From Breast Cancer

Once Upon a Mane

14 years ago today, the day before my “aerodynamic surgery” aka mastectomy aka the amputation of my boobs, in preparation for my chemo “haircut”, I decided it was high time for an epic check mate kinda move & had my goldilocks cut off in an attempt to taper down to the bald. I actually had a party at the Salon that day with my Pinot Grigio girls from my hood. Take that cancer.

Do I miss the old mop? Nah. ‘Twas a bit unruly, if you wanna know the truth. A couple of cowlicks always causing me double trouble, refusing to lay any which way but loose.

I did kinda hope i might get some of those chemo curls everybody else in the world seems to get… but alas, i got chemo spikey spikes instead. C‘est la vie but life is a good thing. At least they are low maintenance cuz that’s another good thing. Also, saves money on hairbrushes since I don’t own one anymore. Who knew so much good could come out of one scaryAF but bold ass haircut?

Typing a Tribute to Jenny Pagliaro “Fast As I Can” ~RIP

RIP Jenny Pagliaro. Singer of Roses and Cigarettes. She was only 35. Her song “Fast As I Can” is about living with metastatic breast cancer. She was a sister I didn’t know personally. But I take her death very personally. I’m 53. The same beast that tried to kill me 10 years ago, killed her today. At 35. I’m not OK with that. With any of it.

Everybody knows that 1 in 8 women will get breast cancer in their lifetime. I am one of the 1 in 8. But not everybody knows that 3 out of 10 of those 1 women in 8 (that’s 30% of all initial breast cancer diagnosis regardless of stage) will have a breast cancer recurrence, become metastatic, become one of the 113 women who die every day in our country. If you are inside the breast cancer world, it feels like everybody outside the breast cancer world thinks that since we all think pink in October, that we got breast cancer “handled”. I doubt Olivia Pope would consider the situation handled.

I keep posting about my friends keeping on dying cuz they keep on dying and I am a witness to their lives and they will not go softly into the night if I stand up here on this platform and say there name out loud and proud, do my part to pay forward my own good fortune by helping keep their memory alive.

Today Jenny Pagliaro is one of the 113 women (and #mengetbreastcancertoo) die from breast cancer every day in our country. There are 112 more women, who are not famous rock stars who wrote uber fab breast cancer anthems, that will die from metastatic breast cancer. Just like Jenny Pagliaro. But without the fanfare. It will not be on the evening news. The world will not notice. Except we in the breast cancer community will notice. We feel each one. We all know many of them. Some of deeper in the breast cancer movement have people they know and love die everyday, sometimes more than one friend a day. We all know it could be us. We don’t have breast cancer handled. It is NOT a manageable disease.

It’s not a fluke that Jenny Pagliaro or any of my friends who die on a given day, die on any given day. It’s what cancer does. It has one job, and it does it well. Approximately 800 women (and men) get breast cancer in the US every day, and 113 die every day. We haven’t done much to change those ugly stats. Pink has not handled cancer.

Metastatic breast cancer research is where our focus needs to be. UCLA Metastatic breast cancer researcher Dennis Slamon’s discovery of the targeted immunotherapy aka Herceptin is the only reason I’m sitting here typing these word. It used to be 100% fatal kind to get. His work was focused on metastatic breast cancer patients without any options remaining who had all been told to go home and get their homes in order. He took these “hopeless” cases, gave them hope and Herceptin, and ended up turning the tide for Her2 breast cancer patients like me. Before we didn’t have a bullet against the beast. Now we have a bullet. So far, so good, mine’s been a silver bullet.

But my point is, we need to do this with all the cancers, not just breast cancers. This is where we need to be putting our monies, into metastatic cancer research. The #truthbomb is, if we cure metastatic cancers, then it becomes a manageable disease cuz nobody is dying from it. Then we are “handling” it. I recommend METAvivor Research and Support Inc. 100% of everything they raise goes to metastatic breast cancer research. The kind that kills. The kind we should be focusing on. They are focusing on it. They got one job and I believe they are gonna do it.

Meanwhile, Pagliaro’s song “Fast As I Can” resonates deep with me today.  Here’s a really good Billboard article about her. Here are a couple quotes I pulled outta it that hit me where I live as fast as I can.

“The upbeat, twangy songs message about living life to the fullest shines through, even as it chronicles Pagliaro’s frequent hospital visits for cancer treatment.”

&

“This song was written about my battle with stage IV breast cancer,” Pagliaro told Billboard at the time. “It’s about not letting the biggest challenge you’ve ever faced stop you from living your dreams.”

The New Phone Books Are Here!

