Counting Down

Three weeks from two days ago we get on a plane (or rather the first of a series of three planes) and fly off to Wellington. Preparing for a major move like this involves a strange combination of limbo and rush, kind of like planning our wedding did (although most of the details don’t overlap, except for changing information on certain things like bank accounts and the house title . . . although, come to think of it, I didn’t, in fact, change anything about the house title when we got married, which is why I just filed a quit claim deeding Ian’s share of the house to him last week, after 5 ½ years of marriage. Well, I wanted to make sure it would stick).

I’ve spent the last two weekends away, visiting friends and relatives, which has necessarily ramped up my activity level when I’m at home, and has helped me start to feel disjointed. For example, I wonder “what’s the point in unpacking my bags and putting away all my clothes again?” And yet, in the next three weeks we’re holding a garage sale and hosting a going away party and potentially having out of town guests for a night or two (A&E in SF, are you reading this???), so in other words we’re actively living in our house still, so it can’t all go to shit yet. But there nevertheless seems to be some futility in putting things away in a chest of drawers that, 2.714 weeks from now, will be stored in someone’s basement anyway.

A while back I made a list of things I wanted to do and people I wanted to see before taking off, and I’ve crossed off all the people (by seeing them, not by deciding not to see them), but I can’t even remember what was on the list of things to do. I don’t feel like I’m missing out, though—it seems I just do a pretty good job of enjoying my life while I’m living it. I try not to focus too much on leaving the dog behind—he’ll be happier with Mom and Marsh than he would be for 20 hours of transit and a month in quarantine, and a kennel whenever we travel, etc etc . . . but it’s sad. He’s a very sweet dog.

The necessary details are marching along. We’ve rented the house, we’ve sold our cars, we’ve hired the movers and scheduled them to deliver a couple major pieces around the city. I typically don’t care that much for spring—it doesn’t grab my soul the way fall and winter and summer do—but I did notice the other day that I was starting to seriously look forward to asparagus and fava beans . . . and the thought of another 7 or 8 months of squash and sweet potatoes made me sigh. But the adventure, the opportunity for a different global perspective, those I’m excited for.

Now we just need our visas to come through soon . . .

No Thank You

Last Monday, the day before I had my port removed, I completed my second to last appointment for all things cancer related. I had my meeting with the radiation oncologist, which I appreciated very much indeed. I spent some time with a resident at first, and then with the doctor herself, and both were willing to answer all my questions. The doctor in particular was convinced that radiation therapy would increase my long-term chances of remaining cancer-free. She works closely with my surgeon and my regular oncologist, and I think the three of them make a fine team, and will help numerous other people whose challenge is breast cancer.

She didn’t pull punches in trying to convince me, letting me know that possible side effects include reduced bone density in the ribs under the radiation site (which could lead to easy fractures if I, say, ever fell off a horse) and ulcerated skin at the site which might ultimately need to be healed with a skin graft. These, of course, are unlikely outcomes.

But in the game of probabilities, are these side effects any more or less likely than the possibility that some cells escaped surgery and the naturopathic remedies I was using, and are ominously at large in my body?

The doctor apologized for not having a study that really spoke to my (agreedly unusual) situation; I explained that my husband is a statistician, and I therefore know pretty well that statistics say nothing whatsoever about individual cases, so I wasn’t likely to be swayed by numbers anyway. I’m not sure if that helped or not.

The upshot was, though, that the entire two hours I felt like I was at a documentary screening or something equally unrelated to my specific life. Informative, but in a vaguely distant way. The thought of the possible side-effects didn’t make me afraid; the thought of what might happen if I didn’t do six weeks, everyday treatments didn’t make me afraid. At this stage in how I feel about my health and my life, the entire scenario simply did not apply.

The Last Step

Two days ago I got my port removed, rather than cause the shit storm that teaching Ian to access it would’ve engendered. It’s great—I feel, now, completely free. In fact, for the last couple days, I’ve felt huge buffeting waves of energy flowing into me and knocking me around. I should clarify—this is definitely spiritual energy, not physical energy. The procedure was relatively short and minor, and took place with only local anesthetic and sedation (something like Valium but with even stronger amnesiac effects—don’t ask me what I did Tuesday afternoon but I’m pretty certain it didn’t include signing any legal documents), but the physical after effects have, nevertheless, included many naps and a lot of richly dream-filled sleep. No, the waves of energy? electricity? come when I’m lying in bed, or on the couch, and something hits me and I feel like I’m suspended, washed this way and that, on a warm, wild sea of possibility. It’s exhilarating, this life.

