Southern Hospitality

My mom, sisters and Annalise and Amelia all met up in Savannah where sister Caitlin lives and works. They've been at the beach everyday and been enjoying a little southern hospitality - the guest of Richard Eckburg, a patron saint of Army Rangers everywhere but especially in Savannah. He invited them all out to the Pink House. I, on the other hand, have my last radiation treatment tomorrow. I am done (almost.) And ready to get back to what everyone describes as the 'new normal.' Will let you know how it goes.

If you are a survivor, watch this...

http://www.viddler.com/explore/nsbcf/videos/1/

Row, row, row your boat...

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/health/Rowing_Their_Way_To_Cancer_Recovery_Washington_DC.html

Deb Charles is a friend. She also lent me her 'husband' before my mastectomy. (That's a pillow with two arms that helps you sleep, silly.) She's a fighter!

An interesting life

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/19/AR2010061902214.html?hpid=topnews

My little man

Can't wait for 2012!

It's my party and ....

I don’t know why I started crying. I didn’t mean to. I guess it is the normal reaction to the letdown.

May 17 wasn’t even my birthday, but it might as well have been. My real birthday had come and gone. I was going through the motions on that day: April 20 - two weeks to the day after my surgery. I think I was still in shock or anesthetized and all I really wanted to do was talk to my oncologist, Claudine Isaacs, who I was supposed to see later that day. Andrea and Anamarija and Sarah Williams had brought me one Georgetown Cupcake, which I devoured. I plan to allow myself one once a year (except this year I have already had two so I guess I won't get my next one until 2012.) On my real birthday, I was distracted and trying to look excited when my friends showered me with love, attention and presents. And I mean shower. You have no idea how good my friends are. I am still getting these amazing vegan dishes dropped at my doorstep because my friends are so generous (and they don’t trust me to stay on the straight and narrow. They know that my mouth says ‘whole grain’ but my mind says bagel with cream cheese. They know how important a low saturated fat, organic, vegan diet is in terms of keeping this cancer at bay for the next 3 years, which is the danger period and so they continue to spoil me with the wonderful Christine Merkle, who has taught me to even like kale. Actually, I really don’t like kale, but I know how good it is for me and now I eat it because without Tamoxifen or Herceptin, food is my best pharmaceutical defense in keeping this cancer at bay.)

I was about to tell you about May 17. That’s when the love affair began (some might liken it more to a crack addiction. Let’s just say it is very SJP.) It was supposed to be a normal day. I’m not even sure if I had started radiation yet. It is all a bit blurry. But my Italian friend and neighbor Adele had made a reservation at Cafe Milano in Georgetown for lunch - to celebrate. It was a little overcast but when the plate of prosciutto arrived and the exquisite course upon course of Mediterranean plates kept coming we might as well have been in sunny Tuscany or Sardinia.
They offered us champagne. They could tell we were celebrating. They didn’t know I no longer drank. I took a token sip. Adele is one of the warmest, most thoughtful people I know (and I know many) and she is INSANE when it comes to spoiling a girl. I remember when we moved into our new house, she sent as a house warming gift the most exquisite orchid that I have EVER seen. Magenta and architecturally perfect. The kind you see in a hotel lobby or a painting. It sat in my front hallway and picked up the shades of pomegranate in the painting that Jerusalem artist Andi Arnowitz did and the suzainy from the Old City of Jerusalem that was woven into another beautiful piece that I bought before leaving Israel. But I digress.

At the end of the meal Adele said (and there was no stopping her - trust me, I tried): “We are now going to pick out a pair of those Louboutins!” No, no, no - in neither language did it work. I relented (ok - secretly it was the most exciting gift I had ever received - other than the time that my friend Eve surprised me with a Georges Reich handbag for my 30th birthday in Moscow a decade earlier!) We got in the car and went to Saks and tried on every pair. She and I both strutted back and forth in front of the mirror. What to do? It’s not every day that you get to even try on a pair of Louboutins. They make you want to put on a ball gown and walk up the front steps of the Met just so you can flash those cherry red soles to the world. And you know that there isn’t a man out there who would understand this. In fact, they don’t even know what the red sole means (until they get the bill). Women don’t wear these shoes for men - they wear them for other women - that’s how crazy we are. We carefully wrap the shoes in red felt bags with a romantic signature from the Parisian artisan who made them. I chose black eel skin - open toed - they must be 6 inches high. And yet they are comfortable. That is the beauty of a Louboutin. Of course, they are excessive. That’s the point. That’s why women who are wearing them smile as if they have a terrible secret. It’s a love affair pure and simple. We tried on so many pairs - should we get closed toe - a little lower - maybe I would wear them more often, if they were shorter. No, no, no. The decision was made when another woman who was eyeing a pair of Manolo Blahniks looked at me and said, “Those (the shorter ones) look mother of the bride. THOSE (the taller ones) look like they should be used for kicking down doors. Sold!

Adele and I hugged and we made our way back home. Kids would be arriving from school soon. They saw the box and asked what was in it. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that they may not be able to go to college or we may have to sell our house and move because of my new addiction. (I told Adele that I would be recalling this day - May 17 - at my first “Shoe-a-holics Anonymous” meeting!) I planned to wear my new friends to a military dinner later in the week. I would be wearing them every day except my toe nails fell off a few days later from the chemo. I mostly wear closed toe shoes right now despite having bought a zillion sandals at DSW when summer started. But somehow I don’t mind the lack of toenails - they don’t bother me so much that I would go and glue on some fake ones - too scared of the glue. In fact they don’t bother me at all. I don’t have to clip my toenails anymore to run. Their new growth remind me of my new hair - like crocuses that suggest winter is at an end and sunny days are on their way. So occasionally I wear my Louboutins just in front of my full length mirror with my exercise pants rolled up. They will look so much better when I have toenails again.

So you would think that a day could not get any better. (And it shouldn’t have, really.) But then Ingrid called. She said she had something to drop off on her way home from work and she couldn’t wait until Paul got home. I said, “Come on over.” She rang the bell. Izzy barked. She handed me a box. It was flat - like a frame. It was a frame. I pulled it out and there it was a black and white lithograph from the cover of the Joshua Tree album. Bono looking off in the distance two and a half decades earlier. At the bottom was his signature. It said, “Jennifer: Love, Live, Peace, Strength. Bono.” I squealed. But this wasn’t any autograph. There was a back story. On September 29 a day after I was diagnosed, we had been in back to back doctor’s appointments since 9 am - first two separate breast surgeons, a quick PhD in oncology, my Ob/gyn who found the tumor, a plastic surgeon who marked up my chest and had me rotate in front of the Sears backdrop for the “before” pictures, and finally my oncologist, Claudine Isaacs. We told our story over and over. We listened. We cried. My mom and Greg accompanied me. I remember Dr. Isaacs crouching in front of me as my shoulders lifted and fell as I heaved with grief. I pleaded with her, “I have to survive this. I have three children. Give me everything you’ve got.” Seven days later a nurse would be looking for a vein and slowly shooting me up with adriamyacin. Claudine crouched in front of me and said, “We are going to get you through this.” September 29 was exhausting. I was catatonic at the end of the meetings. Not broken but tired.

