little life complications

Posted on March 13, 2014 by carla

Life just got a little more complicated. And I will admit I am struggling a little, which is why I am writing about it. I don’t know how else to process.

My mother, who is normally like her own force of nature, is in the hospital.

She had rheumatic fever as a child. What none of us ever knew even though this thing she had in childhood has always been part of her medical records, is that more attention should have been paid to her heart through out her life. Apparently, what I did not ever know until now is that rheumatic fever can and generally does damage the heart.

The long and short of it is my mother needs her mitral valve either repaired or replaced. They made her in-patient when she was having a hard time breathing and a really weird rapid heart beat. They did that procedure where they shocked her heart to reset her sinus rhythm and she came through that beautifully. But other tests showed this damage to her heart no one knew existed. She has probably been living with this most of her life.

This has all been caught early which is crazy fortunate, but it is still a lot to process. This is my mother. The woman who is always on the move. This isn’t some old woman in orthopedic lace up oxfords who sits in a chair. This is an active woman who travels and is Madam Fashionable. Hair always done, make-up always on.

My mother is truly strong, and although my rational mind knows she will get through all of what lies ahead beautifully and be better than ever, there are still all the emotions surrounding the fact that this IS my mother. And when your mother is sick, the adult woman who is her daughter becomes a child. I don’t even know if that makes sense. It’s just how you feel. Your mother is your first Superwoman, she’s not supposed to get sick.

The emotions that surround relationships between mothers and daughters are intense, strong, complicated. There is nothing simple about it. As a woman it is part of who you are. Some might argue that, and that is fine. Mother-daughter relationships are layered. And like other relationships, it is one which evolves. The relationship you have with any parent as a child is very different than the one you have as an adult.

I know many women who have had extraordinarily complicated relationships with their mothers. I am no exception. But she’s all mine and I can’t imagine not having her to talk to, laugh with, fight with, get exasperated with.

I love my mother and to get that call “your mother is in the hospital” is just one of those your-stomach-sinks-like-a-stone moments. Especially when it’s a woman who doesn’t get sick.

She has amazing care and I knew today she would be fine when she told me she was trying to figure out how to get her hair done while in the hospital. That and she hates the food and the hospital gowns look like rags. Well she’s right there, hospital gowns are downright ugly.

This is actually a hard post to write. I have my blog critics and I have learned when you are too open, they see that as an opportune vulnerability and an excuse pile on. Today I say screw them. If they don’t like what I write about, how I write, or even me as a person they can go scratch. And that is why there is a delete button.

So as I face my surgery I am emotionally torn. I know my mother won’t be able to be there and well, that makes me feel like I am about six years old even if I just want her to be better and back to normal. The flip side is given my surgery I will be fine but like it or not I will be on bed rest and not moving around much or normally for at least a couple of weeks. So that means I won’t be with my mother as much as I want as she recovers. It’s just a big crappers life complicated moment all the way around.

We will all get through this and come out the other side stronger and better but I have to tell you I am just over the monumental pain in the ass that is this winter.

Thanks for stopping by.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged breast cancer, life, rheumatic fever | 4 Comments

spay day is coming

Posted on March 4, 2014 by carla

(painting by Philadelphia artist Geri Mack and use of image is courtesy of the artist. )

Yes I know I am being flippant about my upcoming surgery, but face it they are indeed spaying me.

When I last wrote on this blog I was anticipating the hysterectomy , and yes, my surgery should have occurred by now. Unfortunately for me, there was the little winter storm thing that hit the East Coast the first week of February. Ah yes, the ice storm. I forget what the storm’s name was (not that it matters because who came up with the idea of naming winter storms like hurricanes anyway? )

The ice storm was followed by more snow.

Anyway, the ice storm was particularly hard for Chester County, Pennsylvania residents. I think if I recall what I was told correctly, over 90% of the county was affected.

We took a direct hit to our home. We were very, very lucky we weren’t hurt. At 3:30 or so the morning of the storm our power went out. Then at a little after 4 a.m. a couple thousand pounds of a huge beech tree slammed into us. It was almost indescribable the feeling of that much tree weight slamming into the house. The house held, but it racked. We had branches through the roof, a five foot branch through a smaller roof and ceiling, and when this tree hit the house it hit the wall outside our bedroom with such ferocity that it not only punched a hole in the wall six inches give or take from my sweet man’s head, it broke the slats in our mahogany headboard.

