One down; Four to go.

I realized today that Tuesday was the one-year anniversary of the last drug infusion I received for any cancer-related evils.  According to my doctor, that date, November 10, 2008, is the date from which we begin counting down until five years after treatment finishes.  After November 10, 2013, I will be completely and absolutely and totally finished with Everything cancer-related.  No more PET scans, no more labs, not nearly as much grief.  As I mentioned, I have already (somehow?) survived one year.  Fittingly, today was both an awesome and a God-awful day.  I wish, wish, wish that I was sharing this time with my friends, but they all seem to have scattered across the globe.  Instead, I'll highlight what I do have and what thoughts have been running laps around my mind-track all day.

Awesome: I went for a run today.  I have talked enough about how proud I am of myself that I can do this.  One year ago, forget it.  The resiliency of our bodies will never cease to amaze me.  Respect them!

Also awesome: the cute guy at the gym knows my name!  Granted, he works at the check-in desk, so I should hope he knows my name, but I will take what I can get.  He still said, "Hey, Caroline," with his cute smile, as I walked in.  score.  Too bad I look like a total scrub at the gym.

God-awful: the Chicago Bears.  If you follow football at all, I need not say more.  Either way, I won't say more.  What a disappointment.

Now the other dingy thoughts...  

I think one year ago was the beginning of a bit of an emotional free-fall for me.  I ignored and now have had to deal with a lot of post-treatment issues.  Identity, body image, self-worth...  All problems young adults struggle with, but problems that I could no longer address separately from cancer-specific issues like blood counts and suspicious masses and such.  Everything got rolled together into one big "cancer survivor" blob.  I stuffed the blob away for a while while I was in Washington, DC, but after that whirlwind semester, I was left with a lot of time on my hands and not too many answers.

I have gradually been able to sort some things out.  I am certainly in a better place than one year ago.  I probably won't be spending the next three weeks going to bars instead of doing my homework and dating a crazy, hippie Berklee student instead of, well, doing my homework.  Haha, immediately after finishing treatment, I tried to cram two-years worth of college-ridiculousness into just about five weeks.  For a brief period of time, I was the fearless, feckless college student I secretly wished I always had been.  And then it was over, and I was too busy in Washington to have time to feel cheated of anything.

So I have spent the past few months working through some latent psychological issues.  I'm nowhere near at peace with myself and my cancer, but it has only been a year.  A pretty busy year, but I am in a good place right now to keep moving forward.

This b-log was and is still about the experiences of a 20 year old cancer patient, now survivor (me).  I don't really have any more medical updates, since I finished the majority of that business One year ago.  Hopefully, I will never, Ever have any more major medical updates.  What follows the physical treatment is the hard part though.  Dealing with chemo and all of its associated side-effects stinks, but it is pretty straightforward.  You get a drug; you get sick from the drug; you feel better, eventually.  There are no real precedents for sorting out life as a college graduate/cancer survivor/woman/journalism major/cancer survivor.  People have been through similar situations and prevailed, and I look to them for support and guidance, but they can't necessarily tell me where to find the strength to face tomorrow.  Only I know that (it's in my toes, actually), but verbalizing my struggles still helps me tremendously.  Maybe one day it will help another 20 year-old leukemia patient.  I hope this whole narrative is still somewhat (...?) relatable, if not at least mildly engrossing.  (Although, actually, if it has ceased to be either, please tell me to keep it all to myself.  I'm sure my print journal would appreciate your honesty.)

Otherwise, hooray long post!!  That's what's been on my mind.  I am cancer clean, baby.  Let's keep it that way for a good long while.  Happy weekend to all, and to all a happy weekend.  Peas.

Hear, hear.

SPORTS OF THE TIMES

Abdul-Jabbar Goes Public With Leukemia Fight

Every day, so many people receive cancer diagnoses.  Very few of us have any sort of widespread public recognition, especially to the extent of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and I thank him for speaking out against the stigmas of cancer, particularly leukemia.  We are all fighting those stigmas and doing what we can in our own ways, whether it be blogging or donating to a foundation or speaking at events.  We put ourselves out there for others to see that we are OK, normal even.  My favorite quote from that article is, "'My first reaction was to deal with it, make that fight for my life.'"  

