DeAnne Reeder

I’ve been up to my neck in holiday cheer!  Yes, it’s been manic, trying to teach full-time, exercise every day and do my macrobiotic cooking so I can stay healthy, and practice my music because life’s too short to not make the most of one’s passions.  And of course, there’s the holiday stuff to do…Christmas cards and baking and shopping and wrapping.  None of which is done.  Yet.  At least my tree’s up!  Dad came with his truck and we bought an absolutely heavenly-smelling tree.  It took the better part of two days of puttering at it to ge it decorated all the way.  Mom’s tradition has always been to give us a new ornament each year next to our dessert plates, after Thanksgiving dinner.  Between all th ornaments I’ve acquired just by being her kid for so many years, and then all the ones that students and friends have given me, I have to have a humongous tree!  And these days, I don’t skimp on sleep.  In earlier times, I would have pulled an all-nighter to get my tree decorated, but now I go to bed early, most nights…for the health of it, and also because I enjoy running with my Herd before 6:00 am!

I ws starting to fear that my tree would never get finnished.  But then, that afternoon, I left the ornament box out, and each student who came in helped decorate the tree a bit, and it was all done by that evening.  And I’ve never had such a good-looking tree!

Old DeAnne wouldn’t have wanted a bunch of kids handling my treasured tree ornaments.  New DeAnne realized that help is there if you ask for it, and it was fun to see my ornaments, which all reflect various times of my life, seen through the eyes of these young people who are also part of my life, and were supportive and kind to me even when I was bald and sick and tired for a while!

Yes, it’s  been crazy.  On top of that, I’m volunteering as a mentor for the Big Brothers and Sisters of America.  My “little sister” is a darling little eleven year old girl who also likes to sing and act.  So I’m trying to meet with her once a week.

It’s a crazy, busy, hectic time of year.  This morning I overslept, and woke up only because Mom was ringing my phone off the hook.  I was determined to run down to the track before teaching and do my first speed work-out in almost  year.  I threw on my shoes and shorts, and took off.  I felt great!  I ran fast enough that I heard the wind whistling in my ears.  Legs tingling, eyes watering, I lumbered back up the hill to my house.  Five miles completed, consisting of a warm-up and 400 Meter Intervals, and strides.  I even felt good enough to jog between intervals.  Woo hoo!

I got home and had all of 25 minutes to shower and dress, and eat breakfast and tidy up the house.  I was in the shower eating a piece of toast, rinsing my hair, holding my toothbrush, all at the same time.  I managed to get dressed, and tidied up the living room and turned on the Christmas tree lights, and fed the cat…where does all this energy come from?

Old DeAnne would have been feeling picked upon for not having enough “me” time.  New DeAnne simply laughs about her crazy life, and eats her toast in the shower.  And if I’m not done drinking my tea when the students arrive, then I make them some tea too.  I’ve noticed that people arrive for their lessons feeling stressed and overly busy, and they leave relaxed and happy.  That is worth sharing tea!

Where did this new attitude come from?

Maybe it’s because last year I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be healthy again.  After a nurse told me, after my diagnosis, that “with a younger patient, it’s almost never an early detection, because younger women don’t get mammograms.”, and I was told there was “prolific cancer, all throughout the breast”, and that “while it didn’t appear in the MRI to be active in the lymph nodes, we just can’t be sure until the surgeon biopsies them”, I had to mentally prepare myself.  I had been afraid to run after my diagnosis.  I was worried that it would spread the cancer through my body.  I went for little walks and listened to the ipod Jenny gave me, with healing meditations and affirmations recorded onto there.

After 3 weeks of not being able to eat, I didn’t feel energetic enough to run, anyway.

I remember when I told my dear friend Monique, and she immediately jumped in the car with her little baby and drove up with a plate of homemade gingerbread cookies and some Mexican bean soup, determined to fatten me up.  When I ran out to the driveway to help her carry the stuff into the house, she gave me a long, hard hug.  “OH, Dee!!  You’re gonna be just fine!”  But she had fear in her voice, and tears in her eyes.  Jenny met us there, and we had lunch and played with the baby.

That weekend, I was feeling restless.  I still couldn’t eat.  Food just turned to sawdust in my mouth.  I forced myself t eat 2 bites of something every hour, but I was still feeling light-headed.  I gave up trying to nap, even though the sun in the solarium was heavenly.  I got in the car and drove over to Barnes and Noble.  The clerk at the checkout looked at me curiously as I paid for about 100 bucks worth of books on cancer.   Most of them were nutrition oriented.  Then I went home, stretched out in the sunshine, and started reading!

