Bread and Bread

Adrift. Yeah, I’m starting this feature up again. My bad-TV addiction continues, but I’ve gotten into graphic novels/memoirs as a sort of happy medium, and read some actual word-literature here and there. I could—and may—tell you all about how Nip/Tuck makes United States of Tara look like an article in a medical journal, realism-wise, but I feel like Jhumpa Lahiri could use the blog shout-out more. So here goes. Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person by Miriam Engelberg (speaking of shout-outs, thank you, Sizzle for sending this to me!): This book tracked my own post-cancer-diagnosis thought process beat for beat, from self-blame (did she cause cancer by eating too much cheese? Miriam Engelberg wonders), to worrying that your doomsday thoughts are foreshadowing in the movie of your life, to becoming hopelessly addicted to terrible TV. Either Miriam Engelberg and I have a lot in common, or breast cancer is a completely predictable, universal experience. I feel like she would h...

When my hair first started falling out in clumps at Trader Joe’s last week, I had all kinds of angry thoughts. People who get prophylactic surgery never have to deal with this shit. Chopping off your tits isn’t nothing, but it’s not cancer. And Fucking chemo. It’s all, “The disease you have is SO BAD WE HAVE TO POISON YOU; IT’S WORSE THAN POISON!” And I want to shove my balding head in the face of anyone who thinks I’m just an overly emotional drama queen who can’t deal with life. I don’t know if anyone actually thinks I’m an overly emotional drama queen who can’t deal with life. But my superego definitely thinks that, and over the years it has worn the faces of various people.   It seemed too soon to declare the ChemoCap a success or a failure. One day, I’d been able to tug gently at a handful of hair, and it stayed in my head. The next, it was in my hand. The fact that my life could change so quickly and concretely without notice or consent was alarming. I know that’s t...

Listening to people debate the pros and cons of allowing women in combat on KPCC this morning, the “con” arguments seemed to fall into two categories: 1) Women are weak. 2) Men are weak. The anti-women-in-combat guy (I don’t know who he was—some conservative military dude, I guess) argued that women are physically weaker than men, and that no one will be content to have combat units that include only the .001 percent of women who can pass rigorous physical exams. Soon we’ll all turn into affirmative-action-lovin’ pansies and lower the standards. Presto, the terrorists will win. He also concluded that men will freak the fuck out. Apparently they’ll be so protective of their female fellow soldiers that they’ll make irrational decisions when they see a woman bleed (not even period blood!). Or, they’ll get all rapey. At the very least, they’ll have affairs and the female soldiers will go home pregnant. Also, WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN? He, or maybe a caller, envisioned a scenario in ...

1. waiting for the bus I spent five hours cleaning the house yesterday. It was my first Real Cleaning in a month, and it felt heavenly. Don’t get me wrong: AK rose to the occasion while I was recuperating. She gave the floors her signature polish and kept the living room uncharacteristically tidy. It kept me feeling sane and loved. But feeling sane and loved isn’t the same as feeling in control. My mom was a stress cleaner too. We’re both one trauma (and, okay, a lot of laziness) away from being characters on Obsessed , bathing in bleach or arranging the DVDs by color. Who needs control when you can see your reflection in the sink? In 2002, when I was living with B, a man in a jacket that said “Coroner” knocked on our door. The coroner never stops by to tell you that your party is too loud, you know? Our good friend and upstairs neighbor, Tania, had been hit by a bus while crossing the street on her bike. (This always adds an extra layer of weirdness to certain canc...

Alas, poor cactus. I knew him well. On Sunday the organization I work for hosted an event for people who teach community writing workshops. The room where the event took place was freezing; people jogged in place between writing prompts. When I mentioned this to my dad on the phone later, he said, “I hate to think of you being cold.” Was there ever a more dad thing to say? Yes, he’s got my chemo-compromised immune system in mind, but if parents could have their way, their children would never suffer. Of course, that means they would never exist. One of the writers at the event said: “2012 was a hard year for me. I lost my job. I lost a really close friend. When I think about my life, it’s like this—” She made a roller coaster motion with her hand. “But then there’s poetry—” She made a straight line. “It’s this constant.” Yes. Not just poetry, but yes. Writing. I’m so alert to the dangers of romanticizing the artistic life that I sometimes forget its power. Then I get in a ...

I’m lying on top of a made bed—my favorite way to rest—waiting for the chemo hangover to kick in. That’s what Nicole called it, a hangover. I like how it makes chemo itself sound like a party. And when you think about how I spent yesterday afternoon, it’s not totally off: hanging out with two of my favorite people, playing games, wearing a funny hat, then passing out. AK, Nicole and I took the elevator to City of Hope’s chemo room, where I strapped the first of four frozen ChemoCaps to my head, tying down the pointy, extra frozen part with a scarf. I looked like an equestrian in the Special Olympics, but the nurses were supportive and curious. I’d packed a bunch of warm clothes into my cancer tote bag (because of course cancer comes with a free tote bag), but I didn’t need any of them. Soon I started to wonder if the ChemoCaps were really going to work. Maybe they’ll work better once half my hair falls out and the hats can finally touch my scalp. One person's Special Oly...

