The Thing About Breast Cancer

When I returned to work after having my second child (the one where I gained 60 lbs while pregnant!), I couldn’t focus on anything other than how thin all the women at work seemed to be.  I’d sit in meetings (with a good 20 lbs left to lose even though my daughter was 4 months old), and I’d be completely unable to focus on anything other than what a miracle of nature it seemed that other women could tuck their shirts in, wear belts, and sit all day without buttons coming undone on their pants. 

Weeks ago, as I nervously anticipated my hair falling out during chemo, I couldn’t turn on the TV without noticing that all the TV news anchors had reverted to big “Breck girl” hair.  The economy was in a free-fall, Israel and Gaza were at war, Obama was about to be sworn in, and all I could do was stare at Erin Burnett’s hair on MSNBC. 

Then suddenly it changed.  I got a super short crew cut to avoid large clumps of hair clogging my drain, and suddenly I didn’t notice Hoda Kotb or Alex Witt or Contessa Brewer.  Now I only noticed Matt Lauer, Al Roker, Paul Schafer, and of course JD on “Scrubs”.  I felt a certain camaraderie with these men who showed up at work every day proudly displaying their balding heads.

But as the crew cut was shedding everywhere, I had my husband give me a buzz cut that was so short I was forced to start wearing scarves.  I’m suddenly watching re-runs of “Rhoda” on YouTube.  I’m looking at all the Kwanza posters admiring the intricate ways these women tie their scarves.  I look for pictures of Marianne on “Gilligan’s Island” to see if her bandana look would suit me well in corporate America 35 years later.  I’m thinking about renting “Fiddler on the Roof” to see if the “babushka” look might work for me. 

My life has become very “of the moment”, I suppose.  I guess this is a warning to everyone … I’ll be staring at your breasts this summer, wondering if they are real or implants…………….

so, there I am … it’s early Tuesday morning and I’m sitting in our kitchen (plastic cape around me like a 3 year old in a barber shop with newspaper on the floor) as my husband is getting ready to shave my head.  I’m trying to quickly finish my first cup of coffee before he starts his handiwork.  (didn’t want the shavings to go IN my coffee cup).  My little daughter is excited for the big event and asks my husband why he isn’t starting already.  He calmly says, “I have to have a cup of coffee first”.  I think nothing of it, but she says, “coffee???  who can think of coffee at a time like this??!!  It then came to me:  coffee has been the common thread in all my experiences along this cancer journey….

·         worst part of first surgery?   no food or COFFEE in the morning prior to surgery.

·         worst part of second surgery?  No food or COFFEE in the morning prior to surgery.

·         worst thing about staying overnight in hospital?  cold bad coffee on your breakfast tray. 

·         worst part of the chemo?  waking up so queasy that I couldn’t even drink my morning COFFEE. 

·         worst part of having chemo at the local hospital?  the coffee is lousy.

·         worst part of having second opinions at Sloan Kettering?  the coffee is lousy. 

·         Biggest concern of having second opinions at Sloan Kettering?  wondering if we get back to Grand Central with enough time to get coffee before boarding the train. 

·         Best part of having surgery?  Friends come to visit and text you on the way asking what they can bring you from Starbuck’s. 

so…… while there are many unknowns as we tackle this strange thing called cancer, it is comforting to know there will always be coffee. 

         so… when I was first diagnosed and while I was preparing for surgery, everywhere I looked, the word “breast” was being used (see prior blogs on this topic).  Now that I’m knee deep into chemo and my hair is falling out, I can’t help but notice that the word “hair” is in virtually every sentence I hear. 

·         As I watch the Giants play, the announcer says, “it’s just a hair before the 2 minute warning”

·         My friend returns from a visit to the orthopedic surgeon and informs me, “it’s just a hairline fracture”

·         The Today Show reporter talks about the hairy situation she was in during her survival skills course

I wonder what expressions I’ll notice this summer that contain the word “implant”?????????

·         Everything right now is temporary.  I came home from the hospital with my “tissue expanders” … which are basically my temporary breasts. 

·         I borrowed temporary bras from my teenage daughter, not knowing what I would look like when the expansion work was done.

·         Post surgery, I  was too uncomfortable to sit at the desk in my office, so I set up a temporary desk at the island in my kitchen

·         I was told my hair would fall out on day 18 of my chemo treatment, so I got a temporary crew cut, which would tide me over until my hair started to fall out in earnest.

·         I have a full set of temporary clothes for work … since I can’t quite convince myself that my tailored suits will go well with baseball caps and scarves

·         I eat my temporary diet of simple carbohydrates, diet ginger ale and toast, since my usual healthy diet doesn’t taste so great with the chemo nausea.

Maybe by the time I get through my temporary life in 2009, we’ll be done with this awful recession and we can ALL go back to our real lives!

You know the drill.  You’re flying NY to Los Angeles.  It’s a whole day.  You prepare as though you’re going to be on the plane for a week.  Lots of snacks.  The world’s largest bottle of Aquafina.  A full season of WEEDS downloaded onto your I-tunes on your laptop.  Enough reading material for a 2-week vacation (is there a name for the disease that I have:  “FEAR OF RUNNING OUT OF READING MATERIALS BEFORE WE LAND IN LA”?)

I recently discovered that having chemo isn’t that much different.  The food, drink, & reading/viewing materials are pretty much the same.  In chemo-land, the gum is there to kill the metal taste in your mouth, not to make your ears pop due to air pressure, but the net effect is the same:  tote bag full of gum.

Your personality comes through the same.  On the flight, I sit on the aisle near the front because I am claustrophobic and I pee a lot (so I need easy access to the ladies room).  In chemo land, I choose my seat carefully, making sure I have full view of the door so I can see who is coming and going (I am a tireless people watcher, even with cancer!).  I also make sure I have a seat with enough leg room and personal space to pacify my little claustrophobic thing. 

