family weekend!

I have been to every Lowe's, Sears, Home Depot, everywhere, and I have given up on finding an affordable faux Christmas tree before Christmas. It needs to be faux because I kill plants and my cats eat anything green that is alive. I want a big ass fake tree. because our living room has huge vaulted ceilings, but they are $700! I mean, if you use it for 10 years, considering you will spend $80-$100 each year on a live tree that you will throw away, it not only makes sense for sustainability but also financially, but it is a big blow to the credit card account regardless.

However, I plan on braving the crowds on the 26th and will purchase one on clearance. I love Boxing Day sales! I prefer them to black Friday because there is less people and items are usually more steeply discounted because the store really needs to move inventory.

Chemo has totally destroyed my taste buds, and nothing tastes good anymore. It doesn't taste bad, mind you, but that joy that you get from eating something really delicious isn't really something I can get anymore. I can get satisfaction from hunger, but eating a delicious lasagna is about the same as eating a saltine cracker. It is just food.

I wonder if that is something that can help people trying to diet or not eat so much. Some sort of pill that takes all the chemical rush you get from eating a juicy hamburger and Micky D's fries. So you eat if you are hungry, but that pleasure center in your brain is not stimulated.

My Uncle had his 50th birthday bash last night, and we went to his house today for brunch. Here is a photo of me holding my little cousin Finnley, (she has a twin brother).

Happy Holidays!

November has just been a crazy month for me, and it has been so difficult to just get on the computer and collect my thoughts. This has to be one of the best months of my year, however. After Japan, I had friends visit me for the first time (besides Lexie to help me out post-surgery) and we had such a wonderful time. My brother-in-law (it still weirds me out to think I have in-laws!) also visited and we had a great time sitting around cooking and eating and talking. Chase and Amanda used to work with me/for me at Meltwater in Washington DC, so we had plenty to catch up on as I really hadn't seen them since I was married.

After Japan in the beginning of the month, we had a huge family trip to Santa Barbara to wine country and that was PHENOMENAL. The first four days was just wine and food with family, and then Friday night and Saturday morning all my wonderful friends drove hours in to see me and hang out. I got to meet their significant others, who were beautiful smart and good looking people that were so much fun to be with.



I got horribly drunk (I can't even remember the last time I was that drunk), but other than a bottle of spilled wine, and a very foggy game of Never Have I Ever, which is never a good game to play with spouses or significant others around because they get all pissed off (never gotten through that game with a boyfriend around without a serious talk the day after), I think I made it through unscathed. A Much better idea would have been Fu** Date Kill, which is a fabulous game that usually doesn't piss people off (since the participants cannot be named during the game).

I learned a new party game called Celebrity, from my friend Joaquin, which was wonderful! You need to be sober, as I tried to get everyone to guess William Shatner by strumming on a guitar. I know what you are thinking, WTF? There is a twisted logic, as the first thing that flew into my head was his perforamnce of Rocket Man in the 1970s. So that is what I went with. I checked on YouTube however, and he didn't even play the guitar when he sang (prosed?) it. Needless to say, no one got it, and I moved on.

So goal in the next three days is to Christmatize (new word) my house. Very exited to pull all the Martha Stewart magazines out, play Christmas music, drink hot tea, and bring the season to my little shack.

Back from Japan

Japan was just wonderful in every way. The best trip. I wish I could have stayed longer, but our pocketbooks think that 5 days in Tokyo, the fifth most expensive city on planet Earth, is just about right. My closest friends from college came, and it was so wonderful being with friends that I have known for over a decade!

Ellie's wedding was phenomenal. She had a Shinto ceremony, which is usually only attended by immediate family members, but all the foreigners that flew in for the wedding, were also allowed to witness the ceremony, which was a once and a life time opportunity. In addition to exchanging sake to signify the union, Ellie also exchanged wedding rings with Eichi.



We were then escorted to a fabulous hall where we had an amazing meal and listened to tons of speeches in Japanese, including one by a haole (Swedish, to be specific) guy who had gone native and spoke Japanese superbly. Even the Japanese people in the audience were shocked at his fluency.

Besides the wedding, Luis and I spent most of the time visiting with Ellie and Eichi and visiting friends. The only touristy thing we did was visit Tsukiji, the largest wholesale fish market in the world. The pre-dawn auction was closed to tourists this year because of hygiene reasons and the fact that flash photography distracted and hid the hand signals from those trying to buy fish. Even so, the visit was impressive.



