Mindfulness

I heard Oprah recite this poem on her Soul Series radio program about mindfulness and I found it compelling - maybe you will too!

Love After Love by Derek Walcott


The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

What's the buzz?

This afternoon my wonderful hairdresser Willow took me to the next step in my survivor journey. I've given a lot of thought to how I feel about the loss of my hair and came to the realization that it's not necessarily the loss of the hair, but what it represents. This may sound funny coming from someone who lost a breast a mere two months ago, and has spent a day a week for the last 3 weeks in the Oncology clinic, but this step really brought home what I'm faced with. A friend said yesterday that when you loose your hair, you know you have both feet in - chemotherapy becomes real, and that's a very true statement. Not only that, but now I'm not only a cancer survivor on the inside, but on the outside as well. Complete strangers will only have to look at me to know what is happening in my life
(yeah, as opposed to the complete strangers who may be reading this....but I don't have to look back at them). So, here's the tip - when a cancer survivor wants to talk to you about the loss of hair - don't respond with it's only hair, it will grow back - to steal a line from a title of a book by Debra Jarvis, it's not about the hair - it's about the milestone that the loss of hair represents. Talk to her about what she's really feeling.

Herceptin Treatment #3

No, you won't be disappointed. There was some light drama associated with today's Herceptin treatment. Another gloomy morning in Vermont awaited us as we made our way to FAHC and the clinic for my Herceptin treatment. Once there, I was weighed and blood pressured and led to the South Pacific Pod, overseen by a wonderful oncology nurse named Deb (seen here attaching my IV line). We settled in, the hot pack was applied and the moment of truth arrived - would the insertion be a challenge - YES IT WOULD. Deb gave it the old college try twice and turned me over to another, who after a few minutes identified a vein and moved forward with a baby needle. Into the skin we went and then there was quite a few minutes of deep breathing while she manuevered that IV into a vein that was playing peek-a-boo. The good news is last week Deb gave me instructions on focused breathing for relaxation which I had been practicing all week and that certainly came in handy today. Once in, the Herceptin flowed flawlessly for 30 minutes and we were done. Mission accomplished - more cancer cells killed today!

Yikes, what's that in my hand?

It's my hair, that's what. Yes, today, 2 weeks to the day from my first chemotherapy treatment, my hair has started to come out. I put my hand through my hair today and came away with a handful. The nurse told me it would be 2 to 3 weeks after the first treatment when my hair would come out and I've been waiting for the day when it would happen - I didn't know how I would feel and honestly it felt really weird.

A wonderful friend of mine sent me a book, I Am Not My Breast Cancer, by Ruth Peltason, which is a support group in a book. When I came away with hair in my hand, I immediately opened the book to the hair loss chapter and read entries from brave women around the world and how they coped with hair loss. I learned there were as many ways to cope as there were women with breast cancer. It's funny, even though you know it's going to happen, you aren't really prepared for it when it does. I still can't put my emotions into words, I just looked at the hair in my hands and went, huh, how about that. Now what am I going to do? I know I do not want a wig, nor do I want to wear "chemo scarves" but I'm just not sure how I'll feel about being bald in public - how will other people react? I guess I'll find out. I'm also worried about my mother who has mid-stage Alzheimer's disease and lives with me. I hope she remembers why I have no hair and I don't have to explain multiple times a day, day after day. It took almost a month of daily explanations until she could remember I had cancer - but she thinks it's in my arm....something I don't bother to correct.

Drive Through Mastectomy

When my surgeon called on Wednesday afternoon to change his recommendation from excision to mastectomy for the next day and told me it would be an outpatient procedure, I remember being quite surprised (as has pretty much everyone I've told that I had a mastecomy and went home the same day)! Actually, the low-key Dr. Majerick probably held the phone about a foot away from his ear when I shrilled "tomorrow, don't you need more time in the OR - don't I have to stay overnight?" He calmly answered that it wasn't major surgery and I would be fine to go home. He was, of course, correct. It wasn't major surgery (in the true - surgery sense), and I was fine to go home. Believe me the last thing I wanted to do at that time was spend any more time in the hospital than I absolutely had to. And this was my second surgery - I already knew how to take care of my drainage tube because I had had one with my axillary dissection and I was 2 weeks recovered from that procedure. At this time I had no idea that it was the insurance companies that were deciding how much time women can spend in the hospital after such a surgery. I am sure there are woman who would benefit from having the option of spending the night in the hospital after such a procedure and certainly spending up to 2 nights after a dissection.

There is currently a bill in subcommittee - H.R. 758, which would require that health plans provide coverage for a minimum hospital stay for mastectomies, lumpectomies, and lymph node dissection for the treatment of breast cancer and coverage for secondary consultations.

Please take a few minutes to visit this site and sign the petition urging congress to pass this bill.

Thanks!

http://www.mylifetime.com/community/my-lifetime-commitment/breast-cancer/petition/breast-cancer-petition