The next morning, as I went for my walk, I reveled in the beautiful autumn morning.  Mom had told me something that her friend, also a breast cancer survivor, had told her.  I’d been fussing about numbers…what stage, what grade, survival statistics…and this super-inspiring lady had said, “Those are just numbers.  Get busy living!”

I felt eyes watching me.  Looking up into the trees, I saw a huge buzzard.  “Hah!”  I thought.  Here I am, dead woman walking, and sure enough, the buzzards are already interested!  “I’m not dead yet!”  I roared at him, in the depths of my mind.  “Maybe I never will be!”  And I started to run.  Even if it did spread the cancer faster, this was a quality of life issue.  Even if I was now going to be identified by others as a sick person, as “you know DeAnne, the gal with cancer…”, I was going to defy it and deny it as best as I could.

That was the day I decided to join the living!  I also later read that cancer cells hate oxygen and that running is a good thing as long as I ate lots of antioxidants too.  I started reading how to change my body’s chemistry via diet.  I knew that the doctors would do their best, but for every person that I knew of that survived, there was another who had died from breast cancer.  I was hell-bent on surviving.  And I was going to do it by taking back my life.  It felt so good to just go to the bookstore like a normally would, and to run, like a normal person.  The next week I resumed my singing lessons.  If I ever ended up too sick to sing, then I’d deal with it then.  For now, I was going to live like there was no tomorrow!

I used to always think I was too fat.  Now I was 5’3″ and weighed 107 pounds.  I was weak.  I felt the same as when I’d had walking pneumonia.  If I was going to defy and deny my condition, I needed to eat.  But I was cutting out all added sugar and honey.  No more dairy, and only organic produce.  Even my beans and grains would be organic!  No more sunscreens with chemicals.  No more stress and unhappiness.  No more toxic relationships.  It was the beginning of a revolution!

And now, it’s a time of rennaissance!  I will continue this blog, in installments of past and present musings.  For now, it’s hard to believe that I used to get annoyed by all the extra things to do for the holidays.  Christmas and birthdays and the like are all sacred to me now.

I hope that anyone who reads this will also realize how precious this time of year is!  Cherish th memories, and make new ones!  Enjoy all the fun things the season has to offer.  Yes, it’s a pain in the butt, but it’s life, and therefore, it’s precious!  May your holiday dreams come true!

I’ve survived cancer for now…now what!?

After a lovely Thanksgiving and getting involved with a youth mentoring program and regaining my health and even some of my hair, my mind is still inundated with memories of cancer.  I can’t help but look back, even though it’s probably for the best to look forward instead!

I haven’t posted, partly because I feel that maybe I shouldn’t write a cancer blog, because I’m done with cancer.  Furthermore, other people who have cancer find me to be annoying and unrealistic.  (Sorry!)

So, Team DeAnne will no longer be a cancer blog.  This will become where I chronicle my survivorship.  To me, being a survivor no longer means merely staying alive.  It also means making a positive difference in the world!

In the meantime, I have in my heart fond wishes for all of your dreams to come true for the holidays.  More later!

The moment of truth…today was my first “race” since before my diagnosis a year ago.  I ran a half marathon on the trails out in Napa at the Bothe-Napa Valley State Park.  As I drove east to the race in the drizzly morning sunrise, I wasn’t worried about finishing.  With me, the issue isn’t so much WHETHER I’ll finish, but WHEN!  Post chemo, I am building up a solid 40-mile per week base.  Then, in January I’ll begin my speedwork.  So going into this trail race, though running consistently but without speedwork, I figured I’d just treat it like a typical long run.  I’d enjoy the scenery, chat with the other runners, and eat all the snacks.  (One cool thing about macrobiotics:  no food is actually forbidden; the goal is to get balanced again after eating crazy food.  Intense running is very “yang”, so naturally I’d be craving sweets, which are “yin”, which also unleashes horrible cravings for more nasty artificial foods…but for dinner I ate my macrobiotically balanced rice and beans and greens and kukicha tea, and I feel great!)