To be honest, I had a very averse reaction to the market. I have never seen so much dead fish in my life. And I didn't like being surrounded by so much death. No matter what you think about fish, they are animals, and seeing so many dead and butchered animals was obscene. I am not sure if it the cancer, or what, but it wasn't pleasant, and I was really happy to leave the market.

I have been recently paying a lot of attention to the overfishing that is occurring and trying to eat more sustainably (although I avoid dairy, eggs, and land animal meat, and am eating fish once or twice a week). Time magazine (the latest issue with Secretary Clinton on the cover) actually has a long article on the overfishing of the blue fin tuna, whose population is down 90%. The whole point is, eating many fish is the exact same thing as driving a hummer, but no one sees it that way because everyone does it.



Sushi used to be something that was just eaten on special occasions, but for many it is now a weekly or daily meal. It is quite easy to avoid the wrong types of fish with Seafood Watch, a great application on the eye phone that tells you what to avoid and why.

It is harder than I thought, and when I went to the local market the only fish that was in my price range and was a sustainable choice was catfish. Please ask your supermarket or your sushi chef where the fish comes from if it isn't listed. Trust me, someone places those orders and they no EXACTLY where it is caught. It is super easy to check online and see which is the most sustainable sushi to eat if you are a fantastic and can't go without.

NIPPON KOKUSAI!

Okay, this is gonna be short because I need to be up in 5 hours to get ready to go to Tokyo!

Major achievement for the Day: Clear PET Scan! YAY! I am still in remission!

Going to Japan! Going off my vegan diet and gonna eat lots of raw tuna, kobe beef, and whatever else the country wants to dish up! SHRIMP TEMPURA! NOODLES! All Luis and I plan to do on this vacation is eat and watch the Elster get hitched. No sightseeing or boring castles (Japan's castles are pretty lame anyways cause they all burned down every century or so and had to be rebuilt).

Okay, so I am on my third glass of wine (celebration was in order, don't you think), so no deep thoughts. I just bought like 10 apps to keep me occupied on the plane, including a Japanese dictionary because my Japanese sucks-o mucho.

Hulas are prepped and ready! Oh, yea, I am dancing 2 hulas at Ellie's wedding. I forced her to go to every Hawaii Club Luau at Georgetown, so she actually picked the song Henehene kou `aka (super fun for a wedding) and I chose Wahine ilikea because I danced it at my wedding and Ellie has really white skin(the title means Woman with the White Skin) now that she is in Japan and not subject to college trips to Cancun and other beach locales.

Okay enough rambling! Will update from Japan or when I get back!

Big in Japan!

I am growing hair. I walked into Lowe's the other day (as a new homeowner, I actually walk into Lowe's pretty much every day), and one of the greeters said, I love your haircut! She was African American, and had the same hair length as me, very cropped close to the skin, so actually, what she was saying was, "I love my own haircut," but I enjoyed her self-compliment anyway.

It now looks like I cut my hair to this length, rather than having it styled by a strict chemotherapy regime. Which is pretty great as temperatures nosedive around here in Texas. Some are a bit grey now, but I am hoping that those fall out and I get some pigment back. At what age to most girls start dying their hair because of they grey anyway?

Hair is growing back in other places too, and I am finally using the razor that Luis' mom gave me for Christmas last year. As I was diagnosed immediately in January when I returned from Puerto Rico and I had lost all hair by mid-February, my Christmas gift didn't get any use this year.

I might be able to combine radiation treatments with my chemotherapy regime. Apparently, some chemos actually enhance the radiation effects, or don't diminish it, so I will be able to multi-task on my cancer therapy and maybe really finish in April.

I have a November 4th PET scan coming, and will get the results when I return from Japan to see my best friend and roommate from college get married on the 10th. Luis and I have decided not to travel outside of Tokyo, but go on a full Japanese food fest to find the best ramen hole-in-the-wall and the best tempura bar. I am planning to go to the fish market and have sushi for breakfast after perusing the craziness of fish hawkers in Japan at 5:30 in the morning.

