Sunday, November 21, 2010
Last
Live today like it will be your last. I have heard this over and over through out my life. What does it really mean? I have been thinking a lot about my Grandmother Ann as the holidays approach. I never really cared much for the whole turkey feast and weird overly sugared foods at the table. But, the thought occurred to me the other day, I don't know how to make a turkey. I never paid attention to what my Grandmother was doing in the years of her making of a feast. I took that all for granted and sat at her table eating her food. Now, I can't ask her how to make a turkey. Now, I get it.
Friday, November 19, 2010
It's About You
There has been some confusion about whom I write. Yes, I write about you. And, let me tell you why. In an advanced art history course at Colorado State University, a professor led us through an intense week-long discussion on how to look at art. What does art mean? Why is it created? What does a viewer see? There are two levels of the viewing of art. First there is the intuitive emotional level. A viewer walks by a piece and loves it, hates, wants to look at it longer, feels angry, feels impassioned....
The second level comes mostly to those who have studied art and critique. Standing long enough in front of a piece and knowing at least a basic foundation of the elements and principles of art, a critic viewer can begin to define why the art piece creates the first level of reaction. The combination of the elements and principles are intertwined both intuitively and purposely by the artist to evoke the emotive values. One of the most obvious elements of an artwork that creates an emotive response is color. A dark piece makes the viewer feel one way while a lighter value creates another. Red evokes passion and anger. Blue evokes calm.
The artist creates art about you in that he is evoking what you bring to the piece through the collective use of design. A few nights ago, I went to a lecture by Carol Shin at the Front Range Contemporary Quilters Guild. She is a free-motion embroidery artist who creates photo realistic images with millions of tiny thread stitches. She jokes, "I took up embroidery on my machine because it was quicker then mixing paint." Of course, as a painter, I have to chuckle imagining changing all those threads as being quicker then mixing a dash of a color of paint. What was interesting about her talk through her life story in textile images is her use of chairs. Throughout her artist life span, she has made images of chairs. Some are symmetrical, some sit diagonal in the composition looking as if they will fall over, some are turned away, and others are facing you in a very confrontational manner. No, the viewer doesn't suspect the purposefully placed chair in the composition is evoking an emotional response of the artist's choosing. Shin explains that a chair is a way of putting a person in your work without limiting the image to someone specific. The viewer places themselves in the chair or they place someone they know in the chair. Therefore, Carol Shin create images about you.
Now, think also about the other arts. Music. Surely the songs are written specifically about one person and one experience. Or are they? Is Taylor Swift really having a Romeo and Juliet romance at the same time she is a nerdy teen sitting on the bleachers dreaming of Mr. So-and-So who is dating some hot cheerleader? Maybe. But, I bet you a dollar every teen listens to these songs and puts themselves right there in the picture the words create. Heck, my six year old daughter knows all the words to Love Story and can tell you her interpretation of Aura and Prince Philip seeing each other at the dance and secretly meeting on the steps. Or was that Cinderella? And, when I listen to the song I hear it differently having studied the original literary Romeo and Juliet inspiration by Shakespeare in several formats of live play, text, and Moonlighting episode with Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepard (wait, that was Taming of the Shrew.) And, I bet my daughter's dad, trying to pretend he isn't really listening to this feminine teen Pop idol of course, hears quite a different interpretation. He may even be projecting in the future what it will be like to have a love sick 15 year old daughter because goodness knows she is definitely one for the drama at age six.
Whether it is a visual art piece, music or text, it is all about you. You, the audience, project yourself into the art piece whether you know it or not. Yes, maybe I type in response to an actual conversation. Maybe I am just thinking about a movie I just saw or having a memory from my youth. Maybe I am really mad at someone or maybe I just had a conversation with a friend who was really mad at someone. Maybe it was you who hurt my feelings. Or, Maybe not. Does it really matter? As an author (I can't believe I just said that) I toss out thoughts and images. It is up to you to decide if I am writing about you. Chances are I am if you think I am. But, do keep in mind, I am also writing about that gal over there, my friend from ten years ago, a boyfriend I had in college, and the childhood cat who scarred my knee with her tiny claws. Please feel free to sit in my chairs. But, I do warn you that sometimes they might be a little uncomforable.
The second level comes mostly to those who have studied art and critique. Standing long enough in front of a piece and knowing at least a basic foundation of the elements and principles of art, a critic viewer can begin to define why the art piece creates the first level of reaction. The combination of the elements and principles are intertwined both intuitively and purposely by the artist to evoke the emotive values. One of the most obvious elements of an artwork that creates an emotive response is color. A dark piece makes the viewer feel one way while a lighter value creates another. Red evokes passion and anger. Blue evokes calm.
