The Reluctant Eternal Optimist

Do you want to get married?  I would marry you today.  This was one of the stupid things we would say to each other on occasion, the stuff you develop over time in a life together.  I’m sure we would have developed more but we were only together for 6 years. My wife, Leah, died from cancer on 12/25/2019 at 8:12 am.

Sometimes you don’t realize just how much you love someone until they aren’t in the house, you are doing something day to day and you find out they are finally over the edge.  My heart just feels empty when she’s not in the house.

I know there are different levels of torture and worse ways to die, it could always be worse but this is not low on the list. It’s not just physical but mental torture. Slowly having your life drift from you while your responsibilities that give you a sense of fulfillment drift away to your loved ones, leaving you feel as if you had no meaning or place to begin with.  There is no universal meaning, but there is meaning contextually and that’s what fuels us as much as our physical needs. You become a living ghost.

After she had gotten to the point that she could no longer concentrate for long, Leah and I discussed the idea of my writing her final blog post and she teared up, telling me I should do it if I can.  I’m in no way as much of a raw eloquent and moving writer as her but I need to lay my thoughts out for our collective closure. I’ve been taking these notes lying next to her while she sleeps, after discovering additional brain tumors.

It’s interesting how a toddler handles these sorts of things.  At first, when I cried while playing with our son, he would think it was hilarious.  After that he would come to me, give me a hug then poop. As the grief intensified though he began to become fussy and on edge in these moments as he learned to pick up on and react to the emotions.  He obviously doesn’t understand what’s happening.

I think she’d be proud of my quasi M. Night Shyamalan post, I can hear her say “oooh that’s good”.  I can still hear her in my head, guiding me, or just making comments. As I finish this post in my office, it still feels like she’s in the bedroom, ready for me to come in for bed or about to come in annoyed for taking too long because she wants to watch a show together. She gives me strength even when I’m stupid.

That’s why when she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in her lungs, and that night in bed I mustered up the courage to look up the prognosis, I cried with my head in her lap and shook telling her I don’t want her to die while she stroked my hair and comforted me.  We took turns like this, when she was diagnosed with brain mets she cried with her head in my chest and shook saying she doesn’t want to leave me and A while I stroked her hair and comforted her. Whenever one of us really needed it the other would snap to attention, setting aside the day to day to be right there in the moment for what is needed.  I would curl up and say no no no, and she would cry and say I don’t want to leave you, each in our turn providing strength and love for the other.

This is also why it was an other worldly question when our hospice doctor first asked what we turn to for strength.  We just looked immediately at each other and, after some telepathy that you develop from being with someone every day for 5 years, she turned to him and said we aren’t religious, but there is one person we would talk with.  We talked later and clarified our telepathy, the thing we turn to for strength is love and each other.

I remember the timeline since her final post, normally she would do chemo then recover for a day and bounce back as herself again, nag me about something and complain that nothing around the house was done right while she bustled around and corrected it.

When she got the results showing she had 2 tumors in her brain, she slept for 4 days.  She bounced back but I remember being scared, I told her I’m worried one of these times you’re not going to bounce back.  She told me she’s sorry for scaring me, her body just needed it, I told her it’s not her fault. She started needing ritalin to just sit and keep an eye on A and call me down to lift him for changing and food.  I worked from home since she could no longer fully care for him. My mom stayed and watched A any days she was fully out of commission.

2 weeks later, as her nausea and fatigue worsened, her brother came to help with A and take her to gamma knife radiation, this was the next step in her treatment after finding brain cancer.  Before treatment they did a scan and found 14 new tumors. It broke us. They canceled the gamma knife since her back pain was too severe to lie down and scheduled whole brain radiation for the following week. I stopped working, we were spread too thin, and they thankfully allowed me to take care of my family.

I took her to treatment every day for 4 days, she vomited leaving the car both ways every day, she was catatonic the entire week and she barely ate.  This time they gave her morphine to lie on her back and be treated. It was hell. We got the call about her chest scan, the 2 months of immunotherapy had done nothing.  On Friday, she said she was done, we can’t do this it’s hell, I told her I know. She said she was sorry, I told her it’s not her fault, you just don’t come back from this type of cancer.  It’s not ethical to continue.

As her brother said, we all have energy to fix Leah but all the energy in the world isn’t enough, so we invested it in her comfort.  On the fifth day of the week of hell, hospice came to our home, all of her immediate family came that weekend. By Sunday she was on a regimen of drugs and surrounded by family and love.  Everyone pitched in while she rested and I learned and monitored her drug schedule.

In the end she was surrounded by love in our home, and in as much comfort as we could provide.  After a desperate and rough start, hospice care was good. One brother came every weekend, the other came all week every other week and his wife R stayed with us to help care for A, her father and step mother stayed in a hotel nearby.  My mother and sister came several times each week and eventually took shifts spending the night when R had to return home. Many of her best friends were able to see her and she got to say goodbye. She told me she was at peace.

We found a rhythm or as much of one as is possible.  As the cancer filled her brain and body and the brain radiation took effect, some of her short term memory started to wane, the medications and progression made her sleepy, she slept most of the time.  But her constant nausea was gone, she was no longer in constant pain, her appetite grew strong and the few hours she was awake she was able to interact and even make her way downstairs once a day to see A.  He finally forgave her for deserting him for 3 weeks and accepted her with love as not his primary but as a loving secondary, I can tell because he stopped pushing her away when she was near him and started laughing and playing with her again.

And then she got bored.  Neither of us expected waiting to die to be boring.  She grew conditioned to the drug regimen, the initial negative symptoms of whole brain radiation passed and the palliative effect kicked in.  She went from sleeping all day to being up at 9 and active until 4, her energy was still low, but she felt ancy and started doing small things around the house, just to feel useful again.  She desperately grasped for a sense of fulfillment and purpose.

Leah was an incredibly intelligent and thoughtful person.  So being in a degraded mental state, when she’s used to being highly productive and stimulating her mind, without the physical or mental capacity to do the things she enjoyed without quickly growing fatigued, was incredibly frustrating.  She told us she wants to either shit or get off the pot, this limbo is no way to live.

We tried to make the most out of each day we got. We took a short walk, we played with A, we played a game of Dominion (at which she beat me), we even went on some errands to get out and moving although she threw up on the drive.  Having friends and relatives lined up to visit is what kept her going the most, it gave her something to look forward to each day. My deepest thanks and love go out to everyone who was able to talk with and see her, this provided her great comfort, it always amazes me how much love and friendship she surrounded herself with.

We even went and visited her endo doctor, since she couldn’t speak with her when she started hospice. Leah got closure that hospice was the right decision. It still doesn’t feel like hospice was a “decision” it was just the end of the logic flow for treatment, there were no other options given her state.  It feels like we never really made any decisions about her cancer or treatment, it was just this morbid logic flow and at the end you die. Cancer fucking blows. Our friend would later tell me we did make decisions, they were just obvious, and she’s right, it just doesn’t feel that way.

