Tag: fuck cancer

Posted on

The “little c” chronicles, Part 20: Merry TITSmas to me!

Yall, I have new boobs!

On Tuesday, December 12, I rolled up to the Surgery Center connected to (but across the street from) the hospital where I’ve received most of my treatments (all but the initial “has this spread” MRI and the radiation) since the beginning of this here ride, and had my expanders replaced with what they call “gummy bear” implants.

(Side note: if you now have THIS song stuck in your head, I’m sorry, you’re welcome, and you’re my people. If you instead have THIS song stuck in your head, you can stick around, but conversation is going to be stilted and awkward. We should probably start drinking. If you have NO songs stuck in your head as a result of my mention of gummy bear implants, who even ARE you? Why is there no music in you? Is your inner juke box broken? But I digress.)

The surgery was FAST! I mean, for ME, of course, it flew by in no time at all; I was prepped, wheeled into the OR and—unlike my port placement surgery and my mastectomy, in both of which instances I distinctly recall the last words I spoke to surrounding medical professionals before I conked out—all I recall before I went under for THIS surgery was seeing a nurse come into the (cold!) OR hugging a folded blanket like she was coming home from the library with a stack of her favorite books, at which point I thought, “Oh, good, I hope that thing is heated . . . ”

Sadly, I never found out, because approximately 40 seconds later, the surgery was over and I was in a different room, and a different nurse was trying her damndest to wake me up (despite my damndest efforts to resist). She kept feeding me sips of cold water through a straw, and asking me if I wanted food.

I kept saying no, and passing back out.

Finally, she asked me if I felt like I was ready to sit up and get dressed.

Again, I said NO.

To me that meant, “Girl, I will LET YOU KNOW when I’ve gotten my nap out and am ready to stagger home and take another one.”

To HER, that apparently meant, “Honey, YES! Let’s take these new boobs out for a spin!” because in response to my (very clear) NO, she said, “How about I go out [to the waiting room] and give [Love Tank] a ten-minute warning to bring the car around?”

Um. Hi, ma’am. In what world does “NO” mean “in ten minutes”? (I mean, unless you’re a small, stubborn child or a network marketing salesperson.)

Nevertheless, next thing I knew, I was upright, and groggily allowing the nurse to put pants on me (side note: that’s when we discovered that I’d accidentally flouted the nurse’s surgery-prep instructions and kept my underwear on when I changed into the hospital gown—a tiny, unintentional rebellion that gave me more satisfaction than it should have, but hey, SHE didn’t listen to ME, either, when I said NO).

And in several more minutes, I was in the car, molars clacking like someone had shoved a set of wind-up teeth into my face, while Love Tank blasted heat directly into my eyeballs and turned my seat warmer to to HIGH to stop the racket.

Here’s the thing though: the nice lady who called me a couple of days before my surgery, to give me instructions on how to prepare for it (back-to-back Silkwood showers, Gremlin rules for food consumption, etc.) said the surgery would take about two hours, and the post-surgery recovery would take about 1.5 hours (or possibly longer, depending). These timelines were confirmed by the nice lady at the Surgery Center desk, when we arrived at 6 a.m. on the day of surgery.

But that IS NOT how things went down.

(And OK. I know (I KNOW) that I am weirdly time obsessed. I mean, if I plan to leave the house at 2:30 to get somewhere, then NO, leaving at 2:33 IS NOT LEAVING ON TIME. I realize this is not universally understood, but dammit, it should be . . . but again, I digress, because time obsession does nothing to curb my unnecessary asides.)

First of all, when I got wheeled into the OR, the clock on the wall was already drifting past the 7:40 mark, when surgery was supposed to start at 7:30. So as far as I’m concerned, we’re already off to a wibbly-wobbly start. But then. THEN, once I’d been booted from the Surgery Center and my teeth had finally stopped clacking in the car, I looked at the clock, IT WAS ONLY 10:47.

So let’s math this:

  • Two-hour surgery, starting at 7:40-something = recovery begins at 9:40-something.
  • 1.5-hour recovery, starting at 9:40-something = B!@#%&!, it shoulda been 11:15 before you even THOUGHT ABOUT putting my pants on and discovering my surprise underwear rebellion!

Instead, here I was ALMOST HOME a full HALF HOUR before I should have even been forced to wake up!

And yes, I realize the surgery probably didn’t take a full two hours, I mean anyone with restaurant hosting experience knows to add a little buffer to time estimates so there’s more pleasant surprise than angry impatience on the customer end. And I also realize that leaving the hospital EARLIER than expected is GOOD news like 99% of the time (and, to be fair, it was good news this time)—but when you’re dealing with a timey-wimey freak who also loves sleeping, ya gotta manage your comms a little better.

Aside from that, though, things went mostly well! One surprise that came out of it was that I did not, in fact, end up with an arm sling (on the radiated side) as the plastic surgeon had predicted I likely would. I’m actually not sure exactly why he ended up changing his mind about that, but perhaps he worked as a restaurant host prior to his current career, and was going for the “pleasant surprise” approach.

Another surprise that came out if it (and as I’m typing this, I realize that this is a little bit of lede burial, so I’m sorry for that) is that when the anesthesiologist was going through my chart and asking me questions prior to surgery, she noted that the results from the echocardiogram I had in the beginning of this whole thing (to ensure that my heart could withstand cancer treatment) showed I had a leaky mitral valve.

UM. WHAT.

Perhaps y’all recall how relieved I was after that initial ECG, which I was told showed good heart function (because, as you may also recall, I have a family history of BAD heart function, so I was seriously sweating that test). And maybe you also recall that prior to starting the Red Devil, when I was nervous about cardiotoxicity from the treatment, Dr. Cool-and-Calm reassured me that the ECG had shown good heart function.

So needless to say, this leaky mitral valve was NEWS TO ME, and I said as much to the anesthesiologist.

She looked back at my chart and replied, “It says ‘mild to moderate’ here . . . ” and gave me a look of suspicion.

And it WAS probably hard for her to believe that NOBODY TOLD ME THIS, but I’m pretty sure I would have REMEMBERED any less-than-stellar news about my heart. Kidneys? Meh. Gallbladder? Maybe not. But for most of my adulthood, I’ve been focused on potential heart issues, so yeah. Nobody told me.

So 2024 will be kicking off with a search for a cardiologist.

But for now, things are good! I’ve had two post-surgery follow-ups with the plastic surgeon, and everything looks good. The single drain (much better than the FOUR I had after my mastectomy) has been removed, and now my only care/maintenance instructions are to lotion up my new girls to help alleviate the subtle ripples I can see under the skin.

Standin’ on your mama’s porch . . .
Chuckin’ out this mama’s port . . .

In other news (with apologies to Bryan Adams), back in October of this rapidly-ending year, I finally got my chemo port out! And I gotta say that of all the milestones I’ve hit during this process, many of which (end of chemo! end of radiation! end of immunotherapy!) came with the opportunity to celebrate by ringing a bell, THIS is the milestone that actually made me feel like I was finally, really DONE with something. I mean, at the end of the chemo infusions, sure I felt like a SMALL box had been checked, but I still had ALL of the things (mastectomy, radiation, continued immunotherapy infusions and chemo pills) ahead, so I didn’t feel anywhere close to done with anything. For that reason, I politely refused the offer to ring the bell, or even to have the nurse take a picture of me NEXT to the bell. In fact, I (accidentally) snuck out of the treatment center before the nurses even had a chance to present me with the chemo completion certificate they’d all signed.

At the end of radiation, I did get my picture taken next to the bell, because I had a couple more milestones (including the mastectomy) under my belt. But there was no ringing. Just a photo.

At the end of the immunotherapy, I didn’t ring or photograph anything, but as I walked out of the treatment center, I did have a moment that felt like an emotional exhale, because from that point forward, visits to the oncologist would be brief, and NOT followed by an hours-long stint attached to a pole (and not in a fun way). (And I did well up a little bit as I left my first follow-up oncologist visit after that, because just being able to walk out the door immediately after seeing him—rather than to a recliner at the back of the facility—made me feel so damn FREE.)

But getting the port out.

Man, that was a feeling worthy of all the clanging chimes (except the “doom” ones; not those). I mean, just knowing I’d be able to get the port removed was huge; my fear had been that, once I’d completed my immunotherapy, Dr. Cool-and-Calm would suggest leaving the port in for awhile, “just in case.” (I’d heard tell of such stories, where people had ports in for YEARS after finishing treatment, and I had been clenching all the things in preparation to be one of them.)

Although I’d been under general anesthesia for the insertion of the port, I was, happily, awake for the removal. There were no particular pivotal moments during that procedure; it was relatively quick, Love Tank got to stay in the room, and there wasn’t much pain (just some squickiness on my part, because I was thinking a little too much about what was happening). But afterward, seeing it lying there on a little strip of gauze, rather than forming a green-ish lump under the skin just below my right clavicle, was a watershed moment.

Now, the port scar is healing nicely, and . . . y’all . . . I’m thinking about going full bore into my midlife crisis and getting a tattoo to cover the scar.

I have two (small) tattoos already, both acquired in college. The first was with my friend Margo; I visited her at her college in Texas one Spring Break, and we decided that on that visit, we’d get tattoos together.

(I tell people that I may have actually gotten the world’s first tramp stamp; when I chose my design (a koi fish, ’cause I’m a Pisces, yo) and told the artist where I wanted it, he said, “I’ve never put one HERE before!” At the time, my primary concern—having a mother who, unhappy with her own weight, was constantly warning me (apropos of nothing) that I, too, would one day be trading my spindly little ass (NO, she did not use that term) for extra pounds—was finding a place on my body where the tattoo (a) could be hidden for professional situations, and (b) wouldn’t get all stretchy and warped if and when I became overweight and/or pregnant. So, middle of my lower spine it was! But wow, do I digress.)

My second tattoo, I got later in college, with my friend Truth; we’d both recently lost a good friend (to cancer, as a matter of fact, and now that I know what I know, it kills me that at the time, I didn’t know to ask any of the questions, so to this day I have no idea what stage the cancer was, where it was in his body, or even how he discovered it in the first place; I just know he left school and returned to his home town for treatment, during which time I saw him twice (and the chemo port snaking out of his chest once), and then he was gone)—and Truth wanted to get a tattoo to commemorate him.

