Wow - Three Years

It's hard to believe that I started this blog three years ago. In fact, I missed my three year anniversary of this blog (it was Oct 15, 2007) as well as the three-year mark for my second diagnosis of breast cancer (October 3, 2007).

At the time, I never thought I'd go through what I've been through. Here's a list:

Surgeries: 2 (bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction) with 1 more planned

Radiation: 6 1/2 weeks to kill the cancer in the skin (June 15 to Aug 1 2008)

Mets Diagnoses: Skin - 2 times (right breast area; left armpit); Lung (3 in left side); Bone Marrow - multiple sites; Lymph Nodes - multiple sites; Liver - potential site?

Targeted therapies - Tykerb (March 2008 to January 2009; April 2009 to Nov or Dec 2009); Herceptin (January 2010 to July 2010); Femara (August 2009 to November 2009)

Chemotherapies - Oral Xeloda (March 2008 to December 2008; April 2009 to July 2009); Abraxane (October 2010 to ??)

Open Skin Wounds - Right breast area (March 2008 to February 2009); Left armpit - August 2010 to present)

Depression - two times when it was hard to lift my mood, when I remember envying "normal" people

Worry - multiple times

But there was good news - I achieved "stable disease" from August 2008 to April 2009). And, it looks like I might be headed to stable disease again. (There are two kinds of remission, one in which a patient is NED or no evidence of disease. And, there is "stable disease", which is me, because I may never get rid of the calcium deposits in my bone marrow since they take so long to resolve and the calcium deposits are evidence of disease.)

I have enjoyed incredible support from family, friends, and colleagues. I have reconnected with high school friends through Facebook. I have grown closer to many people. My son is healthy and doing well. I have "met" several cancer bloggers, a few in person and others just online. These women have taught me how to persevere, how to deal with side effects, how to continue living life to the fullest, how to stay connected, how to approach this disease, and I'm happy to continue sharing in their lives through their blogs.

I also have very good medical care providers, including my oncologist, my radiation oncologist, my therapist, my acupuncturist, my wound care nurse, the UW clinical trial doctors, the infusion nurses, my surgeon, my plastic surgeon, and all the nurses who help my doctors.

I feel that I have learned a lot about diet, alternative forms of healing such as Chinese Medicine, and have started my own spiritual search. In terms of spirituality, I have done a lot of reading and have an eclectic mix of things that I believe in. I have had some experiences, too, that can't be explained. I feel like I am healthier mentally and emotionally than I've ever been before.

It's really been a roller coaster ride. It's a metaphor that is probably overused, but at the moment, I can't think of another way to describe it. The truth is that there have been highs and lows. But through my learning of how to cope with this disease, I've learned how to cultivate happiness. I have learned to create gratitude lists. I focus on what I have rather than what I don't. I make a choice each morning deciding that I will be happy. I don't always succeed, but I never feel guilty about that. I do, however, try to let the bad feelings pass through me, now, rather than hold on to them. I feel, though, that with all that I have learned and the recent treatments I have had, I may be poised to enjoy a long period of remission. I have some work to do to enable that - like trying to not eat sugar in my diet (which feeds the cancer) and to practice qigong and meditation more regularly. But I'm getting there.

I wish I could've learned all these lessons without having cancer. I would never wish this on anyone. But that's not the way it turned out. As I'm found of saying nowadays, "It is what it is." Not much I can do about how it happened. I do have control over what will happen next, which is to live a good life and to continue learning how to be a better person.

Because life is good. And, I'm thankful for it and for all the support that I have received. Thank you for reading the blog. Here's to 30 or more years of it, huh? : )

What a difference a year makes!

One of the blogs I read, Laurie at Not Just About Cancer, had a post last week about the passing of Sara, at Moving Right Along. Her partner wrote about her passing yesterday on her blog. There were a lot of other bloggers who posted about her and how sorry they are for her death. She had had cancer for many years, I believe, and it was the cancer that prompted the doctors to amputate her right leg several years ago. I don't know the whole story. She also posted about disablism. I've linked to her blog before; what I appreciated the most about what she had to say was how important it is to live a normal life even with a terminal or life-threatening disease, and to find joy and happiness even though all this other health-related crap is occurring. I remembered Sara this past week-end, as I trimmed my lilac bush, because I remembered that she was looking forward to lilacs blooming in the Boston area last spring. Last spring, I posted a picture of my blooming lilac for Sara and she commented and said, "thanks!".

So, today, as I searched for that post from last year, I skimmed through my entries from that time.

Boy, what a difference a year makes! I was facing the prospect of doing radiation again, dealing with side effects from Xeloda and Tykerb, and yet also trying to model the outlook Sara and Laurie and Carver have about enjoying life as much as possible and learning to appreciate what you have instead of always bemoaning what you've lost. A few weeks after the blooming of the lilacs, I entered into a depression that I struggled against and with the help and the support of a lot of my readers and my colleagues, I got through it.

And, now a year later, my tumor markers have been well within the normal range for months. My sleep is improving, slowly, Scott and I are back together, work is busy but very satisfying, and I am looking forward to another trip to Norway in a few weeks, my family and I will be in Seaside enjoying the Oregon coast this week-end, and I have the support of many friends and family and colleagues, still. I'm happy. Life is full and mostly fun. My son is doing well. I don't really have any complaints (well, except against these silly bureaucratic duties that come with my job, and, obviously for the fact that I've had to deal with cancer). But, life is good.

