Did You Ever Think Life Was Gonna Be This Way?

Surprise! I'm posting again, twice in one week!  Q: OMG! How can this be? A: I had an check-up and chemo yesterday, and some thoughts about that. So I thought I would go ahead and share. Chemo brain teaches you not to wait and write it all down later, because later arrives and your brain is blank in the spot that was holding your thoughts. It's nice. I hope you never have to try it, and I also hope that you have a lot of patience with your friends who DO have chemo brain (because they do!) and forget words, comments, previous discussions, plans, addresses, directions, phone numbers, what they were going to say - you name it. They are much more frustrated/annoyed about it than you are, and there's nothing to be done but make lists and calendar appointments and then make lists to remember that you did all that - and then keep the master list of lists somewhere you won't forget. I know aging leads most down this road eventually, but I'm 43 and had a photograp...

*to the tune of Don Maclean's "American Pie" Well, well, well! It's been a while, hasn't it? I got sidetracked as the second half of May engulfed me in a wave of "school's (almost) out, camps are starting and you should have registered in January" insanity, and after a couple of weeks, I realized that no one was asking me where the next blog update was and it was both a disappointment (for obvious reasons) and a relief (because I'd been starting to obsess a bit over the idea that I had to post consistently). So then I just started navel gazing rather than thinking and writing. I took a mental vacation, I suppose. It was sort of nice! But I discovered that the reason why I don't take mental vacations very often is because I get a little too cozy with my life-long nemesis, anxiety, and her BFF, depression. So the mental vacation is over and you'll all just have to pretend you're really eager for regular installments if I fall of...

Spoiler Alert: I guess it's possible: I finally complained too much. But I had no choice, with the complaining and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth and so on! I've spent about $9 kajillion on skincare solutions but my skin would not play nicely. I can't even believe I'm saying this, but it's not even the acne all over my face that has been bothering me the most. It's the fact that I feel like a cicada nymph about to become a glorious locust, but without the glorious locust payoff. Don't know what I'm talking about? Feast your eyes on this: If that's not interactive enough for you, it appears that you can buy empty cicada shells in a fancy jar on Etsy . And then you, too, can feel what it's like to have my skin, at least a little...by putting one of the shells on your thumb? (Seriously, though, what is going on with this, Etsy? I feel like I just stumbled into the dark underbelly of the craft world.)  Anyhoo, I'm gonna wh...

When it comes to my cancer treatments, the hardest periods for me are the "in-between" ones. One treatment has ended due to toxicity or tolerance but a new one hasn't yet begun - or even worse, a new course of action has yet to be decided. These are the minutes, hours, days, and weeks that really send me into deep distress. Each day is interminably long. I feel paralyzed by the lack of action, fearful of what's coming down the pipeline, and anxiety ridden over whether the new approach will work. I start to shut down and disconnect. "I just need a breather, time to process," I tell myself as I snuggle back into my bed instead of getting up to start my day. "I need to give myself a break," I say as I climb into a bubble bath and watch three episodes of "Friends" in a row. It's no big deal. I'll be back at it tomorrow.  Life carries on - kids get to school, husband gets to work, our dogs skid around corners and bark at the deliv...

I have the tendency to leave out the messy, sad, difficult parts of my everyday life with cancer. The reasons for that are legion, but they boil down to one: we all like to present our best selves. No one likes to feel vulnerable and naked to the world. I don't want people feeling sorry for me or pitying me. There are only a tiny handful of people that I really open up to about this terrible disease, and that's because it's a huge burden and frankly, I don't want to trust just anyone with sharing my load.  But I don't want everyone to think life is all rainbows and sunshine, either.  When one of my closest friends, who loves me very much (and the feeling is mutual), urged me to stop obsessing over certain things and gave me a well-intentioned pep talk about how the big crisis was over and it was time to find my "new normal"...well, I knew I had some 'splaining to do. If someone that close to me thinks that we're all done with cancer around her...

...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.)

After a long hiatus in which I could only watch "Friends" episodes, listen to the All Souls trilogy on audiobook, walk around feeling like I'd drunk a gallon of coffee, and sometimes - sometimes  - knit, I've finally read a book. Two books, in fact! I'm so proud. One seems to have a bit more synergy with my present situation, however, so I give you: Station Eleven: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel Had Station Eleven been written in a chronologically organized way, it would have been a nice addition to the growing field of post-apocalyptic fiction. But Mandel instead takes readers through life before "the collapse," as well as during and after that seminal event, using a technique that reminded me of a disorganized but dazzling pile of photographs.  Readers follow the fates of a handful of people introduced in the first chapter of the book, which occurs in a theater just before the collapse. What really makes this book sparkle is the organi...

It's been a while, because my brain has been too scattered to focus on an actual book, but I like to post recent book reviews I've written, especially when the book in some way intersects with the rest of my life. Today, The Light Between Oceans : If you're looking for a book to break your heart a little, this is the one to read. A sweet young couple pines for a family as they live alone on a lighthouse island, and one day, fate plays its hand and brings them a baby, which they decide to keep. The decision to do so winds up destroying their quiet and isolated lives.  Is it a happy ending? I don't know. Is it a heart-true and lovely story? Yes, absolutely. It's very easy to put yourself into the positions of the various protagonists, and every avenue is an awful one, with agonizing consequences. I was pleasantly surprised that the story stayed strong all the way to the end, after the obviously discovered denouement. That's difficult to achieve, but Ste...

So, I'm all done with my radiation therapy, two days early - and not a moment too soon, because for whatever reason, it was making me supremely depressed. My oncologist mentioned once that radiation patients seem to experience depression at a higher level than other patients but he didn't have an explanation. I don't have an explanation, either, but I was a big disaster for the last four days. Just ask my husband, my mom, or my dad, all of whom were privvy to various temper tantrums and breakdowns. My kids also saw me weepy and taking to my bed, Victorian style. Not terribly proud of that, but to be honest, it was probably for the best to have me tucked away in the bedroom like an ailing great-granny. My poor kids - they're going to think motherhood consists of crying and sleeping. At least they seem to take it in stride - when I fell asleep on the couch yesterday for two hours, my 7 year old daughter, who was home sick with a fever, came over and covered me with a b...