My life, in a Tumblr

Long time no blog!

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 11:50:00 -0700

Not to worry, dear friends…I’m doing fine, healthwise…but my career, however…THAT appears to be on life support!

And so, here I am, dear friends. I have not written anything on this blog for ages, and though I started it to fill you all in on what was going on with me during treatment, I find it strangely apropos to continue writing here about what is going on now, with my career. Since, what started out as a health issue, has turned into quite the career ruiner. I’ve had quite a number of setbacks since my last entry here (thankfully, none of them are health-related) but I’ve had to accept a position at much, much lower rate of pay, (about half) and I have been reluctant to admit where.

When I was at the county, I had applied for a transfer to evening shift. I would have been able to come home at night and sleep with my husband, and wake up during the day, instead of laying awake all day, trying to sleep and then working all night, as I had been. My request had been approved when I found out about having cancer, and so all was put on hold.

When it came to the end of my year-long treatments, my boss (a woman of most mercurial tendencies) informed me that my “old shift” was still available.

My old shift? There had been a new grad (our unit secretary) whom had taken over my shift, and perhaps, I’m not sure, but perhaps the thought was to put her in the evening shift and “let me” return to my old night shift—11pm to 7 am. A horrible, terrible place to be.

The thought was so bad, it prompted me back to New York, to grad school, rather than return to work nights. (THAT bad, yes)

A very long story short—I left after a year (perhaps the subject of an entry, some other time, all to itself. If you’re ever bored enough to read it and I am bored enough to write it!)

Well, combine the year off with cancer, the year off at university, and then the year it took to find work…and three years does it make. Not favorable circumstances, or something which a hiring manager says “gosh! You’ve been away from critical care for nearly three years?! Yes, when can you start!?” In fact, the very opposite is true.

Initially, I was very honest. I told them about the cancer, the year at grad school…but gradually, I learned that I was saying too much—I stopped talking about cancer.

However, my mercurial old boss, she decided to talk about my medical leave in such a way as to make it sound like I had barely spent any time at the bedside at all, and thus, she soured more than one offer. And I found out about it, and had them dead to rights, so they had to rectify the situation in writing.

So, now, I’ve had to accept an offer at an ICU/CCU in the inland empire, where I used to attend college (the first time, for architecture.)

For fear of search bots finding me and my blog, and firing me over it, suffice to say it is a small community hospital where Bill and Ted might have had an excellent adventure. YOU know what I’m talking about ;)

So, here I am again, 14 years later. In order to get back into the critical care setting, I’ve had to come south. Very few people know this. Only my closest friends will be in on this news. I figure since I will be working 12 hour shifts, and can make my own schedule, that I can manage to head back to SF at least every week or every 10 days or so for 4-8 days at a time.

The plan: Work this for 6 months and get the hell back up north. Hopefully, by then, hiring managers won’t treat me like a leper because I’ve been away from critical care for so long. Having ICU/CCU back on my resume is better than saying I had to lower myself and take a telemetry job, at which I absolutely SUCKED. Four patients instead of two, and they were certainly more acute than the management cared to admit; they should have been considered Step down, and therefore only been assigned 3 to a nurse (fuck Kaiser.)

Anyway—those of you whom have been so kind and pestered with repeated reference requests, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Without you I would STILL be trying to find work, competing with the 300+ nurses in SF that have recently been laid off from Seton and their hospital system (gah!)

I did get a few offers, and did settle (in every sense of the word) on this one, because it was closer to home and was more in line with what I wanted to put on my resume. I did get an offer from a hospital in Tacoma, but it was in the Neuro ICU and though it paid more, and the cost of living was less, I thought this was an easy 5-6 hour drive, or 1 hour flight home, and that won out in the end.

I love you guys, and if you are reading this, it’s because I do and wanted to fill you in on what’s going on now, and that without you, none of this will be possible.

I will be (I’m sure) bitching and moaning about the conditions at this excellent adventure hospital, and this is in no way any of your doing—I and I alone made the decision to come here (at half the rate of pay in San Francisco) because it was on the table, and of those offers on the table, it was the best suited to my needs.

Try to remember, as I will, as I have written on my bathroom mirror: All things are temporary, and this, too, shall pass.

It’s not all bad—I make my own schedule, the people I work with are a mixed bag, some nice, some will take some warming up to, but you know, that’s always the case. And, at least I’m back in the ICU/CCU setting.

I’ll keep you posted via this blog, if you’re interested :)

Much love,

Lis

anger

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:58:19 -0700

I noticed last month that I was getting increasingly bitter about all of this breast cancer stuff…like shockwaves from an earthquake a year ago, very odd.

It’s not that it’s hitting me in a delayed fashion, it’s that I’m noticing all the deficit I’m going thru now that was not here two years ago—this shitty hair, my worsening vision…yes, some of that is age, but it was acute in onset with the chemo.

Last month, I found myself griping about it over the phone with George—my biggest regret in life, I said, was having done the chemo at all…had I just done the lumpectomy, I’d still have my hair, I wouldn’t look as old as I do and therefore, would not be getting treated like I’m 65 years old by students that are really not all that much younger than me (there are a few here whom are half my age, but the majority are in their 30s) and I wouldn’t be struggling with these vision problems.

