31 E-mail: the pendulum swings

6/16/2006

As frightened, physically challenged, and mentally miserable as I felt earlier in the week with inner demons tormenting my psyche, this day was impressively wonderful, incredible, inspirational and amazing. The pendulum has swung in a big way today and it is ever so sweet after recent events.

The day started well. Kelric slept all night. He gradually woke this morning as I changed him for school and I got to give him a bottle before we left the house. He responded with smiles as I played with him in his car seat.

The time it took to feed the baby before work through me a little late for the day. I walked into the lobby of the building and happened to run into a co-worker, Tim. Instead of passing with a pleasant “hello” as we would usually do, Tim stopped to address me.

“Martha had surgery yesterday,” he told me.

“My Martha?” I asked. The only employee in my department who still reports to me is named Martha.

“My Martha,” Tim told me, and I realized he meant his wife.

I hadn’t been aware that Tim’s wife was sick or needed surgery. He explained that she had had her ovaries removed yesterday. One of them had a tumor the size of a softball on it and they were expecting it to be cancerous. The oncologist was on hand during the surgery – that’s how sure they were it was cancer. Tim told me that the tumor turned out to be benign.

He went on to tell me that his wife had been expecting to have to go through chemo and she was very afraid. He said that she had taken strength from my story as he had told her about what I’ve been going through. He knew that she could talk to me if she needed encouragement and she was a little less afraid knowing that.

I was so moved!

I expressed my joy that her tumor was benign and we went our separate ways for the day with tears in our eyes.

I got into my office feeling so very, very good. Physically the neuropathy has receded a little so I can feel more than I could yesterday. Mentally my thinking has become clear again so I don’t feel imprisoned within my body today. My baby smiled at me before work. And then I learned that I inspired a woman I haven’t even met. Wow!

And the day got better.

During the morning I made a couple of mental leaps that solved a problem on my budget project that yesterday seemed like a lot of work to figure out. I got confirmation from a couple of team members that my ideas will work so I’m happy about that. Then I went to lunch and the day got even better.

Today was our monthly get together of the Pink Ribbon Cowgirls. I think I’ve mentioned this group before but I’m not sure. This is a local group of younger breast cancer survivors. We meet at Central Market for lunch the third Friday of each month. This was our third meeting as the group is very new. Today there were two new people and me for a little while before two of the group’s founders arrived.

One of the new people had a five-month-old baby when she was diagnosed. She just finished her chemo in March – AC followed by Taxol just like me. The other new person has a three-year-old boy and is six months pregnant with a girl and was diagnosed very recently. She starts chemo next week.

Elise told me I can call her anytime if I want to talk with someone else who had a young baby while enduring chemo. With all the hormonal swings and maternal challenges she feels we can relate to one another’s experiences. I was grateful for the support.

Elise and I both talked with Amy about what to expect from chemo, and then Elise and Amy compared notes on their respective mastectomies. The details of the discussion aren’t important here. The important part is the energy of the conversation. It was healing. It was supportive. It was wonderful and I got to be a part of it. We talked a lot about losing our hair and the trauma around that. Elise’s hair started to grow back after her AC treatments but it fell out again during Taxol. So far my pale blond fuzz is steadily growing and I took off my cap to show the girls. Elise said she never felt brave enough to be in public without her wig. She felt that people gave her sympathetic stares and she felt very conspicuous. I haven’t noticed sympathetic stares at all when I’ve worn just my scarf. I’ve gone into my yard bald and talked with people in the neighborhood like that. It didn’t bother me. But I agree with Elise that it is nice to just blend in while wearing a wig at a restaurant.

Later in the lunch Elise’s attention shifted to Shauna and Michele, two of the group's founders. Amy and I branched into our own conversation and I learned that she’s very conscientious about nutrition and one of the reasons she rejected her first cancer doctor was because he told her it didn’t really matter what she ate during chemo. The cancer center she recently selected has a nutritionist on staff and the oncologist encouraged her to set an appointment with this professional. I told Amy how I got all these wonderful brochures from the American Cancer Society when I attended the pre-chemo orientation class at my cancer center. (Thank you, Temple Inland for giving the American Center Society the grant to provide this helpful packet.)

In my stack of literature was a booklet on nutrition during chemotherapy and I found it very useful. I know I’ve written about it before and how similar it is to my prenatal diet. The brochure includes helpful hints like what to eat and what to avoid when you’re nauseated, when you’re constipated, when you’re battling diarrhea, when you’re losing too much weight, and so on. It really comforted me seeing that kind of information in print and I think it comforted Amy learning that that kind of information is out there to help us cope. I shared with her some of the tricks I’ve learned such as heat makes me more nauseous and ice cream helps it lessen, and lemon with my water makes it tolerable when my taste buds revolt. It felt like I helped her by sharing this information, and that felt incredible to me.

This was the first Pink Ribbon Cowgirls meeting where I really got to open up and share with someone what it’s been like, and it was comforting to learn that Amy has had the same feelings I’ve had of wanting inside to be able to scream and wail with the same wild abandon as our little ones. I gave her my number and said she could call me anytime. I gave my number to Elise, too. What a powerful thing a support group can be!

With all this amazing activity for the day, I went back to the office, met with a vendor, and came up with two more productive ideas during the meeting for special projects I’m working on. It’s like everything was snapping into place today and the miseries of the earlier part of the week just faded into a tiny blip.

Guy looked after Kelric this evening so that I could type this update while events were still fresh. I told him about my incredible day after I got home and he mentioned several times that it’s important that I write about it tonight. I agree. Here I am. It’s taken a while to put everything down. We’ve given Kelric his bath and he’s asleep now. By all accounts he has fallen in love with the swing at school. Now that he’s three months old he’s big enough for the swing and it has become his favorite place. He was touching a big toy caterpillar while enjoying the swing when Guy picked him up today. Our silly baby makes every attempt to eat his bib as soon as it’s put on.

I’ve taken a Zofran pill because the nausea is tugging at me tonight. It bothered me earlier in the day, too, and so tonight’s pill is my second one of the day. Nausea from Taxol is so mild compared to the nausea from AC that it doesn’t rate at all in the same category. It’s like panty hose compared to thick hospital socks. Yeah both things cover your feet, but the sensations are completely different. I don’t care about that little tug right now. I’m going to take my own advice and eat something cold. Like ice cream. :-)

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