Messages from my mirror

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.
~St. Jerome  

Today I scheduled a follow up eye appointment for October.

As I opened up my calendar I realized that the four months would land on the day before I had my surgery, which was when my eye problems started.

In the eight months since my life was spared and my body was torn apart in order to do that... a lot has happened.

One of the things that I find most striking is that my eyes have changed. And I have been trying to figure out what it is that I have noticed.

I am not sure when I started to think my eyes looked different to me, but I recall wondering if somehow my irises had become lighter or cloudier in color. Cataracts at my age?

The crux is that they don't look happy to me, they looked pained, tired, and perhaps even scared.

I don't know that I am any of those things, but I am a very different person than I was in 2014 B.D.

That B.D. is Before Diagnosis.

This process has been hard, but the hardest part was learning to stand up for myself. Standing up to a mother and aunt that I know love me, but who felt that age gave them some sort of prize that included tearing me down... I am sure that is (was) not their intent... but as they threw things at me that I would have previously have bowed my head to and ignored but in the middle of my fight to feel whole again seemed unduly cruel coming from them. As I said, I am sure they did not mean it, but they still hurt me very deeply on a level that a doctor could not touch.

I think, perhaps, that is part of the cloudiness that I see in my eyes.

It is also navigating my health after a pretty invasive surgery, the unwanted weight gain, the change in shape, the pain, the aches... the health of my eyes included.

They are better now though, the scars left on them through repeated injury and a misdiagnosis are healing, almost gone. The burden of the change of lifestyle for them is permanent... eye drops for life, they said. Keep them moist, they said. I will, I reply.

But when I got home from my appointment today, I looked in the mirror and still saw that certain kind of cloudiness, and I hoped it was not permanent.

Then there is this.

“Behind these eyes there is a girl trapped within her pain – a girl feeling all the emotions of anger and sadness. She’s fighting for a way out.”
~ Chimnese Davids

Queen of my cancer domain

There is a certain nervousness and apprehension as I approach my oncology follow up visits. 

I know to expect the following;  a vaginal exam, a pap smear, and my scar gets a review. 

I never really thought I would ever blog about these things, but here I am talking all about my girly bits.

My oncology center has a pretty new office, it is fancy schmanzy. I was able to see their previous office space several years ago. I helped a colleague through their own diagnosis. The space has different kinds of patient rooms and this visit I got a room that I call a throne room. They have these modern chair-that-turns-in-to-an-exam-table-complete-with-stirrups-that-miraculously-appear things.

After being ushered in to the room by the nurse  I proclaimed that I was glad I got to get a throne room. I  sat down with royal aplomb, gestured grandly,  and proclaimed myself as queen of my own cancer.

This is the chair, with me in it... and yes, you can see my butt poking from behind that silly paper drape if you look hard enough:

Anyway, turns out that my abdomen is not lit up by my disco ball ovaries. 

My oncologist is incredible, there is a gentleness to him that is unseen in so many other physicians. All the Ob-gyn's I know consider him their go-to guy for their patients with oncology needs. I understand why.

When he examines me, there is a certain gentleness. A real look at his handiwork not in how they reflect on him, but on how they are for the patient. If you are open to the idea of therapeutic touch, I would say this doctor was born with it. 

So, as I lay on that table-formerly-a-chair, I asked him what he had done with my ovaries. He explained that he had tied them down to a ligament. He followed up by explaining that they are about 3 cm lower than where they used to be. he added that they should continue to function as long as they normally would. My ovaries were not left to roll around. Nor were they hung up on my ribs like a disco ball.  

I told him my story was better. He laughed and said he thought so too.

Cancer patients tend to develop a kind of crush on their oncologists. I can totally see that. It is not the kind of crush where you feel love. It is the kind that comes from feeling gratitude, It is pretty amazing.

I am still reflecting a lot on gratitude. It is hard to properly express gratitude to people  in this experience. Gratitude, it seems, is my lesson that is still being developed in this experience.

