Cocktail Parties and Follow Up

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2011 9:57 AM, EDT

Cocktail parties and Follow up

I was over 20 years old when Tiffany told me that we didn't have a lot of money growing up. That came as such a surprise to me! Mama was a full time working mother at age 27 with 3 children under the age of 5. I look at my 2 children, my schedule, and my 2-income family, and I can't imagine raising 3 by myself in the 80's. We weren't destitute. As far as I remember, we never wanted for anything. Christmas in our house, for example, was incredible! Toys as far as the eye could see, and always an extra special surprise in our stockings, which we opened last. 

One of my favorite childhood memories was a monthly "cocktail party." We would get dressed up in our favorite fancy dress-up clothes and pick out a pair of shoes from Mama's closet. My favorite shoes were a pair of red leather (and I mean harlot red), wooden platform heels. The red leather tied in a knot in a medial fashion with a single piece of leather coming out to the lateral side. I remember them fondly, and this may have been where my shoe fetish was conceived. I might wear them now if Mama still had them, except that I would look like an ugly step sister trying to cram my size 8s into those tiny size 5s! But they would certainly be in style right now, and I am sure that I would have at least a couple of scarves to rival their beauty!

Cocktail parties were fun for many reasons - I LOVED to dress up. I got to wear the red peep toes. And we ate from plates that were arranged in a circular fashion around the breakfast room table. Each plate had a different food on it, neatly complemented with a toothpick and maybe a little garnish. We grabbed a small plate, and listened to music as we circled the table to fill our plates with cheese slices, cut up into bite-sized squares, Vienna sausages, hot dog pieces, and other oddities for children to eat for dinner as a combination. Little did I know that "cocktail parties" took place just before pay day, and that this was the last slice of cheese, hot dog wiener, or Vienna sausage can in the house until Mama could go shopping again.

One of my greatest strengths is resourcefulness, which is clearly a learned trait from Mama. I guess that's what got her through all of those years when we were younger - resourcefulness, creativity, innovation and LOTS of LOVE and support.

And this is how I feel about the cancer. People keep asking me how I can be so strong and positive with this diagnosis. People keep telling me that they would be so different, and unable to remain positive. My only true answer is this -you never know how you will handle adversity until you are faced with it.

This little philosophy came from my perfume bottle. The scent is Philosophy's Amazing Grace. Sometimes we find inspiration in the strangest places, and this became my mantra long before D-Day. I try to live by it daily, and hopefully that shows in the cancer blog. 

How you climb up the mountain

 is just as important as how you get down the mountain.

 And, so it is with life, 

which for many of us becomes one big gigantic test 

followed by one big gigantic lesson. 

In the end, it all comes down to one word. 

Grace.  

It’s how you accept the winning and losing, 

good luck and bad luck, 

the darkness and the light.

And this is how Mama raised us. With grace and style, creativity and innovation. And this is what I hope to instill in my children.

My surgical appointment was yesterday. Although there was no response to chemo noted on my MRI report, the US looks different to my eye...I'm taking that as a good sign. We are moving forward with the next chemo, Taxol. Taxol is a derivative of the bark from a Pacific Yew tree, so it's "all natural," according to my Oncologist...My response? "So is arsenic!" We got a good giggle out of that. My Oncologist has a picture of him next to a Pacific Yew Tree that he keeps telling me (3 times now) that he will bring me to place on my fridge...I told him I would do this when he tells me I'm cancer free, and not a moment before that! I am planning to personally rename the Pacific Yew Tree the "Tree of Life" if it shrinks my tumor! We are currently running a dose of that Taxol, and so far, so good. It has about a 1% chance of anaphylactic shock reaction (in the words of the Encyclopedia Britannica commercial from the 80's, "Look it up, dear!"), so we are taking appropriate precautions. For those of you who don't know, 1 in 100 is a pretty high complication rate, and it's made me a little anxious over the last couple of weeks. But it is working out just fine today.

My steroid regimen changed with this chemo. I take 5 pills the night before chemo, and 5 pills at 3 in the morning the day of chemo. I woke up this morning with my proverbial boxing gloves on, ready to fight the good fight. In short, I am jacked up like a crackhead on the first day of a good fix. If I keep this up, I'll be on that show "Intervention." Before I know it, I'll be sitting in a hotel room surrounded by close family and friends ready to stop all enabling behaviors. And Mama may very well lead that intervention...my jacked-upness may be getting to her a wee bit today.

And the thing about steroids is this...they control the nausea...and they make you hungry! I mean, hungry all the time! And I mean bottomless pit hungry - I have no sense of fullness when I eat. Needless to say, chemo is not a weight loss plan. Boooo chemo...that's another conversation that I'll refrain from because I am too vain to be on board with this. This was not a part of my post baby work out.  Food, glorious food.  I still have this insatiable desire to eat. I surely could use a cocktail party right about now...with a side of grace and style, please!