Cancer Sucks

Last night I received a text from a friend that said "will u pls call me when u can".  While it's tough to read inflection in a text, I sensed something was wrong for some reason. Unfortunately my instincts were right.  She had just found out one of her girlfriends was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  She thought that because I have experience with this type of thing I might be able to guide her as to how she and others could help this family. 

I still can't believe that I have "experience" with this kind of thing. 

While I don't know this woman well, I know her well enough to know that she is not the poster child for cancer.  From the outside she's a strong, thin, active, healthy-looking, beautiful, 30-something-year-old woman. 30-something. She's a runner who takes good care of herself and her family. She has a strong faith in God, puts Him and family before anything else. And until that fateful day when she decided she had been feeling under the weather just a little too long, there was no indication that the inside of her was any less idyllic than the outside. 

That picture was wrong though, because somehow - in the midst of all that perfection - cancer had grown inside her liver, escaped through the bile ducts and rapidly torn through her entire body.

Last Friday, while I was enjoying the last night of our spring break at the beach playing poker for seashells with my kids, she was having a conversation with hers about her impending death. Earlier this week she asked a friend to take her to get her hair cut because she thought it would be less dramatic as it started falling out from the chemo.  The chemo they've told her most likely won't work.  After the haircut they went to the stationary store.  She wanted paper because she needed to start writing letters to people - to her family - to her children - to read after she's gone. What do you write in a letter like that? How do you put a whole lifetime in to words on one page?

I hate cancer. I really do.  I don't care which organ it clings itself to - liver, breast, colon, whatever - I hate it all.

My freshman writing class taught me that the end of this story should end with a resolution to the climax. Sorry Mrs. D, I'm afraid I have to break the rules this time because right now I've got nothing.  

Is there a way to resolve cancer? 

I hope so. I really hope so. 

The New 30

I may have forgotten to mention this, but I turned 40 last month. Yep, the big 4-0! I honestly thought I'd be more freaked out about it than I was. I mean, this is 40 after all - I'm old now, right?

That is what I thought when I was 30, but now I keep hearing "40 is the new 30" so it must not be all that bad. To be honest, I'm crossing my fingers that 40 is nothing like 30. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't an entirely bad time, but I remember that birthday like it was yesterday for a reason. 

We were in Denver for a visit and the Spicy Chicken organized a surprise party for me at Wazee Supper Club (one of my faves).  My parents and sister completed the surprise by showing up in a limo (from Minnesota!) and all of my best Colorado friends and family were there. Sounds wonderful, right? And it was. The part I'm leaving out, however, is that what I left behind when that limo showed up was an 8 month old baby who cried 24/7, wouldn't take a bottle at all and refused to be held by anyone but me (not even her father). I couldn't remember the last time I slept more than a few hours at a time because she had horrible reflux, could only sleep sitting up and did I mention she wouldn't let anyone else hold her but me? Oh - and I had a two and a half year old who was completely angelic but had a bowel obstruction that sometimes caused her to get so constipated she'd throw up. I wasn't working at the time, which you'd think would be a good thing, but was a major source of stress for me. Do I want to go back to work? What will people think if I don't? What will people think if I do? How will we pay the mortgage if I don't? How will we pay for daycare if I do?????

It was a really uncertain time for me, shrouded by insecurity and an obsession with what others though of me. Couple that with a really bad haircut (what going on there, anyway?), clinical depression and an immense struggle to lose the rest of that pregnancy weight and I was a hot mess!

This isn't to say that I don't have some of those same issues at 40. I'm still struggling to lose that pregnancy weight (what? It's only been 10 years...) and I can't claim I've really figured out the whole career/mom thing yet, but I've definitely learned that my choices  and decisions are just that - MINE - and what others think of them really doesn't matter. Add that to the fact that Katie finally takes a bottle....and 40 is looking pretty damn good!

(PS I apologize to the person who took this picture - I can't remember where I found it)

Brussels Sprouts and Bengay

If there's anything lacking in my diet it's vegetables. I don't need to look at the food pyramid or plate (or whatever shape they're now changing it to) to determine that I certainly don't eat enough. So lately I've been trying to incorporate them as much as possible.  You all know I love me a green smoothie, but even I get sick of them after awhile. And salads? If I have to eat one more stinkin' salad I might lose what is left of my mind.

The solution for this, of course, is to add more veggies to my meals.  While these days it's easy to find almost any vegetable you want at any time of year at the grocery store, during winter the assortment of truly fresh, in season ones are few and far between. Therefore, it didn't take me long to exhaust the list of winter vegetables I enjoyed (one can only eat so much kale and butternut squash soup).

