If you read the previous blog, I thankfully did what I said I would do. I phoned Sandi at emergency in the Smithers hospital. She told me to come in. I detoured to the Reitsma's and asked Dorothy to drive me. I was admitted for depression and administred Ativan and an anti-depressant to help stop the crying. It helped, but I'm still at the bottom of the barrel, which I am told its a serotonin imbalance. The anti-depressant will take almost 2 weeks to work. They will keep me in hospital until Barry is off work on Friday and can come pick me up.
It's good to know there is help on the horizon. I should have asked for it much earlier. Homer, the bear, can only do so much. He is exhausted and sits up in the hospital bed by himself at the moment, while I sit and stare out the window at nothing. I have scared myself into a deep silence, my brain possibly worried about flaming the still- smoldering meltdown I had survived.
I feel very tired, embarrassed and lower than I can ever remember. They say this is "normal" for all I've been though. The psychiatrist I was assigned to says I had hit the top five crisis alerts: cancer, suicide in the family, high speed motor vehicle accident, loss of a parent, loss of a friend.
When I get home, I will be taking a break from the cancer book. I will take the dresser pictures of my brother and mother and put them elsewhere for a bit. I will take the new meds, meet with a counsellor and get myself back on track. I have too much ahead of me to quit now. I never stopped believing that. There was only a brief moment there when it wasn't worth the weight of the effort, but I have the help I need now and can see what to do to make sure that moment never returns.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Drowning In Depression
I know I said the next posting would be about cancer prevention, but I am floundering this morning. I seem to have a poisonous thorn in my side and I need to try and pull it out before the venom consumes me.
The problem is I feel like I am drowning.
There are balls of weight cinched around my ankles and I can't seem to cut them loose. They're pulling me down until my head is under water. I can barely get myself out of bed and if it wasn't for this avenue available to me for getting my feelings out, my virtual diary, I wouldn't have made my way past the kitchen and bedroom at all today.
Before April 2009, the worst thing that happened in my life was my friend Kathy Sullivan getting shot dead by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger. That event set off what I thought was a long bout of sadness. For a week I wondered about life and how tough it could be for those of us left behind. I believe we are here to learn lessons so that our spirits can move on to what religious people call "heaven." I imagine I will be returning over and over, re-incarnated until I get what I need to learn. I believe this is hell right here on earth and I have the scars to prove it.
Yes I know there are people out there with so much more pain. People that have lost their entire families, their homes from floods or fire, people starving to death slowly over years of malnutrition and disease. Usually I can remind myself of this and pull myself up by my bra straps, but it doesn't seem to be working anymore. Besides, it hurts still to do anything with my bra straps.
I am going to make a list here of what I am dealing with so that one day I can look back on it and either say, wow, that was tough, or else say, that was nothing! Or maybe I am listing it so that you can see for yourself how much it took to finally take this optimistic ass and drag it under. Maybe this is all part of another lesson- to dampen my enthusiasm? Or to test it to see how much I can take before breaking? Why has all of this happened to me? And when is it all going to end? I keep hanging on for that break, for that ray of sunshine to poke its head out, for any glimmer of hope that the next corner of my life is going to be warm and fuzzy and not dark and painful. If I could just stop crying.
Mom died April 2009 with my sister and I holding her hands. It was one of the most traumatizing days of my life. It was beautiful at the same time as it was terrifying, watching someone's soul exit their body. Your loved one is there with you and then, with a widening of their eyes, with a slight arch to their back, they are empty of life and all that they knew of you and the world is gone forever. Like a candle blown out. You can't help but mull that moment over and over for the rest of your own life. When you get that close to death, it stains you with an invisible ink. I have witnessed one of life's great mysteries inches from my face. I saw it felt it, smelled it and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Certainly not as scared as I once was of it. Mom left at what I considered too young of an age. She turned 73 while in hospital. My plan was to hit at least 74. These days, I want to make it to 55. It's as high a goal as I can hope for these days. That alone weights me down with at least half of my own body weight. The fear that what I've been through is only the tip of what is yet to come. I have lost faith in the hope of ever seeing more than a fleeting glimpse of internal sunshine ever again. There will be moments, I'm sure, but I can't see from this low point-of-view how they will be enough to raise me up and keep me up? The wind in my sails has gone, the air in my lungs has deflated and there, with this incredible life I have built around me, I sit sinking.
The next trouble hit me in November of 2009 when a van pulled out in front of me and I slammed into it doing 90 km. I sustained a bad case of whiplash that will plague me until I die. My left shoulder muscles and the muscles that run right up into my neck are permanently damaged so that wearing a heavy pack, bending my neck to type and snowboarding have now become painful reminders of a very jarring event.
I turned 50 a month later. A wondrous celebration surrounded by our children in a tropical paradise. I laughed and danced and put on a brave face, but the fact remains that more than half of my life was definitely over. I was on the back side of living now and the only way to go was down. I was headed for the age of loss. Loss of hearing, eyesight, bladder control, memory, sensibility, strength, all capabilities. What was there to celebrate about in that?