But the ladies in the Herd kept referring to this little trail run as a “race”, and the day before kept calling and wishing me good luck on my “race”.  Aw, shucks, maybe I should run hard…

The thing is, having primed myself that it was just going to be another long, slow slog through the underbrush, I didn’t taper off my training very much.  Add to that the fact that I was feeling so great that I actually went to the gym!  So my legs were acting like it was a long, slow, liesurely run day, but my mind had other ideas!  And then when other people started passing me, well, how frustrating!

The weather was grey, but the lighting under the redwood trees was magical.  It was perfect running weather, really!  The other runners were a fun, light-hearted bunch.  Many people were costumed in honor of Halloween.  I saw lots of runners dressed like little forest critters, with ears and tails.  Too cute!  But annoying as hell when you get passed by a chubby guy in pink bunny ears and cotton tail! Maybe it was the view of that little pink tail laced with silver glitter,  disappearing in the mist ahead of me, that set me off.  I suddenly cared about my speed.  Would I be slower than before?!  Even though I’m running more often?!

I crossed creeks, splashing through the water.  I climbed some hills that were so steep I had to walk, then pull myself up almost like I was on a ladder.  There were parts of the trail that were sort of grown over, and I had to root and rustle through the undergrowth like a baby rhinocerous!  And the mud! Sticky, slippery, gooey mud on alot of the downhill, so I couldn’t really go fast.  Nobody could, though!  Except for one guy who ran into a sign post and knocked it clean out of the ground!  (We call him “the Avalanche”.)  There were lots of places where logs had fallen across the path.  You could either run under them, if your legs weren’t too tired to play limbo, or you could jump over them.  I liked to jump over them!  I did it so often that “The Avalanche” started calling me “My Friend Flicka”.  I didn’t know who that was, but one of the other girls told me it was a story about a horse.  There was a littlte group of us, giggling and laughing,mud-encrusted, having such a fine time that the avalanche guy didn’t see the log and ran into it with his forehead.  (I chose to do the limbo that time.)  I felt only sort of mean, leaving the Avalanche seeing stars, and careened down the hill to the aid station.

Now, let me tell you about trail races…there isn’t a prize purse.  Winners usually don’t even get trophies!  Instead, they get a rubber chicken!  And if thy get enough rubber chickens in a season, then they get all kinds of good stuff like running gear.

This particular organization doesn’t even put microchips on your shoes to get your time.  Instead, they use this fool-proof method:  One guy, let’s call him “Mike”, looks at the clock and writes down the time we all take off.  Another guy, let’s call him “Chip” is at the other end, with a watch and a clipboard, and he writes your bib number and time down as you trot by.  Thus, you have your “mike-ro-chip timing”!  There was another guy named “Chuck”, who we were encouraged to roar his name out on the trail when we were fed up with running uphill, “ChUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!”  sounding an awful lot like another word a rowdy trail runner might holler when things just aren’t happy.

As I pulled into the aid station, a volunteer filled my water bottle while I chugged some Gatorade.  I grabbed a handful of peanut butter pretzels and a banana.  The volunteer asked me if I needed a spritzing of water to cool down, as he handed me back my bottle.  That sounded like a great idea!  He dumped what should have been a cup of water but turned out accidentally to be a glass of gatorade over my head!  Oh, well.  Mud, gatorade and sweat!  I was looking lovely!  As I started trotting up the hill with green Gatorade dripping off my nose,  simultaneoulsy trying to stuff my pretzels in my mouth, put my water bottle back in its holder on my waist, and not squish the banana, I started doing manic little 360′s.  The Volunteer stared cracking up.  “I guess multi-tasking isn’t your thing!”  He got the water bottle in its holster, gave me a kick on the behind, and I was off…in the wrong direction!

“No!!!!  Lady in Pink!  Go left, UP!  Up the HILL!”

“UP!!!???” I groused through a mouthful of banana.

“Yes, up!  You chose to do the Half- Marathon, instead of the 10K, right?  Then you go up!”

“What was I thinking?!”

“I dunno, but that guy in the tutu just passed you!”

“Oh, I’m just doing this for distance, I don’t care about time!”

“Yeah, right!  You’ll be happier if you pass his ass!”

After that, I decided to run harder!  I thought of ewoks in Star Wars, flying through the woods!  I thought how strange it is that a year ago, I couldn’t smile, was sure I might die…if not from the cancer itself then from the treatment.

This was before I began Operation Defy and Deny!

