My Great Breast Cancer Adventure

Today's Movie Recommendation

Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

I stumbled upon this movie today on "On Demand" cable. It's called "Fur," and stars Nicole Kidman, exquisite as ever, and Robert Downey Jr. (as you have never seen him before, I guarantee it). Kidman plays an imaginary version of Diane Arbus (part factual, part not), and Downey plays, well, let's just say a very good friend of hers.

If my friend Ms. Hanky Mush is reading this, let me say that I found this movie to be worthy of at least three out of five hankies. I had no hankies and had to use my sleeve several times.

I also loved the soundtrack.

Welcome!

Welcome!
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

On sunny days in Bernal Heights, I often feel as if I'm in Mexico (or at least my imaginary Mexico, seeing as how I've never actually been there). Olivia and I walked by this house the other day. It's only a couple of blocks away from our house. The colors combined with the curve of the stairs make it look so inviting, don't you think?

Now it's 9:07 a.m. on Friday morning, and I can't think what else to write, so I'm going to go eat some Three Stone Hearth food for breakfast — maybe some of that corn pudding —and come back later. (Yesterday I tasted their chocolate tapioca for the first time. If you love chocolate and you love tapioca, which I do, then it's a divine combo. I ate it cold. Yum.

Warm Window

Warm Window
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Olivia and I took a good long walk up to the Hill yesterday, without Jack, who wasn't feeling up to par, some intestinal thing. It was gray and chilly with a hint of fog, and when we were almost home, ambling down my old block on Moultrie Street, one warmly lit window leaped out at me. It sent such a warm glow into the otherwise downcast, neutral mood of the street.

On our way TO the hill, we saw John and his dog Megan, who just moved into the house next door to Jack's old house that is next door to my old house. I first met John up on the Hill, of course. He had recently moved back to SF after a long sojourn living somewhere out there in the Midwest, and was, he said, experiencing some sticker shock as he and his wife looked for a house to buy. Me being me, I figured that the sheds and shacks going for over $600,000 were probably the ones setting off his shock. But I guess not, because I happen to know that the house he just bought went for $1,050,000, almost $200,000 over the asking price.

Okay, enough real estate crap. What you probably really want to know is what I had for breakfast: eggplant mousakka made with lamb, courtesy of Three Stone Hearth, the organization from which I still order meals religiously. Every Thursday, delivered right to my doorstep, I receive a big yellow bin full of yummy food from Three Stone, stuff that it would take me forever to prepare and cook, myself (or to shop for, i.e. a hundred percent grassfed beef, eggs from pastured chickens, etc.). I worship them and pray that they never go out of business. You should check them out. Their food is delicious, wildly healthy, and comes only from local growers/suppliers.

Jack's Ladder

Jack's Ladder
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Well, the back of the house is done, and the side has been primed. Jack's working on making new window sills and stuff (moldings? I forget the correct architectural terms) before doing any more of "the patchwork quilt." This may all take a while because now, finally, work has picked up for him, and he's off painting other people's houses now.

Olivia and I are home alone today, and we are hoping that her right back foot isn't seriously injured, as when she woke up this morning she was limping and wouldn't go up the stairs. Now she's braving the stairs, but I'm coddling her; no vigorous walking expeditions.

We think it may have happened during her bath last night. God was she ever stinky! Something had to be done even though the vet warned us against the dry skin that could result from too many baths. Uh...well...okay but the little Stinkeroo smelled like she'd just emerged from a compost bin in a swamp in a gutter in a dumpster in a skunk-infested cesspool.

Before I went to bed last night I sprayed the entire living room with "Miracle Cure" enzyme spray, which does wonders, but when I woke up this morning, I could still smell whiffs of the Stinkeroo smell and couldn't figure out what we'd missed. Then I picked up Moosey off the floor, waved him and his falling-out stuffing in front of my nose, and reeled backward as a flash of revelatory nauseau almost knocked me to the kitchen floor. Much as we all loved Moosey, Moosey has gone to Trash Can Land.