No lie, it was scary. I have even had nightmares about it since.

We were a week without power and ten days without television, land line, internet, or centralized heat. And oh yeah, we are on a well, so no electricity meant no well pump or running water. We kept the house heated with our wood stove. O Pioneer and all that good stuff.

I read a lot of books and repaired and requilted sections of vintage quilts that needed mending. I must say that #IceStorm2014 was kind of isolating.

In the middle of all this I had tamoxifen issues again with CVS. I had switched stores to one closer to where I live and I get a call from a substitute pharmacist telling me Teva no longer made my generic. Which of course is NOT true, they just don’t sell it in 30 day count pre-packaged bottles. Anyway, enough of that Groundhog Day as CVS seems to have issues with this before. Suffice it to say for the second time with a CVS I had to straighten that out. But Teva’s generic is the only one I don’t have reactions to on top of the normal obnoxious side effects.

So……given that all of this tree on house/winter storm after winter storm stuff was a bit overwhelming so I pushed my surgery date back a bit. I decided that the stress of this storm and it’s aftermath wasn’t the best thing to combine with surgery. My surgeon agreed.

Well now spay day is looming once again, and at this point I am just anxious to have it all over and done with. I am a little antsy about it now and the idea of a catheter in during and after the surgery is not my favorite thought of the day.

BUT (there is always a BUT)…..doing this will keep me from popping a secondary cancer that I would worry about for years to come given my history. And of course much like there are a million breast cancer surgery stories they are a million hysterectomy stories. I have only really listened to a few of my friends who have had them. These are cool and practical women who won’t moan about it for decades like one of my late father’s aunts.

I have continued to meet some really cool survivors, incidentally. Cheers to all of you out there because you enter my life whenever I am struggling with things like my upcoming surgery, those damn hot flashes (which right now include occasional night sweats), and self-body image.

The self-body image is a weird little rabbit hole. Most of the time I am fine, but every once in a while comes this passing wrinkle. And it can be hard. But the reality is I am very, very lucky so being lop-sided is a small price to pay. But I continue to have to acknowledge that breast cancer occasionally messes with your femininity or inner girly-girl. Even after you are past your surgery and radiation or chemotherapy.

It has been a long winter, for sure. In anticipation of more accommodating weather, the painting in the post today is by my friend and former teacher, Philadelphia artist Geri Mack. I love her work – it makes me smile.

Thanks for stopping by.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged #icestorm2014, Beyond The Pink Moon, breast cancer, breast cancer survivor, chester county, geri mack artist, hysterectomy, Pennsylvania | 2 Comments

here we go…

Posted on January 17, 2014 by carla

So like many breast cancer survivors, my medical team has decided that I should have a full hysterectomy.

In my case, having dealt with gynecological issues like ovarian cysts and fibroids since I was a teenager, I will admit it comes as a relief. Especially because neither my cysts or fibroids have improved post breast cancer. If anything, we’ll say they are acting up and leave it at that.

I met with my surgeon already and am scheduled. I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t nervous, because I am.

But the big picture is the parts don’t work, they have never worked and I am looking forward to peace of mind where these issues are concerned. And being able to reduce the odds further of a secondary cancer is huge in my mind because if I am brutally honest I do have risk there.

Of course, in retrospect I can’t help but wonder if I had tried to go this route years ago instead of being put on hormones, would I have ended up with a hormone driven breast cancer in my 40s? I will never know, but to women younger than myself the take away lesson is even when you are strong advocate for your own health, you can never ask too many questions.

Onward and upward.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged breast cancer, hysterectomy | 2 Comments

stop the presses

Posted on January 13, 2014 by carla

A friend who is a writer and breast cancer survivor has been talking this morning about something I had not heard about, but now I have and I am appalled.

Two writers, one from the New York Times and one from The Guardian (and apparently a married couple) have decided to tag team a woman who writes about her stage 4 breast cancer named Lisa Bonchek Adams. Lisa writes about her cancer on her blog, twitter , and Facebook.

