Butterflies and Blogs

Twice today the image of butterflies came up. So it seems the butterfly is the image of the day.

First, this morning I returned to radiation after my 3-day hiatus from "The Machine." This is kind of a big week for me--it's my last full week of treatment and after Tuesday I will be down to just the five "boob boosts" which are the quick, targeted radiation to just the incision spot. And do you know how those darling radiation therapists wanted to celebrate with me? Yeah, they wanted to draw on my boob. Like I'm some sort of third grad art project! That's just weird, dontcha think? It's not weird to them. They claim it's required. And get this--I can't wash it off!! So, with the doctor's consent and involvement, they've now marked me with indelible ink circling the target area (Sharpie does not do this justice--and believe me, if it wouldn't get my blog shut down and fined by the morality police, I would be showing you a photo of this). Then, I'm pretty sure just to mock me, they put five little stickers on me--and two of them are butterflies. Oh, and I can't wash these off until radiation is over--8 days from now. Okay, I'm sure these butterflies serve a medical purpose but right now, they are two little creatures clinging to my abused breast and smiling up at me through a permanent felt-tip marker circle. You can't imagine how weird this looks. Hundreds of years from now scientist are going to be describing the weird pagan rituals our culture put breast cancer patients through and 12 year-old medical students who jet-packed to the hospitals will be laughing at this. Probably while looking at a photo of my breast that someone found on a fossil known as a blog on a laptop (which will seem gigantic and slow to them). Who knew that cancer treatment involved felt tip markers and butterfly stickers??? Raise your hand if you knew this!! (Okay, put it down--you're alone at your computer and you're a radiation therapist, Jana!!)

Because I was getting additional body art this morning, I was running late. I actually didn't get out of the radiation place until almost 10 and I had a 10a.m. meeting across town. I raced to it but still arrived late. I run enough meetings myself to know how annoying it is to have to start over or break stride for the tardy participant, so believe me, I was all ready with The Cancer excuse. None needed. They didn't even skip a beat. But the meeting was the beginning of the strategic planning sessions for the Riverside Humane Society Pet Adoption Center. And here's where butterflies came up again. No, not as pets, silly. There was an analogy drawn that our pet adoption center was just ready to come out of its cocoon and blossom into a butterfly (and it is! We have a gorgeous new facility where all the animals stay until a forever home is found for them, and no healthy animal is ever euthanized--which is the way it should be!! But I digress...). The analogy stuck for awhile. And there it was--butterflies right in front of me (okay, and um, lower...maybe lower than they should be) twice in just over an hour. Anybody know what a butterfly symbolizes? (And just a thought here, but if it's eternal damnation, death, or you know, disease, please don't share that information. Think about it, 'kay?)

Later in the day I found myself doing that thing that I'm not supposed to do---checking out other cancer blogs. I'm not even sure how I found myself down that particular rabbit hole, but it had something to do with when a cancer blog appropriately ends. And, um, duh...sometimes they end because the person has died. Why was I not thinking about that???? I wasn't. Because I don't go there. I don't think like that and I haven't been told I need to think like that, but nonetheless every once in awhile I get slapped upside the head with that reality. People die from cancer. I have cancer. Wow. So much for my cancer lite theory! And I realized that perhaps I'm being presumptuous (but let's just call it positive thinking) that my odyssey is coming to an end. Certainly there is the possibility of recurrence, and there are definitely follow up appointments and mammograms and ultrasounds and scans and all that sort of stuff that happens when one has been unceremoniously and rudely attacked by that bitch Cancer. Still, I think getting this far and the fact that there are no signs of the cancer at this point is worth celebrating.

Besides, my radiation therapists and I briefly discussed the power of positive thinking in these situations (they deal with lots of cancer patients of course). I didn't really get when people said that to me in the beginning of all this--how much attitude matters. I just figured there were two choices and I didn't like the other one, so a "good" attitude would have to do (and isn't it funny how a "bad" attitude--of the F**k Cancer variety--can be a good attitude? Discuss amongst yourselves.) I see now though that it's really true. I don't know what lies ahead of me any more or any less than you do, really. Sure, I've got this 15% recurrence statistic hanging over me, but I've also got an 85% chance it doesn't come back. And I do know what I can handle now (more than I thought), and I do know that I didn't allow cancer to rob me of these last seven months of enjoying life with my friends and family or any of the things that are important to me (and yeah, my career is important to me, that's why I kept working...oh, and I like to eat). And it could have done that if I had let it, if I had focused on all that could have gone wrong or all that still might. So I understand what they mean by having the right attitude. It doesn't change my chances, and it doesn't change the future, but I think it made the last seven months easier for me and the people around me.

