supposed to beat this together?

 

I make friends neither quickly nor easily. Now I have one less here with me.

 

Sue was the inspiration behind this blog post. I ask that in her honor, you take a trip, you laugh a little louder, you try a different food, you celebrate this Halloween in an especially big way, you live a little bigger, and you make a friend out of a stranger. This is for Sue.

How Facebook has changed the process of birth and death...

Pre-cancer, I was never one to shy away from death. I wouldn't necessarily say I was morbid, but I wasn't afraid either, at least not of the concept. In another life, I think I would have loved to be some sort of forensic scientist, among many other things. I went to my first funeral when I was four, when my great Pop-Pop, whom I loved dearly, died at 92. Then again the next year when my nana died, and so on and so forth. Needless to say, I've been to many funerals over the years and am quite shocked that there seem to be many people like my husband who had been to only one funeral in his entire life before my uncle's 9 years ago. I've taken care of some severely sick people, and watched a few people close to transitioning.

 

The beginning of this post has been sitting for months. I've come back to it often but just haven't been able to attempt it. But now it seems more appropriate then ever because of the juxtaposition of the last few days.

Last night my sister-in-law posted that my niece was in labor. I woke up this morning to pictures of a beautiful healthy new baby. This is, as most would agree I'm sure, pretty much the norm these days. What you used to hear on the phone after the fact, maybe even passed through a telephone tree or god forbid, in person, is now transported in a matter of seconds with shares and likes and comments. And who doesn't want to see a new baby, know that everything went fine?

But I also woke up to a horrible, heart-wrenching post.

I have a good fb friend, one of the girls in my group. We are the same age (ok, she would emphasize that she's a year younger), we were diagnosed around the same time, same stage, same surgery, almost same treatment plan...same same same. Same smart-assedness. We would often message each other, check in on each other, commiserate and snarkily comment on the bounty of stupidity in the world...her cancer was slightly different and made a reappearance shortly after she was done with radiation, around the same time I was. We got burned together, across country from each other. She started back up on a different chemo, and get this - didn't tell her mother or her boyfriend because she didn't want to upset them. So she's been on chemo for the past year now and we were chatting the day she got her scan results back...everything was clear. Sooo happy. A couple days later I realized I hadn't heard from her and started messaging her. This went on until I asked a fellow group member if she had heard from her - she had not. After some digging we discovered she was in the hospital "having many tests done but would get back to us soon". This week we found out that she had a stroke and had mets to her spinal fluid. The doctors had given her a year. I was devastated. We kept it quiet, from our group, because we knew that's what she was requesting. Early last week, my husband found out the guy he has golfed with every week for the past 7 years or so has terminal kidney cancer. Then Robin Williams died, which was a communal sadness. Then I found out about my friend. Last week was not good.

As I said, I was devastated, and was planning something Halloween themed to send her, as we both also share a strong love of the holiday. This morning, after seeing the new baby, I saw this post - "...is in the hospital in critical condition, unresponsive, intubated, seizure activity..." I'm angry. I'm angry and sad and heartbroken. Some of her friends started a private fb page tonight so people could finally be updated on what's going on, for all intents and purposes it is a virtual waiting room, and 21st century parlour. But instead of what used to be immediate family, or close (at least in proximity) neighbors and friends, everyone who has an internet connection can "watch" someone pass. This is not the first time, I've seen it often. I've seen people, even spouses, give status updates of those dying.  I have been, at least tangentially, privy to the passing of people I don't even know. I still am unsure how I feel about this, it's something difficult to process.  I do know that I am sad. I know that I will pray, which she probably would not appreciate. I know that I will "watch", from 3000 miles away, a friend pass way way too soon. I know that no matter how technology has changed the way in which we receive or share information, it will in no way change the feeling of joy at seeing a new life or feeling of your heart breaking.  

Teachable moments...