Lisa Bonchek Adams is living with a horrible stage 4 cancer that threatens to eat her alive from the inside like a twisted game of Ms. Pac Man. So if she wants to dye her hair purple and run around in chartreuse polka dots it is fine with me. But I digress.

Cancer isn’t a four letter word. It just makes you want to spout them occasionally. It isn’t a beauty pageant, either. It is raw, it is topsy-turvy and you experience emotions you did not even know you possessed.

I am one of the lucky ones. And I think dealing with all of this is scary enough some days. Lisa Bonchek Adams who I never read before today is dealing with so much more. So much more.

And for a husband and wife who write for different media outlets (him, Bill Keller The New York Times and her, Emma G. Keller The Guardian) to tag team this woman because of how she chooses to discuss or even deal with her cancer is just so off the charts wrong to me.

You see, it is not the fact that they have a differing opinion from Lisa Bonchek Adams on how she deals with her cancer, it’s the fact that these two write for the monster media conglomerates, are married, and oopsies are both writing about this? Talk about pillow talk! What I want to know is if from a journalistic point of view have they crossed an ethical line? In my humble opinion they have.

As I read their editorials, wow was I disappointed in the craft of journailsm. I am so sick of people who judge anyone who has or had breast cancer writing about the journey. They have absolutely NO idea what it is like to deal with this disease. NO idea. I have said it before and I will say it again that breast cancer is a very public disease with a very private face. You get it and you know millions have it or have had it, but there are some days you feel so alone like the only one on the planet who has it.

And then there is the emotional component. Some of us are alone when we get our diagnosis, some of us are parents and step parents to young children, and some of us are just embarking on the rest of our lives and quite young. You get a diagnosis and your head spins the first time. You go through surgery, treatment, post-treatment and your head spins more on occasion. Every mammogram and blood test and gynecologist visit the rest of your life will always give you pause, even if you are positive. Because as breast cancer survivors we always live with the secret fear of “will it come back?” We live with medical histories that are now stamped “cancer”.

I know many women where the cancer has come back. Sometimes as breast cancer, sometimes as other cancers. So for a pair of seasoned journalists to take pot shots like this at a woman dealing with 3 children, a family, and stage 4 breast cancer? Wow. Words almost escape me. Then they don’t. Here is the PG-13 version: J-E-R-K-S.

Writing about my breast cancer was a saving grace. It was a and is a comfort. Because I have had the ability to do this, write about my journey with breast cancer, it was an extremely productive coping mechanism for me. Being able to get it out and write it down kept me moving forward. And when I have a down day, I still look back to see how far I have come.

I am proud of myself for being able to share this journey on a blog and so are the people who love me. Through this blog I have met some amazing people. I have also met some through Twitter, because umm yes, I Tweet too.

As a woman who has had breast cancer I can’t read about the disease every day. I can’t even talk about it every day. As someone who is more than 2 1/2 years cancer free at this point, the reality is I might not think about it every day, talk about it every day, but it is part of me. It doesn’t define me, but it is part of me.

Not too long ago, someone who used to be a very important part of my life and who was a huge support to me when I was going through treatment left a comment saying my continuing to write about this breast cancer stuff was “milking it.” I don’t see it that way so I told her so. I believe she said that to be deliberately hurtful and I am sorry for her that she feels the need to do that because she is someone whom I will always remember fondly to the end of days.

Matthew 7:1-3 King James Version

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

But people are definitely weird when it comes to dishing cancer. Some people are super secret about it, some people are living it out loud. I was, and continue to be open about it. I do that partially out of respect for the kind and caring women I know who were open about the disease when I received my diagnosis. They wanted me to feel less alone and helped demystify the terror that comes with a diagnosis. It is the worst kind of scary unknown. Because of these women who shared with me I was able to get through and remain positive. And I have told you before, some days that positive thing was a very hard goal to keep.

I don’t know this woman Lisa Bonchek Adams who was targeted by this husband and wife pair of seasoned journalists from Adam’s Housecat. I never read a word of anything she has written until this morning. When I heard about this I dropped everything I was doing around the house and stopped to read her.

To Lisa whom I have never met I say “Brava”. You keep on doing what you are doing. And what is that saying? F them if they can’t take a joke? That too.