In May of 2010 I submitted myself to a breast MRI at the Lions Gate Hospital in Vancouver. I made the trip myself and spent another horrific 45 minutes of my life shoved backwards inside a long cylindrical cigar tube, my breasts hanging down, my diaphragm pressing flat so I couldn't take a full breath. It was a test that possibly saved my life, but it was agonizing to get to that point.
The results said there was a shadow of concern in the opposite breast to the one we were concerned about. That shadow got biopsied in July, the findings of which cited me positive for breast cancer. I received the news over the phone on the way to Invermere for my Mom's ash spreading. I made a joke out of it. It was hard to bring me down back then. I was such a positive person.
The next year was a flurry of pain and the bad kind of surprises- the rug continually being pulled out from under me. There was a surgery, then the long road of recovery before a second surgery forced me back onto the couch to repair for another month, this time with a drain in my side. I mention the drain because a year later it still hurts where it was placed. To this day my upper right torso is numb and you feel discomfort with the raise of the arm, a twist to the right. It never goes away. The right half of my right breast is hard like marble while the left half is soft and pliable. I look in the mirror and see my disfigurement- the way the breast is unnaturally pulled up to one side. It looks like it was hit by a two-by-four but never relaxed after, the way it is flattened, a strange resemblance to a cliff. It does not look like a nice, round breast anymore. I am sorry Dr. E, you did do a fabulous job with the scars and just the fact that I still have a breast to complain about in the first place. But I can't help the way I feel when I look in the mirror at what I am left with. I am ugly to myself and that is what counts here.
After finding cancer had made it to one of my lymph nodes, the second surgery removed even more nodes, creating a second arm pit beneath the one I already had. It is all still super tender to the touch. I worry it will remain this way forever because it already feels like it has been forever. I feel like a prisoner who should have been scratching out the number of days on the wall.
After semi-repairing from that, I was subjected to the chemo- more worst days of my life. I lost my hair. I lost my identity. The second chemo knocked me down to the ground. I couldn't catch a breath walking up 15 stairs. This from a woman who jogs 40 minutes at a time.
Then I was radiated, lying beneath a machine that sent toxic rays into my body, being told first that they would unfortunately have to nuke a portion of my lung to get at all the breast tissue. How many days off my total life span did that take, I wonder still.
Then you're treatment free, except for the drugs they want you to pop every day. Tamoxifen- a known carcinogen and Zoladex- a pill that will shut down my ovaries chemically throwing me into menopause. Unnaturally. All of it. Forcing my body to do things its not ready to do. This causes constant hot flashes which wear me down one at a time. I'm freezing, I'm melting, I'm normal. I'm freezing, I'm melting, I'm normal. They tell me this will go on for the five years I am on the drugs.
It is June. What turns out to be our worst summer in 40 years, has started. The phone rings and my brother is on the roof of his garage. Propelled by drugs, alcohol and the need to make a point, he throws himself onto a fence. His heart gives up two days later. And I can't help but feel abandoned by an older brother I spent an entire life-time looking up to. He's there and then he's not. And death brushes it's quiet fingers across my cheek once more. It's whispering to me but I can't quite hear what it's saying. Is it scary? Is it a sign? Do I want to know? I worry I know the answer to these questions.
I reel and stumble from this death in the family. All the months of treading water with my nose tilted upward so not to go completely under and now I'm taking in mouthfuls of water. I tread harder. I surround myself with my friends, clinging to memories of better days, of amazing times spent wasting my youth on simply living day-to-day.
The next sequence is merely a list of more links of chain helping to drag me under: a friend's recurrence with breast cancer sent me for a loop. After a year on Tamoxifen and she still had to go through more surgery before chemo and radiation. Then another friend succumbs to pancreatic cancer. Another friend gets cervical cancer as my own uterus continues cramping from what we don't know. It's not supposed to be continually spasmodic like that. It's annoying and persistent and it has become like Japanese torture- a constant drip on my forehead sending me slowly insane. Or was I already there and this is sending me to a new level?
That worry makes my left arm itch.,..and itch...until I scratch it to bloodiness. There are pills to stop the nerves from buzzing beneath my skin, still I must lie with an ice pack pressed to my flesh to numb it until the drug can catch up.
I finally see a reply from one of the four agents/publishers I sent my cancer manuscript to. It's a semi-encouraging retort, but a no all the same. "while there are many compelling elements, I consider stories written with the inclusion of e-mails lazy writing" This woman was sent only the first ten pages. My response offering to send her the first four chapters never received a reply. Down...down...down...
I am sent for tests of my heart for the breathing issues and we find there was damage done to the left ventricle of my heart, thus the wheezing after exerting myself. More tests are needed. Back in line I go, my heart even heavier to worry even more of my future has been taken from me. I pressure myself to get my life going before it ends, hurry...hurry...there is no time to lose...which backfires and overwhelms me until I can no longer work.
My re-write stalls. The end is all a mess like a mountainous heap of garbage I need to wade through to find the hidden treasures. If I think on it too much I will blow my mind.
