Adventures of a Girl with Hodgkins

“Hi, my name is Erin and I had Hodgkins Lymphoma. Last month was the one year anniversary of me finishing chemo. This is my first meeting.”

That’s how I introduced myself at the Young Adults with Cancer Support Group last night. That’s right people; I went to a support group. Just like the folks with gambling problems and eating disorders and those who hide vodka bottles under the mattress and drink mouthwash when they can’t get booze.   That’s me.

I never thought it would come to this. I made it through cancer and more or less felt pretty lucky. Or at least that’s what I have been telling myself. And everyone else.

Honestly, I was pretty lucky. I knew I wasn’t going to die (okay, well once I got the diagnosis -- before that month-long limbo period where we weren’t sure exactly what kind of cancer I had or didn’t have, and I had to ban my dad from Web MD and the internet in general because he was scaring the beejeezus out of me, himself and anyone else in the family who had the misfortune to call him ask how things were going.)

And I made it through, out the other side, cancer-free. There was the crushing nausea, horrible metallic taste, the port surgery and the scar, the extreme fatigue and the Neupogen-induced joint paint, the hair loss and the lovely sunken eyes and yellow pallor and the extreme itching in my fingers and the ridiculous chemical burns on my arms, chest and stomach caused by the chemo drugs seeping through my skin from the inside….but I’m telling you, by cancer standards, I got off pretty easy. 

You would think if I was going to feel sad or confused or pissed off or anxious, it would have happened while I was actually experiencing said cadre of symptoms.  But here I am one year out. The dust has settled and the chemo is over and my hair is growing back all nice and curly and I finally have energy to travel and work and see my friends.  Now is when I should really feel lucky.

Except right now I’m just mostly… well let’s face it, I’m pissed off.   And kind of depressed.  I cry for no apparent reason. I feel irritable and cranky, and lost. Like two of the best, most productive, vibrant, creative, set-the-world-on-fire years of my life were stolen from me. Like I wuz robbed. 

Here’s the the thing: at the beginning of January 2010, I was at the pinnacle of my production career. I was building a fierce New York City network of other creative badasses. I was assembling all of the gas cans and TNT I needed to set said world on fire. 

That was then. Now I just feel sort of…used up.

But luckily for me the goddesses above got my back and send me angels in the form of amazingly wise and awesome people like my friend Deilia.  This is why after I went from happily munching my edamame and avocado salad at Corner Bakery on Monday, to crying and talking about how I don’t really want to celebrate my birthday this year because nothing feels joyful or worthy of donning a birthday hat, Deilia sent me a link.  “Just thought you might want to take a look,” her note said.

And that, my friends, is how I ended up at the Young Adults with Cancer Support Group.

The crowd at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts was 15 strong – men and women each with their own story and all at different points in their cancer journey. One woman who can’t be over 32 had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and is having a double mastectomy next Tuesday.  Then chemo. Then radiation. The guy next to her said he has been in remission for 20 years.   The woman across from him told she was 36 -- my age -- and  almost done with treatment for rectal cancer.

I’ll just let you ruminate on that for a minute.

Right?  

Let’s just say, that got me to stop feeling sorry for myself real quick.

The woman next to me had 7 surgeries for melanoma in six months last year and she looks amazing. I’m serious. If she weren’t at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts for the Young Adults with Cancer Support Group, you’d never even know. 

Then there’s the guy that had esophageal cancer last fall and was given a 10% chance of living.  He survived and his scans immediately after looked totally clear, but he’s petrified of going for his 6-month check-in because with esophageal cancer there’s a 50% chance of a relapse. Then he told us “the doctor said if it reoccurs, I’m toast. He literally said that.”  

There were two other women there who have been through Hodgkins Lymphoma - my people! - but what really connects us all is that we’ve had this experience that less than 1% of the population can relate to.  Literally. And after the third person in the group said some version of  "everyone tells me I'm lucky and deep down I know they're right, but I just want to punch them in the face," I knew I was in the right place. 

They compared the psychological fallout to PTSD -- as in I look fine, but I still feel real, real broken.  There were a lot of tears and a lot of hugs. We did not sing Kumbaya but they did serve snacks, so that was nice.  Mostly, I left feeling grateful to have met so many fabulous people and relieved beyond words to know that it’s not just me.

And then on my walk home, I got one of those nice reminders the universe is so fond of giving out.

My friend Dan, who I haven’t talked to in three years, called. He’s a cameraman who I met on the film festival circuit back in ’09 right as I was setting about that whole lighting the world on fire business.

He shot one of my favorite docs of all time called The Way We Get By (you should totally rent it from Netflix) and is now working on his own project.  He’s three years into production on a film that sounds like it’s going to be brilliant. 

