jennethink

WHY MY HEAVEN HAS AN ONCOLOGY SECTION

I’ve never been in a gang.  I wasn’t in a sorority in college.  My high school was too small to have a debate club, or a chess club or any clubs at all.  When I was in 6th grade I joined the girl scouts … but that was only because if I did, I could walk to the meetings once a week and Bryan Ellis’s would hold my hand the whole way. I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of any official organization.   In fact, I’ve often maintained this was why I used to smoke – because smoking instantly gave you entrance into The Club.  If you’re a smoker – or ever were – you know what I mean about The Club.  It doesn’t matter how incredibly different you are from another smoker, if you both eat nicotine, then you are alike.  You are the same.  You both carry “the goods” – matches, a lighter, mints or gum.  You both sit in the same section at restaurants and you always – ALWAYS – share.  Smokers understand smokers. 

In the years since I gave up smoking, I’ve occasionally missed this feeling.  People ask me if it was hard to quit – it wasn’t.  They ask me if I miss it – I do.  But it’s not the nicotine I miss; it’s the feeling of being in a club.  Of having the insider’s knowledge of something.  Of connecting with a stranger for no reason other than you know .. you both know. 

A few months ago I was teaching a course to a room full of business people.  They were a great group with lots of questions and input and we talked about nearly every topic under the sun.  We talked about relationships, conflict, time management, self-awareness, goal setting, differences between men and women, team dynamics and more.  They shared stories.  I shared stories.  They asked questions.  I gave answers.  They asked more questions.  I opened the floor.  They answered each others’ questions and then asked more.  They never quit digging and searching.  Basically, it was an awesome class.

Usually after a class or a meeting that I’m involved in people like to come up and talk to me.  They want clarification or connection.  They want to share some more stories or ask some more questions or just say how much they enjoyed class.  This is pretty awesome, let me tell you.  It’s sort of like being a rock star – but without the sex and drugs and well, I guess without the rock and roll too.  I’m just saying in those moments even if you didn’t have a strong self-image, you’d feel pretty great about yourself. 

Of course, the secret is that it really ISN’T me they are complimenting … it isn’t so much that I’ve done something … it’s that they’ve realized something.  They’ve connected to a truth in a new way.  They’ve learned something about themselves that is meaningful.  They attribute this awakening to me.  But really, they are the ones who have done the heavy lifting.  Still, it’s nice.  Nice to hear people say they’ve realized something new.  And I get a real charge out of those moments.

And it was about this time…. after a few people had gathered around and a few others had said what they wanted then left that I saw one of the women from the group approaching.  I could tell from her walk and the way she was carrying herself that she was going to join the group gathered around.  I assumed she wanted to say something about the class.  I figured she wanted to ask a question or share her expertise.

I was wrong.

Without saying one word this woman approached me
broke the circle around me
pointed to a place on my chest near my right shoulder and at the same time yanked down the collar of her shirt to reveal the same place on her chest….

and showed me her scar from a long-gone port-a-cath.

The port.  The one part of my cancer treatment I truly hated.  Hated everything it stood for.  Hated how it felt.  The alien-nipple in my chest.  The doorbell left behind.  The hard plastic rock in my skin.  I hated every time I rode in the car as a passenger because of that port and the exact placement of it directly beneath my seatbelt.  I hated the way it stuck out and could be seen from across the room.  Hated the fact that when curled up in bed, and when The Hub’s would wrap his arms around me in the most natural way, his fingers would fall directly on that blasted port.  There was no happier day then the day I got my port out.  It was there to save my veins during chemo.  It about cost me my sanity.  There were two surgeries involving the port.  One to put it in.  Another to take it out.  So it is not surprising to me that that port has left a big fat scar. 

Visible
And not.

I was in a cute little store near my house not too long after that class.  As I was leaning over a jewelry case the woman behind the counter asked me if she could show me anything thing.  I said no thank you.  She lingered anyway.  It took her another 5 minutes to work up the courage to say, “Is that a mediport scar there?”  I looked up to see her pointing to my chest.  And touching her own.

