Chocolate is the BEST medicine!

I am a total sucker for chocolate.

But by “chocolate” I do not mean that over-processed, emulsified, polluted crap in a wrapper. In fact, in this context I don’t even mean the fairly pure, 70% or above real cocoa confection that I have learned to enjoy as a semi-sweet indulgence that is actually – as studies have shown – good for my psyche. Instead, in the context of being subjected to needle pokes, nightmarish IV injections, alien insertions into my body, radioactive ingestions, and being surrounded by a whirling, whining device seemingly straight out of a sci-fi flick, I mean HOT chocolate.

Still, I do not mean the steamy, creamy drink that is served best with peppermint schnapps. While deliciously tempting (especially the alcohol part, especially while being tortured as mentioned above), winter comfort drinks were not what eased my agony yesterday. No, the sinfully scrumptious treat that saved me from wallowing in first-day-of-major-abuse cancer despair was an utterly dreamy, milk chocolate man with deliciously dark chocolate eyes.  His name was Jerome and he served as the technologist for my port placement, which took place in one of the creepiest rooms I have ever seen in real life.

Our initial meeting was normal:

     Nurse Kim: This is Jerome; he’ll be your technologist.

     Me: Hi, Jerome

     Him: Hi blah blah blah blah blah (stuff I wasn’t concentrating on because I was already drowning in those dark
     chocolate pools)

I think Kim continued talking about what was going to happen, but I was looking around, noting some crumbling plaster on a wall across the room and thinking, “The walls on Grey’s Anatomy are smooth! Take me to Seattle Grace STAT!!” when Jerome walked over to me and grinned. And holy shit, McDreamy has nothing on Jerome’s dimples. I was so struck I stupidly blurted out something to the effect of, “Oh my goodness, look at those dimples! Now I feel better!!” His smile was so effective, in fact, that I was grinning like a fool when he handed me one of those surgical shower-cap thingies that are about as attractive as a hairnet. And no, they had not added the sedative to my IV yet. Luckily, though, it was starting to leak slowly into my veins when Jerome began unsnapping one arm of my ever-so-stylish surgical gown and pulled it down to what I swear was below nipple level on my chest. But whatever. We had already spent plenty of time getting to know each other – comparing notes on our same-aged daughters (his lives in Minnesota – he sees her about twice a month – her hormones drive her mother crazy, but not him, of course) – so I figured we knew each other well enough to get to second base. (Man those drugs are gooooood.)

I’m pretty sure the conversation that followed was soulmate bonding kind of stuff, but I don’t remember it. What I do remember is vaguely hearing, “I’m doctor Blahblahblah” and then feeling as if someone were forcefully and repeatedly pushing me right in the chest, just below my right shoulder. Turns out the pushing was the securing of my bandages and the procedure was over, just like that. I don’t know where Jerome was - - he may have said goodbye, and I may have mumbled a garbled response, but my happily fuzzy brain was no longer worried about the details at that point. I just wanted to sleep.

Unfortunately, when cancer causes you to endure multiple episodes of crap in one day, there is no time for sleep. And even worse, the lovely but apparently clueless nurse Elizabeth informed me that my discharge time was in fifteen minutes. WHAT THE HECK?!? But my bestie, Tammy – my cancer-crap partner for the day – came to my rescue and asked where I could recupe while waiting for my scans, which were scheduled more than two hours from then. I vaguely recall Elizabeth suggesting I could hang out in a waiting room, but before that insane suggestion was able to penetrate the fog in my brain, Tammy had her calling to bump my scan time up and request a wheelchair transport. Thus I got to chill on my current bed until someone could fetch me, and the only agony I had to endure for the moment was the annoyingly aching IV that had been placed, quite unfortunately, directly in my left wrist (by a gorgeous, exceedingly sweet milk chocolate woman, though, so I forgive her).

