2007 held a lot of highlights for me. It was a year of ups and downs, as they all are -- and even a "normal" year would be incredible compared to the drama of 2006 (the year of my breast cancer diagnosis and treatment) -- but 2007 held a lot of special moments.
First, I'm still trying to figure out what my cancer experiences mean to me. Between 2006 and 2007, I learned new lessons and remembered old ones. I made many new friends and lost a couple of old ones. I gained compassion and ferocity and lost more of my innocence. I gave away time and energy and gained respect and loyalty. I also gained more self esteem, and saw the amazing power of love.
I'm currently still living with NED (no evidence of disease). I'm 22 months out of diagnosis and this is the second time the year has turned with NED still hanging around. I'm a big fan of NED and hope he remains with me the rest of my life.
VOLUNTEER WORK
I chaired committees for two fundraisers last year. Graphic was the April fundraiser for the Pink Ribbon Cowgirls of the BCRC (Breast Cancer Resource Center). September held the Champagne Brunch for the BCRC. Graphic was a new event so I was a part of the maiden voyage. It did well and I was proud but exhausted to have been a part of it. The Champagne Brunch turned out to be more my style and pace and I had a ball planning for my part in it. Chairing the committee for the Champagne Brunch was significant for me in work-related ways. It boosted my self-confidence that I could really take charge of a project and see it through. I set out to significantly reduce the amount of time people spent in line waiting to check out after the auction, and between my planning and the awesome volunteers who worked it, that goal was accomplished.
This experience was also incredible to me because I saw some of my ideas make a real difference in helping my part of the event run better. First I did what had been done before. I took the spreadsheet which listed all of the items and added lookup functions in Excel to connect it with the spreadsheet that listed all of the attendees. That enabled us to get our stacks of winning bid sheets and just key in the 3-digit bid numbers into the spreadsheet and the names of the winners appeared in the next column. Then I took it a step farther. I built a database in Access that used the spreadsheet as its source data. The database produced invoices of who won what, and then printed the invoices in alphabetical order by winner. It also gave us a master list so the BCRC knew how much money they needed to collect from each winner. Most people I know don't understand how this was fun for me, but it was great fun. I had a blast planning and designing it and anticipating the happy smiles from the BCRC staff. The day of the auction, I surprised their business manager with the master list. She promptly said, "I love you!" and gave me the hoped-for smile plus a hug. Yee-haw!!! And the feedback from people's wait times in line said that the average time people waited before paying went from 5-10 minutes to 1-3 minutes. SO cool!
It just goes to show that you don't have to contribute cash to make a difference in something that's important to you. We're in no position to donate money, but I gave time and found a way to use my organizational, analytical, software and accounting skills. I smile every time I think about the 2007 Brunch. I wanted so badly to make a difference, and I'm happy that I did just that.
THE MAKEOVER
It's January 2008 and my hair is still rusty-colored from the makeover last October 2007. It still looks like a pretty color even with an inch or more of my dark blond or possibly light brown roots showing. The memories of the makeover event are precious and sacred. It was a morning of pampering, true, but it also set the stage for spending a chunk of my day with fellow survivors. We swapped stories about our respective experiences. Our ability to look back on the trauma of losing our hair and going through chemotherapy was powerful stuff, because we talked about these painful events and laughed from our bellies about some of these things. I healed a little more that day because I could laugh at the image of a 3-year-old drawing pictures on his bald, pregnant mother's head. What an incredible experience! The owner of Bo Salon, Ron King, answered my question about why he offered these makeovers. He said that he wanted to make a difference in our lives. At the time I wondered what lasting difference a costmetic event could accomplish. Now I understand. It wasn't the hair and the makeup. He gave us the relaxed atmosphere for making memories. Beautiful, special, healing memories. Thank you Ron King.
TELEVISION APPEARANCES
I got to appear on local television TWICE!
KVUE - Live Interview With Quida Culpepper About the Makeover
News 8 Austin - Pre-recorded Story About Women Diagnosed With Cancer While Pregnant
The first opportunity came as part of the makeover. It was done live and I got to go to the television station for it.
The second opportunity came because I watched a piece News 8 did on the husbands of women with breast cancer and it moved me to tears. I did something I've never done before. I wrote to the television station. I suggested that they run a piece on women diagnosed with cancer while pregnant, and they did it! For this television appearance, a reporter and cameraman came to my home. We shot quite a bit of footage of me telling my story and they included two statements from all of that for the brief news piece. I was delighted and disappointed at the same time. They also filmed me playing with my son, which I liked, and the end of the story shows me kissing my husband. I liked that part too though Guy generally prefers to remain behind the scenes. That's why I have no photos of him posted on my blog (until today). Since the TV folks filmed at our house on a Sunday, we spent all of Saturday doing serious cleaning. THAT was awesome because our house looked ready for a party after they left.
The second television appearance ran once an hour most every hour for a day or so. They included the stories of two of my fellow Pink Ribbon Cowgirls and I was glad to help raise awareness. I was also amazed that someone would give sufficient credit to an idea I had for a story to actually run with it. Cool!
POETRY
2007 was a banner year for my poetry. For the most part, poetry doesn't pay well. I don't write or share poetry for money. I write poetry because it helps me express a creative part of my personality. Sometimes it helps me shake my demons out. I share it when I think someone will enjoy it or identify with it. When somebody connects with my cancer poetry I feel a mixture of pleasure and humility. I think it's good that I'm starting to write poetry about topics other than cancer, too. My latest poem is called "A Trip to Amy's Ice Cream" and I will likely post it on the blog site soon.
The Breast Cancer Resource Center used one of my poems (A Diagnosis of Cancer) in their 2007 Graphic event guide. That was an honor. Then they held on to copies of several poems to potentially use in their support groups. I know that one was used recently in a group meeting so that makes me feel great.
