WTFsanjo

fear of pink

last night jay and i went to san francisco to spend the night at a nice hotel in union square.  no sooner had we arrived did it become clear to us that the hotel at which we were staying was serving as a "base" for the avon breast cancer walk. 

it's impossible for me to describe the trauma i feel when confronted with a sea of pink ribbons - these people are ostensibly walking for ME but everything about the walk and its participants makes me feel like my cancer experience has been cheapened.  nothing about cancer is pink, nothing about cancer is cute, and - oh right! - nothing about cancer is fun either.  the disconnect between my experience of breast cancer and the commercial enthusiasm around it frustrates me to the point of aphasia. 

as we sat at the hotel bar yesterday, we were literally surrounded by women in pink.  women who were seething with self-congratulation for having walked sixty goddamn miles, women who seemingly felt like they had "done their part" for cancer by walking around like fucking retards, raising money for what is, at best, a highly questionable breast cancer charity.  one of the women had on a shirt proclaiming that she was walking in memory of her grandmother who had died of breast cancer.  this will offend some delicate sensibilities, but old people dying of cancer is not the fucking problem.  jayme died on friday at 31 years old leaving an elementary-aged son.  that is the fucking problem. 

this morning on the way to brunch, we had to stop on the street to let the breast cancer walkers go by.  there were headbands with boob antennas and pink spiky hair and leopard print bras outside of shirts and pithy sayings on pink hats like "save my rack!"  you know what?  if you ever fucking had breast cancer or knew anyone who was actually sick from it, the last fucking thing on your mind is "save my rack."  maybe you should try "save my life" or "don't let my child grow up motherless" or "help me manage my crippling debt and horrible physical pain."

fuck your rack.  i am not in this to save anybody's tits. 

no words

rest in peace, jayme.

mementos

today, in an effort to do some good for the environment and purge myself of cancer meds, i looked up a location where i could properly dispose of my pills.  i then went into my bathroom, pulled out the multifarious pill bottles, and did an inventory of "keep or destroy."  at the end of this exercise i had only one pill bottle in the destroy category - the minocycline which pre-dates my cancer, used to eradicate the acne that - ultimately - only eight rounds of chemotherapy could truly eliminate (i would voluntarily pay $200,000 and spend four months bald and miserable to clear my acne up again, should it ever come back.)

i found reasons to keep every other medication - vicodin, ativan, and darvocet are no-brainers, as is the marinol.  but the zofran?  the compazine?  the phenegran?  a half-used packet of emend?  the mothereffing keflex that i could not even put in my mouth due its innate stench of rotten eggs?  and the tamoxifen, which i know has absolutely no purpose for me - it didn't even have any side effects.  i cannot justify its potential utility in the face of a hangover or a staph infection, like i almost can the others.  it's like keeping all the placebos from your birth control pill packs and putting them in a jar.  just for the memories.

i also found my mediport needles, which the hospital sent me home with after my port placement, sort of as a surgical door prize.  at the time i thought i was going to have to carry my port needles around with me in a little brief case (i kind of wanted to), but i was later informed that the only reason i would ever need the port needles would be if i wound up in some ER where they had never seen a mediport before.  which i think only happens in places like liberia, and if i am in an ER in liberia, i doubt i will have my port needles with me. plus, at the point at which i am sick enough to seek medical care in the third world, you may as well just use the talon of a bird to puncture my port, because i'm probably going to die anyway. 

port needles: keep. 

lighting another candle tonight

i hate this motherfucking disease.

the chicken army moves forward

Aquarius Horoscope for week of June 19, 2008

 
How well are you capitalizing on this year's unique opportunities, Aquarius? Now that we're halfway through 2008, let's take an inventory. By now, you should have banished at least half of the ghosts that were pestering you. By August, you should have neutralized, dissolved, or rendered irrelevant a load of weird karma, and said goodbye to parts of your past that were bogging you down. By January 1, 2009, I hope you will have laid to rest a broken dream, escaped a dead end, and ended your relationship with a lost cause. If you have spent the last six months earnestly engaged in doing this tough, messy work, it won't be anywhere near as tough and messy during the next six months.

if you don't get why this is funny within five minutes please email me so i can explain it to you because it is fucking genius

Rich: my friend
Mark: his landlord

 -----Original Message-----
From: Mark
To: Rich
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 10:00:00

Subject: Re:

Tomm looks like we have time to do your windows and blinds. Ok?

 -----Original Message-----
From: Rich
To: Mark
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 13:06:14

Subject: Re:

Hey Mark-

Sure. What day are you guys coming over? Do I need to move anything for you guys to work?