It’s fucked up this roller coaster she was on, a short time later we all caught a cold.  Leah and A never had a cold the entire time she was in treatment but with all the visitors something snuck in.  This really messed her up and she had a major mental decline, the doctors said probably not due to the cold but the brain cancer, but having a tortuous whole body wrenching cough that won’t end for 5 days while you decline further mentally is another special kind of cruelty.

For my part I gave her comfort and meds through the day and night, woke with A each day and gave him breakfast and played, then whoever was helping that day would watch him while I was with Leah.  I put him down for a nap at noon, got him up from his nap and handed him off while I went back to Leah, then took back over from dinner until bed.

Leah and I considered 6-11 to be the best part of the day. We would give A dinner at 6, bath, books and bottle at 7 then bed by 8.  After dinner is his witching hour where he runs in circles and laughs and plays hide and seek. After bath she would dry him and he’d run around his bedroom naked handing out books to us.  Until he peed on the books then we added a diaper in immediately after drying.

After bed was our time.  We pretended we were still pre A and had dinner, watched TV and had ice cream.  We talked about the day, complained about annoying shit and listened to each other.  At the end, we still tried to hold onto a semblance of the ritual. After A was in bed I would lie next to her while she slept then get her up for her bedtime meds at 11 and give her some food and we’d watch a show, I had ice cream and we talked a bit.  She told me she was scared when she woke up and I wasn’t next to her, and I told her I don’t leave the house anymore I’m just a text away. I tried to lay next to her as much as possible.

It’s funny how both of us need alone time to recharge our batteries.  But being together felt like being alone in this sense. I think this was a good indication that we are pretty compatible.  I don’t mean to over romanticize our relationship, we argue, etc. Neither of us believe in soul mates we ascribe to The Good Place school of thought that two people have a good feeling about each other then get to work building something and dancing together through life.  It’s just fucking bull shit that our dance got cut short.

I will spare you the darker details of the week following her cold.  As Leah would say, dying from cancer fucking sucks guys. I manically ran around getting her meds and trying to keep her comfortable, her pain escalated, her body and brain declined, and it became a 24 hour job. We wanted her to die comfortably at home in bed next to me but it was just not meant to be. We took her to the hospital where she was among her extended family, the people she had gone through the fires of residency with. Her best friend was working the floor above her and spent the first night with her.  She wanted me to be with A so I spent the days with her and nights with him. It only took 2 nights, she died on Christmas morning. We’re pretty sure it was just to make sure I don’t forget the day, plus she’s Jewish anyway so it doesn’t matter too much to her.

Her funeral service was simple and elegant in the Jewish tradition, with just immediate family and a close inner circle of friends who have become family. I wrote her eulogy, which follows, lying by her side as she slept in her final week of life.

As the youngest by 5 years and the only girl, Leah was the perpetual little sister.  Ever her protectors, she would tell me, J and JM would snap to attention whenever she needed something.  She could be standing next to the sink and ask for a drink of water and they’d come over without question and get her one.  She loved her brothers, deeply, and it’s clear to me that she inspired equal love from them and those around her.

At the age of 11, her mother passed away from cancer.  She would tell me how thereafter she was raised by wolves.  I think this inspired her to want elegance and cleanliness in the household and she always made our home a place of comfort and tidiness.  She has a beautiful classical style with a modern simplicity, when we sold our condo, the realtor told us not to change a thing as the place was already staged.

Her mother’s death also inspired her desire to help others. Early on she knew she wanted to be a doctor.  She was gifted through her double edged genetics with incredible intelligence and grit. She earned her masters in chemistry because it seemed challenging.  She completed med school and residency then passed her boards 8 months pregnant just after being diagnosed with breast cancer. I have no idea how she did it.

I joined her story while she was in med school doing a rotation in Cleveland.  She lived what her father termed a spartan existence, just a small one bedroom apartment a laptop, a bed with a heating pad that she loved, a kitchen and a furniture less living room.  We fell in love there.

I remember after our first date at Panera, which we would later call our Paneraversary, she was going on a trip with her father to Puerto Rico.  She always looked forward to his work trips as she loved to travel. I’m not entirely certain it was the travel she loved though as much as spending the one on one time with her father.  He joked as a girl that she would need 3 husbands to keep up to her standards. But it turned out that, ever her father’s daughter, she was both frugal and became a doctor so she could earn her own way.

I had a condo in North Canton which she slowly moved into over the first 6 months of our relationship, so I’m confident the spartan thing wasn’t her heart’s desire.  She transformed it from a bland bachelor pad into a home, she loved thrift shopping at home goods. I’ll never be able to match her beautiful style, but I’ll try to honor it.

Leah was an incredibly supportive person.  She would frequently spend time on the phone with her friends discussing their lives and issues and trying to work with them to sort them out.  She loved trying to fix things and she was always cooking up some scheme in her head to improve people’s lives or try to figure out how they could make things better.  We frequently discussed these theories, she just wanted to make the world better. We both agreed that she would be a benevolent dictator of the world.

Leah had the perfect blend of humor, dark humor, kindness, honesty and bluntness. When I made a stupid joke, and I make a lot of them, she would either dryly say “Oh, I got it it just wasn’t funny” or she’d honestly laugh with me. She never laughed at me, I don’t think once in our time together did she laugh at me, it just wasn’t in her nature. Leah used this blunt dark humor and honesty as an instrument to make people laugh and join her in facing the universe, but she was never mean spirited in it.  Unless, of course, she was talking smack about someone in confidence, then the gloves are off, which was incredibly fun and cathartic.

Leah had a beautifully complex and intelligent mind, but also the ability to make things simple.  I tend to overthink things and can sometimes work myself into an existential crisis, Leah’s response to this was always “It’s just love, that’s it, it’s love all the way down.”  And this simplicity and love would always soothe my mind. She really was an eternal optimist, although reluctant because she was also a realist.

Leah found joy, fulfillment and happiness in her lifetime. Many can’t say that they achieve this in lives three times the length. She had a vision of what she wanted in life and she took it. Leah and I frequently confessed to each other that our years together were the happiest of our lives as a whole. She was able to enact her vision of a home, become a doctor and bear a beautiful son. We spent everyday together, she said we were a bit co-dependent, listening to each others stories, working through our problems being open, loving, supportive and honest.  I’m eternally grateful to her for everything she’s given me in our dance together.

Leah was an incredibly loving mother. Leah had cancer for the entirety of A’s life. I’m not sure many people in her position would have had the foresight to know that she needed to begin to put together a support system for him of protectors should the worst occur.  In her honesty, she both lamented that his attachment to her often had to be rebuilt due to treatments and surgeries, but also confidently explained that his attachment to me and our family was by design. She mended familial bridges and brought and attempted to bring unity where there was division, this was partially her desire to make the world better and the perspective of facing death, but also her drive to build a support system for our son. Leah, we will honor you and A will continue to know and be loved by all of his family.

