"How DID you get sick, Mommy?"

To be honest, I'm surprised it took this long. Quinn is a pretty observant four-year-old. He'll often notice the expression on a truck's face in one of his library books and ask me why the truck is angry/sad/has "its face scrunched up like that." He's a master at those find the differences games in his Highlights High Five magazines. And last time I got my hair colored, I joked with my stylist that Quinn would probably notice before Chris. He's an astute kid.

As I was drying him off after his bath Saturday night, Quinn put his finger gently on one of my radiation tattoos, a pin dot in the middle of my chest.

"It's bluish-green, Mommy," and I waited to see what he would say next. Would I correct him if he called it a freckle? How much information should I give?

"How did that happen?" he asked, not quite what I expected to hear, the concern in his face breaking my heart just a bit, but also making me incredibly proud to be this perceptive, empathetic boy's mom. He knew it wasn't something natural.

"It's a tattoo," I said. And I showed him that I have at least three more, two under my armpits and one at the top curve of my right breast. He wanted to see if I had more on my back.

"No, honey," I told him. "There aren't any more."

He didn't ask anything else, so I didn't give him any more information.

***

Quinn and I are preparing for our trip to New York this week (still more on this as soon as I'm able!), for an event at which I've been asked to speak. (By preparing, I mean I've been doing laundry and he's been packing his coloring books and Hot Wheels cars.) I've been asked to share a bit of my breast cancer story at this thing, with Quinn by my side, so I've also been preparing by trying to let him know what to expect.

I've told him I got really sick when he was a baby. That medicine called chemo made me bald, and now I still get medicine to -- we hope -- keep me from getting sick again. I've told him I'm going to talk about that a little.

I haven't told him more because he's only four. I don't want him to know some things yet, if I can help it. I try to only answer the questions he asks. I'm trying to craft a short talk that's appropriate with him by my side but also conveys to a roomful of people the devastation of this disease. I also have chemo tomorrow, so I will be portraying a very real version of what life is like after a metastatic breast cancer diagnosis when I get up to talk two days later.

Please wish me luck.

***

Last night, Quinn and I were looking at pictures of when he was a baby, and came across a couple in which I am bald.

"How did you get sick, Mommy?" Quinn asked, a variation on a theme, apparently.

"I don't know, buddy. They don't know that yet."

They don't know.

How to Tour Italy with a Four-Year-Old

A little over three weeks ago our little family set off for Venice, Italy. I'd never been, and Italy was at the top of my list. You could say I pulled the cancer card when planning our family vacation. I may have said something along the lines of, "You've been three times. What if I never make it there at all?" Cue the violins, right? And so Chris indulged me, with the caveat that he gets to choose the next trip (which very well might be camping in Utah's canyon lands. Our vacation choices pretty well sum the two of us up.)

We toured between Venice, Florence/Tuscany/Sienna, and Rome over the next thirteen days. It was every bit as awe-inspiring as I'd hoped. Everyone keeps asking me what my favorite part was, and to be honest, I have to say the absolute sense of community -- the life lived in squares, enjoying the company of friends and family, lingering over dinners and a bottle of wine, the lack of smart-phones. It gave me a lot to think about with regards to how we live and interact with our neighbors and friends. The focus on togetherness -- without rush or to-go cups -- left me longing for more of that in my own life.

Also, I am deeply in love with Rome, especially its food. Next time, I might just do a culinary tour and forgo the museums entirely. Yes, I believe there will be a next time.

We'd been nervous about taking Quinn -- who turned four just three months ago -- to Europe for almost two weeks. Because how would he do on the plane? How many museums would we have to skip because he wouldn't have the patience for them? How much gelato would we have to bribe him with each day? These were the pressing questions we asked ourselves, never mind my energy levels or health concerns.

Tangent, sort of: I did get my doctor's permission to leave the country for two weeks. Since I'm on an every-three-week infusion schedule, it didn't interfere (much) with my treatment, and since my blood work has looked relatively okay for two years now (as long as I've been on Kadcyla), my oncologist wasn't concerned.  I will say that traveling for this long made me realize I probably can't ever live in another country, or even leave here for more than a couple of weeks, tied as I am to my infusion chair and the insurance that pays for it. Small gripe in the grand scheme of things, but it's just one more way cancer limits your choices.

But I can't complain, not right now. We just got back from Italy, after all. And as for our concerns about Quinn?

