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.

Lynn Redgrave

http://wjz.com/national/lynn.redgrave.obituary.2.1671153.html

To see how her daughter, Annabel, documented her breast cancer journey - click on the video on the site below.

http://wjz.com/local/Redgrave.Lynn.cancer.2.1674817.html

My horoscope for today

The Washington Post May 4, 2010

TAURUS (April 20-May 20).
When you bite off more than you can chew, you put yourself at risk of choking. Take small bites today and you'll still get it all done. Cut your tasks into tiny chunks, and savor each one.

The Day of the Oaks

At Churchill Downs this weekend, Uncle Barry and all of his friends wore pink ties and ribbons in honor of my fight this winter. But since I had already won the lottery I couldn't pick the name of the winner - I'd used up all of my luck.

The Oprah series...and Fox News Sunday

Here is the link to the first two pieces that Oprah.com did on my approach to chemo and cancer. There is a great link on this page to a piece that Oprah did on Triple Negative a few years ago that they reposted with our series. Over the next few days they will post more of my interview. Check it out. I found the article on Triple Negative particularly interesting. They first traced it in a study of Nigerian women.

http://www.oprah.com/packages/womes-health-advice.html

Also, this Sunday please tune into Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace has been kind enough to make me the "Power Player of the Week" and his team is coming to shoot Greg, me and the kids tomorrow morning. What a Mother's Day present! (Fox News Sunday appears at 9 am Eastern on your local Fox channel and is repeated on Fox News Channel at 6 pm Eastern. Check it out - especially if you want to see Luke chase his "Dogu" and dance to Shakira's "She Wolf" - his new favorite song!

Oprah.com - My tips for food that kills cancer!

http://www.oprah.com/health/Fight-Cancer-with-Food

Join the Fox Trotters on June 5 - Komen Race in DC

http://globalrace.info-komen.org/goto/foxtrotters

Either sign up and come out and run/walk with us. Or please do what you can to help support our team. Nancy Brinker - founder of Susan G. Komen for a Cure- is also Triple Negative and is already funding crucial research to end Triple Negative recurrence once and for all.

Tune into AC360 Friday night 10 pm

I know - it sounds odd, coming from a Fox correspondent, but Dr. Sanjay Gupta interviewed Cokie Roberts, Jill Dougherty, Debra Chisholm Charles and myself about breast cancer and the challenge that we have given each news bureau in DC to form a Komen Race for a Cure Team for the June 5 race. The Fox Trotters are already off and running and planning to win.
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/jennifer_griffin_jill_doughtery_cokie_roberts_to_appear_on_ac360_159977.asp

Also this is a 4-part series that Oprah.com is running on my cancer survival tips (thanks, Eva!) Here's Part I:
http://www.oprah.com/health/11-Tips-to-Get-Through-Chemotherapy

Boo-bees

OK - I finally fell in love with my plastic surgeon. It was bound to happen. We just didn’t ‘get’ each other at first. And it certainly didn’t help when they showed me that “Silence of the Lambs” photo album of 'before' and 'after' mastectomy shots. When did things turn? Probably when I walked into his office, had my last drain yanked from my chest and saw that the “scars” were actually discreet lines that were already fading and if you looked down onto the top of the reconstructed breasts actually looked gorgeous. That’s what they do now (and have for some time). They reconstruct immediately so that when you look down after you come to from the anesthesia you see cleavage and nice cleavage at that. He also probably stopped seeing an emotional woman who was beyond despair and hostility at having to go under his knife. i was tired of hearing all of the statistics about how radiation messes up reconstruction - la dee da. I told him I was thinking of going to Barbados. It was a 40th birthday party for a friend. He gave me a high five - even though I could barely lift my right arm after they had taken 7 lymph nodes out and I was still in rehab learning how to relift my arms above my waist. I high fived him anyway. He said, “Go - go to Barbados!” Sounds fun. I said, “Are you sure I won’t get an infection?” He said, “Go have some fun.” I went for another set of photos in the Sears photo studio. This time I stood proudly. Dropped the hospital gown. Chest puffed out. He had filled them with 50 more cc’s and they had two band-aids across the middle and reminded me of the Get Well card that my Aunt Barb had sent that showed two bees saying “Boo” on the front. Inside it said, something about the “boo-bees” and how of course I don’t need them because I already have two new ones. In fact looking down they looked downright voluptuous. I bore my scars with pride - like a Masai warrior. I had been through the rite of passage. I was off pain killers and I thought I was heading to Barbados. Life is Good, as the label on my hat says.