I finished in the middle of the pack.  It was a beautiful day, perfect weather and lovely scenery.  Halloween is the Celtic New Year, and this is my new year!  As I walked back to my car, munching on more peanut butter pretzels, I felt so thankful for all the miracles that allowed me to be strong and healthy enough to enjoy this day!

Yeah, being  Midpack is fine.  After this last year, midpack feels miraculous!

But I did at least pass the guy in the tutu, in the end!  (Like I was saying…a day of small miracles!)

Well, it’s been a year since my diagnosis.  People worry that I might feel sad, afraid, or depressed.  Why?!  While I’d never choose to go trough this ever again, it’s been a year of at least as much good as bad.  I learned what I’m made of…and I’m pleased to say I’m alot tougher than I ever thought!  I’ve learned that I’m much more loved than I ever thought.  I’ve learned what’s important and how not to get too wound up about trivial things.

I’ve also developed a penchant for doing things, rather than just thinking about doing them.

So, no, I’m not depressed, scared or sad.  No way, no how!  Earlier this month was my amazing sister’s birthday.  We were born just 18 months apart, and when we were little, our parents used to refer to my birthday as Jenny’s “half-birthday” and vice-versa.  We would both get presents.  A fuss would be made over both of us, and it sort of made sense because we shared the same friends.  We were always best buddies anyway, so it made perfect sense to party together.  It’s a tradition that has been continued, somewhat faithfully, into our adulthood.  So, in honor of Jenny’s birthday and thus my own half-birthday, I booked us a spa day at Osmosis.  We were all set for enzyme baths and massages, and wandering around in the meditation garden, and tea!  We would wear the cute little kimonos and be all zenned out!  Hey!  Jen got zenned!  Heehee!  Mom kept saying she wasn’t into the whole spa thing, that it’d be best if Jen and I hd some time the two of us, and besides she had to work, but at the last minute she changed her mind and joined us.  The Three Amigas!  Woohoo!

The only day Jenny could get time off from her outrageously busy life was today, Oct. 24th, which happens to be the day, one year ago, when I got diagnosed.

Flashback one year:

I was supposed to get the biopsy results the day after the procedure, but there was some hubbub about needing someone else to look at it.  I was told that if it wasn’t great news, then of course I’d be notified Saturday morning.

So I stayed awake all Friday night, too hungry to sleep, too scared to eat.  I tried to read funny stories.  I tried reading them aloud to myself…that worked, until I went hoarse.  I snuggled with my cat.  I tried to play the piano, but couldn’t concentrate.  I kept thinking about Alexis, an old friend of te family, who died a long time ago of cancer.  Finally, at about 4:30 am, exhaustion won out and I dropped off into a disturbed, fleeting slumber for a couple of hours, with all the lights and the TV on, a book open in my lap, still in my clothes from the previous night.  (I had a strange aversion to dressing and undressing.  Even showering was hard for me…it was hard to see and feel this body that seemed to be betraying me.)  I didn’t have a diagnosis yet, but I had a weird 6th sense feeling that something was wrong…the constant fatigue, the feelings of emptiness, like I didn’t like where I was at in my life and couldn’t do anything about it…and then, of course, there was the lump.  It was seeming to morph into something bigger, sometimes throbbing, sometimes stinging…and the radiologist had said that there were actually 4 tumor sites…and the little bump I could feel, that was like a BB was not actually one of the two spots he’d biopsied.  He chose to take samples from the two bigger tumors, and that were farthest apart, “So the surgeon would know the perimeters”, he said.  So I knew that I was probably going to have surgery, (YUCK) and that whether it was cancer or not, there was something much funkier than a BB in my boob.  I also felt like I was going insane, sort of.

I  woke up with a stiff neck and the cat licking my face, in a cold sweat, and  not feeling at all like my usual morning-sunshine self.  I love mornings!  But not if I might have cancer and all the uncertainties that it would bring to my life!  It was already 8:00 am.  I had to teach at 9.  There was nothing I wanted to eat in my house.  I picked up the phone and canceled the students for the day.  Mom called, and I told her I would take the day off.  She thought I was being silly, that it probably wasn’t cancer if they didn’t know yesterday, the way they had said they would, and they were just being extra careful by having another doctor look at it.  But she had a quaver in her voice.  We agreed that maybe after all this biopsy uproar and having lost my kitty Jake, and teaching 6 or 7 days a week for such a long time, maybe a mental health day was in order!  She said to get dressed and eat something, then meet her at her house and we’d get the hell out of dodge for a while.