Once in the PET / CT scan area, I only had to wait briefly before being escorted to another coldly non-decorated room featuring a hard, plasticky recliner in which I would (barely) recline for the next hour and a half while radioactive material dripped into my veins. But first, Tony – yes cute, yes dark eyes, but no match for Jerome – had to shoot ice directly into the bones of my hand (or was it fire? All I know is it hurt like hell) to check my IV line. What the F&%#?!?! It’s insanely misleading to suggest that scans don’t hurt when the IV injection pain can be horrifyingly akin to labor pain, but - thank goodness - it lasts nowhere near as long.

Tony didn’t linger, and an hour passed miraculously with me snoozing (a lead barrier placed strategically between myself and my cancer-crap partner’s chair to protect her from my radioactivity) until the most incredible woman on the planet brought me about a quart of liquid to drink. HALLELUJAH. It was now 2:15 in the afternoon and I had not had a drink since 11:48 p.m. the previous night (not counting the teeny bit of water I accidentally swallowed while brushing my teeth that morning – whoops), so that liquid was the second best thing to happen to me that day (Jerome still rated #1). And as it turns out, contrast liquid does not taste like metal but instead tastes like highly diluted Kool-Aid or – in the context of my utter dehydration – like liquid heaven. But it also chills you to the bone, so by the time my darling drink-provider returned to escort me to the PET scan room, I was shaking. But no worries! She produced multiple heated blankets, and I was ready to hold super still for about 25 minutes worth of radiation being directed at every area of my body between my sinuses and my crotch.

From PET I went to CT, where I thought I was in the easy stretch with the finish line boldly visible. What I didn’t see was the devil looming in a crack in the pavement, waiting to cruelly crush every bone in my left hand and wrist. With great consideration, he waited until the lovely older gentleman (yep – a beautiful rich chocolate with supremely kind, dark eyes) shot the ice-fire through my IV again, and fooled this wonderful man into thinking he would hold back some with me, for when I asked how the IV contrast would feel, the response was, “It won’t hurt as much as when I just pushed the saline, and it will only last a minute,” but the reality was HOLY HELL!!!!!

This experience was not without its comic relief, however, as when this darling man, old enough to be my father, asked, “Is your body starting to feel warm like I mentioned?” I chuckled slightly (through gritted teeth), and managed to grunt, “It actually feels warm in my groin,” to which he gave a grin and a mischievous, “That’s the part we don’t tell you” before he retreated to his little room and set the machine a-whirring again. And the IV agony subsided. But damn that devil! He snuck in again in the midst of that scan to give my wrist one last wrenching twist before I was being pulled out and told “You’re all done!” With infinite relief, I responded “THANK GOD!” and then was met with my final ohhhhhhh-so-pleasant surprise of the day when I found the man laughing over me not to be my lovely older gentleman, but in fact to be LL Cool J’s long lost twin brother. And I was back in heaven once again!

“Never let them put your IV in your hand or wrist,” he told me as he removed the offensive needle that had been plaguing me all day, “for that’s where it hurts the most. But don’t worry, with your new Power Port even the IV contrast can be put directly into your chest next time….” Wait, what – next time? But I hardly had time to think about that because MmmMmm Cool J was smiling at me with eyes that said, “Baby, we should get out of here and run away together to somewhere tropical where we could frolic naked in the surf and make love all night long….”

And so I grinned stupidly over my shoulder as he led me into the hall where I reluctantly turned to go find Tammy and celebrate having survived my initiation into the world of cancer. Thanks to my delicious hot chocolate men, I may even still be glowing (or maybe that’s just the radiation). In any case, I can’t wait to see who gets to touch and poke and undress me tomorrow!

The shit just got real...

I have cancer.  HA!  Still feels like I'm making up ridiculous lies when I say that.  CANCER.  Me - - fairly young (since 42 must be like the new 26 or something, right?), stubbornly independent, single mom of a hormonal 'tween and rambunctious toddler, passionately focused high school English teacher (i.e. CRAZY woman), spiritually based, self-reflective, environmentally focused, always-trying-to-better-myself and never getting caught up in the superficial, materialistic pressures of our wacked out society, STRONG, I-can-get-through-anything (and I've already proven it) woman ----- I have cancer.

And the scary part is that now that I've put it out there, I am FAR from alone.  There are wayyyyyy too many amazing women out there who have, have had, or will someday have cancer.  So as I write about my own journey, I am writing for them - - and for my kids, both at home and at school, and everyone else in this world who is faced with the kinds of challenges that knock them on their asses. 

