Kelly's Journey

♪♪♫♫ If you go down to the woods today…

2008-04-17T11:59:00.002-04:00

I saw the piece on Citytv with me last Friday night. It was pretty good I thought, even though the cameraman thought I was joking when I asked him to get on my ‘good side.’ The best part of the segment was when Verna Mai from Cancer Care Ontario stated on air that I should never have been denied a mammogram when I had a Doctor’s note; that everyone who has a suspicion is eligible to get a mammogram, regardless of their age. Her saying that vindicated my whole initiative on informing others what I went through in the early stages of my discovery. That is what I wanted out of it; for someone to say I shouldn’t have been turned away. And it was said on the 6 o’clock news. Thanks Citytv! You helped me accomplish that goal, and it didn’t take a long time to get that message out there. Mission: accomplished.

So, next!!! Now I’m on a roll! I’ve come up with a new fun initiative; I’m going to host a Teddy Bear Picnic to benefit the cancer ward at Sick Kid’s hospital. I remember being young and going to one at Harbourfront downtown Toronto with my Gran and my brother. I remember my teddy won a big blue 2nd place ribbon for the biggest bear contest. I still have that ribbon – and that bear! But I haven’t heard of such an event since I was young. I plan on changing that.

Not one to sit on my laurels, I’ve already rented out the park where I want to hold it (a huge venue that can accommodate hundreds), I’ve set the date (August 30th) and now it’s simply a matter of sponsorship and planning. Basically, the concept is as follows: families will come out for the day with their teddy bears to participate in a bunch of different activities, such as bouncy castles, inflatable slides, a dunk tank, relay races, egg/spoon races, 3-legged races, some carnival type games (think ring toss) and of course a barbeque with burgers, hot dogs, etc. and other treats, like a popcorn cart and sno-cone machine. There will be face-painting and crafts, as well as teddy bear judging contests, and an opportunity to purchase a bear for a child who is at Sick Kid’s, along with a card that they can make to send with the bear. It’ll possibly teach kids about giving back and sharing in a gentle, non-scary kind of way. My friend also suggested setting up a teddy bear clinic where kids can bring their bear for a check up, and maybe get a hole mended if needed. How cute! :D The charge will be nominal, but it’ll be enough to have a fun day and benefit the hospital. I’m pretty stoked about this as I do think we’ll see a huge turnout, especially with ‘the network’ getting involved. My sphere of influence is mostly personality type A, so I imagine this will be executed well and with a lot of support and help. I’m planning on contacting the Girl Guides association to see about getting a whole bunch of volunteers to help, in exchange for some type of merit/volunteer badge. I’m inviting the Big Brothers/Sisters clubs as well as other similar organizations. I’m currently talking to a party rental place to see about getting the inflatable equipment donated in exchange for sponsorship perks. I’m going to have a website created, and of course flyers and media press releases, all in due time. I have friends who know people too, so we’re now figuring out our game plan on who we’d like to get to sponsor the food aspect and all the other supplies we’ll need to pull this off. Firstly, I’m still awaiting approval from the City on my creative concept as there is so much red tape surrounding what you can and can’t do in a public park. Once I get that, it’s full speed ahead! Feel free to contact me at kellysjourney@yahoo.ca with any ideas you have or suggestions/contacts for sponsorship. I really do think this’ll be huge; I’m sure it’ll get press and I have no doubt it’ll turn into an annual event. I’ll also have a website built for this specifically. Get on board now! :D

My goal is to raise $10k for the hospital. If you wonder why I’m doing this for Sick Kid’s as opposed to Princess Margaret, I’ve mentioned here previously that SK is very close to my heart as my brother spent time there as a kid, and they were so good to him and my family. I’ve to date raised almost $5k for the Weekend to End Breast Cancer, so why not help out two great hospitals simultaneously right? I’m really excited about this as I know that it’ll be so much fun not only to plan it, but to see all the kids enjoying themselves, and knowing I helped with that. You can too, just contact me and let me know how you’d like to be involved. We’ll hold an event that will be so much fun for the community while helping out an amazing hospital, how great is that?!

The CityTV Phenomenon

2008-04-11T15:58:00.007-04:00

Yet another example of the small world that is Scarborough. I received an email from Brian early last week. Brian and I went to high school together back in the day. He had received the link to this blog at the beginning of the year from a mutual friend Leigh Ann. He now works for Citytv as a videographer and was wondering if I’d be interested in shooting a segment for their website. He had read my blog and really felt that my story should ‘get out there,’ so I agreed to meet with him and a writer for the site, Suzanne. We decided on the Bluffs as it was a beautiful day and Shawn and I wanted to take Milo out for a walk.

We met and I was instantly put at ease by the both of them. Suzanne was really easy to talk to; I didn’t know how I’d be on camera, but I felt pretty relaxed while being filmed. I think I even got through the whole conversation without crying; amazing!

Check it out here:
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_21468.aspx

If for any reason the video doesn’t play (it didn’t for me a few times) Brian also posted the video portion on You Tube, found here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HZBZf8wCZlY&feature=user

It went up this past Tuesday.

And then everything went crazy.

I ended up working from home that day as I felt like crap from a cold. I wasn’t exactly sure when the story would go up, so when I checked my email that morning, I had about 50 emails from people telling me about it, before I had even received the link from Suzanne!

Suzanne and Brian had both also emailed me and told me that the online story was already getting a lot of views, and that they had mentioned at a meeting that morning that they may be running a portion of it on TV as well.

Apparently this is of a lot of interest to a lot of people, and I guess it would be as again, cancer is something that does or will affect us all in some form or another, so I’m not really surprised by that.

The crazy part was the amount of people who emailed me with their stories. I heard from a lot of people who related to my mammogram ‘situation’ and I was inundated with stories and words of encouragement from others who were also told they were ‘too young’ for a mammogram. I heard from husbands of survivors, from relatives of people who had lost the battle and from people like myself; diagnosed at a young age. I’ve had offers of support from individuals, groups and networks. I’ve even received a few job offers, (but not yet one that can beat my current situation). I’ve been asked to speak at some events, I’ve been asked for advice, my opinion, my thoughts on x, etc. etc. To say this week has been a whirlwind would be a bit of an understatement. Even my company’s website, the one that was linked to the online article, was getting a ton of hits! I work in Franchise Development, so the official website for my company (for the curious) is http://www.wsicorporate.com; if you’re looking for an internet marketing business opportunity to get involved with, there ya go! :D

Laura DiBattista called me yesterday on my cell. She’s the resident health expert for Citytv. We arranged to meet this morning. I was a little nervous to do this interview. I mean, it was easy with Brian and Suzanne as I know Brian from high school and talking to Suzanne was more like talking to a friend as she’s super cool and immediately put me at ease. This one felt more, I dunno, more formal I guess.

Shawn and I were at home last night, TV on in the background, and he started laughing and called me into the living room “Kel, come check this out!” Thank goodness for PVR as he rewound the TV and there on my big screen is Mark Daly (another on air personality and the voice of City) talking about me! “Coming up tomorrow at 6, the fight for her life!” Sooo dramatic! Shawn and I immediately started cracking up, and there was even a clip of me playing with Milo. I mean, we always knew he’d be a star, just look at him! I’m awaiting the calls from Fido and Pedigree; that dog’s gonna make us millions! :D

Anyway, I had no idea I’d be on the news, I heard there was a chance, but that was I guess confirmation. They were looping it too as I kept getting calls/emails from people saying they just saw me on TV!

I went this morning and met with Laura. She was really easy to talk to as well, very engaging and genuinely interested in what I was saying, even off air. That was nice. We talked more about the whole mammogram experience and I even brought one of my xrays to show her. Another joke about the mammogram office is that after all I went through with them I decided I wanted a copy of my films to keep for myself. They had already lost one of my films, the only one of my left breast, the ‘healthy’ breast. I did not feel comfortable having the only physical evidence I ever even had cancer in the first place housed there. I also had to keep going there to sign the films out for the numerous appointments I’ve had over the past year, and for obvious reasons, I don’t like to spend time facing the woman who stood between me and the mammo in the first place. Anyway, they told me they’d send for a copy of the films, at a cost to me. Fine, call me when they’re in. Weeks passed without word from the office. I went by one day to inquire in person as I was in the area, and the receptionist informed me at that point that they wouldn’t be able to get me a copy; they no longer made copies for patients. It’s tragically comical at this point how mistreated I’ve been by them, but here we are again. I asked why they couldn’t have told me that and why I had to find this out by going to them, why couldn’t they have told me this when I first asked for a copy, or why didn’t they call me with this? Her response? It wasn’t me that you requested them through, it was the other receptionist. I glared at her (yes, Mammob*tch) for a few beats, then made an instant (and decidedly smart) decision. My reply: “No problem, but I do need to sign these out again as my radiologist needs to see them,” which was a blatant lie. I signed them out, and once they were back in my possession, I instantly felt at ease –and justified. I have absolutely no intention of ever returning them to that office, obviously. They don’t get to have my only proof of cancer, it’s simply not happening. I don’t think they have a case either as even though I had the images taken at that office, they’re of MY body, and I assume OHIP paid for the mammogram cost on my behalf, which means I, or the government, technically own the rights to them, does it not?

This was months ago anyway, they most likely don’t even know they’re gone as they’ve never called me to request them back. I wonder if they will now. *devious smirk*

So tonight, tune in to Citytv at 6 o’clock if you want to catch a glimpse of me, and please, as always, feel free to contact me at kellysjourney@yahoo.ca.

I’ll write some comments on the appearance over the weekend.

Oh and while I remember, I had an email from a lady who works in my building who saw the promo on CP24 and saw me yesterday driving away from work. In the email, she wanted to know what my license plate meant. I'm pretty sure she's a bit older, so I didn't really want to tell her, so I'm writing it here and if she reads this blog, she can find out. The idea came from the hood of ambulances. You know how they read "ecnalubma" so that it makes sense when they're on your bumper and you're reading it in your rearview. Well my license plate is based on that same theory. I suffer from mild road rage, so I decided to put a message on my license plate for all that cut me off, and my mind set is that when the offender checks out his rearview, he'll get an unspoken message from me, which saves me screaming inside my car and flippin' the bird. My license plate is "AMAMOY" ; - p

Yah, that's right, I kicked cancers ass...

2008-02-26T11:29:00.006-05:00

I'm finally done. Done with treatment, done with recovery, done with cancer. This morning, when I walked out of that hospital after my last treatment, and got to the car, I for the first time felt like I had survived it. I don't think I've allowed myself to think much about that concept before. Any time those thoughts crept in, I pushed them out with realities like I hadn't finished treatment yet so I couldn't allow myself to think that I had survived anything yet.

But that's not really true is it? I found cancer, and survived my diagnosis, and then had cancer removed and survived that surgery as well as the mind set it takes to carry on after something as supposedly devastating as losing your breast. But I plowed on, didn't I? Right on to chemotherapy. I survived that too and now realize the accomplishment that that truly was. I not only survived but I would say thrived. Then on to radiation. I didn't even want to give this the energy it was requesting. I wanted to barrel through it and that's exactly what I did. And now that is done too, and yes, another treatment survived. I know that everyone is very proud of me, but I can now finally say I share the sentiment wholeheartedly.

I am SO proud of myself! I did exactly what I said I'd do, which was kick cancers ass. Of course there was never any doubt, but I can only now say that I did it, past tense, not 'gonna do it', present tense. It's behind me. Sure, I have follow up appointments for the rest of my life, I have a high risk of recurrence as well, especially in the next 5 years (the recurrence statistic drops a bit after that time). But I'm not letting that mean anything more that what it is - a chance possibility; a statistic. It hasn't happened yet so there's no need for me to focus on anything but the fact that I just survived cancer. The way in which I've handled this is a testament to how I was raised by my parents. Just as I credit Shawn's mom for doing such an awesome job as a single mother raising an amazing son, I can and have always said the same about my parent's. I've been able to handle this the way I have due to the values that have and still are instilled in me by my mum and dad. Thanks to them; to me, they're the real heroes. Just as not many 30 year olds have to go through this, not many couples in their fifties have to deal with their children going through this. Talk about feeling powerless, I can't even imagine so what they've accomplished is nothing short of amazing either.

And how about Shawn? How many 31 year olds deal with their partners enduring this? Has it been harder on me or him? I'm still not sure. But as I walked out of that treatment room today, there he was, flowers and card in hand ready to throw his arms around me and congratulate me and share that moment with me. I have never (before Shawn) felt or given that kind of love before, so I can't really say anything substantial here to thank Shawn. I can only promise to spend the rest of my life trying to make him happy. That's the only gift there is for what he's given me.

I hope that if and when something as ugly as cancer affects any of you or the people close to you, that you are able to recollect my journey and how I've looked at my situation and are able to gain even a little insight into what is to come, and you're able to be better prepared for that; that is my wish with writing this and making it public and I do feel that I've expressed myself to the very best of my ability. I am looking forward to the next portion of my life,which is recovery and getting back into shape. I'm not hard on myself about that anymore. I know I'll achieve my goals there too, I just proved that to myself by the way I handled radiation. I'm looking forward to seeing my reflection in the mirror and sharing that knowing glance that has seen all the hardships and victories and obstacles and battles and still keeps going with an ambitious and positive attitude.

I am a warrior and I have accomplished something extremely rewarding and challenging. I have a much better understanding of who I am as a person, and who I've surrounded myself with. I am now going to spend the day with my amazing boyfriend, let out some emotions, take a deep breath, and start tomorrow with a fresh start.

One I am so very thankful to have been given.

k.

Wanna know about Ray-Dee-A-Shun?

2008-01-28T10:59:00.006-05:00

I have one week down of radiation, four to go. Going through radiation has been so much different than going through chemo, and I mean this in the sense of my attitude and point of view. The time before going through chemo felt so ominous, I was scared and trepidacious. I was talking myself through that period with positive thinking and a favourable view point. Radiation however is something I'm simply barrelling through. I'm not putting much energy into thinking about it as it's really not a big deal. I knew it wouldn't be going into it and it's proving me right. Yes, I get a little redness in my chest area where the radiation is being aimed, and yes I've felt a little bit tired from it, but I can deal with a little redness when I'm not getting shot full of ridiculous-sounding names (There's no 'red devil' with rads!) and I can certainly deal with being a bit tired these days after previously being pumped full of insomnia-inducing and mood-altering and ass-expanding steroids.

I've heard the cliche 'compared to chemo, radiation is a cake-walk' and they're right. That's an apt cliche. I'm not trying to tempt fate by putting the cart before the horse in my thinking, but I think I'll be okay. The effects are apparently similiar to severe sunstroke. It'll probably get a bit worse as treatment progresses. The area getting treated will probably eventually blister and it'll be difficult for me to put on clothes, bras will be impossible and mobility will be compromised. But then treatment will be over and I'll be able to 'get on with it.'

I haven't put on my wig since my birthday, which was over a month ago. I'm not going to say that I regret buying it as it did offer me anonymity when I needed it, but I just don't care now. I go everywhere freely -even to the office- with just my hat and prickly head. My facial hair all but disappeared, and is now coming back. I found a long eyelash yesterday and was pretty pumped about that. My eyebrows look funny as they're mostly non-existent except for a few sporadic hairs that stubbornly clung to my face. Typical of something attached to me I think.

My hair is slowly growing back. Last week it was getting quite bushy, but it looked weird and felt like baby hair as the hair that didn't fall out was a bit longer and finer than the hair that was growing back, so Shawn and I once again shaved it. I want it to start growing back uniform and this act certainly helped. Soon I won't be getting the glances from kids at the mall, or the empathetic stares from seniors; I'll mercifully just be another face in the crowd, albeit a heavier version.

Let's address that: I was on Entertainment Tonight Canada a few weeks ago. I was on TV and the sound bite they used was the exact one I wanted them to. It was me talking about how even when I went to the mammogram office with a requisition from my doctor, they didn't want to give me the mammogram because I was 6 months away from my 30th birthday. I feel that by doing that, I have in a way accomplished one of my goals about being open about my diagnosis and bringing awareness to the fact that when the medical community talks about early detection being our best defence, that it isn't just that easy to take the steps necessary for early prevention. I should be proud of myself that I accomplished that. But unfortunately that feeling is overshadowed by seeing myself on TV. I was told that I would be shot from the chest up, but they included a clip of me walking through a hallway -which was a full body shot. I was overcome with embarrassment and anxiety when I saw myself. I was angry that they used that shot. I didn't need to see myself like that on my big screen TV, seeing that I took up half the screen and I apparently waddle instead of walk. I saw every one of my 50 extra pounds on that screen. I was shocked. I don't think I realized I looked like that. That isn't who I saw when I looked in the mirror. It is now so I don't look in the mirror as much, unless I'm doing so just to feel bad and sorry for myself, which does happen, I'll admit.

Isn't it awful that I have this outlook? That I am so hung up with my own vanity that I have allowed a split second image of my weight gain to overshadow such a powerful message? I think I've taken the reality of gaining weight worse than the reality of a cancer diagnosis. What does that say about my personality and my character? I'm disgusted with myself over this, both in the fact that I've gained all this weight as well as the fact that I succumb to negative thinking about it. It's truly sad, I know.

There are much deeper issues with my weight that I've dealt with my whole life, and I'm not getting into that here, but I'll say that I'm very hard on myself in that facet of my life, and I'd really appreciate if no one who reads this mentions it to me. I'm writing about it to see the words I've written and try to combat these self-deprecating feelings, not because I want to talk about it with anyone. Trust me and believe me when I say hearing others give me positive thinking inspirational messages does nothing more than aggravate me. This is a life long battle I have fought before and only I will help myself through it, which will make the victory that much more meaningful.

I have been really open about not having actively reached out as far as support, but I was contacted about being in a research study group regarding the sexual aspects of life after diagnosis as well as the sociopsychological effects. I was contacted right about the time I started chemo, and I agreed to take part in this study. It would be an hour of my time for one night a week starting in late February. My answers and feedback would impact treatment options going forward after your diagnosis. I was compelled to participate in this study. It would be a group of us sitting around in a circle talking about our issues. I would finally get some treatment for my feelings. I was excited about this and the more I thought about participating, the more positive I became about it. I would get to talk about my issues, and could even use the guise of cancer. What I mean by this is that I had issues before cancer (weight, self-image, etc) but now because of cancer I'd get help with that. There were two parts to the study. Everyone would be sent surveys to fill out over the course of a year. After you sent back the first survey, you would contacted to find out when the study group would start. There would be a small handful of people who would be randomly selected by a computer to participate in the control arm of the study (which means you would still have to agree to fill out the surveys, but you wouldn't get to benefit from the actual participation of the group). I was assured that this was a small percentage and most people obviously got to participate in the group. I just last week received the survey, and spent about an hour early one morning filling it out, checking the boxes that most pertain to my thoughts and feelings. I was crying while filling it out. Some parts just hit a nerve or chord with me. Things I hadn't even thought were affecting me were really bringing about strong emotions in me. Now I'm really looking forward to participating in the study and am really happy that I agreed to do this. I know it'll really help me deal with a lot of my issues, and in a private setting with others who are also going through what I am. I envision the help that I will offer and so positive as I'm sure they'll want to hear what someone my age has to contribute to this line of thinking and will want to engage me as to how I am dealing with these issues. I would assume that my age would be of great benefit to them on this point. Not to say older women don't have sexuality issues, but you get what I'm saying. I finished the survey and put it in the mail, anxiously awaiting the phone call that would instruct me on next steps.

I received the call two days ago. They had received my survey, thanks for sending that back. She starts talking to me about the control arm, and how I've been randomly selected by a computer to participate in that aspect of the study. I don't immediately get what she's saying, but it eventually becomes clear; I am in the placebo group. This basically means that I'll be helping them by filling out the surveys over the year, but I don't receive the benefit and therapy of being in the group. You've got to be kidding me! Statistically, this was such a small chance, but why did I allow that reasoning into my thinking? Have I not learned that statistics mean little to me in my life and have 'statistically' been piled against me? Yeah, I'm angry and upset over this. But I let out a big sigh and resign to this fact as well. I guess I shouldn't get upset about this as there's obviously nothing I can do about it, but it's the feeling of a carrot being dangled and then yanked away. I didn't get to taste it yet my mouth watered at the site of it.

This way of thinking is most likely why I've lately been absent on this blog. I've taken a little bit of a break from this writing thing for many reasons. One being that I've been back at work and when I pick up my computer it's to do what I get paid for. Another reason is that I haven't needed the outlet quite as much for myself as I'm glazing over the whole radiation aspect of treatment and just barreling through it to get to the finish line. I already have to talk about it every day with family, close friends, or people who ask me about it daily, which is draining enough without me having to visit this blog and also on top of everything write about it.

I can sum it up here. I go to the cancer centre attached to Lakeshore Health Centre in Oshawa every day, Monday to Friday. Shawn drops me off and goes to the coffee shop around the corner to read his paper and wait for me. We do this to save ourselves the parking expense, which is actually more than we originally thought it would be, and this way Shawn is still there for me as he wants to be but not every day sitting around a waiting room and spending a small fortune to house our car for an hour. I swipe my card at the electronic station, I sit down in front of the jigsaw puzzle I've been working on for the past week, a volunteer offers to get me coffee, juice or tea, which I usually decline, and then a radiation therapist comes and gets me. I'm only in the waiting room for a few minutes. The longest so far has been 11 minutes. They take me to my 'pod' and I change, everything from the waist up, take off my boots, put on the gown, put my stuff in a locker and sit down and wait again, pick up a magazine. They come out of the pod and call me in. I jump up on a gurney-type table that has a massive machine attached to it. This room looks like something out of Alien. It's a big sterile room with a huge foreign machine in the centre. There are radioactive warning signs everywhere, there's a big laser beam thingy on the ceiling and when I lie down, it's usually positioned so that the green light is on my forehead, which freaked me out the first time I lay down. I position my right arm above me in the straps they have and tuck my left hand under my butt. Two people hover above me and talk gibberish with their numbers and codes, and then they put a cold gel-like pad over my scar, where the laser will hit. The first time I went through this, I was waiting for a laser beam to shoot out of the device I can see above my head, the one where the green lights shoot out of. I thought that this is where the beam of radioactive light would enter my body from, but this is not the case. I held my breath the first time, but apparently those green lights are simply to align the coordinates and make sure my chest is positioned properly. The machine that twirls around my body is where the radiation comes from. That makes sense, but you fear the worst in these situations and ludicrous scenarios dance upon your conscious thoughts. Of course, simply asking the question is an obvious answer, but not one that occurred to me in the situation. My first day was all about getting it over with, not getting flooded with information. I didn't care, I just wanted to go through the process and see for myself what happened. I was anxious to simply get on with it. It was on my fourth visit that I finally started asking intelligent questions like 'where does the radiation come from?'
The longest part of the process is them setting up the machine so it is positioned correctly. Then they leave the room and the machine whirls around me and feeds radiation into me. I don't see this and I don't feel this. It's similar to getting an xray, except I'm lying down and told repeatedly to stay still. Which is always exactly the time that my nose gets incredibly and unbearably itchy. This process takes all of 7 minutes; 5 minutes to set it up and about 2 once they start process. I change and call Shawn and go wait upstairs for him to come and get me. It's about a 30-40 minute experience from the time I leave the car to the time I get back in it.

This is how it goes every day.

I can't promise to write much more on this forum. One because it simply is too exhausting for me now to have everyone knowing and talking to me about my deepest thoughts. I really felt the need to do that and educate people on what I'm going through, but if I'm going to continue being honest, I'll admit I find it pretty annoying now. I cringe now when my blog is brought up, mostly because people want talk about something so personal that I've written. That wasn't my intent with this. I wanted to inform, not engage. But you can't control that and I took that as part of the process of me writing and posting it publicly. But with all the other issues I'm going through right now, I've felt the need to distance myself from that aspect of my life; this aspect of my life.

I think I've done what I set out to do, which is inform and educate. I thank everyone who has taken an interest in my story, whatever your motivation to do so was. I am now concentrating on getting through radiation without feeling the need to write all about it. I need to eventually concentrate on my own health and perception, and I'll probably write about that, but right now I think that'll be too private to post. I'll owe myself honesty and I can't truthfully say it would be that way if it's on a public forum, and then that would negate the whole therapeutic purpose behind it. Weight is a personal demon for me and one that I find hard to be strong and positive about. I may post that whole process eventually, but only if I'm successful with my efforts! :D

Thanks to all of you who've followed along this quest for self-awareness. I feel that I wrote all this for a purpose. It's certainly not over for me, and know that all of your positive energy is reaching me and propelling me forward so I am able to tackle the next phase of my life, recovery.

Kelly McIvor

See me on ET on Friday!

2008-01-09T15:22:00.001-05:00

I know I know, it's been awhile, hasn't it? Well, I really have no good excuse other than I've been back at work for the past little while and have found it difficult to sit down and update some entries. My apologies to all of you who have contacted me inquiring if I'm done writing. Mmmmm, not quite yet.

I had a wonderful time over the holidays spent with close friends and family. My Christmas was pretty much exactly how I described it in my last post; Craig and I got spoiled as usual, we had overstuffed pillowcases and played games after all the presents were opened, I got whooped by my brother at 'Scene It' which was quite shocking to me as I'm an ace with movie trivia (obviously I'm blaming this defeat on chemo brain!), then we enjoyed a nice dinner at the house with friends, Shawn came by after dinner and picked me up and that was another amazing Xmas under our belt.

The next day, Boxing Day, was our 'Anniversmus' which was our 3 year anniversary and when we exchanged our Xmas gifts (hence the name). We'd decided that going forward we wouldn't buy each other Anniversary gifts, we'll just buy a big ticket item and consider that our gift to each other. It gets crazy with both our birthdays and our parents birthdays and Christmas AND our anniversary all literally within one month (December 7th-January 7th) so this makes sense for us. As it happened, I ended up being wide awake and getting out of bed at about 6am on boxing day, so I decided I'd go shopping as it was so early and I was wide awake and stores were actually open already, so I headed to Future Shop. I got there before 7am and the place was a zoo! I grabbed their flyer and rifled through it as I walked around to see the crazy deals, but nothing piqued my interest. There was a 20 person line up just to speak with a sales rep in the electronics dept, there was a crazy line up to check out and even a line to simply leave the store if you had merchandise as security was going to check your receipt. Shawn and I had already decided that we were going to purchase a TV for our bedroom as our gift to each other as the one we currently use is an old RCA I've had for about 15 years and it's the one where the VCR is actually attached to it, so definitely time for an upgrade, but anyway, the real deals at future shop were on the huge LCDs and plasmas and that's not what we need so I walked around sipping my XL double double for a while and then left. In the same plaza there was Canadian Tire and they didn't seem as busy, so I headed over there to walk around and this is where I hit the jackpot. Their doorcrasher deal was a 32" HD LCD flat screen for under $500 and there were only 50 at each store. I headed right to the electronics and chucked one of those bad boys in my cart! Extremely pleased with myself, I looked around for more deals and found lots more! After not being able to possibly fit anything more in my cart (actually, having to pile everything I had at the cash and then run through the store desperately to grab the 75% off ottoman), I cashed out and left in the best mood ever! I was on a deal high so I got home and unloaded the loot and wanted to have it all set up by the time Shawn woke up. I think I was home and unpacked before 9am! My dad ended up calling and came by as I had movies that he wanted to watch, so he stayed for a while and as I was saying bye to him, Shawn came down and saw the TV and looked at me like I was a nut job when I told him I'd already been out Boxing Day shopping but was super happy when I showed him what I got for under $500. We had a great day together and spent the rest of the week hanging out and seeing our friends. On New Year's we really wanted to keep it low key and didn't care at all if it was just him and I taking in New Year's from our couch, but we ended up going over to our friend's house and spent New Year's with them. They did a Chinese hot pot for dinner, which was absolutely fantastic! We were told that they'd do dinner and it would be a fondue. To be honest, neither of us were particularly looking forward to that, neither of us has even tried fondue, and the idea of eating melted oily cheese that bread is dipped into sounded to me like gut rot in the making, but I was curious to try it since I never had. Turns out, it wasn't technically fondue, it was just prepared using 2 fondue sets. Katie had cut up and marinated chicken, steak and pork, with different kinds of vegetables and white rice. Basically you throw the veggies into this simmering 'hot pot' which is just chicken stock, and you skewer whatever meat you want and stick it right into the pot to cook, then you spoon the vegetables over your rice and take out your meat after a minute or two. At the end of your dinner, the chicken stock and all the leftover veggies are poured into soup bowls and you drink it. The marinade from the meat gives it a kick and the whole experience was yummy. It was honestly the best way to eat socially in my opinion! It took us hours and we just ate slowly as it takes way more time to prepare and we could just relax and cook as needed. If I were single, I'd eat like this all the time! It's similar to Korean BBQ, but the one time we tried that neither of us enjoyed it much as neither of us like seafood or fish of any kind and everything -even the veggies- tasted like fish to us so we didn't enjoy it. But this was awesome! I say I'd eat that way if I were single because Shawn wasn't as impressed I don't think. He enjoyed it, but he'd much rather throw all the meat in and be able to eat quickly as opposed to this method. I think it'd drive him crazy to do this at home. We were planning on playing board games, but Katie and I both had quite a bit of wine and were both asleep on the couch shortly after midnight, which was fine as it gave Shawn and Marcos (or as we call him, Tido) time to hang out and catch up. Is it just me, or have board games garnered a new resurgence? I can't count how many people have told me they played board games on New Year's Eve. This to me is great news as I love board games and am super-excited over my gifts of Scene It, the new Cranium (I overplayed the old version) and Jenga. Now it'll be cool to play so more people will want to, be warned if you're coming to hang out. Anyway, Tido has been Shawn's friend since they were kids, and I know Tido through another mutual friend and it was at Tido's birthday a few years ago that Shawn and I first started talking and eventually dating. We actually brought Milo with us and surprisingly he was very well-behaved. He was fast asleep on the floor at our feet well before midnight.

This past Monday was Shawn's birthday and he was adamant that we not do anything to celebrate, so as is his and his mom's tradition, we went to Tucker's Marketplace as they give you a free meal on your birthday; since Shawn and his mom have the same birthday, it's been my treat the past couple of years ;p

Oh my, as usual, I'm off topic. The reason for this post was not only to catch you up to speed on the last few weeks, but also to say that I've been filmed for ET Canada and it'll be airing Friday January 11th (2 days). Here's my 30 seconds of fame so if you wanna check me out, watch Global at 7pm for their segment on breast cancer. I got to meet Camilla Scott who used to be a Canadian talk show host as she was being interviewed on getting a mammogram and I happen to be friends with a producer for ET Canada who called me a few weeks back to ask if I'd be interested in telling my story on camera about my mammogram experience (if you don't know what I mean by this you can read alllll about it back in my July entries; you'll know them from their titles...). My friend had been following my blog so she wanted to include my story in her segment. At first I said no as I was totally freaked about being seen on TV. I mean, of all times in my life to be on Entertainment Tonight, it's gonna be bald and bloated? uh uh. But, I immediately reconsidered and told her I'd do it as rational thinking prevailed. I've said I want to advocate for young women getting mammograms and now I have a forum to do so, and it's viewed by quite a few Canadians I would assume, but I'm gonna turn that down as I don't want to be seen on TV by my peers while I'm this overweight? How vain and selfish and ridiculous! This is simply who I am right now and I don't apologize for it. I had a momentary lapse of vanity but thankfully it passed quickly. If people want to have an opinion, or snicker, then why should I allow that to affect me and my decisions? It's quite obviously my own issues with self-esteem that would stop me, and I simply won't allow that. I have a message and I have a story and I would not be doing myself justice by hiding from this. It's not who I am and I won't allow my internal struggle with myself to supersede my need to inform other woman about what I went through in regards to getting a mammogram. This opportunity came up for a reason and I won't hide.

And I didn't, I taped the segment, and I have no idea what portion of it they'll use, but I answered the questions to the best of my ability and hopefully I don't come across as a tool. It was very surreal talking in front of a camera, if you've ever seen the Friends episode when every time Chandler goes to get his picture taken he has a ridiculous smile, that was how I felt talking once the camera rolled. Ask me about my experience and I'm probably quite articulate, ask me to write about it and I have no problem with expression and verbiage, but get me in front of a camera and all of a sudden I'm a tongue-tied deer in headlights. Anyway, whatever, I'm not so good apparently on the spot, but we'll see how it turned out tomorrow I guess. I'll leave the comments section on this post open, so if you happen to catch it on Friday, let me know what you think, or you can of course email me at kellysjourney@yahoo.ca . I'll comment on it myself once I see it. Here's hoping I don't come off as a tool, wish me luck!

A Moment of Stillness

2007-12-24T07:43:00.001-05:00

It's 7:44am Christmas Eve morning. Milo is curled beside me on the couch, my legs are tucked under me, my laptop precariously balanced on a pillow on my lap and I'm cupping an Earl Grey. I'm closing my eyes and taking a breath and consciously thinking that this breath is one of many that will follow me after my diagnosis of cancer. The more breaths I take, the more distance I make between myself and that word. The more time is spent without that word looming over me and the more breaths in I take, the further that word drifts from my paradigm. I'm turning my back on cancer and walking away; it's there in the distance, and although it may be staring at me, it can only watch my back get smaller as I walk away and move on. I'm stronger than it. I know that now.

Chemo is over. I did it. I went to Princess Margaret last Wednesday and got my last treatment; 6th out of 6. I rang the bell quite rambunctiously, no one minded. By the time treatment was finished, there weren't many people still in the chemo clinic so it was a nice moment to have with the bell and I took in all the significance I needed to for myself, gave it a few swift jerks, and then walked out the doors with Shawn's arms around me. We didn't quite make it out the doors, but as we held each other in the entryway of the clinic and allowed the emotions to take over for a second, I think we both felt the enormity of the weight of one journey coming to an end. A few more days to go and we'd both be feeling a lot better.

(my moment at PMH with the significant bell)

The days following chemo this time seemed to be a bit more difficult, but I think that's just because I'm really needing it to be over now, so it feels a lot worse. I had been very very tired, and today is the first day that I've felt semi-normal. All weekend it was all I could do to hold my head up, but enough of the bitching; that too has passed now and I'm gearing up for a busy Xmas Eve day. First there's the pile of laundry that hasn't been tended to in I'm not gonna say how long, then I must get some food in the house as I've pretty much ravaged all our stock over the past few days on steroids, I still have gifts to wrap, a shirt to buy to wear on Xmas and I have to get ready for my annual tradition of heading to Laura's parents place with my family for some festive cheer tonight.
Tomorrow, Shawn and I will go to different places for Christmas. I'll wake up and load up the car with all the loot for my family, and Milo and I will head to my parent's place while Shawn will head to his mom's to be with his family. I think next year is when we'll finally have to figure out a better plan for Christmas Day, but for the past few years, this has been easiest and I'm very reluctant to change my traditions; at 30 years old, I'm still a little upset that I don't spend the night at my parent's place on Xmas Eve! But now that we're together, we have to accommodate both families. It's just hard as I've always listened to the stories of friends who have to drive around all day on Christmas to see everyone and make sure all families get equal time. That seems to me the exact opposite of a fun relaxing Xmas day, so Shawn and I just head in different directions. Actually, this probably also has to do with our anniversary (or as we say Anniversmus) being on Boxing day, so we have our own tradition the day after the 25th, which makes spending Xmas apart easier.

