Tagged hysterectomy

Bookends

Ford Warrior in Pink
Me at the Ford Warriors in Pink booth at Cincy’s Race for the Cure a couple weeks ago. Super freaking humbled and honored that they’ve included SHAKEN NOT STIRRED…A CHEMO COCKTAIL on their list of recommend reads! Click HERE to check it out!

Today I’m 5 weeks out from my golfballectomy/hysterectomy/oopherectomy basically the wholefreakingshebangectomy. Thought I’d give a little update. First of all, I have been humbled and lifted up by all the small and big kindnesses to me while I’ve been temporarily sidelined (but on the edge of my seat here on the bench) during my #recovery. Thank you, thank you, a hundred million thank yous! As if I didn’t already feel like the #luckiestduck that I get to…

  • still. be. here.
  • and STILL be celebrating my #lucky7 year cancerversary. I’m not done being happy about it.
  • be working on my #comeback after my oncological gynecologist’s uber fab golf game in re: “Operation out Damn Golf Ball” #FORE!
  • be giving the highest high-five that there’s 5 weeks in the rear-view mirror since surgery, and only T-7 more daze till I can #runhappy #runfree again! #handsintheair
  • be packing up for another adventure…with the Grace project…another #graceprojectontheroad-trip! Connecticut (my birthplace), Philly, Richmond, VA, Coastal NC, Raleigh, NC, Atlanta, GA, Charleston, SC…ready or not, here we come! Click HERE for more info.
  • turn the Big 5-0 in T-W-E-N-T-Y daze and then zoom zoom she’s offfffff…on another road-trip around the sun! #cowabunga
  • be working on my next project, which I’m so uber ridiculous freaking STOKED about and can’t. freaking. WAIT! to tell you guys more about!

besides all that THERE’S YOU CRAZY BEAUTIFUL PEEPS! In my life. My tribe. I mean, sinceriously, you guys are icing on the cake. Thank you for that. #nomnom

Tomorrow, I have a special gift for you guys on the blog. I threw down a little 7-year retrospective #spokenword #becausetheworldneedsmorepoetry in my open letter to #fuckcancer last week. Here’s a pic of them flipping off cancer 7 years ago that I put in my book in the chapter they wrote for me.

redheads flipping off cancer

7 years ago, this month, this week, at the Cincy Race for the Cure 2008. Two weeks after my mastectomy. Amanda had just slammed her middle finger in the car on the way to the race. That’s why she was flying that bird in the first place. Then we all decided that was exactly how we were feeling about cancer right then right there. So M&M joined the party. My sweet Redheads. My 3 reasons.

They went through cancer as much as I went through cancer. And in some ways, that seems so much more unfair to me, what they had to go through, watching their mum suffer like that. Having the roles reversed in their supposed to be wonder years and becoming their mother’s keepers/caretakers. Still bursts my heart wide open. Humbles me. Makes me proud at the amazing human beings those 3 sweethearts of my heart they are to me.

I get lots of sweet messages from peeps who are so freaking touched by the chapter my kids wrote for my book, asking how they are doing these days? So I asked the Redheads for a little something special for me, to share with y’all, for my lucky 7 year cancerversary present. So they’ve each thrown down their own 7 year retrospective, which I will be featuring on the blog over the next 3 days.

Meanwhile…I already threw down some words slamming cancer with my poetry, but since they say a picture is sometimes worth more than a 1000 words, here’s a couple of me, then and now, to wrap this post UP. 

Then. September 12, 2008 The hubcap & me crushing the finish line. 2 weeks post mastectomy. It took me so long to finish, they had already deflated the finish line by the time I crossed it. So I did, literally, crush it! My first race...my first bling! It's where I got bit with the bug!
Then.
September 12, 2008
The hubcap & me crushing the finish line. 2 weeks post mastectomy. It took me so long to finish, they had already deflated the finish line by the time I crossed it. So I did, literally, crush it! My first race…my first bling! It’s where I got bit with the bug!
Now. August 28, 2015 #lucky7 years later another tasty finish #morebling! Ford Warrior in Pink.
Now.
August 28, 2015
#lucky7 years later
Another tasty finish. Yay for #morebling!
Underneath the finish line, but still crushing it! #nomnom 

Of Golf Balls and “Marital Marijuana”

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Since it’s high time for an update, not to mention, 5 0’clock somewhere, might as well cut to the chaser and spill the good beans: Got the pathology report yesterday and I pretty much got an A+. My gynecological oncologist hit the proverbial hole in one with #OperationOutDamnGolfBall last Monday. Golf ball extracted dissected sliced diced pulverized and shanked. No evidence of disease aka NED, thank God, thank Dr. Pulaski, and #fuckcancer.