What I do think about are all the hours spent for nothing. I begin to see the selfishness in what should have been a career with five books written and sitting. In reality it was merely an indulgence, a hobby at best. I could have been helping in a soup kitchen, saving the world one volunteered hour at-a-time.What do I know?
I wanted to help the world with this cancer book- I wanted to open everyone's eyes to how they could help prevent going through what I've been through. I was ready to sacrifice my comfort zone, my stable life to head out and nervously stand before people crowded into a library or gym or theater. I wanted to tell them that they are in charge of their destiny, one blueberry or one white bun at a time. It was their choice. I wanted to show them what a cancer survivor looked like. Show them the terror in my eyes that will never go away. The worry that it will come back for me and never ever let me go. They don't want to be me, I can assure them. Quit pretending you are immune to it, everyone. Everyone I know and love is playing with fire. I worry for them. I worry even more for me for each time the phone rings.
Where the fuck is a soap box when you need one?
The stock market crashing down around our ears and my having invested the insurance claim money I got for my whip lash in it only days before the big downward slide was a punt in the side. I joke my husband is on suicide watch but its not him I worry about any more. It's only money. I know that. As a Sagittarean I have nevr worried about money., It has always just come to me. But I wanted this to be something that lifted me up. Instead, it has spiralled me downward.
Then at a gym class two days ago, I was doing lunges after a short warm up and pulled my thigh muscle. Between the left shoulder MVA soreness, the right torso surgical sorenesss, the uterine cramping, the itchy arm cuts and now the right thigh injury- oh, throw in a couple of canker sores in my mouth which the Internet says is caused by stress...
And there you have it. The reason why I am walking around hanging on for dear life to a stuffed bear named Homer. His head is wet from my tears as I sit here worried that I should be having people over. It's my turn to cook for these friends, and those friends and I should be cleaning the house, outside burning off the chocolate bars I can't seem to quit shoving into my face. I have been on a dietary path of destruction lately- all the things I know can worsen the cancer if I still have any. Sugar is my enemy but I embrace it every single day. I run to it for comfort knowing it will torment me seconds after it is consumed. But I am trrying everything to shake this darkness. This overwhelming sense of doom and gloom.
I do not write this for any sympathy. I am writing this to show you what it looks like inside of the darkness. I think of how easy my brother now has it and I can see the relief in the thought. I don't want to go. I'm not ready to go. I want some day to see my next generation but it's such a fine gossamer of line that keeps me tethered. I'm sorry Kimmy. I am sorry Lorne and Karly and Lindsay and Barry. I am sorry for what I am thinking about. I am sorry it ever got this close. I am going to get dressed and get out of this house with these guns. I am going to to Smithers and see Sandi and get some help. Right now.
(which I did!)
The problem is I feel like I am drowning.
There are balls of weight cinched around my ankles and I can't seem to cut them loose. They're pulling me down until my head is under water. I can barely get myself out of bed and if it wasn't for this avenue available to me for getting my feelings out, my virtual diary, I wouldn't have made my way past the kitchen and bedroom at all today.
Before April 2009, the worst thing that happened in my life was my friend Kathy Sullivan getting shot dead by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger. That event set off what I thought was a long bout of sadness. For a week I wondered about life and how tough it could be for those of us left behind. I believe we are here to learn lessons so that our spirits can move on to what religious people call "heaven." I imagine I will be returning over and over, re-incarnated until I get what I need to learn. I believe this is hell right here on earth and I have the scars to prove it.
Yes I know there are people out there with so much more pain. People that have lost their entire families, their homes from floods or fire, people starving to death slowly over years of malnutrition and disease. Usually I can remind myself of this and pull myself up by my bra straps, but it doesn't seem to be working anymore. Besides, it hurts still to do anything with my bra straps.
I am going to make a list here of what I am dealing with so that one day I can look back on it and either say, wow, that was tough, or else say, that was nothing! Or maybe I am listing it so that you can see for yourself how much it took to finally take this optimistic ass and drag it under. Maybe this is all part of another lesson- to dampen my enthusiasm? Or to test it to see how much I can take before breaking? Why has all of this happened to me? And when is it all going to end? I keep hanging on for that break, for that ray of sunshine to poke its head out, for any glimmer of hope that the next corner of my life is going to be warm and fuzzy and not dark and painful. If I could just stop crying.
Mom died April 2009 with my sister and I holding her hands. It was one of the most traumatizing days of my life. It was beautiful at the same time as it was terrifying, watching someone's soul exit their body. Your loved one is there with you and then, with a widening of their eyes, with a slight arch to their back, they are empty of life and all that they knew of you and the world is gone forever. Like a candle blown out. You can't help but mull that moment over and over for the rest of your own life. When you get that close to death, it stains you with an invisible ink. I have witnessed one of life's great mysteries inches from my face. I saw it felt it, smelled it and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Certainly not as scared as I once was of it. Mom left at what I considered too young of an age. She turned 73 while in hospital. My plan was to hit at least 74. These days, I want to make it to 55. It's as high a goal as I can hope for these days. That alone weights me down with at least half of my own body weight. The fear that what I've been through is only the tip of what is yet to come. I have lost faith in the hope of ever seeing more than a fleeting glimpse of internal sunshine ever again. There will be moments, I'm sure, but I can't see from this low point-of-view how they will be enough to raise me up and keep me up? The wind in my sails has gone, the air in my lungs has deflated and there, with this incredible life I have built around me, I sit sinking.
