tis the saison

As those of you who know me may recall, I generally term this time of year the "saison en enfer," because as we know "l'enfer, c'est les autres" and this is the time of the year when les autres become very prevalent in life. (my heartfelt apologies to messrs rimbaud et sartre).
I refer of course to the mindless, ineluctable, peristaltic season between halloween and new years, in which holidays and and work days and everything in between tends to coagulate into one grande mass of THINGS TO SEE, PEOPLE TO GET DONE, AND PLACES TO AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE.

Those of you who recall last year's saison en enfer, last years massive, all out attack on the holy day of thanksgiving, and last year's sickness and crap infused xmas greeting, will be relieved as all get out that i have put away a bit of the curmudgeonliness this year, and, can even be said to be coasting through the holidaze, if not merrily, then at least with some (at last) vague and fleeting, sense of well being.

I attribute this in part to my training regimen, because since I started attacking my VO2max with various extraordinarily painful bike workouts, I HAVE actually started to feel stronger. I also got my second triathlete magazine today, and am now psyched to try even more new things, like combining my swim and run days with water running and new and ever more excruciating bike workouts (wonder why all the torquemada-type coaches are BIKE coaches? must be the equipment focus...hmmm). So, come spring, I will be ready to dance merrily through those sprint tris, and maybe attempt an olympic at some point?? dunno. time will tell.

Work is still crapola. The only difference is that my 2 year contract is up in January and i've been asked to stay on. I have no desire to stay on, but it is nice to be asked. I was feeling quite pressured before I got the word.

So I seem to be finally crawling out of the constantly exhausted feeling that marked my year of chemo and herceptin. It is weird because I started thinking that was normal. Now that I have some energy back, life isn't quite so draining.

I've decided to keep posting on CG until the end of the year, because I have to do my third annual "Year in Fears" recap post. After that, this blog will probably be put out to stud, er I mean pasture, and, if I blog at all, it will probably be back on good ole bloggrilla. Or I may launch a new, triathlon oriented blog.

at any rate, I hope those of u who still read me are enjoying your holidays. I plan to enjoy mine, even if that means camping out in front of my NEW 32 inch TV with a spinervals video and bike trainer...

(note: I do NOT look like this...)

demons

I often peruse other cancer blogs, and go on breast cancer message boards to see how people are doing, how they cope, how they write about cancer, etc. I like seeing other people doing well, I like when they write interesting things about their battle with this disease, I admire people who can see it as "the enemy", whose subjugation will enable them to go back to "normal" life. I read, but truth told, I don't really relate. I seem to be very different from most cancer survivors. I'm not sure why, but I suspect that I've always battled demons, and cancer is just another one of them.

I also am not exactly what i show to the blogosphere (well, who is?) I mean I rarely blog about cancer. Does this mean I'm in denial about it? If I am, I'm glad. Unfortunately, I'm not equipped for denial. My mind collects, records, renders in full color and obsesses over any minute negative possibility. I cannot even leave the house without unplugging every light from every wall socket and knowing in great detail exactly where i'm going. I cannot hear the word "scan" without practically vomiting in fear. Hence, I do not do denial, try as i may.

Also, i'm rarely (present post excepted), introspective in my blogs. I guess I don't find the contents of my obsessive mad little mind all that interesting, and prefer to write bad puns and self-deprecating athletical stories.

I'm not, however, a fun individual. I'm not funny, I'm not strong, I'm not focused, warm or particularly good. I'm a woman who's got demons after her, and always has. I've always been outside, I've always been alone. This is not new. This was not brought on by cancer. Cancer did not suddenly change a healthy, well-adjusted, kind woman into a haunted, curse-obsessed ghost running for her life. Cancer grrl has always been haunted, always been chased here and there by obsessions, has been trying to flail her way blindly out of dark places for as long as she can remember. Cancer did nothing more than take some of the demons out of her head, and put them into her body.

And even though the cancer's gone... the demons aren't.