As usual, just like clockwork, the isolation, doubt and fear that all independent filmmakers experience at some point in the process, has kicked in.  It feels like an unrelenting pit in your stomach accompanied by a little demon on your shoulder saying “You fool! You’ve invested all of your free time and money into creating an unwatchable piece of garbage. Who do you think you are?” 

So I did what any good friend and fellow creative worth her salt would do – I talked him off the ledge.

I explained how we had felt exactly the same way when we made MINE, about six weeks before we got accepted to SXSW and four months before we won the audience award. I reminded him that being an independent filmmaker is important work. That the fear is normal. And that it takes real balls (or in my case, ovaries) to make a movie. That he might be freaking out, but he’s incredibly brave. That his idea sounds really good and deep down he knows it’s good, or he wouldn’t have embarked on the journey.

Dan was quiet for a minute and then he said “Thank you. This is just what I needed to hear,” And then, “I just have so much respect for you and your work that I knew I needed to talk to you. I knew you would have the answer. This means a lot coming from you.”

Whoa.  Thanks Dan. Thanks universe.  Thanks for the reminder of two very important things:

1. I may have been through the wringer, but I am still a kick-ass, smart, creative goddess.

2. No matter who you are, or where you might be on your life path, everyone needs a support group now and then.

Now pass me that birthday hat. I got some celebratin’ to get to.

About this time two years ago, a group of us gathered at Le Madeleine on Rockville Pike to take over the private dining room affectionately known as the “wine cave” for my mom’s annual holiday party.  In years past the Rossenmacher holiday soiree took place at the townhouse I had grown up in but mom had steadily downsized over the course of four moves and her tiny apartment in Kensington simply didn’t have the pomp and grandeur of the wine cave.

My mom loved the place  - she had even intimated that we might hold Annie’s baby shower there slated for the following March. The night of the Christmas party we listened to music on the Bose stereo mom brought in for the occasion. Towards the end of the night she and I did a karaoke-style rendition of Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” as we pretended to drink out of little bottles of cheap red wine. Someone snapped a picture and I have it on my desk. 

We, of course, had no way of knowing that just 2 weeks later she'd be gone.  That we’d be right back in the wine cave, mom's beloved chocolate fountain flowing in the background as we toasted her amazing life with that same cheap red wine, and mourned her passing.

The night of the party mom had asked everyone to bring an unwrapped toy for House of Ruth, a shelter in DC for women and their children.  The guests dutifully obliged and deposited teddy bears and board games and books into the box mom brought. I took the box home, promising to drop it off, but after I learned House of Ruth doesn’t take toys, I put the box in the corner of Annie’s spare bedroom hoping to find another proper home for its contents.  Two weeks later the bottom fell out of our world and the box would sit, untouched for two years.  Every time I caught sight of it, those stuffed bears with their ears sticking up and out reminded me of how awesome and thoughtful and strong my mother was – how she fought for the little guy her whole life. How finding a good home for those toys would honor her memory.  And then I would forget about it until I saw it again, at which point I would feel that familiar little stab in the heart that is equal parts gratitude and regret.

About this time last week, I had my first check-up with Dr. Fishman since that final PET scan, the one that said I was cancer free.  I now work at an office at 21st and M about four blocks from Dr. Fishman. The scenery on the walk over is the same – same bagel shop where Charlie and Annie would go and get lunch for me and for the nurses, same parking garage where we would wait for Rocinante the wonder Jeep to come forth and carry us home, same breast feeding center in the basement filled with new mothers and their little ones – all of that new life and hope a stark juxtaposition to the way I felt so used up and one foot in front of the other.  I don’t eat at that bagel shop anymore, but I’m a regular at the salad joint next store.  And now seeing those babies just makes me smile. Today the neighborhood around Dr. Fishman's office is all about possibility and moving forward and happy hour. 

Most of the time I almost forget about that whole cancer thing. Almost.

Last week, just before I saw Dr. F, I got an email from one of the professional list serves that flood my inbox, from some guy named Lorenz.  He and his girlfriend were volunteering to collect and distribute toys to kids at the Extension Center. They needed to collect 200 toys in seven days. Could anyone help?  His email signature featured a quote from Khalil Gibran, one of my mom’s favorite poets. I remembered the box and sent him an email. We met on the street in DC and I loaded the managerie into his car. As he drove away, all I could see through the back windshield was so many sets of fuzzy, stuffed ears sticking out of the top of box.   

After the event that Saturday, he sent me a bunch of pictures, including the one posted above here.