The next trouble hit me in November of 2009 when a van pulled out in front of me and I slammed into it doing 90 km. I sustained a bad case of whiplash that will plague me until I die. My left shoulder muscles and the muscles that run right up into my neck are permanently damaged so that wearing a heavy pack, bending my neck to type and snowboarding have now become painful reminders of a very jarring event.
I turned 50 a month later. A wondrous celebration surrounded by our children in a tropical paradise. I laughed and danced and put on a brave face, but the fact remains that more than half of my life was definitely over. I was on the back side of living now and the only way to go was down. I was headed for the age of loss. Loss of hearing, eyesight, bladder control, memory, sensibility, strength, all capabilities. What was there to celebrate about in that?
In May of 2010 I submitted myself to a breast MRI at the Lions Gate Hospital in Vancouver. I made the trip myself and spent another horrific 45 minutes of my life shoved backwards inside a long cylindrical cigar tube, my breasts hanging down, my diaphragm pressing flat so I couldn't take a full breath. It was a test that possibly saved my life, but it was agonizing to get to that point.
The results said there was a shadow of concern in the opposite breast to the one we were concerned about. That shadow got biopsied in July, the findings of which cited me positive for breast cancer. I received the news over the phone on the way to Invermere for my Mom's ash spreading. I made a joke out of it. It was hard to bring me down back then. I was such a positive person.
The next year was a flurry of pain and the bad kind of surprises- the rug continually being pulled out from under me. There was a surgery, then the long road of recovery before a second surgery forced me back onto the couch to repair for another month, this time with a drain in my side. I mention the drain because a year later it still hurts where it was placed. To this day my upper right torso is numb and you feel discomfort with the raise of the arm, a twist to the right. It never goes away. The right half of my right breast is hard like marble while the left half is soft and pliable. I look in the mirror and see my disfigurement- the way the breast is unnaturally pulled up to one side. It looks like it was hit by a two-by-four but never relaxed after, the way it is flattened, a strange resemblance to a cliff. It does not look like a nice, round breast anymore. I am sorry Dr. E, you did do a fabulous job with the scars and just the fact that I still have a breast to complain about in the first place. But I can't help the way I feel when I look in the mirror at what I am left with. I am ugly to myself and that is what counts here.
After finding cancer had made it to one of my lymph nodes, the second surgery removed even more nodes, creating a second arm pit beneath the one I already had. It is all still super tender to the touch. I worry it will remain this way forever because it already feels like it has been forever. I feel like a prisoner who should have been scratching out the number of days on the wall.
After semi-repairing from that, I was subjected to the chemo- more worst days of my life. I lost my hair. I lost my identity. The second chemo knocked me down to the ground. I couldn't catch a breath walking up 15 stairs. This from a woman who jogs 40 minutes at a time.
Then I was radiated, lying beneath a machine that sent toxic rays into my body, being told first that they would unfortunately have to nuke a portion of my lung to get at all the breast tissue. How many days off my total life span did that take, I wonder still.
Then you're treatment free, except for the drugs they want you to pop every day. Tamoxifen- a known carcinogen and Zoladex- a pill that will shut down my ovaries chemically throwing me into menopause. Unnaturally. All of it. Forcing my body to do things its not ready to do. This causes constant hot flashes which wear me down one at a time. I'm freezing, I'm melting, I'm normal. I'm freezing, I'm melting, I'm normal. They tell me this will go on for the five years I am on the drugs.
It is June. What turns out to be our worst summer in 40 years, has started. The phone rings and my brother is on the roof of his garage. Propelled by drugs, alcohol and the need to make a point, he throws himself onto a fence. His heart gives up two days later. And I can't help but feel abandoned by an older brother I spent an entire life-time looking up to. He's there and then he's not. And death brushes it's quiet fingers across my cheek once more. It's whispering to me but I can't quite hear what it's saying. Is it scary? Is it a sign? Do I want to know? I worry I know the answer to these questions.
I reel and stumble from this death in the family. All the months of treading water with my nose tilted upward so not to go completely under and now I'm taking in mouthfuls of water. I tread harder. I surround myself with my friends, clinging to memories of better days, of amazing times spent wasting my youth on simply living day-to-day.
The next sequence is merely a list of more links of chain helping to drag me under: a friend's recurrence with breast cancer sent me for a loop. After a year on Tamoxifen and she still had to go through more surgery before chemo and radiation. Then another friend succumbs to pancreatic cancer. Another friend gets cervical cancer as my own uterus continues cramping from what we don't know. It's not supposed to be continually spasmodic like that. It's annoying and persistent and it has become like Japanese torture- a constant drip on my forehead sending me slowly insane. Or was I already there and this is sending me to a new level?
