what i did on my november vacation

We just got back last night from our post Little Pink Houses of Hope road trip and I'm just too tired to put together very many coherent sentences. I'll write more later this week but I wanted to tell you all that my family had unbelievably fabulous time in Myrtle Beach.

Here are just some of the things I did:

Had my first Krispy Kreme donut.

Discovered real fried chicken and North and South Carolina barbecue and banana pudding.

Gained four pounds.

Spent time in the sun on the beach, walking, playing and just sitting around.

Enjoyed the glorious weather.

Learned how to hula dance and watched a man swallow fire.

Read 575 pages of a book and still have 1000 to go.

Went fishing without touching a pole and had a glorious time.

Blew off NaBloPoMo. I was having to good a time to waste it hunting down wifi.

Went to a concert with celebrity look-alikes who weren't dressed in drag.

Had my first manicure.

Dressed up to have my photo taken.

Played mini-golf.

Learned that southern hospitality is a wonderful thing.

Met many wonderful people.

Enjoyed my beautiful family.

Went for walks by myself.

Relaxed, unwound and chilled out.

Felt supported, cared for, spoiled and restored.

"Lived stronger. Loved harder. Laughed deeper."

I am so grateful to Jeanine, Melissa and all the wonderful volunteers, donors and families who make Little Pink Houses of Hope such a wonderful experience.

outside the zone

In the nearly six years since my initial breast cancer diagnosis, I have become increasingly introverted. As a child, I was pretty outgoing. However, later in my teens and throughout adulthood I have developed a form of social anxiety that makes it easier to address a crowd of hundreds than to speak to a handful of new people at a social gathering.

I come by it honestly - anxiety disorders run in my family - but the structure of my day to day life hasn't helped. When I was going to an office every day, I had to interact with co-workers and new people every day - and (mostly) I enjoyed it.

I've always liked spending time on my own but these years of introspection have made it seem like more of a hurdle to confront social anxiety. I have a busy social life but I choose to spend time mostly with trusted friends, going places that are familiar to me.

I don't think there's too much wrong with that but I have seen how fears can make one's world smaller and deprive us of experiences that we might enjoy or, at the very least, that can teach or inspire us. I talk to my kids a lot about how everyone needs to strike a balance between doing things we know that we love and undertaking new challenges - about how confronting our fears is often the only way to make sure that our fears do not come to control our lives.

This year, I've been very inspired by my friend Andrea, who has taken it upon herself to do many things that take her outside her personal comfort zone. While she's danced and travelled and taken on public speaking, I've attended a conference, taken a job as an Elections Ontario officer for a day and now - my family is heading on an entirely new adventure.

This morning, we are pointing the car towards Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on our way to take part in a week-long family vacation hosted by Little Pink Houses of Hope. We will be joined by 13 other families and every mother in the group will have been treated for breast cancer. The only mandatory group activities will be dinner on the first night and the last. In between, we will be in our own beach house and all group meals and activities (in the past, these have ranged from jewelry making to hang-gliding) during the week are optional. I'm very grateful for the opportunity and the generosity of the organizers but I'm also freaked right out.

It's going to be an experience. And, as Susan (aka the Bubbster) pointed out to me in an email, "The trip sounds wonderful and you'll all 'dine out' on the vacation for years to come. They'll be happy and funny stories, I know." 

In other words, great blog fodder. And most definitely, an interesting experience.

back at it

I've decided to participate in National Blog Posting Month (or NaBloPoMo) this year, after a two year hiatus (in 2009 I did NaNoWriMo instead and last year, I just didn't feel like it). Let's hope it brings inspiration and a renewed commitment to regular writing.

I'll be accepting suggestions for blogging topics. If previous years are any indication, expect this month's content to be pretty eclectic.

nothing ventured...

I have decided that I won't be doing NaBloPoMo this year.