“But I need someone to go WITH me,” she said.

I said OF COURSE I’d go with her, and she replied, “No . . . I mean I need someone to get one, too.” And I guess she figured I was a likely candidate, since I already had one.

Plus, she offered to pay for mine.

So I said yes. She walked away with a red peace sign on the back of one shoulder, and I walked away with an ankh on the top of my left foot (again, keeping with my previous tattoo placement strategy).

Since that time, I kind of intended to get more tattoos (for awhile in my mid-20s, I even considered breaking my own rules and getting an arm band, or at the very least, something cool on my outer arm right below my shoulder. But then I met and married a man who was not a fan of tattoos, so I thought, “Welp! Probably won’t be doing that anymore!”

But now, I mean . . . I love Love Tank, but if shitty experiences like this teach you anything, it’s that some fucks can just be dropped and allowed to roll into the gutter. (Love Tank himself is not the gutter-fuck, and certain opinions of his still matter to me, like whether I’m a good parent, or a kind person in general—you know, shit like that—but at some point, I gotta assume that if getting my boobs removed didn’t send him running for the hills, a tattoo shouldn’t, either.)

Mind you, I still haven’t 100% committed to this plan yet, but if I do it, I know what tattoo I’m getting, and y’all, it is CHEESY AS FUCK—but meaningful, because it’s in honor of the tattoo my dad had on his forearm. I say “in honor of,” because by the time I came along, my dad’s tattoo had seen better days—in fact, it wasn’t entirely obvious what it even WAS. The age of the tattoo (which he got when he was a kid, and so by the time I came along, it was already decades old), combined with skin damage he endured as a firefighter basically means that the tattoo I remember was a greenish-blue amorphous blob running from his wrist to his elbow. My sister remembers thinking, as a child, that it was a lady in a huge, flouncy skirt, dancing on one leg.

But in reality, according to my mom, it was . . .

A DAGGER PIERCING A ROSE, Baby.

I mean, does a tattoo get any more “TATTOO, MOTHERFUCKERS” than that????

But now that the idea has popped into my head, it won’t unpop. So while it is entirely possible that I’ll change my mind and not get a tattoo at all (because both of my tattoos were acquired SO LONG AGO that neither cost more than $50, I am anticipating a bit of sticker shock when it comes to current tattoo prices), it’s not likely I’ll change my mind about the design if I DO go through with it. But again, since I don’t really have a clear picture of what my dad’s looked like when it was first installed, I’ve just been combing the internet for dagger/rose designs I like. So far, this one is the frontrunner:

I will certainly keep y’all posted.

But in the meantime, it appears I’m kinda . . . done. At least for now. I mean, there will be follow-ups with the oncologist and the plastic surgeon, and all that. But it seems I actually have a bell to ring now.

Let’s get ready to RUMBLLLLLLLLLLLE . . .

Instead, though, I’m more in the mood to clean a motherfucker’s clock (which COULD result in some clanging chimes of doom) because my elder son has officially become a teenager—and ALLLLLLLLLLLLL that that implies. I mean, technically, he’s been a teenager for a couple of years, because he’s 15 . . .

But my people, 15 has hit all of us HARD. If parenting is not for the weak, parenting an adolescent requires buns, abs, balls, tits, intestines, sphincter, heart, lungs, and SOUL of steel, and brain of pure titanium.

Don’t get me wrong; he’s still a good kid, and it hasn’t been 100% adolescent bullshit, 100% of the time, but this year, that boy has been a hot mess, and Love Tank and I have been fuggin’ EXHAUSTED dealing with all the things that have come along with his surging hormones.

Not gonna lie; it’s been rough.

One good thing, though, that has come out of the past few months of sturm und drang is that he has joined the wrestling team at his school. We had some doubts about it, because his schedule is already NUTBALLS, what with honors classes, chamber orchestra at school (which requires some early-morning rehearsals), city youth symphony, and private cello lessons (and if this sounds like a humblebrag, it’s NOT, because he was already NOT managing THAT stuff particularly well), so we had a VERY hard time imagining how he was going to integrate two-hour daily wrestling practices into all that mess.

In the end, though, we agreed to let him give it a try, because we felt like the physical activity would be a good outlet for him (and he needs ALLLLLL the outlets right now).

A few days before my surgery, then, Love Tank and I, along with our younger son AND my sister and niece (who were in town visiting), marched ourselves into a hot, horribly stinky gym for our boy’s very first wrestling meet, and spent roughly 5 hours watching adolescent boys in singlets do their best to keep one another on the floor.

And y’all . . . he is GOOD (THIS part is a NOT-so-humble brag). Still quite green, to be sure—at this point, he’s relying largely on size and brute strength—but once he gets a few more skills and strategies under his belt, he has the potential to kick some serious ass at this! As it was, he walked away from that first meet with two wins and one loss; the loss was against an amazingly good senior, and even then I was impressed by how well (and how long) my kid held his own before he ultimately got pinned. His second match was against a freshman, whom he bested easily. But the third match was a sight to behold! Neither of them managed a pin, and they were incredibly well-matched in terms of size, strength, and talent, so the match went on for what seemed like forever, before my kid eventually won 8-1 on points.

So, much to my surprise, I LOVED (almost) EVERY MINUTE of that first meet (we’ll discuss the “almost” part a little later).

In addition to seeing my kid compete at something he REALLY likes, I also enjoyed seeing the collegial nature of the interactions between opponents (my son spent a huge chunk of the evening chatting with and getting to know the kid he was up against in his last match, before they actually competed; “he’s really nice,” he told us), and I especially loved the support I saw my son’s team members give each other. After the match he lost, he was surrounded by teammates patting him on the back and chest, talking him up, and giving him advice for the next round. I watched the more seasoned team members working one-on-one with him over to the side in between his matches—and in that last match that went on forever, several of my kid’s teammates lay on their stomachs at the edge of the mat, cheering him on (one of them videotaping the match on his phone to share with my son later). The way the last few months have gone, I don’t want to jinx anything by saying this, but I think wrestling is going to be a good thing.

Well.

OK.

I HOPE it’s going to be a good thing, because there is one significant way this shit could go downhill, fast.

You see, there was ONE other bad thing (much worse than the smell of that gym) that came out of that first meet: TWO kids in my son’s weight class broke their arms!

The first time, HOLY MOTHER OF GOD: I was sitting there watching the heavyweight match (the gym was set up like a three-ring circus, with matches occurring simultaneously, one for each weight class), when suddenly I heard screaming. The kid who’d been on top in that match rolled off and backed away, and—

***WARNING: THE NEXT FOUR PARAGRAPHS ARE NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH***

—the other child lay ON THE MAT, wailing in abject pain, with

***DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU***

HIS BONE STICKING OUT OF HIS SKIN.

Just as my brain registered what I was seeing, he was immediately surrounded by coaches and officials, and I couldn’t see much. But the screaming went on.

I guess what happened (according first to a kid who’d come up to the bleachers to brief his dad, who was sitting in front of us, AND then to our son, who came to sit with us for a bit shortly thereafter) was that the kid landed square on his hand with his arm completely straight, and HIS. ARM. BENT. BACKWARDS.

Yeah. I’ll give you a minute to start breathing normally again. Take your time.

***HERE’S WHERE YOU CAN START READING AGAIN IF YOU SKIPPED THE TRAUMA***

Long story short, that poor baby was held to the mat until paramedics arrived, got his arm stabilized, and pumped him full of pain meds—and at last, after what my sister said was a full hour (it didn’t feel quite that long to me, but I think I dissociated a little bit), he was finally wheeled away on a gurney, stoned out of his mind and giving us all a thumbs-up with his other hand while we cheered for him. His parents/guardians did not appear to be in attendance, so he was wheeled away alone, and OMG, can you imagine getting THAT call as a parent?

Once he left, the mat was cleaned up and, because the other weight classes had continued with their matches throughout the heavyweight injury delay, they finished their matches earlier, and the heavyweight kids ended up using TWO of the three “rings” to catch up on their matches. We were told, therefore, that our kid’s last match had been moved to the mat at the opposite end of the gym. We picked up and moved all our stuff down to that end so we’d be ready when it was his turn, and settled in to watch the matches leading up to his final bout . . .

. . . and during the second one of THOSE, a second kid broke an arm!

This time, there was no screaming, and no protruding bone (*shudder*), but that poor kid’s bone was sticking out (not THROUGH the skin, but underneath it) in a weird way just above his elbow.

By the time our son’s last match came around, I’d set up a few rows of of prayer candles in the bleachers, and was invoking all the higher powers from all the myths and cultures while chanting a single mantra: “He also plays the cello . . . he also plays the cello . . .”

He came away from that meet with all of his limbs intact. I think I may owe someone a bucket of lamb’s blood or an eagle foot or something.

His next meet took place in the evening on the day I had my surgery, and I was particularly happy that my sister was in town to look after me (while I basically slept off the anesthesia) so that Love Tank could go to the meet (and be available to accompany our boy on any potential ambulance rides). That meet resulted in two wins and a loss as well, so his current record is 4-2. And again, his limbs stayed intact (although his shoes did not; his last match was against a kid who had a nosebleed, and his wrestling shoes are WHITE).

His next meet isn’t until January, which has given us a little break from potential wrestling-related injuries.

So here we are, about to—as a friend I texted the other day put it—celebrate the fuck out of this Christmas (because after this year, it’s kind of a miracle we’re all still standing), and (perhaps more importantly) celebrate the end of this craptastic year.

But even as I complain, I look back at my blog post from Christmas Eve of last year, and can find bits of gratitude for all the things I’ve made it through over the last year, and all I have now that I didn’t have then.

I have a lot more free time between doctor visits now.

I have hair and eyebrows now.

I have a small, tiny scar where my port used to be now.

And I have brand new boobs.

And MOST importantly, I STILL have Y’ALL here, reading this madness.

God bless us, everyone!