That was the high.

But then reality set in. There were no direct flights and in fact much of the weekend was going to be mayhem and booze cruises - and since I don’t drink all I could picture was getting stuck in my hotel room half-way in or out of some bathing suit or outfit and being trapped because I couldn’t lift my sore arms.

And this has become the pattern of every day since. High. Low. High. Low. Tears. Manic energy. A few more tears. But why? You survived. Exactly. Survivor guilt. I can only compare it to how those lucky sods who stepped off of the Miracle on the Hudson flight captained by the invincible “Sully” Sullenberger felt in the days after their “miracle” occurred. I remember seeing one of the stewardesses who had been at the back of the plane, up to her knees in water. She had helped numerous passengers off the plane until she and Sullenberger emerged among the last. She was interviewed after the fact on '60 Minutes' and it was very clear that she had some form of post-traumatic stress. It was the same look that was in the eyes of the Wounded Warriors whom I met and interviewed. They should be happy to be alive - some were, some were faking it. Cheating death has its own psychology and I think I must be in the throes of it right now. And it didn’t hit me right away. I was numb to the original good news.

I pulled myself up and out the door to the kids’ school auction last Saturday night despite a roller coaster of a week. As I was getting dressed in my new Max Studio fare - and decided to throw off my red wigs and sport my pixie silver hairdo - and threw on a little extra blush - looking a bit and feeling a bit like Grace Jones in the metallic jacket with its collar up and some rock n’roll jewelry. I was grabbing my purse to head out the door with Greg when a little voice (from Annalise) piped in: “Bid on some hair, Mom!” She knew I was a sucker for school auctions. The first year I went around and put my name on the first line of every auction item assuming that would just be the starting bid to get the bidding rolling. Then to my horror the bids closed and I had dozens of bids that no one opted to bid up on: dinners at Thai restaurants, dog groomings, singing and yoga lessons that went unused. Greg was a little dismayed, as you might imagine. So this year, we decided on a limit and I wasn’t feeling very energetic - happy to just show up and smile. We hadn’t sold our raffle tickets. We hadn’t bought our tickets early so they were fifteen dollars more than if I had been organized, which I am not right now.

