Dance with the Reaper

The picture is from King Arthur Flour

When I was young and single, my roommate made some sourdough starter. When I got married and moved out, I took some of her starter with me. I had it for a couple of years but then we moved from Washington, DC to New York.

I lost the starter in the move.

No fear, though, because my brother had some, and he gave it to me. It had been given to him by a friend who turned out to be headline-worthy batshit crazy*, and that’s a long story unto itself, and one that I can’t talk about but hopefully he will put it in the comments somewhere.

When we moved to New Hampshire, I lost the starter in the move. That’s probably a good thing, because I’d always feel a little off about using sourdough starter that once belonged to a headline-worthy, made-for-tv-movie-worthy convicted murderer.

No fear, though, because in New Hampshire, a friend gave me some sourdough starter.

Then we moved to Japan and I could not take it with me.

In Tokyo, a couple of friends who were bakers gave me a start of sourdough. I did not lose it in the move, but in the pregnancy, when I could not even think about looking at it.

I’ve lived in Dallas for over a decade. I’ve tried to start my own sourdough several times, but instead of a bubbly sponge, I get a putrid mess, and flies, or just a whole lot of nothing.

This morning, a new friend stopped by with a jar of her sourdough starter.

This is a huge deal to me.

Thank you.

*Not in the legitimate mental illness way but in the criminal way.

I took my older kid to see Deadpool today. She’s not seventeen, but a couple of good friends whose judgement I trust saw it and said she would love it as long as I made her cover her eyes for the sexy bits.

Per our agreement, during the sexy scenes, she covered her eyes and then we had to talk about it — the settings, actions, and morals thereof which is more embarrassing for me than it is for her. Turns out, her friends had also seen the movie and she had some specific questions, which I answered honestly: “OMG no, no and no.”

Read more…

This article from today’s New York Times about dreams of the dying, as well other pieces both in the Times and other media outlets, seems to be signaling the beginning of a discussion we all need to have with each other, and with ourselves, about dying.

It’s not something to be afraid of. Or, rather, it should not be.

Photo courtesy of Pei Wei in hopes that they will open up in airport terminals everywhere.

I took a quick trip back East last week, to visit one of my brothers. My visit was longer than anticipated because of a massive storm that blanketed the entire Eastern seaboard. On my eventual flight home, I wound up sitting next to a woman in a face mask. No, not the Mexican wrestler kind (although that would have been fun) and not a religious face covering either. Just the kind you get at the drugstore, to keep you from breathing in germs.

My doctor had suggested that I wear one, and I bought some, when I was going through everything, because cancer treatment annihilates your body’s ability to fight off germs — your bone marrow, which creates among other things, white blood cells and other antibodies, is composed of rapidly dividing cells, the kind that are targeted by chemotherapy, so colds and things are a bigger deal for us. I vaguely remember wearing a mask but I was not as diligent about it as the woman next to me. It made me feel bad about the way I looked, which, in retrospect, is a funny point of view from someone with no hair and no eyelashes or eyebrows and flesh the color of death.

My seat mate had all of her hair. She looked normal except for that certain unholy pallor that I recognized all too well. You would never guess that she had cancer, unless you had been there. Because I have learned, over the years, not to be a complete jerk, I didn’t pipe up with, “Tell me about your cancer,” but instead I smiled and we talked about the weather, and of course she told me all about her cancer.

There’s cancer, and then there’s cancer, and this woman had a rare blood disease that wasn’t easily treatable. She’s been following her doctor around the country for a decade, first at NIH, now at Sloan-Kettering while he does one experimental treatment after another on her, funded by research grant money, keeping her alive and using what he has learned from her to figure out how to keep other patients alive.

“That’s wonderful,” I said. “You know, these studies make a huge difference.” I told her about the study that I was recruited for, but wound up being ineligible for since my cancer was too advanced. My doctor told me that they’d had to discontinue it because the experimental treatment was making patients too sick. I told her about the study, finished just a few months before my diagnosis, in which my own doctor figured out how to cure cancer like mine that, until his research, had been considered terminal. Evidence-based medical research is why cancer survival rates within the past decade have skyrocketed, and why we’re starting to talk about cancer as a chronic illness rather than a mortal one.

Then she pulled out her dinner, with profuse apology. She had picked up Chinese food at the counter by the gate, and brought it with her. She knew, as well as I do, how people feel about food with strong flavors on an airplane.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve got to eat, and if that is what works for you, then go for it.” I said it, and what’s more, I meant it.

