Saturday, April 25, 2015

#77 "Dear Family, I Love You" said Cancer.

They are little jelly bean cells.
All different colors stacked next to each other. Smooth and round. They are multiplying like an animated cartoon: black lines around each plump oval, drawn carefully to separate each cell, yet they are attached and nestle together. They could be rainbow sprinkles: the kind you put on your ice cream cone or Christmas cookies. There are hundreds of them and they are perfect, round and pleasing to look at. They multiply and divide. They snuggle up to each other by the thousands-make that hundred of thousands- until they form a mass.

A tumorous home to live and thrive. 
Your family is a wonderful host to these cells. They move in and grow, creating a happy home thriving off their unsuspecting host who serves delicious meals and delightful sleeping accommodations. Fulltime living in a luxury hotel.

“Pass the popcorn, honey. The baby is finally sleeping”
He held the remote out and they relaxed.
He grabbed her boob.
“What is that?”

Essie was sitting on the couch and then she felt the lump in her left breast. It was never there before and there it was now.
It was odd, like a little ping pong ball underneath her shirt. Her breasts weren’t large and recently had stopped breast feeding, just 6 months earlier. She just had a mammogram last month. Nothing.
Once, way back, there was an ultrasound for benign calcifications, but nothing else.

So, pass the popcorn.

Anxiously, she called her OBGYN and made an appointment for the next day.

“A fibroadenoma” said the nurse practitioner who felt her up with confidence. “It doesn’t move, so it probably isn’t a malignant tumor.
To be safe, here is the name of a good breast surgeon. He will make sure you're okay.”
She put her bra back on and finally took a deep breath. Maybe she’d stop at Duane Reade for tropical Jelly Belly’s and toss the number in the garbage.

A week later she confidently entered the waiting room of breast surgeon, Paul Tartter, at St Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital. The room was filled with gorgeous black and white photo portraits of women, by Annie Leibowitz. Essie didn’t put two and two together- that Susan Sontag was her partner- until recently. Boy, was she glad she didn’t make the connection back then. Now, she supposed that they spent some time in this same waiting room.

When Essie graduated college, her mother was diagnosed with rectal cancer. She had a resection of her colon and had a colostomy bag. After she healed and was treated with radiation, her surgeon reconnected her.

When Essie graduated from grad school her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had chemotherapy and was fine.

Essie’s Aunt survived ovarian cancer.

And breast cancer.

Essie’s cousin had breast cancer

They all survived.

On that day, Doctor Tartter did a needle biopsy and Essie didn’t let the door hit her on the way out, because she knew she wasn’t going back there again- no matter how hokey and adorable his Snoopy Christmas tie was.

She was not going back.

So when his office called the next day, Essie wasn’t prepared for the news. Yes, malignant cells were found in the biopsy and that started the path to fixing the problem, which was fairly simple because she caught it really, really early. Yes, it was aggressive. No, she didn’t have chemo. Yes, she had radiation and a lumpectomy. Yes, she follows up with MRI’s, mammo’s and ultrasound’s on a regular basis.

And, yes, she is BRCA 1 positive. Like Angelina, except Essie opted for breast conservation (not mastectomy) and knock on olive wood, 9 years out, Essie is fine. She did have an oophorectomy (removal of ovaries) early on, because BRCA positive makes one high risk for ovarian cancer, and Essie wasn’t going to play any games with that very difficult to detect and diagnose lethal weapon. (Angelina did this, too. She is Essie’s hero on a lot of levels having nothing to do with Brad Pitt).

One year ago, Essie’s older brother was diagnosed with a rare stomach cancer which metastasized to his liver. Stage 4. Right now, he is recovering from surgery because his oral chemotherapy (Gleevac), which initially reduced the tumors, stopped working.  60% of his liver was removed.

A full body PET scan before his surgery revealed a chicken egg sized tumor on his pituitary. Yes, in his brain. Totally unrelated to his stomach cancer.

The poor guy has been through hell getting his body ripped open to remove the tumors. The pituitary tumor is benign and the neurosurgeon removed it through his nose!
He is recovering.

Essie asks, Cancer, why do you love us so much? Why do you find your way into our breasts, ovaries, stomach and brain? What make us such a hospitable environment?

Why don’t you pick on somebody your own size?

Sometimes, the subway is great. Its sounds are rhythmic and gentle. The screeching wheels are in perfect harmony with the loud, tremendous weight barreling down the track at a dangerously fast speed. It’s comforting when it stops on cue at a station.
The 3 train: 34th Street.
42nd Street
79th Street
96th Street
110th Street

Essie emerges, out of the station on north end of Central Park. The  Cherry blossoms are in full bloom, purple-orange pansies, red tulips and daffodils are leaning into the sunlight toward the  Meer which reflects each and every glorious cloud in the sky as the sun sets on the city.

The park is teeming with life.




Wednesday, April 15, 2015

#76 Daffodil On 45th Street

A daffodil grew up the hill and a chocolate egg fell down. It is 45th Street and the flowers smell really great next to the pile of garbage. The design on the side of the sky scraper is geometric genius. And you are sitting in bed. You are recovering!
I wish I could wave a magic wand and turn you into a daffodil and you could be perfect and whole. Fresh and healthy.

Alive

Instead, I will dump a bag of chocolate eggs into a bowl and you can eat them. That will make you feel better, because they are so delicious.  They are magic eggs and when you suck on them and they melt in your mouth you will not only recover your strength, you will recover everything in life that you desire. Things that you forgot you ever wanted will suddenly appear. You will create them with you imagination. The one that you forgot you had because you are sick.
Being sick takes a lot of work and it is difficult to have imagination.

So, here are some daffodils.
Chocolate eggs.
Young.
And magic.