Wrapping up 2018 and counting mixed blessings.

Obviously, it's not been my year. And I'm nowhere near done grieving what this stupid disease has taken from me. But today, I'm looking back and reviewing the good in my year directly linked to the cancer. For one thing, I'm walking again! Not entirely pain-free and not without a bit of a limp, but it's a start. The last two days, we've walked a loop at a nearby park. With a forecasted high of 70 today, I am sure we'll make it three days in a row. It just feels so good to be fairly mobile again. Honestly, it was starting to feel like it was never going to happen. And it makes me appreciate the ability to be active that I took for granted before.

In fact, this year has forced me to attend to my health. Along with plans to gradually increase activity, I'm taking cooking back up. I plan to start making whole wheat sourdough bread again, and lots of veggie-packed meals. Holidays and travel are exceptions, but the chemo days of being able to only tolerate bland foods and simple carbs have brought into focus how much better I feel when I'm avoiding processed foods and eating vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts and fish.

And remember when I said I'd zipped past my Goodreads goal of 52 books mid-year? Well, all those hours of forced immobility and sickness at least leant themselves to the chance to really immerse myself in reading. And read, I did. 141 books in all. Gooodreads tells me I met 271% of my goal. I read a mix of fiction and nonfiction, and became more appreciative of the public library system. I stop into our little local branch every week or so to pick up the books I've requested and browse the new book section. I also signed up for BookBub emails, which includes free ebook offerings each day so I always have something available on my iPad when I'm sitting in doctor's waiting rooms. And even though I won't have the time to read at that pace next year, I've re-cultivated a habit that will serve me well. I've got three books I'm working on now and a stack waiting for me when I'm done with those.

It was fortunate that we were engaged in a no-spend challenge this year because I missed more work than I care to think about. Weeks and weeks of it. Not to mention the many weeks when I could only work part-time or had to take days off for all the doctor's appointments and labs. In private practice, there's no such thing as paid sick leave. In addition, I still pay office expenses like rent and phone and insurance whether I'm seeing patients or not. So it's a double whammy when I am not able to work. Although we had to purchase a number of things directly related to recovering from surgery or accommodating my surgically-altered body, we did not make any discretionary purchases. I'm even more a believer now that stuff won't bring happiness. And so I watch an urge to buy something arise, and then just sit with it until it passes. I am thankful that recuperating financially from this year isn't further hindered by consumer debt.

And more than anything else, I just have a different perspective on my life. There is so much now that would have really angered me in the past that I just shrug off. Road rage? Nope. Complaints about minor irritations or discomforts? Not so much. I'm not saying I can't still snark with the best of them, but I am too deeply grateful for my life to waste much time carping about inconsequential problems. Instead, I find myself humbled by the support of a great variety of people, grateful for the good care I've received from many kind and skilled medical professionals, and happy that the disease has brought a lot of wonderful people into my life. I am keenly aware of my good fortune of going through treatment with the daily help of my husband and in the comfort of my own home. It's true that I'm more than ready to leave 2018 behind me, but I want to carry its lessons with me.

A scaled-back but still joyful Christmas.

This year, I've decided to let go of a lot of my normal expectations about this holiday season. We put up a smaller than usual tree and decided we'd fill stockings for each other but not exchange gifts, other than giving gifts to the kids. We didn't bother putting up lights outside and decorated inside only a little. Instead, our focus is on time with the people in our lives. My sons (and my older son's girlfriend) will be here for a dinner tomorrow night and again for a brunch on Christmas Day. We went to a Winter Solstice party last night and are going to a neighbor's Christmas party tonight, and also plan to take in the UU church's candlelight service Christmas Eve. I want very much to hold on to this awareness of how precious life is. The Solstice is marks the return of light and Christmas celebrates the birth of hope. Those are reminders I need more than ever this year.

Peace to you this holiday season, whatever your traditions, and may your days be filled with light and hope.

The Cabbage Stew, for those who asked.

This stew is packed with cruciferous vegetables and, on the face of it, sounds too healthy to be good. But it's actually delicious. I make it in a crockpot and just layered everything in, in order.

