44

 I turned 44 a couple weeks ago. 

I threw myself a party, we had pizza and sushi. I invited several friends and neighbors, both people who are already near and dear to my heart along with people I don't know well yet but want to. I went through my usual cycles of excitement at planning a party, a bit of anxiety about whether anyone would actually show up, the mild panic of prepping and trying to make sure everything was ready, wondering why my introverted ass decided to host a party, but ending with the warm tenderness of being surrounded by people who came to see me, to celebrate me, who care about me and wish me well, my heart brimming with gratitude at their warm hugs and the looks in their eyes as they told me how happy they are to see me looking so good. 

It was a particularly significant birthday, given that the differences between this year and last year. Last year, I spent the day after my birthday sitting in the infusion chair, getting my 3rd dose of life-saving poisons. This year, I spent the day after my birthday hosting a party and then going out dancing for the 4th night that week. It's a little hard to wrap my brain around, still. But I'm just so deeply grateful to be on this side of things. 

moving on? (update, 6 months after finishing chemo)

[I wrote this sometime in May but then forgot about it, finally posting it now]

Life after cancer continues to be a strange place to be, but I'm in a much better place than I was a couple months ago. My energy levels feel much more like that of normal people's. This feels like an odd thing to say, but it feels pretty fantastic to feel tired because of something I did, and where I can rest and I feel better afterwards, as opposed to chemo- or autoimmune-induced fatigue where you're just exhausted for no good reason and have zero control over making it any better. 

Over the past few months I've traveled to Austin and Portland (and have a trip to Maui scheduled in a few weeks!); I've gone to a few concerts, including on my own, and started going fusion and west coast swing dancing with Zach; I joined a gym and have been working out fairly regularly, including starting strength training. 

I have moments where I stop and marvel at the things I'm doing (out at a show, going on a hike with the dog, etc) and feel a wave of complicated emotions wash over me-- gratitude, amazement, grief, etc. There's still the occasional stab of terror at the thought of dealing with cancer again, of course. I feel keenly aware that nothing is guaranteed, which is part of what makes me feel extra appreciation for everything and has me embracing this "fuck yeah, carpe diem" attitude. I also feel some amount of survivor's guilt, including guilt at how I appear to (so far) be tolerating Tamoxifen better than a lot of people do... that's a strange little beast, right there. 

Kitty update: unfortunately things with Maya did not work out in our household. She and Nev never figured out how to get along, and it wasn't a good situation for either of them. Maya has now gone on to a new home where she's the sole kitty and is beloved and already seems very happy and comfortable there. All's well that ends well, I guess? It definitely brought up some complex feelings for me. For one thing there's the guilt at knowing I didn't exactly think things through rationally when I decided to get Maya, and feeling like I made a mistake that caused many of us some hardship. Then also, having her around for a few months and then having to get used to her absence, brought back grief about Sierra's passing, and just missing her a lot. 

We maybe will try again in a few months, maybe with a younger male kitten. Zach has a vision of a kitten and Cocoa Bean growing up together and being play buddies, which would be amazing, if it doesn't stress Nev out too much. We'll see. I don't want to make the same mistake and rush into anything again, so we'll take our time with this one. 

So, yeah. Overall, I'm actually doing pretty dang well. I'm happy, I'm grateful. Some things feel extra heavy. A lot of things feel pretty great. Life is weird. 

on (dis)comfort

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 8-9 months thinking about dis/comfort. I’ve had to go through a lot of things that were decidedly uncomfortable. Some are pretty big discomforts, like mouth sores that left me eating nothing but applesauce and smoothies for a solid week, or feeling such bone crushing fatigue that getting out of bed was nearly unthinkable. And there are the more “frivolous” discomforts, like the first time I left my house with only a beanie covering my newly-bald head, feeling so self-conscious but knowing I had no choice but to swallow my vain discomfort and get on with life (or, really, no other choice felt acceptable).

 
Through chemo I wore my illness on my proverbial sleeve. Some people are able to hide the fact that they’re going through cancer treatment, by cold capping or wearing wigs, etc. I couldn’t be bothered. Also, I don’t think I could have “passed” for a normal healthy person through those months. I looked clearly unwell for most of that time, in a way that went beyond just the hair (not) on my head… puffy eyelids and face, pale skin and gray lips from anemia… It took a solid two months after the end of chemo before I looked in the mirror and recognized the face looking back as my own (or my “normal” face, the face of someone who wasn’t actively sick and fighting against cancer and poison/medicine).

