Sanity is over-rated

So I am killing time after working the night shift and going to my cancer shrink. My body is wide awake but my mind is fucked, so I will be good and crazy when I see her. It would really be a waste of time to see a shrink if I were sane, right?

I got the cancer book. As I suspected, when I glanced through the diet section, they are kind of down on refined sugar, white bread and red meat. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that they recommend red wine and chocolate. I believe they said the more the better, I am not really sure but if one of something is good, ten of them must be even better, right?

I briefly considered re-learning how to cook so i could make stuff with that new fake sugar that is out that is supposed to be pretty good. The natural one, not the chemicals. Cancer book is very much against chemicals. Even deodorant, i am going to have to go to whole foods and buy Tom's natural. As I recall, it doesn't seem to work very well. I fear that in order to conquer cancer I am going to stink. Especially because apparently the number one "food" that inhibits breast cancer is garlic! Between stinking and having just one boob, I am not likely to get laid in the near future. If anyone knows a blind guy with no sense of smell, give him my number. Cindy's apartment has braille on the elevators. But no pets, although by law they may have to allow seeing eye dogs. I am not sure.

Also, my radiation doctor's office has free massage, reiki, acupressure, meditation and all of that stuff on every thursday. So I am signing up. And luckily for me, the cancer book's recommended "exercise" is walking for 30 minutes a day. I am positive i do two or three times that every day I work. And I may even go downstairs to the gym and use that stupid treadmill. I think you can watch tv while you do it. Unfortunately, I am forbidden to do any real working out type of exercise for several years due to my surgery. Otherwise i would be signing up to climb mountains and enter triathalons. Right.

One last thing that has nothing really to do with anything except that it was cancer related. i was out buying a birthday card for a friend whose birthday is July 19th, although who knows when i will remember to mail it. Anyway, there are these really funny cards for people with cancer, and people going through chemo. I am a little mad that I did not think of it first. There are also cards for divorce and job loss. I love it. Probably next thing will be good luck with your in vitro fertilization and sorry your house got foreclosed on. And of course the congratulations for coming out of the closet, which I think would be hilarious to send to straight homophobic people. Mazel tov! You're a Lesbian!! You know, i have always loved gay men but never really knew many lesbians until lately and I have to say I really like the ones I have met. Also, there seem to be a lot more bisexual people than there were say ten years ago. has anyone else noticed this?

You know, this shrink is really going to work for her money today, I tell you. Hopefully my next post will not be written while in a straight jacket. Maybe she'll give me really good drugs?

I forgot to add that I now go everywhere with my head unadorned by wig or scarf. I have about 1/4 inch long hair and everyone wants to rub my head because it is soft and fuzzy. Seems to becoming in sort of dirty blonde- brown. If it turns gray i am dying it pink. Eyelashes and eyebrows are back, and I am going to once again have to get a bikini wax- that particular area had an amazingly fast hair growth, wouldn't you know it. Cindy said to shave it off and stick it on to my head, but I declined. Maybe she should go to the shrink with me.

radiation

Well first of all, I have a tattoo. well it is just three separate dots around where I will get radiatiion, but it was done the way a regular tattoo is done with ink and needles and all. Didn't hurt a bit so now i think I am ready for the big time. I am thinking a heart on my butt or a flower or something in a discrete area. Or maybe a tramp stamp. I feel I am at an appropriate age and stage in life for one of those.

I am modifying my feeling about male cancer doctors. Not because I think any of them read this and would sue me, because truth is a defense to libel, plus i didn't mention any names or for that mater, say anything bad about them. My radiation guy is good. He spent a lot of time, talking to me like i was stupid which i totally was. Also we bonded over having kids at NYU. I didn't tell him my ex is responsible for the vast majority of the money that is paid to them- I think he will give me a discount or waive the co-pay or something if he thinks i have to pay the tuition. And one of the radiation techs (a woman) had hair almost as short as mine and hers was intentional,not because of chemo, so that gave me the courage to go au naturel to work. Well, I mean without a wig or scarf or anything. I do not mean naked, which i am almost sure is against our dress code. Plus my boss is on vacation. She had "preferred" the wig as she thought the bald head might upset some of the psych patients. However, as my daughter said last week at the beach, I now look more like Sinead O'Connor than a cancer patient. And, my eyebrows and eye lashes are back. I can wear mascara! You do not know how wonderful this is. Really. Anyway, i am starting to like how I look again. For someone as vain as me, this is huge. You know for a while, i didn't really care how I looked- I should have noticed that, as a psych nurse, that was certainly the first sign of my falling into a deep depression. However, it was cured by the arrival of eye lashes. Didn't even have to increase the prozac.

I haven't started daily radiation. That will happen next week. It will be before work, with about an hour to kill after radiation and before work and guess what there is a little mall with some of my favorite stores in it right smack on the way from the radiation doctors to my work. A good omen if I ever heard one. By my favorite stores, I mean in real life, not my pretend life. In other words, TJ Maxx, not Gucci.