On The Facebook today, I came across an essay on suffering and gratitude. There was something intense to ponder  in the message. And the message was made moreso when the essay ended with this message:

I am grateful for your hair, the beauty of your eyes, your way with words, your heart that always is ready to give, your willingness to grow, your willingness to not know, the way you garden, naked, early in the morning, your love of family, your love of wine, your love of Scrabble, your glass-half-full ways, your love for your son, your belief in God, your belief in the power of poetry, your belief in the power of love, your Catholic ways, your love of your mother, your love of Mother Divine, your pale white skin, your lips, your smile, the way you love your friends, the way you love. (Source)

It appears that little piece was about a woman named Adele. I believe Adele is pictured at the bottom of the page in source link. That part, though, touched on some of the things that people comment about me or that I feel about me. In some divine sense, I want to believe that I was meant to see it. And to relish this sisterhood I share with this woman named Adele.

A seasonal urge

I grew up in the land of eternal spring... some even called it eternal fall.

I never have experienced four strong seasonal changes... usually it was two... but it could even be argued that there was one season unless one counts "more rain" as another season.

Ecuador had that... rain and more rain, it was eternal spring, or something akin to the glorious autumn season of the southwestern US.

Yes, it is confusing, but the big seasonal denominator for me has been the presence or absence of rain.

Today was that kind of day here in my beloved American Southwest... overcast and lightly rainy. A huge high pressure system that seemed unexpected causing tension headaches and achy bones. The release when the rain managed to push past. The smell of creosote wafting in the air.

I always feel a different kind of contentment in the rain, no matter in what part of the world I am in. If there is rain, I get this feeling. It isn't particularly productive, but is a certain kind of peace or contentment. Though I do tend to write more when I can hear water droplets hitting the windows or the cadence of rain on the tin roof of my back porch. I feel the magic that my favorite authors are able to convey about this world, the kind that feeds the stories of Borges, Allende, Esquivel, and Garcia Marquez. While I do not claim that there is a Latin Exclusivity to the genre, as a daughter of its lands, I can understand the origins every so deeply.

When it rains, the world feels magical.

Rain in the magical jungle city of Tena in Ecuador

"The seasonal urge is strong in poets. Milton wrote chiefly in winter. Keats looked for spring to wake him up (as it did in the miraculous months of April and May, 1819). Burns chose autumn. Longfellow liked the month of September. Shelley flourished in the hot months." ~ Helen Bevington 

It was smaller than a mustard seed (or “How ya doin’?”)

“How are you doing?”

I get asked this a lot. I mean a lot more than usual, a lot, a lot. I imagine it is the result of their knowing I was diagnosed with cancer, and with a subsequent surgery.

It is an even more complex question to answer now.

The nuances of recovery from my surgery are interesting.

On one level, I am so incredibly lucky that it is a true cause of celebration. I wonder how rare it is to get a cancer when it is under 1 mm.

In one study that I read about cervical cancer, the data regarding the tumor sizes (not direct to the study, but the data was presented) said the mean size was 2cm and the median was 1.8 cm (of the tumors in the study).

I was at 0.8 MILLIMETERS

a grain of salt.

       a grain of salt, on a pinhead.

Smaller than a mustard seed.

The average size (from that one study) is like a marble, or a quarter, or a stamp.

A stamp, rather enlarged

I am so insanely lucky. However, my cells had made the crossover from being atypical to being cancer. The cells in question had moved from being In Situ to being nefarious (micro-invasive was the word) things…. So I said get it out.

It was aggressive in terms of the treatment I chose. I didn't, however, want to revisit this conversation of “You have cancer” again. At least not for this.

So, the surgery for a grain of salt included my  the removal of entire uterus, through a long abdominal incision. It included the removal of my Fallopian tubes, sixteen lymph nodes, and some tissue that surrounded my uterus.

For something the size of a grain of salt.

The surgery was traumatic. My body does not feel normal, though it feels like it should feel normal. No visible parts are missing, but there is the scar that travels along my lower abdomen.

My girly bits and stomach are numb. My scar itches. There is a heaviness where I image the lymph nodes were. Cold causes a strange ache. I get exhausted easily and try to balance everything.  There is something I will refer to as exudate. My stitches have yet to dissolve. I don’t feel good in the sense that I feel limber and mobile. My abdomen feels  tight and yet wobbly.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Johnston

Musings, womenblair, cancer, death, emotions, gentleness,grain of salt, gratitude, hysterectomy, musings, non-being, philosophy, small

This post originally appeared elsewhere.

