estrogenic beings

 

sitting barely awake at my computer trying to ingest very hot coffee with the today show playing behind me on the tv in my bedroom.  you know, that tune-in/tune-out thing that you do … fact is, i barely watch tv anymore.  i basically listen to it.  i have always liked the chatter behind me while i work or write.  much different that sitting in a noisy office with loud voices.  my ears perk up at a segment on relationships between teenage daughters and their moms.  tada!  and it comes down to the usual bibble-babble:  you’re alike; you’re not alike; you have/had similar experiences separated by generations.  blah blah blah.  then the talking-head-promoting-book-man says:  [paraphrasing here] the issue is that the both people in the relationship are essentially ‘estrogenic beings’ and when one has levels that might be up, the other might be down. 

but what happens when one is essentially brewing with estrogen (most obviously teenage daughter) and one is … well, not.  mine was  the estrogen gone bezerk.  and the reward for that is the path to an estrogen-free existence.  basically being turned into a happy eunuch.  happy to be alive,  to be here.  definitely deprived of that essential hormonal olive-oil that drives my essential femininity.  in many ways i’m happier at a more base level that i knew how to be for many years – perhaps the booby prize (pun intended!!!!) for surviving not only breast cancer but all the treatments and the long recovery.  on another level, i have no sex drive, thin hair and a sense that i am out of touch with some of the more intimate emotions of the heart that come from being an estrogenic being.  hmmmm.   i wonder what the  talking-head-promoting-book-man would say about all of that.  no matter what he researches or intellectually justifies, i sincerely doubt that he understands what it means to be an estrogenic being turned into a happy eunuch. 

slugging along the open road

 

as opposed to the camp song: “swinging along the open road”.  nothing much to report.  i feel like i’m gearing up for a prize fight that hasn’t quite been scheduled yet but i can smell brewing in the not-too-distant-future.  oh…work, not health.  (i hope.)  real estate seasons have gone topsy-turvy and traditional seasons mean less than they used to.  but with a number of new listings for me (hooray) coming on the market and lots of new listings for others, it feels like a weather change coming down the road.  lots of bits and pieces.  lots and lots and lots of bits and pieces to take care of.   and trying to shift between needs of sellers and wants of buyers.  let’s not even mention the mortgage road of hell.  it’s dicey out there.

to bed early…maybe i can go down that open road and beat this nascent cold i feel in the back of my head.  anyway, the wind is howling outside and the temperature is dropping.  what better reason to climb into bed early.  stay warm.

hallelujah

i’m getting to be old enough to be a snob about what music i listen to.  well, i’ll listen to a lot but i don’t love a lot of it.  the music i listen to on my ipod when i’m walking on ms. bertha (my elliptical) tends toward driving power chick-rock/pop or full-flung broadway that gets you singing at the top of your lungs and running or walking at a good clip  - by the way, have you heard the cast album of ‘the capeman’?  omg.  it’s only out on itunes (paul simon put out his own album earlier) but this is the cast recording and it’s hauntingly beautiful on it’s own.  teenage daughter is caught between very classic rock (her father cheers!) and goofy broadway (her father boos!) and some typical teenage pop. 

as a retired singer, you’d think i would listen to a LOT of music.  no.  it was too painful for a long time.  it reminded me of the life i didn’t have – when i was going through chemo – the toughest time for me – i just watched very mindless tv – the stuff i could purposefully forget and watch again if it was the only thing going during the many hours to get through. 

when i was done all my treatment, i bought an ipod nano.  i was semi-back at work by then and i went walking one day to an appointment with lots of time to waste and decided that it was time to listen to something again.  i put the earphones in my ear and first up was sarah maclahlan’s ’hold on.’  oh.  i just started sobbing.  walking around with a wall of tears just pouring out.   at that moment, i realized that i was still alive and that i could look, once again, at the world as a place of possibilities instead of a chunk of time to force myself to get through.   now when i get on bertha for a walk, it’s always my first song.  i’ve worked on turning it around – more an anthem of hope than a plaintive wail. 

last night at the ‘hope for haiti’ concert, justin timberlake and matt morris did a duet of the leonard cohen song ‘hallelujah’.  i know next to nothing about justin timberlake but i knew what i was hearing.  a flowing line of deep musicality that was delicate and soulful and deeply beautiful.  so many things are sledgehammered into the banal by too much production and this took wing on the moment…an accomplishment in itself.   it’s a song that usually ends up as a complete cliched howler – and here it was as an almost-perfect jewel. 

