I never signed up for this...

A great day with the gynecologist

To get what happened today, you have to get where I'm coming from.

I was 45 years old.  I had two children.  I had breast cancer.  My prognosis was terrible.  I couldn't think of anything else.   24/7 doesn't even describe it.  I was obsessed.  Possessed.  Cancer invaded my brain just like it invaded my body. 

Only worse.  At least parts of my body didn't have it.  My entire brain was affected---every cell, every thought --I had a one-track mind.

I tried eveything to escape--yoga, meditation, guided imagery, music, nature walks.  Nothing worked.  When I discovered art a year after my diagnosis, I finally found some relief.

Painting for 5 minutes without thinking about cancer was a first step.

Eating a meal without chewing on cancer was a milestone.

Seeing a movie without cancer as the sub-plot was a breakthrough.

I never thought I'd get through a whole day without thinking about it.  But as the years went by, I discovered even that was possible.  

Cut to the gynecologist today.  (I've lost so many body parts you'd think I wouldn't even have to go anymore.) 

This isn't the gynecologist who delivered my children, or saw  me through cancer.  I've been seeing this doctor for maybe 5 years.  Today I'm in the stirrups waiting for my exam while she's flipping through my chart.   And she says, "So what was the year of your diagnosis?"

I pause.  "I can't remember if it was '94 or '95," I say.

 I CAN'T REMEMBER.  I have to think before I answer for sure: "'It was '95."

The doctor is as dumbfounded as I am.  The date of diagnosis is indelibly imprinted in the brain of a cancer patient.  "How great that is," she smiles.  "To think that you could forget."

I smile, too. It's quite a moment.

I float out of the gynecologist's office, basking in my resilience, and my ability to let go of cancer.  When suddenly I have a thought.

What if this is not a milestone in my cancer journey after all?  Maybe this is a different kind of milestone:  the onset of Alzheimer's.      

Character test

2009 is only a month old but it's already shaping up to be a tough year.  The economy is scary enough; but it seems as if every day I hear about someone else battling cancer.  All kinds of cancer.  Like a cancer chain reaction.

Maybe I hear more stories than the average person because I'm a survivor.  And even for me, it's never easy to hear this news.  To know what to say.  To know what to do.  To know that yet another person--and the people who love them--have been thrown into what I call Cancer World.

It's not a place you want to live.  Or vist.  Or even pass through.  It takes a special kind of brave. 

Personally I'm very squeamish.  I couldn't even watch The Wrestler last night without covering my eyes through the fight scenes.  But that's not the kind of strength you really need.

I found out I was stronger and more resilient than I thought.  But the truth is, I was---and I am---far less strong than people I talk to every day. 

Cancer is capricous and cruel.  It's a constant test of character.  And a person's true character emerges in a crisis.  As ironic as it may sound,  sometimes cancer can bring out the best in people.

Right now I'm helpless, watching friends confront this character test.  They never fail to inspire me with their courage.

Better and Worse

For several people I know, 2009  has brought crises and challenges.  When bad things happen, often it's a struggle to keep things in perspective.  At least it's been that way for me.  I've tried various ways to help me stay positive, or at least neutral.  And sometimes, what helps me is a children's book.

Not just any book.  I heard this book read aloud years ago when we still lived in Los Angeles.  My kids went to a very small school and once a week the whole student body , grades K thru 6, would gather together sitting on the floor, and sing songs.  And afterwards the director of the school would read a different book every week.  

Something about this particular story struck a chord in my soul.  It's based on a simple Yiddish tale, a fable about a man who complains to his rabbi about how difficult his life is.  The rabbi makes the man's life more and more miserable until finally the man sees how lucky he was in the first place.  Not rocket science, but  the moral spoke so loudly to me that I drove right from school to the bookstore.

Oddly, I didn't put it with the kids' books.  I'm not even sure if I read it to them.  I put it away and forgot about it.

Years after that, I got diagnosed with cancer.  I had a very complicated case, and didn't know of anyone whose case was as challenging as mine.  My life seemed so complicated, and so overwhelming, and so unfair.  I thought I was the unluckiest person in the world. 

On my first day of chemo, another survivor came to visit me in the hospital where I was having my infusion.  When I complained about how unlucky I felt, she told me what doctor told her each time he  gave her medical updates on her condition: "It could be better, but it could be worse."  

It sounded familiar.  

