tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125354934408472049.post8217483060650396586..comments2024-02-20T00:10:20.214-06:00Comments on KatyDid Cancer: Day 55Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125354934408472049.post-74874521725320371172011-06-29T00:38:32.542-05:002011-06-29T00:38:32.542-05:00P.S. I'm curious to know what's come of th...P.S. I'm curious to know what's come of the organic cotton farmers vs. malaria battle in Africa... will the independence of South Sudan have any impact and has any headway been made in a year's time for those suffering under your aptly identified "injustice by good intention." <br /><br />P.P.S. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there's a fifth trait that defines you - being able to take potentially terrible, life devastating experiences beyond your control and with luck and introspection turn out words of wisdom and share uniquely comforting notions instead of promulgating endless uncertainty. Keep being marvelously you. I am not prouder to know another person on this earth.gabesterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12668071288755419304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125354934408472049.post-20897997344080835602011-06-29T00:37:16.126-05:002011-06-29T00:37:16.126-05:00Day 420. A year ago Augie was taking his first exc...Day 420. A year ago Augie was taking his first excited steps, he's now loquacious and getting the hang of the potty. Lenny has learned to swim all the way out to the platforms at Silver Lake in her inner tube and you, my dear, the one we feared we might lose too soon, seem to be well on your way to mastering the childhood skill of riding a bike. We still fear for a future that may never come, but our hope is renewed and a sense of normalcy seems almost restorative if you can call these things - stress about buying and remodelling a house, the kids, their schooling and activities and friendships and finding time for each other - restorative. That feather in the road - it might be an eagle's or a hawk or just a pheasant after all.<br /><br />You've lived out a year here past the anticipatory fear of chemo's consequences. How have you fared? Sexually, back on track; despite the worst that induced menopause inflicted, unkind to you in many ways. Your recovery was like a switch flipping from a chemically induced "off" turned right back on after a surprisingly short time had passed although it couldn't come soon enough. Brains - despite the "missing" summer and fall aside when your focus was understandably on treatment and survival - you're as brilliant as ever; although clearly the stress of the everyday changes seem to be getting to you more. Likely some of that is just being overwhelmed by the cumulative absorption of stress over the recent years. <br /><br />That leaves us with the hair. No, it's growing back nicely, thick and lustrous. It'll have its awkward moments that may seem to stretch for days or weeks between haircuts or styling challenges... but it's so much darker you worry you've been disbarred from the realm of the redheaded by your triple negative infraction's treatment. There's still a deep, dark red in there waiting for enough time in the sun to really get out and show itself. <br /><br />I never realized how important being a redhead was to your identity; but I get it being constantly challenged to answer the question "Where did the kids get that red from" myself when once could just point to you - not that we NEVER heard people ask that before you lost your hair. Don't forget - those lustrous locks you used to have aren't gone - we still have in hip-hat form stowed in a box. You could put them on whenever you want if you so desire... but as I relearned from Lenny recently "hair is just a dead thing like fingernails and skin." <br /><br />So while I won't say you got out of treatment easy and I can't say we're out of the woods for another couple years, I think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even if an accursed heart-wrenching round two recurrence extends a bony finger of deathly cancer regimen at you again, I've seen that you CAN be stronger after cancer in ways unexpected. Like learning to ride a bike; becoming a somewhat deeper thinker and striving through treatment entirely on your own terms and blazing your own path. Buying a bigger house, making bold moves in your job on the tail of so much other extant change related stress that you should have just cowered in a a turtle-shell of comforts for as long as you could. You rejected a chemo port, designed a new color scheme, induced a monosyllabic boy to speak not just a little but with great volume but also greater love. <br /><br />Be relieved - chemo didn't fundamentally change you! Overall, the cancer experience has inflicted deep-seated, what-if doubts. Undaunted, you continue to watch TV while reading; you are mom extraordinaire motivating the lot of us to do things NOW because who knows what we will or won't be able to do later; ever the planner at work and home; and the one who still will ponder the injustices against of those least fortunate and most vulnerable of human beings in the world.gabesterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12668071288755419304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125354934408472049.post-39483292679296047642010-07-06T13:11:55.341-05:002010-07-06T13:11:55.341-05:00Your mom's almost as good of a writer as you a...Your mom's almost as good of a writer as you are, Katy. ;) It's true this blog is a gift. Though I don't