Archives for category: Breast cancer

How to avoid getting a “like” on Facebook

July 26, 2015 //

No, it’s not by posting too many cute cat videos or even by sharing political articles. Find a comfortable chair and take out a notebook. I will tell you how to post something to your breast cancer blog FB account and manage to get not a single, solitary “like”. The post got 8 clicks and no shares, either.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a medical story about a new treatment for vaginal atrophy, a painful side effect of breast cancer treatment. As one of my girlfriends responded upon hearing about the condition, “That sounds like bad sex.”

Indeed.

Personally, I don’t want to have bad sex. Fortunately, vaginal atrophy has not been an impediment to this.

Not everyone has or wants to have sex. But really, aren’t there more of us who want to have good sex? Isn’t this a healthy part of life for many of us?

Now, perhaps you think that vaginal atrophy is not worth writing about because it is easily treatable. My understanding is that it is not. In fact, the only reason I know about it is because one of my girlfriends had it as a consequence of treating her genetic breast cancer in her 30’s. She was not shy about asking for help. She told me that none of her western physicians were able to help her with it. Then she asked her doctor who was trained in China from whom she was receiving acupuncture. Her doctor thought about it and said, “I’m not sure this work but I try.”

Things changed a lot so much so that when my friend saw her gynecologist there was amazement accompanied by a request for the Chinese doctor’s contact information.

Women, we deserve a chance at health, including sexual health.

Read the article here. Share the article.

Tags breast cancer and sexual health, breast cancer and sexuality, vaginal atrophy

Categories Breast cancer

The Swells

July 25, 2015 //

I am on vacation with my family in British Columbia, Canada. Until yesterday, we were staying in Ucluelet, an incredibly beautiful place on the sea. We’ve spent a fair bit of time on boats. There was the Washington State Ferry ride from Anacortes, WA to Sidney, BC. There was a boat tour to see humpback whales, of which we saw several including one named, “Pinkie”. I thought, “Holy crap, please don’t tell me that this whale got it’s name to promote breast cancer awareness.” No fear, friends, her name is pinkie because she has a pink underside, which I was able to see with one of her great lunges out of the water. Unbelievable!

One of the boat rides we took was to Meares Island, off the coast of Tofino. It is a tiny island with giant trees. We spent two hours hiking on short but difficult trails before going back to the shore to wait for a small boat to take us back to the Tofino. Dennis, the captain of this 4-seater, was a character and regaled us with tales from the local area, most of which I believe were actually true.

Dennis pointed out a tiny island, “This island is for sale for $850,000.”

I don’t have that much money, but still, less than a million for a whole island? Plus, there is the Canadian/U.S. exchange rate, which today would knock nearly 25% off of the price. And it was a beautiful little place, not far from the large island of Vancouver. I could see two or three houses on it. What a deal. What a find. What an idyllic place to live.

I was gazing upon this little lump of paradise on a beautiful sunny day. Then I thought of living that close to the sea. Then I thought of the winter storms that are here. I also thought of the steep rocks on the side of the island. I wondered how many houses have fallen into the water! I suspect that keeping a house in shape there would cost a fortune, not to mention require a great deal of time and effort to maintain. Then there is the fact that it is located in one of the rainiest parts of the world.

Every moment and every thought were real. This island is idyllic. It is dangerous. It is costly. It is beautiful. It is miserably wet. This has been a wonderful vacation, by and large. I have reconnected with my family, with nature, with much needed rest and adventure. But travel is also exhausting and at times quite difficult.

Yesterday, I experienced the swell of good times, like catching a good wave of meeting delightful people and traveling through incredible natural beauty. But there were also times, when I got the shit kicked out of me, pummeled over and over, in that way that at the time, I fear that I will never get my head above water.

Fortunately, this did not last the whole day and even in the midst of my misery, at one point, I was able to shift out of it enough to get some perspective and hope that the situation could change. The wave that I was being pummeled by was the difficulty of parenting.

The sea is beautiful, powerful, and always changing.

I like on that little island whether I pony up the $850,000 or not, whether I wanted to or not, whether I planned for this or not, whether it suits my lifestyle or not.

Sometimes this feels like the greatest blessing and sometimes it feels dark and scary.

I don’t know what today will bring. My family is sleeping in.