In any case, now I”m studying breast cancer. Funny, eh?
Surgical implications, types of mastecomies, treatment modalities, long term and short term medications…you don’t say? Hmmm, that’s very interesting. Ahhh.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting. Anger…two years out.

I’m just stressed out by the graduate school thing, no doubt.

Mono-Ovary

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 11:34:00 -0800

So, I had been trying to get this cyst removed from my right ovary. during this break from school. It was discovered on an MRI during all that diagnostic stuff last year. Since the anesthesia program ramps up and I won’t get much of a chance to come home during the next two years, I knew it had to be now or never.

My worry was that it would start to tortion the ovary, and its blood supply, and I’d be in New York, and needing to have it out emergently…doubled over in pain and opened up wide for exploratory surgery, fearing an appendix rupture or something…and missing school, and having to make the whole year up again…and extra debt…oh the mind reels.

So, my Doc’s office called and said “can you come in today for pre-op and have the surgery tomorrow a.m. at seven?” What could I say but yes?

Before I knew it was at the hospital, getting admitted, having everyone trying to get an IV on me and failing (my arm looks all purple and only just now can I wiggle the fingers on my right hand for how bruised up it was. The anesthesiologist finally got it, though he was embarrased at how unelegant it was (bled everywhere.)

My gynecologist was awesome—he was at the foot of the bed when the anesthesiologist came to do the pre-op interview and told him he was in trouble. I just answered the anesthesiologist’s questions as he asked them, and then Dr. Rittenhouse stopped him and said, “I need to stop you and tell you why you’re in trouble…she’s an anesthesia resident at Columbia” and the anesthesiologist’s response was “so?”

He turned out to be quite good, told me he’d give me Midazolam and glycopyrrolate pre op and I said “oh…glyco pre-op?..huh…” and he said it was standard at that hospital. “I thought you give it with the neostigmine at the end,” and he said—“yeah, usually.” I also found out that we, in California, don’t really use Nitrous oxide where they’re teaching us a lot of that in NYC.

As I was being induced my doc had his hand on my shoulder, which I found oddly reassuring…I’m hoping now I didn’t say something ebarrassing like how hot he is—he really is gorgeous, like a young Richard Gere or Gerard Butler…The last bit of awarness I had was that the OR nurse asked the anesthesiologist if he wanted a baer hugger blanket and he said “I don’t see why you wouldn’t…why wouldn’t you use one?…what’s the question?” and I knew I was in good hands.

I was torn because she’s a fellow nurse, and he’s an MD talking down to her, but I was pleased that he was anesthesia and looking out for me. The perception I had of MDs being less patient-oriented and being more pathology oriented was debunked.

I woke up in PACU feeling like I had been kicked by a horse. I found out they found more than one cyst, and that they had discussed it for over 10 minutes what they should do, and finally, my Doc, figuring he knew me well enough over these last dozen years or so decided to take the whole ovary but leave me the left one, which was fine…since taking both would put me in premature menopause.

I can’t say I wasn’t a little sad to have lost an ovary—I wasn”t ready to wake up and hear that, but it could have been worse. I’m glad to have that overwith and now just recovery to get through. I’ve been on the couch for three days, playing the guitar, and goofing off, not much else. I still can’t cough or sneeze, or even clear my throat very well…it’s amazing how much you use your abominal muscles without knowing it!

Incisions—I have one in the belly button, and my belly button is stretched out to double it’s normal size…hoping that goes back to normal! and one incision on the right hip bone, and one just suprapubic, which will be covered once my hair grows back…ah, the OR gets crazy with the shaving, don’t they? So besides a small scar on my hip, it shouldn’t be too noticeable.

Of course, it feels like a hundred years before I’ll be able to do any real yoga, or run on a treadmill…still, at least now I don’t have to worry about doubling over in pain during residency and having to have surgery emergently in New York.

Thanks for all the well-wishes and support :)
Hope you guys are having a wonderful holiday season!

so, it’s been a while since I posted anything here, so I...

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:01:00 -0800

so, it’s been a while since I posted anything here, so I decided to share this vid I made yesterday with you. I apologize for how shakey it is (MS hand weakness PLUS a low blood sugar, PLUS a crappy $11 ebay camera all conspired against me.)

I hate the way I look, talk, walk, make faces while talking, so I’m making this vid private on youtube…this is a slightly shorter version of the other one, because of size restrictions on tumblr.

(if it prompts you for a password, the password is “Password.”
why post the password here? Because I only wanted people with whom I share my blog to see it, not just anyone who randomly stumbles upon it at the host site)

So, I hope you like it :)

"Anniversaries"

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:40:00 -0800

Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of my first chemo infusion.

I thought about it a lot, as I sat in my Pharmacology of Anesthestics class. I would rather be sitting here, than there, I kept thinking.

I remember going to the infusion center and falling apart. I had held it together pretty well until that point. Diagnosis, finding the right oncologist and surgeon, talking about treatment modalities and outcomes, reading studies, etc. I think it was even remarked upon, to which I always answered “I’m a nurse; I’m in control.”
Until that day I had to show up and bare my arm. I’m a patient, and I’m helpless.

I imagine it must have been tough for George. I don’t think he has seen me in that state too often. My mom’s death, and this. Otherwise, I can lock it up when I have to.