Rich

 -----Original Message-----
From: Mark
To: Rich
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 13:22:09

Subject: Re:

Tomm. Don't move anything.  Thanks

-----Original Message-----
From: Rich
To: Mark
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 13:48:55
Subject: Re:

It's Rich not Tomm. What day are you guys planning on coming?

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:  Mark  
To:  Rich
Date: Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 2:00 PM
Subject: Re:

If tomm not good then weds or in 8 days

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 2:05 PM,  Rich wrote:

Look at my landlord. It makes no sense

how to die on the internet

when i woke up this morning, i found out another person died.  i cried in the shower, but was done by the time i got in the car.  i've done this a lot - woken up, dealt with a death, and lived through the rest of my day.  of course i don't really know these people, having never spoken with them directly.  but i know their names and their kids' names and what their christmas photos look like.  i know how scared and sad they were, and also how compassionate and supportive and strong they've been to others.  each time this happens i find myself looking back on "their life," or, rather, how their life has been presented to me, which, almost exclusively, is a highly-patterned sequence of pictures and posts in the little cancer universe of YSC. 

it struck me this morning that there really is a physical path through the bulletin boards that all of these women take.  you can trace your finger down the screen and just watch people go.  first to "general," at the very top of the page, where hopefully you get to hang out forever and ever or until cancer bores the shit out of you and you get to move on to some right-wing republican blog or archives of cat pictures or something. if you are not lucky you then move to "metastatic disease," located directly below "general."  next - once you wrap your head around mets for a while - back to "general," and you get to occupy two worlds, stratifying the top two slots on the bulletin board.  time goes by and your signature file shrinks. this is a surefire way of knowing you've reached a critical mass of diagnoses, scans, and treatments; you would rather not continue to advertise the sheer volume of cancer-related hell you've been through.  pictures disappear, posts get more sparse, and then: silence. 

you land, at the bottom of the screen, on the "rememberance board." 

dr. graven and dr. totman: are you fucking kidding me? redux

i was feeling pretty sanguine today when i walked into the women's health clinic. a simple procedure for 10 years of non-hormonal birth control? yes please! my appointment time was 2pm. i was stoked when they called my name. however, my stoked-ness was quickly cut short when the nurse (with the lump in her breast; who's a retard) said - literally: "we have a situation with your IUD." situation? with my IUD? what the fuck does that mean? well, it means that despite the fact i had told them about 100 times i had cancer and was unable to use hormonal birth control, they totally flaked on the fact that nobody in their office was QUALIFIED to insert a copper IUD except for one person who was currently delivering a baby.

"do you care to wait?"

you know what? fuck you, yes i care to wait, but wait i will. because i am pretty convinced that if i reschedule this appointment, the exact same thing will happen again. that is how much faith i have in you.

i was almost content waiting - the pregnant people were not bothering me as much as usual, and jay and i were well-equipped with our commensurate reading material - he with an atlantic monthly, me with the compelling young adult fiction of gossip girl.

during a thoughtful break between chapters, i looked up at the wall. i know i mentioned before that this waiting room sells both jewelry and anti-wrinkle cream. but today, given such dedicated time in the lobby, i discovered the most egregious offense: a poster of a four year-old wearing a skimpy bikini and STILETTO HEELS with a quote underneath by gwyneth paltrow: "happiness is being comfortable in your own skin." O RLY? is that what you RLY think, gwyneth paltrow? then maybe we could ask the four year-old to take off the stilettos.

i am finally called to go in. up you go, katie martinez, into some stirrups, literally hanging upside down so my cervix can eat as much numbing cream as possible. even in this position, things are looking up (har), until the OB/GYN (who has a bedazzled cell phone and porn star fingernails) says "why aren't you getting the mirena (hormone) IUD?" and i say "i have breast cancer, so i'm not supposed to have hormones." this is the response:

I'M SORRY KATHRYN BUT IN THIS OFFICE WE TRAFFIC IN REALITY. I'M SICK OF ALL THESE ONCOLOGISTS BELIEVING A BUNCH OF HOO-HA HYPE ABOUT HORMONES. UNLIKE ONCOLOGY, THIS MEDICAL PRACTICE IS BASED ON FACTS.