I showered, checked my answering machine, then ran across the street to the chic little deli-grocery store for an Odwalla juice.  But just as my foot landed on the curb on the other side of the street, my cell phone started ringing.

Nobody calls me on the cell phone!  Even my lifelong friends don’t know what the number is.  Uh oh…this must be serious.   I detoured back across the street and sat down on my front porch.  I somehow missed the call.  Maybe because my hands were shaking so much.  I called in to check the message on my voice mail and it was the radiologist himself, not some chirpy-voiced little tech-assistant or nurse calling to tell me that it was good news!

The radiologist said he was out of the state, but to please call him on his cell ASAP, that he wanted to go over the results of my biopsy and answer any questions I might have.

I went back in the house and called him from the landline.  I found out that I had “Invasive Ductal Carcinoma”, that usually that is treated with a lumpectomy and some radiation, but that I had too much cancer spread throughout the breast and so it would most likely be a complete mastectomy.

I am a girly-girl, caught up in frivolous things like what the numbers on the scale say, and having long hair and wearing high heels and lipstick.  Yet, I’ve never been very vain about some things.  Like, my positive self-image comes from being the girl with the cute smile, or the gymrat physique.  Some people used to say my hair was pretty, and I once had a boyfriend who liked to tell me that my eyes were pretty if one likes deep-set eyes.  (Wonder why he’s no longer my boyfriend?!  Ha!)  But I was never the girl with the Bazongas.  I’m a runner chick.  I like martial arts.  I’ve never been voluptuous or womanly.  In fact, as a classical singer, my roles were usually 14 year old virgins, so a hefty bosom would be a liability!  So I wasn’t devastated to lose a breast.

But I was totally creeped out by the idea that my body was growing these mutant cells that were multiplying and spreading as I sat there talking to the doctor on the phone, possibly invading my lymph nodes, setting up camp in my lungs, bones, or brain.  I was painfully aware of all my little aches and pains over the past few days.

I couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t do the surgery in the next day or two.  He said that, no, there was time, and that I should use it to learn about my condition and anyways, a few more tests needed to be done before the surgery.  the next step was to schedule an MRI, and I couldn’t even do that until Monday, because the facility was closed on the weekend.

“Isn’t there something I can do?”  I asked him.  “I want to get started on fixing the problem NOW!  This is really bugging me!  I want to cut it out now, or zap it with something…!”

The radiologist hastily said I shouldn’t be alone today, and that I’ve probably had the cancer growing in there for about 5 to 7 years, and a few more days or weeks wouldn’t make that much difference.

I thanked him for his advice and for notifying me so promptly.  I got off the phone and thought for a minute, looking out the window at the autumn leaves fallling in my yard.  Images of Alexis, bald, skinny and sick, with a sad little smile, kept popping into my head.  Finally I breathed in deep, said “screw it!” and decided that I would only be as pathetic as I allowed myself to be.  Cancer had chosen the wrong girl! I would defy my problem.  I’d start by denying it.  Yeah!  I’d just act like it wasn’t really happening, and it’d be fine.  I’d live in the moment.

I found my way out the front door, and across the street to the grocery store.  I bought an Odwalla B-Monster juice.  (I’d heard that vitamin B is good for de-stressing.)  The girl at the check-out was a former student of mine.  “He-e-ey, Deanne!  How are you?!”

“Hi, oh, I couldn’t be better!  And you?”

I took my juice home and glugged it, sitting on my bed.  I looked in my full-length mirror, and envisioned myself on chemo, bald, and promplty was overcome by a wave of nausea.

Oh, God, if I was already this bad, and treatment hadn’t even started yet!

I got in the car.  I made a deposit at the bank, surprised that the people there couldn’t tell that I was walking round with a freaky mutant alien growing in my chest.  I drove up to Mom and Dad’s house.  Mom was in the window and I waved to her as I pulled into the driveway.  I smiled and got out of the carand sauntered into the house, into the kitchen.

“Well?!”  She was smiling, looking almost relieved.  That’s when the world seemed to stand still.

“Well, I DO have cancer.”  And I started to cry.  Not elegant movie-star tears, nor heart-breaking sobs.  It was the kind of fitful blubbering a little 2-year-old girl would do when her dolly gets taken away.  Hot, angry tears, tainted with disbelief, fear, disgust, but mostly anger.