Christmas was always my favourite day! It was also the one time of year that I'd say Craig and I were a unified team, no matter what age or phase we were going through. We always stayed in the same room on Xmas Eve, watching the movies that we'd rented for the occasion. My favourite tradition is of course my dad reading us Twas the Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve. My Gran gave us a little red book to hang from the tree that had this story, and every year my dad read it to us, even when we were no longer little kids. It was as much for him as us obviously, but I loved it. Before going to bed, my parents would leave our stockings outside the room. When we were very young, we'd fetch them in the morning as soon as our eyes opened and pour over them, but when we were a little older, we'd wait a respectable amount of time after my parents had gone to sleep before going into the hall and bringing them into bed with us and going through all the loot. I love the stocking! It wasn't exactly a stocking for us, it was a 50lb pillowcase filled with really cool stuff. My mum is really good at them and I'm pretty sure she must spend the same amount on our gifts as she does on our stockings as they're always loaded, even though every year she says that she's not doing a big stocking this year. She always does! I'm thinking this must sound as if we were spoiled, which I guess in a way we were, but it was different at Christmas. Craig and I never wanted for anything growing up, truly, but we weren't simply handed everything either. We were taught the value of a dollar and learned how to allocate funds through a weekly allowance. I got a job the second I was legally able to as money wasn't handed to me by my parents, as was the case with a lot of my friends. But at Christmas, this went out the window and it was all about getting spoiled and getting pretty much everything we'd asked for. I remember getting the Nintendo the same Christmas we got the ping pong table about 20 years ago and how that at the time was the best day of my life. I remember getting my dollhouse about 25 years ago and how my dad told me that he and Santa had stayed up all night making it for me, and how special I thought I was that Santa spent the whole night hanging out at my place just to finish my dollhouse (that dollhouse was fantastic, my dad even carpeted it and wallpapered!) I remember the soot boot print that faced toward the chimney that fascinated Craig, even though by then I knew whose boot it was. I remember where I was when I found out Santa wasn't real. My mum and I were in Scarborough Towne Centre, and it was Easter time. We were on the top level looking over at the Easter Bunny display, and I said to my mum, "I don't think the Easter Bunny's real, is he?" My mum admitted that no, he wasn't real, but we had to keep that a secret as other kids still believed in him. I remember then saying, so Santa I guess isn't real either then. And my mum said no, he wasn't either. I was actually shocked by this. I think I was testing the waters on that one as I really still did believe he was real, but finding that out was memorable. I think I felt a little special though too as most kids my age still did believe in him, and my mum had told me the truth, which must've made me feel really grown up. I remember being very young and playing outside of our old house, when Craig started crying and yelling and he ran to me to tell me that a girl from the neighbourhood told him Santa wasn't real and he was stupid if he thought he was. I chased that girl all the way back to her complex. I was protective of the fact that Craig still believed in Santa and I wasn't about to let a little brat ruin my little brothers favourite holiday.
These years, Christmas morning is spent in my parents living room, where my dad will throw on some Christmas music, grab some garbage bags for all the wrapping, we'll sit around and all open our stockings together, I'll laugh and smirk at how Craig still looks like he's sleeping while I'm going a million miles a minute, my mum will make croissants or something like that and make us fancy coffees, and we'll start to unwrap our gifts. I'll be on Milo patrol this year, but he'll be okay as he'll have Clio to harass. Then we'll clean up, sit around for a while and then get ready to host dinner for friends.
That's my Christmas. This year is also about reflecting on what is important, what the New Year will bring, and the excitement of knowing that there is a whole new year waiting to be tackled, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that next year is a fabulous one. As much as everything has happened this past year, I still don't look at it as a bad year. I've learned some extremely important lessons about myself and others, and on how to value what you have instead of constantly wishing for what you don't. Life passes you by as you're wishing for something big, and I'm going to try and put the opposite into practice.

I hope you all have a safe and Merry Christmas with your loved ones and I hope Santa is as good to you as he's always been to me. :D

It's my Christmas Morning - the LAST day of chemo

2007-12-19T08:05:00.000-05:00

Okay, no more sleeps; today is the day. It's 8am and I've surprisingly only been up for an hour. I thought for sure this morning would be a 4amer for me. I haven't been sleeping well at all. Shawn and I have been blaming this on our mattress to each other, but I think we've both got a lot on our minds right now. It's a very important day for me today and with my 1:30pm appointment, I'm only able to hope that I can get through it without an emotional breakdown. I figure it's gonna happen today finally. After all, it's bell-ringing day. Don't think I've forgotten about that and my goodness I'm already welling up so a quick change of topics for a few paragraphs is in order. I simply can't allow the dam to break before this afternoon as I don't think I'll be able to build it back up in time to face my day, sorry.
My first stop this morning is going to be to Sick Kid's Hospital to drop off the toys and sewing machines. I'm meeting the donation coordinator today at 11:30am. I know it's probably getting redundant of me to say, but I'm so very proud of everyone around me that has contributed to this drive! Even after the pic I posted showing all the toys, I've collected more and more from people. Some of you reading this blog actually contacted me and I met with you and picked up toys. This whole giving thing is unfortunately a relatively new thing for me, and I really can't get over how gratifying it has been for not only me, but my circle of friends and family. I was having a conversation with my mum over tea at her place last week, and she was telling me about her friends who contributed once they heard about it or read about it and she's showing me the bags and bags of toys she had collected, not to mention the 4 brand new sewing machines piled high in her living room, and I was telling her that I went to Wal Mart and was shopping for my friend Michelle's daughter but couldn't resist picking up more cool stuff for the toy drive. She pointed out to me that I shouldn't be spending so much of my money on toys etc., as don't forget, these kids aren't necessarily disadvantaged; they probably do have families who most likely can afford to make their Christmas extra special with gifts and toys etc., but their families can't do anything about their kids being in the hospital -and neither could I. This really got me thinking. They do have many people and organizations at this time of year donating to them. They even have a Donation Coordinator on staff. I think this is amazing and a very good thing, don't get me wrong, but it really opened my eyes to look around at the big picture. I have a whole room stacked with amazing presents to give to children. I started this out wanting to fill a bag to drop off at Sick Kid's purely to feel good about that, but this has certainly taken on a life of it's own and I now have a chance to help out some kids that aren't going to have any presents that morning. Once I got this thought in my head it was hard to let it go. I realized that I could help out Sick Kid's in a huge way with the 4 sewing machines as well as 4 garbage bags full of toys. But I actually had another 7 bags of toys on top of this! I know that I said this was a toy drive for Sick Kid's, but I decided to help out a local government-assisted youth centre as well. If anyone feels cheated that I said this was a Sick Kids toy drive but am spreading that around now, please see me for a full refund, but of course I know that no one would have any issue with this. I'm simply trying to make a good thing go a bit further, and I've done that and am very proud of myself for doing so.
As I've mentioned time and again, I live and grew up in an area of Scarborough that would be considered "disadvantaged." My family certainly didn't grow up this way, but it is evident in my community; the violence and poverty compounding every year. I started surfing and found exactly what I was looking for, which was a non-profit organization up the street from me that housed a youth centre for kids to go to after school and stay out of trouble and off the streets and they also offered an early child care centre. This isn't the type of place that is going to have access to a lot of donations I assume, and these kids certainly need it. They do! They're not all going to have a mountain of gifts under their trees this year and I guess that most don't have trees to pile gifts under. They have one at the centre to remind them about the holidays. I got to work sorting out all the toys in my 2 spare rooms upstairs, trying to figure out which ones would be better suited to the hospital and which ones would be better suited to individual kids and I bagged them up. Something else happened too. I was talking to Laura as I always run any conscience-related issues by her first before I act on them, and she said no one would mind that I was helping out more than just Sick Kid's with the toy drive; she pointed out that I wasn't expecting to receive what I did and it was a good thing I was doing, certainly not one to stress and second-guess myself over! I was now fully convinced so we started talking about different ideas on where we could help out. She mentioned that her mom had talked about some families at their church that were new to the country and wouldn't be able to afford gifts etc., this year. I asked her to get information on a family that we could help and the ages and sex of the kids. She got back to me quickly with a family that had just moved here from Nigeria and wouldn't be celebrating Christmas due to not having the money to do so. The kids were 8, 5 & 2 with a single mother. We now had our family. I told my mum that she had inspired me to think outside of the box with how I was allocating the generosity and she thought it was wonderful. And my mum being...well... my mum, she needed to know if this family had an oven and kitchen supplies as she wanted to supply them with a dinner and needed to know if turkey or ham would be more suitable. *sigh* I love my mum! So, now, we have Sick Kid's benefiting with what they told me they really needed, which were DVD players and sewing machines (the DVD players are currently being gathered from another friend who is doing a drive through his work for this after we spoke and I told him about the DVD player idea) we have them started with sewing machines, and 4 huge garbage bags stacked with group-oriented activities that can be used by a few or many people in the wards or their rooms (think bowling sets, nerf basketballs/footballs, walkie talkies, mega blocks, lego sets, craft sets, cards, books, crayons, markers, board games, etc.) as well as the individual crafts and toys that will occupy them and pass the time while they are isolated in their rooms. Then we have 5 garbage bags going to the youth centre (think stuffed animals, jewellery sets, barbies, action figurines, books etc.,) Then we have 2 big garbage bags going to this family of 3 kids with toys picked specifically for their age group. I tried to be cognizant of the fact that they are new to the country and may not yet be proficient in English, so I tried to be sure I picked gifts that didn't have crazy instructions or a lot of talking as I want to be sure they have fun with their toys as opposed to being confused by them.
Last night at about 5pm, I spoke with a volunteer at the youth centre and told her I had some stuff to donate. You should have heard her voice! It was like I was telling her she'd won a prize, and that reaction alone was worth it to me. I showed up there about 10 minutes later and brought in two of the bags with me. As I was walking down towards the stairs, I could hear rambunctious teenagers shouting at each other etc., outside the doors I was heading for. I felt a bit intimidated and I hate that I feel that way, but last Christmas Eve, Shawn and I got followed home by thugs when we were out walking Milo and although nothing happened due to I presume a few factors, I've not been able to easily forget that almost encounter and have felt nerves tingle around a group of youth ever since which I never thought would happen to me but has. Anyway, silence ensues as I walk through the group with my big load. I find the office and the volunteer from earlier. All the people in that office turn and openly stare at me. One young girl asks me if those bags are for them and I say they may be, and now I have the attention of everyone in there; first presumably as I'm a youngish white bald chick walking around confused carrying two big garbage bags and then because they now know there are presents in the bags. Denise, the volunteer I was coming to meet, looks at the bags and exclaims that she can't believe I've done this! Is this from a company? No, I tell her, I just have an amazingly generous network surrounding me. Why did I think of this centre? I told her how I grew up in the area and initially set out to do the drive for Sick Kid's but was over-whelmed with how much stuff I had received that I wanted to spread it out a bit more and figured that this centre would certainly benefit from it. Turns out, she also grew up in the area and had the same reasoning behind volunteering, and I think she now runs the youth centre part of the building. Her and I, along with one of the other volunteers went to the same middle-school but they are a few years older, but doesn't that a little bit prove what I was saying about infusing positivity back into your own community? Paying it forward in this sense could be what stops these youth from going down a destructive path; one that around here is more than ready to welcome them if they choose it. I think more options on how to be productive with your time and energy are needed and when they go to that centre one of these days in the future and are given a gift for Xmas, they will have a good memory and a good experience from that. I helped create that and so did a lot of you. It feels really really good, doesn't it? I'm sure a lot of you already know exactly the feelings that I write about here, but they're new to me and have really changed and affected me in a wonderful (and well-overdue!) way.
Denise starts to thank me when I point out that I still have more in the car. "More?" she states, again cementing for me that I'm doing the right thing here. As I'm walking through the group again to get to my car, one of the young guys comes to the door to hold it for me, saying "G'through" with a nod of his head. I say thank you as I pass him and smile to myself at this bold display of manners in front of his peers. I like to see that. Another wonders aloud what I'm doing there, but it wasn't in a rude way at all, more quizzical and possible excitement I'm presuming at the wondering of what's in the garbage bags as I do probably look like a fish out of water here to them. I go and get another 2 bags and one of the boys offers to help me with one, but I tell him thanks, I got it, so he rushes to get the door for me, just as he saw his friend do 2 minutes earlier; already paying it forward. I'm very happy right now. This place is doing a good thing by offering a supervised program for kids to go to with activities to keep them out of trouble. A bored youth can be a destructive one, so if they associate this place with happy thoughts and experiences, then I can only hope and predict that they will contribute back to society in a positive way somehow. I don't care how this sounds, it's a good way to think and will propel me to continue to help out in the future. Next year this will all be thought out much better. I will start my fund-raising efforts and collect toys and store them all throughout the year and maybe do an event at the centre with Santa and elves and food and presents and activities. Why not? It's something to look forward to not only for me, but for the kids there too.

Okay, awesome, that story just killed 2 hours for me and now I've only got a few hours left before I'm on the road heading to the last chemo-and the bell. Don't worry, I'm bringin' my camera and I'll manage to write about that experience after it's occurred. :)

Oh, and a very Happy Birthday to Michelle J today! Have an amazing and relaxing birthday! *mwah*

Happy Birthday to me!

2007-12-12T08:38:00.000-05:00

Saturday was my 30th birthday and I think it may go down as one of the best! My friend Kelly stayed over on the Friday night as her, myself, Shawn and Craig played an aggressive and competitive game of the new e-bank Monopoly (thanks Craig for the early bday gift!) Shawn made us individual omelettes in the morning, served with Mimosa's -or Morning Glory's as they're referred to in some parts- (champagne and oj to the other parts). Yum! We went and took Milo to a friends place who also happens to be a dog trainer as she had agreed to take him overnight so we could have a party at our house without worrying about the dog eating all the food off the table and bugging people, etc. The rest of the day was spent shopping for the nights festivities, and then I had to get home to get ready for dinner with Laura and Julie downtown. We went to Canyon Creek on Front St., and then Laura and I were heading to the Leaf game. Okay, our seats were ridiculous! Laura scored amazing seats (4 rows from ice!) We were so close, check it out!

I had Carlton the bear, who is the Leafs mascott, come over to my seat and wish me a Happy Birthday and give me a big hug as well as a gift, which was awesome although really embarassing as everyone was staring, my name was up on the big screen and another friend of mine, Michelle -the one who designed the 'Kelly's Journey' pendants- had one of her friends who works at the Air Canada Centre bring us over a nice beverage, not gonna say what kind ;) as well as ice cream. I felt like a celebrity by the time the game was done. And no, they didn't win; they were beat by Boston 2-1, blech! But whatever, we had such an amazing time!

Kelly picked us up as she was at Carm's fundraiser (for her climb up Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa with breast cancer survivor's). This is the first year that Carm and I decided to do separate birthday functions in years. The reasoning was that Carm wanted to do a big event for breast cancer as well as to raise funds for the climb she is doing that was inspired by survivors she met. This is now one of her dreams and through this fundraiser, will be a reality in the new year for Carm. I'm really proud of her for wanting to do this climb and I know she'll do it as Carm always does what she sets her mind to if it's in her control and this goal will be no different. Unfortunately, the only day she could get for the venue she wanted fell on my birthday, which is the day after hers. She asked me if this was okay, and at first I said of course it was! I didn't mind that it fell on my bday and I encouraged her to book the venue, which she did. Upon reflection, I realized that I may have a little bit of an issue with it. Not that it would influence anything, but I'll admit that I was kinda a little bit not wanting her birthday event to fall on my birthday. It was something I felt I obviously needed to attend, but now my 30th would be spent at an event for Carm. Would I be inviting my friends to this? As close as Carm and I are, we still have many different circles of friends, so I was starting to stress as I didn't think I'd want to invite my friends to my birthday at Carms function. Not just that, but Carm was having a formal function, so I'd have to wear a dress. Not something I want to do bald and breastless, know what I mean? And I only wear my wig with a hat; how classy would that look? Naturally, I talked to Carm about it and she completely agreed with me and understood entirely. She admitted that she hadn't even expected me to go to it in the first place! First when she said that, I was kind of hurt as of course I'd be at her function, but I understood what she meant, and she thought it would be too much for me and it was my birthday and she didn't want to overshadow it with hers. Besides, her and I did our Vegas trip in the summer and that was really for the two of us to celebrate our 30th year together and that was very memorable for me and I wouldn't have wanted to do that trip with anyone else, so we did already have our time. This event was for her and mine would be for me, so we agreed that this year we'd do our own thing. Anyway, Kelly picked Laura & I up from the game and we headed to my place for the party. I called Shawn and he said there were already a bunch of people at the house and by the time we arrived, the party was in full swing! I had such a good time! Most of my close friends made it and for me, I tend to keep a lot of my circles separate so it was nice to have a lot of my friends in the same room and I really appreciated that most of my friends put in the effort to attend. There ended up being just over 30 people so it was a good sized party for my 30th birthday. I made a rum punch and sipped that most of the night, but I did indulge in a jello shooter as well as a toast with Alize. There was a chocolate fountain with fruit that Kelly brought and she also made the Skor dip at my request. Here's the recipe, grab a pen! The bottom layer is cream cheese mixed with brown sugar, topped with a layer of caramel, topped with a layer of crumbled up skor bar pieces then you use granny smith apples to dip in it. Mmmmm! I made my brie dip, but it never made it out, which worked as Shawn and I enjoyed it the next day. That is really really good too! If you like brie, try this one: a wheel of brie, doesn't matter what size. Get some sundried tomatoes packed in oil, chop them up and put in a bowl and finely chop or mash about 3-5 cloves of garlic, depending on size of wheel and how much garlic you like. I enjoy a lot so that may be too heavy for some. Anyway, you mix tomatoes and garlic in a bowl, then simply scoop on the top of the brie wheel, put in oven for about 10-15 minutes at 300 and you have an amazing appetizer served with fresh bread and/or crisp crackers. Delicious and it looks like it took a long time to prepare when in reality it takes about 4 minutes.

I must also say here how generous my friends were with the Toy Drive! Check out the loot! This is just from mentioning to friends that I'd like to receive toys for kids for my birthday instead of gifts.

This is for the Sick Kid's Toy Drive I'm doing and look at how many kids are going to receive presents just based on my friends generosity! Simply amazing and I'm humbled by the generosity others showed.

Not pictured are the 4 brand new sewing machines my parents bought for Sick Kids. When I asked my contact from the hospital what they really needed, she shared with me a new initiative that I must now share with you. The mothers of the kids at the hospital are always asking and inquiring about ways they can give back to the hospital as these mothers and fathers and families are there hours and days and weeks on end with their children, and needed something to do with their time. So someone came up with the idea to equip every ward with a sewing machine so that the mothers can make personalized pillowcases for all the patients so that these young patients feel at home in their hospital beds and are able to have something personal just for them. How amazingly touching is that? I still can't get that story out without cracking. As soon as I told my mum, she was all over the idea (remember that she was one of the moms with a hospitalized son years ago) and soon informed me that she had picked up 4 sewing machines; 2 from me and 2 from my parents. Now we have 4 new sewing machines for this initiative. The first one will go to the cancer ward, and that's the only request I'm going to make about where the toys, etc., get distributed. Thanks to all of you on behalf of the kids receiving the toys! I even heard others say they were stealing the idea for their own birthdays, which I thought was great and please feel free to steal this idea from me for the charity of your choice too. I had such a great time this weekend and spent it grinning from ear to ear. Thanks to all my friends for making it extra special and especially to Shawn, Carol, Craig and Kelly for all the preparation you put into making my birthday a truly special occasion. Thanks and I love you. To my mum, thanks to you for contributing the sewing machines and Happy Birthday as today I'm writing about my birthday, but it's actually yours! :)

The Toronto Sun Project

2007-12-06T08:13:00.001-05:00

I am I guess a bit of a nerd. I've done incredibly nerdy things in my life. Maybe it's not nerdy though; it's gotta be some type of anal-retentive disorder. Like the time in 2004 that I 'worked for' the Toronto Sun. I used to get so incredibly irate about the spelling errors in the Toronto Sun newspaper; it would drive me insane when I found them. I mean, c'mon! This is a published, widely distributed paper! How could they allow sooo many errors to make it to print? How could "We're are going to have a summer shower" actually be one of their headlines??!!! How does one mistake 'growing up in Toronto' for 'grown up in Toronto'? How does an editor allow the first published paper of that year, on the 2nd page to have a heading that spells 'Torontonians' as 'Toronontians'? How does that happen and people still keep their jobs? Is that not a grave disrespect to me as an intelligent reader and a fellow Toronontian? I just didn't get it and no one could answer me! I ended up mentioning this to Andy Donato who is an artist and works for the Sun as a cartoonist (I know Andy and his wife through a members-only golf club that I used to be a Supervisor at and they were members of and they are both very sweet and genuine people who I would occasionally dog-sit for while they went on vacations). I told him one day about this and he told me to do something about it! That was all the motivation I needed. There was no point in doing my usual writing of a strongly-worded letter to the Editor-in-Chief. This was a much bigger issue for me than bad service. I felt it was a disservice to my country; the Sun is a national newspaper so I'm sure that it isn't just the Toronto version that is so lax with copy-reading and editing. I felt that I was not alone in my views on this subject and I knew that my fellow countrymen also must have this disdain for the lack of respect we as readers were being shown! I guarantee that this is a main reason people no longer read the Sun, other than political reasons. I love the Sun but find this point impossible to bypass. I can't love it with the errors, I tried but it was too big a crime for me to simply overlook. I had to show them how bad it truly was if I was going to make any bit of difference as just pointing it out to them I was certain wouldn't work. This must have been done already I reasoned. So what could I do? Well, I could really show them exactly how bad it was, and that's exactly what I did. For one month -December 11, 2003 - January 11, 2004- I read and edited every single word of that paper, front to back excluding advertisements. Just headlines and articles. Everything the paper had sole control over. It took me forever to do this as I of course had a full time job and a brimming social life at this point. But it became a very important part of my day to saunter to the newspaper box at the corner, grab the paper and catalog them by dates, and pore over them with my highlighters and pens. Every time I found an error, I'd circle it, then post it note the page to tag it for later. I did this at night, every lunch hour at work, all the time I could spare went into this. When I have a point to prove, good luck getting my focus redirected. Once I had all the papers stacked up in my room with all the errors tagged in all 30+ papers, I went to work. Like a kidnapper with a ransom note, I sat on the floor of my living room and with my exacto knife I cut out right from the paper the errors, had a notebook to keep track of what date/page/article/writer each error came from, and then filed those little cut outs from the newspaper chronologically. I'd do this while watching Soccer Saturdays with my dad. That way I could bounce my comments off of him and show him all the words that got past the staff. Once this incredibly tedious task was done, I then went about gluing each of those little pieces of paper to its corresponding page that I had drafted on the computer. The page would have the date of the paper, then each error from that paper would be listed by page, then writer, then heading, then how it read in the paper, and then how it SHOULD have read in the paper. And then I glued the actual error right there next to it. That is pretty anal, isn't it? Not only did I do this project in the first place but I wanted there to be absolutely no way to dispute my claims. So this tedious task of cutting out these micro pieces of newspapers and gluing them all so they lined up with the corresponding identification and correction had to be done as it was the only way to show that they didn't need to take my word for it. Here they are right from your paper. How many spelling errors do you think is acceptable? What would you guess?

For one month, a newspaper that boasts a readership of 2.15 MILLION readers a WEEK allowed 217 spelling errors into their paper. 217 spelling errors/major grammar errors were found by me through just one readthrough in only one month of publishing. I'm sure there were more I didn't catch on my skim-through. Is someone not doing their job? Or with that type of viewship, maybe you can afford another helper on the payroll. It's important, isn't it? I mean, they're a newspaper for goodness sakes, surely this will be a big deal?! I had my 'project' bound at Staples and was now ready to send to the paper. I first brought a copy to Andy, who looked at me like I was a little crazy but also caught a glimmer of amusement in his eyes at it. I gave him a copy and also sent a few copies to the Editor-in-Chief. And for me, that was that. I felt a sense of relief that I had at least attempted to do something not only for my fellow readers but also for this paper. They obviously had no idea that they were churning out such a sub-par product, and with a lot of competition for readship, I figured I was helping them out too. I also had wanted to be an editor and I found through doing that project that I did in fact enjoy it. It's not like you can walk on to a decent editing job with no schooling or prior work experience, so this was my way of trying it out and if I wasn't already way past the point of college, I may have considered going to school for it.
The reason I'm writing about this is our friend Tido was over last night and we were talking about it again as he was with me at my apartment years ago when I got the call. We were sitting around listening to hip hop and my phone rang, which I answered without turning down the music. It was the Editor-in-Chief of the Toronto Sun calling. I got Tido to quickly turn down the music and I stood up and started walking around. He informed me that he had just seen my project (by this point a few months had past since I'd sent it to him) and was calling me to inform me that him and his staff were very embarassed by what I had done, and were also very impressed by it. Yes, they did in fact employ full time editors, but these had simply been missed. He also wanted to know what I was hoping to get out of the experience. That took me by surprise as I wasn't prepared at that moment for this conversation, but I said a better quality paper and a full time editing job. He laughed and asked me what school I went to. I told him I wasn't a student. No, this wasn't a school project, this was me just doing this in my spare time. He offered me an internship. They don't offer internships to people who aren't University students majoring in Journalism, but he offered me one right then. I of course couldn't take it; it's full time with little to no pay. I work full time and can't simply give that up to go and work at the Sun without getting paid to, but the point is for me that it was offered. That was the moment my hard work paid off.
Now, the Sun still has a lot of errors, I didn't unfortunately change the paper the way I wanted to, but at least I can be assured that heads were most likely ripped off because a girl in her spare time could do what these people get paid not to do, and that there were some embarassed editing staff walking around that day. Good enough for me.

Now I wrote about that hoping that the backlash is not every single error on here pointed out to me. Please, I know there are spelling mistakes all over this blog; when I catch them I do fix them, but some get by me and I am not super-anal on this site as it's just a casual blog. I am going to be printing out a lot of this to send to my Grandma in Scotland over the next week so she can be apprised of all that is going on too, and I'll edit that with a fine-toothed comb, but I haven't been regiment about this in this forum as I'm not thinking this is being read by 2.15 million people every week like the Toronto Sun. If I was getting paid for it, it'd be a different story, believe me!

I'm not nerdy....I'm...wordy

2007-12-05T09:04:00.000-05:00

I'm a week out from my last treatment and I'm almost back to "normal" now. This 2nd cycle has had it's differences from it's predecessor. It takes a few days for the annoying symptoms as opposed to getting over them right away. The day after chemo, which is a Thursday, I've been okay, a little loopy from the meds, but my body feels pretty normal. Then for the Friday, my mood darkens a little, but I'm still able to go for a walk or move around at an acceptable level. Over the weekend is when I find the difficulty. I get so sore from the meds. My body feels bruised and incredibly achy. I can't have people touching me during this time; even a hug hurts. But let me set the record straight on that; it only lasts for a few days, this doesn't mean you can't hug or touch me at all! I go to hug some people and they back away saying I don't want to hurt you! I know that a lot of my friends are reading the blog and taking every single thing I say on here to heart, but if I'm going to hug you, then it's not gonna hurt me, hope that makes sense. As for taking everything I say to heart, please understand that at the time you're reading an entry, I may not be feeling the same way I was when I wrote it. This has made for interesting conversations with people in my circle over the last few months. Some get very angered by something I've written and want to talk about it, but by then I'm over it. An example would be the mountain man at work who commented on my weight. I still get calls from friends about this. I have to laugh about it. I tell my friends that they can't now get angry about it; it happened months ago and they're just now reading it. I joke to them that maybe they should follow my blog a little closer to real time then reading an entry a month later and then wanting to react to it. I am a very emotional person, and I travel the highs and lows of the roller coaster very quickly, but then I'm over it. So if you're reading something I've written before, it means that's how I was feeling right then, not necessarily when we talk. A notable point about me writing about all my friends etc., is that the people that are closest to me (outside of family and some select friends) don't really read this blog. It's more acquaintances or people I don't even know that have given me the most feedback about my writing, isn't that strange? I started this off with the reasoning that the people close to me would get all the dirt through this channel, but that hasn't been the case. After I posted for the first time, one of my friends called me and said "Omigod! Your blog is my new facebook; I've already read it all!" I laughed as I knew there was no way this particular friend had the attention span to have read it all the way through by that point, and I was right. She thought that there were only 4 entries as she thought that every month had one entry. We figured out her mistake one night over wine when another friend and I were talking about something I had said on here, and she had no idea what we were talking about. We were bugging her to just admit she couldn't read, but then figured out she could in fact read, just couldn't figure out her keyboard. (Love you Julie! :D)
I am in no way admonishing my friends for not pouring over this blog. I totally get it. My closest friends already know everything you are now taking the time to learn about me. They don't find the blog that intriguing as it's extremely time-consuming to read I'm sure, but also, they talk to me on a regular and aren't really surprised or shocked by anything they'll find here, or the manner in which I relay the stories. Most also don't want to read the detail about my cancer. It's easy to filter to the certain friends when I speak with them as I know them well too, and know what they'll want to hear and what they won't. On these pages, there are no filters and some don't want to know what's on the next page. I absolutely get and respect that. However, don't make the mistake of telling me you've read all my blog as you should know me well enough to know I'll test you on that without you even knowing I've done so just to prove my point to myself. I get a lot of internal kicks that way. Okay, now I have a forum for this, I have to address that point since I'm on it. Does everyone do that? I have little games I play with myself all the time for no other amusement than an internal chuckle. Everyone does this, right? Like what I just said about testing my friends. Then you lay the trap that they fall in to, unbeknownst to them, and then you chuckle about your own cleverness to yourself? Is it just me? The key to this game I've learned is never to share your findings as then you could be proven wrong, and since it's an internal game, it's better to keep it that way and have yourself win every time. Here's another fun one that I'll share with all of you devoted blog-readers. If you've related at all to my personality, this'll be a fun game for you. Basically, if you think this game is incredibly entertaining and you use it in your life, then chances are you do understand my personality and have laughed at most of the jokes and deadpan humour through reading these entries. If not, then you probably haven't enjoyed reading my words and think I'm angry and aggressive and take most of what I say as literal. That's okay too, but you may not understand how anyone could think this game is fun. So those of you should simply just be cognizant of someone using a word you've just used in a sentence right after you've used it, just to see if you find that happens a lot now that I've pointed it out to you. The rest of you who wanna play, here it is. This was shared with me years ago by an old friend and I have previously been very selective on who I choose to share this with but the people I have shared it with have reported back that it works and they love it! It's called worddrop. Think of a big funny word, use it in a sentence, then wait for the person you've said it to to use it back to you. Sounds stupid, right? It's not. It's amazing how this works and even more amazing that it's pretty much guaranteed once you've fine-tuned your ability to drop big words in a sentence and be sure they know the meaning of the word to be able to use it back to you. It does take practice. You may not drop the word correctly for the other party to pick it up, so try some variations and see what works for you. Start off with a certain simple phrase. Like, how was your workday? Oh, I was just "pluggin' away." It should work that the person you said it to will use it back within a certain amount of time. When you hang up from that conversation, you may hear "Ya, gotta go plug away at the dishes," or something to that effect. I started by sharing this with my brother I think. It worked for him too. I didn't really want to share it with Shawn as I thought I preferred catching him doing it and laughing to myself, but I much more enjoy our current game of trapping friends into it, or what is now more difficult, each other. But when we do catch each other we kill ourselves laughing and it's big points to get one over on the other with this game. We both don't like to be so easily manipulated but it works! With each other though, at this point we've up the stakes. We use words like conducive, copacetic, lackadaisical, etc. The words that don't come up in normal conversation and are more dramatic, yet recognizable when reused. There is no way of saying 'I always say that!' with those types of words, which gives the winner even more bragging rights and has the loser thinking "I'm so sure I just used hyperbole in a sentence!" This must seem so ridiculous to some people, but it is truly a fun conversation starter and you can play this by yourself. No one ever has to know what you're doing unless you share it.
Look, I enjoy my own company, and it's because of things like this that keep me entertained internally. :D

Paying it Forward is good for the soul...

2007-11-26T18:19:00.000-05:00

Toy Drive for Sick Kids Hospital!!!

My 30th birthday is fast approaching! In 2 more weeks I’ll have hit that milestone! If I look at this last decade, I’ve changed immensely as a person. Where was I on my 20th birthday? I can’t even remember. Is that old age or chemo brain I wonder, lol?!

I remember turning 25 like it was the most devastating experience I would ever encounter. All through my teenage years and my early 20s, it was a big deal for me to reach a quarter of a century. That seemed so ancient! The day I turned 25 my family was vacationing in Panama. My dad took us there for my mum’s 50th birthday. His birthday is the day before mine and my mum’s is 4 days after mine, so it was a week of birthdays in my family. Actually, December 7th marks the start of a crazy workout for my credit card. We have my dad’s bday, then mine, then my mum’s, then Christmas. Boxing day is mine and Shawn’s anniversary, then we have New Years to fund, then a week later is both Shawn’s AND his mom’s birthday on the same day. Whew! Never mind me, how about my poor brother’s bank account? Craig’s birthday is literally at the very opposite end of the calendar, June 13th. Friday June 13th. I bug my brother about his birthday being so far away from ours all the time. It fits with all the other areas I rib him about, such as having black hair when all of us have light hair (my mum did have jet black hair in her youth though, a rationale I kept from my brother when he was younger and unable to use this point back at me, and I have (oops, had) light hair by way of a bottle, but semantics don’t enter my side of this argument obviously. We also have never found any of his baby stuff, like a baby book or cards about his arrival. They weren’t with the box of all my baby stuff that we found years ago in our basement, which meant he must’ve been dropped on my family’s doorstep I explained gently to him. I was horrible to my brother growing up. It’s a wonder he’s the well-adjusted young man he is today, truly. The psychological damage I inflicted during his childhood was hard to endure I assume. Can you imagine having me as an older sister? Today, sure, I’m a cool older sis, but when I was younger? I couldn’t stand the sight of my brother! Even when I was bored at home, I’d almost always choose my own company over Craig’s. When we did play together we always fought and never made it to the end of any game without him in tears or me storming off. I found our 2½ year age gap a huge obstacle in my youth. I think the worst part about this is Craig truly liked me I think. He actually wanted to hang out with me, and I always brushed him away. When he was really young, I’d sometimes wake up to find him standing at the entrance to my door during the night. I'd ask him what the hell he was doing, and he’d reply meekly that he was waiting for me to wake up to ask if he could sleep with me as he had a bad dream. I wasn’t always a horrible sister. I did sometimes allow the nightmare-free zone of the other side of the bed to comfort him. Sometimes I didn’t. On those mornings, I’d wake up to find him sleeping on my floor! I know, I know. That wasn’t even the worst of my torture, trust me; not even close. Before I get hate mail though, please understand that we have a wonderful relationship now. It just took twenty years! It was when we travelled to Scotland together when I was 20 and Craig was a few months shy of 18, and that trip was the beginning of the amazing connection we now have. Craig and I are extremely close and have been ever since then. We’ve worked together; hung out together as friends, travelled together and just genuinely enjoy each others company. I’m sure that has to do with missing out on each others company when we were younger. I don’t regret our early relationship as it’s laid the foundation for who we are as people today, and we’re both pretty awesome individuals, so no regrets, right?