Last weekend we went to the county fair. Almost immediately upon walking in and into the barn area, while looking at the Watusi cow (have you seen one? They are awesome!) a little girl in a wheelchair rolled up next to us. Jack loudly asked (because he's 4 and the only volumes a 4 year old knows are loud, louder and whispering so quietly that I can't hear) "What is that wheelchair for?" At first I cringed a little inside, as I know most parents do, and then I took a breath and said "Baby, she hurt her leg so she needs help to get around" and that was that.

 

But as I thought about it, I'm glad he asked and I'm glad I responded. Because then I started to remember two summers ago...when I had no hair and was pregnant out to there. And people stared and looked away and ignored me. I would have been happy if some kid asked why I didn't have any hair, and their parent took the time to explain it to them, or even told them "I don't know baby, why don't you ask the lady yourself?" An honest question asked and answered, no matter how uncomfortable the parties are, is a million times better than a silent stare.

 

Jack knows that I have scars all over... I haven't hidden them from him because I wanted him to know mama has ouchies, but they are healing and will eventually get better. He knows that mama has been "sick" before. I don't want him or AR to ever be afraid to ask about people's differences but I also want them to understand that those differences are completely okay, that everyone has their own scars, their own abilities, their own normal.

 

 

A Roiling Boil...

Do you ever have so incredibly much going on - good or bad - that you just feel like you are in a bubbling whirlpool? I'm in the whirlpool. Between my very long and scary surgery tomorrow, Jack turning four, my baby girl just changing immensely every day, my grandparents house, a house that I pretty much grew up in, being almost emptied and up for sale....I'm just overwhelmed. They aren't all bad changes, but they are big life changes all at once and my goodness, for someone who does not like change at all, well...I was driving home from my grandparent's house this weekend, singing loudly with my Mumford and Sons and streaming tears - some happy, some sad, some grateful, some freaked out.

 

So now I will try to go to sleep until 5 am tomorrow morning when I get ready to go to the hospital, and kiss my sleeping babies heads, and get ready to put one of the big life changes behind me.

Insomnia...

So, I'm sitting here at 11:59 pm, which if you know me, is ungodly, watching the season premier of So You Think You Can Dance (umm, yes, I still harbor delusions that my few years of ballet in grammar school will translate into, I don't know, admission into the Old People's Ballet Company? What of it?) writing out a list of things that I have to get done in the next three weeks. Before I have the big big big surgery, on June 17th. This one is keeping me awake. This will be my 5th surgery (in my life, not because of the cancer), and it will be a doozy. Almost 8 hours, likely 5 days in the hospital. Six weeks of pretty ugly recuperation. Dealing with a 19 month old who I cannot in any uncertain terms, lift for 6 weeks and who loves to be picked up by mama multiple times a day.

And this one sort of scares the crap out of me. Yes, I've wanted this surgery forever - yes, I was completely theoretically prepared for it. But now that there is a date and a time...holy crap. Because you know what? Yes, childbirth can kill you and cancer can kill you, and hell, getting in your car can kill you...but surgery can kill you right.then.and.there. And this is elective...there is no medical reason to have this surgery, only my own vanity and comfort. I'm putting my own life at risk and putting my family through a large period of disruption...for my vanity? Does it really come down to that? I know it's much more than that and I know I have absolutely no reason to feel guilty and I know it will be a distant memory soon but you can't help but to think. And then maybe I need to remember, like everyone else has been , some wise words by a woman we lost today...

 

Pinterest

 

 

Yes, this all has changed me - mentally, physically, emotionally - but I need to remember that I should be damned if I let it make me feel guilty for wanting to feel somehow whole again; to somehow, after the Frankenstein scars from this surgery fade, feel semi-comfortable in my own skin again. I am worth it. I deserve it. I will have it. It will be good.