We are all dealing with it, however we can.  And by humanizing these diseases, all of us are hopefully making it easier for someone else to deal with it tomorrow.  So thank you to everyone who is taking their illness and using their experiences to prove that life does and will continue to go on.  It is still scary, but cancer should no longer be the unspeakable, lurking menace that it once was.  

And that's today's bit of cancer news.  Even basketball stars get cancer.  Even basketball stars.

Who or What is my audience? Do I even still have an audience?

Hooray!!  I have officially reached 1,000 profile views!  Granted, a few of those are mine, but regardless...  I have As Many profile views as Robert Caplin, who is significantly more awesome than me.  Seriously.  This man is twenty-freaking-six years old, and just look at his body of work, already!  How did he get there?  That is what I want to know, as I am sitting in my kitchen two hours before I leave for work at Starbucks.  How does one find success doing what they love?  Talent, definitely.  He is clearly talented.  And drive, determination, all of that.  I know the formula, but I am a little fuzzy (okay, a lot fuzzy) on the execution.  Maybe one day I'll figure out what I want to do when I grow up and what I need to do to get there.  Or I'll swallow my fear and ask for help...  Haha, who knows.

In the meantime, I am slowly figuring out what to do with myself in the present tense.  I work; I run every other day; and I am starting to volunteer.  With whom, do you ask, am I volunteering?  Well.  There is a non-profit organization based here in Chicago that I heard about nearly three years ago when I was home and receiving chemo.  At the time, I was too stubborn and self-absorbed to think much about the group and how it could help me.  Now, however, I have realized, especially after being in Wyoming with other cancer survivors, that this group would have helped me tremendously while I was in treatment, but as it is, it is my turn to help.  So what is this fantastic organization?  Imerman Angels.  It is a cancer support group that pairs current cancer patients with survivors, "Angels."  The mission and intent of the organization is that no person should have to feel so isolated and alone while dealing with cancer.  Somewhere, someone else has gone through a similar experience, and the Angels aim to match those people - someone to talk to who understands.  It was founded by Jonny Imerman who is easily one of the most charismatic and genuinely nice people I have ever met.  I have met him twice now, the second time this past Monday at a fundraiser, and both times I have been completely blown away by his attitude and kindness.  His commitment to and belief in Imerman Angels is so amazing; it is rare to find someone so truly and completely dedicated to helping others.  You meet him and cannot help but want to do everything you possibly can for his cause.

So, I wanted to be a part of this group.  After my experience in Wyoming, I realized how important it is to have a support group who understands what you've gone through.  Also, the volunteers participate in a bunch of different fun fundraisers all the time, and I figure it is a good way to get out there and meet people with similar interests.  It's good, and I am excited to really start helping.

Otherwise, that is about it.  I still think about cancer every single day but no longer all the time, every day.  I am slowly letting it stop controlling me, although it's tough, sometimes, to just let it go.  To learn and move on.  I wish I had a firmer plan for my future; it is really disconcerting not having something to work towards, like a graduation.  Oh well.  Anywhoo, keep on keeping on, and have a spectacular weekend!  I certainly will, and let me know if you would like a free pound of Starbucks coffee.  Word.

The more things change, the more they Really Do stay the same...

Remember that one time I blogged about how I was listening to Hambone's Blues Party on my jazz station?  Probably not, considering the post was from 27 months ago.  2 and 1/4 years ago, I was sitting in this same papasan chair, listening to this same Blues Party.  Weird.  And yet 2 and 1/4 years ago, I was right smack in the middle of all things cancer-related and chemo-induced.  An interesting point of note.   I wrote, on July 12, 2007, this:  

"I can't walk (jump...) up six stairs without my heart pounding like a maniac. And when I stand up, I get these super cool black-outs. Oh well. Hopefully I'll get a blood transfusion tomorrow, or Monday at the latest. But either way, I think having blood and not having to worry about it mysteriously disappearing is what I am looking forward to the most when this treatment is finished. I can't wait to be able to run again, to be able to jump out of my chair without needing to grab on to something solid for balance."

