Thinking about Thinking

 Writing this blog illuminates my thinking process. I have a tendency to process information all at once; my brain doesn’t separate out and sift through material. This tendency causes me brain overload at times and sometimes makes my gears spin, especially in dramatic situations. In my day-to-day work, my inability to screen inputs interferes with my focus. But it’s also why I’m creative and the reason I process things quickly, particularly emotional content.

On my Hero’s Journey, I’ve handled this processing reality (or deficit depending on your perspective) by not accessing information until I’m ready. This is why I didn’t open the insurance policy right away. Or the patient treatment information binder. Or the manilla envelope full of hair loss resources. Or any of those recommended medical websites.

I’m learning to respect the way I think. My mind is a river and I’m intentionally controlling the floodgates.

Today, though, I have a new worry. I’m worrying about why I’m not worrying. I’m not feeling like I’m in a fight for my life. I feel I’m on a treatment path. Admittedly, I felt puny for a few days after the first round of chemo (and the second round’s coming up this week.) For the most part, though, including right this minute, I feel 100 percent. I don’t want to listen to the series of meditation tapes a friend sent me. I want to do other things. I don’t want to think about cancer.

I watch myself going through the stages on this journey and adjusting. Today, I am feeling bolder about the hair loss. I haven’t shaved my head yet but I’m starting to like the new me. I’m laughing about my lightheadedness, my bare scalp. I pull off my cap and tease my husband about how lucky he is to have me; a woman that looks like me could have any man she wants. I’m wondering if I’ll ever go back to longer hair. 

I worry that I could adjust to anything. And I hope I’m not tested on that. I hope this story doesn’t become more dramatic. I hope it stays boring.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

 

Earlier this year, I attended the African American Film Festival at the campus where I teach. The Q&A following one film brought up the subject of hair in the African American culture. This sparked a lively discussion of the political messages conveyed by how an individual wears one’s hair as well as how a mother chooses to groom her child’s hair, whether it be braids, dreads, straightened or natural.

I think hair is less political for a Caucasian woman like myself, but it certainly is personal.

When I was a young woman, the owner of the TV station I worked at complimented me on my newly short haircut and told me he’d always noted that when a woman changed her hair, it signified a transformation in her life. The observation rang true. I was newly pregnant, but hadn’t announced the news to anyone

Now as I enter the part of my Hero’s Journey where my hair is falling out, it feels too personal to write about. This is the hardest part to share so far. This is because my hair is part of my armor, my ego, the identity I present to the world.

Losing my hair is yet another test, but the allies are there too.

Not long after my first chemo treatment, I realized I had a previously scheduled hair appointment. I kept it and had my hairdresser give me a Haley Barry cut so I wouldn’t be creeped out by masses of hair on my pillow.

Two weeks ago, the nurse navigator assigned to ‘my case’ sent me an envelope of resources for head coverings and wigs. Two days later, a thoughtful friend suggested we do lunch and visit a highly recommended shop downtown. “It might be a week before they can get you in for an appointment and then another week or two to get the order in so you might want to do this right away,” she said, gently. My heart raced. I told her about the packet of info from the hospital and how I wanted to check that out first.

The problem was I couldn’t bring myself to open the manila envelope. It took me a week to do so. When I finally mustered the courage to rip it open, I called the hand-circled resource on the list, which was the same shop my friend had recommended. I got in that day and within an hour, Brenda, the proprietor, suited me with a wig that she trimmed to match my Haley Barry cut. 

“Maybe my hair’s so thick, it won’t fall out,” I told her.

“It happens fourteen days after your first chemo.”

“That’s in two days.” 

“Most people notice clumping first. Then, when they take a shower and shampoo their hair, they find their hair comes off by the handfuls. It generally takes a few days before you lose it all.”

The next day, I tried the wig, wore the wig, fretted about how the wig looked. My family assured me it was fine. 

Then like clockwork, my hair started falling out on Day 14. No matter how prepared a person is, it’s still creepy. For two days, I tried not to comb my hair. Maybe I wanted to keep it longer or pretend it wasn’t happening. Then reality set it. Last night, I watched TV and discretely pulled out my hair in clumps, which I wadded into little hairballs. A friend suggested I do a buzz cut. I haven’t done that yet.

But I’ve adapted. 

