Two years

When I was diagnosed with my brain tumor, I quickly decided - with the encouragement of a couple of friends - that I would not waste my time poking around online, looking at survival rates and tales of symptoms and the like. One quick look was enough to make me realize that doing so would be a sure path to madness, because by obsessing about my diagnosis, I'd be ignoring all of the other things that were good and right in my life.

As we all know by now, not everything on the internet is true. In the case of personal stories of cancer - or even population-level mortality rates - it's more that not everything on the internet is or will be true for me. A diagnosis, like BMI, is just one piece of the puzzle. It's information, but incomplete. 

The gray day I was diagnosed - October 12, 2010, sitting in neurosurgeon Peter Heppner's posh office at Ascot Hospital in Auckland, overlooking the Ellerslie Racecourse - I was strangely calm, but told Peter I hoped that when the time came, I'd meet it with grace. He assured me that we weren't there yet. Moreover, he told me about paleontologist/evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould's excellent essay "The Median Isn't the Message," the main point of which is that statistics don't tell us everything, and even if the median survival time for a particular illness is short, there are people who live far beyond the curve, way out into its trailing right tail. This was true of Gould after his diagnosis with incurable mesothelioma, and I have every expectation and intention that it will be true of me, too. 

So I couldn't tell you what the 1-, 2-, and 5-year survival rates are for grade 2/3 oligodendrogliomas - but nonetheless, I am so, so happy to say that I have now passed that 2 year milestone. I still get anxious, of course, and my worries upon this last visit to the oncologist weren't helped by the fact that my allergies have been dreadful the past few months, leading to sinus pressure and weird twinges in my head. Plus, the lower lid of my left eye has been twitching (fatigue, plus I need an eye exam). And then I smelled burning rubber... (Time for a new flywheel and new tires!) Finally, my blood pressure was higher than it's been, but it seems like that probably has to do with the fact that I'm only just now returning to running...

But it was good news. I dressed up for my oncologist visit, as always. Since it's fall, I was able to rock a couple of older and a couple of newer seasonal secondhand purchases. 

Ruffled black silk blouse: Rendezvous for Paul & Joe Sister, eBay. 

Skirt: Nanette Lepore, Second Time Around. "Capelet": Trina Turk, Second Time Around, 2008. 

Boots: Sigerson Morrison, Into the Wardrobe. Bag: Gilda Tonnelli, Takapuna (NZ) consignment, 2010. 

One of the things I really love about that "capelet" is how "Sherlock"-y it looks. Benedict  Cumberbatch! What a name - it sounds like some old English nana's version of a cuss word - but what an actor. Moreover, I've been utterly smitten with supporting cast member Rupert Graves ever since he played Freddy Honeychurch in A Room with a View (link to a gay fan site; mildly NSFW). That floppy hair!

Life moves forward, then, and the world keeps turning; as I write, the winds and rain that signal the imminent arrival of Hurricane Sandy are growing stronger, so we're all hunkered down inside, anticipating the loss of electricity soon and enjoying a quiet day of puzzles, reading, tea, and napping. And the election is nearly upon us and I fear for us as a country, quite literally, not because I think Obama is so great but because the alternative seems so much worse for the poor, for women, and for those of us with illnesses and pre-existing conditions. And I fear for us because at the end of the day, we're not the democracy we think we are. If we were, we'd allow third-party candidates at our presidential debates and not arrest them; we'd have some alternatives to the two-party system and the status quo. 

But I am relieved by maintaining the status quo with my health. Two years. It's a milestone, and one I'm happy to celebrate.  

The Langoliers

As I wrote in my other post today, life got in the way of writing this past summer. Thankfully, however, cancer didn't get in the way. Knock on wood, all's still clear in that category - and it's been nearly two years since my surgery. In fact, last Monday was the two-year anniversary of my seizure, and Friday it'll be two years since my diagnosis.

It would probably be better to see these anniversaries as evidence that I've thrived, even in the face of this stupid brain tumor, but honestly, they mostly provoke existential angst along the lines of "There's so much I haven't done in those two years!"

Because the thing is, even two years later, I can still hear the Langoliers sometimes. For those unfamiliar with the Stephen King novella of the same name, they are voracious monsters that eat the past, leaving nothing - and nothingness - behind. I hear them figuratively, in my head; they are my own anxieties as I move on to the next MRI, the next oncologist visit, feeling good but what if this is the scan that shows growth? Two years of "surviving," and yet at the same time two years closer to the end of my life.

Perhaps equally frightening is that I can hear the Langoliers literally. As the crow flies, we're only a half-mile or so from an Exxon Mobil refinery. Sometimes, at 4:30 or 5:00 am, I can hear a repetitive crunching noise like the sound I imagine the Langoliers making, inexorable and dark, ready to wipe out everything in its path, including my brain and then the rest of me. Some mornings, depending upon how the wind has blown, there is a fine layer of black soot on our car windshields.

While I've joked in the past that my brain tumor may have been caused by scraping and then eating melted nacho cheese off of nonstick cookie sheets, it's far more likely that it was caused by environmental toxins. This report is from 2002, but we know that my tumor was growing for quite awhile. It's terrifying - even more so because now I'm raising my daughter here. Add to that the fact that  also a half-mile away, there's a former costume jewelry factory cum SuperFund site cum call center. We are surrounded by Langoliers in our soil and air and water. Their faces are the maps of chemical compounds, benzene and petroleum and countless others I can barely pronounce.