It is definitely fair to say that having blood is one of the perks of being healthy.  I haven't had a "super cool black-out" in just about two years.  Finally, I am able to run again.  My old-self would probably be pissed at my now-self because it has taken me so long to get consistent with the running, but hey, me, it's been a long road and full of setbacks.  (My old-self was a little harsher and more demanding of itself.)

So here I am on October 15, 2009, in the same place physically but in such an entirely different place mentally, emotionally, and all the other -allys.  I still love the blues, still need the blues to satisfy that part of me that craves, well, the blues, I guess.  Aside from the music, though, very little is the same.  Actually, everything has changed, as well it should have, considering the events of the past three years.

I want to make sure it is clear that while I may be unsatisfied with where my body physically is at this point in my life, namely, living at home, I am happier with myself than I have ever been in my life.  I am more in love with living than I have ever been.  Part of that is definitely attributable to the anti-depressants I started taking about a year ago, but mostly it is that I have grown into myself.  I hope my post from a few posts ago didn't make anyone think I am sitting around moping or depressed or anything like that.  If anything, I am frustrated and angry that I haven't pushed myself harder.  I am scared out of my mind about the future, but I guess I neglected to mention that I am also So Freaking Excited about the possibilities ahead.  We all question our past and our past decisions, to some extent, and for me, that involves wondering if I would be here had I not gotten cancer.  But those thoughts are totally useless and, indeed, tend to be super destructive.  So I'm trying not to go there.  Instead, I am here.  I am here, but I am a totally different person from the me who was here 2 and 1/4 years ago, and I am pretty damn happy with who I am now.

So that's what's up on this rainy Thursday night in the suburbs.  Life and reality get me down sometimes, but I'm human.  It would be strange if they didn't.  So I'm sorry if I brought anyone down with me last week.  It is what it is, and tomorrow is a new day.  Smile and muddle through.  Peace, love, and blues riffs all around.

2:05:41

2 hours, 5 minutes and 41 seconds.  That is the time in which Samuel Wanjiru, of Kenya, ran the Chicago Marathon this morning.  It was a new course record, smashing the old record by a whopping one second.  It is also the fastest marathon anyone has ever run in the US.  (All facts according to the Chicago Tribune).  Never to be outdone by the men, the Russian Lilliya Shobukhova won in 2:25:56, and this was only her second marathon.

These athletes are Runners.  They are my inspiration, the catalysts propelling me out of bed and onto the street on a cloudy Wednesday morning before work.  Okay, not these two athletes specifically, but I have been reading a whole lot about marathoners and ultrarunners lately, dreaming and wondering if I could ever reach that level of achievement.  So am I a runner?  Someone posted that question after my last post (thanks!), and it has been pestering me ever since, hence the long post reply.

I definitely consider myself a runner, lower-case "r".  I started running as a junior in high school.  When I first started running on my own though, I could only run for five minutes at about a 10-minute mile before I had to take a walk lap.  But I kept at it; it got to the point where if I didn't run my 10, then 15, then 30 minutes, I would feel terrible.  Unfortunately, when I was running in high school, I was running for the wrong reasons, and I was being stupid about it.  Basically, I was running 5 plus miles and then going to the gym for another 20 or 30 minutes on a bike, as well as some basic weight training, but I was only eating maybe 1200 or 1500 calories a day.  I was obsessed with counting calories, and I am pretty sure that is the definition of an eating disorder.  So senior year, I had a revelation and stopped working out like a maniac.  I put on a bunch of weight, and my running went on hold.