Maybe that's the difference.

two more infusions of herceptin on the wall, two more infusions of herceptin...

ok ok, it does not scan at all and would be very difficult to sing while drunk. however, it is more true than 99 bottles of beer on the wall, because, face it: how does all that beer get on the wall? I mean it is syntactically and grammatically perplexing. If it's on a shelf, why not say "on the shelf?" It scans the same for the love of pete. If it is indeed "on the wall" how does it stay up there? come ON people. It's not that difficult. Please, for me, invent songs that make sense. Especially drinking songs. The french do a good job of the drinking song that makes sense, in general. Usually about adultery, cuckoldry, and various acts of unpleasant, yet humorous, revenge. But, it all hangs together and makes sense. None of this "beer on the wall" crapola. my jeez.


Anyway. My version does make sense, and further, it is true. I only have two more herceptin infusions to go. Then, I get a variety of scans to make sure the herceptin pac men and ms. pac men ate all the bad cancer ghosts. Then, i get bloodwork done every 3 months. I'm told that although the old protocol was to do scans every 3 months, they are finding out that scans and bloodwork are equally as (in)effective in determining recurrance of breast cancer, and scans subject you to all that very bad radioactive juju. I am no fan of the scan, being both claustrophobic, and, slightly allergic to the iodine used in CT scans. Thus, I am glad I won't have to undergo them that often. I do not mind bloodwork. I mean, what's to mind? I am just masochistic enough to enjoy being jabbed regularly with needles. Seems a lot cleaner than lying in the hole of some damned toroid that has embraced and applied sneaky, snaky doses of radiation to a million ungirded and undignified human bodies...

I remember, as a child, when my mother told me that cosmic rays and gamma rays were going through me all the time, I was terribly uneasy, and could not stop fretting about it. It was an odd thing for her to tell me anyway, since she knew full well that I was completely unable to sit near electrical outlets, because I claimed that I could hear them and that fire was going to shoot out of them at any moment's notice.

What is my point? Well you tell me. I seem to have lost it. Point? Point? Are you there, point? I guess it goes to show why i prefer bloodwork to scans.

Anyway, I have nothing to blog about. So I am blogging about it. At least I'm not blogging about work, which would be unwise. Therefore, although this post is lame, it shall not be lost....

blogblocked #2: the gag order

Well in case you're wondering what happened to blogblocked #1, it was a rather lengthy, albeit suitably vague rant about the "W" word (wardrobe? weather? weakness leaving the body? wankers? wonderland? witchy woman see how high she flie ie ies?) (hint: rhymes with jerk). Therefore, after consultation with my work/life balance consultant, in the form of the ex; i properly decided that the post could remain hidden for the duration of the current game, lest it surface and cause me dooce-like gainful employment issues in future.

so it sits in my drafts. And i gotta tellya, it is a beautiful piece of prose. A rant worthy of King Lear. An opus so magnum that it makes Henry Miller read like "fun with dick and jane" (oops, he may have actually written a few things involving dicks and janes and fun....). And I gotta also tellya, you may never read it...

But, someday, when the current times of troubles are over and done with, and we all are relaxing around the fireplace with port, warm toasty slippers, stories of battles won and lost, and a fine stilton molding gloriously before us, I may reveal it and stun you with my erstwhile brilliance. And if you weren't in love with me before, you will be after hearing what will be henceforth known as:

"the Lost Post"

And so it be.

great caesar's ghost

I guess a blog is in order. It has been so long that I forgot which of my numerous passwords get me into blogger. It has been so long that I am totally sure that no one I know reads this blog anymore. It has been so long that I forgot how to write these things. I actually think maybe I've outgrown this stuff. Nothing I do (or have done to me) seems all that fascinating anymore to the point where I've just gotta let you know about it. However, I was motivated to post b/c someone new commented (see last post, below), so I feel as tho I must represent, as cancer grrl should.

Cancer is a small part of my life at this point, I mean I still go to the poison cafe once every 3 weeks for my shot of herceptin, I still have fake boobs and really short hair, and i still get the occasional cancer related panic attack, but other than that, I don't think about it much. I'm much more concerned with surviving my job and still maintaining my precious triathlon schedule than any ole cancer. It is hard to train and work at the same time. I have never had to do that before, because I've never had a real job before. And hopefully this too shall pass. I mean, what actually burns me is that I could do my job from home just as well, in fact, way easier than sitting in my little freakin office and taking extra long lunches in order to go to the gym. Seems so counterproductive. Everything I do could be done by telecommuting. I have no necessary face time with anyone (thank goodness).