Also, THANK YOU, everybody for all the love and prayers and good vibes and support and kind words. I always say this, but it for real legit seriously means the world to me. I am grateful for each and every one of you and super grateful to be in your thoughts.

The last update I posted was after the victory lap I took around the hallways after I had just passed the being able to pee before I was allowed to bust out of the hospital test. Here it is again, in case you missed it!

I’m reporting live from my home sweet home at the LoveShack now. It’s been a rough week, but here I am! Tuesday was a bit of a bumpy ride, trying to get ahead of the pain after the ride home and the 3 flights of stairs up to our condo. Actually, the first bump was right after that “Chariots of Fire meets Rocky meets Titanic” video, when I tried to get dressed to go home. With all of the swelling from the surgery on top of all the bloating I already had been dealing with, and then water weight from the IV fluids to boot…I couldn’t get my pants on. Had to borrow Dave’s belt and pull my shirt down as far as possible cuz the last thing I needed was to get thrown in jail for flashing everybody and their brother on my way home from the hospital.

Most of this hard week has thankfully not been about dealing with pain, but managing discomfort aka desperately trying to find some kind of a, any kind of a comfortable position aka enduring an uncomfortable position as long as possible before switching out for a new one. Luckily, my sweet M&M got me some fun “parting with a golf ball is such sweet sorrow” gifts to help me keep my head up during my recovery;)

#postcardfromsurgery #xoxo

A video posted by Joules Evans (@joulesevans) on

Also, per doctor’s RX, I’ve been trying to get back on the treadmill and literally walk it off. She said I’ll heal and bounce back way faster, the quicker I get back at it. So #boing. I’m back. At it. I’ve worked up to a mile, and have walked a mile 4 days in a row. My #comeback is afoot. I figure if I’m gonna be uncomfortable anyway, I might as well multi-task and take a walk, soak in some fresh air and a little sunshine on my shoulders, walk off the discomfort, walk if I can’t run to get my fitness back again, walk off the swelling and water weight in hopes of one day hopefully SOON fitting in my own clothes again, instead of the hubcap’s Superman boxers I’ve been sporting around.

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Sorry I haven’t updated sooner. Besides not being able to sit still or comfy enough to compose an update, I was waiting for the path report and then I wanted to let my Redheads know the happy news before I posted anything.

Here’s a pic of them serenading me and praying for me before my surgery. (We facetimed my sweet Amanda in, since she lives in Denver.) Always and forever: my 3 reasons.

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And here’s a video of the song they sang.

I lava them.

Lastly, besides the good news part of this post-surgery report, the other good stuff enquiring minds have been chomping at the bit to know what crazy shit I said while under. Unfortunately, nobody caught it on video because it hit me so freaking quick. Which doesn’t surprise me, cuz I had eaten pretty raw the week before, was on a liquid fast the day before, and hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for 13 hours. On top of already being a lightweight champion of the world ever since chemo. Anyway. so apparently, approximately 3 minutes after they gave me the happy juice in my IV, it hit so hard and fast it freaked them all out. Apparently, one minute the nurse was giving me the happy juice and the next minute I was saying this stuff is nice and the next minute I was trying to get all my peeps and docs and nurses and techs and everybody in the hospital to sign a petition for “marital marijuana” cuz this stuff is nice and all, but “marital marijuana” doesn’t have all the side effects this stuff has. So apparently, I’m for #maritalmarijuana. I mean, I knew I was for #medicinalmarijuana, and especially for cancer patients, but whoa the things you learn about yourself under the influence of the happy juice!