I am back - with some Calculated Acts Of Kindness (COAK)

Yes, I decided to  come back here. I figured out how to un-subcribe people and did so...

I did that because this chronicles my life for the last 10 years.. and a lot has happened.

But those ten yea

thank you deviantart

rs all had my Squink in them. And even when I did not mention him, it happened around him.

But it also feels like a new beginning and how wonderful that it coincides with the first day of Lent.

So, I am following after Kelli at AfricanKelli with a commitment to Calculated Acts of Kindness...

I will post updates on:

Flickr Pool

Instagram

Facebook

and of course HERE (and on my other site)!!!!

What a wonderful way to start

For the children's sake

Today I went to a luncheon that was started by a family that lost their son/brother to the ravages of addiction.

As I listened to the mother and sisters make impassioned pleas for support, I thought about how I would feel if I lost my son... not just to addiction, but to anything. Considering that I was close enough to that when he was a new born, I felt the mothers anguish. Then as I thought about how the young man was only in his mid twenties, I wondered how that must feel if it happened now or ten years from now, or even twenty years from now... painful is what I could answer.

Following that, I began to consider what my parents must have felt when I called to give them my news.

I started to feel a little sick to my stomach. Just in anguish.

I thought about my mothers gasp when I called her, and my fathers silence when I called him.  I noticed them, but only slightly... I was so wrapped up in my own extremely feeble attempts to try and manage the news.

To call them and share the news that "I have cancer" was hard. And to now be able to put myself on their imaginary end of the phone line was pretty horrifying...

What would I do if Squink called me with such news... not a question... the mere thought brings me stomach pain, a heavy heart, my breath stuck in my throat.

Our children are not supposed to die, they are not supposed to get seriously ill, to suffer.

Life is pretty ridiculous, and I say that because in spite of everything,  it all results in death, and we humans become so attached to each other, that the death part becomes un-natural to us in a way.

And I am not trying to be-little it, I am more trying to wrap my head around it.

People we love get sick (be it cancer, addiction, heart disease, depression, leprosy...) and they die... and we have to deal with the mortality of the ones we love... and the pressure of things when it is your children who are going through the process, well it must be intense and I don't think it ever gets any easier.

When we were asked if we wanted Squink to be given last rights, that was a tough moment. We understood that he was not a healthy baby, that he could die.... THAT was intense. Schatzy and I went home and prayed, we felt helpless and when that happens you turn those feelings over, they become outside of self.

So that is all I can say, getting that kind of news must be devastating, as devastating as it is to get and be aware of the news about yourself, but somehow I just know that no matter what his age, I would take the news from him far harder than I think I might if the news were about myself... and neither would be easy.

The Language of Silence

I am almost always the first to wake up in the house.

Usually, I manage to open my eyes before the first of the two alarms I have.

I listen to my house. I listen to the street outside my window. I listen to the ping of my automatic coffee maker. I listen to my husband sleep beside me, and I listen to see if my son is waking up in the other room.

On rainy days, I listen to the drops of rain against the window.

I look for the signs of morning. Rays of sunshine streaming through the windows, the light on the carpet in the hall next to our room.

I sit up and reach to grab my robe from the foot of the bed and wrap it around me. I swing my legs to step onto our cold floor. I putter towards the kitchen, grab a mug and set it on the counter. I putter to the fridge and open it to get the half and half. I open the carton, as I swing around back to the mug and pour enough in to just cover the bottom of the mug. I put the creamer back and swing back to my mug, pick it up and carry it to the coffee maker, which has already started and is seconds away from giving me the refuge I seek. Once my mug is full, I cradle it between my hands, feeling the warmth. I hold it up to my face and inhale deeply. I love the smell of coffee and cream. I think about the farmers who raised my beans, who milked my cows and give them gratitude.

I putter back to my bed, stopping along the way to peek in on my son, and smile at how gentle his ten year old face looks in the early morning light, the light dusting of freckles on his nose and cheeks. I watch his chest rise and fall for a bit and continue my way back to bed. I set my mug on my bedside table and push my pillows up against my headboard and slip back under the covers sitting up. Once I am comfortable, I pick up my mug and take another breath to inhale its aroma. I take a sip.