Then we walked through the doors of the Harman Hall of the Shakespeare Theater - the new glass fronted theater on F Street and it was so glam and glitz and urban and fun that I felt like my old self. And then...I saw at the entrance the canvas photograph of individual portraits of Amelia’s 1st grade class - each one holding up their favorite thing - and suddenly I had to have it. I was “in it to win it.” I wanted to begin bidding but Greg hadn’t told me our number (331) and had disappeared to a safe part of the crowded reception - thinking I would socialize and forget about breaking the bank. No - I had to have it. Amelia’s sweet face with all of her classmates put me over the edge and suddenly I began bidding on all of the teacher offered items - “Principal for the Day” - I had won it for Amelia last year. This year it was Annalise’s turn. A limo ride with Ms. Gartrell with 6 friends to see the Washington monuments. The limo would pick them up from school. Amelia had been obsessed with limos since she first heard the theme song from Hannah Montana: “You get the limo out front...” She had always been so annoyed with my siblings for not getting married so that she could ride in a limo. This I had to have, but another mother was outbidding. I decided a little Mideastern negotiation was needed. I told her I would let her win it and we would split it for our two kids - each could bring 2 friends and it would be half-price! Collusion - price-fixing. Greed is good. Then there was the kayaking trip with Ms. Ramsey. I HAD to have it for Annalise - it was her favorite teacher, afterall. I thought I was in the running then some mother bid the top price - outmaneuvering all of us. That’s when Sarah Morgenthau stepped in and asked Ms. Ramsey to donate a second trip that we would bid top dollar for (for the school, of course) and Sarah and I would split it for our girls. Done. Chi-ching! Suddenly, the auction was closing down so I realized a new strategy - sometimes they closed areas but if there were no bids on the sheet - you could bid low and gather up all sorts of bargains. I did just that for a Waterford crystal candle. A jewelry box from India that I didn’t need. They will go straight to my gift closet. So if they end up wrapped for your birthday, please understand, it was for a good cause. I got home high as a kite. Some woman from the Fashion Chamber of Commerce stopped me and said - I have been eyeing you across the room all night - I LOVE your hair. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was the result of chemotherapy and decided to act like it was a fashion statement.

My eyelashes had grown back in the last 3 weeks and my eyeBROWS had gotten downright bushy so I had had to go to see Erwin Gomez - eyebrow shaper to the stars in our very own Georgetown. Erwin was so sweet and dear and had a gentle manner - his winning elfish smile made me burst into tears when he signaled for me to follow him back into his studio after the lady at the front desk of his chic Georgetown salon had brought me a green tea. I started to explain how my eyebrows had just returned after chemo and he hugged me and we both cried. I dabbed my tears, as he applied the wax. He told me about his own initiatives to help raise money for breast cancer because he said: “Without my ladies, I’m nothing.” I told him to call on me to help and he - sensing how fragile I was - said ‘take care of yourself first.” I hugged him and left. I was still crying.

My dear friend Anamarija had flown all the way from Singapore to help me for the past 3 weeks. She left her own sons and family to be here with me and to bring me tea and what can I say. What friends I have! I accepted only because I knew she would insist and secretly I really needed her. She moved in like a whirling dervish, full of Croatian energy and can do, don’t take no for an answer. She started cleaning out my closets. Took my drycleaning to the organic cleaners. She drove me to my doctor’s appointments. Andrea Wilson - whose house she is staying at - now answers the phone: “Ronald McDonald House.” Yes, the Wilsons have set up their very own Fisher House. And I am one wounded warrior. All of my strength seems to have vanished all of a sudden and I cry at the whiff of the overwhelming sense that I am ok - but yet I don’t yet feel ok and I am about to have my chest singed with radiation.

Anamarija makes me do my PT exercises - so that I can lift my arms again. She gets mad when I giggle. She is a stickler for form and reminds me of myself trying to teach Ginny Taylor to ski at Seven Springs when we were in 8th grade. I got so frustrated with her lack of improvement that I took her poles away and taught her with a bit of tough love. Anamarija and Andrea took me to Lulu Lemon to get some new exercise pants - the kind that make your butt look awesome. I finally learned the secret of all of those ladies who lunch and do Pilates from Joshua, my pilates coach. He said, “unless you have Lulu Lemon yoga pants, your butt just isn’t going to look like J Lo’s or Beyonce.” Andrea found me some wraparound tops since I can’t raise my arms. An elegant silver/gray wraparound sweater. She wanted to see my breasts - scars and all. At that point I was pretty proud of them and having lost all sense of decorum, consider showing them to anyone who might feign an interest. Andrea slipped into the Lulu Lemon changing room and I unwrapped the sweater and she burst into tears and said, “They are beautiful!” We hugged. I cried. I don’t know if she just felt sorry for me. But I still felt they were beautiful. I still felt like everytime I breathed I was lifting a concrete block off of my chest. I was off the pain killers and all of the nerve endings that had been cut were reconnecting and the pain was getting worse not better two weeks out.

