Epidemic Proportions

In which our Heroine is Glad to be over a few Hurdles. 

Three days ago, my brother Mike called me and told me of a good friend of his who has been diagnosed with cancer.  It is a very advanced stage of thyroid cancer in a 38 year old woman.  Two days ago my mother told me of a member of our extended family who has a very terminal cancer.  One day ago my friend Marel called to tell me about—I don’t know—ten people she knows who have recently come down with cancer.  For instance, her 23 year old brother in law just had surgery to remove cancer from his bladder, of all things.  Twenty-three???  Unbelievable.

Marel’s uncle, a very cool man who used to travel the European continent playing in rock bands, has been diagnosed with brain cancer—what those familiar with the disease call a glioma (basically, that means REALLY BAD—a grade 4 terminal brain cancer).  Apparently, he’d had some seizures and his friends forced/tricked him into going to the ER.  I assume he did this with little grace as he is accustomed to living “off the grid.”  A few months ago when Marel told him about her friend that had brain cancer, he wrote some beautiful words to her about how it can make you stronger and that it can really improve your creative capacities as an artist.  (At least, this is what she claims.  She forgot to send the actual letter to me).  Anyway, in response to his current problem, Marel basically sent his letter back to him.  In what is possibly the worst case of tragic irony ever, I hope his own words give him comfort. 

Also, Marel has a cousin who has just had her second child and has breast cancer.  This is so sad to have such a recent addition to the family and yet to be plagued with cancer.  Marel knows of several other women who have had this problem.  These developments make me feel very uncertain about the medical field at large because my understanding was that a woman who has nursed babies has little chance of getting breast cancer.  Shockingly, she is currently nursing her second child and has breast cancer!!!  Also unbelievable. 

Dear Marel,

When you called yesterday to tell me congratulations on my good news, I assumed the conversation would be a normal one—heartfelt and fuzzy, but ultimately not a very impactful message.  I was wrong.  Like all good scholars, you proved your point by providing excellent reasons, examples, and support material.  You’re right that I am very blessed to be at my current stage of recovery.  As I said in my writings before, I feel like I have been privileged to be on the fast-track learning program.  I am so glad that I am past the initial stages of shock/horror, surgery recovery, and the emotional strain of knowing my days are very numbered.  Spring is almost here in Alaska, the sun is shining, and it is all rainbows and green pastures from here as far as I can tell.

Your friend in good health,

T

It just seems to me that there is an influx of cancer recently—affecting people younger and healthier than ever.  In my mind, a little bar graph shows improbable cancers reaching epidemic proportions.  Is this my imagination, or does anyone else see this trend? 

Religion and the Decorum of a Good Insult

In which our genteel Lady insults Karl Marx. 

Religion is a big part of my life.  Sometimes I feel like an island in a sea of atheism, what with all the media that consistently and loudly states that there is no God.  Jon and I love movies and books—and guess what’s in them—a nearly constant barrage of voices claiming to know that there is no God out there.  Interestingly, these voices offer either nothing to replace the idea of God, or fall back on the age-old, and in my opinion out-dated, view that science answers the questions of life, as if the indefinite and ambiguous name of ‘science’ was a broom to sweep up the centuries of religious belief. 

Intriguingly, my new experiences with cancer have shown me that there are a lot of people out there that do believe in God.   It would appear that the media sadly misrepresents and manipulates our cultural views in this instance especially.  Not only was I astounded to have so many people say they were praying for me over the last few months, but I have often had chance, and somewhat odd encounters with people all over Anchorage that support the idea that God is a real and benevolent being.  

For instance, I went in to get new eye glasses at Cook Inlet Eyewear, and mentioned that I did not want contacts because they didn’t lend themselves to chemo if I had to do it.  “I have brain cancer,” I said.  Matt, the man who was helping me, simply held up his hand as if to say, this is just my belief and we don’t have to get further into this, but here it is: “God is with you,”  and proceeded on to the eyewear.  I was heartened by his proclamation. 

Another time, my dental assistant, after hearing what had happened, began to tell me about her Church here in Anchorage.  I think she was trying to convert me.  I thanked her and told her that the more cancerous I get, the more Mormon I become.  Again, I was pleased to hear someone willing to offer me what they probably considered the best thing they could give me, under the circumstances.