The artist creates art about you in that he is evoking what you bring to the piece through the collective use of design. A few nights ago, I went to a lecture by Carol Shin at the Front Range Contemporary Quilters Guild. She is a free-motion embroidery artist who creates photo realistic images with millions of tiny thread stitches. She jokes, "I took up embroidery on my machine because it was quicker then mixing paint." Of course, as a painter, I have to chuckle imagining changing all those threads as being quicker then mixing a dash of a color of paint. What was interesting about her talk through her life story in textile images is her use of chairs. Throughout her artist life span, she has made images of chairs. Some are symmetrical, some sit diagonal in the composition looking as if they will fall over, some are turned away, and others are facing you in a very confrontational manner. No, the viewer doesn't suspect the purposefully placed chair in the composition is evoking an emotional response of the artist's choosing. Shin explains that a chair is a way of putting a person in your work without limiting the image to someone specific. The viewer places themselves in the chair or they place someone they know in the chair. Therefore, Carol Shin create images about you.
Now, think also about the other arts. Music. Surely the songs are written specifically about one person and one experience. Or are they? Is Taylor Swift really having a Romeo and Juliet romance at the same time she is a nerdy teen sitting on the bleachers dreaming of Mr. So-and-So who is dating some hot cheerleader? Maybe. But, I bet you a dollar every teen listens to these songs and puts themselves right there in the picture the words create. Heck, my six year old daughter knows all the words to Love Story and can tell you her interpretation of Aura and Prince Philip seeing each other at the dance and secretly meeting on the steps. Or was that Cinderella? And, when I listen to the song I hear it differently having studied the original literary Romeo and Juliet inspiration by Shakespeare in several formats of live play, text, and Moonlighting episode with Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepard (wait, that was Taming of the Shrew.) And, I bet my daughter's dad, trying to pretend he isn't really listening to this feminine teen Pop idol of course, hears quite a different interpretation. He may even be projecting in the future what it will be like to have a love sick 15 year old daughter because goodness knows she is definitely one for the drama at age six.
Whether it is a visual art piece, music or text, it is all about you. You, the audience, project yourself into the art piece whether you know it or not. Yes, maybe I type in response to an actual conversation. Maybe I am just thinking about a movie I just saw or having a memory from my youth. Maybe I am really mad at someone or maybe I just had a conversation with a friend who was really mad at someone. Maybe it was you who hurt my feelings. Or, Maybe not. Does it really matter? As an author (I can't believe I just said that) I toss out thoughts and images. It is up to you to decide if I am writing about you. Chances are I am if you think I am. But, do keep in mind, I am also writing about that gal over there, my friend from ten years ago, a boyfriend I had in college, and the childhood cat who scarred my knee with her tiny claws. Please feel free to sit in my chairs. But, I do warn you that sometimes they might be a little uncomforable.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Growing Pains
When I was 16, I watched my grandmother grow up. It was a typical end of a Christmas day in the Homer Broers household. The women folk had just settled down to tea and watching Grandma scrub every last inch of the kitchen floor. It must have been about 10 pm and the men folk were watching some sporting thingy in the living room. (Yes, Mom, this is the year I partook in the sipping of Grandpa's God awful home-made wine with the cousins and threw up in the sink. Grandma, I am sorry you thought it was your cooking that made me so sick. I promise I had only a cup or so of that horrid grape juice. Promise.) So here was this little four foot nine inches tall woman bending over the mop and telling some tale when Papa yells some command over the sound of the TV. I don't recall what the loud request was. What I do recall is my bitty Nanny yelling back: "Get your own dam...." And, then she went back to her business.
She said a swear word! We couldn't believe our ears. Now, this scene set the tone for the next twenty years of my awry Grandma's life. I had never heard this woman, a woman who bent over to please, a woman who did it all right and still had time to make you waffles in the middle of the night. Here she was saying her peace and ignoring the replications.
Now, it is true that my aunt and cousin may recall this incident differently, but they will recall it. What I saw in my young mind, trying to make all the pieces fit together in preparation for my adulthood, was this woman was finally standing up for herself. She was growing up.
I watched another woman grow up. I didn't know her well at the time. I stayed a weekend in her home with her husband and spent most of the time out in the garden reading my book, Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover. The fighting was so bad one evening after dinner that I escaped to the curb outside of the house. I sat there reading with the cool fall breeze and pondering what it was like to be fighting like that. I had not grown up with people who fought nor did I know how to fight.