Check in

Sorry, I've been holding my breath as I always do when I have a scan and I received the all clear today, so now I can breathe again. Couple posts in the works and have also been working on reopening my Etsy store (Moose Country Crafts on etsy and facebook) aaannnd as I've talked about, getting my grandparents house reaaaaaalllly close to the market. Basically I have been keeping myself busy trying not to think of getting results! Be back soon!

Never going to be...

It's reiterated over and over again that after this crap that you will have to figure out a "new normal", you will never be the person you were again...and that's true. So very very true. I will never again be who I was prior to approximately 2 pm on July 13, 2012. But then, isn't that true for everyone, at any life-changing juncture? I will also never be the girl I was in high school again, I will never be the girl I was in college, I will never be the person I was before I got married. I will never be the person I was before I had one child, nor will I be the person I was before I had two children. And that's okay. So much has changed and I'm okay with it for the most part.

What they don't tell you about this "new normal'? The your new normal will involve days of being terrified because your back hurts, even though your back has hurt in different places for the last 20 years. What they don't tell you is that even though both kids and your husband and you have been passing around some sort of cold/crud/allergy/sucky thing for a week now, the cough you have, that they all have, keeps you up at night wondering if it's something else. What they don't tell you is that you will stumble across someone's prayer request on facebook, read the story and have it be almost identical to yours - age, cancer while pregnant, left side, may instead of july 2012, triple negative- yet she is at home in hospice right now after stopping treatments last week because they weren't working for the mets in her brain, and you will spend your afternoon in uncontrollable tears, silently raging at God on Ash Wednesday. That is the new normal that I am not okay with.



 

A peaceful view...

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is but a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop." -Mother Theresa

May we all have a joyful week ahead.

 



Purgatory...

I went through 12 years of Catholic school. I'm sure teachings on this have changed significantly over the years, but in first and second grades, we learned a lot about purgatory, the place between heaven and hell where you went if you weren't quite good enough to get straight into heaven, but certainly were not bad enough to go straight to H-E-L-L. Purgatory housed people who didn't have enough graces (I used to think of it like collecting enough skee ball tickets to get the big prize at Castle Park) or didn't say a perfect Act of Contrition before they died, or maybe you were a baby who had not been baptised and therefore had not committed any sin but had not been cleansed of Original Sin. Whatever the story, you were stuck in no-man's-land until enough people left behind prayed for your soul and you collected enough grace tickets to gain entry into heaven...or you just languished there forever.

 

The aftermath of cancer, after the treatment, at least in the beginning...that's like purgatory.

 

Heaven would be the rest of your life cancer-free, but of course no one knows if that will happen until, well, until they die without having a recurrance. So basically you still live your life in purgatory. I'm sure as the years go on without any problems purgatory transforms into a much more comfortable place. Don't get me wrong - after this crap, even in purgatory most of us are trying to dance more, laugh more, be a little more wild and at times reckless - and get all of the tickets that we can from the damn skee ball machine. Purgatory doesn't have to be boring, but it is at times...I don't know...heavy.

 

Because you know that at any moment the cancer bitch could come up and sucker punch you and steal all of your tickets because SHE wanted the 5000 point prize and the floor drops and down you go...and you find yourself in a doctor's office, being told that the scan doesn't look good.

 

When you join this craptastic club, unless you shut yourself off from everyone, which some days you really want to do, you will see loss. You will have a front seat to shitty outcomes for people you may never have even met in person but care about and cry for and hurt for. You will hear of a bad diagnosis, of mets, and the twisted black tiny portion of your mind that you are ashamed of but that is purely human and natural will sigh and think thank god that's not me. And you will cry silent tears while you are rocking your baby before bed. You will go and sob alone and undetected in the shower and you will dry your eyes and go read to your son before bedtime. And then you will spend the next week rehashing over and over again the thought that this could be you, at any time. But then you will get up and brush yourself off, and put on loud music and dance and sing and keep on swimming and live in purgatory.  