We clearly forgot who we were dealing with. 

Here's how to tour Italy with a four-year-old. Step one: make sure he's not on a nap schedule (ding ding ding!) We had that one down like two years ago.

Step two: Show him incredible views.

And put him up to the task of spotting all the lions in Venice. He will want to count them. In every language he can think of. "Mom, how do you say three in French? How do you say five-hundred in Italian?" "I'm not sure, honey," I had to say more than once. Or: "Let's ask Google."

Step three: Carry him in a backpack if necessary (walking six to seven miles a day is exhausting, after all, even for the energizer bunny himself).

Find more lions.

Let him go at his own pace once in awhile.

Show him extraordinary beauty (and make sure he knows he's part of it).

Look at the world through his eyes.

You might see incredible sights!

Let him slide on the bridges (so long as he promises not to fall in the water).

Take breaks.

Let him do some of the navigating.

Try not to have a heart attack as your husband picks him up higher than the railing when you're on top of the world (or on top of Il Duomo di Firenze).

Let him find some magic.

And chase some pigeons.

And more pigeons.

Take more breaks.

Carry him some more. Hey, he's a cute forty pounds!

This might be the most useful tip (and I've lost track of my steps): give him his own camera.

If all else fails, ply him with lots of gelato.

And pasta.

And hugs.

We are settling back in to life where we aren't saying, "Ciao!" at passers-by out our windows in the evening, where we don't have prosciutto and pasta and prosecco nearly every day, where we have doctors appointments again, and scans on the horizon, and temperatures in the triple digits.

But we'll always have Italy.

Around the Web: Italy Edition

Thanks for the great feedback about keeping this series here. (Although it seems as if once a month might be my posting schedule for a lil' bit.) I've been pulled in a lot of different directions lately, not all of them deserving complaint. And to all who checked in and suggested I stop to get some rest, I've taken note, I promise.

As I write this, we are were in the midst of reconnecting with each other as a family in Italy. The month prior to our trip felt like a strange square dance in which Chris and I kept passing Quinn off to one another without stopping to a) dance with each other or b) rest our feet as a family. We've needed this time for awhile.

This was my first time to Italy, and I wanted to pinch myself at every passing gondola or square with a lion-spitting fountain in its center. There have been moments since we arrived when I've caught my breath in my throat to ward off tears because these are things that a couple of years ago I thought I might never get to experience.

I might never come back. (Spoiler alert: I came back. But I'm still considering a future move to a pied-à-terre in Rome, on the off-chance I could get my insurance to approve Kadcyla infusions abroad and convince Chris that a sabbatical there makes sense.)

We're doing a lot of walking, so I'm not sure we'll get much actual rest for our feet, but we're being fueled by pasta and wine and gelato so I think we'll be okay.  We averaged more than six miles a day, and Quinn kept up like a champ. We were more than okay. Now that I'm home, my body actually craves the movement...and the gelato. More on how to do a trip to Italy with a 4-year-old coming up in a post soonish.

Posts might be a little spotty here for a couple of weeks, but I'll try to manage an occasional photo of my bambino enjoying the sights. We had really terrible internet coverage when we had it at all, then I was too jet-lagged to even form sentences for a couple of days, and then I had chemo on Friday so I'm still having trouble forming sentences. But I do hope you saw some of the photos of Quinn over on my Instagram account.

A photo posted by Jen Campisano (@jencampisano) on Jun 1, 2015 at 1:07pm PDT

Here's what I've seen around the web the last couple of weeks month. If you have something you'd like me to include in future editions, please send me an email (jen dot campisano at gmail).

Grazie, bellas!

There Was This Depravity (Or, Pay Close Attention to Where and to Whom You Give Your Money)

"In its complaint, the F.T.C. called all four of the cancer groups “sham charities,” charging the organizations with deceiving donors and misusing millions of dollars in donations, including putting money toward personal expenses like carwashes and college tuition, from 2008 to 2012."

There Was This Loss

“Of course I wish I had more time,” she told the Jewish newspaper The Forward in 2009, after learning that her cancer had returned. “I would love to see grandchildren, to see weddings, to be a part of these amazing things for more time, but I love life and don’t want to spend any of it mourning the loss of that which I can’t have. I’d much rather embrace that which I do.”