When I Looked Up

When I Looked Up
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Standing on the street corner with Olivia yesterday, I paused after our long and, shall we say, "invigorating" walk around the neighborhood and up to Bernal Hill. I leaned against a pole, and when it occurred to me to look up instead of straight ahead, I was surprised by what I saw.

That was yesterday afternoon around 6:30 p.m. Now it's Saturday morning, 10 a.m., and I'm feeling like the bad guy; I just took Olivia's moosey away from her because its white fluffy innards were hanging from her bottom lip. Now she's whining, moaning and staring at me, her chin resting on the edge of the couch, with a look that says, "Why are you punishing me this way?" Parenthood wrenches at the heart sometimes.

Looks like it's shaping up to be a typical Saturday'ish sort of Saturday. I've already set up for the Saturday Writing Salon workshop on children's book writing. Next: a trip to the eye doctor to get broken frames fixed and also ask them to make the expensive, custom-made clip-on sunglasses actually stay clipped on. Then, so I swore yesterday, I'll try to get all the stuff off the "guest" bed that has been piled there for weeks, and attempt to tidy up the top of my desk, which has gone haywire. Then the hair salon appointment to deal with gray reality. After that it'll be dinner time already, and I'll probably sucuumb to TV and/or more Flickr addict behavior.

Is This Really a "Breast Cancer" Blog?

Yes! It is. But sometimes the breast cancer part is less obvious than at other times. If you are someone who has just been diagnosed and are in the throes of trying to make treatment decisions, then I suggest you go back to the beginning of this blog, because that's when I was writing a lot more in the vein of "Breast Cancer 101."  Also look at the bottom of my sidebar on the lefthand side, because that's where my "beginner" links are.

Now, although I still think about "it" every single day, and although a day doesn't go by that I'm not acutely aware of something breast-cancer-related that I need to do now or next or soon (have another MRI, get a baseline thermography, check in with Dr. Cowan about my Iscador, remember to rub castor oil on my scar tissue when I get in the sauna, re-order more Vitamin D and melatonin (among other supplements that I take, these two are especially important for breast cancer healing - read more about supplements for breast cancer at breastcancerchoices.org), go to Rainbow and get more Carlson's cod liver oil, remember to keep doing breast self-exams to check for recurrence, remember to take my katrillion pills per day (Immuplex, Super Eff, Iodoral, methylcobalamine, CO Q10, curcumin, Spanish black radish, Mammary PMG. . .). . .

... continue to pay close attention to (monitor) the effects of my BHRT (bioidentical hormone replacement therapy) which I am still in the process of adjusting with the guidance of a doctor who specializes in this, place my next grocery order with Three Stone Hearth (see sidebar; read about the Weston A. Price Foundation! I've dramatically altered what and how I eat since the bc diagnosis; yes, this morning I added two raw egg yolks plus two tablespoons of coconut oil to my naturally probiotic kefir smoothie sweetened with Stevia, not sugar), go to Curves, get on the elliptical strider, walk Olivia (exercise alone - walking, to be precise - has been proven - duh - to reduce breast cancer recurrence rates SIGNFICANTLY), keep reading and thinking about the mind/body connection (self-healing via intentions, beliefs, focused thoughts & visualizations; it's absolutely fascinating and compelling and I want to get better at it), etc. etc. etc.

It's neverending, it's an ongoing process and evolution re: how I think about my body and the connection between my mind, heart, soul and body. Is posting photos to Flickr a part of my breast cancer treatment plan? Yes! My life was out of balance before. I worked too much, I was stressed out WAY too much, I didn't allow enough time for rest, fun, relaxation, the joy of creativity. Much as I love the Writing Salon, being the administrator of a small business was taking a terrible toll on me; I need the kind of imaginative release that comes from exploring my creative urges, whether via writing or. . . photography!

This new hobby of mine helps me to stay saner, calmer and. . . braver in the face of my ever-skulking fears. Yay!