Today, I will remind myself that every feeling has a beginning and an end. Every feeling lasts only about 30 seconds as long as we don’t respond to it in a way that keeps it firing in our brain. When I think of this, I realize how powerful our brains are. Our brains can sustain a swell or break it.

This is not easy power to exercise but it is possible. This possibility creates a sense of safety and hope for me today. I will try to remind myself of this.

Today is my last full day of vacation.

I have only one more full day of sightseeing to endure or enjoy. To a significant extent, a powerful extent, I have a say in how this plays out.

In the meantime, I’m going to reconnect with some of my photos from the trip, which gives me joy and peace. Perhaps they will bring you the same.

On the ferry from Anacortes, WA to Sidney, BC, looking toward Canada.

Anemone from the Ucluelet Aquarium, a small gem, in which they catch and release animals from local waters, every season.

Part of the Wild Pacific Trail, Ucluelet, BC.

I was enchanted by these puppets, designed by First Nations artists. This bear, holding a salmon, was designed by a Haida artist. It contains a teaching, “Be strong. Take care of those who are less strong.” I thought it was beautiful and adorable so I bought it for my friend, Greg’s grandkids. Then I immediately sent him a photo of it so that I wouldn’t get tempted to keep it for myself. Then I bought one for myself a few days later!

Cox Bay, Tofino, BC.

Meares Island.

An unexpected twist on a deer fern. Meares Island.

Bald eagle, Tofino.

Middle Beach, Tofino.

Coombs Market, famous for the goats that graze on the sod roof. Alas, I was too busy socializing with my friends, Kathryn and Nel, below, to remember to take a photo!

Tags Breast Cancer, breast cancer awareness, Canada, family vacation, Meares Island, mindfulness, nature photography, Parenting, Tofino, Ucluelet, vacation, Vancouver Island

Categories Breast cancer, Family, Flora and Fauna, Mindfulness

I can’t make a goal

July 7, 2015 //

She’s 13 years old now. I first started seeing her when she was a bouncy, saucy, and distractible 7 year-old who was able to depict movement in her intricate drawings.

Yesterday, I saw her for the 53rd time since 2009. Most of those visits occurred in 2009. That is a typical treatment pattern, initially intense, followed by sporadic booster sessions. Adolescence changes treatment relationships, often from parenting-focused to an individual focus.

Unfortunately, not all kids are good candidates for individual therapy. There are certain prerequisites. I could go on and on. However, I won’t because the most important of these is that the kid needs to want to be there. This is not just practically important but legally important. In the state of Washington, children aged 13 or older have the right to consent to mental health services. Inherent in the right to consent is the right to say, “No, I don’t want to do this.”

Thirteen-year-old’s often do not want to go to psychotherapy. This particular girl had complained on two previous occasions. However, due to parental scheduling the visits were MONTHS apart. It’s important to give kids a chance to get used to seeing me again. But yesterday, she was still coming in with the attitude, “What’s the point of this?”

Yesterday, I spelled it out. I noted that when she was younger, she was enthusiastic about seeing me. I noted that currently, this was not the case. I reassured her that this was not a criticism, just an observation, and that I cared about her no matter what. I also explained her rights, now that she is a teen.

After two sessions of tight-lipped stone walling, she started talking. I knew I had used the skills called for by the situation, but I was surprised, nonetheless. I had mentioned the importance of having goals. She replied, “I can’t make a goal.” I said, “What would you like to be different in your life?”

“Nothing that I can change.”

“What would you like different about your life, without censoring your wishes?”

At this point, tears welled in her eyes. In all of the years that I have known her, I have never seen her cry.

“I wish that I never had ADHD.”

“I know. It’s incredibly hard to have something in your life that you can’t change. I imagine that people have told you that your life is about having tons of choices. But that isn’t true. You have choices about some things. Other things are completely out of your control. I am really sad that you have ADHD. I wish I could take it away from you, but I can’t. I can, however, help you feel better about having it. It is not an elimination of the problem but I can offer you the chance to have some peace with this. I can help you feel less hopeless about your future.”

Thus began a short but productive discussion. Maybe a step toward peace. Maybe the next step will take place during the next meeting. Maybe not. Growth often occurs in fits and starts.

