As Is

Question: You know what feels great? Answer: Not having cancer.

Wanna feel the sublime nature of that? Here I'll give you taste.

Stop right now for 15 short seconds. Just stop. 

Take a deep breath and settle into your body. 

Notice the absence of pain. Nice, isn't it? 

Notice the absence of nausea. That's pretty nice too.

Notice the absence of crippling aches and sore-soaked, brittle bones. Give a little stretch. Bend down deep and get yerself up. Check it out. No pain. Take a moment to soak it up and enjoy that one as well.

Notice that your gut isn't bloating, and your palette is intact. Such pleasure to eat what you want and have it taste like more than metal. Such pleasure to be free of the dread, the possible penalty you will play for simply doing what you have to do.

Notice that there are no sores in your mouth. Go ahead. Eat a lemon. Enjoy every bit of tang.

Sniff sniff sniff. What do you sense? Do the scents go in or do they stop dead in their tracks? Sniff your armpit. Do you smell like you, like something you know or do you smell like chemicals, pollution, like the worst hangover you can remember. No? Well you best be smiling right about now.

Now feel the tips of your fingers. Explore what you can notice. Any numbness or low grade tingling? No? That's great. What a glorious day indeed. Keep going. 

Take a breath. 

Do you have hair on your head, above your eyes, between your legs? Funny how we want to get rid of all of that when it feels so funny to be without. Enjoy that you have that option.

And those lovely little eye lashes. Run your finger along their delicate little edges. Little gems, those are. 

Have you had a single dream or more in the past year? Notice the miracle in that tiny mysterious shadow world.  Hold onto those dreams. Write them down. Say them out loud because when those visitors don't come, it's a silent world inside.

Are you feeling any low-, mid- or high-grade anxiety? No? Fantastic. Isn't it nice to know nothing is pitilessly growing inside of you that you can't beat.

Why am I writing this? Four years in and two more to go. Coming out of the oncologist's office this morning with a smile on my face and a clean bill of health—just a regular rainy Monday morning except for the fact that today I don't have cancer and knowing how exceptional these moments are.

The Summer of Noticing

Josef and Anni Albers

I've returned to where I started a month ago, but nothing looks or feels the same. I'm somewhere new although objectively everything looks the same. What a fun way to start the week. Maybe I should say I'm home, but I can't be sure that's what I feel. I'm not sure it matters so much. I have home inside of me. I know that for sure. I'm back in San Francisco after a month of traveling in the South. After taking a course that taught me how to weave and think about how pieces could go together. After being taken care of day in and day out, freed to focus on present time and the experiences that can come from that. After a month of summer and all the sensations of that season. After passing through the hands of the people I've known forever and grown to love in just a few hours or days. After being down in a Tennessee Valley and brushing up against a possibility that I thought only existed in my head. What a ride I've been on, filling me up to the brim.

I'm starting to come down from that ride, and I can feel myself being friendly and gentle and patient because I'm curious. I want to notice how this experience has affected me with all its subtle shifts. I don't want to miss out on anything by thinking that something's over or by holding onto the memories or hopes too tightly. And I want this to be a friendly reminder to myself that there's nothing to figure out. Everything is in front of me. I just hope to be open enough to notice it.

We're so often filled with doubt, unsure and mistrusting of our selves. Doubt rears up with very little effort, but when the attention is placed on noticing, sensing and perceiving, the world and oneself in it, that doubt just seems to dissolve. The noticing takes on a life of its own. I can feel the substance of noticing after a month of easy yet substantial experiences, having the chance and the time to take in what's around me. The year seems to have started with noticing the sensations in my body, a noticing of myself. There's been an expansion as I submerged myself into a creative state and back into a summer season. Both of those created a loosening and opening. I don't want to stop. I'm completely clear about that. I've been saying yes a lot lately, and I look forward to that continuing. It may all come down to noticing.

Just Remember to Ask for What You Want

I can still feel the edges of anxiety going through my annual bi-lateral MRI process two weeks ago. Enough to remember the moments stacked on top of each leading to one essential insight I will now never forget; NEVER go to an MRI appointment by yourself. Going it alone, handling it alone, is a rut you want to avoid. It creates a low stress that builds in your body and lingers as a slow burn in between your shoulder blades.

But I went alone. At the time it didn't feel like a choice, but now I get to remember that it's always a choice.