The thing that irritated me was the false chipper “how are we doing today?!” from the first infusion nurse. “I have cancer, how the FUCK do you THINK I’m doing?” I said. I quickly appologized, but…I had to do a psych component for my nursing degree…didn’t you? You don’t approach someone with red-rimmed eyes, head hung low and trembling with the same tone as you would a kid standing in line at Disneyland!

I found this quite often in onocology. As if their false cheer was going to infect me and my mood. I KNOW what the reality is, I CAN’T be distracted by your cheeriness, what I’d really like is just some sincerety and sensitivity for how I FEEL. I try to make sure that I approach my patients this way. I don’t care if I’m having the worst, or the best fucking day of my life…they likely won’t be feeling the same way, and hey…I’m a NURSE, MY day doesn’t matter. If they WANT to be distracted by cheer, well, I can do that too, but I’m not going to cram my spoon full of sugar down anyone’s throat who doesn’t want it. I realize that some things have to just be “understood” and allowed to “be.”

So, how did I get on this tirade? Oh yeah…I was thinking about yesterday.

I even was reminded about it when I was at the grocery store looking for some type of snack that I could put in my book bag for those days when I can’t fit even the idea of a meal in edgewise. My eyes came to rest on a box of granola bars and I could feel the contents of my stomach rising up my esophagus and I thought I was going to lose it right there in the grocery store. Granola bars, and lots of water, were my pre-infusion meal. They tell you that it’s best to have some light meal in your stomach. Lance talked about a guy who ate two chicken ceaser salads because they were easiest to throw up later. People actually show up with bags of food, chinese take out, burgers, whatever…I couldn’t muster this.

But there I was, fighting the nausea at the thought of granola bars. Funny how one’s tastes change. The things I loved and craved are gone, (like sushi) and are now replaced with strange desires I refuse to give into (like cottage cheese on spaghetti. WTF? I can’t explain it…as a good Italian, I refuse to try it, but there are still nights where my mind will tell me to eat this.)

Also, I can never look at red jello again. The syringe full of adriamycin looks just like red jello before it’s congealed. Just thinking about it makes me queezy. If I ever need to barf on queue, I know what to think about.

Anyway, I was thinking about all the people whom are in those chairs now. I was hoping they could feel the “hang in there” vibe I was throwing their way. It does get better. Next year, you’ll be back to appreciating all the other things in your life that you once despised, like exams, taxes, paying bills… those things area all infinitely better than sitting in that infusion chair!

Jurassic Park

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:22:00 -0700

I had that horrible, terrifying Jurassic park dream again, in which I and a small group of people (at first…they dwindle down as the dream goes on) are the last survivors on earth after proliferation of large, fast, toothy beasts that take over as dominant species.

This time, the dream was a deja vu—or rather, I kept saying in the dream “last time, this and this happened. THIS time, let’s do this…” So, clearly…this isn’t a dream about a fear of reptiles, it’s about a fear of a recurrent cancer.

The ambulance bay sirens outside became screams in my dream, and I woke up after only a few hours of sleep. Had I been home, I would have wakened George, and poor thing, in his disoriented fatigue, he would listen to the dream, put his arm around me and say that the cancer isn’t going to come back, not ever. “How can you be so sure?” I always ask him. “I just know” he always says.

This recurring dream is new. I never dreamed it before cancer. Early in the cancer, I had a horrible dream (that I attributed to the toxic stuff they were pumping me full of) about robots and dinosaurs…it was a fight between technology and biology—can I dream in any more obvious metaphors?

In this dream, since I’m not in active treatment, there was no technology. There was a green and rolling hillside, and the landscape was dotted with fast moving dinosaurs. It was the landscape I imagine in “Watership Down”…the place Fiver is always describing, on a hill, with a view of everything surrounding it.

Anyway, this time, as I dreamed, I contemplated what survival would require, and mean. Eventually, I thought…we’re going to have to go outside and use the bathroom, gather food, and eventually, that food is going to run out. I contemplated running out there in the midst of all the velociraptors and Tyranosaurus Rex and just getting it over quickly. I woke up when I realized, in the dream, that I was prolonging the inevitable.

I used to like that movie—but now, after so many of these dreams, after it’s become a metaphor for what it’s like to live with cancer, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch it again.

and to think they made a ride like this? I can’t imagine wanting to go on it.

sometimes, it hits me

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:49:00 -0700

Sometimes, without warning, it just hits me, that a few months ago, I was worrying about the radiation treatments, or the chemo. I forget now, looking back, how bad it really was. Sometimes, for a second, I can remember the feeling of dread, every day for six weeks, going for the radiation, crying in the machine every time for a week or so.

Now I dread tests, the anesthesia machine check out next week, stuff like that. And it makes me feel very, very lucky to be here, doing this now, when last year, I felt so horrible, and so much fear, and wanted to be here with my friends. Well, my friends are now a year ahead of me, but they’re still there for me when I need them, to answer questions and show me the ropes.

It’s funny how it hits you like that, sometimes…from the side, walking down the hall, back from the bathroom, or the kitchen, —boom—and then you’re back in the hallway again, taking that step, walking back from the bathroom or kitchen. For a moment, I was in that hell that was last year, dreading, crying, fearful.

Nothing bothers me anymore.

I guess that’s called “perspective” (something we used to sing in architecture school….”per-SPEC-tiiiiive….” when we were rendering. It’s taken on a whole new meaning.)