When renting a car in Boston this summer the clerk who tried to sell me 5,000 dollars worth of insurance and pre-paid gas tapped her chest in the same place my port scar is and said almost too matter of factly, “Was it breast?”  When I look puzzled she said, “Your scar,” and pointed to my chest.  Oh that.  “No,” I said.  “It wasn’t a breast.”  She didn’t laugh.    “Um, it was another cancer.” I said.  I signed my agreement, refused the insurance – all three times -  and left.

We, as humans, have a need to connect – to belong – to join.  And as much as I’ve longed to be a part of something bigger than myself at times, as much as I long for that feeling I used to have when I smoked … of connecting with others over a similar experience. …of recognizing a stranger….of being one in a group, every time I’ve had a port connection all I can think of is this is not a club I wanted to be a part of.

And the hazing capital “S” Sucked.

I want to be all like, Hey wow, we’re part of the same group!  But the truth is when this recognition and forced connection happens I bristle.  Each time I curse the neckline I’m wearing for exposing my scar.  Instead of connecting, I want to make up a story about my scar that has nothing to do with cancer.  I want to pretend to not know what they were talking about.  Want to say it is from a gardening accident or a drinking game gone awry.  Anything other than what it is.  “Oh this?  It’s nothing.  Just a little nick from a shiv I took in the shoulder while in the pen.”   Every time instead of feeling like I belong, I feel ashamed.  Called out.  Exposed.

After the closing ceremonies for the 3 Day in Seattle, a darling woman approached me and we hugged and began talking about the weekend.  I rarely speak of my own cancer experience when I’m on event.  The 3 Day is about the walkers.  It’s about the survivors.  It’s not about me and truly, my experience with cancer almost never comes up.  So as I was talking to this walker after closing it surprised me when she said very directly, “You’re a cancer survivor.”  I quickly went back through our conversation and the weekend.  Did I already tell her about my cancer?  Was she near when I was telling someone else? How is it she knows?  And just when I was going to ask her I realized I had on a v-neck top.  And, of course, the port scar had given me away once again.  And I don’t know why but this time I’d had it.  I’d just had it and I so instead of just saying, “Yes, I am!”  I instead said, “Oh that blasted port scar.”  and I clenched my jaw and made fist and sort of slapped at the scar and shook my head.   And that’s when she reached up and grabbed my fisted hand that still lay on top of my scar and pulled it away and then very softly placed her other hand directly on that pink, wrinkled skin and said, 

“I’m an oncology nurse.”  She gently patted my chest, “And it’s your badge of courage, angel.”

I will always love my oncology nurses.  I love them for giving me ativan and blankets and Kleenexes and prescriptions and numbing cream and cups full of ice.  I love them for giving me handouts and instructions and IV fluids.  I love them, in spite of it all, for giving me chemo.  But it wasn’t until this particular nurse tenderly patted my scar and called me angel that I realized they give so much more than all of that.  They give hope.  And it is in their blood.  Just like their chemo was in mine. 

I still hate my scar.  And when recognized and called out, I still cringe.  But I now have hope that one day I’ll see it differently.

And hope is a good thing.

THINGS TO DO WHEN I FINALLY BUILD MY TIME MACHINE

#1 Travel back a few years and kick Walt Disney’s ass.


We went to see Enchanted this weekend.  Me, The Hub and my mom.  All adults.  We were in a theater with mostly children and parents.  We loved it.  It’s a charming and cute movie about a princess who gets banished from her kingdom to a place "where no hope exists" … real world, modern day, unanimated, New York City.  What follows are her madcap adventures in the Big Apple including trying to avoid a big poisoned apple as well as find her prince and eventually conquer the evil queen with the help of one very talented chipmunk.  It made us laugh and didn’t require too much thinking and all in all was the perfect way to sit and digest our thanksgiving meal.

Almost.

I guess no movie is perfect.  I guess there will always be something you don’t like or wish wasn’t part of the movie or think could have been left out.  This is not uncommon.  We all have our issues.  For example, if you ever ask my mom about a movie and she says anything like, "It was good," and then looks away and says, "I mean, it was okay ... I mean there was some stuff, you know, I could have done without .." You can durn well bet someone was either getting or giving oral sex in that movie.  Or masturbating.  And you can also bet that she just shut the lid to her laptop after reading that. That's not to say Enchanted had either one of those in it.  It didn't.  It doesn't.  Thank goodness.  But it does have a doozy.  Not my mother's pet peeve, but the mother of all pet peeves of mine.  It had the ONE THING that could make me want to burn my glass slippers in protest.