In the windows of time that she was able, her and A were absolutely beautiful together. When we found out he needed physical therapy for his shoulder, she worked with him every day to train him early to crawl and go up stairs. His mobility is no issue now. When he had torticollis she religiously stretched his neck every diaper change. He has no neck issue now. She trained him to say “dada” even though she wanted him to say “mama” first so that I would experience the joy of hearing him say dada every time I come home from work, when I didn’t get to see them and missed them during the day.  Even on her worst treatment nights, she would insist his bassinet be on her side so she could soothe him when he woke through the night.

She had a beautiful singing voice. The two of us would constantly sing along to Raffi with A. It was very important to Leah that we listen to Raffi, specifically, since she listened to him as well. At bathtime we sang “you can be a triangle you can be a square” and for tooth brushing we’d sing “brush your teeth ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch”. I would sometimes walk in on her singing lullabies to A and just watch and listen, I even snuck a video.

I’m joyful that he got to experience her love and that he’ll forever be imprinted with her kindness and love. I’m also deeply saddened that his mind and personality will not be as directly shaped by her as they otherwise could have been. Her imprint on me, her memories and pictures that we’ll share and our families will bring her to him though.  Her father always said “there are pluses and minuses” and Leah always said “it could be worse”, and they’re both right.

Leah, I will love you forever. You will always be a part of our lives and you will never be forgotten as long as we draw breath. Thank you for bringing me happiness and love. I’m sorry that we didn’t get to spend our entire shared blink of an eye together, but I’m thankful that we drifted together for a heartbeat.  It may have been nothing to the universe, but it was everything to me.

I truly hope that Leah is by God and her mother’s side correcting them both and keeping them in line.

Every day that we could during our last summer and fall together me Leah and A went on walks when I got home from work.  I’d push the stroller while she held my arm and A made noises. The sun was just beneath the edge of the 2 story houses and she’d say we really do have an idyllic existence, except for you know the whole cancer thing, it’s like the universe said we have it too good so it has to fuck us.  We’d talk about our day and I’d say do you want to talk shit about something and she’d say ooohh you know how I like to talk shit, so we’d complain about random shit that annoyed us. Halfway through A would fall asleep, we started taking the longer loop, it has more trees and we love trees.  Once we got in eye shot of home A would get up and fuss so she’d carry him the rest of the way. At the end of the night I’d roll over to her in bed and say in her ear “that was a good day” and she’d say “hmm, yeah, that was a good day”.

I hope this can serve as a piece to the puzzle for us to find closure dear readers.  If you’ve made it this far then you know she loved and is loved, she provides strength, she had good days, she found peace and as much comfort as we could provide in the end.  Love and light to you all.

Hi dear readers. Right now I am sitting in bed with a heating pad against my back. The current chemo regimen I am on makes my back incessantly ache. Tylenol doesn’t help it; neither does aleve. A heating pad helps the most, although it makes me pretty immobile. Try taking care of a one year old while limited to a couch with a heating pad against your back – it is doable, but not ideal.

You see, my one year old wants me on the ground with him. In all honesty, that is what all kids want. They want you literally and figuratively on their level. For most of my son’s life I have stuck to this – every day I am on the floor with him playing with blocks or balls, or whatever toy he is interested in at that moment in time.

Unfortunately, the past week or so I have been unable to be on the floor with him, because crouching over him hurts my back even more, and I really need some relief from the unrelenting aching of my back. It sucks.

I am starting to be seriously limited by symptoms from both my cancer and from my treatment of that cancer. I am getting hit from both sides. I am still getting short of breath with exertion, which means by the time I carry my son up from the living room to his bedroom to change his diaper I am quite out of breath. I can no longer put him down for naps or bedtime, because I don’t have the energy or lung capacity to rock him in my arms while standing anymore. My husband has taken over nap time and bedtime.

This means that my husband is working from home everyday for times when I need his help. My son LOVES his daddy – he is very much a daddy’s boy. It isn’t surprising that he is. Since my son was 2 weeks old I was off getting chemotherapy on a weekly or every other week basis. My mother in law, who is the biggest kid person I have ever met in my life, watches my son on those days. Since he was 2 weeks old, my son has adjusted to my essential disappearance for one to three days weekly or every other week.

After I had my mastectomy, I was not allowed to lift him for four weeks. Every change in treatment has brought a new rift in my bond with my son. Once our bond has seemed to strengthen there is a new reason I can’t see him or lift him or take care of him. It is not surprising that he prefers his dada or his grandma. They are consistent. And in all honesty, they have the energy and stamina to be fun with him the entire time they are taking care of him.

You guys, this all really sucks for me. In case you haven’t noticed, my son is my entire world. I love him more than anything; more than anyone. It is physically painful to not be with him. But, he seems to be unaffected.

This new chemo regimen along with the cancer, like I said, is really taking a toll on me. I am out for the count the day of treatment and the day after. So, my son is with grandma and dada those two days. When I emerge from my bedroom the evening after chemo, my son is uninterested in being with me. He wants dada. He always wants dada now.

Of all the pain I have endured since diagnosis, this is by far the worst. It is by design, though. I know what it is like to grow up motherless. I know it takes a village to raise a child, especially in this case. I want my son to feel loved and cared for, even when I am not around. In all honesty, it is better for him this way – that he is so happy to be with grandma and dada.

It is by my design. But, that doesn’t make it any less soul crushing for me. Because, I want him to light up when he sees me. I want to feel loved by my son. But, that is another thing cancer is taking away from me. One of the many.

I will most likely die before he is three years old. I will probably die before he is 2 years old in all honesty. He won’t remember me and he won’t miss me. And for him, that is probably the best. But, it breaks my heart, because I will miss him so much, in every fiber of my being.

Sometimes when I watch my son with my husband, it occurs to me that this is what their life will look like after I am gone. I feel like I am watching myself be erased from my life. That is how it has felt since I was originally diagnosed.

When I was pregnant and recently diagnosed my mother in law and sister in law came to help set up the nursery. This is normally something I would have done methodically on my own, but since my son was going to come early, I figured I could use the help.

My mother in law and sister in law are wonderful and quickly took over energetically getting the room ready. I just sat there, feeling exceedingly depressed. My mother in law mentioned that it was that I probably felt overwhelmed with decisions and couldn’t take making any more decisions. I agreed, but that was completely off the mark. I felt even then, that I was being erased from my life. I was just a vessel for my son to enter this life. This could all be done without me. It was paralyzing to say the least. I have felt like that many times since my cancer diagnosis. I will be missed, but life will go on without me. I am not necessary.

I saw my oncologist yesterday and she looked at the bump I had messaged her about a couple of weeks ago. Her nurse practitioner didn’t seem to think it made sense to image it. She was wrong. I knew this at the time, but didn’t want to bother arguing with her.