And by the way, my patients liked the bare head. They think it is a fashion statement, not a medical side-effect. So maybe i should shop at Gucci. Or at least hope that they have some really good Gucci knock-offs at TJ Maxx. I am so cool. PLUS, tattooed. Look for me on the cover of Cosmo next month.

too stupid for cancer

ok, i am a nurse. Granted, a psychiatric nurse for the past almost 25 years, so I know more about psychiatric stuff and have in fact easily diagnosed myself, friends and family and strangers in elevators with various psychiatric aliments, generally correctly. But I know some medical stuff. I work in Hospitals, for god's sake. Psych patients have medical issues, too. So i am assuming I should know more medical stuff than a non-medical person. makes sense, right? Then why, every time faced by my oncologist, I get nothing right? Why did i, for a week, think that I had more cancer and that chemo did not work? There is some kind of cancer talk that I just don't get. So Apparently this lymph node thing is no big deal- then I asked him if i am now a different stage? he says no, you are still a stage 3. Really? I thought I was a stage one, then someone who paid more attention said no, you thought you were a stage one but were really a stage two (a kid or a friend or someone said that, so apparently I told them that.) But stage three? News to me, although I guess not news to my oncologist. So, ok, I admit it. I am too stupid to have cancer. I am ready to get rid of it now, and give it to someone who is smarter than me. Really they should only let really smart people, preferably male oncologists, get cancer. Because I think they are the only ones who know what they are talking about. I am now seriously considering buying breast cancer for dummies, so I will have something to read while I await the arrival of the book that is not going to let me eat ice cream. And yes, I do think the medical system should be run by nurses. Doctors focus on the disease, nurses focus on the patient with the disease. Luckily I have a lot of friends who are nurses. And kids who pay attention to what doctors and other people, even me, say. So tomorrow i see the radiation doctor. Hopefully, he- and yes, it is a he, the female radiation oncologist is in Boston and I cannot drive to Boston 5 days a week for a month or however long it is going to be. Hopefully, he will speak a language I understand, or someone will have to come with me as a translator. Or maybe he will have everything done by a nurse. I can only hope.

ps

the new pill will not effect my hair growth.

ice cream

Well this will be short as I have to go to work. But apparently the positive lymph node thing is not as bad as I thought. Wish they had said something like that on the phone, probably would have saved me at least one moderate hangover. It just means I have a slightly higher chance of recurrence than if they were all begative. Re-occurrance? Anyway whichever word he said, I said, well if we're talking about re-occurance then there is no cancer occurring right now and he said yes. I hate men doctors- my fellow, who was a woman, left as all younger doctors do, on July 1st and I have yet to get a new one. Anyway, I think all health care should be run by nurses but that is for a later rant when I have more time. I am not going to Cancer center place as it seems like now radiation is the next thing to do and it is every day and I certainly can't do that in Philadelphia- not and keep my job and health insurance. I am going to have to take some kind of pill, beginning with Z, of course I forget because I went by myself not with Meghan. And I have ordered an anti-cancer book with ideas on nutrition and will take yoga and make my friends practice massage and reiki on me. Yes, nutrition. As I await the book in the mail, I am eating all the ice cream in the house cuz look out when it comes I will just be eating really green vegetables, I think.

Oh and I am still going to the beach every sunny day I don't have work. I do know I am immune to skin cancer because I already have this.

Cancer spas

Cancer Treatment Centers of America. I have been talking to the one in Philadelphia. Apparently my insurance will cover an evbaluation there. They will fly me and a friend out, put us up in a hotel for 3-5 days and do an evaluation. They offer the traditional medical treatments but also mind body stuff, accupuncture, etc. One patient referred to it as a spa. i could handle that. They'd fly me as often as I need treatment there, and i think maybe I need to try this out. I can see myself lying on a massage table, getting reiki, accupuncture, etc. I am sure they have a hot tub. What the hell, I think I will give it a shot.
Maybe wine and chocolate does not cure cancer. Maybe pampering does. And I could use some. Good night.

independence day

ok so I declare my independence from sitting around waiting til I was over cancer to start having fun. I'm working all weekend, and you know what? I really like my job and the people i work with. Generally since the surgery if i work, I just go home and rest. But yesterday, my friend Denise, who I knew when I was 12 and have probably seen her 4 times since then- our families were best friends when we were little kids- anyway, we found each other on facebook and she has been inviting me to do stuff for months and of course I was always too tired, or too busy having cancer, etc. No more. Went over for dinner and met her kids and new husband, very very nice people. And lawyers, no less. Not her kids. They are too young. But lawyers who are funny and are great cooks and just very comfortable to hang around. After dinner we went to her sister Terri's house. Terri is a little older and in fact, was my babysitter when I was young. Like 20. Not really. I had such a great time connecting with this family that had been such a big part of my life so long ago and you know, it was as if no time had passed at all. I saw fireworks, i drank champagne and ate cheesecake and i flirted with a happily married anaesthesiologist with a cool accent. Yes, it is possible to flirt with one boob and very little hair. I am relearning my flirting skills. Coming up- a day at the beach and then in a week or two sky diving at the Cape. And I am going to start wearing false eyelashes all the time, except swimming and sky diving.

On the way home from work, i passed a red convertible Mitsubishi eclipse. I am going to go look at it my next day off. It is definitely time for a red sports car for babs.

because the other stuff I am starting is a little less glamorous. Looking into what kind of nutrition you need with cancer. I am guessing that the brownies and potato chips I had today are not part of it. Also investigating all the complementary and alternative treatments for cancer to go along with the medical stuff that is tried and true well usually except not for me this time. Found a place with reiki, massage and acupunture, meditation, guided imagery and some other touchy feely stuff I forget, all of which my insurance covers. Why the hell not. I deserve it.

And maybe, just maybe, this time I will arrange my medical care around my vacationing in the Carribean time. Just as soon as i find my passport. Whoo hoo!