People ask

Today I decided to go with a scarf. This one is very special. It was given to me by a St. Ed's friend who wore it 23 years ago when she had chemo for this and now she's wonderful. Thank you Bev.

I'm answering questions today for my panel:

Does cancer hurt? 

Well no, it doesn't hurt me at all. In fact I don't think I even have cancer. You see I found two small lumps in my last rest and I had two surgeries already where the doctor scooped out any cancer she could find in my left breast. And even when my two little grapes were nestled softly inside their breast home they didn't hurt me. Not one bit. They were made out of me and they were living inside a nice home that had lots of room. No pain. 

Cancer doesn't hurt you at all when it's in your breast. She said there's a little tiny bit left,  a 3 mm margin. So with one more small surgery she's just going to scratch that out in March. 

Cancer isn't really a separate thing, it's not like a space invader or bug that shoots into your body from faraway - it's just a mutated recipe in your DNA that makes whatever cell it's in inside divide and grow too quickly. It's YOU. Skin, milk duct, colon, lung, blood cell, lymph cell, brain, heart, kidney, liver, pancreas. uterus, prostate. Or any.

So do your cells hurt? How do you know you don't have one cell that suddenly had a tiny mutation in the nucleus of one molecule, and it's starting to divide more quickly than it should? How do you know? Does it hurt? See what I mean? You never know when you may have a cancer cell starting, or a cell doing something wonky. Like why are some of the cells of your brown hair starting to turn white? Is that a mutation? 

Most of the time when cells do something wonky they just die, the body kills it. We have mutations going on all the time, in fact this is what is has advanced our species. Here are some mutations that advanced us from amoeba to fish to mammals to primates to hipsters and war mongering Homo sapiens: 

1. Gills that mutated to be able to take in oxygen from above water

2. Fur that grow over the scaly body to keep it warm in differing temperatures outside of water

3. Nails that grew into claws to grip bark to be able to climb away from predators

5. Eyes that mutated to be able to see in the dark

6. The ability to walk upright on two legs so to be able to see farther, which enabled our species to be able to plan and hunt and gather

7. Enlarged brain cells and brains that enabled us to have more intelligence, this caused a necessary mutation in the method of birth, with Homo sapiens giving birth to less developed fetuses so that they could fit to the small birth canal. That's why our babies are so undeveloped. Because of our superior intelligence and large heads have to be born earlier in order to survive, that's why human babies are so underskilled and helpless. Baby horses can walk and nurse at birth - look around, almost any mammal is way ahead of us at birth. Or insect. We basically give birth to embryos.

8. Skin color changes mutated according to the amount of UV light that was hitting us

Tons of examples use your head.

Mutations can be good (red hair!) and really bad (horrid diseases! goats with two heads! chickens like this! Kim Jong Il!) Cancer = BAD! A few little wacky cells no one notices, but if a bunch of them get together and form a big round hard or rubbery freaky gross tumor and the GROWTH RUNS AMUCK!!!! ...and the big uninvited monolith starts pressing on other parts of the body that don't want any intruders or need them thank you very much, HELL YES that could cause pain!!!!! 

How would you like a big hard knot trying to grow right in the middle of your shinbone, or press against your inner ear, or a part of your brain that registers pain or is trying to do something worthwhile like see the page in front of you or read my blog? I hope you have balance or walk or think or communicate? That would be beyond pain. 

That hasn't happened to me so I've had no pain at all from any cancer. 

Here's a breast cancer cell:

The thing is with me, is that just a few of those cells, just a tiny bit about as big as a grain of rice got into my lymph nodes, and they may or may not broken apart into little gangsters that are trying to set up shop somewhere else in my body like in my bones or my lungs. That's why I'm doing chemotherapy right now. If one of those sets up shop and gets the cells there to start dividing to quickly it could form a hard lump on my bone that would hurt. Or could form a tumor in my brain that will press against my brain and make me feel sick and ruin my ability to talk or think or walk or live. I bet that would hurt. But right now I have no pain from any cancer.

Chemotherapy is a crude, almost medieval approach. I predict it will be vastly changed in just five years. It's like dropping an acre of pebbles on a playground from 100 feet above to try to kill one stink bug . You bombard the entire body with poison just to possibly find a few rogue cells. 

I found a couple things recently that are interesting. In Italy they hardly use chemotherapy at all and they think that the American doctors are barbaric. Actually have a friend whose father is an oncologist in Italy and he reviewed my case. He said over there they would just do surgery and radiation and then follow up with tamoxifen. However I'm committed to my doctor here and I'm going to go through with this. 

Another thing I found that yesterday is that if you get stage four breast cancer, you can often live for 10 to 20 years by going in every three weeks to do chemo during that 10 to 20 years, EVERY THREE WEEKS TILL THE DAY YOU DIE.  I met two women yesterday who were doing just that. Both of them had ended chemotherapy last January thought they were done, only to have to come back. They had new hair that was to 3 inches long amd looked great. And they're about to lose all that again and keep doing this every three weeks for the rest of their lives. That was very depressing. However that is not me,

How do you feel one day after your second round of chemotherapy?

Nauseous, dead tired, feel gross in tummy and head, no regular pain except mild headaches - like hangover plus pregnancy plus mild food poisoning. On I'm on my third day of heavy duty steroids, so I won't feel super bad until they wear off tomorrow and the next day. I also feel dread and anxiety. Mouth tastes awful. Nice huh? 

What are you up to today?

Resting, hanging around, ringing my new bill from Madeline anytime I want any kind of service, drinking English breakfast tea, eating snacks, watching TV, maybe taking a shower, going to get my Neulasta shot at 1:30, trying not to complain too much, blogging. Trying to get Fiona to get used to my hair, she still won't touch it. Trying to help my motley collection of eighth-graders with the problems in their lives. I am like an every mother, as soon as I gave birth to Violet and Fifi I felt like I was the mother to all of the children around me, and that my children were no more special than any other children. Send me your wretched children, I love children, I also can't stand them sometimes and they drive me insane. There lies the paradox. How to get Vicki and my husband to go to the East Austin tour tonight and go to my favorite store called Take heart and see what are they have going on at the art show there, because I still need a painting for above the bed. Planning to watch some superiorly bad television. Planning to ship off kids for Saturday - pretty complete thanks to Cathy and Adriana! And being pampered by my nurses!