And This One, Which Seemed to Shake Our Entire Nation

""It is with broken hearts that Hallie, Hunter, Ashley, Jill and I announce the passing of our husband, brother and son, Beau, after he battled brain cancer with the same integrity, courage and strength he demonstrated every day of his life," Joe Biden said in a statement issued by the White House."

But also some uplifting news...

New Device Brings Us Closer to Understanding Metastases

"Metastasis occurs when cancer cells break away from a tumor and travel to distant parts of the body—the most dreaded event for a cancer patient. It is a mystery why some cells are able to travel through the body while others are not. Researchers from the University of Michigan, comprising a team of oncologists and engineers, have developed a new technology to help unlock this code.

A groundbreaking new study released in “Scientific Reports” describes a device that is able to sort cells based on their ability to move. The device allows researchers to take the sorted cells and compare the ones that are highly mobile to the ones that are less mobile. Understanding the differences in gene expression between these two types of cells can help identify why some cancer cells can spread to other parts of the body."

And a Potential Solution for Overcoming Her-2+ Drug Resistance

To be clear, this is still in the earliest, pre-drug stages. Super cool stuff nonetheless.

"There are currently no approved treatments that specifically target the ability of HER2 cells to join together or with other proteins, an essential first step in tumor growth. Lupu and her colleagues are now confirming the antitumor activity of this potential HER2 “master switch” in animal models. They will then move on to clinical testing, and the investigation of drugs—such as mimetic agents, targeted antibodies, and small molecules—that could specifically block this site responsible for HER2’s oncogenic potential.

“This drug does not yet exist; it is a promising area of future research,” said Lupu. “We believe that there is definitely hope because this is the first time that anybody has identified any region that blocks homodimerization and heterodimerization, which will simplify the treatment of the cancer. Rather than combining two, three or four drugs together, this will be a one-stop-shop.”"

How Breast Cancer Spreads to Bones -- And a Simple Way to Stop It

In my mind, this is HUGE news.

"Breast cancers can manipulate the structure of bone to make it easier to spread there, a study has found.

Researchers at the University of Sheffield said the tumours were effectively "fertilising" the bone to help themselves grow.

The study, in the journal Nature, said it may be possible to protect bone from a tumour's nefarious influence and consequently stop the cancer's spread. . . .

The animal tests also showed that a set of osteoporosis drugs called bisphosphonates could prevent the spread of cancer.

Bisphosphonates also interfere with the way bone is recycled in order to strengthen it.

They are already given to some cancer patients, but the Sheffield team believe they could have a much larger role."

Promising Early-Phase Clinical Trial Results Against Stage IV Her-2+ Breast Cancer 

"Promising clinical trial results presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting 2015 show activity of the investigational anti-cancer agent ONT-380 against HER2+ breast cancer, in one case specifically against brain metastases and in another case in overall survival of heavily pretreated HER2+ breast cancer patients.

"I am thrilled to have been able to offer this therapy to a patient in her early 40s. She didn't have any other great treatment options that we would have expected to have any meaningful impact, especially on her brain. Now she's been on the study over a year. The mets in her body are gone and the brain lesion has shrunk down to a little nubbin. She's living a normal life, fretting about the family business and how the kids are doing -- normal stuff," says Virginia Borges, MD, MMSc, director of the Breast Cancer Research Program and Young Women's Breast Cancer Translational Program at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and one of the study's authors."

Study Shows Complete Response for Some Patients with Metastatic TNBC 

"Immunomedics, Inc., (IMMU) today announced that among 49 patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) evaluated for response to treatments with sacituzumab govitecan in a mid-stage clinical study, 31%, or 15 patients, showed a reduction in tumor size of 30% or more. They include 2 patients with complete response. Response assessments were based on the rules set by the Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors (RECIST 1.1). Adding the 22 patients with responses between less than 30% tumor shrinkage and less than 20% tumor increase, the disease control rate was 76%. . . .

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has designated sacituzumab govitecan a Fast Track development program for the treatment of patients with TNBC who have failed prior therapies for metastatic disease and patients with small-cell or non-small cell lung cancers."

And Promising News on the Cancer Front in General (out of the ASCO 2015 Annual Meeting)

"A new drug that unleashes the body’s immune system to attack tumors can prolong the lives of people with the most common form of lung cancer, doctors reported on Friday, the latest example of the significant results being achieved by this new class of medicines.

In a separate study, researchers said they had found that a particular genetic signature in the tumor can help predict which patients could benefit from the immune-boosting drugs.

