Good news: the oncologist says no chemo!!! I’m not one to indulge in triple exclamation points (okay, I sort of am), but who cares? Wahoo!!! I won’t bore you with the details of my first encounter with the big-wig oncologist (at least not yet…I’m sure I’ll get around to it) but suffice it to say that Mary and I both felt confident in his assessment that chemo, in my case, would be WAY over the top. So, I get to skip it. Yippee!!!
Off to celebrate.
Cheers!
Since I won’t know the answer to the chemo question for another few days, I’ve decided to use this “treatment lull” to get reacquainted with my body. As I’ve said before, thirteen years of yoga has made me hyper-aware of my anatomy. For the most part, this is a good thing. It helps me deal with a spine that has more twists and turns than a season of Lost, and apparently it’s quite useful for finding cancerous lumps. Yet, oozing awareness out of every square inch of one’s real estate has its downsides, especially when it comes to physical pain and trauma. So, last month, for the first time in a long time, I consciously checked out of my body.
I know lots of people distance themselves from their bodies. I know some people live entire lives unacquainted with their physicality. And, yet, I was surprised at how easy it was to say sayonara. In many ways, it felt like preparing the house to leave for a long vacation. But instead of checking the locks on the windows and putting timers on the lights, I busied myself getting in shape. For me, that meant doing LOTS of power yoga because it makes me feel invincible—something I knew I’d need for the trip. Then, the night before my double mastectomy, I took stock of my internal milieu, tidied up one final time, locked the door, and walked away.
Lest you think this is turning into some Sybil-like memoir, don’t worry, I didn’t go far. I just went around the corner; far enough that I could keep an eye on things. And, of course, Mary stood guard. Having a trusted sentinel at the gate made the disembodiment feel doable and safe. And, so, I became an observer of the process.
Like a medical voyeur, I sat back and watched things like the nervous resident jabbing my vein with a needle and Mary telling the drunk-with-power nurse for the zillionth time why the pregnancy-test protocol was a waste of everyone’s time. More importantly, the distance imbued me with a sense of calm in those final nightmarish moments in the operating room–before the anesthesiologist does his thing–when you can’t help but see things you don’t want to see. In the end, all things better observed than endured.
Immediately before and after my surgeries, the distance from my body was a blessing; but, alas, one can’t stay on vacation forever and, last week, I decided it was time to return home. Luckily, re-entry was easy. I simply rolled my yoga mat out and crawled on. Yoga is my fail-safe way to plug directly back into my body. Indeed, the transition occurs so quickly I almost get whiplash. That first day, I painfully arranged my limbs into the only pose I could muster–child’s pose–and I cried. My tears weren’t because my body felt ill-fitting after my long absence but because the body I’d abandoned the month before welcomed me back with open arms, no questions asked.
Since that day, I’ve been kicking the tires and, frankly, I’m shocked at the condition of my chassis. When I walked away, everything was functioning pretty well. My muscles were tone, my back was flexible, things were grooving. Yes, of course, I’m realistic; I didn’t expect my body to feel untouched upon my return, but I didn’t expect it to feel like someone had ransacked the place. While I was on my sojourn the muscles of my back turned to concrete, my arm muscles went AWOL, and my shoulders drifted forward, like settlers circling the wagons to protect their fort.
I am not a wuss. I usually get things up and running on my own. But my body was in shambles. I didn’t know where to start, and I could sense that mutiny was only one false move away. It was time to call in reinforcements. I started with my Rolfer (for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, Rolfing is a form of body work that releases connective tissue). To my relief, she put my shoulders back in their rightful place and reintroduced the front of my body to the back of my body—we agreed I’d obviously tried to back out of my body. A couple of days later a massage therapist began to demolish the concrete in my back. And this afternoon an osteopath gently steered several wayward vertebrae back into alignment. Yes, it takes a village.
And, of course, I’m gingerly returning to yoga. Restorative and Iyengar classes have taken the place of power yoga, and I’m rekindling my home practice. Yoga channels me straight into the undertow of my subconscious. Normally, I resist–seeing the value in staying grounded–but these days I indulge by allowing myself to sink down into the deep. Breath by breath. Pose by pose. I tentatively explore the perimeters of stiffness and occasionally bump into the barbwire of pain. But I keep inching into territory that is simultaneously foreign and familiar because I’m on a rescue mission. I’m looking for pieces of myself that survived the looting. Specifically, I’m looking for that feeling of invincibility; I know it’s around here somewhere.
Since my breast cancer diagnosis, I’ve been lapping up Dana Jennings’ weekly essays in New York Times. An editor at the paper, Jennings is undergoing treatment for an aggressive form of prostate cancer, and his wry essays brim with the kind of dark humor and honesty I crave in an otherwise saccharin world of cancer prose. But his essay in today’s NYT made me want to punch him.
Jennings riffs about how much power he draws from his cancer hairdo–a buzz cut. “I needed the primal ferocity that a buzz cut proclaims,” he writes. “I needed to look like a soccer thug or an extra from ‘Prison Break’ to help get me through surgery.” He refers to his do as a “visible bulwark against the tide of emasculating side effects caused by the treatment for prostate cancer.” Then, to widen his lens, he quotes Anatole Broyard, who, in his memoir Intoxicated by My Illness, wrote, “It seems to me that every seriously ill person needs to develop a style for his illness.”
Okay. Call me sensitive but the combination of Jennings crowing about his hyper-masculine hair while backing the idea that seriously ill folks should “get a sense of style” rubbed me the wrong way. I have no beef with Jennings or his hair. I’m thrilled that his GI Joe look boosts his masculinity. But, while he is reveling in his inner caveman and basking in the glow of societal acceptance of “tough guy hair,” my fledgling attempts at “cancer style” have been shot down by the women I call “breast cancer stylistas.”