It is so hard to have shitty unfair things in our lives. People die. People get sick. People suffer. People we love. Some of those people may even be ourselves.

I am sorry.

I imagine that people have told you than you have control over all of the events that have led to suffering.

That is not fair.

But nonetheless, there are opportunities for choice, for helpfulness, and for peace.

Tags ADHD, Breast Cancer, control, coping with things that cannot change, illness

Categories Breast cancer

Clear Cut

June 28, 2015 //

I have lived in the state of Washington for 40 of my 49 years. My parents loved camping and hiking. My husband and I love camping and hiking. Subsequently, I have spent a fair amount of time in the forested areas of Washington and our neighbor to the south, Oregon.

The trees of the Northwest are powerful, long-lived, and majestic. The inspire us with their appearance and are downright useful. They provide habitat for many animals, oxygen, shade, and prevent erosion, among many other things.

There are many uses for live trees. There are also uses for dead trees. The Northwest is a major supplier of lumber. Even nearby Tacoma, has the nickname, “Aroma of Tacoma” due to the odor of pulp mills, which is a perfume that no one would ever dab behind each year.l

Dead trees are incredibly useful. They are used to make paper, cardboard, and lumber. Lumber is used in construction. Lumber is even used to make toothpicks. We use a lot of wood in our lives.

Live trees are beautiful and useful.

Dead trees are useful.

Both statements are true.

There are also hard truths that accompany these truths, of which I was reminded during a trip to Oregon state last week.

The brown areas? They used to look like the green areas. This is what the forest looks like after a clear cut. Every tree is cut down within a particular area. Are there other ways to log that don’t involve taking down every tree? Yes, there are. But clear cutting still happens and from what I can see looking up at the mountain sides, it is still a common way of logging.

While in rural NW Oregon, I spotted about seven logging trucks just like this one in the span of about an hour while killing some time in the small town of Vernonia, which has a population of just over 2000 people.

Those logs are on their way to being made into useful products that we use on a daily basis.

But remember, there’s this.

The forest is alive with many living things, both flora and fauna, not just trees. And yet here, I just see a whole lot of dirt. There was an entire mini-ecology alive there. Now it is not.

Even clear cutting is not clear cut.

There are so many things in life that are not clear cut. Many truths are afoot in our lives, even truths that seem at great odds with one another. One term in psychology for this is “dialectic”, which is a foundational principle of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). There are a number of definitions for dialectic going back to ancient times. In DBT the dialectic is more closely allied with eastern philosophy, specifically dualism. I am no expert in this model but my understanding is that instead of looking at the world in terms of right and wrong, one looks at disparate positions and considers both to contain truth. To make a long story short, this can help people from getting stuck, move to acceptance, and get on with their lives. It does not mean not having an opinion or agreeing with everything.

I have been trying to engage more in dialectical thinking. Dialectics come up frequently in the breast cancer community. Cancer sucks! (True) Cancer is a gift. Lots of us have trouble with statement number two. But there are many people who do see their cancer experience as being a gift. From a dialectical perspective, I would work to accept both of those realities. I don’t have to agree. Both statements do not have to be true FOR ME. But I can accept that there is truth to both positions. For me, that is freeing. I can just be who I am and think the way I think without trying to convince anyone or feel invalidated by someone else’s seemingly incompatible truth.

Dialectics come up a lot in parenting a teen. My child has truth underlying wants and beliefs. My husband and I have truth in our wants and beliefs. We work toward what is called in DBT, The Middle Path, the way that honors both sides of the dialectic. It is not a simple compromise but often includes compromise. It often includes a lot of creative problem solving, knowing when to flex, when to stay firm, and when to provide opportunities for growth and change.

Dialectics come up a lot in American politics, seemingly every single second of the day!

Last week, two amazing things in the U.S. occurred. The first was a national outcry against the continued display of the Confederate flag in public places in the South, particularly on government buildings. Personally, I hate what the Confederate flag represents in my country. I am glad to see that public opinion is impacting states to take it down.

The other amazing thing that happened was that the Supreme Court of the U.S. ruled that marriage between same sex individuals is not only legal in all state and territories, but that it is illegal to bar individuals from obtaining a marriage license. I am very happy about that ruling. It is a monumental step in civil rights legislation. However, there are many people, a vocal minority in the country, who are very unhappy about it. There are some who are even calling for acts of civil disobedience to defy the law. I have seen a number of people arguing against this. People should follow the law whether they agree with it or not, is the argument.