The evil queen is a stepmother.

I get really, REALLY tired of this.  Even before I was a stepmom, I didn't understand.  Now, as a stepmom, I'm livid.  Why?  What’s the purpose?  Why does the villain have to be a stepmom?  Isn't it hard enough either being a stepmom or having one without having it blown all out of proportion in movie format?  I'm a stepmom and I can honestly say that I've never ONCE fattened any kids up to be eaten at a later date. I already have a bug up my behind over the fact that there NEVER is a complete, happy family in a Disney animated movie and it is almost always the mom that is absent but why on top of that, do we have to make the stepmother evil?  To what end?  Sure there needs to be some sort of nemesis. But why does it have to be a stepmother?  Why can’t the evil queen be an aunt?  Or a nosey neighbor? Or, if it has to be a mother figure, why can’t the regular mother be the evil one?

I once discussed this with someone over drinks and the reply was, “Well, it wouldn’t be believable if it was just a regular mother… because no mother would do those kinds of things to their kids …”

There are so many problems with this answer I don’t know where to begin.  First, have you READ a newspaper lately?  I’m going purely on memory here but as I recall, the people who are making news for mistreating their children are MOTHERS not stepmoms.

Second, fish don’t talk, mermaids don’t exist, princes don’t prick their fingers and become beasts and pink elephants – last time I checked – could not fly.  I don’t think suspension of belief is difficult here.

Third, shut up.

Before I had uttered a word the other person saw my expression and spouted, “Well, what I mean is, the PUBLIC wouldn’t tolerate THAT in a kid’s movie”

Me:  Wouldn’t tolerate WHAT?

Her: A mother (said with great emphasis) mistreating her children.

Me:  Why?

Her:  You know why.  Mothers naturally love kids.

Me:  And stepmothers?

Her: (after a pause and a long drink) I think we should change the topic.

So do I.

I mean, I guess I shouldn’t blame Walt himself. The whole “hate your stepmom” thing has been around a long long time.  For proof, see this quote from Euripides who back around 400 BC was pissed ... probably about being told to clean his room: 

“Better a serpent than a stepmother.”

And we all know Grimm kept things that way with his take on stepmoms in Hansel and Gretel … you’ll recall it was in this gem of a story where the stepmother convinces H and G’s dad to take them out in the woods and leave them.  Um, doesn’t dear old dad have any responsibility here?  Shakespeare didn’t help things at all with a couple of his yarns and the classic tale of Cinderella is as old as dirt with the most popular version being written down by Frenchie Charles Perrault in 1697.   

So I guess Walt didn’t start it.  But without finding a soapbox to stand on here I have to say, it is time to end it.

It is time to get rid of the evil, wicked stepmother. I mean with something other than a magical sword.

WHO ASKED YOU?

I had to go by the oncologist’s office today to get my blood drawn.  Which, come to think of it, who couldn’t draw blood?  Just need a piece of paper and a big red marker, right?

Ha!

Man, I forgot how funny cancer can be.

Anyway, I was SO HOPING there would be new cancer pamphlets AND that I’d have some wait time.  Last time I was there, they had just re-stocked the cancer pamphlets and I don’t think I need to tell you what a good time I had in that waiting room.  If you need a refresher on the delights of Cancer Pictures, please go here.

I want to make sure you know I never take the last of any one brochure just in case someone from 1979 would actually want it and need it.  Also, I try – I really REALLY try not to giggle in the waiting room while I’m reading the information and gazing lovingly at the pictures.  Not necessarily because I think it is disrespectful to giggle in the cancer waiting room but because damn, people sure do look at you funny when you grab a stack of cancer brochures, plop down in a chair and systematically flip and tee hee your way through them.

Last visit I actually had to cover my mouth a couple of times.  When I got to the illustration for “finding your own melanomas” I had to close the books altogether and set them on the chair next to me. Too much, too much!  If I was one of those goats that faints when it gets excited I would have been out for a good 10 minutes just with that one illustration.  Eventually I picked the brochures back up because I figured it was better to titter behind an opened pamphlet then it was to sit there laughing at the left over pictures in my head.

