Hello, My Name Is Jazz

Here is the view from my desk at my new job:


Man, my new co-worker is lazy!!

Here is the view from where I'm sitting in my new living room:

The Sun Is Poking Thru The Redwoods and Rain

I recently wrote an article about my cancer experience for a friend's magazine. It's interesting to look back at cancer treatment vs. being in the thick of it.

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The old me associated the word “cancer” with a certain and fast-approaching death. 24 hours post-diagnosis I couldn’t even say “cancer” out loud. The new me sees cancer as many different and often-conflicting things: a hardship, an annoyance, a shadow, a gift, a challenge, an isolator, a unifier, and just plain old cancer. Cancer exists, and I am here in the moment with it.

I was told via telephone that I had breast cancer in October 2008 – I was just 28 years old. “Hi Teresa, this is Dr. Dimsdale ... I’m afraid I have bad news ... your biopsy shows that it is breast cancer ....” I lost my voice. I lost my breath. I stared at Miles for what felt like a lifetime but was probably just 3 seconds. I thought about how the look on my face was certainly devastating him. I was afraid of dying. I was afraid of losing Miles. I was afraid of Miles losing me. I was angry at how unfair it would be for him to lose his soon-to-be-wife.

It all began in September 2008. Miles casually draped his arm around me on the couch and noticed a lump near my armpit. Slight hypochondriac that I am – my heart skipped a beat when he said “What’s this???” and I felt the lump with my fingertips. I quickly visited my OB/GYN, and he quickly dismissed it as “probably a cyst.” Luckily, he had the good sense to be thorough and order an ultrasound anyways.

Some less fortunate young women are dismissed by their doctors as being too young for cancer, while their tumor grows and grows. There has been recent controversy over how being cautious with younger women runs the risk of over-testing, leading to increased false positives and further unnecessary testing. Naturally, I’m in favor of early testing since I owe my life to the caution my doctor demonstrated.

My ultrasound revealed a solid black mass rather than a pocket of fluid, and my anxiety increased. Still, the doctor dismissed it as “probably a benign fibroadenoma,” and scheduled a biopsy to give us all peace of mind. Then came the biopsy, followed by agonizing waiting, followed by the fateful telephone call, which brings me back to this: Here I am, living in the present, though changed forever by my 15 months of cancer life.

Treatment was intense and scary, especially for someone who’d never been hospitalized or anesthetized before. Treatment kept me busy, to say the least. October and November: I had a lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy, and recovered from them. November and December: I gave myself injections in the stomach everyday to create frozen embryos. December, January, February, March, and April: I hopped between the chemo chair and my bed. May: I tried to get rid of the painful rash and other side effects from chemo. June: I had my breast zapped everyday with radiation that turned my pores black. June, July, August and September: I writhed in pain every day and lost 20 pounds entirely not by choice. Oh, and did I mention that I worked 60% time throughout most of this?

My tumor was close to my left armpit. After I knew it was cancerous, my fingers subconsciously wandered over to feel it, and I obsessed over wanting it out of my body as soon as humanly possible. Those 24 days between diagnosis and surgery were pure torture. Since my tumor was small enough, I opted for a lumpectomy – a breast-conserving surgery to remove only the tumor rather than the entire breast. Driving to the hospital that morning, I saw 5 golden retrievers in 15 minutes. Retrievers are now my good luck omen! I was more scared of general anesthesia for the first time than the surgery itself. My mindfulness breathing exercises and my wonderful surgeon’s reassurance calmed me as I waited. They had me climb up onto the operating table myself, which struck me as weird. But hey – I was a n00b to surgery – what did I know?! I woke up hours later on a morphine drip, and I think I asked my nurse over and over again what her name was. Suddenly, Miles was at my bedside with a huge smile on his face. He excitedly told me the sentinel lymph nodes they removed were cancer-free, but I was too drugged up to comprehend. All I knew was Miles was happy, and that made me happy. We actually celebrated a few days later on Election Day 2008, when Dr. Awesome called and confirmed that the lymph nodes had been dissected and were 100% clear! I called Miles and danced around Safeway telling him the good news. To put this into context – cancer can typically spread to other organs by two ways: more commonly through the body’s lymphatic system, and less commonly through the bloodstream. It was tremendous news that I was cleared on one of the two!