Mostly, I was curious to see how she would eat with a mask on, but she took the mask off to eat and then replaced it. I guess after a decade, she knows how to handle it.

Over the years, I’ve heard and read many people say things like, “Cancer doesn’t define my life,” and “I’m just a regular person, but with an illness that happens to be cancer.”

When I was going through treatment and recovery, I couldn’t do or be that, or even think or say it. I still can’t.

Everyone is different.

This woman was really lovely. I don’t think her illness affected it one way or another. If I hadn’t been down my own road, I would not have even known about hers, and I might have silently judged her for the Chinese food.

Everyone is doing the best they can at any given time.

It took me hours to find a vaguely appropriate picture. Which is funny, because in real life, you see this all the time.

You know when you make the tech start crying and run from the room in tears that your cancer is bad.

That’s how I knew it at any rate. The radiology tech was running an ultrasound wand over my collarbone and neck and she gasped.

Up until then, she and I had been chatting, about our children (adorable), about Texas, (hot, but friendly), about whether MD Anderson would be able to cure my cancer (absolutely!) when she saw something.

She tried to cover it, but she couldn’t, and I pretended that I didn’t know. She finished her scan without saying a word and ran out of the exam room, almost hiding from me that she was about to burst into tears.

It’s gotta be rough, that job. The young woman obviously liked me. We had a lot in common. It’s not often that I meet an insta-friend, but this woman was certainly on that exclusive list, and then she found something that she knew, even though she was a technician and not a radiologist, was very, very bad.

As it turns out, the story has a happy ending. The radiologist who came in to explain to me that my cancer had spread to the fixed lymph nodes above my collarbone told me that I would be okay, that they could treat it with radiation at MD Anderson, but not necessarily anywhere else, and he was right.

Eight years later, I want to go back to that woman, meet up with her for a sandwich, and tell her that I’m okay, but I bet she checked up my medical file. I bet she was one of the many, many people who added their prayers to the miracle that is me. I bet she knows.

The fact that she was wearing a hijab is in no way relevant.

Not knowing where to start, I started at the beginning, with me.

I’ve noticed that I have the bad habit of shallow breathing. I decided to create space within my own body to breathe in and, most importantly, to breathe out.

I was inspired (you see what I did there) to start here by an article I read recently from NPR, titled “When You Burn Off That Fat, Where Does It Go?”

I know, from years of starting yoga classes and quitting six months later, as well as from multiple episodes recovering from anesthesia, and from being ever so slightly asthmatic, that breathing is important, and that breathing out is more important.

On January 1, I lay in bed long enough to breathe in — deeply — hold my breath (count eight) — and e x h a l e s l o w l y one hundred times.

My ribs were sore from stretching against the still-tight scars from surgery, and so was my stomach. I felt lightheaded and mildly euphoric. I spent the next two days coughing up gunk from the very bottom of my lungs. My posture improved. I felt taller. I felt — not stronger — but more powerful.

Panic subsided.

I can do this.

Not all at once, but one task at a time. One breath at a time.

Each year, I make one resolution, and I keep it.

This year, my resolution was to create space in my life so that the things that matter would stand out. When I posted it on Facebook, a couple of different friends asked that I let people know how it went.

I thought about making a new blog to document my endeavor, but that seemed to undermine the whole concept of creating space, so instead, I’m going to write about it here, on the blog I already have.

Great resolutions of the past have been to not hang out with people I don’t like, drink more, and watch more television (hello Game of Thrones!), to wear red nail polish, not to look like hell all the time, to spend a year not dating (I was 23), and to not drink a single gin and tonic 12 months, but instead to drink the girliest of girly drinks (hello Amaretto Sour!)

I’m back to G&Ts, but in the summer only, reserving the winter months for Manhattans; I don’t wear any nail polish at all, but at least I don’t feel bad about it; my signature style has changed from “I had cancer, I don’t care if I look like hell” to “My clothes match and my hair is brushed;” I still don’t watch enough television.

I hope this year’s resolution turns out to be of the good ones.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites are putting me back in touch with nearly everyone with whom I have ever been friends. It’s the blessing of our time.

In my case, I find I keep saying, “I have bionic boobs because cancer.” Eventually I will post a picture of them on this blog and then you will all see what I mean. I have the best plastic surgeon in the world.

From my point of view, it’s an old story that can be told in six words. I don’t think about it much, except to wonder sometimes whether I should wear a bra.

Naah.