I [Heart] My Life

Leopard Girl & Super Bunny

Happy Halloween from Santa Cruz!

Nia would have actually be seriously stoked to get butter for Halloween.... !

The Halloween of My Dreams

A good three years before I became a mother, I purchased a book at an airport bookstore somewhere that stuck with me over the years more than so many other any other airport-purchased book. It was Marjorie Williams' The Woman at the Washington Zoo.

The bulk of this book is brilliant -- it is one part political profiles (Bill Clinton, Barbara Bush, etc), one part essays, and one part memoir -- but it is one essay in particular that has haunted me all these years. Like I said, it was three years before becoming a mother myself, and a good seven years before I'd be diagnosed with cancer myself,  that I first read this book. And yet it was an essay Marjorie wrote about parenting her then-eleven-year-old daughter on her last Halloween before she (Marjorie) succumbed to cancer.

The essay is called The Halloween of My Dreams.

I was the one who insisted on the body glitter. Normally, you understand, I am a mother who pulls her daughter's shirt down and tucks it into her waistband every morning to keep her from showing her navel to the whole third grade. I make her scrub the supposedly water-soluble unicorn tattoos off her cheeks before she goes to school. I court her wrath by refusing to buy the kids' fashions that seem designed to clothe tiny hookers.

[...] So how could I explain the euphoria of the 45 minutes Alice and I spent in her bedroom, colluding over her hair, giggling at her faux-leather, deeply fringed bell-bottoms? The pleasure of watching her strap on those awful silver platform shoes, like something I wore in 1973?

[...] We could hear her friends pull up to the curb. As her momentum carried her to the top of the stairs, Alice looked back and tossed me a radiant smile. She had become my glimmering girl: She looked like a rock star. She looked like a teenager. She looked absolutely stunning. She thundered down the stairs in those shoes, and as the front door slammed behind her, it came to me -- what fantasy I had finally, easily entered this Halloween.

I'd just seen Alice leave for her prom, or her first real date. I'd cheated time, flipping the calendar five or six years into the future. The character I'd played was the 52-year-old mother I will probably never be.

Timothy Noah, Marjorie's husband wrote that one month after writing this essay in November 2004, her oncologist told her there was nothing more they could do to fight her cancer. She died in January 2005.

You can read The Halloween of My Dreams in its entirety in the Washington Post here.

Ever since reading this essay, I've believed in another kind of Halloween magic, the one Marjorie was able to glimpse that day: A sort of wrinkle in the fabric of time when children get to age before our eyes and show us a little bit of who they will become.

Tonight my little one & I participated in our own budding Halloween tradition: We carved our pumpkins.

It was 7:15p when we started. I noted the time because it was exactly one hour before our new "in bed and reading by 8:15" deadline. I was anxious that this wouldn't be enough time. But it was Halloween Eve. If we didn't carve the pumpkins tonight, when would it -- when could it -- happen?

So I spread a sheet on the floor, got out two big spoons, a bowl, a dish towel, and the pumpkin carving knife. We dug in.

She was thrilled! She plunged her arms into the gaping hole and squished the pumpkin goo between her fingers. Mama, I'm getting gooooood and funky! she declared. She giggled and wiggled and sang little pumpkin carving songs.

She was in a Halloween-inspired heaven.

Next to her, I was in another place.

I was scraping goo and seeds out of my own pumpkin as quickly as possible, sneaking glances at the clock. How did it already get to be 7:45?!  As my spoon scraped, scraped, scraped, I was trying not to get pumpkin ick all over my clothes or the floor or Nia's hair. I bit my tongue from saying anything admonishing to her as she danced about, but I thought the thoughts.

And then suddenly, my head filled with a mental image, an image from Marjorie's essay, a Halloween some seven years ago, came floating back to me: That night in Alice's bedroom, a mother helping her daughter get dressed for a Halloween evening out with friends. A mother loosing herself to the moment, even though she didn't care for glitter or even Halloween really. A mother going with it because it thrilled her daughter -- and because she knew she might not have other Halloweens, other moments, like that again. 

Damn.

And so I relaxed. I looked at my daughter and really saw here there, shoulder deep in a pumpkin, clad only in her underwear, asking if it was ok if she got pumpkin seeds on her feet.

I laughed out loud.

What kind of face will your Jack-o-Lantern have?

A scary one! A really, REALLY scary one with lots of teeth!

Awesome, honey.

And then we carved the faces, and went out on the deck (in only her underwear and goose bumps) and lit the candles and it was pure Halloween magic.

I love you, mama, she said, leaning into my leg. 

I love you, too, honey.

Thank you for letting me slow down and be here -- be right here -- tonight.

Fogline

Crying at preschool drop-off; a hurricane 3,000 miles away; a tough email to write to a friend. I needed a walk to clear my head and while I was out, the sun came out... and my worries seemed to evaporate, too.

Dark Chocolate is My Weapon: What's Your Anticancer Food?

It's 6am and my eyes pop open. I just remembered something I read last night right before bed:

Dark chocolate will cause my cancer cells to commit suicide.

(This picture is here to strike terror in the heart of any microscopic cells wandering around my body looking for a new place to set up shop -- because my cancer reads my blog.)

Anyway. Committing suicide, yeah. Ok, it wasn't necessarily written like that exactly, but pretty darn close. Here is what David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD actually said:

Blueberries contain anthocyanidins and proanthocyanidins, molecules that are capable of forcing cancer cells to commit suicide (apoptosis). Other rich sources of proanthocyanidins are cranberries, cinnamon, and dark chocolate.

Dark chocolate. YES! Die suckers!