With surgery out of the way, I was very eager to start chemotherapy. I thought, “C’mon, what are we waiting for, let’s hurry up and kill any cancer cells that might be hiding out!” But doctor’s orders said my body had to recover from surgery before it could handle the toxic chemical treatments. After all, I still had a plastic drain bag poking out of my boob, collecting pink and red blood and bodily waste. Recovery wasn’t as bad as I expected. After a few days of tolerable pain, I felt pretty decent other than my left arm’s limited range of movement, for which I had to do daily stretching exercises. Two weeks later I pulled off the final steri-strip and gasped at how ... NICE my scar looked. Leave it to Dr. Awesome to give me a beautiful, hardly-noticeable, smile-shaped scar!

Dr. Awesome was very on the ball, and recommended Miles and I freeze some future babies. Some chemotherapy causes a woman to enter menopause (we call it “chemo-pause”), and there’s always the risk that it will be permanent. The window of time for an IVF cycle was very narrow, because my chemo was scheduled to start soon. So around the time of surgery I dove right in to the multiple drugs needed to grow extra eggs in the ovaries. I had to self-inject the drugs into my stomach daily. The first injection was nerve-wracking, but the rest were a breeze. After a couple weeks, my belly was bloated and I went in daily for the doctors to measure the size of each egg. On the monitor, I saw my ovaries full of 15 eggs each – it was crazy! When they were finally large enough for retrieval, I had surgery #2. By then, anesthesia was old hat, and anyhow it was only “heavy sedation” that time. I woke up disappointed to learn that only 12 out of 30+ eggs were viable. I later learned that only 8 were healthy enough to form actual embryos. Still, 8 babies-on-ice was a fantastic insurance policy, in case my period never returned.

December rolled around and I’d healed well from surgery. I wasn’t afraid of chemo because I was thrilled to do everything possible to rid my body of cancer. However, I visited the chemo center the day before my first treatment. I felt like crying after seeing the room filled with people twice my age and even older. My suffering brain thought, “I’m not supposed to be here!” But by the time I went in for my first session, I was over the initial shock. As they stuck me with needles and started the toxic juices flowing, Miles and I settled in for a few hours. We played Gin Rummy and talked with the cheerful and warm older man beside me who was treating Stage IV lung cancer. Throughout my 4.5 months of weekly chemo, Miles and I noticed that everyone was always so cheerful – including us! In fact, one of the nurses joked with us that we’d won “Cutest Couple” award based on a nurses’ vote.

At long last, chemo ended. Chemo left me some presents in its wake. Some were bad: I couldn’t sleep a solid night through, and I was plagued with the daily 6 am hot flashes of a 55-year old woman. Some were worse: I had intense weekly migraines with my last 8 chemo treatments that had me writhing in bed for 72 hours at a time. And some were just plain annoying: All my fingernails were brown and dead, my fingertips were constantly numb from neuropathy, I had recurring mouth sores, I’d developed asthma, and I had a nasty rash on my arms, ankles and face. Nine months later I still have discolored skin from the rash.

Radiation treatments started after several weeks of recovering from chemo. Radiation was easy. I had an initial planning appointment, where I laid on a table and the techs lined my breasts up with monstrous machines and green laser lights. They tattooed two blue dots on my chest to mark the treatment area. Then I came in every Monday thru Friday for 19 days to get zapped. Each session only took 15 minutes and the techs were always on time. Dare I say that it was … pleasant? Well … “pleasant” once I stopped trying to wrap my brain around how painless, invisible radiation that cooked my skin til it was black was somehow good for me.

My mid-June birthday fell the day before my last radiation treatment. However, I’d developed severe and chronic stomach problems. Instead of celebrating both my birthday and my triumphant final day of cancer treatment with a fun meal and a hike at Mt. Tam – I spent all day pooping and barfing (at the same time), with the worst stomach pain of my life. During June, July, August and September I lost 20 pounds. Every time I ate food, like clockwork an hour later I had abdominal pain that lasted for hours. Nothing alleviated it. I quickly learned that plain white rice, chicken broth, and fruit smoothies were the only safe items, and I limited myself to those out of fear of pain. I went to six doctors and one acupuncturist. I had an abdominal ultrasound, MRI, CT scan, colonoscopy, endoscopy, urine test, blood test, and a poop test, and the doctors learned nothing. Here is where I learned (at the worst possible time) that many doctors are lousy, sloppy and uncaring. My oncologist passed me off to a specialist, and said he was “happy to wash his hands of the problem” (insert here: hand-motion of wiping one’s hands clean). The specialist prescribed meds that didn’t work, told me to keep taking them regardless, and then never contacted me again after my CT scan (not even with the results). My general practitioner said she could help expedite an appointment, then never returned my call after passing me to a specialist who was booked solid for 5 weeks. After an extensive search, I finally found a general practitioner and new oncologist that actually cared! The new oncologist – Dr. Awesome #2 – slowly, but finally fixed me in late September with digestive enzymes. I’m eternally grateful.

