No one navigates breast cancer without some sense of loss. Sometimes, when coping with a negative gain, it's best just to add up the damages and see where you're at. Only by taking stock can you get your life back on course.
For many women, their losses begin with their surgeries. Surgical removal of a breast, or a noticeable portion of one, forces women to grapple with self-image and identity. They have to make difficult choices about reconstructions and to navigate new bodies and new intimacies. My surgery was comparatively easy, and I have no complaints about the result. I was very fortunate to have skated here.
Following surgery, chemo brings its own losses. People who are only trying to be supportive console you by saying that your hair will grow back, that your hairless state is a cosmetic inconvenience. While true on an intellectual level, their well-meaning words miss the point. The way we style our hair is largely a decision that we make about ourselves. For women, hair length, cut, even color all communicate something about us. A spiky punk cut with magenta highlights sends a different message than a blond bob or grey curls. Even women who take a minimalist approach to their hair are communicating something about themselves by their lack of effort. While cancer patients can rationalize that their hair will grow back after chemo, people who involuntarily lose their locks also have to accept a simultaneous loss of control. That's why the military shores the hair of all new recruits, to send them the undeniable message that they have forfeited control over their appearance and over many other self-directed decisions.
As of this writing I'm still holding onto the hair. But I'm poised for the big shed. It's like waiting for that day in late fall or early winter when a strong wind blows in and all the remaining leaves land on the lawns. Before the wind arrives, no one knows exactly when the leaves will fall, only that we'll be very surprised if in February, the deciduous trees are still holding onto some foliage.
Although it lacks the emotional wallop of rapid balding, the impact of both chemo and radiation on your schedule is another loss. Chemo, in its inelegant style, wins by destroying all of the new cells in one's body, both the cancer cells as well as the healthy cells. For chemo to work, the doses have to be spaced out in order to increase the chances of killing all emergent cancer cells. That's why treatments are given over weeks and months. For the patient, even if you dodge most of the side effects, you still don't feel completely like yourself. Thus, plans about work and travel all have to be viewed through the prism of chemo cycles. One question for me is where will I be in my chemo cycle on my 50th birthday? Will I feel well enough to celebrate? Should I give out-of-town family and friends the go-ahead to join me for a party, or just postpone the whole thing?
A few weeks after chemo, radiation gets underway, which is a 20-minute daily treatment for five or six weeks. While we all face limitations on our time due to work or school schedules, knowing that chemo and radiation treatments are defining how you schedule your time is particularly annoying.
Finally, breast cancer makes a big dent in your sense of well-being. On the one hand, you have to grapple with the knowledge that your body is being a very nice host to some very nasty cells. On the other hand, breast cancer has no debilitating symptoms, so it betrays you by letting you feel fine. The symptoms of other diseases -- headaches, loss of energy, or pain -- are catalysts that force people to seek medical attention. Because you want the headaches to stop, you have a physical incentive to undergo treatment. With breast cancer, you have to submit to several heavy-duty medical approaches that stretch out over many months, even though you feel normal -- except for that tiny painless growth palpable in your left breast. So this disease, and its remedies, sap a measure of your good spirit. I can see it in the faces of the survivors who've taken this detour before me.
There are silver linings, too. For me, writing about this experience is a real gift to myself. Cancer also strengthens relationships, because all of the nonsense and distractions get stripped away. Finally, despite the trials of the treatment, you just have to be grateful that you found the little lump under your skin, or that your mammogram was positive, or that your doctor felt the suspicious growth that day. There are silver linings, and I suspect that, at the end of the day, they will go a long way toward countering the losses.
1/28/08
1/24/08
CHEMO - Therapy
Yesterday was my first chemo treatment, and I sailed through. I had no immediate side effects, but we'll see how the following weeks play out. For those who are doing their own research, I'm on the TC regime, which is a combination of Taxotere and Cytoxan. Taxotere is one of the new generation of chemo drugs, while Cytoxan has been in use for some time. Taxotere is easier on the coronary system than the drug it replaced and appears to just do a better job, although it may trigger other potential side effects, like tingling in the hands. With everything there's a tradeoff and I have to think that the scientists are doing all they can with the resources they have.
