Hypothetical Thought Bubbles

I am having an experience.  The experience is that I got sick, and this corresponded to me getting diagnosed with a disease, and the diagnosis began to dictate a few events in my life: 1) I took medical leave from work.  2) I have to go to the doctor every week.  3) I have a tube thingy hanging out of my body. 4) I got a dramatic haircut and sometimes I put wigs on.  5) I have to be careful about keeping healthy and avoiding germs.

These are the facts surrounding my current experience.  Maybe you have similar things happening in your life.  Maybe you are pregnant and facts one, two, and/or five ring true to your current experience.  Maybe you have a spontaneous personality and can relate to fact number four.  Maybe you aren't presently having any of these experiences, but are dealing with some other out-of-the-ordinary event in your personal timeline.  It's normal, right?  It's life.

Lately, I've been trying to understand this insane reaction I have to the word "cancer".  I seriously hate it.  I hate the word, I mean.  I actually don't mind the thing itself.  The thing itself is an experience--I have respect for it.  But the word is so gross.  I don't want to be associated with it.  I don't want people to say it in my presence.  Before I had to claim it as a thing belonging to myself, I formed a very strong negative opinion about it.  I never liked the power behind it.  I don't like the image I have of it.  I don't like all the proudly bald, pink ribbon-wearing ladies marching for a "cause".  I don't like how people who have it are supposed to fight it and beat it, like it's a terrorist.  I just hate the word cancer like I hate the phrase, "Make America Great Again."

Recently I started to notice my subtle, subconscious irritation toward people (particularly strangers) who are sympathetic to me having cancer.  For example, I have been suspect of anyone who gives me puppy dog eyes or lingers too long in a hug.  I am also annoyed with anyone who tells me I'm still pretty.

Last week, a random parent from school who I have never met made a meal for me.  She wrote the sweetest note about how brave I am and how people are rooting for me.  It was the kindest and most generous gesture, and yet I felt extremely perturbed.  I thought, "What makes me more brave than anyone else living their life?"  Also, "Do you think I'm so withered and sad that I need a stranger to tell me I'm brave?" And then I thought, "Why I am so irrationally offended by this?"  Is it possible to be brimming with gratitude and resentment at the same time?

I've meditated long and hard about why I am inclined to scowl at people who are nice to me during this time in my life.  What I've realized is that my ego is terribly afraid of being seen as a weakdick.  I envision these fantasies behind every compassionate glance or warm gesture.  I imagine what people are imagining about me.  I imagine that people are associating me with that image of cancer that I despise, the one I need to be brave in order to beat.  I imagine they are pitying this once beautiful, young girl who is gonna lose her hair and puke after chemo, and who won't have babies cuz that shit fucked up her ovaries.  I imagine they think I might die--I might become some gray, skeletal figure with tubes hanging out of me before I take my last breath and my poor husband of only four years has to say goodbye.  And I get so angry because that image belongs to the word, but it doesn't belong to me.  I realize I am being slightly paranoid and insecure here, but I know I can't be the only one who has visualized outlandish, worst-case-scenario stuff when finding out someone has cancer.  I know it happens and I simply am not interested in starring in these hypothetical thought bubbles.  

I need everyone to know I'm OK.  I'm not gross.  I'm not sad.  I'm not dying.  I am just living my life according to the current facts, just like everyone else.  If I feel that people know that, then I can tone down the subconscious sass I have toward their charity.  I truly am grateful for the love.  I want to feel it fully and completely, without all this hostility.  
   

Cookie Cat! He's a Pet for Your Tummy!

I write to you from the depths of a brutal sugar coma. I'm not even vertical. I'm typing this on my phone from under a pile of covers. I'm actually drunk texting my blog.  This condition stems from cartoons and special occasions. I'll tell you about the later, first. Yesterday Dan and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary, so I decided I was entitled to break a few dietary rules. We went to a little Italian joint and I delighted myself with a bowl of pasta (I've been avoiding gluten), a bottle of wine (I've been avoiding alcohol) and a giant hunk of tiramisu (I've been avoiding gluten and alcohol and sugar). No regrets, dude. I would've died happily with my face in that fluffy pillow of tiramisu if that's what God had intended--it was exquisite.