On the plane, you tread lightly before engaging the person in the chair next to you in conversation.  After all, you’re going to be there for many hours and maybe that person wants some alone time, and you have all those back issues of “In Style” magazine that you NEED to read.  It’s the same in chemo land; you stare straight ahead at first, trying to tell everyone you’re in a ZEN place where you don’t want to make friends or talk about the weather, but after 2+ hours of sitting right next to someone, you realize it’s a little odd not to at least make a little small talk. 

On a plane, you see the readers, the sleepers, the talkers, the lap-top-ers, the gamers, the knitters, the workers and the pacers.  Same for chemo, except that it’s hard to pace with an IV, so the pacers have been replaced with the multi taskers who write Christmas cards and clean out their purses while the harsh chemicals drip slowly into their bodies. 

I’ve yet to see anyone bring Annie’s pretzels, a COSI salad or a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza into chemo, but when I do, I’ll know that chemo land and American Airlines have officially merged!

Intellectually I know I am having my head shaved in 4 days.  That’s what you do; you have your head shaved right before your hair is going to fall out (which magically occurs on day 18 of the chemo).  I know it will take about 6 months from my last treatment to grow back to anything more than fuzz.  I know I will be a bald woman with hats and scarves on for the better part of 2009.   As a result of this, I intellectually know it does not make sense to highlight my hair this month, get a stylish haircut this week or spend any money on deep conditioning products.  And yet, there are all these things I do out of habit:

·         I go to J. Crew and I buy the cute preppy headbands on the sale table just before the register

·         I go to CVS and can’t resist buying my favorite no frizz hair serums

·         I pass the aisle with the scrunchies/clips in the Walgreen’s and when I see my favorite hard to find barrettes (the only ones that can hold my thick frizzy hair), I throw 2 packages in my cart. 

·         We stay at a hotel and I take the complimentary shower cap and tuck it away in my toiletry case (as though there are going to be any mornings in the next year where my hair looks so darn good that I wouldn’t want to ruin it by washing it????????????)

Maybe after 46 years of having hair, it’s not quite to easy to transition to a chapter in my life NOT having hair …………..

One of the chemo medicines is clear/white; the other is bright red.  When they administer the treatment, they alternate between the two “cocktails”.  I sat there staring mindlessly at the Christmas decorations in the cancer center thinking that my chemo was the perfect Christmas themed treatment:  red, white, red, white, red, white.  How sweet; seemed so “Martha Stewart” of them to make sure that your chemo is the appropriate color scheme for the season. 

Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not having chemo at Halloween! 

I know there is an image you all have in your mind of a person during chemotherapy — frail, unable to eat, trying desperately to keep her weight at a healthy level.  Let me disavow you of that image.  It’s just like being pregnant … the only foods that appeal are low fiber foods chocked with simple carbohydrates like pizza, bagels, muffins and popsicles.  (and I wonder why I gained 70 lbs when pregnant with my daughter??!!)

·        High fiber complex carbohydrates?  not so much!

·        Steamed broccoli?  not so much!

·        Garden burgers?  not so much!

Of course all your wonderful friends bring over your favorite treats — designer M&M’s, homemade brownies, gourmet english muffins and fresh baked breads.  Add to that the fact that you’re too light headed/dizzy to exercise and what do you get??  flabby woman with small perky (temporary) breasts, big love handles, and “muffin top” stomach.  No frail chemo girl here. 

One sweet observation:  just like when I was pregnant, my husband has tried to match me pound for pound.  With every brownie and M&M I eat, he’s been nice enough to match that enthusiasm with baconators, pizza and triple cheeseburgers.  It must be love!

Usually in life, more is better.  When dealing with cancer, however, a low score is better (i.e. stage I is better than stage II).  It’s a little like golf in that regard. 

But then it’s like a weird science experiment: a “positive” biopsy is really “negative”.  Testing “positive” for the BRCA genes is “negative”.

If you’re not confused enough already, read on …..   Suddenly it’s not “in” to be “thin” … Being thin limits your surgical reconstruction options, (you’re not eligible for that nifty surgery where they make new breasts out of the tissue in your lower abs), and makes the port under your collar bone stick out for all the world to see!

Is nothing sacred anymore???????????

I tried my new breasts out for size at work last week.  For my marketing friends, it wasn’t quite a focus group, because I didn’t really pull people together in a room (with M&M’s behind the one way mirror) to discuss them. Instead, I just plunged in to work, with fitted sweaters and tailored blazers to see the reaction. 

First, the reaction from those not in my inner circle: 

“how are you feeling?”  (they look down).  I say, “I’m fine; I’m getting stronger every day”.  what I mean to say, since they are no longer looking anywhere near my eyes, “they’re fine; they’re a little smaller, a little higher, but I feel like they are more in proportion to my frame; I think I’m going to like them this way.”

Second, for close women friends, I model, I turn, I admit that I’m wearing my 14 year daughter’s bra and that I haven’t gone without underwire since Reagan was president”.  They encourage me; they tell me I look proportionate.  I’ve only had one “fill” with the plastic surgeon, which seems like a cop out, and I almost feel guilty for not going back 2 — 3 times more.  We sit and try to remember what, if any, were the benefits to a 46 year old woman having big breasts.  We talk about the thousands of dollars I used to spend in minimizer bras and infrastructure to go for a quick 40 minute run.  We remember all the black tie dresses I didn’t buy for the gala, because I couldn’t figure out how to wear those dresses without a bra.  We bemoan all the cute little yoga tops that I never got to wear.

so, it’s decided… the filling is done.  I’m sticking with my new regular breasts.. leaving the super sized ones as just a distant memory.