Giving up on my little black dresses from the 90’s, I was bagging them up for the Vietnam Vets. Will came in to see what I was up to.
Will: “Are those dresses from college?”
Me: “A little after college… they are too small now.”
Will: “Wow, you are getting so strong, Mom. Big and strong – that’s why you can still lift me!”
Thankfully, between a size 10 and now, I became a mom.
Happy Hump Day…
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
MRI Happy Dance
My last radiation treatment was in April of 2010. My follow-up: Alternating every six months, I have a mammogram and an MRI.
Friday, January 13th was my MRI. Driving to the appointment, I thought how crazy it was to schedule an MRI on this day. But, hey, Bill was flying home from China today. What the hell, we live on the edge of superstition.
With my whole being, I try to keep these appointments like a regular dentist cleaning or a physical. And it works – to a certain point. On that Friday it was all calm until the transfer ceremony of the blue Johnny.
Damn. I hate blue Johnnys. They are a transfer of power – away from me.
The same tech has set me up each time I’ve been in for an MRI. And after questions about any metal implants or fake eyeballs in my body, she says, “OK, let’s get your IV set up.”
Damn. I forgot about that needle. But my veins are from a line of women who hand-milked cows and carried 5-gallon pails of feed. “Wow, look at that vein! That’s a nice one.” My veins always excite phlebotomists.
A tiny, tiny prick and we are set. I don’t watch the needle entry or the taping or anything. I strike up conversation, reverting to that good old safe Iowa topic: the weather. Unfortunately, while protecting the visionary sense, another one kicks into high gear.
“Damn! I forgot my gum! I can taste the saline.” And the tech says, “Yeah, that happens to some people.” I thought she should understand a bit more. “That sends me right back to the infusion suite, hooked up to a chemo IV.” “Oh…”
We move from the IV center to the MRI chamber. “What radio station do you want in your headphones?” Country. It would be nice to hear bits and pieces of a story in between the jack-hammering magnetics.
“I imagine you remember the drill: Put the girls in the two holes.” We get “the girls” placed; then I get a panic buzzer in my left hand and hold the IV string in the right hand. Looking down, I should be able to see the wall with the magic mirror. But I’ve already decided I’m going to close my eyes because I don’t want to see a red curl flung over the mirror. For my very first MRI, the curl and I talked quite a bit about its impending travels away from my head.
The techs leave the room and turn on the music. “…I went sky-diving; I went Rocky Mountain climbing; I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu; And I loved deeper; And I spoke sweeter…” Are you fucking kidding me? “Live Like You Are Dying” crooning in my ear as I roll on into the cancer-seeking chamber?
“OK, are you ready, Linda?” Sure. “The first test will run for 3 minutes.”
BANG, BANG, BANG.
“You are doing great!” I’m not afraid of tight places. I’ve dove down to 100 feet in the Caribbean and communed with turtles and Rock Beauties. My body lies there, but my mind goes for a scuba dive. One of the most tranquil places on earth.
Three more… four more sets of BANG, BANG, BANG tests, then, “We are going to start the IV now.” Another quick hit of saline in my mouth. And I don’t think it’s my imagination that the tracer liquid has been kept at -32 degrees prior to running cool through my arm.
Finally, “OK, Linda you are all set. We’ll bring you out, but remember you are up high, and we need to lower you before you stand up. And move slowly, you might be light-headed.”
Farm girls, you know the scene of the cow being corralled into a livestock trailer? And the ambitiousness of her attempted escape? My feet flew to the ground and my horns popped up ready to gore anything in my path, with a smile on my face. The techs just looked at me. “I’m fine,” I assured them. I focused on the table with my glasses and moved to it. I thanked the techs, but one walked with me to the dressing room.
“Are you OK?” “Yup, I’m fine.” “OK, good luck!”
What the hell does THAT mean? Is that the kind of thing you say to someone after an MRI on Friday the 13th? After an IV to the ear of “Live Like You Are Dying?”
I stuck the Johnny in the bin, stood up straight, got to the car, and called my sister. I recapped the morning’s events. “Linda, she says ‘good luck’ to everyone.” We laughed.
I still think the tech needs a better sending off line. And I couldn’t think of one. “Good bye.” No good. “Have a great day!” It may be one of your last. “See you next time!” Bad omen.
“Good luck” it is.
And it was.
On Monday I got the message on my cell phone. “Linda, I’m just calling with good news about your MRI…” And this time I was in a public place, I held it together.
I rarely collapse to my knees in tears on the kitchen floor. That's an over-acted scene in a bad movie. I don’t think I ever did that in the middle of the cancer year.
