toil et travel

(heh. nice little play on mots, eh? get it? "toil et"? and, travel instead of travail??? Ok ok it's not elegant... but it will work. hahah i did it again. work??? travail??? toil??? get it get it get it? SHADDDUP!)

Well, I think it is fair to tell you that I forgot that life outside of cancer largely consists of thankless toil, bad meals, and exhausting travel (meaning my 4 hour per day commute). Mostly thankless toil.

I do not know how the majority of people in the western world handle the 9-5 office job, I certainly never did it before I became the world's most reluctant middle aged lawyer, and I certainly did not give the prospect of a life lived on a 9-5 schedule its due weight in my somewhat whimsical decision to enter law skool. Had I done so, I'd have run screaming in the opposite direction, and perhaps entered the Joe Smith school of hotel/motel night management, bartending, and grave digging.

The odd thing is that people consider this NORMAL. perhaps I lived in an ivory tower (or, more likely under a rock) for my entire life, but in no way is it NORMAL to get up 2 hours before the freakin sun comes up, travel to a large building, sit on your ass all day fretting over other people's legal problems, only to then depart 2 hours after the freakin sun sets, travel home, too tired to make a decent dinner, fall into bed for a fitful few hours only to get up and do the EXACT SAME THING for four more days until you can have the unmitigated luxury of sleeping at least til the sun comes up.

People must either love what they do, have an infinite capacity to live for the weekend, or, more likely, are trapped into wage slavery early and have no other choice.

I always had choices, because I was childless, and free and clear of any dependancies. I had only myself and my cats to look after. I habitually changed jobs and apartments as easily as underwear (and, in the case of at least one favorite bra, probably more often....bwhahahahah).

Not that I was carefree by any stretch, but, damn I never thought I'd be a 9-5er. In fact I used to know I couldn't do it. I don't know how i forgot that. I think I just wanted to go to school. And law school seemed as good as any, in fact better, because it only took 3 years, and was supposed to be a big deal. And, although it sucked, i didn't mind it because the hours were good...! I never really had to get up super early, and I always had a lot of time off. Of course, I could have worked a lot harder.... but i did enough. And I always had time for movies and gym and run time and much needed downtime, except twice a year when exams would roll round. Then, i was freaked for about 10 days and it was over, and there'd be a vacation where I got lots of sympathy for doing something so damned awesome as law skool and I'd be all "oh it's so HAAAAARRRRRDDDDD" bwahahaha.

but not anymore. I don't get no kudos. I don't get no downtime. I don't look like I'm doing anything heroic. not even apres cancer. boy did I make a silly choice....

Anyway. I guess you may be able to tell from this post that I don't really have anything cancer related to complain about. herceptin seems like a walk in the park compared to chemo. Let's keep it that way.

and, once i'm past all this....i'll be damned if I won't figure out a way to get out of the 9-5 thing and back to slack...

requisat im pace

This just in:
http://www.miriamengelberg.com/index.htm

Miriam Engleberg died on Monday. I've enjoyed her cancer comics and blog (see "Cancer made me a shallower person" on sidebar) since i was diagnosed with cancer and found out such things existed. I was pulling for her, but she hadn't posted on her blog in a while, and i was worried. Now I miss her and i didn't even know her. Bye bye Miriam.

And, since to me, cats are people too, I must also include another sad note. One of my brother's cats, Toby, died yesterday. Toby was a stray from Brooklyn, who moved to south Texas and never looked back, spending his long (for a cat) life hunting critters in vacant lots and cactusy backyards. Journey well, little Tobe.

solid gray

I can't say things are horrible, but i cannot say they are good either. I'm having a crappy week, even as the end of chemo was supposed to result in an "era of [relatively] good feeling"

For one thing, my mind will not relax. In Austin, aside from the race and the bats, I didn't really enjoy myself. I couldn't stop either worrying about my cats, or my knees or the airplane flight home, or a million other ridiculous things (but never cancer..oddly enough). Once at home, I realized that I'll have to go back to work next week and i'm horribly behind on stuff i have to do, and, to top it all off, i don't remotely even like what I'm doing at all. I don't like being a lawyer, and i don't like reading law all day and pretending to understand what is going on, and I'm not motivated enough to be very good at it.

For another thing, i seem to have tweaked both my knee and my back somehow, so now I'm feeling injured, and, if there is one thing that makes me crazy, it is injuries. I don't think anyone who has never been a dancer can appreciate the panic and terror that an injury causes, even a minor one. how long will this take to heal? How much can I do? Will I have to stop doing what I'm doing? Am I making it worse? Why am I the only one who gets hurt? Why am I always hurt? What am I doing wrong? I am just not built for this, I cannot do this, I'm totally fucked up, i'm not meant to be a dancer, runner, biker, whatever...GOD! The level of mental pain I heap on myself is staggering, like rubbing salt into open wounds. But I'm sure salt has some sort of salutory effect, whereas this rubbing my face in my inadequacies does not. I have no perspective.

And, uh, cancer. Where do i go from here? As you can see from the above, I've pretty much forgotten that 2 weeks ago i was writhing around under the influence of taxol, steroids and herceptin. I guess I expected to suddenly be back 100% and I'm just not. But, the trouble is, I don't feel bad, except for my "injuries", so naturally i want to start living again. And I want to stop being afraid of everything, and i want to stop this insane, morbid focus on my poor body. Fuck. i'm tired of fear.

live, but maybe not so strong...

Ok, well here is is, cancer grrl's livestrong challenge race report.

Initially, I must tell you that the 5K portion of this festival of athletic events ranks at the very bottom in terms of mileage, considering the challenge offers bike rides of 100, 70 and 40 miles, and a 10K run...