That worry makes my left arm itch.,..and itch...until I scratch it to bloodiness. There are pills to stop the nerves from buzzing beneath my skin, still I must lie with an ice pack pressed to my flesh to numb it until the drug can catch up.
I finally see a reply from one of the four agents/publishers I sent my cancer manuscript to. It's a semi-encouraging retort, but a no all the same. "while there are many compelling elements, I consider stories written with the inclusion of e-mails lazy writing" This woman was sent only the first ten pages. My response offering to send her the first four chapters never received a reply. Down...down...down...
I am sent for tests of my heart for the breathing issues and we find there was damage done to the left ventricle of my heart, thus the wheezing after exerting myself. More tests are needed. Back in line I go, my heart even heavier to worry even more of my future has been taken from me. I pressure myself to get my life going before it ends, hurry...hurry...there is no time to lose...which backfires and overwhelms me until I can no longer work.
My re-write stalls. The end is all a mess like a mountainous heap of garbage I need to wade through to find the hidden treasures. If I think on it too much I will blow my mind.
What I do think about are all the hours spent for nothing. I begin to see the selfishness in what should have been a career with five books written and sitting. In reality it was merely an indulgence, a hobby at best. I could have been helping in a soup kitchen, saving the world one volunteered hour at-a-time.What do I know?
I wanted to help the world with this cancer book- I wanted to open everyone's eyes to how they could help prevent going through what I've been through. I was ready to sacrifice my comfort zone, my stable life to head out and nervously stand before people crowded into a library or gym or theater. I wanted to tell them that they are in charge of their destiny, one blueberry or one white bun at a time. It was their choice. I wanted to show them what a cancer survivor looked like. Show them the terror in my eyes that will never go away. The worry that it will come back for me and never ever let me go. They don't want to be me, I can assure them. Quit pretending you are immune to it, everyone. Everyone I know and love is playing with fire. I worry for them. I worry even more for me for each time the phone rings.
Where the fuck is a soap box when you need one?
The stock market crashing down around our ears and my having invested the insurance claim money I got for my whip lash in it only days before the big downward slide was a punt in the side. I joke my husband is on suicide watch but its not him I worry about any more. It's only money. I know that. As a Sagittarean I have nevr worried about money., It has always just come to me. But I wanted this to be something that lifted me up. Instead, it has spiralled me downward.
Then at a gym class two days ago, I was doing lunges after a short warm up and pulled my thigh muscle. Between the left shoulder MVA soreness, the right torso surgical sorenesss, the uterine cramping, the itchy arm cuts and now the right thigh injury- oh, throw in a couple of canker sores in my mouth which the Internet says is caused by stress...
And there you have it. The reason why I am walking around hanging on for dear life to a stuffed bear named Homer. His head is wet from my tears as I sit here worried that I should be having people over. It's my turn to cook for these friends, and those friends and I should be cleaning the house, outside burning off the chocolate bars I can't seem to quit shoving into my face. I have been on a dietary path of destruction lately- all the things I know can worsen the cancer if I still have any. Sugar is my enemy but I embrace it every single day. I run to it for comfort knowing it will torment me seconds after it is consumed. But I am trrying everything to shake this darkness. This overwhelming sense of doom and gloom.
I do not write this for any sympathy. I am writing this to show you what it looks like inside of the darkness. I think of how easy my brother now has it and I can see the relief in the thought. I don't want to go. I'm not ready to go. I want some day to see my next generation but it's such a fine gossamer of line that keeps me tethered. I'm sorry Kimmy. I am sorry Lorne and Karly and Lindsay and Barry. I am sorry for what I am thinking about. I am sorry it ever got this close. I am going to get dressed and get out of this house with these guns. I am going to to Smithers and see Sandi and get some help. Right now.
(which I did!)
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The New ALPHABETICAL CANCER PREVENTION Blogs
As I advise in my new book "Running From The Cancer Cooties" cancer is like one big life lottery and everyone is born with a ticket. We all have cancer cells inside of us that are capable of taking off with our lives. We don't yet know exactly why they take off when they do, but we do know there are ways you can increase your chances of it doing so. And like with any lottery, the more" tickets" you have, the greater the chance you have of "winning."
For Example:
If you smoke or chew tobacco, you have bought yourself another ticket in the cancer lottery. (Tobacco use is the single greatest avoidable risk factor for cancer mortality worldwide, causing an estimated 22% of cancer deaths per year. In 2004, 1.6 million of the 7.4 million cancer deaths were due to tobacco use.)
If you sip on more than 1 alcoholic drink a day for women or 2 for men, you've bought another ticket.
If you are overweight with a sedentary lifestyle, you don't even have to get up to get your extra ticket. It's right there around your waist.
If you have a poor steady diet consisting of too much sugar and empty caloric foods like white flour, white rice and processed products, then you are eating another ticket.
Wallowing in toxins by using sun-tanning booths, chemically saturated skin, hair and beauty products like make-up and nail polish raises your chances another notch.
The bad news is that this is one lottery you do NOT want to win, because the truth is, having cancer is CRAP! When you hear the diagnosis that your number has been called, it will be one of the worst days of your life.