I also had tickets to U2. My friend Paul Nevin called and at that point we hadn’t told anyone - we hadn’t had time. Paul was calling to tell me he had also gotten tickets for that night - at the last minute. I told him I didn’t think I could make it. He said, “Nonsense - we’ll pick you up - you can sleep in the car on the way to FedEx field. You are coming with us.” And I did. My sister Caitlin and I piled into the back of Ingrid’s car. Their friend Julia from the State Department was in the back seat as well. She could sense we were in shock. We didn’t talk. Caitlin just kept squeezing my arm. What a sister - what a day. The traffic was slow (it was like the opening line of “Beautiful Day”) suddenly we saw the stadium in the distance. It was pulsating like the Emerald City. The concert had started. We hurried. We got to the entrance and I handed the guard the printed tickets that Uncle Barry had secured from his cousin John, former Nirvana manager. But Barry was out of town and he had received two sets of tickets in the mail so he gave the second pair to other Godchildren - as he is want to do. They were good tickets - they always were. I knew immediately what had happened. He had given all four of us the same seats. I told Paul and Ingrid and Julia to go ahead. And without missing a beat (fortunately, I was carrying way too much cash in my bag - a bad habit from Moscow when there were no banks). I marched over to a scalper and asked him, “How much?” Too much. I gave him all I had and Caitlin and I had two tickets to the field. We pushed our way through the crowd and made our way pretty close to the stage. The music pulsed. I was still in shock. We sang at the top of our lungs and hugged each other....
“You’ve got to get yourself together, you’ve got stuck in a moment and you can’t get out of it...It’s a Beautiful Day...Don’t let it get away....Where the streets have no name....See the stone set in your eyes, see the nail twist in your side... on and on.”

I slept on the way home. It was a Beautiful Day. But there is more. When Ingrid arrived with the framed autographed photo of Bono she told me what had happened. Her friend Julia was planning to attend the Atlantic Council dinner this year and guess who was coming to dinner? Bono. He was seated at her table in fact. The serendipity! So Ingrid plotted and schemed with Julia for her to go up to Bono and tell her the story of my diagnosis and that we were at the concert that night and ask him to sign a napkin. He did one better and Julia, who by the way in the meantime, had moved to Japan, managed to get it framed and shipped and Ingrid had just gotten it in the mail.

May 17. What a day - and it wasn’t even my birthday. But every day seems to be these days. Go figure. It’s not been all bad, I must say, and I feel a little bad saying it.

Day 22

I am always late for radiation. I go every day. And every day it’s the same story. I procrastinate. Try to squeeze in a few more e-mails. Sort through my old magazines so that I can take a pile to donate to the waiting room. Play with Luke after the kids go to school. Water some flowers. Take time for a real oatmeal - the one that takes 30 minutes to cook - not the instant. Chop the walnuts and dates, even though it is almost 9 am. I am supposed to be there, checked in and changed into my gown by 9:15 am. (I put one gown on facing frontwards, the other backwards - for modesty, of which I no longer have any. In fact I could walk into the waiting room without a gown and it would be all the same to me. (Except I wouldn’t want to offend the nice older woman who is always knitting as she waits for her husband who I assume is being treated for prostate cancer.) I show everyone my breasts now because frankly I am as detached from them as if they are an elbow - no more, no less - so there is really very little to be modest about and besides I chose a very immodest cup size). Radiation at Sibley is almost like the drive-through window at McDonald’s. You have a blue i.d. with a barcode that you flash after the automatic sliding doors allow you into the sunny lobby. You might as well be flashing your library card. Then you are supposed to change quickly in a locker room that really feels like it is a changing room at a spa without the Enya. I pride myself on changing in seconds flat once I flash my i.d. I always wear my gym clothes. I never have a bra on. I toss my shirt in a locker. I toss the gowns over my Lululemons. I am seated before they can even round the corner looking for me. They expect me to be late, but not because I am a slow changer.

In the beginning I was late because I always got slowed down at the parking lot. I would always be fumbling for my parking pass and because my arms didn’t lift all that well after the mastectomy and my steering wheel was tight, I’d nearly wipe out the automated post in front of the security gate. I could never get close enough for it to read my parking pass because, again, my arms and pectoral muscles were so sore that I rarely cut the turn into the parking lot just right. The first few times I was too far away and had to get out of the vehicle, which annoyed me. Next time I would try to cut it closer until two of my four wheels rode up on the curb - all that stood between me and the automated scanner that was supposed to make my life easier. I nearly hit that post at least two times a week. Now my arms have a bit more range of motion and I find the whole thing a bit less unwieldy. It all added to my sense that this radiation thing was really annoying and pretty inconvenient after the year I have had. 33 sessions. Daily except the weekends and holidays. It is the reason I am always late. I don’t really want to be there. Anita, the technician in a lab coat who runs my ‘linear accelerator’, said on Monday, “It’s official!” I knew what she was talking about. The fact that I am always late - not too late but about 10 minutes late every day. She repeated, “It’s official.” And then I explained that it really wasn’t anything personal just that I really didn’t want to be there. (People are slotted in pretty tight and you aren’t supposed to be late or you lose your place in line like at a Baskin Robbins.) She said early on they had switched my time to 9:30 am and not told me. She said, “Now don’t you start coming at 9:45 now that you know. Just pretend your appointment is at 9:15.” I got there at 9:25 this morning and declared to Anita that I was ‘early.’ She laughed.

There aren’t a lot of jokes on the linear accelerator, but I keep trying. It’s a little harder now that my right chest wall, breast and underarm are the same color as my skin was that time at the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi circa 1992 when I didn’t put on sunblock and sat by the pool after a tough stint in Somalia during the famine. My legs that night looked like something out of that Coppertone ad from the 70’s with the dog pulling the little girl’s bikini down and all you could see is burn. I had forgotten about the altitude. That was my last real sunburn. In fact, I really should have had melanoma not breast cancer given my lack of pigmentation and bad relationship to the sun.