And yes, I am becoming more religious as I go, and specifically more LDS or Mormon.  Much of the time, this belief or faith is described as naïve by those who don’t understand it.  I suppose we have Karl Marx’s famous quote “religion is the opiate of the masses” to partially thank for that.  But I fight back against the declaration that religion is a drug, and therefore deadening and bad for your health.  If anything, my religious belief makes my life a hundred times more meaningful and vibrant.  Without it, the world would be a sad black and white representation of reality for me.  I gives color to my life to know that there is meaning and direction to the choices I make, the reasons I do things.  Furthermore, it is in no way naïve to have faith in something.  Naivety indicates a kind of youthful stupidity on one’s part, a falling in with societal norms and not being able to think for oneself, especially against harmful or adolescent kinds of behavior.  My faith is not born of naivety.  In my view, it is naïve for anyone else to assume that I haven’t thought long and hard about God, but instead just swallowed religion whole.  But I digress. 

I am glad to have the comfort of knowing that my suffering from cancer is not just suffering for the sake of suffering.  I am glad to think that it may have a purpose.  This is not naïve—but hopeful.  And I am glad to know that other people—the lives we briefly touch on a daily basis—may have this belief as well. 

Saucy Postscript:

Dear Marx,

Cancer sucks, but it would be worse if I didn’t have religion as my “opiate.”  I think you’re a smart guy, and your ideas are intriguing, but you seriously destroyed religion’s potency by your ill-thought-out statement.  And by the way, how dare you inadvertently call me naïve?  To get back at you, I will pointedly say that your socialism and intellectualism is your personal opiate.  Good luck with getting positive results from that. 

Admiringly yours,

T 

The Invisible and Deadly Preservative

In which our Lady goes Invisible. 

My husband brings home the weirdest stuff from the library.  This week it was a series of Invisible Man movies, the earliest a black and white from the 40’s. I actually sat down to watch this one with him.   I haven’t read the book yet, but Jon tells me that there are significant differences—which speak to me of the socio-cultural background in which it was filmed. 

Several of the characters in this film are scientists.  They work together, mixing chemicals into what they deem as an honest, straight-forward, and helpful product—namely, preservatives for food.  The thing that I find interesting is that it is from these same chemicals and the same professional experimentation that one of the scientists creates a formula for invisibility, which he inevitably tests on himself.  The problem is that the formula has additional unforeseen effects as well.  It makes its victims go mad.  And there is no antidote.  Thus begin a series of horrifying incidents that make up the bulk of the movie. 

Just before watching the film, I had been reading Nina Planck’s Real Food: What to Eat and Why.  Perhaps because of the juxtaposition of these two pieces of media, I began to see some interesting parallels.  For instance, there is the creation of preservatives—and their possible danger—as topic.  It is interesting that the ingredients and processes for food preservatives and for mad invisibility in the movie are the same.  To look at the invisibility problem symbolically, it would appear to deliver not only a very unhealthy insanity, but also a kind of inhumanity.  It seems that the chemical formula for invisibility can make a person less human.  I’m seeing an underlying fear present in the 40’s regarding the change from traditional ways to modern.  To be honest, this is nothing new.  Underlying anxiety about change is abundant in almost any form of media and art.  Still, to have chemical experimentation at the heart of it all intrigues me—especially because Planck (among others) insists that such chemicals, preservatives, and non-traditional eating habits are leading our Western society into an uneasy balance of quick eating and diseased bodies. 

To Nina Planck, it is a kind of madness to continue to gorge ourselves on a scientific experiment that is clearly not working.  The statistics are compelling.  The more of this processed and non-traditional food that our society eats, the more obese, cancerous, and diabetic we become.  There has been a marked increase in these kinds of health problems since just after WWII, about the time that processed foods became wide-spread.  Planck is also alarmed by the extinction of many species of plant and animal life (yeah, she’s definitely a hippie) because of homogenization of food products and the use of chemicals in our environment.  As an example, we have lost certain varieties of grains, etc… in favor of corn and soy products, which after being chemically changed into unrecognizable form, become the foundation of many types of processed food.  Planck states:

“We’ve gone too far.  Songbirds are missing, frogs are sterile, and our bodies may already bear the signs of misadventures with powerful poisons.  Farmers and their children have higher rates of cancer and birth defects.  All these chemicals were designed to kill, after all…” (pg. 150)

Well stated, Nina.  Let us just hope that the diseases are curable and reversible.  For my ailments, I’m going for as traditional an antidote as possible now that the surgical part is over. 

