Momma Wolf

An old Cherokee told his grandson, "My son, there's a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies & ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy & truth. "The boy thought about this and asked, 'Which wolf wins?'" The old cherokee replied, "The one you feed".
It has been a while since I have had the mental time to write. And, not writing for me is a bit like leaving your toilet unplugged in your only bathroom in your house. A quick life update is that we found more mets (breast cancer tumors) in my brain. I have had full brain radiation and am almost three weeks out from the last radiation. It took my hair. It is growing back already. It took my ability to run and move fast. I will get strong again. It didn't stop my from my Birkum Vinyasa Yoga practice other then I can't balance and have to do my tree pose with a kickstand to my ankle. But, I will return to the half lotus and full cactus arms some day. I have headaches, my Lymphdeama in my left arm and on into my back is bad...working with my therapist, my legs hurt and cramp up all night, my earring holes started bleeding...they are healing, my hearing is lessened, I will get cataracts and have to start screening my vision regularily for side effects, I often get this weird fuzzy feeling all over my body, I can't think numbers well...counting change at the store is hard, vocabulary escapes me, and my emotions....well, shall I go on?

But, I am here in this body of mine. The weaker cells of my brain died. They will regrow. It will take a good year. But, my ME cells in my brain, the smart ones, the ones that make me who I am and the ones that run my body function...they are there of course working. It is quite the abstract, out of body experience that I am going through. I can try to explain it to you, but my words would never suffice to illustrate experiene.

My biggest struggle right now is my Midnight Housewife wants out of this body. She wants to do it all again. For example, in my normal life, I would have attended a Truffle Tasting party with my friend who makes the most amazing, award winning truffles with Truffles in Paradise (contact me for her information for your holiday orders...great gifts.) But, alas, my body couldn't. It was done. I did all my housewifery, even got in the studio, and mother the kids with one of the best homework times we have had in months, got everyone in bed, picked up the house, and sat down at 8:30 pm. I made a little nest on the couch with the fireplace on. My tea was steeping. The house was quiet. I pressed play on the DVD and The Help began. I was snug as I rubbed lotion on my achy toes...side effect of one of my cancer drugs. The introduction begins. A carmel voice narrator starts talking and...
So I slept. About eleven, I replayed the movie, but I do need to watch it again as I nodded off again and again. Though I watched enough that I got really excited and wanted to write a ten page essay comparing and contrasting the social dogmas portrayed in The Help with those portrayed in the Social Networking, the Facebook movie. Okay, I am a nerd and miss college research and essay writting.
All and all, in my rambling, this mom, artist, housewife just wants her life back.  But, a huge thing has pocessed her mind and made it weak. Sometimes I think of it as a blessing. Well, of course we do because...cross your fingers...after we restage this month, we will rule my brain cancer free. We have the aspiration that I will be well managed by drugs to keep it all hushed and live a very long time. But, the hidden blessing is that I have had to slow down my life. That slowing down has effected everyone, especially the kids. They have had to grow up these last two months. I have taken the time to teach them to be independent...big kids. It is a bit heart wrenching as I toss the last of the sippy cups and give them pallets like I use in their paint boxes instead on the one color one paint brush thingies they used as preschoolers. They get themselves ready for school and bath themselves. Well, they are working on it anyway. They are learning to know when they are done with things instead of asking me like if they ate enough dinner. And my eldest, seven and half, has learned to read in bed and turn off her own light by 8:30 when she is tired...well, almost. I had to start teaching them these things because at the end on the day, even if I nap, I am so tired  I can barely walk upstairs. There has been many tears and shouting along the way. But, we are getting there. I am so proud of my little gal and guy. I do look back and remiss my life as a stay-at-home mother of two prepping dinner in the middle of the day, a few chores, taking the kids swimming or to the library for story time, splashing bubbles at them while they bath, monitoring teeth brushing, and the hour of reading books out loud to them (still read to them some nights because I like to) and creeping in their rooms before I retire to my bed just to make sure they are still breathing. Yes, it is bitter sweet to pack that mother away. Like a butterfly, our life has morphed drastically lately. In part it is due to the age of the children. In part it is due to the struggles through recovery from the radiation. I stand at a door. I am a little afraid to open it. I am mostly excited. I know it is going to be hard. But, I know it is going to be wonderful. I have fed my wolf sweet berries of strength, courage, and love. Now, I open my door and hope she will carry me swiftly through to the greenest pastures.

Simplify Your Life Tip of the Day

Here is my simplify your life tip of the day.  UNSCRIBE. 

I have taken time to go through all my junk mail over the past month.  I have clicked on all the newsletters, promotions, store advertisements, even my Groupon because I don't use it.  I went to the very bottom with the fine print and throught the unscribe process.  This takes about five seconds in most cases to check a box and confirm your e-mail address.  Easy peasy.  I kept stores that I frequent and send coupons through their newsletters such as Lucy, J.Jill, Gymboree, Bed Bath and Beyond, Micheals, and Hobby Lobby. All other stores, I really don't frequent or they don't have cupons, just ads.  so I am not wasting my time looking at ads.  Then, I also have newsletters from galleries, museums, and breast cancer support sites like the Young Survivor Coalition and Army of Women.  I have found that I can sort those now in my inbox.  they come up as newsletters and I can set them to save only the most recent one for so many days then it is deleted.  How cool is that?  So guess how many junk mails I get a day now?  Maybe ten tops.  I am still working on a few stragglers.  But I bet I get it down to those stupid spammers and Canadian drug offers.  Oh, and those lovely letters from the board housewife wanting to get some girl on girl action with me.  Oh, and you have to love the english widow who just lost her husband and is stuck some place in china with no money and wants you wire her money...really?  So go off and unscribe.  What a burden to take out of your life to simplify.

Restorative Graces

Yesterday, was a day to restore. Though the morning walk to school with my two little boppers was like walking in a wind tunnel as Mothe Nature pulled out her Armagedenden winds of Colorado on trash day none the less. Bbut, finally in my car, I drove to yoga. I felt a little anticipation of uncertainty as what to expect of myself and of my yoga at the studio. But, I knew, this was exactly what I was supposed to Ben doing. So I swung in, put a bandanna over my buzzed head, and sighed onto my Matt in the corner. The experience was amazing. I completed a 90minute Hot Flow Vinyasa course my way. I took my time. I easier into poses, used my hands on my legs when needed, and flowed. I breathed and flowed. I modified. No I could not pull a half lotus tree pose of full expression with cactus arms as is my favorite expression. No, I used a kickstand of the "up" foot to support my standing leg and full expressed my heart opening rise in my chest. A grounded tree so strong and beautiful. And that was the perfect expression. At the end of practice, I thanked my Yogini. I told her how, they know what I am going through at the studio, they have all taught me so much that I could do that. I could use their warn room, meditativite guidance, and the community to create what my body needed. Deanna, had taught me about my physical muscles and mechanics. Stacy, has taught me about the mind and spirit, Lauren has taught me about my shoulders and hyper extension my my elbows so that I can move into down dog, plank and full sun salutes with control, power, and easy. And Tiffany, well, she was the instructor today. So I smiled and told her that she gives the gift of the power moves like headstands. And, that I am excited to move back into those poses when my body is ready. So thank you Solar Yoga down here in our humble Prospect Town in Longmont, Colorado.
Feeling just amazing, I dash off for a few errands with a rice milk nuttynila latte. I score at Target with some deals getting a bit my Christmas shopping done, filling in random needs like new bike helmets for the kids and a sleeping bag for Jack. Everything I needed just seemed to be there and easy. The pharmacist even took an extra speedy care of me when the phone order was not processed. Then, it was home for a shower and nap. An amazing nap.
The best thing about my new iPad is there is and app called Noghtstand. It is an alarm clock. I have it set of church bells. To rise from a nap to slowly progressing bells is amazing. So I rise, sweep out of the house, do my treatment where the nurses where very effecient and almost sing song pixies from Pixie Hollow today. And then it ws off to Vitamin Cottage.
My parents had the kids for school pick up so I had time. What I found that I am doing is turning off my head language with the words, I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. See, I am struggling in my head with the mechanics of the radiation, steroid, and own personal zen. They are in constant battle. Jane Boyle Taylor, author of a Stroke of Insight, could explain this best. She is neuro-doctor who had a stroke closing down her left hemisphere of her brain at age 37. She experienced what it was to live with only an right side and recover. What a discover. So here I am getting every word she is saying. I can feel my parts changing in my head. I can tell what is my steroid effects on my decisions. And, I know where Sara is. So, as I am driving, I am getting anxious. This is the Decadrone. Sara voice says, I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. And the drug turns off. Pretty simple...right?
I pull into Vitamin Cottage and swift through aisles getting exactly what I need with ease when I bump into a neighbor. She was pondering her calcium purchase with an clerk. I smiled and told her, this is exactly the one I use and am here to pick some up right now. There was a really nice connection as she made her decision and we we chatted for a bit. I enjoyed our timely conversation as it is packed with tidbits for both of us to ponder. Thank you neighbor.
Then it was home to sort out the shopping bustle up the needs of the house and sit for a bit until the family arrived. I basked in the grace of my restorative day. 4:36 pm, my parents arrive with my little sprites and dinner. I am truly blessed for my parents. They tend to their grandchildren in nurturing ways that are full extensions of my own love. They a mentors, guides, and the loves of my life. We dine together and I enjoy the loving bonds they express towards my offspring. As I move into my hardest part of my mental rotation in my day, as the headaches start coming, and the tunnel of my head starts to close, I am able to move through with grace thanks to Mom and Dad's help. I love you.
A lone, the kids bathed, we have time for a game of Blockus in the living room. Both sprites doing exceptionally well, but Mom wins. Books, cuddle, lights out. Time for Mom to pass out too. What a day. A day I needed. A day to restore. A day full of restorative graces.