My mom had taken my dog Izzy for the first two weeks as well - to her house - to lessen some of the craziness and chaos at our house. Luke kept walking around asking with inflection: “Dogu?” As in, has anyone seen my Dogu? When Anamarija arrived he would ask her, “Dogu??” as if she were Cruella de Ville. Finally, Izzy returned and the chaos of our house returned. Luke gets frustrated that I can’t lift him and bangs his head on the floor sometimes. Greg went back to work and sleeps during the day and I know Annalise is on my computer when I am not looking because Skype was newly loaded and the password had been changed to dolphinlover123. Amelia, my most sensitive soulmate through this journey, offers to bring me water in the morning and last night left a little “I love you” pillow on my bed. It’s a game Annalise and I used to play. We would place the pillow back and forth on each other’s beds when the other least expected it. It’s a felt handmade pillow one of the girls made in pre-school. Now I am going to pick myself back up, get in the shower, warm up my muscles and try to lift my arms above my head.

True

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/health/27case.html?emc=eta1

If you want to join us in the Jerusalem Race for a Cure...

Sign up at http://www.reg.co.il/komen/index.ehtml

Just back from the press conference where Nancy Brinker, Susan G. Komen's sister, launched the Jerusalem race. It will be open to Christians, Muslims and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis, and anyone from anywhere in the world. I asked Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat at the press conference how he planned to handle the political sensitivities in the city and he promised, "Everyone will be welcome." The race will be around the Old City Walls in Jerusalem. Let the games begin! Sign your team up now. Komen gave its first international research grant to an Israeli science team and the BRCA1 gene was first mapped and discovered in Israel.

Link to Triple Negative podcast - latest research

http://lbbc.org/content/transcript/triple-negative-breast-cancer-genetic-risk-and-treatment-updates.asp?section_tag=G

Blueberries for Sal

has always been one of my favorite children's book. My father, before he died of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, bought it for Annalise when she was a baby and wrote her the most beautiful inscription about not talking to "strange bears". Kerplink...kerplunk.
Now it turns out in mice blueberries may shrink Triple Negative breast tumors (and I ate a lot of blueberries this winter...hmmm). This article first appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_14939840

What You Can Do to Help...

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/news/journalists_and_breast_cancer_survivors_urge_dc_news_media_to_race_for_a_cure_159347.asp
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/generalities/jennifer_griffin_jill_doughtery_cokie_roberts_band_together_159395.asp

ABC, Reuters, and poor CNN are competing against us...what they don't know is we have already won!
Please join us in the Komen Race this June 5. 5K - I plan on running it without a bra (though I'll probably wear a shirt).
xoxo

A tribute to another warrior...

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/obituaries/the_chronicles_alicia_parlette_has_died__159384.asp

http://www.sfgate.com/alicia/

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/09/DDGLROA6C342.DTL

Make a Wish...

The Eagle has landed

I need some new wigs. My dear friends either are jealous of my new breasts and want me to look my age so they are telling me that my new gray pixie is "artsy" or they simply don't want to hurt my feelings. But all I know is that it's my birthday today (though I wrote this last night) and for some reason there are a lot of people who have April 20 as a birthday - weird. David Lee Miller for one. Phil Reeves. Sarah Williams' husband, Peter Mali. And then it is also Andrea and Scott Wilson's wedding anniversary. I remember one particular birthday celebration outside in the garden of the American Colony hotel in Jerusalem in which both were there - the intifada was raging but the smell of the orange blossoms were fragrant as the water trickled out of the center fountain tiled with the same Armenian tiles as used to surround the Dome of the Rock. Annalise was in a car seat under the table and when it was time to nurse I sneaked off to the elegant Colony's bathroom and some kind person - likely a woman - had set up a nursing slash changing station for the babies. I nursed away (not that that helped prevent this rebellious, break all the rules cancer. My birthday is one that has an infamous association - it is the same as Hitler's and usually some whacky group does something horrible (Columbine, Timothy McVeigh) to coincide. My best friend, Lila Rifaat's birthday is 8 days later (the same as Saddam Hussein's). Go figure.