And to journalist Emma G Keller and her hubby Bill Keller with their career defining moments here, I hope neither of you ever becomes ill. I don’t think you could handle it. And it must be a pretty slow and pathetic news day when journalists like yourself have to target a woman with breast cancer.

Some of my mentors are journalists. Thank god none of them would do something like this.

Here are the articles:

The Guardian: Forget funeral selfies. What are the ethics of tweeting a terminal illness?

Lisa Adams is dying of breast cancer. She has tweeted over 100,000 times about her journey. Is this educational or too much?

Emma G Keller theguardian.com, Wednesday 8 January 2014 13.40 EST

Lisa Bonchek Adams is dying. She has Stage IV breast cancer and now it’s metastasized to her bones, joints, hips, spine, liver and lungs. She’s in terrible pain. She knows there is no cure, and she wants you to know all about what she is going through. Adams is dying out loud. On her blog and, especially, on Twitter.

She has tweeted over 100,000 times about her health. Lately, she tweets dozens of times an hour. Her Twitter followers are a mixed bag. Some are also battling cancer or work in the medical field, others seem to follow Adams’ life story like a Reality TV show….You can read all about the details of her disease and treatment on her blog right up until about this morning, which is when she posted her latest entry, only a few hours after the previous one.

The New York Times: The Opinion Pages|Op-Ed Columnist Heroic Measures

JAN. 12, 2014 Bill Keller

LISA BONCHEK ADAMS has spent the last seven years in a fierce and very public cage fight with death. Since a mammogram detected the first toxic seeds of cancer in her left breast when she was 37, she has blogged and tweeted copiously about her contest with the advancing disease. She has tweeted through morphine haze and radiation burn….When my wife, who had her own brush with cancer and who has written about Lisa Adams’s case for The Guardian, introduced me to the cancer blog, my first thought was of my father-in-law’s calm death. Lisa Adams’s choice is in a sense the opposite. Her aim was to buy as much time as possible to watch her three children grow up. So she is all about heroic measures. She is constantly engaged in battlefield strategy with her medical team. There is always the prospect of another research trial to excite her hopes. She responds defiantly to any suggestion that the end is approaching…..Steven Goodman, an associate dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine, said he cringes at the combat metaphor, because it suggests that those who choose not to spend their final days in battle, using every weapon in the high-tech medical arsenal, lack character or willpower.

*Please Note* The Guardian has removed the article as of this afternoon. I found an online archive of it but I don’t know how long it will stay up. CLICK HERE

ONLINE ARCHIVE of article

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bill Keller, breast cancer, Emma G Keller, life, Lisa Bonchek Adams, new york times, The Guardian | 6 Comments

never go to the oncologist on friday the 13th

Posted on December 13, 2013 by carla

(The beautiful Christmas tree is one of the ones at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia.)

New Rule: Never go to the oncologist on Friday the 13th of anything ever again.

No, breast cancer has not returned to pollute my body again but an ovarian cyst they have been watching is now annoyingly septated so I might be getting spayed in the future.

I am not borrowing trouble, it is what it is , and I will deal with it accordingly if that’s what my doctors decide. I guess I’m just a little bit annoyed.

But I would rather be a little bit annoyed, maybe have to get a hysterectomy, then have doctors who aren’t watching me and pop a side effect cancer as a result of Tamoxifen.

And then I had a huge reality check. I went into the chemo lounge at my oncologist’s office to get my flu shot. I was seated next to a woman older than myself who is living with stage four metastatic breast cancer.

That zooms you back down to earth very quickly. But for the grace of God go I could not be more true.

She was a lovely woman and we just sat there and talked. She wondered what radiation was like, she’s never had that. Just chemo. She takes oral chemotherapy at this point. You don’t lose your hair as much apparently with oral chemotherapy.

She drives in from Delaware once a month to get this oral chemotherapy and then goes home. She was so sweet and positive and just nice to speak with. It really was a nice thing to have met her. The funny thing is, after my appointment and flu shot I went to the Home Goods store near Penn Medicine at Radnor and I saw the same lady there as well!

I wish I had gotten her name. She is just one of those random people who touches your life and that will leave a lasting impression. I hope she has a Merry Christmas. She deserves it.

This whole experience today reminds me again of the fragility of life and how fleeting life can be.

