I had a dream....

I dreamt last night that all my friends and I had colonized the moon. We had created little villages, and built cute little bungalows of pastel colors; soft pink, sky blue, grassy green. Our kids played games outside: basketball, softball, kickball, hopscotch. We all felt such relief at leaving the damaged earth. We gazed up at the earth, like we now gaze at the moon. We watched as it burst into a blazing ball of fire. 

This was not an uncommon sort of dream for me but was a little more specific than usual. My dreams usually involve me floating, flying, or sliding through the air or in the water, but generally do not occur in any identifiable location. Vague waterparks in the sky are the foundation of many of my dreams. They are wonderful.

I feel lucky because I know folks who consistently have awful dreams: they are being chased by someone with a gun or a knife, they're being abandoned in a lonely town, they are falling off cliffs. My dreams are rarely, if ever, like that. And if they are, I'm experiencing it as an adventure. As a cool place to explore. As a mystery to solve.

But, still, the MOON? Where in heaven's name did that come from?

Then I remembered that the last thing I read before I fell asleep was an excerpt of Carl Sagan's A Pale Blue Dot from The Sun magazine. With the NASA photo:  

(Google it and you'll find a better photo, in color even)

Many folks might disagree, but I find this photo to be very comforting. Rather than being the center of the universe, our Earth is but a minuscule dot, barely the size of the period at the end of this sentence. We just aren't that important. Whatever "stuff" we're going through doesn't mean a hill of beans in the grand scheme of the cosmos. 

As many of you know, I'm undergoing treatment for metastatic breast cancer, or MBC. Will my next scan show progression? Will my next treatment cause worse symptoms? How many drugs are still available that can help me? How many years do I have left? When I run out of drugs, how will I die? Who will take care of my husband? All are heady questions and all cause me great anxiety

But for some reason, when I look at this photo, I feel my anxiety melting. It's as if my worries are dissipating in the vastness of the universe.

Still, life seems so complicated these days, the world, our country, our politics are all in shambles. Heck, I get upset when I see an empty parking lot at the local pizza joint, or a car that's broken down on the side of the highway. Human suffering is everywhere. 

But we can do simple things like donating a little to causes we believe in; smiling at a stranger; chatting with a neighbor. 

Little acts of kindness can make us feel bigger than that tiny dot. 

And for fears that devour us, set them free. They are but a tinier dot in that tiny dot.

DOXIL on deck

I've been on chemo for over a year, mostly IV chemo. Many folks ask me what is it like and what are the side effects? In my last post in October, I mentioned fatigue. And, yes, for me, that's the most frequent and critical effect.

I tried to come up with some condition that a non-chemo person could relate to that would help them "feel" what I'm going through. The closest thing I can think of is a very bad case of the flu. No respiratory symptoms for me (for the most part), but a continuous, unabated, relentless, fatigue; aches and pains; and brain fog. It's not for the faint of heart.

You lose your train of thought before you even reach the depot. A friend talks and you have a response but as soon as he stops talking, you forget what your point was. You even forget the topic. In those cases, it's just better to go out for ice cream.

Speaking of friends, I now have a 3-hour limit on how long I can be with friends. Luckily, that's also pretty much the extent of time most of my friends want to spend with me, so we're all good.

I just had a scan that shows a bit of progression to my liver.  DANG IT!!!! @#$#!^%*(&&

OK, I'm better now.

I start on Doxil next week. Doxil is a kissin' cousin of the dreaded Red Devil, Adriamycin or doxorubicin.  I call it killer chemo. Most patients call it killer chemo.

I was on a low dose of Taxotere, which thankfully kept my counts at a livable stage. But my cancer simply scoffed at that, "Ha ha, I'll show YOU!! You think you can kill me without killing yourself?! Got another thing coming, girlie."

And so the bugger came back. It's a delicate balance between getting enough chemo to damage the cancer cells without doing permanent damage to my dear person as well.

It's just an all-around CRAP SHOW!!

So, onward and upward to Doxil, may the best (wo)man win...

I'm just so TIAAAAHRD!!

Having cancer brings many symptoms. Many of them are not fit to be discussed in polite society, but the main one suffered by all is FATIGUE.

I always feel lame when I complain about fatigue--after all, who among any of us isn't tired? Tired nearly ALL the time? You ask how someone is doing, and they'll say, TIRED! I'm SOOOOO tired!! But they still manage to work, do chores, drive in traffic, take care of the kids, cook dinner or buy takeout, walk the dog, go to the gym, climb Mt. Rainier, etc. etc. They continue to lift one leg up after the other and walk toward some semblance of purpose. They continue to have coherent discussions.

The kind of fatigue we suffer is DIFFERENT. We suffer the kind of fatigue where you feel like you've been spinning on the Scrambler amusement park ride for two hours. Then you get off and try to find the nearest cotton candy stand. Not to eat it, but to arrange the sticky stuff on your head, as you lost your wig and/or your head scarf and your baldness is on display for all. Better to look like a pastel bouffanted poodle.

