Oh, Menopause

I wrote a song to the tune of Danny Boy. It's only the first verse. I lost energy after that :)

Oh, menopause, hot sweats, hot sweats are killing me
From top my head down limbs then ‘cross my side
The city’s hot and all my ovaries are dying
They must go and my tears I’ll try to hide
They might come back when I move from the ghetto
Or when the streets are freezing at 10 below
‘Cause I’ll be here desperately seeking airflow
Oh, menopause, oh menopause, I hate you so.

Ground Me

I wonder where you are
In the world there are so many
People crammed into tiny spaces
And I keep wondering where you are.

I am here
I am floating on the air like a feather now
I think I was once a stone in the water,
Somewhere in a shallow river,
But I came out and I started floating in the air
Like a feather

I hope you can find me when you need to
I am hoping that you’ll
Catch me as I am floating;
That the breeze isn’t too strong and you miss me flying past you.

Maybe you have no hands to reach out for me
Maybe you used to fear water and never looked in the river,
And now you fear heights and I am floating too high
So maybe I should float lower
Or perhaps I should become something else
But what should I be?

Sometimes

Sometimes I feel like I am going to die from this pain. It’s so deep inside my bones it’s as if some machines are digging from the inside out. Jackhammers and bulldozers that someone parked inside my bone marrow or my joints, and they wake me by digging. Maybe chemo is some sort of construction company that is reconstructing my body. I don’t know how to battle it sometimes. All I can do is lie on my sofa and cry.

The sweats are so bad too. I turn on the air conditioner and the fans to cool off but I get so cold from the fans. Then as soon as I cover up in a blanket I starting sweating all over again. I can’t remember the last time anyone came to visit me or help me at home. Well, someone helped on Friday and that was nice. I hate to ask for help but I need it. I don’t know who to ask anymore. I feel as if mostly everyone has forgotten me. Maybe I would have been better off not finding the cancer in time. Maybe dying is what I’m supposed to do. I can’t be that inspiring to everyone if they never call me. I mean, I feel like shit and I want attention and hugs but I hate asking because it seems so insincere when people give you exactly what you asked for.

I’d like to remind my family that I have not died of cancer like our mother did, and that I am still alive, and maybe a phone call to check up on me or cheer me up is not too much to ask for.

I am scared about the Tamoxifen and the possible mood swings it might give me. I’m scared that my hair might not grow back or it might fall out again or something else will go wrong and the career I am dreaming of—the reason I am fighting to live—is a pointless exercise. What do we get out of feeling sorry for ourselves? I’m not really sure but I’m going to spend some of today finding out. It’s not like I have anything better to do. And how can I really inspire anyone when no one cares enough to really care? I mean, I have a phone. If it weren’t for facebook I’d be long forgotten.

I say that sometimes I feel like I’m going to die from the pain, and I do feel that. I also feel like I may wither away and shrivel up from the loneliness. Everyone else I meet who has cancer has family or friends taking care of them. I have a teddy bear, an air conditioner and streaming Netflix. And my roommate will return soon and move all my stuff around and be horribly insensitive and nothing about that makes me smile. I’m really only asking to be given a reason to smile. My life is shit right now and I know, I know, I know it could be worse, but I’m just looking for a sometime that I get to laugh a little and talk with other humans that are not in my head.

Sometimes talking and laughing and being hugged a lot makes the little construction company in my bones take a break for a while. It’s weird how that works but it really does. No one should have to do this alone…

Inspiration

Sometimes those of us who are unintentionally inspiring others need someone to be inspired by. Today I met Katelyn, a 22 year old with breast cancer. She was all smiles and super positive. Her mother told me she’d get chemo treatments then go out to concerts. Her siblings have even set up a non profit for young women with breast cancer. It was nice to talk with her and to see her smiling. I really hope this medicine doesn’t crush her spirit or depress her--- but if it does I hope she meets someone who is smiling and inspiring like I have. Because, honestly, no matter how inspiring I may be to others I, too, need inspiration from others. Katelyn has reminded me see that we can all be strong and that we all do have something to fight for--- our lives!

NY Daily News Article

The link to the article about me: http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2010/07/12/2010-07-12_jobless_might_as_well_act.html

The photos were in the actual paper.

OMG I Have Cancer

There have been intermittent times since I was diagnosed that I find myself sitting on the toilet being hit with the realization that, holy fuck, I am 34 years old and I have cancer. I’m on the toilet a lot seeing as chemo keeps me running there, and it’s always been a thoughtful spot for me. It’s actually where I was when I was rehearsing my speech to my family about my having cancer before I’d even gotten the official confirmation. I think I was hoping that by practicing telling them that it would make it not come true. Obviously: just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.

Tonight I watched the movie Zombieland and then I headed to the bathroom. I started thinking and of course it hit me. It hit hard this time: Oh My Gawd I have Cancer! It’s like one of those things in life where you can see death right there in front of you and you have no control. His knock was at my door, or at least his feet were creaking on my stairs, and I couldn’t hide. When you are faced with death like that the natural instinct is to fight for your life. You don’t have a choice here. For once in my life my arguing was really life or death related and for once in my life I was taken rather seriously about it. It’s the same thing if zombies are chasing you and you can run, you’ll run. If you have a gun you’ll shoot. You will do anything to survive it. Which explains my taking the chemo they give me no matter how fucking awful it is and how much I don’t agree it’s the cure for cancer, or even near the cure.

The other day I wanted to give up. I still kind of do, but I’m going in on Thursday and I’m going to suffer through whatever happens this weekend. I was talking to someone recently who is very important to me and I could see in this person’s eyes that my having cancer was something that truly effected them; like, deeply bothered by it. A lot of people say they admire my strength and my courage; that I’m a trooper and I’m so amazing. I’ll tell you that I did not intend to inspire anyone, and when I’m screaming in my bed this Saturday begging my mommie to come and save me from the pain I will feel far from inspiring. That’s what sometimes digs into me; the fact that I know everyone knows what I’m going through is hard and they get that I’m fighting it, but that none of them really know how hard it is.