Today I also saw two women who are friends of mine that I do not see very often. Neither one knows each other, I am the common denominator. I saw them both in the grocery store.

And then there was the humor portion of the day. My sweet man’s former mother-in-law sent a Christmas card here to the house addressed to him and my stepson alone. I apparently, am invisible. Pretty funny stuff. But I guess it must be hard for her.

I have been decorating like crazy and I am in love with my Christmas tree. It really is pretty.

For the first time in my adult life I am hosting Christmas Day for my family. I’m very excited to do this.

Life in time march on people. Grab the spirit of the season and keep those you love close to you.

Pax

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged breast cancer, christmas, ovarian cyst, tamoxifen | 2 Comments

melinda

Posted on November 11, 2013 by carla

This is just a portrait. It is of my friend Melinda who just finished her treatment a couple of weeks ago. I think she looks fabulous. A long time ago I spoke about breast cancer art. Not just the work of the SCAR project but other art as well. Like this portrait of Melinda. Strength and living. The realization of better days ahead, treatment behind.

When we celebrate ourselves and our sisters on this journey, we need to look up and be positive. We are, after all, alive.

Melinda and I spent the day together yesterday junking, antiquing, and barn picking…and being completely and irreverently and unrepentantly sarcastic. And I did not even think about it until she was leaving and she turned to me and said with a laugh “Do you realize we went through the whole day and did not say ‘cancer’ once?”

It’s true. And considering we were two hot flashing survivors wandering around Chester County, PA that was pretty damn cool.

Melinda is one of the friends breast cancer has brought into my life. So see? In the midst of all the negatives exist the positives.

Happy Monday all. On Wednesday November 13, please say a pray in remembrance of my father. He has been gone 8 years. I feel like I have lived a few lifetimes since then.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged breast cancer, breast cancer art, life | 3 Comments

fears and ridiculousness

Posted on November 7, 2013 by carla

My last post was actually an essay by my friend Gwen Moran who is a writer and a damn fine one. In it she delves into some pretty personal feelings on her life after breast cancer. How she feels, and even fears.

You see, there is one thing that breast cancer alumnae don’t want to talk about sometimes: the below the surface hum of worry. It’s that negative little voice that just lurks in the back of your head from time to time. It is because of that voice that I have worked so hard to remain positive throughout this whole experience.

Recently, I received a comment from a woman who was once like a sister to me. She was one of the sisters of my ex-fiancé. She left a comment on a recent post where she basically said I was “milking it” after a couple of years of having had breast cancer. I decided not to post that comment.

The heat of that comment sort of struck me in the face, however. Was I “milking it”? So I thought about it. And the answer is no.

I continue to write on this blog even though I am one of the lucky ones who now has two solid years into a cancer free life.

Part of why I write is because of the women just starting on this journey that I continue to meet. I remember all too well when I was starting out and have not yet had my surgery, and I didn’t know if what I was feeling, or thinking, or even being, was normal.

Part of why I write, also has to do with the women I know post cancer. Women who are survivors or breast cancer alumnae like myself. Ask any of them, and they will tell you that this experience does not stop when you’re sent home after completing your surgery and all your treatment.

With the meds, and even just all of the follow-up appointments that become part of your everyday existence, it just goes to a different level. You move into a maintenance mode for lack of a better description.

But if we are honest with ourselves, much like Gwen wrote in her essay, every once in a while there are these almost ridiculous feeling fears.

Even I experience them. Not all the time, but they exist. Sometimes it’s merely a little wrinkle of concern that quickly dissipates.

Sometimes I have an often irrational fear of breast cancer recurrence, because I look at women I know with similar diagnoses and who have had different treatments. And wonder.

Sometimes I’m just afraid, because I know other women who have had to fight cancer more than once.

So the other part of why I write, is indeed still for me. Because putting my fears down on paper, even the virtual paper of the blog post, helps me cope. That my friends, is a selfishness I allow myself. Somehow I don’t think God and mankind object.

I can also tell you that sometimes I also have the most irrational fears about other people in my life. Breast cancer, to an extent, has turned me into a worrier. And it is really annoying sometimes. My rational mind knows everything is fine, yet sometimes I just worry. It is something I am working on, but sometimes it’s hard. Much harder than I let on.