My heart just isn't in it. This is in part because two of my NaBlo compadres have died. It just won't be the same without Sara and Emily. I miss their voices so much and I just don't feel like blogging every day without them at my virtual side.

But November can be a hard month for me and I still need something to distract and consume me.

I also need motivation to return to the scary (for me) world of fiction writing. I got so much done during my online writing course last year but have done nothing since submitting my outline for a novel, as my final assignment on December 31.

A few weeks ago Rachael suggested to Zoom that she try NaNoWriMo. And that got me thinking. If structure is what I need and my inner critic is my worst enemy then what better solution than to crank out 50,000 words in 30 days?

They don't even have to be good words (what matters with Nano is quantity over quality).
And before I know it, November will be over and I will have a whole bunch of words on paper.

Sounds like fun, right? Right?

S. is joining me, as part of the NaNo Young Writers' Program. I'm very pleased.

2008 in review: a year of first sentences

I stole this idea from Average Jane. Her end result, however, was much more interesting than mine (I wrote 30 posts in November and all you get is "Happy November!"). I also seem to like starting my posts with very short sentences. And I believe that I wrote about American politics far less than you would think from what you read below.

Anyway, here's my year in review, presented via the first sentence of the first post of each month.

January: I am done

February: I saw the doctor who works with my oncologist on Wednesday.

March: The world lost a major talent yesterday.

April: I have been thinking a lot lately about cancer as a chronic illness.

May: I am not even supposed to know this yet.

June: Meet Lucy (she's the furrier one, on the right).

July: A few years ago, back in what seems another lifetime, I had a co-worker who was driving me crazy.

August: 1. When it comes to John Edwards and his affair, I am just about completely indifferent. Elizabeth, however, remains my hero.

September: Today finds me faced with a dilemma.

October: I have a new post up at MyBreastCancerNetwork.Com. It will also be my last for a while.

November: Happy November!

December: According to a recent article in the New York Times, soon-to-be-Ex-President Bush is trying to ram through some changes to the Code of Federal Regulations before Obama takes office.

30 posts in 30 days

Well, I made it.

I posted a lot of "filler" this month. I also found that many of the more substantive posts that I have wanted to write (book reviews and news of the conference I attended) remain in draft form. The need to keep cranking out the posts made me less willing to go back to half-written ones and edit them, lest they take up too much time. I will enjoy giving myself the space to write more thoughtfully and to give myself the time to set things aside.

On the other hand, NaBloPoMo made me dig a little deeper, take in the world in a different way (I was constantly wondering, "could I blog about this?") and post some things it never might have otherwise occurred to me to share. The post that probably got the most reaction was the one about toilet sprouts.

The very first year, I did NaBloPoMo, I was diagnosed with mets and never missed a day. In contrast, I faced many fewer challenges this year. On the other hand, November 2006 was filled with stories that were more compelling than the SpeedFit. At least I think so.

meet the 'speedfit'

The brilliance of humanity never fails to astound me.



Why just go for a run when you can take your treadmill on the road?

This is a real company and they are completely serious. S. thinks we should ask Santa to bring me one.

being kids together

I want to thank everyone who took the time to leave advice or thoughts on my post about tantrums.

As a direct result of your comments, I kept five year old D. home this morning, just to hang out and have fun together.

We played Dog-Opoly (like Monopoly, except that instead of buying property, you buy dogs. It's a laugh a minute) for almost two hours. We danced to the soundtrack from the SpongeBob Squarepants Movie (D. insisted that we take turns dancing while the other watched. He's a real little showboat). We went out to lunch at Subway.

As we were eating our sandwiches, I said, "I'm feeling happy."

"Me too!" he said.

He ran happily into the school when I dropped him off. Our morning went by in a heartbeat. I realized how quickly he's growing up. He can read and add up two numbers on dice (his future as a gambler looks bright. He even blows on the dice before rolling them). And, as a dancer, he really does have some great moves.

