An improvised life

I wanted to add pictures to the last post but had technical difficulties. Now partially resolved. Instead of a picture, however, I offer a moment (31 seconds, actually) of levity. Tonight we finally launched the water rocket Alder got in December at Corrine and Jamie's gift swap (thank you, Rorie, MK and Susan!).

I just read the number-two-most emailed article in the New York Times, “The Trauma of Being Alive,” by psychiatrist Mark Epstein. He argues that grief and trauma are real and enduring, and we do ourselves a disservice by suppressing our emotions. In his words:  “In resisting trauma and in defending ourselves from feeling its full impact, we deprive ourselves of its truth. As a therapist, I can testify to how difficult it can be to acknowledge one’s distress and to admit one’s vulnerability. My mother’s knee-jerk reaction, ‘Shouldn’t I be over this by now?’ is very common. There is a rush to normal in many of us that closes us off, not only to the depth of our own suffering but also, as a consequence, to the suffering of others.”   His words are a relief, a sort of balm in themselves, offering the soothing reassurance that it’s ok to not be ok. The trauma of John’s sudden death, followed a year later by Ali’s sudden death, followed lately by the shock of breast can...

Apparently I was overly cocky last week--this week I have not run once! There seems to be a bit of a pattern to this chemotherapy, where week one is kind of low, and week two is a rebound week. Like parenting and other things I have experienced, cancer is yet another lesson in letting go. Knowing that these poisons are circulating in my body is a little discomfiting for someone whose normal drug intake averages 1 Advil annually. I've always been kind of a control freak about drugs and alcohol--everything from antibiotics to wine to pot to cigarettes. I even limit my coffee intake. I am just innately, almost prudishly, averse to things that take away my sense of control over my body. There are strange and subtle ways the chemotherapy makes itself known--a slight metallic taste, pinkish pee, lethargy, a sense of inner imbalance. A friend warned me that her mother didn't drink enough and has permanent numbness in her toes because the chemo pooled in her extremities. Don't ...

Dear friends and family, I've decided with some trepidation to start this blog, a highly public act for someone with fantasies of privacy that seem to run contrary to my fundamental sharing nature. In any case, this seems like a more efficient way to share what's going on with me than writing a zillion emails. Last month I found a lump in my right armpit, assumed it was nothing, but follow-up mammogram indicated cancer and subsequent biopsy in Seattle confirmed it. Here are the basics: -I have infiltrating ductal carcinoma, the most common breast cancer, most likely stage 3 (for the cancer wonks, staging and TNM won't be definitively determined until surgery). -Treatment plan calls for chemotherapy (started two weeks ago, hair is beginning to fall out...), followed by mastectomy and axillary dissection (removal of cancerous lymph nodes in armpit), then radiation and long-term hormone therapy. -I'm getting treatment at Swedish Cancer Institute and we're livi...