The whole point of that rant was to talk about Sick Kid’s hospital. I’ve made mention to this before, but Craig spent time in their care when he was a young boy, around 5 years old if memory serves me. They took excellent care of Craig and fixed him right up. This is the hospital that I’ve always held in the highest regard because they nursed my brother back to health. I remember visiting him there and I remember how friendly the staff was to him as well as me. I mostly remember being so sad to see him there though, and all the other kids that were in there too. The hardest part was always leaving him overnight. He was so upset to not have us with him and I remember the elevator rides with my parents afterwards being especially difficult. Those memories never leave you. Those memories are what inspired me to initiate a toy drive for Sick Kids Hospital this Christmas. I can only imagine how difficult not spending Christmas morning in my parents house around their tree with my family would be and I’m (almost) 30! How about those kids that are going to wake up in a hospital bed on Christmas morning? I want to contribute somehow, so I figured what better way than to do a toy drive? I’ve started with swapping all birthday gifts from friends and family with toys for kids. I’ve requested that no one buy me gifts this year; I’d like to please receive gifts for kids of any age. They don’t have to be expensive, just fun! The dollar store has great gifts for kids, so even if you don’t have a lot of money, you can still contribute. $5 could buy 4 colouring books AND a pack of crayons! I’m having all the people close to me drop these off at my house before December 14th. I’ve also started a bit of a snow ball situation as now my friends are asking if they can do a toy drive at their workplaces and drop those toys off too for me to deliver. Good thinking so I’ve asked that my work do something similar and I’m going to go there to pick them all up too. I’m writing about this as I want all of you to also have a chance to contribute. Helping out others makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Cancer gave me the kick in the ass I needed to realize this fact. I wasn’t a big “donation-giver” before; I didn’t really ever go out of my way to take any fund-raising initiatives. I sometimes would give to my friend’s causes, but not always. It took me getting cancer to realize just how important this type of generosity is not only to those on the receiving end, but to the human spirit. If you want to do something truly selfish, help someone else out as it feels really good. So far, cancer has made me a better person on the inside, and I think if I can take anything positive away from this experience, that should definitely top the list of benefits. I actually care more. Kudos to all of you who care without having tragedy affect you personally! I wasn’t that person before but I am now and that’s really what matters. I think that type of thinking also comes with maturity. I do know that it’s never too late to start! If you’d like to contribute to this toy drive, please email me at kellysjourney@yahoo.ca and I’ll let you know how where to send the toys to. Or if you’re in the area of Scarborough, me or my cohort’s could meet up to pick up toys or can direct you to where to send them. Some of my extended family is sending us cheques to go and buy toys ourselves, and we’ll be making some toy-shopping trips around town in the next few weeks. Toys do have to be new and in their original packaging as they're going to a hospital. The point is, not only are you doing something special for children and their families at the time of year when no child should be doing anything but smiling and looking forward to Santa’s arrival, but you’re also doing something so good for yourself. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe this, it’s true, I can attest to it, but that is your choice to make. For me personally, it makes me smile to do something for another now. I’ve realized the value of smiling so I’ll do more and more to make myself smile instead of scowl. I’ve frowned enough for one lifetime I think. There’s simply no more room for it in my highly-valued life.

For ideas on toys, you can visit this link:

http://www.sickkids.ca/EntertainmentandDonations/section.asp?s=Donations&sID=8878&ss=Beneficial+Toys+and+Items+for+the+Hospital+Environment&ssID=17871

Thanks! : D

It looks like my future will involve petting tigers, riding elephants and smelling ratchaphrueks after all!!!

2007-11-23T10:13:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned this before, but it's now very important for me to keep setting long term goals. I've learned more about my prognosis lately and I'm now able to even type that as I've been a little upset about it this week, hence the absence of posts. I know that a lot of people who read this think that I'm so strong to be able to deal with this etc., but I do get very upset about the fact that I have a 48% chance of seeing 40. I can also look at it in a positive light (no one knows that they'll see tomorrow, let alone 10 years away), but I have my days when this simply devastates me, don't think otherwise. The other day I was on the phone with a friend talking about plans for my upcoming birthday and she said "I'll bet you're not dying to turn 30, right?" I wonder if she immediately wanted to take that comment back. I hope so. I try and just shut my eyes for a second and breathe when people make comments without thinking first how they're received, and I have to forgive this on a daily basis as I realize that people of course don't mean to be careless with words, but yes, in fact, I'm dying to turn 30. I'm looking forward to every birthday I have in my future. I'll cry if I get to 40, but not because I'm sad that I'm getting older, it'll be because I beat the 'odds'. It sucks, sure, it might be hard to read for those of you reading it, but it's still true nonetheless. People that have gone through cancer I'm guessing are similar to me. You no longer think of getting old as a burden, you no longer have those "I don't want to grow old" thoughts; you welcome the opportunity to do so. At 29 I don't know how long my future will be, but I know that I've had to think such thoughts younger than most do. My prognosis is really just a bunch of numbers, I'm trying not to put stock into a bunch of numbers. I mean, there was a less than 1% chance of me getting cancer at this age, so I'm the last one who should look at playing the odds, right? But I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't come into play when thinking about my future plans, it's just simply a reality I live with now. Anyway, I'm fine to grow old, bring it on, I'm not upset about it in the least. I'm looking forward to 30. Then 31, 32, you get the picture... I do get extremely upset about what I'm going through, but I am lucky to be able to -for the most part- look at it objectively. I'm still an optimistic realist. :) My positive days far outweigh my negative ones so I try not to beat myself up too bad when my mind goes through its destructive phase. It's normal on some level I'm sure.
So, back to long term goals. I now have the travel itch back. This was muted a bit when I got together with Shawn as he's never been that interested in travel and we weighed all our wants with needs back when we bought a house together, and discussed what was really important to us as far as building a future together. I mean, he changed his profession back when he realized that he wanted to eventually start a family with me one day. He knew that massage therapy would only get him so far before his hands were ruined, and then what would he do to provide for his family? So he decided to get involved in his current profession, which is... I'm not even sure what you'd call it. His boss is a landscape architect, and Shawn builds stone decks, columns, stairs, etc. He's not in landscaping but he's not a stone mason either. Anyway, he loves it and that's all that matters! He is doing this so that in the long run, he'll have a career in it and be able to one day start his own business. I love that he's gotten into a trade as that's where the money is (and tradesmen are so hot!), but first you have to put in your time. We agreed that for the first few years, I'd be bringing in the bucks and he'd learn his trade, so that in 5ish years, when we'd be ready to start the family, he'd be far along in his field and I'd be making big money by then too. But we'd be okay if I took time off to have babies at that point.

This summer our whole long term plans went up in smoke. Not to say that our future will not play out that way, but there have been unforeseen obstacles let's say. For example, I've moving further and further away from my thinking of having children. That is such a crazy paradigm shift for me, truly. It's not something I've ever questioned until now, but I just no longer know if that's in the cards. Even when I realized I may not be able to physically have children, I knew I'd adopt. I no longer am so sure about that either. I'm not saying I won't, just that I'm not as sure as I once was. I can't imagine not having kids in my life, but I don't think I imagined dealing with cancer and my own mortality at the age when I'm supposed to be thinking about a wedding and babies and other such things. You just never know what life throws at you. And then there's the biological versus adoption question. If I am able to get pregnant after all this, will I even want to? I remember not to long ago when the most devastating news of my diagnosis was whether I'd get to carry a baby. It's really not that devastating anymore. Would I even chance trying to have kids? What if I passed cancer on to them? This is I'm sure why I haven't gone for genetic testing yet. They at the hospital(s) keep asking me if I'd done it yet, but I keep saying I will even though secretly I'm not sure if I'll ever get this done. Do I care to know? I don't see the point of knowing unless I plan on having kids. So if I'm even able to have children and if I decide I may want to get pregnant then I'll go and get tested. Besides, I'm not supposed to really try for kids in the next 3-5 years anyway. That is when I'm at my highest risk of recurrence and being pregnant can up your chances of a recurrence so I won't be taking that chance during the next period in my life. And then once that period passes, then what? Who knows? Will I want to spend the rest of my life taking care of kids and all the complications that will go along with that? Do I tell my hypothetical kids that I have had cancer when they get to that age of understanding and scare the crap out of them? Or do I not tell them and have them resent me for not sharing the news if I get a recurrence or worse, I'm not there for them when they realize I knew this day would come all long and they live with that? Do I leave Shawn with kids to take care of when I have no life insurance and will now never qualify for any? Shawn, the one who never wanted kids until he started dating me? Is that fair? Does that now fit in to my new reality? Or do I not have kids, live to be 60, and regret having spent the latter of my life preparing to die instead of living? Who has these answers? I just have no idea but all of this weighs me down on a regular basis, don't kid yourselves.

The one thing I have taken out of this is that I want travel in my life. I received an email from my aunt in Spain last week, and this prompted my thinking about travelling again. She was describing her leisurely travels with my uncle through Europe, and I remembered how for most of my life I've wanted that too. I've always wanted to see Europe and more than that, I've always wanted to experience Thailand. I was so jealous that my parents took that trip before I did. I've always wanted to go to Thailand but was resigned to the fact that it probably wouldn't happen. It's so expensive and I couldn't really justify that expense when we're buying a house to renovate and we're saving all our money for that, then we'll be saving all our money for a wedding, then saving all our money for a family, etc. That's how it goes, right? You don't take a few thousand dollars out of that dream to go off to Thailand just because you want to. That's selfish. Well, I'm back to wanting to go to Thailand and now I'm pretty sure I'm going to, selfish or not. I'm not going to deny myself that itch that's been bothering me forever. I'll be going to Thailand one day. It's now back on the top of the list. I decided to break the news to Shawn the other day. We were sitting quietly, and I was thinking how I'd tell him that one day soon I'm going to Thailand with a friend and he'd have to deal without me for a few weeks and he'd have to be okay with me spending the money to do so. I didn't have a specific friend in mind, but I knew of about 5 friends that if I mentioned this trip to, they'd be all for it. Right then he asked me what I was thinking, so I told him that I'd been thinking about travelling a lot again, and I really really wanted to go to Thailand. I was rambling my rationale and he just listened. Then after I paused to take a breath, he said "Well, we can't just do Thailand. We have to see other places too if we're going to do a trip like that and I just don't want it to be all Asia. What about Europe?" I was incredulous. "WE?!" "Since when have you wanted to travel?" Well, he said, he would love to see other parts of the world, there was just many other things that previously took precedent. Shawn doesn't love to fly, and he also doesn't love the water, so I thought travel was the last thing he wanted to do. But he said that his thinking lately has changed too, and he'd really like to experience other places, and he'd like to do that with me. I was so touched and so very grateful to hear him say this! But I wasn't convinced this was anything more than him appeasing me at this moment. Remember I'm the one who throws dinner in the oven with reckless abandon without first preheating the oven completely while Shawn runs behind me taking it out saying you have to wait until the little red light turns off. This is us in a nut shell. If he's agreeing to Thailand and even suggesting a tour of Europe first, I need to make this a reality while I have that window of opportunity. So I say when, assuming now is when Shawn will say that once we get all our debt paid off, and once we save enough for x, then we can start to squirrel away for a trip, etc. This is not what I heard at all. He said, how much would it cost, $15,000? I state of course not! I think we could do 2 weeks in Europe & 1 week in Thailand for half that! He said, okay, if that's the case, then if we get our debt paid off and then save $3000, we could put the rest on credit and do it. I can't believe my ears. There is no one in the world that I would want to travel anywhere with more than Shawn and not only is he expressing interest in this but also thinking of how it can be a reality and planning accordingly. I want to cry at how much I love this man! So that's settled. Once I get healthy and am able to get back to work, I'm going to plow away and save my pennies to pay off our current debt, which isn't that bad, then I need to put 3k in the bank and then I can book our tickets to Europe with a jaunt to Thailand. Hee hee! This is such great news and I think about it all the time. It keeps me motivated to see the longer goal and just keep looking at that instead of anything else. I'm pretty sure I'll get to see Thailand and many other beautiful places along the way. And who knows where we'll go after that if Shawn enjoys seeing the world! What I do know is that everyone has a list of things they want to do and see in their life, and that is one of mine. So to get to cross that off the list and have that experience and then start to plan the next one? What more could I ask for out of this life?

I'll huff and I'll puff and blow this house down!

2007-11-23T08:52:00.000-05:00

I've had an interesting week emotionally. I've been up, down and sideways with my thinking. Yesterday I had an appointment in Oshawa as I want to try and go there for my radiation treatment in January instead of Princess Margaret. Princess Margaret is just too far to get to everyday during radiation, and I'd have to pay $20 every time I parked, which will equate to $500 in parking alone after my 5 weeks of rads. Or I can go to Oshawa, which is the opposite direction of the city hence traffic won't be as bad and I can get a monthly parking pass for $60. I'm sold. I went there yesterday and met with the doctor who will oversee my radiation treatment. He was alright, but he kept talking over my questions, which was annoying. Shawn could tell I was getting angry as I received the knee squeeze, but it is amazingly frustrating that you get one chance at a sit down to answer all your questions and he kept cutting me off to start his explanation when he clearly didn't understand half of my questions as he didn't answer them all. Anyway, whatever, I'll be going to Oshawa it looks like, which is a good thing in my eyes, so I can ask my questions as I go I guess. At this point I'm pretty sick of doctors, nurses and their staff. I ran head first into yet another ‘receptionist wall’ at Princess Margaret. It must be me; I’ve resigned to that fact now. I felt I was getting sick earlier in the week, so everyone around me is freaking out; if you've been reading my blog you'd know it can be extremely dangerous for me to get sick while undergoing chemo, and I have my 5th treatment next week and the last thing I need is for it to get delayed due to low blood counts, so I've been stressed and upset about this naturally, compounded by me being sucky anyway as I’m just like that when I get sick. Shawn has been fussing a lot around me as I'm getting sick, and he was harassing me about calling the hospital to find out what to do if I get any worse. Every day he asks if I've called yet and every day I say 'nope.' I decided to finally stop driving him insane so the other day I find the sheet with all the contact numbers and start dialing. I've gone through this before. I've called through this list of numbers before and didn't get any answers or even a live person to ask a question to. So here we go again. I can page my doctor’s nurse, which I've done twice before and haven't got a call back. I could call my doctors receptionist, but they also don't answer the phone at that office, you just leave a number and they'll get back to you, but I don’t need to speak to his receptionist, I need to talk to a doctor or a nurse. I just wanted to ask a question! All I want to know is at what point I'm supposed to go to the hospital if my cold worsens. But of course this is going to be a trying task, isn't it? I let out a long sigh and call my doctors receptionist. The message states that if it's an emergency, go to the emergency room or to speak with a doctor press '0' and ask to speak with the doctor on call. There is also this option on my sheet, but I figure I'd exhaust my other options first. Now I press '0' and when the hospital operator says "Princess Margaret Hospital," I state, "I'd like to speak with the doctor on call please." The receptionist says "what for?" I can feel the blood start to rise already. I say "I have a question to ask a doctor." "Regarding what?" is the response, followed by "This is a cancer hospital ma'am; we deal with cancer patients here and I need to know why you're asking for a doctor" to which I state exasperatedly, "I have cancer, I am a cancer patient at the hospital and I have a question regarding cancer. Can I please speak with the doctor on call?" "Ma'am, I need to know why you are asking for a doctor; I can't just connect you to one. I need to know that you're a patient that has a question regarding canc-" I snap back, "And you now know all that, can I talk to a doctor now?!" "Ma'am, there is no need to be rude, I'm just asking..." I don't know what else she said as by now my cell phone is away from my head which is buried in my lap. I am soooo sick and tired of getting talked to like this. "WHAT FOR???" Could this perhaps have been formulated in another, more patient-friendly way? If the receptionist has to find out if I am a patient of the hospital before connecting just anyone to a doctor, maybe a better question than "what for?" could be, "can I get your MRN number?" This is your patient number and that would have answered all the questions she'd have, no? She'd then deduce that I was in fact a patient at the hospital and she could find out on her little computer who my doctor is as well as my nurse and then figure out how to help me. That is her job when answering the phone, is it not? I am getting sick and getting emotional about that as it's a different kind of stress when you're told sneezing/coughing could be life-threatening and I simply don't want to tell the receptionist what is wrong with me. Is there no privacy anymore once you are diagnosed? I'm not sure what difference me telling her about the exact reason I was calling would have accomplished. I would still have needed to talk to a doctor, so why do I have to divulge this information about myself to the lady that answers the phones? I was instructed to do exactly what I did, which is press '0' and ask to speak to the doctor on call. I hear her say something once she is done chastising me about connecting me and I wait. And wait and wait. The games these receptionists play! 9 minutes later (yes I watched my clock) the same power-tripping receptionist comes back to tell me there is no doctor on call during business hours. This is great news, isn't it? Also something I'm sure she knew in the first minute of me being on hold, but such is my punishment for not doing things her way I guess. I can't talk to my doctor, or any doctor to ask these questions. Apparently questions are reserved for scheduled appointments only. I'm distressed. I'm told that getting a cold can be life-threatening to me, yet I can't find out any information about what to do from my medical team. The receptionist to her defense does ask me if I know the name of my nurse so she can page her and I tell her as well as ask her name. I only did this in the hopes that by doing so she wouldn't leave me on hold quite as long, not because I'm planning on complaining about her. It kind of worked I guess as I did get to talk to my nurse after another 6 minutes. Although by her tone with me she had spent at least 3 of those 6 minutes listening to the receptionist complain about a very rude young lady she had on the phone for her. I was told that if my temperature reaches 38 degrees, or if I cough up phlegm or if I get hot sweats, I may have an infection and I will have to go to emergency for antibiotics and any other treatment they'll need to adminster. Other than that, stay inside away from people, get under a blanket and drink a lot chicken soup. I'm now a few days into my cold and it hasn’t been that bad, knock on wood. I’m so proud of my little immune system! I’ve handled chemo astonishingly well to date, I’ve got a cold but it hasn’t got that bad where I need to be hospitalized as my immune is still obviously fighting for me. I'm wondering if maybe the super dose of steroids is also contributing to my not-too-bad cold? I even got my period a few weeks back! That was shocking and welcomed. Hadn't seen that in a while, but there she was. Even my ovaries aren’t taking my diagnosis lightly! In fact, my whole body is fighting for me and I am very grateful to it as emotionally, my mind seems to be working against me right now. The highest my temperature got to was 37.6 degrees, but didn't go above 38, so I didn't have to go to the hospital. Actually, I did have to go there to pick up my films for my radiation appointment which the receptionist at Oshawa told me I'd need to bring to my appointment, which was also stressful. I was trying to not touch anything or talk to anyone and only breathe through my shirt and held my breath on the elevator, all to go and get films that the radiologist didn't even look at or ask me for! *sigh* I'm so done with all this. I can't wait until it's over and I don't have to deal with any hospital staff or doctors that don't listen or cold, rude receptionists or a compromised immune system or being babied or having to deal with all the questions and stories that people share with me just because I've had cancer. I can't wait until I'm just another face in the crowd again and my conversations get back to what they were and I get my independence back. That'll all be very nice.

Shawn's arm or chicken noodle? I could go either way

2007-11-15T09:32:00.000-05:00

It's now been a week since my 4th treatment. They've changed up my meds for the latter half of treatment, I'm now on Docetaxol. It was a much shorter day at the hospital last Wednesday. Craig came with me and I got in pretty much right away. They had a bed "pre-ready" for me, which was a first. Maybe because it's a new medication? Dunno, but not questioning it either! For this drug, I had to get the drip slowly at first so they can monitor any reactions. If I feel nauseous immediately or cold or if my heart races, yada yada yada, they need to be careful. Anyway, I had no reactions so they were able to open the drip and allow it to get into my veins faster. It only took just over an hour to administer as it was only one bag of drugs instead of a whole tray of bags and syringes, so in and out and home less than 3 hours after we left the house! Superb!
The first few days were uneventful; I thought maybe I was going to coast through this one, but I didn't want to celebrate until at least a week passed. I'm on more steroids with these doses; I have to take them for 3 days, 24mg a day of Dexamethasone! That's a lot! Just to put that in relative terms, a 'shock dose' of this drug is administered at 4 to 8 mg intravenously initially, to a total dose of 24 mg. I get that dose in one day for 3 days total!
Long term therapy would have you ingest only 0.5 to 1.5 mg per day. 1mg per day is body-building dose, which is a 24th of what I take orally in a day. So if this is the case, then we could logically state that a body builder would take an average of 1 mg a day for 64 days. 2 months to make it easy. So what someone looking to bulk up will take over 2 months is what I get in just 3 days. And this repeats every 3 weeks for me. Please take this in consideration when wondering how I've gained so much weight so quickly! It's said to avoid more than 1.5 mg daily, because serious side effects are more frequently encountered with higher doses. Some side effects? Here they are from my info sheet on this drug: Increased appetite leading to significant weight gain (check), muscle atrophy (check), negative protein balance, psychiatric disturbances including personality changes, irritability, euphoria, mania (certainly possible but I'd be the wrong person to answer this) hypertension, fluid and sodium retention, edema, dependence with withdrawal syndrome is frequently seen. This last one not so much, but let's talk about appetite. Raise your hand if you picture someone going through chemo as wrapped in a blanket on a rocking chair really sick and tired and sucking chicken broth through a straw which is usually forced by a care giver. Okay, fair enough, the same as I pictured too.
Now picture this.
On Saturday morning I woke up at about 6am. Before my eyes even opened, I was thinking about what to eat. I should let you know here that a part of that scenario isn't strange, ie: me waking up at the crack of dawn. I'm so annoying like that. I'm sure that most would be surprised to know I'm a chipper morning person. I wake up early every day, regardless of whether I need to work. Before this summer, I'd say waking up between 7:30am-8:30am on weekends was the norm. Now it's closer to 6:30am-7am. I get out of bed when Shawn goes to work during the week, which is about 6:45am. I don't want to, I just have no choice. I'm not able to go back to sleep once my mind starts, which it does every morning at this time. There are exceptions, such as today when I didn't get up until 8:50am and I'm in the best mood as I feel I've slept in! I've dealt with some type of imsomnia throughout my life so that's kind of prepared me for what I'm going through now. Not only do I wake up early, but I'm ready to start my day, I want to talk about everything and my mind races the most during this time, much to Shawn's dismay. It doesn't need to be said that morning and Shawn aren't friends; they just don't get along at all so they avoid each other. Okay, he has his days where he's got up early too, but he'll be affected by that grand gesture mid afternoon. I on the other hand don't nap, ever. I wish! Some people tell me that'll change later in my treatment or while undergoing radiation, but we'll see.
So, as usual, on this morning, my mind is going in a hundred different directions before my eyes open, and the streaming thought is: I want chicken noodle soup. Now. I want it now. Chicken noodle. A big steaming cup of it. The Lipton's kind that is really salty and comes in a package, not a can, with the little noodles. I need to eat that. Right now. Wait, it's not even light out yet! Doesn't matter; it's between the soup and Shawn's arm that is draped over me. I throw the covers off, grab Milo, head downstairs to prepare the coffee maker for Shawn (for 5 hours from now) and get the pot for soup out. Rip open the package, start the process. It's still dark outside, I'm not joking. I was ravenous and couldn't heat it up fast enough! Normally when I make this soup I'll beat an egg and add that during the last minute of cooking for extra protein and flavour, but no eggs today; there simply wasn't time! Just the soup. I was so happy and excited when I finally sat down on the couch and wrapped myself up in a blanket and spooned in the soup. It was so good! I finished all of it, the whole package, which is a litre of soup! It wasn't even 7am yet. I lay on the couch for the next few hours watching my recorded episodes of Grey's Anatomy while fighting with Milo for space. My dog is ridiculous. He's about 80lbs now and really believes he's a lap dog. It's no longer cute. He won't simply lie beside me, it has to be on top of me, but he does this in a way where you don't want to move him, let's out the big sigh while nuzzling into your neck. That's when it's cute, pictured here.

It's not when you get a paw across the face as he's digging his elbows (is that accurate canine terminology?) into your ribs, pictured more accurately here.

And he piles himself on top of you instead of beside you; an especially dangerous move while you're sleeping! I mean, there's room on the couch for two comfortably but with Milo it's 3 on the couch and only one of us -the non-human family member- is comfortable.

It's especially charming when guests come over to relax and unwind with a nap on the couch, pictured here with Carm.

Poor dog, he tries to compromise occasionally by simply working around us and is known to offer valuable insight into my work, pictured below with me.

Anyway, by 9am, I'm on the couch with Milo and I'm starving again. Now I'm thinking about the left over souvlaki I had from the night before. We got take out from the Ballroom (a bar Shawn used to frequent a lot) last night. They have awesome souvlaki, so we both ordered the large souvlaki with rice and roast potatoes. I used to order the small, but the quality of souvlaki isn't as good and I just make it two meals. Miraculously I didn't lick the plate last night so I still have some left (must've been thinking about dessert). It's not even double digits in the morning yet and I'm about to have my 2nd breakfast. Breakfast being an appetizer of 4 cups of chicken noodle soup followed by souvlaki, rice and roast potatoes. I'm trying to be deadpan while writing this, but how crazy is this to picture? This is my life and the consequence is my body image right now, but I can't deal with everything all the time. I didn't have any choices as far as I could tell either. It was about ingesting all of this or else turning to cannibalism. I've never had hunger like that ever! It was scary! Picture my hands wrapped around the plate of food similar to Gollum from Lord of the Rings looked while holding the ring or "his precious." Never seen the movie? Here you go (drawing taken from angryflower.com)

And it simply would not subside. I mean, right after I ate, I wasn't hungry, every time I felt sick and then thought okay, that'll be it for a long time. But the hunger would return a few hours later. This has gone on to a degree surrounding every treatment, but the last one was the worst! Why can't I crave salad and broccoli and oatmeal? It's just got to be carbs and meat, salt and sweet! *sigh* Carm will certainly have her work cut out for her in the New Year when I go to her and tell her to get all this weight off me! :P But it will happen, I have to be patient and get through my now and worry about my next year, well, next year.

On my Island with my Mandala

2007-11-04T12:29:00.000-05:00

So its now Saturday afternoon. We have all congregated back into the big hall and we're awaiting a doctor to come out and talk with us. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on him as a) I wasn't very impressed with his presentation and b) I want to write about my last workshop. The reason I say I wasn't impressed with the doctor would probably be the same reason I wasn't impressed with my Naturopathy presentation: both 'lectures' were given by Doctors and not presenters! The guy today was all about his way too small to read slides, and was extremely morose. My table was pretty upset by his presentation although I was mostly able to scoff at it and roll my eyes instead of get upset. He had these tiny nonsensical slides that were put up on a little off to the side screen with lines going all different ways and I really had to try and keep it together as I found it so dull and boring that it was almost entertaining. He talked about how important early diagnosis is and how we have to be the champion of our own lives, and I find myself again scoffing and now getting really angry about this. This talk brings me back to me walking into the mammogram office with a requisition from my Doctor and still being turned away; how on earth are we as young women supposed to get diagnosed early when even when there is something wrong we're turned away because of our age? We know that breast cancer is more aggressive in younger women and we also know that mammograms are frowned upon when you're under 40, so riddle me this? How do we fix this obvious disconnect? What I also didn't like was that we weren't warned about the information he was going to be sharing. A lot of pictures of surgeries and scars I didn't want to see and stats that I wasn't prepared to hear in this surrounding. No matter, they didn't really bring me down but I was more upset by the girls around me that were obviously distraught about it. The sobering part for me was the poll he decided to take. In this room of approximately 200 breast cancer survivors, he asked us to stand up if we were diagnosed under 25. Two women stood up. One was at my table. I think she was over 30 at this point, but had been diagnosed 3 times before her 30th birthday. The next group was the diagnosed under 30 group, and this is where I leave my seat. I don't think I wanted it affirmed at that moment that even in this room of this many people that are in the same boat as me, and even though this is the Young Women's Conference, I was still one of about 12 people if that, that stood up. I found that a hard stat to take in about myself. The reality that what I have is indeed extremely rare. Even the other women that stood up were much older than me; they weren't currently going through treatment and may have been diagnosed under 30 but were much older now. It was good to see that these women are here today of course, but made me feel that, even in this room where I fit in the most out of any other group, I'm still on an island, aren't I?

The rest of Saturday motored on, I met some more interesting people and the night was a dance party with Salsa Dancers in a lounge type setting with big plush white couches in big square sectionals so everyone could relax and chat and drink and eat and watch the dancing. Rethink Breast Cancer put this on it was a really good time, but I didn't stay too long as it was an emotionally draining day and I couldn't wait to go home and see Shawn and Milo as I hadn't been home since Friday morning.

It is now Sunday and I met up with the girls at breakfast, and we were hanging around, slacking as usual, until we realized that -yet again- we were running late for our next seminar. Tracy and I are heading off to 'Mandala: A reflection of self,' Katie's off to yoga and the others in our group went their own ways. When Tracy and I arrived, we peaked through the crack and realized it would be hard to sneak in as the group was already formed in a semi circle and we'd be walking right into the middle of it. As we're both goofing around trying to get the other one to go in first, this other lady comes around the corner, looks at us strangely and walks right in. So we pull ourselves together and follow suit. We're not sure what we've missed but we get into the circle and follow along. We are immediately thrown into a visualization which has us close our eyes, relax our bodies and listen to the instructor. Tracy and I decide not to sit beside each other as all we'll do is crack up the whole time, and we want to actually get something out of the experience! Just like yesterdays meditation class, I find this visualization really relaxing and calming. I liked it. We're told not to think too much about what our brain is envisioning, and I am able to simply let the words of the instructor take over and am seeing what I feel I am being told to see. The only way to describe this is that I envision this orb kind of top right of my vision. It pulsates and grows brighter and dimmer, brighter and dimmer, on and on. I feel a type of rush as I concentrate on this orb, as well as concentrate on what the instructor is saying, and I have a sense of floating deeper in my subconscious. I'm actually able to do this, unbeknownst to me. Then it is time to open our eyes. This is when I notice that behind us on tables are construction paper, crayons, pastels, markers, etc etc. Oh no, we have to get creative! NOT my forte! This must have been the part that I missed at the beginning, and now I'm a little panicked. I'm not artistically creative and am not looking forward to the next part, however I am willing to leave my comfort zone at the door and dutifully follow the instructions we are given, which is to grab whatever colours we need and go and draw what we saw in our minds eye. We have to draw our Mandala. I grab black, purple and green. I don't know what came over me, but I just simply went and sat down and started drawing. I'm amazed at how easy I found it and I'm also amazed that never once did I look around at what others were doing. I just started drawing.

Here is my Mandala.

A bit of background; a Mandala is sanskrit for "circle" or "completion," and is of Hindu origin, but is also used in other Dharmic religions, such as Buddhism. Its symbolic nature can help one "to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises." The psychoanalyst Carl Jung saw the mandala as "a representation of the unconscious self," and believed his paintings of mandalas enabled him to identify emotional disorders and work towards wholeness in personality. I've explained that last part as you'll need to understand that for what I'm about to share with you about my personal mandala.