Whew. Now that I've gone all Silkwood, I think it's time to ratchet it down a notch, right? I know that's kind of tacky, but sometimes getting through the day requires a step or two back... to Savers, where last week I found a pair of AG "Angel" jeans for $9.99, as well as tan linen Armani Collezione pants for the same price. And then at Second Time Around, I took advantage of their fall weekend sale to pick up these amazing Max Mara T-strap heels. I really love the heel on these, because it's high but walkable.

A word here about Second Time Around: they get some terrific consignments, but the attitude in there is getting more and more unbearable. And I'm not sure what's up with all the staff turnover, but maybe the nice woman I used to chat with got fired because she wasn't sufficiently bitchy. "Resale goes upscale" may be the chain's motto, but it doesn't mean that the bitch factor needs to be inflated too. On Friday, T-straps in hand, I overheard an insufferable conversation between two employees about how to tell Marc Jacobs Collection from "Marc" by Marc Jacobs.

What's more, I still don't think most of their Providence customers would know the difference, and guess what? If it fits your body and your budget, buy it and wear it and LOVE it and don't give a shit where it's from. I have plenty of no-name brand things, and great stuff I've pulled from curbs and dumpsters. Style is never about how much you pay for something - certainly in my case, it's more about what I barely paid anything for - rather, most importantly, it's how you wear it.

So wear your clothes with love and pride, because the Langoliers are after us all, and if they take me down, I'm doing it in style.

Namaste,
Kelley

Underwater.

I tell my students that sometimes just starting is the hardest thing about writing. So many times over the past few months I thought, "I should blog..." and then life got in the way.

But I had no shortage of fun during my radio silence from this blog. It was a glorious summer, and so good to spend most of it in our house. Sam threw me a huge 41 1/2 birthday bash in July, complete with old friends, new friends, kung fu friends, pulled pork barbecue, and jalapeño Cheetos - the greatest junk food of all time. (Why 41 1/2, you ask? Because my 40th was celebrated very modestly - if wonderfully - in New Zealand, two days after I finished radiation, and then, really, who wants to celebrate turning 41 in January?)

And then in early August, Carson and I joined my sister and her family for a wonderful trip to Curaçao in the southern Caribbean. (Sam, unfortunately, had school and work obligations here in RI.) It was a delightful week in which I finally found snorkeling from shore that rivaled the Samoas in terms of visibility and marine diversity. I spent more time in the water than out of it, and finally saw juvenile angelfish. One of these days I'll make it back to the South Pacific and finally see a juvie Emperor angel... 

(I realize this is an intermediate phase French angelfish, 

but it's such a great photo I wanted to include it.)

Moreover, before the Curaçao trip I wisely decided it was high time to order a snorkel mask with prescription lenses. It made all the difference in the world. I even found an octopus!

As much as I already loved snorkeling, I truly had no idea what I had missed before, thanks to my severe myopia. I Skyped with Sam every night from Curaçao, giddily recounting each day's finds: "A peacock flounder! Needlefish swimming just under the surface!," etc. etc. 

Her reply: "I'm only sorry you never saw them before."

For good measure, here's one last Curaçao photo - indisputably the best of the bunch. I love cephalopods! I learned that squid are so intelligent that they can communicate different messages to squid on either side of them by changing colors on the appropriate side. Every time we saw them, they were in neat, soldier-like rows. I even got inked at one point, which I consider a badge of honor. 

Snorkeling is a form of communion and meditation for me, my most contented and essential self. It is focused on breathing and movement but rewards keen observation that is further enhanced by intellectual curiosity. I learn more every time I go, because when I leave the water happy and tired, I then spark my mind by finding out as much as I can about what I've just seen. The only downside is that, once again, life gets in the way.

Not that fresh water is a deterrent. I've decided that I'll bring my gear anywhere I can safely (i.e., without freezing!) snorkel, even if the water's chilly. (To that end, I'll be ordering more Lavacore gear soon - I recommend it for anyone like me who needs underwater gear but has a latex allergy, or Reynaud's Syndrome. Truly, I'm a mess.)

Now that I can see, I brought my gear to the Adirondacks and then to New Hampshire at the end of the summer. Upper Saranac Lake is terrific for swimming, but too rusty for shooting below the surface, so instead here's a photo of the largemouth bass I nicknamed "Old Grand-Dad." He likes to hang out right at the end of our friends' waterline in Spofford Lake, New Hampshire. 

What didn't I do this summer other than write? Well, I didn't really shop for clothes, although I did buy a pair of Soludos espadrilles, which I adore. They are the real deal, with a rubber-on-jute sole.

The other thing I didn't do was run, at least not very much. I injured my coccyx muscles (go ahead and laugh), most likely from improper and insufficient stretching before and after running. It's been a very painful couple of months that have since been characterized by sitting on a donut cushion at work, groaning like an old man when I shift positions after sitting too long, and some very intimate physical therapy sessions (please, go ahead and laugh again. I have to. But let me assure you that this "massage" feels like anything but). If snorkeling is my water-based form of meditation, it turns out that running has been its inferior but still important land-based counterpart, and I miss it terribly.

It doesn't help that autumn is running weather, or that it seems like everyone I know is doing their first 1/2 marathons or 10Ks and I'm literally sidelined. It's been frustrating, especially since I worked so hard to become a runner in the wake of my cancer treatment (as a dear friend said, "It's literally adding insult to injury!"). It makes me feel a little underwater, and not in the right way. But I'm hoping to get back into it in the next couple of weeks, as I'm healing slowly but surely. Wish me luck.

Yours underwater,
Kelley