Or, the kind of fatigue where you step off a curb and get trampled by a herd of elephants, which you neither saw nor heard because you're so lost in the foggy web of your own cranial matter. As you pass out, you do remember wishing you could go to the circus later. If you weren't so tired.

But I'm mostly tired of this administration.  Ooh, tossed that one out there, didn't I? Ever since November 9, 2016, we've been faced with constant, unrelenting, displays of hatred, stupidity, ugliness, hypocrisy, corruption and disrespect from this President and his cohorts. Every day, he lies and/or says something unbelievably thoughtless or evil. And his followers cheer and cheer.

It really wears on a decent person after awhile. Makes me feel like, "Why should I want to live, if this is what our country wants to be?"

Such blind acceptance of these rotting shenanigans goes against everything I learned in school and in church (and from my parents and relatives). There, I learned that "cheaters never prosper", lying is the worst, and sinning was something you should avoid at your peril.

In politics and business nowadays, cheaters and liars are the ones who prosper. You're expected to toe a very specific and deceptive line to succeed in either place. In church nowadays, sinning is a prerequisite in order to be considered an acceptable Christian.  God is someone you negotiate with. "Well, I did this sin thing, you know, giggle giggle, but so, you forgive me and I worship you and we'll be good right? And I promise to sin again real soon so we can do this over and over.  K'? K'. Oh, and I'll tithe, fer sure. 😉"

I remember hearing one "power preacher" recently say, "What has God done for you lately?" I cringed. In my church, we were taught to ask, "What have you done for God lately?"

That kind of selflessness is verboten today. Only for losers.

Having end-stage cancer and its treatment is hard to work through. Feeling that I'm fighting to live in such a wicked world makes me so very, very, tired.

1...,2...,3....GO!

That's how I feel today. Self-questioning yet anxious to write. I like to write in a style that is somewhat light but not irrelevant, funny but not boorish, incisive but not preachy.

So, how do I best engage my readers when I've been newly diagnosed with Stage IV Metastasis? I've been puzzling and puzzling over it but today I say, 1, 2, 3, GO!!

So, yes, the bad thing happened last October. Twenty-three years ago, I was diagnosed and treated at Stage I, and most certainly figured I was clear forever. And was led to believe I was clear forever. But NOooooo. I've since learned that it's common for this thing to rear up and bite viciously again, many years later. Believe me, expletives have been abounding in our house over the past year. I'm learning to be quite creative with them.

Stage IV Mets is a different animal completely. It is terminal. Drugs and their side effects are part of your life forever. (I say "you" but of course I mean "me"). For some folks, that "terminal" lasts for many years. Others die after a couple of years. There's no way to know which club you'll be in. That big old anvil is always hanging inches from your head, following you everywhere. You can't just say, "OK, OK, I'll stop chasing that dang roadrunner!" 

And for my precious readers here, I like to write in a style that is truthful but sparing the blood and guts. No talk of needles, invasive procedures, body parts spurting things. (I save that for my specialized FB groups 😅). 

OK, so the news is out. Auntie PC revealed. Please join me on my new adventure. 

Confederate Nostalgia, or Call to Violence?

I am happy to see the current push to remove, or provide context to, Confederate monuments.* It was always an issue I treaded carefully.

I grew up in Richmond, Virginia and lived there for 11 years in the 1960s to 1970s. Since I wasn’t born there, and in fact, moved there from solid Yankee country, I always felt like a visitor and reacted to the many monuments, Confederate memorabilia and symbols as I would a tourist to another country. I felt I needed to respect their history as an outsider would, and not interject my philosophy or beliefs on their precious ideology. Plus, it was clear that the south was annihilated by the Civil War and I felt no need to ram their loss further down their throats.

Like a tourist, I admired the monuments on Monument Avenue (Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, etc.) as a depiction of bygone eras. It was just history. It was quaint.

Through the years, the furor grew over the unseemly glorification of the Old South portrayed by these symbols. However, I still felt conflicted by the drive to remove Confederate monuments.

After all, the history of our country is rooted in its enslavement and subjugation of others to benefit the well-heeled. That legacy continues today. Many, if not all, of our country’s historic heroes and business tycoons were guilty of being slaveowners; being hostile to women, children and minorities; and exploiting workers’ safety for higher profits.

It seemed hypocritical to pick on the South, when the entire country is guilty of advancing on the backs of others. Are we trying to re-make our history by removing symbols that are deeply offensive to ourselves and others? Are we trying to white-wash who we really are? 

The debate has appeared to reach an apex with the recent violence in Charlottesville. But in truth, the violence has always been there, simmering just below the surface in people who desperately want to hold onto "how things used to be." Who want to "keep blacks in their place." 

In Charlottesville, an earnest white girl was killed. Her fresh white face has stared back at us in newscasts and media feeds. Now, everyone has leaped into the fray. White supremacists have killed one of their "own". The violence is too close to home to overlook.

Still, I don't believe that the push to remove Confederate symbols is white-washing. Or a trendy, feel-good measure. Charlottesville has shown us that the fervor to keep Confederate symbols is driven by people who want to reverse history. They want segregation to return. They believe they are racially superior.