The house grew quiet and the woman slipped out the front to slump by my side on the curb. She was silent for a long time. Then she said she was sorry. Later that weekend, I watched this woman grow up. She couldn't stay. All these years she had been taken care of by a man. And now, she had to go. Now, she had to learn to take care of herself. And she did.
Growing up comes in a lot of ways. Before you are twenty, the growth is obvious. There are markers like the first giggle, first step, potty training and learning to read (the awesome growth step both my children are currently mastering...I say very proudly.) But, as the years go on, the growth becomes less obvious. We move into our careers, become parents, change careers, and even learn new talents. There comes a time in every one's life when a huge growth becomes essential. For Grandma, she was in her sixties. For my friend, it was her mid-fifties. And for me, it is my thirties.
I am asked all the time what was the gift., the lesson, the growth that cancer gave me. I really can't tell you just that, yet. But, I can tell you that I went to battle and am still dealing with post traumatic stress disorder. There are the ups and the downs. And, on the ups I can see how I feel different. Like both of the women in my life, I don't want to be the pleaser anymore. I don't want to loose myself nor tell myself it is okay to not be happy about something and shut up and take it. No, I do not intend to be some mean grump. I do intend to please. But, now, I intend to bring pleasure to others in the radiance of my own well being and not because I am bending over a mop to clean up after you. I am not perfect. I am fallible. And, I love it. Well, sort of. Be patient, I am still growing and trying to make sense of it all.
She said a swear word! We couldn't believe our ears. Now, this scene set the tone for the next twenty years of my awry Grandma's life. I had never heard this woman, a woman who bent over to please, a woman who did it all right and still had time to make you waffles in the middle of the night. Here she was saying her peace and ignoring the replications.
Now, it is true that my aunt and cousin may recall this incident differently, but they will recall it. What I saw in my young mind, trying to make all the pieces fit together in preparation for my adulthood, was this woman was finally standing up for herself. She was growing up.
I watched another woman grow up. I didn't know her well at the time. I stayed a weekend in her home with her husband and spent most of the time out in the garden reading my book, Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingslover. The fighting was so bad one evening after dinner that I escaped to the curb outside of the house. I sat there reading with the cool fall breeze and pondering what it was like to be fighting like that. I had not grown up with people who fought nor did I know how to fight.
The house grew quiet and the woman slipped out the front to slump by my side on the curb. She was silent for a long time. Then she said she was sorry. Later that weekend, I watched this woman grow up. She couldn't stay. All these years she had been taken care of by a man. And now, she had to go. Now, she had to learn to take care of herself. And she did.
Growing up comes in a lot of ways. Before you are twenty, the growth is obvious. There are markers like the first giggle, first step, potty training and learning to read (the awesome growth step both my children are currently mastering...I say very proudly.) But, as the years go on, the growth becomes less obvious. We move into our careers, become parents, change careers, and even learn new talents. There comes a time in every one's life when a huge growth becomes essential. For Grandma, she was in her sixties. For my friend, it was her mid-fifties. And for me, it is my thirties.
I am asked all the time what was the gift., the lesson, the growth that cancer gave me. I really can't tell you just that, yet. But, I can tell you that I went to battle and am still dealing with post traumatic stress disorder. There are the ups and the downs. And, on the ups I can see how I feel different. Like both of the women in my life, I don't want to be the pleaser anymore. I don't want to loose myself nor tell myself it is okay to not be happy about something and shut up and take it. No, I do not intend to be some mean grump. I do intend to please. But, now, I intend to bring pleasure to others in the radiance of my own well being and not because I am bending over a mop to clean up after you. I am not perfect. I am fallible. And, I love it. Well, sort of. Be patient, I am still growing and trying to make sense of it all.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Fans
I got a call today. I didn't know this woman. She had seen my work at Cafe Luna and "just had to call." It was a bit of an interesting conversation. She apparently reads Mayan calendars. She said that today was a day of earth connections, and then she walked into Cafe Luna and there were all my mountain paintings. She went on and on about how surprised she was at how young I am. She said she assumed in the depth of my work that I was more "wise in my years" then I am. Mainly, I think she was referring to my latest peice...sorry, I forgot what I titled it. Earlier, I had received an inpromptu critique of the piece. The critic talked about the faces that make up the mountains. She discussed how they felt trapped yet seeking. Like a journey. Yes, my pieces, when I just let them be, are my insides on a canvas. It is fun to hear what others say about your work. My son says there is a firgure in the piece and there are two suns. My daughter says there are only three moons. Mom says she sees a fiure too. What do you think? What I think is that I need to write it all down starting with Luna Nina painted in 1997. Oh, and I will let you know what my Mayan birth order says if I meet up with Karen for coffee later this month.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Lessons in Meditation
Went to yoga. Reaped great rewards in body and mind. Ms. yogi talked about practice. I thought about practice. All that is important is practice. A practice is a living organism in which you move in and out like a breath. A moment of ease and continuity and a moment of struggle dance in the realm of the practice.
