Life is Healthy

Has no one complained to you about this?

A breast cancer organization talking about "great racks"? What if you only have half a rack or none at all? Can I still be a superhero if I'm not white [I did discover after I sent the note, that you can change the skin colour of the model, once you get inside the game but both the male and female superhero start as fair and light-haired] , with big boobs and able-bodied?

I love the idea and I love the spirit of fun and celebration to which you are clearly aspiring. I just don't understand how a group of breast cancer advocates sat down together and agreed that this is the best imagery and wording for this event.

So disappointed.

For the last few months, I've been playing along with a group of folks over at BlogHer who've formed a group called "List Lovers Unite." I'm a sucker for "to do" lists and I've found the practice of making monthly to do lists to be rather compelling.

Sticking to the list, however, has yielded mixed results. Here's how I did with April's list (as with previous months, completed tasks are in blue, partially done tasks are in green and the tasks I didn't even started in purple):

1. Write a first draft of the short story I've been kicking around. (I wrote an outline)

2. Spend an average of eight hours writing per week. (Not even close)

3. Do strength training at least once a week and continue with the five hours of cardio per week. (I'm very pleased to have started the strength training, which I did, for at least a few minutes, five times in four weeks. I fell a couple of hours short with the cardio, though. I need to remind myself on rainy days that I'm not made of sugar).

4. Sort through my clothes (carried over from February and March). (I bought some clothes but my closet is still overflowing with stuff I can't or don't wear).

5.Make summer plans for my family. (we are going to Blue SkiesMusic Festival this year and have tentatively planned another couple of trips but I have yet to sit down with a calendar and nail it all down)

6. Brush my big (shedding) dog once a week and my smaller (non-shedding, tangling) dog every other day. (I brushed the big dog once and the little one twice. I did take Lucy to the groomer on Tuesday, though. She's been shorn now, so now I really only have ears and tail to brush for a while)

7. Update my Ravelry project page.

8. Finish another scarf.

9. Make soup twice. (the jambalaya in the slow cooker when I wrote last month's post was the only soup I made. It was a good one, though)

10. Get a hair cut. (Done. And I feel much better with shorter hair)

I did get something done that had been on my previous month's to do list. I bought a bathing suit. And then I wrote about it for BlogHer and even posted a photo of myself.

I'm still reeling from that one.

Around the middle of the month, I realized was feeling very grumpy. I figured out that I was unhappy because, while I wasn't necessarily getting anything done, I also wasn't having any fun. I had to remind myself that, as I'm the one attempting to give my life more structure, I'm also the one who needs to give myself permission to be flexible.

When I drew up my goals for this month, I decided to incorporate time to read, relax and be creative (a bit ironic, I know) and to set aside time to specifically attack this list.


Things to do in May:

1. Spend an average of eight hours writing a week (I'm already behind. Sigh. I have started to edit the first draft of my novel, though, so that's something).

2. Do strength training at least twice every week (Did it once last week, so I'm behind there too).

3. Do an average of five hours of cardio every week (On track. Yay!)

4. Make soup twice (I've already made and eaten a big batch of sweet potato, red lentil and spinach soup).

5. Sort through my clothes (carried over from February, March and April - but I really do want to get this done).

6. Finish making summer plans for my family.

7. Go to at least one bike store and do some test rides (That should be fun. Also, my bike has started to make some pretty scary noises when I pedal or change gears).

8. Spend one afternoon every week doing something fun or relaxing (Last week, I spent part of Mothers' Day finishing Water for Elephants, which I loved reading. This week, I'll spend Thursday afternoon either reading or knitting. I need to make the space in my life to do the things that restore my energy and my creativity).

9. Finish one knitting project (I made a bunch of dish clothes and a dish towel for a friend and gave them to her, so this one's done already).

10. Spend one afternoon per week just dealing with this to-do list (last week it was Wednesday and this week it will be Wednesday, too).

Anyone else out there still working on the monthly list? How's it working for you?

And I posted about it for BlogHer.

I won't say the search wasn't traumatic:

I rejected suits that didn't cover my scars, that were two big, too small or both at the same time. I worked up a sweat trying to get tangled bathing suit straps over my shoulders, often resulting in a look that was reminiscent of a wrestling uniform. I cried a little bit. Regular suits left me feeling too exposed and mastectomy suits bagged on the chest when I was not wearing a breast form.