For the next two years, it was the same sort of story.  I would take long breaks between running, only to have a resurgence of motivation to go back on the treadmill or run along the Charles River.  I think I was finally in a good spot, health-wise, the summer of 2006, after freshman year.  I ran 3 to 5 miles a few times a week, and I was biking maybe 50 or 60 miles a week.  And I was eating!  Maybe not as well as I could have, but it was an improvement.  After that though, life got in the way, once more.  I found out I had cancer, blah blah, and I have spent the past two years after returning to Boston struggling to gain some consistency as a runner.  It has been very hard for me though, because I was sick so frequently over the past two years.  And then last year's face tumor?  Forget it.

But now, finally, after three years of ill-health, I am starting to feel like a normal person again.  I am very gradually building miles, very slowly increasing my weekly distance.  This time, however, while still partially weight-motivated, I am doing this because I want to.  I love running, tying up my shoes and taking off, not thinking about anything besides my breathing for at least a little while.  I want to be a Runner, and I think, maybe, possibly I can do it.  Maybe not ultras, not yet anyway.  Baby steps.  S0 here is my goal, out there on the Internet.  If anyone wants to help, please, do:

In one year, I want to run in the Chicago Marathon.  That is the first part.  The second, somewhat loftier goal: I want to qualify for the 2011 Boston Marathon.  Qualifying times for the 2010 Boston Marathon are 3 hours and 40 minutes-ish.  That means running about an 8 minute, 15 second mile for 26.2 miles.  I think I can do it.  I figure, since the 2010 Chicago Marathon is in exactly 12 months, if I give myself 6 months to build up my mileage, I can use the last 6 months to work on speed.  I want to do it, to say, Screw You, Cancer.  All I wanted, the whole time I was in treatment and for the last two years, was to feel healthy, to be able to run again.  So here I go; I can run again, and that damn disease ain't got nothing on me.  I hope.

How old are we, really?

I have officially been kicking and screaming and fighting through life for 23 years.  I don't know if I will be doing it for another 23 years, but I am nonetheless still here, now.  If I do make it to 46 though, who will I have become?  How will I remember these years: so close to a cancer diagnosis, a struggling twenty-something in a terrible economy, living at home, trying to start getting serious about running, so unnecessarily self-conscious?  Will I still be a commitment-phobe, terrified of allowing myself to be vulnerable?  Let it be known and forever out there in the world (read: the Internets) that my biggest fear is that I will grow old as a jobless and achingly alone chubby woman.  The first part of the fear is totally unreasonable, and I know that, but it is still there.  The second part is slightly, if only very slightly, more realistic.  Hopefully this running thing will help combat the very last bit.

It's just that at this exact moment in time, I am so frightened.  None of us can foresee the future; no one knows when or how the economy will recover.  All the doomsayers of the world are predicting terrible things for the earth unless we make drastic changes.  And closer to home, people keep getting cancer diagnoses.  All of the negative "what ifs" are enough to make a person just want to disappear, to give in to nothingness.

It's funny (to me) that after everything I have survived already, I am panicking.  I feel like I'm drowning back here at home.  Dry waterboarding, if you will.  There is a little nagging voice in the back of my head reminding me, if I let it, that this was Never the plan; this stagnation is all Cancer's fault.  When that squeaky voice starts calling out to me, my future seems so bleak.  If I start to let myself give into those thoughts, everything else, all of my walls of strength and purpose, starts to crumble.  Every single day I have to tell myself, almost yell at myself, that this is temporary.  I am only 23; there are many, many years ahead of me, and the vast majority of them will not be spent living with my parents in suburban hell.  I think my difficulty accepting that arises because I feel so much older than I really am.  Perhaps that's a selfish and vain thing to say, but I am already just so tired.

My faith, shaky as it is, is enough for me to want to believe that everything happens for a reason and has a purpose.  I spent more than a few nights over the past three years struggling with the questions like, "why did I get cancer?" and of course, "what am I supposed to do with this?"  Those sorts of queries are important to consider, but they are often unanswerable, especially when the person is still emotionally invested in getting better.  Never before have I had so little direction.  High school was all about succeeding and getting to college.  B.C. (before cancer), college was all about double-majoring and earning money and gaining my total independence.  Cancer was all about beating cancer and getting back to school.  Then school, once more, was all about reconciling who I was with who I thought I should be, and graduating on time.  My goals were short term because I didn't know how to think about the long term.  I could only focus on getting through each day as it came to me.