I recall a swim meet my junior year of high school. It must have been November as it was the air was filled with chill. On hundred meters freestyle, not my best race (No, that would be the 100m breast stroke and 50m fly,last leg of my IM relay team) I still remember the dive, glide, the continuity between my body and the water. It was like I was flying just and inch above the water. I don't recall the time and I know I didn't place any better then maybe third in any race. But, I recall that feeling. Practice. A moving in and out of easy and struggle like a breath.
Yogi talked about flexibility building strength. Yet, when the strength was built, in practice, one had to put to mind to relax to move back into flexibility. In turn moving into flexibility created more strength. Strength becomes inflexible. So you have to put into to mind to move into to the feasible. This thought cycled in its abstracted through out the entire 30 minutes of hip-openers. In and out. Push and release. Build and knock it down to build it again, only better,
Savasana. Ah. The room slipped away like the water of my youth. I saw a cloudy sky, dark, silvery. It opened and a hand reached through in a light and pulled. It pulled out all my insides that were rotten. The hands rinsed me. It started in my belly and moved to my chest. My chest felt like it was burning yet hollow. Into the throat and seeped out my eyes. Tears, cold, slipped quietly down into my ears. Then it changed. The hands wanted me to come with them. No, I said. I a not ready. There is much to do before I die. So I sent my innards swirling in a cloud to the light between the silver clouds. Take it, take it all, for, I am well. Rinsed. I sigh and wiggle my toes. Amen and namasta.
I recall a swim meet my junior year of high school. It must have been November as it was the air was filled with chill. On hundred meters freestyle, not my best race (No, that would be the 100m breast stroke and 50m fly,last leg of my IM relay team) I still remember the dive, glide, the continuity between my body and the water. It was like I was flying just and inch above the water. I don't recall the time and I know I didn't place any better then maybe third in any race. But, I recall that feeling. Practice. A moving in and out of easy and struggle like a breath.
Yogi talked about flexibility building strength. Yet, when the strength was built, in practice, one had to put to mind to relax to move back into flexibility. In turn moving into flexibility created more strength. Strength becomes inflexible. So you have to put into to mind to move into to the feasible. This thought cycled in its abstracted through out the entire 30 minutes of hip-openers. In and out. Push and release. Build and knock it down to build it again, only better,
Savasana. Ah. The room slipped away like the water of my youth. I saw a cloudy sky, dark, silvery. It opened and a hand reached through in a light and pulled. It pulled out all my insides that were rotten. The hands rinsed me. It started in my belly and moved to my chest. My chest felt like it was burning yet hollow. Into the throat and seeped out my eyes. Tears, cold, slipped quietly down into my ears. Then it changed. The hands wanted me to come with them. No, I said. I a not ready. There is much to do before I die. So I sent my innards swirling in a cloud to the light between the silver clouds. Take it, take it all, for, I am well. Rinsed. I sigh and wiggle my toes. Amen and namasta.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Coming Home
I sat there today. I sat right there. Right in the middle of me. There around me was my artwork. I began to look at the nine pieces hanging up at Cafe Luna for the month of November. I spoke with a young lady who I once taught at Longmont High School. She is nearly 25, now, and getting married. She spoke to me about how she had not created art since high schoool. My two time Advanced Placement Studio Art scholar had not worked for six years. She said she was ready and wanted to take up her tools to create.
So, I took her down my path. I told her about my first piece I created out of the classroom, on my own, for myself, out of my own head. I was 25 and living on my own right here in my first apartment duplex in Longmont, Colorado. I was getting married the next year. This piece, titled Luna Nina, is now retired in bubble wrap under my son's bed. Interestingly, the cloud formation in Luna Nina shows a striking semblance to the one in Mt. Meeker and Long's Peak from Airport Road, the one with the echanecia In fact, I began to look around and there they all were.
One shared the color pallet of the next one which shared the bits of map with the next one. And, that one shared the horizon line with the one next to it. There is a story with each. I talked with my student about how each time I had something happen to me, a graduation, a miscarriage, a birth, a cancer diagnoses, I had to claw my way back to my home. I pulled out a bright white, new canvas and begun. I stumbled. I hated what I made. I doubt myself. I hated myself. I doubted that I was ever what one would title an artist. Yet, I painted over that ugly mess, turned on my music and stopped thinking. I made art. I doodled. I flowed. No, those first pieces aren't my favorites. These pieces are about coming home. And, once there, wow!
