Team DeAnne

As Mom and I drove down to Marin for my Neulasta shot, she told me that I’m actually farther along in this chemo-marathon than I’d thought! 

What a nice idea!  But I was dismissive to her comment, because she and I share the same affliction regarding numbers.  We are verbal, rather literary people.  Words make sense.  Numbers don’t…they keep us humble.  Besides, she’s the one who threw me a surprise 30th birthday party, when I was really turning 29!  (You know, she’s one of those moms who used to always say “Sit up straight!  Stop being a baby, you’re 12 years old….”  “But Mom, I’m 10!”)

But then we put our two math-addled brains together and ….DUHHH!

Round 1 of chemo was 3.275 miles of a 26.2 mile marathon.  I figured once I got through the Neulasta shot, the round was complete. 

Round 2 was 6.55 miles.

Round 3, which was just last Friday, puts me at a thundering 9.825 miles!  OK!  I was thinking I was stuck at about 7 miles. 

Typical!

I remember my first marathon.  I got to mile 26 and its aid station.  I actually sat down in a lawn chair by the table of sliced oranges.  I grabbed a whole orange and started peeling it. 

“Hey, I was going to cut that up so other people could have some,” hollered one of the volunteer manning the aid station.

I wiped away a salty tear, and put my feet up on another chair, and continued peeling the orange.  I was now ravenously stuffing chunks of it into my mouth.  “Oh, don’t worry, there’s no one else back there.  I’m the last.”

“Well, I advise you put that down, and run, missy!  Where do you think you are!?”

“I wasn’t ready to run this one.  I’m a novice.  I’m at about mile 19.  I’m never gonna get there, so I’d like to enjoy this orange!” 

“NO!!!!  This is the station for mile 26!  You have two more 10ths of a mile to go!  Just over the bridge and you’re there!  GOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

I didn’t even look at her.  I jumped to my feet, and galloped across the finnish line, with an orange in my hand, and in my mouth, because I hadn’t learned the art of chewing and running simultaneoulsy. 

I finnished in spite of myself and my dire miscount of miles.

Thank all of the goodness of the Universe that I have other people to keep me on track! 

Mile 10-ish means there’s no turning back, and it’s all probably going better than I think it is.  ROAR!

Although I still am mystified as to why people are so freaked out when I’m wearing a hat.!  It’s like they don’t want to make eye-contact with you when you smile at them.

There was a man in the elevator on the way up to the chemo ward last Friday.  As soon as he saw my hatted head, he stared somberly at the ground.  I wanted to take my hat off and throw it at him, and say, “HEY!!!  It’s not so bad!  I’m gonna be better in a few months.”

But the truth is, I will be better.  For now, I’m just sort of tired… ugh!

Today I had my third chemo treatment.  All’s well.  The oncologist was delighted to see that I’m doing fine…perfectly fine for today’s treatments.  I agreed!  Yes, let’s do this thing and get it over with!

I don’t know why I was so toubled by the loss of my hair, but I’m over it now.  I no longer scare people at the gym and the pool.  (One of the benefits of living in a small town is that once everyone knows your business, nothing shocks them anymore!)

Maybe because now I look like a sick person!  People equate bald head with sickness, especially on a woman.  Though one young dude at the pool thought maybe I’d joined a skinhead gang.  (!!!)  When I explained that actually, my oncologist styled it himself, we all had a good laugh.  He smoothly back-peddaled by saying that I don’t look sick enough to be fightig cancer.  I thanked him, then swam much faster than usual for the remaining 15 minutes of my workout.  (I had to show that chemo or not, I’m still in business.) 

During this lovely time of year, it’s weird to look funky!  It’s even weirder to have no control.  Though there have been times that I’ve looked funky, even without a “life-threatening” illness!  Heck, whole decades of my life have been spent under a duvet of dorkiness!  So really, Ijust need to have perspective, and remember that a few months of dorkiness will not be the end of the world, (though if the world is coming to an end, I’d like it to wait until my hair has grown back!),  and it’ll be a time of character building.  Inner beauty!  ROAR!!

Yesterday, in my little auburn bob wig, when he asked how I was doing, it just slipped out that “Well, I’m back!  And I’m redder than ever!” 

Jenny and I laughed and chortled our way through the day over that one! 

