I Can't Be Bothered With Fake Anything! Is It Because I Have Such Good Taste? Possibly. More Likely Though It Stems From A Need To Purchase Something Once And Be Done With It

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Recently someone who has nothing but the best intentions (but doesn't know me very well) sent me some things she thought would be useful in my recovery like a wig and a fake Escada bag.  My hair made a full recovery, as I predicted it would.  I cut it short and the hair takes care of the rest. It's curly and red/brown and does it's own thing.  Also my neurosurgeon was careful not to shave off too much hair, he's a pretty careful guy (aren't neurosurgeons careful by definition?), so a big hair reduction for me just puts my head in the same realm as everyone else.  As for a fake bag, I'm not a fake bag kind of gal.  Never have been.  When I see something that works I'm all in!  For years I carried a black Longchamp bag with silver hardware.  Before that I thought it would be a good idea to have a round (canteen style) black, bag, so I went into a Gucci store and picked up a black, canteen bag.

Longchamp in San Francisco sells a canteen bag!  In Union Square.  At Nordstrom's!  Probably with silver hardware!  So next time I'm in the market for a handbag I know exactly what I want and where to get it.  If the "fake" bag had silver hardware and didn't look so fake I could just fill it with junk and carry it around like a purse!  But every time I see the brassy looking, fakey, "Escada" logo, I just can't go there!  As Sarah Jessica Parker (as Carrie Bradshaw) once observed, "All those fake bags in the back of someone's trunk it's just too sad!"

I like original art and clothes and textiles (and cookies) for the same reason I like old movies and quality handbags:  I want to buy it once and be done with it.  By the time a Longchamp bag is ready to retire you're sick of it anyway!  Did you hear records are making a comeback?  I always kept mine!  I have an eye for quality not because I necessarily have good taste (although my taste is pretty impeccable), but because I'm lazy!  Especially when I'm confronted with so much.

This is exactly what I mean by juggling chainsaws!   I don't have any time or energy to consider anything that doesn't produce immediate results!  Fake handbags and fake hair (well, hair that isn't mine) are well-meant distractions I have no time for!  I never did.  Fake hair is just well, fake. I have to relearn to walk, I have books to read, I have books to write.  Crap, I have a lot to do!  I'd better get on it!

Cancer "coming back"? What the Hell? I've Never Considered it "Coming Back". I have to Read "Moby Dick" again! I have Way Too Much Stuff to do! Most of it is fairly important!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I caught a virus of some kind last week (First in many years) after being eerily healthy since 2011, and this hit me hard, I'm still not over it.  So another log of any size or origin is one log too many on the ol' "Bonfire of Stress" and my wheels just completely came off and I'm still getting over it!  This is probably the last time I'll add another circumstance to the "others" I'm currently juggling.  I can handle a lot but I think I'm maxed!  I'm barely treading water, neurologically speaking, and feel constantly like I'm running out of time!  So I know I ranted about my huge, irrational fear of enclosed spaces.  The MRI is essential  for any neuro diagnosis, apparently the MD who orders the test gets the thrill of reading the results to you.

I know I previously ranted at some length about claustrophobia and how the middle of the MRI "donut" is absolutely one of the worst places for a claustrophobe.  What I didn't consider, what I've never considered is my plan of action should the cancer come back!  "Come back?"  WTF?  It's gone, baby, gone!   It had better be!  Gone.  It can't "come back"!  But apparently it can and often does come back!  Over 50% of the time!  In the first five years! I have no contingency plan for more cancer!  Oh no!  Suddenly all my doctors are calling about seeing me!  So I survived brain surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and repeated MRI's just to hear there's  another tumor?  I don't think so.   I just don't have the strength to annually reconfirm that I'm still alive. Who cares?  Big deal! I already know that. I'm only interested in moving forward,  but the last time I ignored all the signs I woke up in the hospital with a brain tumor.  I like to think I can still learn lessons from my own life so I'm paying closer attention.  Like what would I do if it  "came back"?  I have never considered that because it's just not an option!  I've grown the tumor, had it diagnosed and removed and now I'm working doubletime to recover from the cure.  The cancer itself has been gone since 1/11.  Part of anyone's success in surviving cancer has to be ignorance.  If I knew how brave I'd have to be and how much misery I'd have to endure I don't know if I could have gone this far!  My sense of adventure would be shot to hell and you really need a strong sense of adventure.  And a stronger sense of humor.  Let's just say it, "You need to be strong to survive cancer.  Really strong!  Army Strong!  At least!  I have never, and will never wish cancer on anyone.  It's just too sad, too serious.  I can't even make jokes about it and I can make jokes about anything!  Cancer just played with me but in "playing" completely upended my physical world.  I see it as an opportunity for growth and change but that's due in large part to the great way I feel since the tumor removal in 2011!