[You know that scene in The Jerk where Steve Martin gets stoked over “The new phonebooks are here!” A similar scene went down here today, when I realized that Shaken has 100 reviews on Amazon! This is so very timely not to mention encouragingAF as my sweet Amanda (the best personal assistant EVER) & I put the noses to the grindstone to take the old red pencil and mark up the recording for the Audible version.]

So damn grateful for the kindness of reviews. It seems like a little thing, but to all of us who put our works out in the world, it is actually all the things & a bag of chips with a cherry on top. Not counting Amazon sales (which is the only thing Amazon counts… They don’t count the 1k+ books I’ve bought (from them) and sold from the trunk of my car on my travels around the country, solo or with The Grace Project.) I have personally looked into the eyes and put over 1000 books in people’s hands. True, I’ve only sold about half those. The others I have used as thank you cards to my gracious hosts in my travels around the country/world; I have donated to many friends of friends who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and I couldn’t bring myself to charge them on top of what they are going through; I’ve sold them at my book release parties and other book events like the #Milford Readers & Writers festival, my library’s local author book fair, and other events and appearance, or foundations have asked me to donate books to their fundraisers and I always do. –My point is not to Pat myself on the damn back or anything here. Patting yourself on the back never feels quite as sweet as somebody else patting you on the back. My point in opening my vein here, is cuz I don’t know how else to properly express the depth of gratitude I’m feeling to hit the milestone of 100 reviews. Last week I had a conversation with somebody who challenged my legitimacy as an author cuz I’m self published and they wondered if anybody but the hubcap has ever bought my book. Kinda sent me spiraling. I did not leave my house the next day, even called in sick to occupational therapy for my #write hand. After laying around the house all damn day I still couldn’t sleep that night. After scrolling through Facebook like a prayer list as I am won’t to do in the middle of the night, I ended up clicking onto my Amazon Shaken Not Stirred . . . a Chemo Cocktail page and read through every single review sending out mad love and gratitude to all those crazy beautiful souls. I’ve recently realized what a miracle it is to get Amazon reviews at all, since over the years I’ve had various people I’ve personally handed books to in my travels around the country contact me saying they tried to give me a review but Amazon won’t accept it cuz they aren’t a verified purchase since they bought one at an event or outta the trunk of my car. And they always take down any reviews from friends and family. I get that, kinda? but I also don’t. The hubcap & redheads all wrote reviews I thought anybody looking for a cancer memoir would find helpful since they lived through it too. It wasn’t just my story. They weren’t just gushy sweet nothings but thoughtful reviews. But Amazon took them down. Whatever. Back to my point. Bowing down in gratitude. It truly is one of the best ways to love your fave authors.

Speaking of, I have a lot of fave author friends out there. Please feel free to post the links for your books so all my friends can know all know and love all your good books like I do. And please always try to go and leave a kind word for them on Amazon. #fortheloveofbooksandauthors

Red

Blast from the past FB memory of bc (before cancer) Joules. 11 years ago today. Probably cuz I’m in a strange space contemplating life & death and especially the life & death of my step-sister Shele, this old memory popping up this morning, led me down a road and I decided to follow it to see where it would take me. Curiously, serendipitously, it led me from this random day in March 11 years ago, to the random day that August the poem the picture inspired, to another random day that same August–precisely on August 23–when I was contemplating my own life and possible death and Shele got in a car, drove from Indy, and showed up to the prayer meeting we had at the Evanshire to kick off my cancer battle. I will never ever forget that. We didn’t know each other very well. We didn’t grow up together. We weren’t the Brady Bunch. We had a whole lifetime before we met and a few lifetimes after. We lived in the same city for a little while and that was lovely. She introduced me to Shania Twain on one of our girls nights out. I can never hear Shania and not think of her. I had a dream of seeing Shania in concert with Shele that will always be an unchecked box. Cuz the box on her calender at the end of the dash was checked off on Wednesday, March 20, 2019. The box on my calendar for tomorrow is to get in the car, drive to Indy, & show up to celebrate her life. Which seems fitting, to me. Honoring to her, since that’s how she lived her life as far as I knew. She showed up. It’s really the least we can do. But it’s also everything, which I am reminded as I remember Shele and her fine art of showing up.
[While I was working on this little meditation and preface to my poem, I realized that Red is also the color for Stroke & Aneurysm Awareness. Sweet serendipity, circling back to my step-sister Shele, like a benediction. Rest in peace. Loved you like a sister.

Red

What was she thinking?
The writing was on the shirt
Red. Read it and weep.

Red means stop. Smell the
Roses NOW. Think on these things…
Capture this moment.