My Mundane View

Window from the Window
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Almost every day I spend many hours sitting on the living room couch with my laptop, working away. I often sit facing one of the two windows, the one that looks out over Ogden Street and our neighbor's house. It amazes me how this one tiny view has not yet grown tiresome. It's not beautiful. There are too many wires, for one thing. The building across the street is nothing unusual or special, architecturally. The tree that you can't see, here - to the right of the telephone pole - isn't one of my favorite species; it's too bushy and the leaves are too big and it doesn't let enough light filter through. All in all, it's a mediocre view of a less than stunning corner of San Francisco.

But it's my view, and I'm quite fond of it despite its many flaws and lacks.

The Route to My Desk

Stairway to Desk Nest
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Six hours ago I wrote a blog entry to go with this pic. It was a few paragraphs long and had to do with my thoughts re: my current addiction to taking photos and putting them onto Flickr.

Just as I was about to post it, my computer froze. Alas, I had no time to rewrite because I had to hurry off to teach my new summer Round Robin class. Now it's 11:15 p.m., I've taught the class, cleaned up after the class, come home, said hello to Jack, said hello to Olivia, taken my various bedtime pills, gotten out of the uncomfortable clothes and into the comfie ones, am writing this from bed, and am way too tired to recall my earlier blog ode to the zen delights of photography. . . . something about how it helps one to see the world with new eyes, in new ways, with more interest, appreciation and excitement, only I'm sure I said it better before. More eloquently. Oh well.

Anyway, my formerly mundane treks up and down the stairs are no longer so mundane, because now I'm more attuned to the fact that the light on the stairs is always changing and casting all sorts of whimsical, beautiful  patterns. Everywhere I go, in fact, I SEE so much more now.

It's good to be interested in learning something new. Especially if it's creative. Good for the soul.

Painter's Overalls #2

Painter's Overalls #2
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Painter's Overalls #1

Painter's Overalls #1
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Overalls Over San Francisco

Overalls Over San Francisco
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Jack always hangs his painting overalls on the clothesline. I'm not sure why he doesn't put them in the dryer, and it has never occurred to me until now to ask. . . maybe because I love looking at them out there against the sky.

Long Leaf Reaching for the Sun
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Long Leave Straight Up
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Long Leaf Leaning on Curtain
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Floorcraft

Long Leaf Rising from Depths of the Curtain
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Jack and I went to Floorcraft Nursery on Wednesday and bought some houseplants. I can't believe I waited three whole days before posting this news to my blog. Please accept my apologies for keeping you in the dark so long. What's most amazing is that I haven't killed any of them yet. I think the best division of plant responsibilities will be: 1) Jack re-pots and waters them, 2) I take pictures of them.

Enough

"Enough," she said. "Stop thinking so much. A dash of nutmeg, a pinch of cinnamon. It doesn't have to be perfect." She put the cigarette back between her lips and took a drag.

His memory of barbed wire receded. Whatever happened would happen with the banana bread. Cynni was right. Cynni the tatooed, banana-bread baking biker chick was right on. Nothing had to be perfect.

His cheeks were sunken and his hair was in need of a trim, but even so, he felt as if the kitchen was glowing, and him right along with it.

Cat Cliche #1

Yes, I Love My Cat
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Since I'm on a cliche roll, I'll toss in a cat photo on top of the flower photo. Queen Reecy continues her reign on Moultrie Street. She's a good girl. I still wuv her despite the seventeen buckets of cat hair that must be hauled out of the house before classes start on Saturday.

Flower Cliche #2

Flower Cliche #2 (go ahead, sue me again)
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

The work crunch is on at the Writing Salon. Summer classes are starting (or in some cases, not starting due to too low of enrollments). Either way, work is required. So all I can do is post another photo, noting proudly that since last I posted I have learned how to: 1) turn off the automatic flash, and 2) push the button for "macro" shots.

Speeding right along. Maybe by the next post I'll have figured out how to change the resolution from low to high. All that's required of me is to learn how to read the manual, push some buttons, and change a setting.

Am I excited by this prospect? Yes! I'm always excited (thrilled, even) when I'm learning something new, no matter how rudimentary. What gets me down is doing the same old same old. The safety of what's known is soooooo b-o-r-i-n-g.

The Test

The stone wall of the church scraped hard against her back. Her knees bent, her bones too near the surface, she bit down on her lower lip, wanting to be sick to her stomach as he pressed up against her.