So let's say I go wig shopping. The problem is now that it is summer, wigs are pretty annoying. (Thank goodness I went through this in winter.) I still wear a cozy cap whenever there is even the slightest draft, but it's not a good look. Annalise listened to the beginning of the video that Fox News.com did about our 'journey' (still haven't found a really good non-cliche way to describe some of these cancer 'issues') - Annalise immediately said, "Mom, you sound like one of those sad cancer commercials." She was right the editting was beautiful - but the music was meant to tug on your heart strings - a cliche that even a 9 year-old recognized. (But at least they got Amelia's famous cartwheel in the piece - the Today Show nixed it - so I explained to Stefanie, the Fox producer, how important it was to her and it was in. Her first question when I said they used her gymnastics video was "Did I land my flip?" "Well, sort of - but it was a perfect cartwheel, i added. Phew.

When going to bed last night after the girls described every moment at Disney World, Barry honestly said "if we'd just had two more days..." Glutton for punishment that he is. (I am actually not sure who enjoyed the trip to the Magic Kingdom more - Barry or the girls.) They brought back so many tchotchkes - even Luke got a straw in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears. Annalise wanted me to put her to bed tonight. She sleeps on a floor futon in the attic. I said, "Sweetie, I don't know if I can lower myself down and then get myself up again since I can't use my arms. Having seen the article on our family's fight in the Reliable Source section of the Washington Post, she said in disbelief and a bit of mockery, "You can't lie down on a futon and rub my back until I am asleep...Now that's a story." So of course I took the Pepsi challenge. I lay down and hoisted myself up again. That's when she informed me that she and her father have nicknames for each other - she is Big A and he is Little G and I , it turns out have a code name too: Bald Eagle. (Not sure when the two of them began working for the Secret Service.) The insults never stop but at least we still keep laughing. They are so brave that Amelia even held my drain while I showered and didn't wince at my scars - which I thought was mighty polite. She dried off my back with a towel and then helped me into my pajamas and into bed.

Dancing with the Stars?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2010/04/fox_news_correspondent_jennife.html

One Day at a Time

I took my first shower. Yes...as crazy as that sounds, it was as exotic and felt just like sitting under a waterfall on the back side of Oahu near Anne-Marie Johnson's brother's house in Hawaii (sans the wildlife). You may ask: how is it that you didn't shower for 10 days - don't forget I did Outward Bound and there is a little known fact in outdoor living that the longer one doesn't shower or wash one's hair (not that THAT was really an issue) - the more natural and odor free one's natural state of being really becomes (either that or you get a little delirious and don't REALIZE that you actually are quite dirty and offensive.) The only real problem is that I have not been camping outside. The plus side to all of this is I still don't have hair - other than the peach fuzz that is neither here nor there in terms of what one might consider a hair 'style'. And I am too scared to put chemicals on my head just yet and gray just isn't my color so I may have to do a little more wig shopping - though they are mighty itchy in summer.

The bottom line is I am back! Greg was kind enough to step into the shower and hold my drains while I put my head back under the pulsing hot water. Having a glass shower and far too many mirrors in one's carefully renovated master bathroom with all of its Jerusalem stone seemed like a good idea at the time. That was before breast cancer and before I started to look like a member of the Avatar cast. They rebuilt me but there are still a few odd lines and a disproportion that I thought we had dealt with in the 70s when Gloria Steinem pointed out that Barbie really wouldn't be able to stand up if she were proportioned that way in real life. These "expanders" are hard as rocks - like the torpedoes Madonna wore on her Like a Virgin tour and they don't move. It's a little unnerving (and the valium had worn off so I found it a little freakish.) But Greg reassured me and I crawled into bed and propped my arms on the two pillows that hold them up on each side of my body. The mornings are the worst because you stiffen up overnight by staying in one position and all of the muscles tighten. Perhaps I need a cup of coffee to get moving. If you or any friends are going through this - buy two sets of silk button up two piece pajamas - like something Audrey Hepburn would wear in Breakfast at Tiffany's. A) They allow you to slip in and out of bed with ease and without using your arms and B) they button up - I have to step into any shirts that don't button up because I still can't fully lift my arms over my head.