We were then told to look at our Mandala's and write down words that came to mind when we looked at it, but were instructed to not think too deeply about it, just to put the words down. After that exercise, next to the words you've written, write a descriptive word. Here are my words and descriptions:

Dark - Night
Ethereal - Floating
Blurry - Vision
Cloudy - Sky
Spirit - Ghost - Booze
Black - Cat
Orb - Circle - Energy
Bubble - Pop
Grey - Milo - Weather
Moody - Dark - Black

Next we are to write a poem using the words we've just written down. This is not difficult for me so I simply write the poem using the words chronologically. We are then instructed to grab some tape and post our drawings on the wall. We are then going to go around the room and share what our Mandala's mean to us. This is pretty comical for me as I tape up my Mandala and this is where I see other people's drawings. Okay, I've obviously done this wrong and am now completely embarrassed by what I've drawn! Everyone else's is all sunshine and roses, with bright beautiful colours and drawings of family and unity and just really cheerful with vibrant colours. Scroll back up and take another look at mine!! Not quite cheery, is it? The truly comical part is that I'm one of the first to finish my poem and join the circle, so I've already posted my Mandala and as everyone else is coming to post theirs, I notice that mine is higher and to the right of everyone else's. No one wants their picture next to mine, ha ha! We were supposed to get the next portion of the class videotaped for some documentary on the conference, but we collectively decided that we didn't want the camera crew around for our sharing session, and I think in hindsight thank goodness we spoke up about this. This next portion is one that I'll never forget and in no way would've happened with cameras present. We start at one end of the semi-circle. The lady gets up and point to her Mandala on the wall and tells us a bit about it. She decides whether to share her poem or not. Some women do and some don't. We go through a few people and stop on one lady. She shares about her Mandala, and also tells us she doesn't have a poem but she has a song that is in her mind. She seems scared and emotional and it was sobering experience for us all. The instructor asks her what song and she states "You are my Sunshine." The instructor asks her if she wants to sing it and she I think is too embarrassed to break out in song in front of all these strangers. So the instructor starts us off. Now, this may seem like the most absolute hokiest thing in the world, and this is truly what I'm thinking in this room as well, but also simultaneously thinking that this may just be the most moving exercise I have ever been a part of! There is no longer a dry eye in the room, we're all digging our hands into the tissue box and passing it around laughing in spite of each other, while wiping our dripping faces. We continue around the circle and I'm listening to everyone share their stories of their Mandala's. I'm starting to panic as I truly have no idea what to say about mine! I didn't visualize family, friends, life; I only saw this orb pulsing in and out. What on earth do I say about it?! I'm at a loss as to why this is my drawing, but it has to be for a reason right? Why did I draw this? That is when I look back up at my drawing and it hits me like a ton of bricks. I know what it is! I know what I've drawn. My whole world seemed to rotate right then at that moment of realization and enlightenment. We are now only 2 people away from my turn to share, and I don't think I'll be able to get through what I just realized. I have drawn a blank and I'm pretty sure I must be as white as a sheet at this moment. We now get to me. I'm silent for a second. I don't get up. I simply point at my black sheep dark and gloomy drawing up in the right-hand corner. I state that the bleak and morose picture is mine, to which people laugh. I tell the room that I'm not an overly bleak person although you wouldn't get that from what I've drawn! I explain to them that just 10 seconds before this moment I realized what it is I've drawn. I start to explain to this room full of ladies that I am 29 and just diagnosed a few months ago. I tell them that I'm not angry about my diagnosis, I'm angry at what almost happened to me surrounding my diagnosis. I share about going for a mammogram and having a receptionist try and turn me away as it doesn't have to be said that I'm obviously way too young to have cancer. I tell them that that is where my resentment lies and where I funnel most of my negative energy. I tell them that I just realized that if you just simply turn my Mandala counter clockwise, I'm pretty sure I've drawn my mammogram. The room gasps. They see it too. That is the xray of my right breast and one that many others in this room have seen of themselves. That is what it looked like and it is so obvious to me that I have no idea how I didn't see it right away. Only that right now in this room of survivors, I have decided that now is the time to break down. I'm crying and so is pretty much everyone else. I get it together to read my poem, which goes like this:

It was a dark night
but I didn't take flight
The feeling was ethereal
I was floating but I just couldn't feel
My vision was blurry
but there is no hurry
The cloudy sky
was like ghosts floating through the night
My spirits were up
as I thought of Milo, my adorable grey pup
The energy was a circle; an orb
A bubble that couldn't be popped
It looked dark and black
yet the orb grew back
There's a sense of peace
I've allowed myself this release

There was some silence after my turn was over, some sniffling and some tears. I get this a lot with my age being what it is. I didn't know what to say and I just sat in this room and absorbed the strength from the women around me. It was my turn to allow others to support me, which I did and it felt right. I was able to gain composure, until of course Tracy gets up and talks about her son and what her Mandala means to her and her family. Thanks Tracy, I almost made it through the 2nd half! :)

I left this workshop a different person I think than when I went in, and I'll never forget that experience. I have reflected on it and have tried to bring my angers and fears about what almost was in that mammogram office and have decided to turn that experience into a positive one. I went in to look at the films again early this week, and I got the name of the doctor that owns that office. Can you believe these offices are privately owned by Doctors? And I did find out the reason that office doesn't do mammograms on women under 30 is because of dense breast tissue! I will do something about this and I'm glad to have made the first step of getting the owners name/number. I will get stronger and then I will decide what to do about that situation. Don't know what yet, but rest assured it will be something positive.

The conference ended later Sunday afternoon with more tears, more hugs and a lot of exchanging information. I made a lot of great contacts not only professionally but friendships that only having something like cancer can bring around so openly and deeply. I have met sisters that I can lean on when needed and can offer my support to as well. I met people who have influenced my life and I'd like to think that some feel the same way about me. It was a truly awe-inspiring weekend and I am so glad and so proud of myself that I did it and that I started the weekend alone, although 'alone' is certainly not the way it ended for me.

Workshops that I can finally relate to!

2007-11-03T23:04:00.000-04:00

After the anti climatic meeting of Dr. Marla, it was on to my next workshop. I knew it couldn't possibly be worse than the one from yesterday, and this one sounded more interesting. It was called 'Managing Your Cancer Journey: An Empowerment Course for Breast Cancer Survivors.' I really enjoyed this one, even though it was another emotional roller coaster. We were taken through a visualization exercise that almost knocked me off my chair. I was instructed to close my eyes, I listened to the speaker telling us to visualize a version of the person we see ourselves as in 2 years. Actually see the person you are to be. What does she look like? What's her name? What is she doing?

I was actually able to do this. I saw her. Me. The version of me 2 years from now. She was beautiful! She looked great physically which put me instantly at ease as it means that I finally do take care of myself and it obviously showed. She looked like she was enjoying life, I'm not sure how else to describe the look she had on her face. She just looked to be happy to be there, which was just in the hall of the convention area I was currently in at the hotel. Was she expecting me? Is she here because she remembers this meeting? She turns to face me expectantly and is now walking towards me. Quite a presence about her. (She walked with flair and confidence. What a sexy bee otch. Okay, Shawn just got in front of my computer when I left the room and the italics are his addition, lol!) She exuded a silent confidence and was looking right at me, as if expecting to see me standing there. She had an extremely peaceful look on her face. Not actually a smile, but a pleasant expression. It was her eyes that caught the breath in my chest. There was a light that you could see and all the emotions and struggles and victories this woman had faced were evident if you just looked in her eyes. She looked happy. When she got to me she had a little bit of a smirk. I didn't ask her about it as I didn't have to; she is after all still me. I knew she was smirking as she already knew what was going on in my head at that moment; utter disbelief and awe. I could hear the instructor tell us to ask your future self her name. My future self looked at me like that was a stupid question and simply stated, I'm you. We were told to ask what kind of wisdom our future self had for us. My future self replied: After you get through this treatment period in your life you will do what you need to do to get healthy. You will stop poisoning your body and stop jeopardizing your future and you will utilize the skills and knowledge you now have to every day better yourself one breath and one step at a time. I knew right then that she was right; she was obviously speaking from experience. She valued happiness, she knew that I was scared and disappointed with who I am but I now know I can and will change. I now have the knowledge that I've empowered myself to be better.
I must thank my future self. She made it easy for me to see that as hard as I am on myself today about not getting off the couch and still give in to my cravings, I'm still going through something very difficult, and right now, coping is the most important thing for me to get through. I will start my health journey once I get through this medicated and extremely trying period in my life. I will be able to lower my chance of recurrence by approx 30% with a healthy body weight and eating healthy. So I will do that, I'm not a masochist! I also know that I am okay to wait until my treatment is over to go full force. Don't get me wrong, I walk my dog, I get out of the house, I don't just sit around eating chips and processed food. I do cook for myself, I do eat greens and whole wheat pasta and rice etc and probiotic yogurt etc., but I know I can do better and I will. I've seen the results with my future self so the writing is already on the wall.
I liked this class. I didn't realize I could be so visual on command and this really helped me. After the visualization, we were to share our experience with a partner, but I found that hard to do. I was getting emotional about it and didn't really want to talk about it, so my partner shared her visualization first. I did share some of mine, but not all of it. The important thing was what I got out of it, not necessarily sharing it with a partner, so I did this sparingly.
After this class I was off to lunch, then to my next workshop on meditation. I really liked this class too! Tracy and I attended this together (we were a bit late as we were goofing around a bit after lunch) but this was an awesome class too! I've done meditation classes before, but I've always found it difficult to concentrate as my mind tends to wander and I end up spending the whole time thinking about not thinking. This class was different. It taught you to concentrate on everything going on around you, accept that you are thinking about it for a reason and move on. It teaches you to stay in the now, concentrate on your breathing, but also allow your mind to take in the sounds around you, not to block them out. I liked this way of meditating much better and easier to do and I felt so relaxed by the end of this class!
After being able to visualize myself and get some great advice and see that I looked great and happy in the future and then being able to clear my mind and have that period of relaxation, I'm loving this conference and this day of workshops and am now more than ready for the rest of my weekend adventure.

The BIG Meeting: Dr. Marla's in the House!!!

2007-11-03T08:37:00.000-04:00

After the fashion show, I went over to Carm's and stayed the night. I had to be up early for my next day of workshops and speakers and networking so Carm and I made plans to hang out on the Friday, which we did (with more wine). I didn't really talk too much to her about my day as I still hadn't even processed it myself, and right then I wanted to just hang out with my girlfriend, not go through what I'd just experienced. I needed to reflect internally before I could do that, which is why I'm writing it down. This blog is what I consider my internal reflection, even though you guys get to gain insight by reading this. We woke up at the crack of dawn, as usual. I love when Carm sleeps over or I sleep over at her place as we're both early risers regardless of the day, and we're also both at the same mental speed first thing in the morning. I say mental speed as I can't put myself on Carm's level as far as physical energy in the morning. I mean, I wake up and my mind races, but then I sit on the couch waiting for my coffee maker to brew and I debate on whether I'm taking Milo to the dog park for a really good walk, or simply over to the field for a quick run (him I mean, not me obviously). Carm on the other hand has legs that actually move as well as her brain, and if she's not teaching a class, she's heading to the gym for a workout or going for a run as she's training for marathon or tri or an upcoming mountain climb; you get the picture. So unlike waking up with Shawn who is every day like a bear waking after a season's hibernation and can only formulate one word answers on weekends until about 1pm, Carm and I can speed-talk away. I was lying in bed and Carm was on her computer, and before I had even opened my eyes yet, I'm telling her that I'm going to take her Dr. Marla book to the conference and get it signed for her. She turns around looking at me laughing, saying, 'where did that come from, are you still dreaming?' I'm like that in the morning though, my mind races before my eyes open. This has always been the way for me and yes it's annoying (for Shawn) but it's how I operate. I spring out of bed, we dance around to some tunes, get showered and ready and talk some more and both are out of the house by 7am.
I get to the conference and I'm a little foggy still (due to wine and going to bed about 5 hours ago) but I grab some coffee, some muesli and some fruit and go and sit at a table that is unoccupied. I am looking over the programs that are on the table, and I realize that Dr. Marla Shapiro will be speaking this morning. I'm pretty excited about this as you know. But first we're going to listen to a welcome address, and some other people (like heads of organizations regarding breast cancer). The seats at my table are being occupied, and I don't see the girls from last night, but I've now engaged in conversation with some more ladies and am in good spirits. The girl sitting next to me is asking me a lot of questions and she looks younger than me, but is actually 35 years old. Then to the stage walks the girl with the body paint from last nights fashion show. I'm all ears. She recounted her story, talked about having a lumpectomy and didn't have to go through treatment thankfully and she relayed her story in such a way that I was listening and very affected. I like her and if she wasn't in British Columbia, I'd approach her and want to know more and pretty much make her my friend. She's seems cool and again, is only a few years older than me. Anyway, after her, Dr. Marla gets announced and to the stage she walks. She talked just as she did in her book (and her book cover doesn't do her justice, she looks much younger and way prettier in person!) and I am again reliving her personal story just as I did when I read her book. Tears were streaming down my face all throughout her recounts, and the people at my table had obviously not yet read her book as they weren't crying before the story was relayed as they didn't know what would be coming next in her speech like I did. Her words were more inspiring in person I think, and I'm happy that I've brought Carm's copy of the book to have signed for her. I think the message that her book is not just for breast cancer survivors is important and I'm glad I'm going to get to tell Dr. Marla that the book is not for me, it's for someone who is on my support team. I'm now thinking I better pull it together as the book signing will be soon and how am I going to manage to say to Dr. Marla what I've come here to say if I'm blubbering? I will not embarrass myself that way, so now all thought is going into creating and rehearsing this quick speech I'll have to give her as she's signing Carm's book. There were other speakers (including one from a semi-famous Canadian Journalist Libby Znaimer) but I'm really trying to concentrate on formulating the sentences I came here to say. My internal speech goes something like this:
"Hi, Dr. Marla, I don't want to tell you that you've been an inspiration to me as I think you'd roll your eyes internally at that, but what I do want to say is that I stubbornly didn't pick up one of the many copies of your book I've received since my diagnosis as I really didn't believe you'd be able to offer me any insight. I thought I had everything figured out that needed to be and I wasn't at a point of reaching out and relating to others. However, I had a low point and I picked up your book. What I want to say is that I read it cover to cover in one day, and for that one day, you made my having cancer easier for me. I've received now multiple signed copies of your book from my friends, so I'd like you to sign this one for my friend Carmen who is not a cancer survivor but is still getting inspiration from your book."
I practiced it while waiting in line and seeing her look up and smile at everyone, and the lump in my throat was so huge, but I was determined to say something she'd remember or at least smile at.

Here is what came out:
"It's not for me, it's for my friend Carm. I have a bunch of signed copies of your book so I wanted to have you sign it for someone who supports me."

That's it. That's all I had. How sarcastic did that come across? I made it sound like I'm so bored of her book that I'm just doing it for someone else instead. Good grief, she didn't even look at me!!! She checked out my name tag and said 'Kelly' as she looked back down at the book I handed her as I was saying "It's not for me..." She signed the book and then one of the organizer's came over to her and was whispering in her ear so she was distracted and looking over me, never once at me. I just took the book and walked away. I can only laugh at this. Who am I to have an opinion on this act of indifference? I'm brutal when it comes to looking at people I don't know in the eye (why is that?) and I'm pretty blase to most that aren't my friends, so I can't possibly allow myself to be so hypocritical to form an opinion on her brief actions. They weren't bad, it certainly wasn't her fault that I'm a tool and couldn't say anything even remotely of interest! But there it is, my extremely anti-climatic 'meeting' of Dr. Marla Shapiro. Anyway, I'll bet I'll meet her again one day through one of my many future events so I'm picturing us having a good laugh about it in the future and me telling the story to a group of women who've experienced breast cancer about how I first came across Dr. Marla's name and she'll be out in the crowd laughing at how hilarious I am because at this point we'll be good friends. This fantasy is easier to think about than the reality behind me blowing it, so I'm sticking with those thoughts. I can't help that I'm much more eloquent on paper than I am in person; what do you do?

The Most Powerful of Emotions yet

2007-11-02T18:07:00.000-04:00

The reception was outside the room where we were to have dinner in. I had decided to attend this conference alone even though many of my friends as well as family members had offered to come with me. I wanted to experience this by myself as I wanted to be able to choose whether to be anonymous or vocal, and decide to cry and share emotions if I felt like it or not. I didn’t feel that I’d be able to do this as honestly if I had someone with me and I also knew that I’d never talk to anyone else if I had a familiar face by my side. That would defeat the purpose of this weekend to me, so I decided I’d be on my own. I'm standing outside the hall we’d be having dinner in and looking at all the people who were paired off or in big groups while I was standing there pretending to be preoccupied with the reading materials I held in one hand (the other hand housing a big glass of Chardonnay) that I had just a minute before grabbed so that I could in fact pretend to be preoccupied. I realized that maybe being on my own was a bad idea. Everyone but me seemed to be talking to other people. Now, don’t get me wrong, I could very well have been talking to people by this time, however, let’s remember who we’re talking about; Miss Unapproachable. Some people have that look that says ‘I’m open to conversation’, where I just don’t and can't seem to even drum up a look close to that. How do I re-hardwire myself to have this? When someone would glance at me expectantly, I would simply give a half smile and immediately redirect my gaze while losing the smile. Even when I’m trying to be cognizant of this and not do it I still do it. So here is my penance for such an attitude. I’m standing in a sea of people with no one to speak to. There is one other girl also pretending to be distracted by the exhibits while holding a pint of beer. A few times I glance at her to see if she’s going to look over at me, and I tell myself that I WILL put a smile and an ‘approach me!’ look on my face if she does at any point make eye contact, but of course she doesn’t and I probably would’ve looked away had she anyway. Now we’re being funnelled in to the hall for dinner so that awkward time is finished, thank goodness. This is a big room and it’s just now that I realize my next hurdle will be where on earth to plant my ass for dinner. Again, everyone has already seemed to connect with people and here I am walking around by myself while trying to give off the ‘this is on purpose’ vibe, and realize that I will have to ask someone if it’s okay to sit at their table. Mortifying concept to me as I’m normally in the position where someone else has to ask me that, and yet here I stand. I pass by all the tables up front by the stage as they are all too animated and full of groups of lively people, and continue to the back where I see a woman sitting at a table by herself. I ask, can I sit here? She nods appreciatively and I take a seat but don't even engage her in conversation although I'm appreciative to have finally anchored myself somewhere. I start to relax as I finally have a place to look around and take it all in without the distraction of worrying about who is forming an opinion on the loser-by-herself. As I look around this room, I still feel out of place. Most of these women are still much older than me (including the woman seated at the other side of the table), even though this is the Young Women’s Conference. I watch the pint of beer girl from earlier make her way towards my table. She must be around my age, but she is actually with 3 other girls also around my age, so she wasn’t looking for someone to talk to earlier, she had simply been waiting for the people she knew. I’m back to being the only loner in the room, lucky me. I guess as people have travelled from other places they’ve met up with people either on a bus or a plane or have car pooled or have been roomed with someone or have made friends from the first workshop etc etc. Anyway, they stop at the table next to mine and I hear them ask if they can sit (I'm studiously looking over my 'no fish or seafood' card), and at the same time a lady is asking me if the seat next to me is taken. I say of course not, please sit down in my friendliest of voices. Then as I look to my right, the group of four cool-looking chicks is now taking up the seats at my table, just to my right. Not sure what happened at other table. I guess all the seats were taken, which worked out just perfectly for me! I start to perk up. Joining us to complete the circle were one lady from Quebec and another local. This table is actually quite a rockin’ table and I’m right in there talking away and sharing stories and getting more wine and relating to these girls. The pint girl is actually named Tracy and she and I seem to be the only 2 bald chicks at this conference. There are a lot of wigs but not a lot of scalps. I did wear my wig to the workshop but when I went to my car to grab my laptop before dinner I chucked it in the back seat. In this room if I can’t be myself then I’m in trouble! Tracy just finished her last chemo treatment last week and is talking about her adorable son (I later saw pics and he is so cute!) and some of the other women with kids start to chat about the family aspect of diagnosis. Katie, who is directly to my right, is sharing her story with me and asking me all these questions that only another ‘survivor’ could formulate and her and I are chatting away amicably and even though I have no answers for her as I'm so uneducated with cancer-lingo, I’m by now in my element. By the time the main course has come, we’re all joking around and talking over each other and having a great old time sharing war stories and some of the funnier elements of a cancer diagnosis. Finally I can make my wise cracks and have people actually laugh at my cancer humour as opposed to reacting with sympathy or looking at me like I’ve got 3 heads for saying such awful things! I finally hear “you think that’s bad, listen to this!” comments. They were so welcomed, believe me!
The meal was great, and we’ve had dessert (and more wine) and are now watching this lady that has brought up on stage a single chair. The after dinner entertainment was a woman named Nancy and she does a monologue regarding a cancer diagnosis but she does it as many different characters. Katie and I both found her hilarious and are literally crying we are laughing so hard. I snorted a few times I’m afraid; it was hilarious, honestly! Finally hearing that I’m not the only person in the world that laughs at herself in spite of cancer was such a great feeling. And the jokes about other people’s reactions to you having cancer were bang on too. The whole crowd is laughing which further validates that I am not alone in my way of thinking.
I am enjoying this night so much. The next part would prove to be the clincher though. The fashion show. I got chills just writing those words as I know what is about to come in this post.
So, we’re now all turned eagerly toward the stage awaiting the night’s entertainment; the big fashion show. This is comprised of all breast cancer survivors and they are modeling not only different outfits, but hats and bra’s and bikinis and body paint and skin. There is a runway and to either side of the runway were two big screens. Before taking to the runway, the model poses for a second behind this curtain so that all you see is her silhouette. As she stands behind the curtain, on the 2 screens comes her story in her words, talking about type of cancer, age, etc. The music crescendos as she is standing there and as she walks out, on the screen is her message or reflection on what having cancer has meant to her. It is all positive and most talk about not allowing cancer to invade their lives. They are dragon boaters and people that exercised all throughout chemo and mothers and daughters etc etc. I realize that as strong as I may think I am, I cannot even put myself in a category close to these beautiful warriors. I am unable to hold any type of composure during this show. I don’t care to either. I am crying out loud and cheering as loud as I can and clapping and whistling and just exuding every possible emotion there is, along with the other 200 people in the room. These women, I mean, what can I say?! You wanna talk strength? Try walking out on this runway, being a cancer survivor, not a model, and walking out from behind that curtain to face strangers and you’re wearing a beautiful one-shouldered dress while the other shoulder is decorated in body paint, with a string of daisies painted not only over your shoulder, but over your mastectomy scar. That’s right. These women got on stage with their surgery scar fully exposed but not really obvious as it is covered up by paint. Talk about courage! Talk about true strength and adversity! To be able to do that to me is pure courage and strength and a BIG F.U. to cancer in my eyes. I can’t even begin to describe the awe I am in after watching these women take the stage. Behind the curtain now stands 4 women; they look to be varied in age from child to adult. You can tell there is a bride behind there. On the screen comes the story of a woman who has dealt with 3 diagnoses of cancer and has 3 daughters varied in age from child to teenager. It talks of worrying about her daughters futures not only as there is a huge liklihood that they will also have to face this disease, but it also talks about her wish to be there when her daughter's walk down the aisle. Out from behind the curtain then comes a young flower girl, the runway acting as a chapel aisle. Next is a girl slightly older acting as a bridesmaid. Then curtain lifts just as the screen is finishing her story to reveal two women facing each other. One is the mother and the bride is actually her 14 year old daughter dressed up as a bride, complete with veil and flowers. She gets to today walk this young girl down the aisle. The unwritten message is clear: she may not be able to do this on the actual day of her daughters wedding but she can do this right now and that is what she does. I can’t even contain myself writing it so imagine how I was actually witnessing this! And sitting at a table of young mothers who I know for certain are picturing their own daughters and their own fates. I’m not a mother so this is where I think of my mum and wonder how often she thinks of her chances of watching me carry out this dream and whether we’ll all be able to get to that moment in our own lives. This is pretty much the most emotional experience I have ever been a part of and as hard as it is to go through it, I am so very thankful I chose to stay. Up next comes my favourite part of the night; she’s a girl, not much older than me. She is behind the curtain while her inspiring story of adversity comes up; she walks slowly down the stage with a wrap on that she holds tightly to her body. As she gets to the end of the runway, at the peak of the song, she whips her robe to the floor with her head held high and is completely topless, with both her boobs exposed! Only body paint drawn to resemble armour is evident. When she turns around she has wings drawn on her back. I decide right then and there that I want to do that. I want to be able to one day get on stage and whip off my top like that and expose only body paint. I want to experience that kind of strength of will and self confidence one day. I never ever in my life have had the urge to appear topless in front of anyone, so this is a huge paradigm shift in my personal reflection. I want to host a fashion show like this in the future and have the proceeds go to breast cancer. This will be one of my many future efforts, trust me. That show may even end in me getting topless, so I’ll keep you posted with a date and address. Keep a Friday night in 2009 open for it until further notice (it'll take that long to get the body I'll need to carry out this newfound dream). I will never forget this show. It’s my first fashion show and it left me hungry for more. I can’t help but look up to these woman and cherish their stories, and I can’t help but yearn to be a part of something like that in the future.

I will, believe me.

2008 Weekend to End Breast Cancer fundraising

To make a donation to my walk, go to: http://www.endcancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Toronto2008?px=2411404&pg=personal&fr_id=1254
To join my team, go to: http://www.endcancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Toronto2008?team_id=56176&pg=team&fr_id=1254

Naturopathy and Me: Oil and Water

2007-11-02T09:11:00.000-04:00

I went to the conference after having lunch with my dad. My first workshop was scheduled for 3pm. I signed up for the workshop titled: The Naturopathic Protocol and Self Drainage Massage. I decided to finally learn what all the fuss was about as so many people tell me I should look into it. I can now at the very least say I have looked into it and am now informed on why I'll never be able to participate in this way of life. I'm sorry but I find it pretty ridiculous. First of all, the speaker kept referring to the prevention of breast cancer, which pissed me off. I'm guessing she meant preventing the recurrence of breast cancer, but she didn't say that and I could tell that there were others in the room full of people who are past the point of 'prevention' that were equally quizzical (skeptical) about this. We started with a massage, and basically it's just rubbing yourself gently around the lymph nodes to foster stimulation and this one I'm sharing so you can have the visual, but we all grab our breasts and jiggle them while tilting our heads and arch our back. Apparently this flushes fluid or something, I dunno.
Next comes the handout titled Breast Health Balance Sheet. Ha ha, these sheets are great. Basically a few sheets that have two columns; one called risk factors and the other is protective factors. There are also a few headings. I share some of these along with my thoughts.
First, there are the obvious ones (diet, exercise, genes) so it wasn't all ridiculous, I do want to say that as I know some people are devout followers of naturopathic medicine and I'm not questioning the science or the benefits physically/emotionally behind it. I question a persons ability to actually practice it in the truest sense. I'll give you some risk factors that can increase your risk of getting cancer so here goes:

No Children, or having children after you're 30
Not breast-feeding
Aging
some types or Anti-cancer drugs (yup, that's right)
mercury fillings (you should get these changed to ceramic)
root canals
Breast Implants (reconstruction after surgery wasn't addressed)
Hair dyes
Tight-fitting bra (mastectomy bras are supposed to fit tight)
Sleeping with a light on at night
Early age when you got your period
Flying frequently
Exposure to radiation (no cooking ever in a microwave and never use a cell phone and stay away from computers and all devices)
Sleeping within 2 1/2 ft of electrical devices (TVs, radio, alarm clock etc.)
Live in industrialized area
Exposure to gas stations
Use an electric blanket
Use of chemicals or industrial cleaners
Use plastics (???)
Eat meat weekly
Use dairy products
Eat sweets, sugar
Drink Coffee
East mostly cooked food
High salt intake
Feel alienation
Deny, bury repress on hold on to anger
Stress and inability to relax
Lack of a sense of purpose
Lack of joy
Loss of faith
Foiled creative fire
Ignoring your intuition

Okay, you scared? Confused? Imagine how I felt in this room with this hand out while the speaker is simply listing these off. By the way, I've listed about 15% of the actual list which was 3 pages front and back. I'm not even going to list the preventative column as it's just as realistic as the risk factors column (examples quickly of how to prevent cancer are laughing, creative expression, use all natural drugs instead of any chemicals, never eat food stored in plastic, use anti-aging supplements, use seaweeds for thyroid issues, avoid alcohol, go braless, eat all organic, have more than one baby, have 2 or more bowel movements a day, do a parasite cleanse, eat 50-85% raw food, take relaxation breaks, express your grief, go to a spiritual counseling, develop a meaningful life)

Okay, so there you go, get out there and start your life of avoidance and paranoia. Don't go near anywhere that uses chemicals, don't ingest anything that has been stored in plastic and let's stop here for a sec. We finally have some activity in the room on this point. The question is to please name some products that are not stored in plastic. One lady states she actually does eat ALL organic, yet points out that everything she buys is still stored in plastic. The speaker says yeah, yeah, uh huh, nods, her head, says its a challenge, and moves on. Priceless.

Next we talk about drinking water and how that, along with 15 cups of organic green tea a day (if it's not organic than pesticides are used therefore non-organic green tea is bad for you) is what you should ingest as far as liquid. Oh, but don't buy water as it's stored in plastic and plastic seeps into your food and drink. Some are worse than others and I don't remember what components are worse but just don't drink bottled water, unless it comes in glass, which none does. You can use a filter so long as it's stainless steel. None are. Don't use a Brita as it's a plastic jug. Sleep in the complete dark as being exposed to light while your melatonin levels are up in the middle of the night can increase your risk of getting cancer. However, you can reset your menstrual cycle by sleeping with the moonlight on you. Really? Really?

I'll stop there as you get the picture. I'm not meaning to bash Naturopathy. I agree that we as people are meant to live closer to nature than we do. We are to mimic the way of the plant to be completely healthy and is your best defense against many many diseases, but moving away from every modern convenience (but don't move to a farm as that too can increase your risk of getting cancer) is impractical. I think what she told us in that class was especially ridiculous as she didn't answer any of the real questions that came up. She pointed out that it would be hard to live without ingesting anything stored in plastic and we should write letters to our MPs on the topic to get packaging changed to not use plastic. Then she'd move on to keep reading her list of risks and preventions. I could hardly contain myself in the back row. I kept trying to look around to see if I had anyone along with me that were obviously in the wrong room, but all I could see were the backs of heads.

At the end of this almost 2 hour seminar that I found irrelevant to living in our modern world, I had a break to walk around and look at exhibits (not too much of interest in all honesty) and then I had about another hour and a bit before the reception would start. I was already bored and fed up. I had gone through the exhibits in about 10 minutes and had nothing else to do. Most people attending the conference were from out of area so they were staying at the hotel. I debated just going home and calling it a day. All I could do was sit around the lobby and chat on my phone and read through my pamphlets, which I did. I bitched to some of my friends and Shawn about how bored I was and I may not choose to stay for the whole weekend of events as so far I wasn't all that impressed.

That was about to all change.

2008 Weekend to End Breast Cancer fundraising

To make a donation to my walk, go to: http://www.endcancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Toronto2008?px=2411404&pg=personal&fr_id=1254

To join my team, go to: http://www.endcancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Toronto2008?team_id=56176&pg=team&fr_id=1254

My Compromised Equilibrium

2007-11-02T08:10:00.000-04:00

I went to the Young Women's Breast Cancer Conference that was held over the weekend at the Sheraton Downtown Toronto. I'm still recovering. I wasn't able to write all weekend so now I'm trying to recollect all my adventures to share, but since yesterday it's been hard for me to know where to start as the ram in my brain is at absolute full capacity and now I simply must purge.
Let's go back to the beginning.
On Friday, I headed downtown at about 1:30pm, parked at the Sheraton and then walked down to Front St. to have lunch with my dad. I try to go and see my dad when I'm downtown for appointments at the hospital, etc. so we agreed to meet up and he'd take me for lunch. I really wanted to go to his office and thank all his coworkers who donated to my fundraising for my walk. I told my dad about signing up for it early which I did because I want to make sure I'm commited to it and also because I'm so competitive and I wanted to be on the top fundraisers home page, even though I know that not many other walkers have started their efforts yet. I told him first before I sent any emails out over facebook or even told anyone that I'd registered. I believe I'm currently #3 on this top fundraising home page which happened hours after I registered, thanks to my dad and his co-workers. They have, between 5 of them, contributed $3500 towards my walk! Again, the generosity of strangers is hard for me to fathom and process. These 4 people that work with my dad care enough about him to do that for me. Some of them have been affected in their lives by this disease and simply contributed as it truly is something that affects so many people in such a plethora of ways; I see that more and more even though cancer wasn't something that had touched my life a whole lot pre-diagnosis. It's unbelievable to me and I am truly awestruck by that kind of generosity as well as extremely thankful and humbled. I'm thankful to all who have donated to that walk as well as all that may not have been able to financially contribute but have offered me words of support and appreciation. Thanks to all of you as well.
Anyway, I'm walking along downtown, taking it all in, but still walking with purpose with my standard fixed glare straight ahead, weaving in and out of the people. It's a nice day for a brisk walk, I'm already looking forward to the rosti (like a potato pancake served with sour cream) I'm going to order from Marche, which is where we always go when I'm meeting my dad and is what we both always order (he gets his rosti with a chicken schnitzel); creatures of habit. I'm heading down the busy sidewalk, I'm under one of those construction walkways where you're shuffled through this small alley of wooden walls on one side with signs stapled all over them and metal piping on the other, and whoa! Stepped on a crack and kissed the pavement with a loud slap of both palms. Thankfully, wig and hat are still securely on my head, but my head jerks around to the gasps behind me, and I say, 'uhhh, watch your step' and get up and keeping going without turning around again as I know my face is purple. I try not to get embarassed by this any more as I fall way too often now to harbour resentment about it. I do fall on my ass all the time now and this has to be because of chemo. I'm at the dog park and bam, on the ground and I fall up stairs frequently too. I had a good one falling up the stairs at the subway with my mum, spilled my just opened really good tasting Tim Horton's extra large coffee all over the place in the process. I was clumsy before, don't get me wrong, but this is getting a tad ridiculous. I will no longer wear heels; just runners as it's too dangerous otherwise! It's not alarming I don't think as I'm not blacking out first or getting dizzy; I just simply have lost the ability to balance myself unless concentrating on it.
I now have sore palms and dirty jeans, but other than that, no harm no foul. I get up, keep going and a few minutes later I'm on the 24th floor to see my dad. He gives me a hug and a kiss at reception and we start walking through his office. He says, "Do you want to go to the bathroom first?" I look at him quizzically, state I don't have to use the bathroom, and my dad delicately tells me I may need to wash my face as I 'look warm.' Puzzled, I go into the bathroom; I wasn't feeling hot, I was wearing my wig and a hat, but wasn't feeling hot. My reflection on the other hand showed a girl who had just either run a marathon in a snow suit or had just got out of the pool and hadn't toweled off yet. I was dripping sweat and my face was red and shiny and wet. It was my turn to gasp. Forced menopause is a very weird thing for a 29 year old to experience. I've had the hot flashes followed by the chills, but this was a little severe. I make a mental note to ask about this over the weekend, wipe off, fan myself for a minute, stick some paper towels in my jeans pockets, then I fixed myself up and went and enjoyed lunch with my dad.

To make a donation to my walk, go to:http://www.endcancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Toronto2008?px=2411404&pg=personal&fr_id=1254

To join my team, go to:http://www.endcancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Toronto2008?team_id=56176&pg=team&fr_id=1254

Is it 'acceptable' to use having cancer as a benefit where applicable?

2007-11-01T10:35:00.000-04:00

I’m on the subway heading downtown to attend the Look Good, Feel Better Program. If you’ve been following my journey through this blog, you’ll be chuckling in spite of yourself right now undoubtedly. I decided to attend this program once and for all. They still have not moved into the room they’re supposed to that was featured on Breakfast Television, but they are working out of the research building next to the hospital as opposed to a small trailer where I thought they were temporarily housed, and it apparently has a lot of room to work in. Besides, I was under the impression that this program was more one on one that it actually is. I was picturing a workshop where some wig expert was going to sit with me and fix my wig for me so I may actually where it without throwing a hat over it. I’d like to be able to attend some fancy gala if I choose to or even go to work without a hat or something, but I just don’t feel comfortable with the look without the cover of a hat. Anyway, this workshop I’m attending is more watch ‘n’ learn from what I was led to believe by the volunteer who called me yesterday. And I get a bag full of free make up etc. to boot so I’m all about it now. Scoff all you want; I’m getting free make up goodies today and most likely you’re not so laugh it up.