um, okay. what do you even say to that, especially when you are hanging upside with a speculum inside of you? i'll tell you: you say nothing. because this woman, as bedazzled and crazy as she is, has your reproductive organs in her hands. and then (can you believe anything else even happened?) her cell phone rings. is it like a beeper sound, like a regular doctor? no, it's some song by foreigner. LOUD. and then she says "god, my cell phone always rings when i'm trying to numb someone's cervix." at this point, what do you, as the OB/GYN touching my vagina, do? let it go to voicemail? NO, ARE YOU KIDDING? you pick up the phone and say "O HAI, tajel!" and proceed to direct your son around your master bathroom to locate something. with your hand in my vaginal canal. as i am hanging upside-down.

respite occurred after the OB/GYN declared my cervix to appear "extra-challenging" so i would be sentenced to hanging inversely in stirrups with an air conditioner blowing on my vagina for about thirty minutes. i read gossip girl upside-down. it was blissful. after about 100 pages and an increasing sensation that i was slowly pushing the speculum out of my vagina (thanks kegel!) i was informed that the OB/GYN would be joined by a male nurse who wants to look at vaginas. WONDERFUL! BRING HIM IN!

his only saving grace was that he appeared to be more interested in the gossip girl book on my chest than in my lady-parts. but is this experience over yet? FUCK NO. because all of a sudden i hear the OB/GYN say "you are now going to feel like you drank 10 pots of coffee!" and no sooner had those words escaped her lips did i start feeling like i was on a coke bender. "don't worry - that's just topical adrenaline we sprayed all over your insides!" can i get more of that?

poke, prod, bleed, gossip girl, etc. the shit goes in. i come home, panties all bloody, pop a vicodin and drink a martini. and that's where i am at this very moment. which is why this post is so effing long.

i can has liver panel?

that phrase was on a constant loop in my head at the gym today - the sick fusion of my current obsessions: having cancer and "i can has cheezburger?" two items i wish had never intersected.

"i can has cheezburger" is basically the only thing that can make me calm down from a bout of mets paranoia. i've recently been reading the lolcats bible and blasphemous as it may be, something about "ceiling cat" saying "An Ceiling Cat sed them O hai maek bebehs kthx" puts me entirely at ease. maybe the reason i never liked the bible is because i was reading the wrong translation?

i think what makes me so intoxicated by lolcats is how strangely organic and bizarre it is for a collection of totally disparate people to translate the entire bible into a made-up cat language. and through the same incredible random synthesis, these internet people created a walrus ("lolrus") who loses a bucket ("bukkit,") and a god named "ceiling cat," whose minions are all obsessed with cheezburgers, and something called a "flavor," which i don't even understand, but i think it has to do with licking yourself. despite these achievements, the really amazing thing is that through a few hours of dedicated lolcat perusal per day, i'm starting to get the joke.

which, above all else, gives me very sound faith in the utility of being human and having the internet.

if you think you have metastatic cancer, look at this shit:

and that is how i get through the day

o hai. u thikn i are smart? well you're fucking wrong.

dreams i have had this week

1. looking inside a cut-away of my abdomen to find cancer all over my diaphragm and liver
2. having a limb-less baby pig pulled from my stomach and then trying to kill it
3. being raped
4. getting hit by a car

post new york

today i have spent over an hour looking at webpages detailing the symptoms of lung, spinal cord, and brain mets.  three days ago i stayed up until five in the morning on a new york city streetcorner being drunk, well-dressed, belligerent, and not thinking about cancer.  two days ago i met someone who told me they read my blog.  like i met them.  in person. 

people read this blog?

i mean, i have to admit that at times i have considered the possibility that everyone who comments it is actually one person (mom?) who is both bored and trying to make me feel better.  but this was an actual person, who apparently actually reads my blog, and actually thinks it's good.  which - despite spending this weekend staying up to all hours of night, eating a 10 course meal at a pretentious restaurant, watching one of my oldest and dearest friends get married, meeting (and conversing with) someone who i can only assume was the inspiration for the entire movie "american psycho," learning that my boss quit suddenly on friday, and (grace be to god) accidentally finding myself in the courtyard of the palace hotel where GOSSIP GIRL IS FILMED - the best thing that happened in new york was meeting someone who has absolutely no vested interest in participating in my life (stalkers, friends, husband: consider yourselves vested) who happily reads the drivel that comes out of my brain. 

which makes you, sarah, the best thing that happened in the last seven days.   way to go.

let me explain this one to you

Surviving Cancer Doesn't Lead to Healthier Lifestyle, courtesy of the New York Times.