The finding could potentially extend use of these drugs to some patients with colorectal cancer, prostate cancer and other tumors that have seemed almost impervious to the new drugs. Most of the substantial results so far with these expensive drugs have been in treating melanoma and lung cancer."

A Way to Eliminate Many Types of Cancer Cells -- At Least in Mice

"A type of immune cell can be primed to attack and eliminate various kinds of malignant cancers in mice, according to a study by Stanford University School of Medicine researchers.

The researchers studied mouse models of melanoma, pancreatic, breast and lung cancer and found that their technique could eliminate not only primary tumors, but also distant metastases throughout the body.

“The potency is impressive,” said Edgar Engleman, MD, PhD, a professor of pathology and of medicine at Stanford and the senior author of the study. “You actually see tumor eradication.”"

Better than Xanax

Somehow, three months have passed and it is time for another scan. And, miraculously, I have not been completely hijacked by anxiety this time around (only occasionally held in its grips over the past couple of weeks). I'm not saying I've been a free-spirited, deep-breathing, always-patient monk about it, but remember: this is me we're talking about. Was I ever going to be that person?

My secret to staying sane? Lots of wine.

I'm only slightly joking.

We spent the last week in Portland, Oregon -- Chris at a workshop on volcanic ash, Quinn and I exploring summer in the Pacific Northwest with one of my best friends from college, J.T., and her two girls. We took our three preschoolers to the zoo, the park, a fountain they could splash around in for hours, a farm to pick berries, another park, out for ice cream a couple of times, and to the Oregon coast to explore the beach. We stayed busy.

My friend took me to her -- how do I say it? intense? sweaty? insane? -- spin/dance class where I almost fell off the bike. Her husband had asked me the night before if I had much rhythm even though he's known me since we were 21 and has probably seen me on the dance floor. When I said, "Not really," he replied, "You're going to hate it." Hate is a strong word, but I probably bore a strong resemblance to Elaine in her infamous "Seinfeld" dance. Since I didn't pass out, though, I figured it was a good indication I'd do okay on the echocardiogram of my heart this week. I hope.

Between the blackberries and the misty coastline, I was homesick for that corner of the country where I spent a good part of my childhood. I was ready to find Chris a job studying the soil of the region's winemakers. That's a good job for a geologist, right?

It's not like Chris didn't love the inexpensive microbrews or the lack of pretension or the fact that the only things that will get you judged are putting your recycling in the wrong container or driving too aggressively.

***

This morning I woke up before Chris and Quinn to drive across town for my CT scan, then across the street to the hospital for the ultrasound of my heart. I grabbed coffee between my tests, and a sandwich afterward, before heading a couple of miles south to my infusion center for chemo.

My nurses all asked if I'd had a rough weekend thinking about my scan (results of which I'll get Wednesday afternoon). The truthful answer is no, because it's hard to think about an upcoming scan when you're chasing toddlers and marveling at perfect summer weather and attempting to stay upright while dancing on a spin bike.

I wonder if I can get a prescription for a trip to Portland every three months?

Easy, Breezy, Beautiful

What does pretty much everyone in Phoenix do this time of year, when it starts to rain mud, when the monsoons drop the temperature from a scorching 110 to a sweltering, steamy, oppressive 104? We get out of dodge, that's what. We head west, to the promise of the ocean and good wine and maybe even the need for a sweatshirt at night.

Quinn and I are no different. We're off to California to visit Grandma for a couple of days before I join Team Booby and the Beast for our 2-day, 39.3-mile walk through San Francisco and Marin County. I'll be posting about how the walk went, and reflecting again on why I walk (for Colleen and Brigid and Renee and Jennie and Lisa and Sarah and Cristin and Andrea and Rachel and Courtney and myself and so many more), next week. If you'd still like to support our team, you can donate before the weekend by clicking here. Thank you to all of you who've helped us raise more than $14,000 already.

Quinn and I will both be in for a treat when it is 30-40 degrees cooler when we land this afternoon:

It feels like I spent 90% of my day yelling. I think my patience for 3yo whining is inversely proportionate to the temperature outside (108)
— Jennifer Campisano (@JCampisano) July 9, 2014

Back to Earth

As we were driving the two hours north through the pouring rain from Duck Key to Miami on Monday morning, Quinn asked us where we were going. 

"We're going home," I said. "To our house in Phoenix."