Sunday Morning Panic

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 09:14:14 -0700

I’ve been in this position so long I think I’m growing roots!

I’m in full panic mode before my pharmacology of anesthestics test, on tuesday.

Just picture me in this position until then :)

(wish me luck!)

Lunch with Bill

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:02:14 -0700

So, I look completely cross-eyed and fat :(

And I have a peculiar voice! Bah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLERkjMS56k&feature=sub

Thinking about last year

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:37:00 -0700

I had lunch with my friend Bill, (the famous YouTube Bill) whom is in town for business. I realized that talking about cancer it still a bit tough, though, not as much as you might think (I’m a nurse, damnit, I can talk about poop while I’m eating, or really gross procedures—no big whoop)

Still, I thought about how lucky I am to have the opportunity to be here, to be studying, to be alive, to be meeting with friends and having burgers…it brought to mind this Annie Lennox song, that I thought about a lot when I was going through treatment last year. I’ll end it there, because I need to get back to the studies, and you’ve read enough of me lately ;)

good things

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:21:28 -0700

I’m not Martha Stewart, but I try to be happy about things that are awesome, compared to cancer—

Like, I was STOKED to be cramming for an exam again, and went in super confident(though, I did answer a couple questions stupidly and without stopping to REALLY read the question—so a couple were backwards, ah well, can’t be a perfect score!)

I got to spend about an hour with the OR table, practicing the various positions all by my lonesome. I need to make drawings of the levers, and that way I can look at it before bed time and tell myself that the feet go down when I crank the right crank backwards, toward me, but the head goes up when I crank away from me. I want to get it right on the first try, bang, without having to fidget with it back and forth.

And, my director, who I thought disliked me, now calls me “Kiddo” and somehow now thinks I’m some sort of Genius because I’m one of 10 people who aced her pop quiz—honestly, I had to guess at one of them, but I guessed right and to her, that’s all that counts. I think this is hilarious.

AND—they turned the danged heat off, that came on in the middle of the night, Friday, and made my room about 250 degrees! I’m just happy to be in a normal temperature range, now—maybe I’ll get some sleep tonight!

hey, sometimes it’s the small things. A year ago, I was recovering from Surgery, and in loads of pain, worrying about the next treatment phase (chemo) so I’m happy to be here, even if I am far from home, miss my fella and pooch, and car, and the weather, and…and…and…

What did you do yesterday?

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 07:04:00 -0700

I ask because I’m humbled and almost ashamed. I sat on my ass all day, studying, at the library, then came home, ate dinner, and sat on my ass in my room, and studied some more for Monday’s homeostatics exam. (I thought I knew a lot about respiratory physiology, HAH!)

So, yesterday, while you and I were on our largest skeletal muscles (are they? I think they are) my friend Jen was walking hers OFF. She walked 20 MILES in order to raise money and awareness to help find a cure for breast cancer. And here’s the sick part—she’s going to do it again today, and tomorrow!!!

When I was a kid, I did three walk-a-thons for muscular dystrophy. I went door to door to get my neighbors to sponsor me (ten cents a mile…can you believe? TWO lousy bucks for the whole 20 miles? and then had trouble collecting AFTER the walk…don’t get me started!)

My best friend, Heidi, and I walked a 32 km (20 mile) circuit around San Francisco. At one point, we were so tired and delirious we took our shoes off and walked barefoot on the great highway, along the coast. You ache SO DAMNED MUCH, you hurt SO BAD, and yet you can’t stop putting one foot in front of the next…I know what walking 20 miles feels like to a pre-teen, I don’t know what it feels like to do it as an adult, and to do it THREE DAYS IN A ROW!!! I tell you—this is the epitome of self-sacrifice. Jen is an amazing lady.

I wish I could be there when she’s walking into these check-point cheering stations…her stamina and courage give me inspiration to do well in school—people are out there, doing things, raising money and sacrificing of their own time and bodies so that there can someday be an end to this bullshit called cancer. So that someday, someone else’s life won’t be derailed like mine was.

I hope that in my lifetime, no one ever has to be on the other end of the telephone, listening to a pathology report, and hearing the words “you have cancer” ever, ever again. Because, as much as you think you’ve been through some rough shit in your life (believe me, I did think I had been) you are never going to know the depths of HELL like you are once you hear those words.

“My own fucking body is the enemy. I can’t run away from this one” that’s what goes through your mind for a whole year. You lay awake, and think you can almost hear little cancer cells inside you going “we’re going to kill you, nya-nya-nya.” You try to be brave, whatever THAT means, and think about the good fight—chemo, radiation, drugs…sure, you’ll do it, because you HAVE to, not because you’re BRAVE…because you HAVE to.

You think to yourself—my alternatives to this treatment are what? One final swim in the ocean? One heart-felt sprint and then attempt to fly off a tall building? What?

Nothing, that’s what. You put your head down, you cry, and you show up and bare your arm for the infusion nurse to stick poison in your arm that’s going to make you sicker than you’ve ever been…shit that’s going to hurt GOOD cells, as well as bad cells. They take you to the brink of death, kill everything in sight, in hopes of getting all the cancer cells…all of them. Like swallowing a nuclear bomb, or an internal napalm.

