10 years in the clear

 As I was on my way to celebrate the winter solstice with songs, prayers, family, and friends last night, it struck me that it’s been 10 years since my chest port was removed. The port coming out was a symbolic act set in motion by my oncologist’s declaration that there was no evidence of recurring disease in my body. I remember the procedure because I opted out of Versed. Afterwards, I went to the bathroom and saw blood in my underwear. It was as if my body had been waiting to release until it was safe to do so. This year I happened to be bleeding over the solstice, something I wasn’t sure would still be going on after going through chemotherapy (shout out to Dr. Liepman and Lupron Depot!). We are done having children at this point but are continuing to store our frozen embryos in Michigan until we feel completely clear on what to do with them.

I also commemorated the solstice by listening to Patrick Carroll’s “Glow in the Dark” album and letting my tears flow. I’m experiencing various forms of grief these days, much of which is related to my mom’s Parkinson’s diagnosis and the duality of being a parent and daughter at the same time. Making time to let my sadness pass through is tricky, but I’m grateful for the fullness of life. Rumi’s Guest House has come in handy recently:

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond

-Rumi

Can't forget

 It feels like a long time ago yet I can get pulled back into memories of chemotherapy and that year pretty easily. I found out yesterday that a friends' father was diagnosed with bladder and prostate cancer, and it's hitting me harder than I thought it would. He has only ever been a sweet, quiet man in my life. He always kisses me on the cheek when we see each other, and it's only ever felt respectable and/or European. In another life, he might have been my father in law. He has watched me grow up from afar, and I know very little about him personally. But I feel so sad that he and his wife are having to go through those early horrific days of invasive procedures and waiting... waiting for test results and getting vague answers and waiting more to see how treatments play out. When it was my turn I just kept my head down. I was in school and working full time those days. I resigned from a volunteer board of directors I was sitting on, took an incomplete in two classes, and continued playing in a Japanese Taiko drumming group and working as an interim executive director for a small nonprofit. I went to the sweat lodge and prayed and prayed, surrounded myself with the loving people I had come to know. Even had a circle of people sing around me for healing. I think about what would happen now if I had to go through all of that here in the Bay Area. Would people be as available to participate in my healing and recovery? Would the stress of raising children on top of it all be too much? Intellectually I know I would get through it, but at what cost? I'd have to stuff so many feelings, stay tough for the kids' sake. Really not helpful to think about that right now, since I'm healthy and am not going through anything like that right now. I guess it's just triggering to think about someone close to me having to go through a similar experience. Is that PTSD? I dunno. I'm safe here now on my couch, with my husband and daughters asleep peacefully in their beds.

Brief update

Today, I made a final payment to Bronson Hospital for my first treatment of R-CHOP back in March of 2013. I still owe money to the University of Michigan for the surgery that lead to my diagnosis of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. And each year, I get a bill for the storage of our embryos.

8 years in the clear

It has been eight years since I was declared "no evidence of recurring disease" and had the port in my chest removed. I remember that my period started that day after months of not having one, partially due to the Lupron Depot shots I'd gotten during chemotherapy. I now have two daughters who are ~5.5 and ~3 years old, both of which were conceived without IVF. I have been working part time at a grocery store since May 2017 with a brief break to have the second daughter. Most of the time I don't think about the fact that I've ever had cancer. I notice the port scars on my neck and chest every once in a while. I get bloodwork done once a year or so. I felt a little creeped out about getting the COVID vaccine, but it's worked out fine so far. I have an art studio that I go to a few times a week before or after my shifts at the grocery store. I'm grateful to have had a job throughout the pandemic.

