One year down...

Today is the anniversary of the day I had my last chemo treatment. I am so blessed to be able to tell you this today. I am alive. I am still fighting. I still have traces of chemo brain. I still get tired if I don't pace myself and rest.

But I am here. Alive.

One year down. Many more to go.

On being grateful

I have so much to be grateful for ... and of course this time of year is the best time to focus on those things we have that can only be called blessings.

I am so lucky to be alive and to be able to enjoy this Thanksgiving this year.

I am so lucky to have friends and family who love me.

If you are reading this, you are likely one of those people.

Happy all hallows eve

This year I don't have the energy to get up and answer the door a million times to give out candy to the ghosts, goblins, pirates and princesses that come seeking treats. I can say happy halloween to you though!

Next year, I intend to buy a lot of candy and sit out on my porch in costume while handing out treats to little would-be tricksters.

I am counting on that.

What can I say?

What can I say about being a breast cancer survivor? What can I add to the conversation about breast cancer and how to maneuver the world that becomes your reality once you become a member of this sisterhood?

I'm still trying to figure that out.

September

I have always felt that September is one of the most beautiful months of the year. It straddles summer and fall, the perfect storm, so to speak.

There are the hot, humid days of summer. The crickets singing melodies as the sun sinks slowly inviting the evening to wrap its arms around the lush landscape. Then there are the cooler days, and as autumn emerges, the evenings still filled with the song of the crickets, become cooler and come sooner.

September and its divergent nature ... it lulls me into a dreamy and hopeful state of mind.

Taking a turn for the best

It's occurred to me that there are days that I don't really want to write about cancer much any more. I mean, I am dealing with the fact that I HAD cancer.

Today is the day after the anniversary of my first chemo treatment. A year ago I was just beginning to find out what it means to be a cancer patient. Today I know full well what that means. Now that it's been a full year since my first treatment, and 8 months after my last one ... well, I think that means that I am now officially a cancer SURVIVOR. And as such, I think it might be a good idea to start focusing on living that. This isn't to say that having had cancer will not somehow permeate my writing, my thoughts, my everyday life. But, today, I don't want to focus on the cancer, I want to focus on the living, the life after cancer and cancer treatments.

Today marks a new, New Reality.

The most important day in my life

A magazine I subscribe to asked readers to contribute an essay about the most important day of their lives.

Let's see. What WAS the most important day of my life?

Besides my birthday, Halloween, Christmas, New Year's, the first day of spring, the first day of summer, the first day of football season, the first day of autumn, the first day it snows, the day before I was diagnosed with breast cancer, the day I was diagnosed with breast cancer and the day after that, the first day I had chemo, the last day I had chemo, the day my hair fell out, the day my hair started to grow back, the day I first saw a hummingbird at the bird feeder, the day that ....

Let me rethink that question and answer.

Yesterday was the most important day of my life.

Today is the most important day of my life.

Tomorrow will be the most important day of my life.

Okay, so I have it now.

Any day I wake up and I'm alive and well. That's the most important day of my life.

Life is good

It's summer. It's a good time to be alive. I'm still learning what it means to be a breast cancer survivor. Today I'm thinking it's all about being happy about who I am right now, right here. Alive and well.

Life is good.

Choices

Most of us consider ourselves lucky because we are provided with the opportunity to make choices in our lives. On the other hand, some of us don't feel we have many choices. Then, some of us feel that the choices we have are not really good ones. And, some of us feel like we have too many choices and get overwhelmed.

Sometimes we make choices that are good for us, and other times we make choices that we wish, in hindsight, we had not made. No matter ... the fact is that having the opportunity to make choices is really a wonderful thing.

I've been thinking a lot about making choices lately, because now that I am on the road to recovery, I am looking at my life and the opportunities and challenges that come my way in a very different way than I did before cancer. While I was in my treatment phase, I was given the opportunity to choose, under my doctor's guidance, my treatment plan. I also had the opportunity to choose my attitude about my cancer and my treatment. Pretty much after that, all other choices were really dictated to me by how my body felt on any given day.

Now I have a little more energy. My choices are now dictated by how much time there is in a day and how much I need to get done.

Having choices can be a challenge, but having the opportunity to choose is a gift.

Destinations

We've all heard it said that life is a journey. Interestingly enough, the destination is really not known.