It was a good reminder that life has a funny way of coming full circle - that you can walk by the same buildings, but see them through such different eyes, depending on the day, or the month, or the year.  Mostly it was a good reminder that even if it doesn't happen at the time or in the way that we expected, sooner or later all of us (every stuffed bear and every girl) winds up exactly where we’re supposed to be.

 

We moved out of our apartment yesterday.  It served us well for 14 months, but neither Charlie nor I ever really loved it.  We’re both city kids at heart who want to be able to walk home from the bar at midnight and be in bed by 12:15, or come home from work, change and then pop back out for dinner, or a screening, or as my mom used to love to say, to “rendezvous” with friends. So that apartment, in all of its quiet, suburban, manicured lawn, proximity to the mall glory, no longer fits. 

It was, however, perfect for convalescing during chemo (which when I read out loud, sounds like a line from a twisted children’s story – as in ‘“C” is for Convalescing during Chemo when you have Cancer.’)

Moving out has been full of mixed emotions for me.  While it might not have been my dream home, that place was the backdrop for the most intense year of my life. I spent whole days on that couch in that corner, too exhausted to even lift my head.  I lay curled up in the bed in that other room, crying inconsolably from the intense pain and wishing for something - anything - that would make it stop.  Those steps there lead down to the main office where I would go and pick up the care packages that came 3 a week - and sometimes more -  that would make me cry just as hard -   because acts of love and kindness are especially touching when you’re at the bottom of  a well and someone throws you a rope. And that little balcony that overlooks a quiet and tree-lined part of Tuckerman Lane?  That served as my meditation space where I would go to get centered and to remind myself that living on life’s raw edges also opens you up to incredible amounts of grace.

When I was first diagnosed and considering where to get treatment and all that would flow from that, I needed to decide where I was going to live for those 6+ months. I could return to my New York apartment smack in the middle of all of Manhattan’s wonderful insanity. I could continue on holing up in Charlie’s big group house in D.C., where I had been hunkered down since my mom died, playing with the two crazy dogs and having BBQs with a revolving cast of characters that usually involved impromptu games of beer pong.  My sister very sweetly offered up her house, but I knew that space needed to center around nurturing a new baby, which would be harder to do with me curled up on her couch for days on end, crying. 

Just in the past two months Charlie read somewhere that Bethesda means “healing spring”.  He didn’t know that when he rented the place. He only knew that I needed a quiet place to rest and to get better. The little place on Strathmore Hall Lane was perfect.  

Now, 14 months later, it’s time to move on. I’m working again more than full time, planning a big event that happens next week. Let’s just say the move was not well-timed, but despite all the ways having cancer has changed me, it’s still pretty amazing (and sometimes pretty scary) how easy it is to slip right back in where I left off – namely juggling a lot and somehow making it all work.   In between late nights at the office and jaunts to Chicago, Dallas and Birmingham, AL to interview America’s boardroom leaders, I’ve been packing boxes and sorting papers and trashing things that no longer serve me (orange bikini from 1995 – I’m talking to you.) Miraculously, we got it all done and somehow managed to get out just under the deadline of midnight on October 31st.  Once I had time to sit still and catch my breath, I realized that I had just sped right past a moment that was the bookend to most influential chapter in my story.  In my haste to get it all done, I had almost missed it. Almost.  

I left for work an hour early this morning and after I got my obligatory Panera hazelnut coffee (it makes me so freakin’ happy that stuff), I stopped by the old place.  Although it’s technically November 1st and I technically don’t live there anymore, I figured at 7am no one would be the wiser.  I walked in just as the first rays of light were streaming through the windows.  I sat, crossed-legged on the floor of the empty living room and silently thanked that little apartment for all it had given me, all the ways it had supported me the way a proper nest should. I silently thanked Charlie and my sister and my amazing dad and stepmom and sisters for all of their love and care and support. And then I thought of each one of my amazing friends and how it’s possible to feel the depths of despair and the depths of the most amazing love all at the same time.  Mostly I just reflected on all that’s happened in the past year – what I know about how it’s changed me, and what I’ve yet to discover. 

I had my end-of-chemo-PET scan a week ago Wednesday.  It’s a routine test given to us cancer patients, which involves drinking radioactive dye and getting in one of those MRI tubes so the techs can take photos of your insides. (You end up with a photo that looks not unlike those new TSA full body scans, only those are free and the one I got cost $12,000. One the up side, there was no slow dude in front of me trying to unpack three laptops with all of the grace and speed of a wounded basset hound.)

Dr. Fishman recommended I get this test back in February when I finished chemo, mostly as a baseline against which to measure all future scans. And…”just to be sure.”    I put off getting the scan for a month and then scheduled it and then rescheduled it twice after that.  