In the morning, I put on my wig, take a deep breath and stand tall.   

Chicken Liver

I’ve had one biopsy in my life and it turned up cancer. Going in for my second, my liver biopsy, I think: “the best predictor of future behavior is the past.”
       There is nothing heroic in my thinking.
       We arrive at the hospital at 10:30 a.m. We move to an outdoor bench when a cell phone enthusiast consumes the waiting area. I’m taken to pre-ops where I dress down, have blood drawn, vitals checked and am queried by a nurse. (Do you have an advance directive?) Her name is Donya; she's named after her dad, Don. She says a doctor told her once that our insides are much like our outsides, full of markings and imperfections, things like freckles and moles. I like that anecdote. I loosen up. She leaves and we wait. At 12:15, I’m wheeled down an endless corridor to the CT scan for the guided biopsy.
       I move into the bed of the CT scanner, lay partially on my side with my arms positioned awkwardly up and out of the way while a couple technicians work on me.
       I’m told to decide what a small breath is and hold it. From now on, every time I’m asked to take a small breath, I must keep that breath the same size. Apparently, one’s liver can move a lot during breathing and it’s important they identify the precise location of this spot. I think hard on this; I want to do my job right. I don’t want to lead this needle astray.
       I practice breathing.
       The radiologist, a soft-spoken doctor, consults with me. He walks me through the steps, the risks, the potential ooze at the entry site. I practice breathing some more. He’ll take images first, mark my skin for the exact spot, then do the biopsy. He asks me questions about my case and has me sign a release form.  Ron kisses me good-bye.

       The process begins. The radiologist can’t get the image he needs. The spot is light without the contrast injected into my veins when they did this a couple weeks ago. I’m conveyed out of the CT doughnut.
       “Fortunately, we have the ultrasound to get another perspective,” the doctor says. He spreads cool jelly on my side and searches with the probe on, under and through my ribs for about five minutes.
       “Alright,” he says to me. To the tech, “you can clean her off.” The tech complies and everyone except me vanishes to the far end of the space. I lay with my arms still awkwardly positioned, trying hard not to budge so as not to move my liver.  I practice breathing. There’s faint talking in the background.
       And then comes the element of surprise to this story.

       After 10 minutes the doctor comes back. He’s been on the phone with my oncologist. They’ve decided perhaps the best course is wait, take a scan again in a few months and compare. He says it’s not that the spot looks bad; they just don’t know what it is. Given my particular diagnoses, my oncologist does not feel it’s highly likely it’s related. “If you’re the one percent who has a bleeding issue, we might ask ourselves, ‘why did we do this?’ I’m comfortable waiting if you are,” he says.
       I said: “Get me out of here.”
       I thought two things:  Did my mother-in-law’s prayers dissipate this spot?
       And two, what you don’t know can’t kill you.  

On matters of size

 

          When I was 16, my boyfriend at the time gave me his football jersey, (which I still have.) It was maroon and gold and sported number 22. On pep rally day I wore it to school. My boyfriend was bashful and sweet, but somehow that day things got out of hand when he and a couple of friends talked among themselves and laughed at me in the hall. I don’t remember who said what but eventually the source of their amusement came out with the joke: “22! That must be her chest size.”

            I was slim, anything but voluptuous and not confident about my body image. The words devastated me. So I did the only thing I knew how to do at the time: I didn’t speak to him for three days. And while I ignored him, I pretended to be happy, immensely happy.

            The school yearbook and local newspaper photographers were busy that week so I have a complete visual record of this time. This is my favorite ‘pretending to be happy’ photo. I’m the one on the far right. My boyfriend’s the awkward guy on the left.  

            I eventually forgave him. We went out for five years, got engaged, broke up and never saw one another again.

            He got married. I got married. I got divorced. He got divorced. Then 16 years after we broke up, we reconnected. I had moved to the opposite coast years earlier and he traveled 2,000 miles to visit me. During that visit, the subject of his ex-wife came up, including the fact she was very much the voluptuous type. It surprised me how much of a sting that was to my decades-old wound.

            We maintained a long distance relationship, traveling back and forth for two years and then we got married in our home state. He relocated and moved west. Now, my husband Ron is the sweet guy standing by my side throughout this journey. 