My oncologist saw it and immediately said we should scan it. I had a CT scan of my head yesterday – it confirmed that the nodule is cancer. It also showed two spots in my brain that are likely cancer. I will see a neuro-oncologist and a radiation oncologist tomorrow, to see what treatment they have planned for these new lesions.

The incessant and relentless bad news is soul crushing. When my oncologist called and told me the news I wasn’t surprised. My oncologist told me she wished she had had better news for me. I told her that the bad news would stop once I’m dead. I have been thinking that a lot recently – the bad news will eventually stop. Either something will work or I will die, but the bad news for me will end eventually. So, I can take some solace in that.

That is where we are dear readers. Love and light to you as always.

To my son, if you read this one day, which I hope you do, please know that I am in no way mad at you for wanting your dad all the time. I have no anger towards you, only love. You have not caused me pain, only joy. You are the best thing I have done in my life and you are the love of my life. All I want is for you to be happy and healthy – with or without me. If you are happy and healthy, then my job is done. I am so sorry I couldn’t be with you all the time when you were a baby. I wanted to. Everything I have done, has been for you and what I have felt like is in your best interest. I would do anything for you, my sweet baby boy.

It wouldn’t be October aka Pinktober aka Breast Cancer Awareness month if I didn’t write an obligatory “Save The Tatas” post.

So here it goes, my requisite post on “saving the tatas” or in my case literally having them amputated off of my chest wall.

For those of you who don’t know, which is probably most of you, many members of the breast cancer community are against this phrase. Furthermore, many members are against what they refer to as the pinkwashing that occurs every October. From what I have gleaned from Facebook support groups, pinkwashing is using the color pink and more specifically “breast cancer awareness” in order to increase sales, without necessarily giving much or any proceeds to actual breast cancer research.

Sounds pretty shitty, huh? Yeah, that’s why many breast cancer survivors are not a fan. On principle I am not a fan either, but I also just don’t have the energy to care that much about it. One can only have the energy to be riled up about so many things. And as I have mentioned before, I don’t always have the most energy.

Anyways, marketing ploys like “save the tatas” can be very upsetting and infuriating to survivors of breast cancer.

I get it. First off, it is inaccurate. Breast cancer treatment is not focused on saving or preserving the tatas, but instead it is focused on saving the person. Many times, to save the person, a trained breast surgeon has to remove a part of or the entirety of a breast. In some cases, like in mine, both breasts are removed.

My breasts were basically ticking time bombs. Spoiler alert – I was unable to neutralize the bomb before it blew up and I was diagnosed with breast cancer over a year ago. As a BRCA1 mutant I had an 87% lifetime risk of getting breast cancer. In mutants like myself, the recommendation is to remove both breasts after a diagnosis of breast cancer.

The medical recommendation I was given, prior to my breast cancer diagnosis, by multiple doctors was to have my children and breastfeed them and then to have my breasts removed. This is in addition to annual screening in the form of an annual mammogram/MRI of my breasts starting at the time of my diagnosis. I found out I had the BRCA1 mutation when I was 28 years old and did have screening, but this lapsed during my pregnancy, because screening mammograms and MRIs aren’t performed during pregnancy.

Let’s backtrack a little though. Did you notice the insanely high lifetime breast cancer risk that I had as a BRCA1 mutant with breasts. Did you also notice that the recommendation was to wait to breastfeed my future children and then have my breasts removed?

In all honesty, I thought this was a perfectly reasonable plan at the time. There was no family history of breast cancer in my family, at least that I knew of at the time, and of course as an educated millennial woman I was planning on breastfeeding my future children. You have to get as many of those IQ points for your future children as you can! Please note the sarcasm in that last sentence.

What the actual fuck!! In hindsight, this all seems ludicrous to me. I had an 87% lifetime risk of breast cancer and not one physician said get those breasts off of you now?!! In all fairness, I may not have followed that advice. A double mastectomy is extremely painful. Definitely the most painful surgery I have had to date. Fortunately, I have blocked the pain out from my memory, but I can tell you all that it was definitely the most painful recovery from a surgery that I have experienced. Oh, and then you have these drains sutured into your chest wall, which is it’s own kind of specific torture. I also liked my breasts and didn’t want to have to get them chopped off before it was really necessary to do so. Plus, I was an internal medicine resident at the time, and taking time off to have surgery didn’t sound appealing to me at all.

Anywho, back to the medical advice I was given. Now, when I look back and think about this in the greater context and in the political context (yes we are going there – don’t worry though just peripherally) I think that this is an example of prioritizing a woman’s health behind that of her offspring. I’m so sorry I am bringing abortion into this. I really am. But, I do see a similarity. Maybe it is a stretch, but I do think it is worth noticing and mentioning. In the simplest and plainest analysis, we put the health and IQ of my unborn child higher than my own. And in all fairness, I am included in this “we.”

OK, so I’m a rational and reasonable person and also a physician, so yes I can acknowledge that there is probably a lot of data saying that this is a reasonable recommendation. I’m sure for the aggregate BRCA1 mutant that it is completely appropriate to wait to remove one’s breasts until after breastfeeding. But, for me and many other women that I have met through support groups it wasn’t. It will probably cost me my life. If I could go back in time and make any change, it would be to have a preventative double mastectomy right when I learned I carried the BRCA1 mutation.

Unfortunately, just like breast cancer treatment, there have not been as many advancements in time travel as I would have hoped for. Don’t worry, I’m mostly just kidding. But, how cool would time travel be!

So, yeah, I think that the medical community has given me a disservice by not recommending all of my options to me when I first found out about my BRCA status. And, furthermore, by not strongly suggesting immediate preventative double mastectomy upon diagnosis of my BRCA status. Because, there is really no way to know when a person will develop breast cancer, and even with screening cancers can be missed. Maybe given a more complete set of options things would have turned out differently.

Well that was an upsetting detour. Let’s take another one! Hopefully, less upsetting, though. I can’t write a “save the tatas” post without acknowledging our society’s weird obsession with breasts. I’m not judging either, I am just as much of a part of the problem as anyone else.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, there are several options for reconstruction following a double mastectomy. Most women who opt to undergo reconstruction will have metal expanders placed either under or over their pectoralis muscles during the same surgery that the mastectomy is performed. This is what I opted for and I still have metal expanders that are under the muscle. Unfortunately I will probably have them until the day I die.

Why did I choose to opt for under the muscle expanders, which can be as painful as they sound? Well, you guessed it – I’m going to blame society again! I felt, that to be seen as a woman, even to feel like a woman, I needed to still have the classic curvature of a woman. I wanted to still have the classic silhouette that our society views as sexy, for lack of a better word.

How vain! But, you have to understand, at the time I was 30 years old. I wanted to still look and feel attractive after all this cancer nonsense was done, which at the time of my surgery was still the plan. I wanted my husband to still find me attractive!

This is in no way my husband’s fault, though. I did take his opinion into account, and he did agree that he wanted me to have reconstruction. But, again, society brainwashed us into thinking that is what makes a woman attractive! I have learned that it is not.