Say That Again?

Last Thursday Ian and I went to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance for my post-surgical check-up with the oncologist. As I’ve chosen, this go-around, to behave non-traditionally in terms of my care, it wasn’t clear that this appointment was going to be much more than jumping through a hoop, particularly because of my current oncologist situation.

If you’ll remember, my previous oncologist, the one that I had for about 7 years, from June 1999 through the end of May 2006 (okay, that really is exactly 7 years), left Seattle at the end of my maintenance treatments for the infinitely warmer and dryer climes of Tucson, Arizona. My new oncologist, whom I met for the first time in October, right about the time I started having panic attacks, went on maternity leave virtually as soon as she delivered my new diagnosis. She seemed very nice, and more or less willing to not argue with me about seeing a naturopath (she even referred to herself as an allopath, which is a term I’d only seen applied when referring to “the other”) . . . but I can’t say we had time to develop much of a relationship. She’s still on leave (until a week before we take off for New Zealand so I probably won’t see her again), so the oncologist who saw me for my check-up was almost completely unknown to me.

He came in briskly, a man of a type I’m particularly familiar with, in his sixties, looking much like Marsh and much like Ian’s dad, not too tall, with a gray and white beard and a fringe of matching hair. He looked like the kind of doctor who expected his word—however kindly delivered—to be law, and who went home comfortably at the end of the day to his suede-elbow-patched tweed jacket, fireplace, and pipe.

“Why do you have such an enormous file?” he asked, plunking two thick binders on the desk in the examination room.

“Oh, this wasn’t the first time for me,” I said casually. “It’s been several years.”

“Have we met before?”

“Only briefly, for about five minutes last fall. I had a waiting room full of friends in town for another friend’s wedding, and we were late for lunch.”

“Ah, yes. Well, let me take a minute here to catch up . . .”

He proceeded to pull up my recent files on the computer, and Ian and I read over his shoulder as much as we could. It seems that lots has been written about me, which I find warmly comforting. My surgeon’s report in particular was pleasing: “Calin is 34 years old,” it began. “She is delightful.”

After a few minutes of scanning, the doctor was evidently able to come to the conclusion (which was correct) that I had not yet met with a radiation oncologist, even though it had been recommended that I do, and he proceeded to inform me that that was, pretty much, unacceptable.

“I am not asking you to make a choice for radiation,” he said, as I tried uselessly to defend myself. “I’m asking you to make a choice for information. I wouldn’t call you crazy to not meet with a radiation oncologist . . .” he said, leaving us to understand that, in fact, he would.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll meet with one. You’re right, information is a good thing to have.”

“Excellent. It also says here that your doctor recommended you go back on Herceptin and Zoladex and Letrozole?”

“Yes, she did. And I have chosen not to.”

“What are you doing instead?”

“I’m seeing a naturopath who specializes in homeopathic remedies and herbal cancer treatments.”

“And how do you feel?” he asked.

“I feel great,” I said. “My blood counts, all of them, have normalized since I’ve been seeing him.” I paused. “I feel powerful.”

“Alright.” He paused. “Well then . . . what can we do for you?”

I had a list ready. “I do have three requests. One, I’d like a copy of my mammogram to send to New Zealand with our visa application. Two, I’m supposed to include a specialist report with every medical issue that’s out of the ordinary, and this qualifies. Three, I’d like to get my port out.”

“The mammogram is easy . . .” he said, turning to the computer and hitting print, “although I have no idea where that will print. Why do you want to get your port out? Is it hurting you?”

“No. If necessary, could I get it back in?”

“Yes. But if it’s not bothering you, why get it out?”

“Because the every-four-weeks flushing is getting to be increasingly inconvenient.”

“Ah. Well,” he said, looking at Ian, “your husband seems to be a reasonably competent individual. We could teach him how to do it so you wouldn’t have to come to a clinic.”

