Poem

I've never posted a poem on my blog before, but felt this one might be of interest. Critiques and responses welcome. This came out of an exercise from my writing workshop, and I intend to rework it soon.

Coffee Bird

There was a sparrow
on her back at my café
feet up in the air as if
she was taking a nap
deep in sleep like my
greyhounds playing dead
or dreaming of lying
in the sun on a plush
grassy bed.

The remains of someone’s
breakfast coffee, muffins
on the table above the dead
bird. I looked around
for a cause of death
a cat, a tree with a motherless nest
maybe the crumbs scattered
thoughtless on the ground.

Death, you found the
cinnamon sparrow and left me
here to reconstruct its life
over coffee. The wind chills
me but the sun thaws my
skin my body another day.

Bouncing back

Life gets a little more back to normal every day. Though this experience has changed me forever, I haven't lost much and have gained a lot. That is probably strange to hear if you've never experienced living through cancer. I guess it's something about finding out what you can withstand and finding out that these things don't just happen to other people. And it's a little about facing your own mortality. I think this has prepared me for my own death. Unfortunately nothing can prepare you for the death of your loved ones, but you live through it and hopefully you lose the fear, experience your life and love your people a little more deeply.

I am here

Here I am. I am here with my husband and my birds and my dog. Life is full ahead of me and not for my aunt who was taken from the world by the lung cancer. The guilt is painful. If I could give my auntie back a few years with her brothers and sisters I would surely give up a few of my own.

Rads = radiation therapy = radiotherapy

Today was my eighth radiation treatment out of 35. So far there are no side effects from the radiation treatment itself.

The going-back-and-forth-ness, or the dailiness as one of my friends calls it, is what is hard at this point. Trying to fit more treatment into a life that has begun to fill up with normal, working, playing, non cancer-related activities is difficult. Mentally and logistically. But, I am the Bulldog, they say.

The positive part is that I've met some really nice patients and families who keep me company while I wait my turn to get treated. There is the piece of mind that comes with feeling you've been as aggressive against the disease as you can. There is aloe vera. Lots of aloe vera.

RIP Aunt Fran

My dear aunt, who was recently diagnosed with lung cancer, passed away this morning at 4:15 AM. I am so sad that she died so quickly. I was glad that I got to speak to her recently while she was in the hospital. She sounded like the same happy and loving aunt that I remember. She was doing her best to prepare herself for the chemo which would have been her next treatment, and we spoke about that, but her main thoughts were for her family and how her illness affected them.

Aunt Fran was a 35 year survivor of Hodgkin's disease, so the news of her diagnosis was particularly distressful for everyone in the family. She was surrounded by her family these last days and my heart goes out to all of them--including my father, my uncle and aunts, who were very close to her, her husband, her four children and her many grandchildren.

But wait, there's more...

There's Tamoxifen. Check. So far so good.

Time for the radiation therapy. Uhhh, what? I thought I was done. Nope sorry. Now they want to give me radiation therapy because I did so well with the chemo that they don't know how far the cancer advanced. It was all GONE when they looked for it. I know that makes no sense but it's what they told me. The cancer may have gone to more lymph nodes than they know and that would make radiation important for me even though I have no breast tissue left.

So now I've been poisoned, slashed and now I may be burned as well. Thought I was going to get away without it but I'm probably not. So here we go again. I get to become reacquainted with my La-Z-Boy. We have a special relationship--La-Z-Boy and I.

On to the Next Stage of This Journey

I am officially DONE WITH CHEMO! I'm glad. My family and friends are glad. I am almost starting to feel like a human being again. My energy level is improving daily. My red blood cell count is almost normal and my white blood cells are HIGH! I ate sushi today for the first time in two months. I can almost climb the stairs without getting out of breath or stopping for a break at the top.

Next step is Tamoxifen. This is a drug to inhibit my estrogen from feeding the cancer. I will have to be on this drug for two to five years.

Reconstruction continues in December with a minor surgery on December 11 and a few more minor cosmetic procedures in the following months.

Hair is growing slowly. I expect it to pick up soon and hope that in a month or so it will be as long as it was before I started the taxotere which wasn't long but it was healthy and full and fun to rub my head.