I try to make the technicians laugh. I asked them if they could even up my tan this time (the side that they radiate is now a geometric red burn that itches. It is making it hard to wear sundresses and I am ready for the next 10 sessions to come and go. The 99.7 percent aloe vera that my friend Pamela gave me hasn’t really worked. It’s not her fault. It is mine. I didn’t follow the protocol exactly right. Friends and the nurses at Sibley swore by a French product called Biafine and scared me about putting anti-oxidants such as vitamin E and C on the radiated skin. They said Dr. Gage (Sibley’s Irene Gage, the world renowned radiation oncologist that Sibley recruited from Johns Hopkins) wanted to make it burn. They wanted the free radicals from the radiation to break down the walls of any rogue leftover microscopic cancer cells. Who knows? I have used a combination of aloe and Biafine cream, a tube of which is about 18 dollars in Paris. There it can be bought over the counter at a pharmacy. It costs the same here in the U.S. with a prescription IF you have insurance, unless you try to go back to CVS and ask for another tube sooner than the 21 day period that United Healthcare has determined you should make it last. I had been slathering the stuff on and was duly annoyed when I went back on Day 18 and asked for another tube and was told it would be 80 dollars and then the pharmacist asked if I could stretch what I had until Monday. Maybe that is why I am burned. I have run out again and have no idea what day I am on and whether insurance will pay for another tube.

When I lie down on the table, the radiation comes in several bursts. I raise my right arm over my head - in a “fight the power” pose. I couldn’t do that at first so clearly the PT is working, but it still gets stiff. Receiving the radiation feels no different than getting an x-ray. In other words, you can’t feel it. It’s what it does later. Barbara and Anita always mark me with Sharpies once I lie down and pull one arm out of my gown. A few dots over the tattoo. They line up the red laser light lines that look like a sniper rifle’s target and I close my eyes. I am no longer charmed or fooled by the fake trompe l’oeil palm trees or backlit beach scene staring down at me from the ceiling and at the foot of the machine. I don’t have long enough to fall asleep. "Do you snore," General Petraeus asked me recently? I guess he found it relaxing getting radiation, but I don’t have enough time for REM sleep. I usually have just enough time to say the Lord’s Prayer when the first burst of radiation which is accompanied by a small alarm so that you know not to move or breathe. I nearly always make it. “Our father who art in heaven...” On the next burst I usually picture napalm. “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Then I say to myself “all-y-all-y out come free.” I have no idea why we used to say that as kids when we played Foxes and Rabbits in Mr. King’s yard with Gretchen Barbash, Moira Mulroney, Liza Johnson and the other neighborhood kids. That was what whoever was ‘it’ would yell at the end of the game when it was safe to come back to base because the game was over. “Lead us not into temptation...” like the Georgetown Cupcakes that Komen handed out and which I resisted at VP Biden’s house and then on race day only to tell Amelia as I saw the pink boxes in my refrigerator that the girls had left behind that this was my biggest ‘temptation’ to which she replied, ‘Just like in your prayers at night.’ She remembered the word ‘temptation.’ “And deliver us from evil...” And then I start to speed up because the first burst is usually coming to an end. So I slur the ending: “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.” The next two bursts are shorter. Then they turn on the light, the table lowers and returns to the start position, and Barbara, the technician, comes in to tell me that it is ‘ok to put my arm down’. I would if I could but it is frozen in the ‘fight the power’ position and so I slowly will it to lift - slowly - and it crosses over my forehead and over my heart as if I am making the sign of the cross. Then the feeling starts to come back. I put my arm back in my gown and I sit up and I squint from having lain there with my eyes closed and my contacts in. My eyes adjust. I grab my purse and head back to the locker room. I immediately apply the Biafine in the changing room and walk out of the hospital a little more raw and burnt but with my head held high. What’s my choice? Just ten more to go. I feel like the little engine that could.

Diary of a Race

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/06/07/the-reason-behind-the-race-for-the-cure/?test=faces

Later this year in Jerusalem...

Here's what you may not know about Komen. This is the 30th anniversary of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Nancy Brinker, who I am seated with here on the set of Shannon Bream's show on Fox today, is the sister of Susan G. Koman who died of breast cancer. Thirty years ago, Nancy promised her sister that she would find a cure for breast cancer so no woman and her family would ever have to go through this again. Since then Komen has become the second largest donor to cancer research after the U.S. government. Since 2006 Komen has given 26 million dollars to study Triple Negative breast cancer (the kind I have and the kind Nancy Brinker had - she and her sister were both BRCA1 carriers.) Komen is in your corner if you are a woman and that is why they can get 40,000 people on a Saturday at 7 am to show up on the Mall in Washington to Race for the Cure. I used to be a bit annoyed when I would see the road closures and all that pink. I didn't 'get it' until I 'got it'. From now on I'll be out there wearing a whacky outfit and running beside women who are wearing t-shirts that say "These breasts are fake...my real ones tried to kill me." And "Save Second Base." I even hear that Apple has a new ap - the iTit. Don't ask. And on October 28 - a year and a month after I was diagnosed - I'll be in Jerusalem with my kids and Greg for another historic race. The first Race for a Cure in Jerusalem. The city walls are going to be pink and it will be a homecoming for our family that I will never forget.

Kids for a Cure

With my goddaughter Clara Scholl who came down from New York with her mother, Chloe. And the other rugrats who rallied out of bed at 5:45 am this morning!

We did it!

We were in it to win it and we did! We raised more than $24,000 - yay, team! There were 40,000 people there today. Komen raised 4.2 million dollars. Wow. Breast cancer had better be scared! Thanks to Gretchen Gailey and Katy Ricalde for leading our team. Gretchen's sign was fab. Katy is just, well, Katy. Caroline Shively brought her baby. Mike Tobin came in from Chicago. Cara Schayer and Emma Haberl raised the most money from Fox. Marty Hill ran like he meant it. Adrienne Ross was there with us til the bitter end. And Colleen Williams stayed with me and Amelia to coax the shorter legs along the run. There were others. You know who you are. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It was a terrific day.
Love,
Jennifer

Go Fox Trotters!

$23,000 and counting...

That's what we have raised so far. We have until midnight to reach our goal of $35,000. Greg and the girls and I just returned from Vice President Biden's house where he and his wife Jill hosted the launch for the Komen Race tonight. It was a lovely tented affair at the Naval Observatory. We walked there. The kids had their picture taken with Joe - I told them not to call him Joe. They ate hot dogs (some things haven't changed). I ate cole slaw and string beans. Amelia introduced herself to Mrs. Obama's mother, who was gracious enough to tell her that she would tell Malia and Sasha that they had met (which made Amelia's night). When we were leaving we were all given a pretty pink box with a Georgetown cupcake inside. (Carbo loading?) When we got home, I gave mine to Rose.

