"Going to the Cats"

I came home and picked up my mail, and there was a card in the pile. I've been getting lots of wonderful cards from friends and strangers alike, and it always cheers me up to see one. When I saw the name on this card, at first, I thought it seemed kinda familiar but I couldn't quite place the name. Then I opened the card--it was from my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Taylor! And she wrote to tell me that she found a booklet that I made with some of my friends in the fifth grade when she was out sick. She color-photocopied the pictures that I drew for her, and sent them to me! I was so amazed that she even kept that, even after 20 years! So here are those pictures--and thanks so much, Mrs. Taylor, for remembering me for the eleven-year-old I was! The 31-year-old is very appreciate, grateful, and touched!

Mifflintown, Pennsylvania 17059

My hometown is small--really small--especially people-wise. Which means that if there's any gossip, it travels faster than the speed of light, across county lines, state lines, even across the country and across the U.S.-Canadian border to here. It also means that gossip is sometimes, usually, mostly, maybe, probably, kinda connected to someone I'm directly related to or someone that I might have been related to somewhere down the line a hundred or so years ago. I think more people live along my one block in Vancouver than in all of Mifflintown. I think there are more churches than schools, and that the church to people ratio is about 1:9. This post is for Mifflintown.

I gather that my name has been passed among churches because I've been getting a lot of cards from people's whose names I don't recognize, but I do recognize their surnames. I also got some cards from people from my high school class. All this is really awesome. It's funny when people write, "I know you aren't religious, but I'm praying for you anyway. . ." I totally appreciate that and am grateful because while it is true that I don't ascribe to any religion, I am a spiritual person and believe in the spirit of life and some sort of afterlife that exists for spirits, so I do feel the positive vibes that people are wonderful enough to give out generously, even if they don't know me at all!

As for my hair, mine is almost all gone. I still have little splotches here and there that annoy the fuck out of me, but I'll just let them be for now. The tugging and rubbing on my head is getting old, and I have better things to do. Today, I'm getting a CT scan on my leg where I have a stress fracture. I'm surprised that I'm getting this scan because I think they pretty much ruled that it's a stress fracture in my leg, but I guess they want to make triple-sure, which is a weird thing for Canadians, who don't believe in unnecessary, or excessive, testing (it costs money). But hey, if they wanna scan my leg, great!

I've been wanting to eat like crazy. I guess with this chemo, at first I want to puke my brains out, and now, the steroids are kicking in or something, cuz I'm never full. But I'm trying to keep the eating normal and not gain a crapload of weight. So far, so good.

On Monday, Dude and I went to a free fireside chat session at Inspire Health, which is an integrated healthcare organization for cancer patients, which just means that their doctors and staff help you find ways to cope with the side effects of cancer treatments and optimize health and wellbeing during these times. After the fee for their two-day seminar and membership fee, access to their doctors and programs are free, but they also have a naturopath and acupuncturist if you want to take advantage of that, for a fee. I feel super fortunate that we live in a place where such a thing exists!

So yeah, thanks for reading the blog, you in Mifflintown, Vancouver, Pittsburgh, Germany, California, Seattle, New York, Madison, China, Florida, and wherever the hell you are!

Rock on.

Stuff!

What's been nice is that lately, some days are like my birthday! Today, for example...a random Sunday. But who's that at the door but the nice Canada Post delivery guy with a box of stuff! From Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania! I took the box and bounded up the stairs and shouted to the kids, "Mama's got presents!" Of course, when kids hear that, what they hear is, "Mama got presents for US!" But it was cool--I explained that Mama's friend Auntie Lisa sent ME a bunch of stuff--and they were just as happy helping me open it all!

Lisa is awesome. Not only did she send me stuff (a tradition that we have kept up between the two of us since high school), but she got her co-workers at her newspaper to contribute stuff as well! It was so cool to see how people gave me--a complete stranger to some of these people--something meaningful to cheer me up! THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE STUFF, YOU GUYS!!!





