Rejected

A while back I submitted an entry for the Under Armour Undeniable Survivor contest.  According to the website, they were looking for three BC survivors to become representatives for the 2008 UA Power in Pink Campaign.  So, I thought what the heck, I’ll submit an entry.  After all, writing is kind of my thing, right?  Problem was, they wanted me to write my “story” in 1000 words or less. Oh yeah, and it was supposed to “illustrate why a physically active lifestyle is so vital to a healthy life with or without cancer.”  And, they were looking for examples of “undeniable courage”.

First of all, you know how word limits chafe me.  After all, it was the 4000 character limit that drove me from my former blog home.  Secondly, who are we kidding?  I’m no super fitty.  Not to mention that I could either write my BC story, or write about the physically active lifestyle thing, but 1000 words did not give me enough space to write about either of those well.  I did try to weave it all together in 1000 words—I even mentioned my blog.  But undeniable courage?  Not so much.  I guess I just have a hard time saying “Look how undeniably courageous I am” when the truth is, being told how brave & courageous I am totally makes me squirm.

Yesterday I received my official rejection letter.  As rejection letters go, it was a good one.  The lady even told me how funny the dragon boat entry was.  I guess they weren’t looking for undeniably funny, though, since I didn’t make the cut.  (And really. how ironic would it have been if I’d become “the face” of somebody’s promotional pink-o-rama?  You’d probably all be posting comments telling me what a sell-out I was.) 

It’s just as well, because I don’t know that I qualify as having “undeniable courage”.  It’s not like I killed a gator with my bare hands, dyed its hide Komen pink and made a set of luggage out of it.  I’m just, you know, living.  Nothing exotic.  No undeniable courage goin’ on.  I did open up the fridge the other day and smell some undeniable spoilage, though. 

Does Arm & Hammer have a contest I can enter?

Boats, Blogs, & Dr Beer-hurray

Had an appointment with Dr Birhiray Tuesday.  No big deal.  Just a check-up.  I always look forward to seeing Dr B, though.  He’s my fav.

While we were waiting to get in to see Dr B, a lady came into the waiting room, and struck up a conversation with me.  She was dressed in a pink sweatshirt, and pink hat, and she carried a pink bag.  It was no great shock, then, when her conversation was all about breast cancer stuff.  “Are you involved with any support groups?” she asked.  I told her that I was not, and added that I wasn’t from Indy, and that I live over by Terre Haute.  I figured that would put a damper on her recruitment efforts.  I was wrong.  “Have you ever heard of the Indy Oars?” she said.  I had not.  She then proceeds to explain to me that they’re a rowing team of BC survivors who row a big pink dragon boat. (Really?  You say a PINK boat?  Well, I never would have guessed.)  “They practice Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays up in Geist—you should check it out.”  I’m thinking, lady, I just told you I live over an hour away.  You know exactly where I’m coming from, because you told me that you’re originally from Terre Haute yourself.  Last time I checked, gas wasn’t free—even for survivors.  In other words: Are you nuts?

Not that I’m hatin’ on the Indy SurviveOars, as they’re actually called.  I think it sounds like fun.  You know, they even have a drummer to keep everybody paddling in unison.  I’m thinking I’d want that job—you know like in Ben Hur?  BATTLE SPEED! Bom–bom, bom–bom, ATTACK SPEED! Bom-bom, bom-bom, RAMMING SPEED! Bom-bom-bom-bom-bom-bom…  What?  You say there’s no ramming in dragon boat racing?  Well…fsssst….I don’t want to do it then.  Here I was thinking it was going to be like a cross between canoeing and demolition derby, in a big pink boat.  Dang it.

But, hey, at least she didn’t flash me.

Eventually I got called back to have my vitals taken.  This includes the requisite blood samples and the dreaded weigh-in.  Happily, Dr Birhiray’s Scales of Doom weighed me at a dainty 8 pounds lighter than my previous visit.  Woo hoo!  Go me!  Of course, my previous visit was 3 months ago, so it’s not like the weight is just flying off of me or anything.  But, I’ll take what I can get.

The first thing Dr B asked me about was my blog.  Seems he’s not the one that’s been googling his name after all, although he said his wife might have done it.  He had not actually been to my newish home here on WordPress, as he noted when Hubster pulled it up on his laptop for Dr B’s perusal.  He got a kick out of the fact that he has his own category, but he quickly clicked from there over to Dr Schmidt’s category to see what I had to say about him.  Yeah, that’s right, while everybody is wasting away out in the waiting area, Dr B is in the exam room with me & Hubster reading my blog and cackling.  I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it either, since I’d spent my time in purgatory, too. 