Generally it would be Bill who would go with me. He went to every appointment. Every chemo session. Every radiation treatment. He waited and waited. He was my soldier, and he was always there. But not this time. Things are different now, and we're not together any more. There's a heaviness that comes with untangling lives. Each day we're separate, new missing things are noticed. Today, it was realizing that I didn't have my pillar in front of me. Bill's job, you see, was to stand in front of the MRI while I was in the tube. That way I could see his four eyes and his park ranger smile through my personal periscope as I lie face down, arms out-stretched, like Superman, for 40 minutes. Seeing him out there always brought my temperature down and kept my claustrophobia from kicking into high gear. He soothed me even though our communication was only by way of proximity. I could look out and see the wonder in his face. He, the mechanic, who loves mechanical things, grooving to and making sense of the John Cage-like clacks as the magnets pushed and pulled at my hydrogen molecules

But not today.

I had called the hospital ahead of time to see if someone could be in the room with me at this new place.  "No. Absolutely not. We had a problem once with someone wearing metal. Since then no one is allowed in without clearance." A friend said she'd come and was happy to wait outside for me. I felt self-conscious. I told her not to come. It's not a big deal. It's totally fine. Old patterns of knowing that I can take care of anything, so why create complications by bringing others into the mix. Oh the lifetime of training we attempt to uncarve once we wake up.

So I went alone. A glorious mistake I will never make again. The second I got in the room, shards of panic. From nowhere, vertigo set in; breathing became difficult. Tears were beginning.

"Did your doctor give you something to deal with the anxiety?"
"I was hoping a friend in here would take the place of using drugs. You guys said no one was allowed in here, so  I told no one to come."
"Well if we had realized you were going to panic like this, of course we would've let someone in here with you. Do you have anyone you can call?"

Wow, good to know. Real emotions can get me what I want. I desperately wanted to call Bill, but I knew he wouldn't come. He shut me out and turned me off. I still feel him intensely, and I could feel him close by. He was only 2 miles away, but I knew he wouldn't come. And if he did, would he provide anything other than brutal coldness? Would that make the experience worse? It was too much to process on top of two techs staring at me like I was some crazy lady who couldn't calm the fuck down.

"I'll be fine. Just give me a minute." Aah, such an optimist.

Big breath and into the tube I go. The first 28 minutes were a breeze. My little blanket swaddling my legs. Cool air on my back. Dynamite dissonance and atonal music being created from twists and turns of the MRI. I almost fell asleep I was so relaxed. Somewhere around minute 32, full blow claustrophobia. I wanted out. Out. OUT. I knew if I squeezed on the panic button everything would stop, but then I'd have to go right back in and do it again. The noise was suffocating, pressing down on my back, my shoulders, my head. It was squeezing all of the power out of me.

I looked through my periscope. No one was there. I leaned hard on Pema Chodron to help me drop the story. Feel the sensations only. Notice the source of the fear. No way. It felt bigger than any fear I could remember. There was an exquisite enormity to the fear. Somehow I made it. I counted up. I counted down. I breathed through it. I looked out and saw no movement, but I knew there was an out, out there. Maybe that was enough. And then it was over.

In the dressing room I was exhausted. The claustrophobia had surged so much adrenaline into my system I could barely stand up now. And then I cried. And I cried. And I cried for all the times I refused to ask. For all the times I resisted the support I really wanted. I cried for all that I can't take back. And then I wiped away my tears and told myself that I did the best I could.

It's these big and difficult experiences, in the depth of suffering that, by giving in or finding a way to listen, we have a chance of breaking free. And as stressful as it was,  I now have a new undeniable little spark, a new hairline pathway growing inside, whispering and reminding me, Remember to ask for what you want. 

I like going to the doctor. Yes I do.

Yesterday, I had my quarterly check-in with my oncologist. It's already two years (this week) since I started my cancer treatment--surgery, months of chemo, radiation and Herceptin treatements. Since January, ten months, ago I have entered the (hopefully) final stage of treatment--hormone therapy, 10mg of Tamoxifin, as the long-term strategy for keeping the cancer at bay...and so the ride continues.

I've come to look forward to my oncology check-ins. For the record, I like going to the doctor. I always have. I like the attention. I like being taken care of. I like, if only for 15 precious minutes, being the focus of one's intentions.  I also like that these check-ins are milestones. They're an opportunity to reflect on what's passed--an easy marker to look back over 3-4 months and acknowledge the changes, the progress, the improvements to my health and my life.

Yesterday Garrett said, "Looking at my notes from our last meeting in June, I wrote the word 'lousy' and not much more, but today you look great. What's the change?" Four months ago, I was in the process of exiting a job I no longer cared about and about to let go of my home in Pennsylvania. The pressure was still high. I was in the middle of things. I was tired and not much else. But since leaving the job and letting go of a dream that seemed to have run its course, I feel lighter. Things have opened up. My time is my own and I'm now in a position to focus only on what interests me. In this mother-culture of productivity, what a luxurious position it is. Gratitude in spades or as my friends like to say, I am now in a position to deal only with issues of getting from good to better.