When reviewing  my case my neurosurgeon commented that the alternative was not desirable (death).  Yeah, I would agree "The Big Dirt Nap" is not a good option for me.  Neither is getting repeated MRI's for the next several years just to hopefully reconfirm that the brain cancer is still gone.  Again, I already knew that.  So, I spent way too much time and energy being uncharacteristically concerned about my MRI results this go round.  I felt that since I never considered negative results, I ought to begin, because you never know!   Except I do know!  I wasn't blowing smoke when I told my neurosurgeon that I feel amazing and they could MRI me until the cows come home; the cancer is long gone.  I know it!  I feel it!  My oncologist finally divulged the results of the last MRI which were "remarkable in their unremarkability".  In other words cancer is still long gone.  Good news, but nothing I didn't already know.  Again, there's only one question that matters, the only question that counts:  Is it cancer?  No?  Then who cares?  Really, it's just that simple!  Even though there were three questions there, only one needed answering.

So I don't look forward to endless MRI's but I understand the need for up-to-the-minute images, and, in the first five years following the tumor removal, annual MRI's are just going to be part of my life, no matter how frightened they make me - like spiders.  Spiders are probably more beneficial than MRI's but I haven't "evolved" that much and probably never will!

Patient Spouse has been worrying about this recent MRI for months!  I haven't given any thought  to the "return" of cancer, nor will I.  I am only aware of how fast I can train to improve for PS and my son.  How fast neuroplasticity will work, how much repetitive exercise I can take.   Always more!  It's a battle against time!  I think I will ultimately prevail because failure is not an option.  So worrying about cancer returning seems to me to be a waste of time and energy that I'll never have again.

After relaying the "boring" MRI results to us my oncologist remarked on my overall improvement and strength.  I am determined to do whatever is necessary to recover for my PS and Jack.  Nothing else matters.  So I'll take "boring" all day long!  "Boring" is good!  Bring on the "boring"!  It's right up there with "cookie".  "Boring cookie"?  No such thing!  Like "recurring brain cancer"?  No such thing!  Not for me, anyway!

MRI or a "Texas Funeral"? Either one Produces the Same Feeling of Being Buried Alive!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

The disappearance of Malaysian Flight #370 has brought into sharp focus the antiquated system we depend on to explain flights that vanish.  The "black box" isn't very helpful if you can't find it.  Ask CNN.  So regardless of how this tragedy ultimately plays out I'm sure they'll be many changes to the boxes resulting from the inherent limitations of them.

Similarly are the machines that map your brain, the Magnetic Resonance Imager or MRI.  The MRI is still a giant doughnut that takes a series of images of your brain.  The necessity of these images is beyond questioning.  When I learned that annual MRIs were going to be a fixture in my life, I took notice of the apparatus which hasn't significantly changed since the late 80's.  The machine itself still looks like a behemoth doughnut with a hole in the middle for the patient.  The MRI is truly something out of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".  Even when idling the MRI belches and spits!  But it doesn't eventually spit out a multi-dish piece of gum, that would be good.  That would make sense!  No, the best thing the MRI can answer is the only question that counts:  Is it cancer?

To answer this question one has to periodically submit to the MRI.  In my case, my annual MRI's tap into my lifelong fear of enclosed spaces.  The MRI is  claustrophobe's worst nightmare:  You are put inside the "belly of the beast" and told to lie "very still". No problem there!  I'm so scared, I don't move.  And nothing scares me anymore, except MRI's!  I've even made peace with the freakin' spiders!  Patient Spouse suggested I write a story about being trapped in the MRI with spiders but I just can't go there!

Because for the truly claustrophobic, the MRI looks and feels like being locked in a coffin.  Or at least how I picture being trapped in a coffin beneath a lot of dirt. Of course, in "Kill Bill  Vol. II"  Uma Thurman prevails,(she is, after all, Uma Thurman), but Kill Bill II always gives me "the willies", at the claustrophobia part.  "A Texas Funeral" is being buried alive.  I thought I had figured out a coping skill for the MRI - I just wouldn't do it anymore.  My fear is irrational and overwhelming. "So that's a "Texas Funeral" I have to hand it to you Budd!  That's a pretty f*&!!@ up way to die!" comments Daryl Hannah right before she dispatches Budd with a well-placed Black Mamba (it's a great movie! Lots of female empowerment!).

Patient Spouse reminded me that returning cancers return in the first five years so skipping the machine is not really an option.(Another reason I love my PS!  He's really patient!   But since it's fear that's overwhelming and impervious to reason I'll go with "Plan B" - lots of valium!  "Prince Valium" as Winona Ryder referred to it in "Beetlejuice".  I'm not typically a fan of "better living through chemistry"  but these are desperate times and besides, I have a year to think of better coping strategies.   I survived the last one because the wise tech pulled me out of the doughnut a couple of times and it was just enough time for me to look around and get my bearings again.  So that worked out well!   Two more years in the MRI doughnut?   Bring it!  Embrace the suck!

PS - Happy Birthday, Dad!