On the non-health front, Luis has gotten an iPhone. He doesn't have a clue how to use it yet, but he has the iPhone, which is a huge step! He isn't technologically unsavvy or anything, he is much better at using film editing software for example, but to be able to email and search on google maps on the road is a priceless tool for him!

Annie Brown, one of my closest friends from high school, are going to take part in NaNoWriMo this year. I am blogging about it so I do it, rather than giving up after the first week, which is what I have done since 2003. NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, and the goal is to write 3000 words a day of the novel that every person has inside of them. It emphasizes quantity over quality, as most people never try to write it because they are waiting for that perfect moment or time in their life, or to have a detailed outline, or whatever.

I have several ideas, but I am too shy to put them out there until I at least pick one, but I will link to the page and summary once I get some words out there. I actually think it is going to be total crap, because I know from experience I am a great reader, but not a great writer. But again, I am baring it to the public so that I am kept accountable for my goal. My only hiccup is that I go to Japan for 5 days of NaNoWriMo, so that is 15000 words that need to be made up on other days.

Steroids are keeping me up like crazy. I went to bed at 1:30 am on a heavy dose of Benedryl, and now I am up again at 5:30am. Plenty to do though. Blogging, journaling on Penzu, paying off my mounting credit card debt somehow, cleaning the fridge, setting up my office, making the bookshelves look nice instead of just crammed with books, etc. I am also studying for the GRE (which I have been studying for since 2004 when I realized working sucked and all I wanted to be was a student). It is kind of fun learning all the math skills again. I don't really want to go to grad school now, but the scores are good for 5 years, so I thought I ought to take the time.

Okay, tea water is boiling. Actually, I can't drink tea anymore because it gives me heartburn, but I am going to have some yummy hot water in a mug. As soon as the bookshelves are put together I will post some before after pics of our house now that it is painted and set up!

Proselytizing Happiness

We had our first dinner guest last night! It was great, the house is ALMOST orderly. We still need to have a housewarming party, but we need to install handles on our kitchen cabinets, and I still need to go to Ikea to exchange some lights so we can install them and bolt our bookshelves to the wall.

Cancer stuff is not exciting. I am going to go to a Survivor Party this evening held by my breast surgeon. Tripple chemo whammy today with all three treatments that I am getting. And next week I am going to attend a presentation put on by the head of Oncology at Georgetown University Hospital.

From meeting a variety of women with breast cancer, it seems that there are two paths to dealing with the disease. You either try to get ALL in info you can, stay on top of treatments, new clinical trial results, know all the dosages for the medicines you receive, and attend colloquiums or conferences. Or, you don't delve deeply into anything, don't seek out second opinions, and are just anxious to lodge the experience firmly in the past. It is hard to tell which is better, the first makes me FEEL better, but cancer is personal, and everyone has to do what makes them emotionally able to cope.

This brings me to a lady called Barbara Ehrenreich, and a book called, Bright Sided. She has been in the paper, NPR, and the Daily Show, so I feel that I have heard her arguments fairly thoroughly, and I have to disagree with most of them. She wrote, Nickle and Dimed, one of the best books I have ever read and ought to be REQUIRED READING IN HIGHSCHOOL, so I have so much respect for her.

She be lives that not only does the forced, “smile or die” cheerfulness of the breast cancer culture infantilize women, she argues, it can do them harm, by making them feel guilty for “failing” to heal themselves by staying positive. She hates all this voodoo that just thinking something can make a physical impact in the world, and states (quite rightly), that there is no physical proof by quantum physics or any science to substantiate.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer, and it seems like she had a horrible experience with all the "stay positiveness" that is pushed by the greater breast cancer movement. Breast Cancer Support is one of the most highly organized movements, and they do push their pink fuzziness a lot. I think she got sick of people trying to cheer her up, so she wrote a book basically saying that positivity was a delusion akin to organized religion, and she didn't like being proselytized to.

Which I understand. For instance, I love talking to Kenji, because I can make comments like, "if I die..." without worrying about hurting my family, or eliciting the typical over exaggerated response like,"OH NO! Don't say that! You are going to be fine! You have such a great attitude, you will overcome this." Very few people can hear me say, "If I die.." and take it with the same attitude as if I had said, "If it rains."