I’ve been heartened by seeing many southerners lambast those hateful symbols of their past and protest for their removal. They have learned that clinging to Confederate ideals is not patriotism. It’s racism. It’s glorifying a history of treason and enslavement. If they have grown beyond that, then so can all of us.

*I can only hope that the monuments are not replaced with Pokemon kiosks.

The REAL Reason for Child Obesity!

I was reading an article in a nostalgia magazine (National Trust for Historic Preservation) about road trips that families took in the '60s and '70s and how everyone has a story about staying in one of the many roadside motels during that time.

I can still smell the hot summery chlorine of the pool and feel the rough patches of warm cement under my toes. I could swim and splash and dive in a pool for hours, until my shoulders turned pink and my fingers wrinkled. You could also sit by the pool and wave at passing convertibles along the 2-way highway, or do the elbow pump at semis to get them to blast their horns. And they always would. (I still have a fondness for truckers even today).

So then I got to thinking about riding in the car itself. My brother and I would roughhouse and tumble and tease each other and play "see it" games and laugh and shout until Mom and/or Dad said, "Enough. You're bothering your Mother/Father." To their immense credit, I don't remember them shushing us all that much, but I'm sure they snapped a time or two.

And then it hit me: Kids are obese nowadays because they are rigidly pressed in car seats or belts, from the second of leaving utero, disallowing them from any significant movement whatsoever. They perch, poor things, strait-jacketed like Hannibal Lecter--maybe the regs require muzzles too?

Gad.

It seems that kids are physically restrained and forbidden from developing an iota of muscle tone until the first soccer whistle blows.

By then, it's too late.

Of course, I can't recommend eliminating all of the car safety features that we have now. Cars used to be steel fortresses, able to withstand taps and nudges with nary a scratch to show. Anything less than an 18-wheeler barreling down full speed toward you, would barely evoke a sigh out of the old Olds. Cars now are made of little more than corrugated cardboard with a little plastic thrown in for looks. And folks drive like they're batty, unfocused, preoccupied---and slamming into things willy-nilly.

So the li'l fellers must remain entombed.

OK, I didn't say I had a solution for the obesity, just the reason. Every Eureka moment can't make me Archimedes.

I know! Wrap hand and leg weights around 'em and have 'em do reps while they're packed in the car. Just be sure to remove the weights before the kids jump in the pool.

O_o

Post-election advice

OK, I’ve finally emerged from howling and pounding in my padded room. And I’ve got something to say.

Get a job.

That’s what the “abandoned, disenfranchised” white working class has been saying to the homeless and the urban poor for decades. Now, that’s what the rest of us say to you.

We know many of you eased by for years, melding plastic pieces together, cutting nubbies off tires, made a good living, bought a house, put your kids through college, had a pension. Was able to work stoned and/or drunk.

Those days are over. O-V-E-R. 

You need to move and/or learn a new trade. I suggest Tech. Every day I read about thousands of jobs available in the Seattle area alone. 50,000, 60,000—all up for grabs. Can’t fill ‘em.  

We’ve all had to move or otherwise adjust to advancing technology in our jobs: I’ve had to learn about databases, document management software, programming, wordprocessing, spreadsheets, HTML.

I loved the old IBM Selectric typewriter, but as it was gradually replaced, I didn’t huddle under my desk, with tears streaming and chin quivering in protest until all the icky computer thingies went by the wayside. 

My entire family has adjusted to changing job requirements. 

Dad—every time he got a promotion, we needed to move. (Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia).

Brother—he moved to an area where he could learn and use computer skills. (Michigan from Virginia).

Husband—moved from Air Force station in San Bernardino to LA for job. No one moves to LA because they want to live there. He later moved to Seattle for additional job promotion. 

Me—moved to urban areas (Philadelphia, Seattle) for better job prospects and living conditions. 

You can too, believe me.

If you have a smartphone, laptop or desktop and/or can configure your TV--smart or not-- then you’re on your way to qualifying for a tech job. 

Go, go go.

Now, let’s talk about the election results. 

The “winners” in this election are the brattiest sore winners I’ve ever seen. Screaming on airplanes; scrawling swastikas on walls and cupcakes; harassing people of color, Muslims, LGBTs. Peppering social media posts, even now, with “lock her up.”  And blasting Hillary supporters with links and links and links from dubious sullen sources. Pumping themselves up over their legitimized hatred of everything good and decent. I’ve never seen a group of people who are so gleeful that they can now, with complete impunity, engage in their innate mistrust and disrespect of everything different from their small, comfortable world.

It’s like they aced a test they failed to study for and instead cheated on. Like they realized they were undercharged on a restaurant bill but it’s the Waiter’s fault and by gum they’re not going to report it. It’s that glorious feeling of getting away with something. Stealing from the cookie jar. Cheating on a mate. Date raping. They got away with it! Woo hoo!

No gratitude. No hope. All vengeful and snide and “we told you so”. 

I’ve never heard anything close to, “I’m glad he won because he makes me feel happy and makes me feel I can be a better person. I’m glad he won because he’s a great role model.”

Anyone?