The Season for Hope

Many of you know my good news already, that my scans last week before Thanksgiving continued to show no evidence of cancer. What a way to go into the Thanksgiving holiday. And that sound you may have heard? That was Chris and me finally exhaling after 48 hours of holding our breath waiting on results.

As the stress started to dissipate, I came down with another sinus infection and had chemo last week (plus a lunch with Arizona's Governor -- a story for another post, maybe -- and hosted a cookie decorating party with a dozen or so preschoolers over the weekend), so I've disappeared a bit from this space. I've been busy living, which is pretty wonderful. I am so very lucky for this beautiful life.

Incredibly thankful for this goofy and handsome dude (who could almost not stop saying "turkey!" today). From our family to yours, happy thanksgiving. This life is such a joy. 🍁🍾😊

A photo posted by Jen Campisano (@jencampisano) on Nov 26, 2015 at 9:24pm PST

But I've also been hesitant to talk about my good news too much, in part because so many of my friends are facing disease progression, chemo regimen changes, or the unknown of clinical trials over the last couple of months. These friends post photos from hospital beds of them with their children, and my heart aches for them. Or they post that they have to leave their families -- now, at this time of year, just to emphasize the magnitude of the injustice of it -- to take part in clinical trials to try to put the brakes on their particular form of breast cancer.

Maybe this drug will be the one that finally stops it. 

Maybe this won't be my last Christmas with my kiddos. 

Maybe I can walk today, despite the pain in my bones from cancer's spread. 

I've become a part of this community. These women are my friends. My diagnosis wasn't terribly dissimilar to many of theirs. In some ways, it was worse, since I was metastatic from the outset while many of them thought they were safe with an early-stage diagnosis. My luck could change at any moment, and their stories could be my story. But for now, I'm relatively healthy.

That is no minor thing. As the saying goes, when you have your health, you have everything. I am so very, very lucky. I try to remember that every day.

***

As Quinn and I were putting up Christmas decorations the other day, listening to Holiday Classics on iTunes, "O Holy Night" started playing. We are not a religious family, but it's still my favorite Christmas song. I choked up, watching my son choose where to put ornaments and feeling beyond fortunate that I get to be here to see it.

And then I started crying as I strung the lights, thinking about my friends whose cancer situations are worsening or who are spending this season without family members because of cancer. The music wasn't helping. I'm blaming you, Mariah Carey.

Is this survivor's guilt? Can you really have survivor's guilt when you've been diagnosed with an incurable cancer? Do the holidays make everyone more emotional? Or is it just the sugar highs (and subsequent crashes)? Maybe I just need a break from Chex Mix.

***
Chris is in the town where he grew up the first half of this week, wrapping up things with his mom's estate: a visit to the DMV, a meeting with her accountant, closing of bank accounts, that sort of thing. We have had our own significant loss this year, and it is going to be a tough holiday without my mother-in-law around.

Later this week, I am headed to San Antonio, to attend a program as part of the annual breast cancer symposium there. I am hoping to learn about advances in research and new ideas in the pipeline for eradicating this disease. I am hoping to bring some more good news back to this community of mine, some more reasons for hope.

After all, it is the season for it.

My Head Is So Far Up in the Clouds...

My head is so far up in the clouds and I don't even have a fun excuse as to why.

There is nothing quite like getting hit with a sinus infection and recovering from chemo to start off a week. I sort of feel like my head is floating above my body somewhere, but somehow it is still throbbing. Unfortunately, it is not too detached for that. Plus, I may have given myself whiplash with the intensity of some of these sneezes. My neck is sore, my eyes feel like they're swimming in slime, even my teeth hurt.

I'm not trying to complain, so much as set out a list of reasons why our house looks like such a wreck (sorry, honey).

A friend recently wondered at how I get everything done, and then I look around my house on a day like today, when I've barely left the couch except to drop Quinn off at school, and I want to set the record straight: I do not even come close to getting everything done.

There are piles of shoes by the door, beds unmade, laundry that needs to be folded, laundry that needs to be washed, and I have no earthly idea what we're having for dinner tonight, but a rotisserie chicken is sounding pretty accessible right now.

I want to do a post about my intentions for the new year, about goal-setting and sugar-reducing and my feeble attempt at the Whole30 thing. But that might have to wait until these antibiotics kick in. Right now, I need a nap (or a cup of coffee).