“What’s the rush?” I thought. I mean, if my scans came back clean half way through chemo (which they did) surely another 6 rounds of that stuff could only have made me extra cancer free or super-cancer free or something like that. Besides, three months out from chemo, I’m busy.  I’m working again. And I *really* needed a pedicure.  Plus no matter how much they try to disguise the label with pictures of strawberries, that disgusting contrast dye shake tastes like “berries” the way that air freshener sprayed over rotting meat smells like “lilacs”.   

And if I’m being totally honest (and let’s face it, that’s what blogs are for) I knew that even though there was NO way I still had cancer in my body, that if for some crazy reason I did….I kinda didn’t want to know.

Let’s just say when you relapse with Hodgkins, the treatment starts with a month-long stay in the hospital where they put you in a bubble and totally blow away your immune system. Then they give you a transplant of your own stem cells. After that you get 6 months of chemo. Then radiation.  (I know all of this because it happened to my friend Mia, who is twice as brave and fierce and amazing than I could ever hope to be.)   

I would tell you that the thought of all of that totally freaked me out, except I can’t. I don’t really know what the thought of that feels like, because I never entertained that thought. 

What I did know was that I made it through chemo with my sanity intact – but just barely.  I also knew that if I considered the thought of a relapse even for one second, I might go totally, completely and irretrievably batshit crazy. (And not crazy in that fun, “my-life-is-a-Laverne-and-Shirley-episode” kinda way.  I mean the other way. The “talking-to-yourself-real-loud-and-punching-invisible-bad-guys-in-public” kinda way.)

So that’s all to say, I tried not to think about it.  And I knew I would be okay.  So except for the momentary gag reflex when I forced down the “triple berry shake”, this whole PET scan thing was a total non-event.

Or so I thought. 

I was getting ready for work when I got a message from Dr. Fishman’s receptionist.  It was short, sweet and to the point: “The doctor would like you to call him.” 

Well…shit.  That doesn’t sound good.  Doctors are usually too busy to give you good news in person over the phone.   I listened to the message again and then stared at my phone for about a minute.  “What’s up?”  Charlie asked.  “Fishman wants me to call him,” I replied.  While I refused to meet his gaze, I could see out of the corner of my eye a very small, barely perceptible flash of sheer panic on his face.  Charlie also knows that doctors never call with good news.

I dialed the number and tried to stay as calm as possible.  I had to hold for about 3 minutes (roughly about 4 ½  hours in “waiting for the diagnosis” years).  Finally I heard Fishman’s very authoritarian sounding voice come on the line.  He asked how I was feeling.  “Oh great, just great.” I said, lying through my teeth. I actually had been feeling great about 20 minutes before.  Right then I thought I was going to puke.  “Well,” he said “I just wanted to tell you that your scans look excellent.  I would say you’re in full remission.”  

Full. Remission.   Just typing those words now gives me goose bumps all over again.

I hung up the phone and immediately burst into tears.  Charlie hugged me as I said, though sobs “he…s-s-s-said…I’m…in…remission.”  Charlie managed to both smile and look a little freaked out, the way most guys do when they see the waterworks.  “Are these good tears?”  he asked.  I nodded.  And they were good tears.  But I realized I didn’t really feel happy. I mostly felt...relieved. 

It's like I had girded up for battle, fought the good fight, took a lot of hits along the way, and through it all the only way I kept going was to never entertain the idea that it might NOT be okay -- that I might not be okay. That sense of optimism was my magic lasso, my invisible jet, my Rocinante, all rolled into one.  And it worked. It held me together. Allowed me to kick some serious butt.  The flip side is that without realizing it, I spent the better part of the last nine months holding my breath.  I guess it took hearing official confirmation from a guy with letters after his name, to finally exhale.

Later that day I found myself at the Sculpture Garden enjoying some of the free jazz and not-so-free sangria they have there (if you’re in or around DC on any given Friday this summer, you should check out both: http://www.nga.gov/programs/jazz)

Thanks to Charlie who had beaten me there by at least an hour, I had a prime seat along the fountain, toes in water.  About two hours into the show, ominous black clouds rolled in from the east. Lightning crackled through the sky like a thousand fireflies doing their best impression of Rolling Thunder (without the Sarah Palin photo-op.) The rain started immediately fast and furious.  Folks all around me grabbed their blankets and pitchers of sangria (and this being DC, their Tory Burch flats) and scrambled for cover.  Everyone, that is, except for me.  Some little, but very firm, voice in the back of my head said, “stay.”   (Actually it said “stay, but take your toes out of the water for god’s sake – it’s lightning!”)