I’m not saying anyone should give me an award; I’m not the first person to do this—although I do really like flowers and massages. I’m not saying anyone should be more vocal about their admiration and support, although the support is so appreciated. I just know that most of my friends and family haven’t seen the worst, and if they saw it they still wouldn’t really know the true depth of hardship because they aren’t going through it. That is why talking with other cancer patients, especially ones my age who are dealing with similar issues and on the same medicines, has been something that has both comforted me greatly and scared me shitless. –Or was that the anti-nausea meds? See, cancer joke. Only the cancer survivors laughed.

But seeing the look on the face of this person who I know admired me before the cancer, well, I guess that truly makes me realize how hard what I’m going through is. Sometimes I try to forget so much that I actually forget. I am getting very good at distracting myself and letting myself be desensitized to the needles and IV bags and all the crazy waiting I go through. In this talk I was reminded of it being real and being terrifying. Not that I wasn’t thrilled to talk to this person, it kind of made my week, but this is a person who has helped me many times put my thoughts together so they actually make sense and since I haven’t had that in a while it was both a breath of fresh air and a wake up call. I’m simply stating that my life and the reality of my situation was returned to its natural perspective and I’m starting to remember not only the seriousness of my situation, but the reason why I wanted to fight it in the first place. Life is scary and there are days I want to drop out of it, even without cancer, but having acting in my life has made me a better person and I can’t imagine ever letting that go.

So, I guess I should thank both the makers of Zombieland and that wonderful person I talked to; I kind of needed that kick in the ass even though that was probably not your intention at all. I guess I’m surprised by what kicks my ass!

What Makes a Woman a Woman

I used to think that the difference between boys and girls was that boys had short hair and girls had long. I really thought that was the whole difference. Then I started growing up and learned a little more about birds and bees and all that stuff. I met girls with short hair and boys with long hair and I even dated some boys with long hair. Lately I have been thinking about how there was a time that being a mother, giving birth to a baby and breast feeding was something that defined a woman as a woman. I felt like all those female parts and wearing make up and high heels were things that made women something besides men; as if without those things we were men.

I hated wearing anything that made me look manly, like when I parked cars in downtown San Diego I had to wear this uniform that was khaki slacks and a polo shirt, but it was so un-feminine that I truly believed people would mistake me for a man. Or maybe I feared they’d mistake me for a lesbian. I never understood women who didn’t want kids because somehow I thought that made them not women. I thought that if a woman couldn’t have a child it was like she’d been robbed of something and what was the point in living. I always felt that my worst fear would be infertility or having to have my uterus and ovaries all removed. It baffled me that there were people on earth who chose to not have kids. It baffled me that there were women who dressed manly by choice, even if they were total dykes.

Here I am at 34 battling cancer with medicines that could potentially destroy all my chances of ever having children, I have one real breast and no hair and for some reason I feel more feminine than I have in a long time. I could have or at least be at risk for cervical cancer or ovarian cancer and there is a likelihood very soon someone may tell me that I should remove all my girl parts in order to avoid the risks of developing more cancers. Or perhaps I’ll be told I have to do it. Either way I have been considering that after I am through with the five years of Tamoxifen, if I can have a child I will most likely pop one out right away and then remove the whole works. So, if I do that, am I still a woman? One breast, no uterus or ovaries. What makes a woman a woman?

I’ve meet women who have had an oophorectomy or a hysterectomy and they look like women. They wear make up or they don’t; they appear to have breasts even if they are reconstructed ones; they wear dresses and high heels and they certainly are not men. So, yeah, I’ll be lacking certain hormones that are defining in females, and I’ll be missing certain body parts that are as well, but I’ll still have my vagina, and my female brain and most of my female-ness that is not entirely controlled by estrogen. And I’ll still not be a man.

I’m not sure where I got my idea that I might be mistaken for a man. Perhaps it was something that came from childhood that I don’t fully recall. I mean, even being bald no one has really questioned it besides the six year old girl I sat near on the subway who asked: “Are you a boy or a girl?” And in her case she simply had never seen a bald woman before and wasn’t sure what to think of it. That’s how I felt as a kid too: I was raised around girls who had long hair and wore pig tails or braids, and boys had short hair and men were bald not women. I guess if I had seen a bald woman when I was six I would have thought she looked odd and I would have questioned if she was a woman or said she looked ugly or weird. My six year old niece called it weird and even though she didn’t say I looked ugly I knew she was kind of thinking it. She said something about “when you look pretty” which meant when I have my hair and I know she didn’t mean it as insulting at all, that she simply found it unfamiliar.

I’m glad my niece saw me bald, and that girl on the subway as well, because I think it’s important for girls to understand from a young age that being female means more than the length of your hair, the size or even existence of your breasts, the fact that you are or are not a mother, whether you have ovaries or a uterus, that you wear a dress and heels or make up everyday, that you wear frilly underwear or not. Being a woman is something glamorous and enchanting even when you are wearing flannel pajamas and eating ice cream from a carton. Femininity is not defined by lipstick and tampons; all woman are different. We come in a variety of sizes and shapes; we come with all sorts of funny quirks and nasty habits; we like what we like and we do what we do, and we are still women when we lose a breast or any other part of our body. It’s not my body that defines my womanhood. I’m not entirely sure what it is that makes me a woman, but I know that no matter what I lose I will always be a woman because I feel like a woman. That is me. It is not that I am not a man, it is that I am a woman. And being a woman, no matter what I look like, matters.