{5 days ago, when my head was in the clouds for a far different reason}

I just wanted to put it out there that some weeks I do have a decent amount of energy, and I take advantage of it when I can. On those weeks, I go hiking, I go to yoga, I sometimes even fold laundry. I spent a good amount of time over the holidays not thinking a single lick about cancer. I was able to put it so far to the back of my mind that I didn't even care that I had too many glasses of champagne on New Year's Eve, watching Fergie ring in 2015 with some truly awful performances in Times Square. I am so grateful for that. Really.

But on weeks like this one, I barely get out of my pajamas for days in a row. There is no balance, there are just ups and downs. This week, cancer is once again at the forefront, if only in side effects from treatment. At times like these, I remember that I'll feel so much better in a couple of days. (This too shall pass.) I think I said it here before, but the wise words of my sister-in-law bear repeating: You can get through any moment, and eventually, those moments add up and you're on the other side of whatever awful thing you were facing.

The fog will clear, my energy will return, and with any luck I'll be able to breathe through my nose again.

Good News, Bad News

I don't even remember what the particular news items were, but the other day I said to Quinn, "Go ask Daddy if he wants to hear the good news or the bad news first." So now when Quinn has something to tell me, he'll say, "Do you want to hear the good news?" Followed by something like, "I built a treasure box for my rocket ship!"

With him, there's no bad news.

This is a post about some bad news, though. I've hesitated to write about this because it's not cancer-related and I know I'm inviting so many opinions by opening up about it. But, me being me, I wrote about our dog adoption in this space already, so I figured I owe you guys an update.

Also? The last few weeks have been pure Christmas chaos abundance, with a train ride to the North Pole (where we blamed there being no snow on global warming, and I'm not sure Quinn bought it because it was 29 degrees out and that might be the coldest he's ever been), a cookie exchange party we're still eating the remnants from, a couple of holiday open houses, a family limo ride courtesy of Chris's aunt to view Christmas lights, waffles with Santa at Quinn's preschool, and Quinn asking Santa for exactly two things: a menorah to light candles for eight days at our house and a remote control spider to scare his mommy. Guess which one Santa delivered? 

Hot cocoa on the Polar Express, a new family tradition (even if there wasn't any snow; there was plenty of magic and Christmas cheer and caroling and a visit from Santa and sleigh bells all around).

A photo posted by Jen Campisano (@jencampisano) on Dec 12, 2014 at 7:35pm PST

I hope you all have had equally abundant holiday seasons. I am so lucky to get to experience this time of year, this life I've got with Chris and Quinn, and this was the first Christmas since 2011 that I didn't wonder if it would be my last. Instead, I probably tried a little too hard to put in place holiday traditions that would make the season as magical as possible for my little man, abandoning ship here because there just was no time for blogging after I figured out what to do with the elf every night. 

I might skip the damn elf next year.

Back to the pup. A couple of weeks after we brought Luna home there was an incident that made it clear she shouldn't be in a house with a preschooler (or a cat, for that matter). She was extraordinarily sweet in so many regards and attached herself to me pretty quickly, but I couldn't be as vigilant as I would have needed to be to ensure everyone's safety. It broke my heart even after only two weeks, but the rescue organization took her back earlier this month.

Quinn says our house is boring without Luna, which is true. The good news (if I can spin it) is that our cat has come out of hiding after spending more than two weeks hidden in a closet in the back of the house. And the rest of us are once again in the market for a (child- and cat-friendly) dog. 

Getting Off the Hamster Wheel

I came down with a cold this week -- or maybe last, but it really hit this week as I was recovering from chemo. Perfect timing! Then Quinn spent Tuesday night feverishly whimpering in bed next to me. He woke up sick to his stomach Wednesday morning, which made two of us. The last few days have been kind of a blur. In traditional denial-ist fashion, I've been telling myself I just have terrible allergies, even as my head has spent most of this week feeling like I got run over by a reindeer.

I managed to make it to yoga earlier in the week (or late last week?), hoping to sweat out some of the gunk that's been plaguing me. I ran into a friend and mentioned that I've been feeling like I'm on a hamster wheel lately, with the decorating and shopping and cards and laundry and cleaning and baking and school activities and I just hadn't been feeling very festive. "Oh my God, me too," she said.