i hope you like it too.  hallelujah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOWHu6Oyt8

what if?

oh yeah.  what if?  what if we had a catastrophic year ahead?  what if teenage daughter broke her leg?  what if darling husband needed surgery?  we spent the last 3 weeks agonizingly dissecting the what ifs?  and one what if went unasked.  out loud.  what if i get sick again?  what if my cancer comes back?  what if what if what if.

the what ifs have been keeping me up at night.  we have been forced to ask because we are in the odd and dark world of trying to change our health insurance policy so that we don’t drown under the burden of purchasing it.  last year, we shelled out $2,000 a month for a ‘family’ policy (no one gives a shit that i only had one kid…i felt like someone should have been servicing my cat for that price).  we’re both independent contractors and all of my doctors were/are on oxford freedom plan.  none of them took oxford liberty – let alone other plans.  you could almost hear the secretaries hold their breath when the answer to what policy i held was: oxford.  before i could barely get the 2 syllables out of my mouth came the answer:  “we only take oxford freedom!  we don’t take oxford liberty!”  (you could hear the !!! ping at the end of each short but meaningful sentence.)  and 4 years post breast cancer diagnosis is not a good time to change your entire medical team.  so we have made concessions in order to remain with our oxford freedom policy.  but the financial burden became unbearable when, in december, i was told that the new monthly fee was $2,500 a month.  it was the absolute point of impossible.

and so we figured out some stuff.  we formed an llc - because we found out that having the company allows us to purchase a small business policy.  and then we went on the hunt.  insurance brokers; talk of hsa’s and hmo’s and out-of-network payments including deductibles and out-of-network payments excluding deductibles (i’m still a little fuzzy on these two but darling husband seems to have a handle on it.) 

my year has a set rhythm to it.  10 doctor visits are, essentially set.  and all are in-network.  3 major procedures (a bilateral mri, sonogram and mamogram) all of which are, for me, out-of-network.  but many of these plans cost a significant amount and then you keep paying in in-network deductible…many of them set at $2,000 more a year.  out-of-network deductibles climbing easily around $5,000-$7,000 more just for me.  my radiologist is out of network and she’s amazing.  caring, careful, loyal and very very good at what she does. 

my husband deserves a medal.  he waded through manila envelopes filed away in our basement trying to assess our past costs.  it had to be a nasty trip down a nasty memory lane to look at receipts for steroid prescriptions that made his wife stomp around feeling like her skin was coming off or the 4 different anti-nausea meds receipt gathered in everyone’s desperate attempts to get me some medication that worked to stop the nonstop hurling after the chemotherapy sessions.  and he kept going.  he added up numbers and crunched everything upwards and downwards and kept calling people who i would have hung up on but instead coaxed out answers that weren’t always immediately clear. 

in the end, we’re finally ready to make a pick.  a bit of an old-fashioned chinese menu:  one from column a and 2 from column b.  mine as a single with the best benefits and the lowest out-of-pocket payments and them together on a parent and child policy where we’ll be ok as long as neither of them go too far out of network.  or need major surgery.  i can’t help but feel that my worst fears are coming about:  as a family we’re not all together.  i’m once again by myself and husband and teenage daughter are tethered to each other.  i know that’s not really the case – but it feeds into all my old feelings of sitting by myself while the world just kept revolving and going on without me. 

what if?  what if?  what if?  and, for that matter, what if we couldn’t afford any of this?  so many can’t.  i mean it’s starting to really tax the system here (and by that i mean we’re struggling to pay it all out) but what if we couldn’t at all?  and the cat still has no health care.  what if? 

 

from beginnings to endings

 

a beloved teacher from teenage daughter’s school passed away over the holidays.  she was one of those incredible people you meet who are so burrowed into a community’s psyche that you cannot think of the place without thinking of the person.  and today, i attended the memorial service that took place at the school for the upper school students, staff and any parents and alumnae who wished to be there.  although i’m quite capable at crying at the drop of a hat – just walking up to her husband (who i did not know) to hold his hand for a moment and pay my respects was the beginning of my tears.  trying to sit through the choir singing ‘the water is wide’ without having spasms of anxiety was my challenge today.  (the song i fell in love with and sang every day of my pregnancy and every day when teenage daughter was a baby and acknowledged that it would be my choice (but not sung with sadness but with a stiff backbone and some power) should my own memorial service ever come about.)   another death from the ‘c that shall not be named’.  (i am rolling my eyes as i type this – trying not to spit three times on the floor or other moments to ban the worst.) 