 
But even if I could have hidden my disease away, I don’t know that I would have wanted to. And this gets into the other aspect I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about… whose comfort do I want to prioritize? Yes, I felt self-conscious existing as someone who was obviously a cancer patient, feeling like a walking reminder of this ugly disease that is at best an unpleasant thing to think about and at worst a possible trigger to others who’ve been touched steamrolled by it. I grappled with that feeling a lot.

 
But I also realized that it felt important to remind myself that I had a right to exist in the world as I was, with what I was going through, without having to apologize for it or hide. I was putting my own comfort, the tiny bit I could get during a time when so much was uncomfortable, above other people’s potential discomfort at seeing A Sick Person. I’ve also often been an advocate for making the invisible visible and documenting all the different phases of life (not just the happy stuff), and in some ways it felt like an important act to not hide what I was going through and even post the occasional selfies with my bloated, pale, hairless face as a record of my experience (and almost as an act of defiance against cancer itself).

 

I am now navigating the world with hair that looks like I could have chosen to get cut this way, instead of being so clearly post-chemo growth, and a single breast. I’ve had some complicated feelings about being flat on one side, but I'll save going into that for another post. For now, I will say this: I thought I’d already learned some big lessons in body acceptance and body positivity before all this, but cancer really gave me a much more intensive crash course on the topic. And one of the things that it really drove home for me are that for any body-related insecurity I had two options: 

 1) to feel self-conscious, constantly worried about what other people thought of what I looked like, 

or 

 2) to say “fuck it” and embrace my right to exist in the world exactly as I am in any given moment. That other people’s discomfort (real or imagined) is not my responsibility. That I (and everyone else) get to unapologetically exist as I am, without shame.

moving on?

 I don't really know how to think about this current stage of cancer treatment. The really intense phases of active treatment-- chemo and surgery-- are done. As far as we can tell, the cancer is gone. Yet I'm still taking meds to treat it/prevent it coming back, and will be for years. It's not quite active treatment, or not the way chemo was, but maybe...passive treatment? It's still...something. It's a weird time (then again, everything about cancer has been weird). 

During chemo I was getting infusions of two chemotherapy drugs (taxotere+carboplatin) and two her2 targeted drugs (herceptin + perjeta). We think my cancer is all gone, but there's always the risk of stray cancer cells floating around my body, waiting to come back (some people call this state "schroedinger's cancer"), which is why I'm still continuing with more meds. I started back up with herceptin (by itself this time) a few weeks ago, and will keep those up every 3 weeks through about July. I didn't notice any side effects from my first herceptin-only infusion, and hopefully that'll keep up. I'm not a huge fan of returning to the infusion center again, but it's at least a much shorter, easier process than full chemo was.

Last week I also started my endocrine therapy, taking Tamoxifen which blocks breast tissue from absorbing estrogen. The plan is to take it for 5 years and then we'll reassess. If I'm tolerating it well I may continue taking it for another 5 years, or there may be new data that informs our decisions at that point. I've been a little nervous about taking this drug... many people have no side effects, or mild/tolerable ones. But I've also seen stats indicating that as many as half of the people who start it, stop before finishing their 5-10 year courses because the side effects are too severe and uncomfortable. It's a bizarre experience to be taking it and waiting to see how it affects me.  

One of the stranger aspects of processing this whole "I had cancer" thing (still getting used to using that past tense), is figuring out how to even frame the story in my head. There's a part of me that tries to minimize it.... Like, yes, I had cancer, I went through chemo, it was kinda horrific, my breast was amputated, BUT I was only ever stage 1, my cancer was always highly curable. I wasn't really in danger of like, dying, right? My case was so much less severe than so many other people's. I have the luxury of putting cancer treatment behind me eventually, and objectively speaking I have good odds to not have to go through any of this again. It was just a thing, I got through it, and now I'm ok. No biggie. Right?

And then another part of my brain is like HOLY FUCK, I had FUCKING CANCER. And it could still COME BACK?!?!? What the fuck do I even DO with that information?? I don't know that I'll ever fully wrap my head around all this. 