We had fun. And we cuddled. It was good.

the opposite problem

I know several women who discovered they had breast cancer much later than they ought to have, because they were refused access to screening, their doctors dismissed their concerns or their breasts were so dense that tumours were not easily detectable by ultrasound or mammogram.

And then, today I read in the Globe and Mail that a new study coming out of Norway, revealed that some cancers will disappear on their own and that more sophisticated testing, such as the MRI, can lead to "overdiagnosis":

The study, published yesterday in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, suggested breast-cancer screening may be leading to overdiagnosis, with about 22 per cent of cases likely to resolve themselves without treatment.

Once a breast cancer is found, however, it would currently be considered unethical not to treat it. So - if the theory is correct - large numbers of women may be having surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and other treatments that would never have been needed if their cancers had not been detected.

[]Radiation can damage the heart and coronary arteries. A previous randomized controlled trial showed that about one in 10 women who receive radiation for breast cancer will die from heart damage attributable to the treatment, he said.

In a telephone interview from Oslo, Dr. Zahl said that if he and his co-authors are correct, two women die from complications of breast-cancer treatment for every woman saved by screening.

"And that's a very bad tradeoff."

The study's authors argue that, since it is considered unethical to treat cancer once it has been detected, more aggressive detection can lead to unnecessary treatment that may cause more harm than good.

I was feeling a little uneasy when I read this article and trying to articulate why, when I read a response from Dr. Amy Tuteur (thanks to Jenny for the link). Her last paragraph was the clincher for me:

Finally, and most importantly, there is no way to tell the difference on mammography, or by any other technique, between the cancers that will disappear and the ones that will go on and kill the woman. Without a practical way to separate those who need to be treated from those who do not, the finding is intriguing and worthy of further investigation, but cannot guide us in determining the best way to screen for breast cancer and the best way to treat it.

It's hard, when reading this stuff, not to consider my own situation. My breast cancer was diagnosed after I found the big, hard lump in my right breast. The kind of cancer I have is aggressive, and by the time we found it, fairly advanced. If I had had an MRI and my tumour had been discovered before the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes, the chance of metastasis could have been much lower.

How would doctors know which cancers to ignore and which to treat?

Until we have the answers to those questions, this study seems to me to be meaningless.

And I hope it doesn't used as a reason to deny tests to women who are high risk or who suspect they might have breast cancer.

Cross-posted to Mothers With Cancer.

"are you a writer?"

The guy at the UPS Store asked me this question (I was using UPS to send some photos to my publisher because PSAC members at Canada Post are on strike).

I looked around to see to whom he was speaking.

Then it dawned on me.

"Yes, I am."

Or at least I'm working on believing it.

I've mentioned before that I have been meeting with a coach since last January. Joyce has a Masters in Education and is part therapist and part life coach. She works with lots of struggling artists and writers, many people currently working in the labour movement and several cancer survivors.

I have always made my living with words but this year I pledged to begin to think of myself as a writer. This need for this had become acute as I relinquished the sense of identity I had derived from full-time work and as the struggle to stay alive had (thankfully) moved the back burner.

With Joyce's input and guidance, I established three goals for this year:

I wanted to finish my book. I am proud to say that I accomplished this (although it never seems to be quite done and I am currently reviewing the copy-editing). I could not have done this without Joyce.

I wanted to build links to other younger people with cancer and spread the word that many of us are living long and well with metastatic breast cancer. I feel really good about my contributions to this blog, Mothers With Cancer, BlogHer and MyBreastCancerNetwork.Com. I also attended a wonderful conference, organized by Living Beyond Breast Cancer.

This networking has gone so well that I burned myself out a little. I have taken a step back of late.

My third goal was to write fiction. I started by playing around a little with my "morning pages" (which I don't always write in the morning). I read and did exercises from several great books (Writing Down the Bones, The Artist's Way, Bird by Bird and The Writer's Path).

Joyce suggested that I needed a writing group and it dawned on me that I could start one. I've done that.