Hair, Chapter Four

I smile at myself in the mirror. Finally, after two years, my hair is naturally highlighted by the summer sun. The texture is thick, fine, and silky. I hardly have to brush the wedged bob that swings about my ears just over the my dangly earrings. It is even long enough I can stack it behind my ears to hold it out of my face when I am in down dog on my yoga mat. Finally, I earned my crown.

A couple of mornings ago, I shook my damp tresses over the sink as I finger dried them after my shower. The basin was peppered in five inch stands of silk hair. The time had come again. See, I had entered the cancer world once more two weeks prior. On this day, as my hair began to thin, I had completed ten full brain radiation treatments out of twenty. Half way. My Radiology Oncologist said she was pretty confident that my hair would simply weaken, fall out, and grow back in pretty quickly. Where as chemotherapy drugs actually kill the cell structures of the hair at the follicle causing the hair to have to regrow just like a new born baby. And, when I had chemo in 2009, and lost my hair, that is exactly what it did. It grew back fuzzy. Like a newborn and then became wiry, dark, and course. It took about two years to grow it to my normal texture and color. So with radiation, it is supposed to just get weak, thin out gradually, and quickly come back in as is. That is the hope anyway.

Regardless, all day after the peppering of my sink basin in hair, I was pulling bits of strands from the collar of my sweater and tossing them to the ground. I was afraid to touch my hair. Wide awake early the next morning lifting my head from a nest of hair on my pillow, I decided it was time for a cut. So trooped into the bathroom and got to work. I couldn't go to a salon because my scalp is too sensitive for the stuff they used there. I couldn't face telling a stylist what was going on, what I wanted, nor how gentle they needed to be. Besides, I didn't want to pay even $35 for a style that may actually only last a week more. So I got to work. I cut my sons hair and have a buzzer, The Peanut by Wahle. I put on the four guard and buzzed away on the back just do like I do on his head once a month I actually would have liked to keep a bit longer at the crown but had to bring it up as I could't hand cut that area by myself. It is okay, not great. Then I thought about the rock star Pink! And, this other movie star I can't remember the name of it these fun spikes and long front swoop duns. I used my scissors. I also cut my daughter's bob once a month and have the proper scissors and combs for that use. I graduated the lengths from the buzzed area at the crown which was very difficult. Then, hanging my head deep, I pulled the strands out in sections sliding the scissors along the length two create long layers.

By this time, my daughter has awoken and totters in to my room. She begins to cry at the wade on hair piled on the towels on the floor. Teachable moment of tender mothering proceeds as I confirm her doubts, fears, and empathy for the situation at hand. I know for her that my loosing my hair again brings back bad memories from when she was just my little four year old princess wishing she had a mommy with Repuntzle's golden tresses. I tell her that for now, I might get to keep some hair. It is just that it is thinning and easier to loose shorter lengths then long strands. I confirm that it may all fall out, but for now, it just needs cleaning up. "Besides, don't you think I am looking pretty rock star?" "Yes," she replies. As I continue my cutting. She babbles on how dad needs to go get a mohawk, her brother can spike his and she is going to be the singer who always has these really long, blonde, big hair dubs... have a rock band. Proud mommy moment proceeds. Way to girl girl, making your limes into cherry limeade and sipping slowly.

So it is done. Not perfect, but, not half bad. I shower, use a roller brush to lightly curve it forward and lift. Spray it hairspray and am all set to continue the morning of oatmeal, book bags, managing dressing two kiddos and marching the half mile walk to our little neighborhood elementary school. On time and smiles...well mostly.

In light of Thanksgiving in a few weeks, the school hosted a family luncheon of both the kindergarten and second grade classes. So I attended both lunches with my son and then my daughter. Taking off my hat, I had a lot of surprised smiles from the other parents of whom I know many being the Room Mom in both classes. Some know that I am going through brain radiation and some have no clue. The staff, of course, know I may be bald in the end as I prepared them so they can properly support the children as they deal with peers if that would happen. So I received responses varying from: "You go girl. Way to take control and ease into this." All the way to: "Wow, I wish I had the confidence for a big change like that. Looks great!" I simply smiled confidently and replied that I am going rock star and funk for a change, why not.

So there you are, that is what it takes to be a survivor. A little rock star confidence. A great smile is essential. And, yah, heck, it really helps to understand hair and it's cultural language it speaks. Hair is your book cover. There isn't anyway around that in this Human existence with each other. So go with it, love it. And if it is not quite right, it can be changed. Because the coolest thing about hair is that it WILL grow back.

Resistance is Futile

   "Resistance is Futile!" My Storm Troopers in my crazy cancer game keep popping up screaming. "Resistance is Futile!"  When I am on a run, I find myself crying uncontrollably.  My mind is so determined to cling to the body I have worked to create all the while these StormTroopers keep trying to take over my planet.  Now, I can make those Troopers look more like Lego men with heads I can pop off and little plastic laser guns that I can vacuum up in my Dyson.  Yet, they are still there turning my dreams in fantasies.  My dreams of working on crafts with my future granddaughter have begun to filter through my fingers into my pail of lost fantasies mingling with the one of my hot twenty-two year old self in a bikini being fondled by six foot two life guard.  Yes, folks, I am still human here and would love to telliport to the world of dancing and boyfriends that open the car door and make me laugh uncontrollably over an Italian dinner while goose pimples flare at the nape of my neck when he touches my arm.
  Much on my mental fight is sparked with pure determination to not retire before I am ready even when my body has made the request.  Oh, no, I will not, I move in and out through Halloween with my kids, for my kids.  I volunteer at school as Room Mom and have a blast teaching the Kindergarten to make paper bag puppet monsters...yes, moms, that was what those were supposed to be.  I marched on through having a family over for a quick bite together and then sending everyone out the door to meet up with more neighbors for trick or treating.  I had performed several costume changes through out the day, procured dairy free candies for Cowboy, brushed Rapunzel's long wig a dozen times, and made sure both kids were happy and enjoying themselves.  Yet, as I walked around the first corner of the block with my friends and our kids, I realized that I just could not do it.  I wanted to lie down, my head hurt, I was thirsty.  So I let the neighbors run off with my kids who were already three houses beyond the parents with the smaller kids, and turned back home.  My StormTroopers mocked me as they jabbed their plastic guns in my ribs.  I cried.  This isn't what I want to be doing.  I don't want to be going home.  I want to be hanging out with my friends, laughing at the kids antics, and being there if my youngest is a little scared of the green house on the corner that has a fog machine.
  I am sure my look of defeat is printed on my face at times.  I walked into a massage the following morning with a new practitioner.  It is a free service for radiation patients...awesome perks.  I turned the corner and saw her face melt with pity as if she had seen her young daughter-in-law walk in through the doors.  She asked all the typical questions knowing I had breast cancer, it is in my chart, and made assumptions that I was probably saving my perky 34 Bs from surgery with chest radiation.  So she asks about the mechanics like if I can lay on my chest and how many treatments I have had so as to not apply lotions to those areas.  I tell her, that I am all good to go as my surgery was over two years ago and the treatments are on my head so she can do whatever she feels I need on my body.   She is kind, but obviously very uncomfortable.  I am uncomfortable.  What do I say when people look at me like I am going to die?  I have metastatic breast cancer to my brain and I am going to to die before I am ready.  Those Storm Troopers keep reminding me of that.  But, not today.  I am yielding a power that is far beyond the Dark Side that is tuning this body into the finest machine I can muster.
   This really isn't an easy place.  And, I am sure it is even harder for those around me to watch.  God, I hope I keep my hair only because it makes it easier to look at me.  It makes it easier to ignore the fact my vocabulary is muddled and your name totally escapes me.   It makes it less scary.  I am a fighter.  I am a good fighter.  I am fighting.  So I yell, get mad, get frustrated, get sad, and scream.  Sometimes, you are in the way, and I am so sorry.  I am not screaming at you.  I am screaming at my Storm Troopers.  I have a lot of Jedi Mind Powers that will blow you away.  And, I am determined to resist to keep this body moving on this Earth.
    Being that I am who I am and much rather see beyond my messed up head, I want to take a moment to inspire you to choose you.  No, there weren't any risk factors in my life to warrant my current predicament I had taken care of it...perfectly healthy with a little asthma and colitis I had controlled for nearly a decade with good eating.  No, my body was just made this way with over excited growth genes in my breasts.  My body is just like your body with its faults maybe it is Lupus, diabetes, MS, and so many physical challenges everyone around us is walking in out of their days with.  Maybe you don't have it yet.  So take care of your body today.  Tune it.  Feed it.  Stop giving it bad stuff.  And rub lotion all over your beautiful skin every day.  Make this your mission this month.  Take off your weight...get serious.  If imagining you are your sexy 22 year old bombshell self in a bikini that motivates you, go for it.  But, for most of us, the focus is just to be able to make your body move as is God's gift.  Just make your body into the finest tool you can so you can fight whatever you need to fight when you are asked to come to the ring.  You want top billing because you know you will have Storm Troopers coming because you are getting older.  Take it on. 
    Take care of your brain and find honor in your life as it is in those moments in between that count especially when you have mental challenges of addiction, depression, bipolar, or Aspbergers.  Find blessing in your life when your Storm Troopers are clouding your thoughts.  Our life without you would not be whole.  Oh heck, if you are a mom, go be a lone for a bit.  I have such a renewed respect for all that we have done all these years to do everything and be everyone to our babies.  As I have had to step out of my mommy-head because it is just too much for me to keep straight, I look longingly at the amazing feats I accomplished daily to keep smiles on those little ones faces, house clean, tummies full, and homework done on time.  Find your balance and self again.  The world won't end if you don't cover every boo boo with a Band-aid or forget to bring the sanitizer to the jumping castle.  Think of the adult sized reward your son will have when he realizes he can wash his own soccer uniform when you were too tired after work to get it done at midnight.  His future wife will thank you.  It hurts now when they yell at you for not being all of everything for everyone, but they will be okay.  Disappointment hurts.  Disappointment inspires too.
    So whatever it is you need to do, start it.  Tune your body.  Form new habits.  Take a class.  Take silence.  Create.  Let go of being everything to everyone and choose you.  What can you do to make yourself ready to yield your Jedi Light Saber to your Storm Troopers when your number is called?  Do that.