I have made reference over the last few days to people about some perks of having cancer and undergoing treatment. This is appalling to people that have never heard someone with cancer speak candidly I guess, but I’m pretty sure I’m not alone on the following sentiment: I will use having cancer and going through chemo and being bald etc to my advantage, and I’m unapologetic about that. I have been significantly disadvantaged by getting cancer, therefore if I can turn anything about having it to my advantage, I most certainly will, full force and without apology or a care for how that is perceived.
I was talking to my girlfriend the other day about a possible business venture that she’s been conjuring up, and we were talking about the sales pitch during a face to face meeting. I told her that I’d probably walk in to the meeting and tell them to excuse the hat as I’m undergoing chemo and am wearing a wig. I certainly wouldn’t want them to think that I was simply being unprofessional by waltzing in front of execs with a cap on so I’d start the meeting by explaining that I was undergoing chemo and was wearing a wig I was uncomfortable wearing without a hat so please excuse my appearance. I told my friend that at the very least they wouldn’t forget us, regardless of whether I walked in bald or with a hat/wig combo and going through chemo doesn’t have to be all bad! She looked at me a little funny at that which made me chuckle a bit to myself. It also made me reflect on what I’d just said. Is it bad to think like that? Sorry, dumb question. Is it normal to think like that? It is human nature, isn’t it? Is it different only because I’ll fully admit to that line of thinking? If I’m in sales and going in to do a presentation and I think an advantage I have right now over representatives also launching their products is that I’d be more memorable because I’m going through cancer, which may have them really look at my product thoroughly as they’d feel obligated to, is that a horrible thing to think? I’d love to say that with cancer I would love to be treated just like everybody else, but that simply is not the case in our world today, and I’m okay with that more and more each day (what choice do I have?) People do stare and look away quickly or watch you when they think you’re not looking, so people do view you differently as you are physically. I accept that, regardless of what I personally think about it. So under that same line of thinking, I should be able to use my different physical appearance to any benefit I can find, no? I think I get to swing the pendulum the other way and view myself as unique because of cancer and chemo and learn how to better myself in all ways because of it. I’ve earned that I’d like to think.
I was also talking to Carm who may launch her own studio in the next little while (a lifetime dream of hers) and I was telling her I’d do the marketing with her as I enjoy marketing, I’m good at it and I can help her in this area for sure. One idea for the marketing was surrounding my getting in shape after treatment. And we’re just talking at this point, and fantasizing about dreams, nothing more. But when she does launch her new business, I’m going to be her pet project as she is planning on training me back to strength after this anyway as she’s my friend and wants to do this for me, so why not do a marketing campaign surrounding my weight loss journey? The before picture would look pretty rough but the after picture (I presume hopefully) will be superb! That way when she does launch her fitness studio, she’ll have my whole experience as a ‘results’ angle and validation. She’s even going to get her Pink Ribbon Certificate (a certification to train women after surgery, treatment etc). She does know what she’s doing as far as training as she’s been doing it her whole life, and now she wants to get specialized to help other survivors too. She didn’t see any issue with my marketing campaign idea, however when I was telling another friend about Carm opening this studio and my plan with using the weight loss journey after cancer as a marketing tool, I didn’t get a positive reaction. I got a “Kelly, you can’t use what you’re going through as a marketing tool!” I challenge this. Why can’t I? It would be okay if I didn’t have cancer but was overweight and chronicling my weight loss with the help of a trainer and use that, but not when I do have cancer as it looks like I’m using a diagnosis of cancer to help out my friends business? I am doing that; it doesn’t just appear that way! Why is that wrong? I’m sorry I just am not hard-wired to be that sensitive I guess. Why would I not want to show other cancer survivors how I lost the weight when I eventually do? Why would I not want to show other people what I used to look like (bald and overweight) and what I do now (slim, trim with luscious hair) with the help of a trainer? Isn’t that viewed as inspiring as opposed to taboo? People puzzle me sometimes, honestly.

Okay, I’m now on the subway after leaving the Look Good, Feel Better program and man, am I ever glad I attended that! Remember this was the program I felt that I wasn’t meant to do? I’m such a tool, honestly. That was an awesome 2 hours! First of all, I immediately got asked to be the make up model, which I gladly did as the professional applied my make up for me, which was cool. It was a little funny at the beginning as right before she was going to start the workshop and in front of everyone she asked me if I wouldn’t mind removing my hat. As you guys would know, removing my hat means my hair also must go, so I said, “sure” and whipped off hat and hair and stuck it under the table. This got a whoop of surprised laughter from the room as well as the instructors and volunteers. Not everyone in that room has undergone treatment, so many of those women were pleasantly surprised that I have even been wearing a wig so that was quite an ice-breaker. I’m glad to have helped ladies! :) So she applied my make up with the kit that you are given when you get there and omigoodness the loot I now have! I got every wicked product out there, we’re talking lotion, toner, make up remover, 4 lipsticks/liner/gloss/polish face cream shadow mascara and on and on. And ladies; we’re talking Lancome and Clinique quality, not Bonne Bell and Cover Girl! I am now armed with a box of free product so that alone was worth the trip downtown. The 2nd segment is done by Zhane (wig boutique owner I think) and it focusing on wigs and head coverings etc. and again, yup, you guessed it, I’m modeling for that too. I’m telling you, being young has its advantages! If I gotta go through this, at the very least I get compliments all over the place from older women that I meet going through cancer along with me, or from volunteers. I’m a wise ass by nature so they get a kick out of me I think. It was cool today as I got to see many different styles of wigs on myself as well as funky head covering and cool tips on how to style them. After leaving the fashion show, I realized that my wig is actually quite awesome; it’s just not styled properly for me. I’m attending this Young Women’s Conference this weekend so hopefully I’ll be able to figure something out as far as styling there. Unfortunately Princess Margaret salon doesn’t do wig styling, which sucks as I just assumed when I had time I’d go there to get it done; no such luck. I gotta now investigate further; much research will be conducted. It’s not like picking a hair stylist, which is hard enough. This is a very expensive piece of merchandise to which I don’t have the luxury of keeping positive about a bad hair cut. There’s no “Oh well, it’ll grow back’” positive thinking here. It’s more “Buddy, you owe me $1200!” I need to choose a wig stylist wisely. Today I ended up talking to an older lady who I really enjoyed and she’s about to start her treatment. Even though in her words, she’s “old enough to be my Grandmother,” her and I bonded. She has her first treatment on Wednesday, the same day as I’ll be there for my 4th treatment and she had a ton of questions. She looked scared and I think I set her at ease a little with my answers. And here I am being all discriminatory about age and how I don’t want to meet people “old enough to be my Grandma” yet I totally related to this women as she did me and I really think I helped her, which in turn helped me. I’ve learned a very valuable lesson today from that, rest assured.

So tomorrow (Friday) I’m off to the Conference. I’ll write during it and post it all after the weekend. I’m hoping that I’ll really enjoy this weekend and feel really good about myself that I finally took the step of talking with other women my age going through this, but we’ll see. You’ll hear all about it either way, I promise.

You've Followed my Journey so now I hope you will Support it

2007-10-30T08:54:00.000-04:00

On September 5-7, 2008 I'll be participating in a very special event called The Weekend to End Breast Cancer.
I'll walk 60 kilometres over the course of one weekend with thousands of other women and men. The net proceeds will support breast cancer research, treatment, and services through the Princess Margaret Hospital, the very same hospital where I receive my treatment.
I've agreed to raise at least $2000, but I've set my personal goal at $3200 (UPDATE - since the time of registering and posting this blog which was this morning, my girlfriend Kelly has now joined my team to walk with me and made fun of my personal goal; she set hers to $5000 and so now I've had to change mine as to not be upstaged; I'm just waiting for Carm to come right over the top of both of us!). So I need your help. Use the link at the bottom of this, and please go visit my site - and please take the time to support me. Keep in mind how far I'm walking - and how hard I'll have to train too! ;p
According to the National Cancer Institute of Canada, approximately 20,500 Canadian women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and about 5,400 will die from the disease. That's why I'm walking. That statistic is also why I'm already starting my fund-raising efforts a year in advance as it's very important for me to keep setting those long distance goals all throughout my life. Here is the first one since diagnosis. I hope that you'll share this incredible adventure with me - by supporting me in my fundraising efforts.
Thank you in advance for your support and if any of you dare to do this with me, you can join my team "Kelly's Journey" and you can start your own fundraising efforts and walk alongside me during what is guaranteed to be an emotional yet uplifting and truly rewarding experience.
I understand some views on this walk; some people feel very strongly against the mandatory fundraising amount. You see, in order to walk in this event, you must raise a minimum of $2,000. I can see the argument for some that it is unfair to put a dollar amount on fundraising efforts and to stop people from participating as they aren't able to picture themselves raising that amount, but I'm sorry, I can completely understand why there is a minimum and I am so grateful there is. If walkers just walked for the spirit of it, that is a wonderful sentiment, however how much money would be raised if you had no specific goal? Would they have had raised 17 million last year (and the millions and millions all the years before that) without that minimum? Princess Margaret -and please trust that I of all people can attest to this- has the facilities and programs that other hospitals just don't have the funds to offer, hence the reason I travel downtown to get treated there. They have a section of the hospital next to the breast clinic WEBC Survivorship Centre that conducts support programs, information sessions, exercise classes, support, information, etc, etc, etc. This is made possible only because of the funds raised during this annual event. Those initials stand for Weekend to End Breast Cancer.
100% of all donations go directly to Princess Margaret. Proceeds from the event are invested in leading-edge breast cancer research, prevention and screening programs, as well as education, care and other critical breast cancer initiatives. In addition, The Princess Margaret pays for the costs of the event, most of which come from resources right here in Toronto.

So I do support the idea of a $2k minimum as it directly supports me and what I am going through and what I will continue to go through so even though raising the $2k may inhibit you from wanting to walk beside me, I do hope that it won't hinder your ability to help me through a donation for me to walk and support this initiative.

My team name is Kelly's Journey and you can visit http://www.endcancer.ca/ for more information as well as search for a participant to find me or go directly to either my site or my team site at the following links:

To make a donation to my walk, go to:
http://www.endcancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Toronto2008?px=2411404&pg=personal&fr_id=1254

To join my team, go to:
http://www.endcancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Toronto2008?team_id=56176&pg=team&fr_id=1254

The Things People Say

2007-10-28T08:54:00.001-04:00

I'm going to start out by saying that it's very ironic I would have the audacity to even comment on what others say as I'm not exactly Queen of tact myself, however this is my blog; with that caveat thrown down, I'll proceed.

A few weeks ago, when I went in to work, I had to deal briefly with one of our suppliers. I've only met this guy once before and he's creepy and I don't like him. He was saying inappropriate things to me and looking at me all creepily, but whatever, he's harmless and I really didn't give it much thought but I do remember asking my boss if I was expected to work with him on anything resembling a regular basis and was assured I wouldn't be. My first encounter happened as I was eating lunch and he was telling me how my sandwich wasn't really a sandwich, for a really good sandwich he could take me to a place by his house for sandwiches... ewwww, he's about late 40s and looks like a creepy mountain man. I don't think I looked up from my computer when I stated that in fact my sandwich tasted world class and my lunch dates were reserved for my boyfriend. He muttered something I can't remember and that was that. Now a few weeks ago, the President sees me and asked me to ask this same guy who is apparently skulking around the office somewhere a question regarding a CD he had made for us. Super. I decided instead of finding this guy, I'd call another supplier who does the same kind of work and ask him the question. Sooo smart! I find out the answer without having to ask him anything. I'm feeling accomplished and very sneaky about this as I'm leaving the building, but of course as I'm heading to the elevators he is sitting at our reception area (giving our poor receptionist the creepy eyes) at the same time the President comes around the corner and says "Kelly, were you able to ask _____ about the CD?" Okay, so I now see that El Presidente hasn't checked his email as I've sent him the problem-solving steps, but the answer to the question is still "No, I haven't, but I already sent you the answer." I get the confused look in response but he doesn't stop to say anything else, and now I'm facing this supplier who is looking at me quizzically. I just start rambling about the problem and he starts to give me the answer, but I cut him off as I found out from someone else already. He still insists on informing me of the technicalities of this particular way of programming, like I at all care to know about the fun-filled world of video-streaming and I press the elevator button. He is still talking to me even though I've said I know, the problem has been solved and I step on the elevator. As I'm doing this, I hear loudly, "You've certainly gained a lot of weight since the last time I saw you." End quote.
I wasn't prepared for this. I let the doors close. Would I like to write here how I hammered him with my best weapon (my mouth) and he ran full force out of one of our 6th floor windows? Yes, but this is non-fiction. I let the doors close and just decided to instead obsess about it internally for the rest of the week. I can't believe he said that, but not because I'm going through chemo -he wouldn't know that- but that any person dealing with others in a work environment felt they could just say that! That any person feels the need to say that to another, like I don't own a mirror or something. It's not like he works at my place of business where I could go to his boss; he's contracted for projects. After inquiring further about this guy, he has personal issues apparently that make him, ummm, 'odd' so whatever, but I did tell my boss. My boss reacted how my dad would, he went really red in the face and was very angry and started loudly saying what I shoulda said to the *sshole, etc. I left it at that as I know that my boss will handle that issue for me the next time he sees him and I'm fine with that punishment. My boss, although a really nice guy (to me), is still an A-type strong sales personality so I know the hammer will come crashing down behind closed doors on his next visit to my office, and I take my comfort in that thought. Of course, I'm now prepared to see him again and in retrospect I'm glad I allowed those doors to close as it would have been beating a dead horse to go back after I had thought about it and attack twice. So now I get one attack and plenty of time to perfect it in my head and execute on next sighting. I'll let you know how that plays out when it does.

Next is yet another work situation. This is with someone I really enjoy though and he didn't have any bad intentions, but I'll let you help me with this one.
I talk a lot about my wig and how I hardly wear it out but any time I go to work I wear it. I dress more casually at work when I go in as a) I'm not wearing heels while going through this and my flats consist of runners and b) I'm wearing a hat and it looks stupid to wear business attire with a hat and runners. At least at my age it does; I haven't found a suitable hat really for work, so instead of trying the business look half-assed, I go casual. The thing about wearing a wig is you're always worried about what it looks like. I never really worry when I'm bald, strange eh? It's different types of feelings. I feel an inner strength when I'm bald and when I say bald I actually mean hat without wig. I don't very often go out without the hat, it's too cold on my head and I still want the cover of a hat. At home I go buck bald though, inside and around my property doing chores and chatting with my neighbours.
Then there's hat with wig; these are the two ways I leave my house. When I go for drinks or lunch with my friends on a patio, I wonder if someone I know but haven't seen in a while is going to jokingly walk by me without me seeing them and try and get my attention by taking off my hat and my wig goes with it and I grab my head while everyone around me screams in fright -or worse- laughs. The whole patio gasps in horror and I run off arms flailing. This is a genuine concern of mine. I do think of this and worry about it when I go out with the wig on, as ridiculous as those thoughts are.
So I'm at the office one day, working away when I see one of the guys that used to work with us but now is on contract. He is an older gentleman and knows all about what I'm going through. He even got my number and called me to wish me and my family a Happy Thanksgiving. His daughter does the annual walk for breast cancer and right after I got diagnosed, I received an email from him sent to everyone asking for donations for her walk and he was saying how uncomfortable it is to ask for money but he doesn't care because he and his family are so passionate about eradicating this disease, etc. I was obviously touched on a very personal level and was just at that time starting along this journey, so emailed him and told him why I'd be donating to her walk. He was very distraught over this news, especially because of my age (I'd put him to be close to 60) and has been in constant contact with me. So he knows he's about to see me at the office, I hear him coming a mile away and get up out of my chair to go and accept the incredibly strong and painful bear hug I'm about to receive, and as I wraps my arms around him, he.... yes. He whips off my hat!!! My wig mercifully didn't go with it but I now have my wig fully exposed without the hat! My wig has bangs and is never worn without the hat as I look ridiculous like that, I don't care that I cover up a $1200 wig with a hat, this is how I like to wear it and that is that.
So now my wig is fully exposed with bad hat head with the bangs sticking straight out. Half the sales team faces my desk. My arms are around him and I'm looking around for a place to run, I start to back into one of the offices behind me but my arms are still around him and my head is on his shoulder and I'm saying put it back on my head! He does and I arrange it and I don't know how to react. It's all a blur from here, but I'm still to this day not sure why he did that. Is it because he's older and simply didn't realize it was a wig but was yanking my hat off as I'm at work and indoors and a lot of older generations find this disrespectful? Or did he know it was a wig but was doing the whole 'don't hide behind a disguise, wear bald proud!' type of thing, I simply don't know. I saw some sales people react to this and whisper to each other what had just transpired, but I tried to just go back to what I was doing, even though my heart was racing and my brain was going a mile a minute trying to go back over what had just happened.
I saw him again the next morning at an off site meeting we had, and it was just him and I there to begin with so as I was walking to his outstretched arms I said "Leave my hat alone!" and then hugged him and he was rambling about how his wife had given him so much trouble over him doing that and he was sorry, but again, I didn't find out what the reasoning was behind it. It's probably just as well that I don't know, but here's a gentle reminder to all that you never know what's under the hat that you're removing, so just don't do it. I'm trying to think back to remember if I was ever the girl to greet guys by ripping off their hats, but I'm hoping I was never that annoying person. I doubt I am; don't you people be either. I would have obviously reacted differently to someone else performing this action, but this is a really nice caring man who genuinely cares about my well-being and certainly didn't mean any harm, he just wasn't thinking those actions through. How can I fault or admonish that?

When being ehmon (pronounced A-mon) does more harm than good

2007-10-25T09:55:00.000-04:00

I've been going in to the office more lately. I know this is not a smart move but I can't help feeling guilty that I'm not there. I shouldn't feel guilty as I still am able to do a lot from home, but the reality is I'm simply able to do more and do my job more effectively from the office. So I go there occasionally, more and more lately and this would probably turn into a habit that I can't simply get in to. Me being there makes the people I work with happy as I'm there to help out and take work off their plate, which they desperately need. They can also see that I'm doing well, which the people there close to me also need. But unfortunately this is not what I need.
I am able to function quite normally during chemo during the good days of my cycle. I don't sit around feeling sorry for myself, I can walk my dog and hold a conversation and function pretty much like everyone else. I understand that I am lucky to do this, some people that go through chemo are literally in bed for their whole treatment or mentally they simply aren't able to cope. Neither of these are mercifully the case for me. The problem is what is called Neutropenia aka low white blood counts. This is induced and made life-threatening during chemotherapy. There's a long explanation but here is the gist: when you go through chemo, your cells, both healthy and cancerous, are killed. Getting something as simple as a sniffle could put me into emergency as I have zero immune system while going through chemo. Offices are the #1 place to pass off germs to others. They are a cesspool for germs and for passing on infections/colds etc. If you develop a fever during neutropenia you may require treatment with intravenous antibiotics and admission to the hospital until the number of neutrophils in the blood returns to sufficient levels to fight the infection. If my healthy cells (the white ones) drop too low, I'm not able to get chemo again until they are back up. I would need to be intravenously fed antibiotics and I'd just as likely need a blood transfusion. If my chemo is delayed, this affects its effectiveness and could negatively influence my survival rate. If I get sick or if my healthy blood count drops too low, I'm at risk of developing a life-threatening infection, or having my treatment either altered or delayed. This would also affect my survival rate. I am writing this just as much to remind myself as to educate you. I find it hard to slow down and take it easy even though I absolutely must. If I got sick during chemo because I caught something in the office, how could I face my family and the people that care about me? And for what? My job? I love my job and it pays the bills, but isn't going to make me the kind of money I plan on making in this lifetime, and it's certainly not what I plan on doing for the rest of my life. I don't plan on assisting, I plan on running! I am going to be much more successful than I am today, obviously, so I take a risk like this only to prove to myself that I am okay and still a great worker, and that I'm not going to let chemo run my life. I can be such an ass sometimes! Just ask my dad who I just got off the phone with yelling at me (not really yelling, just passionately reasoning) about how I better be careful and to stop doing too much, etc etc etc. I wasn't able to see either of my parent's for about 2 weeks as they both got sick and wouldn't come around me during that time. I can't imagine either of them being the reason I got sick as they'd feel absolutely awful about it obviously, so they didn't come by and I wasn't able to go to their house, which was hard on them (and me) I'm sure as they weren't able to be with me during the bad days following treatment last week. Anyway, here I am stearing clear of loved ones yet I'll go into the office where germs and recycled air would be much worse culprits to my health?My argument to my dad is that I know my absence at work is felt and although I do still work from home, I get much more accomplished by being there, and everyone knows it, which makes me feel guilty as it is my nature to work hard and right now I feel like a slacker and I despise that feeling. I also sometimes feel like I have to say no to working on certain projects that require my physical presence. This isn't anyone at works fault, I can't assume they're educated enough on my specific treatment to know the real risks I face, so I write them here thinking maybe I'll be better able to explain why I'm not able to work at a normal pace just because I look and act like I can. My boss and even my bosses boss has made it clear time and time again that my health is their main concern, and my boss of course knows the reasons I'm not there, but I think he keeps them to himself as respect for my privacy, even though I've told him he can share what I tell him with others, I can tell when I go to work that he doesn't do this at all. I try to reason my logic in terms that my dad can relate to as he's in management and has a team of people that report to him. One of the girls walks in to his office crying about a personal issue. Does he a) care about the reason she is crying or b) is he uncomfortable/embarassed that she is crying at work and in his office? The answer is b, unless said girl is your daughter. :) That is reality; most people think in WIIFM terms, what's in it for me? This certainly isn't a bad or negative thing it's just human nature, isn't it? I'm totally guilty of this! Unless you're a select few, doesn't society in general think like this internally? When I first heard about cancer, I thought of chemo and I immediately thought about the benefit of losing 20 lbs from it being a positive thing. Human nature. If your coworker calls in sick or for whatever reason can't come in to work which puts more on your plate, are you concerned for their well-being or secretly wondering if they're faking while thinking "Super, now I gotta pick up the slack!" It's not what you say obviously but are you able to admit it goes through your mind? He sees my point but does not think it applies to me as we're not talking about a fight with a boyfriend; we're talking about cancer and a real life-threatening risk of catching something as simple as a cold. True, but again, I'm not 'sick' so it's hard for me to look at something that hasn't happened yet. I know the obvious argument on this too; obviously I don't want to find out the hard way, but guilt -on some days- does prevail. I'm ehmon so I'm absolutely hating sitting on my butt in a sterilized bubble as it is against my nature. But while I actually do have a choice in the matter and I'm able to write this from my couch and not a hospital bed, I should sit quietly in said bubble and shut up. Stay tuned to see if I actually do so.

Oh okay, you won't get the ehmon reference, will you? I'll explain. It's short form reference to an old In Living Colour skit (what a fabulous show that was!), and we've shortened this hilarious saying to ehmon and is now part of daily verbage. My friends and I would think it's cooler and more impressive to work hard for what you have then to be handed what you have. Therefore to be ehmon is cool and is a compliment in our warped little world. It would come up in conversation as follows:
The Compliment: "She's cool, I like her. She's ehmon too like us."
The Excuse: "Sorry I haven't called; I've been so ehmon lately!"
The Concerned Chastise: "You gotta stop being so ehmon dude, seriously."
The Diss "She's never had to be ehmon a day in her life!"

When you work very hard at what you do, or you multitask, or hold multiple skills or have always simply worked hard for what you get, my friends and I refer to this as ehmon.

As in, "Eh mon! I got t'ree jobs!"

Over the hump but still a long road ahead

2007-10-22T09:47:00.000-04:00

I've sat down a few times to write, but something stops me. I don't know what it is. It may be simply easier to write when you're not going through these few days of helplessness. I had chemo last Wednesday and now it's Monday morning and I still feel gross. Right now, the rest of the treatments seem so daunting. I can look at it as I'm over the hump (3 down, 3 to go), but unfortunately I'm just seeing a long outstretched road in front of me with no finish line. I've been kind of revelling in the 'this will never be over for me' thoughts, and they're freaking me out to a certain degree, but I'm not going to let it be all-consuming. I simply can't. My arm has not been hurting as I thought it would, that's good. The worst is probably the feeling of being bruised and the gut rot. You can't touch me or hug me right now without me wincing. I guess it's a fluid buildup or something but my body just feels black and blue, although there aren't any visible bruises. I had heart burn for I think the first time in my life yesterday. I was eating potatoes and then this huge pain came in my chest and I couldn't eat. It felt like there was a big bubble in my chest that I couldn't get down. That's heartburn I take it? Never happened to me before, but that wasn't comfortable. I've been extra extra puffy this treatment from the steroids (...okay and the burgers); I also feel more poisoned if that makes any sense. I'm yucky. My mouth tastes metallic so water right now tastes disgusting, I get very dry around the mouth and my tongue looks like it has cotton on it. This is better than mouth sores so I hate to even tempt fate by complaining about my side effects yet I'll continue. My face, my body, everything is round and and puffy and bloated. Yesterday was more comical than anything as Shawn went back to his massage therapy textbooks (I know I know, my boyfriend was a trained massage therapist and here I am complaining about my life! :)) and was researching stomach massages that he could try to get rid of the bloat or whatever it is in there. I'm lying on the ground with a pillow under my legs and he's doing these weird techniques to my stomach. I remember the early days of our relationship when I put on make up every time I saw him and ran from the room hugging the covers with the lights off and he wouldn't use the bathroom at my apartment; fast forward to our current situation of me lying on my back with the equivalent of a 6-month pregnancy bump and peach fuzz for hair and you gotta just shake your head at the irony.

Beast of Burden - Chemo

2007-10-18T08:08:00.000-04:00

It's about 8am, morning after my 3rd chemo treatment. Blech. I have a headache, feel icky and poisonous as usual, but I pretty much slept through the night and there was no vomiting, which is a relief! This historically has been the start of my bad days so we'll see how it goes. I think I mentioned before how the last time I had chemo that my arm hurt a while afterward. I mentioned this to the nurses this time but they think it's from being poked so many times instead of it being because they poked a nerve. I wasn't convinced of this as if it was from that, wouldn't it have hurt right after instead of a few weeks later? If they did poke a nerve that could be disastrous as your nerves don't regenerate the way muscles do, so it may affect the mobility in my left arm permanently. My arm felt bruised when I touched any part of it and I wasn't able to straighten it without pain. I was stressing this as I have a big dog, I want to be able to take him for walks and I get a lot of pleasure from spending time with him outdoors just the two of us. I was disturbed to think that I wouldn't be able to hold a leash with either arms as there is now risk of permanent damage to both. I'd always have to walk my own dog with someone else? *sad sigh*
Well anyway, I don't think this will be the case, they maybe were right about getting poked a bunch of times being the reason as I seem to be gaining more mobility.
As I mentioned before, I was told I'd probably need to get a port o cath inserted to receive chemo and draw blood. This a quarter-sized device that is surgically planted in your chest area, with tubes coming out of it. Since it was suggested and not enforced, no thanks! I'm not wanting anymore surgeries than I feel necessary and I certainly don't want tubes coming out of my body, not just for the obvious cosmetic reasons but more importantly it's about the big grey monster that stands as tall as Shawn when standing. Milo could rip that outta me very easily and I'm not chancing that. A little different I'd imagine than getting an earring ripped out, so if it's a matter of my comfort of not getting poked and the nurses not having the difficulty of finding my vein, sorry, we'll all just have to be inconvenienced.
That was my opinion before yesterday.
The first time I received chemo the nurse told me not to bother with the port o cath as the nurses in the chemo clinic were proficient in the art of jabbing. Okay, phew, happy to hear that. That nurse got me with one poke. I have phantom veins hence all the port o cath talk. When giving blood I get poked usually at least twice. The 2nd chemo sucked big time. I got poked first twice by one nurse and then another two times by the more experienced nurse they brought to me. It hurt and even getting the chemo hurt that time. It's not just any needles they use, they're like thin tubes that getting inserted up your vein. I'm not very sqeamish but even I have trouble watching these ones.
The previous two times now have got me slack from the nursing staff about not having the port, but I counter it was the senior nurse here that advised me against it and she said all the nurses knew what they were doing. Funny, this shuts them up. I say this as a joke by the way, I really love all the nurses at PMH, but it does stop them from talking anymore about the subject.
What a production yesterday! I was joking around with the first nurse as I explained how many times I was poked last time and about my arm being sore etc. Oh another problem is that I can't get poked in the right arm, just the left because of my surgery and all the nodes over there removed. Apparently I'm now to have any pokes in the left arm forever, except on the day of chemo when I have to get blood taken. I get blood taken an hour before every appointment so they can make sure my counts are up and if not, no chemo for me that day. Same if they can't get my veins to cooperate and the last thing I want to do is delay my treatments. My last treatment if all goes according to plan will be December 19th. I don't want to delay any as that will put me after the New Year and I'm hoping that I'll mercifully be able to celebrate what is sure to be the most emotional holiday season ever with this already under my belt, not still looming! I think that's a fair wish to make. I could be ridiculous and wish for the impossible, but I just want chemo finito for Xmas. I gotta spend my 30th in the midst of chemo, but the consolation is at least not Xmas. Here's hoping, fingers crossed. Yesterday was dangerously close to a delay, same as the 2nd time. She got it first shot this time, I breathed a sigh of relief and while she was starting the red devil push, I was joking around with her (really cute little Chinese lady) saying she was lucky as I'd forgive the 2nd shot, the 3rd I'd be angry but by the 4th I'd be throwing punches, so good thing she got it first shot! "Uh ohhhh, where is the blood, how can there be no blood?!" This was my nurse speaking. As she was pushing the craziest chemo drug (the one where the plastic surgeon is available just-in-case) she noticed that the needle was in my vein, but she wasn't able to see blood coming into the tube, therefore she couldn't proceed as that is the only way to be absolutely certain that you're securely in the vein. By now there is another nurse beside me as well, debating with the nurse as to whether or not they could proceed. They decided they couldn't; they'd have to try again. Of course, not before moving the needle in and out, moving my arm to different elevation points trying to get the blood to surface, I am a slab of beef at this point and trying every which way to not have to poke me anymore. But they did, I had another 4 pokes (yes that would be 5 total) before they could finally get it working. It's better to be safe than sorry, I'd rather be poked and be uncomfortable then to have that crazy drug miss my vein and then have to deal with plastic surgery because of it, so it was the best course of action, I get it. It was quite a show though. 4 different nurses tried, 5 were hovering around me, the patients in their beds were all craning their necks to see what was going on, I had their family members starting to gather around me to watch over the whole nursing staffs shoulders. And of course, right in front of me were the most annoying girls I have ever come across. That's not true but it feels true right now. There was a girl that was around my age getting chemo (first person I've seen there under 40 other than me for sure) and she had I think four of her friends with her. They looked like the Nordic version of Sex and the City. This girl is lying in her bed getting chemo and she looked very uncomfortable as she kept closing her eyes and wincing, but her friends seemed oblivious to this and were either texting, on their cell phones or talking amongst themselves about partying, having too many glasses of vino, about how he is just gonna have to work for it if he wants to see me again, blah blah blah so loud! This one girl had her back to me so wasn't aware of the commotion just 3 feet behind her, but as I've got the nurses all over me, and I'm being subjected to poke after poke, wiggle after wiggle, pain after pain, a nurse sqeezing my leg, Shawn sqeezing my hand, I'm listening to talk about how 4 glasses of red wine was just too much for one work night and if he wants to be invited over again he better... In my head I'm picturing her demise and how I could possibly manage to contribute to it in this state, but point is, I didn't need to hear about her life and they were playing to the crowd, which just bugged me. There are people in this room that are very affected by treatment and it was almost an invasion of privacy to have these four people in there talking business as usual. Have some respect for others. most 50 year olds don't want to hear about partying, booze and drugs, especially I would imagine at this time. I think having support is great, don't get me wrong and conversation not all about cancer is great too, but it didn't seem to be helping the girl they were there to support and have some respect when in the room with others that are going through something difficult, ie chemo, but what do I know, maybe I was the only one offended, although I highly doubt that based on Shawn's face, the nurses rolling their eyes and the guy in the next bed loudly gasping in their oblivious direction. I do know that I wanted to chuck the barbie out the window, and picturing it made me feel a little consoled.
So today, my arm is going be achy, I'm starting to get a little nauseous so I'm gonna go and try to remedy with some herbs as Craig just arrived to keep me company. ;)

Pink Ribbon Pendants for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

2007-10-17T10:08:00.001-04:00

This will be a short post (yah right, we'll see I always say that) but I'm currently working on something for my boss AND about to get ready for treatment #3 at Princess Margaret. I'll write again later today about the last treatment cycle as well as today's experience, and also about what they've said about my left arm being messed up. I don't think I've shared that yet, and I'll elaborate later, but I'm pretty sure the last time I received treatment the nurse hit a nerve when she poked me (one of the 4 times) with the needle. I'll explain later and once I have more info after I inquire (bitch loudly) at the chemo clinic.

This is about Michelle. I've known Michelle since high school and we were very close for a period of time after high school, but lost touch until just before me finding my tumour. This statement must be annoying by now, but again, this must've happened for a reason! Anyway, Michelle has been an amazing friend to me throughout my journey and we've had some fun drinking nights lately and she has been a catalyst in my 'being normal' and simply hanging out with my friends and swapping hilarious stories. Our visits aren't all about my disease, which is a relief as we have much more interesting things to talk about. She's also, unbeknownst to her, made the whole possibly 'not able to give birth' thing a lot easier on me. You see, she graphically shared with Laura and I the whole birthing experience like no one has ever shared it before! I'm getting more and more okay with adoption the more she tells me about it, so Michelle, thanks! ;-)

Michelle is a prolific jeweler; this has been her passion since a young age as she comes from a family of jewellers. Her parent's own a successful jeweler in Scarborough (George Jewellers 3242 Eglinton Ave E at Markham Rd http://www.guildwoodvillage.com/g/george/ for those of you able to visit this family-run jewellry/watch shop).

Michelle decided to take action and help out the cause in the spirit of October being Breast Cancer Awareness month. She designed these beautiful delicate necklace charms and has named them 'Kelly's Journey' and is selling them for only $10, $5 of which will go to support Breast Cancer, for the whole month of October. I'm getting chills just writing that! Aren't you guys jealous that I have the most awesome friends in the world? She has already received a lot of orders (they are a limited edition so only so many will be produced), not to mention all of my friends that want them and want to give them out to their friends/family and has now decided to host a night where her friends can go and purchase these directly from her. I really don't know what to say to her, I am so humbled for her support and her generosity as her time is very expensive! She makes these obviously by hand and I'm not just saying she's a profilic jeweller, I mean it. She gets paid a lot of money for her time and her designs (people trust her to design wedding rings for goodness sake, she's that good!) and she's donating all of that in support of women like me. I'm not sure what to do with that? Again, say thanks? How do I say that and have her truly understand the emotion and gratitude behind that statement? I've had so many different experiences with people throughout my journey -not all of them good- and then I have people like Michelle that just makes all the bad points manageable.
For those of you who would like to order some of these unique pieces, you can email me and I'll pass it on to her directly for you.