My latest TV binge is the first two seasons of United States of Tara , which is a frustrating show because it comes sooo close to being good. Anyway, Patton Oswalt plays the husband’s dorky friend, whom Tara’s sister ditches to date a hotter, more successful guy. I wonder how Patton Oswalt feels about being typecast as the Unattractive Guy, which he also played (impressively and hilariously) in Young Adult .  Here he is looking pretty cute. Here he is looking grouchy on a bus bench. But it's hard to be otherwise on a bus bench. He’s probably cool with it, because I suspect he’s an incredibly smart and well-adjusted person. In fact, I think I have a tiny crush on him, possibly dating back to the time I saw him do stand-up at Largo. He had a bit about how Yoshinoya must be a front for some shady business, because a “beef bowl” was the most unappetizing possible way to present meat. I was listening to an old Adam Carolla podcast this morning, and he was the guest....

I just opened the beat-up little notebook where I write down all the movies I see, to ponder what might make my Best of 2012 list. Instead I flipped to a page where I’d written “ovary removal timeline.” So that tells you most of what you need to know about my 2012. That said, surgery (on the boobs—the ovaries will have to be a New Year’s resolution) went really well. As I’ve been telling anyone who asks how I’m doing, the same genes that gave me cancer and anxiety also gave me flexible pectoral muscles. So while I feared weeks of needing help wiping my ass, the pain was more along the lines of a really rough work-out at the gym, and I found myself saving my Percocet for when I had cramps a few days later. (No more of that once the ovaries are out—woo-hoo?) Also, and more importantly, four different tests to look for lymph node metastasis came back negative. The cancer appears to be confined to one giant-ass tumor—I’m looking for a point of comparison size-wise, but I refuse to...

1. heavy objects On Tuesday I looked at my day planner and saw that I’d written “no food or water after midnight.” I was confused. I’m not having surgery until the 19 th (send good vibes that day, everyone!). Apparently I’m supposed to lay off booze and other blood thinners for a week prior—which really puts a damper on holiday cocktail parties—but food and water? Then I realized this applied to Ferdinand. I’d made an appointment for him to get his teeth cleaned as part of my long Get Shit Done While I Can Still Lift Heavy Objects to-do list. So I ruthlessly denied him the meal known around our house as Second Dinner and drove him to our beloved ghetto vet in Lincoln Heights the next morning. Ferdinand's gleaming smile. Sort of. When I picked him up, the veterinary assistant—a woman I really like, because she’s friendly and smart and quick to hand out info sheets on how to read your cat’s blood work—said, “He did great. No extractions, just a lot of tartar.” “...

I started bingeing on Mad Men a few months ago and finished season four, the last Netflix has to offer, Tuesday night. I love the show for all the reasons critics do—the writing, the exquisite muted painting that is each art-directed frame. All the characters simultaneously perpetuate and are broken by the worst of what mid-century America has to offer. There’s a great scene in which sexpot Joan and career girl Peggy smoke a cigarette and finally admit to each other that they work with a bunch of pigs who take them for granted. But it’s not just the girls who have it bad—Don has the instincts of a good man, but he’s always pushing them down with his desire to be the cool guy in the fedora. But the real reason I like the show is because everyone is so wonderfully unhappy. Advertising preys not only on people’s existential dissatisfaction, but on their insecurity as well—their belief that just beyond the gate, other people are happy. All the fucking time. And that gate is a Lucky S...

I stand by my promise not to turn this into Cheryl’s Cancer Blog, but I do have to share one of the weirder and funnier parts of this process so far: my visit to Dr. L, plastic surgeon. (Why does he get just an initial? I don’t have anything really bad to say about him, but in case any of my doctors Google themselves in their minimal spare time, I don’t want the surgical equivalent of a waiter spitting in my food, you know?) Although I mentioned the exciting prospect of new boobs in my last post , I feel compelled to add that reconstruction shouldn’t be a given. One of Meehan’s friends was disturbed that doctors always mentioned plastic surgery before her health. And I just read this post over at I Blame the Patriarchy , about the compulsive feminization of women, breast cancer survivors like the blogger herself included. But I’m getting new ones, even though Dr. L informed me they’ll have pretty much no feeling, which is totally unnerving (literally—ha!), because I want to l...

1. who you gonna call In a couple of sessions with my therapist about my ever waxing and waning hypochondria, I said, “I know I’m paranoid. But sometimes paranoid people are being followed!” The last time I said that to him was Election Day, when I was worrying about my annual breast exam that coming Friday. He said, “That’s maybe the worst phrase you’ve said.” We laughed. But reader, sometimes paranoid people are being followed. Friday I went in for my exam. They told me they wanted to biopsy a couple of spots. I had a meltdown. A nice nurse said, “Is there someone you can call?” I launched into a hysterical summary of the past two years of my life: “…and then I had a miscarriage and I was so depressed and angry for so long, and everyone I knew was so nice, and I know they love me, but I’ve used them up. I can’t take one more problem to them.” “You haven’t used them up,” she said. “Call.” She also said, of course, that lots of biopsies turn up not-cancer, ...