Here, two years later, there's a million things still to notice, but also nothing in particular. Writing today is realizing that all of this experience, in some way, is a by-product of the cancer ride and that I want to acknowledge this time, where the impact of cancer feels like both a distant memory, yet also a low, quiet constant hum in my consciousness allowing me the chance to acknowledge change and progress and provides an extra reason to say thank you to all the things that make it possible for me to be here thriving and growing.

The unintended benefit of any dis-ease is that when it goes away, feeling its absence is more noticeable and gives way to most sublime pleasure around simply being. I'm feeling a lot of that lately. Let's see where it takes me.

Ode to Wanting More

Two days ago I quit my job. 

Scratch that. Two days ago I officially turned my attention in a new direction. What I'm looking towards is unknown but it's a direction fed by desire rather than familiarity or defaults. I have chosen this because I want something else. What it is I'm not sure. I feel lost but only a little. I feel stunned, uncomfortable, awake and hopeful. I feel present and unaccounted for. I feel hesitant but completely sure that I'm right and exactly where I want to be. I'm looking forward, towards wanting more. 

A week from now I will sell my house.

Scratch that. A week from now will be the end of a beautiful dream I once had and lived. I have gratitude that what I gained from this time will push another set of dreams forward. I have such gratitude for my home and all that it has provided me. Having spent more time building it than living in it could be ironic, but I've had the entire experience available to me for these five and a half years. And for all of it I am grateful  I have gratitude for the relationships it has provided—in getting to know my brother better as he helped me build it—watching him grow in confidence, skill and creativity. I'm grateful for my mother and her willingness to put her neck on the line. I'm grateful for her pushing to get exactly what she wanted. In doing so, helped me see what I want too. I'm grateful for getting closer to Omar, my friend, my tenant, my lawyer and my baker. He brought such warmth and generosity into every corner of that house. He made it a home and folded in his warmth. I couldn't have asked for a more kind and lovely person to inhabit that space. I'm grateful for every person who laughed in this house, who shared a meal, who took a bath, slept in comfort, sat on a porch, who raised a glass. I am grateful to everyone one of you. Your love and friendship is in there.

I'm grateful for what I've learned about building a house, managing a crew, running a budget, and turning a profit. I made every mistake possible and for this, I am grateful. I know how to do it better next time. And there will be a next time. I am grateful that I will walk away with more than I started. I'm grateful I had so much fun every single day of construction and because of that fun, the dirt, the headaches, the back aches, the cold, and crummy food, all of it seemed right. I can only hope to do it again. 

I am grateful that I wanted this house, this home. I'm grateful that I got what I wanted and that because of it, I have beautiful memories about what it feels like to really want and love life.

What are the odds?

hello world...

My name is Christina.
One year ago today I found I had breast cancer. 
Today, as far as I know, I'm cancer-free.
At least no less cancer-free than most everyone I know.

Looking back on my first entry from over a year ago, I see how the spaces have filled between who I was going in and who I've become these twelve months later. My sense of time has changed. Life is being lived more in the now with small doses of three-week cycles. Fluency has grown in the languages of "patient" and "cancer" but there are still concepts here and there that remain slippery, tricky little devils. Words like cancer-free or remission come to mind. They sound so important, something worth driving towards. But with a bit of poking, the curtain pulls back and the story gets a little more interesting.

After a year of living with this experience I now know that cancer-free isn't quite the right way to think about it. Cancer, like life, is more of a game of percentages than of absolutes. In this moment, yes, more or less, I'm cancer-free. There could be cells in there. They could be replicating. Hard to say. And with every year that passes, the chances of recurrence decrease. Will there ever be a 0% chance that I won't ever have cancer again? Likely not. Well unless, of course, we count death. But why go there? This is not that kind of conversation. Instead it's a conversation about the stories we hold onto and tell ourselves to create meaning and value. We look for guard rails, stable ground, definitions, and milestones. We do this because the reality and magnitude of impermanence and the moment may be just too much or too tenuous to handle. 

"So Garrett, when do I go into remission? And what is remission anyway? When do you tell me that I've crossed over the divide? When do I pull out the balloons?" Translation: When is this moment done and I get to check the I am now safe box?