But I work through it, I don’t want people reading this post to get all depressed or negative about this. It is just part of what you go through. And you have to be honest and acknowledge the good and the bad to stay on top and remain positive overall.

Breast cancer hits the core of women, and it isn’t just the physical changes caused by treatment or mastectomy, or a partial mastectomy or cancer drugs. This disease is a thing that attacks the psyche too. (Of course, the mood swings which can occur while you’re on tamoxifen, don’t help.)

Today is one of those days for me. So I am somewhat more introspective than other days. Of course, it also means my threshold for bullshit will be lower than usual LOL.

Life in time march on. I really appreciate my readers and those close to me who have stuck with me on my journey. There are some people who will not remain with me on this journey. That is the unfortunate attrition of life.

At the end of the day, it’s all good people. I am where I’m supposed to be, and I am loved. And I love in return.

Have a great day everyone!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged breast cancer, breast cancer alumnae, breast cancer survivor, family, friends, life | 2 Comments

after the storm by gwen moran

Posted on November 6, 2013 by carla

Gwen Moran is a fellow survivor and personal friend. She is also an amazing writer. Please take the time to read her essay After The Storm reprinted with the author’s permission here:

After the Storm

What lingers most after breast cancer is my persistent worry

by Gwen MoranThursday, October 31, 2013

“You look fantastic.”

Lately, I hear this statement often from well-meaning people, usually before a heartfelt touch of my arm or a tentative hug. It puzzled me at first because I certainly don’t feel like I look fantastic. I’m significantly heavier than I was two years ago and unruly shoulder-length waves have replaced my long, straight hair. Like a stranger trying to decipher a foreign tongue, I finally figured out what they mean: “I’m happy you don’t look like you’re dying.”

That was not the case roughly two years ago, when I was wan, weak and nauseated from chemotherapy treatments for my early-stage invasive breast cancer, barely able to walk from the bone pain. Or when I was bald and shuffling slowly around the house with my arms wrapped gingerly around my T-shirt-clad breasts, trying to keep the left one, burned from radiation until it was blistered, wet and peeling, from any painful swaying.

That’s what you get for trying to kill us, I wanted to tell it. Don’t ever do that again.

Before April Fools’ Day 2011, when I learned that my body had turned on me, I spent hours each week walking, biking, swimming and practicing yoga on the beaches of my beloved Jersey shore. Lightly tanned with visible muscle definition, I looked healthier than I had in years. A lie.

The sun’s kiss is gone and so are the muscles. Steroids, chemotherapy and inactivity, not to mention countless trays of gifted lasagna, added bulk to my frame. But I’m not dying — at least, not any faster than most people.

But the façade others see is not “fantastic.” Worse, it hides something dark and ugly; something few ever talk about in the tumultuous rush of stages, surgical options, hormone receptors and the alphabet soup of cancer-fighting poisons. More immediate decisions need to be made about how to best battle the disease that slowly eats people from the inside out. So, many months after chemotherapy annihilated everything in its path, followed by radiation beams that obliterated even microscopic cancer cells, I feel like parts of my brain and soul were killed, too.

Complaining feels churlish. After all, I made it through the storm and my prognosis is good. Surgery, treatments, and a year of $11,000-per-session gene-targeted therapy, administered through a needle piercing my chest every three weeks, have left me with 90 percent odds of no encore appearance in my breasts, lungs, liver or some other vital organ. This is according to some unknown statistician who calculates such things.

But even those odds, a bookmaker’s dream, aren’t a match for the persistent and lingering worry. Cancer is master of the sucker punch. What if it’s just lurking within that 10 percent margin, waiting for the moment when I’m too weak or tired to fight again? Some days, contemplating that question fills me so completely with fear that relief comes only from deep, jagged sobs expelled from my throat.

My loved ones are quick to chirp, “You’re doing fine! Remember those 90 percent chances!” I’ve stopped reminding them that breast cancer is funny that way. There is no disease-free “magic number” that actually does mark me cured. Each mammogram, stomachache or fever threatens to hold a devastating reprise, at least in my mind.