We did actually talk medical stuff.  Shoot, he even did a full-fledged physical exam which only happens, like once a year.  I told him about the memory loss issue.  Bear in mind that he’s never surprised by anything I say, and he always has an option for dealing with it.  This time, he told me that if the memory loss/lack of focus thing was really bad, it could be treated with Ritalin.  “Ritalin?” I said, and then started laughing.  “No, I’m serious” he said in his Nigerian accent.  “I know, I just think it’s funny.”  And you know, I have been feeling a little ADD.  But in the end, I told him I didn’t think another prescription was necessary.  It’s not like I forget how to get home or anything.  Besides, the stories I have to tell about my little amnesia episodes are pretty great.

And really, Ritalin is a stimulant, so I’m thinking I can self-medicate with caffeine if I need to.  You hear that, Honey?  Those iced caramellas with the whipped cream on top aren’t over-priced luxuries—they’re therapy.

Thanks for the Memories…or not.

(We’d have a Flashback Friday, but I can’t remember anything)

It’s a good thing I have a sense of humor about this whole short term memory loss thing. 

Chemo kind of scrambled my brain, but it was getting better until I started taking Tamoxifen.  I don’t know that cognitive issues are part of the official list of side effects, but ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you that they should be.  And I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how researchers have been using estrogen to combat memory loss in menopausal women.  Tamoxifen is a freakish drug that acts like estrogen in some parts of the body, and acts against it in others.  Now, I’m no fancy-pants researcher, but I’m thinking that Tamoxifen’s effect on my body’s estrogen could be to blame for this lack of memory deal.

Of course, you may be thinking, “Moody, what do you mean by memory loss?  I forget things all the time.”  Let me tell you a story that illustrates precisely what I mean. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was at homeschool co-op.  I’d had to run out and get something for Mini-Me’s class project, and also some snacks for the science fair.  After I got back, I realized that I’d forgotten to get ice.  (No, that’s not the story) I didn’t want to run back out, and I asked another mom (Tonya) if she’d mind picking up ice.  She was needing to run an errand anyway, so she said, “Sure.”  Fast forward about an hour or so.  Susie says to me, “It’s getting close to lunch.  When was Tonya supposed to be back with the ice?”  I said, “Well, she had another errand to run, but she said she’d be back before lunch time.”  Ten minutes pass and Susie and I are walking down the hallway, chatting.  All of a sudden, I see flashing across my memory, Tonya handing me the ice and me putting it in the freezer.  Yeah, that’s right, Tonya had already been back.  I nearly fell over laughing.  “Susie—I already have the ice!”  <insert hysterical laughter>  “What?”  <more laughter> “I already HAVE the ice!  Tonya brought it to me and I put it in the freezer!  I totally forgot when you asked me!”  

Wow.

The other thing I’ve noticed is a lack of focus.  Like, Hubster will be talking to me and all of a sudden I find myself thinking about something completely unrelated to what he’s talking about.  Then, I realize I’m supposed to be listening, and I try to focus, but within 2 minutes, it happens again. Usually at this point I giggle at how ridiculous this all is, and Hubster just gives me a knowing look, and then answers all the questions I have about what I didn’t hear him say. Fortunately, Hubster has been pretty good about rolling with it, although he did tell someone the other day (I can’t remember who—imagine that) that I’m not the woman he married brainwise.

But he’s really been amazingly patient with my inability to retain information.  I mean, I think it’s funny, but I’m pretty sure if the tables were turned and he was the one who couldn’t listen for more than 30 seconds, or told me the same things over and over, it wouldn’t be funny anymore.  I’d be like, “How convenient for you that you can’t “remember” anything I say!  Are you sure you even “remember” who I am?!” 

(You know, there really needs to be separate punctuation for designating something in “finger quotes”, because that’s what I was going for in the above sentences.)