Meanwhile, an African American teacher was recently arrested for her act of civil disobedience, which was to take down the Confederate flag flying atop the SC state capitol building. She has been hailed by many as a hero. I actually agree that it was a courageous act of civil disobedience. It could also be argued that she could have waited to see what happened. Legal wheels and public opinion, were arguably already in motion to get rid of the flag. On the other hand, she kept the topic alive and that is of some value.

However, why is one act of civil disobedience okay and the other not?

We could say, “Well, the majority think the flag should come down so then it’s okay.” Well, when Harriet Tubman was illegally freeing slaves from the South, lots and lots of southerners were not okay with that.

We could say, “Well, I’m just right and the other side is just wrong.”

Our legislative branch has held this stance for awhile. The people we like keep saying things that we agree with. “Yay! I agree with that!” The other side keeps saying things we don’t like. “Boo, what a bunch of idiots.”

Meanwhile, very little decision-making is getting made and the decisions that are being made are being done in a very inefficient convoluted manner.

Trying to be right all of the time is just a bunch of talk and no action. There is not clear cut path. There is no absolute truth at least one that we can fully understand.

Working under the assumption that truth is absolute is not very useful.

The Middle Path actually goes somewhere.

Tags all or none thinking, black-and-white thinking, Breast Cancer, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, mindfulness, politics, The Middle Path

Categories Breast cancer

Not ready made

June 9, 2015 //

One of my favorite classes while an undergraduate at the University of Washington was, “Ideas in Art”. We learned about visual art from different time periods and cultures along with the poetry and philosophy associated with each culture and time period. One of our required reading for the part of the course that covered the early modern art era in Europe was Marcel Duchamp’s, The Green Box. Duchamp was one of the founders of the Dada movement, an avant-garde style that stood with one foot in the absurd. “Dada” after all was named after the babbled phonemes that infants make before they learn to utter full words. Each of the 320 original Green Boxes contained 94 scraps of paper, notes, sketch studies, and more. What we read was an English translation of these items.

The Green Box contained a lot of information about Duchamp’s approach to art. He was a painter, sculptor, and art discoverer. Examples of the last category was his “readymade” art. This consisted of a manufactured object that made into art by calling it art. The infamous of Duchamps’ readymade art was, Fountain, a urinal that he displayed upside down and signed with the pseudonym, “R. Mutt.” Duchamp also made modifications to readymade objects, which he called, “readymade aided”.

As you might expect, the art world was not greatly enamored with Duchamp’s readymade’s, aided or not. Duchamp was provocative, to be sure. But he was trying to test the meaning of art with absurdity and to make his own meaning for art by using found objects. Aesthetics are, after all, highly subjective.

A lot of my experience of breast cancer has been about making meaning of it. I know that as a psychologist, this is a common process in dealing with loss, grief, and for many but not all of us, trauma. Meaning, however, is not something that has already been manufactured; it is a process. Maybe that is a piece of the resistance to labels like “survivor”, cancer metaphors like war, or traditions like wearing pink feathered boas. I have also seen the tradition time and time again of resisting all established traditions by attempting to make a new paradigm.

Cancer research and treatment needs objective standards in order to make discovers in a systematic way and to deliver treatment in a way that makes objective sense. This doesn’t mean that everyone is treated the same but the focus is on standards and protocols. And the things that people consider “unscientific” like rapport and responding to a cancer patient in an emotionally competent manner, are not unscientific. They are included in the science of psychology!

The meaning I make from breast cancer, however, is more about my individual identity. The meaning is subjective; it’s personal. Psychology can study the typical course of grief and loss and it has. I can read about the process and it may help me understand what I am going through. But I still have to go through it. I have to experience it for myself.

There will most certainly always be labels in our culture. To have no labels would make any chance of shared meaning and connection impossible. But labels, used inflexibly, like cookie cutters is not healthy. Language and labels are dynamic because cultures are dynamic. And within every culture, we have many individuals.

In my professional life, I provide information and guidance based on objective research and my subjective experience. A gift of my blogging is that most of the time, I only have to speak for myself. This is a vital part of my self-care and healing.

