Hammers and Villages
I want to be concise and brief, but it won't turn out that way. Also, I won't post a photo of me in my briefs. That, I will spare you. The details, I will not. They will be long, drawn out, horrifying but funny, and potentially nauseating.
Yesterday was one of my hardest emotionally. We dropped the girls at Janalee's (she's a brilliant, creative friend who creates the funniest, realistic, "life as it really is in the trenches of motherhood" cards: check them out--I've probably sent a few e-cards to each of you at one time or another: www.motherhoodwithattitude.com (What's not to love about a company with a name like that?) She lives about two steps from Rose Medical Center, which is where our treatments are, and has offered me the bed in her basement closet anytime. She's such a doll. She also facilitated a lemonade stand, in the rain, with six little girls in princess dresses (Katie, excluded of course, who, at eight, is too old for dress-up, unless it's Pioneer Girls, and who wrote out the sign.) I posted the photo in "photos."
We then made our way to Cherry Creek Imaging, a lovely facility housed......in a bank. We figured that the screams and moans coming from the biopsy locale serves as a proxy "Debtor's Prison," warding off the potential riff-raff that might seek to take advantage of their financial generosity. The radiologist would do well to give the McKee radiologist who did my breast biopsy a little tutorial in patient sensitivity when dealing with people who's lives have just come crashing down. The Loveland yoohah was a complete asshole who looked confused when we said "Lydocane" and then came out to talk to Clark after the biopsy, barely made eye contact, quipped callously, "I'd be surprised if it wasn't cancer" and walked off. The worst thing was, I knew this guy in my past life. Idiot. Yesterday, totally different. And thank heaven, cause this guy wielded a hammer. Yep.
If you're prone to fainting at the description of primitive medical practices that aren't really so primitive at all but involve steel hammers and a very humorous radiologist with giant biceps, I suggest you skip this paragraph. This guy started out by answering every question we had about the scheduled procedures: bone biopsy and port placement. If you need an explanation, by all means do a google search. He went through my PET scans and very thoroughly explained why trying to biopsy any of the bones but the pelvis (for those who don't know, my bone metastes are scattered quite evenly throughout my body--back, femur, pelvis, ribs, neck, hell, probably even the pinky toe--which we'll promptly amputate should it show up on the PET). So he explained that he'd deaden me and then pound a railroad spike through my skin and into my bone in order to get a sample for biopsy. It's important to biopsy the bone so that we know that the cancer in the bones is the same cancer that's in the breast. So we, duh, treat the right cancers.
So the bone biopsy is CT scan guided, meaning I lay on the long, narrow CT bed and they run me in and out till they find the spot on my bone. Because it works differently than the PET scan, it's sometimes more difficult to find, and you can't do PET guided bone scans (don't ask me why---again, google.) So they ran me in and out a few times, then he came in and started to deaden my pelvis. It worked for awhile till he sank that needle to the bone, and I screamed. So he deadened some more and I screamed still. So he deadened some more and it sort of felt better. And then I began to start my pass-out process. It's a cool party trick--I start to vasal vagal, then my face goes white as a ghost and I start to lose consciousness. It's an anxiety reaction, and it happens to me when I start to fear the pain too much. I do really well till the anesthetic isn't working. Fortunately, an ice pack, oxygen and getting my feet up can usually keep me from passing out completely. He kept working throughout, first tapping the needle in lightly, then pounding harder and harder. After ten or so hammers (worthy of a very motivated construction crew) he and his staff would leave the room, run me into the CT scanner so he could see if the needle was on top of the white spot that indicated bone metastases, and then come back in, slightly reposition the needle if necessary, pound a little more, and then do it all again. I think I went in and out of that CT scanner nearly 30 times, but I didn't count. I could be exaggerating. But probably not. I never exaggerate.
Finally he got the needle in far enough. Then he began an exercise best described as churning butter. He yanked that needle back and forth so he could actually work the bone sample out and into the needle. Otherwise, WHAT WOULD BE THE POINT???!!! He was successful, I'm happy to say, and my poor pelvis hasn't seen that much action since little Liza-loo sat on it for two and half weeks too long back in '06. After it was all said and done, he removed the railroad spike (his words, not mine,) and quipped, "Another bloodless operation." Seriously, he deserves sainthood, even with a hammer. Maybe Dr. MC Hammer Saint.