 

In the past six months, in my small 120 or so person facebook group, we have lost one person, one person's mets have spread and the chemo is no longer working so well, one other person has had brain surgery and radiation due to mets and one was just diagnosed with mets today. I'm just angry. Angry that it's still a zero-sum game, angry that all too often someone gets sucker punched and robbed. I'm just angry.

2013

I think this picture kind of sums up this year. I cannot believe that much of the first six months of this year I was still in active treatment, chemo and radiation. Events that filled almost every day, that my daily life revolved around, that consumed so many minutes to give me so much more time - dates, times, actions, results, appointments - now seem so far away. While this nasty nasty beast still unfortunately inhabits a too-large place in my mind, it has been evicted from the front room. Now it resides in more of a hall closet. It will eventually move to the backyard and then the next block, town, county, state and country, maybe eventually planet, but for now, this is progress.

 

My baby potty trained, started expounding in paragraphs of conversation, and started preschool this year - my baby baby started walking, running and semi-talking.

 

The next year I am certain will bring greater joys, accomplishments, opportunities. My husband and I, after the past two years, are more intent than ever on setting some serious and much anticipated changes in motion. Life waits for no one. The holidays will be here again in the blink of an eye and we will gather again, eyes sparkling in the bevy of twinkling lights, to celebrate and look back in awe of all that 2014 has provided. 

20 years...

I'm not quite sure how it's possible that I have my 20 year high school reunion this weekend. Granted, I may not feel like high school was just yesterday...in fact, most of it I have blocked out I believe...but I do feel like I just went to college yesterday so for me to realize that was 20 years ago this month that I started college is MIND BOGGLING.

I am excited to see whomever shows up. I went to a pretty small Catholic girls high school, so our reunion will consist of a luncheon - that I didn't have to plan! Yay! Because funny enough, as much as I despised high school (and not for the fact that it was all girls or Catholic or anything like that, just for the plain old fact that I would have hated high school anywhere) I ended up planning our 10 year reunion. Still not sure how that happened. While I hated high school with a passion, I didn't hate the girls I went to school with. I can't say that I had many super close friends, but I was friends with a lot of the girls. I tended to float amongst the circles I think. Plus, there were quite a few of us who had been in school together since first grade so whether we hung out every day or not, we still knew quite a bit about each other. Anyway, out of a pretty small graduating class of I believe 105, give or take a few girls, we have had some bad luck bestowed upon us. I know I'm one of at least 5 girls who have had or are actively fighting cancer, and we have all had different types, not one the same as far as I know.

We lost our sophomore biology teacher, Susan Todd Hurst, to breast cancer right after our ten year reunion and I believe she was our age or a few years younger than us when she passed. We were her first class when she started teaching and I was happy she was able to come to our reunion, as sick as she was. She had two young boys when she passed, and I've thought of her quite often over the past few years.

We are also missing two girls from our class. One I had gone to school with since first grade. Monica Ruiz. She had the longest hair ever, and she lived down the street from the girl who I was best friends with for quite some time in grammar school, so while we weren't close friends, she would invite us over in the summer to use her pool and hang out. I have to say even though I went to school with Monica for 12 years I don't know very much about her. As I said, we weren't close friends but we certainly were not enemies - we just didn't hang anywhere near the same circles. A few years back, of few of the kids I went to school since first grade with found out that she had committed suicide - she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia shortly after high school graduation and just didn't see an end to the misery according to a website post her husband had written. Really quite a sad situation and I'm sorry she had to go through that.

Our other lost friend is Dr. Naomi Fukushima. Naomi was a kick, she was a tiny, petite little thing who was quiet until she let a zinger go and then it was on. She was spunky. And smart. We had quite a few classes together over the years and I would think considered each other friends, at least school friends. She was at our reunion, had been married very shortly before that I believe. Then about a year later was diagnosed with an extremely rare pulmonary sarcoma, which I believe was so rare there was something like less than 200 diagnosed cases of it. She fought and fought and fought, but from what other friends have said, she was a doctor, her dad was a doctor, and she knew. Our reunion was in fall of 2003, by May of 2005 she died. Again, cancer, you beyond suck.