“Huh! Well, that’s interesting,” I said non-committally, but he continued.

“It would cause a bit of a shit-storm,” he said, “but not more of a shit-storm than the rest of the choices you’re making.”

Our mouths gaped, shocked, and then we burst out laughing. Suddenly, I liked the man a lot more, and he became a bit less of a hoop I was merely jumping through.

“I do so appreciate you suggesting this option, I really do,” I said. “Nevertheless . . .”

“You’d like to get it out to put some end to this whole episode.”

“Yes, I would.”

“Okay, you got it.”

He retrieved the mammogram report, reminding me to note that the right breast, the one with the problem, was no longer anywhere on my person. He suggested that we wait and see what, if anything, New Zealand immigration wanted from an oncologist (“If they just want to know if you can tie your shoes, well, I can confidently say that you can, no matter how strange those shoes might be [I was wearing my “rabbit” lace-up boots]”). Then he wrote out the referral to the radiation oncologist and the orders to get my port removed, and sent us on our way.

Go, FBI!

In a totally unexpected attack of expediency, the FBI returned our fingerprint cards (required for our visa applications) yesterday, a mere 10 days, or only 6 business days from when I sent them in! It probably helps that neither of us has any criminal record, but nevertheless, this was 2 weeks faster than I’d requested, and 8 ½ weeks faster than they said they could get them done! Ah, the government. Likes to keep us guessing.

I guess.

Proof of Adjustment

I went to the spa today, to sweat out toxins from surgery and the filthy, filthy air we Seattleites have been living with for the last week or so (a downside to the gorgeous, heavy-frost pink and gold dawns we’ve been having, and the windless sunny days, is the pressure inversion that’s keeping all our copious exhaust here on the ground where we can really get to know it), and I have to say, it was a bit strange to see all these women with two boobs each. I have yet to see anyone with a mastectomy at the spa, so I’m not sure why I was surprised to not see anyone else today, but there you have it. I made it a point to not stare at women who might be in a position to look at me, so that they would be comfortable checking out my scar if they wanted to.

I’m definitely feeling the effects of my surgery physically. I want to go rock climbing, but can’t stretch that easily over my head yet. I’ve stayed off the treadmill for the last three weeks to not put any undue stress on my lymph system, and to not sweat until my scar was healed over completely, but I think I’m going to give it a go tomorrow. I’ve unconsciously started using my left hand and arm more for lifting, so I’m bulking up on that side and atrophying on the other side, and in general I’m a bit soft—like I’ve spent the last three weeks recovering from surgery or something. I can even feel the slightly different weight of the left side of my chest (con-boob) compared to the right side of my chest (sans-boob). My sacrum and hips keep bumping out of alignment and sending twinges all up the right side of my back and over the top of my head, but in another couple weeks I’ll be able to wear the prosthesis regularly, which should help balance things out a bit.

It looks like my adjustment to the new me is psychological rather than physical at this point—but the mind’s generally the bigger battle, so I’m doing fine.

Thought for the Day. No, for Life.

From Marianne Williamson (oft credited to Nelson Mandela, who used it in his inauguration speech):

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Read "God" as the Universe if you wish. Embrace your power. Shine.

The Long Winter

Ian and I are moving to New Zealand for a time. He’s accepted a job counting fish for an organization there, and I’m going to go and see what a dilettante can find to do when her husband, who’s been a student as long as she’s known him (minus 48 hours or so), suddenly becomes gainfully employed. I’m looking forward to it very much.

We’ll be living in Wellington, the capital city. The weather will be much like Seattle, although not quite so extreme (cooler in the summer, less bone-chilling in the winter, although pretty much just as damp year round). The latitude is more or less equivalent (although opposite) to Eureka, CA, but the proximity of Antarctica will keep us from getting too hot or, indeed, bored from lack of wind. The wind is significant enough that pilots have to have a special endorsement to land at the airport there. Yay.

In a stroke of genius on our part, we’ve managed to be friends with a brilliant person who’s living in Wellington right now, and blogging about it with great flair. We’re looking forward to making her show us around town in April when we arrive.

Yes, that’s right, we’re leaving Seattle on 15 April.