I went home and found the book.  It doesn't cure cancer, but it helped.  Maybe it's the Jewish black humor or cynicism, but the principle strikes home.  The same concept works for us as a country, as we face some of the most difficult problems in our history.  

Maybe this helps explain why we find satisfaction in things like reality television, and even blogs---We need to hear other stories, to insert ourselves into the mass of humanity and see where we fit in; to know that wherever we fall on that spectrum, in the realm of human experience,  usually it's true: maybe things could be better, but it could always be worse.

   

Spirit jump

I'm having second thoughts already.

Not even 12 hours into the new year and already I'm going back on my resolution to chill out.

I tried to chill.  Tried to ignore my New Year's Day post that I wrote in a hurry last night.  Tried to focus on having my kids around, as I've been doing, and loving every minute.

I know I'd be forgiven for starting the new year with a rerun.  I know it's one of those things no one but me cares about.  I wish I could let it go.  But I can't. 

Being around my kids is the very best way for me to start the new year.  And even though this very minute I am not feeling inspired to write, I am feeling inspired by something.  So I'd like to start the new year by sharing it.

Her name is Meaghan; she is in her early 20's, and is a recent graduate of law school.  She is someone I discovered through the internet.  I think she will inspire you too, and maybe you will want to join me in becoming a spirit jumper.

And after I post this, I really am going to chill out.

Survivors of something

I don't write a lot about cancer here--not because I don't have enough to say, but because I have too much.  Like, don't get me started.  But now it's on my mind, thanks to some comments from yesterday.  So I'll say this, and then maybe I won't discuss cancer again for awhile. 

Once my mother died of cancer, getting it myself was my greatest fear.  As horrible as it was, there are now things I fear more. But cancer was enough to teach me some lessons I needed to know.

Yesterday's post seemed to be about cancer but it really wasn't.  It was about any crisis--that can happen to anyone.  Cancer happens to be the one I know most about--but you could insert any of the things people deal with--illness, infertility, addictions, accidents, losing a spouse, losing a job.  And unless you're Mother Teresa, who hasn't wondered: why is this happening to me?

When I had cancer there was a national organization called "Y-Me?"   I loved that name.  When I heard it for the first time I felt someone out there UNDERSTOOD.  There must be others like me--people who were bitter, and scared, and wished cancer could have happened to someone else.  Just the name alone made me feel better. 

Last night when I wrote the post Why Me? I looked up the group, and I found out they changed the name.  Now it's called Breast Cancer Network of Strength.  I get why they might have done this, but it bothered me.  A name like Y-Me felt real.  Since everyone isn't the tough and strong and "bring it on" type.   Maybe deep down inside, no one is really the tough and strong type.  Either way, It doesn't make you feel better if everyone around you is telling you to be strong---when all you feel is whiny and weak.  At least I did.

And while I'm whining..,one other thing.   Sometimes people say they "kicked cancer's butt."  Which is great.  But then it sounds like someone who didn't succeed in kicking cancer's butt did something wrong.  Which is not great. 

Because I am here doesn't mean I was stronger than someone else, or kicked butt better.  Science doesn't have all the answers yet, so I'd rather say I was lucky.

Meanwhile I still haven't gotten to my point yet.  Which is that when you get cancer, you should be allowed to whine a little.  Maybe even a lot.  If you need to.  Expecting yourself to face a crisis like a hero is just not realistic or possible for many people.  I think we all deserve, if we need it, to feel sorry for ourselves sometimes.

And then we need to STOP whining.   Because (and this is finally my point...) I believe it is really important NOT to let yourself feel like a victim.  The victim mode is especially hard to avoid with cancer.  Because you are instantly transformed into one:  swallowed up by the medical system to be poked and prodded.  Helpless and out of control. 

I am not an expert or a psychologist--but I think getting out of this mindset definitely takes some attitude adjustment.  I believe it's essential if you're fighting a battle against cancer-- or maybe a battle of any kind.  The good news is that we all have what we need to do this--we all have a source of inner strength that can bring out the best in people even at the worst of times.

Somewhere inside each of us is an ancestor who faced down a saber tooth tiger.  That survival instinct-- so basic, so human-- is in the blood and brain of every single person on earth.  All we need is to access it when we most need it. 