            I quit worrying about breast size sometime in my teens or early twenties. I can’t remember exactly. All I know is I’ve been comfortable with the way I am throughout my adult life. When I breast-fed my three children, I enjoyed temporary voluptuousness. But now, waist size concerns me more than breast size.

I have to say, though, my ears did perk up at the words my surgeon used during my first exam. “Your breasts are small.”  She said these words twice, sort of framed positively in the midst of discussing the surgery plan and reconstruction options. 

I chuckled inside, thankful to no longer be 16.

Pleasure or poison?

       A friend saw this sign at a café in West Linn and sent it to me.

       This is me. Throughout my adulthood, I’ve had one vice, one constant addiction: coffee. Coffee is the first thing I think of when I awake in the morning.  If I have something to be anxious about, coffee magnifies my anxiety. If I have work requiring intense focus, coffee diverts my focus. With every cup I drink, I feel its effects deep in my gut. Coffee makes me irritable, less patient and numbs my true feelings. And still I’ve imbibed.

       Coffee gets me through Portland’s gray days. When I visit southern California, I don’t need caffeine. Coffee is my true crutch.

       Since my Hero’s Journey began, I’ve stayed away from coffee because my body hasn’t wanted it. No one’s told me to stop. The medical people don’t advise one way or another. My surgeon even told me we’d be laughing over a cup of coffee a year from now. (I’m holding her to that one.)

       To be forthright, I’ve had a few swallows of coffee on a couple days since chemo started and a full cup one day. I’m hoping I don’t go back to addiction mode because I believe infusing my body with coffee is not a good thing. Some folks say bitter foods like coffee are nature’s way of protecting you from what’s not good for you. Others swear it's an antioxidant.

       I could do some research, but right now I’m avoiding internet content. 

       I’m seeking other drinks I’d like better. So far, water’s winning, but I’m open to ideas.

What you don't know

When I was pregnant with my son, I worked at a commercial television station where my job was screening old movies and editing the clips into teasers. At eight months pregnant, an intense (and stupid) woman at the station stopped me in the hall and said, “I’m so worried about you, working around this radiation all day. You do know it could harm your unborn child.”
         I was young, impressionable and freaked out. I immediately sought counsel from the gray-haired master engineer.
         “Well,” he said, looking at my belly, “it’s a little late to worry about that, don’t you think?”
         Things worked out. My son Robert was the biggest, healthiest newborn in the hospital. He didn’t suffer effects from radiation, but perhaps all that in utero movie watching had its effect. His creativity sprouted at an early age. When he was four years old, he turned to me and said, “Maybe, we’re just a long, long movie to God.”
         I thought it profound.
         So here’s the movie of one miniscule scurrying human on this planet today:
         The sun is shining. It’s a glorious day in Portland. My hair’s clipped short. I feel happy, lighter than air, like a beach ball dancing on water. The phone rings. It’s the scheduler for the liver biopsy. They’re giving me a time. I knew they’d call; it’s no surprise. I agree to Thursday, listen to the pre-opt instructions. Hang up. And then sink like someone punctured me with a nine-penny nail. I make my way across the room, find my green couch and lay flat. I can’t get up.

         Logically, I should get up and do something. Because we all know action is what heroes do. Heroes are not passive. I tell my scriptwriting students this all the time. We don’t want to watch victims on the screen. We won’t tolerate it. Things shouldn’t just happen to your hero; your hero must take charge, seize control of situations and turn them around.
         In real life, that story option is not always available.
         The first day we met my oncologist, Dr. Jacqueline Vuky, Ron asked her at the end of the appointment how a patient should handle the diagnoses mentally, explaining my tendency to worry.
         Dr. Vuky was quiet, then said, “I believe each patient needs to take time to grieve in her own way.” She went on with more carefully chosen, sensitive words, but what resonated with me was being given permission to feel whatever it was I was feeling.
         I shared some of my general malaise about the biopsy with Robert when he called to touch base today.
         “I’m thinking I like that old saying ‘what you don’t know can’t kill you,’” I said.
         “No, I don’t agree with that. You want to know.”
         “Yeah, I was just floating that idea out there.”
         We were quiet for a while.
         “Well, hey, maybe you want to get some medical marijuana,” he said.
         We laughed and for some reason I felt better.

    

Tests, Allies and Enemies

     Once the hero crosses the threshold into the special world, the first stop is ‘tests, allies and enemies.’ This shows up in every story.