Then, I waited on that table while he spoke to Dr. Paul about a chest port rather than an arm port. Basically, I chose the chest port for the simple reason that it goes into a bigger vein, has a shorter way to travel, and, the vein it uses, the jugular, has a twin on the other side of my neck, so if the one with the catheter gets some clotting going on, there's another perfectly gigantic vein on the other side of my neck so my head won't swell......bigger, of course, than it already has given my national acclaim as a magazine publisher. The arm port goes through the only vein feeding the arm, and can sometimes cause the arm to swell up really large. ew.
SO....I waited. And I wept. These vasal vagal reactions always just kill me emotionally. I feel so out of control, so unable to connect with my mind in order to still my fear and slow down the shrinkage of my blood vessels. It's incredibly disempowering and I feel vulnerable, small and scared. They're never within my control, and try as I might, I can't make them stop. They are a tiny microcosm of this last three weeks, and they serve as an emotional valve, I think where I can let out all the stress. It's not cathartic, though. I don't feel brave, or strong. Also, as a side note, I don't do platitudes well. They make me snarky. I know I'm brave and strong, and I'll kick ass on this. But there are times I'm not, and I think this is an important place to purpose to visit every so often. As I've made a career out of, denying those dark places doesn't make me strong--it makes me a person who lives in denial. I want to keep embracing the nuance of this beautiful life, even the moments where the loss of control, of plans, of hopes and dreams and finally feeling like I have a place in this world I love seem to have been ripped from me capriciously, with no real reason, damn the platitudinal crap. Yesterday, I got my bone pounded in to with a hammer, and it hurt like hell. That's it. No real lesson, no wise and spiritual moment. Just tears and loss and a deep grief.
The port placement was a piece of fucking cake after that. The doctor was great, kept making goofy comments like "Hey, Heidi, can you clean up those pools of blood all over the floor?" They gave me some happy drugs through my lovely jugular veins, for which I was infinitely grateful, and we were done and on our way. But I cried all day. It was just too much. I know that the biopsy was important, despite my platitudinal rant earlier, to identify the cancer, but it was just too much.
We went to visit the twins--the miracle babies that I'm proud to call my niece and nephew--Bridget and Landon, and got to hold them and let our girls meet their cousins. It was therapeutic to hold them and kiss their soft little cheeks. As my Hoochie Mamas can attest to, I do love holding a baby--anyone's baby, a stranger at Starbucks who I pick and ends up writing for my really cool mag, a woman at Birth Chat who has an amazing sense of humor and a resilient spirit unlike many I've met, and last night was no different, save for the fact that they're not strangers. I'll post some pics of me and them when Missy sends them along.
We had dinner at Chili's, swapped cars with my in-laws who took the kids home to Loveland for the night, and then I spent the evening watching raunchy comedy shows on cable that made me laugh. And hanging out with Clark. He, also, deserves to be sainted. Because, the truth is, I've always wanted to be a princess, and I'm fairly good at giving orders. I'm trying to refrain--I'm pretty sure being somewhat independent and maintaining my drivenness is a better cocktail to go with chemo than demanding service from my subjects. Though, the fresh coffee in the morning is a major plus.
THEN, today! Redemption in the form of cytotoxic drugs pumping into my system. The rain in Denver this morning served as an apt allusion to the drugs washing away the cancer cells. After all of this messy, devastating process, the culmination felt incredibly empowering, sitting there watching what one doctor called a "space-age drug", Herceptin being pumped into my body to fight with and for me. It took about six hours from start to finish, including exams and seeing the doctor, getting IV fluids and anti-nausea and then the chemo drugs. Fortunately, I didn't have any reactions--I'm so grateful--I was done with enough lack of control after yesterday.
I met a man who presented, a year-and-a-half ago, with stage four esophageal cancer. It's now in his stomach, and it seems as though he comes in every day. He has a five-year-old and has just learned to fly fish. His name is Bart, and he's obviously a fighter. We started swapping around dark, morbid, cancer humor (my favorite kind), and he told me all the t-shirts and buttons he's made using CafePress. My favorite was: I'm making cancer my bitch. LOVE IT. I told him about my "Stage Four, I'm not your whore," and he appreciated it. Of course I gave him copies of get born (you didn't think I would forget it, did you--prime audience--chemo patients who can't move for four hours.) I asked him to write this next issue's Dad's column for me. So, duh, if you haven't subscribed, now would be a good time. I was deeply appreciative of his warmth, and humanness. A really great welcome from someone who I already know qualifies as one of "our people."