But for today’s chemo, I felt that wearing a wig would somehow be a misstep!  So I wore a goofy little pink and orange fleece hat, sort of Dr. Seuss character like.  So much more comfy!  And as soon as we got there, Fran (my nurse), and Angela were both nodding and smiling like I’d finally joined the club.  Two other women who were also there, on the same treatment schedule as me, were much more friendly.  At one point, Carol waltzed into my room with her IV pole, and introduced herslf.  We’d seen eachother a few times there before.  We both have had a pretty easy time of it so far!  I told her that yes, my hair had been cut, but finally my Dad took the rest of it off with his clippers, much for the better!  But my Gawd!  I’ll never get used to how big my ears are!  She said, “That’s nothing!  I feel like Yoda without my hat on!”

We all laughed uproariously.  None of us like “support groups”, we prefer to laugh instead of comiserate.  So we all have a standing date to laugh our way through the next treatment too!  Of course, my sister is the Queen of laughter. 

Tomorrow I go for my Neulasta shot.  It’s to boost my blood cells up.  I thought it was funny when I asked the doctor wh I needed that.  He responded, “You live a very dangerous life.  This will keep you safe.”

Dangerous, me?!  Maybe in my little wig, I could pass for “une femme dangereuse”.  But I work with kids!  I spend my days running and singing pretty songs!  Oh well, all the medicine he’s prescribed seems to be working!

The nurse, Fran, was mystified as to why Jenny and I were taking pictures again!  “I’d never want pictures of when I’m going through a rough time!!!”

But I don’t see chemo as a rough time, more of an inconvenience.  It’s necessary, but totally temporary!  It has a way of tearing you down to the basic core of yourself.  When you re-build, you can choose to be bigger and better than ever, sort of like a re-birth.

Hey!  Mile 6.4 is over.  After tomorrow’s shot, it’ll be about mile 7!  This is the 6.4 to 9.6 mile stretch.  It’s all about finding the equilibrum and rhythm…soon it starts to fly by.  Thank you to all of my dear people in my life!  I appreciate your encouragement and well-wishes!  They pulled me through infamous mile six! 

Little miracles!  Hooray!

Mile 6.4, complete!  Attitude crisis, complete, and currently resolved!  Like I always say, mile 6 of a marathon, which equates to the time between Round 2 and 3 of chemo, is where I crumble rather than later in the race!

Yet,  how can I not get over myself and my problems, with all the love  and support around me.  A few days ago, I felt like I had control over nothing in my world.  I still feel that way.  Cancer has a way of doing that to a person! But it also shows you who your loved ones truly are!

When you are battling cancer, the focus is on you.  “Poor you, you’ve lost your hair!”  “Poor you, you have to take scary chemotherapy!”  “Poor you, there’s so much uncertainty in your life!” 

What we don’t see are the people behind the scene, making everything turn out right.  They are alot like the crew behind an olympic athlete, making sure he/she eats right, rests enough, trains right, etc.  When the athlete wins, the crew wins too, but nobody notices them.  The world seems to think the athlete got there by the miracle of his/her talent, when probably 70 % of the achievement was because the crew was in place, making it all work out!

When a patient beats cancer, he or she was able to because the crew was there, behind the scenes, making it all work out!!!  I’m telling you, 70% of my battle is fought and won for me by my team!!  I just take the medicine, they run around and keep my world turning.

My most unsung heroine is my Mom.  She was the one I ran to on the day of my diagnosis.  It was a Saturday, Oct. 24th.  I got the urgent call from my radiologist.  It was worrisome enough that he didn’t wait until Monday to call.  I took the news and promptly went into shock.  For the next hour, I went grocery shopping, to the bank, and returned a few phone calls.  Then as planned, I drove up to my parents’ house.  Mom and I were going to go for a drive or something.  We just love autumn in northern CA!!!

It still didn’t register that I was going to soon be a cancer patient.  I got out of the car, waved at her through the window, and made it into her kitchen bravely enough.  “Well, yeah, I guess I do actually have cancer.”  Then I was a mess!!!

Ever since then, she’s been drying my tears, making me feel special, reassuring me.