I enjoy the silence, the brief respite from life in that moment.

I pick up my phone and check emails, both work and personal. I check the news and open up Facebook and Instagram to see what the previous day brought…. I wait until I hear the alarm in my sons room go off, when I will get up and help him with breakfast.

And as I do these the speed of life picks up and moves along at an ever increasing pace… and won’t slow down until the next morning when I wake up.

Originally published at https://medium.com/@blair_necessity/the-language-of-silence-531433a88d93 on January 12, 2015.

holding the darkness at bay

So, after feeling a down due to yesterdays ramblings and self flagellation I find I need to pick myself back up.

The other day someone came to me and asked how I was. I told her that is is a day by day process. That I feel good, that I am grateful for so much.

She went on to ask if I had experienced any dark moments, any depression, and tears. She added that her sister is a doctor and had told her to expect me to get to that point at sometime.

I cried when I got the first message. there is something about being told to call an oncologist that puts a certain indescribable pressure on your heart. To hear it while alone in an office, is hard because it means that you have to call people and share the news - and I will be very, very honest, that I was tempted to not tell anyone. Though I imagined that my husband and mom would have been extremely upset with me had I gone this route - in spite of that though, I can't tell you how tempted I was.

I even called the oncologist first. I called my physician back and asked for a copy of the pathology report we talked about the long wait until my oncology appointment and then what the report meant in terms of what was happening inside my body. I went and sat by the fax and waited for the report to arrive (he was sending it right after we hung up). I got it and sat in my office, reading (memorizing) and mulling the news, tears in my eyes. I dried them, and decided I had to call my husband and so... I called my husband and told him the news. He was devastated (he had been a young boy when his mother had gone through two cancer diagnoses, I think that what was happening to me brought all those memories back) and I had to be strong and reassuring. After I hung up, I sat in the office some more, tears in my eyes again. Bracing myself for the call to my mom. She was walking into a meeting when she answered. I heard that stop in her voice. It was the same stop when I felt when I had to schedule an appointment with a hematologist oncologist for Squink after he was born.  Granted that was just for some jaundice we did not seem to be able to get rid of, and I knew that it was the hematology part we were seeing rather than the oncology part, but still - it isn't something you want to deal with as a mom, your babies should never see an oncologist, that should be the rule.

So that was a quick conversation and I sat in my office again, a sense of "why me?" prevailed. My boss who had gone through that cancer route walked by and noticed I was upset, came in and I shared the news with her. After that, the next 24 hours are kind of a blur. I know I called my dad, and he was probably the hardest one to tell... but only because I had no idea how he would react, and he has a tendency to avoid bad things and go on and pretend as if they did not happen so the idea that he would ignore me in this was something I considered highly probable. I only remember that at some point by the end of that night, I was sick of talking to people. Wait, I love talking to people what it was is that I was sick of re-telling the story, the news. I just did not want to have to say that damned word again.

That has been the darkest point so far.

The days following are still a blur. I talked to my siblings, texted with Prima. Made arrangements for all the responsibilities in my life that would be put on hold. Sent out a group email to women who I adore. Friends put me on prayer lists, and I got through the interminable wait until that appointment. Once I saw the oncologist, it felt so much better, because there was a plan. I knew what was happening and it felt good.

I would even say that I was a bit jubilant the day before my surgery, because that mass of mutating cells was getting removed.

I was in the hospital almost a week, determined that this whole thing would not bring me down. I have managed to stay positive through the rest, even that horrid backslide where, through projectile vomiting and other effluvia, fever spikes and chills all intertwined with a general sense of feeling horrid, I lost over 10 pounds, got dark circles around my eyes and began to lose hair. I was still in a good place.

I have these moments that seem to want to step in to those dark shadows; when I noticed that there is an area near my incision is numb (normal, but a strange feeling), talking to someone else who has gone through this process evokes some teariness, after time spent wondering if I am avoiding dealing with something, being told I hurt peoples feelings all brought forth some form of gloom to my mindset.