Relay & Rebellion

Last weekend was the 2008 Relay for Life.  Because I’m kind of a rebellious survivor, I neither wore a survivor shirt, nor participated in the survivor activities.  I tried that stuff last year, and man, it about sucked the life right out of me!  I mean, sheesh, you go to the survivor dinner and all anybody wants to talk to you about is cancer!  And they don’t want to talk about fun stuff like taking your foob mushroom hunting, either.  They’re all, “When were you diagnosed?” and when I told them I’d just been diagnosed a couple of months prior they were like, “Oh.”  You know, like I wasn’t a real survivor because I hadn’t done anything but had surgery so far.  And truth be told, that was kind of how I felt during last year’s survivor parade–like, I hadn’t really survived anything yet.  And so, it was just weird for me because it kind of felt like I was parading around like, “Woo hoo!  I’ve got the cancer!” 

Of course, now that I’ve done four surgeries, chemo, and rads, I’d say I qualify as a legitimate survivor.  But I still didn’t want to participate in the survivor activities, and have the life-sucking cancer conversations.  Not to mention that the survivor/caregiver dinner was at 4:30.  I just can’t be eating supper at 4:30 for at least another 20 years.

So, Hubster and I went out for Mexican at about 9:00.  That way I could skip the luminaria ceremony.  It weirds me out, too.  I know some folks really get into it, but as someone who has been fighting cancer, I have to say that I don’t really need to be reminded that cancer kills people.  To that end, a big candlelight ceremony where they read the names of everyone who has ever died of cancer is not a happy place for me.  Especially since luminaries can also be bought in honor of folks who are living—so they read those off, too.  It’s almost like, “These people died from cancer, and these people are in the queue.”  Or at least that’s how it makes me feel.  Like I said, plenty of people like that sort of thing.  More power to ‘em.  It’s just not for me.  I’ll be down at Lucio’s scarfing down chips & salsa.

You may recall the drama that unfolded during last year’s Relay involving the silent auction.  I’m happy to report that there were no such altercations this time.  Maybe that’s because in the aftermath of last year’s rumble, the committee changed the way the silent auction was run, and put it in a separate room where bid sheets could be monitored.  Or maybe it was because the purses this year were completely hideous, and I told Susie that the only person she’d be dukin’ with was me if she even thought about bidding on one of those for my benefit.  Either way, there was no big scene.

Samsonite—I was WAY off

Went to see the plastic surgeon, Dr Grasee.  That’s pronounced Grah-zay.  The Foob really likes it, because it sounds so French.  He never has cared for Dr Birhiray-pronounced Beer-Hurray—instead, wanting me to find a doctor named Dr Chardonnay-Hurray.   ”We are going to zee Dr Grah-zay, no?”  he asked with a smile.  Little does he know that Dr Grah-zay is going to eliminate his job.  You might think he’d catch on once he heard our conversation, but he was way too busy trying to sweet talk the implant samples to pay any attention.  So, for now, he’s very excited about having a doctor with such a French-sounding name. 

When I made my appointment with the plastic surgeon, I imagined how I thought the place would be.  I figured, you know, they’re in the business of making people look better—bigger in some ways, smaller in others—so everyone who worked there would look like Barbie.  Prior to my appointment, I imagined myself sitting in a waiting room full of people uber-plump lips, tattooed make-up, and gigantic boobs, sticking out alike a sore thumb (me—not the gigantic boobs) because I still have my cellulite intact.

I’m happy to report that I was wrong. 

Dr Grasee and company are down-to-earth, regular people.  No barbies or fem-bots in the bunch.   As for the waiting room, well, I didn’t see any other patients there.  I hope that’s not because I’m the first customer.  Although, when I went to write a check for my co-pay they did ask me if I had cash so they could hang their first dollar on the wall… hmmm.  No, seriously, Dr Grasee is about my age.   Or at least she *looks* my age, but really she could be 112 years old and just keeps having her partner give her a face lift every year.  So, at any rate she’s been doing this for a little while. 

Right off the bat, I told her that I wasn’t really interested in any of the reconstruction methods that would use muscle, and that Dr Schmidt had said I was a good candidate for an expander & implant, in spite of the fact that I’ve had radiation.  She said, “Okay, we’ll see when I examine you if I think that’s a good idea.”  So, she went ahead and explained the other reconstruction options, and showed us the various implants.  Then she opened up a binder full of before and after pictures.  It was all I could do to keep from busting out laughing as she showed us photos of 70 year old women’s boobs—I knew that Hubster, while appearing calm on the outside, was mentally trying to chew his eyes off to get away.  That alone was worth the price of admission. Heh heh.

Finally, she looked at and felt my skin, and agreed that it does indeed look really good.  “Okay,” she said, “I’m thinking we shoot for the initial surgery in August, and then plan to do the exchange in December.  What do you think?” 