I’ve been on the upswing since October 2009. In October, Miles and I bought a house in the woods. I missed my one-year diagnosis anniversary because I was already moving on. It’s amazing how quickly the human brain and heart can forget bad memories. I’ve gained a lifetime of knowledge from my experience, but there are a few particular points worth mentioning.

First, cancer taught me to be assertive with doctors. After my stomach ordeal with many doctors who failed me, I became extremely cynical about healthcare. I’ve learned that only you can speak up about your healthcare, your comfort, and your needs. Don’t let doctors make you feel like you’re burdening them or taking up their precious time, and don’t let them brush your questions or concerns aside.

Second, I learned that working during breast cancer treatment was not for me. I was the Office Administrator for a mid-sized law firm. Now, everyone is different – some women want to and do work full-time during breast cancer treatment, and some don’t work at all. But my boss pressured me heavily to work during treatment. When I told him I needed time off for chemo, his first words to me were, “Well, a long time ago I knew so-and-so that did chemo, and she worked every single day at her job on TV.” Gee, thanks Steve… talk about setting an impossible bar! I asked to hire a temporary replacement, he said he preferred not to. So I worked as much as I could and gave my all to keep running my office. I worked about 60% through my entire nine months of treatment. I then had a complete mental breakdown from stress, and demanded 3 full months off to recover from the cumulative effects of treatment. Unfortunately, this was the same 3 months of stomach pain, so there really was no “recovery.” I should have been more assertive about my health needs at work as well. I regret working, and I think my recovery has taken longer because of it. My advice to cancer newbies contemplating working is – listen to your body and don’t neglect yourself!

Last, I learned there’s no room in life for the “what if” game. I’ve always been a worrier, and I’ve had panic attacks. Cancer amplified my anxiety…

“What if the cancer cells are spreading through my bloodstream?”
“What if my cancer comes back?”
“What if that pain in my shoulder is a recurrence in my bones?!”
“What if that benign liver lesion on the CT is actually a recurrence?!!”
“What if we buy a house and then I recur!?!”
“What if we have kids and then I die while they’re young!!?!!”
“What if?! WHAT IF?! WHAT IF!??!?”

Coincidentally, before my diagnosis I’d discovered mindfulness practice and meditation. It’s been a wonderful tool during this trying time, and a thing I try to always keep near. I’ve learned that there’s nothing more important than the present moment, and it’s helped me curb my “what if” blues.

In many ways, cancer has been a wonderful gift. Is that crazy of me to say? It’s enriched my life and opened the door of gratefulness. My bond with my husband, parents, brother and close friends has strengthened more than imaginable. After I didn’t even notice my one-year cancer-versary passing, two days later Miles and I closed escrow on our first house! We’re ecstatic beyond words to move next week to live in the woods, and to enjoy a much slower life. Cancer matured us rapidly – we were forced to choose what we wanted to deem truly important in life. Absent cancer, we probably wouldn’t be where we’re at now so soon: blissfully married, moving in to our first beautiful house in the redwoods (complete with ping-pong in the garage!), with our two kitties and a future retriever, getting ready to have some amazing kids in the next couple years. Now – if only my darn period would hurry up and start flowing again! ;)

New Life Begins

That's what I wrote in my pocket calendar for today. Today's the first day of waking up in Guerneville without having to return to SF at all. It's 9:30 a.m. and I'm watching the rain come down against a backdrop of tall redwoods. As Fred said, life is a mystery.

A Tree Grows In Guerneville

E -ager to be free with arbortory smiles

A -nd soon you'll have your tree just you & your hubby Miles

R -ealizing its like a Wes Anderson flick with a plot that you'd conceive

L -anguishing around Russian River with rednecks and homosexual guys and watch the fall of Earl's leaves

I Miss You, Trigger

Today is the first anniversary of my beloved girl's passing. I miss her dearly and think about her constantly. Soon I will get to see her everyday together with Earl. :)