Mediterranean Cabbage Crockpot Stew

·      1 red onion, chopped

·      1 sweet yellow onion, chopped

·      2 garlic cloves, crushed

·      3 carrots, scrubbed and sliced into rounds or half-rounds

·      2 russet potatoes, scrubbed and sliced into quarter rounds

·      1 box baby kale

·      ½ lbs red cabbage (1/2 head cabbage), cored and chopped

·      1 bay leaf

·      1 T cumin

·      2 t paprika

·      ½ t coriander

·      ½ t turmeric

·      1 t dill

·      2 T ground flaxseed

·      1 large can crushed tomatoes

·      1 box vegetable broth

Optional:

·      Zest and juice of one lemon

·      ½ C fresh dill

·      Sour cream or olive oil

1.   (Can caramelize onions first by suateeing in olive oil with the garlic)

2.   Layer onions, garlic, potatoes, kale, and cabbage in crockpot.

3.   Add bay leaf, spices (and salt/pepper if desired).

4.   Top with tomatoes and broth.

5.   Cook on LOW for 7-8 hours or HIGH for 4 hours.

6.   Add lemon zest, juice and dill.

7.    Add a dollop of sour cream (or a drizzle of olive oil).

I'll spare you the photo of my stitched up ankle.

When we went back a week and a half ago for a follow-up on my ankle surgery, the PA checked the incision and exclaimed, "This is beautiful!" I responded, "You and I have very different ideas of beauty." It took her a minute, then she laughed. I've been told my deadpan delivery often makes it difficult to tell that I'm joking. The surgeon came in and agreed, and told me I could now start putting weight on it. I asked if I had to keep wearing the Shrek shoe, and she told me if I could fit my ace bandage-wrapped foot into a regular shoe, that would be fine. Because when they said, "It's blue, so it goes with everything," they actually meant, "It goes with nothing any sane person would ever consider wearing."

I was mostly glad to be done with that bloody walker. My husband was promptly dispatched to buy a cane. When he returned home with it, I tested it out by shaking it in the air and shouting in a crotchety voice, "Get off my goddamn lawn!" It worked.

I returned to work last Monday in our first snow of the season. The roads were fine, the dusting just made for pretty scenery. I used the cane for the first couple of days and then found I no longer needed even it. I was so excited to be mobile that I stopped at the grocery store and came home to make a Mediterranean cabbage and potato stew. That actually doesn't sound all that good, but it was delicious. We went back to the podiatrist this past Friday to get my sutures removed. I covered my eyes and whimpered a little because I'm a weenie about things like that. But a compliant weenie - I did not move a muscle. My ankle was very swollen and I was instructed to keep walking but to wear a compression sock during the day and to elevate my foot when I am sitting down. Done and done. Every day it gets a little better.

So for the time being, my days of lying on the couch watching mindless television while the cat stares me down are done. And I'm glad. I continue to read a lot, but I am more and more ready to just resume my life as much as possible. Now, if only spring would get here...

Schadenfreude.

Early in the week, we had a visitor who unintentionally spun me into a very dark place. It started with my answer to a question about eating meat  - I'd said that no, I wouldn't eat mutton barbecue because I didn't eat mammal of any sort. I don't care if other people do, I just don't. He made a joking remark about how he made a practice of abusing his body through junk food and heavy drinking at every available opportunity and yet had never really been sick his whole adult life. Ha ha ha ha! I smiled politely, but I will admit - inside I seethed. I wanted to suggest that maybe it was pure dumb luck that had protected him. So far.

I think, at least on an unconscious level, people delight in the stories of someone who lived a healthy life and then was struck down by disease anyway. It fits our rough sense of justice about people who think (we believe) that they making superior decisions. It doesn't even matter if the person is just doing the best they can to take care of themselves - it still irritates people. The long distance runner who drops dead of a heart attack in his 40's, the vegan who finds they have dangerously high cholesterol, the thin person who develops Type II diabetes. See? See??? And, conversely, everyone knows the stories of the centenarian who attributed their longevity to cigarettes and whiskey. And who doesn't want to think the statistics don't really apply to themselves? But even knowing all that about how people operate, there was something about that offhand jab that rankled. Over the next day, I brooded about it.