Through it all, she has been the one who stayed up all night with me when I couldn’t sleep, made sure I was still eating, wasn’t alone when I was scared.  She was there, with my Dad and my sister all through my surgery, making me laugh and ready to help the doctors pull me down from the cieling so they could go about their business with me.  (I’m mildly phobic in hospitals.)

When it was time to give a blood sample, she wasn’t allowed past a certain point.  The phlebotomist said no visitors, but she fenaggled herway behind the red tape and sat with me, because she knows I hate needles.  She figured it’d be easier if the phlebotomist needed someone to sit on me if I went loony at the sight of the needle, and besides, no one says no to her!  Not when her baby, (albeit her aging baby) is concerned!

When I temporarily lose my tastebuds, she brings me a steady supply of treats.  She constantly runs errands for me.  She pops by my house, and if the condition of it scandalises her, she bites her lip and quietly sets to work.  ( I was always kind of messy, even before cancer.  If I have time to run and stretch, and practice, and maybe even blowdry my hair, I’d do that before doing the dishes and putting away the laundry.  Inconievably twitchy-strange behavior for the daughter of the premier stager of the county!)

People always tell me, “Hey, DeAnne, if there’s anything we can do to help, just call , OK?! ”  And I would, but ”la Mona”, my amazing mother, has already beaten you to it!

People who know me always remark about how well I seem to be holding up, how healthy my attitude is, how strong I seem.  I’m that way, because I have my mom.  She is the one who deals with the trauma and drama that I wouldn’t dare to show the outside world.  It’s her arms I cry in when I’m having a cow.  On the days when I can understand why some people opt to die instead of go through with chemo, she lovingly wrangles me back into a more positive frame of mind.  She deals with the ugly.  She makes me strong so I can put on a wig and a happy face and get on with me life. I couldn’t do this race without her!

I don’t know what I’d do without her.  She even lovingly fibs about how great I look bald.  Maybe it harkens back to easier times, when I was a bald infant, and something like cancer seemed like it would never happen to us. 

Mom, we are dealing.  Thanks for helping me to deal, and not worry.  You are heroic, and I love you!  You keep my head on straight and a song in my heart.  This happened to us, but we are bigger than this!  Onto the stretch of miles 6.4 to 9.6 of this race.  (This part of the race has always been easier for me…I hope it’ll be easier for you, too.!) 

I love you!

Woo HOOOO!!  I just woke up and I still have my eyebrows!  Take that, Stupid cancer!

So, here’s for you, Jen!  I’m starting a list of 99 things I want to do some day.  One thing for each day of chemo.  I thought it’d be easy, but I’ve always been sort of a work-now-play-later kind of girl, and it’s hard to come up with 99 fun things!  But here goes:  (well, this is a start…)

1) Do a recital of vocal repertoire

2) Take a belly dance class and wear those sparkly costumes…come on, Jen, you know you want to go, too!

3)Take surfing lessons.  (You and me, Kevin!  And Lucy!)

4) Go to Macchu-Picchu.  I think I’d prefer to backpack it, so I won’t miss any of the sights.

5)  Ride horses through a rain forest.

6) The year I turn 40, I plan to run my first Ultra marathon.  A short one.  In a really pretty place.  I’ll just go slowly, eat alot, and cruise!

7)  Flamenco dancing.  Again, cool costumes!  (Come on, Monique!)

8)  Set a PR at the Avenue of the Giants Marathon

9)  Find True Love!

10)  Some how bully that true love into dancing with me!!! 

11) Learn to make yummy sugar-free desserts

12)  Eat said desserts.

13)  Play the piano every day.

14) Play chamber music!

15)  Find a long-term project that will help disadvantaged kids.

16)  Learn to snowboard!

17)  Do voice-overs.

18) Somehow, someday, acquire a piece of land

19)  Gain control of my finances! 

20) Sing opera.  Even if I have to sing only the old lady parts!

21)  Sing concert repertoire with good orchestrae.

22) Martial arts…learn how to use that 5-foot staff in my spare bedroom that I haven’t gotten around to using in 10 years!

23)  African dance?!

24) Go to cultural events more often

25) Find time, at least once a week, to spend time with friends.

26) Sometimes buy new clothes BEFORE I need them!

27) try hang gliding

28)  Safari?

29) Kick it for a while on a desserted island!

30)  sky dive, without a tandem instructor.