Wow. That was almost melancholy. Or perky. And I hate both those things!! Note to self: stay away from cancer blogs!! (Oh, wait...that doesn't apply to you, dearest reader).

Tomorrow is my final "full" radiation. Chris is going to go in with me. He's been to every stage of this cancer odyssey with me every step of the way, but I've been going to radiation each morning by myself (it's on my way to work), so it's definitely time for him to come in and meet all these people I keep telling him about and experience the radiation part of this. So in all likelihood, there will be photos soon. Maybe even photos of The Machine! Definitely we'll get some blue gown photos. But I'm not sure if I'll be blogging tomorrow evening--we have the final party planning committee (where we practice partying to make sure it will go well on July 19th1), and my friend GARY BERG is in town, so that's always a party. Hmm...there could be lots of photos for the next blog.

Tattoo Tuesday

I'm going to start with a pretty picture. That's ANDY and VALERIE ZUCKER, who hosted us for a very nice dinner Monday night as we closed out our long La Jolla weekend. Things to note in the photo: high chair, big glass of wine, baby monitor, big glass of wine. Now that's parenting done properly. (And yes, Andy wanted to have me over because I have less hair than he does). Valerie is also wearing the top she bought at the "Shop to Stop Breast Cancer" event. She just didn't, you know, buy it in time to stop mine.

So now on to the less pretty pictures. Today was the CT scan at the radiation oncologists and much to my surprise it was also tattoo day. Yep. I'm tattooed. I thought they'd be tattooing me with the "radiation alignment" points next Tuesday, but I was wrong.

It was an interesting appointment. I was at least able to figure out the parking (last time I parked in the parking lot and then had to walk all the way around the building and the ambulances to get to the entrance; the trick is to park on the street). I started the little routine I'll be doing each morning--check in with receptionist, head to the changing room, strip from the waist up, put on ever-so sexy hospital gown (open to the back), put belongings in the locker and take the key, wait in the little waiting room with other similarly attired people...and their spouses (and yeah, that's just weird; when I'm in my hospital gown I want other hospital gown people and medical personnel only please). I had a little time to get caught up on People magazine (8 babies? seriously? She had 8 babies?) and then the radiation tech came out and got me for my CT scan. I've never had one before.

Not surprisingly this involves me laying down on a table, exposing my already over-exposed breasts and then reaching up over my head to hold on to a bar while the doctor draws on me. Yeah, draws. With a marker. That's what you see in the photo (and yeah, the marker came off on my bra afterward; nice). Then the doctor leaves, the technician draws a little more and then--the tattoos! She said it would be like a bee sting. The middle one? That's quite a bee. For those of you with real tattoos that you actually chose to do, all I can say is wow. Really? Wow. And why??? The needle for these tattoos apparently goes deeper than with a "normal" tattoo (I didn't ask why; I assume it's to make it darker?). We'll see when I wash off all the marker, but I don't think these look like freckles. And did I mention I bled? From all three "tattoos"? I've been stung by a bee. It did not make me bleed. So, what you are looking at in the photo is all the accrued external damage from the treatment for cancer (after all, the cancer is, we hope, gone...so you aren't looking at that.) Top scar is from the sentinel lymph node surgery; the one just outside the bathing suit top is from the actual lumpectomy (and no, it won't show normally when I wear a swimsuit; I adjusted for the picture; and remember these scars are "only" four months old, so they'll look better eventually), one of the blue markers is also shown (it should go away soon) and then below in the cross shape is the markers for the tattoo and the middle dot is the tattoo. Here's a closer view on the left. I happen to have a mole right below where they did the tattoo so it's confusing, I know but there you have it. That's the tattoo on my right side, then there is one in the middle just below the breast bone, and of course one on the left. That's my alignment.

The CT scan itself wasn't much. They move you back and forth under the scanner tube and there's something spinning around me (scanning, presumably) that made me feel, oddly, that I was in a washing machine without water, or movement...so yeah, I don't know why that's what I thought. Not a big deal really. My appointment was at 10 and I was back in my office by 10:40. With just a few little bandaids over my new tattoos for my trouble

I get a blood test Thursday and my appointments are now set for the actual radiation. 9a.m every morning starting the Tuesday after Memorial day. So there we have it. I am officially no longer chemo girl. I am now Radiation Girl.

OH! And my assistant Michelle did the eyelash research for me. Apparently it's common that they fall out after the 4th or 5th round of chemo! Wow. Wish I had known that before. And it takes two months for them to grow back after chemo stops (so for me, that's two months from now). I'm pretty sure my eyebrows are giving up a few as well. Mid July really will be the end of all this. I should be done radiating, have some eyelashes and have about maybe an inch of hair. Super excited about all that. Aren't you?