The girls called from Disney World and sounded as if they were on crack cocaine - it was 7 pm and they were heading to Thunder Mountain one more time. Of course, Annalise had already lost her retainer. I asked them if they were tired - "no". I asked them if Uncle Barry was tired: "yes". They said his mistake was by trying to make them dizzy on the Tea Cups (I am telling you the Tea Cups are deceptive!) In the process he made himself sick on the Tea Cups. The girls were fine. But the most exciting thing this morning for Annalise when she called en route to the Animal Kingdom was the fact that they had "housekeeping" in the room where they stayed. She said, "Mom, you know how they turn down your sheets? Well, they left us those little chocolates on our pillows. And you know because we are at Disney World? They put a chocolate in the form of "Sleepy" from the Seven Dwarves." She couldn't believe it.
It's the little stuff.

OK well Anamarija has flown in from Singapore to keep my spirits up today. And Luke is already asking where his "Dogu" is? Izzy went to puppy sleepaway camp at Grandma Carolyn's (where all cockapoos go to destress - it's like a day spa. But Luke doesn't know that so he keeps looking for her. Poor guy.

Just Say No

Of course, we as teens mocked Nancy Reagan when she started her "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign when we were surly high school students in the 80s. But drugs weren't our problem (the public safety announcement that showed a raw egg being dropped in a frying pan with the words "This is your brain...." And then the sizzling frying egg with the words "This is your brain on drugs..." had a pretty indelible impact and pushed us into "but it's ok to drink alcohol" mindset. But was it? And were those weekend runs to Third Edition and Mr. Smith's in Georgetown with our fake i.d.'s as innocuous as we thought? There is more and more research suggesting that what is occurring in the adolescent years for girls as their breasts form could be the culprit in this epidemic rise in breast cancer. Take a look at this study about alcohol, teens and breast cancer later in life.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-04-16-girls-breasts-alcohol_N.htm

Dr. 90210

Well, the girls just left for Disney World with their godfather Uncle Barry (everyone needs an Uncle Barry!) Luke looked a little confused as yet another family member walked out the front door and didn’t take him with them. We have to put the girls’ framed photo face down in the living room while they are at school each day or he gets sad and points at it because he misses them so much. I told the girls to send me a picture from inside Space Mountain - how totally 1970s, but supposedly it is still one of the most popular rides - I remember going on it the last time I was at Disney World in, say, 1976 wearing a fiberglass walking cast having fractured my left ankle. I also remember throwing up in the Tea Cups). So here I sit a little sad, a little lonely looking at the grenades that are still hanging from the left side of my new bionic frame draining all sorts of unattractive liquids from my healing wound. When I went to see Dr. Spear, my plastic surgeon, at Georgetown today, I was assuming they would take all 4 of the drains out of my underarms and chest. They took out three. Let’s just say I haven’t had a shower for 9 days because I am too scared to get them wet and for them to get infected and let’s just say that even on Percocet I know that is not totally acceptable from a personal hygiene point of view.