Fake It Until You Make It

   So I am driving to Monday night yoga with Lauren which has become my new favorite class because my back feels so open and five inches taller post-practice, when I realized something.  Earlier, I am at the Hope Cancer Center ready for...wait, should I say...present for my first radiation treatment.  The moment I walk in it is like I am some rock star that everyone recognizes.  I have my entourage of peeps in the waiting room and the receptionist knew my name.  The doseologist (saying that because I think her title sounds cool; she is the one setting up the dosing) shoots me a recognizing smile as she gets water from the water cooler.  The two radiology techs whisk me in smiling and teasing like I am their long lost best friend.  I am thinking this is pretty cool because I don't want to be here.  I am laying on the table, excuse me, couch with this mesh mask over my head strapped down so tight that my teeth are clinched.  I am told to look down at my toes when I can barely open my eye lids.  They set up the markings then shoot the laser on my left side and my brain starts to smell really bad.  It is sort of like the smell of sanitized aluminum cookie sheets in a hot kitchen (I worked in a bakery when I was in high school.)  Oh, and I get a little personal light show as they are zapping my brain.  Apparently, the lights which are greenish are the lasers refracting off the water in my eyes so I am the only one that can see them.  How is that for sci-fi coolness Jedi training simulation?  Well, it is not.  I am the only one who can smell this awful smell too.  They come bopping in and out asking me these questions like the hygienist does while your mouth is gaping open.  Except my jaw is clinched shut, and I can't see any think but the tops of my cheeks.  "How are you doing?"  Gruburronbhadjjfsdxzzz.  "Are you comfortable?"  Fujknsbymnntotfreakijek.  Okay, for those who are not hygienists, I said: This totally sucks and is freaking uncomfortable.  What the fuck do you mean I have to do this every fucking day for four weeks and it stinks in here.  So I apparently compensate into a flippin' teenager when under pressure, I mean, when I am tied down like Gulliver's Travels.
   Okay, okay, it isn't all that bad, and you know if anyone can do this it is me (because I am an awesome yogi time bender, that's why.)  And, I just totally got off the point of my realization I came to while driving to yoga.  They are totally faking it.  They, the nurses, took my picture on my first visit.  It sits there right at the top of my chart along with the description of me in one sentence: 36 year old mother of two ages 6 and 7 artist with metastatic breast cancer being treated for metastasis to the brain.  I am so okay with that.  I like them knowing exactly who I am in two seconds and treating me like their long lost best friend.  Sometimes we all deserve a little rock star status.
   Besides, faking it until I make it is my number one coping mechanism.  In college, I did the stupid thing any 18 year old does who didn't drink alcohol in high school (okay, mom, I had a few sips here and there but hated how it made me feel and stopped after a few sips.)  So I got really mad at a boy at one party and started downing the Jungle Juice.  I preceded to get totally wasted.  Yep, my "designated mom," one girl in  my circle of friends was not allowed to drink for the weekend on a rotating schedule so there was always a girl watching out for you, held my hair, cleaned me up, and told me that the red vomit was not me bleeding from the inside.  Well, I pretty much learned my lesson.  Man, I rock, one time and lesson learned...awesome.  From that point on, I fake drank.  I ordered one rum and Coke, Roman Coke, to begin the night.  Then I preceded to order plain sodas all night.  I am out on the dance floor for three or more hours solid on my caffeine while all the drunks were slumping in the corner.  I say that was a pretty good way to spend the evening faking and still fitting in with the crowd. 
   Oh, there are plenty over other stories of my faking it until I make it.  Like the time I delivered a speech to 500 plus of my peers at the Colorado Art Education Association annual conference in 2002, for Rookie Teacher of the Year.  I had lost my second baby to a miscarriage at ten weeks only seven days prior to the event.  I was still cramping.  I was still grieving hard core.  But, I did it.  I walked up to the podium, started bawling my eyes out, took a deep breath, and totally blamed all my flood emotions on the pure fact that my teaching professor, Patrick Fahey, just hugged me and whispered in my ear, "I am so proud of you."  Okay, I probably would have cried anyway being so nervous in the spot light.  But, heck, it is good to fake it a little when you have to.  And, if I really reflect on my first five years of teaching, it was the faking it until I made that won me that moment of honor in the spot light.
    Or let us go back to my sister's wedding.  There she was all dried eyed and tall while the two other brides maids and myself welled up on our reddened, damped cheeked glory.  She teased us all for our tears so we collectively faked blame on the tiger lilies and allergies.  Well, everyone knew the truth but heck, it sure got a good laugh out of the deal.
    Yes, there are a lot of stories.  In fact, I actually think I taught my kids to fake it until they make it though I am not sure that was a really good idea.  "Sure, honey, just smile and stand up.  The pain will go away in that toe you just totally jammed into the cement step."  But, all in all I smile and laugh all the way through whatever I need to make it through.  No, It isn't always appropriate and acting like a snotty teenager in the office of my radiology oncologist is probably not the best of coping mechanisms.  However, it is pretty funny in retrospect.  And heck, they had no idea what I was saying anyway in my Hamible Lecter mask.  One thing is for true, faking it works.  In essence it is the power of attraction.  I seek to attract the best outcome.  So please understand when I am telling you it is fine, shrugging my shoulders, blowing it all off like it is a trip to the candy store, and pretty much marginalizing my emotions, I am coping.  My mom calls it grace. 
   Deep down, know I appreciate you more then you think.  Also know I have a safety net.  She signed up for the job thirty six years, six months and two days ago.  And man, where would any teenager be with out one of her?  For reals.  Whatever.  Like I am totally needing to go to bed now.  Love you mom.

Lists

So I have been a little...well...emotional.   I suppose that is acceptable when you are one who is walking down the street pretty much looking and acting like everyone else. Well, yep, except you pretty much feel like you can go to sleep any minute because there is this stupid thing in your body that doesn't seem to want to go a way called cancer. In the end, I don't spend much time thinking about it right now as I can't. I have better things to do like clean out the basement, throw out old files, organize photo albums, shop for Christmas presents, plan Halloween parties for both kids, schedule to volunteer at school, run twice a week and practice yoga three times a week or the other way around, read a book for book club (Hunger Games this month,) balance my budget, find some shoes that actually fit my son's growing yet petite feet, wash sheets, make beds, fold laundry, dust, clean, blah blah blah. Oh, did I say give the kids hair cuts and host ol' friends for a hot dog roast over the fire pit after going to the pumpkin ranch. Yes, my lists are huge. 
Yet, I squeeze in a night out with some pretty funny women who made me laugh so hard I nearly peed my pants about the "list." This is the list of things that you would want your most trusted friend to go in your house and destroy all evidence of if you were to, you know, die. Man, it was hilarious what these gals were coming up with. It was my turn. I had nothing except one old photograph of an inappropriate kiss that may or may not be mine and may or may not actually exist and the memory would die with my and the party member that I may or may not actually be able to mention here. It was my turn, and I couldn't think of anything I had that was some weird dark secret or something I would be embarrassed of my mother washing in the laundry.

All the while I am listening and laughing I am thinking about the pure fact that I have been preparing to die.  It may not really make sense to anyone but my 85 year old grandparents when I am giving this or that away.  I have tossed out teaching files.  It was harder then I thought.  I thought I would go down there in the darkest corner of the basement, find my highly organized bins, open them over the dumpster, and away that part of my life would fall into a landfill.  Of course, I would save the texts and other useful items for all my art teaching friends if they wanted them.  But, it wasn't that easy.  I sat there on the cold, dusty cement floor and was consumed in myself.  I will get there and am almost there.  Doing this weeding out the dust of my life is hard and releasing all at the same time.  Besides, as both of my good friends I have been e-mailing and asking advise and encouragement from this past week on the disposal of said teaching materials, the stuff is out dated already anyway.  Slide projectors, transparencies, and posters are all on the way out. 

Really, whether you aren't sure you will make your 40th birthday or not, you should try to weed your garden.  Why do you have all that stuff?  What will "they" do with it when you are gone?  Oh, I am not sure.  For my kids, I weeded out the old stuff of mine into three small bins, mostly photo albums.  I tossed the VHS tapes, the cassette tapes, the weird figurine that has no sentimental value to anyone but me so if I am not here to tell the story than it has no value at all, and the entire file of receipts and Excell spreadsheet for my wedding that I tucked into my wedding album...it cost a total of $768.97 plus the dress for $340 something.  That reminds me that I still have that dress in a box at the top of my son's closet.  Oh, and I guess it has been nearly twelve years and that great strip of fabric you all signed that was supposed to be appliqued on the back of the quilt my mother made is never really getting on that quilt.  

It is true, I could be a miracle and live fifteen more years.  Yes, they are hopeful this full brain radiation will buy my a good year.  And yes, I am getting my life out of their life...just a little.  I don't really ask anyone to understand.  I don't ask anyone to understand how releasing it is to do this.  Cathartic.  In fact, I would encourage everyone to do it.  Just do it.  What is that list you would want your I.C.E. (In Case of Emergency) friend to go get from your house should you die before them?  Are the items secret and embarrassing?  Or is it something wonderful you want them to have because it allows you to make them smile even when you aren't there.  The item at the top of my list, the only item I really have on my list is my box of journals.  Yes, there is probably some really embarrassing stuff in them.  But, I gift those to my daughter.  I told her that they were hers last night.  I told her she could read them someday.  Maybe she could even write them into a book.  "Oh, no mommy, I can't, they are private."  Yes, my dear, that is why I give them to you and only you.  They are who I am and the only true part of me that I leave behind to make you cry, make you laugh, and make you know that you really are my true soul mate.  I love you to the moon and back.