But one thing does puzzle me, what were the pharmaceutical types who marketed Cytoxan thinking when they named it? Exactly what imagery were they going for? It sounds like a cousin of Cyanide, except bolder and less sneaky than Cyanide.
Along with my random thoughts on what the name Cytoxan conveyed, I also found myself focused on the word chemo the other night. Chemo is such an immense, forceful term in its own right, but it's really only an abbreviation. Maybe it's time for chemo to stand alone and separate from therapy, which is already an overburdened concept. Think about it, therapy has enough to do, just supporting words like psycho and physical. Even aroma has recently gotten out in front of therapy in a shameless grab for credibility.
What if chemo were CHEMO, an acronym that was shorthand for the larger concepts that chemo already implies. Here are some suggestions for a bold new makeover for CHEMO that publicly acknowledges its true role and status:
1. Causing Hideous Enemies Massive Obliteration
2. Cunning Horrific Exterminator Menaces Opponents
3. Chemicals Helping Everyone Make Octogenarian
4. Cancer-fighting Humans Eradicating Monstrous Onslaughts
5. Celebrating Health -- E vil Marauders Ousted
But one thing does puzzle me, what were the pharmaceutical types who marketed Cytoxan thinking when they named it? Exactly what imagery were they going for? It sounds like a cousin of Cyanide, except bolder and less sneaky than Cyanide.
Along with my random thoughts on what the name Cytoxan conveyed, I also found myself focused on the word chemo the other night. Chemo is such an immense, forceful term in its own right, but it's really only an abbreviation. Maybe it's time for chemo to stand alone and separate from therapy, which is already an overburdened concept. Think about it, therapy has enough to do, just supporting words like psycho and physical. Even aroma has recently gotten out in front of therapy in a shameless grab for credibility.
What if chemo were CHEMO, an acronym that was shorthand for the larger concepts that chemo already implies. Here are some suggestions for a bold new makeover for CHEMO that publicly acknowledges its true role and status:
1. Causing Hideous Enemies Massive Obliteration
2. Cunning Horrific Exterminator Menaces Opponents
3. Chemicals Helping Everyone Make Octogenarian
4. Cancer-fighting Humans Eradicating Monstrous Onslaughts
5. Celebrating Health -- E vil Marauders Ousted
6. Can Help Erradicate Murderous Opportunists (from Addie and Joe Shaw, Millbrook, NY)
Feel free to offer your own suggestions. As you can see in the last entry, if you send them by e-mail or blog post, I'll happily add them to the list and give you full credit.
Chemo, it's time for you to have a stand-alone contract. And aroma, I'm on to you. Leave therapy alone and get out in front of a word that better fits your style, like Sensory or Massage.
A final word, let me say that writing these blogs, and knowing that so many of you are following them, has undoubtedly been my therapy.
1/20/08
Another Orbit
Serious health problems throw your life into an other orbit, and as to be expected when travelling in a different galaxy, things can be a little out of the ordinary.
Here's how the last few days have played out:
Thursday
I was scheduled to volunteer at a luncheon on Thursday. Among this group, one or two of the women knew about my breast cancer, but it wasn't common knowledge when I arrived. By the end of the luncheon, however, my health issues were no longer on the down low. During the two hours that passed, I was generously offered the loan of a wig that one of the women had used during her own chemo cycles (also breast cancer) three years earlier. I was also included in a sadness-abating group hug, and, before leaving, I was forcefully prayed over by a woman I only know in passing.
I've volunteered at this luncheon for years, and this group is a loosely knit collection of people. We are not what one would call a "sisterhood" that is prone to hugging and prayer. But breast cancer has a way of stirring up strong emotions and reactions. Maybe it's because so many women are being affected that every case feels close to home.