They are just SO BAD!  What’s worse is I checked the revised and printed dates and they are actually IN THIS CENTURY – in fact, the pamphlet on stomach cancer was published in 2005!  The others were 2001 and 2002.  There is just no excuse for drawings this bad.  This is America, people.   Wasn’t it Hoover who promised a chicken in every pot and a Urtrect Art Supply house on every corner? 

Regardless of their sheer awfulness, I am so very glad they exist.  It is my one bright spot of joy when I walk into that office and see new pamphlets. 

Unfortunately today, there were no new ones.  Well that’s not true.  There were some new ones.  New one with titles like:

When Cancer Returns
And
Death and Dying
And
Advanced Cancer

So you know, I stopped perusing.  I mean even I can take a hint.

SIGH

So there I was on my way to get the well-deserved pedicure and my car crapped out on me.

I cannot believe it.  What are the odds? 

What's funnier is that after I called the tow truck I immediately called The Hub to come get me ... why?  Because I was like TWO WHOLE MILES from my house.

.

Man.  That love for walking sure went quickly.

THE DAY HAS ARRIVED

This time last year I was traveling and visiting some people I love on the great Chemo Tour of ‘06.  While staying at a friend’s house I had one of the greatest showers of all time.  I had spent a good long time in this shower because it was one of those cool ones with multiple shower heads where you get sprayed from the top as well as all sides.  While you’re standing in such a shower, you can imagine you are a princess being treated as royally as you should be while your personal chef prepares you a breakfast of fresh dates and Chick-fil-A.  Or you can imagine you’re a Chevy getting a pre-wax wash.  Either way, it’s quite enjoyable. After soaking it in for minutes on end, I left the shower and began toweling off briskly.  It was in the middle of this toweling off that something flew into the air and toppled onto the floor.  Since I was naked at the time, it caught my attention.  What could possibly be flying off of me?  Did I have a Band-Aid on somewhere that i forgot about?  Was it some sort of tag on the towel?  Did something fall from the ceiling? 

No
No
And no.

It was my toenail.  My toenail came off.  Just like that. 

I once asked the nurse practitioner at my oncologist’s office why no one told me about all the side effects that were possible when I was starting chemo.  She said, “If we did, would you have done it?”  It was a good point.  If someone actually sat you down and said here is the list of all possible side effects, you’d run screaming from the room while holding onto your pedicure for dear life.  Chemo is, in many ways, a guessing game.  You just can’t predict how it will affect a person.  “Besides,” she said, “no one experiences every side effect”  then she paused and looked up over the chart at me, “well, no one except you.”

That’s me.  That’s me, Miss Sets The Bar

I can’t tell you how weird it is to not have your toenails.  I felt so very fragile and vulnerable without mine.  I worried about my toes.  How could they make it all out there naked in the world without their proper covering?  I hadn’t spent this much time thinking about nails since I was 11 – but that’s a whole other story.  You may not think about them much but toenails are an integral part of your foot.  Obviously.  And mine have given me more grief than any toenails should.  First with abandoning me, then when they decided to come back.  They grew in lumpy and strange.  I’ve experienced this before when I lost a couple of fingernails growing up.  The nails that replaced them were wrinkled and weird.  I spent hours on end rubbing and examining my new nails.  It took months and months for them to grow out and come in as normal smooth nails.  My toenails followed the same pattern – bumpy little virgin nails, they contained huge ridges and valleys – like a miniature topographical map of the Rockies right there on the Piggy Who Went to Market.  When they finally started growing smooth, they also decided they would start growing INTO my toe.  They curled downward and cut through my flesh.  About this same time I started my job with The Breast Cancer 3-Day and as I walked mile after mile, they would slice my toe open.  Each night I would take off my shoe and sock to reveal a bloody stub of a thing.  No matter what I did, I couldn’t stop them from growing downward into my foot.  It was so bad that at one point I considered having them permanently removed.  But since I couldn’t get that done in the short window I had before I had to walk another 3 dozen or so miles in the next event, I simply clipped the nail in half and pulled the offending half out with a pair of pliers.