this makes total sense to me.  the only motivation to be healthy is either to avoid getting cancer or to be hot, and once you've had cancer, it's pretty hard to be hot again.  also, once you've had cancer, you're sort of not afraid of getting cancer anymore.  because: it already happened.  and you may have spent the better part of your adult life slaving away at the gym and never eating ice cream and living off of lean cuisines and carrot sticks, and yet: you still got cancer.  so what the fuck. 

having cancer is also the greatest excuse in the world for doing whatever you want.  cancer's power of justification is limitless.  eat an entire plate of nachos?  don't mind if i do.  cigarettes?  why not.  stay home from the gym in favor of getting beers and/or laying in bed with the blinds drawn watching golden girls?  tell me why that is a bad idea.  please. 

because when you suddenly realize how short life is, it just doesn't make sense to spend precious hours trying to fool yourself out of the inevitable.  you are going to die.  and you are probably going to die of cancer.  and it will not make you happier to live three extra years when you are 70 years old if you have to spend the entirety of your useful adulthood on a treadmill eating mixed greens for every meal.

people without cancer?  get thee to the gym.  leave the rest of us to enjoy our gluttony in peace. 

o hai jeff johnson

this is your blog.

http://fuckscience.blogspot.com/

kthx

i'm not even sure i'm upset about this

you know how they say that the day you know you've entered adulthood is the day you live through an entire april 20th without getting a virtual "pass the joint" text message?

for me, that day was today.

chemo-free, 365 days and counting

on april 12 of last year i spent all day in the chemo chair. taxol is essentially a seven-hour infusion by the time you take all your premeds plus the hour and a half of herceptin. it's such a long day that my oncologist's office buys everybody lunch, all of us pathetic bald freaks attached to our reclining seats for the entirety of the day. it's funny to think about it now, but on april 12 of last year i was blissfully happy. it was my last chemo, and - more importantly for me at the time - my last neulasta shot. the last weekend i would spend eating vicodin and ativan every three hours just to be able to withstand laying in bed.

it was the day that i could finally start thinking about getting better.

the fantasies i had that day about my life a year out from chemo have all been miraculously realized. i have hair. i have eyebrows. the hot flashes stopped, the sex began again. i can walk on the treadmill without clinging to the railing. in fact, i can RUN on the treadmill if i want to (um, but i don't want to?) my skin is no longer yellow, and i gained those 10 pounds back (as much as i may have liked fitting into a size 4, chemo-chic is really never in season.)

my life once again: i act like a huge idiot all the time. i drink, i stay up till dawn (and sometimes, unfortunately, beyond. hi heather.) i complain about my hair. i obsess about the fat on my ass. i walk into rooms and convince myself that people want to have sex with me - justified or not, it's not the sort of thought cancer patients get to entertain. i can be around babies. (i still can't eat raw onions.) and i start major projects that will take me many years to complete. i'm thinking beyond turning 30.

all of that may seem minor. but those were the things i missed the most. i've never forgotten how it feels to be sick, but i've never valued being not sick so much. happy chemo-versary to me.

a letter to the women's health practice of dr. graven and dr. totman

hello -

does anyone on your staff have a medical degree?  like one that they went to school for?  oh, okay. isn't it kind of funny that i had to ask?  i know.  it's actually not funny.

yesterday when i came in to talk to someone about getting an IUD, i attempted to remain optimistic about the quality of medical services i would receive at your clinic, despite the fact that you were selling friendship bracelets and cosmetics in the waiting room.  i even sucked it up when, surveying the waiting area, the only magazines available were "baby" (not an avid fan) and "bass masters."   being the only non obscenely pregnant person in the room - and already basically looking like a lesbian - i opted for "bass masters." 

when i entered the exam room, i was confronted by a young nurse who started asking me a barrage of questions about my cancer.  initially, i forgave her for beginning this litany with "aren't you too young for breast cancer?" (well...no?)  the questions became stranger as the interrogation went on, when finally, about 15 minutes later, the true impetus of our conversation was revealed:

nurse: "so anyway, the reason i'm asking you is because i have a lump in my breast and i'm wondering if you think i should have it removed?"

pause here.  reassess this situation.  i am the patient.  you are the nurse.  i have little to no medical training.  you just took my blood pressure.  i just paid you exorbitant medical fees for you to ask me whether or not you should have a lump looked at.  all of this aside, you work in a WOMEN'S HEALTH CLINIC.  i will say no more.  ask somebody else.

she finished our conversation by declaring "wow, you really freaked me out," and then exited.  awesome.