     The hero is tested in multiple ways and her response reveals who she is. Does she fight, retreat, lash out, kick, scream, curl up or roll over? Tests can take many forms. Generally, the tests are not quite as literal as the medical tests I’ve been encountering. Appears the universe is making this metaphor very simple for me. 

     Good stories are messy. They are the opposite of ideal life. Good stories are filled with tension and conflict. If it’s too easy, there’s no story. No stakes. 

     Every good story has enemies, those characters we love to hate. So far, in my story, I identify two: the cancer and the capacity of my mind to lead me down dark paths. An old friend who went on this journey 10 years ago suggested a tool she found helpful: denial. Right now, for me, ‘diversion’ may be a better word. When the unknown and beyond-my-control causes shadow thinking, I’m working on transporting my thoughts elsewhere.

     Every story worth telling has allies. In my journey, numerous allies rose to the surface immediately. There’s my oncologist who told me in our first meeting: “This will change you, but it is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing.” I still don’t know if she was talking about the character transformation or the cancer, but somehow it doesn’t matter. My husband told me later he thought her words would anger me. Instead, I was inspired. 

     And my surgeon is a clear ally. So is the medical intern I met during our first meeting when I reacted in shock to the surgery recommendation.

     “You need to write about this,” the intern said.

     “Yeah, I could, but no one wants to read this story,” I said.

     “Oh, there’s an audience,” she said, nodding. “You’ll find your audience.”

     Other allies rose quickly in the days following my diagnoses. Well-wishers with “thinking of you” e-mails, notes, calls, flowers, food and tokens. Some are family and friends; some are simply emotionally-centered people who’ve fallen from the sky and will likely be friends for life. This includes my neighbors in the medical field who are not only providing me with tons of medical information, but have offered to got to bat for me for anything insurance-related, including tutoring me on the fine-print of my policy.

     And there are others who have touched me.

     My teen daughter who said, “Sorry for being mean to you, Mom.”

     “When?” I asked.

     “For from forever.”

     My son who calls repeatedly, made me lunch, sent me a ‘thinking of you’ e-mail along with an mp3 files of the Cowsills’ song I’d forgotten I’d played for him as a kid. “Give me a head with hair, long beautiful hair…”

    And his father, my ex-husband who immediately picked up the phone and called to say he was thinking of me and offered his support and prayers even though he doesn’t pray. He went on to tell me the wonderful attributes he sees in our son, which all came from me, along with other kind and loving words he’s never shared.

     That was a gift. And a reminder of a truth I’ve always known but not necessarily written. That I will always love everyone I have ever loved.

     And then there’s my husband Ron who, just this morning left a coffee mug with a bouquet of fresh azaleas and mint on my desk. The mug says “I (heart) my wife.”  He and my daughter found the second-time around mug at Good Will. It couldn’t be more perfect. 

     Still, it's bittersweet: why would anyone give that away? 

       

Tests

     This week, a six word story.
     Spot on liver indeterminant. Biopsy required.

Finding Chemo

I’ve always enjoyed the experience of walking down a street alone in a place I’ve never been. I like to dip out early morning on family vacations and scout about before everyone’s up. Walking through my first chemo treatment, though, Ron joined me and I appreciated the support.

            Chemo is like two hours at Starbucks with IVs instead of lattes. The treatment room is a spacious, back-office lobby with cushy recliners all around, the kind of chairs you might avoid design-wise but can’t resist when comfy is what’s needed. The nurses are jovial yet appropriately sensitive. They respond to beeping machines on the floor, moving energetically from their workstations behind a large open bar. Behind the bar, they banter and laugh. 

There are big windows and photographs of mountains and rushing streams. There’s a stuffed pink pig on the counter with a sign that says, “Hello, my name is Matt.” There’s a jar of hard candies on the counter and tea and juice on hand. I’ve been enjoying the lozenge shaped berry candies and the buttery creams the nurse said a patient brought in. I think I’ll bring Dad’s peppermints next visit.

The patients are men and women thirty-something to about 75, most with guests. They are calm and engaged. An older woman in a leopard-print head scarf chats with someone who looks to be her daughter; a woman in a knit cap knits; a middle-aged fellow pecks at his computer, feeds himself through a stomach tube, then sleeps and snores. The younger woman next to me wears a chic cool cap and chats softly with her partner.  