Let’s talk drains because if - God forbid - you or your spouse ever has to go through this nightmare, you are going to need to know what to expect. Rewind to the first time that I walked into Dr. 90210’s office. He kind of has the affect and wry humor of Wallace Shawn in Princess Bride - though Dr. Spear is taller. The first time I met him was the same day that I was diagnosed in September. I was in shock. I had been shuttled from radiology and some bone scan machine from Dr. Willey’s office into Spears. I was in tears as I told him I had a 9 cm tumor growing inside of me. He cavalierly - as is his style - and with just enough tough love to be funny said, “We all have something growing inside of us.” I stood in front of him with the gown open and he lifted each breast unceremoniously as if he were lifting a dead slab of meat. He had an antiquated ruler that looked like he was going to measure the hypotenuse of some invisible triangle and come up with some elaborate algorithm. The nurse handed me a pair of disposable white string bikini underwear (which she apologized for but which I realized were not all that much worse than my not-exactly Perla underwear that had sufficed through my child-bearing years when I stopped really caring.) Note to self: it is bad when your plastic surgeon’s disposable lingerie is better/as good as your own. Need to rectify asap.

They sent me across the hall to some photo studio that looked like it was out of Sears. There is a picture of Rachel Hunter shaking hands with one of the surgeons in a framed photo as you walk in that is supposed to make you feel as though at the end of this it will be ok because you will look like Rachel Hunter (marketing lie). It’s such a Sears photo studio setting with the big umbrella lights (you almost expect a fake leaf backdrop or some toys to keep the children in the family photo “occupied” while the photographer tries to get the winning grin from your nine month old who really doesn’t want to be there. (I really didn’t want to be there.) And you are wearing these disposable white string bikini underwear and you are told to drop your gown on the chair and stand there with your hands behind your back like you are being booked for a crime. Let’s just say it’s a little uncomfortable as you stand there in all of your glory for the “before” set of photos. You feel a little violated. But that is at the beginning of the journey. By the end you just don’t care anymore and you have pretty much lost any sense of modesty and you are willing to lift your shirt and show just about anyone your new breasts - even if they have a few scars across them - just because you can’t believe that you made it through this rite of passage and because you really are still on so many drugs that you don’t really know what is appropriate anymore.

The second time I went to Spear’s office, there was a snafu and my mom was supposed to join me - I had finished chemo and was gearing up for surgery. The appointment started early. I was there alone. I made the mistake of asking to look at the photo album of before and after photos of mastectomy patients. I thought it would help me prepare for the surgery. Boy was I wrong. NEVER look at the photo albums of before and after shots. NEVER. The nurse explained how the procedure worked. They toss a sling made from a corpse’s tissue into your breast and fill it with a sack of saline or something hard as a placeholder - these are called expanders. The corpse part threw me - did I really need to know that? They then offered as an alternative to make the sling from a pig’s tissue. Haram! No go. Can any of this be on a need to know basis please? Way too much information. Because I really did not need to know. I forgot all of my questions and sat there in shock. Dr. Spear tried to console me but I was inconsolable. This was the week about 3 weeks before surgery when the penny dropped and I started mourning the loss of my breasts. The pictures (even the good outcomes) were horrifying. I was told if silicone didn’t work and the radiation messed up the outcome I could always gain a few pounds around my belly and they could suction it up through my sternum and place the fat from the “tummy tuck” into each breast. Or they could take a “flap” from my back and hope that worked (again after a little fattening up (presumably in a darkened basement dungeon with a crack FBI profiler named Clarice looking for me). It was so Silence of the Lambs. I was told I wouldn’t have any feeling across the breasts forever basically - but that doesn’t seem to be true because I can certainly feel something when the Percocet wears off every 6 hours). Then they sent me down to the Sears studio for another set of photos. I was a bit disoriented, clinging to my hospital gown and then I made my way back to the examination room and studied the family photo album of before and after mastectomies. The nurses kept bringing in more tissues. I was in shock. They weren’t sure I would ever leave.