I made three soups in January.

Red lentil and carrot from Cooking with Foods That Fight Cancer

Broccoli cheddar from Looneyspoons: Low-fat food made fun!

Jambalaya from Weight Watchers (heavily modified: I substituted white fish for shrimp, used more liquid and had sausage on the side, so folks could choose their level of spiciness. And I didn't use chicken. And I used different spices. This for me, was a wildly adventurous departure).

If I don't run out of time today, I plan on making a pre-chemo Sweet potato and roasted garlic soup from the The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook: Great-Tasting Recipes That Keep You Lean!
A friend gave this one to me. I recall it being time consuming but delicious..

I have had a post on the tip of my fingers about my current highly ambivalent feelings about my life, identity and treatment but I can't seem to bring myself to write it.

In fact, I can't seem to bring myself to write much these days.

Maybe, later this week, as I recover from chemo.

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day. And the four year anniversary of my mastectomy.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that I had an almost new prosthesis that I was seeking to re-home. This is what happened next:

Julia consulted other directors of Breast Cancer Action, who suggested that there might be a program to send prostheses to developing countries. She also called the social worker at the cancer centre who told her that Canadian Cancer Society takes donations (1745 Woodward Dr., Ottawa, ON K2C 0P9. 613-723-1744). I am so grateful to her for doing this.

Throws Like A Girl , who is part of our group at Mothers With Cancer, suggested that we need "a prosthesis relocation program."

Imstell jumped in with the following:

"Maybe we [Mothers With Cancer] could just host a bulletin board where people could post their needs:

FREE TO GOOD HOME Single 36C teardrop prosthesis. Likes to travel. You pay shipping.

WANTED swimming prosthesis. Any size large enough to hide my belly.

It's not the kind of thing I'd want to advertise on Craigslist or Kijiji.

I can't set it out on my front lawn and hope someone takes it away.

I doubt the Canadian Diabetes Association or the Ontario Federation for Cerebral Palsy would want it as part of their drive to collect use goods for re-sale.

But I have a perfectly good prosthesis, worn only a handful of times that I'm sure someone could use, even if it was wrong for me (and I have replaced it with another one I don't seem to be wearing much).

The government covers about two thirds of the cost of a new prosthesis. That balance must be prohibitive for many who don't have private insurance to take care of the rest.

How do I find someone who can use it though?

Maybe someone at Breast Cancer Action would know.

Of course, I could always use my prosthesis to make art, the way Jacqueline did.

I think my inclinations might be a little more violent, though.

Thoughts?

Warning: This post may contain too much information for some readers.


I have not worn a prosthesis for more than two years. Lymphedema and then scarring from radiation made the experience of wearing it excruciating. The last time I tried to wear it, I was on a date with my spouse in Florida. After an hour, I was in tears, it hurt so much.

Out it came and I haven't looked back.

At least not much.

I find that I'm pretty comfortable without a prosthesis. Sometimes I dress to camouflage and others I just don't care. And most of the time, I don't think about it at all.

Lately, though, I've wanted the chance to blend in a little more, to not have to lead with my cancer when I meet people. And although I have some great tops that work with my asymmetrical body, (from Rhea Belle, of course) I do get tired of the limited options open to me (it's hard enough finding funky clothes in larger sizes).

So, while feeling slightly guilty about giving into societal notions of beauty (in hiding my asymmetry, am I implying that I think there is something wrong with it?), I set out to visit Kelly's Mastectomy Boutique.

The entire operation took all of ten minutes ("Oh look! Boobs!" I exclaimed as I tried on prosthesis and bra) and cost several hundreds of dollars (recuperable, thanks to the government and my insurance plan. I wonder though, why do we need a referral from a doctor? Does anyone get a prosthesis for fun? What would they do with it?). I brought it home, stuck it in my closet and didn't wear it for almost a week.