Annalise and Amelia and friend Mizia are now marking up their t-shirts for the big race tomorrow. I keep telling them we are "in it to win it!" Lights out soon. 0 dark 30 wake-up call so that we can be at the start line at 7 am. G'night.

My appeal for Komen on Special Report

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/special-report/#/v/4224302/special-report-online-show-62/?playlist_id=87621

Please help... support our Komen team June 5

It is the last week of fundraising and we need your help. Press the link below and join our team or simply donate if you can't find your running shoes. Every bit helps. xoxo
http://globalrace.info-komen.org/goto/foxtrotters

Do fatty diets during pregnancy increase cancer risk for our kids?

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Breast-Cancer-Pregnant-Women-Who-Eat-Fat-Laden-Diet-Increase-Risk-Of-Disease-In-Daughters/Article/201004315609464?lpos=World_News_Article_Related_Content_Region_2&lid=ARTICLE_15609464_Breast_Cancer%3A_Pregnant_Women_Who_Eat_Fat-Laden_Diet_Increase_Risk_Of_Disease_In_Daughters_

And these are my Top 10 Nutritional Tips for Cancer patients:

Top ten nutritional tips for Breast Cancer Patients:

1) Eliminate all processed foods.
2) Eliminate everything white: sugar, white breads, white pasta and white rice.
3) Eliminate alcohol - more than 2 drinks a week can increase the chance of a recurrence by two-thirds, according to recent studies presented at the annual San Antonio Breast Conference.
4) Add a scoop of Chia seeds to your oatmeal, smoothies, or quinoa - chia are 'flax on steroids.' Read "Born to Run" about the Tarahumara tribe in Chihuahua, Mexico.
5) If you eat meat make sure it is all highest grade, grass fed, no hormones added.
6) Eliminate dairy - drain on your immune system, potential pathway of hormones into your body. There is a reason that Asian countries have low rates of breast cancer - they don't eat dairy.
7) Any fish should be wild caught - no predators that have high mercury levels. Farm raised - never.
8) Drink 6 cups of green tea a day. Drink filtered water, bubbly water and green tea only - sodas and juices have too much sugar - raises your glycemic level and insulin levels - no good for Triple Negative breast cancer in particular. I allow myself one cup of black coffee each morning because it is full of anti-oxidants. Never drink any bottled water from plastic bottles - think how much plastic leeches into that water when it is shipped and left baking in the sun. Add lemons and cucumbers and limes to your water for flavor and sleep with a pitcher of water next to your bed - make sure you have drunk it by morning.
9) Make sure that you have grain-based protein with every meal - steel cut oatmeal, quinoa, lentils, black beans - you will lose muscle mass during chemo, if you don't eat enough protein. Add a scoop of powdered protein to your organic frozen berry smoothies, if you need more protein.
10) Buy only organic fruits and vegetables - preferably locally grown and in season. Only buy organic berries - great anti-oxidants but be careful of the pesticides - remember Andrew Weil's Dirty Dozen - the 12 most pesticide-laden fruits and vegetables. Use fresh ginger for its anti-nausea qualities. Ginger and garlic and turmeric are great natural cancer fighting spices.

Two great go to breakfasts for chemo and after: steel cut Irish oatmeal, chopped walnuts (anti-inflammatory), chopped organic Medjool dates, agave nectar (the only sweetener I use because it has the lowest glycemic index and is made from cactus nectar. Or whole grain (darkest possible) toast with avocado and olive oil on top - and sea salt sprinkled on. Never use iodized salt - sea salt retains all of its natural minerals - refined salt loses any of its nutritional value.

Vaccine to prevent Breast Cancer?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,593822,00.html?test=latestnews

My sister Cassie's graduation (from UVa)

OK so in Russia my Mom would have been considered a "Hero Mom", a designation by the Soviet state to encourage comrades during the Cold War to have more children. Last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia we celebrated my youngest sister, Cassie's, graduation from college. She is 19 years my junior and was 4 years old when I graduated from college. My mom will, for the first time in 40 years, not be paying tuition or carpooling. I remember her trudging up to our dorm room freshman year, very pregnant with Cassie, wearing a Laura Ashley dress and ignoring the smell of fetid spilled beers (fortunately it was not her first trimester and she wasn't feeling woozy). When she called to tell me she was pregnant freshman year, my response: "Better you than me." Well, that was many moons ago. Cassie is now doing what I did after I graduated, heading off to Africa. She won't be pursuing journalism, recognizing it as a professional dead end. She was accepted by the Peace Corps and will be working on HIV issues in Subsaharan Africa. She didn't tell me that she was writing her senior thesis on the use of UAV's or drones as a violation of "Just War." Ahh - the Ivory Tower. By Sunday, when the bars opened on "The Corner" in downtown Charlottesville so that co-eds could have one last drink before they walked away from Mr. Jefferson's Rotunda, it was starting to look like a Will Ferrell movie. En route to the ceremony, I was trying to give Amelia (7) a little history and regaled her with Thomas Jefferson's achievements. I told her that he had built the University. She didn't seem impressed, adding, "You mean his servants did." Despite the monsoon swells, it was a perfect weekend and the girls have already determined which sorority they will join and have decided to apply to UVa early (perhaps next year).

Where's Luke?

Shopping for Cancer...

http://photo.newsweek.com/2010/5/cancer-risk-in-everyday-products.slide1.html

Food As Medicine - Must see TV

http://www.ted.com/talks/william_li.html

Oprah.com - profile

In case you missed it: http://www.oprah.com/health/Jennifer-Griffins-Battle-with-Breast-Cancer

Girls on the Run!

OK - so the 5K race was for 9 year-olds, but I had to test my theory that gravity does not affect my new 'friends'. So I ran like an impala and Annalise asked at the end of the race if she could finish alone. I fell back and let her have her moment all to herself. Sucking wind, I crossed the finish line (even though I had arrived late, didn't have a number and ran anyway. Greg said, the authorities would soon be looking for me. I told him that they were already looking for me for far worse.) More emotional than I expected, I got lost in the sea of 9 year-olds all wearing pink t-shirts this year - it looked like a mini-Komen race. I walked away from Annalise after crossing the finish so that she wouldn't see me crying. But it was my first 5K and I could still hear Helen and Doug Matthews (Harriet's parents) shouting my name, cheering anonymously in the crowd as I passed. Greg waited for Amelia and crossed the finish line with her. I met up with them and then became focused and a little angry when I heard over the loud speaker that Kellogg's Frosted Flakes was sponsoring the event (Luke had a free sample box in his stroller.) This was supposed to be a 'healthy' event for girls to improve their self-image. How dare they allow Tony the Tiger sponsor it. We are poisoning our children. Help, Jamie Oliver!