Our doctors and other health professionals do what they can to help us deal with cancer once we get it, but if you wait for that moment, it could be too late. Cancers can grow quietly and quickly and before you know it, they're too big to remove and have traveled your bloodstream into other parts of your body. They can spread faster than gossip in a small town.
Or you could end up like many of us survivors with grueling tales of painful surgeries, of missing body parts, missing hair, fingernails and of distresses that still carry on. Of dealing with depressions and aches and drugs with disruptive, even harmful side-effects for the rest of our lives. The medical world can only do so much. Cancer is much bigger than any of us could ever imagine. It is a fight to the death between you and something evil that lurks just beneath your surface. Something that counts on taking over if you give it even the slightest chance.
Why let cancer get a foot hold in the first place? I am not alone in believing Prevention IS the key.
I will be researching each topic, trying to give you as much information on the subjects as I can, but ultimately, if it concerns you, you should do your own investigating for even more information and answers.
We each only have so much time on this earth. Personally, I'm trying to buy as many days, healthy ones, that I can because my work is not even close to being finished here. If I can, I would like to educate the entire world about the importance of cancer prevention. And that goal starts with one person at a time. Meaning with YOU.
Check back every Monday/Tuesday to learn more.
The Alphabetical Cancer Prevention Blogs begin on Tuesday October 11, 2011.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
The Probiotic Confusion
· At lunch today, the ladies were talking about yogurt and how confusing it can be when approaching the dairy case. There is regular full fat, low fat and no-fat. Full sugar, low sugar and yogurt with sugar substitutes like aspartame (rat poison?) or Sucralose. Personally, I have been using the no fat, sucralose sweetened fruit- added Source. The problem is I felt like I was missing something as the Source does not say it has "added probiotics" like some of the other yogurts do.
Is that something I need?
After doing a bit of research this is what I discovered:
Is that something I need?
After doing a bit of research this is what I discovered:
I
IP Probiotics are the “good” bacteria that help promote a healthy digestive system. Two such bacteria cultures, Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus are used to make all yogurts. The National Yogurt Association (NYA) developed a “Live and Active Cultures” seal to identify a yogurt that contains 100 million cultures per gram at the time of manufacturing. Yogurt companies must pay several thousand dollars each year to use this seal on their products. Smaller yogurt companies may not participate due to the high cost of using the seal, even though they may contain live and active cultures. These days, several yogurt companies are now putting additional probiotics and cultures (such as Bifidobacterium BB-12) into their yogurts and making claims regarding immunity and digestive health. These cultures are safe for consumption and some research shows that they may improve the health of the immune and digestive systems. Keep in mind that eating a yogurt with added probiotics could be one of many ways to enhance your immune system or improve digestive function. Research has shown that regular yogurt (without additional probiotics) can enhance the immune and digestive systems, too.
Now I don't feel like I'm missing out anymore and will stick with my Source. I think between it and my healthy diet, I don't really need any more insurance that I am doing what I can for my body. Moderation is still the key to life!
Now I don't feel like I'm missing out anymore and will stick with my Source. I think between it and my healthy diet, I don't really need any more insurance that I am doing what I can for my body. Moderation is still the key to life!
Monday, August 29, 2011
That Second Glass of Spirits
I can claim chemo brain or ADD for forgetting your name or for missing an appointment...BUT I will not tolerate my own ineptitude for getting my facts all messed up when it comes down to my writing. Ask my husband, I am not a "fact magnet." I can't remember what someone told me downtown to tell him when I get home. "I ran into Mary and she said she had run into some friend of yours, can't remember who she said, at some function she was at sometime last week, or was it last month?" Drives him wild!
It must also drive him wild that I am working on a non-fiction book titled "Running From The Cancer Cooties." It's okay when I'm writing fiction to get a little goosey with my details, but not with this and I whole-heartedly agree.
That said, I have tried very hard to get my facts straight in the book. Now in my second editing, I have been going over my "tips" located throughout the book and collecting references to back up what I am saying.
During this process, I have found an inaccuracy I have been spouting to most of my girlfriends about alcohol and your health. I have been saying that after three drinks a week, any alcohol becomes detrimental to a woman's health, when in fact that is only true for breast cancer survivors. Indeed, the rate of recurrance rises drastically to 34% after that point. So now I can honestly say "No, one was enough. Any more could kill me." Dramatic, but true
If you have survived breast cancer, here’s an important article to read at: http://www.breastcancer.org/risk/new_research/20091210b.jsp
It must also drive him wild that I am working on a non-fiction book titled "Running From The Cancer Cooties." It's okay when I'm writing fiction to get a little goosey with my details, but not with this and I whole-heartedly agree.
That said, I have tried very hard to get my facts straight in the book. Now in my second editing, I have been going over my "tips" located throughout the book and collecting references to back up what I am saying.