But those calls that say, “You’re OK”… Boom, down. They take my breath away. They open flood gates.
They give me six more months of living cancer-free.
Friday, January 13th was my MRI. Driving to the appointment, I thought how crazy it was to schedule an MRI on this day. But, hey, Bill was flying home from China today. What the hell, we live on the edge of superstition.
With my whole being, I try to keep these appointments like a regular dentist cleaning or a physical. And it works – to a certain point. On that Friday it was all calm until the transfer ceremony of the blue Johnny.
Damn. I hate blue Johnnys. They are a transfer of power – away from me.
The same tech has set me up each time I’ve been in for an MRI. And after questions about any metal implants or fake eyeballs in my body, she says, “OK, let’s get your IV set up.”
Damn. I forgot about that needle. But my veins are from a line of women who hand-milked cows and carried 5-gallon pails of feed. “Wow, look at that vein! That’s a nice one.” My veins always excite phlebotomists.
A tiny, tiny prick and we are set. I don’t watch the needle entry or the taping or anything. I strike up conversation, reverting to that good old safe Iowa topic: the weather. Unfortunately, while protecting the visionary sense, another one kicks into high gear.
“Damn! I forgot my gum! I can taste the saline.” And the tech says, “Yeah, that happens to some people.” I thought she should understand a bit more. “That sends me right back to the infusion suite, hooked up to a chemo IV.” “Oh…”
We move from the IV center to the MRI chamber. “What radio station do you want in your headphones?” Country. It would be nice to hear bits and pieces of a story in between the jack-hammering magnetics.
“I imagine you remember the drill: Put the girls in the two holes.” We get “the girls” placed; then I get a panic buzzer in my left hand and hold the IV string in the right hand. Looking down, I should be able to see the wall with the magic mirror. But I’ve already decided I’m going to close my eyes because I don’t want to see a red curl flung over the mirror. For my very first MRI, the curl and I talked quite a bit about its impending travels away from my head.
The techs leave the room and turn on the music. “…I went sky-diving; I went Rocky Mountain climbing; I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu; And I loved deeper; And I spoke sweeter…” Are you fucking kidding me? “Live Like You Are Dying” crooning in my ear as I roll on into the cancer-seeking chamber?
“OK, are you ready, Linda?” Sure. “The first test will run for 3 minutes.”
BANG, BANG, BANG.
“You are doing great!” I’m not afraid of tight places. I’ve dove down to 100 feet in the Caribbean and communed with turtles and Rock Beauties. My body lies there, but my mind goes for a scuba dive. One of the most tranquil places on earth.
Three more… four more sets of BANG, BANG, BANG tests, then, “We are going to start the IV now.” Another quick hit of saline in my mouth. And I don’t think it’s my imagination that the tracer liquid has been kept at -32 degrees prior to running cool through my arm.
Finally, “OK, Linda you are all set. We’ll bring you out, but remember you are up high, and we need to lower you before you stand up. And move slowly, you might be light-headed.”
Farm girls, you know the scene of the cow being corralled into a livestock trailer? And the ambitiousness of her attempted escape? My feet flew to the ground and my horns popped up ready to gore anything in my path, with a smile on my face. The techs just looked at me. “I’m fine,” I assured them. I focused on the table with my glasses and moved to it. I thanked the techs, but one walked with me to the dressing room.
“Are you OK?” “Yup, I’m fine.” “OK, good luck!”
What the hell does THAT mean? Is that the kind of thing you say to someone after an MRI on Friday the 13th? After an IV to the ear of “Live Like You Are Dying?”
I stuck the Johnny in the bin, stood up straight, got to the car, and called my sister. I recapped the morning’s events. “Linda, she says ‘good luck’ to everyone.” We laughed.
I still think the tech needs a better sending off line. And I couldn’t think of one. “Good bye.” No good. “Have a great day!” It may be one of your last. “See you next time!” Bad omen.
“Good luck” it is.
And it was.
On Monday I got the message on my cell phone. “Linda, I’m just calling with good news about your MRI…” And this time I was in a public place, I held it together.
I rarely collapse to my knees in tears on the kitchen floor. That's an over-acted scene in a bad movie. I don’t think I ever did that in the middle of the cancer year.
But those calls that say, “You’re OK”… Boom, down. They take my breath away. They open flood gates.
They give me six more months of living cancer-free.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
A Hump Day Short
One of the best conversations I have had this month was with 4-year-old Ellen. While visiting our house, she noticed a coloring page Liam had made that was hanging on the wall in our kitchen.