I just merrily typed a paragraph about my job and then realized that when i started blogging I vowed to myself that I'd never post about my job. I think I'll stick with that vow. (insert dark mysterious hint) Especially since my line of da law is peopled by some very serious and heavy duty individuals...

Anyway, i am all anxious right now because I'm doing the five boro bike tour tomorrow. I'm anxious first of all b/c i have to get there super early, and i really have a problem waking up early in the morning. I'm also nervous b/c there are going to be so many bikers there, and I'm worried that I'll either get stuck with slow people, or stuck with fast ones, or get in some lane where people will get too close to me or something. Oh hell. I just fear anything new, especially when there are other people involved (l'enfer, c'est les autres...). But it should be fun anyway, and my new bike is so great (specialized tricross comp), that when I get on it I lose all sense of time and the road just rolls and rolls...

Anyway, that's all for now
until u read again
cg

the challenge

yesterday i posted my one new years resolution over on bloggrilla and already i am regretting it. We had to work today despite the fact that good ole Ford was being memorialized, proving, once again, that there is no rest for the wicked (in whose ranks, as I have recently been informed, I most decidedly slouch, although probably not towards bethlehem).

Anyway, here's the deal folks. Normal every day posts such as this one will be posted on Bloggrilla, not here on CG, because, hey, CG is supposed to be about, uh, my battle with, and denial of, da disease. Posts about the upcoming reconstruction surgery, herceptin days, baldness, crapping my pants, gagging on my dental floss, wondering where my mojo went, etc., will be posted here on CG.

Thus, since i have nothing cancer related to say this by rights should go on bloggrilla, but since I'm to lazy to repost it, I'll just say that today I looked probably the worst that I've ever seen myself look, so much so that, as I was, self centeredly, stealing precious minutes from my job to go to the Y and indulge myself in a good old fashioned joust with several assorted cardio-machines (ok you have to know that I crave that like most people crave chocolate. probably more. Have you ever seen a junky twitch? Well watch me if I miss a day at the gym), I happened to catch a glimpse of myself in an ill-placed mirror and great merciful crap but I looked BAAAAAD and not in a good way. Grey face, huge bags under the eyes, frown permanently etched in mouth and chin area. unpleasant. See folks THAT's what cancer does to ya. But, there's always plastical surgery. And I then I can start a brand new blog about that....

the year in fears

Well, here's my second annual year end recap. all the news you can use and plenty you can't in wildly truncated form. I started bloggrilla last year at just about this time, and the 2005 recap was, in hindsight (i almost wrote "hindi-sight"), almost heartbreakingly touchingly sweet and naive, full of hope for the brand spanking new year that was 2006, a year that, we now know, will go down in the annals (yes yes, anals...) of abigail history as the year voted most likely to be expunged from the memory as a very very dark time.

However, expunge we do not, not yet anyway. before we expunge, we must memorialize. So here it is folks, I bring you, that annus horribilus, that dark year, that era of bad feeling, that era when the dark lord lifted his hand over dead sea and withered land -- 2006!!!

January: I enter the ranks of the gainfully employed for the first time in three blissful years of scholly-stipend-supported schooling. The BF and I go see Morris Day and the Time at BAM, and shake our stiff white butts.

February: I become acquainted with life as a bona fide, 9-5 (or, lets get real, 9 - whenever) proto-attorney (proto because I'm not sworn in until ....)

March: I am sworn in as a lawyah. Other than that, absolutely nothing happens.

April: I hit my first double digit run (10 miles) on the rainiest day of the year. As fate would have it, I catch a flu which sends me to a doctor, who discovers a lump, which sends me to have a mammogram, which sends me to a surgeon, who takes a biopsy, which shows cancer, which sends me to surgery, which involves a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction....shit, wait, back up this is only April. April is the cruellest month. In April, the doctor discovers a lump and sends me for a mammogram. On the last day of april, the EX and I walk the entire length of manhattan, and I convince myself, for one brief day, that I couldn't possibly have cancer.

May: On May 1 I am diagnosed with cancer. On May 19, I undergo a double mastectomy. After Memorial day, I go back to work, and no one is the wiser (not terribly well endowed to begin with...)

June: In June, I start chemo. And I buy a wig.

