Sunday, January 13, 2008

61 Poetry and Other Things in 2007

January 24, 2008

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

Next - 62 When Is It Over? Moving On
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60 E-mail: the VICTORY of November 6, 2007

I managed to annoy at least one of my friends with this e-mail. I rarely spout my feelings about political matters to people but in this case made an exception when I sent the e-mail below to friends and family. It cost me a friendship. On the other hand, the only two other people who wrote to me with differing viewpoints did so respectfully and they got my attention. Inspired by one person's concerns, I looked up public records on Proposition 15 for myself and found useful information on state government web sites, including the exact wording of the bill. What struck me as especially interesting is that recipients of funding from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, the cancer research institute this state constitutional amendment created, must match the funding they receive dollar for dollar so it's not a free ride. I like that. I worry about the increase of debt to the State of Texas, but I worry about dying from cancer more.

Here are links if you want to see what I saw online.
The actual wording of the joint resolution, compliments of the Texas House of Representatives

Bill Analysis

Several official documents posted on the Texas Legislature Online website on HJR90 (House Joint Resolution 90), as the bill was called before it was put to the voters as Proposition 15.

House Research Organization Bill AnalysisThis document specifies what the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas is supposed to do and how the state intends to fund it. It records points of view of both supporters and opponents of the bill.

I suppose with the accessibility of the Internet I'll get to annoy a whole new group of people with the posting below, but that's not my intent. This blog records my thoughts and experiences with things related to my breast cancer journey. Proposition 15 is relevant and bears mentioning.

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Proposition 15 passed! Thank you, voters of Texas!

November 6, 2007, the night of the election, I checked voting results online just before bed.

First I found a link for Travis County which is where I live. All the votes had been tallied and turned in and the results shocked me. It was a very close call, with fifty-something percent FOR and forty-nine percent AGAINST. Against?! How could people vote against the cancer bill? I had a co-worker give me a chance earlier that day to convince him why he shouldn’t vote NO. He said that he questioned why the State of Texas should take on this tremendous $3 billion burden of debt to fund research for cancer which affects people worldwide. “Shouldn’t it be a national initiative?” He asked. I pointed out that national funding for cancer research had been cut this year by our president.

If it benefits the world, shouldn’t the world pay for it? Why should Texas pay for it? This is what he wanted to know.

I told him that Texas pays $30 billion each year in direct and indirect costs related to cancer. Spending $300 million a year for 10 years is an investment in eventually lowering that outrageous expense. As I drove home I thought of other reasons. A tsunami hits India and America pours money and time into helping the victims. Earthquakes devastate other parts of the world and Americans are there giving money, time, and precious resources to help. We don’t always have a clear political or monetary gain inherent in these outpourings of love and support. Sometimes, despite the many faults of this county and its people, we do the right thing, the nice thing, because some of us are humanitarians and we can’t sit by to watch people die when we can prevent it.

I read that the State of Texas has a low amount debt, all things considered. We can afford this. There are people out there with innovative, useful, potentially life-saving ideas that have been approved by the American Cancer Society and all they need is funding for their research. I know that a well-funded organization can get more done than a poorly-funded organization. Check out the IT department of a mid-sized company with money versus a tiny office that’s just making it and you’ll see a vast difference in the sophistication of software and hardware. I figure scientific research probably operates the same way. Throw more money at the problem and you get a faster solution, or a better solution, or a crazy idea that leads to the best solution years sooner.

That’s what I want, because cancer is everybody’s problem; I want the mysteries of causation and cure to be unlocked NOW so my son doesn’t see his friends, family, co-workers, and their friends, family, and co-workers suffer at the hands of this multi-faceted, insidious killer disease.

I caught a cold that turned into a sinus infection recently. As I waited to see the doctor (after being sick a week and a half already), I started making a list of all the people I could remember who had had cancer. Most of the people I know or heard of have come to my attention only in the last two years. I didn’t include celebrities. I didn’t include my fellow survivors in the Pink Ribbon Cowgirls. Instead, I included my Aunt Jerry who died of breast cancer; her daughter, my cousin Lesley, who had an early form of breast cancer; my Uncle Kenneth (spouse of Aunt Jerry) who has recently been diagnosed with lymphoma; my grandfather who has breast cancer and has decided not to do a thing about it. That takes care of the family members I know about. Then there’s the lymphoma patient I met at the gym long ago during treatment when I was working out. There are six co-workers who come to mind. There’s the father of my friend Kim; the father of my friend Rebekah; the mother of one of my survivor co-workers; the sister of one of my survivor co-workers; the wife of co-worker’s Karen’s cousin who died a couple of weeks ago of breast cancer. She was in her 30’s and left teenaged children behind. There’s the sister of consultant Ken whom I’ve collaborated with on a project at work; the father-in-law of friend and former consultant Adam; the mother of former boss Melinda; my brother-in-law Richard; the guy who rear-ended my car last year when Guy and I were on our way to breakfast before chemo – his mother died of cancer.

I think you get the point. I have 32 people on my list and I keep remembering more.

That’s insane!

So Travis County’s votes were almost evenly split with the FOR votes just barely edging over the AGAINST votes. Then I tried a different link and found statewide results. At the time I went to bed only 72% of the counties had reported final results, but the total votes FOR Proposition 15 were 60.96%.

I saw that winning percentage of votes FOR the proposition and my throat tightened up. Before I knew it tears were running down my face and I was silently sobbing. Ever the analyst, I wondered why I was crying. This was a HAPPY moment! What were these tears about?

I thought of how people get so happy at weddings that they cry. I’ve done that before. Winning Proposition 15 was like getting word from a surgeon that your loved one came out of a risky surgery with flying colors and is expected to pull through. I sat in my chair for a few minutes, just sobbing, reaching for one tissue after another as tears streamed down my face. And I smiled.

There was one other emotion that was threading through the relief and the happiness: Hope.

For the first time, I felt hope that we can find a cure for at least some forms of cancer sooner rather than later. I didn’t realize I was so thirsty until I was handed this drink.

I calmed down, turned the lights off downstairs and went up to bed. As always I checked on my son first – my little angel who may grow up in a world that’s fighting some other number one killer because cancer by then has been tamed. I went into our room and saw that my husband, who had gone to bed early, was deeply asleep. I listened to his quiet, rhythmic breathing and smiled as I turned out the last light. Hope wrapped me in a warm blanket as I drifted off to a restful sleep of my own.

Angela

I later learned that the co-worker who asked me why he should vote for this bill was actually persuaded by my arguments and voted FOR it. Wow!


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