Go Home, Anxiety, You're Drunk

Noelle turned five months old yesterday. Quinn asked if we could celebrate with a party, but I can see right through that ploy for cake. So I said we'd do one next month, perhaps with Funfetti cake. I might even spring for balloons and invite some people because it will be the end of the school year here in Arizona, and maybe our legislature will have acted by then to PAY TEACHERS WHAT THEY'RE WORTH and possibly increase per student spending, too. That would be cause for celebration. What? You don't celebrate your babies' 1/2 year birthdays when they coincide with hypothetical legislative victories?

In the meantime, our teachers have voted to strike if the legislature hasn't acted by next Thursday, which I support 100%. I am surprised it took them this long, considering as a state we are $1 BILLION short of education funding compared to a DECADE AGO. Meaning there has not been an increase in education spending here in my son's LIFETIME. There are reports of rats in some classrooms, buildings are falling apart, and our teachers are grossly underpaid. 

So I fully support our educators walking out until our governor signs adequate funding into law, but I will also be at a conference in Chicago starting next Thursday and unable to help with taking care of our children for a few days. SORRY CHRIS'S BOSS.

More on the conference soon, but this post is supposed to be about Noelle. 

For the grandparents and great-aunts and uncles reading: at five months, Noelle is still weighing in at the tenth percentile, the little peanut. We adore her, and at least once a week, I get teary-eyed at how lucky we are to have her, at how unlikely and miraculous it is that she's in our lives. Baby girl spends her days giggling at funny sounds, drooling until her shirts are soaked, watching her older brother like a hawk, almost sleeping through the night, and has rolling onto her side down to a science. She'll figure out rolling all the way over one of these days. I'm not worried. 

Not about her development, anyway. 

On the other hand, I have been an anxious wreck the past couple of weeks leading up to this time period. At first, I couldn't figure out why. Some people talk about how the changing light around the equinox can exacerbate feelings of darkness or cause a certain tightness in your chest, but we are well past that point in the season. What I've been feeling is more than unease. It's more of a crippling foreboding that something terrible must be about to happen. That somehow, despite our five-year journey shit-show with cancer, we still got off too easy. 

That perhaps we don't deserve these incredible moments with our little girl. YES, I KNOW THIS SOUNDS CRAZY. It also makes it really hard to parent happily and with enthusiasm right now. So what's going on with me?

The last time I had a five-month-old infant, I was diagnosed with cancer. 

Photo of Quinn at almost-5-months-old next to Noelle at the same age, in the same seat. My hand looks like a claw.

The simple typing of that sentence has me erupting in sobs, so clearly I have some processing left to do. So much for this post being about Noelle. Related: I am actively accepting recommendations for therapists who take our insurance. They are surprisingly difficult to find. 

I worry about nearly everything lately, with abandon: violence at public schools, which admittedly is a very real fear shared by many, many parents these days; Quinn choking on an apple while I'm in the other room (hasn't happened, but could); whether my occasional night sweats are normal postpartum or a sign of lymphoma; if the dog has thrombosis (was just a scratch, says the vet, so I can cross this one off my list for now); and all kinds of other scenarios that alert me that my anxiety is on a bender right now. Chris tells me worry is rarely ever productive, which, sure, makes sense if you can consider these things logically. 

Is this just some twisted version of survivor's guilt? A fear that history is bound to repeat itself? PTSD? I mean, I can diagnose myself all day long, but sometime soon I've got to stop fearing the past and worrying about the future, right? And contain my worry to very real things like under-funded schools and how to dress for a conference in Chicago this time of year. I mean, plenty of people have five-month-olds without the sky falling, or so I hear. Right?

Around the Web

I had a CT scan this morning, so now I wait. The official line that the technician gave me (and all the patients he sees, I suspect) is that it'll take two to three days to hear from my doctor's office. If I'm lucky, my oncologist will call earlier than that (if I'm luckier still, with good results). I'm meeting with him Wednesday morning, so in any case, I'll know by then.

As my friend Joanna reminded me, as a wise man named Tom Petty said about waiting...

A Device for Watching Metastases IN REAL TIME

This both fascinates me and terrifies me at the same time (knowing it is what happened in my body). But kudos to the scientists who are making it possible to better understand this process--and, ultimately, how to stop it.

"This close-up view allowed the pair to see that the tissue attempted to surround and contain the cancer cells. Unfortunately, some of those cells escaped and began to burrow in to a vulnerable point along the vessel. After a while the force from the artificial bloodstream was great enough to pull the cell into the vessel completely and flush it along."

Whatever Your Thoughts on Mammography, There's No Denying Its Cost

"Medicare-funded breast cancer screenings jumped 44 percent from $666 million to $962 million from 2001 to 2009, yet those added costs did not improve early detection rates among the 65 and older Medicare population, according to a Yale School of Medicine study published recently in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute."

{photo credit}

Potential Postpartum Breast Cancer Therapy (This One Hits Close to Home)

"Nearly 25 percent of all breast cancers among premenopausal women occur within two to five years following a pregnancy. These postpartum tumors are more likely to spread or metastasize to other parts of the body, leading to an increased risk of death.

"Unfortunately, these are young women who have just had children. All breast cancer deaths are tragic but the loss of a young woman who is also a mother is so devastating for families and has a profoundly negative societal impact," said Rebecca Cook, Ph.D., assistant professor of Cancer Biology at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, Tennessee.

While more research is needed, Cook said the results suggest that using a MerTK inhibitor in conjunction with other therapies could be helpful.

In the meantime, Cook said women who have recently given birth need to be vigilant about breast health."

No Surprise Here: Cancer's Costs Run Deep

"What’s clear is that employment and money concerns haunt many people with all kinds of cancer, nation-wide, during and after treatment. A malignant diagnosis can lead individuals to experience disappointment at work, earn less, retire early and, as a consequence of medical bills, reduce their home and leisure spending."

Predicting When Cancers Will Spread to the Brain

"Up to 30 per cent of breast cancers will eventually spread to the brain, often many years after the first tumour was treated. Tackling secondary brain tumours with radiotherapy and surgery has limited success, with most women surviving just seven months after the brain metastasis has been diagnosed."

Surprise Discovery Makes Way for Possible New Treatment for Breast Cancers

"Researchers at Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research have found that calcium-binding drugs commonly used to treat people with osteoporosis, or with late-stage cancers that have metastasised, may also benefit patients with tumours outside the skeleton, including in the breast."