July: I lose my hair. I lose my eyebrows.

August: I lose my mind. I lose my patience. I lose any self delusion that I like my job or law in general as a career.

September: The Ex and I run the komen race. It is jolly good fun! Chemo ends, and not a moment too soon.

October: The BF and I go to Austin where we run the LiveStrong Challenge, which kicks my chemo-ized butt. I realize what a toll the whole thing has taken on my body, when a simple 5K run almost cripples me for a month.

November: Back to work. It just gets better and better (oh yeaaaahhh). My hair starts to grow back COMPLETELY GREY. I get spanked at work for a job crappily done. I dis and avoid thanksgiving dinner. There have to be SOME perks to survivorship.

December: I go to 2 holiday parties at work where I make nice, try not to embarrass myself, and try to keep my by now overused and severely stretched-out wig from shifting back off my forehead like some 1930s newsboy cap. I get a nice fat cold for xmas and skip another holiday dinner. I begin the foster-ship of yet another feral feline (pix to come...). The BF and I go to see Pina Bausch at BAM. It's nice, but I fall asleep.

Oh baby. From the bottom of my toxic heart, my teflon lungs, my three brain cells, I fervently fervently fervently pray to the deities for a much less interesting, much more peaceful, much less medicated, much less, um, well, terrifying year for myself, for mcuster, for carolyn, for marjory, and for all the other cancer bloggers I've compared notes with over the months. Let's all move on now, shall we?

Mass - X

No, i am not going to dis xmas. even ms. holiday-hater has a soft spot for the whole xmas frenzy, notwithstanding the fact that all of the ads, movies, tv shows and other hoopla raise expectations of the kind of xmas that never existed, and never could exist, for me, or anyone else I know.

But really, this year has been awful, and the crappiness has not quit in honor of the season. No, i just keep getting slammed. I'm still behind at work, and completely worried that I'm gonna get fired. My hair is growing back --- completely grey. I still have no time to do anything other than work and commute and sleep. I still don't get enough sleep. I'm still anxious and depressed most of the time. And to top it all off, I just got a nasty little cold, and took so much vitamin C today that I was in constant danger of crapping my pants, which would have sealed the deal, so to speak, of my unfitness for my current job.

However, I rise to the occasion from my pit of despond, to wish all of you, all my 4.5 readers, a joyful and splendid holiday season. At the risk of giving away my xmas card scheme...i submit the below, to prove that, while there is no god, there are at least cats in the world, and that, alone, is worth the price of admission.

Abigail

in all her splendor...

ma firsss drink ina looooooooooong tahm

tonight we had the obligatory first office xmas party. I say "first" because this is the unofficial one, the one for the plebes. The mucky mucks party is later, and a bigger deal and costs money to go to, and will probably have those little sandwiches that consist of one olive on one half of a slice of cucumber with a sprig of something laid across that is guaranteed to get stuck in your teeth. Or not IN your teeth but between them. I don't know why people say "you have spinach stuck in your teeth" when they mean in between. I mean it would be horrible to have something stuck IN your teeth, you'd need all kinds of really painful dental work. But whatever. I am not to blame for the grammatical and syntactical errors of others.

At any rate, we had this party. I of course, as is my wont, because i am one of the least social people I know, headed straight for the ole merlot, and, within approximately 35 seconds of slogging through a brief on termination of parental rights for mental retardation, i was holding forth most impolitically about penile implants and the absurdity of the case load. (yes penile implants. don't worry, it was a job related discussion...)

I cannot drink, i have no tolerance for alcohol.

However, I am smarter than i used to be, because, after my one (ok, very full) plastic cup of wine, I had the grace to excuse myself, and gtfo, before i caused any more damage to my carefully cultivated "cancer sufferer" persona.

I'll have to be more careful at the mucky muck party if I go. AND I'll make sure and wear some slightly green-tinted foundation, for that "she's had a rough year" look that should save me from getting either fired or loaded down with too much work...