Found a Match!

It was a 1:200,000 chance but Devan's family found a match and he will be getting his bone marrow transplant. The match came from infant cord blood (remember your ob.gyn asking you if you want to store your child's cord blood at birth - it seems a little expensive - maybe like a racket - the pediatricians and OB's don't push it because they don't like that the genetics labs are making a profit off of it - but it could save your child's life if by chance he/she has leukemia or other childhood cancers. I wish I had banked Luke's cord blood. The option wasn't available for Annalise and Amelia.) Devan's match is not a perfect 6 out of 6 but it is good enough, according to his Duke medical team. Thank you to Natasha Mukherjee for trudging over to Turtle Park on Saturday with me and getting swabbed (that's all it takes to get into the national registry). The indominitable Rebecca Cooper of ABC is still organizing a pubic service announcement with stars getting swabbed. Such an easy solution for those who may need it. Get registered!

Urgent need for fellow journalist's child

A fellow foreign correspondent now at Bloomberg news here in DC has a 4 year old son, Devan, with a rare leukemia and he needs a bone marrow transplant. Everyone of us can help. Please take a moment and see how and spread the word. All it takes is a simple swab inside your cheek.

Click here (especially if you are of Indian/European descent) to see if you are a match. We only have 12 weeks to find match.
http://www.matchdevan.com/

Love, Jennifer

From Rebecca Katz "The Cancer Fighting Kitchen"

Dear Jennifer --
I sat down and read your blog from the end (the tatoo) to the beginning, including your interview with Greta. I just wanted to climb through the blog, give you a big culinary hug and a bowl of soup. I was particularly taken with Izzy. He was so well poised and well behaved. It made me want to share a video that my Portuguese Water Dog, Bella starred in demonstrating her now famous “Bella’s Carrot, Orange Fennel Soup on page 65 of The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen. http://www.youtube.com/user/RebeccaKatz#p/u/4/klw85PvbV1c

Meanwhile — Here’s some incredibly empowering nutritional information which can be turned into tasty bites of YUM! Start loving mint, and the below they are now going to be your best friends.
Love, Rebecca

What’s in a carrot? Leteolin. It’s a powerhouse phytonutrient that destroys any rogue cancer cells roaming around, and you can get this by eating normal amounts of the below foods.

Mint peppermint It is a good source of a phytonutrient called luteolin. Other dietary sources of luteolin include, for instance, carrots, peppers, celery, olive oil, thyme, rosemary and oregano. When testing various herbs and foods against angiogenesis, many have activity only at high doses/concentrations (e.g., genistein at 150µM, selenium at 230 µg/kg, lupeol at 50 µg/ml), but luteolin is active at much lower concentrations (10µM), which means levels achievable via regular food intake! Another phytonutirent, apigenin (in celery and tarragon) is antiangiogenic at only 4µM. I like to make quinoa tabouli with lots of parsley (also a nutritional powerhouse), mint, and celery (and some diced brazil nuts for selenium) as a key antiangiogenesis recipe. Also "cream" of celery soup with lemon and tarragon (I use cashews for the cream). In general, all spices / herbs have very potent benefits for cancer fighting. “

Sources:
Luteolin, a flavonoid with potential for cancer prevention and therapy.
Lin Y, Shi R, Wang X, Shen HM.
Curr Cancer Drug Targets. 2008 Nov;8(7):634-46. Review.

Luteolin inhibits vascular endothelial growth factor-induced angiogenesis; inhibition of endothelial cell survival and proliferation by targeting phosphatidylinositol 3'-kinase activity.
Bagli E, Stefaniotou M, Morbidelli L, Ziche M, Psillas K, Murphy C, Fotsis T.
Cancer Res. 2004 Nov 1;64(21):7936-46.

Distribution and biological activities of the flavonoid luteolin.
López-Lázaro M.
Mini Rev Med Chem. 2009 Jan;9(1):31-59. Review.

Chernobyl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di3CLFj6_Ag

This video was sent to me by Gina Maisano - fellow warrior and bc advocate. It will be my theme song until further notice.

Walkin' on Sunshine

We can’t quite figure out where the back-lit poster advertising a tropical vacation under palm trees on a warm sandy beach with karsh cliffs on a small islet offshore is supposed to be. Barbara, my radiologist, says everyone asks her and so she makes up a different tropical locale each time. It’s like the game: “Where in the world?” that Conde Nast Traveler plays with its readers. She says to me ‘Hawaii.’ I say it looks more like Thailand. (I know Thailand because Greg and I spent a month there as an ‘out’ from snowy Moscow one February and we never quite got over going from ‘black and white’ to ‘technicolor’. Every tactile sense was awakened and forever remained a pleasant memory. Then there was the tsunami. I covered it from Phuket. And never quite recovered. Arrived in Khao Lak while bodies were still hanging from the trees and bloating in the sun before being lined up in rows outside Buddhist temples, the stench so thick that I had to throw away the boots and jeans and shirts I wore once back home because the smell never quite went away. So not every tropical location has pleasant memories for me.)

Radiation is truly a spa-like experience compared to the rest of cancer treatment. Talk about a non-event. I have no idea why I worried. The robes are nice. The waiting area has great, hip magazines like Self and More and W and would be perfect if you didn’t feel like you were looking in the mirror at all the other cancer patients. You actually feel like you look good until you look at them and realize you look just like them and that everyone probably feels sorry for you. I actually believed I was rocking the silver panther look until I saw myself on Fox News Sunday and was slightly horrified. I looked older than my mother.

On Monday before my first radiation session I went back to see Joshua Dobbs, my Pilates guru. He is Joseph Pilates reincarnated, I am convinced. And more in tune with my body than most of the doctors and PT specialists I have met. He knew exactly how far to push and stretch it. I had gone back to Pilates about 2 weeks after surgery, but it was too early. I felt like I pulled a stitch under or between my ribs. It was in my head and yes pulled but was not a stitch but it was sharp and so it scared me so I backed off. I was miserable. I also could tell by the look on Joshua’s face at that first session that he was amazed at how in 3 short weeks I had lost all my muscle tone. The rock hard core had dissipated and I saw it in his face because as much as he can read my body, I could read his face. We had to start all over - and that was just the breathing.