"Oh," he responded. "We're going back to Earth?" 

I laughed, but it does feel like we landed with a thud squarely back on planet Earth Monday night. We woke up yesterday morning to a conversation with our contractor about replacing the chipped countertop in our new mother-in-law suite, to an empty refrigerator, to Quinn's jet-lag at 5:15 a.m., to ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN DEGREE TEMPERATURES. Way to welcome us home, Phoenix.

We were in the Keys for two of my best friends' wedding, a couple of people I've known since I was seventeen and we were all freshmen at Hopkins together. A couple who finally -- FINALLY -- realized they were more than best friends and finally -- FINALLY -- got engaged at my brother's house in Idaho last winter. So, this was also in part a college reunion, albeit in a locale a teensy bit prettier than Baltimore.

 

Chris and I got to have our first date night in months (months!), even if it meant paying exorbitant resort-priced babysitter fees. In my next life, I'm going to spend my twenties on an island making millions watching movies while other peoples' kids sleep upstairs. But it was worth it. We needed it.

And if we thought Quinn was a water baby before, this trip just solidified that notion. We could not get him out of the water for more than five minutes during the day -- not to eat more than a bite or two of food, not to take more than a sip of a virgin strawberry daiquiri, barely to go home to sleep at night. Our saving grace was that we were sharing a villa with another family whose two girls are just older and just younger than Quinn, and peer pressure to eat dinner/brush teeth/wash the sand out of your hair works wonders. The kid is stubborn. No idea where he gets that.

We're all having a rough time adjusting to being back on planet Earth, back from island time and planet Florida and time with some of the best people I know, these friends who've been my friends for nearly two decades and who I don't see often enough even when I see them at three out of four weddings in two months. Cancer has amplified this point: there never seems to be enough time.

Congratulations, Beth and Shanon. The weekend was as beautiful as you two are. As an added bonus, you finally -- FINALLY -- got Quinn to nap, he was so worn out yesterday. I owe you for that.

Nipples (or, How Many Page Views Can I Get Based on a Title Alone?)

Quinn and I flew out to Baltimore a couple of weeks ago; a dear friend was getting married in DC, so I thought I'd turn it into a little longer vacation. Chris was partway through a three-week trip to Ethiopia for work, and I figured a change of scenery would be good for Quinn and me. I didn't realize we'd get snow this late in the spring, or that by "65 and cloudy" the weather channel would really mean "38 and sleety." But I digress. It was still a great trip.

On a whim a few weeks before we left, I called a tattoo shop I'd heard rave reviews about to see if they had any openings while I'd be in the area. It was unlikely, as this place books out months in advance. I'd called last fall to see if something in their New Orleans shop would be available over Thanksgiving, and had been told the earliest they could do was February. So I didn't have high hopes.

These weren't just any tattoos I wanted. They would be my first "real" tattoos. My only others are the four pin dots around my torso that I got for radiation. (The technicians use the dots to ensure you're lined up on the machine exactly the same for each session.) I'd considered tattooing my bald head before my hair grew back, but I couldn't think of what to put there. (A giant middle finger? Pink ribbons aren't really my thing.)

These tattoos would be the last step in my reconstruction process, taking my boobs from something like nipple-less Barbie boobs to ones that might resemble real breasts again. The new tattoos might hide my scars a bit, I thought, might make me less self-conscious around my husband, which is a weird thing to be after nearly a decade together.

I debated whether to move forward on this process for awhile, given that I'm Stage 4. Is it worth spending the money? I wondered. What if I'm not around very long to enjoy them? It's a morbid thought process, I know, but these are the hoops my brain jumps through now whenever I think about planning more than a year in the future. The permanency, the foreverness, of tattoos kind of had me rattled. But then I thought, Why the hell not?

And if there is such a thing, the nipple gods must have been smiling down on me the day I called Little Vinnie's Tattoos (yes, really), because Vinnie said he'd be able to fit me in the afternoon of March 26th, a day after I'd be arriving in Baltimore. I booked it.

I made arrangements to borrow my friend's car and drove the thirty minutes to a strip mall in rural northwestern Maryland. I didn't know what to think as I stepped inside the tattoo parlor. Heavy metal music was playing on the speakers. A couple of guys in black leather motorcycle jackets sat waiting on a bench. There were pictures of skull tattoos covering the walls. This was unfamiliar territory for me.