But i did enjoy that cuppowine tho.

saison en enfer

one night, i sat beauty on my knees
and i found her bitter
and i hurt her
(rimbaud)


well, as this annus horribilius (not to be confused with anus horribilus, and don't even get started with "rim"baud...) draws to a shuddering, cranking, lurching, spastic, drool, crap and poison infused close, it is time to reflect on what has not gone wrong this year. Ooops, wait, i think it's too soon for that. After all, we've still got 29 more days in the year, so i'd better wait before i count my cancer-free cells. At any rate, i have got to say that the past couple of weeks since the end of chemo have not been the pleasant garden path that i though i deserved to walk now, after enduring such unpleasantude, and, i have been quite surprised and displeased to find that i am now vulnerable, and seemingly doubly so, to all the nasty viscissitudes of "real" as in employed and 21st century and eastern seabord, life.

Thusly, I am tired, and crazed, and feeling a bit like a bull in the ring after the picadors get thru with him, tormented, maddened and freaked by the constant parade of sharp things coming at me, both literally (needles and surgery) and figuratively (i think i'm gonna get fired. now how does that look? a top 5% law student who can't keep a job? ah me.) I wonder, and keep wondering, what the hell went wrong? Then I remembered. All through chemo I thought, oh well, I can endure this because, after chemo i will get back to normal. Yes, it became my internal mantra. I will get back to normal. Things will get back to normal. The world will get back to normal.

Now I realize that "normal" for me is dark and dismal, I am congenitally that way. Did i really think cancer would change that? Sheesh if it did, i'd have signed up long ago. Well it didn't.

Cancer does change one thing tho. It gives one a sense of urgency that is hard to take. I mean, i've always felt a sort of internal push to keep moving, but now, when, by rights i should be settling down, now, i feel it more and more. There's so much to know, so much to do, so many things to put right, so many things to fuck up royally. And i'm on borrowed time. I mean, i've been shot, i've had pneumonia, and i've had cancer. I'm definitely on borrowed time here. I'm not supposed to even BE here.

So, no, i will not get back to normal. I will continue to burn inside for something, for some way to help, some way to love this poor world... and I'll probably continue to move towards whatever it is, stumbling, hobbling, lurching, ...till death finally does catch me...

Let's hope that's not for a while yet...

The unbelievable lackness of blogging

I don't know why i have nothing good to say to you all. Certainly you deserve more than i'm giving lately, and i cannot blame you for losing faith in cancer grrl's indomnitable spirit and rapier like wit. I know I know. A whiny, bad pun-ridden, dispiriting rant about work, complaints about aches and pains, some bad pictures and, horror of horrors, the massive, mean-spirited, unamerican all out dis of a holiday that i'm sure you all hold near and dear to your hearts has begun to open your eyes to the jaundiced ne'er do well that cancer grrl/bloggrilla really is. Ah me.

It's almost as if, along with chemo, I was injected with a jolly drug. In truth, i think there are 2 kinds of chemo recipients, those who milk the chemo for all they're worth and make sure everyone knows they are suffering mightily, and those who, suddenly, and uncharacteristically, turn into pollyanna for the duration.

Lose my hair?? No problem, never liked it anyway...I LOVE my wig!!!
Tired? No problem there, I really had too much energy before. I'm so much calmer now!
Nauseated? O well I really needed to drop a few pounds anyway! Hey I look great!
and on and on. You get the picture. The real person goes away for a while and is replaced by bright and shiny CHEMO GRRRL.

In a way, I think we all need the opportunity to play "brave sufferer putting on a good face to the world" for a while. I'm not being at all facetious. It's a rewarding role to play. The only trouble is that you may actually have to suffer to do it right. I don't recommend cancer as an avenue to realizing your own personal "brave sufferer" persona, however here are some things that you can do to reap the kind of rewards that the lucky few of us reap from chemo:

1. fast for a week or so. Believe me, you'll suffer. What's more, your suffering will be doing some good, because you won't be contributing to any shortages, and you won't be throwing any money at BIG FOOD (which is as bad as big oil). PLUS you'll be thin...and the world LOVES a thin sufferer...

2. Do an iron man triathlon without proper training. (disclaimer: the writer of this blog is NOT liable for any injuries, illness, sickness, soreness, lameness, crippledness, death, or misery you may suffer from doing this. Didn't anyone tell you not to do everything the internet tells you to do?) You'll suffer. And maybe, if you bet people you can do it, maybe you'll make money. More likely you won't. But maybe you can RAISE money for a good cause. That'd also be good.