Take a snapshot. Write
A haiku about the girl
With long hair and curves.

Red flag hiding on
The billboard that chest would be
Come what may someday

Soon. Some random day
In August. As inciting
Incidents are wont

To do making much
Ado like they do. Outta
Nowhere. But leading

Somewhere. In my case
Aerodynamic. Cancer
Wasn’t on my mind.

Not on my radar.
I wasn’t 42 yet–
The proverbial

Answer to my life,
universe, everything me.
My left boob was red

Hot*. But not like the
Happy ending kind of hot
But goodbye girls kind.

Good riddance pound of
Flesh. I like you better off
My chest. The one thing

Is swimsuit shopping
In a curvy world. That girl
Didn’t have to think

Twice. This girl though
Whose cup overflows. Doesn’t
Translate to swimsuits.

*breast thermography is a non-traditional way to scan for breast cancer, and red basically means hot (cancer activity) areas on the scan. #nutshell

#marchmarchness #writeclub #haikuchallenge #haikuaday #haiku #poetry#becausetheworldneedsmorepoetry #red #breastcancer #cancer#mastectomy #swimsuitshopping #thestruggleisreal

#WWBD? Day

It’s the night before my birthday. I’ve been feeling all the feels about getting to have another birthday, another road-trip around the sun, all day today. This one will be my 52nd. But I’d like to take 5 before I hit the gas, hit the road, chase the sunset. Cuz ever since 3 years ago today, on another day before my birthday, I got other feels that I just gotta repect. Feels that make me feel like taking a knee, to remember, to honor, my friend/doppelganger/breast cancer sister/fellow aerodynamic runner/SCAR girl Barbie Ritzco aka Marathon Barbie aka Gunnery Sergeant Barbara Ritzco, USMC.

I don’t know if she’s resting in peace or not cuz I imagine the SCAR girl reunion in heaven is still a bit lit since Barbie got there 3 years ago today. Still. Damn, I miss her like hell down here. And even though she’s still with me in spirit… or maybe it’s phantom pain, like sometimes how I feel something in my boobs that aren’t there anymore. The price of love. The proof. Of love. A beauty mark that she was here. Etched in me. Like a #WWBD? carved into, our outta, my soul. Maybe that old saying “you can’t take anything with you” is #fakenews. Cuz it sure feels like she took a part of me with her. I like that thought. The beauty mark she left on me, was also a piece of me she took with her. #partinggifts

So #WWBD? What. Would. Barbie. Do? That is the question I ruminate today, the day before my birthday, as I remember her.

Last month, I was happy, honored, and humbled to help bring David Jay’s Unknown Soldier Project to Cincinnati. One of the superpower most special parts of this exhibit, for me, besides getting the old SCAR Cincy crew together, was seeing my friend Barbie’s SCAR portrait on exhibit with The Unknown Soldier Project for the first time. Though to me, it felt more like: Finally.

On the surface, Gunnery Sergeant Barbara Ritzco’s portrait might seem to be a rather “unusual deployment” in The Unknown Soldier exhibition. Her amputation is not like the other amputations in the exhibit. Her IED was breast cancer to the chest. Her amputation was the collateral damage. Her battle with breast cancer was her unusual deployment, and one she would always say was the hardest one because it took her away from the men who served under her. Reluctantly, though, as she watched the lump grow on her chest, trying to will it away so as not to leave her brothers behind. And in the end, she laid down her life for her brothers all the same. Barbie died a couple weeks before her 40th birthday. She died planning her 20th year retirement party (with her sister who had enlisted with her). Which ended up being her sister’s retirement party and Barbie’s celebration of life. And we are proud to see her The SCAR Project portrait rightfully in this band of brothers and sisters. The following is Barbie’s The SCAR Project bio, in her own words, written shortly after her diagnosis at 36.

“Training didn’t prepare me. A weapon, a FLAK jacket and a Kevlar helmet didn’t protect from THIS enemy. 18 years active duty.  Two combat deployments. I was diagnosed with Stage IIIB Breast Cancer, after only four months in Afghanistan.

Perseverance, endurance, determination. Things that have been taught to me and instilled in me. Giving up or giving in is not an option. I have skydived, surfed, swam, cycled and completed about 15 Marathons since my diagnosis.

I didn’t set out to accomplish all these things with any real purpose.  I needed to remain active for my own sanity and dignity. Adapt and overcome. I am adapting to my new life with Breast Cancer and using it as my motivation to keep moving forward. I have been led, unarmed, to a different battlefield, in a different fight, one that is uncertain, unpredicted, and currently undefeated.