With that said, an honest and critical Postscript:

Dear Nina Planck,

Thank you for your book.  It is wonderfully informative and easy to read.  I appreciate how you have taken so much information and condensed it into a learnable and usable format.  From your coherent and compelling arguments, I can well believe that farmer’s children have higher rates of cancer and birth defects.  As I said earlier, this is nicely stated.  But Nina, Nina, where is your source backing up the link between cancer and farmers?  Where are the scientific facts that will stave off the myth-making that this book could easily become? From my standpoint, they are crucially important, and yet ephemerally invisible.

Briefly yours,

T

To Jog, or Not to Jog: That is the Question:

In which our Heroine engages in wishful Thinking. 

There are some things that I miss being able to do.  Today I wish I could strap on my running shoes and go jogging, or maybe even do some serious working-out.  Normally I hate sweating, and I don’t usually have urges to get my blood pumping.  In fact, for years it hasn’t actually felt good when I worked out.  It was like torture to run around the track a few times.  It felt bad while I was doing it, and not so great afterward either.  My joints would hurt and I would feel light-headed, and generally tired and achy.  But, usually about an hour afterward, when I’d had time to really cool down, I would begin to feel energized.  And the next day, during the times when I was just living life as normal, I would feel so good and healthy.  These were moments of torture, but well worth it in the end if I could force myself to work through those awful two hours of workout-torment. 

There are all sorts of New Year’s Resolutions out there that grandly state that a person will eat healthier, will work out regularly, lose weight, etc…  I think I’m feeling this same urge.  And today, I miss the delusion that I can set a goal and go get my heart rate up and that it will be healthy for me to do so.  I also miss the possibility of losing a few pounds around the middle by working it off.  My feeble attempts at walking quickly wear me out and, trust me there is no weight-loss involved. 

When I matriculated from Physical Therapy, my therapist was still keeping my heart-rate below 120.  I asked my doc and he said I could probably go above that and do almost anything I wanted.  Well, I’ve tried a few times, and I’ve started to go back to trying to keep my heart-rate down.  It’s just not comfortable to have my head start pounding in time with my heart-beat.  It’s also not a constructive way to keep me interested in trying every day.  And laying on the couch wishing for an immediate 3 hour nap is also impractical. 

I think many of us take these sorts of things for granted.  Health in general, but being able to run off 10 pounds in the course of few months, specifically.  As I’ve stated in other posts, sometimes it’s about not having the choice, or the possibilities that cancer has stolen that kills me.  Either that, or it will literally be excess weight and poor health habits that kill me, according to the literature I’ve been reading lately.  What would I give for the ability to jog around a track without feeling faint? 

Ho hum… Such dreary resolutions must needs poetry.  In an effort to make myself feel better about not being able to go jogging on cold, icy roads, I’ve decided to do just this and write a poem.  I think it’s a winner. 

To jog, or not to jog: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous cancer,

Or to put on running shoes against a sea of fat cells,

And by opposing end them? To run: to die;

No more; and by a jog to say we end

The heart-attacks and the thousand diabetic shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To run, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that three-hour -nap what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this extra weight,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the waddles and wrinkles of time,

The cancer's wrong, the proud man's words of scorn,

The pangs of despised body-image, health's delay,

The insolence of the media and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When she herself might her quietus make

With a sports bra? who would high heart rates bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after jogging,

The undiscover'd country from whose burn

No jogger returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus a headache does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of New Year’s Resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

Brooding Over My Brood

In which our whiny Lady remains Mother of One. 

On Christmas day, Jon, Eva and I were invited over to another family’s house for dinner.  They have been amazingly good to us—perhaps because they too lost a family member to cancer a few years ago.  They are very perceptive to our needs in ways that most cannot understand.  One of these people is a girl my same age.  She is one of the first to have asked me if I can have any more children now that I have cancer.  She cradled her own sweet newborn as she carefully inquired, and I simply replied that no—I can’t get pregnant while on my current seizure medication.  This is not an option for my immediate future. 

I have volunteered this information at least in part to quite a few of my friends, but I was grateful that she’d had the rare forethought to ask.  It’s something that I think about on occasion, and hardly any know it—until now I guess.  There’s something about the human condition that makes a person want whatever she can’t have.  This fall, many of my friends here in Alaska either had a baby or were clearly pregnant when I learned that this option was out for me.  Before that crucial life-changing moment in August, I hadn’t exactly planned on having a second child immediately, but it eventually became quite difficult for me to deal with the fact that I wasn’t free to decide to do so if I/we chose. 