Friday
I had some time to kill before one of Nick's soccer games, so I found a corner Starbucks. No surprise, there. But next door to the Starbucks was a large beauty supply store, which I actually entered. Yes, coffee in hand, I wandered the aisles, and 15 minutes later, I emerged with a small bag containing eye pencils, cosmetics that I don't normally use. But I'm in a brave new world, and I want to be prepared for contingencies, in this case, eyebrow loss. Unlike those girls who tweeze their eyebrows into oblivion, I need mine. They add emphasis to what I'm saying, kind of like punctuation. Heck, sometimes I use my eyebrows in place of language. So should my brows disappear due to chemical fallout, I want to be ready with the appropriate pencil.
Saturday
I went to see my hairdresser, Jay. He was a little shaken a few weeks earlier, when I dropped my breast cancer news on him. At the time, though, I warned him that I was going to need his steady hands on the comb and scissors, if chemo was in my future. Now I found myself in Jay's chair for a pre-chemo, pre-emptive strike. We agreed that he would leave me with two inches of hair length all around. (I probably should have buzzed it all off, but one has to go incrementally.) I admit that I was apprehensive about this haircut; I had not been planning a bold new look. But what might have been a bad afternoon turned into a jolly old time, because Jay and I laughed and joked while he snipped. And in an ironic twist, the new haircut looked good, fresh and light. Too bad it's only going to last a couple of weeks.
Sunday
The phone rang about 10 a.m., and it was Dahlia, the woman who helped us with childcare in the late 1980s when Joe was a new baby. She calls me faithfully every January because she wants to stop by for a visit. Dahlia, now 87, had her own bout with breast cancer more than 20 years ago and a recurrence in 2002. She arrived at my house a few hours after she phoned, bearing gifts -- a fluffy bathrobe for me and a sweater for Dennis. The most intriguing giftbox, however, was for my boys. Their box contained the following: A large crucified Christ, the kind that appears in Catholic school classrooms, which measured at least 15" long and 8" wide, and a plastic cooking device for preparing microwaved eggs. It took me a minute, but then I saw Dahlia's logic. In her view, teen-age boys need two things -- spiritual reminders to keep them on the right path (the plastic Jesus) and plenty of protein (the egg-cooker). Tending body and soul, if you will.
Dahlia is a bit of touchstone for me, because she is one of those rare people who makes no judgments and accepts each minute as it comes. She is also a survivor in many ways -- as a widow, as an immigrant, and as a breast cancer patient. So I'm always grateful each January to see that she has made it through another year. This time, I took it as an especially good sign that she showed up exactly when she did.
Anyway, the last few days have been sprinkled with odd little moments, snippets of anticipation and preparation for the treatment ahead, mixed with flashes of humor. I'm starting to feel like a space traveler who will suit up and fly through plutonium. So in the spirit of Luke Skywalker, Hans Solo, and the rest of Star Wars gang, "May the force be with me."
Here's how the last few days have played out:
Thursday
I was scheduled to volunteer at a luncheon on Thursday. Among this group, one or two of the women knew about my breast cancer, but it wasn't common knowledge when I arrived. By the end of the luncheon, however, my health issues were no longer on the down low. During the two hours that passed, I was generously offered the loan of a wig that one of the women had used during her own chemo cycles (also breast cancer) three years earlier. I was also included in a sadness-abating group hug, and, before leaving, I was forcefully prayed over by a woman I only know in passing.
I've volunteered at this luncheon for years, and this group is a loosely knit collection of people. We are not what one would call a "sisterhood" that is prone to hugging and prayer. But breast cancer has a way of stirring up strong emotions and reactions. Maybe it's because so many women are being affected that every case feels close to home.
Friday
I had some time to kill before one of Nick's soccer games, so I found a corner Starbucks. No surprise, there. But next door to the Starbucks was a large beauty supply store, which I actually entered. Yes, coffee in hand, I wandered the aisles, and 15 minutes later, I emerged with a small bag containing eye pencils, cosmetics that I don't normally use. But I'm in a brave new world, and I want to be prepared for contingencies, in this case, eyebrow loss. Unlike those girls who tweeze their eyebrows into oblivion, I need mine. They add emphasis to what I'm saying, kind of like punctuation. Heck, sometimes I use my eyebrows in place of language. So should my brows disappear due to chemical fallout, I want to be ready with the appropriate pencil.