Okay, sure, there is the whole heaven and hell thing. But not everyone believes in those places and besides that, those places are "on the other side" so to speak, so they're really the "after" life, not life. And then there is the whole idea of setting goals, having dreams, achieving your desires. There's planning and making things happen.

Then there is real life.

The journey that is life is simply not something that you can plan. At least that is what I've discovered over the last year. I think you can make plans. You can have goals and dreams and you can work toward achieving them. But just like any other journey, you cannot really see what's up ahead. (Okay, well now with GPS technology, you can see ahead if you're driving from point A to point B, but there isn't a GPS for life ... yet.)

An ad for a new Web site, health.com, stopped me in my tracks the other day as I flipped through a magazine. I don't usually stop for ads. But this one resonated with me. There was a road sign. It said "Breast Cancer". Just under it an arrow indicated "Detour" ... and there was my life in front of me, in a nutshell, described in a short, 4-color message.

I think we all have detours as we journey through life, and I think that while the detours can be very unnerving, scary, and throw us off our pace and schedules, the only way to get back on course and to continue toward those goals and dreams is to follow through on that detour.

While my detour was no picnic, I certainly did find out some things about myself I didn't already know, and I discovered what's really valuable to me as I ventured that road. The detour slowed me down, in some instances stopped me dead in my tracks, but it also helped me to appreciate the road of life, detours, potholes, stop signs and all.

Sensations

Today I felt the wind in my hair.

That's a big deal!

Why? Because I haven't felt that sensation since last August! It was in August that my hair started to fly away, without wind to assist. That same day, when no one else could see it flying, I went to the hairdresser and had my head shaved. From mid-August until late January, I didn't have hair for the wind to blow. And up until today, even when there was a breeze, I didn't feel it moving through my hair.

Today, for the first time in a long while, I felt the wind in my hair. And today, for the first time ever, I didn't take it for granted.

On any given Sunday

Just when you think the sun is gonna shine brightly all day, the clouds move in. And then the rain.

It's rained in Richmond every weekend for months. Or at least it seems so. Today started out sunny enough. But by mid-day, before I really even began my chores, it was cloudy. The wind picked up a bit. And it started to rain.

Today's rain wasn't a steady downpour, just a shower here and there. Mostly it's been a misty kind of day.

I started out this weekend with verve and energy to spare. I got a lot of things accomplished. Today the rain came and so did the weariness that seems to embrace me even months after finishing treatments, even a year since my diagnosis. I started the weekend wanting to leave the cancer talk behind me. I wanted to let it go and move on, to be the survivor, not the cancer patient.

But today the rain came.

Stubborn is an adjective I use to describe myself often. Independent might be a better word, less negative connotation there. Either way, when my energy level sinks to low and I can't do what I feel I need to do or want to do, I get pretty cranky; and, I think that while my stubborn independence is what got me through the surgery and the chemo treatments, it also puts me in a bit of a bind when my body says it needs to rest and be still. My mind doesn't want to rest and be still. There are things to do. I rested and was still for long enough, I tell my body. But in the end the body wins that argument.

Today the rain came. And luckily my mind agrees that on a rainy Sunday, the best thing to do is rest and be still.

An anniversary

Today is my anniversary.

One year ago today I heard the words no one really wants to hear:

"It's malignant."

It's taken me this whole year to process those two words. I'm still processing them and I expect I will continue to process them for the rest of my life.

Hester Hill Schnipper, the author of an article I read in the Journal of Clinical Oncology online, had this to say about survivorship:

More than anything else, it is the searing recognition of mortality that changes everything. From this moment forward, all of life will be viewed through a double lens as we appreciate the possibilities of both a long life and a greatly abbreviated one. This dual view may actually, over time, enrich our lives. We make a conscious and willing choice, each of us living with cancer, to go on, to take and to appreciate the darkness as well as the sunlight. We hold dear the night as well as the morning.

I could not have said it better.

Look up

The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart church was built in the early 1900s. I took a tour of the church once when the class I was taking in Roman Catholic Thought went on a field trip there. The church is built in the Italian Renaissance Revival architectural style and the building is constructed of Virginia granite and Indiana limestone.

You cannot walk into the church without immediately looking upward toward the heavens. The priest hosting the tour explained that this reaction was exactly what the architects wanted and expected. They designed and built that church with its high arching ceilings, purposefully creating an environment that made you want to lift your eyes skyward.