So I want them to know that they are not forgotten, and will be remembered when we get together this weekend, and they will be toasted. And I hope to God they are looking down, intervening with someone, saying you have enough of us for a while, you don't need any more of the Class of '93 anytime soon.

A small peek into what cancer does to your mind...

As I have mentioned, I am going to a cancer retreat this weekend and am completely looking forward to it. Until a couple days ago when I was in tears at random times. And I finally connected why. One of the activities included in the retreat, in most cancer retreats, is a message. Totally awesome, right? Something most people completely look forward to and pay good money for. Except to me it's an impending panic attack. Because I finally realized that on some deep level I equate getting a massage with getting cancer.

By the time I was diagnosed, the tumors under my arm were pressing on a nerve that ran down my arm and also causing a bad pain in my shoulder. The night before my ultrasound/biopsy, the night before my world started to fling itself off of its axis, the night before I, for all intents and purposes, lost my innocence to be ridiculously yet appropriately cliche about it, I had my husband rub my neck and my shoulders because it hurt so much, still completely and contentedly oblivious as to what lay underneath and ahead. Since then, even if I have had a pain anywhere, whereas most people would say, "Honey, please rub my shoulders" I completely ignore it, because to validate the pain might mean validating that "something" is there again. Because rational or not, somewhere I have always thought Oh my God, what if him rubbing my shoulders that night caused something to break open and spread further? So there you have it....

On top of that, I have a pain in my shoulder. Not a bad pain, not even shooting pain, just sort of a sporadic irritant; something I would never in a million years have gone to the doctor for before. Could it be from repeatedly lifting a 17 lb baby's butt to my face to smell her diaper? Could it be from the bunch of lifting and reaching I did last weekend? Could it be from holding the baby with my non-dominant arm because my left arm is just tired? Not in my world! Because after cancer, every pain, every ache, every upset stomach, every muscle spasm is cause for your mind to start racing at what it could be. So I'm fitting in a quick trip to the doctor tomorrow morning, hopefully for a "you know you have a cancer patient, please set my mind at ease" appointment before our trip. Which I desperately need. I am so exhausted, mentally, emotionally and physically.

Would you rather...?

Remember the game you used to play as kids, would you rather? Would you rather....kiss this boy with "cooties" or smell this hot boy's feet? Would you rather lose an arm or a leg? Would you rather run through school naked or would you rather dig through a full dumpster? Would you rather die really quickly and not get to say goodbye or know you were going to die and get to do things and say your goodbyes? It's all fun and games when it's theoretical but when it hits a little closer to home...well, you start to realize, you still don't know. I never knew the answer and I don't now. And truth be told, it is still, in essence, theoretical. I would rather live until I was 87, with a clear mind and a relatively healthy body and see my kids and grandkids. I would rather not have to think about any of this. I would rather go back to being blissfully unaware and ignorantly healthy. That's what I would rather, but that rather is gone, no matter what happens, even if I live to 87, even if all of those great things happen, my mind is tattooed with this knowledge.

The news stories the past few days, along with some new members in our facebook group, have me thinking. I know, as if I don't think enough, all the live long day. A few of us have run into (do you run into people on the internet?) girls who have metastases, and are younger, and that sucks by itself. Many of us, with a few of the girls having recurrences lately and such, are having such yo-yo days, where we are feeling great one moment and despondent the next, and so we post and ask each other what to do. And then I read the news where two hikers get lost and are found and then proceed to drive into a lake and drown an hour later. Or the newlywed who goes halfway around the world on her honeymoon to get mowed down while looking a patchouli and rasta hats at the beach. Or the guy on the motorcycle that I witnessed under the yellow blanket on Sunday while getting Jack a burger. And it really just gets replayed in my mind on a loop lately - NONE of us know what is in store for us or when - not even when some of us have already played ding dong ditch at the reaper's door, not even if he has peeked through the peephole but not opened the door yet. I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse, I guess it's just one of the mysteries of the universe that I have to come to terms with.