The lining of your stomach, your mouth, your esophagus—everything you swallow feels like shards of fucking glass. Your blood—that’s all cells, buddy! Have you ever walked up 5 or 10 steps and been so winded you nearly black out? That’s what happens when you have no red blood cells to carry oxygen to your head, heart, and lungs…

You don’t know about your reproductive organs, because you can’t feel those normally, but you KNOW that somewhere in your ovaries, or your testicles, if you’re a guy, all those little DNA that might have one day been “Junior” are singing a swan song—goodbye cruel world. Your hair doesn’t like the chemo, your eyelashes, your eyebrows, your pubic hair, your armpit hair…you walk around looking like a department store mannequin with nothing on.

But I’m alive, you tell yourself…maybe not in the moment, because, the moment absolutely sucks. “I will be alive” is more accurate of what you’re thinking and feeling. You keep telling yourself that spring is coming, and your hair will grow back, and it won’t be so cold, and one day you won’t feel like this anymore…one day, you’ll be back to studying in some over-air conditioned library, and worried about tests, or paying tuition…stupid shit like parking tickets, and taxes.

Jen is walking 20 miles today, so that maybe someday, someone else won’t have to go through what I did last year.

If you haven’t already, please click on this link to donate any sum, no amount is too small, or repost this link to wherever you might…email it, even…maybe someone you know is willing to forego that cup of coffee today, or lunch, and help bring an end to breast cancer.

To those of you that already have, thank you so much!

http://www.the3day.org/site/TR?px=1636513&fr_id=1299&pg=personal

Even in my dreams, they won't leave me alone

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:18:00 -0700

I was just rounding the corner with my coffee when I rembered the dream I had this morning. I woke up early, and then decided to go have an additional lie down because it was WAY to early (thanks, Mr. lean-on-the-horn on 168th street this morning)

I dreamed I was at a nice, upscale, exotic restaurant (maybe Thai? or Indian food?) and the waitress brought over something that she gave the person I was with, and then she threw the rest of it away without offering any to me. How odd, I thought. It was like a spoonfull of what looked like yogurt, mixed with mango—I don’t know…the point is she threw the rest at some kid who had asked her for some, and my thinking went’ “the correct way to have handled that would have been to offer me some first, and if I had said yes, get the kid his own later.”

She then kept coming back, harping on me and hurting me. The dream ended with me wrestling her, she never got unpleasant or stopped smiling, but she was so strong—she started by trying to tie what little hair I have into a pony tail (as I guess was customary for diners in the restaurant?) and I kept trying to push her off, and she was pulling my hair and I was saying “OW!!! NO!!! Get OFF!!! Chemo curls!! My scalp is still tender! Don’t!” and so forth.

In writing this, I realize that the oblivious waitress, indifferent to my suffering is Cancer. She even took my hair off in trying to tie it back. The thing she was offering my guest was life—a small bit of it, say a year, that was both sweet, and sour, but I didn’t even get it offered to me, instead it went elsewhere—and this is probably symbolic of the year I lost.

I wonder when I’ll stop having this thing be part of my life. I know there’s a point when you finally are beyond it, but it hasn’t come for me, though I know it’s early yet.

In the meantime, if you’re a waitress and you try to put what little hair I’ve got in a ponytail, I will wrestel you to the ground, even if you are strong, and appear unbothered by my best efforts :)

The universe is trying to make up for 43 crappy years

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:40:00 -0700

So, wow—my head is going in every direction this morning. And it’s not because I had trouble falling asleep and then the fire alarm went off in the dorm so I only managed to get in 3 hours. It’s more.

I reconnected with one of the most infuential people in my life the other night by phone—a very dear friend, John Fiddler, whom I met because he was my preceptor during nursing school, but about my age. He’s one of the most compassionate, best nurses I’ve ever met. He reminded me of my friend Jean, whom was influential in me always wanting to become a nurse. Many times after graduating, I implemented the little things John taught me, and I always sent a silent message of gratitude towards him into the universe for such wise teachings.

Coming back to New York, I’m pleased to say, that it’s friends, like John has become, that make the experience rich and friendly, rather than lonesome and miserable. He’s a Buddha.

Next, I don’t know what possessed me, but I chose to look up another influential person in my life, a professor I studied with in Florence Italy, an important and famous Italian architect whom is credited with starting a whole architecture movement or school of thought (imagine starting a school of thought…a style?) with whom I also managed to establish a friendship, but lost contact with over the years. Ah, the miracle of Facebook, and the internet!

Next, I found my Swiss cousin, Luca, with whom I was once so close, but whom I thought I’d never hear from again because I also lost contact with him through the years. Also on Facebook I think by now he must be a General in the Swiss army, because 13 years ago, he was a Captain, I think. Every time I’m in Switzerland, we manage to drink too much, laugh too much, swear too much, and in general have an awesome time together…we become somehow more sinister and devious together, he’s like the little brother I never had, a Swiss playboy, with many girls always around him and vying for his attention…it’s always sort of cool to be his cousin and be the one girl that gets his focus 100%.

But this morning, when the fire alarm went off in the dorms at 6:30 am, nary 3 scant hours from when I was able to put down my respiratory physiology book and shut the light off, I found myself outside, in a bleary-eyed daze.

Eileen, my program director and professor of one of my classes showed up for work (it’s the same building) and as we stood outside there, waiting to come back in she said, “Hey, Lis (XD can you stand it!? She actually called me “Lis!”) “Nice job on the pop quiz yesterday…you got all of the questions right!” and I instantly felt wide awake.

