Pathological Response

This little guy (or gal) on the CT machine tells me when to "breathe in," "hold," and "release" so that they can get clear images of my lungs So I’m finally getting around to writing after many months of slacking off.   Recently (if you can call it that) I wrote about my return to the gym and my courageous attempts to remain calm in the face of conflicting (albeit well-meaning) advice about food and hot tubs and Himalayan salt stones, among other things.   I recounted how I had indulged in a jacuzzi and massage fest as I celebrated the end of chemo with a family get-away.   In editing my story, I made myself look awfully brave.   Truth is, I’m not always brave. So today I write about the elephant that barges into the room uninvited from time to time.   Today I write about fear.   I used to think that giving it voice might give it some kind of power over me.   Now I realize that it will only have power over me if I don’t write abo...

Himalayan Salt Stones looking innocent enough... Well, I’ve been back at the gym for six months now and I haven’t lost an ounce.  The tamoxifen I take to prevent a recurrence of breast cancer is thwarting my efforts to shed the flab I put on during treatment.  I know, I know.  I should be grateful that the pills haven’t given me hot flashes, or night sweats, or made me homicidal, like they did to someone I know.  (Yikes!)  I have virtually no side effects at all.  It’s just that I expected to shed a few pounds in exchange for working out like Jennifer Beals 4-5 days a week.  I guess the tamoxifen knows it has the upper hand here.  It’s not like I’m going to stop taking it for the sake of vanity.  So for now I try not to focus on my thunder thighs. I attack my workouts with a vengeance but it’s hard to conquer the sense of doubt that comes with a cancer diagnosis no matter how many miles I clock on the spinning bike.  As odd as it...

Surprise! It’s January and I’m back at the gym. Jane, my first fitness guru No, this is not some half-baked New Year’s resolution. I returned to the gym in August, though it’s been a bit stop-and-go. After a blissfully carefree summer, I was ready to shed the twelve pounds of flab that I’d accumulated over eight months of chemo, surgery, and radiation. The "no joiners' fee" promo from the local YMCA spurred me into action. The timing of my return was tricky because I had follow-up surgery scheduled for mid-September, but I threw myself into zumba and spinning with wild abandon anyway. After all, they say that fit people are more likely to recover from surgery quickly, so what did I have to lose? (Except for that tire around my waist, of course.) I was so giddy to be back in the saddle that I insisted on seeking out a spinning class in Colorado while vacationing there. It was fun, even if the instructor did decide to refer to me as "Boston." She kept shou...

If you're a mom, the first major hurdle you face after a breast cancer diagnosis is figuring out how to share that information with your kids.  There's a big catch.  Namely, you're not allowed to freak them out even though you yourself are VERY freaked out.  Whether or not to tell the kids, when to tell them, and how much to tell them, depends upon many factors, but for me it was clear that I would have to be up front with them.  I am simply terrible at keeping secrets.  In the week after diagnosis, my older son had already caught me crying a few times and he didn't believe me for one little second when I told him it was nothing.  "You're lying," he pronounced knowingly. One beautiful fall day last October, while my youngest played Biddy Basketball and his older brother looked on, I found myself taking refuge in a family dressing room at our local Boys' and Girls' Club.  I simply couldn't find anyplace else where I could phone my sister out o...

                                                This July my husband took our eleven-year-old son to set up and break down tents.  Pink tents, to be specific.  Hundreds upon hundreds of pink tents. Our local Boy Scout troop had asked scouts and parents to volunteer as a way of supporting the people walking in the Avon 39 Walk to End Breast Cancer.  So I signed them up.  Yep, without even asking.  Would I have preferred if my son had asked (no, begged) to take part?  Sure, that might have been nice, but that wasn't gonna happen.  Now that I have hair again, my kids have practically forgotten that I ever had cancer. To be honest, I was simply following established protocol in our house when I signed my son up for this. You see, he never asks to join in on any organized activities of any kind. Instead, he drops hints as to what he...

No, I did NOT skip a mammogram.   Phew!  It feels good to get that out there.  For some reason I feel the need to protect my reputation as the responsible, rule-abiding, appointment-keeping person that I am.  I also feel the need to let other rule-abiding people know that you can find yourself up sh**'s creek even if you keep all of your appointments and ask all of the right questions (or at least what you think are the right questions!).  The human body is complex and our ability to see what's going on inside at any given moment limited. Neither people nor technology are infallible.  That said, intuition is a powerful thing and I wish that I had trusted mine a wee bit more.   The thing is that I kinda felt something was amiss and I kinda asked my doctors to take a closer look at a potential "problem area" in my right breast months before a biopsy would show that I had ductal carcinoma. By then the cancer had already bust out of the duct...