But when I went back two days ago I was more than ready and I needed someone to start pushing my body again. I didn’t know if I could reach over my head, but somehow I did. I grabbed the canvas straps and started doing the ‘100’. Somehow I could do it. And instead of shying away from the stretch or stopping when I felt it stretch as my PT was saying for weeks. I was pushing through it and warming up the pectoral muscles and I was starting to feel good. In fact, much of the class was stretching. And strangely somehow my core had come back in the weeks that I left Joshua and Pilates. Perhaps it was muscle memory or perhaps as I did my PT stretches on the floor watching “Brothers and Sisters” I tightened my core and suddenly I was back! He was amazed. But the breakthrough came when he put me on the foam cylinder that is designed for stretching one’s back and under my weight it began massaging my shoulder blade area and in exchange loosening up the pectoral muscle in the front. Unbelievable. I might as well have had Amelia massaging my knotted back with her little knuckles. It was PERFECT.

Then he made me visualize detaching one arm and reattaching it to the other side and turning the hand palm up then palm down - a way to stretch out - through mind body work - the tight tendons and pectoral muscle that had stiffened where it connects to the upper arm. The visualization started actually with him asking me to lie on the cylinder and visualize a thumb kneading the base of each implant - going around in a circular motion and relaxing that gripping tissue and muscle. He could actually tell me which side I was mentally working on by watching as the encapsulating muscle relaxed. THIS I told him was our goal in the next 6 weeks during radiation to do whatever we can to keep that muscle from encapsulating (tightening and gripping) the implant - to save the plastic surgery and prevent the side effects that radiation is known for. I think we have a shot. I am heading to my Alexander technique massage therapist right now to learn more about self-massage.

But let’s just say when the machine hummed and the radioactive beam struck my right upper chest wall on Monday, all I could visualize were those little Al Qaeda sleeper cells emerging from their caves under heavy bombardment - maybe in someplace like Tora Bora (not Bora Bora as the back-lit poster seemed to advertise) and they were screaming as they ran for cover: “Allahu Akbar!” I had to catch myself from actually chuckling so my shoulders wouldn’t shake at my ‘inside’ joke. I had to be careful to keep perfectly still and ‘just breathe.’ But inside I was laughing out loud. The mopping up operations, as my friends in the Pentagon call them, have begun and I feel like each morning I have an appointment at the tanning salon (nothing more, nothing less) to get ready for summer.

Fox News Sunday...

Power Player of the Week - my Mother's Day gift.
In case you missed it - thank you, Chris and Judy.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4185624/special-mothers-day-story

A day at the beach

A DAY AT THE BEACH

It wasn’t exactly the day at the beach that I envisioned (that one came and went in Barbados). But when I went to Sibley Hospital today to get the final work-up and do a dry run before my radiation begins on Monday they led me to a room with a ‘linear accelerator’ and a back-lit poster and ceiling of a tropical beach and palm tree. That is how you remember which machine you are on each morning for the next 6 and a half weeks of radiation (33 sessions, excluding the weekends, to be exact.) Another friend of mine who just finished her radiation was in the ‘Cherry Blossom’ room at Sibley. When they wrapped the warm white sheet over me as they stuck a pillow under my knees, the nurse said: “Just like a spa.” I told her I thought they had undersold their service. This was going to be easy. I had been telling people (anyone who would listen through my choked tears) that all I really wanted to do this summer was to be with my kids at the beach. That, to me, represents the height of luxury. Instead, I get a ‘linear accelerator’ with a fake beach back drop.

So radiation is the third leg of this stool. Flew through chemo, double mastectomy (love my new breasts!) But now comes the hard part. You think you should be over, but you aren’t. Your scans say you are cancer free, but the next three years you get to bite your nails with worry fearing a recurrence (3 years is the danger period for Triple Negative.) You are supposed to smile and look relieved because in everyone else’s minds, you are done. And you are, sort of. (What I have come to realize is you are never done.)

This week we had another television shoot in our living room. The kids called the neighbors, James and Nicholas, and told them to swing by early before school so they too could be on TV. Poor Luke. The poor guy is going to grow up thinking he is part of the Truman Show. Every morning when he wakes up he expects cameramen to run wires downstairs and producers to direct the kids to make him dance to ‘Rockin’ Robbin’ one more time. This time the Fox News Sunday team and Chris Wallace have made us this week’s ‘Power Player of the Week,” (for Mother’s Day). It’s a segment that runs at the end of Fox News Sunday (9 am Eastern on local Fox stations, repeated on Fox News Channel at 2 pm Eastern and 6 pm Eastern). I was shocked when I got the message. And then when Rose walked in with Luke and I introduced her to Chris, I told him, “This is the REAL Power Player of the Week.” To which he replied, “No, she is the Most VALUABLE Player.” So true. Tune in and see how Chris tries to make me cry when I talk about my kids (old TV trick for which I should have been prepared!)

Looking back the weeks after the mastectomy were a blur. In fact, the only way I know that it happened at all (because my brain has already neatly tucked those memories into a place of denial for which there fortunately is no key). On Monday I sat face to face with the young Saudi Arabian doctor, Wafa, who is doing her rotation with Dr. Shawna Willey - my brilliant breast surgeon at Georgetown. I showed her my breasts (I show everyone) - because they are so UNreal and I lost my privacy when I became a number in Georgetown’s medical recording system. (In fact, did I tell you there is another Jennifer Griffin in the Georgetown system who is 4 years older than me, also being treated for breast cancer and the only way they keep the two of us apart is because we have different birthdays? What are the odds? I must meet her someday. Tell me this isn’t an epidemic.)

I asked Wafa if she had been in my surgery. And she had. That’s weird. Because I don’t remember a moment of it. She said, ‘You went out quickly - really quickly.” I didn’t even have to count backwards. I told people beforehand I couldn’t wait to check into the hospital because I was SO tired and I couldn’t wait to meet my anesthetician (who by the way was named Dr. Jackson and explained to me that she would be giving me ‘propofol’ which had a ring to it because someone else famous by the name of Jackson used to use it to go to sleep at night and you know what happened next...) I went out fast, yes, because I was exhausted. I still can’t believe she was in the operating room and watching me be cut and lie there and I didn’t even know it. Weird. And corpse-like - like the guy who I had to share an elevator with on the way to PT in the bowels of Georgetown Hospital this week who was still unconscious from anesthesia, looked a little green and was snoring. I tried to wait for another elevator but he went down and then caught me on the way back up so I had to sneak past his dangling foot to pass into the elevator and stand there awkwardly with the orderly who was moving him somewhere.