We need to talk about something else.  I just about made myself puke.

My point is: Today I’m going to get my first REAL pedicure in more than a year.  Because these feets deserve it.  I figured up that NOT COUNTING TRAINING, I have walked nearly 450 miles in the past 3 and a half months.  That’s from here to Chicago.  Or from here to Colorado.  Or from here to Minneapolis.  Or back and forth across Rhode Island 8 1/2 times.

That’s a lot of walking.  Especially for someone who couldn’t walk without assistance a short 9 months ago.

Especially for her.

November 2006                                                   

November 2007

Retraction

Well.

Darn if I'm not sitting here at a sidewalk cafe in san Diego and a woman just CROSSED THE RESTAURANT to ask me about my pressed flower necklace.

See ya spoon ring!

Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

WRITER'S BLOCK OVER, ... EASY

I’m currently sitting in an IHOP in Oklahoma City. 

Years ago I heard a writer say that there is no such thing as writer’s block.  Block, she said, suggested that something was there but couldn’t get out.  Like a clog.  Or constipation.  She maintained that when the words don’t come, when the flow ain’t flowing, when you stare at the paper and it stares back – then pokes both your eyes out, that it isn’t block you are suffering from, it’s emptiness.  Not a back-up of material, but a lack of material.  She suggested you aren’t backed up, you’re hollow.  Get out, she said.  See something.  Take in a new experience.  Or really see an old one.  Look.  Experience.  Pull it in.  Digest it. 

The woman behind me just ordered 4 scrambled eggs with hash browns.  She maybe weighs 100 pounds soaking wet. “How do you want your scrambled eggs?” asked her 16 year-old pimpled-face waiter.  “Um, scrambled, I guess,”  she said without an ounce of irony. The waitress who has my table also has some sort of sinus condition.  The firefighter who just finished his breakfast stopped the Sinus Condition a moment ago and asked for a refill – of his sausage. The couple across the aisle from me is discussing the finer points of strawberry syrup and porn.  Not together – not yet.  I’m sure they’ll get there.  There is a meeting going on in a separate room.  It looks like a bridal shower for the big-nosed girl at the end except for the fact that there is one old man attending.  When the woman in charge of the meeting says something of significance, she slams her eyes shut completely and makes huge sweeping movements with her arms.  Round and round.  And round.  I can’t hear what she’s saying but she means it.  Man, does she MEAN IT! 

I simply cannot write fast enough.

YOU ARE UNIQUE ... JUST LIKE EVERY ONE ELSE

I’ve been looking for a signature piece of jewelry for years.  Some times you run into someone with a necklace or a watch or something that is so unique it just grabs your attention.  And then you see them a second time and they have the same piece on.  And then you have dinner with them and there it is and you realize, this cool piece of jewelry isn’t just something they wear … it’s a part of them. It describes them.  It is like the thing that says “I’m like this.”  I’ve always wanted something like that. Something unique.  Something that I can pass on.  Something that makes people say, “ooooh what a neat blah blah blah and please tell me the story behind it but first let me buy you a piece of chocolate cake!”  or some such thing.  The part about telling the story is, of course, optional.

So for most of my life, I’ve been on the look out for my signature item. 

Once I was in Seattle at Pike Place Market and I came across a lady who made necklaces with pressed flowers.  They were just beautiful.  I bought two.  “I wear mine all the time!” she said.  “I get lots and lots of comments and I wear it with everything!”  with those words, I figured I had found it.  my signature piece.  I would also wear mine all the time.  I would wear it with everything.  And I did.  I wore it with jeans and t-shirts as well as with suits and dresses.  I wore it so much that I nearly wore it out.  I would often play with it as I was sitting and talking with people.  I would tug on it.  I would slide it back and forth on its silk string.  Sometimes I would even put it up to my teeth and rattle it between my front choppers.

No one said anything.