She told me she'd been feeling the same thing but had had a session with a local woman who is part therapist, part energy healer. And I might normally roll my eyes, but this friend is especially grounded and I've had some pretty remarkable sessions with people doing energy work myself. Also, my friend told me something that really struck home. Her therapist/healer suggested looking at the items on the hamster wheel from a slightly different perspective, shifting her gaze just a tad so things no longer feel like chores. Hearing this, it was as if I was suddenly given permission to be okay with the chaos, to embrace it even, to possibly find some kooky sort of joy in it. I feel like my friend got a two-for-one deal because this was EXACTLY the nudge I needed to get my head out of my ass.

Then, another woman I didn't know too well -- but who was also rejected by The TODAY Show before she was invited (and attended) on the Plaza with Joan Lunden -- passed away this week. We'd sent each other congratulatory notes on our TODAY appearances. A few weeks later, she suffered a stroke from which she never really recovered. Despite all that, in October, she tweeted this, which is a perfect little nugget of wisdom. Thank you, Annie.

I beg of the world. Stop complaining. Find ways to be happy. Seriously. Dig deep. Even in my worst times, I still try. No matter how hard.
— Annie Goodman (@annieg917) October 28, 2014

Like Watching the Grass Grow

As I mentioned back in June, I've been working on growing out my hair. And I haven't been updating you as promised because it would literally be like watching grass grow. Except, you know -- hair.

At this rate I'm going to be forty-two by the time I have enough to donate. But it's been six months so I thought it would be a good time to finally show you the progress I am making. (Here's where I started, if you're interested.) Also, I went a little darker for the fall, if you're keeping tabs on that sort of thing.

Another thing about this process: I schedule my hair appointments to coincide with my scan results. Am I the only one? Just in case I have to go back on broad spectrum chemo-chemo and lose my hair again, I don't want to do anything to it and be told I'll lose it a few weeks later. So I had my scan on November 10th and my hair color appointment two days later. My next scan will be in late February or early March, so expect another update then -- at which point maybe it'll finally be past these darn ears of mine.

(Also, our family photos are courtesy of Jenny at Jennifer Bowen photography, and I am absolutely thrilled with them.)

Plus, a gratuitous photo of Quinn, just because that expression. He will probably get everything on his Christmas list because of that face. What can I say? Santa is a softie.

Around the Web

I took a break from the internet for most of last week (with the exception of this post)...

So this happened today. World, meet Luna.

A photo posted by Jen Campisano (@jencampisano) on Nov 11, 2014 at 1:55pm PST

Between chemo last Monday, Thanksgiving on Thursday, and family in town, I hardly turned on my computer. My dad and his wife came to visit for the week. We only debated a little bit about the recent elections, we ate turkey and pumpkin pie until our bellies ached, and we watched football (where Chris and Quinn cheered for the "Go Niners" and the rest of us celebrated the Seahawks).

And we adopted a dog.

It was exactly the week I needed. How about you? How did you spend your holiday?

Now to panic since it's December and I haven't started Christmas shopping yet. In the meantime, here's what caught my attention on the web over the past couple of weeks.

How Some Breast Cancers Become Resistant to Targeted Drugs

"The team determined that the tumors had developed six different mutations that led to drug resistance. But the result of all these mutations was the same: The tumors had lost the ability to express a protein called PTEN.

The findings suggest a new approach for combating drug resistance by taking advantage of the fact that not all PI3K inhibitors work using the same mechanism."

And What if We Could Drain Cancer's "Fuel Tank"?

They're not talking about dieting to starve a cancer cell.

"Blocking cancer cells' ability to generate the energy they need to grow and divide is an exciting new avenue for future cancer treatments. This research suggests that MCT inhibitors may be particularly effective against breast cancer 'stem cells' that can resist other treatments, and could prevent the cancer from coming back - but further work is needed to find out if these drugs can help patients. Cancer Research UK is funding trials of these drugs in a range of cancer types."

What if We Could Track Circulating Tumor Cells in the Bloodstream?

Before they settle down and form tumors, before they metastasize.

"Once they identified the cancer cells, the researchers were able to separate them from normal cells. This ability to isolate, culture and grow the cancer cells will allow researchers to zero in on the cancer cells that matter to the health of the patient. Most circulating tumor cells may not metastasize, and analysis of the cancer cells could identify those that will."

Are Preventative Surgeries Worth the Risk?

"For Mimi Cavalheiro, who is genetically at risk for both breast and ovarian cancers, the question of a diagnosis is not an “if” but “when.”