Saturday
I went to see my hairdresser, Jay. He was a little shaken a few weeks earlier, when I dropped my breast cancer news on him. At the time, though, I warned him that I was going to need his steady hands on the comb and scissors, if chemo was in my future. Now I found myself in Jay's chair for a pre-chemo, pre-emptive strike. We agreed that he would leave me with two inches of hair length all around. (I probably should have buzzed it all off, but one has to go incrementally.) I admit that I was apprehensive about this haircut; I had not been planning a bold new look. But what might have been a bad afternoon turned into a jolly old time, because Jay and I laughed and joked while he snipped. And in an ironic twist, the new haircut looked good, fresh and light. Too bad it's only going to last a couple of weeks.
Sunday
The phone rang about 10 a.m., and it was Dahlia, the woman who helped us with childcare in the late 1980s when Joe was a new baby. She calls me faithfully every January because she wants to stop by for a visit. Dahlia, now 87, had her own bout with breast cancer more than 20 years ago and a recurrence in 2002. She arrived at my house a few hours after she phoned, bearing gifts -- a fluffy bathrobe for me and a sweater for Dennis. The most intriguing giftbox, however, was for my boys. Their box contained the following: A large crucified Christ, the kind that appears in Catholic school classrooms, which measured at least 15" long and 8" wide, and a plastic cooking device for preparing microwaved eggs. It took me a minute, but then I saw Dahlia's logic. In her view, teen-age boys need two things -- spiritual reminders to keep them on the right path (the plastic Jesus) and plenty of protein (the egg-cooker). Tending body and soul, if you will.
Dahlia is a bit of touchstone for me, because she is one of those rare people who makes no judgments and accepts each minute as it comes. She is also a survivor in many ways -- as a widow, as an immigrant, and as a breast cancer patient. So I'm always grateful each January to see that she has made it through another year. This time, I took it as an especially good sign that she showed up exactly when she did.
Anyway, the last few days have been sprinkled with odd little moments, snippets of anticipation and preparation for the treatment ahead, mixed with flashes of humor. I'm starting to feel like a space traveler who will suit up and fly through plutonium. So in the spirit of Luke Skywalker, Hans Solo, and the rest of Star Wars gang, "May the force be with me."
1/17/08
What Are The Odds
Sometimes you don't get the hand you want, but you have to play the hand you're dealt. My recurrence score on the Oncotype Dx is a whopping 41.
For those readers who are just getting up to speed, the Oncotype Dx is a new breast cancer test in which scientists can examine a patient's tissue and numerically rate her 10-year risk of cancer recurrence or metastasis. The range is from zero to 100, with a low score meaning a lower chance of recurrence. However, a recurrence score of more than 50 is so rare that the scientists actually stop counting after 50.
My 41 definitely puts me in the high-risk group, which means that chemo will be beneficial. By undergoing a chemo regime, I gain almost 14 percentage points on the 10-year scale, which is a sizable number. Here's how it works: After chemo, there is a better than 80% chance that the cancer will not recur in 10 years. However, you also have to consider that there is a 4% chance that something else will happen, the proverbial getting struck by lighting. So at some point, the numbers become meaningless, and you just do what the doctors tell you.
I start the first cycle on Wednesday, which will be followed by three more cycles given at three week intervals. The side effects are all that you imagine -- bad, bad and bad. There is one upside to being in the high-risk group. The patients with the most aggressive cancers get the most benefit from the treatments. In some cases, the cancer doesn't look particularly threatening, but is actually quite sneaky and subtle. This is akin to the passive-aggressive kid who appears nice but steals your cookies from your lunchbag. The low-key cancers don't always respond to chemo because they avoid detection and mask their threat. In my case, the cancer is bold and outgoing, more like the bully kid who wins by intimidation. However, because bully cancers readily show their true colors, they're more vulnerable to a chemo-laden assault.