However, the fetal position I now find myself in can't be blamed entirely on four years of marriage.  Earlier in the day, prior to my anniversary date, I had a fantasy baking date with my friend Laura (who incidentally made our wedding cake, so it was like our confectionery anniversary, technically). Aside from Laura's general savoir-faire and dessert wisdom, she has supreme knowledge of what's good the world of cartoons. Around the time I took medical leave from work and got super sick, she introduced me to Steven Universe-- a half human, half alien super hero adolescent with a show named after him. When I went into the hospital in February, I genuinely missed my friend Steven. I know that sounds very zombie millennial of me, but I swear this cartoon friend is so endearing, you would love him if you knew him, too! I felt connected to Steven after the very first episode of the series, in which he eats a freezer full of Cookie Cat ice cream sandwiches in an effort to hone in his super hero gem powers. The dude is stoked on cats and ice cream and his belly button is made of rose quartz--how could I not love him?!

Anyhow, back to my sugar stupor narrative. From the first time I saw Steven Universe, I'd get this hankerin' for Cookie Cats each time I'd watch an episode.  A few weeks back, I thought I might give in and treat myself to an ice cream sandwich, but as I stood in the frozen section of the grocery store, peering through the frosty glass, I realized an old-school rectangular sandwich just would not do. I needed the power of Cookie Cat. I left the store without any ice cream--if I was going to cheat my cancer diet, I was only going to do it for the cat.

When I have a dessert dream, I never let it die. I spent a lot of late nights googling "cookie cats" until I found this perfectly wacky YouTube video:

I texted Laura the link and told her we needed to make this fantasy a reality. Yesterday, we made it happen.

After a few chomps of cookie cat, I was buzzing from head to toe.  It goes without saying that I had already eaten my fair share of cookie dough scraps during the baking process, and had licked the spoon during the ice cream portion of the assembly.  Cookie Cat was giving me super human powers!

The moral of this blog post is that if a Cookie Cat gives you heart palpitations and you go ahead and carry on with your day by eating more sugar and alcohol at dinner time, you will wake up at 4am with a terrible headache and you will no longer have super powers. That is all.  The end. 

The Red Devil

This past Monday was my third time receiving chemotherapy.  I began early last month and I go every other Monday to get the drugs.  I will need to receive eight doses of chemo before they put me through another radioactive scan and see if I'm free and clear of lymphoma.  That should be around the end of May.  I'm just over a fourth of the way through this strange experience.

On Chemo Mondays, I start my day by getting blood drawn, so that my oncologist can check my numbers before sending me off to the Infusion Room.  So far, over the last five weeks since beginning treatment, I've managed to keep my numbers pretty stable, aside from my white blood cell count, which is always expected to plummet when a patient receives chemotherapy.  ALL <----seriously, ALL my swelling has gone down in my chest and my itching and night sweats have completely subsided.  I'm sleeping at night again!  The relief from the lymphoma symptoms far outweighs any negative symptoms I've experienced from the chemo.  My adorable doctor always giggles with joy at the end of my appointment and gives me a big hug.  I imagine she is just delighted to have a patient who isn't an old, crotchety mess.   

After meeting with Dr. Jeffreys, I head to the infusion chair.  First I get a bunch of anti-nausea meds dripped into me, and then I receive four different chemo drugs through my PICC line, one by one.  The first drug I get is called Doxorubicin, commonly referred to as the Red Devil.  A nurse administers it by hand through a giant syringe.  The stuff is bright, blazing red, so you can really feel at peace about it going into your veins.  Every few squeezes, the nurse pauses to check for blood return in the syringe, to make sure the drug is going into the vein, rather than the tissue.  If the Red Devil gets into your tissue, it will rip you to shreds.