In LDS culture, families in my age group and socio-economic situation often elect to have a child every 2-3 years.  Thus, when child number one nears or just passes the 24 month mark, child number two is often a plan already in motion.  I had to wait an extra year or so for Eva, so I am already a few years older than most of my friends who have just turned out child number two.  In truth, my original plan was to at least be pregnant around or just after Christmas-time.  Yeah, that’s right—now.  This will not happen.  And I have almost no choice in the matter.

It may be that there is seizure medicine out there that is okay for pregnant women to take daily, but I wouldn’t count on it.  Then of course, there’s the much bigger problem of the cancer possibly coming back.  Obviously, radiation and chemo don’t mix with fetuses.  And the stress of pregnancy doesn’t mix with cancer well either.  My doctor is still watching me very closely right now.  There are times when I wonder if it is an honest statement to suggest that getting pregnant at this tenuous point in my life is near-suicidal.  Because I would choose the baby over my own life, of course, this means that I would be subject to whatever course the cancer decided to take.  I suppose I should just be grateful that my brand of cancer appears to be the kind that won’t be prompted into aggression by reproduction.  Some brain cancers, especially the ones that affect hormones in the brain, can make things very bad this way. 

Several years ago, I wanted a baby terribly, and just couldn’t seem to get pregnant.  I remember having trouble looking at other people’s babies at one point, feeling intensely jealous of the ease with which they had their children.  I had the feeling at the time that I required that experience in my life for some reason.  I assumed that I needed more empathy for other women in this situation.  In sad irony, it appears that I needed it for me too.  The good news is that I don’t currently feel the bitterness and jealousy that I felt before because I have Eva already.  She is a salve to my wounds in many ways. 

Well, that’s enough brooding for now.  The good news is that having cancer will free a person from any cultural pressures she may have been feeling.  I admit that it is nice to be outside other’s expectations.  Sometimes I think Eva is enough of a handful for me anyway right now.  And even if it galls me to have the choice taken away and possibly to have to wait much longer than I want—at least I still have the ability to have children.

P.S. If any of you reading this out there are the kind with newborns or who are currently pregnant, please don’t stop offering me information about your children.  It would only make the whole thing exponentially worse.  I would feel cut off from ALL baby normalcy.  In my current state I much prefer to share in the joy of newborn babies where I can.  (Besides, I know it is impossible for most young mothers to stay quiet about their kids). 

Maintaining the Status Quo

In which Our Lady goes on with Life as Usual.

Well, after all the suspense, here’s what the Doctor says: I can continue life as usual—for the next three months at least.  This is good news.  The residual cancer that I had leftover from the surgery is still in my motor cortex.  (There would have been serious physical repercussions had the Doctor moved to remove all the cancer, along with part of my motor function)  The cancer doesn’t appear to be making any dastardly moves against me.  It is lying dormant for now.  And so, my current task is to eat mostly fruits and vegetables for my diet, while simply maintaining the status quo.  I am mostly relieved that I get to continue my life as usual.  You know, I have things scheduled into my calendar until past Christmas.  This is telling.  Apparently, I never had any desire to stop life as usual anyway.  I feel like I have more time to figure out this healthy-eating, scripture reading lifestyle that I’m trying to do better.  Meanwhile, the waiting game continues… Here’s to maintaining the status quo.

All Creatures Great and Small

In which our Heroine reads a Book

“Cancer lies dormant in all of us.  Like all living organisms, our bodies are making defective cells all the time.  That’s how tumors are born.  But our bodies are also equipped with a number of mechanisms that detect and keep such cells in check.  In the West, one person in four will die of cancer, but three in four will not.  Their defense mechanisms will hold out, and they will die of other causes.”  So says David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD in Anti-cancer: A New Way of Life, (2^nd edition, page 7), a book I began just this afternoon.  How absolutely frightening to think that we all have the beginnings of cancer within us.  Stopping with this only this single thought is debilitating in its finality. 

While still in hospital, a kind friend of mine—also a cancer survivor—came to visit.  She brought me the gift of a MOTAB CD and a CD player, complete with batteries, to put the CD in.  She told me that she listened to these and a few other selections of hymns for several years each night before bed.  As I already was spending my sleepless (steroid-driven) hours thinking through hymn lyrics, I found the gift particularly appropriate.  At that point in my broken life and body, I had no room for the media of the world.  I needed maximum healing and comfort.  Her gift was perfect.  One hymn on that compilation was a beautiful rendition of All Things Bright and Beautiful, a hymn less well known to me.  The song expresses the idea that 1) Heavenly Father made many beautiful wonders in our world for which we can exercise gratitude, and 2) All things are in his power.  

