Breast Cancer Chronicles: Finding the EASE Within Disease

We've all heard the saying.....we all know what it means. And we certainly all know people with pretty strong opinions, but everyone has got one. You aren't original for having one, however original you may think yours is. Having cancer means being subjected to LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of opinions. From EVERY direction. For those who have gotten married or had children I'm sure you are familiar with how common it was for just any ole person to give you parenting/pregnancy/wedding day opinions, as if you had been waiting for the right person to come along and tell you how to live your life. And that maybe you'd be lost without it, if they didn't share. Please don't misunderstand, I am a highly opinionated person, and I'm generally highly willing to share my opinion no matter how controversial it may be. And while most of us truly believe and truly may be helping another person by sharing our opinion, some of us may also consider learning HOW to share said opini...

There are a lot of aspects about my life that don't exactly fall into the "normal" category anymore. 3 1/2 short years ago I was working at a bar, teaching yoga and working on Roses & Cigarettes. I had a pretty full social life, that generally revolved around drinking, and felt like a fairly normal 31 year old. The day I was diagnosed my life changed, and I knew everything would always be different. I knew that day that nothing would be the same, that that was a moment, maybe THE moment that my life would be forever changed. At the time I didn't know how dramatically it would change and I spent the first almost year of my diagnosis thinking this was a terrible dream I was bound to wake up from. It wasn't until that year later when I was diagnosed Stage IV that my life took a HUGE shift. My focus took a huge shift and now, over 2 years later I can't imagine going back in the other direction. My life was seemingly normal, I worked, I partied, I saw my frie...

I finished my first cycle of chemotherapy in August and then hopped on a plane to fly back to Massachusetts and try and forget about this cancer stuff for a while. And while forgetting may not exactly be the easiest thing in the world I was able to give myself a break from the rut I had gotten into at home. I had spent the greater part of the summer at home not able to do much while I waited for and then recovered from surgery. My brain and body needed the change of scenery and I feel like I finally could breathe when I got to Cape Cod and spent some time lounging with family. I begrudgingly returned to LA and returned to chemo this week with my fingers and toes crossed that last months chemo made a difference in my body. That the chemotherapy did it's job killing lots and lots of those little cancer cells that keep threatening my very existence. And low and behold that chemo DID do it's job. And it did it well! I had been freaking out because after my first round of chemo bo...

2 chemo infusions down, 16 to go. Tomorrow I'll get my third and final infusion of this first "round" of infusions. Each round consists of 3 infusions so all in all I'll go to the hospital 18 times for this chemotherapy over the next 6 months. 18 times. My perspective can shift from day to day and at times it seems like 18 times in 6 months? No problem. Other times those 18 visits feel like a mountain I have to climb. Today I'm somewhere in between the two, stuck right in the middle of "hey this isn't so bad" and "are you kidding me? THIS is what my life look like?".  There's not always a  rhyme or reason for these shifts in mood and perspective, sometimes it's just the side of the bed I wake up on, other times it is decidedly not just the side of the bed I wake up on. Sometimes it's the weight of everything I deal with bearing down on my shoulders. That invisible weight that can't be seen by others but can be felt by me. ...

Tomorrow begins my third time entering chemotherapy and I am having a WHOLE lot of mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I am very excited to start because in my case we know that chemo has worked in the past. It brought me back from the brink last year and I am confident it will again this year. But what I know for a fact is that chemo is not a cure.  It has never been a cure and it will never be a cure. And those aren't the words of a girl who has read too many alternative healing books. Those words came straight from my oncologist when I asked him what is the point in doing this again if every year or so I have to lose all my hair and give up my life for 6 months? Honestly, what kind of life is that? His response was "Because you're young, and chemo has never been, won't ever be, and isn't now a cure. But it will keep you alive, and I want to keep you alive until we see one." Needless to say he convinced me to once again go into chemotherapy, and he rega...

It's been a week since I saw my oncologist and we formulated the plan to once again bring me back to some sort of semblance of health, and nothing has really changed. That's the thing with cancer, it's a WHOLE bunch of hurry up and wait. We want to see you RIGHT AWAY!!! Also I can't get you an appointment for 3 weeks, but it is IMPERATIVE I see you right away! To me right away means today, not 21 days from now. Well in the medical world now, could also mean two weeks from now. So here I sit, pain increasing by the day, waiting. Many people have asked why I'm getting the surgery on my hip, mostly asking if it's to remove a tumor. And no, it's definitely not to remove a tumor. If a tumor is on the bone then that is where it shall remain. I will be having surgery because the pain I have is being caused by a tumor yes, but it's really because the tumor is massively weakening the bone which means at any moment if I stand on it and it's decided it's ...

When I was growing up every single summer my family would head to my grandparents house on Cape Cod. No matter where my family was living we always returned to the place that we considered home. Along with my immediate family, my cousins and aunts and uncles would all get together for at least a week of family fun. A big part of this family fun was playing games; we loved 'em! Saved for the rainiest of days was Monopoly, we all love the game but during the summer it can really put on a damper on your beach time! While playing Monopoloy we have all gotten that one card, that one mean little card that stops us from GROWING OUR EMPIRE and defeating our beloved family members; Go To Jail, Go Directly To Jail,  Do Not Pass GO, Do Not Collect $200  (slightly aggressive but that's neither here nor there). It's a mean little card that can turn your Boardwalk Empire dreams into dust. We've all been there right? And I'm not talking about just playing Monopoly, I'm talkin...