But now, I can't seem to come up with any long-term goals.  There is too much uncertainty, too many variables.  Currently, I work at Starbucks, which I really do love and am fairly decent at, but I can't stay there forever.  I don't know if I will ever be a professional photographer or if that's even what I want.  Also, cancer again working its sticky tentacles into my life, I would like to do something in the young-adult cancer world, but it is difficult starting over in Chicago, a city with its own and many cancer celebrities.  There is this fun little knot of anxiety pulsing in my chest that had disappeared for a while back when I was in school and focused, but it seems to have returned.  I can almost reach down my throat and pull it out.  I wish I could throw it away along with the two-year old cake from the freezer I tossed earlier today.

AnyWay.  Please excuse my rambling ons.  Ramblings on?  One of them or both.  This is what is on my mind, and this is still my b-log, and everything is connected, somehow, to cancer.  Or maybe it's the weather.  So.  On that note, I hope everyone's weeks are going a bit more smoothly than mine.  Thank you so much if you are still reading here.  I'll be looking to you guys to buy the book when I write it!  haha.  You don't have to read it, necessarily, just leave it artfully placed at an angle on your coffee table.  :)  K, peace.

Eh? What? What's that? Speak up; I can't hear you!

Or something to that extent...  Prior to September 22, this past Tuesday, these are all phrases you would have heard from me at some point.  Prior to September 22, I had mild to moderate hearing loss in my right ear as a result of the Face Tumor.  Apparently when the tumor melted away (that's the technical term), it caused a bunch of scarring in my sinus area, which in turn closed up whichever ear tube allows for fluid drainage (also the technical term).  Basically, there was a large amount of fluid just chilling in my ear because it had nowhere to go, which meant I couldn't really hear out of my right ear.

Whew.  So.  Finally, after multiple ENT visits and more than a handful of frustrating delays, on September 22, this past Tuesday, I had a tympanoplasty and tube procedure on my right ear.  That really is the technical term.  For those of us who are not certified otolaryngologists, the doctor went through my ear drum and stuck a tube in my right ear.  After some mild sedation that turned out to be some serious general anesthetic and fifteen minutes of blissed out blankness, I can hear!  And there hasn't even been any strange ear-discharge.  Hooray...?  I guess this is the procedure doctors do on a lot of little kids with persistent ear infections.  In yet another example of how things come back to haunt you, I can distinctly remember being maybe five years old and freaked out by the other kids my age who had these weird plugs in their ears at the pool.  I wasn't a very accepting little person, and now here I am under strict orders not to get Any water in my right ear.  Ear plugs, here I come.  Apparently, it is very unusual for someone my age to have this procedure done.  So said my doctor to my mother.  He was a good, nice guy, the doc, but he was kind of oblivious.  Yeah, most almost-23-year olds don't have ear tubes put in.  Most of us don't get leukemia and face tumors either.  Deal.

Regardless, it is so strange to have surround sound in my head again.  I was in Target yesterday, and there was noise everywhere.  I was freaking out a bit because I didn't know what was coming from where.  But I am adjusting, and I am so happy.  I can hold my cell phone up to my right ear again.  I can stand to the left of someone and carry on a normal conversation without having to move to their right side so I can actually hear what they're saying.  I can go to bars again and actually talk to people!  The possibilities are endless.

So that's what's good here.  Also, I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned this, and I will only do so briefly now, but I am currently living at home and working at the Starbucks in our little downtown.  So I am employed in some fashion, although it is Very weird for me to be living back here again.  So many memories that I would prefer to put in a little box for the time being and let them get dusty....  But I'm getting by, saving money, that whole big deal.  Life is okay.  Hope yours is as well.  Peaves.