“you’re kidding?! because I thought I was going to bomb that, since I hadn’t reviewed anything from class, I was so busy with the assigned reading for the other two classes and this upcoming test…I thought for sure you were going to think I was a big dope!”

“well, you must have been paying attention in class, because there were SOME people who got only ONE right”

Wow…just wow…I told her “I hope I do as well on the tests that actually count toward my grade, Eileen…” She said “You will, you’ve got that passion inside, that drive…”

So, now at least she knows that much :)

What I didn’t want is to fall flat on my face and have them say that the year off I took hurt me and my chance at ever succeeding at this program. I didn’t want to tuck my tail, and return home with $60,000 dollars worth of student loan debt and no job with which to pay this money back. Oh yes, if I fail, I still have to pay back that money!

Maybe my luck has changed? Maybe the next 43 years are going to be good? They say fortune favors the brave, which is really just a way of saying, I think, that you make your own fortune; there’s no such thing as luck. I’m here to tell you that there must be. Traditionally, I’ve had it go the other way for me. If ever there was a person for whom the toast was going to end up sloppy-side-down, it’s me. But maybe this makes me try harder. I do read extra chapters that weren’t assigned, just because I think that it’s going to help me understand things better.

I owe it to my patients, afterall. Their lives are going to be in my hands soon.

In any case, on 3 hours sleep, I’m walking on clouds today—I’m heading to class in an hour (what was the point of going back to bed?) and then I’m meeting my friend Bill for lunch at the Shake Shack in the upper west side…(EDIT—oops, that’s NEXT week! this is how sleep-deprived I am!) and then it’s off to start the real grinding away at the study for this test on Monday.

Wish me luck!!! Or wish me stamina if you don’t believe in luck :)
fortune favors the brave, or the well-prepared for battle, I suppose.

Happy

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:28:00 -0700

I tell you, you have to have a sense of humor to make it through life. If you haven’t got that, then you may as well check out, because nothing is going to go the way you either expect it to, or want it to. While I have my moments, I think I am mostly one of those people who looks for the silver lining.

My mom used to say “No hay mal, que por bien, no venga” which, loosly translated means “there’s no misfortune that doesn’t bring with it some fortune” (literally, it’s that there’s no ill that doesn’t come for some good reason.) I grew up hearing this—that everything that comes to you has elements of both good and bad in it, you may not see it immediately, but it’s there and the onus is on you to find it. As I grew into Buddhism, I saw this as things that come to me in order for me to learn some necessary lesson in life. Also, In Buddhism, we say “there is nothing bad, or good, but thinking that makes it so.” Our attachment to things and how we think of them as either good or bad—but I’m getting tangential, here ;)

So, what about shit like cancer? Where’s the silver lining there, you might ask? I’ve done some soul-searching in the last year or so, and here’s what I can muster:

I like to think I was a bad-ass BC (before cancer) but now, I know that there’s nothing that can stop me once I’ve made my mind up. Endurance, trials and tribulations? Puh-leez, I could write a book about that shit! My motto has always been “either I will find a way, or I will MAKE one!”

People wonder what Lance Armstrong was “on” in order to win the Tour so many times. I’ll tell you what he was on—life. What you go through only makes you stronger as far as your will is concerned…”this is nothing” you keep telling yourself, when the going gets tough, “remember last year?” It’s as if your efforts now are a celebration, a validation of being alive, and being thankful for not being where you were when you were at rock bottom.

It’s also taught me who my real friends are. And, it’s brought some new friends into my life, too. While it’s all fine and good to have close friends, it’s not until you have something really, really shitty to tell them, like “I have cancer” that you really can see into a person’s soul. More than a couple “good friends” basically showed me that they were all talk, and that their friendship was what is commonly known as “fair weather.” Fair enough. I think it’s a blessing to be rid of such people; because I would have been there for them. It’s good to know who you can count on in a pinch, you know?

This sounds harsh, or terrible, I know…but those of you that know me, REALLY know me, know that I say what I’m thinking—I don’t sugar coat things to make them less difficult to swallow. Life’s harsh, kids. Get used to it—the sooner the better. I’m not here, as they say, to pee on you and tell you it’s raining (as the saying goes!) I’m the one you come to when you want to hear an honest answer. If that makes me harsh, then so be it. I like to think I’m just being real. I only want real people around me, so I return the favor by being as honest as I can be.

The people whom ARE my friends know I’d do anything, anything in the world for them. Maybe since I have no family, I cherish my friends that much more.

I think I also should credit cancer (I won’t say “thank”) with keeping me honest with myself—from when it took my brother, a week after my 19th birthday, a month after his 30th, I understood that our time here is short, and unpredictable. Nothing you think is your right, your entitlement is REAL.

If you think you have years to settle shit, or get things done, you’re wrong—you may be gone next week. This puts things into perspective when it comes to things like arguing over bills, or picking up the dog-poop in the yard, or stupid, trivial and meaningless things. Imagine that every day when you say “so long” to your loved ones, you may never walk back in through those doors, and that’s the last thing you’re ever going to get to say.