Come home
my lovely.
Turn off your head.
Let loose
of binding
strings.
Be free
in the dance.
Come home.
Welcome.
Home.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Girls' Night Out
I just had the best night out with my favorite girl. She is not quite four feet tall and can read Biscuit Makes a New Friend. Her eyes are bright and can flash you a smile with just a mire thought of joy. Her hair is a mess from dawn to dusk, and she still spills crumbs all over the floor when she eats even though she is six. Yes, my beautiful, and I don't mean just on the outside, my beautiful little girl and I went out to dinner. We took a friend of hers. A friend who is roughly six months older and has known my girl for exactly six years and six months of her life. Yes, we had a blast.
We took Little Brother to a birthday party where he enjoyed his own brand of fun tumbling around with his bros. Then we went to a pizza place on Main and decided on exactly the same toppings: mushrooms, olives and ham. This pizza parlour has games so the girls giggled over Connect Four. Then I taught them Jenga. Neither had played before and just loved it! Of course some of that may be due to a mother who over exaggerates the effort of pushing just the right block out of its spot and just barely not knocking the tower over as I gingerly place the piece on top.
Yes, I think I am going to enjoy my gal as she creeps up slowly in her years. She may be a little sassy these days and not wanting to get dressed to go to school morning after morning, but she sure can light up a room and make me giggle. I love you my little jewel.
We took Little Brother to a birthday party where he enjoyed his own brand of fun tumbling around with his bros. Then we went to a pizza place on Main and decided on exactly the same toppings: mushrooms, olives and ham. This pizza parlour has games so the girls giggled over Connect Four. Then I taught them Jenga. Neither had played before and just loved it! Of course some of that may be due to a mother who over exaggerates the effort of pushing just the right block out of its spot and just barely not knocking the tower over as I gingerly place the piece on top.
Yes, I think I am going to enjoy my gal as she creeps up slowly in her years. She may be a little sassy these days and not wanting to get dressed to go to school morning after morning, but she sure can light up a room and make me giggle. I love you my little jewel.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Cheers
I have to share something pretty amazing. (And, by the way, Big Sis, I will post this at mid-night, but I was already in bed exhausted from my day while my brain kept running it's little cartoon of life. So I am writing to shut off my computer in my brain.)
Back to amazing. I went to a the Center of Integrated Therapies today. I walked in the door and there stood five of the practitioners. They cheered for me. Like a real excited, smiles across their faces, arms pumping in the air, real live cheer. Over come with a blush and a rush of joy, I felt amazing. So that is my goal...to organize a spontaneous cheer for you.
I laid there in my acupuncture appointment rambling on like she was my bartender or hairdresser and I was thinking about my buddy Dane. Dane, 14, is just walking in the door of the cancer world. I read these posts written by his mom, my friend, and his dad and am just blown away with the young man he is. Boy, I thought I was a youngster, but to be a teen and loosing your hair....
So, I dared him to dress up as Harachrishna (not sure how to spell that one) and run silly down Pearl Street Mall (Not from Boulder, Colorado? You could run naked in January down the street and wouldn't be out of place. Arrested, maybe, but not odd.) I was joking, of course, but was envisioning people cheering him on as he ran down the street. In the end it is all about the cheering. It is pretty amazing.
I thank everyone who cheered for me. I thank everyone who came to my birthday party just days before my surgery and laughed as I showed you the surgical maneuvers of Dr. Heartthrob on my ample breast cakes with cherries on top. I only now realize how hard that must have been for you. So thank you for laughing with me....maybe I wasn't really all that funny as I was pretty doped up on painkillers...but you laughed and smiled hugged and cheered anyway. And, I know at least one of you went home to bawl her eyes out with her husband who in turn shared some pretty important words with me later.
Thanks for coming to my next birthday party and gratitude celebration. I know how your lives were all taking big hits at the time too. But, you came, you cheered. You stood for "another one of Sara's silly group pictures that she will probably want to post on Facebook." And maybe more importantly, shared a round of cosmos with me. Mark your calendars now because I am going to have a party every year. Yes, it will be around my birthday which just happens to mark my years with cancer. But, I want my party to be your party. A party of gratitude that we are all still here cheering for each other. Oh and my 40th...you betcha it is going to rock! Who is going to help me plan? Six years cancer free.