{Chloe's trying to decide which item to pilfer. . .the pencils or the lip gloss???}



{Like Mama, like daughter--she tries to get away with the mega-pack of lip gloss (I ended up giving her 2 of them).}



{just me checking out the stuff!}



{stuffies that people have given me: a breast cancer awareness bear from Vicki; a ladybug from Jamie; and a handmade doll that Kristina whipped up at a craft party, my favourite part being the tag that says, "Kristina Wong made this instead of smoking crack"}


And I leave you with this: a creepy, don't-fuck-with-me badass picture of the new Me, which DH says he actually takes a liking to quite a bit. He says that the 'do suits me well, that I have a "shapely" head. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Sorry for the maniacal laughter, it's just that no one's ever called me shapely before....

Family Art Project

How am I feeling today? At the moment, I'm okay. I went to see my thesis advisor this morning at UBC. He's super supportive and encouraging and kind, which is a huge relief in terms of my decision to take a year off from school. The creative writing department faculty and my cohort have been incredibly generous and wonderful, and it really makes me feel secure about this decision.

After we left school, the hubster and I went to buy supplies that might be needed at some point: air filter masks, medical gloves, neck warmer, slippers, Tylenol, and People magazine (a supply I need now). When we came home, I felt so exhausted and pretty much slept or lounged around in bed for the rest of the day until dinner. Fortunately, my nausea has subsided somewhat, and I was able to enjoy dinner with my family and my sister- and brother-in-law, who were so kind enough to order dinner for us.

Now, I'm back to feeling a bit tired. But I did promise pictures of our fun family time last night, so here they are!


{at the chemo ward at the cancer agency: pigtails!}




{the first cut}




{my technicolor mullet}




{dude takes over: photo by chloe!}




{chloe's turn!}




{mylo wanting to get in on the action}




{eek! watch the neck!}




{mylo's turn!}




{shiny happy head.}

A Blast from the Past for a Laugh

My BFF's mom, Vicki, sent me an awesome picture from the early 1990s, when BFF Lisa turned sweet 16. She thought the picture would cheer me up, and it totally did! It brought back awfully embarrassing moments of being NKOTB fans to the core, tie-dyed peace t-shirts, and phasing into bandannas and flannel grunge. I asked Lisa if she would mind me posting the picture on the blog for kicks, fully expecting her to say hell no. I know how she gets mad when people post pictures of high school daze, because she thinks those days sucked and she didn't have much self-esteem. But you know what? We had a helluva a lotta fun back then. And the picture reminds me of the laughter--and I do think we look pretty damn cute anyway! Goofy, but cute too!

Much to my surprise, Lisa gave me permission to post the picture! This small gesture, I know, is actually a big gesture for her, and it really warms my heart.

So here's the picture, and here's to youth and joy and laughter and memories and cheeziness and NKOTB!

The Night Before...

It's the night before tomorrow. Wow, that sounds so zen, doesn't it? Seriously though, tomorrow is my second appointment with the oncologist. DH and I will meet with the doc to go over all the test results from the past week and a bit. Yesterday and today, I had scans and xrays, blood tests and agony and questions and long, hot baths and sleepless nights. Tomorrow, a bunch of questions will be answered and a bunch more will pop up, but hopefully in the next couple of days, my chemo treatment will start and all the alien nastiness invading Planet Brandy will begin to be wiped out. Vive la revolution!


{the view from our hotel room in waikiki}

My time with the zen master dude was interesting. After four hours of zenness, my head hurt. The first hour, DH demonstrated his zen knowledge with zen master dude. The next two hours, zen master dude grilled me on my existence. Picture a circle. Now picture a squiggly circle around the other circle. The inner circle is me. The squiggly circle is the stuff around me, the stuff I'm attached to. Do I want to find out what's in the inner circle? . . . Now think of this: 0=∞. . . . Then zen master dude asked me "Why purple hair?" My thought bubble, "Because I like purple, Roshi." But I think I gave some fumbling lame reason which made Roshi just stare at me.