You had better make it “I love you more than you know” or something like that, just in case…that other crap is just that…crap. Don’t ever leave angry, without speaking. Again, I think of the people that worked in the WTC on 9/11 and hope to whatever God there may be, that there were none of those types of squabbles that morning…I just can NOT imagine the pain of survivor guilt there. I can’t imagine someone saying “the last thing she said to me was ____ for leaving the toilet seat up/not doing the dishes/ etc.” Like I said, things that don’t really matter, in the grand scheme of things.

It’s taught me to laugh, every day—no matter what. I was already fairly easy to laugh, but now it’s without so much sarcasm and irony, I think. I start every day by laughing, whether I want to or not—usually when I look in the mirror at what my “whacky new hair” is doing. I always look like a mad wet hen, these days…my hair looks like there was a fire on my head, and my hair ran in every direction trying to get away. You can’t not laugh at that. I’m just happy to have hair at all, after last winter. Put me down as a “no, thank you” as far as being bald in the dead of winter.

So, as His Holiness, the Dalai Lama says “if you want to be happy, be happy!”
It sounds silly, but it’s true.

Be happy, people.

Swimming as a metaphor for life

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:46:00 -0700

So, I was in the pool today, doing laps again. I used to play water polo, and that was honestly the rockingest shape I’ve ever been in…6 pack abs, cut and toned arms, the works (it didn’t last!)

The only thing I can pretty much do until I have this ovarian cyst out is yoga and swimming. I can’t do anything jarring or hoppy, so this makes for a doughy Lisa.

So, there I was in the pool. It struck me that I was going to try to do as many laps as I could today…that odd voice that enters my head (like in the movie “A Very Long Engagement” with Audrey Tautou, who’s always doing the same thing…if I can reach the top stair before this or that happens, then that means this or that.)

I’ve done this since I was a little kid, so I found it amusing in the movie. Today, it said “however many laps I swim today is how many years I’ll get to live.”

Damnit, you stupid voice. Now I have to keep swimming.

It struck me how much like my life swimming is—the first 45 laps„ or years, if you will, are so hard. It seems like such an effort and you just want to get out of the pool. The next 20 are ok, you hit your stride or pace and you ease into it, you start enjoying yourself, you ease up a bit and start to relax. The next 20 or so are probably the most enjoyable—who cares how fast you’re going? you’re all loosened up and feeling good, you’re breathing well, and your stroke is going well, your mind is unwinding itself and you’re in your happy place. I see my life like this—til 45 it’s struggles, then for the next 20, I hit my pace and start to enjoy myself, the last 20 are easy, almost serene. At least, I hope this will be true…one never knows.

Today, I stopped at 100. The pool isn’t a 25 meter pool, otherwise, I’d know exactly how much distance I had traveled. I think it was over a mile, but who knows?

Still, who wants to live to be 100 or more? I hit the showers and thought about how life is a lot like swimming, only without the chlorine smell on your skin afterward.

Swayze

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:32:00 -0700

Patrick Swayze died yesterday, and for a moment, I thought of my own battle with cancer. Yes, I know pancreatic cancer is far more insidious; my uncle was diagnosed with it and was dead 3 months later—I know. But in some odd way, cancer is cancer.

For a moment, I didn’t want to acknowledge his death—and I felt like those rabbits in the book “Watership Down” whom are kept by the farmer, supplied with food, but every now and then one of them goes missing, or gets caught in the “shining wire.” One of them goes so far as to recite poems about the wire, disturbing the other rabbits. I felt like those other rabbits—I didn’t want to know about that shining wire out there. The shining wire got Swayze, poor guy.

I’m so busy with school that I find I’m barely able to do things like use the bathroom or eat, even…if it were humanly possible to read everything I were assigned, I’d still need to have some review time to go over all the stuff I’ve forgotten…I’m that much behind.

Still, this is pretty cool—I’m glad I still remember things like pK, pH, and the hemoglobin or oxyhemoglobin dissociation curve I learned at CCSF physiology. Those things play heavily in anesthesia (who knew?)

Student loans are in place, I see a credit on my account so tomorrow I’ll go deal with that and see if I can get a dispersement. SMMC still hasn’t paid out my vacation pay (surprised? I’m not) and otherwise all is right with the world.

I will see if I can keep up this blog at all—it seems difficult, but I’ll do my best.

Til next time, my dear friends and family—be well!

swimming with, and without, my cancer

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:47:00 -0700

I decided to go for a swim yesterday, but I didn’t because my back and hamstrings were all so tight…I postponed. I got up today and was still so darned tight, all the way from my thoracic spine down to my knees. I did about an hour of yoga with “Baron Baptiste” on Netflix (the Long and Lean Yoga…I love it) and felt great and stretched out afterward.

Later I went to the pool and had a swim. I haven’t been in the water since…sheesh, I can’t even remember…must be that time I went swimming that morning after work at the pool in South City. That was all BC, Before Cancer.

I was sad to find out just how rusty I am. My stroke seems stiff and awkward. Part of that is that they cut into my armpit to do the axillary lymph node dissection, and it still hurts. I’ve lost the ability to lay on the ground with my fingers interlaced behind my head. My right arm can rest on the ground, but my left arm hangs in the air, suspended by tight muscles, elbow hovering about 4” from the ground.

So, I’m as stiff as a cadaver, my breathing is clumsy, there’s no strength in my pull, my stroke yeilds no power and there’s no glide…in short—I now swim like an old lady.