Posted on

The “little c” chronicles, Part 16: So on we go . . .

Hey, y’all! Perhaps you’ve been wondering what’s been going on since we last spoke.

The answer is . . . not much (which has been splendid)—and at the same time, a bunch.

Overall, the past month or so has been a nice little respite from intensive treatment . . . and all the ick that goes with it.

My hair is growing back with gusto, my eyebrows are getting stronger every day, and—on the sadder side—I now need to shave my legs again. In addition, despite having a uniboob (more on that in a minute), I’ve felt mostly like a regular, functioning human again, physically (the extra sparkle on this leotard being that I can sleep on my side—and even my stomach—again!), which has been pretty damn nice.

In terms of treatment, it’s almost GO TIME again: I’ve been working with a wonderful occupational therapist (whom I secretly want to be my bestie, although I think she’d judge me if she knew how many Oreos I can put away in a sitting) on my range of motion, and although there is STILL a lot more stiffness on my left side (where the tumor was and the ten lymph nodes were removed), my flexibility on both sides is in the “normal” range—which means I’m cleared to start radiation.

In preparation for THAT, I’ve also been getting chummier with the plastic surgeon, who’s been filling the heck out of the expander on my left side—and actually REDUCING the amount of fluid in the expander on the right side.

So basically I have one boob right now.

Y’all know the symmetry stan in my soul is twitching a little bit about this—but I understand the reasoning: the right boob has been “deflated” so that the radiation “laser beams” can shoot across the right side of my chest and into the left side at an angle that will allow them to steer clear of my heart; meanwhile, the left boob HAS to be “inflated” NOW, while the skin is more pliable, because the radiation to the left side will make that skin resistant to stretching (for this reason, the left expander has now been filled to a greater capacity than what the size of that boob will ultimately be, in anticipation that it will shrink with radiation . . . but in the meantime, I’ve got some real va-va-va-VOOM going on with Lefty).

So tomorrow is when it all gets underway. I’ll visit the radiologist for a simulation/scan, whereby they’ll figure out how to position everything for radiation, which will start on April 12. I will also get my radiation schedule tomorrow, so at this point, all I know is that it will happen every weekday for 4-6 weeks, and that they’re going to try to get me morning appointments, per my request. And I’ll continue seeing the occupational therapist, to maintain range of motion when radiation starts to clench things up.

In terms of the other treatment, I just got a letter from my insurance company, stating that those meds have been approved, so I’m just awaiting a “chemo education” appointment with the oncologist, after which I’ll get started on the oral chemo (which I’ll take for a YEAR, it looks like) along with a hormone therapy treatment called a Goserelin acetate implant—about which I learned FROM THE INSURANCE LETTER (Dr. Cool-and-Calm has a great bedside manner, but he sometimes fails to mention stuff).

Still doing the “Dr. Google” research on that, but I’m going to need to talk to Dr. CaC to get clear about (a) why it’s happening, and (b) why NOW. The reason I’m curious is because:

(a) the drug that’s going to be implanted (also known as Zoladex) is a hormone treatment, and from what I can tell (with the VAST medical knowledge I’ve picked up from a cursory Google search) it’s often prescribed for hormone-positive breast cancer, which mine is NOT—and . . .

(b) about a month and a half into my first phase of chemo, I mentioned to Dr. CaC that (TMI WARNING: skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know about lady crotch stuff) since starting the chemo (which coincided with the start of my period that month), my period had NOT STOPPED. At that point, he suggested Zoladex (injections, not implants) as a remedy—but once I read up on the side effects, I decided that those would be more annoying to me than this mega-period. And besides, I felt like I had enough physical crap to deal with—who needed potential mood swings as well? So I declined the offer. Eventually, I stopped bleeding on my own (shortly after I told the doctor about it, in fact), and haven’t had a period since.

AND IT IS GLORIOUS. I get a few hot flashes now and then, but otherwise, I got no complaints! My skin is clearer, I don’t get cramps, and I don’t get that horrendous PMS boob pain (well . . . I mean, NOW I don’t, for SURE, but even before the mastectomy, the girls were just all chill, all the time ).

In short, things are pretty damn good, hormonally speaking—and while I will happily rock that boat if it will increase my chances of sticking around here, I feel like I need more clarity around why I’m rowing my dinghy into those waters.

As we yearn, so we learn

Since I saddled up for this, my first cancer rodeo, there has of course been no shortage of shit I’ve learned—and as you know, my hope is that this blog may be of some use to someone down the line, who’s just climbed aboard their own buckin’ bronco. The two bits of recent education I’m about to share, however, are mostly for entertainment value . . .

The first of these, I learned from the last cancer memoir I read—since which time, I’ve finally moved away from those and back to fiction (I’m currently enjoying the heck out of Lucy by the Sea, by Elizabeth Strout) . . . but I digress. The point is, remember a few blog posts ago, when I was extolling the virtues of the Ursa Major skin care line? And talking about how pretty I felt?

(I mean, I really did feel pretty, which was kind of ironic given the fact that my eyebrows and eyelashes were gone; I chalked it up in part to the idea that maybe, with all auxiliary facial features stripped away, I was better able to appreciate the stuff I had left: the color and shape of my eyes, the beauty mark (read: mole) on my chin, my smile . . . and of course my skin, made smoother and dewier by, I believed, the constellation (*wink*) of skin care products I’d bought. I’d even started working out a chunk of blog post in my head to talk about it . . . but anyway . . .)

Well.

Thanks to that last cancer memoir, I learned that it was not the products contributing to my beauty . . .

It was the CHEMO.

I mean, sure, a little moisturizer never hurts, but in The Cancer Channel, the author talks about her own glowing skin, and how she learned from her dermatologist that because chemo drugs target fast-replicating cells—and skin cells are on that list—it often has similar effects on one’s appearance as a chemical peel or microdermabrasion! They call it the “chemo glow”—and although my rudimentary internet research didn’t turn up very much about it, I did find it mentioned in this blog—which I’m sharing less as definitive proof that chemo can make you pretty than as a “worth a read” discovery (I think it’s well-written, and now want to know more of her story).

Which, I guess, just goes to show that there are little gifts to be found in all of this. Not the least of which is that I can stop spending $85 on facial serum (which it seems I was going to have to do, anyway, since it hasn’t been in stock anywhere for months).

And speaking of entertainment value . . . the OTHER thing I’ve learned since the last time we spoke is that this whole situation has a connection to my childhood (a weird and tenuous connection, but still).

I’ve been getting my cancer treatments at Sarah Cannon Cancer Center—primarily at two specific hospitals, although there are Sarah Cannon Centers in hospitals across the Kansas City metro area. Up until now, I’ve been (a) focused on all the OTHER stuff surrounding this whole experience, and (b) just assuming the centers were founded by (or in the name of) some 80s-era socialite who had some sort of personal experience (either by way of her own, or a loved one’s diagnosis) with breast cancer, and access to some money (either her own, or a loved one’s). So, sad to say, I never really gave a ton of thought to who Sarah Cannon actually was.

Do YOU know . . . ?

I’ll give you a hint:

So there I was, awaiting an appointment with the radiologist, and I noticed a deck of Sarah Cannon Cancer Center pamphlets on a table next to me. I picked one up to pass a little time . . .

. . . and that is how I discovered that Sarah Cannon was none other than MINNIE PEARL.

While I was never a fan of hers in particular back in my baby years (tho’ I did have a little crush on Buck Owens), I did watch Hee Haw regularly, and got quite a little-kid kick out of it. (I was proud to know by heart the refrains to both “Gloom, Despair, and Agony on Me,” and “Where Oh Where Are You Tonight.” I mean, that was heady stuff for a first grader . . . and apparently still is, as evidenced by the fact that MY first grader—who’s been keeping me company while I write this—is currently dancing around and singing, “Hee hee hee HAW HAW!” and looking up Hee Haw videos on my phone for his stuffed animals to watch. I’m pretty sure I already have some regrets.)

So there you have it: cancer has the power to make you pretty AND forge connections between you and 1970s prime time TV icons.

Like I said: little gifts. I mean, don’t get me wrong: given the choice, I’d return BOTH of these gifts, even if only for store credit—but look at me, finding nuggets of gold in the turd.

Le Freak! C’est chic!

. . . and one of the turdier parts of this whole business is that I have officially entered the Freaking Out About Everything phase.

I may have mentioned this previously, but I was surprised to learn that I will NOT be getting regularly scheduled scans to check for the return of the cancer once I’ve finished my treatments; instead, my oncologist will order them as he sees fit, based on my lab work and what I report to him during the regularly scheduled visits I’ll have with him.

While I’ve been assured by multiple people that this is (in most cases) protocol now, I’ve still already warned Dr. Cool-and-Calm to get ready for me to be paranoid about EVERYTHING from here on out.

And y’all, I’m here to tell you that “here on out” has officially begun.

First, it was a back ache. I got up from my office chair one afternoon, and my lower back seized in a way that had me shuffling around in that pelvis-first, old man kinda way. At first I thought little of it; I’ve had back issues on and off for years, often out of nowhere. (Once, during my first week at a new job, I swung my legs to the side to get out of my car upon arrival at work . . . and wound up getting pelvis-walked right back out to said truck and sent home, once my manager saw the state I was in. Another time, I was experiencing a mildly irritating twinge in my lower back BEFORE work (different job this time), so en route, I turned on my seat warmer, thinking that would help. BIG MISTAKE. By the time I arrived at work 40 minutes later, I couldn’t even swing my legs out. This time, I was escorted INTO the building by a coworker—possibly the same one who later wheeled me to the restroom in my office chair, having seen my slow and feeble attempt to shuffle my way there and taken pity on me. Or the one who informed the company owner of my woes, drawing her out of her office with her own personal Tens machine, which she attached to my lower back, getting full view of my tatty underwear AND my tramp stamp. Who knows? The more of that day I can wipe from my memory, the better. But I digress.)

THIS, however, was my first experience with back pain THAT COULD BE METASTASIS TO MY SPINE, HOLY SHIT. (I mean, technically, it could have been that at ANY point in the past—but in the past, the thought never would have occurred to me.)