During this process, I have found an inaccuracy I have been spouting to most of my girlfriends about alcohol and your health. I have been saying that after three drinks a week, any alcohol becomes detrimental to a woman's health, when in fact that is only true for breast cancer survivors. Indeed, the rate of recurrance rises drastically to 34% after that point. So now I can honestly say "No, one was enough. Any more could kill me." Dramatic, but true
If you have survived breast cancer, here’s an important article to read at: http://www.breastcancer.org/risk/new_research/20091210b.jsp
O.K. and for you non-cancerous survivors, here's something for you to read at:http://www.health.com/health/article/0,,20410314,00.html titled: Is Alcohol Actually Good for You? What's Right and Wrong With Drinking
One paragraph states: What the experts say: Studies clearly show, too, that more than one drink a day makes you more prone to breast cancer. Researchers at the European Cancer Conference recently reported that the risk rises 10% for women who have between one and two drinks a day, compared with women who have less than one, and the risk increases by 30% at more than three drinks per day. And don’t think you lower the risk by drinking wine instead of beer or something harder. The same research says any kind of alcohol ups the risk. Uterine cancer risks go up at two or more drinks a day, as well. What does alcohol have against breasts and uteruses? Experts say it seems to boost estrogen levels, which in some cases cranks up cancer risks.
I stand corrected.
But, it still comes down to playing with a loaded gun, if you ask me. Not many of my friends limit themselves to one a day. Especially once the weekend is here.
Let me ask you this. Do you want to be where I have been? Do you want to suffer with your scars and cut-up body parts? With every look in your mirror? Is over-consuming (meaning 3 drinks a day) every weekend worth what this could do to your family and friends if you are one of the ones that doesn't survive cancer?
This applies to pre and post-menopausal women. You can run but you can't hide.
I hate to be the heavy here, but a fact is a fact. Please keep this in the front and not the back of your mind the next time you raise that second glass of spirits to your lips.
And let's all drink to our health! Make mine a double water, heavy on the anxiety-free, please.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
One Year Mark
It has been one year since receiving the phone call telling me I was an official breast cancer statistic. I thought you might like to know where exactly that puts me.
I am trying to get back to "normal" but it isn't coming easy. I am starting to think that maybe I never will reach the ease of my prior days in regards to my physical activities. The area on my torso where the lymph nodes were removed still feels sore and a lot like a thick rubber band is attached whenever I try to stretch it. It always feels like I had the workout of a lifetime two days before, leaving me stiff and tender.
The actual surgical scars on my breasts have healed nicely and are fading into the background. They don't trouble me.
The bottom of the right breast that went through the partial mastectomy is a bit deformed looking with dimpled skin.One half of that breast feels as solid as statue marble in contrast to the jiggly, fatty tissue in the other half. It's not all bad. Now my husband has a choice...soft or firm.
My right breast has been pulled by sutures to sit slightly higher than the left breast. Not on purpose, it just ended up that way. The nipple aims off to the right, like a mis-aligned headlight which I physically move straight once confined by a bra. It's not a complaint, it's what I look at in the mirror. It could become a complaint if it doesn't let down in the next few years. I'm giving my surgeon the benefit of the doubt that it will eventually relax.
Speaking of, bras still cut into the lymph node incision area, so I prefer to go without one most of the day. I have soft sided sports bras that are far more comfortable for when I want to go out.
The lymph node scar is still a bright pink in color and as said, causes me the most discomfort.But if the nodes hadn't been taken, we would never have known the cancer had made it that far, waiting for the chance to keep going. The thought still keeps me up some nights.
After my brother passed, I fell into a depressed state for two solid weeks. It was hard to find the energy to do anything, to find a reason to keep going through all this. I ate a lot of comfort food, but only if it was something that required virtually no effort on my part. Like instant mashed potatoes with gravy ready in two minutes. Hamburger and onions mixed with a cup of sour cream. Grilled cheese sandwiches with a mountain of ketchup. With the anti-cancer drugs driving my hunger to a new high, it was easy to pack on an extra five pounds I will have to deal with. There's always something unpleasant to have to deal with it seems.
That's why the recent reunion of my girlfriends was such a welcomed event last week. We had the guitars and harmonica and sing-song going until the wee-est of hours. Buoyed by so much love, one couldn't help but want to be there for them as much as they are here for me. It's not my time to go anywhere yet-I still have work to do. I think I had to go through this so that I can help the next women heading through. How could I have known how to help if I hadn't experienced it? All of it?
My lung capacity is still not where I feel it should be by now. I am 5 months post-treatments. Sandi and I still jog 40 minutes 2-3 times a week, but at the end of the run, if I exert myself, I can't seem to catch a breath and have ended in tears of frustration in the middle of the road struggling to get any air in. The more I try, the more frustrated I got which upset me further, clamping a hand around my airway.Sandi reminds me to exhale as much as I can before trying to inhale. It takes a few seconds to catch up. A few terrifying seconds.
I have been referred to a lung specialist who I will hopefully be seeing this year. You never know with the medical line-ups these days when you have something that is not life-threatening at the moment. There are so many needing immediate care. It's going to get worse with us Baby Boomers aging the way we are.