Thankfully, they are able to be beaten back.  And I think that is my job right now.

Day 16 - 40 days of writing - cosmos and faith

A conversation I had about faith.

Link

This assignment is due by Sunday night, but I certainly hope to have a nice “dent” in its completion by Friday, if possible. I truly appreciate your help on this. Would you mind telling me your age, where you are from, and if you followed your worldview since your youth or did something influence a change?

I am 45 years old. I was born in Bogota, Colombia to American parents, though we did not often socialize with other expatriates. I also lived in Spain, Ecuador, and Mexico before moving to the USA.  I think it was this experience that led me to my world view. I am an agnostic, but specifically a theistic one; meaning I believe in a supreme power/being, I just feel that knowing who or what that is lies outside of the purview of human understanding... and since faith is outside of the realm of scientific understanding I do not hold it to the rigors of scientific research.  I do however, approach my faith with a deep curiosity and search for more knowledge and insight.

 

The required elements are outlined below:

1)      For this assignment, you will interview two people with different worldviews. One will have the Christian worldview and the other will be one of the following:

a)      Atheist/Naturalist
b)      Secular Humanism
c)      Pantheistic
d)     New Age

I do not consider myself to be any of these, I consider myself to be a theistic agnostic. 

2)       Include in your interview, the following prompts:

a)      What does it mean to be human?

I see humans as part of a cosmos. We are on this planet/universe and part of a whole ecosystem of things that evolve and works both for and against each other.  I am seeking to understand why there is a need to see how we separate humans from the rest of living things as I am not convinced this is an appropriate means of thought.  I tend to eschew thinking that humans are any more special that other living beings, but get uncomfortable at the use of the word special here... perhaps it might be a word like meaningful. I think that since we seem to have things that we call "reason" and "thought" that using those involves a certain responsibility (and should add that each living organism has the responsibility to act according to its make-up; so a cell must do what cells do and a fish must do what fish do and thus a human must do what a human does).       

b)      What happens after death?

As I assume that this questions seeks to discover my thoughts on the concept of an after life, I would have to say that I don't know, but I am OK with this uncertainty. I tend towards falling back on certain principles in the hard sciences in that our afterlife continues in forms of energy, quarks and strings. I do know that ancestors carry on an important legacy and perhaps that their roles and stories being carried down in various forms (traditions for example) might be the most beautiful thing that happens after death. 

c)      Elaborate on who Jesus Christ is according to your worldview.

He was one in a series of people who have served as messengers regarding valuable lesson in human cooperation. 

d)     How does your worldview deal with the concepts of evil and suffering in the world?

Nature is cruel and has no remorse. I don't think there is evil. Things that tend to be associated with evil in terms of humans are aspects of human behavior. I think that this is where things like religion are important (I tend to tell people that I am religious and not spiritual) as they serve as guides to encourage cooperative behavior and perhaps to curb tendencies that might not be as socially productive.

Thank you again for your time!!

No, problem. It was very delightful trying to get my thoughts on paper though I do feel like I did not do them justice. 

Day 14 - 40 days of Writing - Colour

A family friend keeps crossing my mind these days.

Her name was Ilza Hahlo. She was born in Vienna in or around 1908. She grew up to be a textile designer and designed costumes and sets for the opera there. She came from, what I assume to be, an affluent family. She had access to resources many did not. As a young girl she and her sisters had some warts on their hands treated by radium, by the infamous Madame Curie herself, I was told.

Of course, it must have been so exciting to be treated by someone who was revolutionizing the world. There was no way of knowing, I am sure, what the after effects of such a procedure might be.

Ilza eventually moved to New York and tried her hand at textile design stateside. She really did make beautiful textiles.

One of Ilza's textile designs

Somehow she ended up in Arizona, which was our luck. She was a beautiful woman when I met her. We also knew that she had cancer when she came into the family friendship fold. It is assumed that her cancer was the result from the radium exposure she had as a young girl.

I recall one time, as she and my grandmother visited each other one bright Arizona afternoon, hearing Ilza tell my grandmother that as her illness got worse, her colours got brighter as if she was trying to bring all the goodness in light in and shut the darkness and pain out,

This has been running through my mind a lot these past 13 days. There is a darkness that descends and while the pain I currently feel is the result of the last biopsy procedure, there is something else there. It has hints of so many things, despair, anger, fright... to name but a few.