Oh, it didn’t occur to me IMMEDIATELY—the fact that I’m sometimes slow on the uptake being an odd sort of mercy, here—but rather later that evening, at my mom’s house. I was still having a mild ache (which by then would disappear after three or four old man steps after standing up), and she asked about it when I rose from my chair and started crotch-shuffling to her bathroom. I blithely explained it away as I (figuratively) skipped to the loo, saying I had no idea what I’d done, but that it had started earlier that day . . .

. . . and then, as I peed, that slow-moving uptake sped up and hit me smack in the face.

And there I was, in my mom’s tiny little apartment bathroom, feeling all tingly and heart-beaty and twirly and melty all at once, but I COULD NOT start blubbering, because I had to go back out there to a 92-year-old lady and my two sweet-faced children, NONE of whom I wanted to drag into this particular moment of panic. So I took a few deep breaths and focused on the facts: the pain was already much better than it had been earlier in the day; even earlier in the day, I’d discovered that getting up from my desk and moving around made a huge difference; and I didn’t have any of the key symptoms of spine metastasis I found with a quick Google search (oh come on, don’t pretend you don’t take your phone into the john with you). After a few more deep breaths, I was able to return to the living room and act like a normal person.

Fortunately, an adjustment to my desk chair (one of the fancy ergonomic ones)—and to the way I sat in it—did the trick, and the back pain was gone entirely after a day.

Then came the vertigo.

Vertigo is yet another issue I’ve had in the past—and like in the past, it first hit me in the middle of the night. The first time (somewhere around 2013), I got up to use the restroom, and crashed straight into a wall. This time, I didn’t even get up; rather, I was rudely awakened by the sudden sensation that someone had managed to sneak me onto a carnival ride (which I already hate) while I slept. I opened my eyes to find the wall next to my bed rolling repeatedly towards my face. So I closed them again, but sat up and swung my legs off the bed (not sure where I thought I was going, except possibly straight into ANOTHER wall), then took deep breaths until the feeling passed.

In retrospect, the issues started earlier that evening, long before I went to sleep; I was lying in bed, on my right side, reading, and suddenly the pillow beneath my right ear started buzzing. I lifted my head, looked at the pillow, leaned closer . . . yep, that thing was definitely buzzing. Only . . . wait . . . it didn’t buzz when I lay the OTHER side of my head down on it . . .

As I struggled to make sense of what was happening, the buzzing noise turned into a whooshing sound, like someone had just flushed the toilet and it was still running. By now I knew better than to go and lay my head on the toilet; however, it became clear that the issue was neither the pillow NOR the toilet, but rather my ear. About the time I came to THAT conclusion, the noise stopped. I shrugged and continued reading.

Later, when I was awakened by the vertigo, I discovered that it had brought a friend: the familiar buzzing . . . which turned to whooshing as the spinning slowed . . . and then disappeared about the same time the whirling came to a halt.

All of this lasted fewer than two or three minutes.

But over the next several days, similar scenes would play out at random moments: sitting at my desk, working; sitting up in bed, reading; standing in the kitchen, making dinner; and once during a Zoom meeting WHICH I WAS LEADING (I tried to breathe through it and keep talking, but when I realized I was starting to repeat myself, with weird pauses in between, I finally ‘fessed up that I was experiencing my own personal Tilt-a-Whirl, handed the meeting off to a colleague, and went off camera to put my forehead down on my desk until the ride stopped).

After the first day of these episodes (which happened around three or four times a day in the beginning), I called Dr Cool-and-Calm’s office to report what was happening, hoping for some assurance that I did not have brain cancer. The nurse practitioner who called me back told me to hit up a Minute Clinic or an urgent care to have my ears checked for fluid, and called in a prescription for antihistamines. I chose to take that as, “it’s probably nothing,” and put some pants on to see someone about the spinning.

The urgent care visit turned up nothing in my ears; the nurse practitioner there shared with me that she’d been suffering from vertigo for FIVE YEARS, and nobody had yet figured out the cause. She sent me home with an instruction sheet for the Epley maneuver, and wished me luck in avoiding the five-year plan she was on.

Over the next few days, the paranoia gradually crept back into my soul—ironically, because the episodes were decreasing in frequency. Each time I racked up a considerable amount of time between spells, I’d allow myself to hope that I’d just had my last one—and by the time I’d gone more than 24 hours without one, I decided the whole ordeal was over . . .

. . . and then when the next one came, it reduced me to tears of frustration and panic.

Finally, I decided to try the antihistamines (which I’d picked up, but avoided taking because I didn’t want to be a walking zombie). Although the bottle said to take them “every 6 to 12 hours as needed,” I took them right after dinner for a few nights, and then crashed out as soon as my littler dude was in bed.

It seemed to help; the episodes became relatively mild—most of them, in fact, involved only the tinnitus, and NOT the vertigo, and when the vertigo DID happen, it was less intense, and lasted seconds rather than minutes.

Eventually, I made it THREE WHOLE DAYS without an episode of any kind, and last night, I ditched the antihistamines (warily but happily, as they’d begun causing some wicked restless leg). I’m happy to report that I’m still vertigo-free! I’d knock on wood for luck, but rapping myself in the head like that could cause a reoccurrence, so instead I’ll just eat a leprechaun or something.

The point of all of this, though, is just to say that for months, I counted the days until I was done with chemo—and then more days until the surgery was behind me—assuming THAT STUFF was the hard part . . . but HOO-WEE, the emotional sturm und drang of trying to hold your shit together (at work and at home) while you’re periodically panicking about metastasis every time you burp or find a bit of sock lint between your toes is NO JOKE.

Storytime: I have a friend (no, not a quote-unquote “friend,” but an actual person who’s NOT me) who once drove three-plus hours to a nearby city to give a client presentation for her job. When she got out of her car at the meeting site, she slammed her finger in the car door. She walked inside the building and went straight into the restroom to collect herself—but the pain was so intense that she PASSED OUT, knocking her head on the bathroom counter. She came to, arranged her hair to cover the new bruise blooming on the side of her face, walked into the conference room, and gave her presentation. Then, when the meeting was over, she drove the three-plus hours back home.

At the time, I thought she was OUT OF HER MIND—and OK, I still kinda do—but now I have a little more empathy, because I feel like that kind of energy is what I’m bringing to every day. Only instead of a probable concussion and a sausage finger, I’m presenting through a periodic sense of panic and a nagging sense of doom. Which may be how other people operate on the regular (journalists, for example, because how could they not?), but I’m not accustomed to it. So today, I looked up therapists who take my insurance, and contacted one for a consultation (I’m hoping that since I’ve already met my out-of-pocket deductible for the year, the therapy will be FREE—but I’m not entirely sure how that works, if it’s coded differently, or what). I figure it will be good to sturm-dump on someone other than Love Tank for a change.

Wish me luck!

I’m your vehicle, Babe . . .

And speaking of anxiety . . . I’m less than three weeks out from my runway debut! The Bra Couture KC event looms—and although the organizers now think I’m a total weirdo, they’re still letting me be a model.

It all started when I was on the phone one day with the Head Chick in Charge (HCIC) of the event; we were getting some other details squared away (including my music for the runway, for which I chose my official “batter up!” song), and I asked her about the deadline to purchase tickets with my model discount. She said she’d have the Ticket Queen (TQ) send me the information again.

TQ did send me an email—but shortly thereafter, she called me to ask if I had a ballpark idea of how many tickets I’d be needing.

“Two,” I said.

Silence.

“Have you . . . invited people?” she asked, haltingly.

I told her NO, I hadn’t, and tried to explain one of my many weirdnesses: whereas many people, when they’re giving a public performance of some sort, feel COMFORTED by having people they know and love in the audience (and, in fact, ASK people to come support them for that reason), I’m the opposite—I’m much less nervous in front of a crowd of total strangers.

After all, those are people I’ll likely never see again if I crash and burn before their eyes.

She laughed and told me I was funny . . . but then the whole thing turned into a (literal) game of telephone: next thing I knew, I was getting calls from HCIC—which I couldn’t pick up, because by then, I was in meetings at work. After two attempts to call me, HCIC then TEXTED me and said she’d spoken to TQ, who told her I was EMBARRASSED to be on the runway. She assured me that I DID NOT have to do this, and that she could find another model (by that time, in fact, she’d already given my designer (Galentino) a heads-up that there might be a pivot . . . so then Galentino was texting me . . . it was a whole thing).

When I was able to text back, I re-explained my weirdness, and assured her that I was not embarrassed by the idea of being on the runway; I could be reading poetry, giving a lecture on beluga whales, or playing the triangle in a Partridge Family cover band, and my feelings would be the same. However, I said, I understood that part of the point was to generate ticket sales, so if she had another person whom she thought would do a better job of that, I’d step down, no hard feelings. Whatever was best for the event, I was happy to do. Heck, I told her, I’d even buy a ticket and come to the event myself!

She wrote back and said her primary concern was that I was excited to be on the runway. So I did not get kicked off the island, and all was well. And I AM excited about my design! Galentino knocked it out of the park—and rest assured, I will share pictures!

In the meantime, as always, I’m so grateful to y’all for hanging in!

Great God in Heaven, you know I LOOOOOOOOVE youuuuuuuuuuu . . .

Posted on

The “little c” chronicles, Part 12: One mo ‘gin.

Note: I know that when I started this business, I promised to include health-related info first, so as not to make you dig for any REAL updates about my situation before I start endlessly rambling about all the other things; but as I write this, I’ve already written several paragraphs of rambling, and I’m in the FLOW, yo, so I’m taking a moment to append this message to the top of the post, just to say that although I’ll be sharing a few slightly personal and wholly unnecessary physical weirdnesses with you in this blog post, things are pretty much the same: I have 15 treatments done, and ONE TO GO. As I write this (6 days past treatment), I’m still feeling somewhat puny—still largely in the applesauce and rice phase, although I’m planning chicken enchiladas for dinner tonight—but have gotten past the part where I hate everyone. That’s it. Carry on.

So, I’m down to ONE chemo treatment left.