I got to come home to a clean house, because, oh, my ever-loving-Lord, five women from my neighborhood came over this morning, cleaned my entire house while also, I'm told, spilling coffee and playing spies with my daughters, and did all our laundry. Kick ass village action going on over at the Janssen crib. Basically, I think a group of suburban retired women threw a party and didn't invite me, and managed to get some cleaning done in the process. It was so amazing to come home to a clean house and laundry folded and done. Get this: they even changed the sheets. Heather Janssen's #1 True Confession: I never change the sheets.......on the top bunk bed.....or any other bed, except for once every several........months. Yes, it's true. I don't feel badly for it, unless there are really nice women doing it for me, and I feel a teency, weency bit of guilt, but, SO glad I didn't have to do it.
Ladies of the 'hood: thank you. We're humbled and truly grateful for your presence and this nice present. Even Gail, who just had shoulder replacement surgery folded laundry and brought over peonies and irises from her garden so we'd have fresh flowers on the table. Give it up for the girls from the 'hood, and also, there's a house for sale two doors down. We do have to approve you before you buy, though, and we require a wicked sense of humor.
Then Melody got home with our three older girls, who she had taken swimming for fourhours this afternoon, fed snacks to, and, oh, also, by the way, brought dinner, too. What the hell? She's pretty sure we have a scam going on--getting all this free food and cool activities with our kids, which we rarely do (see the last post for more details on occasional supermommy moments). I think she's right--we'll wake up tomorrow and it will all be a really sordid dream involving Clark and me exploiting the kindness of new and old friends, strangers, church family, acquaintances and random waitresses at Chili's. Yes, indeed. Let's hope so. Thanks, Melody. Clark and I both love your straight shooting style. Clark hinted once to her that he was getting prepared for what was ahead, exuding some confidence at what he knew was coming, and she deadpanned, "No you don't." She would know. We're grateful for you, lady.
So this couple of days ends well. I am content in our plan, peaceful in the knowledge that I, along with a more incredible community than I can have ever even imagined, as well as some kick-ass drugs, are now engaged in the eye of this storm, and fighting with all our power, prayers, moxy and tears. It's a good place, found in a profound place of dark fear. This, I believe, is a good, working definition of God.
Yesterday was one of my hardest emotionally. We dropped the girls at Janalee's (she's a brilliant, creative friend who creates the funniest, realistic, "life as it really is in the trenches of motherhood" cards: check them out--I've probably sent a few e-cards to each of you at one time or another: www.motherhoodwithattitude.com (What's not to love about a company with a name like that?) She lives about two steps from Rose Medical Center, which is where our treatments are, and has offered me the bed in her basement closet anytime. She's such a doll. She also facilitated a lemonade stand, in the rain, with six little girls in princess dresses (Katie, excluded of course, who, at eight, is too old for dress-up, unless it's Pioneer Girls, and who wrote out the sign.) I posted the photo in "photos."
We then made our way to Cherry Creek Imaging, a lovely facility housed......in a bank. We figured that the screams and moans coming from the biopsy locale serves as a proxy "Debtor's Prison," warding off the potential riff-raff that might seek to take advantage of their financial generosity. The radiologist would do well to give the McKee radiologist who did my breast biopsy a little tutorial in patient sensitivity when dealing with people who's lives have just come crashing down. The Loveland yoohah was a complete asshole who looked confused when we said "Lydocane" and then came out to talk to Clark after the biopsy, barely made eye contact, quipped callously, "I'd be surprised if it wasn't cancer" and walked off. The worst thing was, I knew this guy in my past life. Idiot. Yesterday, totally different. And thank heaven, cause this guy wielded a hammer. Yep.
If you're prone to fainting at the description of primitive medical practices that aren't really so primitive at all but involve steel hammers and a very humorous radiologist with giant biceps, I suggest you skip this paragraph. This guy started out by answering every question we had about the scheduled procedures: bone biopsy and port placement. If you need an explanation, by all means do a google search. He went through my PET scans and very thoroughly explained why trying to biopsy any of the bones but the pelvis (for those who don't know, my bone metastes are scattered quite evenly throughout my body--back, femur, pelvis, ribs, neck, hell, probably even the pinky toe--which we'll promptly amputate should it show up on the PET). So he explained that he'd deaden me and then pound a railroad spike through my skin and into my bone in order to get a sample for biopsy. It's important to biopsy the bone so that we know that the cancer in the bones is the same cancer that's in the breast. So we, duh, treat the right cancers.