PS:  You better share them with your brother because I love him a heck of a lot too.

Here We Go

This really is a strange world I tripped into. I flutter in and out of medical buildings just being who I am, all shiny. Because, because I have to. It really can feel like one foot is in West Berlin and one foot is in East Berlin circa 1980. One minute I am hearing about how well I will fair. And, the next I am signing a release recognizing that there is some giant word starting with neuro- that could happen to my brain tissue with permanent, big world recourse in the areas that have already been radiated with the stereotactic radiation of cyber knife. Signing on the dotted line that I am okay with...did that mean I could be a vegetable? But it is rare, extremely rare. But, I am signing this.

In the end as I pulling together all the pieces and asking if I can basically still live my awesome life as a 36 year old mother of two, I am hearing them say, sort of. And, it may not be so bad. After all, I am a 3.89 GPA student who could have easily been a 4.0 in both high school and college if I wasn't too busy in the art room to care about the chemistry lab. And, there you have it, take 30 years off my brain life, send me some word puzzles, keep my active and relaxed all at the same time, and buy me a good year (and we will pray for way more.)

From what I understand and can summarize is that full brain radiation is the necessary treatment. Though we could cyber knife the spots, we don't want to make Swiss cheese out of my grey matter. And, the assumption is I have other sleeper cells wanting to turn my brain into the Death Star. If we go back to the fact that I have the human epidermal receptor (HER2/neu) over expression cancer and the Herceptin is doing a stellar job turning off these genes in my body. But, it doesn't go into my brain. So the hope here is that the radiation will wipe my slate clean. It will rid my brain of all sleeper cells wanting to turn into tumors. Then the hope is the Tykerb (or other new awesome drug) will block out new cells from coming into my navigation room in my head.

The plan is I will have 20 treatments that will build in intensity over the four weeks. These treatments will start next Monday. Each session should be about 15 minutes with no immediate effects. Acute effects should build slowly and hit around the fourth week (Thanksgiving...good thing we already have reservations at the Greenbriar for dinner). The main effect being fatigue and headaches. I will be on a steroid to prevent swelling. Swelling of my brain, that is. It is a little unsettling to be warned that if I wake up with a headache or my headache which is supposed to just be a mild one like I currently have, gets worse, I am to call 911 and hop on the fastest ambulance. (Hint, hint, this is what you all can really help me watch for as this sort of freaks me out.) These effects should continue to increase in a couple weeks post-treatment. By December, these effects should decrease slowly.

Latten and permanent effects should begin to become apparent about that time. So there is a lot of guessing and "we don't really know" about what these might be as apparently, my case is pretty rare. It is to be assumed that some of the effects I had with cyber knife such as stuttering, forgetting simple written vocabulary words while reading out loud and general confusion will be some what permanent. I have already lost my superheromommy abilities to multitask and pretty much wrote off teaching large, loud classrooms as a profession, so I guess it will be about compensating and living as loud as I possibly can. I mean, after all, I am pretty freakin' loud so I have a lot of room to fall before I squeak like a mouse.

All and all, Dr. Klish, my newest shipmate, is pretty hopeful of my outcomes. She is glad I am young, busy, determined, active, and thinks my tumors are the type that will react well to this treatment. Yes, we mean...die suckers, die. I sort of laugh at myself in retrospect as the entire appointment, though I took in the magnitude of being slightly less smart in four weeks time, I just kept asking...but can I still try to live my super-mommy life just as I have mapped it out? And the answer is yes. Yes, but please take a nap everyday, run shorter distances or walk, and just listen to my inner language (wait, but it is saying to not stop...ever...shhhh....) Push this body of mine. But, cut it some slack and let it to heal too. I guess it is a good thing that the weather is changed as the wind is cold and sky cloudy. So, as my Monday night yogi, who said she would turn down the heat a bit if I want to try to attend, meditated on this past two weeks, it is fall. It is time to slow it down, open up the heart yet hunker down for the fall in intimate twists and restorative poses.

It is a really odd world I stepped into totally by accident. Yes, I finished Eckhart Tolle's, A New Earth, just days before I felt my left breast would simply implode into my chest in 2009. I understood being in the moment. Maybe God thought I wasn't really getting the message and had to shove me into this life where I can't tell you how many birthdays I will celebrate. I CAN tell you the celebration will be big. No, simply, my life research into authors like Tolle and the guy who wrote the Celestine Prophecy, and starts with an R, was all just the thumping in the ground from God. My reading was training. A gift. Thank you God. Really, I am on the tight rope of feeling insane. I can't see past tomorrow anymore. But, you all are there as my seekers, my net. Bless you and lift your heart as you lift mine. And that, my friends, that is what my last painting is about. Do you see yourself in there? Well you should. Oh crud, I went and got all gooshy again. Goodnight.

Black Dress

I passed by one of my consignment stores on the way to yoga class.  It the window is a dress.  It is black.  The bodice is two sections of material gathered just so and anchored by a beaded emperor waist.  I put myself in that dress, that dress in the window.  For a split second, I put my old self in that dress.  I looked good.  I had some place to go.  I had breasts that filled the bodice yet were firm enough not to bounce their way out of the deep neck line of the halter.  I had no six inch wide scars nor a rash of raised red dots. 
   And, that was the moment I knew I had travelled this far.  I look at my next step into full brain radiation and am just...just...just.  I hear the tone in the voices around me; I see it in your eyes.  In fact I freaked out about it last week.  Well, rightly so.  Who wouldn't freak to think of their brain on fire everyday for four weeks.  Then I remember nearly three years ago.  I remember going through the six weeks of planning of teaming up, of fear and then a knowing that there was another side.  I got through that other side.  We thought it was over...just it for a really long time...one shit of a year that maybe made everyone in my life a bit stronger...a bit more understanding of the little things. 
  And now, I know better.  I now understand what treatment is.  Treatment is a gift of a few more months.  I found a calm in that.  Okay so I went a little crazy in my head...but the seas of settled with a knowing.  I suppose a lot of this has to do with my friends.  They are amazing people.  Gina, sat next to me in church.  She cried too.  M-N made me laugh and handed me a dollar before I even knew I was short by exactly a dollar.  She made yet another doctor's appointment into a girl's afternoon of chitchat and knitting when I was just about to explode from the "I'm so sorry" looks.  Janice and Laura came to see me.  They just drove.  Laura drove hours.  She brought the cousins and filled Grandma's house with memories of being young with my own cousins giggling over flashlight tag and staying up way too late.  Sabine just listened.  I worked it out.  I worked out a lot of how I felt.  My folks, well, we all know how lucky I am to have them and to honor them would take a full hour of notes.  And then, there is Scott who started the laundry and put the kids to bed. 
   Yes, I finally found my calm in so many in little things like Kim calling me to remind me the permission slip was due as I honestly and simply forgot.  I find calm in the big things like all the people I know I have touched with my paintings in the current show at the Muse Gallery. I went a little crazy and I might have even tried pushing you all away in the hopes that this would stop being some big deal.  I asked you to just be subtle, intuitive, on your own as I could no longer fill your needs and be your band aid no matter how much I desire.  So that is just what you are doing.
   I felt very sad three steps beyond that shop window with the black dress.  I couldn't wear that anymore.  I am not sure I would even have a chance to wear something like that.  I wonder that, you know, each time I do something, I wonder if that was it.  Is that the last time I....  That is not going away.  But, there is a calm.  Finally, I figured out how to pray.  It took me a few years, and I thought there was a rule book.  I was wrong.  I can do my yoga and find a calm in my tired body at the end.  There, I am still.  I lift up everyone.  Every one of you.  I ask the burden as my friend is lifted.  Let me carry that burden while you figure out how to be really sneaky and carry one of mine.  And after it all.  When I was the last one laying there on that floor in the yoga studio that was filled all day with a community being at peace in their bodies, I saw it.  I saw myself holding my grandchild.  That, my dear, is the calm.  It's a boy.

PS  This is unedited as I need to go to bed and read for book club in two nights.  Yes, I waited until the last minute.  See life really isn't all that different from yours.  You just have better cleavage then me and probably don't wait until the last week to finish your book.

And this is the day...

...that I praise that I have friends and family that rock!  Love you.  All of you.  You make me smile.  I am so proud of you.  Thank you for being part of my life.