Ellen: “Hey, I know who that is! Martin Luther King!”
Me: “Why is he famous?”
Ellen: “He had dreams.”
Me: “What were his dreams about?”
Ellen: “Love.”
Happy Hump Day.
Ellen: “Hey, I know who that is! Martin Luther King!”
Me: “Why is he famous?”
Ellen: “He had dreams.”
Me: “What were his dreams about?”
Ellen: “Love.”
Happy Hump Day.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
A Note from the Laundry Maven
My inside-out-fix-it-yourself system has been compromised. This morning, pulling clothes out of the dryer, I discovered a suspicious number of shirts had one sleeve inside-out and one right-side out. The same was true for jeans. It's too awkward to fold and hang clothes like this.
I'm righting the inside-outs... should I be wronging the right-side outs??
I'm righting the inside-outs... should I be wronging the right-side outs??
Saturday, January 21, 2012
The Laundry Maven
The writer is in the house...and the house desperately needs the laundry maven.
The writer, looking for time to scoop up as her own, has been negotiating with the laundry maven. The writer believes she can cope with laundry by doing a load every other day.
When I opened Liam’s jean drawer on Wednesday morning, it was empty.
“You did the wrong load on Monday!” shrieks the laundry maven. That woman is downright crazy.
But I KNOW there is a pair of clean jeans here because Tuesday night I asked Liam to fold his jeans and put them in the drawer. We are trying hard to break the wear-it-once mode. The maven questioned Liam. He was clueless and confused and not concerned. “They are not in your drawer!” accused the laundry maven. We both looked and could find them nowhere – not in the dirty clothes basket, not on beds, not in the wrong drawer. We scrambled to the “wrinkled” basket and found a pair of sweats.
Anticipating the writer’s long overdue return, the laundry maven had been working overtime: First moving her mindset from having toddlers to having capable 6- & 8- year-old boys, then delegating responsibilities. The art of changing sheets can be enjoyed by the entire family, with the help of Bill’s long arms for beds against walls. The challenge of inside out clothes has been handled accordingly: However it goes into the wash is how it returns clean. The crew needed tips on handling inside out shirts, jeans, and underwear, but after a few practice sessions on solving these puzzles, it’s working with only occasionally tags on the outside.
After the Wednesday morning school shuffle, the maven returns to determine the most advantageous load of laundry.
Oh my dear lord, she can’t see the floor in the laundry room. Walking on the mounds, toward the washer, she begins the double sort. With Liam’s eczema, the boys’ clothes need to be washed separately without Downy. This doubles the number of loads to go through one cycle of Doing Laundry.
She digs through the bins. Grown-up jeans sorted on top of boy jeans! The mysteries of her world begin to unravel as she lifts the lid to toss in the boy jeans. But there’s a spun-out wet load in there. Sighing, she takes the headband from her jeans and pulls her hair back into a ponytail; then she mechanically opens the dryer to help the wet load continue its journey. Behind door #2 is a load of dry wrinkled clothes – boys’ darks. Translated, that means ten shirts and 300 little dark blue socks. Since it’s already wrinkled, it can easily be dumped into a laundry basket.
Honestly, why would she expect an empty laundry basket to be in the laundry room? The maven hand-carries the load to the guest bed and finds her way back to the laundry room by following a trail of little blue socks. At last, both machines are happily whirring away.
The laundry maven must retire as the chess club organizer needs to get to school. The laundry maven hands her a pair of sweatpants. “Remember? Will has karate before chess and you couldn’t find any sweatpants this morning.”
After chess, I herd the boys’ out of Will’s classroom and eye a rumpled pair of jeans lying in the middle of the floor. I recognize them as belonging to the Malcolm household. I snag the jeans and the laundry maven proudly smiles at my discovery. She does not like missing clothes. While the boys settle in the van, she picks up the jeans, turns them right-side out, and holds them up to fold them.
She’s stunned. Dazed. Confused. “Will… where did you get these?”
“I took them out of Liam’s drawer this morning. There weren’t any in my drawer.” The maven belly laughs and shakes her head, delighted that he is such a resourceful 8-year-old.
At home that night, the exhausted laundry maven hands the writer her pencil and journal. The writer looks at the blank page not knowing where to start.
The writer, looking for time to scoop up as her own, has been negotiating with the laundry maven. The writer believes she can cope with laundry by doing a load every other day.
When I opened Liam’s jean drawer on Wednesday morning, it was empty.
“You did the wrong load on Monday!” shrieks the laundry maven. That woman is downright crazy.