So the next phase is about to begin. Time to call the hairdresser and get a new, short cut -- what my mother used to refer to as a pixie cut. Looking forward.
For those readers who are just getting up to speed, the Oncotype Dx is a new breast cancer test in which scientists can examine a patient's tissue and numerically rate her 10-year risk of cancer recurrence or metastasis. The range is from zero to 100, with a low score meaning a lower chance of recurrence. However, a recurrence score of more than 50 is so rare that the scientists actually stop counting after 50.
My 41 definitely puts me in the high-risk group, which means that chemo will be beneficial. By undergoing a chemo regime, I gain almost 14 percentage points on the 10-year scale, which is a sizable number. Here's how it works: After chemo, there is a better than 80% chance that the cancer will not recur in 10 years. However, you also have to consider that there is a 4% chance that something else will happen, the proverbial getting struck by lighting. So at some point, the numbers become meaningless, and you just do what the doctors tell you.
I start the first cycle on Wednesday, which will be followed by three more cycles given at three week intervals. The side effects are all that you imagine -- bad, bad and bad. There is one upside to being in the high-risk group. The patients with the most aggressive cancers get the most benefit from the treatments. In some cases, the cancer doesn't look particularly threatening, but is actually quite sneaky and subtle. This is akin to the passive-aggressive kid who appears nice but steals your cookies from your lunchbag. The low-key cancers don't always respond to chemo because they avoid detection and mask their threat. In my case, the cancer is bold and outgoing, more like the bully kid who wins by intimidation. However, because bully cancers readily show their true colors, they're more vulnerable to a chemo-laden assault.
So the next phase is about to begin. Time to call the hairdresser and get a new, short cut -- what my mother used to refer to as a pixie cut. Looking forward.
1/11/08
Sons And Daughters
You think that I seek out articles about breast cancer patients, but I don't. I stumble over them by chance, and they trip me up, like so many treacherous cracks in the sidewalk. Just last Sunday, the essay on the last page of the New York Times Magazine, which I almost always read, was from a woman whose mother had recently undergone a mastectomy. The essay told about a shopping trip she and her mother took to buy a prosthesis and new bras, and tackled the daughter's uneasiness about her mother's health problems.
Later that day, I picked up the Los Angeles Times Book Review, which is not usually a cancer-story minefield, and I absentmindedly opened it to a review of a memoir by Susan Sontag's son, David Rieff. He has written a grief-stricken account of his famous mother's final cancer struggle, which began years earlier with a breast cancer diagnosis. After already digesting the essay about the shopping trip, I spared myself and quickly turned to the lists of best sellers. Apparently Eat, Pray, Love is still doing well, and mystery writer Sue Grafton is topping the fiction list with T is for Trespass. (I'm taking bets on when Grafton will finally run out of alphabet. My money is on March 2010.)
Seriously, what struck me about these pieces was that both the essay and the book on Sontag were written by the children of breast cancer patients. And this led me to clarify my thinking on the question that my friend, Rohman, raised in a blog comment -- What was my view of John Edwards's presidential run, given that Elizabeth Edwards's breast cancer has recurred and metastasized?
My short answer is that the question of Edwards's candidacy is not simply about whether he is a dutiful and supportive husband. Like most couples who've been married for a long time, the Edwardses seem to have worked it out. They both obviously love politics and are committed to public service. So, just like the union of Hillary and Bill, the Edwards' marriage is none of my business.
Delving just a little deeper, though, the question evolves into this one: Given the demands of the job, can Mr. Edwards be a first-rate President, if he's distracted by his wife's illness? While that's a tougher call, world leaders, like everyone else, have to cope with the ordeals of their loved ones. So, if Mr. Edwards commits to being our national leader, I'll take him at his word that he can handle it, even if his wife becomes more gravely ill.