"Stop that," she said.

The nasty scar that was nestled into the right side of his face widened with his grin. Her courage fell down into the white satin hem around her feet.

"Stop what? What is that you want me to stop, my sweet wife?" 

"Stop making those sounds when you kiss me."

"Sounds?" He took a step back, although his hands continued to caress her shoulders, her arms. His softly fringed eyes, puzzled now, searched her face. The guests were all gathering, soon to be waiting at the front steps, ready to shower them with hard little pellets of rice as they made their getaway.

She saw herself as an old woman, urine passing through her body in a catheter, and knew he would tend to her even then. The wet, smacking moistness of his love had to be a test of some kind. The threat of failure loomed.

Today's P.S. Post re: Vagabond Child Update

I called Will yesterday, not sure where in the world he was but thinking probably Montreal. He called me back from a tiny coastal village in the northwest part of Normandy, France. Said he'd just taken a dip in the ocean and would be doing three outdoor performances there, and that he wondered where the people would come from because nobody seemed to be around in the town...he said he was calling me from a phone booth (why a phone booth, I'm not sure, as he was on his cell phone....) surrounded by crumbling stone buildings and not a single human being in sight (although they've seen many cows). It felt, he said, a little as if he were in a horror movie (I think he was referring to the buildings being "like old castles").

After France, they're heading to Scotland for a month where they'll be one of the featured performing groups at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Then back to Montreal, a break, and then to Toronto for five weeks. And in the beginning of 2008, they'll be in NYC for a month. Then back to Paris.

Not bad for a 23-year-old's first real, after-college (or in his case, circus school) job. Let's see, my first after-college (graduate school) job was as a clerk at Odyssey Records, a chain store that no longer exists, at least not in SF. I worked in the CASSETTE tapes division of the jazz section.

I left Odyssey to become a Portable Picnic employee, which meant that I sold sandwiches, bagels, apples, and carrot cake out of a picnic basket that I carried around to shop and office employees all over the city.

Life is weird!

Mrs. Somers Takes Her Daily Walk

Today a small masterpiece, a sinuous path among the poppies, drew Mrs. Somers (who lived for the heat of the sun, although she didn't know it) along.

Some people, you see, will travel to the farthest ends of the earth in search of miracles and mystery, but Mrs. Somers dressed herself each morning and, after her toast, when the little teapot clock over her oven said nine a.m., was more than content to steal away no farther than a block (or two or three) around the neighborhood.

Her morning walks were but a tiny bite taken out of the day, yet they kept her going. She felt pulled along by the stalwart presence of city flowers that persevered without fail, all year long, despite the toxic fumes and inhospitable slabs of asphalt and cement. Now wasn't that interesting?

The poppy-edged path that wound around the hill at the end of her street reminded her with surprisingly great force that life still went along its meandering way, even when you could no longer please your husband in bed and, come to think of it, probably never had.

Retrospection was not one of Mrs. Somer's strongest suits, and her realization about the reality of her sex life caught her, quite literally, between a moth and a hard stone wall that abutted the yard of the eldery Asian neighbor whose multi-voweled name she could never seem to remember.

Her married life had curiously, suddenly explained itself.

My Writing Printout for Today

My Writing Printout for Today
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

Street Corner

What she couldn't bear had come to rest on the skin of her eyelids. Passionless conversations. Routines. Her untouched core. Tossing her hair in the fine light as she walked the asphalt, she focused her eyes on decay. Ghosts of dinosaurs reared their heads from within bursts of light on glass, memories of lust lay composting in sidewalk cracks, broken hinges hung by single, dazzling screws. Peeling layers of paint, crusted rusty walls, piles of rotted flowers and leaves seized her imagination.

The man driving the bulldozer at the end of the block, whom she would meet today for the first time ever and who would, in time, join her under a woolen blanket, was intent on clearing a path, making something out of his destruction. He swerved the machine into a magnificant, jerking reverse. Cement crumbled. Bricks cracked. A sweaty steam rolled over his mind.

They veered toward one another.