The most recent one happened two days after Christmas, and hit me a little harder than usual, because of the cumulative effects of these drugs over time, I’m sure—but also because I’m a ding dong and forgot to take my nausea meds.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So on the Tuesday after Christmas, I went in for not only my penultimate chemo treatment, but also the lab work that I typically do on the Monday prior to each Tuesday treatment (but couldn’t on the Monday following Christmas, as it was a holiday). That meant a two-hour wait between my arrival for my appointment and my actual visit with Dr. Cool-and-Calm, because ain’t NOTHIN’ happening until the lab work comes back.

Following the blood draw, I was ushered back to the chemo treatment area to wait for the lab results. I was delighted to find that my favorite treatment “pod” (as you may recall, there are three treatment areas, each with anywhere from 3-5 recliners—and my favorite one is the one nearest the bathrooms) was sparsely populated (only one other guy, accompanied by, presumably, his wife) AND that the “good” recliner (one of two close to the windows, but NOT the one folx call “the catapult” due to it’s rather violent foot rest spring action) was free!

I happily settled in to await my doctor consult—and to nap because, in anticipation of the coming week plus of “chemo blues,” I decided to do ALLLLLLL THE THINGS on the Monday before treatment: coffee with a new friend; a day of post-Christmas shopping with Love Tank in cusstastically frigid weather (you couldn’t walk a block with out spitting an f-bomb through clenched teeth, but it was WORTH IT, because I got new Trina Turk PJs, and Love Tank got a leather jacket, both on super-sale); and dinner (plus baby-squeezing!) with my Mother in Law and other beloved family people I haven’t seen in far too long.

And you know how this exhaustion is doing me lately, so Mama was WIPED TF OUUUUUUUT, people.

Yet and still, the nap didn’t come. The nurse brought me a heated blanket (they don’t even have to ask me anymore if I want one), and I snugged down into the recliner with my pillow . . .

. . . but as I swirled down into dreamland, my brain began to process noises coming from the television in the pod, and be like, “WTF is this fresh RV shitter full of bad burrito aftermath?”

I opened one eye.

The other occupant of the pod had turned on Fox News.

And I tried to live with it; I screwed my eyes shut again, breathed deeply, and willed sleep to set me free from this bullshit. Failing that, I sat back up and tried to occupy myself on my phone (mostly by sending “FML” texts to Love Tank and my friends to complain about my current situation). Still the swill infiltrated.

So I got up, stretched, and took an ever-so-casual stroll past the other two treatment pods—you know, just to stretch the old gams—and found, to my dismay, that they were all FULL.

I trudged back to the Fox hole (which was STILLLLL 50% empty) and sat back down.

I considered asking the couple (who otherwise seemed lovely; upbeat, friendly, and genuinely fond of one another) if we could change channels (thinking maybe they just had it on for company, or to coax the dude getting treatment to sleep), but alas, they were actively watching—and at some points, discussing—the broadcast. To their immense credit, they did NOT discuss any of the typical fuckery that comes out of Fox News faces; rather, they only discussed the one or two unbiased, fact-based aspects of the broadcast—for example, they discussed how horrible it was that so many people had died in the winter storm that hit Buffalo (which I, too, found horrible—who wouldn’t?), and refrained from discussing any of the subsequent Fux Nooz Vyooz about how this was somehow all the fault of the Democrats.

But I still couldn’t take it.

So when my nurse came to tell me my lab results were in (NORMAL ranges across the board, baby, EVEN for my once-tanking hemoglobin and potassium!), and asked if I’d like the doctor to come to me where I was, or if I’d like a private room for the consult, I asked for the private room and, once she’d ushered me inside, nearly yanked her off her feet to get her inside the room with me so that I could ask to be relocated. I told her I couldn’t take one more minute of Fox News.

She responded, with a meaningful “tone” (if you catch my drift) that she respected that, and seemed to be pickin’ up what I was layin’ down . . .

. . . but then she launched into something about how things were depressing enough without having to watch the news, so now I’m not sure if she caught my ball at all. But she did find me a vacancy in the pod furthest away from the bathroom, which may well have saved my blood pressure.

Insurance can kiss my ass.

What nearly wrecked my blood pressure all over again, however, was meeting another patient in the second treatment pod. Lovely woman, accompanied by her son, who was equally friendly. I don’t recall how we started talking, but once I’d settled into my new treatment digs to start the poison drip, we shared some stories.

And hers broke my heart, y’all.

In a nutshell: she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021. Although her cancer was at Stage 3 (whereas mine was Stage 2), her treatment plan was otherwise pretty much lock-step with mine: chemo, then surgery, then radiation.

HOWEVER.

Remember the echocardiogram I had back at the beginning of this ride, to ensure that my heart was going to be able to withstand treatment? Well, my new friend was unable to get hers, because INSURANCE DENIED IT. She fought, the doctors fought . . . and eventually, she said, she “just got tired.”

And as a result, she went A YEAR without treatment.

Of her STAGE THREE breast cancer.

Finally, her son (the one who was with her for treatment, although she has other kids) found her SEIZING one day, and got her to the ER—and lo and behold! She was finally deemed sick enough by her insurance company to do ALL the things necessary to start chemo treatments for her cancer.

Now, though, the plan has changed. The cancer has spread to her spine (although she can stand for brief periods, she now relies heavily on a wheelchair) and brain (hence the seizures), and though she says radiation took care of the brain lesions, surgery is now off the table, and she has been told she’ll never be cancer-free.

There are so many things to say, here, but y’all know. Y’ALL KNOW. So I’ll refrain.

Instead, I’ll wrap this up by saying that at one point, when the woman and her son had wheeled away so that she could visit the restroom, my kind nurse (having witnessed chunks of the lengthy conversation between me and my new friends as she came back and forth to change out meds for both of us) lightly joked, “So much for your nap, huh?”

But I told her I’d rather stay up for THREE DAYS STRAIGHT talking to that woman and her son (as enraging and sad as it was) than watch three more minutes of Fox News.

Ding dong, the bitch forgot her meds

So on the Thursday following treatment, I woke up my sleepy head, rubbed my eyes . . . and TRIED to get out of bed, but was knocked right back down by worse nausea than I’ve become accustomed to. There was no THOUGHT of eating or drinking; rather, I just burrowed and hoped it would subside.

By the early afternoon, when things didn’t seem to be getting better, it hit me: I hadn’t taken any of my anti-nausea pills since leaving treatment.

Merde.

(Sorry; I’ve been watching Emily in Paris—mainly for the clothes and the scenery, because the story line is getting way too Three’s Company for me.)

Of course I took some immediately, stayed up later than usual that evening just to take the next dose (which couldn’t be taken until 8 hours later), and from then on, popped those bad boys like like (kinda literal) clockwork . . .

. . . but now I get why from the beginning, the nurses have always said, “Don’t wait until you feel sick to take your nausea meds—stay ahead of it!” because once I got behind, I never quite caught up; I continued to feel worse than usual for the rest of the week.

For example, by the Sunday following treatment, while food still does not taste good, I’m typically able to participate in our weekly Breakfast with Grandma (wherein the boys and I pop over to her place on Sunday morning, bearing something brekky (usually pastries of some sort) and fancy coffee shop drinks), because the mere idea of food no longer grosses me out. This past Sunday, Grandma requested McDonald’s for breakfast, and I happily obliged, because even though I felt a little punier than usual, I’m accustomed to Sunday being the day I’m able to move beyond the rice and applesauce diet (not TOO far beyond, as I don’t eat much—and sometimes applesauce is included—but I can usually do a croissant or something).

However, I took one bite of my sausage, egg & cheese biscuit, and everything in me said, “Aw, HELLLLLLLLLL naw; we not doin’ this today.”

Not one to shy away from a challenge, I took another bite, and then everything in me said, “Oh, you think we’re here to PLAY? Well, let me tell you something—”

So I decided to try a bite of the hashbrowns instead.

“WHAT. DID. I. SAYYYYYYYY, MUHFUGGAH???” my body replied.

So I gave up on my breakfast, apologized to my body, and eventually it forgave me enough to let me drink the orange juice that came with my meal. (“You eat that sandwich! You NEED food!” my mother chastised, when she saw me gingerly wrapping the biscuit back up, because my body had told me not to even LOOK at it. But I kept wrapping. I’m no fool.) But I digress.

The point is, this time it was a FULLLLLLL week before my body stopped carrying nunchucks around in case of any more encounters with *actual* food.

Therefore I will depart unkissed.

Here’s the thing about the nausea, though: I described it at length in a previous blog post, in terms of all the things my gut does. But I haven’t told y’all how my mouth participates in this party. And truly, I shouldn’t because it is DISGUSTING—perhaps most of all to me, because you know I have a thing about mouths, right?

I mean, first of all, I can’t handle excess saliva. Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you that seeing someone drool sends me straight to Gag City. (Y’all remember all the drama I had surrounding the idea of doing a spit test to see if I had the BRCA gene mutation, right?)

Second of all, I can’t handle the sight of someone puking. Or the thought of someone puking. With a great deal of intestinal fortitude, a buttload of love, and the help of Jesus, I have been able, on most occasions, to deal with puking children (ONLY my own; NOBODY else’s) without contributing to the barf-o-rama myself, but anyone else’s puke is OUT OF THE QUESTION (and quite frankly, I haven’t had to deal with the older one’s puke in years, so it may be that I’m only equipped to deal with my kids’ puke when the face it comes out of is little and cute, and not when it’s hairy and manly).

Needless to say, I can’t even WATCH that scene in The Big Easy when Ellen Barkin kisses Dennis Quaid (a) with a mouthful of toothpaste, and (b) AFTER SHE JUST BARFED. (But if you’re feeling brave, be my guest. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

Anyway. You get the idea.

So imagine my revulsion to discover that this second line of chemo treatments does horrible things to my mouth. (Warning: this is WAYYYY TMI, y’all.)

During the first few days following treatment (the days when food is disgusting), the inside of my mouth becomes irrevocably slimy. In addition to having a horrible, metallic taste in my mouth, I get this gag-worthy, thick, slick coating over my tongue. I guzzle blistering hot tea in an effort to melt it away . . . chew strong, minty gum in the hope of generating enough saliva to wash it away . . . scrub the shit out of my tongue with my toothbrush . . . and still the slime prevails.