Cavalheiro is one of about 100 Bay Area women between 35 and 50 years old with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations who are participating in a clinical trial that is examining changes in cardiovascular health, bone density, sexual function, quality of life and other effects on women who go into early menopause."

And, Yet... New Analysis Shows the Risks for a Secondary Breast Cancer are Significant in Those with Gene Mutations

We're talking about the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations again here.

"Women who are genetically susceptible to breast cancer and develop it in one breast are at higher than average risk for a tumor in the other breast, and that risk may increase as time goes on, according to a new analysis."

Why Does Immunotherapy Work in Some Patients But Not Others?

Memorial Sloan Kettering scientists may have some answers.

"'For the first time, it might be feasible to develop a reliable diagnostic test to help guide treatment decisions by predicting who will respond,' says physician-scientist Timothy Chan, who led the research. The findings could also inspire new research that potentially may lead to more-powerful immunotherapies for melanoma as well as for other cancers."

A Test for Mutations in Blood Cancers Could Provide More Treatment Options

“This is really the way of the future,” Steensma said. “We are going to be practicing medicine not based on how cells look under the microscope, but rather on what makes a disease tick.”

Merry + Happy

I'm not the only one feeling the madness these days, right? Christmas is over, our cards made it out the door on time, there are no more presents to wrap or cookies to bake, and I still feel like I hardly have a minute to breathe, let alone string together coherent sentences. There's probably a New Year's resolution hiding in there somewhere.

Part of the non-stop nature of the season is that Quinn's daycare takes a two-week break this time of year. And Quinn does not take a break, ever. I mean, would you be able to nap if Santa had just dropped off a sleigh-full of new toys at your house? No, neither can my little guy.

So I have been busy engineering train tracks and launching rockets and traveling to the moon and going on pirate adventures the past week. My life could be worse. I am immensely grateful for this time.

But I've also been trying to find time to sit and reflect, to write down some of that reflecting here, to remember and take note of all--or at least some of--the things that make the holiday season so wonderful. Because if I take note of it, in some small way, it will last. Right?

I have so much to be grateful for, and what better time to reflect on that than year's end?

There is Quinn, of course. Quinn, with his "Merry Chris'em!" and "Yook! Chris'em yights!" and "It's Chris'emtime!" We may never speak English the same again in this household. (Have I told you about the "rainis bars"? We haven't used the word "raisins" since Quinn introduced us to "rainis-es.")

I love that he giggles when he hears "Santa, Baby" playing on the radio, and responds with, "Awwww, that's so cute!" because he pictures Santa in diapers.

I love that he adamantly says, "Santa Claus is NOT coming to town! Santa is."

I love that he marvels at peoples' Christmas lights as much as I do, sees the magic in them, is already witty enough to make a joke about how it must've hurt to wrap lights around the Saguaro cactuses.

There is Chris, stringing lights so I won't have to, reading dinosaur Christmas stories to Quinn before bed, mostly keeping his cool even though his important research trip to Ethiopia in January fell through (for the time being), warming my cold feet with his under the covers at night, and burning a wish with me in our fireplace just before midnight on the solstice because I'd wanted to continue the tradition his colleague started for us a few years ago. I don't know what Chris wished for, but I'll admit I wanted to do this ritual again to ensure my wishes keep coming true.

There is my health, obviously. No news is good news, and for now, all is quiet on the cancer front. I had chemo on Christmas Eve, so I wasn't feeling particularly well on Christmas day, but what better holiday to stay in your pjs until 3 in the afternoon, sipping tea and staving off nausea with comfort food? I can't think of one. I even cheated and had a glass of wine with Christmas dinner.

There is what my body is able to do, and I don't just mean cancer-wise. I can hold a handstand in yoga for a few breaths (next stop, "chin pose"). I can play hide-and-seek with Quinn. I can go hiking less than a week post-chemo. I don't take a second of that for granted, and am usually the one on the trail grunting "Fuck you, cancer" under my breath the whole way up. Last weekend, even though I didn't make it quite to the top of the mountain, I got to see this incredible view along the way.

There are our friends and family, who encourage us daily. We are so fortunate. Our lives are so filled with love. The giant stack of holiday cards we've received is a testament to that. I love the mailbox this time of year.

We have been through the ringer the last few years. We have grieved the death of Chris' dad, witnessed the unraveling of my parents' marriage, and dealt with my cancer diagnosis and its repercussions. But we also had Quinn, bought a new house this year, and Google+ just sent me this video, an eerily timely reminder of what a great year it's been.