The "Radiation on a Rainy Day" poem has been especially popular. The fabulous Meg Heggie from Scotland posted it on her web site here. Since Meg lives in Scotland, she modified it slightly to spell certain words the European way since they came up wrong in her spell check. I got a kick out of that. Meg also honored me later in the year by writing a beautiful poem called Words for Angela that she dedicated to me. No one has ever written a poem for me before. Thank you, Meg.
I entered the poem in a contest, the St. Louis 48th Annual Best Poem Contest. It didn't win.
DR. LOVE AND MY PERSONAL STORY
My poem did appear, however, on the web site of Dr. Susan Love, the breast cancer surgeon whose book I read cover to cover (almost) and whose opinions I deeply respect. What I actually prepared for Dr. Love's site was my personal story and I based it largely on the introductionI wrote for my membership on the Pink Ribbon Cowgirls Yahoo group. That means that the "personal story" bit isn't really expressed the way I would have preferred to have told it. The poem came at the tail end of the rather dry remarks about my cancer journey. It wasn't the way I intended to tell my story, but the editor assured me that it would contribute to variety in how stories were shared on the site and she liked it. Oh well. Their web site was rebuilt last year and they did away with their poetry section. The appearance of my personal story actually catapulted me into showing up on Google. If you type in "Angela Patterson cancer" I have hits on the first two pages. It's pretty neat.
The other interesting event tied to my personal story on Dr. Love's site was that a different web site, Divine Caroline, lifted my personal story without my permission and without Dr. Love's site's editor's permission. They printed the entire thing almost verbatim and gave authorship credit to Dr. Love's site rather than to me. Had they asked, I would have given permission. Since they didn't, I complained to the editor at Dr. Love's site. She investigated and found that they had reprinted the stories of other women without permission. All of them were removed from Divine Caroline. This event was an example last year of how I learned to stand up for myself when I navigated the waters of cancer survival.
What also struck me was how one of my fellow Pink Ribbon Cowgirls felt inspired by seeing my story on Dr. Love's site and submitted her own. Katie's story humbled me when I read it. I was amazed at her spirit and inspired by her determination. Here was a woman I took under my wing once and met with to discuss her situation and soothe her fears, and she was thriving. I can't understand why some people remain cancer "victims" when the frame of mind to be a survivor is so much more rewarding.
MORE POETRY
"Radiation on a Rainy Day" was also accepted for online publication by CUREXTRA. I'm not sure how long that link will remain valid since it's linked to their current issue. Fortunately for me for now, their "current issue" is actually a quarter behind. It's the Fall 2007 issue so the poem still shows up online.
What really made the year rock, however, was seeing my poem in print for the very first time in Women & Cancer magazine's Winter 2007 issue. You have to have a subscription to see it online, but here's a link. I have a handful of copies of the magazine at home and I've been smiling over this for several weeks now. I've never had a poem printed in a magazine before, much less a magazine that has a national distribution with a group of people (cancer survivors) I care so much about.
This has been the most personal way for me to "pay it forward" and touch people. To put myself out there, to expose this part of myself through my poem and say "I've been there, survived that, and it was rough but I'm still here" and have someone write back and let me know that it mattered has been incredible, and emotional, and awe-inspiring.
CALENDAR
Kelric and I were photographed in 2007 by Houston photographer Alisa Murray as part of a calendar of Austin-area breast cancer survivors and their children. Our photo appears in the 2008 calendar called Hope & Inspiration. It can be purchased online at http://www.setonfund.org/?nd=full&key=24&data=data&view=1. Proceeds benefit the Shivers Cancer Center at Brackenridge Hospital. Unfortunately, this link only shows the cover of the calendar, not the page where Kelric and I are. Our photo is in October 2008, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I love that.
WRAPPING IT UP
Now we're on to 2008. I've been a survivor for 22 months and so far so good.
My boss asked me once why cancer survivors tend to make such a big deal over being "survivors." He let me know that he had had no experience with cancer, either personally or through family members who he was seeking to understand. I explained that fighting cancer is a traumatic experience. Your body has betrayed you by creating cancer. That creates a feeling of helplessness. Then you endure the treatments to fight the cancer, which usually involve surgery of some kind. That's invasive. And then in my case there was chemotherapy and radiation. Your once-familiar body becomes a stranger during chemotherapy. It doesn't heal well from injury. Simple sicknesses become potentially very dangerous. The side effects are weird and they change all the time so you don't know what to expect from one day to the next. Radiation gave me lasting changes such as brittle bones and decreased lung function. Let's not even go into the financial pressure from medical expenses and lost wages. All of these events add up to equal a deeply traumatic experience and it can be difficult to get past it. If you do get past it, you've really survived something significant.
That's why cancer survivors tend to latch on to that word "survivor" and revel in it.
As I began to say in the opening of this post, I'm still trying to figure out what it means to me to find myself a cancer survivor. Cancer took a lot from me. You won't find me expressing gratitude for the "second chance on live that cancer gave me." Cancer didn't "give" me anything but grief and pain, but I'm continuing to discover what I chose to "take" from the cancer experience.
Improvements in self-esteem and the courage to stand up for myself are part of it. Humility and compassion are part of it. A certain amount of fearlessness is part of it, too. I still look at my son sometimes and start to cry, fearing that I may die while he's young and fearing that something may happen to take him from us. It's part of life, I think, that you learn about the bad stuff and find a way to live without letting that fear strangle you. That lesson transcends cancer and extends to any difficult, life-threatening, or traumatic event that doesn't kill us.
Thank you for reading my blog and my lengthy postings.
Here's to a fabulous 2008!
Angela (the Pink Tiger) Patterson
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