As I am getting really excited with all this gratitude sharing, in the back of my head is the haunting image. It is the image I see every three weeks as I settle down in a recliner at the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center for 2 hours across from some old bald guy. Okay, not everyone is bald and not everyone is old. But, some days, it feels like that. I feel like the elephant in the room as I come skipping along trying my best to not let my reality get the best of me. A friend who I have met recently asked me what an infusion was. I tried to explain the science of it in a short manner. You know, the analogy that I have these immature Jedi cells running around all over my body. The cells may become strong with the Force. Others, probably in my liver again, may turn into Anican Skywalkers and go to the Dark Side at any minute. At any minute. The Herceptin helps to shut down these cells by attaching to them so my body can go in to destroy them before they go to the Dark Side.
Whant an infusion means is that I sit in a chair feeling drowsy and sort of anxious at the same time for a couple of hours and then go home to pass out asleep for three hours or so. It means that I wake up totally clueless and foggy in my brain, feet tingling, headache and nauseated up in my throat. I am hungry but not. I am sleepy but not. If and when I go back to sleep, it will get better in 24 hours. My feet and left arm may swell up like balloons and feel very heavy whether the swelling is visible or not. I feel a bit of a rush feeling in my chest, short of breath, and thirsty. And yes, I am going to say it, then there is the diariah for a couple of days.
An infusion means I am siting next to a woman with thin hair, in her 60s, who is going through her third recurrence. It means I begin to worry about recurrence. I don't want to loose my hair again. It means looking at her giant swollen arm and having her tell me that she just stopped taking care of her Lymphadema and lives with the pain day in and day out. It means remembering my cancer.
Yes, I am strong again. Yes, I can get my brain to work right most of the time when I am not tired or too much is going on around me. Yes, for two weeks, I take my kids to school, bake bread, and clean my toilets. Heck, I may even carve out time for myself to paint...the only true time I feel like Sara Lynn. But then, in three weeks, I schedule, I plan, I prep the house, the kids, and my life. I stop everything for cancer. Yes, it is only maybe 48 hours. But for those 48 hours, I remember. I remember over and over and over and over again.
So yes, thank you Michelle, Karen, Megan, Michelle, and Jane for cheering for me today. Thank you! Now, I think I can pull up my britches and set out upon the world as Super Mom Sara Lynn Broers Brown...well, for the next two weeks anyway.
I honor you.
Sidebar: I decided today that what I am doing now, where I am on my path, is paving my road. I have been bull-dozer, reaped, and the jungle grew back all wild and ugly. The last few months I have made big leaps in my mind to come to terms with what is to be my life. Now, just now, I am ready to pave my road. What I mean is that I am educating myself with what to eat, not eat. How to prevent the nausea (hoping to do pressure seeds before the appointment.) And continuing to maintain the Lymphadema. From what I have collected from doctors and patients is that once the Lymphadema gets out of control, it is too late. It is very difficult to maintain and very painful. So as long as I can keep up the Manual Lymph Drainage Massage (and it feels great too!) and wearing my compression sleeve even if the swelling isn't much, then I can keep it at just that, not much. I don't want to look like that swollen 60 year old woman ten years from now. Here is to hoping.
And to close with a funny: So I go to the bathroom like every 15 minutes during infusions because of all the fluid and probably a little to do with nerves. I go, come out, and stop by the nurse's desk. "Shelly, um, I don't think it is quite right; I mean it seems odd; is there maybe a break room close to the bathroom?" "What do you mean exactly?" "Well, the bathroom smells like smoke, like cigarettes, and that is a weird thing in a cancer center, right?" So she goes in to check and emerges laughing. "Oh my gosh, you are right." Fast forward to waiting for the valet to retrieve my car. There is this women with crooked teeth there sort of on edge. She is going on and on about the valets screwing up something with her truck. I see her truck. She almost totally crashed into me when I was trying to find a parking spot; before I gave up and left it with the valet. She was going on and on about this to top off a bad day because her husband just got busted at the cancer center for smoking in the bathroom. Narc. I sure hope he doesn't have lung cancer.
Back to amazing. I went to a the Center of Integrated Therapies today. I walked in the door and there stood five of the practitioners. They cheered for me. Like a real excited, smiles across their faces, arms pumping in the air, real live cheer. Over come with a blush and a rush of joy, I felt amazing. So that is my goal...to organize a spontaneous cheer for you.
I laid there in my acupuncture appointment rambling on like she was my bartender or hairdresser and I was thinking about my buddy Dane. Dane, 14, is just walking in the door of the cancer world. I read these posts written by his mom, my friend, and his dad and am just blown away with the young man he is. Boy, I thought I was a youngster, but to be a teen and loosing your hair....