Ironically, neither of us even like my fake breasts. They are far from sexy or attractive. I had radiation to the right side of my chest, so my right fake boob is perky and somehow my left fake boob is saggy. I actually find it somewhat amusing – it looks like one is pointing up and one is pointing down.

I can’t do several exercises, like pushups or any pec muscle workouts because it is excruciatingly painful now. If I could go back and change the decision, I would opt for no reconstruction and to go flat. I think both my husband and I would learn to find the new me attractive. Plus, he has seen me look like a balding man, so he is clearly not in this for my looks at this point.

I am fortunate that I am not in chronic, excruciating pain, like many women who have under the muscle expanders are. How heartbreaking is that though? To go through all the trauma of breast cancer treatment and then have chronic pain from trying to maintain a sense of normalcy in one’s appearance.

I think that is another reason why many breast cancer warriors are over the pinkwashing as well as the sexualization of this disease. We are here fighting for our lives and companies are trying to make a profit off our suffering. Not cool! A lot of the times companies use pink promotions during October and give either none or a negligent amount of their profits to breast cancer research. Of course, there are many companies that do give a charitable contribution, but unless you ask you won’t know which is which!

So, no let’s not save those tatas, let’s save the women and men who are afflicted with breast cancer, because yes men can get breast cancer too. A woman’s worth is more than the size of her breasts and a woman can be attractive without any breasts at all. Again, I think that we are all more beautiful than we give ourselves credit for.

Love and light to you all. Until next time my dear readers.

Today I was part of a panel at the hospital I trained at where we talked about what it is like to care for our own. I served as the token sick patient. That’s not what today’s blog is about, though.

It was lovely to see so many familiar faces and catch up with old friends. I wanted to be done with residency so badly, but whenever I go back to visit I always linger. These are my people. They are part of my wonderful village.

I was talking to one of my close friends after the panel was over and I mentioned to her that it might be incongruent for people to see me talking nonchalantly about my impending death and my horrible prognosis. She agreed that maybe that was the case, but she also candidly said to me “well I don’t think you have actually accepted that you are going to die.”

Some people might not appreciate this kind of comment, but I find it refreshing, especially when it comes from this specific person. We are very open and honest with each other and I know she has my best interest at heart, so it makes it easy to discuss difficult things like my impending doom. This past year has also made me better at holding my own and being honest with my thoughts and feelings.

I’ve been thinking about what she said all day. And she is right. I haven’t accepted that I am going to die. Logically I know it is a real and more than likely outcome. I know all the statistics. I also know, that if I am an outlier it is more likely in the bad way than the good way. My cancer cells have barely been slowed down by any treatment thus far, so if you look at the bell curve for where I probably lie, it’s likely closer to the shorter life expectancies.

Logically your brain can know something, but that doesn’t mean you feel it.

And, honestly I think that is ok. At least for now. I think it is OK to not have accepted my likely fate. I think if and when I accept it I will no longer be able to function in the day to day. And while I physically can function in the day to day I have to make sure that mentally I am able to do so as well.

A life without hope is to be enveloped in darkness and despair. Countless people in the world sustain so much suffering and trauma, but where there is hope a person can persist. At least in my experience. On the days where I have very little hope, I am not functioning anywhere near my best. Fortunately, these typically coincide with days that I physically am non-functional as well.

I don’t know if I will ever accept my fate. I think it is one thing to be ready to die when you have lived a long and full life. But, to die when you are just starting out, I don’t know how one could accept that. I really can’t.

That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, though. What I want has ultimately no control over my outcome. I am well aware of this.

Does it matter, though? If I accept the reality of the situation? Honestly, I don’t think so. It won’t change much. I will still make rational decisions. I may push treatment too far, but at the end of the day it is my physicians’ job to not prescribe chemotherapy if my body cannot handle it. And for now, I am handling it OK.

I admitted to my friend and told her that she is 100% right. Side note, she typically is. I haven’t accepted it. But, she agreed with me that for now that is OK.

That is all for now dear readers. Until next time. Love and light to you all.

I have been writing a lot of this blog in my head during the day. That’s what writers do, right? They just write stuff in their head? Fuck if I know.

Anyways, I have been thinking a lot about what I want to say to you all following my last post. The truth is that I still don’t know. I honestly don’t really feel like writing that much right now either, but my son is sleeping, my husband is doing work, and there is nothing I feel like watching on TV.

So here we are, dear readers. On Tuesday I had chemotherapy. It was pretty uneventful. Or as uneventful as getting toxic poison pumped into your veins can be. I had noticed a new nodule on my forehead last weekend. It is a hard, fixed, non-mobile, pea shaped nodule. I am certain that it is new. Of course, I am concerned it is further mets of my cancer. I mentioned it to the nurse practitioner, whom I saw on Tuesday and she basically said well it’s not going to change what we are going to do, so we will just keep an eye on it.

Gee, thanks. That makes me feel reassured. No scan. No biopsy. Just wait and see. Honestly, though, whatever.

Alright, so Tuesday I had chemo and my concerning nodule was brushed off and then Wednesday I had 1.2 liters of fluid drained from my lung. I had called my oncologist’s office the week prior to ask if I could have the fluid in my lung drained on the same day as chemo, so I wouldn’t have to make an extra trip. My breathing was starting to get really rough. I would get short of breath going up a flight of stairs with my son. If I laid on my right side I felt like I was suffocating. My coughing spells were becoming relentless. My oncologist’s nurse, who I think is wonderful said she would do her best to make an appointment for that same day.

She was unable to, though. So she made it for the day after. I went to see the doctor and he asked if I wanted a pleurex catheter, where they suture in a drain so you can empty the fluid from your lung at home, or if I wanted a pleurodesis, which is a surgical operation to hopefully prevent my lung from refilling with fluid.

I didn’t want either of those procedures! I just wanted them to stick a needle in my lung and drain the fluid out and be on my merry way. “Oh, well we don’t do that at this office.” The thoracic surgeon, who I had been scheduled with, said. Try not to be too proud of me, but I did not swear you guys. I probably looked like I was going to cry though. I really needed to be able to breathe again.

Apparently there is a whole other office that does thoracenteses, or draining of the pleural space, all day Monday through Friday. They take same day appointments. The thoracic surgeon called that office and got me an appointment 2 hours after my appointment with him had been scheduled for.

You guys, this inefficiency happens at the Cleveland Clinic! It is one of the best medical systems in the country! My point actually wasn’t to complain about this annoying day, though. I mean it sucked and it was exhausting, but whatever. Par for the course at this point, to be honest.

I got my lung drained, 1.2 L. I was in agonizing and excruciating pain every time I took a deep breath for the following 48 hours. So that was fun. In an opposite kind of way. Fortunately, I had leftover painkillers from my prior surgeries and used those to survive the pain. I basically slept those entire two days. I couldn’t take care of my son, I could barely do anything.