I am not going to ever get over Breast Cancer or move past it. I will live with it for the rest of my life. Remission is not a cure. I don’t believe people actually “see” Breast Cancer. They hear about it but they don’t listen. It is a terrible thing that happens to everyone else but could never happen to them. Everyone needs to understand and visually see the realness of this disease. Breast Cancer takes no prisoners. It can take anyone at any time.

The SCAR Project has allowed me to uniquely express myself and showcase how Breast Cancer has broken me down and stripped me of every feminine indicator yet I fight, unprotected, unarmed, and unwavering… but most importantly, unashamed.”

Click HERE to read Barbie’s SCAR story in her own words on The SCAR Project Blog.

Click HERE to see footage of Barbie sharing her SCAR story at The SCAR Toronto Exhibition in 2014.

Click HERE to see footage of Barbie’s SCAR portrait hanging with her band of brothers at The Unknown Soldier Exhibit in Cincinnati last month.

Anatomy of the C-word

9 years ago today was the mother of all inciting incidents for me. My doctor called and said the damn c-word to me. No, the bad one: cancer. Tonight, FB memories reminded me of a few postcards from the road #shakennotstirred #breastcancer #chemococktails #memorylane…

Here’s a recap, post by post. #nofilter

August 20, 2008: No post cuz Day 1 and I didn’t know it yet.

August 20, 2009: No post but still downing chemo cocktails.

August 20, 2010: 2 years ago today… my breast surgeon said the C-word to me. I say, F the c-word. I don’t mean to offend; it’s just what’s on my mind.

Also: Chapter 16 is a wrap

August 20, 2011: Three years ago today I found out I had cancer. The past 1096 days have been a lot of me crowd surfing like in this video. Last night I watched soul surfer and learned how to really surf. Wow. Today this song goes out to all my survivor siblings. I’m part of your crowd so go ahead, surf, hang ten even!

August 20, 2012:

A year of living sincerely – Day 1

Also: Country strong.

https://youtu.be/STvnp0phjMw
RUNKEEPER
Also: Cheers and thank God for 1461 days!
August 20, 2013:High freaking 5 everybody! Well, it’s been 5 years since I got that damn phone call with those nasty damn words that I had cancer. Except for the incredible mercy of God, I don’t know how I got here…how I get to be here… but here we are… and what. a. CrAzYRiDe it’s been!

Last year on August 20, to celebrate my 4-year cancerversary milestone, while simultaneously kicking off the countdown to my fab 5-year cancerversary/not-a-chemo-cocktail-party (THIS FRIDAY NIGHT Y’ALL!!), I started a video blog of “A Year of Living Sincerely” in honor of my beautiful friend V and her www.thelivesincerelyproject.com.

Last night I posted episode 206 about the Little Miami 1/2 marathon I ran on Sunday. It was my 4th half, and my first to run in under 2 hours! My finish was 1:56:43, which placed me 4th in my age category! That finish seems rather apropos to how I’m feeling today.

Also: Getting party supplies for Friday night’s not-chemo-cocktail party!!

Also: My beautiful friend V and me.

August 20, 2014: Hello FB loves! So, today’s my 6-year Cancerversary aka #shakennotstirred day—what, what?! (Go me, BOO cancer!) Anyway, so here’s some thoughts, a couple chapters from my book, Shaken Not Stirred . . . a Chemo Cocktail, about the way this day went down 6 years ago when we heard the C-word, a link to the Kindle version of my book which is FREE today AND TOMO, and a link to the “Cancer is a Bitch” song by my Redheads.

Also: Love, love, LOVE me some Jennifer Pastiloff. Looking so freaking forward to Labor Day Retreat with her in Ojai, Cali. David Evans is sending me as a gift for my 6-year cancerversary (which is TODAY–yay me, BOO cancer) and my birthday (which is next month). I never ever know what to ask for, and it always drives Dave and the Redheads bOnKeRs that I don’t make lists from them to make their lives easier, lol. But THAT’S how much I love me some Jen Pastiloff. I actually made a cancerversary/birthday list. With one thing on it. BAM.

I LOVE this excerpt from an article of hers. Hell I pretty much love everything she writes. But this one seems timely. Hell it kinda seems timely all the time.

This.

“Here’s what I say to you, to me, and to anyone that cares to read this: The long and the short is this: stop judging so much. People are doing their best. You are doing your best. You will keep getting better. You will keep rising to the occasion. You will keep meeting yourself in the coffee shop or bar and telling yourself what your Highest Self would do now. What Love would do now. And now. And now.”

And this.

“I will love harder.”

That’s really all that matters, isn’t it? LOVE.