Again, the only reason I know I had the mastectomy (because I really don’t remember it or the weeks afterwards) is that when I look for my jeans, they aren’t where I left them. My closets are so clean and my jeans have been stacked on the top shelf by a well-meaning Croat (Anamarija Muvrin) and it hurts for me to reach for them. (By the way, she also put all of my favorite exercise clothes on the top shelf just out of my reach.) The way I know that I am improving at Physical Therapy is that it hurts less and less to reach my arm up above my head to reach those jeans. (I can still punch, by the way - because that is a short jabbing action.)

Speaking of exercise, I still chuckle when I think of the kind e-mail that I received during my treatments (chemo, that is) from General David Petraeus back in March. He said that a little bird had told him I was nearing the end of my treatments. I thought, what a guy, with all that he has going on with CENTCOM, two wars and more than a few wounded warrior families to think of, the fact that he remembered this wounded warrior made me smile and warmed my heart. So I wrote a smirky little note back saying. “Thank you, sir. I am feeling great. In fact, I am in the best shape of my life. Let me know when you are up for a run and I will lap you around the Mall. Yours, Jennifer.” Well, less than 24 hours later his scheduling secretary had written me an e-mail trying to schedule that run at the end of April. Imagine my horror. I am in good shape for a CHEMO patient but not to run with CENTCOM CINC. So, fortunately, the run was around the time of my surgery so I bowed out gracefully and put it off for another day (and invited him to Pilates - but he said he was scared of the equipment. Scared?!) We all have our phobias!

Running without a bra was always mine.

Not anymore. The other day when I picked Annalise up from Girls on the Run after school and she dashed down the street after a friend and a friend’s mother and before I knew it, I was running after her. And before I knew it I felt light as a feather because my breasts weren’t moving. I could run and even without a bra my two rocks didn’t move a millimeter. I was so excited (and so liberated) that I kept running like Forrest Gump. I went home and got my iPod (won’t tell you which one) and ran down Massachusetts Avenue to Sheridan Circle (without a bra.) I felt like a million bucks.

“You have one chance....do NOT miss your chance to blow....this opportunity comes once in a lifetime.” (I have reverted to Eminem as I gear up for phase 3 - radiation. The tears flow just as readily but somehow don’t sting quite as much or last quite as long as in the beginning because I am starting to see the light at the end of this tunnel.)

It was so easy (running without a bra). I passed a woman riding her bike down the hill past the British Embassy. I just caught a glimpse of her t-shirt, which said “Race for The Cure.” A sign. Or a symptom of this epidemic.

It reminded me of another sign last fall that I saw on a lamp post when I ran my Mass Ave route one Saturday just after I was diagnosed - it was a mile marker for the Komen 3 day walk. And it said, “Don’t forget to stretch.” I have never bothered to stretch enough.

Exercise. Nutrition....

I tried to explain to Annalise (9) the other day why it was so important for her not to eat sugar (i.e. candy) on an empty stomach. (There is research suggesting Triple Negative breast cancer has something to do with shooting insulin levels.) She had just sneaked up to her room to steal from her ‘secret’ stash of candy. I intercepted her on the stairs. I sat her down and tried to explain to her and to disguise my fear and horror how with her body chemistry (which is so similar to mine) she shouldn’t eat candy on an empty stomach. I put it in terms she could understand. “You know how Nick Jonas has diabetes?” She nodded. “Well, he also can’t eat candy.” She nodded and looked at me as if I were a little nutty. And I said, “Sweetheart, I don’t mind if you eat candy after dinner when you have a full stomach.” I then added, “I will always be honest with you. I don’t want to scare you. But I will always be honest and please feel free to talk to me about boys, alcohol, drugs...” That’s when she cut me off with a very pre-teenage look and a raised finger. “Mom,” she said. “Stop right there. I will never drink alcohol, do drugs or abandon small puppies...” Puppies? Who ever said anything about puppies? That made me laugh and then I realized she was really too young for any of this talk. I realized I was getting ahead of myself. But I now see white sugar on the same plane for teenage girls as alcohol and drugs.

Monday I turn my body into Chernobyl. In the meantime, I will celebrate Mother’s Day with my kids and Greg and my mom, who lives nearby. (Not that everyday now isn’t Mother’s Day. This one will be particularly sweet.)

Happy Mother’s Day... and don’t forget to stretch.

My horoscope for May 6

The Washington Post May 6, 2010

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) You are unknowingly working with others to bring about a truly wonderful happening. By simply going where the energy moves you, you wind up in the perfect place, doing the perfect thing.

(I did not make this up - check Wednesday's Style section, if you don't believe me.)

Tattoo You

Tattoo You

It’s not the kind of tattoo that Jesse James’ girlfriend favored. This one is discreet - in fact there are two of them (my mom had five, but that was more than 10 years ago). They more resemble the subtle (or not so subtle) blue tattooed numbers that you might have seen at one point in time on the wrists of some cab drivers in New York two decades ago. The blue ink and serial number always remained emblazoned on their skin, forcing a certain generation of Holocaust survivors to “never forget”. You would see that tattoo sneak out from under a lifted sleeve. It would take your breath away because you knew you could never imagine what they had been through and survived. How did they survive?

My tattoo is just a dot - one in the center of my chest - the other under my arm near my right breast. They are permanent so the radiologist can know each of the 33 consecutive days (except weekends and holidays, I just found out) that I lie under their radiation beam - that I am lined up correctly - in the exact same position every time that I enter Sibley Hospital and put on those two hospital gowns. The first one that opens in the back and the second one to cover me modestly so that the first one covers me modestly. I lost my modesty long ago - after two Al Qaeda tumors took my body hostage for 6 months and I began showing EVERYONE my breasts. They suddenly weren’t breasts. They were the scene of a crime and became war zones. And I was proud to show anyone who cared to ask after we deforested and then rebuilt them. They’ve been through a lot. I don’t really feel like hiding them. (And they are so perfectly round right now - it’s freakish. Or as Rose’s friend, Susan said tonight - ‘they are like a teenager’. True - but bigger.

So I got my tattoos today. Some people said it hurt when the needle went in. Not after what I have been through. I am not even needle phobic anymore. (I also don’t have a lot of nerve endings in my chest anymore.) But no, it didn’t hurt. Again, not after what I have been through.