Walking around with Prose

When I am walking around, I am walking around with prose continually in play in my head.  It is a bit like a tape recorder.  Or, maybe more of a broken record player on some days.  When I was little, I thought everyone had these tapes playing in their mind.  I learned to write and sometimes wrote down what I heard.  When I was a teenager, I thought I had gone schizophrenic and prayed the voices would stop.  By the time I graduated, I made friends with my prose and began to write.  But most, since I was so busy and the best words came when I was on a bike riding towards campus to Zoology 101, I wished I could press play and record my thoughts.  My prose got lost.
   Fifteen years later and with minimum amount of training in creative writing, I have learned to maintain my prose, edit, rewrite, and then type it up here on this handy computer.  Sometimes I am remiss at words lost in the time passing from the spark of an idea in the grocery store to the quiet hours of my home when everyone is sleeping and the washed dinner dishes are melodically dripping in the kitchen sink.  But, mostly, the prose thrive and grow in the hours between their birth and the page.
   My prose are filled with deep crevasses today.  My day started off with a conversation with my seven year old daughter about the woman's period and its role in the life cycle.  This moved into the the conversation of reincarnation and the difference between Hindu and Christian views on the subject.  By the time we sat at our oatmeal, my daughter proclaimed that she was my Great Grandmother Ruth who chose her body for her soul at birth so that she could be near her granddaughter, my mother.  And, she shared that my sister's dog, Beau who passed away last year, comes to visit her in her dreams most nights.
   The prose filled my day as I sat in my oncologist office chit chatting with my mom on the above subject of my daughter's apparent spirit guides. And, we smiled at the fact that the room was filled with my own spirits and my mom knew it as clearly as I did.  Dr. Mark is a sensitive soul and one for reflection which is why I chose him to captain my ship.  Yet, when I gave the short version of my deep conversations with my seven year old and asked if he had those conversations with his seven year old, he coily smiled and said, "No, we mostly talk about Star Wars Legos.  Now, take a big deep breath in and out. Again..."
   At one point during the appointment, I breathed in my courage and asked if my new path on the this crap cancer journey with the full brain radiation was surprising or was predictable.  Of course this is a tender spot, but I push for honesty.  So after some fancy foot work, it was put out on the table that it is not surprising at all.  We just didn't plan for it as we are all optimists.  Did I tell you that back in April 2009, we didn't know I was HER2/neu+ and could have the Herceptin treatments?  I was pretty much told to get my affairs in order.  This is code word for you have six months, say your good byes.  So in all estimation, I have out lived my expiration date by nearly 2 years.  Another estimation my prose put together during my two hour relaxation in the recliner getting my Herceptin slowly through my power port, was that my body is on a 10-11 month time cycle.  My four pregnancies were timed 10-11 months between each conception (well seven between my first born and concetion of my second born...but I was planning on ten).  And, each bad episode is vaguely ten months.  So yes, this full brain radiation is a one shot deal, but it buys me ten to twelve months.  So if you do the math, I can loose any weight I gain, get out running, and be feeling pretty good again by next summer.  I realize that the fall of next year may bring another episode requiring boxes of Kleenex.  Yet, I will let my prose write in my head that I am a miracle, one for the record books, the one that beat all odds, kicked cancer in the butt, and bought herself five (because I am going to be forty!), ten, twenty pretty good years of feeling pretty good.
    Yes, I can not describe to you how it feels to think of your life in months when once I wrote a short story of an old woman in a rocking chair that creaked and imagined that was me, age 82.   I am okay with it at the same time I am not okay with it.  I talked a long time with a friend this evening.  Yes, I talked and bawled, and she listened and hugged.  I told her that I came to a new place today.  I had always said I didn't want to die all wasted away looking and bald in a bed.  Today, I realized I did want to be all wasted away when I died.  For if I die when I am as vital and super-hot-momma as I am now, then that means that my death is sudden and surprising.  It means that I wasn't able to fight all the way as far as I could until this body I live in simply gave out.  You hear that, cancer, I am putting up my fists, and I know KungFu.
    I cry to think I will loose my hair again pretty soon.  I am sad to proclaim on Christmas morning, "no pictures please."  But, I know that this is not the bald when I will die.  Maybe Grandpa Homer told me that.  He was here today.  (I love you, but you know that.)  I had a good day today.  My spirits helped.  I know that.  It is hardest when I think about my kids.  It is selfish that I want to be with them forever.  Maybe their souls chose their bodies and chose me as a mother so that they could learn to be strong and vital in spite of not having their mother.  Maybe my daughter is right.  Maybe she is Ruth's soul.  I would love that.  Ruth lived it.  She was a single mom of three girls during the Depression when my grandmother's father died when she was five.  Ruth worked, raised her girls and outlived two other husbands (I think.)  I remember her living in the senior living apartments and leaning to quilt, play piano, and played Bridge.  Well in her 80s, she was the life of the party then.  I can see that in Julia.
   It will all be okay.  It isn't how we expected it to be.  And, maybe I am the one in your life that is dealing with this because I can.  I am freakin' ass strong (excuse my language) and Taurus Bull Head She Devil none the less (Okay, I have to pump up my ego just a little bit to stay as bad ass strong as I am.)  So I am here for a short spell to tell you in all my prose, once I get them out on my head on the paper, to slow it down.  Stop to smell the roses.  Or, take a picture of them.  If you are mad at something or yourself, ask, what is the real world impact if this doesn't come out the way I wanted it to?  Find the beauty in yourself.  Stop to look at the people around you, especially your children.  Don't paint a cloud black when you can line it with silver.  And, for heaven's sake, take out the trash if it is starting to stink.  (Make sure to recycle, eat free-range, use cloth shopping bags, and buy locally.)

The following is a poem I have the cycles through my head on a broken record and has since I was very little, maybe eight years old.  It has changed through the years, it has changed through the life happenings, and maybe it will change tomorrow.

Don't just look, see.
Don't just hear, listen.
Don't just eat, taste.
Don't just breath, smell.
Don't just touch, feel.
Don't just think, know.
Don't just live, be alive.

Waiting for Supermom

When I started this blog, I intended to share funny stories about how my dinner was on fire and how I went on a late night hunt for the perfect sneakers for my son.  Well, both those stories are quite true.  My linguine frumped limp more quickly then I expected and landed their tresses in the flames of the gas cook top.  With quick thinking and a flick of the kitchen towel after turning off the burner, the situation was under control with no damage.  The meal of mushroom linguine was quite divine in spite of a few black singed tips cleverly masked in parmesan.

And the shoes, well, I had a hard time deciding if it was my immense love for my son or sure will for self preservation to send me running out at 8:30 pm to three stores, closing the last at 10 pm, and scoring a lace up sneaker that may bridge the old-too-tights and the new-but-can't-return-them-because-he-wore-them-out-of-the-store-but-they-are-way-too-big shoes.  Well, this also ended divinely by mediating the usual morning drama of poorly fitting shoes and socks.  Did I say he got new socks too?  The claim of my darling when asked how his shoes worked out at school today was, "They worked great and made me run really fast when I was chasing the girls."  Oh, boy.  I heard later at conferences that he may have gotten a tinsee bit of trouble for the chasing.

So I have learned this week that all a boy needs to give him superpowers is well fitting silver sneakers.  The fairy of the house is a bit more complicated.  Well, isn't the common social stigma of the fairer gender one of complexity and headaches?  My little female is quite simple really.  She doesn't need a knight riding in on a white horse.  No, she needs her mommy's cuddles.  When she is feeling stressed, she needs her blankets.  She sneaks quietly in my bed about 5 in the morning when it is dark and falls quickly back asleep.  I look at her little face as the sun rises and see the newborn baby I held nearly seven and half years ago.  She was a preemie.  I had to wrap her up super tight in a swaddling blanket for five weeks or she would wail with much discontent.  But, if she was rolled in her blanket with her little knit cap that fit on the end of my fist so that all you could see was her face, she slept contently.  We called her Burrito Baby.  I will have to tell her future husband to be sure to have afghans all around the house.  If she is upset, all he has to do is wrap her up and hold her until the tide waters recede.

It is apparent to me as a parent that my children are amazing beings.  They are stressed and anxious lately as they must know that Mommy is worried.  Yet, somewhere between the sibling rivalry and the drama, they find their inner strength to teach me a few things.  "Start with the end in mind, Momma.  That is what we are supposed to do at school."  They are learning the seven healthy habits and this is habit two, I think.  So Monday, I moved my yoga time to the evening after they have gone to bed so I could spend my time volunteering at school, connecting with my parents over lunch, and getting some major chores done at home.  All of that and time to take the kids to the pumpkin ranch after school and a treat for me to end my day with yoga.  Wait, the day ended running around looking for the perfect sneakers for my darling dragon superhero.

Kids are really lucky, they have someone thinking about them and figuring this stuff out.  Well, I realize not all kids have this luxury.  Yes, I just called your parenting in all its flawed wisdom a luxury.  So what happens when you wish you were a kid?  What happens when you have a really big decision that no one can make but you.  However, you really want to roll up in a ball and...well...actually you don't.  What do you do when you have to face the big bad world all by yourself when you really rather be out running a marathon?  Wait that wasn't right either.  You rather be painting, quilting, reading a book, or creating the i-Pad 3.  I think what you do is look at your kids.  What would you tell them to do?  How would you perotect them from the big bad wolf?

No one's life is totally perfect.  Yes, my life was pretty perfect somewhere in my twenties.  But, it wasn't.  In my twenties I was date raped, I drank too much and threw up which ended my drinking career before I was 21, was cheated on and then called every Saturday night at 2 am by the boy for four months, was diagnosed with Colitis after farting my way through the first dates with a boy I ended up dating for 18 months, my best friend moved away to North Dakota, I sprained both my knees during a collision while skiing, I got four speeding tickets, I botched a dozen job interviews, and I miscarried two babies.  And, yes, my twenties are incredible.  I graduated college, I got a teaching job that was incredible and made me smile more then it made me cry, my art was shown in a New York gallery, I was a member of a gallery co-op, I learned to quilt, I fell in love, I got married, I fell in love twice more to two beautiful babies, and I moved into my dream house full of my own artwork with Long's Peak right out in my backyard.  Heck, the first couple of years in the thirties weren't too bad either. 

So when you ask, what should I do?  Ask yourself, what have I always done?  Then filter that to a simple lesson you would tell your kids and va la.  Yes, each day is a mission, a mission impossible.  So put on your silver sneakers and run into the fire.  And, for heaven's sake, when your parents ask you to meet them for lunch, don't tell them you have too much to get done around the house.  No, call them right back and tell them you will see them in ten minutes.  But then, 90 minutes later, tell them you need to go and take care of a few of those must-dos that keep your space at peace.  Each day is filled with moments of everyday super heroism.  Yet, there is a balance.  Fold away your cape or apron at the end of the day and just be with yourself for a moment.  Recharge those batteries.  Tomorrow is another day of simple heroics.

Mother Tiger

"But, I have to have it done well before Halloween because I have two little kids and it is important."