There are three challenges to this date, so, so soon, so rapidly approaching.

Challenge one is the Visa application process. The lovely and brilliant Chiara filled out the one-page on-line Working Holiday visa, and was accepted within two days. We, on the other hand, are filling out the standard 32-page work visa form. We each have to apply, even though I have no intention of working in any traditional sense. And, in fact, I could theoretically be denied a visa. Sixteen of the 32 pages are an exhaustive medical examination and report, and mine says I’ve had cancer. Recently. New Zealand, having socialized medicine, isn’t interested in new residents who are likely to put a huge burden on the medical system. It is also, naturally, not interested in people with TB, or HIV, or Hepatitis B, or syphilis, or people who need dialysis. We understand this. In a country of only four million people (and 60 million sheep), two more can have a significant effect. Fortunately, 98% of my medical form shows me to be the extravagantly healthy person I am, and since I will be, from now on, cancer-free, we’re not worried. And so we’re boldly forging ahead with our other two challenges (we’re not even giving a moment’s consideration to the possibility that our FBI records—yes, that’s right, we’ve been fingerprinted and everything—are anything but clean).

Challenge two is finishing a doctoral dissertation, which lies primarily with Ian, with encouragement and minor editing from me, as well as a willingness to take on Ian’s habitual household tasks.

Challenge three is cleansing our house of a combined 66 years’ worth of accumulated craps (both our parents have already bequeathed our childhood projects and stained math club T-shirts to our own long-term storage in our own basement). I’ve taken on this job, and have been surprised at how much I’ve wanted to cull. We were watching an episode of Seinfeld the other night and Jerry said something about people keeping books they’ve read, for example. “Why do you keep them?” he asked. “They’re like trophies. ‘Look what I’ve done!’” Bingo, I thought sheepishly. More evidence of how Seinfeld mirrors life. So, books, many many many of you, gone. The 26 matching glasses we bought at Goodwill for our New Year’s 2005 party, as well as the various unmatching glasses left over from years of collecting glassware? Gone. Any cooking apparatus with Teflon or an off-brand non-stick coating? Gone. Strange knick-knacks given to us by people who don’t know us quite well enough? Gone. Piles and piles of clothing that either 1) works best with two boobs or 2) I won’t want when we finally get summer again, 18 months after the last time? Gone.

Yes folks, that’s right. Since we’re moving to the southern hemisphere in April, in early, early spring, we’re going to miss the glorious Northwest summer. And we’re missing the evidently not too shabby Wellington summer right now. And we won’t actually get a summer until one year from now. Sigh. Although Ian’s right; I don’t like spring all that much, and I do like fall, so I’ll be trading one for the other pretty neatly. And, being that Ian’s job is not in the US, he’ll be getting about five weeks of vacation per year. And Fiji is very, very close.

Accessory Boobs

I went to Nordstrom for my boob fittings yesterday, and it was a pretty enjoyable experience, actually. Mom came too, and took me out to lunch afterward at the Nordstrom café. The first bra I was given to try on for size (34 B, for those interested in such things) was the classic granny bra, also the classic mastectomy bra. Enough said. But I gamely let the fitter put it on me, and indeed it seemed to age my upper torso by about 50 years. One nice thing about getting prostheses and mastectomy bras at Nordstrom is that they have an excellent alterations department, though, and “pocketing” is free on any bra in the store—meaning they’ll stitch in a pocket for my accessory boob (which keeps it from migrating my toward my throat throughout the day). So the fitter, about my age, looked at me and said, “Um. I’ll be back.”

When she returned, she had several bras that looked like something a 30-something would be comfortable wearing, as well as an awesome halter top bikini. I ultimately decided on something very similar to the bras I’ve worn before, two black and two beige, then I tried on the swim top.

I was suddenly very, very happy about the smallness of my remaining boob. For one thing, it’s not all that noticeable when I don’t stuff the right side of my bra (N.B.—I do recognize that it’s winter here, and I spend most of my time in thick sweaters and down jackets or vests. The one boob thing might be a tad more obvious in the summer . . . which is actually a good thing about our upcoming plans . . . more on those soon . . .). For another, my body isn’t totally out of balance (one of the reasons for wearing a prosthesis is to keep the body balanced—over time, even a small boob can cause muscle shortening and structural problems). For a third, my boobs are the size that fit entirely within the fabric part of the halter top—both my real boob, and my accessory boob.