By that night, I was unable to sleep much. And I woke up sunk in a misery I can't even quite describe. I've worked really hard to stay away from the "why me?" questions and not to indulge in self-pity over my cancer. But I started yesterday morning wondering if living an active life and eating a healthy diet are all in vain and if there was any real point in continuing to try. Any of it - diet, exercise, endocrine therapy, visits with the oncologist, follow-up tests. I spent all of that morning and most of the rest of the day lying in bed, tears flowing like a freaking water faucet had been turned on, and feeling nothing about my life except despair. Not scared, just lacking any motivation to get up and keep moving forward.

I know - it's not what you typically read here, is it? Well, I'm sorry. I'm human and I think I got kind of a raw deal. At every step of the way, since I was diagnosed, things have been worse than anticipated. From the sad-sounding young radiologist who called to say he was very sorry, they weren't expecting it but found invasive cancer, to the breast surgeon and medical oncologist who were both certain I would not need chemotherapy, to waking up from my reconstruction surgery with a foot that no longer worked, to the podiatrist who thought the damn thing welded to my tibia would instead be an easy free-floating lesion to remove. None of this leaves me particularly optimistic about what's ahead for me.

Don't get me wrong - I've spent too much time talking with people in the same boat to think I've been uniquely targeted or that other people haven't gotten an even worse deal than I have. Women who have young children at home or who wonder if chemo will destroy their chances of having children at all. People who were diagnosed with cancers that had already coursed through their bodies, setting up camp in their liver or bones. It could always be worse. I know that. But somehow, that's not where my head is right now.

If you're looking for inspiration here about the upbeat person who kept a great attitude as they beat cancer to the ground, I'm not the one to provide that. At this moment, all I know is that I have painful implants where my breasts used to be, a port that protrudes from under my collarbone and hurts when anything brushes against it, and a throbbing ankle I can't put any weight on. Last year I was active and vital and happy, and now a bald, mutilated, crippled reflection stares back at me from the mirror. I don't know how the fuck I got here. Maybe I'm not far enough out of active treatment to feel remotely healthy. Maybe, when I can walk again it will seem different. Maybe if I'm lucky enough to have a period of time without a recurrence, I might start feeling some hope. I'm working on it. But the next time someone suggests to me, even indirectly or in jest, that their own decadence protected them from cancer while I chose the fool's route, I might not be so gracious in my response.

Update on my left foot.

The night before surgery, we went out for sushi. I'd abstained for the duration of chemo, because it's not safe while your immune system is compromised, and I figured 27 days out was close enough to a month. And then went home to my list of instructions that I could recite by heart after four surgeries in the last six months - no food or drink after midnight, shower the night before and the morning of with antibacterial soap, no make-up, lotion, nail polish, deodorant, or jewelry, no NSAIDS for five days prior.

This time I was able to use my port for the anesthesia. As I watched the nurse unwrap the supplies, I casually/not-casually-at-all asked if accessing a port was more difficult than starting a regular IV. She said it wasn't if you'd done it before. I said I assumed she had and she nodded, then noticed the alarmed look on my face and assured me she used to work in oncology and had done many, many ports. Whew! Then the parade of people who stop in your bay to check in with you - the anesthesiology resident, the surgical nurse, the head anesthesiologist, the surgeon (who said she expected the surgery to take only about 30 minutes). All friendly and kind and seemingly in no hurry at all. The anesthesiologist asked about my chemo and then fist-bumped me when I said I'd finished. He asked if I was warm enough and offered to get another blanket. While he was tucking the warm blanket around me (something I've only ever had nurses do in pre-op), he said, "We want to take extra special care of you because you're a survivor." Made me tear up. He told me I would be under medium sedation and promised I'd remember nothing. In fact, it's a blank from the time they were strapping my arms down until I woke up in recovery.

The podiatrist briefed my husband afterwards while I was still out. The surgery took an hour because nothing goes quite how it's supposed to for me on this cancer journey. Turns out the calcified whatever-the-hell-it-is (pathology report pending) had grown in a weird oblong shape around the back of my ankle and attached itself to my tibia bone. The surgery order had called it a "lesion of unknown behavior" and I guess they were right - that sneaky end run around my ankle was not anticipated and they had to remove some of the bone to get it out. It was putting firm pressure on a nerve and the surgeon said between manipulating the nerve and shaving off some bone, I'd be in pretty serious pain for a few days. Once again, yay me! Incidentally, I texted this information to my older son who immediately wrote back, "It's going tibia long recovery process."