But what’s even worse is that during Slime Time, the inside of my mouth LOOKS different, which I accidentally discovered on a Facetime call with my sister; every time I caught a glimpse of myself talking, I noticed that the inside of my mouth looked weirdly . . . white.

Once we hung up, I went to the bathroom mirror to get a better look . . . and—hand to God—my tongue looked like a flokati rug, y’all. It wasn’t just white, it was covered in this thick, furry-looking grossness that shocked and horrified me.

Meanwhile, my gums had their OWN party going on: whereas my tongue was slimy, white, and furry, my gums were dark and sandpaper-y.

I mean, WTF is going ON??? SO GROSS.

Fortunately, it goes away after about a week (and THEN, for another week, food is completely flavorless, but it’s not entirely disgusting), but when it’s happening, I have the absolute grossest maw on the planet. And in MY book, that’s saying something.

And if thy right shoe offend thee

The other weird thing that’s been happening with the Red Devil treatments is that I’ve developed this sort of . . . associative nausea. When I visualize the treatment area in the hospital, for example (which I do naturally, as I’m sharing treatment stories here and in other conversations with friends), I start to feel nauseated.

Similarly, there is one particular pair of shoes, and one particular pair of yoga pants I no longer wear—and don’t like to look at—because they’re part of my “treatment outfit.” When I first got diagnosed, I’d been eyeing this cute pair of bootleg Adidas yoga pants that I couldn’t justify buying because they were, like, 70 bucks, and who needs to spend 70 bucks for yoga pants?

Once I got diagnosed, however, I started justifying ALL THE THINGS, so I bought the yoga pants. Then I rationalized that I couldn’t wear my Asics sneakers with very obviously Adidas pants, so I bought a pair of Adidas sneakers to go with them, and determined that I’d wear this little get-up to treatment, thinking they’d give me a little boost of happy in the midst of all the shit.

So I did—and THEY did—for awhile. But now, I find I can’t even look at the pants or the shoes—let alone WEAR them—without feeling mildly nauseated and squicky.

The good news is that the awesome bag Love Tank got for me to take to my treatments has NOT lost its charm—largely, I’d imagine, because I stopped using it VERY early on, once I realized I was just going to sleep through my treatments, and therefore didn’t need to bring a bunch of stuff to keep me entertained.

But needless to say, I’m being kind of careful about what I do (and by “do,” I mean wear, eat, cook, watch, read, love, etc.) these days, lest it become something I start to associate with chemo (and the concomitant sickness), and therefore start to hate.

At what price beauty?

One of the things I’m ever-so-cautiously growing to love, however, makes NO kinda sense at all, because it is—of all things—a friggin’ BEAUTY product.

First of all, I’m not much of a beauty products gal; I mean, sure, I like to try stuff here and there (fun masks and stuff), but unlike some other women, I don’t have a set beauty regimen I started honing at age 13, or invest in a lot of different products. Heck, I don’t even wear makeup, so my skincare routine doesn’t go much beyond washing, exfoliating, moisturizing, and cussing about the fact that I still get pimples at my age.

Second of all, I HAVE NO EYELASHES OR EYEBROWS (hell, there’s more hair on my TONGUE than on my face these days), so why I’d choose NOW to start buying fancy face products is anyone’s guess.

Well, OK. ONE reason I chose now was because, after months of spending the $80 monthly “wellness” stipend I get from my employer on (automatic) membership payments to Hotworx—even though I stopped going in the middle of last summer—I finally canceled my membership . . . which meant I had to find something else to do with that 80 bucks in December. And it’s a “use it or lose it” situation, so I had to spend it IN December, giving me little time to waffle about what to buy. Plus, with two treatments in December, and all the Christmas fruffle in between, I was afraid I’d forget to buy something if I didn’t just do it while I was thinking about it.

Now, if you know me, you KNOW that I am a marketer’s DREAM. I’d say fully 73.78% of the items I buy for myself or others are items that I discovered via Facebook ads.

Thazz right. I’m the “OooooOOOOOooooh” Girl. No joke; I literally HEAR myself saying, “OooooOOOOOoooooh!” when I scroll past an ad for something intriguing I’ve never seen before. But I digress.

The point is, I got sucked into checking out Ursa Major products by a Facebook ad. However, while I stand by the aforementioned 73.78% statistic, my ratio of “stuff I check out because of an ad” vs. “stuff I actually buy because of an ad” is like 94:1. (These are extremely accurate numbers.) So I didn’t actually have any intention of BUYING anything from Ursa Major, due to all the reasons listed above—and also because the product I found most intriguing was the Mountain Glow serum, which cost $84. (Just for comparison, the serum I typically use costs $12.)

But of course, the ads kept coming. And I kept “window shopping.”

And finally, one day, with my $80 bucks of “use it or lose it” funds burning a hole in my pocket, I thought, “What the heck?” and bought the serum.

Which actually came with a “first-time buyer” discount (so I didn’t even have to spend the whole 80 bucks, let alone the extra four + tax I thought I’d spend), AND a free sample of another product of my choosing (I picked the Golden Hour Recovery cream).

Been using the serum and the sample for two weeks, and Y’ALL. My skin is SO SOFT. I’m kind of obsessed with it, and I can’t stop touching my face (although with the Triple-demic raging, and a weakened immune system, I should probably stop that shit). I don’t know that I LOOK any different—but I will say that (a) it’s the middle of winter and my shit is all glow, zero flake, and (b) I may have already spent my January stipend on the Golden Hour Recovery cream (with a free sample of the Forest Alchemy eye cream this time).

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME???

I know this sounds like a paid testimonial (or one done in exchange for free product), but I assure you it’s not; that’s not how I roll (and if I did, I would pick a different free product, because I can’t tell you how long I’ll be obsessed with my face, but I can promise you I will ALWAYS be obsessed with FOOD . . . except when I have slimy flokati mouth). I do not care about your skin care routine. I do not urge you to try Ursa Major anything. I think you’re fine the way you are.

I will say, though, that for a gal with no eyebrows, I sure feel pretty.

And that perhaps the reason I was drawn to this particular product line (and the reason I’m less afraid I’ll start associating it with chemo sickness) was that I once had a rat named Ursa Major—and I tend to associate rats with cuteness and love.

Anyone want to adopt a rat?

And speaking of rats and love . . .

Y’all. It happened. Hot Jack is knocked up.

Philly Roll’s surprise balls were, in fact, balls (after such a long time with no evidence of pregnancy, we had begun to think maybe they weren’t b’doobies after all)—and working ones at that.

We made the discovery this evening, when my elder dude managed to catch Hot Jack by grabbing the entire structure in which she was snuggled (sister is FAST; he’s had a hard time socializing her, because all you have to do is glance in the direction of the cage, and no matter where she is (even if it’s in one of the little hidey cubbies where you can’t even reach her) she darts away like she grew a rocket launcher out of her ass, and wedges herself behind the litter box on the bottom level of the cage). He brought her, structure and all, over to me to say hello (weirdly, once she’s caught, she’s totally chill about being handled), and commented about how easy it had been to catch her this time. I said I’d noticed, as I cleaned the cage out the last couple of times, that she seemed less determined to dart away—and slower when she did.

There was a moment of silent reflection for both of us, and then, suddenly, we both had the same thought.

The boy reached into the structure to try to pull her out—and he didn’t succeed (once she was in his hand, he couldn’t get it back through the entrance), but he thrust the structure at me with raised eyebrows and said, “Mom . . . reach in there and wrap your hand around her body.”

“Oh, shit,” I said, once my hand made contact with her.

Love Tank, who’d been in the living room listening to this conversation (which took place in my dining-room-turned-office, where the rats live) requested that Hot Jack be brought to him to check out. He managed to coax her out of the little house (he’s her favorite), and when we SAW her, we were all like, “OHHHHHHHH.”

My girl was PLUMP-a-DUMP.

Now, keep in mind that I clean the cage EVERY OTHER DAY (really, I should do it DAILY, but since the previous rats did not poop NEARLY as much, and only required alternate-day cleanings, the habit’s been hard to break), and I lay eyes on her EVERY TIME . . . but not until TODAY did she become the chunk of cheese she is now.

Thing is, although I know rat gestation periods are about a month, I have NO idea when she started gestating; my guess, based on the looks of her, is that we finna have babies SOOOOOOON (like TOMORROW, even), but maybe I still have time to plan a shower . . . ?

Help, y’all.

And HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Posted on

The “little c” chronicles, Part 10: Let’s just call this the TMI Train.

HOOOOOO, y’all.

The Red Devil is no joke.

Before I go on, I will wholeheartedly acknowledge that, thanks to a Facebook support group I joined after I got diagnosed, I KNOW this little demonic fucker has been much harder on other folx, and that I’ve had it rather easy in comparison to some.

But compared to my experience on the weekly Taxol treatments, OY. This shit sucks butts.

I will also acknowledge that some of my Red Devil suffering has been made worse by my own unrealistic expectations. I mean, I anticipated that I’d get hit a little harder with the Red Devil, of course—but I didn’t think I’d get hit so much . . . LONGER.

So I got my treatment on Tuesday, as usual, and despite the fact that the Benadryl is no longer part of the pre-med cocktail, I took a guh-LORIOUS nap during the first part of the treatment (and as a bonus, it wasn’t all restless and twitchy like it often is with the Benadryl). I woke up, however, for the infusion of the Red Devil; rather than slinging a pouch up onto my IV pole, hooking my port up to it, booping some buttons and walking away until something starts beeping, the nurse sat across from me (draping a pad across our laps, to ensure that none of the fluid leaked onto either one of us) with two GIANT syringes of red poison, which she pushed slowly into my port over the course of about 10 minutes.