I thought that sounded just jim dandy. 

Return of The Foob

As you may recall, The Foob had been missing.  There was even speculation that perhaps he’d run away to join Cirque du Soleil, being a wannabe Frenchman and all.  I’m sure some of you probably suspected that rather than running away, The Foob had simply been misplaced by his Tamoxifen-brained owner.  But I assure you that’s not the case.  The fact of the matter is that he was hiding.  Pouting because he wasn’t getting enough of the spotlight. 

However, even The Foob can only hold out for so long.  And when I said to Mini Me the other day, “I wish I knew where The Foob was so we could take him mushroom hunting” as I was opening one of my underwear drawers, I was greeted with “Bonjour!  Were you looking for me?” 

(Well, well.  Aren’t we unusually congenial?  Amazing what the right motivation will do.)

And so, we took him on his first mushroom hunt.  Of course, since it was his first time and all, we had to point him in the general direction.  Mini Me said, “Okay Foob, I see one over there.”  “I do not see zee truffle,” The Foob replied.  “It’s not a truffle, it’s a morel.  Keep looking,” said Mini Me, “It’s over close to the fence.  Do you see it?”  After a few seconds of intense scrutiny of the leaf-littered ground, The Foob shouted, “Sacrebleu! I see zee mushzroom!”

As you can see, he was licking his chops in anticipation of the evening’s meal.

Sock Her

Mini Me had her first soccer game Sunday.  Other than a couple of practices and just goofing around with friends, she’s never played before, so she spent a good part of the game just trying to figure out what to do.  Fortunately, she didn’t make any grievous mistakes.  You know, like when she started dribbling the ball toward the wrong goal, she at least listened when the parents all screamed in blood-curdling unison, “WRONG WAY!!”  And only proceeded a few feet before turning in the correct direction.

There was a girl on the opposing team who I’m pretty sure was really a 35-year old Austrian man in size 13 cleats. She was just ginormous, and intimidated the socks off all the other kids in spite of the fact that she didn’t really have any skills.  Mini Me, who is used to being the biggest kid in her age group, got clobbered by Soccer She-rah at least once.  “Mom, did you see that really big girl?  She kicked me in the calf so hard I was afraid she broke my leg!”  I don’t think the girl meant to hurt Mini Me.  I found out later that it’s her first year, too.  And, you know, it’s probably hard to control those size 13’s.  But that doesn’t make Mini Me’s calf hurt any less.

Nevertheless, she sucked it up and kept playing.  Go Mini Me!  Unfortunately her team lost 1-0, but at least Mini Me wasn’t the one who scored the winning goal for the opposing team.

Of course, there’s always next week.

Playing Hooky

At the end of last week, I spent probably 45 minutes or so typing up a blog entry.  I mentioned a while back that I have the slowest internet connection ever.  Well, not only do I have Flintstone’s Internet, but I also get my electricity from Flinstone’s Power and Light.  Apparently, just as I was just putting the finishing touches on my masterpiece, the wooly mammoth who runs on the treadmill to generate our electricity decided to take a break.  *poof*  The power went off. 

Now, this isn’t particularly rare.  We have random power outages all year long.  Sometimes it’s because some unlucky critter decided to get up close and personal with the local transformer.  Or, when the moon is full and the Pabst Blue Ribbon is aplenty, it might be because some hilljacks decided to shoot up the substation down the road from here.

But arrrgh!  Why does it always have to happen when I’m writing?

Then the power came back on.  Anxious to find out whether or not the auto recovery feature had done its job, I powered up.  But before the machine could completely reboot….*poof* the power was gone again.

Arrrgh!

I gave up and went downstairs.  Eventually, the electricity came back on for good.  I fired up the computer.  My blog entry was nowhere to be found.  Thanks to chemo brain and tamoxifen, I no longer have the ability to recall what I’ve written.  Used to be I could remember anything I’d written, nearly verbatim.  Now I can remember the general idea and maybe a particularly pithy phrase or two, but the rest is gone. 

And so, I did what any mature blogger would do.  I pouted.  Okay, not really, but what I did do was walk away from the desk instead of trying to recreate what I’d lost.  And I’ve been playing hooky ever since.  But of course, no one visits my blog if there isn’t anything new, so I figured I’d better get off my butt and write something.