Yesterday, I decided it was time for the prosthetic equivalent of a test drive. I was meeting Sassymonkey for pints and knitting on a sunny patio. It seemed like a low stakes endeavour, in that if I arrived with my boobs pointing in different directions, Sassymonkey was likely to be unperturbed. It was also a good opportunity to put the boob through it's paces, as I would be biking, knitting, eating, sitting in the warm sun and engaging in a social encounter.

My new fake boob is squishier in back and is supposed to be lighter - better for both my uneven chest wall and lymphedema. I wore it under a t-shirt with a picture on it (much harder to wear with an uneven chest) and one that is slightly snugger than I have been wearing lately. I noticed immediately that my waist, gone for ages, seemed to reappear. I also noticed that my posture seemed to improve.

I ran into someone I knew on my way to the pub. She said, "You look different. Have you done something to your hair?"

And after Sassymonkey and I had been sitting for a while, I pointed out my newly symmetrical rack to her. "That's what's different!" she exclaimed.

"You'd tell me if I were unbalanced right?" She assure me that she would (I felt unbalanced, I'm so unused to having this weird mound on the right side of my chest).

All in all, I declare the outing a success. The thing felt odd but there was no pain. I even forgot I was wearing it for a while.

When Sassymonkey and I parted we hugged goodbye (I later repeated this experience with T. Hugging feels very odd, like we are squishing a big pillow between us) and she noted, "You're still balanced."

I said I was glad but that I was going to take it off when I got home. "It's like breaking in a pair of shoes, you know?"

She said that she did.

As I type this, the stand-in for my right boob is nestled in it's box in my closet. I am toying with taking it out for a spin again this evening.

And one last thing: there needs to be more support and encouragement of women who create clothing for the post-mastectomy body. Also, it would be great if the bigger clothing companies would come across, by supporting the work of women like Jacqueline and modifying their own designs. I can't be the only woman who has had a mastectomy, does not love prosthesis and cannot/would not choose surgical reconstruction.

I have a post up at The Songbird Branch (a blog started by the brilliant Jacqueline) about my attempt to knit an asymmetrical sweater for my asymmetrical body.

Go check it out and the really beautiful items that have been found and made for the post-mastectomy body.

Some things make me very, very angry.

Like every new detail coming out about the needless deaths of Robert Dziekanski and Brian Sinclair. Each man could have been saved so many times by so many different people.

Like the fact that the mayor of Ottawa and the leadership of OcTranspo were guilty of several big whoppers around the transit strike (especially about how much money the city was saving and how long it would take the buses to get back on the road).

Some things make me laugh.

Like making silicone breast prosthesis jokes with my sister last night (you really did have to be there).

And going to see a taping of The Debaters with my son and my spouse.

Some things make me smile.

Like getting an email from a woman I have never met who tells me that she loves my blog and seems to be living a parallel life to mine (right down to the kids five years apart and two dogs).

Like the sound of two dogs snoring as I type this.

Some things make me worry about my faculties.

Like the fact that I bought tickets for a show (the above-mentioned Debaters) and then made child care arrangements for the wrong night (thank goodness for my wonderful sister who changed her evening plans so she could still come and hang out with my youngest son).

Like the fact that I woke up one night in a cold sweat in the middle of the night a week ago and double-checked that I had bought the tickets, yet didn't notice that they were for the wrong night.

Some things are good.

Some things are bad.

Some things just are.

Still working, sometimes, on sorting out the difference.

Originally posted at Mothers With Cancer.

I find myself continuously inspired by the group of bloggers in our little community. Today's post was provoked into being by Lahdeedah's post "The Road to OK" and imstell (Stella)'s response, "Acceptance."

I have always felt ambivalent about my breasts. As a young woman (I was an early bloomer, it must be said) they brought me attention that was at times unwelcome and at times confusingly gratifying. They fed two children for a total of more than three years. Once large and round, they were irrevocably changed by motherhood, as my nipples moved southward and seemed to stretch ever more closely towards my toes.

And then my right breast betrayed me, playing host to the tumour that would eventually spread to my lymph nodes and then to my liver. On February 2nd ("Groundhog Day!" I exclaimed when my surgeon told me the date. I had to explain that I was not objecting on the basis of this being a special holiday for me), I had a mastectomy.