i have never heard the word ‘fierce’ (fierce; fiercely; ferocity) used so many times independently by so many speakers – some of them current students and many of them alum or staff.  it inspired me – i knew this about her but sometimes forgot that people – even as they get in their 50s and 60s – can still be quite fierce and forward.   yes, she was the drama teacher (and english teacher and community choir director and actor and stage director and mentor for so many) and therefore many of her students who spoke had a natural talent for the word both written and spoken.  but i was touched and excited to hear so many truely eloquently-spoken memories of her and hoped that every student there had the same deep emotional potential – in fact, for the first time in a while, i felt positive that they did. 

thank you marlene for being a big part of guiding my beautiful teenage daughter and making her feel confident in her steps.  she had less time with you than she wished but i suspect you will be with her in thought and deed and example for her entire life.

wishes

peace, health and happiness in 2010

 

sit tight

tomorrow we travel back to our lives post-holidays-with-the-family.  the holidays-with-the-family went fabulously.  lots of ease and only one misunderstanding sorted out ultimately and accomplishing a new level of communication with one of the teens.  nice gifts.  waaaaay too much food.  i fell down big time.  ok, not as hard and deep as i would have 2 years ago when i would have hoovered up everything that was really awful for me but enough that my colon will need another week to recover.  it seems to be virtually impossible for me to not ‘just take a few pieces’ of poppycock…it’s like heroin to me.  impossible to resist and i need more in little bits.  thankfully, there will be no more caramel-glazed poppycock in my immediate future.  today a last run to the pool for the kids and, after a long walk together downtown, a belated holiday movie for me and my wonderful sister-in-law . 

then comes the minor pain:  packing up holiday gifts – so many books; so weighty – and leaving behind thoughtful but impossible to bring back gifts – a glass jar of homemade tomato chutney – and being thoughtful about how to make my pocketbook and rolling carry-on become one item in the wake of air canada’s new strict guidelines.  no getting out of one’s seat for the last hour – geez, no liquids on the plane for me!  someone suggested we invest in ‘depends’!  will we have to sit in our seats with our hands neatly folded?  flying is becoming quite the chore.  so i’m saying a few mantras that tomorrow goes smoothly and we’ll be back home in brooklyn in short order, loving up our kitty and grabbing a quick pasta dinner at midnight.  meanwhile, for that last hour: sit tight. 

traveling in grey

we tend to travel during the fall and winter school vacations.  teenage daughter goes to camp – her heart of hearts as it was mine – and that leaves most of the summer as unusable to travel together as a threesome family.  and we like it that way.  we travel well together.   i was worried early on that our daughter might be a wiggly non-distractable traveling companion but she’s happy to sit and read or watch passengers go by while waiting for trains, planes and boats.  we all like to explore in new cities and new destinations – incorporating a big museum or site in but also liking to just walk and watch and be delighted at unexpected findings. 

this trip isn’t new.  we’re out in victoria, b.c. to stay with husband’s family and just all be together.  oldest nephew will graduate high school this year and the adults feel the impending change – the first of the kids to be out of obligatory schooling – so we wanted to have a time together before that happened. 

there is something easy about traveling somewhere that does not guarantee sunny sunny weather.  grey skies and on and off rainy days take the pressure off – we don’t need to be outside but when we are, we see it all from a different often-stormy skyline.   fewer people and more space to let your imagination drift out over the insanely beautiful sea – dotted with bobbing seals and the occasional regal heron perched on a flotilla of seaweed and driftwood.  some people see grey.  i see shades of stormy blue.