In the coming days, I’ll tell you how I’ve been spending my time, including taking The Foob mushroom hunting, and Mini Me’s first soccer game.  Stay tuned…

Getting an Earful

Prince called and wanted his 80″s hair back, so I had to find a new ‘do.  You may recall that I’d previously attempted to use a flat iron without much success.  Oh sure, the hair was straight, but not in a good way.  It’s been a few weeks and my hair has grown since then, so I decided to give it another shot.

The flat iron, for those of you who don’t know, looks like a pair of electric hair tongs.  Spring loaded, it stays in the open position until you insert a piece of hair and squeeze it shut.  Then you pull it away from the head, allowing the hair to slide through the two sides, effectively being ironed along the way. 

I’m sure that for people with naturally straight hair, this is a very quick and painless process—making their hair super-straight.  But naturally curly hair doesn’t want to give up its identity that easily.  And so, each small piece has to be ironed again, and again, and again. 

This is where the process starts getting dangerous for me. 

You see, I have a very limited amount of patience.  Especially for things like ironing my hair.  Unlike Hubster, the engineer, with infinite attention to detail, I just want to get it done and move on already.  Hubster doesn’t iron his hair, but you can bet if he did, ALL of the individual hairs would be independently straightened.  In fact, their straightness would probably be measured with a tiny, calibrated hair straightness measuring device.  “Quadrant C-16 has 2 degrees of camber…”  Do you have any idea how LONG it would take him to get ready?  Sheesh!  It already takes forever, as he has to inspect and cleanse every pore individually, and brush each tooth 652 strokes.  I can’t imagine what the results would be if he did more than run a comb through his hair.

But, that’s not me.  I’m all about get it done and move on.  Mini Me will tell you, that I sometimes label the cockamamie ways she goes about doing things as “grossly inefficient.”  Get it done.  Move on.  And so, when it came time to iron my curly hair into submission, the repetitiveness quickly wore on me.  It was especially difficult to straighten those pesky, curly parts that tried to hide behind my ears.  Those pieces are shorter than the top, and hard to capture in the electric hair tongs.  I quickly lost patience.  My movements began to gain speed, until the fateful moment when…

YEEOOUUCH!  I did not grab my hair.

I grabbed my ear.  Yup.  Clamped that puppy right in between those electric tongs, I did.  And while I quickly pulled the flat iron away, the damage was done.  Burns, both front and back.  Of course, with my hair being so short and all, there really wasn’t a good way to hide it.  Especially from whoever happened to sit on my right.  Now you’re probably thinking, “Oh, it’s probably not that obvious.  I bet people don’t even notice.”  Oh yeah?  Every single person I’ve told this story to has had the same response: “I was wondering what had happened to your ear.”

It’s a good thing that I’m well past that self-conscious, afraid-to-look-like-a-dork stage of life. 

I’m glad I have enough hair to iron, but I’ll be even happier when it’s long enough that I can let it be curly.  This hair ironing, ear frying stuff is just grossly inefficient.

A Riddle

What is eight feet long, has two wheels, four arms, four legs, and two heads that scream at each other “Stop leaning! I’m NOT! WHOA! I feel like I’m going to DIE! AAAHHHH!”? 

Hubster and I on our new tandem bicycle. 

I know, you guys all have the same romantic notions I once had about tandems.  You’re probably humming that bicycle built for two song right now.  “But you’d look sweet, upon the seat, of a bicycle built for two.”   Yeah.  More like, “But you and I, will sure-ly die, on our bicycle built for two.” 

You wouldn’t think it would be that hard, would you?  I mean, it’s a bike, for Pete’s sake, not a jumbo jet.  (Although it’s nearly as long as one.)  

The tandem bicycle laughs at your ignorance, just as it laughed at ours. 

“Ha!” says the malicious deathcycle, “You think you can ride me?  Bring it on, amateurs.  I ain’t your mama’s Schwinn, with the cute little basket and the bell on the handle bars. I am the modern tandem—sleek, and beautiful, and ready to throw you to the pavement at the slightest mistake.  What?  You didn’t bring your helmet to test drive me?  Aw, that’s too bad.  I wonder what you’ll carry your head home in.”   

We did manage to successfully complete the near death experience test drive without any carnage.  Afterwards, Hubster asked me, “Well, what do you think?”  I said, “I think it’ll be a lot of fun if it doesn’t kill us.”  And so we brought it home.  No hateful bicycle’s gonna be the boss of me, doggone it.  Besides, this is the only way I have of ever keeping up with Hubster, who rides way faster than me.

But from now on, I’ll be wearing my helmet and some Depends.