So, I dared him to dress up as Harachrishna (not sure how to spell that one) and run silly down Pearl Street Mall (Not from Boulder, Colorado? You could run naked in January down the street and wouldn't be out of place. Arrested, maybe, but not odd.) I was joking, of course, but was envisioning people cheering him on as he ran down the street. In the end it is all about the cheering. It is pretty amazing.
I thank everyone who cheered for me. I thank everyone who came to my birthday party just days before my surgery and laughed as I showed you the surgical maneuvers of Dr. Heartthrob on my ample breast cakes with cherries on top. I only now realize how hard that must have been for you. So thank you for laughing with me....maybe I wasn't really all that funny as I was pretty doped up on painkillers...but you laughed and smiled hugged and cheered anyway. And, I know at least one of you went home to bawl her eyes out with her husband who in turn shared some pretty important words with me later.
Thanks for coming to my next birthday party and gratitude celebration. I know how your lives were all taking big hits at the time too. But, you came, you cheered. You stood for "another one of Sara's silly group pictures that she will probably want to post on Facebook." And maybe more importantly, shared a round of cosmos with me. Mark your calendars now because I am going to have a party every year. Yes, it will be around my birthday which just happens to mark my years with cancer. But, I want my party to be your party. A party of gratitude that we are all still here cheering for each other. Oh and my 40th...you betcha it is going to rock! Who is going to help me plan? Six years cancer free.
As I am getting really excited with all this gratitude sharing, in the back of my head is the haunting image. It is the image I see every three weeks as I settle down in a recliner at the Rocky Mountain Cancer Center for 2 hours across from some old bald guy. Okay, not everyone is bald and not everyone is old. But, some days, it feels like that. I feel like the elephant in the room as I come skipping along trying my best to not let my reality get the best of me. A friend who I have met recently asked me what an infusion was. I tried to explain the science of it in a short manner. You know, the analogy that I have these immature Jedi cells running around all over my body. The cells may become strong with the Force. Others, probably in my liver again, may turn into Anican Skywalkers and go to the Dark Side at any minute. At any minute. The Herceptin helps to shut down these cells by attaching to them so my body can go in to destroy them before they go to the Dark Side.
Whant an infusion means is that I sit in a chair feeling drowsy and sort of anxious at the same time for a couple of hours and then go home to pass out asleep for three hours or so. It means that I wake up totally clueless and foggy in my brain, feet tingling, headache and nauseated up in my throat. I am hungry but not. I am sleepy but not. If and when I go back to sleep, it will get better in 24 hours. My feet and left arm may swell up like balloons and feel very heavy whether the swelling is visible or not. I feel a bit of a rush feeling in my chest, short of breath, and thirsty. And yes, I am going to say it, then there is the diariah for a couple of days.
An infusion means I am siting next to a woman with thin hair, in her 60s, who is going through her third recurrence. It means I begin to worry about recurrence. I don't want to loose my hair again. It means looking at her giant swollen arm and having her tell me that she just stopped taking care of her Lymphadema and lives with the pain day in and day out. It means remembering my cancer.
Yes, I am strong again. Yes, I can get my brain to work right most of the time when I am not tired or too much is going on around me. Yes, for two weeks, I take my kids to school, bake bread, and clean my toilets. Heck, I may even carve out time for myself to paint...the only true time I feel like Sara Lynn. But then, in three weeks, I schedule, I plan, I prep the house, the kids, and my life. I stop everything for cancer. Yes, it is only maybe 48 hours. But for those 48 hours, I remember. I remember over and over and over and over again.
So yes, thank you Michelle, Karen, Megan, Michelle, and Jane for cheering for me today. Thank you! Now, I think I can pull up my britches and set out upon the world as Super Mom Sara Lynn Broers Brown...well, for the next two weeks anyway.
I honor you.
Sidebar: I decided today that what I am doing now, where I am on my path, is paving my road. I have been bull-dozer, reaped, and the jungle grew back all wild and ugly. The last few months I have made big leaps in my mind to come to terms with what is to be my life. Now, just now, I am ready to pave my road. What I mean is that I am educating myself with what to eat, not eat. How to prevent the nausea (hoping to do pressure seeds before the appointment.) And continuing to maintain the Lymphadema. From what I have collected from doctors and patients is that once the Lymphadema gets out of control, it is too late. It is very difficult to maintain and very painful. So as long as I can keep up the Manual Lymph Drainage Massage (and it feels great too!) and wearing my compression sleeve even if the swelling isn't much, then I can keep it at just that, not much. I don't want to look like that swollen 60 year old woman ten years from now. Here is to hoping.