Managing those emotions on a daily basis is very new to me, I have been made aware of just how happy I was/will be. What an unspeakable privilege this happiness is. It weathered through me through a serious chronic illness (valley fever that symptomatically lasted one over year) and the darkness of being on bed rest for a great amount of my pregnancy.

What is so different now. I think it may be that my own mortality is coming to rear it head in front of me. Suddenly beautiful things mean so much more;  the goofy faces my son makes as his face matures from little boy to what it is now, the bright colors sweeping across the sky of a morning sunrise.

Subtle changes in myself too. The other day I ran across a nail polish set my mother had given me with wild and bright colors as I tend to prefer for my pedicures. I pulled the light teal color bottle out from the set and painted just one finger nail with its bright pastel hue.  I can't stand to have my nails painted, but some how this one in bright green, seems to be less of a bother. I smile when it catches my eye as my hands wave about as I talk during the day.

I also chose to wear a pair of red pumps, though I am not wearing a stitch of red clothing. I am wearing blacks and browns, but on my feet are these bright red shoes. They invoke my grandmother, as if I am asking her to guide me as I walk this new path.

So colour has taken on new meaning, bright patches of it to cross my path, much like a brightly plumed parrot stands out as one walks through the mass of greens that are everywhere under Amazonian jungle canopy.

Day 12 - 40 days of writing - managing vulnerability

Vulnerable

I am feeling so very vulnerable.


vulnerable
/ˈvʌlnərəbəl/
adjective 
1. capable of being physically or emotionally wounded or hurt
2. open to temptation, persuasion, censure, etc
3. liable or exposed to disease, disaster, etc



Let me be very clear. I don't do vulnerable. Rather, I don't like to do vulnerable myself. Support vulnerable I am pretty good at. 

This is vulnerable:

I am not that.

But yet, I feel so exposed.

I suppose there is this thing about letting go. My whole life I have loved fiercely, family, friends, the underserved among so many other things. And there is something, with a couple of rare exceptions, that is very one sided. In most of the cases (outside of family) love not expected to be reciprocated. In terms of friends; I can love them as much as I need to but since I know how variances are in the complexities of human relationships, I haven't really expected or even needed them to love me back.

Until now, I suppose.

I received an email from someone I think is wonderful and call a very dear friend and in her email she said she had called me a best friend. Oh, I was struck by that. I hadn't known that she had classified me in that category, and I was deeply, deeply touched and very grateful. I am better at the subtleties of friendships with men, and not so good at them with a grand preponderance of women.

But, it feels so vulnerable to allow oneself to be loved in this kind of situation. At least, for me, in terms of relationships outside of marriage and genetics.

As an aside, I made a variation of this Ayurvedic Dal recipe, it is a family favorite that is rich and complex in flavor but so hearty and filling. I even quadrupled the basic recipe (only one can of coconut soup, and some other changes). The way the currants plump up and complement the curry power is like a bit of food heaven.

Normally, I make brown rice but for some reason I bought some jasmine rice. In an attempt to make rice Ecuadorean style I followed the way Carloti (our live in maid/nanny) showed me...something like this recipe, but letting it sit longer so you get a crispy bottom.

There is so much comfort in comfort food.

Day 2 - 40 DOW - was pretty shitty

Not my cells, but similar enough cells

Cancer

in-fucking-situ (I hope)

A cause for celebration. Really. They say.

But holy fucking shit, calling an oncologist for an appointment for yourself is something I wouldn't wish on anyone, Not even someone that could use a strong life lesson or a swift kick in the butt.

You get that call. The one that gives you the pathology report and tells you next steps and it is so heavy and burdened that the air gets thick and it is almost impossible to breathe. Partly, I wonder in retrospect, if is so that you don't miss a word about what you are being told.

The call to the overly cheerful oncology office to book your appointment.

The calls to those you love. Your husband, your mother. You aunt.

Contemplating how to make the calls to your other loved ones; your father, your cousins, your friends.