And once you tap into that core strength, at that moment, you become a survivor.  To me, being a survivor is a state of mind--something to honor and celebrate.  It's also something you can call upon for the rest of your life.  And you will.   Because we're all survivors-- of something.

____________________

Laurence Gonzales, who wrote the book, Deep Survival, also wrote about my survival story in MORE magazine a few years ago.  Someday I'll write it myself.  His version makes me sound more heroic and brave than I really was. The one part that isn't accurate is in the first sentence: I never had red hair.     

Why me?

Tonight I talked to a friend who is going through a crisis.  Her situation is completely out of my own personal experience.  And yet something about the conversation felt very familiar.  Her pain felt familiar.  Her fear.  And the question underneath: Why me? 

As a cancer patient, I was very familiar with this question that most of us find ourselves asking at some point in our lives.  Most cancer patients ask their doctors this question.  Ask their spouses.  Their families, thier friends.  Ask God, the universe or anyone else willing to listen.  

Some people accept their cancer diagnosis and move forward without stopping to ask.  That was't me.  I asked this question a lot.

And like most people, aside from Joan of Arc, I never got an answer.  At least not an answer that satisfied me.  The best answer I heard was: "why not me?"  (Maybe because I'm Jewish, and Jews supposedly like to answer a question with another question.)

For months this plagued me.  Why did I have to suffer?  Why didn't it happen to a bad person instead (I could easily have filled in some names.) Why was life so unfair? 

I'm not a philosopher, and I'm not deeply introspective, so I wasn't asking this question on a profound level.  Nothing existential that could have puzzled someone like Spinoza or Maimonides--- maybe not even Dr. Phil.  If you really let yourself go deep with this type of question, maybe you're more likely to come up with answers.  Or more questions.

I didn't do that.  Ultimately I stopped asking a thousand times a day and dialed it down to a hundred times a day.  After months of cancer treatment, sometimes I got through a day without asking more than a few times.  And then at some point, I stopped asking at all.

I never did get the answer but I stopped asking because the question didn't apply anymore.  Mostly because I was alive.  And besides, other people had the same question.  People who were also good.  People who had cancer and people who had things even worse.

And then a funny thing happened.  Further down the road, after I stopped asking and even stopped thinking about this very much, I started asking again: "Why me?"  Only now I was asking the question in reverse: not, why was I going to die?  But-- why had I lived?  Why had I lived when my prognosis was so dire and my odds were so poor?  Why had I lived when other women were dying?  What am I supposed to contribute?

It's commonly called survivor's guilt, felt by people who walk away from plane crashes or collapsed buildings. How can you not feel guilty and confused when everyone around you has died.  Why were you chosen to live?

For me, this question has not faded over time.  13 years after my diagnosis and survival, I'm still asking.  The difference is that now I know there is an answer--some mission or purpose meant for me, something I'm destined to contribute, some reason I was allowed to live.

So "Why me?"  remains a question without an answer.  Probably this is the way it should be, and was meant to be.  Because If I knew the answer, I would probably stop searching.

Beach Walk

Today is my friend Myra's birthday.  I'm not planning to make a habit of announcing birthdays.  It was embarrassing enough on mine.  But today is meaningful because Myra and I are taking a walk on the beach.  And I feel really lucky about that.

Not just lucky that we're walking on a beach in California while some people are shoveling snow.  I feel really lucky about Myra.

We always meet at our regular spot--which is a few yards from a little stone bench. 

Myra and I never sit there, as these people are.  We're always so busy walking and talking, we pass by without noticing it.  Myra would never guess the bench once mattered to me.

I sat on that bench every day for months.  I sat there because I grew up by a beach and I remember my mother telling me she believed in the healing power of the ocean.  So I would put on my wig and a hat over the wig, and walk to the beach, hoping somehow the healing powers of the ocean would heal me from cancer.

But what I noticed most at the beach was that everyone seemed to be with someone else. 

Every single person had someone to be with.

Except me.

My husband was at work; my kids were at school.  I had been too busy working to make friends in my new community, and now for the first time in my life, I did not have a single friend I could ask to join me for a walk on the beach.  

People who know me now, like Myra, find it hard to imagine this.  Even I find it hard to imagine.  My life is so full.  But back then,  friends were far away when I needed them most.  I had never felt so profoundly alone.

I tried to let the ocean heal me.  I tried to summon the memory of my mother.  I sat on my bench and wrote in my journal, trying to learn something from the nightmare that was happening to me. 