But that's still not the end of it. I know that my persistent side is showing here, but I'm compelled to peel back yet another layer of the question. This is where I ended up: What is the impact of all of this on the Edwards' young family? Long after the age when most women have stopped having babies, Mrs. Edwards decided to have two more children. In addition to a grown daughter, they have Jack and Emma Claire, who are both under age 10. At the risk of alienating the Edwards supporters among you, here is where the question got sticky. In my mind, John and Elizabeth Edwards have a commitment to their young children that goes beyond their commitment to each other, or their commitment to the White House. In the event that Mrs. Edwards takes a turn for the worse, can Mr. Edwards be fully available to his kids while also being fully available to us as President of the United States?
Later that day, I picked up the Los Angeles Times Book Review, which is not usually a cancer-story minefield, and I absentmindedly opened it to a review of a memoir by Susan Sontag's son, David Rieff. He has written a grief-stricken account of his famous mother's final cancer struggle, which began years earlier with a breast cancer diagnosis. After already digesting the essay about the shopping trip, I spared myself and quickly turned to the lists of best sellers. Apparently Eat, Pray, Love is still doing well, and mystery writer Sue Grafton is topping the fiction list with T is for Trespass. (I'm taking bets on when Grafton will finally run out of alphabet. My money is on March 2010.)
Seriously, what struck me about these pieces was that both the essay and the book on Sontag were written by the children of breast cancer patients. And this led me to clarify my thinking on the question that my friend, Rohman, raised in a blog comment -- What was my view of John Edwards's presidential run, given that Elizabeth Edwards's breast cancer has recurred and metastasized?
My short answer is that the question of Edwards's candidacy is not simply about whether he is a dutiful and supportive husband. Like most couples who've been married for a long time, the Edwardses seem to have worked it out. They both obviously love politics and are committed to public service. So, just like the union of Hillary and Bill, the Edwards' marriage is none of my business.
Delving just a little deeper, though, the question evolves into this one: Given the demands of the job, can Mr. Edwards be a first-rate President, if he's distracted by his wife's illness? While that's a tougher call, world leaders, like everyone else, have to cope with the ordeals of their loved ones. So, if Mr. Edwards commits to being our national leader, I'll take him at his word that he can handle it, even if his wife becomes more gravely ill.
But that's still not the end of it. I know that my persistent side is showing here, but I'm compelled to peel back yet another layer of the question. This is where I ended up: What is the impact of all of this on the Edwards' young family? Long after the age when most women have stopped having babies, Mrs. Edwards decided to have two more children. In addition to a grown daughter, they have Jack and Emma Claire, who are both under age 10. At the risk of alienating the Edwards supporters among you, here is where the question got sticky. In my mind, John and Elizabeth Edwards have a commitment to their young children that goes beyond their commitment to each other, or their commitment to the White House. In the event that Mrs. Edwards takes a turn for the worse, can Mr. Edwards be fully available to his kids while also being fully available to us as President of the United States?
You can argue that other presidential contenders, both past and present, have had young children, Barack Obama among them. But I'm not aware of any of them knowingly pursuing the White House while their spouse confronted a serious cancer issue. John Edwards doesn't want to be president of a university; he wants to be President of the United States. It's not a job that one can walk away from, or one that will allow him to take a leave of absence. Does the Family Medical Leave Act even apply to elected officials?
As the articles written by the anxious daughter and the grieving son both spell out, even when we're grown, our parents' illnesses throw us. Given all the health issues they face, and the pressures those issues would place on any family, maybe the Edwardses should skip the White House run and settle for a public service role that's not quite so demanding. After all, the current resident of the White House has always preferred Crawford to the Beltway. This time, we need a leader, who, no matter what happens, will be fully engaged and ready to tackle the hard work at hand.
(Upcoming blog: I have an appointment with the oncologist on Wednesday to go over the results of the Oncotype Dx, which are expected on Monday. Stay tuned.)
1/4/08
No Parking Zone
Have you ever had the feeling that your life was parked in a no parking zone? By this, I mean that you found yourself stalled on the sideline in a place you didn't belong, but you couldn't go forward. Maybe it was due to a bad marriage, or a bad job, or a bad course of events that ensnared you. But whatever the reason, you just weren't moving ahead.
