Thanks Enzo for the reminder, and you are right, beware the whimsy of fate, she (and cancer) are a bitch of a lab… but still, I’m a great driver, torrential rains and all.  The car goes where the eyes go, so, you bitch, BRING IT!  You aren’t taking me.

I have held my head high, put one foot in front of the other, and, with some nudging, have remembered to breathe.  Today marks another milestone in my healing.  Chemotherapy.  In other words, the really awful nasty shit, or more politely referred to by us, as after-care…  I ignored the insight to wear my best sweats and dressed mightily for the occasion.  After-all, I still have my signature hair.  Thanks to the love of my mother and dear friends Wendy, Lindsey and Julie, future appointments will be donned by my new signature friends, Hermes and Pucci.  Today, however, it is all sassy me! But all the while, even in between some laughs with chemo buddies Sheri and Jason (while Jennifer managed all four boys and every other aspect of my life the hero that she is) I choked back the most gut wrenching and defeated sobs I have ever known.

Without disrespect to any of the great literary, if not cash generating, works and diets on dealing with or beating life threatening diseases or death…I am here to describe the 7 stages of kicking cancer’s ass (as opposed to the 7 stages of death and dying or living on extreme freakish snake oil w[h]ine-less diets).  And this seems to be a good time to set these boundaries in this do or die duel…as I can see (surreal) the first drips of poisonous goodness creep closer to my veins. Drip drip drip…sigh… and so it begins and ENDS!

1.  Outrage, shock, big big tears, and the depth of sadness you thought only existed in other perpendicular universes.  And fear.  HOLY CRAP – the fear.

I think this one may be self explanatory.

2.  Learn, absorb, sift, and purge.

Let’s face it, I am an information whore, I ferociously absorb anything I can learn.  Often a good trait.  Not this time.  Within a week of diagnosis I was subject banned from the internet.  Let’s face it, even an advanced degree from the University of Google can get you into a whole mess of trouble very quickly.  Sorry for Jason, I have more closely focused my internet activities on shopping bulimia in a desperate attempt to “look great” as I wonder the streets of  this fiery humid hell.   For example, I wondered into the book store to gather some reading materials on better, healthier eating.  Now we do eat well in this house, better than in most homes.  Still, before I knew it I was delving into the merits of the hunters, gatherers, plant eaters, carbo haters, protein loaders oh good grief, I had to be stopped.  I will survive cancer only to have a nervous breakdown and an eating disorder to boot.  Thankfully Jason stopped the out-of-control-cyclone that was me…PURGE.  So, I’m sticking with safe information and using whatever common sense I have left and picking and choosing some new recipes and good habits.  Next I am taking on juicing (just kidding)!

3. Denial, despair, followed by hope.

They got it wrong.  They mixed up the slides.  This is not happening to me.  I get screenings, every thing they recommend – I do.  I follow every flipping rule.  Heartbreak.  Total and complete devastation and ruin.   Will I ever know another peaceful minute?  I think that in order for hope to penetrate and not just be a surface dweller you have to have blind faith that when they say you are cured, you are cured.  The melding of emotion and logic has never been an exact science, but I’m trying.

4. Annoyance

One of the things I continue to struggle with, is that I’m so private and this is so public (OK, so I’m becoming a bit complicit when I blab on and on here).  From this room where each gaunt, bald, sad face stares at one another during treatment to the stares, looks, and fears in restaurants and parks or stores.  It seems no one looks at me normally anymore – and there is no where to hide.  When going through medical treatments at another difficult phase of our lives and being put into some kind of freakish hormonal state of psychosis, I joked to a friend that I needed a vacation from myself.  What a strange foreshadowing that has become.  I’d like to take a leave of absence from myself, please.  Just a quick break for a latte or a stiff drink or a walk in peace.  Just a brief reprieve each day to let me go back into my illusive bubble I always speak of where me and my family are safe.

Oh, I did have a hilarious moment of the evil stare by a wife of someone I knew at a restaurant.  She was like back off my guy with those “things,” it made me laugh…a lot.  My Lisa sent me a box of BC goodies, really funny awesome stuff.  She told me about a shirt that said “No, they are not real…the real ones tried to kill me.”  Love how she made me laugh.  Need to add laughing at myself to the to-do list more often.

5. Finding faith and fight with not so much flight.

Still working on this theory.  Will get back to you.

6. Making friends with your new shadow.

When we were packing up from NC and I was cleaning and putting away my camera and lenses, I had a particularly sad moment when I feared I might lose my love of taking pictures (let alone ever being in one again) amongst such ugliness.  I decided, however, that it was more important to not hide from the hand I was dealt and that it was too important that my sons one day understand how hard I fought for our life together and that I did so with an occasional sliver of grace and courage.  So, we all know my pictures are the best (haha), but there is a local photographer that I just think so much of.  Thanks to the generous urging of Sheri, we did a shoot with the incredible Shanna Nye this weekend.   The cancer shadow is here to stay and it lurks where I least want it, but I am making strides at staring it down.   I am going to have to learn to live with its uncomfortable presence without allowing it to do more damage than it already has.  Like I previously said, cancer gets a year – that’s it.  After that, I am the winner.  This was a significant first step for me.  I hate how I will look but it will be part my story and so I will find the bravery to document it too.

7. Some kind of twisted and honest combination of the above.

An attempt to navigate temporary awfulness to walk proudly, vibrantly, courageously into a long happy and healthy future.  To enjoy my friends.  To savor my family.  To make thrive and safe-keep the exquisite and deserving souls that are my sons.  To live to nurture them and love them unconditionally and help them become the men I believe they are destined to be.  To grow old with my husband who I love more than anything on this earth.

I reserve the right to go back and further develop and comment on my theories later, but for this long day, it is time to snuggle with the boys.

Today was mentally excruciating and physically exhausting, but still, I made it!  Think of it as a hard reboot of the entire system with a super pac-man defrag-like clean-up along the way.

~~~~~~~

*Note, the Enzo references are to the beautiful and compelling book, “The Art of Racing in the Rain.”  If you are a dog lover, it is a great read despite the whole brain cancer thing…

**These ramblings occurred during my first chemo, I realize I never posted it.  Opps.  The week that has followed has been straight out of a sci-fi movie.  On day 2 I cut off 11 inches of hair to donate and am sporting a temporary chin length style of sorts.  Today is day six, and other than a lot of linguring aches, ick, and fatigue, I’m crawling out of the hole.  What I would have given to have seen the rabbit in that ugly hole.  Chemo isn’t for wussy’s I tell you, but one down, five to go.  I know this week the big hurdle will be the loss of my hair.  If I am to be honest, that will be worse than the previously forsaken body parts, but there is no avoiding this, and I do know it will eventually grow back. I’ve decided to credit each of these cycles with a future decade of my life. I have learned that I am both weaker and stronger than I knew.  When it was too much to think about one day at a time, I settled for 30 minutes at a time.  One down, five to go…the car goes where the eyes go, and I really believe I am going places.

Much love,
jodi alison