31)  moutain bike more often

32) Learn to speak German better

33) Climb a big mountain, though I’m afraid of heights, and might just be doing it for the bragging rights.

34) Learn to grow my own organic veggies.

35) Someday have a gorgeous flower garden to hang out in.

36) Trapeze, or other aerial art!!!!  I’ve been meaning to do that for years!

37) Backpack in Point Reyes

38) Run the Dipsea Race

39) Kayaking

40) start a gang of Ultralite flyers!  Spend sometime up in the clouds!

41)  Go on an archeological dig.  Or maybe my nephew and I will go on a paleontology dig…

Uhhh…still thinking on the rest.  So far, that’s my “Bucket List”, sort of like that movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.  Not that I plan to kick the bucket anytime soon…obviously, with all these plans.  (Plus, I am blessed with a reallly good prognosis!)  Maybe it should be called the “Full Bucket List”.

As the third week of this surreal time draws to a close, I’ve transitioned from my old style of “defy and deny” to being a bird of different plummage. 

This last round of chemo ( #2, aka the 6.4 mile stretch) actually went better than the first, physically.  The Adriamycin pretty much got peed out before I even left the hospital, the Cytoxan didn’t cause as much spots behind the eyes, and I wasn’t as tired for as long.  My big complaints are all cosmetic ones.  But the important thing was that I still had time and energy to hang out with my brother and his wife furing their visit.  For three days I couldn’t taste anything, and I tell you, veggies are gah-ROhhhhs when they have no taste.  That was troubling, because we all know that nothing gets between DeAnne and her food! 

On Thursday I thought the dreaded nausea was setting in at last.  But as it turned out, I’d eaten a huge amount of pizza that had an Alfredo suace instead of marinara on it.  Dairy has never done me well, chemo or not.  I was so excited to have an appetite that I snarfed that pizza down, not tasting it too well, until my brother’s pretty little wife said, “Don’t you just love that white sauce instead of the usual red sauce?!”  Gulp!  But even then, my nausea was food induced, not medicine, and was better in a day.  And now I happily am tasting food again!  Hooray! 

And I couldn’t run, because my foot has a wierd bruise on the heel from too much slow running, so I decided to take two weeks off and work out in the pool, alternating swimming with pool running, which is what works for injured elite marathoners and race horses, so why not for me?!  Because, I WAS HAVING A BAD HAIR WEEK!!!  (That’s why.) 

Indeed, it was excruciatingly boring, and disheartening to not be able to run and thus pretend to be healthy.  (Like I said, the whole defy and deny thing was not working for me this week.)

On Monday, as I swam my final lap, I felt good!  As is my tradition, I pulled up to the wall of the pool, and tore my swim cap off…and a bunch of hair.  EWWWWW!!!  The people at the pool were very sweet.  I explained that yes, I’m in the midst of cancer treatment, and that suddenly the hair is giving me grief.  The woman in the lane next to me said her best friend just went through that a year ago, and we all had a good laugh as we gathered up the hair.  “Should you be in the pool?  Shouldn’t you be resting?!” 

“No!  My goal is to sweat these medicines out ASAP!”

“You go, Girl!”

I love compassionate people!  I need them like I need air!  I send my gratitude out to the Universe that there are so many lovely and compassionate people in Sebastopol, who are shocked by nothing.   They rock my world!

The next day, I decided to ride my bike.  It’s a great little red mountain bike, slower than a 7-year itch on the roads.  But I figured that this would be safe for my bruised heel and for the hair.  I roared off on the West County Trail at lunchtime, all the way out to Forestville.  The acacias were full of fragrant, fuzzy yellow blossoms, bringing back happy memories from childhood.  The world seems to be just a riot of flowers and happy people, basking in 10 minutes of sun …quick!  before the next little rain shower!  I thundered up to the stoplight, waited to cross, and as I pushed away from the curb,  the wind blew my hair from my head in little tufts.  Aw, crap!  People in cars gaped, sort of like the people in the pool.  All I could do was go faster.  So I put my nose in the air and did just that.  What would Lance Arsmstrong do, if caught on a bike with hair dispersing to the wind?!  Just that?  Maybe?  Nose in the air, and ride like hell, as if there are bigger things than dealing with stupid hair.  Yeah!