But with all of this going on, I just go back to a line from a TV show that hit me years ago. I loved the show "Dead Like Me". It was a one season show, and I adored it. In one of the first episodes, George has to reap the soul of a little girl,who is to die in a train crash, and she can't do it, it's unfair that such a little girl should not get to live. And Rube (Mandy Patinkin, in one of his so many many great roles) says to her something along the lines of "No, it's not fair, she should get to live, but life is not fair. But we don't make the rules, and if souls don't get reaped when they are supposed to, I have seen what happens. They wither and rot and die inside of a person. Would you condemn her to that?" And with all that has been going on around me lately, what I have seen and heard, I'm starting to truly believe that. No, life isn't fair, it's not, and that really really sucks at times. Young children should not lose their parents. Kids shouldn't die. But we don't make the rules. I don't know that I will ever understand that. Maybe I just have to live with it.

A break from our regularly scheduled, usually more eloquent program...

Fuck you cancer. Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you. Fuck your mother and your brother, sister, father, every cousin, aunt, uncle and family member you ever had. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on (no, the horse never did anything and I love animals too much.) Fuck you breast cancer, and colon cancer, cervical, stomach, lung, brain, ovarian, prostate, pancreatic, nasal, blood, bone, and whatever other cancer has ever been. Fuck you fuck you fuck you. Fuck you sideways, backwards, upside down and bent over.

A week or two ago, Jill at Baby Rabies had some maternity pics taken by her friend, and also asked for prayers in the post as her friend had just discovered her brother had cancer. I popped over to the site where I saw he had a little boy, and had just been diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer...while walking baby girl on her nap-walk this morning I thought I would check to see how he was doing...and saw they had already had his memorial service. What the FUCK?? He literally felt sick on a business trip, got off the plane, went into the hospital a few weeks ago and that was it. Poof. And now a little boy will never know his dad, and a wife who was likely thinking about dinner and diapers a month ago was planning her 30 year old husbands memorial service. So fuck you cancer, fuck you, fuck you fuck you fuck you. Fuck you for what you've done to me, my friends, fuck you for making me cry in the street while I'm pushing my sleeping beauty. Fuck you for that little boy and fuck you for that family. Fuck you for all of us. FUCK YOU.

Change is in the air...

And hopefully in a good way this time, not in a "oooh, what a change, you have a life-threatening illness and subsequently will have a bucket full of shit year" kind of way. :) I finally feel like things are moving...I feel forward motion and I haven't felt that in a very very long time, before BC even.

Let's be clear... I don't like change. I am an Aquarian through and through, and though we are an air sign and ethereal and idealistic, etc etc, we actually abhor change unless we initiate it, and even then it causes pause and sometimes pain. But for once I feel...not hopeful, we all know how I feel about that word...optimistic.

I've been writing - clearly not here lately - but writing nonetheless. A small follow-up piece for the newspaper, a story for a magazine contest. It feels good just to put words together - it makes me feel useful and it constantly reminds me that I still have a place here.

Our nanny gave her two weeks last week, which I completely understand. Until I start working again we just can't give her the hours she needs...and I'm not devastated, there have been any number of times over the past 2.5 years that I have started to look for someone else, but the fact that Jack loves her, and nothing she did put him in danger or anything like that, and let's face it, laziness, stopped me from following through. So this isn't a bad change, and Jack will be starting pre-school soon...but then I found out she is going to work for a family whose kids Jack plays with at the park all the time, who were here for his birthday ...umm, am I the only one who thinks that's sort of not cool? I wouldn't have stopped her, but I thought nanny-stealing was taboo...don't moms brawl about that kind of thing in New York? Anyway, whatever. But I joked to a friend that after her two weeks are up that's when I will probably get a promising interview or some such thing. That's just how life works.