Just as there are many types of art, there are many types of people. Personally, I prefer to go to museums that feature more than one vision. Before we became cancer patients, we were individuals. There’s no reason for us to stop now! The objective similarity among individuals who have been diagnosed with breast cancer is that we have all been diagnosed with breast cancer at some time in our lives. The meanings can differ but still exist as truths.

Meaning is not readymade.

Tags Breast Cancer, Dadaism, identity, labels, Marcel Duchamp

Categories Breast cancer, Mindfulness

You can call me

June 8, 2015 //

You can call me a “survivor”. If I am alive, I consider myself to be surviving. I hope this is true for a long long time. I know that for many, it is not.

You can call me a “warrior” but I’m not fighting anyone. I am a pacifist, after all. War is a battle fought between peoples.

You can call me, “victorious” over cancer. The best I can be at this point is “no evidence of disease”. That is a gray area, to be sure. A victory is not the same as, “no evidence of defeat”.

You can describe cancer with other human metaphors, a thief, a rapist, a robber. To me, it is a disease, a natural disaster that works from the inside. It is a disease that is very good at reproduction. It is not sentient. It has no will, just a way.

Words are powerful. Cancer is more powerful than words.

But people have a will, people have a way, science. People have compassion and drive to help others.

When there is a cure for breast cancer, you can call me anything you please. Because the only words that will matter are, “Thank you.”

Tags Breast Cancer, language

Categories Breast cancer

Shame and Honor

May 31, 2015 //

As a mother of an almost 17 year old girl, I try to keep my mouth shut when it comes to what she chooses to wear. What girls and women “should” wear. Yikes, what a thorny question. As a feminist, I hate the way clothing is so sexualized even for young girls. I remember seeing a two year-old wearing a sundress with darts sewn in at her chest, as if she had breasts. Maybe it’s a small thing but seriously, why would a clothing manufacturer make the extra effort involved to do this? On the other hand, I understand that for teens, dressing in different ways is an important part of identity development and part of that development is sexual. As a feminist, I hate the way girls are shamed by adults and peers about what they wear because it is “distracting” to boys or is “slutty” or “whorish”.

Another thing I keep my mouth shut about is her weight. Yes, it is true that 1/3 of adults are obese, that she eats an unhealthy diet, and that she no longer exercises regularly. However, there are so many messages to girls and women about what they should way and how they should look that it is nearly impossible to have a conversation about weight. I admit that up until a few years ago, I would nudge the scheduling of my annual physical by a couple of months every year so that I could lose weight in time for the appointment and not get “THE TALK” from my internist. And honestly, she gives “THE TALK” in the best way possible. But I still dreaded stepping on the scale. And for the record, I never managed to lose weight during those couple of months between my scheduled and rescheduled appointments.

As I’ve written many times before, I have struggled to maintain healthy weight since my teen years. Although I am not a person who people typically think of as overweight, my BMI has entered into the obese range twice in my life, once in my late 30’s and the second time in my mid forties. Each time, I lost 40 pounds. When my weight was either declining or in the healthy weight zone, I typically felt good about my body. When I was not, I had some pretty horrible things things that I told myself every day, like a tic. And when I was at a healthy weight, I still had a habit of comparing my weight to the people around me, even people I encountered while walking down the sidewalk.

As I wrote in the post, The Skin I’m In, the tic stopped after I’d done a lot of work on my body image, a natural thing to work on after breast cancer surgeries. At the time, I was at a healthy weight. I told my psychologist that I was concerned that if I were to gain weight again, that the tic, the tape in my head that told me “you’re fat” and other messages would come back. She told me that it might not come back.

By March of this year, I had gained back 25 of the 40 pounds I had lost between May and October of 2012. This was also, incidentally, at the time I went to The Second Chance Prom with my husband. We had a wonderful time. As I looked at the photos of myself from that day, I thought, “Yes, I’m overweight but I look beautiful.”

I realized that although a substantial amount of weight had returned, the tape in my head had not come back. I intended to write about this in my blog. Then I found that it was really difficult to write about. I was ashamed of how badly I had judged myself. I was also too ashamed to admit that I thought I was beautiful. Women are only supposed to say that about their young selves, after all.

