Nice is Where You Start...#7

At the starting line...

This week has been a year in the life…wait, wait, wait, blast off! While I’ve been twiddling my thumbs¹, the medical brains - also known as The Tumor Board - have met and been formulating my treatment plan. Yesterday, (almost) all was revealed to me and I’ve been on a roller coaster ride for the last 24 hours processing the news. Up, down, and all around.

The goal here is to stay very present. To concentrate on the NOW. There’s nothing I can do to change the past so beating myself up about what might have been or what I should have done differently isn’t going to do anything other than give me a headache and a bucket of tears. Getting too far ahead in time doesn’t do much other than to ratchet up the anxiety. No thanks. So practicing the mindfulness meditation strategies I’ve learned from Peter F. and the Wednesday group² helps a lot. Also, my session with Annette, the DFCI³ social worker, helped, too.

So next Thursday is the day I begin chemotherapy. In anticipation of that, I’m going to see Virginia at Fulham Salon in Wellesley. Getting a pixie cut so that when my hair does fall out, it won’t be a dang mess everywhere.⁴ I’ve been through this before. As I told a friend yesterday, I’m not shaving my head like I did before chemo for breast cancer. It was a moment. I was in Susan’s family room. She had had breast cancer before me and knew the drill.⁵ My beau-at-the-time and some other friends (don’t remember who) were there with me. Susan’s boyfriend shaved my head. The lights were dim. Candles were lit. It was woo-woo. I remember someone there telling me that my eyes were very wide open as my hair (brown then) fell to the sheet on the floor. Dramatic. Traumatic. Yeah. Not doing it that way. But my dear friend Darrel T. will be with me if I need a hand to hold.

Yesterday we met with the radiation oncology team at Brigham & Women’s Hospital. We really liked them. As Hilary wrote in her Substack update last night, we thought they “were nice.” And you all know how I feel about nice. NICE IS WHERE YOU START. They were also kind. And compassionate. And smart. And we did have a bit of comic relief. Warning: about to get graphic here so feel free to skip this part if you’re easily queazy.

Between either round two and three of chemo OR round three and four of chemo, I will do the brachy therapy, which is a kind of internal radiation. As Lovey calls it, a radioactive tampon. I will have three of those treatments over the course of seven days. We asked about side effects, which you know, they have to tell you all the possibilities, including the scary stuff. And then I asked about S-E-X.

So I’ve been grieving a lot recently - body parts gone, people in my life gone, basement flood items gone, etc. etc. And one of the things that is different this time around than the first time around is that I am uncoupled. Single. No husband. No partner. No beau. And it’s feeling kind of tough at the moment. Although there are a lot of people in my life that I love and who love me, it’s just not the same, right? Although my wasband has been tremendous again this time, you know, he’s not my husband. He’s Jill’s husband now. I was just telling Julie D. that I was kind of hoping that 2025 was going to be another chance for me at-bat for the whole dating-love-relationship-game. Ha! What’s the saying? God laughs when we make plans?

Anyway, back to the comic relief. The lovely radiation nurse, Deb, brings in this little kit of uhm…therapy dildos⁶ that I’m supposed to use after radiation to uhm….keep my little vajayjay supple and open for business. We’ll get back to y’all on that one later!

A few more thoughts before I sign off. And thank yous. Back to the losing-my-hair thing. The silver lining in losing my hair is that hopefully I will also lose all of my pesky chin hairs.⁷ And the tweezers will get a rest. My children will be happy about that. They object when I tweeze-while-driving. I will also lose the pesky nose hairs but that causes perpetual nose-dripping so I must always have my tissues on hand. I hope I can get a re-supply of the tissues I love from Amsterdam (hint, hint). They use a thicker ply that is also soft somehow. It’s really great. Their TP is awesome there, too. Go figure.

And now for my gratitude moment. Thank you to everyone who has been checking in on me: Sabrina, Jodi, Rosemary, Julie, Talia, Darrel, Lori, Liz C., Melissa B., Ann. N., Elizabeth M., Michelle, Greg, Tim, Janet, Maxine, Zo, Michael R. (who kindly took me to my MRI appointment recently), Wendy, Cindy S., Amy M., Ricky and Ellen, Michael and Jill, Jennifer W., Ellen G., Jennifer D., Alison, Mackie, Daryl, Laurie G., Leslie F., Cathy P., Jenna, and Laura and David. So appreciate Corey N’s on-going reminders for green tea, nutrition, and all good things. Beyond grateful for the support and understanding from my Savvy Words clients. And a special thanks to Elena S. who has stepped up to help me with Savvy Words when I am down for the count! Also Corey, too…Finally, much love to my three children who have been amazing in every way, and to their partners who - as Lovey said yesterday - I love better than them.⁸

1. Not really. I’ve been pushing myself to work as much as I can. Thinking about everything I need to do but don’t seem to have the motivation to do right now…

2. I’ve been participating in Peter Feinmann’s Mindfulness Meditation group on and off for a couple of years. Right now it needs to be more on than off. If you want to know more about that, check this out:

https://www.mindfuldirections.net

3. DFCI - Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Where my medical team has been and is now again. An amazing place…

4. And also, FYI, it does tingle when it comes out. Sometimes the tingling is sharp and needlelike, so shorter hair is better.

5. RIP Susan Dean. She had a recurrence and fought like hell. You were so brave and so helpful to me then. So many angels in my life. I know they’re all with me now…

6. Of course, I have a funny dildo story. When I was going through my divorce, a friend (?) gave me this big hot pink dildo. So I hid it in my closet at the time (as I was dating and had the real thing). We still lived in Sudbury and I had this huge walk-in closet. One day Matthew and his buddies - who were around 9 years old at the time - were playing hide-and-go-seek and one of his friends hid in my closet. And guess what he found? Yep. He came running out of my closet holding this big pink dildo, “Hey, look what I found! What is this thing?” Yeah. And I was home at the time. And my face turned a shade of pink that matched that dang thing.

7. Several of you have heard me complain about being somewhere and not noticing my chin hairs and then realizing, to my horror, that I’ve been walking around and going to work meetings and events sprouting hairs like some old hag in a fairytale. Jim G., you know what I’m talking about, right!

8. Not true. But close. Chelsea, Max, and Tess are so nice. Beyond nice: stupendous. Fabulous. Wonderful. Every superlative you can think of!