Fun fact: depending on what studies you look at, what factors are accounted for, etc, my risk of recurrence over the next 5-20+ years seems to be somewhere between 5% and 25+%. Those numbers could certainly look a whole lot worse, but they're still far from comforting. Especially when my brain plays funny games like "well you already had the statistically unlikely thing happen, what's to stop that from happening again?" Also, whether rational or not, while I don't think cancer is going to kill me in the short term, I have much less of an expectation of living till old age. That doesn't necessarily feel scary to say, it just kinda feels like a pragmatic take? There's the risk of my cancer coming back, plus the increased risk of other things (other kinds of cancers, cardiac issues, etc) that are increased somewhat by the meds I'm taking to keep the breast cancer away. 

Anyway. So, yeah. It's a weird time. Sometimes I feel close to back to "normal," and other times I very much do not. I feel so much better than I did a few months ago, but I'm also still tired and in some sort of pain/discomfort a lot of the time (my joints feel like they aged 30 years all of a sudden). There are still weird chemo side effects that are lingering, months afterwards. I'm trying to be patient with myself about it all, knowing that this sort of healing takes a long time and is often non-linear. 

and then I randomly brought home a new cat

 So we have a new kitty, her name is Maya and she's goooorrgeeeoussssssssss. 

I've had the equivalent of baby fever but for getting a cat, for months. Fairly intensely. Part of it has been legitimately missing having a multi-cat household. It's been over two years since Sierra passed away, and then we got our dog Cocoa and he took up a lot of time/space/attention. But he's now almost 2 years old, and I've really missed the feline energy (especially since Nev tends to be more aloof these days anyway). 

(Also, I think I really wanted more cuddly animal comfort and entertainment during the hard months of chemo)

I at least knew better than to bring home a new animal while in the actual middle of chemo. So what did I do instead? I waited till I was just barely over a month past my mastectomy, and a few days after my mom (and all her assistance) had flown back home again, to bring home this little darling. What can I say, I saw her photo on a rehoming group on facebook and couldn't quite help myself. In my defense I think when you've had cancer you're maybe allowed some irrational impulse decisions. 

In my dreamy-eyed state I had very optimistic expectations for how easily she would adjust to life in her new household. She had been calm, confident, and very outgoing when I met her in her previous home, I figured she'd enjoy the novelty and more playmates here. I set up a room for her to be in separate from the rest of the house, brought her home, let her out of her carrier, and watched her promptly slink under the dresser. That much was expected. 

What I hadn't anticipated, was her proceeding to spend 95% of her entire first week hiding out under that dresser or in the closet. As the days dragged on and she continued to seem to nervous, I started to worry. She was warming up to me, but ran and hid if she even heard anyone else. Was she too stressed out in our household? Was I doing enough to help her adjust? Meanwhile, I was also adjusting to getting back into "normal" life. With my mom returning back home, I picked back up on a lot of the household tasks and responsibilities she'd shouldered during my recovery. In some ways I've been very glad to return to a more normal routine and be able to do the things. But also, it's been... a little overwhelming, and exhausting. I had read so many others talk about this aspect of cancer recovery, and was still somehow surprised by being faced with it. And I'd chosen to add on to it the complex task of helping a scared kitty adjust to a house with more people and animals than she'd been used to for her previous 4 years of living. 

I started to wonder if maybe I had rushed things and made a mistake. And yet, I felt like she kinda belonged here. The other day I walked into her room, and she immediately ran out to greet me and ask for pets. That melted my heart into a neat little puddle. She has since turned a corner, seeming much more comfortable and brave. She likes me a lot and has even curled up in my lap several times. She no longer runs and hides at the first sight or sound of any other members of my household. She's even had a few encounters with Cocoa (separated by a gate) where she kinda hisses at him but stands her ground and doesn't run off to hide (Cocoa, meanwhile, stands still, his tail wagging at 60mph, really, really wanting to play with this new friend but he knows, through his experiences with Nev, to give her some space). 

Nev seems unbothered and only mildly curious about this new inhabitant. I'm in no rush, wanting to give everyone plenty of time to get used to each other. Maya is still mostly confined to her separate room, and we'll slowly start letting her venture out more and have more interactions with Nev and Cocoa. I think she will be a sweet and fun addition to our household dynamics once she's used to everyone and everything. I'm looking forward to that.