always pick up the phone and call, I think about you a lot, and I appreciate both the (what you call mundane) updates on what's going on, and the thoughtful unraveling of the sadness, hope, frustration and fear that this experience is causing. <br /><br />I'm curious. Did you experience absent-mindedness when you were pregnant? I know I did, but I'm kinda scattered to begin with. When I hear about chemo brain, I assume it's analogous, though I really don't know. I know that my coping mechanisms for not being inherently organized are what make me good at what I do. Overcompensating has made me a pretty organized person. If your potential coping mechanisms for chemo brain include writing things down, I know you're good there. I hope it doesn't sound trite to say you have smarts to spare, and your brain slowed down a little could still run laps around the merely above-average brain. This is why you find genocide in Time magazine while you were actually hoping for some mindless trash out of People magazine. I'm very intrigued by this irony regarding organic cotton, by the way.<br /><br />My mom the retired counselor has said on many occasions what you've said about change. Good or bad, it's stressful. It's something that's true of homeless people who get housed and are on a good path. Even a change as positive as that can be hard to process, and it can sometimes lead to self-sabotage. I can see from my outside perch that you are making good decisions from the limited options you've got to work with and that you are fearless in getting the information you need to make those decisions, even though you admit to sh***ing bricks about what changes lie ahead.Jennifer Hillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17916821571244626445noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125354934408472049.post-33265121942573702522010-06-30T13:02:30.894-05:002010-06-30T13:02:30.894-05:00It's a lot to think about, and you're righ...It's a lot to think about, and you're right, it's scary. Like you said, though, you'll do the best you can. Cancer was just put upon you, but you're making the choices about how to deal with it now. And what will define "Katy" after all this is done is whatever way <b><i>you</i></b> choose to move forward with whatever you have. You'll still have control over that.Juliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15004173055166404126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7125354934408472049.post-21386202570399044532010-06-30T12:42:44.468-05:002010-06-30T12:42:44.468-05:00As your mom, this is, of course, hard for me to re...As your mom, this is, of course, hard for me to read. As I’ve said a million times before, I wish you weren’t going through this, I wish you weren’t scared, I wish nothing would hurt. As a parent, I’m supposed to stop the hurt of the child that I love so fiercely. And I can’t.<br /><br />But as I’ve also said a million times, this blog is a gift. It lets you put your feelings down in a very concrete, positive way that no doubt helps you deal with what most of the rest of us can even imagine. So it’s a gift for you. But it’s even a bigger gift to the rest of us who love and want to support you…and who may, someday, share in your journey. After all, 1/7 (or 8, depending on what you read) of us women will have breast cancer someday in our lives. Most of us will either die of heart disease (the nation’s # 1 killer) or cancer. This is not something that happens only to “someone” else. Any one of us may sometime (soon?) find ourselves identifying only too closely with your thoughts, fears and dreams.<br /><br />Only one of those “someones” who is going through this can make pronouncements about what you should or shouldn’t say and feel. And even then, I am pretty sure that each of those “someones” would say those pronouncements are individually realized and motivated. The fear associated with cancer is universal – otherwise we would not refer to it so proverbially as the big “C.” Criticizing the how of how anyone gets through the fear of cancer and the process of “fighting” it is just not appropriate. <br /><br />You have always had an uncanny ability to see through to the heart of the matter. You also possess a candor and brutal honesty that sometimes might make that heart more difficult to embrace. But those same attributes – and they are attributes – also will, I think, help you and the rest of us get through this idiotic “journey” that random chance seems to be taking you on.<br /><br />Yes, I’m your mom and I have a history with and love for you that are both long and deep and unshakable. But I’m also a person who can read your blog and find myself reading about a person I just simply admire and am glad I know.<br /><br />No one can blame you for not wanting to lose your memories or your physical presence (whether it is your hair, the shape of your body, the feel of your skin or your sexuality). Anyone who does – or who criticizes you – is simply in denial for how this would affect them.…a denial I think all of us who know you wish we were once again protected by – swimming so happily in that state of ignorant bliss.<br /><br />So I thank you once again for this and look forward to a couple of days from now when we can share the heartbreakingly beautiful views off our Wisconsin deck as we watch Augie toddle happily after his sister, the dog or, no doubt, anything else that moves, catches his eye or fascinates him.<br /><br />Love,<br />MomMomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05327701924465360560noreply@blogger.com