So I did.  (both)

I watched the drops falling on the water in the fountain, hitting the surface in a way that made them look like they were doing a frenetic little happy dance, ecstatic at being freed from whichever dark cloud they had come from.  It was the kind of show you don’t see every day, either because you’re stuck inside, or not paying attention or too busy running for cover.  It was raw and beautiful and made me laugh out loud.  I felt like a little kid at the Icecapades. 

Staying there, in the midst of that lashing rain also felt like church, like I was being baptized anew, reborn as someone who looked a lot like my old self, except for stronger and wiser in ways I had never imagined before.

Bearing witness to that downpour felt like an offering to the universe, an acknowlegement  of all that life has both taken away and given me over the past 18 months.  And it was a great reminder that things bigger than us -- things that we cannot control -- will upend our lives in ways small (the sudden soaking rainstorm, the blown tire) and big (cancer, a tornado that wipes out an entire community).   These moments are part and parcel of being alive.  And if we can weather the initial influx of pain, sit still and just bear witness, that sudden downpour can be as beautiful as the most breathtaking sunset.

Staying put was also an offering to myself, to that scared inner part of me that had held her breath for so long.  Yes the lighting crackles and the thunder roars and rain comes down in sheets, but eventually it stops.  And it's then you realize you’re still alive -- soaking wet, but still laughing.

Today is my birthday.  My for real birthday.  As of 9:48pm, I'll officially be 36 (or as my dad and Charlie have pointed out, starting my 37th rotation around the sun, which while it may be true, is not really what I'm choosing to focus on, especially since I still feel more like 26 in the first place.)  

Every year since I can remember my mom would call me on April 12th sometime before midnight and we would have "the birthday talk".  This basically consists of a series of questions including "what was the best thing about being (insert age you're leaving behind here)?"  "What was the worst thing?" and "what are you most excited about for (insert age you're turning here)?"  In all of my 34 birthdays for which she was alive, she never missed a talk.  I remember once, before cell phones (yes, my little sisters, I'm THAT old) I broke away from a study group at Denny's where my roommates and I were cramming for finals and called her from the payphones by the bathrooms at 11:48pm, just to make sure I didn't miss it. 

This year my sister did the honors, and while I really miss having that conversation with my mom, I have to say, Annie handled her duties with a grace, enthusiasm and irreverance worthy of Linda Ross.   

Needless to say the best thing about being 35 was Aubrey's birth (which I almost didn't mention since I thought for a second that it happened when I was 34.  The whole "lost year of 2010" has really f''ed with my sense of time.)  The worst was, hands down, chemo.  Not so much cancer, but chemo.  I want to be careful about dissing on cancer too hard.  Having cancer taught me so many valuable lessons about living, about who I am, what I'm capable of, what matters and about how I need to readjust my life to create happiness and balance for the next 60+ years.   I am grateful for these lessons and I don't want the universe thinking otherwise. Not only do I not want seem like an ungrateful byatch who can't accept a gift (even when it comes wrapped in newsprint from the Classified section), but I don't want it to think I missed the lesson and therefore need to repeat it. I got it. Loud and clear.  So cancer was actually one of the best things about being 35. 

Chemo, on the other hand, can suck it. 

As for what I'm most looking forward about 36, that's a little harder to pinpoint. Even two months out from chemo, I'm still trying to get my feet under me. To feel at home in my own body. To embrace what I'm capable of when I'm not forced to rest 20 hours a day. I'm working on my writing and am looking forward to finishing the book I'm creating. And I hope to tell more stories through my film work, too.  Mostly though, I look forward to slaying more dragons.  See the dragon of the "dragon slaying princess" fame is not really cancer.  That's only last year's incarnation.  I've been calling myself a DSP for many years, well before the first little, marble-sized lump reared it's ugly head. Because at its root, the dragon is fear.  And that takes all forms.   

The gift cancer has given me is to embrace my own strength and creativity and awesomeness.  And to take more naps. But mostly the creativity and awesomenss part. And that requires slaying dragons. Like the big green one that says "you don't know if you want kids? you'd better hurry up. For all we know you're ovaries are shriveling AS WE SPEAK"; the purple and black one that whispers "you need to imitate what other peoples' "success" looks like. Oh look you fell short again. Well, you obviously suck, so you might as well just pack it in now"; or those little small but persistant ankle-biter scaly ones that say "if you say that, people won't love you/hire you/want to play with you. Just sayin'. But really, you'll be old and alone.  All alone. And broke."   

It's amazing how they know exactly which buttons to push.  And they *really* seem to enjoy it. It's enough to drive a girl to drink. Or take up arms. But like the Rumi quote says those things that scare us most usually just want our love. So basically I feel about my personal dragons the way that some people feel about the homeless or people whose religions they don't totally understand.  Luckily cancer has taught me a lot about love -- both cultivating it in myself with gentle surrender and mindfulness and receiving it from other through homemade soup and t-shirts and visits and the cleaning out of the bathtub. 