Now, I have metamorphosed into my “Noble Savage” look. 

After Jenny saw my hair on Thursday, we went wig shopping, and I got a darling auburn bob.  I also have a long, curly reddish one, that’s a little bit Biker Momma looking.  And Aunt Mindy sent me a hilarious green wig for Saint Patrick’s Day, and I still have the Marie Antionette wig from Jenny.  

Noble Savage, or Bird of Different Plummage.  Trying to embrace the experience!!!

I’ve figured out that starting chemo on the 12th of February, and finnishing up on the 21st of May gives us 99 days of chemo.  Maybe 99 is easier to think of than 100?!

Two rounds down…or 6.4 miles of a marathon. 

True to form, I tend to have an attitude crisis along about mile 6 of a marathon.  I’m running along, realizing that I still have twenty to go.  I signed up for this race…WHAT AN IDIOT!  But then, amidst my rumbling and stumbling, mile 6 morphs into 12…then 12 accelerates into 20, and suddenly 20 feels better than 6 ever did.  After a while, somehow I always find myself at mile 26!  maybe I’ll just have to finnish this chemo regimen too.

Yet, here I am at mile 6-ish of my chemo-marathon, true to form, having a attitiude problem.  Why?  Not because of anything serious.  My heart isn’t faltering from the Adriamycin, I’m not so exhausted that I can’t teach or exercise, I still eat even though for the next few days things don’t taste quite as yummy.  No, this “fearless warrior” is having a ninny fit because her hair is falling out.   Yup, my side-effects are mainly cosmetic.   

I knew it would happen!  And my beloved hairdresser has clipped off even more length, so that now I look very French, a la Edith Piaf!  But it’s bitterweet because it’s only going to last a day or two. 

My brother and his wife, with baby to be in tow, arrived last night.  I can’t wait to see them!  I hope I don’t shock them! 

The thing is, before chemo started, many people had known that I had breast cancer, and that I’d had surgery, and they thought that I’d beat it.  What’s weird is that now I actually look like a sick person, when it was really a month or so ago that I was even sicker, though I never felt sick. 

Oh well, just like the marathon, I chose ths “aggressive” treatment plan, as my best bet against recurrence.  I signed up for it!  So far, I’m OK, just like in the marathon, when I think maybe I shouldn’t  have signed up for it, yet somehow I finnish it, and happily!

99 days total, with today being 80!  For now, in my mind, I’m so done with this chemo.  It cramps my style!

I’ve always said that cancer won’t make me be pathetic.  Things’ll only be as pathetic as I let them.  And really, I have nothing to complain about.  I still have some energy.  I’m surrounded by people who lovingly accomodate my oh-so-temporary limitations.  I don’t feel sick, just a bit low on energy.  There is so much magic and good in my life!  And I will get better.  Not all cancer patients can know that, without a doubt.  I’m very fortunate.  It feels good to count my blessings.

BUT….I’m losing my hair!!!!! 

What the HELL!!!!!  Did I really think I could beat that too?  Sort of like when I thought I could outsmart the whole chemo thing by eating right and changing my attitude.  Then all three consulted physicians concurred that I could eat as many blueberries and as mush kale as I please, but for this situation, this cancer needed conventional treatment, too.   There really isn’t any easy way around this.  Huh.

I guess you can eat right and still not be one of the lucky ones who miraculously retain their hair.  Nevertheless, as of last night I still looked pretty normal.  I was determined to not let a stupid little side-effect ruin my life.    

Last night, the plan was to go over to my favorite guy’s house.  He was preparing dinner for me, again!  Lots of veggies, because he knows how I am, and his sister had actually made a beautiful spanokopita for us!  She is worried that I’m not able to eat well enough, and remembered how I’d eaten a whole plate of it at a party at her house a few weeks ago. 

I felt tired, and knew my hair was starting to act funky.  But I figured that this wasn’t going to be a big deal.  We all knew  this would happen…at least we now knew the medicine was working and not just creating a more chemo -resistant type of cancer cell, yadda yadda…So I put on a pretty sweater and earrings and was careful with my makeup.  I drove over and we ate a lovely dinner, and I had a hat packed in case the hair suddenly made a beeline for the floor.  It’s not the end of the world, right? 