Happy 2014, you guys. 

Love/Hate

I never meant to take a month-long break from this space. Life--and the holidays--just sort of took over. I've been busy baking and decorating sugar cookies with Quinn, making waffles at his preschool's breakfast-with-Santa event (where the waffle makers kept shorting the fuses in the fellowship hall and the line for waffles kept getting longer and some of the waffles we sent out may have been undercooked), and I don't even know what else. Last-minute shopping? Getting our Christmas cards out the door? Complaining about how cold my feet are whenever it drops below 65 here? Hiking Camelback with Chris?

It's a good kind of busy, and it has been nice not to give as much attention to cancer over the past few weeks. Well, my own cancer anyway. Which brings me to something I've been thinking about quite a bit lately.

I have a love/hate relationship with social media.

On the one hand, it brings my attention to stories like this, which renew my faith that I will be okay. I will live to see Quinn graduate from high school. Because even when you think there are no options left, there are mad (aka brilliant) scientists and billionaires working on flies to come up with tailored options for treating cancer. This is one of the coolest things I've read this year. I don't usually read Esquire. I probably wouldn't have seen this story but for social media.

I also love the community of it, because sometimes you need to have a 2 a.m. conversation with other people who are also suffering from steroid-induced insomnia and hot flashes, even if you've never met each other in person. On Monday nights, I try to participate in a chat on Twitter that uses the hashtag #bcsm, for "breast cancer social media." It's typically around the same time I'm trying to get dinner on the table and Quinn cleaned up and ready for bed, so I don't always participate so much as hang out on the sidelines or read the transcripts after the fact. I don't know the numbers, but a lot of people--from survivors to caregivers to practitioners--join these chats, which are moderated by a couple of survivors and a breast surgeon. It is a way to connect with others who know exactly what you're going through. One week, I commented that it was like showing up at the bar in Cheers, where everyone knows your name (or at least your side effects).

The topics of these Tweetchats change weekly. In November (and of course I'm late to the game on this--typical), the focus one week was "the invisible scars" of breast cancer. Women mentioned all kinds of things, from infertility to poor body image to trouble with intimacy to the lasting effects of chemobrain. For me, the answer was all of these things, yes, but far and away fear has always been the most obvious and lasting of my scars from this disease. Fear of more mets, fear of progression, fear of leaving my family too soon. Talking about these fears helps release their grip. Talking about them with people who are also experiencing them as intensely as I am reminds me that maybe I'm not completely crazy.

On the other hand, social media can be a scary place for me. Scrolling through my Facebook feed as we boarded our flight home from visiting my dad over Thanksgiving, I learned that a friend had died right after the holiday. Breast cancer took her from her two daughters, ages 8 and 11, who will now not have their mom around for Christmas or for when they start middle school or learn to drive or any of those other wonderfully ordinary events every parent and child should get to share. I saw the news just after I had buckled Quinn in to his seat next to mine, and I didn't even try to stop my tears.

Between sobs, I told Chris I was done with Facebook, that I couldn't take it anymore.

A couple of weeks earlier, I'd learned (via Facebook messaging) that another friend's cancer had spread to her brain, where most chemo can't travel because of the blood/brain barrier. She would need what's called whole brain radiation, which is probably about as fun as it sounds. And last week, another friend got the same news, just weeks after absorbing the shock that cancer was in her liver. As the rest of us race around marking items off our Christmas lists and hurrying to get cards out on time, these women are rushing to meet with specialists to come up with new treatment plans, in order to stop breast cancer in its tracks, in order to--we hope--spend more Christmases with their loved ones.

Facebook and Twitter aren't always the most personal communication tools, but they're how many of us with cancer share our news to friends far and wide. They provide an easy delivery system, and can bring forth huge bastions of support. Most people who read this blog link to it from Facebook.

With every loss, though, every piece of shitty news, I swear off social media for awhile. Bad news stirs up so many fears for me that it can be immobilizing. Coming across an errant status update before bed can leave me up worrying half the night. I haven't mastered the art of shutting off my emotions, of removing myself from the disease enough to just listen and advocate. Not yet.

I have also struggled over the past few weeks with how to enjoy the relief I feel over my clean scan at the same time as the grief I feel about my friends who aren't doing as well. I've been so lucky. I have consistently responded to treatment. I thank my lucky stars every day for that. For now, at least, I am not leaving this family.