And to close with a funny: So I go to the bathroom like every 15 minutes during infusions because of all the fluid and probably a little to do with nerves. I go, come out, and stop by the nurse's desk. "Shelly, um, I don't think it is quite right; I mean it seems odd; is there maybe a break room close to the bathroom?" "What do you mean exactly?" "Well, the bathroom smells like smoke, like cigarettes, and that is a weird thing in a cancer center, right?" So she goes in to check and emerges laughing. "Oh my gosh, you are right." Fast forward to waiting for the valet to retrieve my car. There is this women with crooked teeth there sort of on edge. She is going on and on about the valets screwing up something with her truck. I see her truck. She almost totally crashed into me when I was trying to find a parking spot; before I gave up and left it with the valet. She was going on and on about this to top off a bad day because her husband just got busted at the cancer center for smoking in the bathroom. Narc. I sure hope he doesn't have lung cancer.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Awesome Fun Halloween
I love my costume this year too! I was in Kansas for my grandmother's funeral. My family went down to Ft. Scott and hit a few antique stores downtown. And there, in a backroom, was this great 1960's hand sewn dress just my size! And, it was only $6.50 plus tax! I primed and prepped for about an hour curling and applying make-up. But, it was cool. I can't even imagine how women used to do all this prepping daily, and think I might prefer the all natural look, even if everyone is forced to enjoy the heavy bags under my eyes. But, the costume lasted all the way through a school party, cooking dinner, cleaning up, getting kids of to bed, reading books, and a quick kiss goodnight. A real 1960s momma. Jack said, "You don't look like my mom, but I like it." The costume only needed a little freshening as I headed out the door for party number one, MOMS Club Moms' Night Out Costume Party.
Saturday was a whirl wind of events starting with cleaning the house. Then it was off to soccer for Jack and Nutcracker practice for Julia.I remembered the snacks for the soccer game but forgot the costume for the ballet practice. However, thinking fast, I wiped off the tears off my ballerina's cheeks and pulled together a pink tutu and gold tiara from the lost and found box. Score!
Then it was home for an early shrimp, guac, and sweet rice dinner before heading out to a party. Fashionably late we show up on time to the party. I haven't been to such a rockin' party since the kids were born (Well, Anna, I am not including your Christmas parties, of course. I mean one were the kids were invited.) We stayed out until 9:30. I think it is slightly funny the dopey faces of kids staying up two and a half hours past bed time. Well, until they come in my room at mid-night crying with nightmares.
Sunday wasn't much more quiet. I jammed around in my jammies until 3 pm getting ready for a dinner with neighbors, finishing house cleaning, and working on a painting I wanted to hang in the show I was to hang on Monday. I sent the kids bed at 1:30. They were crying and protested. But, once I got them snuggled under their covers, they were out like a light until 3 pm. And, thankfully they did rest. At 3:50, ten minutes before our guests were to arrive, I pulled their hot bodies out of their beds and yanked on their costumes. And let the treating begin! I served bloody brains infested with worms (spaghetti) and our guests brought bread, broccoli, roasted chicken, and mellow balls. Needless to say we totally licked the plates. and rushed out the door at 6 for our treating. My kids were a little upset at the skeletons next door. But, we finally made it around the block. I tell you, this is the way to do trick-or-treating. We looped around to the other family's home and stopped in for warm tea. It was a good way to end the evening. Of course, it was hard to get the girls to part ways so we could get them to bed. After all, there was school on Monday!
But, my evening wasn't over as the Midnight Housewife. I had a painting to finish after all. I climb into bed at a minute after 12 with a shaking swollen left arm. I have been working hard on painting and getting back into my world as an artist. The only problem is my body is changed. I hold my palette in my left hand. Though it is light, the holding causes my Lymphadema to activate.
Yet, life keeps going, and I am NOT going to let cancer stop me until it stops me completely. Monday, we make it to school only five minutes late. And I run off to Cafe Luna to hang my show. I am exhausted and my muscles are fatigued. So I tiger-up (Brown family code word for grabbing all your inner courage and roaring loud at your challenges) and hang a pretty awesome show. Well, sometimes you do have to compromise. So instead of taking Jack back to the cafe to finish putting up labels, we head home for a nap. AWESOME! We pick up Julia at 3:35. A friend offers to host a play date which works out great so I can rush over to finish hanging and then bop through the grocery store.
I am laying in bed soar after cleaning the house again from the festivities of the weekend. (Thank you Scott, Mom and Dad for doing most of it while we were out trick-or-treating.) Life comes at you sometimes like a turtle and other times it is a spinning fast ball. The fact that I am a stage IV cancer patient slapped me in the face. But, you know what, it was worth it all the way. I had so much fun this weekend.
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