I found myself saying this several times today to my shipmates.  Being a parent survivor is like driving the Titanic.  In the end, it is all about them.  They are my navigators.  Without them, I am lost.  I worked a bit today to try to communicate that no matter what is needed, I need to be a mom and therefore, treatment needed to be done on my time, on my kids' time.  Back two and a half years ago, I just said, "Yes, fix me.  Do it whenever you want." 

During the early part of the day, I had come to terms with Cyber Knife treatment.  After all, it is pretty much a miracle.  So late tonight at 7:30, while I was having dinner with two other families after soccer practice, my phone rings.  Finally, it is my oncologist.  Returning from his vacation, he has time to review my case and talked to the neurosurgeon while he was on the train returning from his moose hunting.  So to confuse me more, he spoke of it being time for full brain radiation.  I will have to admit this freaks me out when I over heard some doctor saying something about issues with stuttering, memory, etc.  I believe it was my young women's breast oncologist who said it would be a last resort as it would cause more issues then the targeted radiation of Cyber Knife. 

Well, at any rate, my oncologist is now on board my ship.  All I ask is that you all get your brains going on the same page.  All four of you.  Save my life.  No, save my mother super powers.  Man, this is freakin' hard.  Off for a nice weekend inspite of the turn in the weather for the bitter cold.  Monday.  I should know something Monday. 

By the way, did you know that I found out from the general surgeon that my biopsies were malignant when my cell phone vibrated in my back pocket when I was out with friends at an art opening, it was 7:30 pm.

Fast Train

To be clear, we are on the fast train.  My afternoon was spent ont he phone setting up appointments, asking my oncologist's PA if she and the doc were clued in on the matter of my brain, and understanding more about my brain matters.  My old spot on my pons in the middle of my head on top of my brain stem, sitting next to the control center for the movement of my left eye, has grown by a milimeter. The tumor at the front left temporal lobe is actually growing pretty quickly.  So yes, we are on the fast train.  I already had my eye appointment sent up for next week.  It was supposed to just be a health check but now is an information check into the personality of these tumors. I also had an oncology appointment and infusion already set up for Thursday to check the odd bumpy dermal tissue I had screened with an ultrasound two weeks ago.  The tissue did turn out to be normal and just oddly bumpy all of a sudden.  I am about ready to lobe these things off.  So here we go.  Fast train with four doctor appointments next week.  In the end I will fill up my last two days of little commitment to art.  Yes, this will be a speed bump that will probably slow me down the month of October.  By Thanksgiving, I will hopefully be back in the Birkum yoga studio and maybe even taking a winter jog.  But, really scares me about this is that if I pulled out a calendar I would find that I laid out on a table to be scanned, treated, and sent off to mend every four to six months.  Is this what is to be my life?  It makes me feel like my life is just not as long as I hoped as I wonder how much this body will last being blasted.  Well, anyway, you know me, I will smile through.  I will be conflicted inside whether I am proud or sad when I over hear my kids talking upstairs and say, "When mom dies..."  I don't really want to know what they were talking about or what they meant.  And, I am glad they are processing because it maybe true before they are ready.  And, yes, today, I prayed during my meditation at the close of my yoga practice.  I asked God to keep me around a bit more because of all of you.  I love you all.  And, I hate being the source of sadness.  Well, I am glad I got that off my chest so I can go to sleep.  No, I don't feel like editting so take it here all in the raw as it is.  I hate being on the fast train and really have no idea how I am doing.  I only know that when my "big brother" walked next to me while we walked our kids to school, put his arm around my shoulder and then kissed the top of my head only as a big brother would, I almost lost it.  But I didn't, I choked up then swallowed it down deep and moved through the crowd of parents and students.

It's Complicated

   When I was a junior in high school, I fell in love with a boy who played the guitar.  He had long flowing hair and put notes in my car windshield before school to tell me how special I was.  Did I tell you he lived nearly 30 minutes north?  But, it was complicated.
   I had been seeing a boy since spring my sophomore year.  He was tall at six foot five inches and had the most killer smile.  He wasn't too creative in the dating and wooing of, well, me.  I fact, I think the number of times we saw each other over the summer I could count on one hand.  My mom teased me endlessly as I called him sometime mid-July, and his excuse of why he was too busy to go to a movie was he was chasing rabbits out of his mom's garden.  "Bunny tail is more like it."  The sad thing is he actually was chasing rabbits as my sister's boyfriend was his best friend and confirmed the claim for lack of attention we both were receiving that summer.  At any rate, I liked him a bunch and made sure we had weekly dates and bi-weekly phone calls come fall. 
   So I met the boy who played guitar in February.  My heart raised up into my head and made me crazy when he walked in the room.  It was Valentine's when I returned from a ski trip with my youth group and the long haired guitar playing dude who was stealing my heart.  There, on my bed, my mom left a present the tall drink of water hand delivered the day before.  There it was, a poem.  An iambicpitameter poem mentioning my name three times written in his British Literature class.  There it was an omission that his heart was all mine.  But, it was complicated.  My heart was just stolen by an unexplained force of coincidence.
   So why in the world am I telling you this story?  It is pretty simple, I am distracting myself.  I have some news to share and not sure how to go about it as it is complicated.  You know how we all cheered sometime in May that I was in remission?  Well, it turns out that it was a lie.  Okay, it is more like an misinformed assumption.  I have another spot in my head.  After my MRI in August the day before school started, I had a visit with my Longmont oncologist.  All news was good according to the reports of all doctors on my ship.  I was going to have an appointment with the neurosurgeon, but he got held up in surgery, and it was postponed.  So, being as all the reports were in my file for the oncologist to review and summarize, I went all skipping through the meadow singing The Hills are Alive with way more zest the Julie Andrews.
   Ten days later, or something like that, I finally had my rescheduled appointment with he neurosurgeon.  He's pretty busy so I sat with his PA, Eric as he looked over my MRI slides.  A high five was exchanged.  Then a look of...heck...I don't know anymore...just a look was exchanged.  Eric dashed off asking me to wait just a sec.  I looked at my watch and remarked that I needed to get out of that office in 30 minutes to pick up my children from school.  Eric returned with a giant red laptop.  There was a new spot on the same slide as my one of the pons spot just behind my left eye. 
   So to get to the punch line, the Italian doctor, who really doesn't understand my sense of humor, ordered another MRI.  As I exited the office in a slight dash to go get the kiddos, I over heard Dr. V. say, "No don't do that, it would be a two hour MRI.  I wouldn't do that to her.  Only get the area two ceintmeters on either side of the pons."  Being as my MRI last week was nearly an hour long, I am so glad for the clarification to only get the tight slides in the one area of my head that is smack dab in the middle of my grey matter.
   Boom, and week of waiting, and we arrive at today.  Let's just say it is complicated.  Just about as complicated as a 16 year old girl in love with two really cool and totally different guys.  Did I tell you that the guitar playing guy who stole my heart from the tall drink of water was only about two inches taller then my five three posture?  It looks like there was actually a void in the area of the "new" spot back in December.  Okay, so it has been growing in my head undetected by the powers that be for over six months.  That is one point for the cons.  It is located close to my derma-something-or-other and likely bignin.  One point score for the pros.  It is in an area of useless brain matter that apparently the surgeon removes completely all the time with minimal issues.  Score two to one, pros.  It could be Cyber Knifed.  Three to one.  It is super close to my left eye and the process of radiating it with the Cyber Knife could cause serious vision issues.  Three to two.  It is growing which may implicate that the drugs I am on aren't doing their job.  Three to three, it is a tie for major suckage.  Alright, so a last note, it appears my tumor in the pons, the one Cyber Knifed in December, is growing as well.
   So what is the plan?  It is complicated.  Pending the neurosurgeon's return from his moose hunting trip, we wait.  An MRI is pending for six weeks the first week of November.  So we wait until the docs all get on my ship and navigate it like pirates avoiding the icebergs.  I have asked Dr. Borges at University Hospital to captain this ship so will probably be running down there in the coming week or so.  Yes, we wait.  Starting to sound like March 2009, when I knew I had breast cancer but no idea what was going to happen for a good six weeks time as I dodged in and out of doctor offices, gathered evidence and predictions like a CSI, and cried myself a river at the top on my stairs while the kids ran below me whining about being hungry for snack. 
    Yep, we have been here before.  It's complicated.  So pray, meditate, or go beg Mother Nature to send the most beautiful weather in the world to God's Country so I can revel in its glory.  And, please let me know if you notice my eyes doing crazy summersaults or my right side of my body freaks out of control.  Ah, the best part of tumors in my brain is there is a lot of useless territory. Here's to praying me spots stay there, react well to treatment, I keep my hair, and I continue to mimic the smart guiness that I am. 
    When you ask if I am alright, I will reply simple, "No, but it will be."  And that, my folks, is how it is done.  That is how a sixteen year old girl decided that the guitar playing shorty with a big heart got her undivided attention but only after she committed to a proper break-up scene in the Little Ceasar's parking lot and two weeks of morning the lose of a really sweet, tall drink of water. 
   Oh, PS, don't forget to go to the show The Journey, Celebrating the Healing Power of Art at the Muse Gallery in Longmont.  Opening reception is October 14.  I will have three pieces in the show.