Like it or not, I am part of this online community, this cancer community that brings bad (and good) news, often in quick succession. Another friend recently posted that a spot on her liver is benign. Someone else that the tumors in her brain are dying; treatment is working. For stories like these (and the cute kids on Santa Claus' lap you guys keep posting), I am usually back to my social media feeds within 24 hours. Because don't shoot the messenger, right? Facebook isn't the problem. Cancer is.

Home. Sick.

There's nothing quite like returning home after an extended vacation--during which Quinn and I spent some quality time with some of my best friends and their kids, who are quickly becoming Quinn's best friends, too--only to be met with a low-grade fever, chills, and severe stomach cramping. It's like my body associates Phoenix with chemo and went ahead and got symptomatic three days before treatment. Nice work, Body.

We've been home approximately 42 hours, and I've spent 20 of them sleeping, and most of the other 22 racing to the bathroom. Yesterday, I tried not to snap at Quinn as he climbed all over me on the couch. "Please, not on my stomach," I begged him. "Mommy hurts."

"I hurt, too," the poor guy started repeating.

We spent Saturday afternoon watching a superb parenting mix of Backyardigans, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Cars while I tried not to vomit on the couch.

I feel better today, but still not well enough to eat much other than bananas and toast. I have chemo tomorrow morning, so I'm sure that will improve things in the nausea department. Wink, wink.

Can't we just go back on vacation? It appears to be a surefire way to make me feel better.

We spent ten wonderful days in Maryland, DC, and Virginia, welcoming in summer in true summer fashion: marveling at lightning bugs, playing board games, eating steamed crabs and corn on the cob, watching fireworks, splashing in mud puddles after intense afternoon thunderstorms, celebrating a friend's birthday, and lounging around poolside.

All of which beats a stomach bug when it's 110 degrees out and you are facing chemo any day.

As Quinn put it when we were driving home from the airport Friday night, "I don't wanna go home! I wanna go mommy's friend's house!" I agree, buddy. I agree.

Emotionally Hungover

I lost a friend to breast cancer yesterday--a Facebook friend, someone I met through the Young Survival Coalition's board and never in person, but a friend nonetheless, and a mom to two beautiful daughters. I spent a good portion of my day at work being thankful for high cubicle walls, so that no one could see me sobbing behind them at my desk.

And then, as I was looking at kitchen faucets in Home Depot last night, news popped up in my email that another Stage IV woman I'd reached out to a couple of weeks ago had passed away as well. Her cancer had actually been caught in the early stages, but had been completely unresponsive to any forms of treatment. I wanted to drop to the floor and rip my wig off right there in the middle of the store, but I held it together, at least until I got home.

To complete the hat trick, a friend posted this news item about a local guy who lost his fight to colon cancer after gaining national attention for standing up to Big Insurance (and winning that battle). He was so brave. It turns out, cancer doesn't care.

It was not a good day to be a young cancer patient.

I remember my grandmother once said something about how hard it was to get older because you start losing so many friends. (On the other hand, as my dad always says, getting older beats the alternative.) My grandmother was probably in her 70s when she made that statement, and incidentally lived until she was 93. I vaguely empathized with what she was saying, but what did I really know? I was in high school. I certainly never thought I'd have to start facing that reality in my 30s. Wherever you are, Grammie, I get it. It hurts, and it's scary as hell.

Just when I thought I'd rounded a corner and was managing my cancer-related emotions okay--even talking to my therapist about non-cancer-related things like parenting and how to incorporate more date nights with my husband--a day like yesterday comes along and knocks me on my ass again.

I know people die all the time, and it's a fact of life that all of us--eventually--will. But I always imagined it as it happened for both of my grandparents (two are still alive) and all of my great-grandparents: peacefully, in their sleep, and in their eighties or nineties. That seems like the natural order of things, the way things should be, the way I grew up believing they would be. I do not want to--nor do I know how to--wrap my head around the fact that young, otherwise healthy people are getting cancer and dying for no reason that makes sense. That I could be one of them. Fuck you, cancer.

***

Quinn and I fell asleep watching Cars (for probably the three thousandth time) around 8 o'clock last night. Chris was at rugby; I didn't even hear him come home. I slept for ten hours and woke up feeling slightly hungover. An emotional hangover? Turns out, it's possible.