I have many examples but here’s my fave:
The morning after my double mastectomy a gray-haired nurse steered her long, shiny metal cart into my hospital room. A veritable mastectomy patient’s ice cream truck, the cart bulged with magic camisoles. In less than ten minutes, she had me out of my hospital gown and into my new, white cotton shell. My first feeling was one of relief because the clever cami had two secret pockets designed specifically to hold the two feet of tubing and hand-grenade-sized drains sprouting from either side of my chest. (Up until that point, I really had no idea what to do with these unwelcome appendages.) But my sense of ease was usurped by a feeling of horror and confusion when she held up what appeared to be two Nerf footballs and aimed them at my chest. Awkward glances bounced between me, my Mom, and Mary, as the no-nonsense nurse showed me how to insert the foam ham hocks into the upper half of the camisole–so I would feel “more comfortable in my clothes.”
Wha? Fake bazookas? Already? And five times bigger than my dearly departed? Sheesh, my chest wasn’t even cold yet. The girls had been gone less than a day. I felt like the schmuck who takes a date to his wife’s funeral. Needless-to-say, I took a pass. (No pun intended.) Let me be clear, I’m not dissing women who choose breast reconstruction or wear prostheses. I firmly believe in a woman’s right to choose her own chest. But I think these choices—whether to go flatchested or opt for brand new double Ds–need to be made with eyes wide open and a full understanding of risks and rewards. The fact that the nurse didn’t bother to ask me my preference was only half of the insult. The kicker was that those Hasbro rejects were decidedly not about helping me find my style. They were more about helping me find my denial. And denial is not stylish.
Jennings almost redeems himself when, toward the end of his essay, he says he’s “not interested in keeping stoic secrets in which cancer becomes the fetus of shame buried in the root cellar.” Great image, but I wish he’d step on the clue train. There is a huge industry devoted to keeping us breast cancer chicks in the root cellar, and it has an army of well intentioned breast cancer stylistas doing its bidding (god love’em).
To top off my ire, Jennings quotes Broyard again: “only by insisting on your style can you keep from falling out of love with yourself as illness attempts to diminish or disfigure you.”
Am I disfigured? Well, that depends on whom you ask.
Am I diminished? Hell no.
Or, at least, not yet…check back in a month or two. With the possibility of chemo on the horizon, I’m sure the breast cancer stylistas have big plans for my bald head and I’m certain my new look won’t include a buzz cut.
For a few blessed hours this week, I nearly forgot about my cancer. After seven weeks of thinking/breathing/eating breast cancer, I got a reprieve and, oddly enough, I have Uncle Sam to thank.
Since the day the C-bomb dropped (January 29th), I’ve been upset about the fact that the IRS really expects me to pay taxes on April 15th. I’ve never heard such crazy-talk. Everyone with cancer should automatically get an extension on their taxes because, when you have cancer, doing your taxes–much less on time–is the absolute last thing you can (and should) worry about. But I’m a worrier. Therefore, I’ve been worried about both my stoopid cancer and how in the hell I’m going to do my taxes. And by “do” I mean paying someone else to do them because I’m too worried I’ll screw them up.
I usually do my taxes in late January or early February. I close the door to my office, crank up the space heater, and let the receipts pile up like snowdrifts. I like the routine. I like the predictability. But, most of all, I like the office supplies. I adore office supplies. Last December, my Christmas stocking bulged with a box of my favorite pens, a collection of fashion binder clips, and six different styles of Post-it Notes. Normally, I stash these treasures in my desk and dole them out carefully throughout the year, but at tax time, I indulge my every office-supply fantasy. Everything from flower-shaped Post-it Notes to neon highlighters, even my fancy binder clips come into play. But this year, not even the sight of pretty office supplies could coax me out from under my cancer rock.
So, last week, in a session with my new cancer shrink, I fretted about my taxes. We agreed that baby steps were needed. So, Friday afternoon I dug my 16-page tax booklet out from under three months worth of crap and called it a day. On Saturday I gazed at the sad, empty pages of the worksheet and I felt myself getting sucked in. The pull of the familiar. The comfort of routine. Yes, the lure of my taxes.
Sunday, as I started penciling in numbers, rubbing out mistakes with my over-sized pink eraser, and guiltily writing off my zillionth pair of yoga pants, I noticed something weird happening. The more progress I made on my taxes, the more my mood lifted. To be honest, my taxes weren’t the only thing I did last weekend, but I’d like to think they were instrumental in jolting me back to some sense of normalcy because then at least I’ll know they are good for something.
Tomorrow afternoon is my appointment with my tax lady. And, yes, she is someone you’d describe as a lady. In fact, she resembles the Church Lady in poise, hairstyle, and demeanor. Right down to how she purses her lips when I mention my “partner.” I’m pretty sure, after I leave, she kneels down in her wood-paneled office and prays for my heathen soul. But, hey, I live in the middle of Indiana–a girl can’t afford to be choosy. So, maybe I’ll play the breast-cancer card in hopes that she’ll give me a 10 percent discount or offer to file an extension for me for free. Or, maybe, just maybe, I’ll forget to mention it.
The bad news: the surgery hurt like hell (again).
The good news: the surgeon’s office called late this afternoon with the latest pathology report. The tissue margins were clear (aka the surgeon did not slice into the tumor as feared), and the tumor was smaller than anticipated, less than 1 centimeter.
Time for a margarita.