A dose of reality

Today I swallowed a big, heaping tablespoon of reality. Cancer reality. But first, a quick note of good news. My PET scan results came back yesterday and there was NO evidence that the cancer has spread. THIS IS HUGE. It means my cancer staging remains IIIB and means the outlook for the end of my treatment is really good. I repeat, this is the best fucking news of the week. Followed closely by the fact that I closed on my new house and as of 3PM this afternoon, all of my stuff is out of my old place and inside my new place! Yesterday was an AWESOME day. It also included some sage-smudging to rid my new house of any bad juju (thanks Bailey & Chelsea!), and a family toast in the backyard to celebrate after we hauled over all of the fragile stuff that I didn’t trust the movers with (16 cases of wine/booze, sports equipment sufficient to send a South Pacific nation to the olympics, and wall hanging that ranged from my framed Michigan acceptance letter to the one real piece art I own, from Nando’s Gallery in Newport, RI.

Today was a different day. Today I got slapped in the face, several times, by the cancer blob (in my mind, cancer blob kind of looks like the anthropomorphic slime ball that is the mascot for Mucinex – apparently his name is Mr Mucus, so maybe I should name the blob Mr Cancer – although I’m not sure how I feel about gendering the blob – so maybe Comodore Cancer?)

Slap Numero Uno: This morning I bit the bullet and sent out the email to all the people I work with letting them know I’m taking medical leave starting next Tuesday. I’d been dragging my ass I’m sending the email because:

1. Now I can’t pretend at work that everything is normal
2. I generally don’t like to be emotionally vulnerable at work
3. I don’t want to get those half-frowny faces from people because they feel bad for me
4. Now I can’t pretend at work that everything is normal

Did I say that already? It bears repeating. I was kind of in a happy place of denial at work. Now I can’t be. But given that I’ll only be physically at work for about 4 hours before starting leave, it felt like I just had to do it. I wrote the email over a week ago.  I tinkered with the wording and the list of people I sent it to and subject line (and all that tinkering and I still managed to spell this blog’s web address wrong, d’oh!). This morning I put my big girl pants on (in this case, leggings, because CANCER so I’m gonna wear leggings on a weekday in public if I want to) and I hit send. And then I went “fuck, what did I just do?!” And then I summarily forgot about it for 30 minutes as I drove to my old house to greet the movers and clear out.

The movers came today. This was planned before my diagnosis. Movers on Thursday are cheaper than movers Fri-Mon. And I’m cheap. I was cheap before writing the biggest check of my life for my down payment, and before hitting my health insurance out of pocket max, but now I’m REALLY cheap. Also, you might be tempted to make a culturally/ethnically insensitive but nonetheless funny “cheap jew” joke, but my thrifty-ness comes from my mom, who was raised Catholic on the South-side of Chicago. So you’re gonna have to come up with a different joke.

Slap #2: The move was a little bit of a goat rodeo. In part because I had to leave after they loaded the trucks to head to port surgery (thanks Dad for covering unload!) and in part because I’ve made a career of being operationally excellent (it’s literally my title) and these guys were NOT operationally excellent. At all. It took them 90 minutes to load up the entire house EXCEPT the treadmill. And then it took them 90 minutes to load the treadmill – which they knew about in advance, including the make and model, and they still managed to make a fist sized hole in the wall on the way out. And complain about it. While I was being charged hourly. This same madness apparently repeated itself at unload – thankfully my Dad is a bangarang negotiator (and he hasn’t even been to Target GAPS training) and he managed to get 30% sliced off the bill. BOOM! Also, thank god that while I was witnessing said goat rodeo, I got to read all of the incredibly kind and uplifting emails, texts and blog comments from my coworkers, including one note that contained the most down-to-earth, incredibly helpful, advice from a coworker who I just wanted to give a giant hug to, but had to settle for a reply email (girl, you know who you are and I’m coming for you Monday, so don’t get creeped out when I sneak up on you and give you a bear hug, and tell you what I’m doing with your “chemo gift” advice)