My mother in law watched my son Tuesday through Thursday and then Friday I went back to taking care of him. Although, my husband literally sat at the kitchen table with his laptop and did work all day there in case I needed any help – which I did.

By Saturday I felt back to normal. I had energy again and I was only in a tolerable amount of pain with deep breaths. My cough has also already returned and I can feel that I cannot breathe as deeply as I could after the procedure.

I probably will need to get that procedure again sometime this week. Does this mean the chemo isn’t working? I don’t know. It’s honestly too soon to tell. Apparently you need a couple months to see if the treatment is having any effect. I’m not too optimistic with this new nodule on my forehead, but there is really no way to know at this point.

Here is what I do know, though. It felt like I did not exist in my life for 2 days. It probably felt more like that to my husband. And, then on Saturday, I felt fine again. Well, as fine as one can feel with some amount of fluid compressing one’s lung. It was like I had come back from the dead. Both my husband and I felt like that was what happened. Like lazarus, I had risen. I mean obviously, no. I wasn’t dead. I was just exhausted and on pain meds. But, you get the point. It’s a metaphor, you guys!

You all can also probably tell from the tone of this post that I am not in the best place emotionally. I am definitely not super hopeful. But, at the same time there is this pesky, incessant part of me that keeps thinking, well maybe this treatment will work. Maybe. It is a soft whisper, but it is there.

As defeated as I feel, there is still a part of me that is relentlessly optimistic. Also, the fact that I am aware of my prognosis does not mean that I won’t do everything in my power to live. I am still pursuing aggressive treatment and I plan to do so until no doctor in their right mind would continue giving me chemotherapy. I will try to live for as long as it is physically possible.

So that is where we are dear readers. Until next time. Love and light to you all.

Other titles for this post included Onto The Next or Not so Optimistic. Well, dear readers I think our time is soon coming to an end. More importantly, I think my time is soon coming to an end.

Since I last posted I have developed a cough. Actually, I had a cough before I last posted, but I originally didn’t think much of it. Until it persisted. So, I informed my oncologist’s office and had a CT scan done a month earlier than was originally planned. That was a little over a week ago. The CT scan showed progression of my cancer. I now have a pleural effusion (fluid buildup in my lung lining) in my right lung as well as increased and bigger nodules in my lungs.

I saw the CT scan of my chest – it looks pretty gnarly. That is my medical opinion of course. So, the first treatment that they put me on for my metastatic disease failed horribly. Let’s take a look back down memory lane and see all the treatment I have endured, shall we?

I have had adriamycin with cyclophosphamide and taxol with carboplatin for my initial chemotherapy regimen. After that I had a bilateral mastectomy with removal of 20 lymph nodes in my right axilla. Then I endured 28 sessions of radiation to my chest. I finished radiation on May 1st. A couple weeks after that I started xeloda for one cycle and exemestane. I was diagnosed with metastatic disease on August 1st. Then on August 3rd, I started lynparza, which according to my oncologist is a “game changer.” I was originally diagnosed with stage 2b breast cancer on August 10, 2018. It is now October 5, 2019 and my cancer cells are proliferating, barely slowed down by any of this treatment.

So on Monday, September 30th, I started a new regimen. This one is supposedly another “game changer.” In all honesty, I’m not too optimistic at the moment. This regimen includes classic chemo paclitaxel plus immunotherapy in the form of tecentriq. I will have weekly treatment for three weeks with one week off and then repeat. Of course, repeating this regimen will only occur for however long this treatment works, you know, if it works at all.

So, my beloved readers, I am no longer optimistic. I am now being realistic. It looks like I am going to die. Probably soon. Probably within the next six months. Unless my cancer cells respond to some barbaric treatment.

I’m going to be honest with you all though, the treatment out there isn’t that good. You will all probably be surprised by this. I am a physician, and I was surprised by this. The adriamycin, or the red devil that it is known as in the cancer community, has been used since 1974. 19 FUCKING 74. That was before I was even born you guys. My mom had chemotherapy for stage IV ovarian cancer over 20 years ago and do you know what she was treated with? Taxol and carboplatin. The same toxic shit I got a little less than a year ago.

There is NO cure for metastatic breast cancer. None. The five year survival rate is 22%. So, I am in the process of getting my horses ready for sale. And by that, I mean I am going to start planning for what comes after my death. I am getting my affairs in order.

It fucking sucks. It breaks my fucking heart. But it really doesn’t look good. I had treatment on Monday and my symptoms from my cancer are no better and actually worse. My cough is worse and my coughing spells upset my son, which breaks my heart. I can’t sleep on my right side, because when I lay on my right side I can’t get enough air. All of this fucking sucks. But, unless I miraculously respond to one of the medicines approved for metastatic breast cancer, I will be dead soon.

Incidentally, it happens to be breast cancer awareness month. Some people have reached out to me and want to know how they can help. One good way is to give to a charity called Metavivor. It was founded by four women who were living with metastatic breast cancer. Of those four, only one of those women is still alive. All of its donations go to research for a cure for stage 4 breast cancer. The site is: https://www.metavivor.org

Love and light to you all, dear readers.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my first chemotherapy session. September 17th also happens to be the birthday of my father in law. The irony of going for chemotherapy at 30 while my father in law celebrated his 71st birthday was not lost on me.

Anyways, I happened to have a follow up with my oncologist yesterday. It occurred to me that although I am less terrified now than I was back then, my prognosis today is significantly worse than it was a year ago. At the time last year the intent was to cure; currently intent is to “manage” as long as my body will allow.

I’m not going to lie I was looking forward to my appointment. Not the appointment itself. More specifically the drive to and from the appointment. All mothers will appreciate and understand this. Sometimes the drive to and from a doctor’s appointment is the only time I get to myself. I can listen to whatever I want, which is most often Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard – shout out to him!

I love my son more than anything, but I am typically at his beck and call 24/7 and it is nice to get a guilt free break. Oh, that’s the other thing, my mother-in-law watches my son once a week regardless of if I have a doctor’s appointment or not, but appointments are the only time I truly feel guilt-free about leaving him. How fucked up is that! We will delve into that another time though.

The point of this entry isn’t that I got some coveted “me” time. The point is as the title states that “I don’t belong here.” Where is “here” exactly? – you are probably wondering. It is the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center, of course.

I am in good spirits as I park in the deck and as I walk from my car to the elevator that will take me to the skyway. I am even still myself when I walk from the skyway to the Taussig building. But, the moment I walk into the waiting room where I await having my labs drawn I am reminded of who and what I am. I am not a regular mom… I’m a cool mom. Wait, what? No, that’s not right – although kudos to anyone reading this that gets that nod to the movie Mean Girls.

Let’s try that again. I am not a regular mom; I am a metastatic mama. I am a BRCA1 mutant. You might think that this is always on my mind. But, it really isn’t. First of all, I don’t want to fucking think about it. In fact, I fucking hate thinking about it. I take my parp inhibitor and my aromatase inhibitor as prescribed every day, but I am fortunate enough that I don’t have many constant reminders of my illness.