NOT!!!!  Now all of a sudden, this is real.  I really had cancer, I’m really going for treatment.  I guess I won’t have to worry about people thinking I’m trying to defraud the government for disability or something.  Before, people were a bit suspicious when they’d heard I was now a cancer patient, but they’d see me out running with the wind in my HAIR!!!!   Now they’ll see me out running, a bit slow the first week of a two -week treatment cycle, but either nobly bald, or not so nobly trying to hide baldness!!

Please note that funky looking is not the same thing as funky feeling!!!  I feel fine, once I get over my new look.  (The one I didn’t choose…GRRR.)

 So, all of you students, don’t  be shocked when you see me!  I have plenty of cute hats and stuff to wear.  But at the moment, I feel pathetic!!!  This is just one more thing that I have no control over!  I feel like one of those ficus plants that rains leaves when left in a draft.  If a shake my head, some hair rains down.  If I brush it, it comes out.  There’s no denying it.  I will have yet another new look soon.

Oh well.  At least I can still eat.  Not many chemo patients can do that!   

There was a lady at the oncologists’ office last week.  I’d seen her the week before, and she was completeing her second treatment, and still had her hair!   When I saw her again, she still had her hair, but was having plenty of other problems that sounded much more serious.  So far, my problems are all cosmetic. 

So, I shall focus on the fact that today’s when I can begin detoxing for the next round.  The oncologist and the alternative oncologist both agree that 2 days after reatment is the perfect time to start eating all my fancy mushrooms and antioxidant supplements.  This dang treatment can have my hair, I guess, but it can’t have the health of the rest of me!  I will stay healthy, and positive,  and thus stay on schedule  so I can finnish this thing up once and for good.  Dang it! 

Eighty-two days left of this nonsense, if I can just stay on schedule.  Now, that’s not so pathetic.  Or maybe it’s just a short time, relatively speaking. 

Time to go do something productive, eat some antioxidants, and get over it!!!   Maybe I’ll make a list of 82 things I will do once this is over.

All’s well.  No news is sometimes good news, and that’s been certainly the case for me, this first round.  For the first week, I was a little tired, suffering brief bouts of narcolepsy.  I had occasional strange rumblings and aches in the liver or kidneys, but usually when i needed more water.  I drank water, ate with a vengeance, and ran 20 miles the first week and 30 the second week.  I kept my hair.  The boyfriend has hung in there, even cooking me dinner several times with really spicy things, so I could still taste it. 

The word got out at the gym where i work out.  A few ladies were complimenting me profusely on my new haircut.  It’s funny how when you have cancer, people rush to compliment you, just like when a woman is expecting a baby, no matter what everyone gushes on about her “glow”.  Well, I don’t glow, but they say I look “phenomenal”.  I looked those ladies in the eyes, told them that “yes, it’s true, I’m dealing with cancer.  I’m skinny right now not becuase of the cancer or the treatment, but because I’m eating only healthy food, so now I’m finally at my ideal weight!  And please, get you check-ups and mammograms.  Cancer’s not as bad as everyone says it is, so far, but don’t flirt with it!!!” 

Really, by the time I’d de-toxed it was Thursday.  I felt fine!  My wierdest side-effect?  Chemo guilt!  I was going running and taking naps, with a good excuse!  I was going to the movies with a hot guy, having meals cooked for me.  I didn’t even have to clean up my own kitchen… like I said, my schedule allows for me to cook and eat, but not necessarily to clean up.  We’re still working on that one!

I developed chemo guilt when my lovely and concerned mother stopped by, gasped in horror at the sight of my kitchen, and set to work.  She looked exhausted.  She hadn’t been sleeping.  Some students stopped by for lessons, and somehow we had crossed wires due to ski-week schedule, and I didn’t think they were coming so I stepped out to run some errands.  When I returned an hour later, everyone was looking for me, afraid that maybe i was passed out in the bathroom, or worse yet, had gone for a run and keeled over in the gutter!  No, not the case…I had gone to Target!  I was merrily spending money on inconsequential items, which is what most people say is normal DeAnne behavior.  Much more normal than keeling over!  Then my heroic sister was flattened by some nasty late-winter virus.  She always says being there for me, and doing all that she does for me is no problem, she’s happy to do it, etc.  But I know that it’s all just another track in her multi-tracked life.  So for a few days Jenny was sick as a dog.  I longed to go help her…but no!  The kids were sick too, and I have cancer!  So I just had to sit and twiddle my thumbs!  Every one else is caryying my butrden so that I can live happily ever after in spite of cancer.  I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart, and can’t wait until this is all over, so I can learn to become a more loving and giving person. 