Also, Scott received the news on Saturday evening that a long-time family friend (the father of a bunch of boys he grew up with) died the night before (April 3). I only met Orville once, at a party for his son's 50th birthday two years ago. He and I sat talking for a good long time; he just had interests in a lot of different things, particularly archaeology and anthropology. I think he was an engineer and he and his sons worked on cars a lot. He had a lot of hobbies and seemed to enjoy life and to enjoy learning. He was full of life, I guess. Scott was shocked at his passing and then felt bad that he's been so wrapped up with things happening with his daughter and getting laid off from his job in January that he hadn't seen him in awhile. Orville Sayre died of cancer, too, that he'd been struggling against for the last year or so.

Rest in peace, Sara. Rest in peace, Orville. God (or whatever power you believe in) knows that you both deserve it.

One Year Ago Today . . .

I was waiting to hear about whether or not I could go on Tykerb/Xeloda and I was waiting to hear the results of the CT scan that I had either that day or the day before. The title of the post was "Waiting Again. . ."

Things are certainly a lot more positive than they were a year ago. There were a lot of unknowns about my treatment and whether or not it would all work. But it has worked. It's been a long road, but the treatments have worked and I finally have boobs again.

It's just a matter of recovering from this surgery. Scott asked me this morning if I planned to do any work. I said, "not today. It's my intention to take it easy for the rest of the week." I'm still feeling a little light-headed and this sense of dizziness seems worse when I try to read or work on the computer. So . . . I'm gonna watch a movie. My friend, Josh, lent me their copy of Amadeus about 8 months ago, so I think I'll finally watch it! It's better than listening to all this over-saturation in the news of the octuplets. I'm reminded, now, why I rarely watch the news on TV. They go over and over and over the same story with maybe a small change each time. I'd rather read about stuff once it's over and done with . . .

Have a great day!

Auspicious Dates

One of my blogger friends, Jeanne in NYC at "Rock the Bald", said something about auspiciious days on her blog. It seems an apt description for me as well.

1) It just hit me today that I've been blogging for over a year - I started this blog on October 15, 2007. Boy, those early entries of mine are interesting to read - it was when I thought that my cancer was only 2-3mm in size. What a difference a year makes!

2) Yesterday - November 3 -marked the one year anniversary of my Boob Ball. In honor of that anniversary, here is another picture of that event that I don't think I posted before:

Karen's entry for the "boob food" contest -


Heather Kenagy with her stepdaughter, Kiana - (This is Heather from "My Xeloda" fame.)


I think I should have another party sometime soon, huh?

3) Yesterday, I worked on my placename density article all day and got an almost final draft! I think I need to fix some typos and make a couple of other small changes, but I think that I will be able to send it out tomorrow! Yay! Interesting that I finished it on the first anniversary of the Boob Ball.

4) Today, as everyone knows, is Election Day. Two of my fellow bloggers (NYC Jeanne and Carver) said that they went to their polling stations when they first opened today. Laurie, at Not Just About Cancer, lives in Canada, but she posted a Doonesbury cartoon about the election. I'd more or less tuned out most of the campaigning - I'd made up my mind long ago and the stuff I found out about Palin when in Alaska only solidified my vote (i.e., for Obama) - and today felt like a normal kind of day to me -nothing special. Part of that is because Oregon has mail-in balloting, so there's no going to the polls and standing in line to cast your vote. On the one hand, as an anthropologist who appreciates rituals and how they highlight special events in life, not going to a polling station does diminish that sense of camaraderie that can come with seeing evidence that you're doing your part in a democracy. In other words, we Oregonians do lose out, to some extent, on the excitement that comes with bumping into fellow voters at the voting booth. On the other hand, I do think that the mail-in balloting does increase voter turnout. Bill Bradbury, Oregon's Secretary of State, said that after the 2004 election, Oregon had an 87% voter turnout rate in a Washington Post article. However, there are some critics that state that perhaps Vote By Mail isn't a good idea because it seems to favor affluent voters, because they state that there is a higher chance for fraud, because it could be manipulated by election officials and because it relies on the reliability of the U.S. Postal Service.

I want to note that one study they cite shows that Vote by Mail increased voter turnout in Oregon by 4% (another study said 10%), but that it only tended to increase the numbers of people who were more inclined to vote anyway. At first blush, my response is that any increase in the numbers of voters is a good thing, right? In terms of fraud, the only studies that the authors cite are from local elections in Georgia and Florida - there doesn't seem to have been any cases of voter fraud in Oregon. In fact, during last spring's primary election, on my mail-in ballot, I forgot to sign the envelope (they put a secrecy envelope over your ballot and then you stick this into another envelope that you sign, stating that you're registered and that you are the person listed on the ballot) and the election officials tried to contact me at work to let me know, but it was toolate in the afternoon and by the time I got the message, it was too late, so they didn't count my ballot. (I think I need to give them my cell number.) In terms of being manipulated by election officials - the authors state that Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and California do distinguish between active and in-active voters, with the implication being that in-active voters might not be sent a ballot. But other than citing an example from Colorado, it does not state that this kind of thing happens in Oregon. As far as I know, Oregon sends ballots out to all registered voters. Oregon even makes sure when you get your driver's license that you can register to vote and/or change your address as a registered voter. And, the comment about the U.S. postal service - I think it's fairly reliable. And, I think that if voters did not get their ballot here in Oregon, they could go to their county elections office to get a replacement one.

I, for one, like the convenience of vote-by-mail. It works for me. I've lived in three other states - Alaska, Virginia, and Connecticut - and I only really remember voting in Connecticut as the years in Virginia and Alaska were non-presidential election years, so I didn't even bother to register. I notice that I vote in the smaller elections, too, because of this vote-by-mail system. The ballot comes in the mail and it sits on my table, reminding me that I need to vote, as it is my duty as a citizen.

I'm currently watching CNN and based on their projections - as of 7:41pm PDT, Obama has 207 electoral votes and McCain has 135.