Joyce suggested that I should sign up for an online writing course that would give me some progressive assignments to work on. I did some research and registered for one called "I've Always Wanted To Write Fiction." We are in week four and I am up to date on my assignments.

I am not thrilled with what I have produced so far but I am proud that I have done it. My prose still seems stilted and pedestrian but I am putting my toes in the water. Everything I have read tells me that art takes hard work. I may not be Virginia Woolf (or even Sue Grafton) but I can make art for its own sake. And mine.

And as I re-read this blog post, I realize that I have come a long way this year.

Cross-posted to Mothers With Cancer.

crushing on jamie oliver

I love him for his potatoes.

Last night, I made this.

I am, at best, an indifferent cook. I am working on changing this, as I don't think it's fair for my spouse to do all the cooking. Also, if I want more control over what we eat, I need to contribute.

This week, I made (or helped to make) an unprecedented four meals. Macaroni and cheese (with onions and garlic). Chicken cacciatore in the slow cooker (with bottled tomatoes, onions and garlic). Updated hamburger helper (my friend L. instructed and did all the chopping. I browned the meat and stirred a lot).

So, as you can see, a recipe that requires fresh herbs and boiling the potatoes before they go into the roasting pan is a bit of a departure for me (I roasted my first chicken two years ago. At least three times since then, I have roasted the chicken upside down.)

Last night, I painstakingly followed all instructions. It wasn't that hard. And it worked. The potatoes did not look as golden in as in the photo but they were delicious.

I don't even like potatoes and I had seconds.

And more for breakfast, swooning and moaning all the while.

I kept saying, "I made this!"

I'm still a little stunned. I have never, ever been able to say about anything that I have cooked, "That was the best I ever had." It felt good.

the worst idea ever. or am i just too uptight?

Please help us settle an argument.

My spouse, who grows sprouts in our kitchen, thinks this is a good idea. So does S., my oldest son.

I think it's disgusting. My sprout growing friends (yes, I have sprouting friends) agree with me.

Take a good long look and let me know what you think.

It's a theoretical discussion because, as long as I live in this house, we are not growing sprouts in my toilet.



- More cool how to projects

coping with cloudy skies

We have been struggling with temper tantrums around here lately.

When my spouse and I turned to the Internets for advice, we came up with some wildly different, even contradictory advice:

1. We need to institute a "systematic behavior management plan" that includes time-outs. The time out should not start until he is seated and quiet.

If I could get him to be seated and quiet, I wouldn't need a time out.

2. We need to investigate his diet and exposure to allergens. Also, hugs are more effective than time outs:

"Until you find one that works, however, hold your son gently when he falls apart and talk to him softly in a singsong."

When my son is having a tantrum, I can't really get my arms around him and the screaming tends to drown out my gentle crooning.

3. Call the cops and have the kid arrested.

This is what one Florida school did:

"To subdue the unruly kindergartner, school officials phoned Avon Park's police department ("committed to enhancing the 'Quality of Life' of the community"). When the cops arrived, young Desre'e attempted to resist arrest by crawling under a table. But Avon Park's finest pulled her out, cuffed her, put her in a police cruiser, drove her to the county jail, and charged this 50-pound menace with a felony and two misdemeanors."

I think I'll call the doctor, make sure he never gets too hungry, talk to his teachers (they assure me that the tantrums are not occurring at school or day care), reinforce good behaviour and keep hoping that it's just a phase...

Thoughts?

it's come to this

This is now a 'cute kids and animals' blog.

I have a very good friend in town for a couple of days. We are hanging out.

Regular programming will no doubt resume post-visit.

feeling nostalgic already

This was taken just a few weeks ago. The leaves are mostly gone now and winter is in the air.

writing

This was actually taken on chemo day but it kind of sums up what I feel like doing. Note the bed, the book and the laptop. The only thing missing is a great big chocolate bar.

And yes, that is the world's meanest cat, all cuddled up with me. Don't be fooled by appearances. One false move and he'd slit my throat.