This now brings us to Round 2!!!  I went to meet with the oncologist the day before.  My phlebotomist that day was not the ferocious eastern European leady, but a jovial guy from Fresno.  (Jenny would say that’s scarier.)  He asked if I was afraid of needles.  Of course I said yes.  So he screamed when he poked my arm.  Loudly.  After much laughter, he patched me up and sent me on my way.  Mom and I headed over to the oncologist’s office.  I kept tugging at my hair.  That morning a ton of it seemed to be coming out, though I realized that I hadn’t really bushed it, had been treating it very gingerly, for the past two weeks…

The oncologist said, “You’re still standing!”  “Yeah!  I ran my usual 30 miles last week!”  He lookd at my mom, and good naturedly rolled his eyes.  “Any big side-effects?”   “Yeah, those steroids ruined my complexion.”  “  That can happen!”

Then he got the results of my blood test, and I’m in better shape than before the chemo!  HAH!   We are bigger and badder thatn this!  ROAR!!!

ROUND TWO:

We got to Marin General Hospital at 9:00.  They gave me the same room I had last time.  My nurse, Fran was not there, so I had a delightul nurse named Coreen to look after me.  Due to being heavily hydrated, finding a vein was not suck a digging expedition!  (We still had to send Mom out for a walk, until the IV was in.)  “Oh, Deeder, I can’t believe how grown up and brave you are about all this!”  “Yeah, Mom, remember, we don’t worry, we deal!”

We watched my mom’s soap operas, and Rachel Ray, and the infusion went off without a hitch.  We drove home through the rain, picked up my anti-nausea meds, and then I cleaned up my own kitchen.  I ate a mountain of organic pasta with Arrabita sauce, an atichoke. more green tea, and a salad, and some almond milk.  (The vitamin E in it helps protect the heart from chemo’s toxicity…)

I taught four lessons, then feelt so fatigued I headed up to eat, sleep and drink more water at my mom and dad’s house.  Alls’ well,that ends well. 

When I woke up in the morning, there was news of a horrible earthquake in Chile.  It was worse than the one in Haiti.  And a tsunami warning!  My problem seems very small indeed. 

Two down, 6 to go!  Woo-HOOOO!

I have to think in little increments.  Like Jenny, my wise and benevolent sister says, thnk like a marathon.  If I break 8 treatments down into equal parts of a 26.2 mile race, it works out to a little over 3 miles each.  I’ve never not been able to run 3 miles…even once when I had pneumonia and didn’t know it!  So far, chemo hasn’t been as bad as pneumonia! 

So, in that I’ve been fortunate to not have too many weird side-effects, and to be blessed with the love of such brave and inspiring people in my life taking care of me, I’ll run this next 3.2 miles, celebrating one week down, just 15 more to go!

By the way, still haven’t had a chance to wear my new wig yet.

So far. so good, but I have to remember that I’m on chemo, and chemo makes me tired.  Hmmm.  Sigh.

Trying to act like a normal person makes me tired, too.

I’ve developed a new fondness for Mexican food, because I can still taste it.  Last night the wonderful boyfriend brought me  a vegan, organic burrito, and spent the evening telling me how great I look and we watched the olympics. 

I meant to go wig shopping between students today, but fell asleep on the in the sun with the cat during the time I could have gone.  I woke up like Rip Van Winkle, a few hours later, and starving.  MMM!!   Black beans and salsa, wrapped up with kale in a tortilla!  (Again, I can taste it!) 

Protein must be deficient.  I’ve gone through alot of peanut butter and carrots the last few days…thank goodness it’s the low fat kind of peanut butter. 

I’m in decent spirits, and so grateful to my family and my students and friends for all their help and understanding.  Even though I get grumpy about having to look funky during this most gorgeous time of year. 

Aw, heck.  4 months invested, to never have cancer again.  It’s gonna be fine.  One down, seven to go!