So that ridiculously useless walker they sent home with me after my mastectomy is now my best friend. I've already become pretty adept at hopping with it, in spite of the post-chemo leaden thigh that's having to support me. I took the Percocet as prescribed and discovered that I have not magically become able to tolerate narcotics. I woke up Saturday morning with a migraine and broke a walker-assisted land speed record getting to the bathroom before I got sick. It's ibuprofen from here on out, which means I am learning to tolerate the throbbing pain that happens whenever I get up. But it's not often - I was told no pressure on my foot and that I was allowed to be up no more than five minutes out of any hour for a full week!

I go back for a follow-up on Friday (stitches out the following week) and was told not to unwrap my ankle before then. So I am doing as I'm told - reclining all freaking day long with my betadine-swabbed and wrapped leg and foot elevated. And I'm not happy about it. I'm a caretaker type and it just goes against the grain to be so utterly dependent. Even with my mastectomy, at least I could walk. But I don't want to screw up what was fixed, so I'm begrudgingly compliant. I'm napping, and reading, and watching movies, and breathing. Lots and lots of breathing.

Thankful.

I left my camera alone and just focused on the holiday this year. My brother, sister, and brother-in-law all came up to celebrate with us. No photos of the meal, but we roasted a turkey and had mashed potatoes with giblet gravy, green beans amandine, sweet potatoes with a maple-bourbon glaze, corn pudding, cranberry sauce and my family's odd traditional plate of cucumbers and olives. At the beginning of the meal, my brother-in-law said they were thankful for me and my younger son added, "And I'm thankful you're not dead." I knew what he meant, but it still startled me.

Before dessert (chocolate-bourbon-pecan pie, mixed berry pie, pumpkin pie and brownies), I cracked out a bottle of bourbon I'd been saving. Some time ago, a local package store was having a bourbon event where every day they'd advertise a very limited stock of small batch bourbons and the first people to text in could buy them. They were all pricey and I wasn't interested. Until I got the email about Burning Chair bourbon from the Savage and Cooke distillery on Mare Island, CA. Run by a former Napa Valley winemaker, the bourbon is finished in old wine barrels. I texted immediately. Because Mare Island is a decommissioned Naval base where I lived for three years as a kid. Having the two siblings with me who also lived on Mare Island made it the perfect time to break it out for a toast. To Mare Island memories, to my Dad who died almost a year ago, to family. And to giving thanks. I was thankful for all those things and for the people who I love and who love me. And you know what? I'm thankful I'm not dead, too.

My left foot.

You may or may not recall that I woke up from my reconstruction surgery in early August with one numb foot. I was assured it would be fine in a day, and I hobbled on home. But it wasn't. After a few days, I got worried and went to see my primary care doc (This was on the table in the exam room, and the drawing of the louche muscle/bone guy made me laugh out loud.) My PCP thought that a nerve in my thigh had been knicked when they harvested fat for grafting and told me if it didn't get better soon, he'd refer me to a neurologist. I felt like the sole of my foot was a marshmallow and the inside had the intense tingling of a foot that had gone to sleep. It was most unpleasant. At that time, I could not bed the toes on that foot or support my weight with it.

Then, it started to swell up. Fearing a DVT, my primary care guy sent me for an emergency ultrasound. Thankfully, there was no evidence of a blood clot.

On my way out of that building of the hospital, I passed the medical library and saw that the therapy dogs were in residence. I made a quick detour before my next appointment to pet a couple of friendly Great Pyrenees. I saw my reconstructive surgeon the same day, and she thought it was a problem with the nerve in the tarsal tunnel at the ankle. I have had a ... calcification? ossicle? ganglion cyst? - depends on who I ask... as far back as I can remember. As a kid I used to call it my extra ankle. My surgeon's theory is that pressure was put on it when I was positioned in surgery for the fat harvesting and that it was now impinging on a nerve. She referred me to her own podiatrist.

