Did You Ever Think Life Was Gonna Be This Way?

Since my last scan, I've been thinking a lot about the next phase of my life.  I've had life-saving medical intervention that has allowed me to banish almost all of my cancer. I've spent some serious time relaxing and pampering myself, and I have the energy and recovering fingernails (they kept splitting!) to prove it. And now I'm ready to move on, to open a new chapter in my life. I feel as though my future wellness is really in my own hands right now. Do I want to spend my life "managing my illness" - or do I want to commit myself to enhancing my wellness? Um, I'll take the latter, thankyouverymuch!! My new approach consists of four "buckets," if you will: nutrition, exercise, mindfulness, and intellectual engagement . I'm not becoming Buddha or anything (yet!), but I've read enough that I'm convinced that a vegan, low-sugar diet is going to serve me best. I'm walking every day and committed to enjoying yoga again 3-4 times ...

This time last year, I was starting a new round of chemo - Folfox, which we now know really REALLY wreaked havoc on my systems, especially my platelets and white blood cells - they even wound up testing me for leukemia this spring because my counts were so low. Andy platelets, once robust and normal as yours, still have not recovered. At this point, my oncologist says the damage is probably permanent and that my platelets have "reset" themselves at this new, much lower level. Just to give you an idea of what's normal in the world of platelets, 150k-400k is the normal range. During chemo, my oncologist required my platelet levels to be at 100k or higher. Today, my platelets are generally around 75k. Last time I had chemo, the medical team had to request (and thankfully, received) special permission ("compassionate use")for me to use a drug that would boost my platelets to an acceptable level for treatment. Fun stuff, right?  But I  digress. I started this post fu...

Last week was, well, hellish. I did my best to keep busy...we even had family pictures taken on Thursday morning: See? Tranquilizer darts DO work! And then came Thursday night and that meant I wasn't going to get much sleep. Not only because of the anxiety but because of the prednisone. See, way back a long time ago (um, last spring), the first time I had a high-contrast CT scan, I developed a mild rash a few days later. And so now all of my files have big ALLERGY ALERT stickers all over them, and any time I have to get a high-contrast scan, I have to take 10 tablets of steroids within the 24 before treatment and then, just for good measure, I chase that cocktail with a couple of Benadryl an hour before the scan. It's super fun. I'm jittery as hell and then suddenly sleepy (if they give me the injectable Benadryl, then I'm REALLY the life of the party). If these scans were just once a year or whatever, I probably wouldn't mind as much. But by my reckoning, I...

...brought to you by "Friends," rose, and the world's most chocolatey cookies.

Early this week, not long after I wrote a tongue-in-cheek post about how I wasn't going to say things about how you should hold your sweeties tight and tell them you love them, I received word that my college friend, Rachel Perlmeter, had died of a heart attack on Sunday. She was 38 years old. An absolutely brilliant artist and human being. I met her when she was a freshman at Northwestern and I was a sophomore - a place really just chock full of geniuses - and even so, she stood apart. She was kind and brilliant and funny as hell and one of only a handful of people I've ever met my whole life long who loved books even more than I did (do). She went on to have this amazing career full of artistry and beauty, filling the spaces between theater and literature and art with her own special vision, and married a man that she told me she adored. We hadn't talked in a couple of years but she came to mind at unexpected times and places. Her death has really rocked me.  It migh...

...My next CT scan has been scheduled for October 10th. I probably won't post about it until the weekend though, so don't ask. xo First up: Tightrope Walking Across the Uneven Bars Don't worry, Nadia. There's a mat for when you fall. (Can you believe there aren't any "anxiety olympics" images? Quick, someone make me a sketch.)