I wore my necklace (I don't think I'll ever take it off!) to work yesterday and had every woman in the building asking me where I got it and telling me how lucky I am to have the friends I do once I told them about what the designer is doing with the proceeds; I have more and more orders by the day so I'm afraid Michelle you've created a monster! Let me know when these become a 'limited edition!' ;p

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's off to work I go!

2007-10-15T14:29:00.000-04:00

I decided last Friday I'd go into work for a while. I've been antsy and super-stressed about not going in to the office as I've felt pretty good. My work has been great to me and I feel like I'm disappointing my boss by not being there to help him, even though I know he'd hate to hear me say that. I really do have the utmost respect for my boss, he's awesome and a mentor to me. I have not always thought this way about him. ;)
He's kinda a big shot at my workplace. He totally scared and intimidated me when I got my first of a few positions at my current company. I wouldn't even make eye contact with him. He had a big corner glass office and he was in charge of the whole sales department for this big organization; I just avoided him like the plague in all honesty. After months of being on the sales team and numerous factors that were going on in my life at the time, I decided that this job might not be for me. I was trying really hard and working crazy hours and doing my part of the job really well, but the team I was handing my files to were not converting them to $$$, and I didn't have control of that part of the sale, which proved way too frustrating for me. I went to his office and uttered the first words I'd ever spoken to him; this would be the first time we ever made eye contact. "Hi ____, uh, I don't think I'm cut out for this (at the time I was super stressed by the pressure of a 100% commission environment), I think I gotta quit." His immediate response. "Go make a coffee for yourself, then come back to my office." Uhhh, alright. When I got back to his office with my bad tasting columbian, he was putting down the phone. "I don't simply allow good people to walk out the door. You have an interview for a trainer's position in 20 minutes at the other office if you want it." No way, sweet! I had no idea he even knew my name, and is now telling me that he's watched me progress and watches how hard I work and that my work ethic is amazing, etc etc, and now he's just made a call and I have an interview for a coveted (in my opinion) trainers position? I have an opportunity to get a job training sales people? Off I go to the other office, met with an RVP I had never heard of before. He said he could tell I was an 'A' player to which I countered "And I'll churn 'A' players out of this training department just as fast as you bring them to me, but you're gonna have to pay for it." He loved me immediately; told me that right off the bat which he shouldn't have as it only armed me with bargaining power. :) I said no 4 times before we reached an agreeable base and incentive plan (and my interviews escalated to the VP of Sales at the time to 'handle' me). I truly loved that job, working with all the new recruits in our own building, I was supervisor and we were doing fantastic! Our teams numbers were surpassing even the experienced sales offices, woo hoo! That felt good as I was dealing with a few ex-coworkers that were none too happy that I got the job even though I'd been at the company a very short time, and now I'm leading the newbies to higher numbers, which would eventually equate to higher sales. Oops, ha ha! Then came another interesting situation. My boss walked in to that office with one of the owners and called me out of the class I was training the newbies in. I was super scared. I remember the long walk down the hall thinking, how embarassing to get fired in front of more than just one person! There were the 2 bosses, my manager and I, and they were talking about restructuring the training department as the one office was closing and we had to restructure blah blah blah... In my head I'm rehearsing my "It's for the best; I was planning on quitting anyway!" speech so I could retrieve some of my pride back from them when my boss looked right at me and said "So, you're gonna be working directly with me." Gulp. What did that mean? What did he do? I wasn't privvy to that information at the time, I just knew he could close pretty much any sale that got to his level as it was his job to do so before the 50k investment of the franchise fee is collected. I wouldn't find out until the next week when I was to report to the office I just came from in my new role as, well, I didn't know what at the time. I spent a lot of time pondering what it could possibly be, and I was a little put off by the whole turn of events. I was loving what I had been doing, was very good at what I was doing, but now I'm doing something else completely? It didn't make any sense, until I met with my boss. I gotta say, and I'll have to ask him what his impression of this conversation was one day, but I was pretty riled up by that Monday morning and I was none too complacent. I wasn't gonna just take any job, I know my strengths and I know what I'm capable of and when it comes to business, I know my career in that field is gonna be stellar if I choose to go in that direction 'cause I am damn good at my job current and past. I do actually think I could walk out the door on any given day and talk myself into a great position. This is simply just a good way to think, as in business, confidence mixed with hard work = respect, trust me. Oh, I let him know all this by the way. Also, because he wasn't able to define at that point exactly what my role would be, I figured he was jerking me around so I jumped on that with the, so, you're looking for a secretary? No thanks! I may be female but I've got b*lls and I'm not going to go that route in my career. Not to demean secretaries, it's just not what I plan on doing or have even done. He laughed at that, I think he must've got such a kick outta me, still does I'm sure. He stated that if he wanted a coffee or needed something faxed, he could do that himself; that was not to be my job. I'd be heading up projects, coordinating with department heads, liaising with other departments, in on all the executive/management meetings; I'd be his voice basically on everything he wasn't able to concentrate on. I asked him what my title would be. He told me to pick one. Him and I banter very well. I 'picked' Executive Assistant of Franchise Development as I really didn't have any time to put thought into it. It doesn't matter anyway, that's a perfect title as it still has no real defined job attached to it, just like my position of the past year and a half. It has unfortunately been misinterpreted to mean I work for any and everybody within that department, but whatever, it doesn't matter as it's good to try and do as many things at work as reasonable; it makes you invaluable so I don't mind 'helping out where I can', and the stuff that others find difficult or trying I find easy so I simply do it. I of course have made it clear to my boss that this in fact isn't my job and not what I agreed to when we first came to an understanding, and he substantiates that for me. Even he sometimes has to ask me what on earth I'm working on, but I don't mind that either as it shows him how much I do. I want to constantly impress my boss as he always impresses me. I don't find many people intimidating but, as I said, I couldn't even look him in the eye when walking by him for my first 6 months with the company. He's not mean or difficult, just a formidable figure with a booming voice and an air about him. Fast forward to our relationship today where I simply walk in to his office, shut the door, state the amount of time (usually 90 seconds) I need to unload and blow off steam as to what's on my mind pertaining to work and best practices etc. I then open the door, walk out feeling much much better, and carry on with my day. My how far we've come!
This post sort of took on a life of its own, didn't mean to talk so much about work, but now you know how I got to where I am today, through my 3 promotions and my current position even though it won't be any more clear what exactly I do in a day, such is the nature of my job.

I think I've made G-list Celeb Status, oops, heads stuck in the doorway...darn!

2007-10-14T13:42:00.000-04:00

First, lemme say "Wow!" The emails that I have received from people that have read my blog have been overwhelming! And to think of all the wasted time I put into the decision of posting this whole 'in my head' thing. To actually have it pay off in spades within a day! From the time I linked this site to my facebook page, as well as linked to my signature on a survival site, my conversations with people outside of my immediate circle have been just crazy (crazy good)! I do want to share some here for sure, it's just deciding which ones I guess have affected me the most. I figured that my linking this to facebook would allow my friends and extendafriends to read what was up, and linking this to my signature on YSC (mostly American survivor site geared towards young women with BC) would hopefully allow a few others to read about me and I'd find out if I had any other like-minded people to swap stories with. Well, both have been amazing and I can't believe this has been viewed a few hundred times in a matter of days. Ah, that's a little surreal.
Oh and to my girlfriends, stop making fun of me by saying that I sit around with all this time on my hands and click and click away to get the sitemeter count up. I designed this site to not include my own IP address (so computer-savvy I am). For those of you who will try and counter that I'm doing this from other people's computer? Let me answer before you have a chance even to think it: You guys are *ssholes, quit stealing my thunder (kidding! *mwah!*)
No, in all seriousness, please do know that it means the world to me, especially when I get emails from other survivors, like the one I opened today from a girl in New Zealand! I mean, really? New Zealand? How on earth did she find me??!! That's pretty cool and pretty humbling. To hear her tell me she feels close to me without even meeting me because she shares so much of what I'm thinking and has gone through so many of the same trials 'n' tribs is exactly why I did this! I've been immediately rewarded by an influx of well-wishes and stories of survival. I have also received correspondence from UK, Germany, and all over Canada and the US! Where are you guys posting this??? Am I going to google myself and find video of some pretty little Japanese reporter giving a news cast with my blog on the top right hand screen (after they've translated it of course)? I know some of my friends have sent it around their office or to their friends/family with some inspiring words regarding me and encouraging others to read or pass on to people they know who have survived cancer, but have people they've sent it to sent it to others as well? I know better than most how well viral marketing works over the internet (this is a big aspect of my job and my companies core competency) however I never thought I'd be subjected to it in my personal life. It's so weird, I still just have to shake my head to picture people opening an email with information on my life and my thoughts; it's still gonna take some getting used to. I've already had the conversations with people bringing stuff up about me that I'm like, how did you know about that? Oh, right, heh heh, I'm the one who's invited this into my life, aren't I? Maybe I didn't think this through as well as I should've! I'm not known as a 'sharer of feelings'. Till now of course; now I've gone soft and have totally lost my edge, super! ;'(

Obviously I say all or most of this in jest, but to those of you who I have been in contact with that are inspired by me being able to talk about it, all I can say is try it for yourself, I promise you by doing that you'll see I'm nothing special. Let your friends/family in on what's going on without having to have the extra emotions of dealing with their responses. It totally has worked for me. I've been in a really good mood this past week and I in all honesty wasn't actually planning on turning this into an ongoing thing (it's a lot of emotion), but I've been inspired by all of your encouragement, so as long as you keep letting me know how you're doing and how you're interpreting my journey and it doesn't get in the way of the bills getting paid, I'll keep on writing, deal?

Here's Looking at YOU, kid!

2007-10-13T10:27:00.000-04:00

I get a lot of sympathetic glances, or the eye contact followed by the really quick lookaway. It's all fine, you just deal with it. Trust me, I'm more embarassed for you by your actions than I am that I look this way. When I first started walking around without a wig, -which I did pretty much immediately after I shaved my head- I was very cognizant of the reactions of people around me. The first time I left the house with just my shaved head -no wig, no hat- was when Craig and I went to see Superbad at Scarborough Towne Centre. It was during a weekday so again, not a lot of people around, but still, this was my bald debut. I noticed some people looking at me, but then again, some of them surely were just staring back at me since I was looking at them for a reaction. When you're looking for something like that, you're gonna find it. But you just learn to adapt, which I did quickly I think. Before we went in, Craig was having a smoke, and I looked down at my feet only to notice my white socks were visible above my sneakers and I blurted out "How embarassing! Look, I'm wearing floods!" As I looked up at Craig, I glanced my reflection in the door behind him and I followed that statement with a sarcastic "What on earth am I worried about people looking at my feet for!" This got a laugh and a shake of the head from Craig. It's true though, the last thing people would be staring at would be my too-short track pants, ha ha ha! I was out in public 5 minutes before I forgot that I was bald. I was talking to Julie a while ago (before I shaved my head) about what I was gonna do to cover up the baldness and I remember she said that it was different from when we were younger. Back then you'd see some person in the mall with a bandanna and you'd stare as it was a unique site, but nowadays you see people all the time that appear to be going through chemo, etc, so it's not really a big deal to see anymore. That really stuck with me. It's true, but how about all those women that braved those stares back in the day? I personally feel like I owe them something. They paved the way for others -me- to be able to walk around bald, or with just a head cover. Had they hidden behind wigs, people wouldn't have been any the wiser and I wouldn't be as comfortable walking around without one today. So I don't wear mine all the time, I'd venture to say I don't most times. The more people see us out there going about our business, the less it'll be a sight to see and you won't take a second look. Shouldn't I help out to make that a reality? I think so. Besides, aren't we just purchasing wigs to make other people feel comfortable around us? I know that wigs also make the wearer feel more empowered to get out there and face their day (I wear mine every time I go into the office), but if it was completely accepted by society, more I feel would choose to go without. I'm liking this line of thinking as again, it's enlightening. I'm putting this $1200 (that's unfortunately not a typo) hairpiece on and making myself uncomfortable (because they are) pretty much to make myself look normal around others. I'm looking forward to the day that normal is used to describe a whole plethora of looks and I should contribute to that idealistic line of thinking. You can all do something too. Try not to stare, give an empathetic look or turn away quickly, eyes averted. Definitely don't whisper conspiratorally to the person beside you to check it out. You never know who it is you're commenting on. I'm bald; not deaf or blind idiot. Wait until you're around a corner to make a nasty comment to your hopefully mortified-to-have-you-as-a-friend friend. I'll give you an example of such people. Carm and I went to Chudleigh's Orchard last weekend to pick apples and eat corn on the cob fresh off the BBQ and do the hayride. It was great fun! A beautiful fall day for the road trip to Milton and some fresh crisp weather to pluck in-season apples. On our way back to my place, we were on the 401 off ramp at a red light. I happened to look beside me only to catch in the car next to us the girl who was in the passenger side whispering to 'look beside her' to the girl driving, while the girl in the backseat was already staring at me as the driver turns around to make eye contact with me giving her a bemused glare. When I got into the car when leaving Chudleigh's, I chucked my hat in the back seat. These girls got caught commenting on my appearance and all tried to look away very quickly, but I wasn't simply gonna turn away. I started telling Carm what was transpiring while rolling down my window staring down these girls, as both cars were now moving as the light turned, but by now Carm is cursing wildly and trying to go slow to get the girls to pull beside us, but they're literally going 40 (in a 60) to avoid having to pull beside us now as her and I are visibly agitated and craning our necks to look into their car. These girls acted chastely, I'm pretty sure they were younger than us, but cars are now honking, so with a "Whatever Carm," we just drove off, but we were laughing about this amongst ourselves. I take solace in the hope that their drive immediately following that was silent as they were embarassed in front of each other that they didn't even have the guts to drive alongside of us, yet had the guts to comment on me, until caught and almost confronted. Here's the lesson. If you're not able to pull it together and be a decent human being and simply not comment and/or stare and make a big deal or make fun of someone in a situation such as mine, be careful that you're prepared to live with the consequences of what you're instigating. I understand that therapy is very expensive and the shame of having to live with getting your ass kicked by a sick cancer patient is gonna take a lot of sessions to eradicate from memory I'd imagine. Avoid it if possible. I may look 'sick' but I don't feel it and with all the suppressed anger I must have in me for a lot of different reasons, I'm always on the lookout for an outlet and who better that some ignorant &%)$, really?

Beanie maybes

2007-10-13T08:58:00.000-04:00

About a week or two ago, my mum and I decided to go shopping. I'm no longer fitting into anything I wear, so we went on an excursion. I begrudgingly went as I knew I needed to, but wasn't looking forward to the reality behind the size I was surely gonna fit in to. Anyway, it wasn't as bad as I pictured, it was nice to put on clothes that I wasn't bulging out of, such as most of the clothes in my closet, so I spent quite a pretty penny on new stuff. The best was getting to the front of the line with my $450 in new clothes only to realize I had forgotten my wallet. Muuuuuum!!!" So, with an ample amount of new clothes and an extra $450 in my pocket (kidding Mum, I am giving you the $$$ back!) we kept on shopping. We ended up going in to Mark's Work Wearhouse as Shawn wanted me to grab him socks. This store is completely empty, as I imagine it is normally, but especially during the week which is when we were there. I'm guessing there were about 10 shoppers sporadically planted throughout this big box store. I wasn't wearing my wig that day, just a hat. I figured I'd check out the hat selection while we were there; I'm now always on the lookout for new hats. They had a great selection of various beenie hats and I love beanie hats, I've always looked fabulous in them, but I don't think I own any now, so I grabbed a bunch of styles and headed to the mirror. The mirror was located close enough to the change rooms, which are in the middle of the store, that I didn't feel the need to hide in a change room to take off my hat. There were only a few people around anyway. I took off my hat, my mum was just perusing the rack that was right next to me. Anyway, she turned around to look at me as I pulled this beanie on to my head in front of the mirror. No sooner did my mum let out the loudest laugh ever when she looked at me as I was guffawing at my reflection saying "Omigod! I look like one of The Seven Dwarfs!" This was way more than she could handle. She started empatically nodding her head in agreement with me (she had this image as well) but couldn't speak as she was by this point letting out belly laughs, she was on a tyrant of laughter, drawing mortified glances from the people that could see us. She had to walk away from me to collect herself, but she couldn't really do that as I kept putting on more and more beanies and making her look at me. She was crying by this time and could not stop laughing at me, she was purple. What the people around us must've thought! This horrible woman laughing at her poor daughter who is so obviously sick! Too funny! It was great, I couldn't stop laughing at my mum laughing, and we were quite a site. When I pulled the hat down, my ears stuck out and I looked like Dopey Smurf. It was funny and the fact that my mum was laughing like that at me was even funnier! It's okay to laugh with and even at 'sick people'. I find it comforting to know that as much as people change the way they interact with you, I could still count on my mum to be 'normal' with me. On any other day, she would've made fun of me and hasn't changed and she was unapologetic about it. That felt good. Anyway, it turns out the beanies aren't as bad as they were in the store. When I got home and told Shawn the story, we were looking for a hat so I could show him what I meant. I found a winter one and showed him with a "See!" followed by his "It's because you're not doing it right! Here, look, do it this way" and voila! It didn't look bad! "It doesn't go under your ears silly, it goes over, like this!" Okay, that makes sense, although now conversation is garbled as I can't hear with my ears covered, but that's how you wear it, I get it now. I may be able to pull off the beanie after all, thanks honey!!! :D

Kiss from a 'Rose'

2007-10-11T11:41:00.000-04:00

SO much to say on her, but I'll keep it to this. Out of everyone in this world that is in my life, Laura is the one I want to impress the most. I care deeply about all my friends in different ways, and I'll probably share different angles on them in future, but this is about Laura. She is a third of our trio affectionately known as the "Golden Girls." Julie is Blanche, Laura is Rose and I'm so obviously Dorothy. These characters fit our personalities and our relationship very well and we hope to one day be old sitting around a kitchen table gossiping and sharing our lives just as we do today. The Golden Girls theme song played during mine and Julie's speech at Laura's wedding (but we walked to the podium to Eminem's "2 trailor parks girls go round the outside, round the outside...")
Laura is the kindest, most loving human being anyone will ever come across, and I am privileged to be able to say that she's one of my absolute best friends in the world. It's been this way for many many years and will be this way for the rest of our precious lives, I have no doubt about that fact. In high school, Laura was a very sweet, kind, popular girl (and she'll be sooo embarassed that I wrote that) which is kind of an oxymoron when referring to 'popular girls'! She had many friends, had a great social circle, and really cute boys after her constantly. Now, any of us that have been through high school knows kids can be cruel. There was one guy in particular who got picked on more than most. Everyone ridiculed this kid, unfortunately I think every school has the kids that get picked on more than others. This was that kid. Laura was one of the first of my friends in high school to have her own car, a tricked out white tracker (aptly named 'girlfriend'). Laura used to pass this boy in the mornings walking as she drove to school. On cold days, she would pull beside him and offer him a ride, but from what I remember, he always refused her. You see, to this boy, he would assume that a girl like Laura was simply doing it to make fun of him, or to then drive off on him laughing once he accepted. He didn't know Laura. She did this simply because it was cold, and she felt so bad for this kid that others made fun of him, he seemed like such a nice guy, personally I think she had must've had a 'geek crush' on him or something, I just didn't understand it. This is a purrrrfect example of Laura's mentality (oops, and mine). She's just always been like that, and that has not changed the whole time I've known her. That type of kindness is foreign to me (to this day I see my own neighbour walking around and have never offered her a ride). I'm going to comment on something else too, but unfortunately, unless you're in my immediate family or Laura's this won't make any sense to you, but Laura did something for me after I got diagnosed that I am not going to elaborate on, but let's call it the single most selfless gesture I'd ever been on the receiving end of, and against all my protests and fits, she did it for me anyway. She was taking a stand against me and was prepared to battle me on this, and stood her ground until I relented. She was so passionate about helping me with something that she knew I wouldn't stand for, and I know she went through anxiety leading up to "the gesture" but she did in fact win that fight, through my tears and frustrations that she wouldn't just leave it alone. Basically Laura made life easy for me during a tough time in a unique way, and we'll leave it at that. Laura is the girl that would donate a big sum of money anonymously, just because it would help, not for any personal recognition. I don't know how she lives her life so selflessly, it's such a foreign concept to me, yet I see it from her time and again. Julie and I constantly make fun of her for it, constantly, but really we're just both jealous that we don't possess those qualities. Sorry, Jules ha ha, but I know you won't mind me saying that! She's also a champion of fundraising for breast cancer, and this has nothing to do with her best friend getting diagnosed. It's always been this way. Every year she walks for breast cancer. I've been invited to walk with her every year and have never done it but she's never pressured me. Of course now she has a walking partner for all years to come! I'm referring to the Weekend to End Breast Cancer walk held in September in Toronto to support Princess Margaret (my hospital). You need to raise 2k to be able to walk, so she holds a huge pool party to raise the money not only for her to walk, but also for all the people that agree to walk with her. She does this for charity, for a cause that is close to her and her families heart as they've dealt with loss because of it. She does it despite comments like "why can't she just have a pool party instead of asking people for money" or "can't we ever have a party without it being about cancer?" She hears and is subjected to these abhorrent comments and does it anyway. She holds a huge hockey fundraiser every year as well to raise money for breast cancer. This is a huge undertaking and proves to be very stressful for her as there are a lot of moving parts when organizing something of that stature, but she does it and she does it by herself. Last year, she sheepishly asked me for a little assistance, which I'm sure was hard for her to do. Would I be able to maybe help her with getting together some prizes for the raffle? Sure, I'd do that for her. That I guess is my forte. I don't find contacting people/businesses I don't know difficult, I do it for work all the time, and I also like organizing events, and can say that I'm pretty good at it as I've had a lot of practice. In fact, that's what I've always wanted to do (event planning) so sure I can help her with this, it was coming up a few weeks after she asked me, I remember being at work when she asked and told her I'd definitely find her some amazing prizes for the raffle. I remember hearing her sigh of relief. I knew she'd be really grateful to have me help her with that, and she could count on me, I'm one of her best friends! Well, not only did I completely forget to do anything as far as prizes for her, I forgot the day of the event and I missed it. This is unfortunately typical of me (I don't remember birthdays either). I'd love to say otherwise and am working on changing that, but that doesn't make that statement any less true. I commit to things that I forget about all the time. I really would have had no problem doing this for her, but I couldn't do something as simple as put that in my calendar to remind me. Laura has never -not even for a second- made me feel bad about that. That's not her style. She would have justified my actions in her head and it would've been about me already being too busy and she may have even chastised herself for even asking me about to help in the first place. Unbelievable isn't it? I'm not exaggerating and any of you that know her will attest to this.
Well Laura, you now have my undivided attention for all fund-raising events, isn't it unfortunate that it took me getting this disease myself to help you? It's not a grand gesture now, it could've been had I helped you last year before my diagnosis but it's not now, that's something I have to live with about myself. It changes nothing about the fact that going forward, you and I are going to be an unbelieveable fund-raising team and are going to hold the most fabulous events and fund-raisers in the future. Your hockey fund-raiser is going to be a breeze for you because you now have me championing this alongside you and I'll handle all those aspects that you find difficult and I find fun and vice versa.

This is my solemn promise to you and one that I will keep this time.

Which brings me to last night. So I've just had a good cry about Jen's book, been touched very deeply by L's message to me, and now Laura's calling. "Oh good, you answered! Do you have plans for your birthday yet?" My 30th birthday is December 8th, it's on a Saturday a few months away. No, no plans yet. "Okay, you're spending it with me. My boss handed me 2 platinum seats to the leafs game the night of your birthday so I'm taking you." WOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! I never get to go to Leaf games! Doing a happy dance. But that's not all, these aren't just any tickets. These are section 109 row 4 tickets, platinum tickets; 4 rows from centre ice tickets; Toronto Leafs against Boston Bruin tickets! Great tickets to have! So so soooo excited!!! I cannot think of a better way to spend my 30th birthday! And again, going with the everything happens for a reason angle, I was supposed to be in Vegas that weekend and wouldn't have been able to go with her which would have been sorely disappointing. But now, no plans, this is what I am doing for my birthday now, yay yay yay!!! Oh, and to Laura's husband Bruce, thanks for not being mad at us that I get to go and you don't. And Laura said (but probably lied!) that you were fine with it and even encouraged her to take me so *mwah*! Hee hee! :)

When 'thank you' seems like a ridiculous thing to say...

2007-10-11T08:01:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I did it, I made my story 'public' by posting my blog and allowing anyone to read it. Is it cold in here? I feel naked all of a sudden! ;-) I put a lot of thought into that decision and I do believe I've made the right choice. Within a matter of a day I've had many messages from people that I don't know telling me about their stories or commenting positively on mine. I've also had many more from people I do offering me positive words of encouragement. Thanks to those of you who have taken the time after reading this to tell me what you think or share your own experience. That's (one of the many reasons) why I'm doing this so thank you.

Now, I'll tell you what happened to me last night. First, I had a great dinner with an old friend, then I met up with another good friend at my house for a visit and a chat. She has a friend who was recently diagnosed with cancer of the liver, I think she's only a year or two older than me. I don't want to write about her story for the fear I'll misquote, but Lina, I'm sending you my love at this time as well as a dose of courage, which I'm sure you don't need! :) I've referred a few times to Dr. Marla Shapiro, who has been labeled 'Canada's Doctor'. She writes articles about medical issues, had her own show on CTV as well as a frequent guest on e-talk Daily as well as a million other accomplishments before she was diagnosed at the young age of 48 with breast cancer. If you want to read her inspirational story her book is called Life in the Balance; My Journey with Breast Cancer. In my corner of the world, this book is apparently the Bible of cancer survival stories. I know this because I have been given repeated copies of it, and have been told about it a countless number of times. In my early days of diagnosis, this book sat in my room, on top of a pile of other books. I defiantly wasn't going to read it. I didn't want a reminder of what I was going through, and how is this woman I've never even heard of going to help me? I didn't need it, I was doing just fine. I'm like that a lot by the way, picture a kid with her arms firmly crossed across her chest and her eyes squinted with chin and bottom lip jutting out. That's me (foolishly) on a lot of issues. The first copy I received was from a friend from work, David. He sent me a copy with the flowers that were sent from work right after my operation. I was and am very touched that he did that for me. I have been inunudated with touching gestures; you'll hear all about some of them. Anyway, I wasn't done reading my John Grisham novel, I'm not putting that away just because I have cancer, does that have to invade my reading material also? It wasn't until about last week that I picked up this book, 2 months after receiving it for the first time. I finished the Grisham novel 2 books ago and didn't start a new one because now I'm gonna read the Dr. Marla book. At this point, I've received 2 more copies of the book. I've been told about it roughly 87 times by different people, and have now heard Dr. Marla's name a dozen times since receiving the first book. What is she (or the universe?) trying to tell me? Finally I caved. I had a bad 'poor me' episode the day before I picked it up to read. I got really angry, I started thinking about the 5 year outlook for me. I got caught up with the what-if's. I hate getting caught in the what-ifs, there's no power left in me after that line of thinking, I needed to reenergize. I started reading.
I finished that book in a day. I spent all day with that copy hugged to my chest, with a tissue box and a lot of head-nodding and laughs and a lot more tears. I loved that book! It's not just a book for 'cancer patients' it's for anyone who needs a dose of inspiration with an equal amount of humility and humour. I decided that I want to one day shake her hand and tell that for one full day, she made having cancer a whole lot easier on me. And every day since I've read that book, I cognizantly try to not give any energy to the what-ifs. She did that for me. Thank you doesn't quite cover that gift. I'll cry when I meet her. She's my celebrity that I want to meet (sorry Brad, you've been bumped outta top-billing there). She would roll her eyes at me saying I want to meet her I think, she doesn't consider herself special. I'd challenge her on that point. Anyway, the day after I read that book, my roommate Kit brought in a package from the mailbox that had been dropped off for me. It was a brown envelope, no card, just the Dr. Marla book. I laughed when I saw that. I love receiving this book just because I love that her book is being supported and that obviously so many people have felt the way I did after reading it. Anyway, it was from Jen. I used to work with Jen and we still remain in contact. She sent me a message to check my mailbox as she had her husband drop off the book for me on his way to work. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'd just finished reading it so I wrote a very simple thank you to her over facebook. I didn't want to call her as I didn't want to fumble over my words about the book, I didn't want to lie and I knew I'd probably end up just telling her I had read it and I didn't want to take away from her beautiful gesture. That message was sent to her last week. Fast forward to last night. My friend Michelle was leaving and I said "Hold on, I want to give you something to give to Lina." What am I going to do with multiple copies of this book? The copy Jen gave me was on the table so I grabbed that to give to Lina, but just then as I was handing it over I noticed that Jen had written a note to me in the book. I didn't want to give away a copy that my friend had written a note to me in, so I asked Michelle to hold on while I went and searched through the rubble in my room and found another copy. I signed that book to Lina and told Michelle that Lina had to do the same with someone she came across that would draw inspiration from the book, that she had to sign it off to another. I don't imagine that anyone who gave me a copy would object to me doing this, in fact, I would think they'd be happy that I plan on making sure these books get some traction. Anyway, Michelle left and I sat down on the couch and picked up the copy that Jen had given me. Out fell a small card which obviously I hadn't seen until last night. I withdrew a card that says Thank You on the front and inside is the following:
Kelly,
Thank you for being you! (A great friend too)
As you know I really enjoyed hearing Dr Marla speak. So much so that I bought her book and told you I would give it to you. Then I heard that she was speaking again so I went and asked her to sign your very own copy. Please know you are in my prayers and think of you all the time.
Love you,
Jennifer

On the page the card dropped out was the following:
To Kelly
The strongest and bravest person I know
Jennifer

On the page before Jen's inscription was the following:
To Kelly _____-
Courage finds you when you least expect it-
Best-
Dr Marla Shapiro

This was too much for me to handle, I put my head in my lap and balled my eyes out (then Shawn was hugging me and didn't know what on earth happened!) but I couldn't keep it together. I cried harder over this then I did my diagnosis I think. I don't want to say thank you, that's simply not enough. Jen, you will never be able to appreciate just how much that meant to me, that you would take the time out of your day to go and do that for me knowing how inspired I would be by it. The fact that I have a signed copy of that book means the world to me. That I almost gave said copy away scares the crap outta me! :) I would've had to ask to have it exchanged for another copy which would've been uncouth but I would have done it anyway. Gestures will affect people in different ways and this gesture will be one I never forget. And the best is, Jen's probably wondering why I've never mentioned the inscription to her! She must find me rather ungrateful, ha ha ha! Jen, so not the case, I was just too chicken to tell you I'd already read it, but had I done that you surely would have told me about the personal aspect of the book. See, honesty is always the best policy!
Right after I composed myself from this, I checked my facebook messages and by the way, thanks to all of you for your constant encouragement and words of kindness, they are all appreciated. I got one message in particular from an old high school friend. I won't post her name as I didn't ask her permission (actually, I didn't ask Jen either but she won't mind), but the gist was that she was shocked by the news, she had read my blog and she found it inspirational and her hope was that many other young women who have been affected by cancer will read it and draw strength from it. The reason this message was different from other messages like it was because she also informed me she in now a doctor! She has seen countless patients go through what I am and she offered words of encouragement to me and regarding women being the champion of their own diagnosis, and even young women need to be aware of the dangers and to get checked etc. basically everything I feel. This message was very dear to my heart and it's coming not only from a doctor, but someone I really got along with in high school and always thought was such a nice, loving, wonderful person who was always smiling. To find out not only has she decided to do that with her life, but for her to be touched by me was a great honour. Thanks L! I really am thankful that you took the time to write to me and I was really affected by your message of strength. :)
The phone then rings. It's Laura. Have I told you about Laura yet? No, okay good, check out the next post to hear about that phone call as well as insight into my friend.

But how have people reacted to me blogging about my experience? Well, here's one of the most important people in my life commenting on it. I gave the link to my mum to read just yesterday (the same day that I made this public for all of you to read). When I opened my email this morning, here is what it found:

Hi Kelly,

I decided to write rather than call. I read your blog it took a long time because of course I was in tears the whole time. If this was written by a stranger I would have been very moved but because I know the writer it was more emotional. I think it is a very good thing you are doing. If it helps one other person to understand what it will be like to go through this journey I think it will be well worth the emotional effort of writing it. I really hope it helps some other young people. I know you are doing this for a number of reasons but I believe it will help you the most. You have always been very good at words verbally or putting them on paper. (Not my forte unfortunately.) It will be therapeutic to do this plus informative for others. It must be very hard for people who do not have the support you have from good friends and family. I am so relieved you have these people in your life. Your journey is just beginning and I’m sure there will be some bumps on the way but you know I will always be here for you in good times and bad. You have a very strong personality which should come in handy on the road forward. You are strong willed, with a positive attitude and if nothing else gets you through life, that will. I can wish and wish all I want that this did not happen to you, but it did and I cannot change that, but I also know that whatever is thrown at us that you are a survivor. I am very very proud to be your mother.