It isn’t a depressing scene, and for me, it isn’t uncomfortable. My order was steroid pills, followed by a bag of saline, followed by two bags of medicine cocktail and a shot.

In writing, we talk about good scenes having an emotional shift from the beginning to the end and that was the coolest part. After treatments ended, every sedate patient perked up and left happy. I went home with a book of instructions and prescription for anti-nausea meds forwarded to my pharmacy.

What were the after effects like?  Here’s how I’m processing it.  

A few years ago, my husband and daughter went birthday shopping for me and bought me a 3-inch square magnet that says: “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?”  I thought it an odd gift and pooh-poohed it at the time, but over the years I’ve come to appreciate the message stuck to my retro dental cabinet in my bathroom.

My twist on chemo would be, “How sick would you be if you didn’t know how sick you are?” And that’s the thing: I’m not sick. The tests show there’s something in my body that doesn’t belong there. The doctor can barely feel it. Before the chemo started, I was 100 percent. Now, after my first round, I’m not sure if I’m feeling the drowsy side effects of the anti-nausea medicine or am I just emotionally drained?  Am I more tired or is this caffeine withdrawal? (Because I have finally kicked coffee.)

            For the most part, whatever I’m feeling is minimal, and I prefer to think “not sick.” My body is being treated, not my mind.               

Ups and Downs

Relief is what you feel on rides at Disney. It happens after you face the ordeal of death halfway through the experience. Amusement park designers understand this.They build the idea of death and rebirth into the ride as part of the Hero’s Journey. You must have the ups and downs of the journey or the ride isn’t worth taking.  

Thrills like “Space Mountain” teach us how to let go and give in to fear. This is less hard for those who embrace fear or terror, the people who love horror films, scary movies. That’s never been me. I would have gladly sat this ride out. But once I gave in and climbed on board, I gained something from being flung into the far reaches of infinity. The sense of relief that came afterward.

You can see my family in the photo. We’re the four upfront. I’m the reluctant hero in the second seat.

Most of what I know about the Hero’s Journey comes from Christopher Vogler who applied Joseph Campbell’s mythic story patterns in his book “The Writer’s Journey.” Vogler was working as a story consultant for Disney when he wrote a memo applying the elements of the Hero’s Journey to the world of film. The memo was widely shared across studios and took on a life of its own.     

In my journey, my knee continued to decline on our trip and by the time we returned to Portland, my calendar was filled with surgery and oncology appointments and my knee was in bad shape. Monday night I had the first class of the term to teach and several blocks to walk due to campus construction. I promptly stepped in a pothole and did a lateral slip and crunched my knee even more. I hobbled to the class building, found an elevator, and stood up front for four hours. After the last of the students piled out, I couldn’t budge. I pivoted to the elevator, then out the door. The campus was vacant and I had forgotten my phone. The side streets were empty except for sketchy characters from the local bars. If anyone confronted me, I was as helpless as the woman in the commercial: “I’ve fallen and can’t get up.”  Pivoting back to my car took me thirty-five minutes. 

I attended my medical appointments on crutches wearing a knee brace. People mistook me for having knee surgery. 

By the time Wednesday night’s class rolled around, I was mentally exhausted from the cancer treatment plan and my wrecked knee. But I no longer had any performance anxiety for my first night’s class. It was the best, most fluid class I’ve ever taught. At break, I found a package of peppermints someone had left at the podium. The red and white Starlight mints my Dad always kept on hand. 

And then the arc of my story changed. A week later, the knee was healed. 

Vulnerability, part 2

Driving to Southern California, I was hyper emotional, more reactive to teen attitude. So I finally explained to the kids why -- that I had a biopsy and was awaiting results. The news silenced the car. I tried to couch it in neutral terms but a stronger parent would surely have kept it to themselves. Who was I to burden them and dampen their spring break?  I was a bad parent.

            The trip was further dampened by the fact I crunched my knee a few weeks earlier during my neighborhood sport of stepping into sidewalk divots. It was an injury where rest is mainly what’s needed; instead I overdid it walking and exercising and my knee grew worse. I had an over-the-counter knee brace to get me through Disneyland.      