But now that my hair is back and the pink has returned to my cheeks, I suppose I do look fine — fantastic, even. I feel increasingly like my “old” self and there are times that I even forget about how cancer changed me. I run errands, giggle with my husband and daughter, and have thoughtful conversations with colleagues. I’m back on my bike and pedaled 10 miles the last time out. I make dates walking and gym dates with friends. It feels good to move and helps push the fear away. I feel stronger, both inside and out.

Still, it’s a struggle to rebuild what cancer and its treatment destroyed. While the rogue cells may be dead and gone, it’s difficult to trust my body again. Accepting that this is over — “looks like it’s cured to me,” as my oncologist likes to say — feels like tempting fate. I’m told that, as time passes, I’ll feel more at ease. For now, however, I wait for everything to feel normal again, wondering why the “after” of successful cancer treatment isn’t filled entirely with unfettered joy.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged after the storm, breast cancer, gwen moran, surviving | Leave a comment

you know you are over “pinktober” when…..

Posted on October 27, 2013 by carla

When Susan G. Komen co-opts even your eggs, it means enough of Pinktober. Here’s hoping the chickens that lay the eggs are not pink now too….

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged breast cancer awareness month, Pinktober, susan g. komen | Leave a comment

random acts of connection

Posted on October 24, 2013 by carla

I have spoken about the odd phenomenon of how breast cancer survivors seems to sense other survivors. In a room, a store, library, on the street…wherever.

Sometimes we recognize each other as currently going through treatment. Other times it is simply more subtle. It’s weird, but sometimes you just know – I can’t explain it more than that .

I met a new person today at the farmers’ market. We pulled in next to one and other in our cars. This woman got out of her car and I saw the headscarf – she was currently undergoing treatment or had just finished – I did not know.

I don’t know why I decided to speak to her but I did. I do not remember what exactly we first said to each other but it was something along the lines of breast cancer survivors just recognize each other. She mentioned how sometimes people are so awesome with survivors and others not so much. I laughed as I can definitely relate.

Soon we were walking through the market together and just chatting. Ends up she had come to the market from chemo.

It was just one of those oddly serendipitous meetings but I am so glad we spoke. She was so nice and so upbeat and positive. That is something I just appreciate.

We spoke about our cancers, doctors, support experiences, treatment and how people react to breast cancer.

Ends up we live not so far from each other and when we were leaving the market she asked if she could give me a hug.

She went off to her kids and I made my way home to my sweet man and my tall kid. (either I am shrinking or my stepson is growing like a weed!)

Life is funny that way and lately I have been struggling a bit. My transition to Chester County PA physically has been complete for quite a while. But it has not been without its own brand of loss for lack of a better description.

When you move, you don’t realize it initially, but you leave some people behind. It is the whole human nature thing of out of sight and out of mind. And when people you used to see every day do this to you, hell it’s hard- it is not that you had a fight, you just aren’t around and as convenient. I am learning to let some of these people go, but it is still hard. Or it is hard for me.

But one thing breast cancer had taught me is to keep people in my life who can accept me for who I am now as well as who I was, and whom I can count on.

I have also been phasing out some things I used to do like publicity and photography work for a non-profit where I used to live and that was a hard decision . I loved being part of this amazing arts based non-profit for the past few years, but my life isn’t in that community any longer, and I want to do other things. I believe I hurt my friend who runs the non-profit by finally completely cutting the cord, but I had to do it. I have a life in a different area and I have to concentrate on that. And I need to be immersed in my new life.

A lot of my friends from where I used to live need to (I think) see me in my new life. Many of them, although invited out many times have not even been out to see my new home. And that is something that is particularly hard for me. Especially when some have said “well if you have a party we’ll come out.” I know they don’t mean that to be insulting but it doesn’t hit me quite right. Why can’t they come out even if I am NOT having a party?

Making friends as we get older is hard, so in a weird way I am grateful for this new sisterhood I belong to. Because breast cancer made me look at how short life can be and how we need to live and live well, I have learned to be more open in a sense. Not that I was closed off, but just more open to human interaction.

Maybe that odd conversation had here and there won’t mean a brand spanking new friendship, but it can be taken at face value and simply enjoyed. There are a lot of interesting people out there and sometimes to meet them you have to be a tourist in your own life and open to new possibilities.

Today I was just open to new experiences and the result was I met someone really cool…who happened to be a survivor.

Be open to the unexpected. Life is good.

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