we’re all connected

so many ideas flit through my head over the day and i thought i’d be posting about my day yesterday – a trying day of my now-yearly mri.  in a way, this is about that.  at 4 years out, i’m in a twice a year mode with my radiologist.  in june i have a bilateral mammogram and bilateral sonogram and then in december an mri with contrast dye.  in sorting out the things that you don’t mind/can handle and the things that drive you crazy, i’ve settled on being unable to handle nausea and hating needles…specifically iv’s.  i was adamant that i didn’t want a port put in before my chemo and had all my chemos iv’d through my left hand.  the result being that i have about 2 veins left that anyone can find to put an iv in when needed..and am not allowed needle sticks nor blood pressure readings on the right side because the surgeon took so many lymph nodes out and i have dealt with mild lymphadema (but under control).  all of this is a leadup to the dreaded mri in december.  i have the most amazing and compassionate radiologist - she had better be because she’s completely out of network for my insurance.  however, the ‘regular’ nurses really have trouble finding veins in my arms/hand so i have a dance.  i go to my surgeon’s office on 34th street at nyu cancer center and her nurse puts in the iv.  they check the blood return, and then tape that sucker down and wrap me up in a gauze bandage.  coat slung over my shoulders, i hail a cab and bump up to east 84th street to my radiologist’s office.  (and, yes, this is the one appointment my darling hubby still comes on with me…nice to have him there to distract me.)  then i wait in the office – last year for an hour and this year for about 10 minutes only, and then on to the mri.  last year was awful – took even the super-talented ex-oncology nurse 3 tries to get an iv in.  but this year took only twice and i was much calmer in general.  in fact, no tears.  i tend to have emotional flashbacks at the iv experience and this year, i will pat myself on the back (now that the iv is out and the mri done) to say that i did not cry.  i had about 2 minutes of panic while in the mri machine but forced myself to think about something else (the panic was about the ‘what if’s’ and not the being in the machine…even though i don’t love that..at least i’m laying on my belly and head toward the front.)  haven’t gotten the full report back but she told me that the quick look looked ok. 

after that long-winded setup, what i really wanted to write about was the waiting room.  my husband took his customary chair in the corner of this estrogen-heavy waiting room – lots of woman’s magazines and he was the only guy.  there were 3 women there.  i figured out that they were waiting for a friend who was in the back having a procedure.  they were the epitome of the upper east side socialite women-of-a-certain-age.  one dressed in workout gear – she had very apparent face work done ..her cheeks seemed to be a different age than other parts of her face.  one in stilletto-heeled ’jungle’ ankle booties, cream apres-ski pants and perpetually blond hair.  the third  very petite and chewing gum.  yes, i was quietly judgemental.  it’s hard not to be and anyone who says different is simply lying.  i’m sure people make judgements when they see me.  to some i’m too fussy or too dressed and to these women, i didn’t even rate on that style scale.  ok.  but their talk was particuarly vacuous - it was clear that they operated in a small privileged social circle. 

when i got out of the mri procedure and came out dressed to wait in the waiting room, they were still there.  a few minutes later their friend came out of the back – i’m pretty sure she had a biopsy done and was obviously cradling one side which was probably painful and had obviously already been through some treatments…her hair was at her shoulders but very thin and she looked fragile.  they were so there for her.  they knew her and they were going to take care of her.  she went into the back for a few minutes and i looked over to them and said:  “it’s good she has you as her friends…i wish her all the best.”  and even though they wouldn’t ever have socialized with me in the real world nor i with them, they smiled at me and we were just 4 women standing there all in the same or potentially the same boat.  we all understood each other completely for a few minutes.

where is she?

it’s the year of independence.  for some it’s earlier and others later but for our teenage daughter, turning 15 tomorrow, it’s this 9th grade year.  tho her dad likes to walk her to the subway in the morning – claiming that he needs the exercise but really because he just loves being with her and she with him … they are the proverbial two peas in the pod – she’s taking the subway to school and often back home.  for the past few days letting herself in the house.  i work close to her school and as i am a freelancer, i am often available to give her a ride back.  but also often not.  we want her to be confident and independent in the world – especially navigating her native brooklyn and nyc.   it’s an interesting time for a girl with her head often lost in the clouds of thought.

so far this week, she’s forgotten her phone; then forgotten her key (she happily sat in the back yard waiting and doing homework but i also presume, just grooving on the cool fall garden); then forgotten to answer her phone; then her phone went dead today.  none of this phases her.  much of it phases me.  i figure i’ve really done my job right as a parent if i can get it into her head that she needs to go out into nyc prepared and that simply means: cell phone, wallet with a modest amount of bills and change, house key and a loaded metro card. 

i am baffled that i am about to celebrate my beautiful daughter’s 15th birthday tomorrow.  she came into the world 4 weeks early and weighed a whopping 3 lbs 14 ounces and was feisty as a little prizefighter.  her grandma marianne called her an ‘imperious imp.’  truer words have rarely been spoken.  she’s brave and quirky and uninterested in being like everyone else.  she fits in and doesn’t fit in.  i worry for her and i hope she finds a way to give all her gifts to the world.  but mostly, i often want to know:  where the heck is she?   happy birthday to my wonderful girl.