Love mum

okay. Whew, I can now see the keyboard again through the tears. THAT's my mum! How lucky am I? I can't speak for her as to how she's handling her only daughter having cancer, but I can show you those words, spoken by the mother of a survivor. I'm so proud of her! Oh great, I'm crying again, but anyway, to all curious about what you say to inspire a girl with cancer? There's a great example. Reading that made every word I have written worth it. Thanks mum!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2007-10-08T10:12:00.000-04:00

What I'm thankful for:

I'm most thankful for my network of family/friends/coworkers who have weathered the storm with me

I'm thankful that my mum watches Milo when I feel too sick to do so and she lets me hang out on the couch and watch TV at their place while she takes care of all of us and that she has many many good friends to go to and talk to when she needs to

I'm thankful that my dad has been really strong and that he's taking really good care of himself right now and I'm very proud of him for doing that and I'm thankful that my dad has the support of his family and coworkers during this time

I'm thankful that my brother is healthy and that he's on the right path to finding his own happiness and that we're so close and that I've employed him as my part time psychologist. I've found that there are things I will never repeat out loud about myself (not even on this blog) and what goes on in my head that I can only tell my brother and I always feel so much better after I've talked to him

I'm so very thankful for having Shawn in my life and that he has managed to be my rock throughout this experience even though support for him has been noticeably absent. Our bond is still just as strong as it was before (stronger of course) and he is simply an incredible human being that I thank my lucky stars every night that he is lying beside me

I'm thankful to Shawn's mom for being in my life as well and for making us dinners and treats and taking Milo for long walks and for getting out there every weekend and doing a walk for a good cause and for walking in my name for the CIBC Run (walk) for the Cure

I'm thankful for my little grey monkey Milo who is just now a year old and at 75 lbs thinks he's a lap dog but he's a snuggler and I'm thankful for that and the unconditonal love that he has given me and that he hasn't seemed to notice or care about my drastic change in appearance

I'm thankful to my boss who has allowed me space to conquer this head on and has not pressured me at all about going to work physically (I switched to work from home), even though others at work are putting the pressure on to get me back in office before I'm ready

I'm thankful for my family that live in other parts of the world who I have become so much closer to during this time

I am thankful to my roommates Kit and Carol for making living at home 'business as usual,' for not treating me any different then before and never once letting me catch you give an odd look that I walk around a lot of days with no 'surgical bra' and only one boob and always whip off my hat and/or wig and chuck it on the table when I get home and that you put up with Milo being a pest on a daily basis

I'm thankful to my friends who have been a catalyst in my 'being normal' and to those of them that still break my b*lls and don't walk on eggshells around me and still make fun of me and joke around with me and simply engage me. Laura, Carm, Kat, Caroline, Julie(s) Joanna, Mari, Jess, Kel, Michelle, Kendra, Lisa. Thanks to all of you. To anyone I forgot, I'm looking forward to having my b*lls busted over it. :P

I'm thankful that having cancer really made it easy for me to define my true friends, and I'm thankful that this experience made some acquaintances become friends throughout this and I'm even more thankful for seeing that some people went from friend to acquaintance which is just as valuable to determine

And lastly, I'm thankful to myself for being strong enough to not allow the negative thoughts to be more than fleeting and for being able to look at the positive in all situations no matter how dire they seem on the surface

Happy Thanksgiving to All! What are you thankful for?

For the amusement of my friends, me trying to rationalize my look et al...

2007-10-07T15:06:00.000-04:00

I'll blame the inception of the look I wear on my face on growing up and living in a 'bad' neighbourhood my whole life, taking whatever possible measures from grade 7 on to not get jumped, or even approached by girls/guys/groups/gangs, whatever. I had to coexist in my world and I did it well as so far so good. The look has to date kept menaces at bay, it's been touch 'n' go a few times but it's my thinking that the look has made some think the better of a confrontation against me. I don't look at my feet when I walk, I don't wear a half-smile, my head is always held up, my chin jutted, my stride with purpose, my eyes forward; I don't meander or lollygag. If you look at me, I don't immediately look away, I stare back as if to say "can I help you" but not in a good helpful way, it's in the sarcastic just wtf are you looking at? way. This was simply my reality at an early age and made me who I am today and I'd change nothing about how or where I grew up. I hate it when people say anything negative about my area of Scarborough which the media would label the worst area of Scarborough to live in, back then and now and by the way I still live in the area I grew up in, love it actually. However, to be smart and grow up successfully without serious unfortunate albeit avoidable incidents, this was crafted, the same way as I'm very aware of my surroundings when walking, hence the exceptional peripheral vision. I've had to walk through parks, woods, schools, catwalks, alleys etc by myself during the day but also in the dark at night from bus stops or friends houses or wherever, and I am now equipped to be very wary and very aware of what is happening around me and I can do this without it being obvious that this is what I'm doing. It's a skill and I've crafted it throughout my life, I'm so sorry to the offended but I do hold pride in it, regardless of how that is perceived. I wonder if this rant would come off as self-promotion, I can't see it from that angle as I'm the one thinking it, but it really doesn't matter I guess. I say most of what I say about my views from a matter-of-fact perspective as it just is and I am -to put this in it's mildest form-, a very blunt and forward person. Besides, they're my views to have right? It may not be someone elses ideal of how a person should think/talk/act but it is just how I am and the reason I have the friendships with the people I have. My personality is definitely an acquired taste and I'm fine with this fact, I actually am proud of it, sorry. I can say with 100% certainty that I love the people that surround me and I know they 100% take me as I am with no thought to change or mollify. They love me because of who I am, not in spite of who I am and I think that is a key point in why I have the friends I have and why I hold those few in the highest regard. I don't think I'd be the easiest person to get to know and/or get along with, and that is why the people that do know me and still accept everything about me are so very important to me. This may sound contrite to outsiders, it's not meant to and this will make sense to those that understand me and/or can relate to me and those are the people I'm doing this for as well as for myself. Anyway, that look is now just on my face when I walk around, it's just developed into what my face now looks like and although in my head I'm probably going through a grocery list or trying to figure out what's on the tube tonight, I may look like I bite.

And now I'm on a roll so I'll finally address this too:

Look, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but etiquette will tell you that there are some things to comment on about someone elses way of thinking and there are some you shouldn't. You can, but you shouldn't. For example: your opinion on my decision to share my experience of breast cancer with others. I am speaking soley to a few of you that are in contact with me and have felt the need to tell me that you find it weird (or aghast! inappropriate) the way I share my story, experiences, thoughts etc. as I'm too (insert whatever you want here). Everyone has every right to have their opinion, but if it's on me, I'm simply not going to change (I don't even want to!) and your views on the way I handle anything fall on deaf ears, but thanks for the amusement and fodder for later lunch dates with my girlfriends. Some felt it strange that I would publicly post what I'm going through on facebook or in a blog and more are appalled in the manner in which I speak of my experience. Why? This is my life, this is my new reality and with anything that comes my way, I'm gonna embrace it and hold on for dear life and ride the waves of emotions and everything else that goes along with it. But I'm gonna do it my way, which is honestly, and what I write or say may be tough to hear and my advice for anyone in that type of seat right now is either distance yourself from me or stop reading this right now. It won't get any easier or less wince-inducing, that I can promise you, because I don't know another way to be. I posted on facebook for many reasons and a few are that I want people to know what I'm going through (other than on the days where people say stupid things to me) I want people to see that it can happen to anyone, I want to educate people on what I'm going through, I want to be honest about just what does go on in the mind of a 'cancer patient', at least one like me, and I want to update everyone at the same time with the same information as it can get exhausting having to one by one, especially because I do have a lot of people in my life that either care a great deal about me or are curious to know how I'm handling this and what I'm going through. For all the same reasons, I've posted a public blog. There are people I don't want to read this that are going to read it. That was a possible reason for not doing it, but rational thinking prevailed there. Why would I care about those people? They're not who I'm doing this for and anyone offended can simply choose not to read this, or they can choose to get together with their friends and comment about how (insert something here) I'm being. None of that matters in my reality. All that matters are the friends who love me are getting to now really know what I have and am going through without me having to have that face to face discussion, which can sometimes be too hard (I won't be as honest about the reality of my diagnosis in that forum, I'll want them to think I'm strong or shield them from any negative thoughts on my part). Also, when people I'm not super-close with ask me questions, I'm not always honest with my answers about my feelings as I don't know them well enough to predict their reactions to what I say. Here is a way for those people to get truthful answers AND it's not face to face so their reactions to it and my reaction to their reactions is made inconsequential. So for all those reasons, I'm blogging.

Oh, sorry, but one other comment I should address:

"You should write a book!" I get this one a lot. I got this even before cancer. So, here it is, my book as I'm writing the chapters of my life it AND it's a free copy! Look, unfortunately, I'm not famous, I'm not a public figure, I'm not even terribly interesting, I'm just one girl who is going through something that affects millions of others too. But they're not going to buy my book. The only people interested in my thoughts I would imagine are my friends, and possibly others with similiar experiences so I don't want them to have to wait for the publishing of my bestseller, I'd rather them just hold my online hand during this journey and read what's going on with me as it's current so they no longer have to feel bad hounding me with questions about how I'm doing or hounding my close friends and family for the scoop. Now they can read all about it and it's a bit more voyeur this way than just asking me, which I know I enjoy so I'm assuming others will too.

Sidebar: For all you publishing houses or editors reading this, feel free to send me an email with what type of paycheque I can expect from my bestseller or I could of course write articles in your paper/magazine/website, again, just forward me what I can expect to make from it and we'll take my new found writing career from there... :P

My kind of Tumour

2007-09-28T15:52:00.000-04:00

I'm going to post what I know about my tumour here and the reality as I know it of my situation. This will not be an easy read so skip it or don't say I didn't warn you.

My tumour is staged as follows: T2 N1 M0. It was a stage IIB growth when it was removed. I had this weird looking bunch of letters/numbers written down for me on a post it by the surgeon who did my operation on the date that I went in to have my drains and clips removed back in August. It has done nothing more than collect dust in the folder labeled "Cancer Medical Info" in my filing cabinet. It took until now for me to look that up and find out more. I didn't want to, and I'm still not sure if doing that was the right thing for me to do, but one day, sitting at home by myself, I withdrew that post it and my laptop and went to work. Before I paste what I found here, these stats really mean nothing. I will tell you what I've found as far as survival rate, but it doesn't mean anything either. I've lived my life with the thinking that if even 1% of anything is possible, then I feel that I can be that 1%. That is applied to the way I work and function so I'll try and maintain that when thinking about my own life, as hard as that will prove to be.

To define my T2 N1 M0 tumour, this is what is written:

T stands for tumor (its size and how far it has spread within the breast and to nearby organs).
N stands for spread to lymph nodes (bean-shaped collections of immune system cells that help fight infections and cancers).
M is for metastasis (spread to distant organs).

Additional letters or numbers appear after T, N, and M to provide more details about the tumor, lymph nodes, and metastasis:
The letter T followed by a number from 0 to 4 describes the tumor's size and spread to the skin or to the chest wall under the breast. Higher T numbers indicate a larger tumor and/or wider spread to tissues near the breast.
The letter N followed by a number from 0 to 3 indicates whether the cancer has spread to lymph nodes near the breast and, if so, how many lymph nodes are affected.
The letter M followed by a 0 or 1 indicates whether the cancer has spread to distant organs -- for example, the lungs or bones.

So, my tumour being 4cm big is a pretty large tumour and is classed as a 2 out of 4. It spread to 2/21 nodes and it hasn't spread to distant regions as far as the technology available tells them.

Once the T, N, and M categories have been determined, this information is combined in a process called stage grouping. Cancers with similar stages tend to have a similar outlook and are often treated in a similar way. Stage is expressed in Roman numerals from stage I (the least advanced stage) to stage IV (the most advanced stage). Non-invasive cancer is listed as stage 0. I'm stage IIb which isn't as good as IIa, but then again, not as bad as III or IV.

This IIb stage is described the following way:

The tumor is larger than 2 cm and less than 5 cm across. It has spread to 1 to 3 axillary lymph nodes and/or tiny amounts of cancer are found in internal mammary lymph nodes on sentinel lymph node biopsy. The cancer hasn't spread to distant sites.

The numbers below come from the American College of Surgeons National Cancer Data Base, based on women who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 1995 and 1998. There are some important points to note about these numbers:
The 5-year survival rate refers to the percentage of patients who live at least 5 years after being diagnosed. Many of these patients live much longer than 5 years after diagnosis. Five-year relative survival rates (such as the numbers below) don't include patients who die from other causes. They are considered to be a more accurate way to describe the outlook for patients with a particular type and stage of cancer.
These numbers were derived from patients treated several years ago. While they are among the most current numbers we have available, improvements in treatment since then mean that the survival rates for people now being diagnosed with these cancers are likely to be higher.
While survival statistics can sometimes be useful as a general guide, they may not accurately represent any one person's prognosis. A number of other factors, including other tumor characteristics and a person's age and general health, can also affect outlook.

5-year Relative Survival Rate
0=100%
I=100%
IIA=92%
IIB=81%
IIIA=67%
IIIB=54%
IV=20%

From this, you can see that I'm in the 81% category. I have no idea how this number is influenced by my age (I have a more aggressive form of cancer as do most young people diagnosed) my health, my mental state, my type of treatment etc., but I know that this is information that some want but won't ask so there it is. How do I feel about this? Depends on the day you ask me...

Support?! What support?!

2007-09-26T11:30:00.000-04:00

So, I’m back home now, just had my 2nd treatment. 5:13pm, so far so good. Appointment was at 10:30am, I got in about 12:30pm and went till about 3, all said and done. Oh, I gotta remember to write this down: so it’s just not meant to be, me and this ‘look good, feel better’ stuff. It’s official, the whole process of investigating this workshop is now doing me harm emotionally, so I’m not gonna participate in it at this point in time. I have tried time and again to get information on this elusive program, but I’m pretty sure that because they’re renovating, they’ve either laid off all people who have anything to do with it or they’re all on vacation. There’s a trailer out back of the hospital that temporarily houses the wig shop and where apparently you get information on the LGFB program. Well, I went there once, they were working with a client and I guess because they’re in just one room of the trailer, they couldn’t really help. In an office of course, one of the employees could just go outside of the room with the patient and speak with them, anyway, I didn’t speak with anyone.

I asked the survivorship centre/breast clinic support people previously and they had more than once directed me to the newly renovated wig boutique and where they do the workshops permanently I guess. This actually was just featured on breakfast television last week and the joke is, it’s still not ready, which wasn’t announced. I was like, finally! I’ll get some information. Let it be said that I do want info on breast cancer, but I would like to see something pertaining to my age group, and that info isn’t at the ready shall we say. But the other day, to my disbelief/ pleasure/embarrassment/horror, a volunteer followed me out of the clinic and really shook me emotionally (see previous post about this). I was kinda in a rush to get outta the hospital and into my car so I could just have a good cry.

Back to today, and my ‘ordeal’ at the hospital. I went to my chemo appt with my mum, and afterwards I decided to go up to the breast clinic to inquire about the workshop that the volunteer from the other day told me about. Okay, so here it is. I have yet to reach out and do anything as far as support. My one experience of visiting a website geared towards young women facing cancer had me in disbelief and tears and didn't help at all truthfully, so I haven’t spoken to one other person with cancer about what I’m going through. Hence the blog. I know I should, but I don’t know how to do that, and I don’t know why I find it so hard to just ask for help. There's the one thing cancer hasn’t changed about me! I’m worried about how I’ll handle that emotionally and with so much going on internally, I simply haven’t reached out. I have tried though, but for some reason, any time I go to the “survivorship centre” there’s been no one available to speak with, or they’re not sure how to help me, other than hand me pamphlets. I’ve been sent up to the wig salon so many times after I’ve asked a question it’s crazy, especially as there is never anyone in it and the doors are locked! It’s still not ready even though they did the launch on BT and they’re still housed in a trailer out back. All I want at this point is to ask about more information on the Young Women’s Conference, but I have just gone through a chemo treatment and don’t really want to hang out and wait for someone who knows more than the volunteer I’m talking with to walk in. The woman decided that the wig shop would be better equipped to answer my questions (shocking), so she dials the wig shop, passes me the phone as its ringing, and here is what transpires. A lady picks up and when I asked about the young women conference she stated exasperatingly “Why would we know about that, we’re a wig shop???” Even though it was the volunteer at the support place that passed me the phone after dialling, that was her response. Again, totally exasperated with me, “We just host those (LGFB) meetings here, they’re held here, but don’t have information on them." Such a bitch. On any other day, I don't know what I would have done, surely at the very least a confrontation would've ensued which would have at the very least been emotionally cleansing for me, it usually is after I've given someone I feel deserves it a piece of my mind, but sadly not today. What a way to speak with someone! She must have thought I was a volunteer or staff member asking this, maybe the phone has a different ring when it's an internal call, I don't care what the reason is, someone working in a wig shop at a hospital should NOT talk to anyone like that, so exasperated to offer even a moment's assistance! She should do something like factory work where you don't deal with others ever! I pretty much just hung up the phone. I had to leave, I was going to cry. When I hung up the volunteer could tell I was upset poor woman, and wanted to talk and find out what happened and I said loudly "she asked me why they would know anything about that" but this was shouted over my shoulder as I was walking out and my voice was cracking so I couldn't answer the questions she was giving me, I only looked at my mum, who immediately knew I had to go and made my excuses for me. Again, hardly made it to the car before crying, but I’m good. I’m not doing that program though. I don't know who it was that spoke to me like that, so I can't go there and get my eyebrows done by someone there, I'll think it's her or I won't know if it is, and that'll bother me. I just finished chemo, literally, then walked up to hear this! Not that what she said was that bad to an outsider, but again, all relative. I don't ask for personal assistance typically, regardless of how foolish that truly is. I only even asked in the first place today as I thought it was a sign that this nice beautiful person from Monday hunted me down to speak with me so I must be supposed to inquire. And this is what I go through. So, now, it’s official, It just wasn’t to be. I’m not meant to reach out and get support, I'll create my own therapy -hence the blog- and when the times right, I think it’ll just figure itself out. Oh, and for all you ‘posters’ that are going to tell me how great the LGFB program truly, is, I’ve heard that, thank you, but this is my mentality right now, so please forgive me for my feelings, I’m not slamming the program, just the timing of it and what I’m going through emotionally it isn’t right for me. Forgive me my arrogance.

She WAITED for me to finish my appt just to offer information cuz I'm a young girl

2007-09-24T13:27:00.000-04:00

It was right after my visit with Dr. T (see last post, where I was sitting waiting to see him again, and now this is what happened after I went in and talked about my pathology report) I was biting down on the inside of my lip for a while yet again as I'm now back in the waiting room for the third time in the span of one appointment at the front waiting on the extremely busy receptionist to schedule my next grouping of appointments, I want to l-e-a-v-e and I was pretty worried about drawing blood because I'm totally abusing the inside of my mouth, and mouth sores are typical with my treatment, but I was doing it anyway. I had a bad experience with the doctor. Not sure why I’m not getting to the point, I just smoked a bit so that may explain it, but the doctor told me the pathology did come back on my tumour and it was negative for whatever hormone they wanted it to have, which isn’t actually a good thing, despite how it sounds. It means that the other treatment option they had that they were gonna give me after radiation I’m not eligible for because a specific hormone needs to be present in my cancerous tumour. It's good I guess that I'm not getting hormone treatment pumped into me, or that sounds like a good thing to me, but that treatment does bring the percentage of recurrence down a bit if eligible for this, which I'm not. I'll do chemo, then radiation and then they monitor me for the rest of my life. I had the following dreaded thought inside his examination room while I was sitting by myself kicking my dangling feet on the table: I’m going to most likely die of this one day and I'm most likely going to battle this again and again until I do. My feet stop swinging at this horrific -but still true- revelation. Have I before now even allowed myself this thought? I don't know. Why I decided to verbally enquire into this line of thinking at that moment with the doctor while such negative thoughts were swirling is a mystery to me. I can't be on and up all the time and I'd be lying and doing no justice to myself or anyone else reading this to state otherwise. The mind does go to crazy places at inopportune times, doesn't it? I got upset because when he returned to the exam room, I asked him a question about the recurrence of cancer in someone my age with my type of tumour and I didn't like the answer, obviously. But you do have to ask. He's a doctor and he has to be honest and up front with me and I shouldn't have asked until I was in the right state of mind to deal with his answers but now I'm upset and want to go absorb and feel sorry for myself and blubber incoherently to no one cuz it's therapeutic to do so. What he said to me is kinda a big deal, and I don’t know what I feel. Right now as I'm writing about the past experience, I'm feeling definitely strong and I’d even say positive, it is an act? Can I really be this realistic and inspired even? I mean, I still obsess about my weight and hair and frivolous stupid things, I still get aggravated with my family and friends, I still laugh at self-deprecating humour, my favourite all time movie is now Superbad and I watched that after my diagnosis, none of that's changed, I'm still living and laughing, I still love hearing stupid gossip and still watch ET, so I’m normal that way, but don’t I now feel different because of this whole experience and different in a good way? Scratch that; I am different because of this whole experience. Anyway, that day in the office, I got upset, but I was able to bite my lip and almost get through it. Then the nurse comes in to the exam room as I'm practicing breathing deep breaths and fluttering my eyes towards the ceiling to keep the water in, and hands me my prescription, but she forgets one of the meds and has to go get it, I’m still managing the 'holding it together' part and then she comes back in and sees that I’m about to crack, and says 3 dreaded empathetic soft spoken words with the hand on my shoulder… “Are you okay?” I mean come on! So a whimper seeped out but I managed to catch it and chuck it back down. "Fine." Jump off the table. Look at my face and know I don't want another word spoken. One more step and home free. The nurses station to get my appointments booked and printed, then mercifully to my car to cry and release. This unrelentingly takes another 30 minutes and it’s so not their fault, the poor staff is worked so hard and they manage to appear so happy and are so efficient! For the most part Princess Margaret staff are absolutely amazing (refer to future post regarding why there's a 'for the most part'). I now have appt slip in hand, have kept it together, and am striding (running) out the clinic, gaze of stone on my face. As I’m heading towards the stairs, a lady-with-a-clipboard had just marched out the other exit of the clinic looking around but sees me and is walking purposefully towards me staring right at me, coming right at me, no way around her. Friends, here's a belly laugh for you guys and you are about to be nodding your head in firm emphatic agreement, so let's word in this way. I have a look about me. I don't carry a look on my face that says "approach me, I'm friendly." This isn't by mistake, it's by design. It has been crafted and perfected my whole life. (You can read more about my views on this look in the post titled 'For the amusement of my friends, me trying to rationalize my look') On this day at this time especially, I can only imagine the look on my face at this exact point in time and friends, I know that you're picturing it too!
But, fearlessly, this lady-with-the-clipboard stops me right there and starts with “Excuse me, I’ve been waiting for you, I hope you don’t mind, I can see you’re in a hurry but if you just have a sec” I nod to confirm definitively that I am obviously in a hurry (I'm practically jogging) at the same time she’s saying ‘have a sec’ but I do stop. I am so touched by this compassion that I’m being shown, but I’m also really not good under those circumstances, I almost get emotional right there and I’m soooo not a good crier and right at this very moment I'm a ticking time bomb of pent up anger/emotion/feelings and cannot have this explosive release of any of it happen to me when I'm by myself like that in the middle of the busy hospital. Through sheer will I'm still able to hold it together today. Some people get through conversations so well crying, like Amber from Big Brother 8, but I’m just not one. Don’t wanna talk when I’m crying or about to, just wanna g-o. She tells me about this conference coming up at the beginning of November for young women with breast cancer and here’s some info on this (hands me some pamphlets) as young women have felt it difficult to get targeted info on breast cancer for their age group so what she was saying was just so perfect and exactly what I've been feeling and experiencing and truly, I wanted to hear every word, but I really, unfortunately, had to run right then. It's too bad in hindsight that I couldn't stop to talk with her (I do mean couldn't, not didn't) as she had been literally waiting for me to finish my appt so she could speak with me (so so sooo touching!) She asked when I’d be back, I told her Wednesday, just 2 days from now, so she gave me stuff to read, and then I was off like lightning. Sunglasses on and I think I leaked a bit before I got to my car, but just a small crack, not a dam of tears. I almost lost it completely, but managed my way through it and then it’s over, I have my moment with myself and I’m good again.

My Body is Still Fighting for me even though I don't fight for it...

2007-09-24T11:08:00.000-04:00

Here I sit, in the waiting room at Princess Margaret waiting to see Dr. T, my really nice new cancer doctor. It’s pretty crazy that I’ve already gone through a cycle! In 2 days, I’ll have my 2nd chemo administration, which means as of Thursday, I’ll be a third of the way through my whole chemo treatment! (Okay, not really as that would technically be the end of the 2nd treatment, but that's semantics.) A few days ago, I noticed that my hair is now starting to fall out. This upset me a great deal. It was Saturday morning when I started to freak out about that a little. I mean, it’s one thing to know it’s gonna happen, I even shaved my head in anticipation, but actually seeing it falling out is a whole other emotion. Compound that with my ridiculously expanding waistline, I feel really unattractive. That’s hard to deal with when you have a boyfriend who you are immensely attracted to. I know he loves me for who I am, etc (insert whatever you're supposed to say here) but I also know what I look like right now, and that has to be tough on him as well as well as other emotions he's feeling. He's human. I can’t just blame the steroids or the chemo; this is happening because I’m not staying active and I’m overeating. And it's not on whole wheat pasta at dinner, it’s late night junk food like chips, chocolate, candy, etc. I know what to do about it, I’m just not doing it. Same way I knew what to do before cancer and still did nothing.
I am dealing with having cancer relatively well I think, right now at least, so the obvious conclusion is that I’m substituting the emotions of dealing with cancer through emotional eating. I’m not crying excessively or too moody I don't think, I just eat away the pain, which of course doesn’t work as all it’s doing is depressing me that I’m gaining so much weight. I’m guessing that over the summer, I’ve went up 20 lbs. Let’s remember that it was right before I got together with Shawn that I was at my skinniest. SO not only did I gain an extra 20 lbs in the past 2 years, but I’ve just gained another 20ish this summer AND I’m bald! It’s takes a pretty amazing person to love me so unconditionally so Shawn, thanks for making my life with you such a breeze and just know that I hope that on the day I’m tested like you have been, I’ll handle it even half as gracefully as you have. Anyway, the idea is -and if I write this is has to happen in theory- that in a few years, we'll probably get married and I'll worry about all the effects and moving forward after cancer and chemo and radiation and reconstruction and who knows what else when I'm in that phase, which I'm not right now. I have to try and remember that more and give myself a break. I'll work on being a healthy fit active person in time for my wedding so I can walk down the beach feeling really good about myself. That's the goal and I'm writing it so I have to see that through when the time comes. I may decide today to start, but probably not in all reality. Okay, totally sidetracked!

I now sit in the waiting room for Dr. T. The 3 things I gotta remember to ask about are: getting pot prescribed, radiation, just why does everyone tell me to reconsider this form of treatment and if I do get it, can I go to Oshawa instead of here? And can he recommend me for a naturopath or do I just find one on my own? Oh yeah and the pathology of my tumour should be back by now, am I getting hormone therapy after radiation as well?
Okay, so just saw Dr. T, I can’t get pot prescribed (boo!) but he said that if it helps...
He doesn’t 'recommend' naturopathy either (not to say he doesn't see the obvious benefits); he said to just take a vitamin D supplement, exercise and watch what you eat. Pretty much common sense I guess so why pay the money for someone else to tell me the same thing? I’ve got to call Dr. M, the radiologist to ask about going to Oshawa instead of here. As for the pathology report, I’m now back in the waiting room while they call Sunnybrook (that's where I guess the pathology is conducted) to see if the results from that are in yet. Not too bad today though, it’s only 2:30pm and my appointment was at 1:30pm so it’s not as bad as it’s been in the past, that’s for sure. The nurses here are superb, they work tirelessly and efficiently and it’s gotta be a thankless job, but they truck on, they smile and they are polite amongst the chaos, I give them a lot of credit, let’s hear it for the nurses and volunteers!
How have I been feeling? Well, since the restlessness, I’ve been fine! I didn’t go through that dip in cells that make you excessively tired, I didn’t feel that at all, although I waited for that, but now that I’m at the end of this cycle, I can now say that it skipped by me. Will I be this lucky in the future? Who knows, I don't think so, but it feels pretty darn good right now. When I came in to the breast clinic, it was all but empty with 5 of us waiting. Now, there is closer to 40 people here, not one seat is currently available, just crazy. I like coming here without my wig, it makes me feel empowered and here I don’t worry about people staring at me. I did go to Costco yesterday with my mum and I wore only a bandanna which was a big step for me I think. Especially because I look ridiculous in a bandanna, just ridiculous. I have been going to the dog park with just a hat, but that’s different than Costco as you don’t know you’ll see even another person at the dog park but it’s a little different at Costco! My attitude has changed about that. Before I was worried about people staring at me and if I could handle it. I really gotta give myself more credit as I don’t really care who stares at me. Before I was staring at people to see if they were staring at me. Kinda counter-productive as it’s possible they were just staring back at me. Now, because I’m not looking for it I don’t notice it so I’ve realized that my actions and emotions shouldn’t be affected by how others react, I really need to learn to look no further than myself to find the strength and character that I possess. Others are not going to give that to me, but I already knew that, didn’t I? Do I actually act that way and live my life that way or is that just something I’m saying now because I’m writing? I’m not sure… How do you ever tell?

Take that stupid Chemo!

2007-09-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

So, I’ve had a great week. I was fully expecting to feel like crap and be tired etc because of a low blood count, but I haven’t had anything to complain about, I’ve felt fine, truly. I was watching Breakfast Television this morning and they were unveiling the new Look Good Feel Better facilities at PMH so I am glad I waited to go as it’s so nice now! LGFB is a program designed for cancer patients that help with the physical aspects of chemo ie makeup tips and wig styling and selection. I think I’m gonna try and make an appointment there for maybe this week and if not, then I’ll go in a few weeks once I’ve actually lost my hair because if my eyebrows/eyelashes are about to fall out, I'd like help with how to mask that. Right now though, I have a small afro going on as my hair's still growing. I'll be shaving it again soon I think. I talked to one of my friends this morning and I do love her, but she seems to be the one who’s been making the most annoying comments out of my friends and I’m not sure if they're really annoying comments or its her delivery, but either way. And friends, don't ask who I'm referring to. All I'll say is, don't worry, it's not you I'm talking about.
This morning it was the way she was saying that I'd be so pissed to find out I shaved my head for nothing, ha ha ha! No, I won’t. I won’t change anything about what I’m going through and I will lose my hair, so I don’t have the thought of being 'pissed' about it, I’m happy to have the hair that I have for as long as possible before it falls out.

I changed my profile on facebook to reflect what I’m going through (included below). That was a big step for me as it’s one thing to be honest with my very close friends, but now anyone that has access to my profile can now read about it, which is over 200 people. I felt it was important to do that for 2 reasons. 1st, to be honest about this disease and make people aware that it can happen to someone you know and someone so young, so be aware. The 2nd reason is because I’ve been walking around without my wig lately and I have so far seen 2 people that I know, one of which I’m pretty sure recognized me. So selfishly, I figure if someone sees me walking around with my head shaved, they may go to my profile to see if there’s any clues about me becoming a lesbian, and they’ll see I haven’t converted, I’m simply going through chemo. Is that vain, yes, but it’ll give me confidence to walk around and if I see someone that knows me, I’ll assume that they’ll find out why I’ve done this indirectly instead of me explaining it. We’ll see. I’m going to my parents house now as I want to watch the last season of the Sopranos AND I feel like McDonald’s breakfast and only have half an hour to go and get it!
Oh yah, my facebook post as follows:

About me:
I am a 29 yr old who this summer was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. I had surgery and am now going through chemotherapy. After this I will be going through radiation. I have been told that I will lose my hair so right before my 1st treatment, my boyfriend shaved it off for me. It doesn't even look that bad, way more Demi than Britney! If you see me around, I sometimes wear my wig and sometimes I feel good enough not to, so if you see me, no I haven't switched sides! ;pThat was important for me to do as it's tough to hear your appearance will change like that and there's nothing you can do to change it BUT you can decide how it happens. I wasn't about to watch my hair fall out so I did it on my terms. I have decided to post this publicly as I feel its important to let others know that although it's rare that this would happen to someone so young, it wasn't caught early -I've had it for years- and I want to make others aware that this CAN happen and a mammogram check up is not just for old women, all females should get checked yearly and I feel it's now my responsibility to say that as much as possible. Feel free to message me any questions as I'm being very open about this and anyone close to me already knows all about this and that I'm doing great and staying strong and of course gonna kick cancers ass! :)

Chemo's reign of Terror cont'd...

2007-09-11T11:05:00.000-04:00

I’m feeling better and have been for the past 2 days. I’m still awaiting the tiredness that will inevitably consume me over the next week, but right now I’m in very good spirits. I had a good day on Sunday at my parent’s, but first I’ll tell you about Saturday. All day I was taking pills for nausea and had been pill-popping since my previous bout of nausea. By Saturday night I was so groggy and out of sorts, and I was also getting frantic about my illness and how bored and restless I was gonna be etc. I decided that on top of the 2 separate prescribed anti-nausea pills I was currently taking as well as the steroids that I was still on after my treatment, I’d top it off with an Oxy-Contin. I was prescribed those for the pain after my mastectomy and still had a few pills. The feeling I remember was that once I took a pill, I felt like I had something to look forward to, if that makes sense. I describe the Oxy high as being a kid and your parents told you they were taking you and your friends to Wonderland on Friday, but today is only Tuesday. So every time you thought of going to Wonderland on Friday, you’d get this feeling inside that something really fun was about to happen. That’s how I felt on Oxy. It only made sense to me, that, at this point where I feel like I have nothing to look forward to and I’m suffering anxiety from being so bored but restless and sore, what better way to curb this than by taking a pill that makes me feel excited? It couldn’t hurt, right? I mean, I’m already on every drug imaginable so why not add the equivalent of oral heroin to the mix? Yah, not the best idea I’m sure you’re shocked to hear. I wasn't in my right mind before I took the Oxy (obviously!) so I consider it an accidental overdose. When I told Shawn I had taken one, he was pissed. I knew he would be and I only told him I took it because I got poppers-remorse right after I took it and wanted him to know I had done it. He said I should purge it but then changed his mind about that. We’d just see what happened. I don’t want to make this a bigger story than it needs to be so I’ll just say that I was fubar. I was so groggy and disoriented and couldn’t hold a thought or my head up for that matter. I was so restless but had no energy to do anything. I was grumpy and mopey. Shawn said he was taking me for a drive, which totally helped as it killed some time, but at 7pm driving around neighbourhoods looking at houses, my head kept bobbing and all the lights were blurry and trippy. I decided during that drive that the way of the pill wasn’t for me. This was a good revelation and I was happy about this decision. Of course, I still had to get through the current high, which brings us to that evening.

Gross topic coming up, skip paragraph if you're queasy or offended by poop talk.

The nurse warned me that I may be constipated after treatment and if that persists beyond 3 days, either take a suppository or pill and if it doesn’t work call the doctor. Because of my nausea I really wasn’t paying attention to my bathroom activity, but by Saturday I realized I hadn’t gone since before treatment on Wednesday. Oops. Now my stomach was hard and I was cramping. I haven’t ever really dealt with constipation so I wasn’t all that concerned about it, I went to the pharmacy and bought ex-lax, it would take 6-12 hours to work, fine. Ah, no, not so fine. By Saturday night I was hunched over and running to the bathroom every 10 minutes with severe cramps but no action. By midnight, I thought maybe I wanted to go to the hospital it was so bad and they could just take siphon it outta me with a hose, but instead I opted for 2 more ex-lax, even though I was really afraid to take more as the first set hadn’t worked, what’s gonna happen with 2 more? At long last, relief came at about 3:30am and after a whoop of joy, I went back to bed. Of course I woke up every hour from then till morning going to the bathroom, but that was lengths better than waking up every hour and not going to the bathroom; another disaster conquered and victory prevailed.