Return calls. the news spreads. You get calls from your brother, A message from a professor from when you were back in medical school (who is now a close colleague to your mother).

Priorities mulled.

Pathology reports faxed. scanned. emailed.

Decisions to be made,

Priorities re-mulled.

What do you tell your young children so they can navigate the stress they know you are feeling without giving them scary words that will make things worse.

What do you tell your friends. How do you tell your friends. Do you tell your friends? It is easier to tell strangers.

How do you navigate not knowing what the oncologist will say without Googleing yourself sick.

And again, priorities re-mulled.

Fighting the tendency to blame yourself.

Trying to be strong because you need to be for others, because the last thing you need is to take care of someone else when this is about you (and not them).

Trying not to listen too closely.

Wondering if you will lose friends. Knowing you will (I've worked in cancer, it happens) wondering who it will be.

Wondering what do you do. Do you burden friends with the news?

Having to deal with the part of myself that feels socially awkward and introverted.

Remembering to breathe.

Philip K Dick said that cancer was "the process of creation gone wild...".

Thoughts of prudence and of recklessness. 

The mantra of thinking "it could be worse" repeatedly. intermittently. nauseatingly.

Untie the haggis and why wear pants - 40DOW - Day 1

I spent yesterday at the hospital. The hospital my son was born in. The hospital my nephews were born in. The hospital my half-siblings were born in... and some other some such relatives.

This time it was for me though, I had to get some girly things taken care of. Which reminds me, ladies... get your check ups.

Actually, that reminder is super good place to start... because that is where this journey started.

A friend posted about getting a cancer diagnosis on Facebook, and what a crazy ride it had been. I read her post, with tears in my eyes and realized it had been a few years since I had done mine.

Actually, it was more than a few years. That is what I found out when I called the doctor to schedule an appointment.

Not a smart move on my end.  Things like DES are a part of my history. I really should have known better than to let so much time lapse, but I did.

My luck is that I went in time. But I needed some work. and I got it.

So ladies, get checked. Men, make damn sure the women you like (even just a little but whom you know well enough to enquire about their vaginal health) get their lady bits checked. Regularly.

But I had fun at the hospital. If such a thing can be fun.

I hate IV's... hate them, hate them, hate them!

I invoked my grandmother by going home in a muumuu that my aunt had bought for me... a gorgeous caftan of multiple colors and GLITTER!

I can't even begin to describe its awesomeness.

I took pictures for as much as I could. (for the record, I love selfies, I love looking at them and I am OK with taking them and I am especially fond of what I laughingly call "we-we's" but most people refer to as "groupies".

My favorite we-we. ever. but only sorta, because Squink isn't in it.

For some reason we began referring to my cervix as my haggis and made a plethora of jokes about them that involved playing bagpipes and other such hilarity that probably only seems funny if you were a part of the conversation. The whole haggis thing was compounded when I get home and after much sleeping and woozying find I got an amazon email that was, ironically, all about haggis.

An email about haggis.

My arm bands had the colors of the flag of the countries I was born and grew up in... in spite of my aunt insisting my blue was really Greece (it isn't).

Amarillo, azul, y rojo (and NOT GREECE) and featured on my Instagram account

My aunt, brother, and husband picked up Squink and so he was there when I got out of recovery...

I can't tell you how much joy I felt in knowing that his little body was there waiting for me. And when he saw me he was sweet and gentle and it was beautiful.

And then I found the glitter from the muumuu had managed to get on everyone and you know life is good when you are glitter bombed. Right?

Excited that a caftan experience awaits at the end of this!

Why wear pants when you can wear a muumuu? 

~ Beth Ditto

It is that time again - 40 days of writing to resume again

So, I belong to a writing group on "The Facebook" called 40 Days of writing.

It is set to begin on October 1st and I am facing this challenge with total and complete mixed emotions.

Yes, I need to get back in the habit, I have left off and forced myself to put stuff down that feels exceptionally sub-par and fluffy.

I am faced with another challenge though, this one starts the day after I get to go through surgery.

I am tempted to write about that experience, but it seems so stupid in the age of cyber stalking and such other human on human atrocities. Someone, I am sure, will use it against me.