when the nurse practitioner finally came in, she basically tiptoed by the exam table, gingerly sunk herself into a chair, and stared at me like i was already dead.  she spoke in whispers, as if there was cancer in my ears that may be agitated by her register.   after each of her questions i answered, she looked stricken.  a personal favorite was: "how did the mastectomy go?" i replied: "well about as well as you would expect it would be having your breasts surgically removed."  she stared.  this was not funny to her.  she clearly wanted to kill herself.  the pity was palpable.

then she said (and this is really weird) "i get periodic updates from dr. cohen - he is always saying what an astounding patient you are."  now this would be a normal thing to hear if dr. cohen was my doctor.  however, i only saw dr. cohen once.  16 months ago.  for 30 minutes.  so either this nurse practitioner is lying for the sake of conversation, or dr. cohen is living in a fantasy where i chose him as my oncologist and have been spending quality cancer time with him for the last year and a half.  either way, this situation is unacceptable.

finally, after listening to my very measured description of the cancer treatments i've been through, she paused and whispered "are you in therapy?" which: no.  i mean yes.  yes, i am in therapy, but fuck you for asking.  especially because i am completely okay with having had cancer (relatively) and YOU, nurse practitioner, appear to need therapy just from listening to my medical history.

in closing: you are all fucking insensitive idiots.  now get me a goddamn IUD.

katie

 

i should tell my spin class i'm dying so i can meet the steelers

at the end of a grueling hour of spinning today, during which i was forced to have my head stuffed up against this massive black man's ass, our instructor, "larry," made an announcement about a charity event taking place at the gym. a requested donation of $25 for two hours of spinning (good god who the fuck would pay for that) in order to help a young CANCER VICTIM meet the san jose sharks. so i have two objections to this - one, the term "cancer victim" and also - why the fuck are the san jose sharks charging money to say hi to a cancer patient. oh whoops, nee: cancer VICTIM. what assholes.

it was amazing how quickly people's heads whipped around to stare at me upon hearing the term "cancer victim." NONE of these people has ever spoken to me, the majority have never even made eye contact with me. this one woman, "bobbie," (she is arab and i have no idea why her name is bobbie - maybe it's babi? omg i'm going to hell) craned her neck to stare at me so violently i thought she might fall off her bike. yes, hello, i am a cancer victim. and oh yeah, i TOO would like to meet the sharks!

then i went to the grocery store meat counter. and the guy behind the counter, who i swear to god i have never seen in my entire life, goes " WOW YOUR HAIR IS REALLY COMING IN GREAT! HOW ARE YOU FEELING?"

which just goes to show: everyone you think is ignoring you is actually paying attention.

today is my last herceptin

tomorrow i get thrown to the cancer wolves.

friday, february 15

if you are the owner of an ATM card, please fucking learn how to use it.  do not stand in front of the card swiper staring at the screen, open mouthed, and then look up at the person behind the register like you have never seen a motherfucking card swiper before.  and when the check out person tells you to enter your pin DO NOT use your fat as fuck fingers to type in the WRONG pin number repeatedly.  do you even have a bank account? 

also: my oncologist just called to tell me that my cancer is actually hormone-negative and the cancer-causing hormone medication that i have been taking for the last nine months has probably been completely ineffective.  yay.

thoughts on tucker max

today on the plane i read the entire tucker max book. after 288 pages i felt like i had both given and received about 500 blowjobs and vomited on myself repeatedly. which is to say: it is both great and horrible plane reading.

beyond that, what i realized while reading this book is that my friends are actually insanely fucked up. at the end of the book tucker max lists the features of being "tucker max drunk," which is supposed to serve as the most drunk and out of control one could possibly be. in this list he cites "breaking things," "starting fights," and "waking up in a place you do not recognize" as hallmarks of this level of drunkenness. it left a lot to be desired.

in the universe of my friends the term is "anna d***** drunk" and it may or may not include covering your naked body in salad and frenching tortilla chips into people's mouths after pissing on the floor of someone's house. there is also "heather h***** drunk" and "bettina e***** drunk" and, well, you know, "katie martinez drunk" the likes of which, collectively, may or may not include pissing yourself, vomiting all over yourself in the middle of telling a story to multiple people, sleeping with quasi-relatives, falling through the ceiling of a large party, and engaging in sex acts with mexicans.

so - tucker max: good but not great. the upper decker, the chlamydia testing, the high powered law firm summer associate email - these stories are not new to me. which is not to say that i don't love these stories - i just already have people in my life that do this shit. god love them.

also: on the plane i sat in the middle of the entire team of san francisco 49er cheerleaders. they all have the hugest fucking white horse teeth i've ever seen in my life. but they are still pretty hot.