Vinnie, when he emerged from the appointment before mine, introduced himself while his daughter-slash-assistant prepped the room for me. My heart was racing. I considered taking a Xanax. Vinnie was dressed in a tweed vest and wearing a fedora with a feather in it. Also, wing-tip shoes. He had kind eyes. I smiled and began to relax despite myself.

I sat in a leather recliner in his office (I guess that's what you'd call it?) while he mixed ink colors--a little drop of blue here, a fleshy-beige there--until he seemed satisfied he'd gotten it right. With a marker, he drew circles on my skin to make sure I was okay with the placement, then wiped them off with an alcohol swab and began to free-form my new areolas.

My appointment ran late, but the actual tattooing only took about an hour. Vinnie was--as promised--an artist. He talked to me about his sister's diagnosis, how angry he gets about the business of breast cancer (even though he was charging me $800 for two quarter-sized tattoos, which my husband Chris thinks is ridiculous, but you can't put a price on art, I tell him), about the non-profit he's forming in order to take his artistry to women in Mexico who cannot afford reconstruction at all.

I'm not going to post photos of my new nipples online, even though I felt like I should show the world after spending that kind of money on them (worth every penny). Part of me wants to flash them on Bourbon Street in exchange for beads, but I don't really need that kind of validation (or, God forbid, rejection--wouldn't that be embarrassing!)

Mostly, I feel a little more like myself again. Step by little step.

Traveling

For the past week and a half, I've been traveling on the east coast (and by traveling, I mean hanging out at my friends' house northwest of Baltimore, watching "Monsters, Inc." over and over again with Quinn and their two-year-old). It has been incredibly relaxing to step back from doctor's visits and the construction project going on at our house for a few days--to sleep in, listen to the frogs outside at night, and catch up with dear friends.

{my little traveler}

And then Chris got back from Africa and joined us here, which made Quinn a little giddier and me a lot more relaxed. We hadn't seen him in twenty-five days, and it's so nice to be a family unit again. I say this as my brother is in the midst of a much-longer-than-25-day deployment, leaving behind his own family, and all I can say is: I have no idea how military wives do it.

The three of us will be back in Phoenix soon, and I'll pick up the pace here again. I have so. much. more. about this trip to tell you. Because it hasn't all been movies on the couch with toddlers (although that part's been wonderful, too). In the meantime, here's a guest post I wrote for my friend Marie, who runs a beautiful blog "Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer." Please take a look, and stay tuned...

Cry Me a River

Stepping outside in Phoenix right now is like walking straight into an oven. Arriving at the airport and stepping onto black tarmac wearing a sweater because it was only 54 degrees out when I left Seattle is downright spontaneous combustion-worthy. The heat literally knocked the wind out of me. It made me claustrophobic with its weight, so that I was pulling my sweater off before I even got to the first curb outside baggage claim. It made me want to hop right back on that airplane until the end of October when daytime highs here will finally dip below 100 again.

Cry me a river, right? (Just please make it a cold river I could plunge into and feel refreshed.)

I just got back from two of the most stunning days in Seattle. Days where it seems everyone is outside, shit-eating grins on their faces simply for the fact that the sun is shining and what more reason do you need? (I swear, that city was showing off for me, from the minute my plane landed and Mt. Rainier greeted me in the distance to the pinkish purple sunset over the skyline and Elliot Bay my last night there.) So I understand if it's hard to feel sorry for me when I say living in Phoenix is like sticking a hot blow dryer in your face and turning the turbo switch on. I've been lucky enough to escape the heat a lot more than usual this summer, and I do appreciate it.

I'm lucky to have a husband who recognizes when I need a mental health break from here, who let me leave with only three days' notice so that I could spend time getting my toes painted and taking a canning class with my oldest and best friend and her friend, Jenny. (Yes, canning.) So that I could sip cool rosé on a rooftop deck while eating the most delectable peaches covered with salty crumbled cheese and think Life doesn't get much better than this. So that I could recharge my batteries before I stepped back into the chemo ring again this morning.

I'm so lucky for that.

learning to can

I'm also lucky to have a friend who knows me so well we might as well be sisters, a friend who can make me laugh until my face hurts, then turn around and get teary-eyed with me because life has thrown us a metric shit ton of curve balls the past couple of years. But none of that seems like too heavy a burden when you're surrounded by good food and sunshine and love. God, Seattle turned me into a total hippie. Worth it.