Word. That word. Love. The end.

August 20, 2015: Do you know what today is?
7 years ago TODAY
My doctor called and said that bad c-word to me.
No, the really bad one…cancer.
But 
Here I am
7 years later…
I GET TO STILL BE HERE!
Cuz today is my lucky day!
#lucky7 #luckyme
I’m the luckiest duck!
And p.s. #fuckcancer

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Also: Hi 5K! #postcardfrommymorningwalk #recovery #comeback I would’ve done 7, for my #lucky7 year cancerversary, if my insides would have promised me they wouldn’t fall out. But they wouldn’t put it in writing. #toughlove.

I burned 199 calories at an average pace of 23:31 per mi.
RUNKEEPER
Also: So…to celebrate my upcoming #lucky7 year cancerversary, the Kindle edition of Shaken Not Stirred . . . a Chemo Cocktail will be FREE over this looooooonnnng and happiest of weekends of Aug 20-24, 2015. Please help me give the big middle finger to cancer, and download the crap out of my book! Please share and have your friends help me #flipoffcancer. And, if you feel like leaving me a #NotaLoneStarReview you will not only make my freaking day, but you will most DEF win at life, in my book. Click HERE.
August 20, 2016: No post cuz I was with the Grace project on the road-trip to Houston.
August 20, 2017: 9 yrs ago today my doc called and said the damn c-word to me. No, the bad one: cancer. Lifting a glass 2 my health & a finger 2

 

Sending Love & #goodjoujou To Olivia Newton John and Flipping Off Cancer

                              20 years:(
                            #fuckcancer

I have my quarterly oncology check up coming up next week.

THIS. is just another reason why, once the #pinkmonkey has jumped on your back, the damn pink monkey is always on your back. Always.

Practically everybody knows the stats that 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. But the collateral damage from all the pink is that too many peeps believe we are done (even though pink means rare) and breast cancer is now a “manageable” thing. That just because we who are the 1’s in 8 have a whole month dedicated to us, that breast cancer is the good even lucky kinda cancer to get. Cancer is an insidious bastard and there are no good kinds. Even if you get a whole month filled with bottomless pink buckets of fried chicken dedicated to your cancer like I get with mine. Even if all the chicken BREASTS in the buckets don’t seem the most sympathetic kinda “support” for “aerodynamic” breast cancer peeps like me. But I digress.

1 in 8. That doesn’t seem like a lot if you are in a room with me. And I don’t mind taking that bullet one bit for you. I love you and hope you never have to join this damn exclusive club.

But here’s the thing. Whenever I’m in a room with 9 of my fellow 1 in 8’s, stats hit the fan like #shithitsthefan. To the point: 3 out of 10 of us who have been diagnosed with breast cancer will recur and become metastatic aka #stage4. There is no cure for stage 4. And there is no stage 5.

30%. Not manageable. Not good. Not lucky. Yeah, it’s better than a coin toss. Unless you already rolled a 1 out of 8. Like I did. And like my 9 friends in the room did. That’s why the odds don’t always feel like they are with us. That’s why the pink monkey always is. On our backs.

I was so superpower sad to see that Olivia Newton John has, after 20 years remission, recurred and gone metastatic. #fuckcancer She will be in my prayers, with all my other friends who also have to fight that fight every damn day of their lives for the rest of their lives.

That’s not OK with me. And the #truthbomb is that until we do something different with the way we fight breast cancer, 3 out of 10 of me & my gang, regardless of how aware we were or how early our diagnosis, will experience recurrence.

Now, I’m not against awareness, at all, so don’t get me wrong here. But it seems to me the shift that needs to happen in the way we fight breast cancer is a shift toward the other end of the spectrum, not taking away from awareness, but a laser beam kinda focus on #metastatic cancer, on curing the kind of cancer that kills. Would 30% be too much to ask, if you or someone you knew was in the 30%? Cuz here’s the current situation is that, of all the monies raised to fight cancer, only 7% goes for Metastatic research.

7% #wtf?! #amiright?! #notok #stage4needsmore #moreresearch #dontignorestage4 #thereisnostage5 

Shaken Not Stirred…a Chemo Cocktail Turns 5 Today!

when-you-hear-that-wine-cork-pop

Holy WOW! Talk about a happy #blastfromthepast of a #fbf memory! So today is Shaken Not Stirred . . . a Chemo Cocktail‘s birthday! Once upon a time 5 years ago tonight aka 11/11/11 at 11:11pm I made the first biggest dream of my life come true, pushed PUBLISH, my book went live on Amazon, and we popped a cork on a bottle of champagne to celebrate!
Besides obvi popping another cork today, I thought it would be superkaPOWer fun to #SHAKEN things up a bit and give away 5 signed copies in honor of my book baby’s 5th bday. So if you’d like to enter to win one, for yourself or for a gift, send me a #postcardfromtheroad from wherever you are, and I’ll #shaken them all up and randomly pick 5. (Don’t forget to write down the name and addy for me to inscribe and mail to.) Here’s my addy: PO Box 882, West Chester, OH 45071.