The Housecleaner

She came gently to clean their house, and often stood in the dusty sunshine speaking to the young boy of ordinary things she had seen and done, things that, she said, had been stuffed too full of people.

There were turnings in her story: what she had seen in a doorway, how she had stared with pleasure at a clean swipe of blue sky, how she had denied the impulse to lean into a certain man. She had never experienced the murmurings of love, nor the accompanying gusts of grief.

He left home at eighteen, the lips of his loneliness trembling, and while he was away at college he missed her more than he did any of his friends or family.

Without him to talk to, she fell into the habit of dreaming her way backward and forward through time, which seemed to her, now, a combination of cream and stone.

Facadesque
Originally uploaded by jurek d.

Here's one of Jurek's photos (mentioned in my prior post) from a set that I like, called Podlasie. I have no idea what that means, which I like.

Fence Crack #2

Fence Crack #2
Originally uploaded by my.third.eye

This is how I feel fairly often, lately. As if I am peering through a crack in the fence, drawn by the sliver of light, trying to see the garden, and feeling satisfied by my glimpse, however limited it may be.

Translation: I ate dark 80 percent chocolate today and later took a lovely far infrared sauna, read my book (The Intention Experiment - see my sidebar), and fell into a reverie of thinking about how miraculous the power of intention (highly directed, focused thought or feeling) really is, and how science is now validating this "mystery" with experiments and studies and "proof."

Then I looked at some of the beautiful photos of one of my Flickr contacts, a man in Poland by the name of Jurek. So far, most of my contacts live in other countries. . . Brazil, Serbia, England, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands...only two or three are in the U.S. It makes me wonder if I was, well, not an American in a past life or lives. I strongly suspect this is true.

Unnecessary Chemo - I'm Not Shutting Up About This

Taken from Ralph Moss's newsletter, Cancer Decisions:

NEW TEST MAY HELP PATIENTS AVOID UNNECESSARY CHEMO                  

 The use of adjuvant chemotherapy after surgery for breast cancer is often presented as one of oncology's great success stories. The early use of chemotherapy is based on the assumption that such treatment will eliminate any remaining tumor cells (called micro-metastases), thereby decreasing the chance that cancer will return, and improving the odds of survival. Systemic adjuvant treatment has therefore become strongly recommended for many women with the disease.                   

In the past 10 years there has been a shift towards the use of drugs called anthracyclines in the adjuvant setting. The most prominent of these – and now a standard of care – is Adriamycin (doxorubicin).                  

A 1998 meta-analysis, called the EBCTCG study, analyzed the results that had previously been found in 47 clinical trials using various combinations of chemotherapy vs. no chemotherapy. It concluded there was a significant [ME: read on to get a better understanding of how the medical world defines "significant"] reduction in the death rate among patients receiving any combination of chemotherapy drugs.             

For instance, in women who were younger than 50 years at randomization, combination chemotherapy improved 10-year survival from 71 to 78 percent for those with node-negative disease (an absolute benefit of 7 percent), and from 42 to 53 percent for those with node-positive disease (an absolute benefit of 11 percent). For women 50 to 69 years of age at randomization, there was a gain in 10-year survival from 67 to 69 percent for those with node-negative disease (an absolute gain of 2 percent) and from 46 to 49 percent for those with node-positive disease (an absolute gain of 3 percent). [ME: THIS 3 percent group was the group that I fell into; and of course no one REALLY knew the exact percentage; maybe it was 2 percent, maybe it was 4 percent...but lemme tell ya, for me, that wasn't a big enough percent. And yet EVERY doctor was telling me I HAD to do it,and I felt that if I continued to question it, I was going to end up with a huge scarlet letter sewn across my bosom!)            

Why did this meta-analysis tip the scales towards Adriamycin, a drug that (according to Jerome Groopman, MD, of Harvard Medical School) oncologists nicknamed "the red death," due to its cranberry color and its toxicity? [ME: This drug would have been one of the three I was scheduled to take.]

                  

PLEASE: I strongly urge you to read the REST of this article on the next page. It's important that more women (and men) are aware of this information. You may not understand every word, but try. It's not rocket science.