...And then there is the 5K run (or walk, because the walkers were on the same out and back 5K route)...





HOWEVER, and it is a big however, That eponymous Armstrong Man himself ran the 5K event, lest we be seen as a field of couchified slackers. He did manage to beat me, but the BF was neck to neck with him for a brief instant...the only thing was, the BF was on the beginning leg of the out and back run and That Armstrong Man was on the ending leg...whoops, two ships en passant....).

Secondly, and I must kvetch about this, as any good New Yorker would: they started the damned events at the damned crack of sparrow fart...7:30 a.m.. Helluva uncivilized time for a race, but then, that's Texas, as any good Texan can tell u. And since I qualify as both, I may be listened to with some authority.

Thirdly, the race was run in the boonies, and contained some rather unexpected, and, dare I say it, unwelcome, HILLS.

That said, here was my race:
I started out thinking I would pace slowly, but was soon passing people left and right. Why? Because it wasn't crowded enough for me to know enough to hold back and cruise for the first part, and I'm such a neophyte I don't know how how to pace myself BY myself. So I was going at a fair clip, for cancer grrl anyway. Then, i, rather foolishly, bounded up the first loooooong hill in a fit of showoffyness.

As I hit the halfway mark, I knew I was in trouble. I was freakin tired already. That was when The Child started passing me. The Child was about 8 yrs old, small and fast, with a ridiculous amount of energy. I'd catch up to him, and, frightened lest some old bald witch beat him, he'd take off sprinting. I'd plod, and catch up to him again, and the same thing happened over and over.

At the halfway mark, I also, in a rather desperate show of "i'm a real runner, not the crippled toxin surfer you see before you" grabbed a cup of Powerade, and, in trying to drink it, promptly and spastically upended it all over my white, clean, livestrong shirt. At least it was pink, and matched my Komen cap.

Coming back up the second half of the course I was met with not one, not two, but THREE freakin long hills. Here is where I started the cycle of walk 20 seconds, run up a hill, walk 20 seconds, run up a hill...I walked THREE times, sad to say. Here is where The Child finally bid me adieu and sailed on home as I ate his dust. Here is where I, being cheered on by some walkers who were coming down the first half, had to stop for a walk break right in front of them, mid cheer. Oh me, the humiliation.

Nonetheless, i finally managed to get it together and run home. AND I made better time than at Komen, even with the walks. (I ran about 27:38. I say about because I decided not to do the chip and I timed myself, because i didn't want the "pressure" of a chip...what EVAH). AND I did seem to be, oddly enough, somewhat towards the front of the field. But, since The Child was ahead of me, you probably have an idea of what the field was like...

But, i was beat. And at least I know now what it's like to run a 5K without thousands of people bobbing around you, giving you energy. And, at least I know I've got nowhere to go but up....

Austin Powers

So I'm here in Austin Tx, home of squadrons of bats, round, friendly turtles, herons both blue and night, and the livestrong challenge. Since I was doing the Komen run, I didn't hit people up for donations to livestrong, but, i'm down here to run another 5k, this time in 90 degree heat (but, let's be fair, no hills, and, hey, no humidity...). So if any random stalkers, um, i mean lurkers, to this site wish to guarantee entry into at least the presence of whoever decides where you go after your final huff, scratch & rattle, please donate now. meo te absolvum (heh).

It is nice here, and i had a great run this a.m., along town "lake" which is actually a river. I saw all the aforementioned animals along the river, plus some very friendly feral felines, with big fluffy tails, who lured me off the trail and into some shaky looking back trails complete with rubble, derelict refuse piles, and vast, open-mawed, sewage seeping, pipes.

The ferals did not rob me, but looked at me inquisitively, and i'm sure accusatorily, knowing as they must, that i left my precious feline children at home (in the care of cat sitters and their granddaddy of course). They also caused a minor hallucination: as I ran, i looked over at a hanging branch of dead leaves and the way it was arranged looked like a small, pert, cheetah sitting on a lawn. It was not a cheetah however. Yet, I took comfort in the fact that on my run, I, the weak and crippled bald chemo toxin surfer that I am, was outpacing a bunch of folks. The cheetah's spirit musta done it. hope he does some overtime on sundays at the race.

sea turtle: the chemo-terrapin

The Ex found a huge sea turtle on the beach in Staten Island on Saturday. He/she had crawled up to the beach and died, and was being buffeted back and forth by waves, but seemed otherwise unwept, unsung, and unremarked by anyone, whether hungry gulls, curious kids or awed beachcombers. This was surprising, because she/he was about 5 feet in length, with a beautiful reddish brown shell and massive flippers, and a beak worthy of myth. We did some research and discovered she/he is (was) probably a loggerhead, and, as such, a threatened species.


I went with the Ex on sunday to photograph the beast. As he said, it seemed important to make some kind of memento mori for this venerable turtle, who must have lived long and prospered in a turtle-ish way. I also asked him to call the Riverhead Foundation, who keeps tabs on marine fauna.

But the eerie, and self-referential thing is this: At the beginning of chemo, I joked to the Ex that I was going to buy a toy turtle for each chemo session, and call them the "chemo-terrapins". Then, after I had accumulated 8, i'd be done with chemo.
On saturday, the Ex called me up, and told me about the sea turtle. Judging from the condition of the turtle, he/she probably died on the day of my last chemo session. The Ex called her/him my chemo-terrapin, her/his death strangely coinciding with the end of chemo, and the end of an era of fear and pain.

This huge, venerable, ancient turtle then, although not strictly speaking a terrapin, became my good omen, my chemo-terrapin. I do not make light of her death, by any means, but omens are what they are. May she rest in peace.