And in case you are wondering what to buy a 5-year-old? The best. gift. EVER. that you could (pretty please _/\_) get my sweet book baby that would #shaken up and rock its (and my) world like no other…would be to click HERE and give it the ol’ thumbs up and shiny stars on Amazon. 5-year-olds LOVE stars! (As a self-published author, that is not just my bread and butter, but like Popeye’s spinach to me.) So thank you from the bottom of my heart to anyone who has already written a review or will go do that most uber epic act of kindness for my book baby!


Cheers and BIG love,

Me

4,207,680 Minutes

moments

[So I have a late but very important date with my sweet Mikeyy TONITE! Because. THIS. happened 8 years ago. TONITE…the beginning of my accidental memoir SHAKEN NOT STIRRED…A CHEMO COCKTAIL…the night Bitch wine saved my life…the night I found a damn spot in my left breast…before I knew it was cancer…the last night in my memory of life before cancer…a sweet and perfect moment with my sweet Mikeyy…the night we watched Perseus’s meteor showers and I learned to count my lucky stars before they hatch. “That time with Mikeyy is etched in my soul as a perfect snapshot of—not my life passing before my eyes, in the dying sense—but more like a haiku, capturing what it was all about.” I think that moment was the diving board into all the lovely 4,207,680 minutes I have been lucky enough to experience since. Each and every one of those precious moments has been one helluva ride. I wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t trade getting to sit here watching Perseus do his thing again from where I’m at now, EIGHT years later. Anyway, so here’s where that once upon a time began…]

Chapter 2


When the Stars Go Blue
(Cue: Tim McGraw *I don’t know if you know it, but each of my chapters has a soundtrack to it. The songs are from my own chemo cocktail mix that I listened to during cancer, chemo, recovery, and writing Shaken Not Stirred.)

On August 11, 2008 there were meteor showers over Cincinnati. My world was rocked that night, but it had nothing to do with the meteors that my teenage son Mikeyy and I watched in the wee hours of that sleepless in Cincinnati kind of night.

Previous to Perseus’s fireworks display, somewhere in between the lines of August 11 and 12, I’d awakened particularly parched from the end-of-season cocktail party I’d thrown that evening at the Evanshire, aka my home sweet home.

Being somewhat of a newbie tennis freak, I’d played on three tennis teams that summer. My neighborhood team had just won the division championship. My United States Tennis Association (USTA) team had just played in the district championship tournament. We actually won the districts, but.

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And the big but (yeah, they say everybody’s got one) was that the win pushed one of our player’s ratings into a higher bracket, which.

And the “rhymes-with-a-witch” was that “the win?” officially disqualified all her matches and our team from the victory, not to mention a road trip to regionals. The trophy didn’t have a chance to slip through our fingers; we never even got to touch it before the ruling came raining down on our parade.

For the cocktail party, I’d grabbed several bottles of a certain Grenache that had caught my eye from across the wine store where I was searching for just the right red and/or white to go with our blues. It had a hot pink label with elegant cursive lettering that read Bitch.

Cancer is a bitch wine

My tennis girlfriends cracked up when I presented the wine. Then we all sighed, and said, “Yeah, it sure was.” We uncorked the wine. It was the best of times and we were making the best of the worst of times. We ate and drank and made merry. I went to bed thirsty.

I knew I would wake up in the middle of the night dying-of-thirst thirsty.

What I didn’t know was that dying of thirst would end up saving my life.

It was five o’clock somewhere—for me it was somewhere in the middle of the night when I woke up from a dream in which I was practically dying of thirst and trying desperately, though unsuccessfully, to quench it.

“Need . . . H . . . 2 . . . Ohhhh,” I sputtered out in a dry whisper like I was some kind of a tumbleweed, searching for an oasis.

“So. [click] Very. [click] Thirsty.”

I couldn’t even peel my tongue off the roof of my mouth.

I’d dealt with similar middle-of-the-night dehydration before, so I had the drill down, practically in my sleep. I tumbled out of bed, crawled across the bedroom floor, slithered down the stairs more like a Slinky than a snake, and somehow found myself standing in front of the kitchen sink. I guzzled a glass of water, diluting the dehydration and dousing the dream.