I am signed up for a cancer retreat next month and I cannot wait. I stopped myself after I made the plane reservations and confirmed with the organization and said to myself, "Wow, it's my life now that I get excited about a cancer retreat?" But, this is where I am, and that's just how it is for now.

I'm making things. Maybe they aren't great - yet - and it's just a hobby, maybe no one will buy them, and maybe a lot of people will, but I am in the beginning process of making things to sell on Etsy and it's good just to start doing things that I have thought about but not acted on for far too long. Thank you to a friend who went out and started her own little business for giving me the push I needed to get busy doing.

So things are moving, and my hands are busy. I'm hoping eventually my mind will catch up and be busy too...too busy to think about other things.

An open letter to Life & Style...

Photo: Life & Style Magazine

I'm sure you thought this was eye-catching, or funny, or somehow cute. I'm sure whomever wrote it thought, oh, here's a pithy one-liner, let's make fun of the hippy vegan and her crazy parenting ways. I'll admit, the picture of Alicia pre-chewing her son's food raised my eyebrow, but that was all the time I had to spare giving that any thought. And you are correct on one point - her milk-sharing program is not new. However, let's step beyond the blatant offensive racism in your allusion to wet-nursing slaves and discuss the real issues here.

I am not a lactivist. Personally, I don't care how someone feeds their child, as long as there is feeding of the child involved. You want to use formula, go ahead. My son received supplemental formula at night, as does my daughter occasionally. You want to nurse until your kid is four - more power to you because I could never have done that. What I am for is choice. I chose to nurse my son because I believe in the benefits of breastmilk- he never latched, so I pumped and he received my milk for a year. I intended to nurse my daughter, hopefully at the breast, at least by pumping. However, that choice was taken away from me in my 22nd week of pregnancy, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Among the myriad other decisions that I had to make after diagnosis was one most pregnant women don't have to think about - how was I going to feed this child? Yes, I could have used formula, and I don't think the world would have ended, but considering this baby was going through chemo with me, I desperately wanted her to at least have all of the benefits that her brother had. I was introduced to a world most women don't know about until they need it - donor milk. My exposure to donor milk previously had been through celebrities who adopted babies and purchased milk from milk banks at prices I as a mere mortal, would never be able to afford. After reaching out to a blogger I follow for information, and finding out about such sites as Eats on Feets and Human Milk 4 Human Babies, I have been provided more help with acquiring donor milk for my daughter than any one person deserves to have. I have rarely had to worry about the amount of milk in my deep freezer,whereas other fellow moms who have fought cancer while pregnant have had to beg, plead and pray to keep their freezers stocked. These women who pump extra to donate to people they mostly do not know - women with adopted littles, women who have had surgery or are on contraindicated medication, women who have cancer - are my heroes. Any mother who has pumped knows that it is not easy, it is time consuming, can be painful - and to do that for a stranger is beyond amazing to me. They gave me a modicum of peace in a very dark time - they gave me choices back.

I just rocked my baby to sleep with her bottle of donated milk. She is 9 months old today. She is beautiful, healthy, and happy.

So Life&Style, not only are your facts incorrect - I'm am pretty certain wet nursing, and then pumping to donate, has been occurring since the Civil War-  but you mocked something that is dear to many of us and you belittled a beautiful gift that women give to each other. Alicia - thank you for giving women another avenue of choice - you are a class act. Life&Style, you should take note - classiness never goes out of style.