The Art of Dying Well

    So here I am laying in a hospital gown that is pretty ridiculous as it is so big I could wiggle through the neck opening like a street contortionist wiggles through a cardboard box.  I am having my twelfth ECHO with my buddy James, and I am excited as its only taking five minutes.  I suppose that is the service I get once you become a regular.  He stops plugging in the numbers on the machine, looks down at the floor, and says, "Thank you for your outlook on life."  I am thinking, What the heck was I rambling on about?  Wasn't I whining about my kindergartner having a full blown tantrum on the way to school?  No, we were talking about our seven year olds, we both have one, and their silly ways they innovated to jump off the diving board?  Well, anyway, he proceeds to tell me that he has a genetic disorder with his heart and no one in his family has lived past 40.  He is 35.  Here is this father of three who is finding some sort of motivate attitude in my useless rambling.  Yes, I know I ramble.  So here we are crying.  Wait, I think I was the only one crying.  Maybe I never really stopped crying from the stress of carrying a 40 pound, biting, crying, screaming, boy I love so dearly to school so I can get his sister to school on time, ordeal.  We are talking about the fact that it is highly likely we will both die in the next five years, and we are, like, okay with being dead.  But, we fear how that makes those around us feel, especially our children.  So here we are thanking each other for something hugely profound and taboo and all and all crappy to think about. 
     "We Humans have lost the art of dying well.  That is all I ask.  I want to live well to die well.  And, I am so thankful I had kids before I jumped out of an airplane and had to decide whether I really would pull the parachute cord or not."
     Yes, folks, we are all going to die.  Some of us hear our time clocks clicking just a little too close to zero.  So make the best of it.  Stop complaining.  Make a change.  Teach, teach some more, and learn a ton so you can teach that too.  Live it well.  And know that THAT is exactly how I do it.  Yes, you ask me all the time how I do it.  That is it...I want to live it all all at the same time and do it well.  That is how I coach soccer to five year olds in flip flops on damp grass for thirty minutes when the coach is so very, very late for his team.  That is how I spontaneously turn a trip to Chick-Fil-A after soccer practice into girl's night out, and one guy, even when our kids are so tired they are stumbling and crying out the door.  I want to be super-mom, uber-awesome-artist, and that funny girl you just met that still looks hot in boot cut jeans with her purple toe nails even though she has this constant rash on her face, her finger nails are nearly all ripped off, and has stretchmarks around her waist that is just a little flabby even though she can hula hoop longer then a seven year old.  Yep, don't just sit on the side lines, join the game because your clock is ticking too.  Live it, live it well, even when you feel like you are going to go insane.  But, shhh..., here is the real secret: sleep.  Don't forget to sleep well too because there will be tomorrow.  Yes, there WILL.
    James, I toast to your 40th birthday party, and it better be the biggest damn party anyone ever saw.  I know mine will be (hint hint hint...and there better be dancing).  Here's to freakin' living to forty.  No fifty.  Here is a toast to being grandparents and tossing out the bucket list so we can spend a little more energy being present in what is exactly right here at this very moment.  Here is to the art of living well to die well.  Just one day at a time.  One day at a time.  And, James, you betcha I will see you every three to four months for a super long time as I have a whole lot of lifetime still ahead.  So do you.

Middle Spaces

   Today there is a feeling which I can equate to a Saturday morning.  Correction, let us make it Saturday, just past noon, you are seventeen and just waking up for the day. You are seventeen and not quite an adult and almost not a teen. You are sort of empty as you just broke up with your boyfriend and it is Saturday. Fridays are okay. You have the basketball or football game that you can talk your friends in to going with you to because you will drive. You can borrow your mom's minivan. They may drink and maybe even drag their stupid boyfriends with them. You might have to witness a noisy game of tonsil hockey in the rearview mirror. But, hey, you aren't home. And, you are not alone. If you are a lucky, the game will be an away game and will take up most of the night. On the way back into town, you will talk everyone into going to Chili's for some chow. They will order that onion thing that makes you want to gag. You know, the entire onion that is sliced, deep fried and smells like feet. But, that is okay because you aren't home and your BFF's stupid boyfriend's cousin that was visiting from out of town and came along to the game is sort of cute even though he isn't your boyfriend, I mean ex-boyfriend, and talks too much about his Camero.
   No, it is not that Friday night. It is Saturday and your BFF will go out with her stupid boyfriend. So you are stuck with your parents for the night. Don't tell anyone that you sort of don't mind. So you run to the video store sometime during the afternoon. You go between lunch and dinner so you aren't seen there in the video store picking out a movie for your parents by any of those stupid couples from your high school who will probably miss half of whatever stupid movie they pick out together making out on the couch.  So you a there looking at every movie reading all the labels so you don't pick out one with stupid teenagers drinking, having sex, or being vampires because you don't want your parents thinking all teenagers are drinking, having sex, and loving vampires because they are not.  You won't rent that one so you are stuck with the new princess cartoon you would have loved to see like five years ago, the gross murder mystery crap your dad would probably like, the sappy love story where the best friend steals the groom, or the dramody about the middle-aged old dude freakin' out because his wife left him because he is a looser.
   So there you are with your parents eating pizza your mom was nice enough to order knowing you are pissed off at boys. Later, she will pull out some chocolate mint ice-cream. You are eating your ice cream and watching the stupid dramody not feeling sorry for this looser who really didn't see the beautiful woman that was standing right in front of him until it was too late because he was being stupid and it is only eight o'clock pm. They are both on the couch cuddling, your parents. You're thinking about how Mr. Stupid Head used to touch your arm and give you goose pimples. Or, maybe how you used to try to get him to say your name because you liked how it sounded when he said it, but he never would. Or, maybe Mom is busy knitting or grading school papers on the couch while Dad is in the recliner snoring. You wonder if all men in their forties, nearly fifty, fall asleep five minutes into the movie, any movie excpet ones with car chases. How boring. Stupid boys. But, it is okay, because you aren't alone on this stupid Saturday just after a stupid boy decided to be really stupid.
   Yep, that pretty much sums up how I feel this very moment. I feel like a seventeen year old who is alone on a Saturday night but not really allone on a Saturday night and okay with that.  I feel like that teen who is neither here or there. There is something, some place, just somewhere in the middle, a middle space. That is where you will find me.
   PS  I am twice seventeen plus two years and didn't break up with a boyfriend.  This is an analogy and should not be taken litterally beyond the essence of the moment of feeling sort of not here and not there and being okay with that.

Smilely Face to Grimmus

Each time I get a massage, I am asked what my pain level is going in and what it is going out.  I sometimes find this bemusing.  Like if I haven't gone from a 4 to a 2 in one hour, why am I here.  This, of course, makes sense due to the fact I get my massage therapy at the Health Center of Integrated Therapies which is a branch of the Longmont United Hospital.  Also, I am sure there is some pain assessment hula hoop to jump through as I get my therapies covered on my insurance.
  Over the past three years, I have discovered a whole new world of pain.  Previously, pain consisted of stubbing a toe on the cement step or my kid accidentally head butting me.  If I was ever in a medical office and they held up that cute chart with the faces ranging from smiley to grimmus, I might even choose the level four, almost grimmus to identify the pain of getting a blood draw done.
  However, now, a blood draw is routine and ranks at maybe a 2, not quite a smiley face, level.  I tease my massage therapist, "Don't you knew, I don't have pain anymore.  I only have discomfort."  Now, I am not going to get into any bloody details of pain needing Oxycoton just to take the edge off such as I experienced during the two weeks after my bilateral mastectomy.  Yes, the intesity of one surgery caused me to exclaim that an apendectomy recovery is nearly painless.  No, I am going to talk about the day to day "discomfort."  The body gets used to pain and raises the bar.  Anyone with arthritis, MS, Lupus, fiber mialgia, or other similar disease can acclaim to this numbing of pain as the body shuts down its alert system so you can better enjoy your day to day life.
   Today, I just didn't feel great.  I went in and out of my errands and through lunch not too interested in food.  I visited my mother in the hospital as she is recovering from a surgery.  I had sat with her the night before when she was doing that great.  She was nauseated as the leg anesthesia block wore off from the surgery.  I spent much of the morning thinking through how I dealt with pain during my past six surgeries in three years.  At lunch, she was doing okay, but not great.  She still wasn't eating.  I went home still thinking about how to make this better based on my experiences.  Going about my business and running to get the kids from school, I began to think of the next hurtle in my day, dinner.  I just didn't want to eat anything.  Everything sounded gross.  And, that is when I realized I was actually nauseous and took a Zofran.  See, I had stubbed my toes blunt on last night coming home from the hospital to a dark house.  Since I have Hand and Foot Syndrome, this action sends knife-like pains right up my leg to my groin.  It makes my toe nail beds bleed and blisters form on the tips.  All morning, I had been in pain from this.  I had ignored it.  Actually, my brain ignored it.  I was nauseous from the pain and didn't even realize it until I started thinking about food.
   So I figured it out.  Nausea meds first.  Then, pain meds and get it on a schedule.  This evening during my chats with Mom and later the nurses, we ironed out that she was left off pain meds beyond the recommended dosing, went into a pain loop and then was unable to identify to difference as her body screamed for some help.
   Well, Mom is doing better tonight as I left her dozing off to some good sleep after meds and a great back rub by her lucky daughter.  I think the nurse finally had settled her on to a plan, a schedule of action with her medication with a slow tapper.  Pain is a funny thing.  It really is abstract and variable.  Its totally subjective nature makes it difficult to manage.  But one thing is for sure, when someone you love very much is in pain, your momma bear alert system rings out loud and clear.  Well, good night Momma Bear from your Baby Bear.  I sure hope tomorrow is more bearable.  ;>  XOXOX