I tried on the bottoms, too, a low-cut bikini with metal loops on the sides, but it was cold yesterday and I was wearing black long underwear under my skirt so I just took off the skirt and tried on the bikini over my long underwear. I had taken off my boots, too, but had orange knee-high socks with pink and blue polka dots on, pulled up over my long underwear. Hands on my hips, I looked like a superhero, but one or two clicks off from the paradigm. More like a sortahero.

I’d been referring to my upcoming prosthesis appointment as my trip to get press-on boobs; it turns out they do, in fact, make them. They’re very sticky, and have these strange bumps on them, like magnified gecko feet (or so I imagine, never having seen a gecko foot, although geckos stick pretty well to things). You have to wash them every night, though, and that is absolutely not something I can see myself doing. I don’t wear my contacts mostly because I have to clean them when I do wear them.

Anyway, it’s a bit soon to wear my real accessory boob (more healing is necessary), but I do have a lighter-weight foam one to play with in the meantime, which is also good for exercising because it doesn’t get so slippery as the silicone.

In all, a good day.

Path Report

Clean margins all around, although the one between the tumor and my chest wall was a very, very narrow 1 mm. Still, it was clean, and the narrowness was more due to the “geometry” of my small breast, as the surgeon put it, than anything bad about the cancer. So I’m continuing my non-invasive naturopathic/energetic/Neurolinkic protocols, my healthy eating, and starting my stretching program to get my flexibility back. It looks really cool—I’ll post a (tasteful) picture once the rest of the purple Sharpie has washed off.

The Worst Part

*NOTE: If you haven't checked in yet today, be sure to start two entries below with Wow Girl*

I got my drain out yesterday. To make sure the surgery site doesn’t fill up with fluid, at the end of the procedure the surgeon installs a bit of perforated tubing, about where an underwire sits if you’re wearing a bra (except under the skin), that exits the skin under the arm (held in place by a stitch) and ends in a flexible, transparent bulb. There’s a slight vacuum in the system, created when you squeeze the bulb to empty it, then cork it back up before letting go. This vacuum draws the fluid slowly out. The tubing can get clogged with blood clots, so you occasionally have to “milk” it, by pinching the tube up near the stitch with one hand (you don’t want to pull on that stitch!), and pinching and sliding the other hand down the length of the tube to the bulb. I only had one blood clot in the tube, which formed while I was still in the hospital. When I’d cleared it, a long, dark red worm lay coiled in the bottom of the bulb.

The bulb has been inconvenient, as you might imagine. It’s been pinned to my surgical bra, with the extra tubing taped to my side so I don’t accidentally pull at the stitch in some nocturnal flailing (fortunately, I sleep virtually without changing position all night long. And Ian, who is a flailer, is on my left side, so I was pretty safe). Since I’ve been wearing a huge flannel shirt that I bought in college at the height of grunge fashion, the bulb, coupled with some bandage padding, has done a pretty good job of simulating my boob, which wasn’t all that big to begin with (either 230 grams or 280. They told me, but I can’t remember.).

A good thing about me is that I still have lymph nodes under my right arm, and they have done a banner job of keeping the fluid running through my body. So actually, from the time I came home, I never went 24 hours with more than 20ml of fluid accumulating in the bulb, and the cut-off for getting the drain removed was 30ml in 24 hours. I briefly considered just leaving the drain in until my check-up with my surgeon on Thursday, but decided that it was enough of a bother that I’d rather just get it out. You see, not only was sleeping somewhat hazardous; showering was virtually impossible. Even with a handy invention called AquaGuard, which covered the stitch and the tubing exit, I still had the bulb to contend with. Ultimately, I tied it to a ribbon around my neck like a gory accessory for some underground cult. It worked . . . but I’m a little too mainstream to really appreciate all the nuances of such an adornment.