That being said, I do not want to begin every sentence or though with a stated or implied,"If I die." I don't want to die in the next five years, although statistically things aren't in my favor, I would prefer to operate as if I was in the minority statistic rather than the majority. So I make plans, talk about kids, bought a house, think about a dog, think about where the future might take my husband and I, etc. While I do appreciate doses of realism, I take small, infrequent doses.

She stated on the radio the other day that she took nothing from breast cancer, and hated all this BS about cancer teaching so much or opening up new doors, etc. She hated this imposition that she was supposed to take something from her experience with breast cancer. I say she is wrong.

She was bitter about getting diagnosed. We all were. But for instance, if my car breaks down and I need to change my tire, I am going to be pissed about it, but in a week I am going to be laughing about it and say, "Thank goodness for my iphone, I sat in my car, watched a YouTube video on how to change a tire, and I changed to spare right on the street without any help!" It would be a opportunity, a learning experience.

For me, and again I reiterate the personal experience of cancer, I have reaped so much from the experience. I spent quality time with my family, I revamped my diet and the way I think about nutrition, I re-prioritized my life, I became closer to my friends, I have discovered an interest in biology and body chemistry. Never would have happened otherwise. If I had a choice, I wouldn't "do it all over again," but I am not going to deny that their was a MAJOR silver living.

The ONLY interesting thing that she brought to my attention was that she alleges that there is no connection between mood and the immune system. I don't know why I am under the impression that there is. I haven't seen empirical data. I feel that I have read it, but it could be just a myth that has been perpetuated, like oranges and Vitamin C, or poisoned Halloween home baked Halloween Cookie treats (yes, that NEVER happened, just an Urban Myth that has caused parents to toss hundreds of thousands of perfectly baked cookies out of Trick or Treat Bags for the last 3 decades). I will explore more and report! Would love to hear any feedback from anyone who has thoughts.

back to blogging!

Things have just been so hectic. Will bullet point to save time:

1) Luis and I have joined the real adult world and become home owners. We have been looking for a place to live since May, and more seriously since he got his book contract in August, and we found the PERFECT house. Every house we went into, it was all about how we would change it, what walls we would remove, etc, and we walked into this one, and it was perfect. Huge vaulted ceilings, plenty of room for children, offices, guests, a library, and a very contemporary look with lots of light. Luis didn't want to see anything else, and 45 days later, we are moved in!

2) We are painting it. Hector, the painter is here right now. We are going for a rustic look, save the kitchen which will be very "modern" looking. Our appliances are stainless steel, and we are making it look really sharp. We have also purchased a dining room table, which we will pick up next week once everything is painted!

3) Now I can get a dog. What do you think about this guy? He is available in November.

Actually, I am going to wait until after spring break, when I will finally be off chemo, just going in for radiation, and moving on to my post cancer life. Also, the weather will be better for dog walks:) Luis has given me some guidelines since he is acquiescing to a dog. He wants a small dog, because he think it will be less intrusive, but me (and his friend Alberto) are trying to argue that bigger dogs aren't so yippy and annoying. Small or annoying or big and lumbering. I pick the latter. It also has to be a minimal shedder. I can work with that :)

4) Paul, Willem, Luis, Mom, Dad, and I are heading to the Santa Ynez Valley (Sideways wine country) for Thanksgiving break. Lots of wine, and lots of food! If you want to join, visit, or whatever, bring an air mattress and you are most welcome. I think the house has a hottub!

5) Got a second clear CT scan result on Monday. Yay! Because insurance companies only pay for PET scans every four months, and four months of cancer growth is a loooooong time, especially when you have a very aggressive cancer like mine, you get a CT scan every four months, but staggered, so you have some kind of scan every two months. Think summer Olympics and winter olympics :) This is wonderful news, it means the chemo is working. But the real scans to celebrate are when you are no longer on chemo and still getting clear scans, because that means your body is killing the cancer on its own, not the chemotherapy.

6) I am on weekly chemo doses now, because the mega dose every three week was causing too many side effects. I am also on avastin, which causes my nose to bleed about 4 times a day, which is lovely.

7) I am making a desk. Two of them actually, for my office. I have decided to go DIY and learn how to work with wood, etc. Basics. I am not about to rewire the house or do my own plumbing. I managed to glaze the legs today, and are letting them dry. Tomorrow I am planning to make the table tops!

Well, that is my round up! I will be posting more, now that the hecticness level is way down.