Who said removing the ossified whatsit in my ankle should help but she couldn't guarantee it. Still, I decided to move forward with scheduling the surgery as soon as my oncologist would okay it. The podiatrist sent me for another ultrasound specifically of the lump in my ankle. Two weeks after I finished my chemo, I returned to the hospital for pre-anesthesia testing. I was braced for more blood work, but the nurse said they'd use my chemo labs instead. I'm grateful for even one less stick.

So here I am, with a foot that is very gradually coming back to life. I can at least bend my toes now and walk with only a slight limp. But it's not fully functional and it hurts to walk any distance. And there is a dull ache in my ankle where the bony lump is. It continues to swell up every day - you can see the difference - so it does not appear that it will heal completely on its own. I'm in the countdown for my fourth surgery this year, this one a week after Thanksgiving (and four weeks after my last chemo). I sure don't want to have yet another surgery, but if it allows me to start walking without pain again, it will be worth it.

Trust me, I won't always only blog about cancer, but...

I'm in a weird place. I've received hugs and congratulations and even gifts to mark the end of my chemotherapy. Universally, people ask if I'm glad it's over. And I am, except it doesn't feel quite over for me yet. Bell or no bell, my body doesn't know that was the last infusion. My body only knows that it was poisoned again. At Day 13 of this last cycle, the chemo agents are still coursing through my body, on a search and destroy mission for cancer cells. And healthy cells. So although I don't go back for another round, I feel at least as wrung out as I did after previous infusions. My taste buds aren't still fully on-line, my skin is sloughing off, my hair is still detaching itself, and I'm foggy-brained and tired and tearful for no discernable reason. Beginning after the third round and intensifying this time, I have post-chemo muscle fatigue, common with docetaxel. What this translates into is thigh muscles that feel like they've been filled with cement. Even walking across a room leaves me wobbly. My on-line research tells me it's due to elevated oxidants and reductions in myosin expression, mitochondrial loss and increased reactive oxygen species production. But I'm sure you knew that, right? Apparently it will last for months.

The chemo agents themselves should clear themselves from my system in 28 days, but it will take much, much longer for me to return to something approaching normal. In fact, there are side effects that won't even occur for another couple of months or more. So it's hard for me to muster up the celebratory mood everyone seems to expect from me. I'm trying, but I'm just not there yet. Someone asked me if they'd be doing tests to see if the chemo was effective and when I said they wouldn't, he wanted to know how I'd know it worked. Without thinking, I said, "If the cancer doesn't come back, it worked, if it does, then it didn't work." Judging from his expression, that was a little unsettling to hear. But it's my reality and I don't have it in me to sugarcoat it. I think the enormity of the healing ahead of me - body, mind, and spirit - is really just starting to register for me.

Last round.

Throughout my life, I always believed that I could never, ever do chemotherapy. The idea of being poisoned frankly terrified me and I have a pretty intense needle phobia. Not the "I have to look away" kind of phobia, but the "I'm going to lose my damn mind if you stick a needle in me" kind. The kind of phobia that makes me guarantee that I will never get a tattoo or have acupuncture. The kind of phobia that made me choose natural childbirth just to avoid a needle in my back. And yet, somehow I did it. Because when it came right down to it, I didn't like my odds without it. With my particular cancer, the 40% chance of metastases if I skipped chemo seemed little better than a coin flip to me.

At my chemo center, like many others, you get to ring a bell when you are finished. After having my port accessed, we met with the oncologist who was all smiles. He shook my hand at the end of our visit and told me to ring that bell as hard as I could when I finished and come back to see him in three months.

And then, the drugs and memory loss kick in. What I do recall is that while my husband was off fetching food for us, they brought around lunch and I had a turkey and cheese sandwich and a bag of chips. Things get fuzzy after that. He went to the cafeteria, he told me later, and called several times but I didn't answer. So he came back to the chemo room, said he'd call again from the cafeteria to tell me what my choices were. I have a vague memory of asking for a muffin. He called several times again and when I finally answered, I apparently wouldn't say anything. He chose for us, and came back with a muffin, a grilled cheese sandwich and fries. He tells me I offered him a bite of the muffin and then when he turned back, I'd devoured the remainder of it and was taking huge bites of the sandwich. And I ate most of the fries. Zero memory of any of that. I told him I remembered the first sandwich and chips and he said, "No kidding, I had to brush a bunch of potato chip crumbs off you." Yeah, don't remember that either. Maybe it was my body's way of calorie-loading before my taste buds went to hell.