Then I poured another, and headed to the study to sip on the second one while checking Facebook. And I played a little Scramble, to try and unscramble the fog in my brain.

That’s when I bumped up against my desk—Ouch. I felt—and heard—an unexpected thud.

Something had gone bump in the night— and the bump was on me: my left breast, to be more specific.

My jaw fell to the floor and my eyebrows formed a question mark as I held my breath, brought my hand to my breast, and felt the lump.

I cannot explain the shock and awe I felt. It was like a meteor to my chest, literally. I remember the lump felt like a shooter marble right beneath the “milky way.” I was pretty sure it wasn’t there the day before. My hubby, Dave didn’t mention anything about marbles later that night. I’m sorry if that’s TMI, but I don’t see how we could’ve missed a meteor like that.

I don’t know how long I sat there trying to imagine what in the world the marble could be. I found myself checking and rechecking to see if it was really there. Then I kept checking and rechecking to see if it was still there. Part of me thought I was imagining things. But, no, it was still there. Part of me started imagining things. I felt the meteor again, and then stared out the window.

My fourteen-year-old son Mikeyy was lying out on the driveway, gazing up at the meteor showers in the sky. I let go of my own gravity and let myself get pulled into his world for a little while— snuggling up next to him and watching the sky fall, like it was a movie.

That time with Mikeyy is etched in my soul as a perfect snapshot of—not my life passing before my eyes, in the dying sense—but more like a haiku, capturing what it was all about.

When the meteor show was over, I had a hard time keeping my thoughts from spiraling out of control. A sensible part of me, that I had to dig way down deep for, took all the other parts of me, and put them to bed.

Not wanting to wake Dave, I lay there, deciding to wait out the night. I waited for him to wake. I waited to see if it would just go away. I waited. And prayed.

Since my thoughts like to play connect the dots, this would be where my inner Lady Macbeth spoke up, as “Out, damn’d spot” were the words that came out. This seemed like a reasonable prayer, so I went with it.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to say to Dave when he awoke. The truth is, I generally obsess over just about anything I even think of, processing it at from every angle before it gets “on deck,” on the tip of my tongue. Just to make sure I say what I mean to say, and that I articulate it the way I mean it. Extroverting is not my strong suit. I can do it, but I don’t think I do it very well. And it wears me out. I had nothing by the time he woke up. I was worn out, wound up, and ended up just winging it.

Some words tumbled out into the air and then seemed to settle in a cloud over Dave. He groaned one of those “groanings which cannot be uttered,” (like he already knew, too) and fearfully, mechanically, reached over toward the spot.

Dave said that waking up to that morning was like waking up on the worst possible side of the bed ever.

“I was still pretty groggy when Joules asked me about a lump she had found on her breast. She’s pretty random and often catches me off guard, but in twenty years of marriage, she had never asked anything quite like this. As soon as I felt the obvious lump, the fog instantly cleared and I was wide awake. My heart and mind started racing, but I tried not to let her see my fear. Outside I was saying, “Hmm, that’s strange,” but inside I was frantically praying, “Please, God, no! Please, God, no! Please, God, no!” Ever since we had a friend diagnosed with breast cancer, I held a secret fear that it might strike Joules one day. This fear only intensified when our friend lost her seven-year battle. Before that, cancer was something other people got. Old people. People with unhealthy lifestyles. People I didn’t know. But our friend was young, healthy (fit, even), a wife and mom, a good and godly woman. And she was one of Joules’s closest friends. Suddenly breast cancer was very real to me, and very scary.”

I won’t ever forget that groan. Dave’s middle name, Wayne, means wagon, and I could just feel him bearing the weight that was to come.

He felt the spot; I had not imagined it.

He got out of bed and made a pot of coffee. Dave makes coffee for me every morning. Even brings a cup up to our bedroom and sets it on my nightstand to help me wake up, smell the coffee, rise and shine, seize the day. Yes, I am spoiled. I admit it.

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Then he headed to the study with his computer, and began researching what “not bad” things it could be. At first we were hoping it might be a cyst, or hormones. Or even a boil—at which point, I channeled my inner Job. Then he began adding big words that started with fibro– and pap– and ended in –oma, and my brain went all foggy again.

I poured another cup of coffee and called my sister, Jennie, who lives in Charleston, to tell her about the damn spot. She’s my baby sister, but also my best friend. She’s also a little ADHD. I happen to love her rabbit trails, so I figured I could thumb a ride on her distraction.

Jennie later described the rabbit hole she fell in when I told her about the lump.

