Breast Cancer still sucks. But, the lump that was removed from my friend was, indeed, nothing.
PHEW. Together, we roamed NYC, walking our legs off, indulging in lots of food, Little Italy, Bourgeouise Pig and a little port.
And my other friend, Alice Crisci continues her fight against cancer by starting up a new foundation to help young women battling breast cancer, so they can retain their beauty and their ability to have children in the future.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alice-crisci/
http://myvisionfoundation.homestead.com/
My neighbor, who just started chemo a week ago, is doing well. She's working half days, which is great, and then she comes up and passes out and sleeps all day. But, hey, no puking.
I, however am now 10 weeks pregnant (!!!!) and there was a little bit of puking, but that was 2 weekends ago, and life is much better now. Also, I'm not the voracious eater-for-two that I was 2 weeks ago either. Having said that, now, of course, I am hungry and will eat my lunch at 10:30 in the morning. Ah, the life of a Hobbit. Breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, afternoon snack, tea, and then home for dinner.
(And Blue Eyes is now TWO! Something she reminds me... as she holds up all five fingers. "I two!")
Yes, life has been busy.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Good news, and bad news. Very bad news
The good news is, Blue Eyes is at a new daycare/preschool. She is very happy there and loves her teachers and the other kids. That is a brief ray of sunshine when I look at my last post.
I just recieved news that yet another friend has had a "something" removed from her breast. First it was a friend from college that I hadn't seen in 8 years. She's the one who helped me get where I am today, quite literally. Full double mastectomy, chemo, the whole bit. (This started in Feb.) Next, I find out a neighbor -- a woman who I come home and chat with two or three times a week -- a woman who has shown me what it's like to be a calm and patient grandmother, an excellent... okay, down right f'ing awesome housekeeper and matriarch -- found she had cancer. One breast gone, lymph nodes, gone. Chemo still to come.
And then I find yet another friend -- a "sister" who is younger than me -- she's f---ing younger than me just went in to have a lump removed. Didn't show up on a scan, couldn't biopsy it, so they removed a lump. And this is just what had happened to my neighbor 6 years ago.
And I know I shouldn't make this all about me. It's not all about me. But how did I go from being someone who had known NO ONE with this disease to knowing three friends, three incredible women having something like this just jump on them? I don't know what to do. I feel so incredibly helpless. And I can pray about it, because if anyone has any control over anything, it would be God. But sometimes I wish he had e-mail and would respond plainly, because sometimes I just want to ask him, WHAT THE FUCK?
Sending out a prayer and a laugh and some hope to all women dealing with fear out there.
'Cause after all of it, the fear is the worst. (At least, that's from my limited perspective.)
Hugs, ladies.
I just recieved news that yet another friend has had a "something" removed from her breast. First it was a friend from college that I hadn't seen in 8 years. She's the one who helped me get where I am today, quite literally. Full double mastectomy, chemo, the whole bit. (This started in Feb.) Next, I find out a neighbor -- a woman who I come home and chat with two or three times a week -- a woman who has shown me what it's like to be a calm and patient grandmother, an excellent... okay, down right f'ing awesome housekeeper and matriarch -- found she had cancer. One breast gone, lymph nodes, gone. Chemo still to come.
And then I find yet another friend -- a "sister" who is younger than me -- she's f---ing younger than me just went in to have a lump removed. Didn't show up on a scan, couldn't biopsy it, so they removed a lump. And this is just what had happened to my neighbor 6 years ago.
And I know I shouldn't make this all about me. It's not all about me. But how did I go from being someone who had known NO ONE with this disease to knowing three friends, three incredible women having something like this just jump on them? I don't know what to do. I feel so incredibly helpless. And I can pray about it, because if anyone has any control over anything, it would be God. But sometimes I wish he had e-mail and would respond plainly, because sometimes I just want to ask him, WHAT THE FUCK?
Sending out a prayer and a laugh and some hope to all women dealing with fear out there.
'Cause after all of it, the fear is the worst. (At least, that's from my limited perspective.)
Hugs, ladies.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Mem'ries
This is to my daughter:
Okay, so there are all the things that pass us by, and some things I don't want to.
Like yesterday, after you colored on your chair with marker after I told you not to, after I chased you around the house, after you cried when Daddy left for the store and cried when I wouldn't give your markers back, finally, you sat in my lap and we watched Elmo as I rubbed lotion on your little legs and feet. And then you went to your room without complaint, your hand holding onto my finger. And you stubbornly would not let me read you the book, but you read it to me. "Elmo, tree!" -- skip 5 pages -- "Elmo dance!" -- skip 7 pages -- "all done!" Pretty smart for an almost 2 year old.
And I don't want to forget the strange things you do... like biting yourself on the thigh at naptime yesterday... in a way we can't figure out how you got your mouth to.
And I don't want to forget you singing every word you know to the ABC song, and how you love the line "Up above the world so high" in Twinkle, Twinkle.
And I don't want to forget the feeling of carrying your sleepy little body, curled up on my shoulder, after you have just fallen asleep in the car... to the songs "Jump Around" and "Low Rider."
You are strange. You are funny. You so belong in our family. I love you.
Okay, so there are all the things that pass us by, and some things I don't want to.