I start radiation on Monday. I had wanted to go to the beach with my kids the week after I finished - that is the same week they get out of school. But I was told that in fact I had miscounted on the calendar and that since the office is closed on Memorial Day (how scientific is this anyway - that you have to have X radiation in X days to mop up any leftover sneaky sleeper cells left in the tissue beneath your skin or in the lymph nodes but you can take the weekends and holidays off?) Nobody really has a good answer for that. But because of Memorial Day. And a few anticipated delays (possible burns from the intense radiation) I can’t book a beach house.

My days are still filled with doctors’ appointments. Usually, two a day. Follow-ups. Physical therapy - to get the range of motion in my arms back. Different doctors tell you different things about whether I can lift anything or drive. My plastic surgeon’s office says go back to Pilates and lift your 25 pound son. The stitches are healed. No damage can be done. Hmmn. That’s not what the physical therapist at Georgetown Hospital said a day after I had done just that: lifted Luke, pushed him in the stroller, put him to bed with a bottle and lifted him into his crib. I had even chased the little man around St. Albans’ field and lifted him up and down to pet his other favorite “Dogu” - the bronze bulldog that serves as the St. Albans’ mascot at the entrance to the field. Well, I could do it (don’t forget the Pilates). I was strong enough. But because I had no range of motion all of my pectoral muscles tightened up like an angry fist and you could see them stretched like tendons on the back of a chicken leg. I broke the bad news to Greg and Rose. One year old Luke is so confused that I didn’t bother telling him. But he’s noticed. I sometimes have to hide from him in my own house when he is with his baby sitter just so he doesn’t get upset and lift his arms and I can’t meet his needs. It breaks my heart.

He’ll be ok - as long as no one tries to bring him in from the park or the hose in the front yard. I on the other hand...

So slowly I lift my broom stick (not the one I usually ride) but the one Anamarija Muvrin disconnected from my mop and brought up from the basement to force me to do Croatian rehab. She counts and I have learned not to disobey. In fact I sometimes travel with my broomstick in the car so that just like last Saturday night when most Washington correspondents were at the “Prom” yucking it up with politicos and listening to President Obama upstage Jay Leno - I can do my rehab exercises. I did them at Andrea Wilson’s house with Der Fuehrer counting slowly in Croatian last Saturday night.

But it seems to be working. Amelia even videotaped me tonight as we watched American Idol (yes, I want Big Mike or Lee Dewyze to win) - and I had the stick halfway over my head - about twice as far as I had the week before. The third week after the mastectomy was the hardest - emotionally and in terms of pain and helplessness. No one is feeling sorry for you any more so no one offers you a cup of tea. Your emotions (the letdown from the surgery, the forced menopause the chemo puts you in). It all adds up to pain and sadness.

Then it gets better. But before it got better Anamarija and Andrea had to pick me up off the ground a few times. They didn’t listen to me when I said, “Don’t come over. I’m ok.” And instead found me in the shower - crying like a baby. I didn’t know they were there but I am glad they didn’t listen to me. We then proceeded to clean out all of my old make-up and decide which containers I really did want to keep and which I did not. My bathroom is so organized I can’t find a thing. All of my “Look Good...Feel Better” make-up has been taken carefully out of its boxes and put in neat rows and to good use. And some has been given to my friends because really who is going to wear baby blue eyeshadow or bubble gum pink blush (Andrea and Anamarija, I guess.)

And in my free time between appointments in which doctors give me contradictory advice (such as, ‘Go ahead - fly to Barbados’) and forget to tell me that I need a compression sleeve made to wear so that I don’t get lymphedema. Good thing I didn’t go to Barbados. My arm could have swollen up like a balloon. It’s like an Easter egg hunt gathering information again from my doctors. Lymphedema is serious but no one has really told me what I can or can’t do. They say, “Avoid the heat.” Where exactly does summer in Iraq or Afghanistan fall under category of “avoid the heat.” Or you can take a bath, but not a whirlpool. How about a jacuzzi - because my bathtub is one and I truly don’t know if I can ever put my arm in it again.

The news that Lynn Redgrave died on Sunday from recurrent breast cancer did nothing for my psychology. It took my breath away. Her cancer originally diagnosed seven years ago had also responded to chemo and ‘disappeared.’ I remember when Lynn’s book with her daughter Annabel’s photos of her going through chemo and her mastectomy arrived at my mom’s house. Annabel used to go to Nantucket with us. My mom got to know Lynn through the theater and when Lynn was working on “Shakespeare for My Father.” I didn’t pay much attention to the book. My mom’s approach to breast cancer had been different (a lumpectomy and radiation - a pretty easy kind - I never even saw her cry about it. It was caught early with a mammogram - in fact the mammogram had saved her life - and guess what? She hadn’t turned 50. So don’t listen to the guidelines.) But when I heard Lynn had died, it stopped me in my tracks, a reminder that even with a great pathology report you can never be sure, and with Triple Negative, my surgeon confirmed yesterday just before I heard Lynn’s news, the first 2 to 3 years are the most dangerous in terms of recurrence, even if there is no evidence of disease at the end of chemo. That’s the fine print.

I guess just like Hakimullah Mehsud (the resilient Taliban leader that US spy plane drones thought they had killed not once but twice now in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas - only to have him reemerge and give a press conference). Just like Hakimullah - you never know if this bad visitor is gone.

And so I picked myself up again today. Anamarija called me on her way to the airport back to her family and to Singapore. Neither of us could really say goodbye. We burst into tears at lunch the day before when she handed me back my car keys (she had been driving my car for the three weeks, taking me to appointments.) We made Andrea’s husband, Scott, take a picture of the three of us that night because I had been too vain to take a picture at lunch because I didn’t have any make-up on and I wasn’t going to have my picture taken with two blonds without a little make-up. I even managed to get Anamarija to Onder at the Four Seasons to get her hair colored and cut (in Singapore it costs $500!) and we met Eve there and she had a pedicure and then I asked Onder to cut her hair too. (I figured if I couldn’t get my hair done - missing the ritual - at least my friends could.)

And there are starting to be more ups than downs. For instance, I was able to go to Amelia’s ballet recital at her school (the Washington Ballet had been giving free lessons to the entire first grade at John Eaton school and Amelia looked like the little girl in my favorite book, “A Very Young Dancer.”) I have never seen anyone so proud. We took Luke (probably a mistake) because during the recital he saw a broom that the janitors had left behind and all he wanted was that broom - he loves to clean. The first graders did a beautiful performance and they combined a few things they had learned from their Chinese teacher. There was the expected dragon dance and a ribbon dance (which one parent misconstrued from his lisping daughter and was disappointed that it wasn’t “River Dance.) But you haven’t lived until you have seen an entire first grade class do the “hokey pokey” in Chinese. I have and I did.