I had to come back a few days before the surgery to get marked up with a black Sharpie so the surgeons would know where to cut the next day - a very imprecise science it seemed to me. Amelia could have drawn a straighter line and then Greg was told to retrace the lines after my shower that night and first thing in the morning before surgery. What was this? Painting by numbers? Fortunately, we had a rainbow assortment of Sharpies at home because they are Amelia’s pen of choice. She couldn’t find the black so she brought me the purple. The whole pre-op experience did not inspire confidence and when I asked about a little valium to take the edge off the morning of surgery, Dr. 90210 said he really didn’t understand or feel the need to indulge pre-surgery jitters. I realize now that was the turning point. I wasn’t going to cry that day. In fact I didn’t the entire time I was in the hospital. I thought I would be a wreck during the 4 hour pre-op check in on the day of surgery. Especially when they stuck three needles in my nipple to inject the radioactive dye for the lymph nodes - many women scream from the pain - it felt like a slight bee sting to me. No big deal. I was joking with Greg - riding on adrenalin and damned if I was going to give Spear the satisfaction of being a girl about all of this. I was like a prize fighter going into the ring. They even handed me a robe compliments of the Ritz that was supposed to make you feel like you were actually heading for a massage. I was laughing with the nurses. Telling them I needed a private room because I am actually a little bit “difficult”. Sassy to Greg - totally ready to get this show on the road. Spear helped me by not indulging my worries. I toughened up and you know what? It was a piece of cake. They didn’t even make me count backwards. I slept like a baby through the whole thing. Dr. Jackson, the anesthesiologist was a pro, and when I made it to post-op, I began doing Pilates deep breathing exercises to get the last bits of anesthesia from my lungs. I whispered to Shawna (Willey) my very fine surgeon - to go to the waiting area and tell Greg it was the Pilates that made all the difference and got me through surgery because I knew he would soon start to balk at the cost of these private sessions which saved my life as soon as we left the hospital. They laughed at me and he laughed when he heard I was negotiating and outmaneuvering him even under the effects of anesthesia. (In a weak guilty Mommy moment the day before surgery I had sent my mom on a hunt for two iPads for the girls without telling him - she bought the last two at Pentagon City and almost let them slip through her fingers while I spoke with the Apple salesman on the phone about whether a 7 and a 9 year old need 32 or 64 gigs - what was I thinking? These were their consolation prize for me being in the hospital on Annalise’s 9th birthday. “It was as if Steve Jobs and God got together and got Phil (Annalise) a birthday present.” Modern Family from the week before - Annalise got the joke.)

So one drain still hangs by my side - it looks like a plastic grenade, Greg has been emptying and measuring the output of all of them each day. He is never queasy. That’s what I like about him. (When I had all four around my waist, I looked like a suicide bomber.)

Now I have taken enough valium to sleep and relax the chest muscles, enough to perhaps kill a horse. So I will close out this missive with just one thought:


“I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most
Just gotta keep going
And I, I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on...
Ain't no matter what's waiting on the other side...It's the climb...”

When Amelia left tonight I said, “Have fun in Florida” to which she replied: “I hear they have a lot of oranges there.” How true and how odd that that is what popped into her mind as she headed to the Magic Kingdom.

But she was right, as always. Vitamin C - good for healing. We all need a little healing after the winter we have had.

My horoscope from Monday (when we got the news!)

Washington Post Monday, April 12, 2010
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
You'll do a stellar job, and the fruits of your labor will be something you can stand up for. Colleagues want to be a part of your work team in order to learn what you know.

(Reading between the lines, perhaps my colleagues, a.k.a. friends want to join me lead the Fox bureau to victory in the 3-day Komen Race for a Cure this October in Washington (before we head off to Jerusalem) - we are challenging the other news outlets and bureaus to come up with their own teams. Too bad they don't stand a chance. And all of us reconstructed survivors will be burning our sports bras at the end of the race. Not that we'll be wearing any during the race! Friends and family and St. Agnes alum - even out of towners - are welcome to join me and the Fox team...more to come.)

That's my boy!

A few post-mastectomy hugs from my favorite little man.