3 years since diagnosis

Three years ago yesterday, I got a phone call from a nurse at the University of Michigan. It was a Wednesday, and my Gender and Women's Studies class at Western Michigan University was about to start. I had a missed call from an Ann Arbor phone number, not sure if they left a voicemail or not. I stepped into the empty classroom down the hall to call back, and the nurse was very quick to get to the point. I began to cry and swear, then apologize for swearing. She did a great job of just staying on the line with me until I had the basic information. They knew at that point that it was Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I didn't necessarily know what that meant, but I believed it was bad. Further genetic testing would be necessary to determine whether I had "double hit" Burkitt Lymphoma which would have to be treated aggressively and quickly. It think it was several weeks before we found out that I just had a fairly "normal version" of NHL, Diffuse Large B-Cell. Mark was in a meeting at Kalamazoo College and he came over to WMU's Sangren Hall to meet up with me. One of his professors let us sit together in her office and she left us alone. I think we just cried and held each other. I had a follow up phone call with the ENT doctor I had seen at Bronson Hospital who had taken one look at the enlarged lymph node in my neck and said "You need to get that outta there." She was trying to be encouraging that there were many clinical studies I could participate in, and I remember telling her that I wasn't ready to feel encouraged... I was still digesting the fact that I had cancer. Mark had class that night, and I had a taiko rehearsal to go to, so we both went on with our days. I must have called my parents at some point that day, because my mom arrived in Michigan the following day. On Thursday and Friday morning that week, I remember waking up with a panicked gasp realizing that I was going to die. Looking back, I still feel aware that I'm going to die someday, I just feel more at peace about it and less certain of how and when it will happen. A huge factor in helping me accept what was going on was that we went to a Lakota sweat lodge on Saturday, where the leader encouraged me to reframe the experience as a "situation" rather than a problem or challenge. He said I've lived through many situations and this is just another one. Approaching it with fear will make it much harder to deal with. At some point in the coming months, he told us that all healing would come through water and he had Mark serve me water from the drinking gourd in a powerful gesture. I would have to accept help, and Mark would need to support me in my healing. We prayed hard for ourselves, for others, for healing for all of us.

Let's compare that to what I got to do yesterday. I woke up in Livermore in my parents house 33 weeks into my first pregnancy. Took a shower, made breakfast, put on my "winter flip flops" and headed over to the Bothwell Arts Center to teach my second workshop on Linoleum Relief Printing. Came home, had lunch, took a nap and then made an appearance at an art reception for the current exhibition at the Bankhead Theater which includes one of my prints and four prints made by my students. Mark and I picked up some groceries on the way home, and then made tacos for the two of us and my parents. We got caught up on Downtown Abbey and had ice cream and cookies for dessert. Had some nice cuddles with each other before settling down to bed. As I'm writing this, our baby is wriggling around in my belly. Pretty ridiculously wonderful day. So grateful to be gaining more and more distance from the day I was diagnosed. Thankful for the western and other types of medicine I received, for the meals and support generously given by friends and family. Amazed and humbled that my body is healthy enough to support my life and another's, too. I do feel like I've more than survived cancer, I've surpassed it. It's just another situation I've experienced. I hope for myself and my loved ones that I don't have to experience it again.

It's not official until it's on Facebook...

On the verge of 29 weeks of pregnancy and I'm feeling grateful for my health, the health of my family and friends, and for being safe on Christmas morning. There are so many messed up things happening in our country and around the world, and we are privileged to be fairly insulated from or ignorant of many of them. I don't want to spend much time on the computer today, but since Mark and I just went "Facebook public" I figured I should add a new post here just in case. If this is the first post you're reading on my blog, thanks for being interested in our journey. In short, I was diagnosed with cancer in January of 2013 and have been cancer-free since December 2013. We were able to conceive on our own this year, which is a miracle in itself and even more so considering that I've been through chemotherapy. Feel free to read on to see some steps along the way. May you be well!

25 weeks

Tomorrow, I will have been pregnant for 25 weeks. Everything has been going smoothly. I didn't have morning sickness at all. The first trimester I was definitely tired, and felt like I'd wake up in the morning wondering when I could take a nap. I stayed physically active during that time, which helped a lot. I've picked up two different colds at times. The first round lasted about 3 weeks, and the most recent time it went away after about three days. Thanks echinacea tincture!

At 20 weeks, we had our anatomical screening ultrasound, which showed that all the essential parts are present... cerebellum, palette, four-chambered heart, kidneys, etc. We're trying to keep the baby's gender a surprise and the technician was great about telling us when to look away so that we wouldn't accidentally find out. People ask us if we know the gender, and often when we say we're letting it be a surprise they follow up with their own prediction based on any number of wives' tales. Mark enjoys this more than I do. I feel very strongly that I don't want to know the gender or even think I know the gender, partially because of a Gender and Women's Studies class I took a while back. In the class we learned that people talk to and act differently with babies, even unborn ones, when they know (or think they know) the gender.