"Actually, you've been in remission basically since about the time we met last year, and we started you on chemo. Remission is really just three months, more or less, past the point when we no longer have any visible signs of cancer. All the chemo and radiation--we consider that all to be preventative measures. Two years after we finish the Herceptin treatments we consider your chances of a return to be at 3%. As the years progress they lower to about 1.75%. If we were to stick you on a bus full of people today, statistically speaking, you are the least likely person on that bus to have cancer." Translation: No check boxes. No absolutes. What matters is now.

Don't get me wrong, I believe a future exists. And I believe there are ways to influence the percentages going in my favor. But instead of focusing on getting to a 100%, to a goal, to a state change, or even an identity, my interest and attention is shifting to what is now. It is infinitely more gratifying and fascinating and a hell of a lot less work.

Living in a culture where goal-setting and making it to the next level saturates every view and conversation, being in the moment without focusing on future implications is no easy thing. I'm drinking the kool-aid but don't think for a second transcendence has arrived. But I get taste of it and it's beautiful. The cancer ride is showing me that milestones and goals, however important and real they may seem are also myths, the stories we tell, to define ourselves and create a ground that feels more comfortable and knowable than floating in the moment.

Good stuff this is. 

So what next?

I realized when I was finishing up radiation a few weeks back that I wasn't sure what came next. In the immediate moment I understand. I know that my Herceptin treatments continue every three weeks until October. But then what? And as importantly, what am I supposed to be doing along the way? What should I be thinking about, preparing for, noticing? What appointments have to get in the queue? I thought about this because I kind of remember that my surgeon said something back in October about a follow up six months after surgery. But six months came and went, and no one called.  No one reminded me that I was supposed to do this. I just kind of remembered, "Shouldn't I be doing a follow up about now?"

On my last day with radiation, I met with my radiologist and asked if I was supposed to come back. Actually what I asked was, "Respectfully, who's in charge here--of my treatment, I mean? Who's my go-to person?" He laughed. I think he's gotten that sort of question before. I can't really remember what he said now but I do remember his candor in admitting it's an unclear path with no single point person. Then he added that I was free to call anytime if I had any questions at all. Thanks doc. You've been great.

All of these stops and turns. It's like the opposite of a dead end. I keep hitting more open roads with just enough signage to realize I'm not sure where I am. It's sinking in that there is no guide. No map. No cruise director. No concierge services. Just a series of hand-offs where I track the path as it's rolled out in front of me. Ok, go down this road. When you get there, tell them who you are. They're expecting you. Just remember to come back and see us next year. And feel free to call anytime if you have any questions at all. Thanks guys. You've been great.

 I don't know where I got the idea that there'd be someone within this medical food chain to oversee my progress or more importantly, oversee me, my experience. But it doesn't work that way. Each doctor, nurse, technician cares. They care about me in the moment, my comfort, my state of mind, my symptoms. But each has their own mandate and agenda. They hold onto me as long as it takes to document me, follow up and pass me off. But there is no one source that says, Christina, you are here. This is what you should be thinking about and watching for as you go down this road. These are the tolls you will need to pay along the way. These are the people you can expect to meet. Here's my number and this is when and why you should call. 

I'm not speaking from a place of pity or entitlement. I'm not angry. I don't expect too much. But it strikes me as broken and even dangerous to expect that a person who is living under extreme stress and intoxicated (to one degree or another) with the effects of cancer treatments could successfully manage the complexity of long term care. I write the information down. I get the schedules on the calendar, but I'll be damned if I can remember why.

Give a girl hand will you? I could do with a little more push than pull. Push that schedule on me. Don't make me pull it out of the conversation. Don't let me forget to show up. Push that support my way. Don't make me hunt down a flier on the wall of the hospital basement. Make sure I've heard all of the opportunities. Push long term preventative options on me. Make sure I'm good to go for at least a year in advance.

I feel like I made it through a brutal ocean storm riding in a tiny little raft. There's a sublime calm I'm experiencing now, but I'm still a little bit adrift. The sense of dis-ease is still here. Not only is there no one to really guide me but there's no one to offer up the possibility of an end.  The best that I can expect is a series of diminishing returns--follow ups will halve indefinitely until my potential outlives me once and for all.

I thought as I crawled out of the hard part of treatment that my faculties would bounce back faster and that I would feel it all receding. But the reality is that I'm still deep inside of it and I'm still confused. Maybe it's post-traumatic stress or the drugs or that I don't like being out of control. But I'm scared I'm missing opportunities; forgetting information; or supposed to be doing something in particular.

Where's my personal assistant? Who said she could have the year off?

Big breath Christina. You're doing great.