Aside from development of a sudden headache—which made her pause the push for a couple of minutes until it faded—there really wasn’t much to it. But if you want to completely freak yourself out, Google “extravasation injury” (if you want to freak yourself out MORE and you’re not in the middle of dinner, do the image search)—which, my friends, is what happens when the drugs leak out of the blood vessel into the surrounding tissue. So while my supah-star nurse was pushing Satan into my soul, she frequently checked for blood return through my port, to ensure the port needle was in the right place and not poking a hole somewhere to let Lucifer leak free.

As soon as she was done, I excused myself to the restroom (I get a saline flush after each medication goes in, so there are a lot of loo visits during my treatments) . . . and my urine was already pink from the medication! (Luckily, I’d been warned about this, but was surprised by the immediacy of the rosé pee—which only lasted through the evening, but in order to avoid exposing my family to my still-toxic tinkle, I relegated myself to using only my en-suite bathroom, and flushed twice with the lid down after each use, for the next 48 hours.)

Because the Red Devil infusion only took 10 minutes, the entire visit went by pretty quickly, and I was back at home before I knew it. And because this was a new set of drugs, Love Tank had arranged not only to stay at home with me for the rest of the afternoon (which he always does on treatment days), but to work from home for the rest of the week, so he could be nearby (and pick up our little dude from school), since we weren’t sure exactly how the effects of these meds would roll out.

Tuesday afternoon, I secretly figured that probably wasn’t necessary; I did spend the rest of the afternoon (after lunch) in bed, but mostly because (a) I could, and (b) I wanted to see if I could relive that amazing infusion nap. I had another decent conk-out, but still managed to sleep through Tuesday night (which was ALSO a gift, because as you may recall, I typically stay awake all night on Tuesdays, contemplating all the mysteries of the universe, thanks to the steroids).

The TMI train is leaving the station.

By the end of Wednesday, though, I began to suspect that Love Tank had been right about working from home. I woke up Wednesday morning feeling kind of blecchy, but I leaned into the fact that I’d taken my anti-nausea drugs (even upgraded myself from the Zofran to the Compazine) and logged on for work as usual. I didn’t eat much during the day, because nothing sounded particularly good—but still, when my mom, with whom the boys and I usually have dinner (she treats us to takeout at her apartment) on Wednesdays, called mid-afternoon to see how I was feeling, and if I thought we’d make it, I assured her that we’d be there. By the end of the workday, however, I was pretty wiped, and decided a quick nap was in order before Grandma dinner . . .

. . . and I woke up an hour later feeling . . . not HORRIBLE, but several scoots closer to Hell. I called my mom and cancelled dinner, and stayed in bed for the rest of the evening (prompting Love Tank to skip his Wednesday night teaching gig—which made me feel bad, but by that point, I was beginning to trust his stay-at-home wisdom more and more).

Thursday morning, I again tried to start work (I generally start at 6 a.m., and take short breaks to shepherd my littler dude through his morning routine), but by the time I’d waved Love Tank and the wee dude off for their walk to school, I was ready to crawl back into bed. I made my excuses at work, and burrowed. My initial intention was to see what a couple of hours of rest would do for me, and maybe rejoin the Land of the Living after lunch . . .

. . . but that was not in the cards. I felt gross, food was gross, air was gross, life was gross. I’d made a couple of attempts to eat, but not only was food gross, it um . . . made a rather hasty retreat right back out of my body pretty much as soon as I put it IN there. (At the risk of going WAY overboard with this particular bit of TMI, I will say that I never puked . . . )

Running a-fowl

The thing was, that night was my young one’s premiere (and ultimate) performance as a duck in his school’s production of Turkey Lurkey—and I was NOT trying to miss it! I reasoned that if this kid could manage to stand on a stage and say/sing his lines even though HE was feeling crappy, I could sure as hell sit on a chair and watch him do it while I was feeling crappy.

(Oh, didn’t I mention? The boy is sick. The previous Saturday evening, Love Tank made some off-hand and apparently ABJECTLY CALLOUS remark to him, like, “We need to teach you to ride a bike when the weather warms up again, Buddy!” before blithely heading upstairs to get ready for our planned grown-up dinner out with friends. When I came DOWNstairs—ready to go myself—and encountered my little dude, he was bawling on the sofa about it. (That should have been my first clue that something was up with him, but I chalked it up to his personal brand of weirdness.) He requested a hug for comfort . . . and when I pulled him close, it was like snuggling Heat Miser. Took his temperature, and sure enough, he was Mister 101.4. The fever roller-coastered through Sunday; it broke early Monday morning and stayed gone (so he was able to return to school on Tuesday), but he continued to sound gravelly. When he arrived home from school on Thursday, he came up to my bed, crawled in next to me, and conked out almost immediately (and unlike his mama, this kid NEVUHHHH naps; hasn’t for half his life now, and he’s only six). An hour or so later, Love Tank woke him to ask what he, as the star of the evening, wanted for dinner (Sonic—always Sonic), and when Love Tank left the house to go pick it up, the poor kid passed back out! When the food arrived, I woke him again and sent him down for dinner, but stayed in bed myself (as part of my plan to conserve every ounce of energy I had for the play), until it was time to leave for the school—although as soon as I set foot on the first floor of our home and got a whiff of all the corn dogs, tater tots, and chicken fingers that had gone on down there, I damn near RE-lost the lunch I’d already given up hours before, so I had to head back upstairs and wait until everyone was shoes-and-coat ready to walk out the door, and then make a run for it, holding my breath. But I digress.)

So I rode through the gastrointestinal drama (skipping dinner—which wasn’t appealing, anyway—to avoid more of it), took myself to the school, and crossed my fingers I wasn’t in for The Mousetrap (which I doubted, what with a cast full of first graders with bedtimes).

Y’all, he did GREAT—and Sir was WEARING THAT DUCK HAT like a bawss:

Pork chopsPlain rice and applesauce

Friday played out much like Thursday—except I’d learned a few things from Thursday, and therefore didn’t really make any valiant attempts to eat like a normal person. (Luckily, I’d already seen the Friday hell forthcoming, and so I’d told my team as soon as I officially bailed on Thursday that I’d be out on Friday, too, and would see them after Thanksgiving, as I’d previously arranged to take the whole Thanksgiving week off.) Yet and still, my gut was a constant pendulum of cramp: when my stomach was empty, I’d have the kind of cramps you get when you’re damn near starving, to the point where it feels like your insides are gnawing away at themselves and the backstage side of your belly button is straining to kiss your spine after years of estrangement; but if I ate anything at all, the cramps would turn into the kind you get when you’re about to throw up, and your gut muscles clench up like a line of football players grunting and hurling themselves full force against a five-man blocking sled. Rinse. Repeat.

I will reiterate, though: I never threw up. Small favors.

Saturday, I felt a bit better, and made some attempts at normalcy, like accompanying Love Tank on an errand that would not require me to get out of the car—but I still felt pretty puny, so I continued eating very little and very carefully, sticking for a second day to just unsweetened applesauce, plain rice, chicken noodle soup, and water.

And y’all, my sweet little duck, in a grand show of solidarity, ate only plain white rice himself for dinner Saturday night.

I mean.

(In reality, he probably just didn’t want whatever Love Tank and my elder dude were having, but I’m sticking with the solidarity story.)

But I digress. The point is, by Sunday, this business was really starting to get to me. On Thursday and Friday, I kept saying, “If this is as bad as it gets, I can handle it.” But I didn’t anticipate having to handle it for so LONG. I mean, by Sunday, I did feel better overall compared to Thursday and Friday, but rather than the post-treatment pattern I was used to—a steady, inchy progression towards normal once I hit my “Friday low”—this recovery was more of a “two steps forward, one step back” kinda deal, where each morning I’d wake up thinking that day was going to be the day I would start to get back to normal . . . and then I’d end up circling the drain again. In addition, whereas the weekend used to bring an end to the ick (leaving me a day or two of glory before the cycle started over again on Tuesday), my body was still on the struggle bus come Sunday night—and it took my mood straight into the ditch.

I was TIRED of fuggin’ RICE. SICK of friggin’ “chicken” (because come on, I’m supposed to buy that those gelatinous pink cubes actually come from a bird?) noodle soup. OVER applesauce. And most of all, I was FED UP WITH FEELING LIKE CRAP. It had been almost FIVE DAYS of this shit.

I hated everything.

But then . . .

Monday morning, when I woke up, the clouds let a little sunshine peek through. Oh, I didn’t fully trust it, because I’d already experienced a couple of “Oh, this is better!” mornings already, and that Sealy Posturepedic feeling didn’t last. But I did notice that my hunger felt “normal” (rather than the navel-to-spine thing I had going on before) and the cramping was gone—so, after a couple of hours of careful consideration (read: FEAR), I decided to try venturing beyond the rice diet.

For breakfast, I made myself some Cream of Wheat (in addition to prunes, cottage cheese, and candy corn, this is one of my lifelong Old Lady proclivities).

And it was kinda gross. And I felt kinda gross after. But I managed to (a) eat it all, and (b) move past the icky aftermath with the help of several sticks of peppermint gum (and by laying low and lunchless for the day), and by dinner, I was ready to try the black beans I’d simmered on Sunday in the hope that one day soon I’d be able to pair my rice with something a little more colorful.

It is ridiculous how excited I was for this dinner.

AND IT WAS GOOD, y’all! The black beans and rice tasted good. I felt good.

Well. OK.

The black beans and rice tasted SO good that I gobbled down WAYYYY too much of it (third helping, anyone?), way too fast, and then I did NOT feel particularly good; but once again, the peppermint gum came to the rescue, and by bedtime, when all of those beans and their rice brethren were still inside my body, I chalked it up as a triumph.

My saucy/starchy little saviors, topped with sour cream (oh, yeah, I got BOLD, baby).
After I took this photo, I remembered I’d planned to add chopped tomato on top, but I didn’t want to wait one more second (let alone the eon it would take to chop up a tomato) to eat this glory, so I told myself the tomato would have been too acidic for my delicate constitutional state, anyway, and went on wit ma bad self.