“The day Joules called me and told me about the damn spot she found, I asked her if she thought it might just be a pimple or something weird like that. I tried to be reassuring for her and myself. The thing is, Joules has always been the strong one, and almost like a mother to me, all my life. And to me, nothing bad could or would ever happen to her. But when we hung up the phone, the knot that seemed to have tied in my throat came undone, and my tears broke free. My glass is not always as full as my sister’s, and it sort of felt like it had just tipped over.”

Dave made an appointment with my gynecologist for three o’clock that afternoon. I had chosen her because I was not really into doctors at the time. She was a naturopath, but also an MD. Basically, she was into alternative/non-traditional—with leanings toward Eastern—medicine. I liked that she was not a traditional medical evangelist, but had that training as well, in the palette of her doctor’s bag. I did not worry that she would jump to any radical medical conclusions because that was not her holistic style. I felt we were sort of on the same page and that everything could be OK, because she was the most likely doctor to find alternative explanations for the spot, and alternative ways of spot removal.

Meanwhile, Dave told me I should go ahead and go to a tennis clinic I’d already signed up and paid for, to try to keep my mind off that damn spot until three.

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—So that’s the end of the chapter, but obvi… there’s more chapters, and way more to the story besides just me standing there waiting for the tennis ball to cross the net so I can CRUSH it! *Spoiler alert: I CRUSH IT! But if you feel like turning the page to see for yourself, SHAKEN NOT STIRRED…A CHEMO COCKTAIL is avail on Amazon and Kindle. Click HERE. And TODAY, in commemoration of that night 8 years ago when my stars went blue but thankfully not out, and in celebration and with deep gratitude for each and every one of the 4,207,680 minutes-with-me-in-it/moments made, not to mention, another late but very important date with my sweet Mikeyy tonite…THE KINDLE VERSION IS FREE!

All I Want For Christmas Is No More Cancer

Last Chemo Cocktail

Whoa. 6 years ago yesterday. My last chemo cocktail. My Redheads came to sing Christmas carols in the cocktail lounge that day. And they sang my very favorite Christmas song EVER, the “Cancer is a Bitch” song, which they wrote for me in the stairwell of the chemo lounge, while I was downing that last (24/24) damn cocktail that day.

Here’s some superkaPOWer happy footage of me getting unhooked:

Not everybody gets a drum roll AND a guitar roll like that! And that adorbs bald chick sitting next to me is my chemo sister Shelly. We met in the chemo cocktail lounge on my birthday and was pretty much the best birthday present EVER. #chemoisthickerthanwater. To this day, we still book our oncology maintenance appointments together whenever possible. Talk about double trouble!

chemo sisters forever

Here’s the bootleg footage of the Redheads singing my song to me that day. (The song begins at 1:20, so fast forward a bit if you want to skip the set up.)

There wasn’t a dry eye in the room, and I still can’t watch that video without my eyes leaking all over the place. But catchy chorus, yeah?! I think it’s obvi why it’s the theme song to SHAKEN NOT STIRRED…A CHEMO COCKTAIL!

My sweet Redheads old band aka The Kicked-in Fence recorded a pretty freaking stellar studio version on their Cheesin’ Moon EP. Click HERE for the iTunes link if you feel like cranking it up and singing cancer is a bitch with us really loud. It’s a super fun way to flip off cancer, and also makes a good stocking stuffer for pretty much anybody says amen to the chorus.

Sitting in that chemo cocktail lounge and downing my last chemo cocktail 6 years ago yesterday, all I really wanted for Christmas, obvi, was NO MORE CANCER! I was lucky, and received the amazing gift of no more chemo! Here’s a cool pix that sums up how, not just me, but the whole family, felt about that.

no more chemo jump

But just because I’m STILL jumping up and down over my good fortune to STILL be here to celebrate another merry Christmas and another happy new year… it’s STILL all I really want for Christmas. NO. MORE. CANCER. And not just in the no more chemo sense, for me. NO. MORE. CANCER.  Period. End of its story. I STILL have so many TOO MANY friends STILL fighting the bitch that is cancer this Christmas. That is not OK with me. And that is why even though, God-willing, cancer is done with me, I am not done with it. Not until I get my wish. NO. MORE. CANCER. It’s really all I really want for Christmas. This holiday season I’m praying my ass off for that, singing the chorus of my fave Christmas song at the top of my lungs, and sending all my love, to all of my survivor, and especially my metavivor (stage 4 metastatic breast cancer fighters whose cancer fight never ends cuz there is no cure for metastic breast cancer), peeps. #cancerisabitch #stage4needsmore #dontignorestage4