What a comfort to think of the control that Heavenly Father had over every single cell in my body.  It was a beginning, a foundation on which to build my faith.  I figured that if He wanted me dead, I’d already be there, as I’d survived a few harrowing experiences already that year (black ice while driving, a terrible car crash in June, and enough time without breath to turn blue on that fateful blueberry day—the day that began it all).  Each time I’d come out of these experiences, I’d had the feeling that I’d done so because it was Heavenly Father’s will.  I could not doubt that same will now, constant and unchanging as I knew Him to be. 

There are many things to be frightened of in this world, but to focus on the fear is only paralyzing.  After a short time of this despairing emotional paralysis, I had finally found a place for my faith. 

My Cancer is More Creative than Yours

In which our Lady remembers that she once had Brain Surgery

I have just discovered that the word cancer is a much more dimensional word that previously thought.  I used to think it 2 dimensional—that it had a kind of flatness to it.  And then a few weeks ago I decided it 1 dimensional: a single line leading from one thing to another like a horribly inevitable chain reaction: warped cells>bad health>seizure>brain surgery>temporary loss of left side>chemo and radiation>for most, inevitable death.  The 2^nd dimension would occasionally show itself in the humorous, life, or faith affirming moments, but it was mostly 1 dimensional there for awhile.  Now I find cancer to be perhaps 3 dimensional.  Apparently, you can have it, and still walk around like an (almost) normal person.   Also, its complicated enough to confuse the medical profession into calling it different names at different times.  Even though its really the same thing as before, it looked different at separate times.  Yes, complicated or multi-dimensional, but not necessarily manipulative or, even malicious, as I once thought. 

A dimension I learned about just today: I woke up feeling tired, more so than I’ve felt in at least a week or two.  (But I’m supposed to be suddenly better, aren’t I?) Friday was a busy day for me, both physically and emotionally.  After the good news that I don’t have to start chemo and radiation anytime soon (at least in the near future, or until my cancer decides to show its true face), I seemed to almost immediately make the assumption that I would be able to handle any physical stresses that my body used to take on a daily basis.  My bill of health seemed clean for a brief and tantalizing moment. (Think of the Greek Tantalus, always reaching for what he desires and being doomed to never actually touch it... an awful fate indeed.) I am actually walking away with a much tidier bill of health, but it has abruptly occurred to me today that I did after all only have brain surgery about a month ago.  What is it about a doctor’s pronouncement that makes the patient’s body believe so easily in a complete reversal?  Once again, cancer confounds me.  How creative my little parasitic star-shaped cells seem just now. 

Recollections: The Beginning....

IN WHICH OUR HEROINE RECOLLECTS HER FALL, HOW SHE HIT HER HEAD, AND HAD BRAIN SURGERY.


I felt healthy that morning. The sun was shining in Hatcher's Pass. I had on hiking sandals and a baby backpack---with my child inside, yes. It was glorious. All I wanted was a few more blueberries, because the easy-to-access bushes by the side of the road were not producing. My friend Kirsten and I thought crossing a small mountain stream would be so easy. It was really only 3 or 4 feet across and there was a flat rock in the middle to step on.

One second my foot was secure, and the next it wasn't. Suddenly I slipped and that was that. I hit my forehead on said rock and apparently had a seizure. Somewhere in there I also swallowed some water. Kirsten, probably the true heroine of our little story, fished my sixteenth-month-old out of the water and the backpack and wisely saved her first. Kirsten did manage to pull my face onto the otherwise treacherous rock, so I didn’t drown and afterward pulled my whole body out. Apparently it was quite an ordeal. Kirsten is small in stature though large in all the other important ways: spirit, courage, energy, enthusiasm…etc…And yes, I do occasionally feel like worshipping she who saved my life.

After rescuing Eva, Kirsten threw her up on the bank in that baby backpack and proceeded to drag me out. I’m sorry to say that her 5 foot tall frame was no match for my less than athletic self, weighed down at this point with wet jeans and sweatshirt. I had her little finger-marks for bruises for two weeks after. Not that I’m complaining. My personal Savior then did her own form of CPR, which basically involved beating my chest really hard until water came out. The lovely blue color receded from my face, and I was alive! Naturally, I remember none of this. My brain was already done for the day.