This past week, I happened to have the pleasure of being waited on by a nurse who seemed to have been borrowed from another hospital.  She was quite awkward and rather tactless and when my dear aunt, who was joining me for the first time on a chemo date, asked about the logistics of the Red Devil distribution, Nurse Beth told a very comforting story about how this drug once burned a hole through the linoleum when a nurse dropped it at her last job.  Insert blushing, wide-eyed emoji here.

Nurse Beth was also concerned that I understand the gravity of having a low white blood cell count.  Her advice to me was as follows:

1) Don't leave the house.  2) Don't let people into your house.  3) If you do let people into your house, tell them to wash their hands before you even say hello to them. 4) Never go to the grocery store.  5) Don't eat any fresh fruits or vegetables: "Think about it," she said. "Those things grow in the ground...with dirt!" 6) If you have to eat a piece of fresh fruit, make sure it has a peel on it, and make someone else peel it for you.  7) You're better off eating cooked fruits and veggies.  Her example: "You can eat a cherry pie, but don't eat fresh cherries."  8) Don't touch any plants.  9) Stay away from fresh flowers.  10) Go ahead and die of nature deprivation. 

 I loved Nurse Beth. 

The whole Chemo Monday process takes around 5.5 hours.  When I get up from the chair, I feel super hungover, like I need fizzy water and large pizza, STAT.  I go home and take some vitamins and a long nap.  By the next day, I'm basically back to normal, aside from having a weird, sour, cottony feeling in my mouth.  I still have a lot of energy, and have been taking advantage of the mild weather by going on daily runs by the lake.  I am reluctant to give up my raw veggies and outer-worldly adventures, but I try to remember what Nurse Beth told me, despite feeling perfectly fine.

High Fructose Cancer

There are many silver linings to having cancer.  This week's cancer blessing came in the form of my body hair never growing back after shaving on Monday.  I am one silky lady!  I keep inviting Dan to stroke my armpits.  Other perks include justified napping, exemption from cat litter duties, and receiving care packages.

For the record, I am fluent in all five love languages, but receiving gifts is probably my strong suit.  I have been given so many sweet gifts since my diagnosis: owl pajamas, flower bouquets, a can of sardines and an orange, knife earrings, a cat painting, essential oil, jars of honey, frankincense, a book of haiku, tiny felted gnomes, a purple snail, remote Reiki, a candle made of kitten toots, snap pea crisps, a necklace etched with French profanities, delicious home-cooked meals, a salt lamp, and a string of heart garland--to name but a few!!  Oddly, the most common gifts I receive are coloring and activity books.

 Because I'm 5.

Nearly every week that I go into the Cancer Center, the nurses send me home with a care package put together by some local organization or school.  Last week I got a pair of fuzzy socks, a tube of chapstick, a pencil, and an assortment of terrible snacks.  Now here's where I turn into an ungrateful asshole.  Why are my chemo nurses giving me care packages full of Tootsie Rolls and Kit Kat bars? Why do all the snacks in the infusion room have high fructose corn syrup in them? Why are all my phlebotomists 300 lbs?  Why did my nurse offer me a Pepsi my first night in the ER?  Why am I more concerned about the effects of sugar than my dietitian?  Whyyyyyyyyyy?

These are the questions I ponder on the daily.  I get myself kinda worked up.  After I leave the Cancer Center, I always stop at the grocery store across the street before I head home.  I stand in line with my basket of organic kale and pumpkin seeds and hemp milk and I look at the overflowing carts ahead of me.  I get reeeeal judgmental.  "God damn Velveeta cheese!" I mumble.  "For heaven's sake, six boxes of Little Debbie!" I think disdainfully.  It's hard not to be mad that 17 years of vegetarian eating and general enthusiasm for healthy living did not save me from cancer.  I like to take it out silently on the shoppers in front of me, momentarily assuming that despite eating Hot Pockets for dinner 7 days a week, God has granted them immunity from disease and has instead chosen to strike me down.

By the time I pay for my groceries, my sensibility is restored and I soften to the idea that no one's life is free of hardship.  Velveeta-eaters have their own problems, cheese-derived or otherwise.  I remember the silver linings and I accept that this is my path.  I get the chemo, I eat the kale, I reject the Kit Kat, I count the blessings.