All this is from Dr. Servan-Schrieber's book Anticancer: A New Way of Life. In the book he asks us to imagine our bodies like a fresh garden bed. You know, soil. And the cancer is a weed. Our goal is to create healthy soil that does not purposefully -- or accidentally -- fertilize weeds.

What makes the weeds grow? Let's call them tumors for a sec. Tumors need an environment rich in inflammatory factors for growth. Remove the inflammation and they cannot spread. Major dietary "fertilizers" for "weeds" are refined sugars, excess omega-6s, and growth hormones.

A few posts back I wrote that it is my job now to create an environment in my body that is inhospitable for cancer... and suddenly the textbook for how to do this falls in my lap!

But it isn't a book only for cancer survivors. Really, everyone should read this. As Dr. Servan-Schrieber puts it: All of us have cancer cells in our bodies. But not all of us will develop cancer.

Cancer flourishes when there are more promoters [dietary factors that feed cancer growth] than anti-promoters. Cancer growth slows or stops when the anti-promoters prevail. It's a push-pull process. Promotion is reversible, depending on whether the early cancer growth is given the right conditions in which to grow. [p. 109]

This last quote is included in the book and comes from T. Colin Campbell, PhD, a professor at Cornell University, and the author of "the most far-ranging study ever carried out on the link between cancer and dietary habits."

So what will I eat now? Here's a short list of the highlights:

Various kinds of cabbage

Broccoli

Garlic

Soy

Green tea

Turmeric

Raspberries

Blueberries

Dark chocolate

Olive oil

As Dr. Richard Beliveau, a researcher in biochemistry and professor at the University of Montreal, puts it: Cancer is like diabetes. You must look after it every day.

I have never heard anything like that. Cancer is like diabetes... Every. Single. Day....

So that's what I'll do. I'll give my Herceptin a little boost by consuming olive oil every day*. I'll avoid refined sugars, white flour especially.

I'll feed all the cells of my body with green tea.

And I'll figure out how to consume Turmeric.

~~~

*At the Catalan Oncology Institute in Spain, researchers "demonstrated that polyphenols and oleic acid [olive oil] can inhibit expression of the HER2 gene. It is possible that the consumption of olive oil by women taking Herceptin may increase the efficacy of the medication." [p 112]

Photo credit here.

Weekending (Waffles, Tree-Climbing, Cardboard Ferris Wheels, And More)

... this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single  photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama. You can play, too!

All three of these cell phone-captured shots are from different days this week as I got into my new morning walk habit. I've been sneaking out each morning around 7a and am enjoying the chilly solitude  just as the city is rubbing the sleep from its eyes. "The Moth," "This American Life," "Radio Lab" -- awesome to catch up with these old 'friends'.

Happy 33rd, My Love

Thank you for being the best friend/husband/father a man could be. You've been with me through thick and thin. Today we celebrate YOU!

Post-Its To My Younger Self

And two more...

I'm at a very interesting moment in my life. Two major life events are sunseting at the same time: My child is suddenly out of baby/toddler-hood and cancer is fading into the past.

The convergence of these two events is almost breathtaking.

You mean, I can go to a bar with a friend and have a few DRINKS? Wait, I can go to a bar, have a few drinks, and come home AFTER bedtime?

This is amazing.

Seriously. 

For four years, I largely just parented. And for the past seven months of cancer treatment it was hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now, suddenly, my child is sleeping through the night and able to get to sleep with the help of other people besides me, and the cancer is gone!

Pretty amazing, people.

What Post-It would you write to your younger self?

... this moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single  photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama. You can play, too!

Seeing Pink

Can we talk for a second about this whole "pinking" of October and Breast Cancer "Awareness" Month?

This might upset you, gentle reader, but I have to get something off my chest (pun intended!):

I don't buy it. Literally.

I don't buy that making everything pink has made anything better for breast cancer survivors -- or our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, and friends who've lost their battles to this horrific disease.

Does awareness really do anything for anyone? Particularly the selling of awareness?

Do pink ribbons literally everywhere save lives?

Has the pinking of the NFL improved breast cancer outcomes?

Here's the truth:

Breast cancer isn't sexy. Sorry, Facebook.

Breast cancer isn't an all girls sleep over party with pillow fights and cute pajamas.

The truth is -- the unsexy truth is: Breast cancer can kill. And some women loose their breasts to save their lives.

I think all that pink has anesthetized the public to what breast cancer is really all about.

Breast cancer is scary, painful, depressing, make-you-so-mad-you-see-red.

Breast cancer is my daughter suddenly crying into my one remaining breast that she loves me and doesn't want me to die. Breast cancer is me gripping my husband's hand in the middle of the night, scared that I might not be here for all our wedding anniversaries. Breast cancer is my grandmother dying in a hospital bed, so high on morphine she didn't recognize us anymore.

Breast cancer is all the women in the Chemo Lounge, juggling their lives with their treatments. Some of them -- too many of them -- will be doing treatments for the rest of their lives.

Breast cancer is the brave women in the clinical trials, and the doctors and scientists working year after year after year to bring a life-saving drug to the light of day against all odds.

And what about other cancers? Why is October all about Breast Cancer? Why not raise awareness for the fighting of all cancers, especially children's cancers?

And what about the men diagnosed with breast cancer? I'm sure they love the pink ribbons.

Here is my point:  Think before you pink.

Instead:

• Make a donation directly to a cancer-fighting/cancer-support organization
• Do an act of kindness for a friend who has cancer
• Save yourself: Get a mammogram/get your moles checked/get a colonoscopy (I'm scheduling a mammogram for my right breast right now!)

Here is my pink October:

PS. If you're up for more, check out the SCAR Project.