A year ago today I was going in for my fourth treatment of R-CHOP. I'm so grateful to have some distance from the entire experience- I forgot to note the passing of the year-after mark of treatments 2 and 3. It's such a gift to not have to think about it, yet most of the time if I slow down it catches up with me pretty quickly. Yesterday was the first day since last fall that was warm enough to sit outside in a short-sleeved shirt and be comfortable. There were peepers (Michigan tree frogs) chirping away as dusk settled in, and I was reminded of all of the sounds of summer that are coming our way. We'll get to open our windows and our hearts now that the air is warming again. I've been going to a Yin yoga class with a friend for a few months where we're learning to slow down and "undo" by stretching our connective tissues with gentle reclined poses held for long periods of time. It's a nice addition to the more active or Yang yoga I've been exposed to in the past.
This week, I signed up for some shared studio space in the Park Trades Center here in Kalamazoo so that I'll make some art this summer instead of leaving all my gear in the closet where it won't get messed up by the cats or a wet basement. I'm enjoying my new website (www.ericabarajas.com) and have had one of my prints purchased and accepted into a few exhibitions outside of Kalamazoo. It's nice to have the validation and to have people connect with my work. I don't want to get too attached to that validation, but it's nice to have some for sure.
Mark has been analyzing statistics and will likely defend his dissertation in June. He's moving out to the Bay Area in July sometime, and I'll drive out there with him and fly back. I'm not graduating from WMU until December, so we'll do the long distance thing for a little while and then I hope to join him out there. I applied for a printmaking fellowship at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, which would give me free studio access and a nice stipend for a few months. I will probably have to find a "Day Job" soon after moving there but it would be great to have a little buffer and some free time in the studio to celebrate my graduation and treat myself after all the hard work I've done in Michigan. It will be sad to leave behind all the good things about Kalamazoo (there are so many!), and I will miss the inspiring people I've met (also so many of them!). Luckily I have the rest of the year to spend here so I can soak it up and be able to say goodbye before I leave.
I'm going to Ann Arbor on Monday to see the doctor at the U of M Reproductive Medicine Clinic. In January, I had my hormone levels checked by them to determine the state of my "ovarian reserve." Based mainly on the measure of AMH on Day 3 of my cycle, they determined that my success rate of doing fresh IVF would be less than 5% (this also means I would be highly unlikely to conceive naturally). I feel pretty skeptical about that claim, partially because I don't want it to be true, but also because I have had two experiences with lab results being interpreted definitively (at the time) by medical staff where it wasn't as definitive as they thought. Each person's body reacts differently to treatment. I was told after my first post-chemo PET scan that the cancer wasn't gone yet. Three months later, my scan was clear. When I had my estradiol and FSH levels tested in late 2013, my primary care physician said it was highly unlikely that my period would return and that I was in menopause. Since then I've had five normal periods in a row on my old schedule. So while I don't want to be stubborn, I also don't want to rely of one set of data to decide something about my future. I suspect that doctors are under a lot of pressure from their clinics and insurance providers to only order medically necessary tests, but it does set up a power dynamic where I'm not allowed to know my hormone levels unless I've been given permission by a doctor. I don't think I can just walk into a lab and get them to draw blood and test it. One thing makes me feel a little better about having to go to Ann Arbor... I was accepted into a print exhibition at the Ann Arbor Art Center, and it just happens that the day to drop off my work there is the same day I already had an appointment to go to U of M. Thanks for the synchronicity!
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