Like yesterday, after you colored on your chair with marker after I told you not to, after I chased you around the house, after you cried when Daddy left for the store and cried when I wouldn't give your markers back, finally, you sat in my lap and we watched Elmo as I rubbed lotion on your little legs and feet. And then you went to your room without complaint, your hand holding onto my finger. And you stubbornly would not let me read you the book, but you read it to me. "Elmo, tree!" -- skip 5 pages -- "Elmo dance!" -- skip 7 pages -- "all done!" Pretty smart for an almost 2 year old.
And I don't want to forget the strange things you do... like biting yourself on the thigh at naptime yesterday... in a way we can't figure out how you got your mouth to.
And I don't want to forget you singing every word you know to the ABC song, and how you love the line "Up above the world so high" in Twinkle, Twinkle.
And I don't want to forget the feeling of carrying your sleepy little body, curled up on my shoulder, after you have just fallen asleep in the car... to the songs "Jump Around" and "Low Rider."
You are strange. You are funny. You so belong in our family. I love you.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Sad poetry
My days are stolen, every day.
Time is taking them away.
The sun rises, crosses, sets
Why hasn’t someone stopped this yet
My daughter sees me every morn’
I leave her, crying, distraught, forlorn
She calls my name, begging, please
I have to work. I have to leave.
Seems just weeks ago, she was a year.
Now she’s two, and soon, I fear,
She’ll be going off to school with glee
Growing up… and without me.
I want to stay. Don’t want to go.
Baby girl, oh, don’t you know?
I want to hold you in my arms.
I want to hug you, make you calm
If money is an evil root
This is proof it’s true.
Because I need money to pay the bills
But, baby, it’s cost me you.
Time is taking them away.
The sun rises, crosses, sets
Why hasn’t someone stopped this yet
My daughter sees me every morn’
I leave her, crying, distraught, forlorn
She calls my name, begging, please
I have to work. I have to leave.
Seems just weeks ago, she was a year.
Now she’s two, and soon, I fear,
She’ll be going off to school with glee
Growing up… and without me.
I want to stay. Don’t want to go.
Baby girl, oh, don’t you know?
I want to hold you in my arms.
I want to hug you, make you calm
If money is an evil root
This is proof it’s true.
Because I need money to pay the bills
But, baby, it’s cost me you.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Daycare Update
Oh, and btw, Blue Eyes is no longer screeching, crying, reaching her arms out to me with plaintive wails when we drop her off. She goes up the steps, turns around and waves, "Bye, Mommy! Bye, Daddy!" And she tells her Miss, "Wuvva" (I love you) when she leaves.
Temptation
*Lead me not unto temptation*
Yeah... I was raised in a religious family, what can I say?
I was sorely tempted to get really pissed at whoever decided to eat or steal or dump my lunch for today. I really would rather eat the leftover Greek salad and leftover Kung Pao chicken instead of the greasy bagel with onion and tomato. I mean, I even left olives in the salad so I could have some more today! I'm trying to think charitably that maybe someone accidentally spilled them on the floor since they were in the front of the work fridge. I was taking deep breaths, debating on storming around the office and writing a passive agressive note to "whom it may concern" when I noticed my coworker's daughter -- 5 years old and quietly coloring in the break room. She was drawing "the part where Speed hits the ninja". She then told me to prepare for another stunning adventure of Speed Racer! And then she hummed the song to herself.
Now how can I be angry after that? (Dang greasy bagel and all.)
Yeah... I was raised in a religious family, what can I say?
I was sorely tempted to get really pissed at whoever decided to eat or steal or dump my lunch for today. I really would rather eat the leftover Greek salad and leftover Kung Pao chicken instead of the greasy bagel with onion and tomato. I mean, I even left olives in the salad so I could have some more today! I'm trying to think charitably that maybe someone accidentally spilled them on the floor since they were in the front of the work fridge. I was taking deep breaths, debating on storming around the office and writing a passive agressive note to "whom it may concern" when I noticed my coworker's daughter -- 5 years old and quietly coloring in the break room. She was drawing "the part where Speed hits the ninja". She then told me to prepare for another stunning adventure of Speed Racer! And then she hummed the song to herself.
Now how can I be angry after that? (Dang greasy bagel and all.)
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
It's not a death in the family
But it feels like one.
My little girl is gone... all day.
I won't ever see her again... until 5:30.
This is the first time in her life that I have gone to work and not had her here. And it will be like this every day now. There's no hearing her laugh, cry, shriek her friends names down the hall. There won't be any more days (for her, or any of her brothers or sisters to come) where I can work, then walk down and nurse her to sleep and then head back to work. Yeah, I'll have my lunch hour free now. I'll probably work straight through it like I used to.
She's not even two. I don't know what I would have done if I had to start this when she was 3 months old. I so need a work at home type job, or gasp, a way to make money where I don't have to work all the time.
I miss my little girl.
*I've had in-office daycare for the past year and a half and it just got canceled. So, she's off to daycare like millions of other children across the country.*
My little girl is gone... all day.
I won't ever see her again... until 5:30.
This is the first time in her life that I have gone to work and not had her here. And it will be like this every day now. There's no hearing her laugh, cry, shriek her friends names down the hall. There won't be any more days (for her, or any of her brothers or sisters to come) where I can work, then walk down and nurse her to sleep and then head back to work. Yeah, I'll have my lunch hour free now. I'll probably work straight through it like I used to.
She's not even two. I don't know what I would have done if I had to start this when she was 3 months old. I so need a work at home type job, or gasp, a way to make money where I don't have to work all the time.
I miss my little girl.
*I've had in-office daycare for the past year and a half and it just got canceled. So, she's off to daycare like millions of other children across the country.*
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