The more I live this crazy life, the more I learn that in some way, most  of us deal with "cancer."  I think perhaps I may have just gotten lucky, though, for when cancer really IS cancer, there is no mistaking it - - you can't hide from raging tumors, can't ignore chemo punching you in the gut, shoving you down, and kicking you in the face while you're cowering (hairless) in the corner.  There is no luxury of denial when it's actually cancer.  Metaphorically cancerous challenges can be ignored.  Hell, sometimes drowning them in liquor actually works, at least temporarily.  And those metaphorical cancers in our lives may slowly eat away at our psyches, but they don't literally kill us.  ACTUAL cancer, though - well, it's a murderous bitch.

But again in that way I am lucky.  Assuming that the hours of scans I'm about to endure do not reveal any major advancement of my cancer, I will likely beat this thing.  So I don't fear cancer the way I feared cancer when I was younger and treatments were not as advanced.  Instead, I fear the treatment itself.  While the disease may not take my life, the treatment WILL, and that freaks me the hell out!!

I'm still processing this -- getting used to the idea that my commitment to focusing on my biological children and creating their most memorable summer ever has now turned into dumping a load of most-memorable-crap-EVER into their lives -- getting used to the idea that the simple week away from school to have half of my thyroid removed has now turned into innumerable weeks, all told.  (Did I mention I'm a perfectionist control freak bitch who truly believes that her students only learn when she is there, personally conducting what she has orchestrated to be a highly complex symphony of learning?  Shoot - their instruments are out of tune even when I am there to direct them - - that is, if they even remember to bring them.  When I'm NOT, my room sounds more like a roomful of dying animals.)

I want to believe that I've come to grips with baldness.  I already have my hair appointment set to sheer my current locks shorter than I've ever been comfortable wearing them.  There goes vanity!  But I think I shall have fun with eye makeup - heavy layers of paint on a white canvas, fringed with fake lashes?  And I can deal with no tanning this summer.  Shoot - it is my lack of prior sun worship that causes me to be mistaken for ten years younger anyway.  HA!  But no chest-baring tops?!?  (And by chest, I mean blank space above non-boobs, thus LITERALLY chest.)  Bald may be beautiful, but surely chemotherapy ports are NOT.  Ugh.  I'm already draped in scarves to protect the beautiful slash across my neck from burning, but now I have to raise my neckline as well?  Can't I just find some chunky, long, ostenatiously layered necklace that will somehow disguise the gaping hole in my chest??  Oh, that's right -- I'm the one who can't stand even wearing earrings when I'm hot.  So much for excessive neck adornment.

But a friend put things in succinct perspective when he made this perfect comment on one of my Facebook posts:  "Temporary inconvenience. Permanent improvement."

It is not cancer that will be the challenge to be beaten in the next few months -- it is my brain.  Cancer is a minor issue in light of recent breakthroughs in treatment.  But treatment... oh, treatment....  If I thought a week of being confined to the bed and the couch following my parathyroidectomy were torturous, then I've got some major work ahead of me if I'm going to train my brain into acceptance of the limitations cancer treatment is about to place on my life - on my ability to mother - on my dedication to my career.  So that, boys and girls, is the first thing I need to tackle.  How does an over-obsessive, ADHD brain go from constant hyper focus on all things challenging to meditative calm and peaceful resignation?  If only Liz Gilbert were here to advise me....  Luckily I have Kris Carr and her posse of beautifully inspirational, cancer-surviving women who have already begun to inspire me via Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips - - I have a plethora of friends calling and texting and Facebooking me encouragement and support and prayer and positive energy -- and I have a sister who now gets to experiment on me as she delves further into the powerful impact of nutrition on our minds and bodies.

Yeah - the shit got really real when I walked into the University of Chicago cancer treatment facility yesterday.  But it is now Day 2 of KICKING CANCER'S ASS, and I think I've got a pretty good start.  Tomorrow I may be drowning in a puddle of tears, but I'll make sure to pack my snorkle.