It seemed like there were suddenly two of me there in my mom’s kitchen.  I was aware of every heartbeat, every breath, the sound of my voice, the shaking of my shoulders…like I was watching a movie f myself from a distance.

Mom was crying too.  As she wrapped me in her arms, she wailed “I wish I could take it away from you and put it in me instead!”

The world stood still, then it started spinning again.  I was flying naked through a meteor shower.  I felt capsized and helpless.  She called Dad at work, and he cried too, but told her to take me to Point Reyes, because he knows I love it there.

We spent the rest of the day driving around the beautiful countryside, picking at lunch in a restaurant, and speculating about what the future would hold.  There were alot of bold, swaggering statements.  You’d have thought we were a pair of army generals strategizing a war.  But between all that, one or both of us was drying tears or blowing a nose.  Sunglasses were a very useful thing for that day.

Flash forward one year:

I’ve flown naked through the meteor shower, have arrived on the other side and put on a cute outfit and even gained an admirable pair of ta-ta’s thanks to the brilliant doctors at UCSF!  It will be a year of new hairstyles, but hey!  before cancer I’d had the same hair-do since about the 8th grade, so maybe I’m due for a new look!  Or lots of new looks!

That day a year ago, in Point Reyes, I was worried that I’d never run again.  what it something went wrong with the chemo?  I’d heard that it can mess up your heart, lungs, kidneys…what if it left me an invalid?

Well, next weekend I’m running a half-marathon on a lovely trail out in Napa.  Jenny and Mom and I went to the spa and even though everyone else there was all Zen and spiritual, we had a rollicking good time in our kimonos.  Yup, it’s a time to celebrate!  Birthdays are sacred.  So are half birthdays.  So is my family!  Team DeAnne, we’ve done it!  Here’s to the Survivors!!!

I realized that I had my biopsy a year ago yesterday.  I remember how I was so thrilled to survive just the biopsy, that Mom and I stopped for lunch in Graton on the way home.  I was starving, because I’d been too scared to eat much over the two days leading up to the biopsy.  I just couldn’t believe they had to biopsy ME!!!  Never having had any kind of surgical procedures, I was scared enough that I hadn’t washed my hair or put on make-up.  We figured the good people of Graton wouldn’t mind that I looked funky at lunchtime.

I didn’t run, because had two biopsy sights and the doctor said not to, and besides, I was worried that if it was cancer, running would send the cancer cells into my lymph nodes, if it wasn’t there already.

Flash foward to about a year later…I wore pink when I did my long run yesterday.  It was my final training run for the half-marathon I’ll run on the 30th, so I did 14 miles just to be sure I’ll be comfortable doing 13 on the 30th.  Felt great!  And I could feel the wind ruffling through MY HAIR!

As I ran past the little cafe in Graton I was grinning like an idiot.  WOO HOOO!

I have decided, in my post-cancer treatment quest to enjoy life in a “take no prisoners” way, to really get into the Halloween spirit.  I will probably go Trick-or-Treating with Jenny and DJ and the kids, because that makes one adult per kid…a pretty good ratio when we’re scampering around in the dark, with the streets teeming with activity.

I decorated my house with a few tasteful decorations, and even got some miniature pumpkins!  And I set up the witches cauldron full of treats!  I was going to buy little boxes of organic raisins for the students to nosh on, but then realized, Who was I kidding?!  Just because I’m healthier than thou doesn’t mean other people are too, and they wouldn’t eat the healthy snacks, and I would.  Too many raisins isn’t very healthy, either!!!  So I splurged and bought Tootsie Rolls and mini Three Musketeers, because I don’t like them and the kids do!

Well…we-Hellll!   I can develop a taste for the darndest things!  Just as I didn’t even flinch the other night when I mistakenly ate a stir-fried caterpillar on my organic kale for the third time in a week, I just snagged and snarfed two little candy bars as I walked by the cauldron.  Before one was even in my mouth all the way, the other was unwrapped!  They were both gone in less than 5 seconds!  Unbelievable.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  My eyes were furtive and the slump of my shoulders had the look of guilt.  I scurried into the kitchen and grabbed the candy bags from the garbage…read the ingredients….UGH!  Blech!   Corn syrup, saturated fats, and artificial flavors, OH MY!!!

