The anniversaries are starting to come up. Feb. 23 marked one-year since my biopsy. Tomorrow is one year since I got the call where I learned I had cancer. I am taking the day off work to go to the mountains and ski. It's time to live, just like every day going forward. I will also write and sit still and feel. Tomorrow, I want to celebrate and feel the emotions and memories that are starting to surface more and more. It's like walking through rooms with smells that I haven't experienced since childhood. Memories are raining. For example, yesterday at a dental appointment, Tracy Chapman played. She was one of my go-to artists in the odd, dry, stagnation of radiation mornings. It's the first time I've heard her songs in the background since they got me through treatment. New layers.
This morning, I had my last echocardiograph. My first infusion was March 23, 2022. I have side-eyed Herceptin in a grateful, awkward hug since I learned I had HER-2 positive breast cancer. Herceptin didn't exist before 1998. HER-2 positive cancers are aggressive, but with brilliant, inventive scientists, a clear path to treatment was created just 25 years ago. Again, this year I have marveled at the love of science. I owe my life to the work and dedication of so many others.
Herceptin's cause for side-eyeing is that it can cause damage to the "squeeze" of the heart. I have had cardiology appointments every three months to monitor my heart health. Until I knew damage was a possibility I must accept, I never knew how much I love my heart. In 2021, I was curious to know my heart as I tracked it and played on mountain runs. This summer, I watched my resting heart rate almost double from 44 to 77 during cytotoxic chemo. And now, and with the support of some amazing Helena physical therapists, I've returned to my movement and observed my heartbeat and moved with respect to it. Slowly, slowly. Patiently and with tenderness.
Since October, I've been dipping my toe into growing back a patient strength. Last night, Mike and I did a bike workout and it felt so good to feel fresh power and see my heart pumping at 160, with no dizziness or warning alarms in the background. Sweat fell from my face and hit my arms. My lungs gasped. After months of slow, steady building, I can lean into pushing and feel the thrill of exhaustion without a fear of hurting my precious heart.
The complexity of anniversaries is that I have been in awe of my body, and I have more to learn. Cancer is a personal science project and my body, mind, and soul are the experiment. I've watched scars slowed by chemo take months to heal. I've studied my open wound and after months of pain, shut car doors with no protective thoughts. I've seen hair regrow with amusement and surrender to whatever short hair will do. I've seen new wrinkles on my face like little gullies after a flash flood. I have felt alarming, sudden dizziness with my breath thick and heart plunging and learned that pushing through, even for a short distance, is not my option. I have feared quick weight loss and felt my muscle mass go. I've felt my nails tear and can see healthier growth now like sedimentary layers. I know neuropathy jabs in my soles. Other changes go to deeper roots. Infertility has been a stomach hollowing that therapy has helped me hold. I have slowed down, and slowed slower.
My body has carried me through all this. I thought I loved my body before, and I did, but now I feel awe and reverence. I know my senses more dimensionally. I know taste and sound. Touch. I know my breath. I know how anxiety rests in my core and throat. I know the joy of my muscles feeling fresh in a new pull. I know now how to let given love be felt through my whole body. Cancer has shown me how to receive love when I can offer nothing. Open hands. Deep breaths. Eyes closed and face upraised to the sun. Feel it all. Let love spread like morning warmth to each cell of my being and mind. Love in every cell.
It feels like this period, this time, is a different storm. And storms are neither just good nor just uncomfortable. But there's an exfoliation --- a washing away and quenching. I look to the near future where the pillars of my medical team will be removed as I transition to post-treatment. I look to the duality of re-exploring my body as my energy rises and the stages of regrowing sprout up. January was a very tiring month, and it felt like a regression after December's higher energy levels. Some days I feel "normal" like I did before cancer, and other days, I'm just tired and there's no mental or physical cause that I can understand, so I chalk it up to the past almost-year of treatment and adapting.
Going forward, I want to be tender and honest in the ways my body has changed and been altered to survive this challenge. I am still sore from radiation, even though that ended in late November. I assume/hope/predict the neuropathy will fade. I have learned my body and I must also continue to keep learning. After my last infusion on March 15, I will have a few months off before I go back to check-in. This allows time to see what symptoms resolve and which I may need to integrate, and learn to embrace as "me."
It's been only a year. I can see that impermanence was always the way (thank you Thich Naht Hanh). Since 2014 -- 9 years ago -- and when I started graduate school and tight finances and hustle-topia and hyper-productivity took over, I have tried so hard to create predictability and productivity and control to avoid fear and vulnerability. This year has shown me how I've never been in control, so why do I crave it and waste precious energy setting control as an expectation? I
Openness, even to the unknown or discomfort, is the way. Is life about being open to receiving, whatever comes? It's not like we can throw back truths we don't want to live with. I couldn't throw back the truth of cancer's presence. What point would resistance have made?
From this past year, I want to flow with life, even when the water flows fast and over boulders. I've been working toward the chronological goal of March 15 and I am nervous because March 15 is also a new beginning. Providers and other survivors have warned me that the "post-treatment" time can be disorienting. That begins the time time you get to account for the losses and memories and emotions and griefs suppressed while surviving, but without the healthcare team that walked you through this, and with the new, outward appearance that you are now safe and restored to the community you live in. Again, I'm so grateful I found an amazing local therapist who knows oncology and has helped me start remembering, knowing, and healing from the events of the past year.
So, I don't know if there is an end. I don't know if there needs to be an end. At least there is always a continuation, even if I cannot have control, I will continue.
And for tomorrow, I will smell the snow, feel the light and the cool air, and go play on the mountain.
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