But I KNOW there is a pair of clean jeans here because Tuesday night I asked Liam to fold his jeans and put them in the drawer. We are trying hard to break the wear-it-once mode. The maven questioned Liam. He was clueless and confused and not concerned. “They are not in your drawer!” accused the laundry maven. We both looked and could find them nowhere – not in the dirty clothes basket, not on beds, not in the wrong drawer. We scrambled to the “wrinkled” basket and found a pair of sweats.
Anticipating the writer’s long overdue return, the laundry maven had been working overtime: First moving her mindset from having toddlers to having capable 6- & 8- year-old boys, then delegating responsibilities. The art of changing sheets can be enjoyed by the entire family, with the help of Bill’s long arms for beds against walls. The challenge of inside out clothes has been handled accordingly: However it goes into the wash is how it returns clean. The crew needed tips on handling inside out shirts, jeans, and underwear, but after a few practice sessions on solving these puzzles, it’s working with only occasionally tags on the outside.
After the Wednesday morning school shuffle, the maven returns to determine the most advantageous load of laundry.
Oh my dear lord, she can’t see the floor in the laundry room. Walking on the mounds, toward the washer, she begins the double sort. With Liam’s eczema, the boys’ clothes need to be washed separately without Downy. This doubles the number of loads to go through one cycle of Doing Laundry.
She digs through the bins. Grown-up jeans sorted on top of boy jeans! The mysteries of her world begin to unravel as she lifts the lid to toss in the boy jeans. But there’s a spun-out wet load in there. Sighing, she takes the headband from her jeans and pulls her hair back into a ponytail; then she mechanically opens the dryer to help the wet load continue its journey. Behind door #2 is a load of dry wrinkled clothes – boys’ darks. Translated, that means ten shirts and 300 little dark blue socks. Since it’s already wrinkled, it can easily be dumped into a laundry basket.
Honestly, why would she expect an empty laundry basket to be in the laundry room? The maven hand-carries the load to the guest bed and finds her way back to the laundry room by following a trail of little blue socks. At last, both machines are happily whirring away.
The laundry maven must retire as the chess club organizer needs to get to school. The laundry maven hands her a pair of sweatpants. “Remember? Will has karate before chess and you couldn’t find any sweatpants this morning.”
After chess, I herd the boys’ out of Will’s classroom and eye a rumpled pair of jeans lying in the middle of the floor. I recognize them as belonging to the Malcolm household. I snag the jeans and the laundry maven proudly smiles at my discovery. She does not like missing clothes. While the boys settle in the van, she picks up the jeans, turns them right-side out, and holds them up to fold them.
She’s stunned. Dazed. Confused. “Will… where did you get these?”
“I took them out of Liam’s drawer this morning. There weren’t any in my drawer.” The maven belly laughs and shakes her head, delighted that he is such a resourceful 8-year-old.
At home that night, the exhausted laundry maven hands the writer her pencil and journal. The writer looks at the blank page not knowing where to start.
2011 Recapped
I felt a wisp of hair get caught in my eyebrow at the beach in May, pulled my hair into a tiny ponytail for my birthday in July on Mt. Rushmore, and felt a curl settle on my collar bone while riding a double decker bus in London at Christmas time. I love having hair. 2011 was a good year.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
The Red-Toed Crab
April 16th marked my first year away from breast cancer treatment. The day passed rather unceremoniously. Then another date appeared on the horizon. May 25th, the date of my second mammogram since “all that.”
Despite my attempts to just keep it as an appointment on the calendar, it burrowed right under my skin and sat at the base of any rational thought I attempted to maintain. And it fed those ridiculous irrational thoughts as well.
I had chemo to kill any tiny cancer cell circulating. I had radiation to kill those that might be lingering in my breast. I’m on the 5-year aromatase inhibitor plan; the test drug that eats the estrogen that fed my kind of breast cancer. But the other breast… could another type spring up on the other side?
A mammogram won’t pick up anything; it’s a formality because I’m an MRI girl. Before an MRI is when I should shake and spin. Not now.
Have I done all that I can for Will, Liam, and Bill? If I’m gone, I want some sort of stability in their daily lives. For the boys to move through the days confidently. At school. At swimming and gymnastics. To love reading more than playing Wii. To get dirty playing outside. What more can I do?