Well, if I have rearranged my tastebuds to “tolerate” crap foods, then at least I’ll not be able to rearrange my mind regarding the facts about it…NO WAY can I ever lie to myself and say those little candies are good for me, in any way, shape, or form.  So, I don’t like them.  Thus, I won’t eat them.

…even if they call to me like temptation in the Garden of Eden.

Humph.  I’ll go make some really yummy Indian veggies and roasted tofu.  Yeah.  Hell, yeah!

I may fall off the wagon from time to time.  But sort of like in the old spaghetti Westerns when the cowboy falls off the horse but has one foot still in the stirrup, the macrobiotic “wagon” will drag me, kicking and flailing in the dust and through the cacti, for my own good, until I can haul my candy-ass back up onto my high horse.

Viva Vegetables!  Down with crap food! And beware of the caterpillars!

I’ve been getting better at living “La Vida Loca”.  A few weeks ago I was tired alot, and that was a bit worrisome.  But now I have Bart Simpson hair, and abundant energy, and the right to brag about running 40 miles a week!  Woo Hoo!  I remember a few months ago, when I was still recovering from the chemo and it felt like I’d never look or feel normal again.  I just couldn’t imagine it.  I’d get up early to run with my “Herd” of friends, and our little pre-dawn migration through the town would cause me to need a nap at lunch time.

Now I run with them, and then go to the gym.  Then spend the rest of the day teaching and singing and practicing piano!  Sometimes I even go hog-wild and clean my bathroom.

I’m not sure if it’s because of all the super-healthy eating, or if my new attitude is because I have a new lease on life, and I don’t want to squander it!

Last Sunday was the first Studio Recital I’ve put on since before my diagnosis.  These events are for the benefit of my students, so they can learn to play in front of others without feeling like they need therapy afterwards.  I hold recitals 3 times per year, and though participation is not mandatory, I always seem to have plenty of students willing to play.

This time was a triumph!  Everyone played beautifully and to the best of their ability.  Attitudes were in check, and pretty outfits were worn.  The mre advanced players were supportive and encouraging to the younger players, and the younger ones were inspired by the older, more artistic students.  I had healthy snacks in addition to the requisite cookies and juice, and I didn’t ruin my diet by eating all the leftovers because there was another concert going on across the courtyard in another part of the church, and they were delighted to take our leftover cookies.

I’m also still waiting to hear from Big Brothers Big Sisters about who my “little” will be…should be any day now!

Other than that, no news is good news.

Cancer will always be a part of my life, yet it is also a thing of the past.  This week though, has been a week of post-treatment firsts!

1)  I went to a doctors’ appointment ALL BY MYSELF!!!  It was just a post-op meeting with the reconstructive surgeon, the one who put me back together again, better than ever, after the mastectomies.  I figured nothing was wrong, all the scary stuff was over and done with.  Heck, I’m not even mildly phobic around doctors anymore!  I could, as Jenny would say, “put on my big-girl panties” and go by myself!

It’s nice how the staff at UCSF Medical Center have such great memories for names and faces.  Considering the thousands of patients who go through there every month or so, it really is amazing that they even recognized me, with my new GI Jane hair-do.  Yup, last time I was there I was still wearing a wig.

I sat in the waiting room, amidst the other ladies in their wigs and head scarves.  Some looked pretty sick.  Others still had hair, but looked worried and scared.  They hadn’t come out the other side of the tunnel, yet.  But I had.  And I wanted them to see that I had, and that it’s all good.  As we all looked furtively at one another, I made sure whomever was looking at me saw me smiling and relaxed.

The receptionists and medical assistants were all very complimentary about my hair, even though it’s sort of a poopy color and there’s not even enough to style yet.  But I’m just glad that there’s any progress at all with my hair!

They also wanted to know where was my entourage?  Every other time I’d come for an appointment, I was with Mom and Jenny.  Mom had to go in case I had to be pried off of the ceiling or sat upon so the docs could work their magic in spite of my phobias.  Jen had to go because she is logical and cool-headed and able to gather information at face value.  She also is able to keep Mom and I navigated in the right direction.  Mom and I get lost walking across the street to to find a restaurant, whereas Jenny goes everywhere with enough navigational technology to rival the military.  And she turned every doctors appointment into a party, insisting that we all go eat someplace fun afterward to wait out the bad traffic.  But now, I’m no longer phobic, I know my way around the UCSF area, and I couldn’t be in better spirits!