I feel like I often walk through life with my eyes half open, and I notice other people walking down the street with their gaze steadily on the ground before them. Since being diagnosed with cancer, I spend a lot more time looking upward. Asking God what his purpose is for me.

I play a game. It's my special one, a little silly thing I do. Every day I look for the geese. I look up as I cross the river to go to work and again when I am on my way home across the bridge. Every day I see a goose ... or geese ... I say it's going to be a good day. If I see a goose or geese in the evening, it's like I'm getting a special message from God that life is precious and good and all will be well.

There have been very few days that I have not seen a goose. More often I see flocks of geese flying one way or the other across the bridge, over the river. Now someone could say that it stands to reason that I will always see at least one goose flying one way or the other over the bridge since it is in fact traversing a river where geese are likely to live and breed. But that doesn't stop me from playing my game.

Every day I see a goose ... or geese ... it's a good day. And really, all I have to do is look up.

Looking up is a good thing. It's a positive thing. Some days I have to remind myself to look up. And it's especially on those days that when I see geese in flight I am reminded that each day we are here, alive, and able to lift our eyes toward the heavens ... that is a good day.

Spring: Hope's eternal

There is nothing as beautiful as springtime in Virginia. Flowers, shrubs and trees come to life seemingly overnight, expressing colors only the greatest artist can imagine.

It didn't really happen overnight though. Like most things in life, spring is a process. Starting in late March, it rained for what seemed like nonstop days at a time, and mostly on weekends! Those rainy days were often cold and gloomy steel grey days that were anything but colorful. Yes, the sun did come out from time to time and the stars shone in the night time skies. And yes, those spring time showers were bound to bring up flowers sooner or later. Unlike winter, when grey days lead to more grey days and rain storms don't bring flowers, just mud.

If the diagnosis and treatments for cancer are like winter, recovering from cancer and its treatments is a lot like spring time. There are some very sunny and warm days. And there are some grey days. I cannot speak for other cancer patients, but I've read other blogs and plenty of literature, and it's normal to think that when the treatments are over, you're gonna feel so much better. But it doesn't work like that. It takes a long time to recover from the cancer. The diagnosis, the surgery, the chemo treatments and their side effects all take a toll that is like the Earth's winter scape. Everything is laid bare. Like trees with no leaves and flowers that are sleeping under the cold ground, that is what it's like those first few months after the treatments are over.

There's a tree in my back yard that didn't make it to spring. That tree is older than me, and maybe older than my house. I can't wrap my arms around it, that's how big it is. I can't wrap my head around why it died. But there it is, standing tall and bare, its branches reaching up to heaven as if to beg for just one more chance at blooming. But it's gone and I'll have to do a very sad thing and have it cut down. I moved into this house just for that tree and others like it around my home and my neighborhood. Standing tall and strong, the tree gave shade to my yard and that in turn created a habitat that flourished in dappled sunlight. Now the habitat is going to change because there will be much more sunlight in that backyard than there has ever been.

To be a cancer survivor is just like that. Things don't necessarily come back the way they were before the treatments, before the winter. Energy comes and goes. Some days you have it and other days not so much. Chemo brain still makes an appearance and the way your body looks and reacts to the world is completely different than it was before the cancer. You actually have to look at yourself differently because you are different. Other people may not see you that way, and they might not want you to think of yourself that way, but it is so. There are the physical changes ... like curly hair where there once was straight hair. And the mental and emotional changes, like having a deeper knowledge that life is finite and a desire not to waste a single second ever again.

Like my backyard, the landscape of my life is different now.

And though the tree in the backyard did not make it to see another spring, a miraculous thing happened in that same area where the tree is located. Honeysuckle is growing. Why would I think that miraculous? For the last three years I have wanted to smell honeysuckle in my backyard. And there wasn't any. There didn't seem to be any honeysuckle anywhere around my home and I spent many a summer night wishing for that sweet fragrance to waft through the night air as the crickets sang their evening melody. So now, I don't have a tree, but I have some honeysuckle.

To be a cancer survivor is a lot like that ... it's a miracle like spring.

For interesting look at "life after breast cancer" take a look at this article from the Journal of Clinical Oncology:

http://jco.ascopubs.org/cgi/content/full/19/15/3581

It's my birthday!

It's my birthday. I'm gonna party... it's my birthday ... let's celebrate now ...