About those dragons...I think I'll name the green one Pete, the purple one Homer and those little snippy ones the Santorum twins.  

So here's to 36. And to taming those dragons with lullabies from my higher self and writing exercises that summon the divine and lots more time with my toes in the sand. But if anything like chemo comes around again, I'm not afraid to pull out the nunchunks.  Sometimes a girl's still gotta show she's not to be trifled with.

I’m here in La Jolla California, getting in a nice mix of work and R and R. I came to San Francisco for my friend Marianna’s wedding and then took a drive down the coast so I could put my toes in the sand on the beach here. Except for the occasional jaunt up to New York, chemo had pretty much kept me chained to DC, so it’s nice to be able to get out to SF and LA and to hug in person all of those people who have been cheering me on from afar these past six months.

I keep calling this California trip my “victory lap”, an extension of the post-chemo party. But the truth is, except for the when I look in the mirror and am still (always) momentarily shocked that the woman starting back at me is kinda bald, cancer feels like a distant memory. 

Except for when it’s not. Because while I mostly feel pretty great and happy to have made it through and out the other side in one piece, I also feel a little out of sorts kind of like I’m in limbo.

The last time I was in La Jolla, I was filming scenes for an Animal Planet series.  I can remember driving these streets, along the beach, through the hills and walking Torrey Pines State Park scouting for the perfect locations. That was seven and a half years ago.  It seems like another lifetime.

My friend Michi described her own experience with cervical cancer as “surviving a head on collision with the universe.”  And while I feel lucky that I made it through chemo in better shape than most, I understand what she means. My eyes are sunken and lined with dark circles, I have scars on my chest and arms (from the port and the rashes, respectively), my joints ache and I’m still tired most of the time. I feel like chemo has aged me at least 10 years. Kind of like what happens to dudes after they become president, except I don’t have to worry about who has the nuclear football. 

In the coming weeks as my system starts to detox and heal, I know my body will move back toward normal. I also know that emotionally and spiritually, I will never be the same. 

I never wanted the cancer to define me.  Even before I started treatment, words like “survivor” made me cringe. I thought somehow I was different, special. I wasn’t going wallow in the “cancer experience” or get bogged down by it. Cancer was something to move through, to get past on my way back to my “real life”.

But my life has sort of taken on this dividing line: before 2010 and after. And as with a lot of things post-2010, I get it now.  My perspective has totally shifted. Now, like Ringo, I"m just happy to be here.  Now I see cancer not as something to “get over” or move past, but a place to grow out from.

A yoga teacher once told me that the word limbo gets a bad wrap. That if you can embrace the uncertainty, limbo is a really powerful place to be. It's where all the juicy stuff happens that prepares you for the next phase of growth.

I know this whole experience has changed me, I’m just not totally sure how. That will reveal itself in its own good time. For now I will settle for some sand between my toes and the knowledge that while I may not be special, I’m something better. I’m a survivor.

Today marks chemo treatment 12 of 12. That’s 100% for those of you scoring at home (I’ve been waiting 6 months to say that!!!)  It’s a momentous day that almost got eclipsed this week by work and a really awesome case of the worse hives ever.  (It’s sort of like chemo’s parting gift to me -- Thanks for the memories chemo. Don't worry,  I won’t forget you. Ever.)

Yesterday while I was at the dermatologist to try and get rid of said hives, Dr. P congratulated me on getting to my last treatment.  “It’s a big day!” he said. And for once I said “thank you. It is a big day” and meant it.  Before this, chemo was just something I had to do, something I endured because I had to (kind of like a whole bunch of root canals. Without novacaine.)  But now that I’m actually here and it’s almost done, I do feel like I made it. Like I accomplished something big. Or at least survived with my sense of humor marginally intact, which feels like a big accomplishment in and of itself.

My stepmom texted me last night to ask me what my “chemo eve” resolutions are.  As in “you’re done with this chapter. You get a fresh start. What do you want that to look like?”

It’s a little hard to say for sure, because like so many “opportunities for growth” you don’t really appreciate them until they’re done and over with and you have a little perspective.  When they’re happening they usually kinda suck.  And even though I’m at the end, I think the lesson in all of this won’t be evident for months or years to come.  That said, I thought long and hard, and so from where I stand now, here are my “chemo eve” resolutions:

1. Get more sleep and eat more vegetables

Because I learned that I’m not unbreakable, that my body has limits and if I want my body to be nice to me, I need to be nice to it.  This is also a good rule for every other part of life too.