Something handy about the location of our house is that it’s within 10 minutes of every clinic and hospital I’ve been associated with since returning to Seattle in 2000, so when the nurse called me back yesterday morning as the snowstorm waned (Monday the clinic had been closed in honor of MLK), I was able to assure her that not only was I still interested in coming, but I actually could (the 4-Runner always appreciates the chance to show its stuff in the city).

The nurse, Cari, showed me into a room and seated me on the bed. I lifted my arm and she took a scissors to cut the stitch. I felt a touch of wooziness as she grabbed a tweezers and yanked out the last bit of nylon thread, and she asked if I needed to lie down for her to pull out the tube itself.

“No,” I said, “I’m fine.” Automatic response. My brain flitted back for an instant to the first day home, when I attempted to swab the stitch site with a Q-tip dipped in peroxide and water, and found myself immediately having to sit, light-headed, on the side of the tub before I pitched head-first in and made the entire operation moot. Something about a bit of surgical tubing coming out of my body really didn’t sit well with me. “Actually,” I said, “I do need to lie down.”

I lay back and lifted my arm over my head, and Cari said “Okay, this is only going to take 3 seconds, and it’s going to burn 1 2 3 and it’s out!”

“Aaaaaaauuugh!” I cried, as the tube, evidently become a red-hot, glass-sharded poker, ripped out of my chest and fluid started to leak down my side onto the pad I was lying on. In 6 days, my body had clearly already begun to incorporate the tube into itself, and it was loath to let it go. The thought of the procedure after two weeks instead of six days made my stomach turn, but I held it together and the burning eased within a minute.

Later, on the phone with my mother, I realized that the drain removal was by far the least comfortable part of the whole mastectomy process; in fact, the only part that was remotely uncomfortable.

But, as they say, no pain no gain. Glad we got that taken care of.

Narcotics: Not Really a Girl’s Best Friend

Four days after my surgery I felt more woozy, and had more vertigo, than on any of the previous days. I blame withdrawal, from the false god Oxycodone. Oxycodone comes to you in the depths of your discombobulation, offering an easy-going, pain-free existence, certainty about life, joy in all your gifts, and an ability to sleep at the drop of a hat. The price—an intensely satisfying voiding of the bowels—seems small and insignificant in the face of the benefits. And so, without question, even without pause, you pop the pills—two every three hours for the first 24, then two every four hours for the next 36, then one and a Tylenol, then another and a Tylenol, and then it suddenly occurs to you, looking in the mirror at your previously flat stomach that is now distended and taut, and appears to be carrying a 4-month-old fetus, that the price—an intensely satisfying voiding of the bowels, remember?—is in fact way too steep.

So I picked at the prunes my mother brought, sipped a bit of the grape juice, strolled casually around the neighborhood, and otherwise cavalierly assumed my body would do its job regardless. And then I cried, and then I took some over-the-counter Sennakot and had a good nights’ sleep, and then, ah blessed relief!

Just in case, I’m not even taking the Tylenol anymore.

Wow, Girl—It’s Been, Like, a Really Long Time

And measured in spiritual growth, in soul growth, in the growth of my gratitude for life, and my love for others and myself and this amazing, complex world we live in, it’s been much longer than that.

You last heard from me when I was in Idaho, enjoying yet another interlude of peace and quiet in one of my favorite places in the world. This particular visit the peace and quiet were much more critical than other visits, because one week prior to going, the day before the wedding of two of my dearest friends, I was diagnosed with a second recurrence of breast cancer. Or, yes, a third overall occurrence of breast cancer. It started in my right breast, again, same place it had started the previous two times. This particular time I seemed to have caught it early—a huge battery of tests (mammograms, ultrasounds, CTs, MRIs, PETs, biopsies, X-Rays, etc) confirmed that there were two tumors, but they were both contained tidily in my right breast.

You may remember from reading this entry that I was not going to truck with cancer anymore. And I meant it . . . but I meant it from a position of hopeful yearning, of bravado, but of no confidence. But how could I have had any confidence? I’d entirely given over responsibility for my health to my oncologist and Western medicine, and they , the authorities, don’t believe cancer can be cured, at least not with the tools they currently have. Certainly not with the chemical ones they used on me. So, within that framework, how could I possibly believe it?