Pre-Surgery Pep Talk

[Update: I’m home from the hospital. Doing OK. Managing discomfort rather than pain yesterday and today. Today is better than yesterday. Yesterday was WAY BETTER than the day before that. But thankfully that day is in the rear view mirror and I got the pedal to the metal. Anyway, the scoop is: Every day I get a little bit closer to feeling fine *nods to Sheryl Crowe _/_. We are still waiting on the path report for a proper post-surgery report. We expect it will be a good report and will post STAT when we get the good news. Meanwhile, here was my pre-surgery pep talk to myself, with a little help from my writing/creativity/bigmagic sensei Elizabeth Gilbert. She threw down THIS SUPER AWESOME POST<<CLICK IT,  on her FB on Friday, and I thought about it all weekend, while I was getting my shit together and composing myself and my thoughts for my pre surgery pep talk to myself. The coolest thing about the process of dialoguing with one of your favorite writers like that, is that it pretty much feels like you are hanging out with them, not just chewing the fat, but sucking the freaking marrow, talking about all the important things. That’s my idea of damn good surgery prep, the kind that’s gonna pump. you. up! Which is exactly what hap’d…]

Monday, August 3 Noon: Believe it or not, I’ve had a pretty awesome weekend getting ready for my surgery today. ‪#‎OperationOutDamnGolfBall‬ ‪#‎FORE‬ (Which is at 1:30pm in case you didn’t get the memo and want to pray my surgical oncologist has a good “golf day” taking out the cyst and the whole she-bang.) Anyway, besides the pre-op testing I did at the hospital on Wednesday, here’s some of the other important prepping I’ve been doing before my surgery and hitting the sidelines: 1) Got ‪#‎fightingcolors‬ ‪#‎flyingcolors‬ haircuts with my little warrior sister Maya the Magnificent. 2) Finished Deepak Chopra‘s & Oprah’s 21 meditation day adventure. 3) Run as much as possible. ‪#‎runhappy‬ ‪#‎runfree‬ ‪#‎runwhileyoucan‬ 4) Finish moving in as much as possible. Unpack books. ‪#‎konmariallthethings‬ 5) Take my mom to the dentist. 6) Family night out at Red’s game with Hubcap’s company. 7) Help my sweet Mateo move. 8) Groceries. 9) Laundry. 10) Have ‪#‎allthefun‬ I can squeeze in. Like: sneak off to Indy to go see Liz Gilbert speak/go see Trainwreck, eat popcorn with real butter, and lmfao/watch the TIG doc with the fam. 11) Get prayed over at church. 12) And THIS…

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Click HERE to read Liz’s super awesome post.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about THIS post Liz Gilbert threw down Friday. In my pre-surgical procedures I’d been casting a vision for the down-time of my 6-8 week recovery (Finish selection and begin editing ‪#‎Route66‬pix for photo exhibit. Record audio book version of Shaken Not Stirred . . . a Chemo Cocktail and rerelease hard copy with 7 year cancerversary update and fist chapter of next book. Walk my butt off, since I won’t be allowed to run. My Route 66 Marathon training must go on.) But THIS post made me want to cast out a little further. When I got diagnosed with cancer 7 years ago on august 20th, I had a hard time seeing myself in future tense. (The fact that I have almost made it to my ‪#‎lucky7‬ year cancerversary BLOWS MY MIND!) Part of this was good for me, though, cuz I got pretty damn good at being present in the now. But this weekend while I’ve been sucking the marrow out of life, the present, and all the things, I also have been sipping ok slurping on THIS delicious post.

So I thought I’d ante up with my own thoughts about where I wanna be 5 years from now…

-12 years cancer free
-audio book version of ‪#‎shakennotstirred‬
-re-release #shakennotstirred 7th cancerversary edition with update and first chapter of Route 66 Bucket List Road Trip book
-2 more books published (#Route66 Bucket List Road Trip and Homeschool Memoir)
-Route 66 photo exhibit
-enter photo contest
-winter in a warmer climate
-figure out how to do what I do, doing what i love, to pay my way around the world
-get TSA priority boarding
-fly first class
-Write writing workshop based on Alice in Wonderland
-Take yoga teacher training or life coaching
-learn to make an origami crane. make 1000
-learn to play my uke
-do a Triathalon
-publish a book of my poetry
-take a selfie with Jesus in Rio
-spend cervantes bday in Spain, hike the buen camino
-road tripping the country with my friend Isis to photograph 800 breast cancer survivors for the Grace project
-and because go bold or go home, and to tag onto Liz Gilbert’s list, I’d like to write a tv show with her.
-…

Well, that’s a little where I wanna be 5 years from now. Especially right smack dab middle of that yummy ellipsis…

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What about you? Anybody else wanna play? Where do you wanna be 5 years from now? ‪#‎castaway #comesailawaywithme‬