I've actually been doing some non-blog writing today, so not much left over for this space. Please bear with me. There will be a more substantial post one these days, I promise.

lest we forget (part two)

My spouse and my ten year old son are reading Maus together right now. So, so hard.

I am glad S. wants to learn this but so sad he has to learn how cruel people can be.

S.: "So they were just allowed to shoot Jews for fun?"

T.: "Jews were not considered human."

S.: "They were treated like vermin."

S. and T. together: "Like mice."

T.: "Not all the Germans felt this way but when your government and all the news and your neighbours are all telling you one thing...People get swept up."

So hard.

not missing a day

by popular request...

Photos of the puppy. Or as the vet calls her, my "hairy little monster."

It is very difficult to get a good photo of a black dog. However, I discovered that a good camera can really make a difference.

Seriously in need of a grooming.

I was holding a treat in the air. I really love this camera.

She has a really long tongue.

J-Dog was unimpressed.

I spent the last couple of hours trying to come up with a post for NaBloPoMo. I also needed to re-take some photos for the book. Instead, I took photos of my dogs and turned them into a post.

Although, now I just want to photograph everything I own with this camera.

Too bad I have chemo tomorrow. Although maybe I'll take photos of that, too.

book review: "the retreat"*

Reading The Retreat by David Bergen was good for me, in the way experiences that provoke and make you uncomfortable can be good for you.

But it was hard going.

Even at the outset, the reader is aware that the story will end in tragedy (and not just because it says so on the dust jacket). From the very first page, the sense of foreboding is almost oppressive. And on several occasions, I had to put it down and take a few deep breaths, so intense was my discomfort.

From the book's jacket:

In 1973, outside of Kenora, Ontario, Raymond Seymour, an eighteen-year-old Ojibway boy, is taken by a local policeman to a remote island and left for dead.

A year later, the Byrd family arrives in Kenora. They have come to stay at “the Retreat,” a commune run by the self-styled guru Doctor Amos. The Doctor is an enigmatic man who spouts bewildering truisms, and who bathes naked every morning in the pond at the edge of the Retreat while young Everett Byrd watches from the bushes. Lizzy, the eldest of the Byrd children, cares for her younger brothers Fish and William, and longs for what she cannot find at the Retreat. When Lizzy meets Raymond, everything changes, and Lizzy comes to understand the real difference between Raymond’s world and her own. A tragedy and a love story, the novel moves towards a conclusion that is both astonishing and heartbreaking.

Set during the summer of the Ojibway occupation of Anicinabe Park in Kenora, The Retreat is a finely nuanced, deeply felt novel that tells the story of the complicated love between a white girl and a native boy, and of a family on the verge of splintering forever. It is also a story of the bond between two brothers who were separated in childhood, and whose lives and fates intertwine ten years later.

The book is beautifully written, filled with complex, believable, interesting and unhappy characters. Woven throughout are the twin themes of betrayal and existence (there are multiple references to the way other characters treat Raymond as though he is invisible and his own need to "verify his own existence."

I most affected by the scenes involving Raymond and I found myself becoming almost frantic as I read about his attempts at survival after being abandoned on the island, as the snow begins to fall:

"He scraped together some moss and laid it down in the hole, and then he curled up in the shallow dip and covered himself up with more moss. He was shaking severely. He pressed his hands between his thighs and blew warm breath down the inside of his jacket...In the grey light he finally started a fire...he warmed his hands and feet and bent towards the flames like a requester who sees the possibility of salvation but is too abject too cry out."

I found Bergen's description here to be quite vivid and made all the more poignant by the fact that Canada has a shameful history of this sort of occurrence and that more than one such instance has ended in tragedy.

I can't say that I enjoyed The Retreat. It did however, move me profoundly. I will remember it longer than many books I have enjoyed and read with much more ease.

*This is book was sent to me via Library Thing's Early Reviewer Program.