It was good to get some fresh air and exercise.  But the only thing I remember learning was that the beach is a bad place to be on a windy day when you're wearing a wig.

13 years later, I still come to the beach.  I still want the fresh air and exercise.  But the beach never did help me heal.  Because its beauty could not reach inside my soul.  What I needed most, what helped me heal--were people.  The people I met in my new community.  People like Myra.  People who became treasured friends and who make me feel lucky--that they're in my life.

So although today is Myra's birthday, I'm the one who gets the gift: friendship. 

An Accidental Artist

Even though I have a studio and I make mosaics and people buy them, I have to confess that I'm kind of embarrassed to describe myself as an artist.  I feel like someone's going to come and arrest me for impersonating an artist.  Because I was always artistically challenged.

My mother never kept a single piece of my childhood artwork.  C's in Art kept me off the honor roll.  I could not draw a dog or a horse.  I couldn't even appreciate art, or fully understand it.  I didn't have enough confidence to pick out fabric for a couch.  I figured me and art were not meant for each other. 

And that's how it was until the day I took Daniel to one of those little studios where you could paint your own ceramics. I was still reeling from my cancer diagnosis a year earlier, and it was all I could think about--even as I made this attempt for quality time with Daniel.

He was 8; and he finished his project in about 8 minutes.  I went back to finish mine the next day.  And even though it looked like it was painted by a kid Daniel's age, I had enjoyed it.  And I thought maybe I'd try something else. 

V's birthday was coming up, so I chose a picture frame.  This time there was a little more pressure, so I gave more time and thought to the colors and design. 

In retrospect, what's most embarrassing is that I actually gave this to V for his birthday.

Sometimes people don't believe me when I say I had no artistic talent.  I think they will now.

It wasn't the product, it's the process.  I had never done anything artistic, or even crafty.  Now I wanted to go back and paint again.  By the fourth or fifth time, I was hooked.  And pretty soon, I figured out why.  While I sat there, concentrating on painting, I wasn't thinking about anything else.  Which mostly meant, I was NOT thinking about cancer.

I had tried everything they recommend to relax--Meditation, yoga, guided imagery, music, nature--none of it worked.  But painting the bisque was magic.  It's something about working with your hands, and needing to focus and concentrate.  Everything else floated away.

I still had no talent, but I loved it and I kept painting.  And then something happened. 

 My daughter Alli says that chemotherapy altered my DNA.  Which maybe explains the explosion of creativity--as if someone turned on a tap and a surge of ideas rushed out.

    What you can see here is the tip of the iceberg.   

 

The flow of ideas continued as I discovered mosaics, and other outlets, including this blog.  I have no idea where this creativity was buried during its long latent phase before I had cancer.  I just know that it still hasn't stopped.  And at some point someone told me that you are an artist if you believe you are.  

Circles

Now that I'm circling back timewise, I'm thinking that there really is something about women and circles.  And the way we instinctively gather together to share---quilting, knitting,  gossiping, husking corn, peeling potatoes.  I haven't peeled potatoes recently, but I did participate in two women's circles over the last few days.

The first one was when I visited a meeting of the San Jose chapter of eWomen Network.  This is a national organization that works both online and in person.  It's a woman's circle for the computer age.  And at the luncheon I attended, it worked like a well oiled machine.

The goal is what they call "accelerated networking"--which I figure is the business version of speed dating.  Each person is randomly assigned to 2 different small groups, which gather during the luncheon at designated places around the banquet room.  Inside each individual little circle, each person gets exactly one minute to share her story-- a 60-second sales pitch.  I hear everything from financial planners to contractors to massage therapists.   You can also ask for something you need---from new clients to public speaking engagements to a new roommate.  After 60 seconds, a bell rings and your time is up and the next person starts.  It's like clockwork.  No chitchat inside this little circle. You come prepared with a stack of business cards, and if someone is interested in your spiel, she hands you her card or takes one of yours--without stopping to interrupt the flow.  If you're not interested in each other, you don't waste a card.  Or time.  Very efficient.  Obviously the wave of the future.

In my two circles, I'm a bit of a square peg.  I'm a guest, not a member.  And I don't quite fit into this brave new world.  Especially since I have nothing to sell and nothing I can ask for-- in 60 seconds from a group of strangers.  Unless one of them has some chocolate in her purse.