Shame is a powerful emotion and it results from a sense of having violated society’s rules. One reason women and girls have a lot of body shame is because we have failed to achieve perfection. We also fail to stay young. But another one of society’s rules is that women and girls are to be dissatisfied with their bodies.

What a trap. What a no-win situation, if winning is defined as having a healthy body image.

A couple of months ago, I started following Weightwatchers again. It was the first time I’ve gotten myself back on an eating program without “hitting bottom”, that is, being motivated by shame and disgust in myself. I started referring to Weightwatchers as “wise-minded eating”. I do watch my weight to reduce chance of cancer recurrence since my cancer was highly estrogen and progesterone responsive and adipose tissue (basically body fat) has glandular function and produces female hormones. Also, a healthy diet is just good fuel for my body. I feel better when I eat well. I am also losing weight at a slow, but steady pace. My motivation, instead of eliminating shame is instead, seeking health.

One of the antonyms for shame is honor. I like that.

I honor my body for getting me this far in life. I will continue to do my best to treat it well.

Tags Body image, Breast Cancer, shame, weight loss

Categories Breast cancer

Days and Nights

May 25, 2015 //

I had a wonderful three day weekend with my family at the beach. That is, during the day. Saturday and Sunday nights were full of nightmares. As I mentioned yesterday, three years ago yesterday, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had a wonderful day yesterday, during the day. Last night I dreamed that I had a scan and that there was evidence of a recurrence. I spoke with a radiologist on my dream phone. I can’t remember quite what he said, but I recognized it immediately as a segue to bad news. I told him, “You are saying that to tell me that my cancer has come back!” He admitted that he had. Healthcare professionals, for the record, I am also a deliverer of bad news. I know your tricks, especially when it is dream and my unconsciousness is writing the story.

In the dream, my husband looked at a written report and in a tone that communicated a lack of sufficient concern, he said, “It says here that it is an 18 meter mass.”

I grabbed the paper and saw that it said that it was a .18 meter mass. “Oh my God, John! It’s a .18 meter mass, not an 18 meter mass! That means it is a 1.8 centimeter mass NOT 18 METERS!”

(Dream mind does not always move the decimal point correctly, I admit. I also think dream mind perfectly illustrated the most stupid of the stupid marital disagreements, the one that MISSES THE POINT. I have DREAM CANCER GOD DAMMIT! Stop fighting with your husband. Neither one of you know how to treat DREAM CANCER!)

People, you get it. My brain is working crap out. Mom, if you are reading along, my brain needs to work crap out. I am doing my very best to keep the crap to a minimum. It is easier during the day time. I had a wonderful day yesterday and a wonderful today. I have less control over the worlds that my brain creates in my dreams.

This year was easier than last year. Perhaps next year will be easier than this year. Healing is a process that is approximately linear over time. But it has its fits and starts.

This morning, John and I took a walk on our own. That time together, along with the sweet historic buildings, and the beautiful farmland, did much to quell the nightmares.

I wish I did not still have them, but I do.

I am, in sum, a pretty happy person. It has been awhile since I let the fears in my nightmares ruin my waking hours. I didn’t do that today, either.

Living with the uncertainty of life, the horrible, the traumatic, all of the things that I have experienced thus far, for me, is not about pushing it out of my mind. I can’t! My mind does not work that way. If I can’t notice both the good and the bad, I can’t help people as a psychologist. I can just spout platitudes that are not true and do not honor the hardship that many people experience.

And if I don’t notice and validate the good and bad in my own life, I can’t live with the kind of truth that gives me a sense of purpose and integrity.

I need to notice and remember in my life. But I’m living, too.

And pretty darned well if you get right down to it.

My selection of a Boho Chic outfit thumbs its nose at nightmares!

The gentle farmland is decidedly not nightmarish.

Even pink, in its original form, is not scary to this breast cancer survivor.

Tags Breast Cancer, cancer anniversaries, mindfulness, survivorship

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings, Mindfulness

May 24, 2015 //

Yes, I know that I already posted that today is the third anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis. But I wrote that post yesterday to mark the day, just in case I didn’t feel like writing. But it is now the real day, my family is still sleeping, and I have more to say.