2.     Train for a marathon
Because I’ve also learned that my body is stronger and more resilient in the kind of ways you don’t understand until you’ve tested the limits. It’s capable of beating cancer and surviving ritual poisoning for 6 months and bouncing back. Plus I’ve always wanted to run a marathon and have continually put it off, which brings me to…

3.    Stop putting off my life goals for “maybe someday”
Warning: this is where I invoke the cheesy cliché about life being fragile and precious and how you only get one go ‘round in this body.  That’s because well, life is fragile and precious and you only get one go ‘round in this body, which you appreciate a lot more when you face the prospect of losing it. So I’m going to run a marathon and write my book even though I don’t totally know the story goes yet and direct my own film even if I don’t have the funding in place  and visit all the countries that start with an “I”, also Greece. Oh wait, Iran and Iraq both start with "I"s don't they?  Okay maybe I'll stop at India on that one.

4.    Reach out, pay it forward
More than anything this whole experience has really shown me how important it is to reach out, the power of connection. You can’t imagine how the simple act of sending an email or a text or a pair of fuzzy socks in the mail can make someone’s whole day, but I’m here to tell you they can. Now that I’m finishing up with my rough patch, I’m going to harness all of the energy and support and fuzzy socks love that you’ve showered on me the past six months and do my best to do you proud by reaching out to other people who need it.

5.     Practice gratitude daily
I’m usually a pretty optimistic person, but these last six months have really put that to test, and I can say without hesitation that gratitude has carried me through. When so much feels so heavy, it’s easy to get crushed unless you take time to remember why you should get out of bed.  That’s why I have taken to spending a few minutes each morning to thank the universe for at least three things I feel lucky to have in my life.  Some days all I can muster are things like peppermint tea and bubble baths, but everyday my list includes all of my amazing family and friends. You’re enough to make me feel like the luckiest girl in the world – even on chemo days.

6.      Follow my heart with intention
I’ve tried to follow this mantra my whole life, but I have to admit that in the past, it’s been way too easy to get caught up in the rat race, to listen to the nagging “shoulds” that programmed in, without really thinking about why I’m doing what I’m doing.  Now that I’ve spent six months just putting one foot in front of the other out of necessity, I cringe at the prospect of doing it by default.  Whatever I choose to do, I’m going to do 100% with my whole heart.  Anything else is just a waste of time.

7. Stop sweating the small stuff
There's nothing like being bald to put all those times I stressed over a bad hair day, in perspective. Ditto for worrying about the size of my thighs and for taking things personally.  Imagine how much more time and energy I would have for following my heart and paying it forward and marathon training and book writing and vegetable eating (not to mention playing in bouncy castles) if I just let go a little more and said f* it a little more often.

I'm sure I could think of a few more but the nurse has ported me up, my dad and Annie and Jeff are on their way down and Charlie is decorating the treatment room with streamers and balloons. The receptionist just walked by and stopped to see what's going on (I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s because I’m wearing a tiara…we take this last treatment celebration business very seriously). She asked if today is my birthday. I guess in a way, it is.

Charlie hates winter. A lot.

He lived in LA for ten years before moving to DC and you know that old quote about leaving California before it makes you soft?  Too late. I know, I know, there aren't a lot of people who really *love* winter, but he hates it with a depth and passion I usually see reserved for bedbugs and pedophiles.  
    
That's all just to say that after four solid weeks of snow and freezing rain and the kind of icy winds that cut through your soul, he's gone from merely cranky to downright despondent.  I go back and forth between trying to cheer him up by plying him with chocolate, and telling him to put on his big boy pants and suck it up until April. 

Then I remembered something my very wise friend Jen Steinman told me last March. I was visiting New York after weeks of holing up at my sister's house, dealing with various facets of small estate law and trying to wrap my brain around life with without my momma.  I was talking to Jen about what was next, what the future might hold, when I would come back to New York, back to my "normal" life.  "Slow down" she said, "You've just been through the ringer. Think of it like this: you're in the middle of your winter. Spring will come again when it's time, and then you can break out the sundress and flip flops and dance in the street.  Right now you need to let yourself put on flannel pajamas and hibernate."  I loved that image.  And it was a total relief. The truth was I had no *idea* how to get back to normal -- or what that even looked like.

By May I was feeling a little lighter. My sister had her baby and all that new life
goodness was like the first whiff of spring.  Two days later I had my biopsy and got the news that would knock me back into the cave for another nine months.

I've never actually been a bear, but I can imagine that after sleeping in one position in the dark for a whole season, your muscles get stiff and your senses get dulled and when you first stick your head out of the cave, the sunlight hurts your eyes. That's kind of of how I feel about the end of chemo and the beginning of the rest of my life.