24 hours later, I'm in another circle of women.  Also mostly stangers.  No one has business cards.  No one is buying or selling.  We get as much time as we need.  Although even in one minute, sometimes we are laughing or crying.

This is the beginning of the weekend retreat.  And the beginning of the healing process.  Like pioneers on the open prairie circling the wagons, we gather in a circle and make a safe space.  And the minute we are inside, everything outside disappears.  

This phenonenon always astonishes me.  That a group of complete strangers can come together and immediately let down your guard and trust every single woman in the circle.  Maybe it's because hearing another woman's story is being able to see through a window into her soul.  Inside the circle we are completely safe and secure to expose whatever is inside ourselves--gains and losses, dreams and nightmares, hopes and fears.   

This particular group is gathered due to breast cancer.  But in addition to cancer, inside the circle we share the same stories you would hear in any group of women.  Stories about our husbands.  Our children.  Our bodies.  Our divorces.  Our jobs.    

What brought us together is that we are all seeking the same thing:  healing.  But the source of our need for healing is not necessarily breasts.  Or cancer.  The common theme I hear is suffering.  And that is not what makes us breast cancer survivors.  That is what makes us human.

Breast Friends: Part 2

Breast awareness month is the perfect time to remember that women with breast cancer need more than research and pink ribbons.  They need people.  In a time of crisis, it helps to reach out to others, especially to someone who has been there.  Which is partly why support groups exist.  I had no support group during cancer.  But I had Judy.

We met during my early years in Los Angeles, and she was the only person I knew well who had breast cancer.  Even though Judy was 12 years past her own diagnosis, I felt comforted by just talking to another mother who had lived through the nightmare that was tormenting every second of my life.

After my mastectomy, Judy left her own home in Palm Springs and came home with me.  She helped with everything from my bandages to fielding phone calls from people I didn't want to talk to.  Which was pretty much everyone.  Everyone except Judy.  Because she was there.  And because she understood. 

Not every friend can---or will---drop everything in her own life to come into yours when you need it.  Judy did this not just once, but several times.  She would come up and stay with my kids whenever I needed to go someplace else for treatment.  She gave them not only love, but hope---because Judy had survived, they believed Mommy would survive, too.

I wish Judy lived nearby so we could have done the things we enjoy together---healing activities, of course, like shopping and laughing.  I could have used more of both.  I had the least support at the time in my life when I needed the most.

Just as I was starting chemo, both of my kids were starting new schools, and I didn't know any of the parents.  Usually I love meeting new people.  But not then.  I was losing my hair, and I thought I was losing my life.  Although during this time, V was an exceptional husband, he was a poor substitute for a girlfriend. 

Before I got cancer, V and I had gone out to dinner once with a couple he knew.  Carol, the wife, happened to work at the school where Daniel was starting first grade.  One morning during the first week, after I dropped off Daniel, I peeked into her office.  I wasn't even sure she'd remember me.

She did.  At least she said she did.  Back when we met a few weeks earlier, I had been a different person.  A person with more hair and more smiles.  Now I was depressed and desperate.

"I don't know anyone here and I have breast cancer and I just started chemo and pretty soon I'll be wearing a wig and I'm really lonely.  Will you be my friend?"

Carol came around from her desk and gave me a hug.  "Of course I'll be your friend.  Not only will I be your friend, but you can meet my friend Joanie and she'll be your friend, too."

And that afternoon, when I came to pick up Daniel after school, Carol was waiting to meet me and to introduce me to Joanie.  It turned out that Joanie's 8th grade son had been randomly assigned to be Daniel's big brother at school.  They are still friends.  And so are we.

Carol was the first friend I made thanks to breast cancer.  Our friendship deepened in a way we couldn't have imagined when she was diagnosed  herself a few years after me.  My initial prognosis was worse than Carol's; but cancer is capricious and often throws a curve.  My cancer never returned while Carol is battling stage IV metastatic cancer, and starting yet another round of chemo. Which she is handling the same way she has faced everything else---with class and courage. 

Neither of us signed up for this, but we did sign up together for the Creative Healing retreat organized by my friend Shoosh, which is where Carol and I are right now.  We're both eager to expand our creativity through art, music and yoga.  And being around other survivors offers something equally important:  connecting with others.  My "breast friends" played a central role in helping me heal from cancer---because those connections are what life is all about.