I slept solidly last night and woke up well rested. However, I had nightmare upon nightmare. They basically boiled down to losing everyone and everything in horrible ways. I was uninvited to one of my very best friends weddings FOR NO REASON except that it was suddenly decided that I was a bad person. My daughter, in a moment of anger, made a false report of child abuse against me. She then realized the horror of what she had done when my psychology license was suspended but in nightmare land, the wheels of motion could not be turned back. There was also a weird little dream where I walked into Costco (nightmare!) and the store layout had been totally changed (nightmare times two!) I was then instructed by a woman at the makeup counter to use red lip liner on both my lips and along my eye lid. The last little dream may have had something to do with my daughter’s contraction of pink eye last week. The brain does weird weird things, let me tell you.

Not everyone is impacted by anniversaries of bad events the way that I am. And it’s not like I am sitting with a calendar, marking the days so that I remember. I have one of those brains that is very good at marking the passage of time. This is often a very handy brain feature. I am a good planner, for example. My good friend, Gina, died over 15 years ago, suddenly, a few months after giving birth to her son. It happened in August. Although enough time has passed that I don’t remember the exact date or the exact number of years, I still often have a mournful feeling in my body near the date of her death. August is also the month of my mastectomy and another very bad day in my life. On August 8, 2013, I found myself at work suddenly crying uncontrollably, after which I realized that it was the first anniversary of my mastectomy.

August 2014 was hard because we were on vacation and I found myself extremely anxious being away from home. My psychologist suggested that we avoid taking vacations during the anniversary times of bad events. I went back and forth about going away this weekend, Memorial Day Weekend, because of its overlap with my diagnosis date. (Yes, people, I not only got my cancer diagnosis right before a three day weekend but before one perfect for making war metaphors.) I actually made a number of reservations in the last few months and then cancelled them. When my husband was gone for 10 days, earlier in this month, I decided that anniversary or not, I needed to get away for my own sanity so I made reservations that could not be cancelled without a huge financial penalty.

On Friday, we made the drive to the rental house. We left at 3:00 pm and I expected given the fact that it was a holiday weekend that it would take at least 2 1/2 hours to get there to allow for an extra hour of traffic. Our first surprise was that my daughter, who finds car trips to be incredibly stressful, was actually pleasant on the drive. Our second surprise is that the trip only took two hours. When we walked into the house, my husband, seeing the gorgeous view out the back of the house, to which is attached with a wraparound deck, exclaimed, “This is the best place you have every gotten for us, hands down.”

Yesterday, we had a wonderful day. My daughter was in a good mood, the best I have seen for months. She SPENT TIME WITH US. She actually sat down at the dining table to eat lunch and invited my husband to join her. She played on the beach despite the availability of Internet! Sometimes, when I have a wonderful day, it can actually be a bit dysregulating, especially if it comes after a particularly stressful time, as this vacation has. Although it’s mostly good, this is the time when I’m most likely to get emotionally sloppy with my friends. “You are the BEST FRIEND IN THE UNIVERSE!!!” It’s not like I’m not sincere but you know, there’s a time and a place for everything and sometimes I act drunk on emotion. Good thing my people love me and are understanding.

Today may be a hard day. Today may be a wonderful today. Today may be both hard and wonderful. I may even get bored. I am hoping that today will be a celebration.

The view from the rental house at low tide.

The view of the house from the beach. The decks are amazing. I want to have a seafood party at this house!

Scene from historic La Conner, WA, taken with the watercolor setting on my camera. I decided that might look nicer on a gray morning.

Tags Breast Cancer, La Conner, Puget Sound, survivorship, travel

Categories Breast cancer

Today

May 24, 2015 //

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Today I am exactly 49 1/2 years old. Today is a new day. Three years ago today, at about 10:00 am, I was told that I had an approximately 1 centimeter tumor, invasive ductal carcinoma, in my right breast. I was about as surprised as I could be. I had only a limited idea of how my life would change. Today is today. I am spending it in rural Washington, on the beach. Yesterday was a wonderful day, much better than I expected. Today, I may be in the mood to write, I may not. (I wrote this post yesterday.) I am hoping that today is a good day. I try to be grateful for each day. I mostly succeed.

The view from the rental house in La Conner, WA. Can you believe this?

Deception Pass
Anacortes, WA

Old warehouse in La Conner. The exterior was dilapidated. What a surprise to see this beautiful ceiling. Also, we probably should not have been in this building.