Tuesday, the day before the mammogram, I had a quick pedicure with a friend. Red hot toes are ready for summer. But when I put them up on a chair and looked at them – they were the same toes I remember from June 2009. Sitting in my friend’s hammock waiting for her to return from a walk with the boys. I had my doctor’s appointment and she took care of the boys for me. Leaving that appointment, I knew. And, in that hammock looking upward beyond my toes, it was my first pissy conversation with God. “So this is it, huh? You are putting THIS in my path?” I left the hammock with a strangely confident, pissed-off attitude. It matched my red toes. Perhaps matching the crab shell I was born into, like a suit of armor. I saw the boys coming up the sidewalk, and I left the hammock hissing, “Try it. Just try to pierce this.”
Last Wednesday, tempting fate, my red toes marched me into the compression chamber. Although a tight squeeze, it wasn’t painful. However, the tech said if I got a call to come back it wouldn’t be for lack of compression! I looked in the mirror after I took off the dreaded blue Johnny to see the skin on my chest was a lighter shade of the color on my toes.
Friday afternoon I got the all-clear call while waiting in the hallway at gymnastics. “When does this get easier?” I asked the bearer of good news; the same person I had talked to the day before to say, “This is working on me. I can’t wait for the letter; please call me when you get the results.” She said it would get better with time.
Since in public, the crab didn’t crumble at the news. Although I wanted to share it with my new gymnastic-mom friends, I held back because the bigness of an OK mammogram… well, verbalizing probably would make me cry. Took a deep breath and blew out those daunting thoughts that had been rumbling since the turning of the April page on my calendar, since I had an inescapable dream two weeks ago that I had to have chemo again; since a “hot” spot was found on a friend’s lung a week ago. All that sat more thinly veiled than I realized through every meeting at school this month; behind every laugh with friends; next to me every night while reading books to my boys.
Ack… Yuck… Enough.
Onward as a red-toed crab dressed for summer. Keeping the uncertainty at bay – at least until the flip of the October calendar page, revealing a November MRI.
Despite my attempts to just keep it as an appointment on the calendar, it burrowed right under my skin and sat at the base of any rational thought I attempted to maintain. And it fed those ridiculous irrational thoughts as well.
I had chemo to kill any tiny cancer cell circulating. I had radiation to kill those that might be lingering in my breast. I’m on the 5-year aromatase inhibitor plan; the test drug that eats the estrogen that fed my kind of breast cancer. But the other breast… could another type spring up on the other side?
A mammogram won’t pick up anything; it’s a formality because I’m an MRI girl. Before an MRI is when I should shake and spin. Not now.
Have I done all that I can for Will, Liam, and Bill? If I’m gone, I want some sort of stability in their daily lives. For the boys to move through the days confidently. At school. At swimming and gymnastics. To love reading more than playing Wii. To get dirty playing outside. What more can I do?
Tuesday, the day before the mammogram, I had a quick pedicure with a friend. Red hot toes are ready for summer. But when I put them up on a chair and looked at them – they were the same toes I remember from June 2009. Sitting in my friend’s hammock waiting for her to return from a walk with the boys. I had my doctor’s appointment and she took care of the boys for me. Leaving that appointment, I knew. And, in that hammock looking upward beyond my toes, it was my first pissy conversation with God. “So this is it, huh? You are putting THIS in my path?” I left the hammock with a strangely confident, pissed-off attitude. It matched my red toes. Perhaps matching the crab shell I was born into, like a suit of armor. I saw the boys coming up the sidewalk, and I left the hammock hissing, “Try it. Just try to pierce this.”
Last Wednesday, tempting fate, my red toes marched me into the compression chamber. Although a tight squeeze, it wasn’t painful. However, the tech said if I got a call to come back it wouldn’t be for lack of compression! I looked in the mirror after I took off the dreaded blue Johnny to see the skin on my chest was a lighter shade of the color on my toes.
Friday afternoon I got the all-clear call while waiting in the hallway at gymnastics. “When does this get easier?” I asked the bearer of good news; the same person I had talked to the day before to say, “This is working on me. I can’t wait for the letter; please call me when you get the results.” She said it would get better with time.
Since in public, the crab didn’t crumble at the news. Although I wanted to share it with my new gymnastic-mom friends, I held back because the bigness of an OK mammogram… well, verbalizing probably would make me cry. Took a deep breath and blew out those daunting thoughts that had been rumbling since the turning of the April page on my calendar, since I had an inescapable dream two weeks ago that I had to have chemo again; since a “hot” spot was found on a friend’s lung a week ago. All that sat more thinly veiled than I realized through every meeting at school this month; behind every laugh with friends; next to me every night while reading books to my boys.
Ack… Yuck… Enough.
Onward as a red-toed crab dressed for summer. Keeping the uncertainty at bay – at least until the flip of the October calendar page, revealing a November MRI.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)