3. Send me all your money. You'll suffer, and, you will have helped a cancer patient realize her life's dream...to have your money. Think of the prestige! In fact, I will install paypal on this site so that I can help you attain your goals. perhaps i will even put in one of those little thermometers to inspire you.

4. Give away a tenth of your income to an animal rights group. You won't even suffer that much, and, i've got news for you, back in the days when christians actually believed in doing good, they always gave away a tenth of their income. Tithing y'know? And, we owe animals for the years of abuse we have heaped on them. The suffering part? hmmm. Guess that HDTV will have to wait til next year.

5. Ram your hand or foot into the closest SUV (but wait til it's parked). wear gloves, and break something (in the SUV, not on you). You'll suffer, but you'll be doing good. (see disclaimer above and add the following language: "the writer of this blog is likewise not responsible for jail time, damages verdicts, judgments, orders, sentences and community service time"). Then, wear your bandaged limb prominently to the next greenpeace rally and be sure to let all of the comely young greenpeacers (of whatever gender floats your particular boat canoe or what have you) know how you injured yourself, and get ready for the lovin.

OK i cannot think of any more creative ways to suffer, and still be around, not too scathed, to reap the rewards and the kudos.

I especially like #3, but, well, i'm generous like that.


(PS: CONGRATS! to all the NYC bar passers out there. ain't you glad it's ovah? now you have to work tho...see below posts on THAT...)

a day at the races

well this is a bit belated, but here are some race pix from Austin...





Yes I was all chemo huffed & puffed. note the bald head and wobbly looking knees...

tanks but no tanks

I've never really liked thanksgiving, it always seemed like, objectively, it was just a runner up to christmas: a practice meal, a truncated vacation, no presents, and ridiculous, rust-coloured, harvest type memorabilia; and, subjectively, it was a day when i'd have to do battle with my mother in the morning, my brother and father in the evening, and in the middle have to endure an oh so joyous holiday meal surrounded by three people who, barring the fact that we shared genetic material, never should have come within 3000 miles of each other, or at least never should have gotten emotionally closer than it takes to say "hi," "bye," and, "you're sitting on my coat". I refer of course to the bloggrilla/cancer grrl family.

Picture this:
thanksgiving morning, bright and early. Crisp, chill, my sweet blond head goes back under the covers. but NO! soon my mother is in the room, telling me it's time to get ready for church...

Of course I hate church. Church is like slow poison. But, my mother's wrath is like some meaner kind of torture, perhaps involving disembowling or molten lead. She ramps up the volume. GET READY FOR CHURCH (subtext: you will die a slow agonizing death if you do not come to church with me). The longer I stay in bed, the worse it gets. What do i do?

What of my brother and father? No succor there. For some reason, I, being female, am the designated scapegoat. The sacrificial lamb. The sitting duck. (Apt metaphors indeed, considering thanksgiving also marks the season of wanton slaughter of millions of tortured and tormented farm type animals...). At any rate, in my family, church is women's work. Religion is for the gals. The men in my family do not set foot in church. No wonder I had gender issues...

What do I do? if I go, I'll hate myself. If i don't go, she'll hate me. What to choose?

Well, often I cave and go, suffering mightily through the intonations, the hymns always played too slow and sung too high, the woozifying smells...;

some years I just slip out of the house until I see her car leave, her driving off with the ramrod straight neck, the heavy coating of powder, the absurd coil of waist length hair sitting smack on top of her head like a concrete bunker... and ooooo boy am I in for a fun afternoon when she gets back, and we all sit round the table, her furious, my father seeking higher ground through consumption of some sacred alcoholic potion guaranteed to promote unecessary outbursts of wisdom and utter conviction of rightness..and so insulated from her fury that he deems it appropriate and hilarious to start baiting her and egging her on to some dramatic resolution, my brother just drunk from all afternoon contact with my dad, the constant football game on TV, and the joys of being the excused sex and the youngest to boot, and me on eggshells, watching mines exploding under the table, dodging crockery and daggers, walking the narrow path of conciliation and terror like the omega dog of the pack...knowing that when it comes, the dramatic resolution will be carried out against me...

So, no. I do not like thanksgiving.

I am, of course wildly exaggerating. There were no real daggers and the mines were just little bitty ones...