Sure, I appeared to have a modicum of control over my health. I ate healthy foods, and exercised regularly, and lived, overall, a pretty clean life. And I’ve also always been strong—of body and of mind and of will—and I used my strong will to convince myself that my health, to a great extent, to the ultimate extent really, was out of my hands. I had convinced myself that, when I got cancer, it was a sign to give myself over to the care of others, and let them choose my path for me.

Well.

It doesn’t work that way.

Sometime last October, I started having anxiety attacks. Without knowing anything (in the must-be-measured-by-scientific-equipment-to-be-true way), I suddenly knew, on a cellular level, that something was wrong. My intuition, which had given me subtle signs over the years, stopped being subtle. “Listen to me!” it screamed, as I sobbed hysterically on the couch at my grandmother’s house, gasping for breath, my arms tingling and black spots swimming before my eyes. “Something is wrong, and you need to figure it out now!”

I began feverish self-examinations of my breast, and noticed changes. Is this particular lumpiness related to the return of my hormones? I asked my nurse. Because if not, than something is wrong. Can I get my mammogram next week instead of waiting two more weeks? Maybe, she said, maybe the changes are normal. You could try to talk to other survivors at Gilda’s Club. But no, we’re not going to change your mammogram appointment; we don’t want to enable hysterical behavior. You can talk to a clinic psychologist, though; he’s very nice.

He was very nice, and briefly helped. At my first appointment he seemed to listen. But at my next appointment, he didn’t. He spent the whole hour teaching me how to control my breathing to keep from falling into another anxiety attack, a technique that I demonstrated back to him in the first 5 minutes. Invisibility doesn’t solve problems, so I went to my third appointment only long enough to tell him that what I needed was something else.

When I finally had my mammogram, I immediately stopped being invisible to my Western medical doctors. Because, of course, what I had felt wasn’t normal, and there was now scientific evidence to prove it. I had ultrasounds as well, right after the mammograms, and the following week a biopsy that clinched the evidence. The cancer was back.

Somehow, even while railing at the Universe for making me go through this again, and feeling—despairing, even—that my life was coming to an end, a tiny, fierce part of me refused to believe that I couldn't be cured. And so I started to take back my life, my will, my spirit—or embrace those things fully for the first time ever—and I started to make decisions based on my intuition and not my desire to have someone else solve my problems.

I began to understand that we are each, individually, responsible for our own health and well-being . . . but that doesn’t mean we can’t seek assistance. In fact, we should seek assistance. We humans are community-oriented beings, and our communities are richly populated by people with myriad strengths, strengths we could not possibly embody all at once, all in one person. So I began to seek out assistance from all the richness around me. Here is the thing, though—intuition cannot be subsumed in a desire for someone to take care of you, no matter who you’re asking for assistance. A naturopath isn’t the answer any more than an oncologist is the answer. An energetic healer isn’t the answer any more than a Neurolink practitioner is the answer. All are the answer, and none are.

You, and what you know to be true about you, and what you believe to be right for you about the teachers you draw into your life, are the only answer for you.
What has been working for me is the following:
A naturopath who specializes in small doses of things and gentle physiological support (i.e. a liver detox that is so gentle you don't know it's happening; you just notice one day that you feel better)
A body worker who also does energy work
My friend the Witch Doctor (a Neurolink practitioner)
An energetic healer
Meditation, and gratitude for this brilliant, amazing life I've been blessed to lead, and learning to live without judging (others or myself)
And a breast surgeon.
(not to mention impressively open-minded friends and relatives, who have stood by my decisions faithfully from the beginning)

I had a total mastectomy on January 10^th. It removed my right breast completely, including the nipple and areola (my cancer was intraductal, and all the ducts come out the nipple), the scar from my original lumpectomies, and the skin over the site of the current tumor. My remaining underarm lymph nodes were left intact, as was my left breast, which had never had cancer, even last time when it had spread all over my chest lymph nodes. I have opted not to do reconstruction. The thought of implanting silicone into myself makes me queasy, and one of the side-effects of being in excellent physical condition is that I don't have enough belly fat to transplant that (and inner thigh fat is, evidently, not used). Besides that, reconstruction involves several more surgeries.

And besides that, Amazons all cut off their right breasts.