On a trip to San Francisco with my sister I almost bought a ring with a butterscotch amber stone.  For reasons that are too dumb to discuss, I didn’t buy it.  And I regretted it.  For YEARS after, I tried to find a butterscotch amber ring at least somewhat like the one I passed up.  Turns out it is really REALLY hard to find.  This past July my sister and I were walking down a street in Venice Italy and what do you know, there in a window of a shop was a big fat and totally awesome butterscotch amber ring and I went right inside and plopped down my euros and walked out with it.  I love that ring.  It is square and cool and I’ve never ever seen another one like it.  I wore it a lot around Europe and I wore it back here in the states.  I always made sure my right hand was resting on the top of the lunch table.  I spent a lot of time clutching my pearls.  I made extra big gestures with my hand for weeks and weeks.

No one said a word.

There have been other items.  A single earring I wore in my left lobe.  A long gold chain I tied in a knot.  Even a thin silver ankle bracelet that I was sure would be noticed.

But for some reason, no matter how cool and unique these pieces were to me … they never quite worked.  They never got the reactions I was hoping for.  They were just pieces of jewelry.  They didn’t define me in any way at all.

So I gave up.


It’s funny the things you remember from childhood.  Without pictures, I would not be able to remember the color of my father’s hair.  I don’t recall the cars my mother drove or the furniture in our living room.  I don’t remember my mother’s hairstyles or the shape of her glasses.  I think my kitchen as a child had mushrooms on the wallpaper and perhaps an avocado green refrigerator.  The biggest things escape me.  And most of the little stuff too.  But I do remember some things.  I remember the smell of the shoe polish my father used.  I remember how the barn looked early in the morning with frost still on the ground.  I remember how my dog used to wag her tail when my father would turn up the dirt lane at the end of the day and i remember the exact sound her happy tail would make as she thump thump thumped on the wood boards of the porch.  And I remember my mom’s silver spoon ring.

I don’t know when spoon rings became popular but I can remember my father out at his workbench making one for my mother.  And I can remember my mother wearing it.  She wore it all the time.  It was big and silver and looped around her index finger.  I think she wore it for a good long while but eventually, she stopped wearing it.  I guess the spoon ring fell out of fashion and my mother tucked it away.  But I didn’t forget about it.

Years ago she and I were going through her jewelry box and there lay her spoon ring.  Seeing it brought back good memories so I jumped at the chance to snag it.  “ooh!” I squealed,  “you still have that???  Can I take it????”  This is pretty typical, by the way.  I never go to see my mom without coming back with something.  I feel okay about it, however, because The Kid has started a collection of MY stuff in her room.  What goes around...  Of course, my mom let me have the ring.  Of course, I brought it home and of course, I didn’t wear it.  I just liked having it.  It was never the plan to wear it, I just wanted to have it.

It’s worn down quite a bit, you don’t really see the pattern in the spoon the way you used to.  And it is misshapen … all those years of my mom wearing it caused it to sort of morph into the shape of her finger I guess. As a kid that ring was like a secret weapon of cool to me but I have to be honest and say that as an adult, it’s lost some of the wow it had on me as a child.    I mean after all, it’s just an old spoon made into a ring. 

Regardless, I liked having it.  I liked seeing it in my jewelry box.  I liked knowing it was there.  For years I would pull out other rings to wear and put them back next to the spoon ring without a second thought.  And then, a few months ago, I took the spoon ring out of the old jewelry box.  I slipped it on my finger and noticed how much I liked having it on.  I didn’t take it off at the end of the day.  I wore it the next day too.  And then the next.  And pretty soon, that ring became a staple of my jewelry wardrobe.  It now is sort of molded to MY finger.  Now when I leave the house without it, I worry and rub my thumb over my naked finger every so often to remind me that I need to put it on as soon as I get home.  Now I find myself absent-mindedly twirling the ring when I’m thinking. 

But what I find so remarkable is that PEOPLE WON’T SHUT UP ABOUT MY SPOON RING.  I get so many comments on it.  People stop me in the store and ask me about it.  Salesladies want to know where I got it.  Waitresses compliment my ring.  New friends make oooh sounds when they notice it. And all of them want to hear the story.  They want to know about it.  They comment. 

Because the spoon ring is so great.

It's really cool and unique.

And it's descriptive, at least in some ways, of me and who I am. 

I guess what I’m saying is that sometimes the most precious, most unique, coolest thing about you is not something you find or buy or choose yourself.  It’s something you’ve been given ...

and you just may have it already.