“I have been a thousand different women”

This week has given me a lot of challenges to address – a trifecta if you will – Cancer, COVID, Chemo. Through the course of greeting these, I have had help from many resources from other sages which have put me in a better frame of mind.

Yesterday at the start of my day, I awoke from a persistent cough. I wondered if I should do a rapid test before journeying over to Keck for the fourth infusion day. I had no more tests at home, so thought I would seek one there on the Health Science Campus.

Short and long of it – there were no rapid tests to be had on the Keck campus (which was unfathomable to me) and after inquiring at the Pharmacy to discover that there were none for even purchase, I texted my friend Crystal who had agreed to be my chemo buddy for treatment four and asked her if she had one to bring from home. She did.

My being a tad late in the morning along with the disclosure that I thought I should test seemed to slow things down, so it was about 10:30 before I got into the chair and began getting hooked up by Nurse Jovel who had been my chemo guide for treatment three. I failed to disclose my cough to him, and we began the pre-game fluids, including the lovely benedryl which puts me into a relaxing sleep every time.

Crystal came in when I was about a third of the way through the Taxol bag (3 hours). I took the test, which Jovel saw I was taking. I truly never expected it would show a positive test, as the dry unproductive cough was the only symptom I had. But within about ten minutes, the test revealed two stripes. Crap. I rang the bell and asked the nurse who was covering for Jovel while he was at lunch if I could go to the rest room. When I came back, I alerted her that my test had come out positive and she thanked me and began notifying my doctor and the nurses I’d seen earlier.

To make a long story short (too late, dear), my doctor elected to stop the Taxol (which was by then a little more than half way through the 3 hour drip) and to postpone the Carboplatin until December 6th. This had the extremely unexpected but welcome effect of pushing my fifth treatment past Christmas! Joy of joys! This will also push my sixth treatment to my birthday in January, which is a poetic and beautiful marker of the end of my treatment. I will enjoy bringing a cake to celebrate and thank the staff for their kind care. So, here’s to making lemonade when life gives you lemons.

My Lemonade List:

• My friend Bob arrives on 12/18 and was signed on to be my chemo buddy over Christmas. First of all, anyone insanely lucky enough to know Bob is not surprised to see that he would step up like that. To be given a strong pre-chemo Christmas week with Bob in town is well, the entire tree of lemons.
• My friends Audrey and Howard are planning a return trip to LA in January and while doing some theatre scouting for them, I discovered that the Just for Us show by Alex Edelman is extended through 12/23. I am going with Bob and our friend Norma to see the show. That is the biggest gift of all. If you haven’t seen this show you must must must.
• In my PQ Graduate group this week, Nan shared this poem by Emory Hall. It is deep thought and inspiration for me. I encourage you to visit Emory’s website where she sells this and other beautiful poems in letterpress versions.

I’ve been working on my book recently, and re-visiting the chapter about my attempt to move to San Francisco at the age of thirty-five to work at ACT. This mid-life crisis revealed itself later to be a simmering health condition that was making me unwilling to stay in my body. Had I been more present or in the Now, I might have listened to the anxiety in my body and ultimately avoided a huge inconvenience for everyone I dragged along.

I’ve always held the belief that I am a healthy person. In fact, I have lived a very healthy lifestyle – stopping drinking at twenty five, active runner and tennis player till my mid thirties. Spin classes in my fifties. Anytime I would see a doctor or take a health survey I would say I was very healthy. The episode in San Francisco where my body “betrayed me” destroyed my identity as a healthy person was something that I’ve never really forgiven myself for.

And yet, to quote Emory Hall:

for they are the bones

of the temple

I sit in now.

Emory Hall

This time, I am not evading or avoiding my health. I’m embracing the journey my body and I are on. Not loving it, mind you, but minding it, love you. The trifecta of cancer, COVID, and chemo reminded me that I am still here in the swirl of activity we call life, keeping my identity as a healthy person foremost in my mind and heart.

Some of the other thousand women I have been: A wife now widow. A soon-to-be-retired college professor. Who are we when we shed these significant aspects/roles/people from our lives? Stripped down, what is left but the simple who-ness of each of us, how we as individuals manifest our humanity?

I’ve always been one to make lemonade with life’s lemons. I will always have that facility. It is ingrained in who I am. Why? Who knows? It doesn’t really matter. It is a result of the years of experience and education and luck and un-luck that makes us the quirky individuals we are.

No Hair? Opportunity to have new friends in Honey Karina and Destiny. And all the fun adventures we’ve taken together in the past few weeks. This photo was from Tuesday night, at the opening of King Hedley II, by August Wilson, directed by Michele Shay, featuring the USC School of Dramatic Arts MFA Y2 class.

COVID- 19 after 3 years of avoiding it and deciding it was my blood type that prevented me from getting it? Pshaw. Opportunity to spend the week in my pajamas and not go out. Reminder from my body to rest…. REST….right? WRITE!

And I’m very aware I’ve promised a blog about Taliesin West. Next…..