Being publicly vulnerable sucks.

Of course, I should get back to writing "that book", but I am still trying to get past someone calling it "too porny". This happened around the last 40 days of writing thing and it essentially shut me down, except for a sad, feeble attempt at a modern day revisit of one of the Arthurian Legends.

The great thing about 40 Days of Writing is getting to read what others post, I love to read the stories and things they put out, it often inspires and there is something about getting to see into their lives that makes me feel better about the world... so there is that,

The thing is... that I look at these pieces of themselves that they put out and am moved and touched and want to return those gifts with quality stories of my own.

I tend to be lazy, and detail is something that is just so hard to me. Breaking down important descriptions is the last thing on my mind. It makes for weird stories, stories that are not quite worthy of the ones I am reading.

Practice. I suppose it is about practice... and returning the gifts of these stories with my "practicing" just seems so lame. It is, however, the only thing I can do at this point.

OK, that all reads as so negative, but it is more than that... what are the other positives?

I do know what I don't want to write:

• How to's,  (the ones I would write might be too strange; how to shrink a head?)
• Self-help directives (who am I to tell anyone how to save themselves)
• Recipes (I don't follow them, so I should not write them)

I guess I will keep trying to plug away at this writing thing...

It is always an overwhelming experience

My parents are the kind of people that have never turned away a chance at adventure... though perhaps in some way it finds them and they are really not given a true choice.

My semi-estranged father (and I say semi-estranged because I just have not figured him out yet and he is like a stranger to me) had arranged another bullfight for himself and his bullfight friends.

This is how I grew up, from when I was born until about 1979. Bullfights. Or something bullfight related. Every. damn. weekend. Especially so when we had the bullfight stock bull ranch.

At some point in those years, my mother stopped going to them and I can't imagine my dad taking kids with him... but I can't recall not going having that exposure (maybe it was when we would go to the ranch?).

So, it is hard to get past something that is so in your face, to me bullfighting just was.. I mean, didn't your dad love it too? Really, I just thought it was something all dad's liked. Though it was in that way that it was not a surprise that other dad's didn't, but I just figured they had a different all consuming passion.

So, we flash forward to my father getting back into it around 2000, I was just married and had actually not been aware that my half-sibling hadn't grown up the same way. My dad must have been miserable (though he was living in England). but somehow he starts up, and then gets divorced, moves in Spain and ends up in Northern California. Northern California has a huge Portuguese community and many of them have ranches where they raise bulls for their festivals (allowed per the California constitution) and so he starts and to me, it is like he never even stopped. As a matter of fact when he was talking and let us know that he had not bull-fought from 1980 to 2000, I was a little shocked.

In 1998, my dad gave me money for my birthday with the direct instruction to buy an abono for the Bullfight Festival in Ecuador. I did, with the caveat of buying better seats when his favorite bullfighter was there. That was in pre-blog era and I should write about that some day I suppose.

Anyway, I got to see him around 2006 when Squink was just over a year old and we go to a part to practice using the cape.

Then we get to late in 2008 when Squink is about 3, and I see him back in a ring again.

And then, in 2012, I get in to a ring.

So, now we are at 2014 and my (full) brother and I take our kids to see dad fight and to take them to a "professional" fight.

The fact is, this is never easy on me.  I have had to find a way to wrap my head around it. I have rituals that I have developed from my youth (I always look at the bulls eyes as it dies).

It is so hard to write about all the crazy emotions that are involved in an experience like this. I don't even know where to start when I bring those in to teh equation.

I suppose I should start by just telling folks who have the gumption to read something on this theme what it is that happened. Though I imagine it might become a multi-part series... which is a positive as it keeps me pretending to "write good".

Friday night - Schatzy and I get home from work, load up the car and in his ever so awesome self he begins the long haul road trip drive to San Diego where we are meeting my dad, my uncle, and my brother and his kids (who are also doing the commute from Phoenix). Most of the planning gets done on our drive out there, what time we need to get together, what time we want to leave, how to check in, that kind of stuff.

Saturday means a 11:00 am departure to head towards Tecate, Mexico.

I have yet to upload the shots from my camera, but here are some from my phone.

Here is where we ended up on Saturday.