My worst symptom at the moment is that my back and ribs ache from the depletion of estrogen in my body. Big fucking deal – who cares? I barely do, to be honest. It could be a lot worse, so I am grateful that overall I really do feel just like a regular mom. A stay at home mom that takes care of her son all day while finding time to attempt to keep up with the dishes and laundry and grocery shopping, etc.

But, when I enter that waiting room, the reality of my situation hits me. I see all my fellow cancer patients. They are all older than me by at least a few if not more decades. Most of them are accompanied by someone younger and healthier looking. Some are in wheelchairs. Many are bald. Many look like what you would imagine a cancer patient looks like. Maybe it is what some of you imagine I look like.

Spoiler alert – I don’t look like that. I have pep in my step occasionally, depending on how much Starbucks coffee I have consumed that day. I wear the uniform of a mom – yoga pants, a tank-top or t-shirt and a cardigan, because most places have the air conditioning on too high in the summer. I have hair and I am wearing a black headband from Anthropologie.

Side note – Anthropologie is a super expensive store of which I would only allow myself to splurge on something as inexpensive as a headband, which was still like 20 bucks a pop. But I bought them when my hair was growing back and when I thought that I would be able to start my career as a primary care physician. But again, as usual, I digress.

Where were we… Oh yeah, so my name gets called and I go back to get my blood drawn. The nurse, who is most likely around my age, accesses my port in a sterile manner and draws the tubes of blood that will be tested for blood counts and electrolytes such as potassium and sodium. Since I am on oral chemotherapy and not IV she flushes my port with saline and places a bandaid on it. Then I go up to the fourth floor and check into another waiting room. This one is bigger with floor to ceiling windows, but to me it is essentially the same. More reminders of my disease.

The funniest part is the clunky tablet I am giving that has a questionnaire regarding what I perceive my health to be. How would I rate my overall health? The options range from excellent to very poor – I choose good, because although I feel healthy I do have some persistent cancer cells that would disagree if I said “very healthy.” Also, I would probably come off as delusional if I chose that option.

I saw my doctor, which sometimes feels like more of a formality than anything. She asks how my fatigue is compared to my last visit about a month ago. I mean I have a one year old son, how am I supposed to answer that? Always intuitive, he woke up four times the night before my appointment.

I tell her that my only real symptom is the joint pain and she mentions that is from the aromatase inhibitor, which I had already assumed. She checks my lymph nodes, tells me my labs look good, and tells me I can see her at the beginning of November when I will also have a CT scan to see how my cancer is responding to my treatment regimen.

I probably spent only ten minutes with her. But being in those waiting rooms. You guys, it is a real mind fuck. I texted my friend that I don’t belong here. But, unfortunately, I know that technically I do. These are my people. I am part of the cancer community, whether I like it or not.

Until next time dear readers, love and light to you all.

Have any of you seen this movie? There were several of them I believe. I’m pretty sure I only saw the first “Final Destination” movie, though. They were pretty terrible, but I’ve been thinking about the plot of the first film a lot lately.

For those of you that haven’t seen the movie, the premise is that this young man and some of his friends were supposed to go on a roller coaster, but he had a vision that the roller coaster was going to explode or something? I don’t really remember. Anyways, he frantically convinced his friends not to go on it.

Everyone died on the roller coaster, but the main character and his friends were spared. They had cheated death. The remainder of the movie was “death” trying to kill the main characters. It was a pretty gory film as I remember it.

But, the idea was that when it is someone’s time to die you can’t get out of it; clairvoyance be damned.

Like I said, I think about this a lot. My maternal lineage has left me a legacy of death in the form of a lethal BRCA1 mutation. My mom, maternal aunt, and maternal grandmother all died of ovarian cancer in their early to mid forties. Leaving motherless children behind.

Thanks to modern medicine I was able to have genetic testing to determine whether or not I inherited this mutation, which of course I did.

My plan was to cheat death. I had the genetic testing done when I was 28 years old and had undergone the recommended screening in the form of a mammogram and breast MRI. I saw a breast surgeon annually. I had a plan to have my children and breastfeed them and then have my breasts removed afterwards. I would have my ovaries removed by age 35 years old. I underwent in vitro fertilization with pre-genetic diagnosis to insure that my children would not carry the brca1 mutation. How clever? I had the information and resources to remove this deadly mutation from my lineage and I could save myself, too.

But maybe death personified has other plans for me. I must tell you all that I hadn’t been very concerned about breast cancer. My mom, her sister, and their mother made it to their forties without getting breast cancer, so I figured I should too. But maybe death had different plans for me. Maybe I am meant to die from this gene. Maybe…

Maybe it knew that I was going to outsmart it and so it decided to fuck shit up. In the form of breast cancer during my first pregnancy. Well I am nothing if I am not an overachiever. Sure, bring it on. I can handle this. I can do anything for 10 seconds, or four years of medical school or three years of residency or 9 months of pregnancy or months of IVF or 5 months of chemotherapy. You all get the point. Bring it on motherfuckers.

I could have dealt with sacrificing a year of my life to cancer. Even if that was the first year of my son’s life. Even if it would put my career on hold. Even if it would put my whole life on hold. I have been doing that for as long as I can remember. Putting my life on hold to achieve what I wanted. To work for the life I wanted for myself. I put off having kids during residency. I can be patient. I can wait.

I would see a lot of women in my support groups talking about how they couldn’t move on from cancer. How they thought about it all the time even after they were done with active treatment. I wouldn’t have been like that. I could move on. Death or the universe or whatever higher power there is wasn’t satisfied though. I must suffer they all must think.

So even though I did all the treatment as aggressively as possible, even though I had a good attitude the whole time, death wasn’t satisfied and my cancer spread to my lungs. And now I never get to move on. I will always be a cancer patient. I will probably die from this. I wonder if it is just because it is my destiny. Maybe death is coming for me, just like in that stupid horror movie. And maybe there is nothing I can fucking do about it.

I don’t know. But I will say I am pissed. I am grateful, but I am pissed. I am pissed that I don’t get to live the life I had worked so hard for. My friends who graduated residency with me are starting to find their strides in their careers. I am so happy for them and proud of them and not surprised at all, because they are so amazing, but I am jealous. That could have been me. But, it couldn’t. Because maybe I was always meant to die from this. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know…

Until next time dear readers. Love and light to you all.

Welcome back dear readers. Well, it is really me who is “back”. According to my statistics on wordpress.com it has been 11 days since I last posted! Well, you guys, I have been busy. Busy taking care of my lovely son. Busy living my life. Busy just BEING!

As I type this I am sitting on the couch in my basement. My orange/white cat is meowing. My family is all sleeping upstairs. I have the baby monitor nearby so I can go get my baby boy in case he wakes up and needs to be rocked back to sleep.