Slap #3: Needless to say when I arrived at Piper for port surgery this afternoon, my blood pressure was at its highest all month. But thankfully, all my stats were within range and I got the green light for surgery. Although not before peeing in a cup for a UPT. In my professional world, UPT means Units per Transaction – the number of items a shopper buys in a trip (an especially important number at Target because we want to make sure that if you went in for toilet paper and trail mix, you’re also leaving with tea lights, tank tops, tinker toys and travel size toiletries even though your aren’t going on vacation until 2021 – I’m joking – kind of). Anyway, I was intrigued by the hospital use of UPT, so I asked and learned it’s code for Urine Pregnancy Test – the quasi secret pre-op test they make you do (or at least they make the ladies do it). Pretty sure if I hadn’t asked they wouldn’t have told me (assuming the results were negative, which they were). It was shady, but I guess I get it.

Once I got the pre-op green light I changed into the coolest hospital gown ever. Like normal gowns, you’re at risk of flashing your butt to everyone. But unlike normal hospital gowns this one was a 3M Bair Hugger gown – which has sandwich bag pockets built in that they connect to a warm air hose to keep you nice and toasty while you wait your turn for surgery. It was pretty nice except when my mom walked in to keep me company while I waited she thought I had gained 100lbs in 45 minutes (it was just the puffed up air pockets!)

I got the intro to the surgery team, got my clavicle signed by Dr Johnson (my same surgeon who will do the mastectomy in early 2019), got my IV put in, and then got wheeled to the the Operating Room. They strapped me onto the table, scanned my wristband, and put some magic cold juice in my IV bag because the next thing I remember I was in recovery, crying for an unknown reason that could be because:

• my mom wasn’t there yet
• I was sad because I didn’t remember the countdown from 10 like when I got my wisdom teeth out
• My throat was on FIRE after mouth breathing super-dry Operating Room air for an hour
• Most likely because I get a little emotional when coming off of anesthesia – I have twice proposed marriage to my oral surgeon after having major dental work done, oy!)

You’re probably thinking “what the heck is a Port?!” My PowerPort (TM) is a tiny triangle puck about the size of a quarter with an attached tube. The puck gets placed in your upper chest (mine is where my hand is when I pledge allegiance) and the tube runs upwards inside your chest and is connected into an artery near your collarbone. The entire device sits under the skin, and by the time it’s  healed up in two weeks you probably won’t even see it. The port allows for IVs to get inserted into the puck and run straight to the artery (as well as blood draws) which means they won’t have to poke my arms a gajillion times during chemo and will keep my arm veins “healthy” for future use. Also, this gets the chemo drugs on the blood highway ASAP (the port is like the HOV lane fast pass, whereas your arm veins are like side-streets – they’ll get you to the highway eventually but it’ll take a while).

Slap #4: now my port is in and I’m all medically ready to start chemo on Tuesday – this thing is really truly happening. But, after almost 24 hours of food fasting and 6 hours of complete fasting for surgery pre, I’m back on food and drink – and my mom took me to Byerlys AND Target to get my favorite ice cream (Ben & Jerry’s Mint Cookie   –   dont @ me, it’s hands down the best ice cream ever of all time) to make my throat feel better AND Byerly’s was the one out of stock, not Target AND my mom made me homemade mini pizzas for breaklinner (the one meal I had today) AND I got some pretty sweet pain pills that make me feel like a unicorn. The only thing better than B&J’s Mint Cookie is my mom. She is literally the best mom and caregiver and shopping-partner and tear-wiper-upper around. I dare you to @ me on this one, because I will WIN.

Unfortunately today was a hefty dose of cancer reality, a day that makes this all feel a little more real, serious, frightening, and overwhelming.

Fortunately, I’ve got 4 days before the next dose of cancer reality hits (chemo), and I’m going to live it UP (unpacking parties; Shabbat dinner with the Cross Crew at my Dads, dinner at BLG with Michelle; consuming enough raw fish to last me until January without giving me mercury poisoning; the great Minnesota Get Together; and introducing Bart to our AMAZING new house and backyard.