Fast forward to 3 p.m. Monday at a packed California Adventure Park, the time I’d pre-scheduled to receive the results. I ushered the kids to a climbing area while I found refuge at the end of a crowded bench where I could turn into the trashcan for privacy and look out over a little foresty green if need be. Ron stood by me. We waited. The call came at 3:05 but the results weren’t in. I turned to the green and collapsed into sobs while Ron rubbed my shoulders. When I looked up, the kids were back, watching. One sobbed along with me and the other stood stoic, vulnerable. I felt incredibly weak. If I was a better parent, a stronger person I wouldn’t have put them through this.

The tears, however, were a cleanser. We moved on and savored the rest of the day. I asked the universe for a sign and landed on old-fashioned oil lamps in the waiting line of one ride. Clogged oil glands, that’s what it will be. Deep down, I remembered the look on the radiologist’s face.

We left the park late. The girls rushed ahead to the hotel and we lagged behind. I thought of my mom and how she died at age 61 from lung cancer. She was a heavy smoker; I’ve never smoked. Still, hobbling slow with my sore knee, I felt like her. That night, I whispered to Ron, “I’m scared.”

Tuesday, the call would come at 1:00 p.m. as scheduled or was it 1:30? Ron and the girls stood in line for the Jungle Cruise while I retreated to a quiet bench in a sunny play area in a corner of Frontierland. I sat, waited, hoped. Flipped my cellphone in my hand and clocked every single minute as it passed. Watched families of all ages taking breathers. Women in strollers with their kids. A couple boys scolded by the security guard for climbing rocks not meant to be climbed. Most of all, this was a downtime space.  People weren’t ramped up. I watched faces for a sign. None looked sad. There was quiet talk, light laughter, neutral interaction. I thought that if this was it, if the news I got was the worst imaginable, there’s nothing I would rather do than show kindness to people feeling vulnerable. What could possibly have more meaning than being kind to people in need?

When you’re feeling vulnerable, you can’t do road rage, you don’t do impatient. You just want reassurance. Hope. The smallest gestures are the biggest things. They are all that matters.

I tend to keep myself protected. In story terms, we talk about the hero acting in identity or ego. This I learned from Michael Hague, a story consultant from Hollywood. Generally, the hero starts out in full protective armor and as the story evolves, the layers are peeled back and the ego is shed. We need ego because we can’t walk around all day with our soft-centers exposed, but as the journey progresses, one’s essence is revealed. I’m mixing story and real life here, but I guess that’s the point.  It is the story. Each of our lives is the story.

I waited an hour for my call. The nurse couched the negative news in positive terms. I felt relief.

                                                                        ---

Vulnerability

     I got a message yesterday from one of my MFA classmates. He’s a funny guy with a hearty laugh and an open style. I remember him telling me once about his experience at Disneyland, inching through the queue at rides like Space Mountain past the warnings aimed at persons with high blood pressure, heart, neck or back problems, alerts enlivened with animation of the impacts one could expect. My friend said by the time he got to the end of the line, he was so freaked out his children were cringing in embarrassment. 

     Today, I got to thinking, I, too, know about being scared at Disney. Disneyland was where I learned what feeling vulnerable means.

     The feelings started a few days earlier when I got the call on the Thursday before Spring Break, the day after my annual mammogram. The caller said it could be a cyst that turned up on my imaging but they wanted me to come back in to make sure. I made the appointment for the next day then walked downstairs and called out to Ron.

     “I’m here,” he said, answering from inside his office. “What do you need?”

     I couldn’t speak. Ron came out and found me on the steps. That was my first moment feeling vulnerable.

     My next moment feeling vulnerable was entering the private waiting room at the Breast Health Center in the ultrasound corridor. It’s a lovely room with calming colors, two comfy chairs and few accoutrements. There’s a framed message of hope on the wall and a box of tissues on the lamp table.

     My next moment feeling vulnerable was lying alone on the table after the ultrasound, awaiting the radiologist’s interpretation. I sat up and turned to look at the half dozen or so images the technician had left on the screen. I saw a black oval spot. I looked away, then looked again. The main spot’s edges seemed smooth, which seemed good. I thought. I hoped. The other spot was muddled or something. I laid back down, then turned and looked again. I stared at the ceiling and practiced breathing. Raised my arms high and outstretched my hands and methodically pulled the tips of my fingers, running my finger pads over my fingernails. It was white noise quiet for a good ten minutes. Soon the radiologist was saying it’s definitely not a cyst and three people are hovering over me and my breast taking tissue samples with a needle-thingy and putting in markers of the areas with something that sounded much like a staple-gun. 