Life is good. I’m listening to the latest album by Vampire Weekend as I type these words. Smiley face emoji.

Just to give you all a heads up – this isn’t going to be my best post. I just want to let you all know that I am still here. For now, if it takes me some time to post, it is because I am busy enjoying my life. Being a normal wife, mom, and human being. Enjoying being alive and spending time with close friends and family.

One of my favorite things about having cancer – and yes there are some perks even to cancer – is that all my loved ones have wanted to gather around me. If we all just lived life like we are on the precipice of life and death, then I think we would all do things slightly differently. Of course we are all on that precipice. Most people just don’t have that constant reminder, like I do

Anyways, my oldest brother, his wife, and their three beautiful and perfectly imperfect children are staying with my husband, son, and myself this weekend. My son turns one on Monday! We are having a birthday party for him later today! It will just be immediate family, because I want it to be low stress for me and also for my baby boy.

Tonight after all the kids went to bed, my husband, brother, sister-in law, and I put up a happy birthday banner and hung some balloons in the house. We have noisemakers for the big kids (i.e. my two nephews and my one niece). My home is full of love and so is my heart.

Oh, I am exhausted though! Four kids total in my house, even with four adults is a lot!! Kudos to all those parents out there!!

In the back of my mind I know this may be my one and only chance to celebrate my son’s birthday. I hope that I get to spend 50 more with him. I will settle for as much as I can get though.

Well, readers. This post is not going to qualify to be posted for the NYTimes. Which, is definitely a dream of mine! If I had a bucket list, it would possibly be on it.

Although, let’s be honest – my bucket list is just being with my husband and baby boy. At the end of the day they are IT for me.

I hope that if I do burn out bright and leave my baby too soon, you will all tell him how much I loved him. I plan on writing letters to him for when he is older telling him how much I love him, but I don’t know if I will have it in me. It may be too hard and too painful.

So dear readers, if you can – tell my baby boy I loved him more than anything in the whole wide world. I loved him before I knew him. I’ve loved him my whole life and I will love him for eternity even after I am gone. My heart bursts open with love for him.

I cry as I write this, because how could I not. But, thats OK. That’s raw and real and that’s life. I didn’t know that this was where this blog was going. But like I said, I’m rolling with it and I’m leaning in. I don’t give a fuck. I don’t have time for pretense. And I no longer care. It’s so freeing.

OK back to my son. I love him. I alway have and I always will. He will be one on September 2nd. And I will be there for it. And for that I am so grateful.

Alright, my dear friends. Love and light to you all and forever. Until next time.

Welcome back, dear readers. It has been a week since I last posted, which at least for me, feels like a long time! My baby boy was not sleeping well this past week, so I was using my free time (aka his nap time) to sleep instead of write.

Furthermore, the prednisone induced mania has completely worn off, so I am not suffering from insomnia at the moment. I am both happy and bummed about this. I like my sleep, but I also like being productive and having energy. If I could have any superpower it would be to not need sleep – so that tells you a lot about my priorities right there. Note, that with this superpower I could still sleep if I wanted to, but I wouldn’t require sleep for energy. Wouldn’t that be great!

Anyways, I thought that now might be a good time to introduce myself to you all. I am still guessing that most of you know me personally, however I know that at least a few of you have never met me, which is so cool! I’ll nerd out about that later, though.

Without any further ado… I am the reluctant eternal optimist. Nice to meet you all.

Why am I reluctant to be eternally optimistic? Because, oftentimes I think it would be easier to be pessimistic. Which, is why I have flirted with pessimism throughout my thirty one years on this planet. Many of you who know me might even be surprised to see that I am actually quite optimistic.

But, I am. I think that things will typically work out. I think it is really hard to irrevocably ruin your life. I don’t think that it is over until it’s over. I also think that most people are good. I am pretty sure this is just my innate way of being.

I remember when my mom was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer, I honestly (and probably naively) thought that it would turn out to be for the best. My family would have a newfound appreciation for each other. This experience would bring us all closer. It seemed as though my mom would survive, so no harm no foul right?

Well she did not survive and it fucking sucked. That is when I started my on again off again relationship with pessimism. I also became intimately involved with pain, sadness, and grief at that time. Unfortunately, depression tagged along as well and remained with me for years to come.

After my mom died, I trained myself not to cry. How I was able to do this I do not know. But, I repeatedly told myself that there was no point in crying if no one was there to comfort you. Of course, just because my mom had died didn’t mean there was no one there to comfort me. I still had my two older brothers and my dad. But, that’s besides the point, and it also wasn’t the same. They weren’t my mom.

It took me years and years to be able to cry again. For those of you reading this – I do not recommend this at all! Crying is healthy!! It does not make you weak. It can be cathartic. It is a healthy way of releasing your emotions. Go watch a sad movie and cry! My go to movie for when I need a good cry is Life as a House with Kevin Kline and Hayden Christensen. Even if you don’t need or want a good cry it is an amazing movie and you all should watch it! I highly recommend it!

But again, I digress. One might think that being diagnosed with cancer at such a young age would make me pretty angry. I mean, yeah, part of me is pissed off. But for the most part I just feel this overwhelming sense of clarity and gratitude.

There is something eye-opening about being reminded of your mortality; of having this awareness of your fragility that makes you appreciate life more. Or at least that is how it has been for me.

I feel like I just get it now. I get what is important. Love is important.

I love my life. I love my family. I love my village of people that I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by. I love all of you for reading this blog and bearing witness to this journey that is my life.

I get that I still have so much to be grateful for. I don’t have to worry about where my next meal will come from or where I will sleep at night. I know that I am safe in my day to day life. I don’t even have to go to work for all of this! My husband goes to work and I get to stay at home with my baby boy all day.

Plus, I reluctantly am still optimistic. It would probably be easier if I wasn’t. My heart sinks every time I get bad news regarding my diagnosis/prognosis. But, I honestly just can’t help but feel hopeful.

I think it will be fine. And, even if it isn’t fine and I die, I honestly think it will still be okay. I don’t know. I just do. As my wise older brother says, it’s all just carbon anyways.

As I write this, I realize now that maybe I am not too reluctant about eternally being optimistic. But, it is too good of a title for a blog, so I’m not going to change it now!

That’s it for now dear readers. I’m going to go enjoy the rest of my evening. I hope you all reading this enjoy the rest of your day as well. As always, love and light to you all.

Now that I am done with my course of prednisone, I will probably be posting more sporadically. My goal is to still do at least one post a week, but if you want to know when I post a new entry please add yourself to get email updates for this. Also, I seem to be reaching my new equilibrium with my new medication – the extreme exhaustion I wrote about last week seemed to be more from a crash that resulted from finishing my prednisone taper than from my new medication. Yay! The aches and pains I have been having have seemed to subside as well. But, you could all probably tell I’m feeling better by the tone of this blog entry! More love and light to you all!