By Sunday morning though, I was feeling pretty cracked out from lack of sleep. Shawn’s mom came over first thing in the morning to see us as I hadn’t seen her since treatment; I just wasn’t up to it. She left, with the promise of baking some more of those peanut butter chocolate granola cookie goodness things, and she was also gonna make us a roast to have during the week for dinner. Awwwesome!
Shawn went to National to see about some golf shoes and my parents ended up popping by about 20 minutes later after watching a 9am showing downtown of a David Cronenburg flick during Toronto Film Festival. I decided to go with them to their house with Milo (my adorable weimaraner-lab puppy) as Shawn was going golfing later and was going to drive me there for the day anyway and it saved him the trip. I was feeling better and felt like hangin' with the fam. I was pretty drained for most of the day, but was entertained by my parent's and Craig, and we played a few games of poker around the table while the dogs batted heads out back. It was a good day. I have decided that I'm not taking anymore anti-nausea pills. They don't work and make me feel bad and stupid, so I'm sticking to the herbal medicine for that as well as for my spirits!

Chemo is not my friend

2007-09-09T11:04:00.000-04:00

So Chemo is kinda kickin' my ass. I’m not gonna lie, it’s pretty hard. This morning I was sitting in front of the toilet, dry-heaving, no more puking, but just thinking, this is tough. And ya know what, it’s supposed to be. And I will get through this and I will survive. This journey is not going to be a breeze, it's not supposed to be, it’s supposed to make me feel alive and when I come out of this stronger than ever, I’ll remember that I would do it all again in order to just survive. I started crying as I was hunched down next to the toilet bowl because I thought about that chemo bell at Princess Margaret that the girl rang in the clinic. There's a big bell on the inside of the door when you exit the clinic to the waiting room, and it startled me when she rang it but even more so when the entire room of about 40 nurses, volunteers and patients started clapping. My nurse explained to me that you ring it on the way out after your last treatment. Is that not just beautiful that they have that? I tell ya what, I will ring that bell louder than it has ever been wrung before, I will scream with pride and happiness that I am done, and will show everyone else waiting for their treatment that they too will have that moment as that's what I thought the first time I heard it. I have that goal in my head and even though that finish line is way out in the distance, I can still see it. I’ve started the race which means I’m on the journey now and I will continue to be strong of mind and soul. It won't be easy on me, I can see that this is going to be tough, but so will I and I will reign supreme over this illness, mark my words.

Just what is Chemo?

2007-09-07T11:44:00.000-04:00

I get this one a lot, so here it is, this is chemo. Of course, there are many ways to receive chemo, some take it orally but mine is intravenously. There are different schedules and time lines for everyone, but I can only comment on mine. I'll have 6 treatments in 3 week cycles, so 4.5 months of chemo. So on Day 1 out of my 21 day cycle, I go in and get the chemo drugs and then again in another 3 weeks. The first 3 treatments are one set of drugs and then I'll get another set of 3 for the last half of treatments. Here's what happens: I walk in to the section at Princess Margaret called Chemo Daycare. I check in, get handed a pager, and go walk around or sit in Druxy's until the pager goes off, can be anywhere from 1-3 hours from time of appt. Not their fault, this is not due to anything they've done wrong or inefficiently; they are over packed and busy as all hell because that is the state of our health care system currently, isn't it? This is evident even at Princess Margaret yet they are seemingly happy to help you and assist you and are among the most efficient and jovial people I've encountered under the circumstances. Anyway, I get paged, go and sit in a lazy boy-type chair (some people are in beds but they're getting different drugs than I am I think) and wait for the nurse to come by and administer my drugs. There are many patients and nurses in this one room, you can eat in there, walk around, family/friends just come and go while you're there, it's a relaxing environment. I get my IV, and this part isn't fun. I have 'flat' veins, they are pretty much non-existent and I'm subjected often to multiple pokes. I was told that I may be getting a portocath, a little device that gets surgically placed under your skin in your chest area so they can easily administer drugs and and you don't have to deal with needles. I've heard horror stories about those things though and I really don't want a device with tubes hanging out of my body for the next 6 months. Anyway, my nurse has been working the chemo daycare for 20 years, one poke ouch and I'm good. She tells me I shouldn't have to do that as the staff is well-equipped to deal with difficult veins. I'm relieved by this. First is the saline solution to hydrate I guess, that's about 20 minutes to start. Then comes a bag with my first medication Fluorouracil. I simply sit there while this drips in, takes about 15 minutes. Then comes the fun one; Epirubicin aka the Red Devil. There are three comically huge plastic syringes full of red liquid sitting next to me. This is the crazy chemo drug hence it's devilish name. Here's some insight to its power; they have plastic surgeons on call to come to the chemo clinic if called as if the nurse administering misses your vein when she pushes this drug into you, they need to call a plastic surgeon to come assess and help with the damage. Yikes! So anyway, unlike the first medicine that is a drip bag, this one is pushed into your vein slowly and carefully by a nurse. Three big plastic syringes worth. This is the hair loss drug and it makes your pee turn bright red for about a day. That was still shocking when I saw it, even though I knew it'd be there. This drug causes nausea and can be detrimental to your heart also, so I have to be careful due to my previous heart condition. Not spending time on this topic but when I was in my late teens, I had some heart problems, namely severe palpitations that on the first occurrence had me hospitalized with a heart rate of 227 beats per minute (normal is approx 74) before they gave me an injection which stopped and restarted my heart beat. For years I was on medication that had me gain a lot of weight in a short period of time. That medication basically regulated your heart beat which slowed my metabolism to a halt. I'm fine from this now and haven't been on those meds for years (they don't know what caused that condition either) but should be obviously careful with anything that has to do with the heart function. Have I even yet mentioned the brain scan or the really claustrophobic MRI I had while going through all my other tests for the completely unrelated issue of my migraine aura problems I was having before all this cancer stuff? I was getting a weird prism thing in my vision that started small but within 5-15 minutes would blind me kind of and I'd had this a few times over my life which was always followed by a migraine, but then in Spring this prism was appearing daily, although it wasn't followed by a migraine thankfully. It was however, affecting me being able to drive so I had to get this checked out as well. I went to a neurosurgeon who said it was most likely an 'aura migraine' (they have no idea how this happens, how it's cause or why I get these either) but I'd go for an MRI. Because it takes forever to get an MRI in this area of the world, it just happened to get scheduled months after I went for this issue and right at the same time as all my other tests, xrays, scans, appts. I've just had weird medical things my whole life, but really nothing that turned serious and I'm obviously referring to life before cancer, although I do to a certain degree credit going through all that other stuff (not to mention the accidents, broken bones, sprained ankles, stitches, etc etc) as why maybe I'm able to cope with this a bit better than I would had I not gone through other medical scares.
Sorry, constantly off topic as usual.
The last drug is Cyclophosphamide and this one can irritate your bladder and is also pushed. They tell you to drink loads of fluid the days leading up to chemo as well as after so you can get these meds flushed out asap. All in all, my day at chemo takes -once I'm seated in the lab- about 1.5 - 2.5 hours start to finish depending on what else is going on (pharmacies held up giving the meds, nurses are getting an influx of patients, etc etc). But that's pretty much it, you go home and wait for the fun to start.
There are so many different side effects that you can have, but some would be nausea, vomiting, bladder problems, low blood cells, weakness, tiredness, restlessness, weight gain (no, not loss as so many people think, you gain weight from chemo *sigh!*) metallic taste, mouth sores, joint pain. Those are some. I'll update what I personally experience as I go through it.

It's Chemo time

2007-09-06T11:02:00.000-04:00

I shaved my head on Tuesday. Okay, Shawn shaved my head but I did the first ceremonious cut with the scissors. I almost couldn’t do it. I said I’d do it on the weekend, but since it was a long weekend, I waited until the very last minute. I guess I really didn’t want to deal with the bald look until I absolutely had to and the truth was, I was scared. People have asked me why I was going to do that, why didn’t I wait to see what would happen to my hair, maybe I wouldn’t lose it all, so and so had cancer and they didn’t lose their hair… So and so didn’t have my kind of meds obviously and didn’t have their doctor say to them, you’re gonna lose your hair, it’s a matter of when and he predicted within 7 days of my first treatment. Well, I guess I showed him! It's gonna be gone even before chemo starts, ha! I don’t want to lose my hair, but I will shave it off. To me, the difference is night and day. One I can control and the other I can’t. So it’s done. It isn’t even that bad, but of course I do still have some hair, I wonder what I’ll think when the stubble falls out and all that’s left is scalp. I think I’ll think that I’m glad I took it off on my terms and watching stubble fall out in the shower or on my pillow is better than seeing big clumps come out, screw that.

Yesterday was my first treatment. It took about 2 hours to get into the chemo clinic at Princess Margaret because Monday was a holiday and they were packed but they warned us they would be. It took about half an hour after they called me to get my drugs from the pharmacy as they were behind, and then it took another 2 hours to administer the drugs. I felt alright yesterday, came home from the hospital tired but I dunno if that was the meds or the fact that we’d spent all day at the hospital and we were both so drained. I wasn’t in the mood to see anyone really, so we just chilled out and went to bed at the reasonable hour of 11pm. That's when the fun started. I had conflicting information on what I’d go through during chemo. I was told that I shouldn’t celebrate in the first few days of my treatment when I wasn’t sick as it would most likely get worse. I wouldn’t feel really bad until day 7 to 10 because that’s when the platelets are low, etc. Okay, so what the hell was last night about? I woke up at 1:30am and had my first purge. Got rid of all the food I’d had during the day. Then at about 3:30am, the bile came up. It tasted awful, I know that sounds dumb as puke isn’t exactly appetizing, but this tasted just awful! After that, I got up every hour until about 9:30am in the morning but it wasn’t as bad as the first few times as it was just clear, other than being so exhausted from getting up. Poor Shawn is so helpless on what to do, that must be so frustrating but he’s so awesome. He stayed home from work because he was worried about me and I was glad he did. Today was rough, I can’t sugar coat it. I was and am scared to go through this and as I’m typing this I’m starting to cry but I find solace in telling myself that I will get through this and be stronger for having conquered this but it is hard. When you’re nauseous you wonder if you’re ever going to feel good again. I’ve had a headache since treatment yesterday and been uncomfortable and exhausted for most of the day. I wasn’t able to keep the anti-nausea pills down in order for them to help, so I may need to think about an anti-nausea suppository (ewww, sooo gross!) for the next phase as I don’t want to feel this bad and if I can avoid it I’ll try and find a way. I took my steroids as prescribed. They made me feel better I think once they kicked in & I instantly felt better after smoking a joint. I finally did at about 3pm or 4pm this afternoon. I didn’t want to but I’m so glad I did! It’s sad to me that this is illegal, seriously. There are people going through this and being in pain and they really could just smoke a dube to feel better, even for a short while. When you’re that sick, even a half hour reprieve is better than nothing! Before I smoked, I couldn’t keep a popsicle down. Right after, I felt like I could eat a steak and my mood was instantly better. I just felt better. My doctor would’ve prescribed me THC pills, but not actual pot to smoke. The conundrum is that when you’re puking, pills don’t really help, do they? Smoking did, instantly. I was finally able to keep down some food. I had tried a banana and popsicles this morning but both resurfaced. I had some chicken broth that the neighbour brought me from swiss chalet, and that stayed down thankfully although I didn’t eat the chicken or veggies, just the broth part. After I smoked, I had some pudding, 6 saltines, some pretzels and a handful of apricots. I’d say that’s pretty good. It’s going on 8pm and I have yet to be sick again. I hope this Kytril and Dextamethasone (or whatever the steroids and anti-nausea pills I’m taking are called) lasts until the morning. Wish me luck!

More 'Via Rail' than Frankenstein actually

2007-08-10T13:23:00.000-04:00

The unveiling of the boob. I'll admit, I never ended up looking in private, even though that's what I told the nurse I'd do. I was dealing so well with the recovery and the mental game of my amputation that I didn't want that streak to end. I just didn't unwrap it. I knew I'd be going back to the surgeon soon enough for him to look, so I'd just wait until then. When I did go to see him to get my clips (basically staples) and the drains removed, I was preparing myself for the worst. I already thought I knew what it would look like so I was prepared as much as I could be to actually see it. By the way, the drains are so gross, I've walked around for a week with these 2 big plastic 'balls' pinned to the inside of my t-shirt and there are two tubes that are coming out of my body to drain the fluid from my lymph node area. They are 2 vacuum suction things that I have to drain a few times a day and they're gross, but whatever, they don't hurt. The clips are to keep my incision closed. I didn't even know I had clips until I heard them hit the tray next to the table I was lying on as my surgeon removed them. So, as I'm lying on the table, I didn't look down at my chest once as he removed the tubes for the drains and the clips. I asked him how it looked, and he said to see for myself. I had to will myself to finally look at it. "Oh! That's it! It looks good!" In hindsight, I'm so glad I did see that google image of what I thought a mastectomy would look like (see, everything happens for a...) because that is so NOT what it looked like! I'm actually embarassed to admit what image I saw of it. I was in a great mood after I saw it. I figured I'd crumble at that point for sure! I had dealt so well with everything, surely that would be the time for me to break! Ha, not at all! It's so not even a big deal, just a train track scar that goes around that part of my body and ends below my armpit. I'm not being sarcastic, it's really not a big deal. I'm now starting to understand why my surgeon must think I'm nuts. I thought it looked pretty cool! But of course he had no idea what I thought I'd be looking at so again, my reaction in front of him to this was probably perplexing to him and surely confirmed his earlier conclusion regarding my issues with denial. My brother has a similiar but bigger and way longer and way cooler scar wrapping around his body on the lower left side and I always thought it looked really cool. Mine is now a smaller matching version on the right. His is from childhood and had him spending a good portion of his early life in Sick Kids, but that's his story to tell.

Now I'll finally tell you: the google image that was in my mind showed a woman's chest with two huge half moon cut outs of exposed tissue where her boobs used to be, just exposed red skin, not sewn up. It must have been an image from a medical textbook of a surgery that was still happening or something, or what it looks like before it's stitched, but either way, it wasn't what I was looking at. How dumb am I that I even thought this is what I'd see. Maybe that's lifes way of allowing me to cope with the reality of it. If I thought it would look worse than it did, then the actual visual of it will be easier to deal with. It's the universe conspiring to assist me again. This I can deal with no problem! I'm not even really conscious of the scar. I even think sometimes I flash it when I bend down to pick something up, but I simply don't care. I have somewhat learned to not give energy about others feelings or opinions about how I am reacting during this time in my life, it should mean nothing to me. I have my network of people in my life and they are close to me because for the most part we're like-minded people so I am completely at ease when I say the opinions of others are no longer that important to me, unless of course I care about you and then my world will crumble at a negative opinion. But that number is precious few and they know who they are I know who they are and they're reading this with pride, not with any opinion of what I should or should not do, say, think, act, tell. Thanks to them for empowering me with that knowledge. I'll write about my friends another time, but they're great people and I'll give them their credits in another post. :)

Let's all take a moment of silence to mourn the loss of a dear old friend: small b-cup right boob

2007-08-09T14:15:00.000-04:00

When I woke up in recovery from my surgery the first thing I thought to do when my eyes opened was peak under the covers. I guess in my drugged haze I was expecting to see that horrifying image right then when I woke in recovery. Of course I was just wrapped up and saw nothing, phew! All that was going on at that point was a severe migraine and crazy burning throbbing hot pain through my arm and chest and a really dry hot throat. I was in and out of consciousness for a few hours. I was in recovery for a really long time as the pain was unrelenting at that time. They kept giving me more and more morphine, but it had no effect on the pain in my chest and arm. A few hours later, after I got yet another dose, I finally felt the relief of no pain. The nurse then informed me it was a good thing it worked as she had given me my last shot of prescribed morphine and was about to page the doctor for a next step to deal with the pain. Thank goodness! I chilled there for a while longer for them to monitor me, I still had a huge headache but they did eventually move me to a mobile stretcher and wheel me up to my room. That stretcher ride to my room was an experience on its own while on serious drugs. I'm totally horizontal and I watched the lights on the hall ceiling go by one by one, I was counting them but kept losing count and starting again and smiling to myself that I couldn't count past 8 for some reason, I remember chuckling to myself about playing whack-a-mole on the heads that kept popping in to my line of vision from sides of the bed I was being wheeled on. "Kelly, we're just gonna take you up to your room now." Whack! "We're just getting on the elevator dear." Whack! "This is your floor nurse Wendy." Whack! My dad's head appeared when I got to the floor. Whack! Ha ha ha, wheeee! Everyone seemed upset yet I was really groggy but I was in pretty good spirits thanks to my friend morphine. I think it was my brother who later informed me about a totally different experience that everyone waiting had. Firstly, back to Code Blue. That apparently happened about 10 minutes after I had left my family. There they were in the waiting room and it was quiet until over the intercom came 'Code Blue, day surgery, Code Blue.' I can only imagine a pin dropping after that. Craig said that they were looking around at each other but no one said anything. Of course, the chart showing the different colour codes and definitions was there for them to view. Code Blue is cardiac arrest, the worst code (Code Red is fire, duh!) Rationally, they had to know that there was no way it could've been me so soon, but I don't think that was a comforting thought to any of them. I don't know what else was said among them but I can imagine that that set the tone for what was about to be a very long day. Apparently, after my surgery came more upsetting news. My surgeon ended up going to the waiting room to speak with my family, and they were bombarding him with questions he couldn't answer without me being present, which was probably frustrating for all parties. I think that I may have been a little light on information about my actual tumour size, stage, etc. before then so hearing from my super-serious and monotone surgeon about the size of it and that it was advanced was too much for them to take in and something my surgeon would've presumed they already knew. And then I spent a long time in recovery, which they were probably worried about as well. It was a lot to take in for them and I didn't know any of that until much later. Everyone left pretty soon after I was in my bed as I was in and out of consciousness. Shawn's aunt had given me a breast cancer pink bear that was so soft and comforting and I brought him to the hospital with me and snuggled with him all night. That night Carm and Jess came to visit me but again, I remember small bits of it and that I was totally out of it. I remember Kelly scaring the crap outta me when she came as she was trying to be stealth and drop off a card and beautiful flowers while I was sleeping! ;P It was really sweet that she came and she stayed for a little while and kept me company. That night, I was up hourly but it was pretty peaceful and uneventful. I was able to get up and go to the bathroom without assistance and I had magazines to entertain me, but really, I just slept and lay there and slept more. I had a small confrontation with one of the nurses in the morning. She must've just started her shift as I didn't recognize her from earlier. She was bringing in my food tray in the morning with another nurse, and she rudely and loudly and exasperatedly told me that I couldn't have all that 'stuff' on the tray beside my bed. I look at her baffled and counter, "So move it!" She's shocked and taken aback at my defiant rebuttal I guess and goes on the defense immediately. She states she's not being rude, she just needs to put the tray down on that. I point out that there are two nurses standing in front of me, I tell her that she is in fact, being rude. I didn't put the offending articles on the table and I'm in no position to move any of it as per my whole right side being bandaged up, the side where the table is. That the interpretation of rudeness is left to the person on the receiving end and not the administering end, is it not? I think the other nurse wants to laugh but the rude one did kind of apologize through her actions, I'll give her that. She also had to wheel me around later and was being really chaste after so I acted like it didn't happen and was chatty and amicable with her I'd like to think. The other nurse simply took the cups and cards and stuff and moved it to the other table. They left me with my tray of food. I was starving as I hadn't eaten in about 24 hours and couldn't wait to ingest something, even if it was hospital food. I lifted one of the lids to see a big plate with a teensy eggo waffle on it. Just one. No syrup, just a butter pack. Close that lid, open the next one. Porridge. I'm not going to say oatmeal because I like oatmeal. This was porridge. It was in the shape of an upside down jelly mold and smelled bad and was lumpy and solid and just disgusting. I groaned, laughed, took the milk and pushed the rest aside. Shawn came in a few minutes later, I was so happy to see him! He was happy to see me too. :) He lay beside me on the bed and we chilled like that until I got to leave, which was a few hours later. I was getting a bone scan that day so I had to hang out for them to come and get me. This is where they inject your blood stream with radiation, wait an hour for the dye to course through you and then they xray your skeleton to check for cancer in your bones. A few days earlier I had an abdomen ultrasound for them to check for spreading to my organs and I'd get all the results at my next appt with the surgeon.
The nurse came in to change my bandages. When the nurse asked me if she could rewrap my bandage for me, I said, "Nah, no thanks, I'll do it myself when I get home." Are you sure, I can just do it for you so you don't have to? No no, it's fine, don't even worry about it, no big deal. I'm sooo tough! Ha! I just didn't want to see it and didn't want to look away like a p***y and have her see that and I didn't want to watch her face for any signs of horror as she changed my bandage. I wanted all of that to be a private thing for me. So she took off just the tensor that was wrapped around my chest and said that there was no blood through the gauze so it was fine to leave that way for now. The physiotherapist came in the morning before I left to go over exercises with me. She was really happy with the mobility, crossed off a whole bunch of exercises she said I wouldn't need to do and told me in her opinion, I didn't need actual physio, I should be fine to simply do the exercises from home. This was great to hear. Also, when I did get home, I was walking around immediately and felt pretty good, albeit high on morphine and then Oxycontin. I had excellent mobility in my right arm for just having had all my lymph nodes removed as well as my breast. They had opted to take all my lymph nodes on the right side as well as the breast. This decision had been made because of the size of my tumour and the length of time they'd suspected I had it. They were worried about my nodes as there was a more than good chance that the cells would have spread to them so they wanted to get them out too. That's how the cancer would travel to the other parts of my body, bones, brain, lungs, liver etc. and that's how cancer kills you. They would remove them and analyze them and see how many had been affected and then they could decide on an action plan. So not only am I getting the boob removed, but there is a chance that the right side of my body will remain swollen for the rest of my life since I won't have any nodes to filter the fluid, which can cause a build up hence the permanent swelling. My arm may be numb forever and/or my mobility compromised. If they told me at the same time that my skeleton may start to protrude through my skin or that I may permanently turn green as a side effect, I truly wouldn't have been surprised. Keep in mind I still have the image of the mastectomy to contend with. Basically, I'm gonna be frankenstein, but cool, I'll stay positive, I'm alive, I'm mentally sound (although tested at every turn) but I can handle this. If there's one thing that I can firmly say for sure, is that I do believe that in life, you are not given anything you can't handle, that's why it's given to you to go through. I've lived my life this way, this diagnosis doesn't change that, it affirms it. I still have my 'why me?' moments, I'm human, but they don't consume me, strength of will does. I have been blessed with the strength to see this through, learn from it and improve upon it. Everything happens for a reason. It may be that I've been diagnosed with cancer at 29 because it has made me quit smoking and if I continued smoking I was gonna die at 37 from heart disease or stroke, so my cancer diagnosis has actually saved my life instead of simply hijacking it. Doesn't it make sense that I'm the one who's going through this because I'm the one that can and will handle this? I mean, anyone who deals with anything 'handles it' just by getting up in the morning and breathing, that's not something special you do, you're not given a choice, but the 'how' is vastly different for everyone. I'm telling you right now, I don't know if and or how I'd 'handle it' if someone I love was going through this and I was the one on the helpless side. I'm in the better seat from my perspective and that is why this is happening to me. Everything is relative and your own quality of life totally depends of how you choose to view it, the world, yourself, and others, in my humble opinion anyway. Anyway, that's my reality and it works for me. I'm an avid reader, and to date my favourite book in the world is one that was given to me by my girl Caroline a few years ago called 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho. One of my many favourite quotes by Coelho is that "simple things are the most valuable and only wise people appreciate them." I've bought a whole bunch of his other work and am looking forward to reading those too soon. The core of 'The Alchemist's' philosophy is "when you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true." Isn't that a comforting concept? It is to me. I read in Dr. Marla's book another amazing view, and the book is not in front of me so I'll misquote, but the gist is "being courageous has nothing to do with fighting a battle you have no choice but to fight, it's how you choose to fight it that is the definition of courage." I love that! I roll my eyes internally when people who don't really know me talk to me about being courageous or something of the sort. I don't get it, I'm courageous because I got cancer? That just makes no sense to me and it's such a silly thing to say so I totally related to that quote in that book.

Oh good, it's a party!

2007-08-08T16:19:00.000-04:00

Anyway, back to the surgery. When I found out that I would be getting a boob lopped off, I googled images for 'mastectomy'. I am queen of research. I look into everything and always ask my computer questions and I source information etc. I no longer do this so much. It's sometimes better not to know, I now get that. The first image that my search pulled up horrified me. I actually jumped up outta my chair, gasped, swore, covered my mouth and shielded my face and stepped away from the computer still cursing repeatedly, closed my eyes all squinty-like to click the top right x. Just awful! I was worried about what I would look like after but now I really was scared sh*tless to see that when I looked down at my body! I tried really really really hard not to think about it leading up to the surgery, but that image plagued me for weeks after I glimpsed it.The day of my surgery was pretty interesting. If I had it my way, I would have been there by myself or with just Shawn. That is very very selfish of me and so is this, but I didn't want to make small talk, answer frivolous questions, entertain others; I simply wanted to be in my own head space and quietly go in for my surgery. Others would feel that they would have to take my mind off it or entertain me, but I really just didn't want the hovering. Anyway, again, I was thinking very selfishly. Shawn wouldn't hear of not being with me, I doubt I even mentioned to him that I wanted to go by myself. I told my parents that I didn't want everyone there when I went in, so they weren't going to come for my admission, but I told my dad that they could visit me afterwards which he still decided to interpret as 'we'll meet you at the hospital as you go in for surgery and pace around the hospital all day while you're in surgery and then wait while you're in recovery and come and meet you in your room afterwards.' Truthfully, I knew I'd really want to see my parent's when I got up to my room. I remember being younger and having my tonsils removed and waking up in my hospital room alone after surgery and my parent's were nowhere to be found. The nurse told me she had looked for them but couldn't find them, which upset me as where on earth could they be other than right beside me at this moment? I remember being really groggy and that there was another girl a few years older than me in the bed next to me. I remember repeatedly waking myself up from these gross throat gurgly noises I was making in my sleep as a result of the surgery and I remember hearing the girls friends making fun of me for making these noises when they thought I was still sleeping. That was a miserable experience. It took them a while to come and see me and I remember being really upset in that room alone. The staff were supposed to tell them when I'd left recovery but there had been a miscommunication and they hadn't informed my parents as they'd confused two sets of parents until my mum I think finally demanded to know what on earth was taking so long. I felt so relieved when they walked in, although I'm sure I first chastised them for abandoning me! :)

Anyway, back to this surgery, my thinking beforehand was that Shawn would just call them and they'd meet us there once I was leaving recovery, about five hours after my surgery would start. Why spend the whole day at the hospital doing nothing but waiting? What good would that do? Just meet me there afterwards as there's nothing anyone can do from a waiting room other than go crazy, right? But now, Shawn, mum, dad, Craig are all gonna be there for the whole thing. I'm aggravated. And then Shawn told me his mom would be there for all of it too. I remember being flabbergasted by this. WHY? Again, there's a limit to how much of my journey I want others a part of at certain times and I felt it intrusive that I wasn't getting a choice of who or how I'd be spending those last few moments before going under the knife with. Shawn was annoyed that I was being like this and pointed out that his mom was coming to support him more than anything, and I remember again thinking that that point then defeated the purpose of him being there to support me in the first place if I didn't want others there. Since I'm the one going through this and I'm the one saying I didn't even want Shawn there for that part of the day, and now not only is he not giving me a choice about him coming, I now have to contend with my whole family, boyfriend and his family too? How did it make sense that I was not getting a say in this? That was me then; selfish selfish selfish. Around those days, I was handing out lashings at every turn, I was angry and displacing it wherever I could. I'm sure I still do. Did I really mind that Shawn's mom was coming to support both of us? Was that really the issue? Of course not, that gesture was done simply out of love and care and concern and now I was gonna make her -and Shawn- feel bad about that? Brutal. The truth of it was, I was just scared. But I wanted to be able to embrace those scared feelings and succumb to them if I chose to. I'm not going to let the people that care about me most see me like that if I can help it, as then they just get upset and I end up feeling guilty that I caused that. I didn't want to hear about how you have to let others help, that's wasn't the point. I didn't want to be "on" at that time, I just wanted to sit there in silence and read my book and hold Shawn's hand since he'd be there. Again, in hindsight, thank goodness they were all there! My dad would've been driving the household crazy with waiting, pacing, picking at his fingers which he does when he's nervous, and then would've eventually ended up saying "Okay, let's just go there and wait in her room. Ready? C'mon, let's go. Let's go, hurry up!" Shawn's mom would have had severe anxiety waiting for news from home and worrying about how Shawn was coping and how I was doing and really, the best place for all of them to be was exactly where they all were: in the day surgery waiting area of Centennary, waiting for news of my surgery and waiting to see me.
One freaky thing happened when I was going in for surgery. The 6 of us pile into the little waiting room beyond the waiting room once my name is called, and we're waiting for the nurse to come and prep me for surgery. We were in there for no more than 5 minutes when I got called in. I hugged everyone individually and could no longer hold it together. This is when I cracked. I couldn't stop the tears even though I was willing them to stop and I was so embarassed while walking through the quiet hallway behind the surgery rooms and I think I was snorting a little while walking with the nurse to my room. It's so weird walking in to those rooms, seeing all the machines, the big lights, the tools all lined up and shiny that are gonna be used to cut you open and distort and dissect you, the team of people that are about to see you at your most vulnerable moment. I hopped up on the bed, introduced myself to the 5 people in the room, told them jokingly to make sure they all felt an emotional attachment to me as I wanted extra special care while I was under and wanted my boob to be replaced one day for tiny bikini tops, so make it look good, which got a laugh. As I'm lying down, this is what I hear: "Code Blue, Day Surgery, Code Blue" Again. "Code Blue, Day Surgery, Code Blue" Isn't that where I'm lying? In day surgery? I think it is. The nurse that is currently putting my IV in tuts and mutters "whoa, code blue!" I'm trying not to look frantic and I'm trying nonchalantly to strain my neck so I can look around on the walls for that chart that tells you what the colours codes mean, I'm chastising myself for not memorizing the one I had been staring at in the waiting room, and I can't find the chart and can't sit up to check behind me for it, so my heart is racing, not because I'm worried about me really as I haven't been worked on, they're not talking about me, but more at the reaction of my nurse, and also that 3 of the team about to work on me have now left the room. What's Code Blue? Code Red is the big emergency, isn't it? Anyway, a few minutes later, my team is back and in comes my surgeon, we exchange pleasantries and I ask him to please do a good job. Then my head gets spacey and I think, wait, I'm not ready! and I'm out like a light.

The term 'boobs' is no longer plural

2007-08-07T10:53:00.000-04:00

I've got plenty to say about the early days of my mastectomy, numerous other Doctor appts leading up to my first treatment, and I'll publish those as I go. I'll probably concentrate on what I'm going through during my first chemo treatment over the next month, but feel free to ask me something in an email and I'll write about it. (All posts up to October are simply pasted from my previous journal entries as that is when this blog was created; I've just archived them as close to the date that they happened as possible so that the entries make sense chronologically).
I will say as most people that are comfortable with me ask about the mastectomy and my emotional state, that when I first woke up after that surgery, I was hit by a wall of emotion, just as the doctor thought I would (remember this is the point that what I'm going through will, in his opinion, 'hit me') but it wasn't what he thought. It was relief. When I woke up, I didn't immediately mourn the loss of my boob (and to date still haven't I guess) I was relieved, just as I'd hoped I be, that as of this very moment, I no longer had cancer! Now I'm a survivor of cancer, no longer a victim of it. It was out of me. Those were the thoughts rushing through me and I felt elated by this thought (and the morphine I'm sure). I didn't and don't have any real emotional attachment to my boobs so it has never been an issue, in all honesty, it hasn't mattered to me at all, seriously. We'll talk about hair loss later as that's affected me way more than losing my boob, isn't that odd? I mean, that'll grow back, the boob (I don't imagine anyway) won't. As I've said a hundred times, I'm just gonna get brand new boobs (yes that was meant to be plural) next year or whenever so why be upset about it? I never would've gotten fake boobs for any other reason, and I'm not gonna lie, I've always wanted them! :)
I had my surgery at Centenary in Scarborough, but a few days after I arrived home from it, I got a call from my doctor. She had gone to the hospital to visit me but they had given her the wrong dates so she'd missed me. She wanted to talk to me about her recommendation that I do the treatment aspect at Princess Margaret. Not that my surgeon and hospital are not more than capable of treating me, it's that I'll need state of the art treatment and if I were her daughter, that's where I'd be going. *sniff* How awesome is this woman?? Everyone at this point had opinions on where I should go for treatment, but I was adamant that I'd simply take the advice of my doctor. Although I'll admit that I did want to go to a state of the art hospital, of course I did, but I didn't want to make a fuss after I was already in the process with a team of medical people. But now I'm pretty relieved to hear her saying this to me and also that my days with the surgeon I'm no longing loving are numbered. She told me to tell my surgeon this was her recommendation and he could contact her if needed (he was fine with this and made it happen quickly which I'm thankful for). What can I do for the woman that I feel may have saved my life? Say thanks? Get her chocolates? Movie passes? I ended up visiting her later and brought her a card with my heartfelt feelings towards her written out, it was the best I could do. It was on this visit that she handed me her home phone number in case I had any issues or for anything, I could and should feel free to call her at home. Say what you will about doctors in Canada/Ontario/GTA, this was my experience with a family practitioner. I don't want to give away her identity as I haven't asked her to write about her, but this woman has for years worked in a clinic that sees some sketchy clientele. She deals with bullsh*t alllll day long from alll sorts of people. She is not in what I would call a 'higher end' clinic shall we say, and she is a champion! We talk as a society about surgeons, specialists etc in such high regard. I hold no one in higher regard than I do this woman, this 'family practitioner'. It's not even like I've been going to her for years and years and we've formed a bond, I have up until this diagnosis gone to another doctor for years and just go to her for the yearlies or anything embarrassing. She didn't need to be this way with me and I am forever grateful to this woman for how she 'handled' me. Thank you. Oh, and yes, she's now been upgraded to my doctor for everything, not just annually any more. And now I have formed a bond to her and I think about her constantly and credit her for championing my diagnosis.