So then zen master dude wanted me to play a shakuhachi, which he told me is a flute. People from my Mifflintown years will bust a gut because they know how much I sucked at playing the flute. BUT despite my suckiness at being a flautist, I did it for, let me see, oh, five years. Anyway, the shakuhachi isn't the kind of flute you're thinking of. It looks more like a recorder, and it's used for meditation. It's fucking hard as fuck to play. I tried for an hour. My cheeks hurt. But another zen master dude said that I had a rare quality for a beginner to play such clear, strong notes with such purpose. Rock on! So there I was, in the training room, with zen master flute player, and this other dude who was practicing martial arts and was chanting sutras which sounded like a bullfrog and me blowing away, and DH just sitting there. I totally felt like I was in an anime movie, and that we were all going to transform into forest creatures or earthly structures.


{me and DH in leis made by our friends Hoku and Kaipo}

As funny as that all sounds, the zen master meeting has stuck with me. Of course, I think it's probably pretty common to think of existence questions when faced with life / death situations, but zen master dude number one kept asking me, what's stopping me from finding out about the now? Am I really that attached to my suffering and my past? These are questions as unanswerable as others right now.

Honestly though, today sucked ass. I feel so freakin' lame. For an hour, I shopped online for cool fabric so I could sew myself some head coverings. Then I decided that I didn't want to buy any fabric and sew head coverings, so then I was down on myself for wasting all this time.

But I can't help but notice the things that people have done. It makes me want to get out of my rut that I've dug myself in. For instance, Russell writing a poem for me today; Vicki sending me a bear and a bag from PA Dutch country (and frisbees for Chloe and Mylo); Hilary callling to ask when she could bring over frozen turkey soup she made; Betty bringing me head coverings from the cancer centre, and a lavendar eye pillow she made for me; Candace bringing over costumes for the kids and smoked salmon her husband caught and Chinese bbq pork; friends of friends who have offered their advice, help, and resources; my in-laws for helping with the kids; my parents for making plans to come out here to help; the lady from the Canadian Cancer Society who called today to help set me up with someone who's gone through a similar experience; CCHS for bringing me flowers; people who've emailed me on Myspace, 43things, Facebook, and here; Chris for watching the kids yesterday morning; Heidy and Greg for watching the kids last night; other people who have emailed to offer their help and company; my green towel for keeping purple dye off my pillow and for catching those random tears; DH and the kids for bearing with me; and Victoria for organizing a team, "Brandy's Babes," for the Race for the Cure (http://ocraceforthecure.kintera.org/brandysbabes).

Yesterday, DH and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary at Le Crocodile. We had a South African wine called Graceland (2004). The only reason I'm writing that here is so I'll remember what that wine was, cuz it was good!


{rowr! le crocodile}

So anyway, when I figure out what 0=∞ means, I'll be laughing (as my fiction prof Maureen would say), but until then, I'm just scratching my head.

Aw, Shucks, Gee Thanks, Y'all!

Ever since I sent out the email about my diagnosis and blog, many people have emailed me such kind thoughts. For reals--I'm going to have the most ginormous (that's a real word, btw) party in the world when I get my new boobs, and you're all going to see them whether you like it or not. It's going to be a BOOBS OUT party! Woohoo! Something to look forward to!

I'm radioactive right now. I got a call this morning to take my butt on over to the hospital for a bone scan because they had a sudden cancellation and could fit me in. So they injected me with radioactive isotopes, and I have to go back soon for the scan. The isotopes will travel to "hotspots" in my body where there's increased cell activity, thereby providing another picture of where cancer has possibly spread. I'm NUCLEAR (in America, we say Nuke-u-lar--get it right, Canadians!). There was this sign at the reception that said if one was going to travel outside Canada in the near future, to let them know so they could give you a letter at security at the border explaining why you're all nuclear. Cool.