Because my taste buds definitely turn on me. Starting about Sunday evening, everything tastes foul. And smells bad, too. My husband decided to make something involving onions and black beans, I think, and I was gagging just at the smell of it. And that was even with him cooking it in a crock pot in the garage. Weirdly, sweets taste especially bad to me. Fruit is okay, but things like candy and cookies are repulsive. Which is really saying something given my wicked sweet tooth.

But before that, I felt okay. The neulasta on-body injector hurt more this time and I'm not sure why. See that little cannula? That is the thing that was sticking into me for 27 hours before it started infusing. I can't tell you what a relief it was to peel it off on Saturday.

Since then, I've been mostly taking it easy and trying to medicate ahead of symptoms like nausea and bone pain. On my worst day, yesterday, I just let myself lie on the couch all day and watch Netflix. But today, I feel like I'm starting to climb back out of the pit.

The little plaque says:
"Ring this bell, three times well, and celebrate this day. 
This course is run, my treatment done, now I am on my way."

Well, it's not actually done. I have surgeries ahead and years of endocrine therapy, and I know there are no guarantees. But I am very thankful to be done with the chemo part. And that plaque is not the boss of me - I rang it four times, once for each round I completed. And yes, I DID clap for myself.

On the upside...

This chemotherapy round was, as I expected, harder than the two before. I read somewhere the expression "chemo-tired" to describe the surprisingly intense fatigue. I often feel like I have weights attached to me and I'm slogging through mud. Between that and the swelling of the nerve-damaged foot, I've been fairly sedentary. It's a good thing I like to read! At the beginning of the year I had set myself my usual Goodreads challenge of 52 books. Following my mastectomy in the beginning of June, I spent more time than I care to think about lying on the couch. Watching movies, sure, but also reading. I hit my goal in early July.

And have not slowed down. I have read, for instance, 11 books on breast cancer. And another half dozen on nutrition and health. But I am careful about sources, and so I have read a few books on the scams in medical care. One quote stayed with me was from a former editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, who said, "Of all the ghouls who feed on the bodies of the dead and dying, the cancer quacks are the most vicious and the most unprincipled."

I've been taking advantage of the library's willingness to send books I request from any branch in the system to my home library, and have gone off on tangents exploring cults, politics, autobiographies, evolution, and minimalism. I love walking into the library and walking out with the latest stack they are holding for me behind the counter.

But it's not all serious non-fiction, I've also read novel after novel after novel. Some silly, some gripping, all helping me pass the time. Most all, anyway - once in a while I get a chapter in and decide I'm not enjoying the book enough to continue. No matter, there's always another in the queue. So here we are at the end of October, and I just finished my 94th book for the year. I have another week of time off work for my next chemo round and later, ten days off following my scheduled ankle surgery - I think I will easily be able to hit double my original goal by year's end.

Weekend drive.

This actually happened the weekend before chemo, but I didn't have time to post it. I'm still crippled up because of my foot, so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and go for a little drive down some back roads.

I loved this weathered but taken-care-of log cabin. Not enough windows for me, though - I need light!

If I had a small farm, I'd really have to give serious consideration to getting a pony. How sweet is he?

Several of the churches we passed had old graveyards attached to them. If I'd been up for walking, I'd have gotten out to explore.

Sadly, the Who Cares God Cares Restaurant was not open for business. I so wanted to go in and order deviled eggs.

Instead, we settled -very happily- for a grilled cheese sandwich (Gruyère, Gouda and avocado ranch dressing on sourdough) with sweet potato fries and a couple of pints at a beer garden. The sandwich wasn't actually on the menu, but if you know to ask, they'll make it for you. I'm still in the phase of post-chemo where things taste disgusting to me, but I'm looking ahead to venturing out again as soon as that passes.

It’s poison, I tell ya, it’s poison!