I saw the surgeon’s nurse who has been such a help to me.  (My sister and I call her the “boob fairy”.)  We discussed what the next hairdo should be, and how her daughter was playing the piano again, and how I was doing.   told her how it all feels like it happened a long time ago.  I can hardly remember how it felt, and I feel great.  How great that it wasn’t serious cancer, and how it sort of annoys me when people act like I’m so fragile still.

The nurse looked at me like I was crazy and said that Stage 2A Breast Cancer is serious cancer, there’s no such thing as cancer that’s not serious, and that I should be proud of having come through it so well.

Yeah, I’m proud.

And relieved.

And a bit paranoid!  About a week before the appointment I was having alot of pain in the liver area.  It took me a few fearful days to realize that the pain was outside the ribcage, sort of like a pulled muscle.  Getting dressed the next morning I saw a big ol’ cord of scar tissue running down my side.  Yuck!  I’d calmly called the nurse, and she’d said to massage it for at least 3 minutes daily, and hopefully it’d break up and go away.  By the time I saw her and the surgeon, I’d rubbed it into obliteration!  And I’m sure I’m no longer ticklish in the ribcage anymore after all that!

The doctor was glad to hear that I’m all set for a trail 1/2 marathon at the end of the month.  He’s a runner too, and could understand why I was going nuts when he’d requested that I  stay sedentary for so long after the final surgery.  “Why are you running so much?!”  He asked.

“Well, I feel like I’ve been given a new lease on life!  And I run alot because I can!”

We parted ways  with him saying he just might try at trail run some time.  I told him I’d be watching for him!  He said the next appointment with him should be in about a year, and that’s great news, because no news is good news!

2)Then on Friday, I got my first haircut since before chemo!!!!  Beautiful Sandy, my hairdresser and friend for many years  also helped to ease me through the ickiness of hair loss, cleaned up the back and around the ears, and cut off the dried ends .  It still isn’t quite long enough to get a pixie look, but it’s headed there!

3)  I’ve started volunteering for things!  I’ve always worked long hours as a music teacher.  Being self-employed is great in s many ways, but if you snooze, you lose!  I’ve always taught evenings and weekends so I’ve always been stingy about my “me time”.  Yet so often I waste that me time.  So I’ve started the process to become a “Big Sister” with Big Brothers and Sisters of America.  I can spare one hour a week to help mentor a child who doesn’t have a grown up role-model!  AND I signed up for a 10K race in November, that raises funds for the local food bank.  I’ll probably be the last to cross the finnish line, but who cares?!

4)  I made my first macrobiotic dessert, a chocolate “ganache” pie, which was SO DELICIOUS I had to feed it to my students, so I wouldn’t eat all of it myself!

Yes, it’s been an eventful week!

Woo hoo!  Cheers for a week of firsts!

So, after exactly one day of eating proper-sized portions, I weigh 5 pounds less.  Hm.  Was I really running around with 5 pounds of food in my gut?!

Anyhow, just in time!  I have a meeting with my doctor tomorrow, and I really didn’t want to hear about my weight.

And it feels good to be able to bend in the middle again!

Yes, (sigh) I’m aware that I look “different”.  And I’m not talking about my hair this time.  Yes, it’s true, the hair’s growing back, and I have color in my face, and I’m…uh, well, yes, I’m fat.

I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s high-nutrition, holier-than-thou hippie chow.  It still has calories, and I still eat way too many!

Add to that my newly increased running mileage and the crazed hunger that accompanies it, and you have one robust cancer survivor!

Whereas in the good old days before cancer I would have despaired and not wanted to leave the house until I was a tolerable weight again, now I will simply climb back onto the wagon and watch my portion controls.

I’ve been told that I will become fat from the tamoxifen.  But really, for me, it’s more like I can taste food again, and I’m constantly reading new recipes for healthy things to eat.  Once I could taste food again, in my mind, I said the same thing as Scarlett O’Hara, “Ahm nevah going to be hungry again!”  (I can almost even do the drawl, too!

I finally realized that most of those recipes are supposedto serve “4 to 6″.  And here I’ve been wolfing down everything in the pan!  So, tonight I looked at my new recipe from “the 30  Minute Vegan” and divided the recipe’s ingredients by 4.  As a result, I ate a properly sized portion, AND I got to eat everything in the pan.

MMMMM, mmmmmm!