That's how this breast cancer experience is starting to feel, like being parked in a red zone, but being powerless to move on. Now that the calendar reads 2008, I can see that my 50th birthday is on the horizon, and I'd like to make some plans. But instead, I'm waiting for the results of the Oncotype Dx test, in order to resolve the chemo question, before the birthday planning begins.
This is vaguely reminiscent of a time when my boys were little. For a seven-year stretch, beginning when Joe was about 12 months old and lasting until Nick started kindergarten, I stayed home with them. During this phase, my job titles included wife, mother, chief cook, director of procurement, laundress, chauffeur, and pediatric nurse (in training). For the most part, I was happy not to have a paying job. I had traded sitting at a computer for standing behind a swing. Instead of discussing marketing proposals, or whatever I talked about in my former work life, I met with other mothers and strategized about entertaining a three-year-old, while balancing a baby on one's hip, while chopping an onion.
Mostly, I was content during those years, but I remember an occasional voice in my head that called for actual achievements. The snide voice rudely chided me for passing off the milestones of my kids as if they were my own. To shut this internal monologue up, I usually looked, half-heartedly, for free-lance work, and sometimes I landed a writing project. Having real-world work soaked up my excess energy for a time. The work also reassured me that my brain was still capable of doing more than recognizing all of the Sesame Street characters. But inevitably, with my deadline approaching, I was always forced to admit that I was spread too thin to add an employer into the mix. In short, I was parked in my house during those years, albeit for a worthy effort, while I watched other thirty-somethings race by in the fast lane.
Of course, this phase of parenting is well behind me now, and, in hindsight, staying home with the kids was absolutely the right decision for me. I expect that waiting another week more for these last tests results will also prove to be the absolute right choice. And what alternative do I have? Dive into chemo because I'm getting antsy, or wait for the data to make a reasoned decision. Hmmm. So for the moment, I'm idling in a no parking zone. Must be time for a big, thick, all consuming novel. Book recommendations anyone?
That's how this breast cancer experience is starting to feel, like being parked in a red zone, but being powerless to move on. Now that the calendar reads 2008, I can see that my 50th birthday is on the horizon, and I'd like to make some plans. But instead, I'm waiting for the results of the Oncotype Dx test, in order to resolve the chemo question, before the birthday planning begins.
This is vaguely reminiscent of a time when my boys were little. For a seven-year stretch, beginning when Joe was about 12 months old and lasting until Nick started kindergarten, I stayed home with them. During this phase, my job titles included wife, mother, chief cook, director of procurement, laundress, chauffeur, and pediatric nurse (in training). For the most part, I was happy not to have a paying job. I had traded sitting at a computer for standing behind a swing. Instead of discussing marketing proposals, or whatever I talked about in my former work life, I met with other mothers and strategized about entertaining a three-year-old, while balancing a baby on one's hip, while chopping an onion.
Mostly, I was content during those years, but I remember an occasional voice in my head that called for actual achievements. The snide voice rudely chided me for passing off the milestones of my kids as if they were my own. To shut this internal monologue up, I usually looked, half-heartedly, for free-lance work, and sometimes I landed a writing project. Having real-world work soaked up my excess energy for a time. The work also reassured me that my brain was still capable of doing more than recognizing all of the Sesame Street characters. But inevitably, with my deadline approaching, I was always forced to admit that I was spread too thin to add an employer into the mix. In short, I was parked in my house during those years, albeit for a worthy effort, while I watched other thirty-somethings race by in the fast lane.
Of course, this phase of parenting is well behind me now, and, in hindsight, staying home with the kids was absolutely the right decision for me. I expect that waiting another week more for these last tests results will also prove to be the absolute right choice. And what alternative do I have? Dive into chemo because I'm getting antsy, or wait for the data to make a reasoned decision. Hmmm. So for the moment, I'm idling in a no parking zone. Must be time for a big, thick, all consuming novel. Book recommendations anyone?
(I'll go first. The books listed to the right are all worthwhile reads.)
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