We have about a dozen family members in town this weekend for a mini-family reunion, and the festivities start tonight. The restaurant we're meeting at has these soft pretzel balls that you dip in provolone fondue, and I'm looking forward to curing my hangover with them. (Hey, you don't come here for nutrition advice, do you?) Tomorrow night is homemade lasagna--Grandma Campisano's own recipe--and Easter Sunday will begin with ten kids hunting for eggs and prizes in Chris' aunt's backyard.

I could draw parallels to Jesus rising from the dead, but I think it would be sacrilegious to compare myself to Jesus (right?). Let's just say I'm celebrating life this weekend. Because what more is there than family and food and a few prizes hidden along the way?

Also, this. This is what keeps me going. This is stronger than cancer.

Ghost of Christmas Future

This holiday season was a manic blend of family we don't see often enough -- but isn't that the case for all of us? -- punctuated by the logistics of toddler naps and last-minute shopping and scheduling time with all three sets of grandparents. Then, we threw in chemo the day after Christmas just for good measure.

I am just now emerging from the fog of this latest round, shaking off the cobwebs that settle in after each treatment and make it difficult to do much more than flip through Pinterest boards when I have a few spare minutes at night. At almost a week out, my intestines seemed to have stopped cramping and my appetite is back, even if my taste buds are not. And I can feel the steroids wearing off, little dying embers as the hot flashes fade away and my emotions stabilize again.

I don't know if it's just the time of year and all the nostalgia it brings or if it's the steroids, but I was especially weepy this year. Is it cliche at this point to say that the holidays are tough? With each one, I can't help but wonder if I'll be around for the next. And I hate that. I want to enjoy these milestones and celebrations without having to second guess cancer's plans or wonder whether the medicine is still working. There's a constant battle in my head between remembering to stay in the moment - No one knows if they'll be here next Christmas! You could get hit by a bus! How's that for cheering yourself up? - and being paralyzed with fear that I have very little control over this disease.

On the other hand, I have to believe I'm going to be okay.

Chris and I were catching up on the last season of Dexter a few weeks ago, and in one episode the main character - a single dad to a toddler - gets stranded at sea with just a piece of driftwood to hang on to. In the voiceover, Dexter starts talking about how it's not true that your life flashes before your eyes as you're close to death. Instead, it's all the moments you might miss in your children's lives - first lost tooth, first day of school, first love. I just about had to leave the room for that scene. But then Dexter got rescued by a group of Cuban refugees on a fishing boat and made it home in time to tuck his little boy into bed that night.

I might be living in a fantasy, but I have to believe my own Cuban refugees are just around the corner, that I'll be around for Quinn for a long time to come. I think there was a famous philosopher (or maybe Dr. Phil? thanks, chemo brain...) who said something about how insane we'd go if we thought about our mortality all the time. So I try to only think about it a few days a week.

I won't go so far as to call cancer a gift, which is a terrible analogy that gets thrown around a lot (maybe by people who are trying to help and don't know what else to say?), but in the days after the Newtown shootings, I kept coming back to the idea that at least I have some more time with my little boy, with my family. It is time often filled with the fatigue of treatment, steroid- and menopause-induced hot flashes, and at least 20 minutes in the morning to paint on eyebrows. But it is precious time that cancer reminds me to appreciate. Of course, then cancer scares the shit out of me about how much of that time is left, and I'm pretty sure I appreciated my life before cancer.

All of this to say that with the chaos and frenzy of the season (that's my excuse, anyway), I still get frustrated when Quinn won't listen to me even though it's the fourteenth time I've mentioned bath time and he's still running around laughing at me, refusing to put his arms up so I can take his shirt off. I get annoyed when Chris checks Facebook after a family dinner even though he interacted with my family all evening and probably needs a little downtime with his 454 closest friends. I say melodramatic things to him, like, "I don't even know how to have a relationship with you right now," for reasons I can't remember less than twenty-four hours later. Chemo is wearing on me; my edges are fraying.

I woke up early Christmas morning to cook breakfast for a small family gathering, tried to soak in the moments as everyone unwrapped gifts, and spent the day watching Quinn and his cousin playing on a new climbing castle - with a slide! I tried not to dwell on the fact that I had chemo the next day. I tried to push aside thoughts of future Christmases and whether I'll be here for them.

Because with any luck (and a clean scan later this month), I'll only have one more round of this crap, ever.