So last week I set out to find some delicious, fabulous in-season vegetables.  Unfortunately I didn't find much other than brussel sprouts, cauliflower and something called treviso. Since I've already determined I don't like cauliflower unless it's mashed and mixed with copious amounts of butter and I still have no clue what treviso is, process of elimination gave me brussel sprouts. Fortunately a friend had recently mentioned they were her kids' favorite vegetable, so  after I fell off my chair in shock from the fact that her kids actually have a favorite vegetable I inquired about how she cooked them (figuring a kid-proof recipe would be perfect for me). She surprised me again with a recipe for roasting them that even I could handle ("throw them on a pan with some olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic and toss them in the oven")!  And, after wandering around the Trader Joe's produce section for ten minutes before finally getting up the nerve to ask "which ones are brussel sprouts?" we were on our way!

While I'd love to be able to say that they are now my kids favorite vegetable, too, I'd be lying. They were, however, a big hit with me and The Spicy Chicken.  I actually loved them so much I attempted to eat them with my eggs the following morning. Eww. While they won't be served for breakfast again, they will be permanently added to our dinner winter vegetable repertoire.  Yum!

The one thing I didn't love so much about the brussel sprouts? The smell.  I didn't actually notice it so much while I was cooking or eating them, but when I got home from the gym later that night it nearly took me out.  

Things got incrementally worse when I remembered I'd finally picked up the Salonpas my friend Erika had recommended a few weeks earlier for my back pain.  After my workout I had The Spicy Chicken carefully place each little pain-reducing sticker one on specific spots on my back. Within in a few minutes I was feeling...like throwing up.  

Don't get me wrong - the Salonpas felt awesome, but the Bengay-like smell, coupled with the brussel sprouts was a combination I would not recommend to anyone.
 
Oh, the price we pay for health...

I'm No Dance Mom, But...

I'm not the type of mom that feels like she needs to live vicariously through her kids.  My parents gave me lots of opportunities growing up, so I had my own time on the court, field, stage, etc.  However,  when my girls (led by Coach Spicy Chicken) earned the opportunity to play in the Virginia Basketball Academy 5/6 Grade Girls Championship game on the University Hall court this weekend, I may have gone a little 'Dance Moms' about it. In all of my years of competition, I never played in a championship, let alone one on a big court like that.

I'm writing about this not to brag about my girls (while I am extremely proud of their efforts, there were only 4 teams in their league so they had a 50% chance of making it...) but rather because I thought the whole experience was so cool.  Actually, I'm pretty sure I thought it was cooler than the girls did, but they're young, what do they know?

I say that sarcastically, of course, but the truth of the matter is that they really don't know how lucky they are.  Most young players never get the chance to play on the floor of the University Hall court with the blue and orange under their feet, lights shining all around them, a real announcer calling their names, Eminem playing at timeouts, complete strangers cheering them on, a former hoopster placing ribbons around their necks.... 

I never did. Until today.  It was awesome.  Oh wait, I didn't actually play, did I? 

Don't worry - I didn't do anything too idiotic (unless you count yelling "Come on ref, you gotta call that - she's hacking my baby!" that one time...).  I did, however, Tweet and post on Facebook about how proud I was of them a little more than they would have liked.  Oh well, there's nothing wrong with being proud, is there?

They ended up losing the game by 4 points, but in my mind the experience itself was worth it.  While the odds that either will find herself playing across the street at John Paul Jones Area some day are pretty slim, it's fun for them to get a little taste of it and dream that it might happen some day.  And in the event that it doesn't, at least she has the memory of playing under the lights that one day in 2013...

Best Ever

If you have had the pleasure of raising a 12-year-old girl you can probably understand when I say I feel as if I have lost both my daughter and my mind recently.  Somehow, over the past year my sweet, adoring, happy-go-lucky little girl has all but disappeared, and left in her place is an angry, hostile person I hardly recognize.  

I admit I am being a little dramatic (there's a lot of that drama thing going on around here lately), but there is a lot of truth to it, too. The general consensus among my friends is that sixth grade, twelve-year-old girls are, well, from hell.  Don't get me wrong - M has her moments. When she is on she is fabulous. She has the best sense of humor, does great in school and has tons of friends who adore her. The problem is that we don't get to see her in "ON" mode very often lately.

So that is why I was completely taken aback when she said this to me yesterday out of the blue:

"Know how you're bummed that you haven't lost any weight lately, Mom? You shouldn't be because muscle weighs more than fat and you're super muscular."

I know it doesn't sound like much, but when most of what you've heard lately have been things like "You're the kind mom that nobody wants!" and "I hate you!" you take what you can get. And really, "super muscular"? I'll take that from anyone any day!