I feel no less ambivalent now that I have only one breast. I was consumed with terror before the surgery and relieved afterwards to see only one bandage across my chest. I was frustrated by drains and then by the fact that healing seemed to take a step back two weeks after the surgery (no one had warned me this would happen).

More than two years later, I am still plagued with post surgical issues, including a limited range of motion and lymphedema in my chest, back and rib cage (when I showed this to my surgeon, couple of weeks after surgery, he shrugged it off as "just back fat," so loathe was he to admit that he didn't know. He actually said that the fact that my breast was no longer pulling it forward the fat was sticking out more. My physiotherapist just about had an aneurysm when I told her that story).

Radiation left me with serious scarring that exacerbated the lymphedema and made it painful to wear a prosthesis. Most days I am perfectly fine with this. At other times, I feel extremely self-conscious. Some days I dress to camouflage and some days I am quite content with the altered landscape of my body.

It is in the summer time when I most miss having two breasts, when I sometimes long to look "normal" in a tank top. It is also when I find myself (as Lahdeedah confesses in her post), ogling other women with envy.

However, I remind myself that how I look is perfectly normal to those who know and love me. My older son has even said as much, as has my spouse. And along with the lines around my eyes and mouth (I smile a lot), the stretch marks on my belly (I have borne and birthed two beautiful boys) and even the little scar that runs from the corner of my left eye (I hit a metal bar when I was chasing a cute boy in my class during a game of tag in Grade 6), the scar on my chest and my asymmetrical shape tell the story of the experiences that have shaped who I am.

The following poem was originally posted last summer:

voyeur

Women's breasts emerge in the heat of the summer.
Big ones and small ones.
Perky ones (I could fit them in my hand).
Breasts nursing babies.
Freckled cleavage.
Wrinkled cleavage.
And breasts that can't possibly be real.
I stare at women's breasts now with great fascination.
And not a little envy.
I have never seen a woman with one breast.
Except in the mirror.

I have had two scans over the last few of days.

On Friday, I had a CT scan and was taken aback (but pleasantly so) when the technician informed me that she had checked and that there was no change from my previous scan and that there is still no evidence of cancer on my liver.

The events leading up to this conversation were a little outside the norm of what one should expect in a professional hospital setting, so I thought I would share them with you (actually, my spouse, when I told him, kept repeating, "You have to blog about this!).

I left for the hospital at around noon on Friday, still a bit woozy from the chemo and light-headed from fasting all day. I dodged construction in order to check in and seat myself in an unfamiliar waiting room. A few minutes later, I was handed two half liter cups with a clear liquid in them and told to drink them over the next hour and a half. "At around 1:30, someone will come and we'll get your iv started."

When, by 1:50, no one had come for me, I approached the front desk, where, once they clarified that I had in fact checked in and consumed my drinks, a man in scrubs (tech? nurse?) was asked about my place in the queue. He looked confused but said that someone would be along shortly, "They haven't forgotten about you."

Less than two minutes later, the same guy came to get me (which does lead me to believe that I had been forgotten). He led me back through the construction to a big room, with a few beds and two chairs in it for drawing blood. My guide gestured to the one empty chair and told me that a tech would be along shortly to set up the iv for the scan.

The two chairs in this room were extremely close together. The woman in the next chair and I were facing the same direction and could have put our arms around each other without stretching.

I had seen her come into the waiting room. She was young (anywhere from teens to twenties), wearing pajamas and an eyepatch. She also seemed quite weak and had been supported by the older (mid-forties? early fifties? I really go out of my way not to stare in these circumstances) man who was with her. Shortly after their arrival in the waiting room, they had been ushered out, around the corner and told that someone would be waiting to speak to them.

I don't know how long she had been sitting in the room where they usually do the blood work before I got there but within seconds of my arrival, a woman (who I later learned was a doctor) came through the door from the scanning room and began to speak to the woman and her companion in Arabic (I'm pretty sure it was Arabic).

They did not acknowledge me and there was nowhere for me to go. The doctor began to speak quickly, with the odd English word thrown in. I understood, "Ear, cancer, vocal chords." I also understood that there was a great deal of emotion in the room. I closed my eyes and turned my head away so that we could all pretend I wasn't there.