Words.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me....has to be the biggest load of bullshit ever foisted on someone. Some of you may have read this post roaming around the internet right now. I read this earlier this week and it was especially poignant because last week I got into an argument on facebook about the dumb "what color bra are you wearing" secret code game that's supposed to miraculously create awareness about breast cancer if you post - and "Don't tell anyone what it means girls!!" Actually, I didn't get into an argument, all I said was something to the effect of "I'm aware enough thanks", and then was challenged by a family member about posting for others who are not aware. I stated my opinion - how does this raise awareness, this is a game about a serious subject, this is my life right now, it's not a joke, if you want to raise awareness go do a walk, donate some money, post about self exams or mammograms or something. Anyway, the original family member signed off but another one came on telling me I was being condescending in telling people how to raise awareness, that people care and they should do what they want...and the topper - that I have my life, so basically I should shut up and not dare to contradict anyone. Yep, this is all from family members. People who, if I posted something that they had an issue with and a direct link to and they asked me to take it down or not participate, I would not even hesitate to do as asked. If I posted something about some pseudo-autism campaign and was asked to not participate for whatever reason - they didn't like the message, they don't like blue anymore, they don't like puzzle pieces -whatever! - I would say of course, I'm so sorry, I didn't think of that. If I posted something about stomach cancer, cervical cancer, prostate, pancreatic, colon, brain, whatever cancer and was asked to take it down I would do so right away, no questions asked, no challenges, nothing. But you know what - I OWN THE BREAST CANCER PART OF THIS SCENARIO. The fact that family members challenged me, questioned me, and attacked me hit me harder than I thought it would and the whole "you really find out who your true friends are" hit me smack in the face.

Summer...and a wreath.

Summer is here. For most people today brings visions of sunny days, cool drinks, pool splashes, and fun in the sun. For me it means that after today the days start getting blessedly shorter again, it means that I need to hide inside during the hottest parts of the day, it means that I must endure this torturous time in order to get to the most wonderful time of the year - FALL!! I try my hardest every year to ignore summer. Heat, sun and Jamie do not mix. There were days during last year's interminable heat wave that I was actually glad I didn't have hair because I was so frickin hot. However, I do have children so I do have to put up some semblance of enthusiasm about every season and holiday. And that starts with a wreath on the door - simple yet festive. I may be hiding inside but at least the outside of my house relays the message "We have some spirit!!"

I found this tutorial earlier this year and gave it a shot for Valentine's Day. I was still doing chemo so not up for anything super complicated and this fulfilled my craft fix for a bit. Also great - I love my wooden door decorations, but I do not love them when it's windy, and we get quite a bit of wind around here. I don't have to take these down or hear knocking on the door all day and night - win win!

 What I love is that after you get the idea, you can do pretty much whatever you want with it. Use whatever color yarn you want, whatever size wreath form, whatever cutouts - it's all good!  

 

 

Start with your foam wreath form (say that a few times fast). I try to remember to use my 40% Michaels, Joann's or Hobby Lobby coupons to get them, and that keeps the cost of these wreaths really reasonable. The skein of yarn was probably $3 and this is the second wreath I've used it on. A few sheets of felt and the form, and the whole thing is about six bucks! Works for me. Anyway, grab your form, whichever size you want, hot glue a piece of yarn down to start, and start wrapping that bad boy. I used red because I have a blue door...I'd probably do blue if I had any other color door, but do whatever floats your boat or shoots your firecracker in this case. I do mine pretty tight, I wind the yarn a few times, tighten and squish it back so there is no form showing through. Takes me about 1.5 to 2.5 hours to do the whole thing depending on who's screaming or how many times I need to play with Lightning McQueen.

 

I used a cookie cutter to trace some stars out of glitter felt, because I'm sassy like that, and because Fourth of July should be glittery.

 

Take your hot glue gun, which I sincerely hope works better than mine, and glue the stars wherever you would like them to be.

The tutorial uses criss crosses on most of their wreaths and you can see I did criss crosses on the Valentine's one above, but that wreath was bigger and I thought this one was too small and too busy to support full on criss crosses, so I just did one layer around. Glue a little yarn hanger around the top...and there you have it - voila! A simple easy cheap Fourth of July wreath.

 

 

Now please excuse me while I fool myself into ignoring the next three months and dream of the fall and winter ones that I can make.