This weekend, all of my hibernating came to a head in a little emotional breakdown that basically looked a lot like me sitting on the couch and crying for an hour straight. I felt like I had lost all perspective and like I couldn't take one more minute of winter.  Kinda like...Charlie. 

Don't you just hate it when your own words come back to bite you in the ass? Empathy is a great equalizer that way. 

As Charlie put it sometimes it's not about making the best of it, or sucking it up. Sometimes you've just got to wait it out and hold on until spring.  And as I sit here, hooked up to the drip for chemo session #11, I can almost hear the birds chirping.  So here's what I"m gonna do:  I"m gonna fix a nice cup of hot cocoa and then change into my big girl pants -- the flannel ones.  Because let's face it - spring may be just around the corner, but it's still cold outside.

I’m sitting here in DC watching snow fall over the trees and, with apologies to those who may or may not hate winter (you know who you are), it’s beautiful.  What’s not so great is the fact that our power went out on Wednesday and as of 4pm today it’s still not back on. This is especially problematic when you have electric heat and a high of 19. 

I spent most of Wednesday night in the dark, staring out the window at cars sliding all over the street as they tried to make like the Little Engine that Could up the hill on Tuckerman Lane. I saw a Toyota Camry make it after a few tries. Ironically, a giant Ford pick-up truck did not fare so well.  The mood was generalized, every-woman-for-herself chaos. The street lights were all out and drivers that weren’t abandoning their cars, were driving down the wrong side of the street trying to maneuver around an extra long Metro bus that sat stranded, smack in front of our house. The only thing missing was the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, charging up the street with banners flying to rape and plunder, or maybe direct traffic.  I heard later that drivers were stranded for something like 13 hours on the GW Parkway and over 100 cars were simply abandoned.

I hate to say it, but I took some solace in all of this.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t *really* want anyone to suffer -- or god forbid freeze to death in their Audi -- but all of this chaos makes me feel less…alone. My life for the past year has increasingly felt like the aftermath of a natural disaster with all of the broken infrastructure, flattened neighborhoods and disrupted routine. (Although if you can attribute the lymphoma to the 8-diet–coke-a-day habit I consistently fed in college, then I guess it’s not so “natural”…but I digress.)

Monday marked chemo treatment number 10.  5/6 of the way there. 83% done. The initial flurry of activity around the diagnosis has died down.  Cancer is no longer this shocking and novel thing. It’s just life, except that in the wake of my little personal earthquake, the landscape looks different.  Over here I’ve learned that grapefruit juice (temporarily) gets the funky taste out of my mouth, that I’m good for about four hours until I become like an over-tired three year old that skipped naptime, and that even after I’ve turned down the 12th happy hour invitation in a row, my friends (god love them) still keep inviting me.

I have good days – like most of last week when I was in New York watching footage and writing scripts and feeling like Stella with her groove back.  Then there are the other days.  On those days it’s hard to remember that this is all temporary, that in six months I’ll be off shooting an interview or sipping a mimosa at brunch or lying on a beach somewhere, rocking a pixie cut and something resembling a normal energy level. On those days it feels like I might be cranky and lethargic and bald forever.  On those days, I can kinda relate to the guy that I wrote about back in October, the one who held his arm like a wounded paw and yelled at the nurse that he didn’t want the shot. I hope that guy is somewhere having a frozen margarita right now.

That’s all to say I like the snowstorm because it kind of levels the playing field.  For one day at least, we’re all in the same boat – just reacting, scrambling, invoking Plan B (or E, or F).  It’s also a good reminder that feeling sorry for myself is a fruitless exercise.  Shit happens.  Life ebbs and flows.  Sometimes, when you’re focused on getting home and popping open a bottle of wine and flipping on the TV to watch “American Idol”, the tires start sliding on your pick-up and you can’t make it up the hill and all of a sudden you’re walking home in a blizzard.  I’m guessing it’s not as sucky as chemo, but still, it doesn’t sound fun. 

In fact, at the moment I sat watching all of this unfold out the window, I was feeling very grateful that I wasn’t that guy (even with the ever present Drain-o taste in my mouth).  And if I’ve learned one thing this year, it’s that finding gratitude can carry you through a lot. Gratitude and snow angels. If you feel bad about life while you’re making a snow angel, you’re doing it wrong.

So thank god for snow, and for that guy at the post office (and the rest of the “everyday angels” I’ve met on this journey) and for grapefruit juice and for slowly getting my mojo back.  It’s gonna be a process, but then that’s what that Toyota Camry was thinking about halfway up Tuckerman Lane -- and she made it.