So the bone biopsy is CT scan guided, meaning I lay on the long, narrow CT bed and they run me in and out till they find the spot on my bone. Because it works differently than the PET scan, it's sometimes more difficult to find, and you can't do PET guided bone scans (don't ask me why---again, google.) So they ran me in and out a few times, then he came in and started to deaden my pelvis. It worked for awhile till he sank that needle to the bone, and I screamed. So he deadened some more and I screamed still. So he deadened some more and it sort of felt better. And then I began to start my pass-out process. It's a cool party trick--I start to vasal vagal, then my face goes white as a ghost and I start to lose consciousness. It's an anxiety reaction, and it happens to me when I start to fear the pain too much. I do really well till the anesthetic isn't working. Fortunately, an ice pack, oxygen and getting my feet up can usually keep me from passing out completely. He kept working throughout, first tapping the needle in lightly, then pounding harder and harder. After ten or so hammers (worthy of a very motivated construction crew) he and his staff would leave the room, run me into the CT scanner so he could see if the needle was on top of the white spot that indicated bone metastases, and then come back in, slightly reposition the needle if necessary, pound a little more, and then do it all again. I think I went in and out of that CT scanner nearly 30 times, but I didn't count. I could be exaggerating. But probably not. I never exaggerate.
Finally he got the needle in far enough. Then he began an exercise best described as churning butter. He yanked that needle back and forth so he could actually work the bone sample out and into the needle. Otherwise, WHAT WOULD BE THE POINT???!!! He was successful, I'm happy to say, and my poor pelvis hasn't seen that much action since little Liza-loo sat on it for two and half weeks too long back in '06. After it was all said and done, he removed the railroad spike (his words, not mine,) and quipped, "Another bloodless operation." Seriously, he deserves sainthood, even with a hammer. Maybe Dr. MC Hammer Saint.
Then, I waited on that table while he spoke to Dr. Paul about a chest port rather than an arm port. Basically, I chose the chest port for the simple reason that it goes into a bigger vein, has a shorter way to travel, and, the vein it uses, the jugular, has a twin on the other side of my neck, so if the one with the catheter gets some clotting going on, there's another perfectly gigantic vein on the other side of my neck so my head won't swell......bigger, of course, than it already has given my national acclaim as a magazine publisher. The arm port goes through the only vein feeding the arm, and can sometimes cause the arm to swell up really large. ew.
SO....I waited. And I wept. These vasal vagal reactions always just kill me emotionally. I feel so out of control, so unable to connect with my mind in order to still my fear and slow down the shrinkage of my blood vessels. It's incredibly disempowering and I feel vulnerable, small and scared. They're never within my control, and try as I might, I can't make them stop. They are a tiny microcosm of this last three weeks, and they serve as an emotional valve, I think where I can let out all the stress. It's not cathartic, though. I don't feel brave, or strong. Also, as a side note, I don't do platitudes well. They make me snarky. I know I'm brave and strong, and I'll kick ass on this. But there are times I'm not, and I think this is an important place to purpose to visit every so often. As I've made a career out of, denying those dark places doesn't make me strong--it makes me a person who lives in denial. I want to keep embracing the nuance of this beautiful life, even the moments where the loss of control, of plans, of hopes and dreams and finally feeling like I have a place in this world I love seem to have been ripped from me capriciously, with no real reason, damn the platitudinal crap. Yesterday, I got my bone pounded in to with a hammer, and it hurt like hell. That's it. No real lesson, no wise and spiritual moment. Just tears and loss and a deep grief.
The port placement was a piece of fucking cake after that. The doctor was great, kept making goofy comments like "Hey, Heidi, can you clean up those pools of blood all over the floor?" They gave me some happy drugs through my lovely jugular veins, for which I was infinitely grateful, and we were done and on our way. But I cried all day. It was just too much. I know that the biopsy was important, despite my platitudinal rant earlier, to identify the cancer, but it was just too much.