My hair has come in ten times as thick- like the hair on the butt of a dog, I whine. It has mini poodle curls that I hate, but at least it's there and its warm. I can't take it off in the middle of a hot flash anymore. That part sucks because the flashes still come around ten to twenty times a day. They are more manageable and less frequent if I don't drink, eat meat, sugar or dairy and get some exercise. "Might as well shoot me," my husband says. Good thing he's not on The Plan.
Sandi will continue to inject me with Zoladex once every three months to prevent the production of estrogen in my body. I will be taking Tamoxifin to protect me from estrogen as well.
My biggest issue is morale which I struggle with daily to keep up. The reunion did wonders, but then I got a call that a friend who has been through breast cancer in her left breast, through surgery and radiation, discovered two more lumps in her right breast. She's just started her chemo and is at the "hair tugging" stage. My heart was so saddened to hear and I cannot imagine what she must be feeling. At this stage where you have the belief that they got it all by cutting, poisoning and nuking it and are continuing to battle it with drugs you start to feel a bit safe. Your trust and faith slowly starts to return. "Maybe I am out of the woods?" You start sneaking back a little more chocolate, a Chai tea latte, okay two, three, whatever, and then the phone rings. Another friend's mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The physio's receptionist, also a friend...more pancreatic cancer.
Needless to say I am back on the strict diet today.
In a nut shell... I'm okay. I'm alive, with hair and two breasts and I am still able to do most of what I did one year ago.But I also have a new respect for good health. For being able to do something without hurting. I took it for granted all of those years.
It's one of life's lessons we have to learn. Take care of your body because you (well, most of us) only get one.
One year. One life. One big bowl of cherries to keep it that way.
Friday, July 22, 2011
The Bearded Lady
Hormones.
Those wacky, weird things that take you on a free roller coaster ride once a month. The troublemakers that have you stuffing your pie hole with as many fattening things as you can find, while in the middle of a diet because you DESERVE IT GOD DAMN IT! When else would you ever get a desire to eat a bucket of greasy KFC even though you know what it will do to your cholesterol readings, to your butt, to your poor liver?
Hormones will cause alcohol cravings, especially when you're by yourself. And we're talking about the entire wine bottle plus possibly a second one being opened as you weep through The First Wives Club DVD or the like.
The binge-ing doesn't make you feel any better, but you can't seem to stop for any reason.
It is a time of ultimate non-sense. Literally.
It's pathetic. There's no control. No will power. No power at all. They turn you into a ragged doll.
Well, try that on a daily basis and then welcome to my new world.
Whatever is in this Zoladex and Tamoxifin has me trampolining up on highs and down on lows like an Olympic gymnast. I can go from joy to manic depression in the time it takes a bird to discover I just washed my car.
There isn't enough food in the fridge to satisfy me. I watch, defeated, as my waist spills over my waist band, while my dress gets snugger and the scale number increases.
The hot flashes continue as often as traffic light changes, but the good news is they have either leveled out or else I have simply gotten used to them? Like a tick in the corner of an eye, they get ignored. They are not important so why give them any credence? They've become the easiest part of all of this.
Sleep? What's that? Bedtime is more like a horizontal roller derby event. With absolutely no sex involved because who wants to do that? There is no libido. That went out with the chemo. And if I do participate in any mattress games, I am sore the next day from dryness. Add sperm retention to the drug's side effects. And I don't know about your man, but mine doesn't get happier when he's retaining. And if he's not happy, nobody is going to be happy. Ever, ever again.
And thinking this fun would have to have a limit, because, I mean, how much else can one take, I happened to look in a mirror.
Why do we do that?
No, not another nose growing. Not longer lashes but you're thinking along the right lines. More hair. But not on my head. I'm growing a beard, Ladies and Gentlemen. Step right up, get your tickets here to see the lovely bearded lady from Houston. Complete with side burns, neck fur and all.
This is silly. I can fix this. Its not the end of the world. I bought some facial wax because my girlfriend uses it. You heat it up, apply and pull off. Simple. So they say.
The smoke smell lasted three days in our kitchen and a week right inside of the microwave. Seems I got it a bit hot. I spread the wax on with a thin Popsicle stick and let it harden as recommended. Then you have to peel it back.Well Holy Mother. My face came off with each tug. Tears welled up, my body went into one long hot flash from the stress and my husband came home to ask what the heck was that smell?
And I still had to get the blob of wax, settled like caramel off of my jaw line.
"Just be a minute, Honey."
Fudge.
Off to the professional I go. For a cheek wax. That's about five times the area of the eyebrow waxing that I managed to live through once and never again. My eyebrows puffed out an inch from my head and stayed that way over 24 hours.
With a face job, you can see the new wrinkles form with each tug of the waxed strip they pull from your skin.
Ready?
For what?
Owwwwwwwww. I've had tattoos that hurt less.
I would say this hurt even more than the partial mastectomy.
And in both incidences, at least I was offered drugs!
So, the next time you want to moan about your PMS symptoms because you're miserable and out of control- give me a call. I'll come over with some chocolate and my new waxing kit and we'll get you straightened out.
You'll feel nice and smooth when I'm done.
And guaranteed you won't feel like your hormone issues are any worse than the rest of ours!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