(As a completely unnecessary aside, I was reminded, when I began inhaling my dinner on Monday night (fully aware that I could end up, er . . . exhaling it), of my 25th birthday party: Bobby, a kind veteran bartender at the restaurant where I worked, threw a joint party at his townhouse in honor of me and Mike, a fellow server with whom I share(d) a birthday. As if that weren’t enough, he gifted each of us a bottle of liquor—not like a cutesy little pint just for show, either, but like a fifth.

I got Rumplemintz.

Which I have not drunk since, and shall never drink again.

But a part of my psyche shall be forever grateful to Bobby, who was still my friend even after I lost my dinner in his guest room—and to Mike, who laughed with such kindness as he gingerly plucked bits of that dinner out of my long, curly hair while I sat, slumped and regretful, on Bobby’s staircase watching Bobby scrub black beans, rice, and cranberry juice out of his carpet.

Wherever you both are, I still love you—and unlike that night all those years ago, I’m saying that totally sober. But I digress.)

So here it is, Tuesday again, and although I woke up feeling a bit shaky (I felt good enough to drive the progeny (at the elder one’s request) to a bakery 20 minutes away for breakfast pastries, but stopped short of buying one for myself), I’ve decided I’m gonna live. And now, if nothing else, I have more of an indication of how I’ll need to adjust my work schedule going forward: I’m thinking maybe I just plan on taking off treatment days AND the week following each. Because truly, with last Tuesday’s treatment, it took until Monday for me to stop hating everything, and until TODAY for me to feel OK enough to try to behave like a human being (which I did today, by meeting a friend for a (no-raw-stuff) sushi lunch that would have been a lot cheaper had I realized that the only part of it I’d find enjoyable would be the avocado roll . . . but look at me, digressing).

Another plus, I suppose, is that now I have two more weeks until I start this business over again, which I think I’ll appreciate a little more deeply now.

The biggest silver lining in what I’ve experienced this past week, however, is that it’s given me an excuse to do very little except binge-watch ALLLLLLLLL the HEARTLAND. I mean days and days replete with Heartland! I’m still only on season 6, because although I’ve been watching it for years, I don’t watch it regularly—but I have made quite a bit of Heartland progress (which they call “PRO-gress” in Canada) this past week. It’s been immensely comforting. Heartland is like the mashed potatoes and gravy of television. The homemade mac and cheese of the small screen. Horses make everything better. (Nevermind that I’m afraid of them in real life.)

Slide some oil to me

In other news, since my last post, I’ve met with the amazing, adorable woman (at my age, it’s tempting to call her a girl, because she’s young enough to be my daughter—and I don’t mean in a “teenage pregnancy” way, either, I mean in an “I chose to establish my career and enjoy my 20s before having kids” way, so it kinda blows my mind that she’s a full-fledged adult) who’s going to be designing my outfit for the Bra Couture KC event in April of 2023. We can call her Galentino (although in real life, she has the same first name as one of my former bosses, which means when it came time to text her my measurements for my runway couture, guess who I accidentally sent them to instead? But anyway . . . ).

Galentino is a pure delight! And so, it seems, is her family: apparently her grandfather restores old motorcycles, and since I’m going with a motorcycle theme for my runway look (I tried for skulls, but that idea was kind of a bust for a CANCER-related event, so I offered up that my motorcycle is my happy place), she is a perfect match for me. Y’all, I’ma be wearing motorcycle parts ON MY HEAD. When Galentino first mentioned the idea, I was game, but a bit wary, because I didn’t want to wind up looking like Nipsey Russell in The Wiz. But then she sent a photo of the design elements she’d mined from her grandpa’s shop for my headpiece (which I like to think of as a crown) . . .


. . . and I was sold. The reflectors are EVERYTHING.

Aside from the headpiece, however, I will refrain from sharing any more spoilers about my runway design. I’ll just say that I’m really excited to see how everything turns out! My sister, who happened to be in town visiting, and so went with me to meet my designer for the first time, seems to think—based on eavesdropping on some of the conversations between the other models in the room and their designers—that my design is gonna be the best game in town, but there was A LOT of immense talent in that room. And to be fair, my sister’s a little biased; I mean, her idea of fun was shooting straight from the airport to the roller rink on the evening of her arrival in town, just to hang out with me and my kids at the smaller one’s school skate night and eat shitty rink pizza . . . which makes it obvious that she loves me and mine more than the average bear (hence the bias). So although I DO think my design is going to be FIRE, I think the rest of them will probably be equally spectacular. You know. Minus reflectors.

Gonads and strife

And speaking of fire—particularly as it relates to the flames of love . . .

Remember how I mentioned we’d gotten sweet new baby rats after the sad demise of our pandemic rats? Well, what I may NOT have mentioned was that when we get rats, we always get two girls. I always figured (based on my 1970s-era conventional dog owner wisdom) that two boys would constantly be fighting for dominance (although since the 70s, I’ve read that once a bunch of male dogs establishes a pack order, they pretty much stick with it, whereas it’s the GIRLS who are always fighting for dominance . . . but I digress)—and I had ZERO interest in what would happen if we got a girl AND a boy.

So when we went to the pet shop to get our new fuzzballs, we fished around in the tank of little baby rats, and came up with three girls. (It’s pretty easy to tell which are which, because male rats—even baby ones—tend to have VERY (indeed, disproportionately) obvious . . . boyness.) My children, of course, wanted to get all three, but we narrowed the field to two based on the fact that (a) two of them were almost identical (which means one of them would have to go, in order to avoid confusion), and (b) one of said “twins” was demonstrably less skittish than the other.

Off we rolled with two new rats, for whom we worked out names on the drive home (a conversation to which our children contributed the vast majority of suggestions), finally landing on Philly Roll for the gray one, and Hot Jack for the brown one.

When we got them home, we gave them a couple of days to stop freaking out about what I imagine they viewed as an alien abduction, and then my elder son started working his magic to socialize them (he’s really dedicated, and good at it). As part of that effort, if we were sitting around doing nothing, he would often bring one rat to me to play with while he played with the other one.

So there I was, chilling in my bed one evening, watching Philly Roll wander around on the bedspread (and watching diligently for droppings or drips), when I suddenly got a good, clear look at her backside and thought, “Why does it look like she’s growing . . . boyness???” (It wasn’t as obvious as the boys in the pet store, but . . . boyish nonetheless.)

I pointed this out to my son (only later imagining him at age 27, sitting on a therapist’s couch and saying, “I think it all started when I was 14 years old and my mom made me check out rat genitalia . . . “), and his eyebrows raised. “OH . . . !” he exclaimed, before handing Hot Jack over to me and taking Philly Roll downstairs to show Love Tank—who is apparently the official Arbiter of Rat Boyness (I was going to say “Rat Sex,” but there was a possible interpretation there that wasn’t quite working) in this household.

He came back with the news that Love Tank, too, suspected Philly Roll was packin’ balls.

I looked down into my hands at sweet little Hot Jack.

Since then, SO FARRRRR, there have been no midnight Barry White parties in the corner of my office (where the rat cage lives) that I know of . . . but it’s only a matter of time, I’m guessing. Although, maybe, with the comparatively small jewels Philly Roll is packin’, there may be some fertility issues? At any rate, I’m now wondering about the cost and logistics of neutering a rat. I mean, what do you say to the vet? “We thought we were getting a girl, so please cut those off”???

Thanks, Universe!

The nut smuggler.

Gritty, grimy gratitude

I will say that aside from the surprise cojones, the Universe has actually been delivering quality gifts to me—most recently in the form of good-ass friends.

After my last post, SO many of you reached out with offers to clean my house that I honestly felt a little guilty; I hadn’t made the post to compel anyone to help, but rather just to vent about the fact that my pathetic little “vacation” plans had been thwarted (although, after this past week, I’m glad things happened the way they did, because if I had gotten treatment TODAY as I’d originally planned, Thanksgiving would be RUINED). So of course I politely declined the numerous offers to spic and span my stuff . . .

. . . until one particularly bossy friend (who started out texting me about it, but then actually CALLED to give me a good talking to when I kept foisting her off) came at me with the offer of professional housecleaning services. She and a group of mutual friends, who’d been looking for ways to help, had come together and decided that this was a good way to do it. She was recruiting her OWN housekeeper, and the group would split the cost for her to get my shit shining.

I explained that, although my house was (and still is) currently kind of a disaster, what I really needed was not so much someone to dust, vacuum and mop, but rather someone to go deep: to scrub my walls (that’s the big one); to scrape the scritch from baseboards and corners; to wipe down cabinet doors; to clean the OUTSIDE of the fridge (and beneath and behind it)—that kind of stuff.

“She can do that,” my friend said.

So by golly I’m gonna let ‘er. I’ve made a list. Turns out the hardest part is working out a time, because between the housecleaner’s work and school schedule, and my treatment and other drama (like kids with fevers), we haven’t been able to land on a good day/time for her to come. But I’m hopeful that by my next treatment, I’ll be able to lick the wall behind my refrigerator.

And I sincerely thank the hell out of all of you who offered to help. You are amazing. You’re just, apparently, not bossy enough. 😂

The countdown begins

Other than all of the above, the only other news I have is that my plan for the boys’ countdown-to-Christmas calendars is set, the stuff is purchased/arranged, and now, once this week (during which they are both at home all day errday) is over, I can start filling those suckers up. If you know me, you know that this is HUGE, as typically I’m scrambling on November 30 to get my shit together (because as you also know, I can get kind of elaborate with these bad boys, so I often make the plan way in advance, but then falter when it comes to the timing of the execution). And I suppose I could still end up scrambling with execution on November 30, but at least I won’t still be buying stuff halfway through the month for the days toward the end of the month, and praying Amazon pulls through. AND, knowing I have another treatment (read: another Hell Week) coming the first week in December, I’ve even worked out the plan so that none of the calendar goodies for the 8 days following my treatment require any effort or participation on my part. Look at me go!

Now, I just have to get my mom’s countdown calendar arranged (I started that tradition during the 2020 holiday season, what with so much time to engage in projects at home), but I have a plan for that, too: tomorrow, I’m giving each of the boys a budget, and setting them loose to find 24 Grandma-tastic items to stuff her Advent drawers.

Let the season begin!

Lots of gratitude, love, and merry to you all, as always.