We went to visit the twins--the miracle babies that I'm proud to call my niece and nephew--Bridget and Landon, and got to hold them and let our girls meet their cousins. It was therapeutic to hold them and kiss their soft little cheeks. As my Hoochie Mamas can attest to, I do love holding a baby--anyone's baby, a stranger at Starbucks who I pick and ends up writing for my really cool mag, a woman at Birth Chat who has an amazing sense of humor and a resilient spirit unlike many I've met, and last night was no different, save for the fact that they're not strangers. I'll post some pics of me and them when Missy sends them along.
We had dinner at Chili's, swapped cars with my in-laws who took the kids home to Loveland for the night, and then I spent the evening watching raunchy comedy shows on cable that made me laugh. And hanging out with Clark. He, also, deserves to be sainted. Because, the truth is, I've always wanted to be a princess, and I'm fairly good at giving orders. I'm trying to refrain--I'm pretty sure being somewhat independent and maintaining my drivenness is a better cocktail to go with chemo than demanding service from my subjects. Though, the fresh coffee in the morning is a major plus.
THEN, today! Redemption in the form of cytotoxic drugs pumping into my system. The rain in Denver this morning served as an apt allusion to the drugs washing away the cancer cells. After all of this messy, devastating process, the culmination felt incredibly empowering, sitting there watching what one doctor called a "space-age drug", Herceptin being pumped into my body to fight with and for me. It took about six hours from start to finish, including exams and seeing the doctor, getting IV fluids and anti-nausea and then the chemo drugs. Fortunately, I didn't have any reactions--I'm so grateful--I was done with enough lack of control after yesterday.
I met a man who presented, a year-and-a-half ago, with stage four esophageal cancer. It's now in his stomach, and it seems as though he comes in every day. He has a five-year-old and has just learned to fly fish. His name is Bart, and he's obviously a fighter. We started swapping around dark, morbid, cancer humor (my favorite kind), and he told me all the t-shirts and buttons he's made using CafePress. My favorite was: I'm making cancer my bitch. LOVE IT. I told him about my "Stage Four, I'm not your whore," and he appreciated it. Of course I gave him copies of get born (you didn't think I would forget it, did you--prime audience--chemo patients who can't move for four hours.) I asked him to write this next issue's Dad's column for me. So, duh, if you haven't subscribed, now would be a good time. I was deeply appreciative of his warmth, and humanness. A really great welcome from someone who I already know qualifies as one of "our people."
I got to come home to a clean house, because, oh, my ever-loving-Lord, five women from my neighborhood came over this morning, cleaned my entire house while also, I'm told, spilling coffee and playing spies with my daughters, and did all our laundry. Kick ass village action going on over at the Janssen crib. Basically, I think a group of suburban retired women threw a party and didn't invite me, and managed to get some cleaning done in the process. It was so amazing to come home to a clean house and laundry folded and done. Get this: they even changed the sheets. Heather Janssen's #1 True Confession: I never change the sheets.......on the top bunk bed.....or any other bed, except for once every several........months. Yes, it's true. I don't feel badly for it, unless there are really nice women doing it for me, and I feel a teency, weency bit of guilt, but, SO glad I didn't have to do it.
Ladies of the 'hood: thank you. We're humbled and truly grateful for your presence and this nice present. Even Gail, who just had shoulder replacement surgery folded laundry and brought over peonies and irises from her garden so we'd have fresh flowers on the table. Give it up for the girls from the 'hood, and also, there's a house for sale two doors down. We do have to approve you before you buy, though, and we require a wicked sense of humor.
Then Melody got home with our three older girls, who she had taken swimming for fourhours this afternoon, fed snacks to, and, oh, also, by the way, brought dinner, too. What the hell? She's pretty sure we have a scam going on--getting all this free food and cool activities with our kids, which we rarely do (see the last post for more details on occasional supermommy moments). I think she's right--we'll wake up tomorrow and it will all be a really sordid dream involving Clark and me exploiting the kindness of new and old friends, strangers, church family, acquaintances and random waitresses at Chili's. Yes, indeed. Let's hope so. Thanks, Melody. Clark and I both love your straight shooting style. Clark hinted once to her that he was getting prepared for what was ahead, exuding some confidence at what he knew was coming, and she deadpanned, "No you don't." She would know. We're grateful for you, lady.
So this couple of days ends well. I am content in our plan, peaceful in the knowledge that I, along with a more incredible community than I can have ever even imagined, as well as some kick-ass drugs, are now engaged in the eye of this storm, and fighting with all our power, prayers, moxy and tears. It's a good place, found in a profound place of dark fear. This, I believe, is a good, working definition of God.
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