Within a few minutes, the door once again burst open and a diminutive red-headed woman called out my name. I was eager to leave but did take the time to say that I didn't have my iv in yet. "I'll do it in here," she barked (I didn't mention that for the last five minutes the fire alarm had been wailing in the background...)

"I brought you in here because there as a very hard conversation going on and I thought she deserved some privacy."

My eyes widened and I nodded vigorously.

"And you, too. It's not nice to be listening to that."

She then took down my particulars, prior to the test. When I told her that I was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer that had spread to my liver, she grimaced, "Then that conversation must have been particularly hard for you. My co-worker didn't realize what was going on when he put you there. You shouldn't have had to hear that, especially as a woman."

Bearing in mind that I hadn't understood much of the conversation and had been acutely uncomfortable, I remained mostly silent during this ongoing monologue.

Tech: "Did you have a lumpectomy or a mastectomy?"

Me: "Mastectomy."

Tech: "Good! I used to do mammograms and my fiancé works at (a clinic that women go to for diagnosis of breast cancer). You could say that breasts are our life. Other than the fact that I have two."

Somewhere in the blur that followed she asked and I informed her about my initial diagnosis, the mets and how my liver had originally been "riddled with tumours" but that I had had three clean scans (with no signs of cancer) in the last year.

She was duly impressed.

A few minutes later she asked, "Doesn't breast c.a. usually spread to the brain or the bones?"

Me: "It can also go to the liver and the lungs."

Tech: "Liver, then lungs."

Me: "Liver or lungs." (I didn't have the energy that mets can manifest itself in other ways, too, such as skin cancer.)

By this time she was tapping on my arm, getting ready for the iv injection. "Do you usually have good veins?"

Me: "No." (Veins tend to shrivel up and collapse when you are undergoing chemotherapy. The cost of this has been driven home to me quite graphically)

Tech: "I'll get you the first time. I'm the girl they always go to when they have trouble getting a vein."

Me: "Then you're the girl I want to be doing this."

She trussed me up with two tourniquets and did it in one go. I was impressed.

Me: "That's awesome!"

Tech: "Thanks! It's because I like doing it. I am a sick, sick woman."

Me: "You are sick!"

Tech: "I also like giving barium enemas. No one understands that. But wouldn't you rather have someone who likes doing it give you your enema?"

And with that, she set up the iv, explained the procedure and left the room so that I could be scanned.

When it was done, I heard her voice through the intercom, "You can relax. I'm just going to take a look at your films."

A few minutes later, she came in to unhook me from the iv. While she was doing that, she said, "To make up for what we put you through earlier, I had my fiancé look at your films and there is no change from last time. Isn't that great?"

I thanked her and said that it was. I think she was a little disappointed that I didn't react more effusively but I was too stunned, overwhelmed and light-headed (I had not eaten anything since the night before, nor had I had any caffeine).

She ushered me out a side door and I stumbled outside the hospital to wait for my friend D. to come and pick me up. I also called my spouse to give him the news.

This is the first clean scan that we haven't celebrated. This is due, in part, to the fact that I was still feeling pretty lousy (post-chemo) on Friday and partly to surprise (the import of this news didn't really sink in for me until I was out for a walk on Sunday afternoon).

However, I do think that we might be entering a place where we assume that my scans will be clean and that I am continuing to respond well to treatment. And I don't think that's a bad thing.

This morning I had another kind of scan, to make sure that the Herceptin isn't damaging my heart. I won't have the results for a week or so. I'm not too worried. But I am covered in some spectacular bruises along my right arm and on my hand.

As I was getting my daily fix of the Yarn Harlot yesterday, I came across this post by Lene, of "The Seated View." You should really go read the whole thing (she raises some very interesting questions about how we view people with disabilities). This paragraph in particular, though, really resonated with me:

"There is no overcoming of disability. Because a chronic condition doesn't improve, you cannot conquer it, you cannot defeat it. Arthritis doesn't go away. Neither does MS, ALS, spinal cord injuries, muscular dystrophy, many types of blindness and deafness. There is only living with it, coexisting - sometimes uneasily, sometimes not. Having a disability is part of what you are, what you do. Sometimes it's a small part and sometimes, it overwhelms the rest. But what remains is this: you live your life anyway."