     I said, lightheartedly,  “Wow, I’m getting so much attention.”

     My next moment feeling vulnerable was when no one laughed. No one said anything.

     After the procedure the only question I had was “Could it be nothing.”

     “Sure” the radiologist said in a flat-line way.

                                                     ---

The Call

          As a writer seeking to sell a long work, I’ve heard these words repeatedly: “Keep going because someday you’ll get a call that will change your life.” Believing this has sustained me in the dozen years since I eased away from business writing and started writing for myself. 

The universe has spoken. Over spring break, I got the call that will change my life. I was with my family at Disneyland, the happiest place on earth.

Let me paraphrase what the caller said: “You have breast cancer.”

          I feel anger. Not about the cancer, but about the writing. After the initial shock of the diagnoses, my emotions have puddled in that tender spot. What the hell am I doing, spending years of my life waiting for someone to acknowledge me? I’m weary of sending out my novel and screenplays to agents and editors and competitions and getting “no,” “not at this time” or “sorry, but we’re unable to use.” I’m tired of people who request my work and don't bother to read it -- or to read it in its entirety. I’m tired of powers-that-be unable to see what I’m made of and unwilling to partner in publishing. Most of all, I’m tired of no audience.

So accept my apologies, but I can’t go and listen to your book reading tonight or tomorrow or next week. I’m tired of being overlooked. I’m scared that when all is said and done, my life’s work will amount to a file cabinet of ad copy, catalog blurbs and workplace stories along with a sad assortment of journals, some published short pieces and a sheath of jottings and scribbles.     

Here’s my truth: my novel and my screenplays are worthy of being published or optioned. Here’s my other truth: I don’t feel bitter about the cancer.

I’ve been healthy for 57 years. I was healthy when neighbors around the corner lost their little boy. I was healthy when a parent my age (whom I had planned to get to know better) succumbed to a rare cancer in a little over a month’s time. I was healthy when one of my best friend’s sons was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma at age 18 and another friend’s daughter with pancreatic cancer about the same time. I’ve been healthy while my sister-in-law struggled with colon cancer and another with digestive disease. I’ve been healthy while people around me have soldiered through one health challenge after another. I’ve been lucky in all ways health.

It appears it’s simply my turn to face this challenge.    

So far my prognosis is good. My annual mammogram caught the spots early and thus far, they’re limited to one side. The oncologist says, “I will cure you, but the next year will be a test.”  There’s chemo, starting this week, followed by a mastectomy and then radiation. I look at it as The Hero’s Journey, the mythological structure inherent in stories since the start of time. 

I got the Call to Adventure at Disney after waiting an hour for the pre-scheduled call on a sunny bench in a relatively quiet corner of Frontier land. I’ve Refused the Call a number of times since, starting the night I nuzzled close to my husband and whispered in his ear, “I’m scared.” I've met kindly and capable Mentors at Good Samaritan Hospital and Oregon Health Science University (OHSU) in Portland. They include a surgeon, an oncologist, a nurse coordinator and a deep soul who drew my blood and said she’d pray for me. I’ve had chest x-rays and in-depth nuclear imaging; the cat scan and bone scan come tomorrow.

I’m prepping to Cross the Threshold into a new place. I’ve been concerned about the Threshold Guardians, a.k.a. the insurance company. They’re big scary beings, especially when you’re self-employed, access medical care infrequently and have high deductible insurance. I’ve been working at containing my worry.

My greatest fear is they'll say: "sorry, Gail, you don’t get the chemo. You don’t get to live." I can’t bear to hear another “no” or “not at this time” or “sorry, but we’re unable to…” and I’m shocked how desperately I want that chemo. I’m shocked how quickly I’ve got my head around the C word. How easy it is to agree to fill one's body with chemicals, having a body part lopped off and to radiate one's flesh.  All I want is to get on with the journey. 

I couldn't bear to make the insurance authorization call so my husband made it for me.   

For now at least, we got a ‘yes.’ Thursday, I enter the Special World of chemo.

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