Yaaay it's my 50th birthday. I am sooooo happy! I love my birthday because it is the one day that legally it can be all about me!

I'm so blessed to be having a birthday and the opportunity to celebrate it this year.

Some people may freak out a little about turning 50, entering the fifth decade. Not me! I am loving it!

First of all, I've hear that 50 is the new 30. I think "older" people are actually the "cool" people these days. I mean, look at Dennis Hopper! And I am in good company this year, too! Lots of the coolest people and things are turning 50 this year. I think Barbie is turning 50. Madonna is turning 50! Sharon Stone, Ellen DeGeneres, Matt Lauer, Prince, and Michelle Pfeiffer ... they are all going to be 50 this year. Mad Libs turns 50 and so does AARP ... oh, yeah, I get to join AARP this year. Anything that gives me special treatment and discounts to services ... I'm for that!

Okay, so thank you all for you love and support and helping me to get through the last several trying months! I'll be celebrating this 50th birthday as a milestone as well as many other milestones over the next several months. and I have you all to thank for helping me make it this moment in time! I hope you'll join me and celebrate each glorious day that we're all together here on Earth!

Happy birthday to me! Sing along if you want!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Nz9B1XFio

:)

Balance and error

When I was in high school, one of the things we had to do in gym class was practice walking on a balance beam. Learning to stand on one of those skinny beams was difficult, but once up and standing, walking along the beam didn't seem that difficult. I never was very coordinated or athletic, so jumping on and off or turning cartwheels on the balance beam wasn't in the cards for me. Even so, I felt a sense of accomplishment just being able to stand on the thing without falling off of it and cracking my skull open.

These days, I feel a lot like I first did when I was just learning to stand on that balance beam. I'm finding that I don't know for sure how to gain my balance in everyday life. One day I am going at full speed, 100 percent and the next I am dragging.

It's been a while since I had chemo and my energy level is so much better than it was even just a month ago. That said, I am still struggling with determining what I can and cannot do on any given day. Funny thing. I think maybe we all do that anyway, but having been kicked down a couple of notches below "normal" when it comes to energy level, it seems you become more aware of the amount of energy it takes to do any given task. Things we take for granted and things we don't even realize take energy to accomplish, like having a conversation and "thinking" ... I don't ever recall being so conscious of the energy I'm using just to pull a word from somewhere in my brain. Sometimes I can actually feel my brain working to pull information from one side or the other ... the human body is amazing!

It's not all about energy and being able to "do" things either. It's about eating right. It's about getting enough sleep. It's about being patient and by that I don't mean a "patient" ... I mean, being able to say, "okay, take your time, don't rush, you'll be able to do that thing soon" ... I want to grab ahold of life.

I want to smell freshly cut grass and honeysuckle, eat rich and delectable foods (without weight gain!), drink fine wine, get some exercise, take a yoga or tai chi class, read books, paint pictures, work in my yard, go out with my friends and dance. Oh, yeah, then there's cleaning the house. When I was down for the count during the chemo treatments, I let a lot of stuff just "go" and letting some things go was easier than letting others go. The housework got done in the most minimal way ... anyone who comes to visit will note that the stairs leading to the second floor are more than in need of a good vacuuming to pick up the cat hair accumulating there.

I also let the yardwork go and thankfully God sent me an angel over the summer in the form of a neighborhood gentleman who kindly cut my grass for a small pittance. But this year the rhododendren is dead, the dogwood is dead, and a couple of azaleas have gone to the garden in the sky. They need to be dug up and I need to figure out what will go in their places, if anything. Weird little trees have taken root in my backyard, the peonies are being invaded by weeds galore. I have seeds to plant and garden soil to put down before I can plant them.

Why am I talking about all of that?

I want to get it all done! Not only do I want to do it because I love to work in my yard, but I want to do it because it hasn't been done in a year and needs to get done! I want my house to be organized and clean. Then I get a little overwhelmed because I've had to work at my job just about every weekend over the last several months, and I've been attempting to work a real 8-hour day during the week. That doesn't leave much energy for me at the end of the day to do the housework or the yardwork.

So, what I'm saying is, I'm still trying to find my right stance in order to balance on that beam of life. Some days it's easier than others. But each day I awake, I thank God for the opportunity. And each day I thank God that I am alive to try!