I'm one of those people who needs to know everything I can about my own healthcare. I have patients who tell me, "My doctor put me on a new medicine. It's a white pill. I'm not sure how many milligrams." That just blows my mind. How do you not know what medication you are taking? I'm home now after my third chemo round and waiting for the neulastin to infuse tonight. And bracing myself for the string of sucky days that will follow. In the meantime, I'll give you a lay-person's overview:

My own particular chemotherapy regimen is just two chemo agents once the pre-medications (antiemetics, corticosteroids, anxiolytics) are in. When I first told my younger son I'd be on Cytoxan and Taxotere he said, "Wow. Kind of scary when they include the word 'toxin' in the drug." Cytoxan is a trade name for cyclophosphamide and was named because it's a cytotoxic drug. Cells go through a cycle of growing, dividing (mitosis), resting, and then starting over again. Normally, cells know when to stop that silliness, but not cancerous cells. They are marked by out-of-control growth, rapidly cycling through the phases over and over again. That's where chemotherapy comes in. Cyclophosamides are alkylating agents that alter the cell's DNA and slow cell growth. They act on cancer cells particularly during their resting phase, leaving them unable to replicate. The more rapidly a cell divides, the more useful a chemo agent is. The downside, of course, is that they also go after other rapid-growth cells like those in bone marrow, hair follicles and the mucous membranes of the mouth and gut. Yay.

Anyway, there is an interesting history behind the development of these drugs that goes back to World War I and the use of the first chemical weapon, mustard gas, by the Germans. It was nasty stuff, able to be absorbed through the skin so that gas masks weren't adequate protection. The troops hit by sulfurous clouds of mustard gas liquid would, at high enough doses, become blind and develop ulcerating necrosis of the skin. If inhaled, hemorrhagic pulmonary edema developed. As you can imagine, death from mustard gas was a miserable affair. The soldiers who didn't die went on to experience nausea and vomiting, hair loss and suppressed immune systems. Sound familiar?

So during WWII, Nazis again used mustard gas. Because screw the Geneva Convention prohibiting chemical warfare. A couple of pharmacologists thought, "Hey, if this stuff can kill people, maybe we should use it to fight cancer!" You can't make this shit up. And it did work, to an extent. Unfortunately, it was also near-lethal and only temporarily effective. But chemotherapy was born and nitrogen mustards like the Cytoxan being infused into me every three weeks are still being used.

And then there is the Taxotere, one of a group of chemo agents called taxanes. The first was paclitaxel, derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree (the genus for yews is Taxus, hence the name) in the late 60's. Apparently it's a relatively rare tree, and so twenty years of research later, another agent, docetaxel, was synthesized from the needles of the more common European yew tree. Docetaxel is more effective than paclitaxol but also more toxic. That's why on my first round it was infused very slowly to make sure I would not have a reaction to it. Taxanes work by binding to the  microtubules which control the communication within cancer cells, causing mitosis to be inhibited.

So there you have it, conifer needles and sulphur mustard. Kind of sounds natural and outdoorsy, doesn't it? Okay, no, no it doesn't - it is definitely no picnic. But with any luck the combination of a microtubule inhibiting taxane and and DNA-disrupting alkylating agent will do its job on any rogue cancer cells in me without taking me down in the process.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

We live in an old neighborhood with a range of houses, both in style and price. Little post-war ranchers like ours, old brick houses from early in the last century, newer stone houses. I love the variety and much prefer it to living in a cookie-cutter suburb. But this house made me gasp when I saw it. We were on our way to meet up with two other couples right after it had been painted. It was the topic of conversation when we got to the brew pub: "My God, did you see that aqua house? What were they thinking?" and "It's too bright even for Jamaica!" and "Whoever owns that place HAS to be colorblind!" On the one hand, they have the right to paint their house whatever color they want. But I had to feel badly for the folks across the street trying to sell their house. Good look with that now.

My theory is the owners got stoned one day, found the paint on the clearance shelf, and just went nuts. Why else would they slap paint onto parts of the window frame and even the glass of the windows? And the benches are a weird mix of sage green, aqua and some dark green, applied apparently at random. There's also a bright blue bench on the other side of the house.

My favorite thing is that they've chosen to accent with bright yellow, including a Hotei statue (what some people call a Laughing Buddha), guarding the steps alongside a tiny American flag. I'll give the home's owners this - it's eye-catching. No one is going to miss this house. Except, of course, my color-blind husband. It looks normal to him.