Memories

My grandmother gave me a cake stand.  I didn't really know why I needed it.  I passed from one spot to another in my kitchen trying to find the best location to store the awkward box.  Several times, it nearly made its home at the thrift store as my donation of useless items.  Yet, I couldn't let it go.  When we moved, it went into a stack of small heavy boxes needing special attention.  I had a baby then, 6 months old. 
    That baby was going to turn one in a couple of days.  So I pulled out that cake stand and dusted off the box.  I slipped it out of its packaging and made a cake.  Then, I remembered.  "Every cake deserves a place of honor."   The thing is, I just needed someone needing a cake to be honored. 
    Today, my second baby celebrated his six birthday.  We had a casual potluck with a dozen families.  He helped me make a cake in the morning, gluten and dairy free.  We put the cake on the crystal cake stand and decorated the top with Star Wars action figures.  We served the cake and my son beamed from ear to ear.  I was so busy coordinating the goings on of the party that I never did get to taste the cake.  But, dang, it sure looked honored up there on that crystal cake stand.
    My grandmother is getting older.  She isn't the same any more.  I miss her already.  I have a necklace that she gave my sister one time when she was downloading her stuff from her home that she still shares with my grandfather.  It was too small for my sister so my sister gave it to me.  I wear it nearly everyday.  I spin the gold chain in my fingers when I get nervous.  I remember.
   Sometimes the memories aren't specific.  They are moments in time as I grapple at my memories to figure out what grade in school I was when something happened.  Then, there are memories that are much more specific.  9/11/01.  Today is the tenth anniversary of the fateful day.  Wait, day isn't quite right.  The anniversary of that episodic moment in time.
   People all around me remembered where they were ten years ago.  I cried a bit reading or hearing each story.  These are moments in time that don't need grappling for specifics.  We remember.  We remember sitting on the edge of our beds getting ready for work and being stunned, glued to the TV, unable to slip on our high heels.  We remember teaching teenagers and children, hearing the news, and walking into our classrooms with the overwhelming burden to decide how to protect our children from something we don't fully understand, the big, bad wolf.  How will we answer the questions about the bad guys?  We will remember worrying about our friends and family who worked near the Towers or in Washington DC.  We will remember checking our phones waiting for them to call.  And, for too many, you will remember being there that day.
   Ten years.  Ten years have passed, and I remembered.  I brought cookies to the neighborhood fire station with my MOMS Club for several of those years.  I have ran through scenarios if that happened here in my home in the heart of America.  What do I tell my children to teach them?  I have no answer to why someone would do that.
   When I passed the bag full of cookies to the firefighter today, I almost said, "Happy 9/11 Day."  That sounded way wrong in my head.  So I didn't say it.  But, I wanted to reach out and tell him I knew that their heart just didn't sing quite as high as it is supposed to today on the tenth anniversary of September 11.
   Yes, memories are vague and specific, sweet and bitter, and warm and frightening.  We live our lives trying to be present in the moment.  Sometimes we look over our shoulders.  That looking is not always a good thing.  Yet, it is our memories that teach us that we are vulnerable and strong all at the same time.
   I just washed the crystal cake stand and put it back in its box with my memories of my grandmother.  Someday, my children will look at a cake they have made sitting on a plain, boring plate.  They will remember their birthdays with me and a crystal cake stand.  I will probably get a phone call requesting they borrow the stand.  It will be pulled out of its box which will be tattered and bronzed by then.  The air will fill with memories.  But, they aren't my memories of my grandmother telling me to use a cake stand because every cake needs a place of honor.  No, their memories will have a life of their own.

yum yum, eat it up.

A life collided with mine recently and started my brain a working on ideas about eating.  A friend's doctor said she had to change her body healthy ASAP.  So we went on a walk this morning.  She asked me a some questions, and I started thinking through what I do to stay healthy and eat right.  Now, I am not perfect and I can't be Vegan on a high fiber diet due to my Tykerb side effects, but I try.  I did loose most of my twenty pounds of chemo-weight last year.  So our conversation got me thinking about my "rules" and what I did to mentally prepare myself for a life change of good eating.  Here are a few pointers I will put out there today for anyone wanting to eat better as a family. 
    First of all, remove all dairy for one month or longer.  You might ease into this like if you drink glasses of milk, start diluting cow milk with rice milk little by little.  No cheese at all.  It will be tough.  Dairy is one of the most harmful things for a body in the state of constant repair.  So I would venture to predict by doing this, you will feel better in your joints, skin, intestine, and so much more.  Don't forget to invest in calcium supplements...go to Whole Foods to buy them so you can talk with the people there and get good information...make sure they are vegetarian.  After month, introduce cheese and small amounts of dairy into your diet slowly, as in a pizza once a month or Parmesan cheese on your marinara sauce (because you aren't ordering mac and cheese anymore, right?)  Your mind set and dependency on dairy will be completely altered after a month or more.  Eat it, but think of it as a treat to be enjoyed in small portions.  Mentally, you will be prepared to move on to other food items, like carbs, next month.
   The second pointer I would suggest is allow for one severing of a sweet per day.  Yes, allow.  We are talking the whole family here abiding to this rule.  Mentally, your allowing is good for your brain and motivation.  But, include all beverages other then water as a sweet.  So if your son has a juice box in his lunch box, then he is done for the day.  He can't have juice with dinner nor a dessert.  Now, if he would like to have water for lunch and save his serving for that brownie after dinner...go for it!  Again, this rule helps your family train their brains to control cravings and their dependency on food.  It is all a game, you know.  Later, for the die hards, do this with non-veggie carbs and packaged food.  Oh, and this develops great will power that is very usefully through out all life experiences.
  The third and last pointer for someone looking to change their pantry is to stop all consuming at 6 or 7 pm depending on when you go to bed.  Enjoy your water!  But, no food in your mouth three hours before you go to sleep at night.  This allows your body to properly digest everything before you lie down.  All food consumed in the late hours of the day is junk.  You are giving into your lack of will power to feed emotional needs.  If your tummy growls, ignore it.  Tell it it can have food at breakfast, yum!  (And, make sure you are eating a great breakfast slowly too.) 
   So basically, these three pointers aren't about food at all.  It is about your Jedi training of your brain.  Your will power and relationship with food will mature.  Be a conscious eater.  Slow down.  Think about what goes in your mouth.  Enjoy every last bite immensely.  And, pick a vegetable of the week.  This week, spinach!  YUM!  My favorite.  My Popeye brain was so excited for two for one deals on spinach at the Framer's Market.  I will post my spinach pesto recipe later.  Well, I have to write it down because it has been in my head ever since I created it.  For now, I have to dash off to my HER-fusion and take my two hour nap in my recliner.  I hear my dad might bring me a hazelnut latte made with rice milk for my one sweet for the day...wink.

PS  Try Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Cancer Diet book even if you don't have cancer.  It is really easy to pick up and read bits you need.  Eating well is good for all inflammatory disease.  And, let's face it, we are all getting a bit older and a plate that is 80% green goodness (and orange smiles) is like an answered prayer for your body.

tending to the dragons and fariies

So what about your dragons and fairies?  What happens to them when you are figuring out life with cancer?  Well, they sometimes become shadow walkers.  They are both good at that.  The only problem is that they sometimes get scared of the dark.  So I have chosen to let the light reach around my looming figure to sparkle on their tears. 
  How scary it must be to think your mommy, the day to day lady who mysteriously makes you food and often gets exactly what you always wanted and a little brocolli on your plate without you even asking, may stop serving your every need.  We often forget those little ones have huge ears and even bigger imaginations.
  So the fairies stop casting spells and painting the petals on the flowers.  Their garden dries up and turns grey.  They may even forget to dance to make the rain come.  But, you can brush their hair and explain the world for a quiet spell and they will remember the dance.  Remind your fairy to take each day as just a day.  This moment is just this moment.  And, we are together now.  So breath in the air here in this day and find the beauty set before your eyes.  This is really not that hard of a task as fairies are drawn to beauty, it is in their nature. 
    When my fairy was told I was in remission, that life was just stable for a while, she replied with a glint of tear in her eyes, "Mom, my love bucket was already full today and now it is just overflowing all over the floor."  She later needed to talk about what remission meant exactly as my analytical one.  But, she understood that this was a good thing.  "Now, you just have to be good and take all your pills and go to all your appointments and keep those cancer cells out of your body, okay?"  Will do, my fairy, for I have a lot of dances to attend and petals to paint with you.
   Now little dragons are tougher to understand as they tend to smolder in their heat.  They can make big angry, black clouds with their fire all the while wail because they can't breath their fire perfectly.  They can fly around burning down the neighborhood one minute and offer to take you on a flight to see the rainbow the next.  Their tough, scaly skin protects them, but it also keeps them from being touched.  Many bigger dragons forget that little dragons still need to be touched even when they look all grown up and tough. 
   My dragon has been very angry and confused.  He seems to have forgotten if he was supposed to burn down the house of the wicked witch of the west or the barn of the farmer who feeds the poor on Fridays.  What he really wants to do is just fly; fly high and away from all this mess.  So how is it you talk to the littlest of dragons?  Well, first you have to find their den and place of peace.  Let them have a snugglie to hold even when you think they ought be a big boy and not need a softie.  Sing a song.  Be very kind and speak low.  Then ask them if they have any questions.  Of course, they will say nothing, but you will see their gears in their brains racing.  Do you understand what is going on?  "No, mommy.  Does remission mean you no longer have cancer and will live forever and ever?  Is it gone forever?"  See, little dragons want the facts in black and white.  So you have to choose your words carefully.  The cancer is gone for a long time as long as we keep working at it.  "Will you still be tired all the time?"  Yes.  "Will you still have that white stuff oozing out of the blisters on your toes?"  Yes.  "Can I help you pop them?"  Not tonight, they are all right right now.  "Will you come to eat lunch with me tomorrow at school?"  Yes, if you will let me go when it is time knowing I will see you when school is done.  Can you do that?  Can you let me go when it is time for lunchto end?  A silent nod and look of uncertainty.  I will come if you can let me go.  "Okay."
   I love you to the moon and back my fairy and dragon.  You are the reason I get up in the morning.  You are the most powerful medicine and make my love bucket over follow with just a smile.  You can try to push me away.  Maybe it would be easier if you didn't care so much.  Yes, maybe.  But, I am not going anywhere just yet.  I will love you no matter what.  And, you can never fail me.  Just take in the moment, let yesterday be a lesson, and worry less of tomorrow so you don't miss the beauty of today.  Don't seek out the easy; find the possible.  You are amazingly awesome.  Now, let us dance and make the rains come.