On the right track

I had my three-month check up on Tuesday and it seems I am on the right track. My hair is growing and my energy is better overall. I'm looking forward to summer!

Energy crisis

Today I filled up my car with gas and spent $32.15. What? When I bought the Miata it only took $10 to fill the car up with gas.

As most of my close friends know, I am no mathematician. But, I don't need to be one to note that it takes over three times as much money to fill up my gas tank today than it did when I first bought the car.

The way I feel physically is a lot like that these days. It seems like some days it takes me three times longer to get things accomplished than it did before I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had six rounds of chemotherapy.

I must say this is actually much more unsettling for me than spending three times as much money to fill up my gas tank.

I am not one to whine about being sick, and frankly have a very hard time sitting still most of the time. But the side effects from the chemo are lingering and it makes me want to whine!

I want to feel like my old self. But I guess I am not my old self. I haven't figured out exactly who or what my new self is yet either, and it seems like that person is someone different from one day to the next. Some days I have more energy than others, some days I can think clearer than on other days. Today a colleague of mine who has experienced cancer and chemo said that it can take up to a year to regain the energy and strength that we once took for granted.

A year seems like a very long time, but at least I have the option of having a year.

I hope that the energy crisis -- both the one regarding my car and the one regarding my health -- will resolve itself sooner than later. Something tells me that my health will be resolved sooner than the other!

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

Groundhog Day

It's February.

Ever since I was a kid, I really have not liked cold weather. Winter time has never been my favorite time of year. While my brothers and my friends were clammoring to go outside to play in the snow, I was wrapped up in a good book in front of the fireplace. I would start out a snowy day by going outside to play and build a snowman, but the cold air combined with the wet snow did not please me at all and that's when I'd end up inside reading.

By the time February came around, I'd have had just enough of being cooped up inside. If the groundhog said that we were to have an early spring, I would rejoice! As each day of this shortest month passed by, I searched for signs that spring was truly coming early. Is that a flower I see? Look there's a robin! A bud is forming on the dogwood tree! Smell the rain? That is spring rain!

The fact that I'm almost 50 has not changed my disposition toward winter and my hopefulness about springtime coming early. And I have more hope for spring this year than ever, despite what the groundhog said about six more weeks of winter!

And isn't hope what spring is all about?

Making progress

It's been five weeks since my last -- my very last -- chemotherapy treatment. Hurray! I'm feeling pretty joyous these days because my tastebuds are coming back and I can eat things that I only wished I could eat when I was in treatment. I haven't noticed any hair coming back, but my energy level is getting better; however, that is a slower process than I would like. And it's a little frustrating because I want to feel energetic and do more of the things I want to do ... like take all the Christmas decor down, or clean the spare bedroom out ... but I have discovered that the energy I do have still isn't what I'd consider "normal" ... I don't have the stamina that I'd like to have at this point. I'm still limited in how much I can do on any given day.

I've been told by the doctors and nurses, and I've read, that the fatigue -- the inertia and lethargy -- that comes as a result of the treatments for breast cancer can last for anywhere from 6 to 9 months after the treatments are over. I wanted to think that in my case that would not be true, but I'm having to come to terms with the fact that I am not superwoman.

That said, I am feeling hopeful and positive and appreciating every small stride I'm making in my recovery. It's a journey, and, as they say, every journey begins with one step. So here's to taking small steps to getting back to "normal" ... whatever that is!

Resolutions

Every year I make lame resolutions on January 1st and by the end of the first week of January I've pretty much already abandoned them. This year is going to be different because I'm going to make a resolution that won't be hard to keep. I'm going to be happy to be alive!

I'm going to be thankful for every moment and take joy in the simple things. I think this resolution will be easy to keep because it isn't unrealistic. I'm not saying I won't have bad days where I feel sorry for myself or have times when I get mad in traffic or get impatient while waiting in line at the grocery store. What I'm saying is that when those things happen, I'm going to remind myself that I've been fighting cancer for the last eight months and have come out on the other side of chemotherapy treatments. I'm going to remind myself that there are worse things than being stuck in traffic or a long, slow moving line. If I'm feeling sad or tired or defeated at any given moment, I'll remind myself that at least I have the opportunity to feel that way.

Yes, this year I am feeling pretty confident that I'll be successful at keeping my resolution. And I feel like the luckiest girl in the world because I'm able to make that resolution and work on it all year!