I thought “you’ll get it back, just swim, loosen up, it will come back to you.” Usually, you swim more efficiently the more tired you get. Sure enough, at around 40 minutes, my stroke was a little more graceful, but I wasn’t swimming with any more power.

I guess I like swimming because it’s very solitary…it’s not like jogging or anything else, really. There are no distractions—your focus is inward, like meditating. When I was in architecture school, I worked out my design issues while doing laps (I used to do 1.5 to 2 miles per day back then…sigh) and when I was in nursing school, I would work out the stuff from the petty bickering stuff going on in my clinical group. Today, I was surprised to find cancer there in the pool with me.

It hit me from the side, like a great white. “The last time I was in this pool, I had cancer…cancer was…HERE…with me.”

Having cancer is like having (I imagine) a parasite, like a tapeworm, or some other thing feeding off your metabolic processes. It’s a pirate, it hijacks your cellular functions to make whatever IT needs. I marvelled that I had felt so good, yet had had cancer then. How could I have felt so good and had something like cancer hijacking me? Then of course, your mind says “do I have cancer now and I just don’t know it? Can it be?”

So, it was, yet was not, in the pool with me today.

I didn’t swim my normal 1.5-2 miles, sadly. I think I swam over a half mile, but not by much, and it wore me out.

And now, I’m so hungry—that special “after swim” hunger that you feel on a cellular level, not like an empty stomach. Metabolically, your body is crying out for replacement of what you spent. All I can think about is how this feels like a few days after the chemo, the hunger that sets in from the steroids they pump you full of during your infusion.

I can’t even enjoy swimming anymore without reliving these experiences, damnit.

Very cool people

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:09:00 -0700

My best friend, Jean, the closest thing to a sister I’ll ever have, was in New York for a few days. She got here before I did, actually, for the Brazilian parade and the West Indies parade (the photos looked so cool I wish I’d gone!)

We spoke a few times on the phone and facebooked each other and decided to meet up downtown (ugh!) at Times square yesterday. I just wanted to see her; she wanted to introduce me to a couple of her friends that live here in NYC.

While I didn’t really care to meet anyone, once there, I was very grateful to the cosmos and Jean for sending such cool people my way—not just these people, but all the cool people in my life…some times, I get so caught up in me and my issues, that I forget to stop and look around and realize how blessed I really am.

So I met Jean’s friends, Terry and Dirk, and they were great, and for at least an afternoon I didn’t think about cancer or dying or negative shit…I thought about how cool it was to be in Terry’s studio, listening to the music he was making with other musicians, and how amazing it was to be surrounded by gifted, creative, really kinda genuine folks. It made me put my guard down for a bit, and relax (something you don’t often get to do in New York.)

So, that was a nice respite from the mayhem.

I’m going home on November 2nd to take part of the CYP2D6 genetics study at UCSF (CYP 2D6 is an enzyme created by the liver that determines how fast/slow you metabolize certain meds—specifically, Tamoxifen. Since I’ve had loads of side effects, they suspect I may be a poor metabolizer, or that I have a genetic predisposition to making very little of this enzyme. Aren’t you glad I took Medical Genetics last semester so I could explain that?) :)

I’m very appreciative to the universe for putting me here—for letting me be where I am right now, doing what I’m doing.

And that’s the thought I want to leave with :)

ah, if you’re interested, here’s Terry’s website…an amazing guy.

this takes you directly to the page where you can stream music…I love the stuff he did with the Crash Test Dummies singer (the Satsang stuff…very Indian, very hip and mesmerizing) but admittedly, it’s a bit weird if you’ve never heard Hindu chanting mantras…I grew up around Hindus, so it’s kind of lovely to me.

I really dig the stuff he did with our mutual friend Vernon Bush. Check it out.

http://www.vrtclentertainment.com/WP/?page_id=5

Did I dream I went home?

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:30:00 -0700

Here I am again—New York.

Today, I sat in class…Pharmacology of Anesthetics. I looked around, and recognized no-one. Everyone seemed to know each-other.

I feel like cancer has robbed me not only of one year, but of my chance to go to school with my friends—great people; brilliant, actually.

“You’ll make new friends” I keep hearing. And, I’m sure I will. But making friends has never been super easy for me.

I have a big mouth—I can’t keep it shut. If I’m thinking it, I’m saying it. This usually doesn’t lend itself to making friends. While it’s nice to be genuine, I think I come off as cynical, which, oddly, I’m not—I’m just putting it all out there, unedited. While some people can understand the humor and cynicism (very San Francisco, I guess) most people don’t “get” me.

So, today, about 4 different times, I wanted to cry. The last time was when they almost succeeded in taking away about $5,000 they had promised me, because I was full time, only they didn’t tell me that by coming here and doing the summer session it would shorten this semester’s schedule, so I’m considered half time, and therefore, inelligible for the Scholarships I would have normally received.

For a minute, I saw myself on a ledge, with several emergency personel trying to talk me down. Really? I survived cancer to come out here and be denied scholarship money, and then walk off a building? No…not really.

“God is listening to you” Said our financial aid guy after answering his phone, that rang after my second or third meeting with him, bouncing back and forth between his office and student affairs across the hall. “They’re going to make an exception and consider you full time status.”

If God were listening to me…ah well. Let me leave it at that.

I don’t want to seem so cynical.

(Anymore)