Lesson Learned the Easy Way (that is, by *not* fracturing my skull first)

I’ve been trying some self-improvement lately, working on getting to know my inner spiritual mechanism a bit better (note: the fact that “mechanism” seems like an appropriate descriptor is maybe a hint that I’ve got a ways to go before true enlightenment). This includes things like paying attention to my intuitions about, oh, which route to drive to avoid traffic; listening to—and heeding—my heart when it says to play the piano instead of vacuuming the floor or going out to lunch with someone; stopping drinking coffee because I decided I didn’t want to be addicted to anything anymore; and, most recently, starting to think about the role my ego plays in my life and where its noisy voice gets in the way of me hearing from the universe.

It’s been difficult for me to work out the difference between self-esteem and ego . . . and I’m not sure that they are, always different. But sometimes, certainly, it seems that they are, and I’ll use an example from my own life to illustrate my point.

Yesterday around noon-time, I felt sleepy, so I decided to take a nap on the couch. In my defense, I’d already hauled about 10 wheelbarrow loads of horse shit from the three small paddocks, plus split several pieces of wood into kindling and restocked the firebox, in addition to feeding horses and cows and dogs and playing with the puppy. So anyway, before heading out for my ride, I thought I’d just snooze a little.

I went to sleep picturing my ego as a huge block of ice somewhere around my throat (or 5^th Chakra), blocking communication between my heart and my mind, and I pictured a tiny stream of yellow heat streaming through the ice between my mind and my heart, slowly melting it away. When I woke up around one pm, the first thought I had was “I need to wear my helmet when I’m riding.” The second thought I had was “But if anyone sees me, they’ll think I look ridiculous, out there riding bareback with an English helmet on.” My third thought was “Oh, yes, that’s my ego speaking.”

Now, those who’ve read previous entries will know that I don’t invariably stay on the horses I’m riding, and those who read this entry from Saturday will probably think that my mad, fraught dash on Shadow had something do with the decision to protect my head. If it did, it was only indirectly, through Ian who in Seattle read the entry right about the time I was falling asleep in Idaho and said to himself “God, why can’t she just wear a helmet?!?”

No, my crazy ride on Shadow did nothing to test my confidence in my abilities—I know that I’m a good rider (this is not ego—this is self-esteem, and a fact). I also know that I’m pretty much as safe bareback as not (in fact, my record of falls in the last five years, totaling three, are two-thirds from saddles.). I also know that accidents happen, and that people hit their heads, and that from the lofty back of a horse, those accidents can cause serious head traumas. Really, the one thing that kept me from wearing my helmet was that I thought it looked dorky, and all the good reasons weren’t enough to convince me. The helmet isn’t even uncomfortable, and I wear it all the time in lessons.

I got up from the couch and immediately left Ian a message telling him I was going to wear a helmet from then on, and could he please get me a ski helmet (I tell you, when the ego goes, it goes all the way) for Christmas. I then proceeded to put on my riding clothes, which consisted of cowboy boots, flannel-lined J Crew pants, a turtleneck shirt, a turtleneck sweater I knitted, a green puffy vest, a yellow Patagonia rain jacket, and a blaze orange vest. And I thought it was the helmet that would look ridiculous.

(Yes, that's me looking safe. Safe!)

Rest in Peace, Chico

About the 3^rd time I went by the fridge this morning, I saw a photocopied flier? program? memorial, I guess, with a picture on the front of a guy I recognized. He’d been one of about a dozen people to stop by this last summer when I was here, one of the days that K&A and I moved thousands of pounds of hay. The family had driven into the yard in a giant king cab pickup, full of people, and the bed full of people, too, from three generations ranging in age from, oh, 50s down to toddler. This guy, Chico, was of the middle generation, and clearly beloved by everyone. He had an easy energy, and was gentle, but also funny and strong. Just a great guy, which was obvious to me even on such short acquaintance. Anyway, according to the photocopy, which included pictures of him with friends and family, and funny and sweet stories about him, he died October 1. He was 22. I was shocked, and saddened, as if I’d lost a friend. Life is fragile, my friends. Live it well.

That's one big foot! 

84 acres, and *this* is the best grass? 

Up this way to Calin's Loop! 

Too and Eddie. Yum! 

Come along, Sadie.