Angel

So,

All better now.  There are angels everywhere.  MRI has revealed a 99.9% improvement.  Tumors have shrunk. Full brain radiation works.  Death averted.  It's a miracle.  Once again.  One more Christmas.   I am nothing if not grateful, thankful and any other humility driven emotion you got.  I'm all that.

I am also, however, still reeling from the actual cure.  Still dizzy which is unnerving and nauseating.  Still double vision all the time.  I watch these words that I write now swing and fly off the page.  I spell check and back track and squint my left eye and get a headache just so you won't see that I can't really see this type and assume I'm doing it wrong.  Which I am.  Using spell check when I can finally locate it on this page...

I have to rest every few moments.  Literally, brain wants to sleep while I'm still sitting up.  I brush my teeth and have to stop in the middle to rest, my arm is so heavy.  I cannot get up and down from the floor easily anymore.  I need to crawl around to get up, much like my older yoga students.  Another lesson in humility.  I got shingles, got rid of them with Famvir, a drug that gives you diarrhea.  I take otc tummy pills.  I cut my steroids every week.  This week it's a half pill every 3 days.  My face has swollen to a fever pitch-speaking of which I've had fever for over a week now.  It's gone today but now am perpetually itchy without a rash.  Not annoying at all.  Really.

There are  the mental aspects.  I am going insane, eating my own proverbial tail here in this apartment I now officially cannot afford.  I practice meditation every day with Pema and Buddhism and the boddhisatvic way.  I am a peaceful warrior.  I then turn around and say the most heinous hurtful terrible things to myself.  All day.  24/7.  I am alone in the room alone with a killer.
"putting lipstick on a pig you stupid fat fuck look at you you stupid idiot-how stupid can you be you fucking idiot! it goes on and on and on and on like this all day."

Who is doing this?  I have to keep saying; cancel cancel.  Gentleness.  I don't treat anyone like this ever.  Why me?
Too much time to think.  The anxiety is overwhelming and I just realized I'm taking Adavan every day-at least once,  I have to.  I'll panic out there alone on the cold, hard 35 degree NY streets.  Subways are super fun.  Walks are good though, get the fluid away from the brain, fresh air, moving lymph by moving legs. Fresh blood to the damaged cells.  A good way to think in a forward manner- no more eating away at confidence. Outside brings a fresh perspective.  Gaining confidence that I will stay up,  and maybe even make it.  Honey is my little tyrant demanding out 3 times a day.  I lie though, she hates going out mostly too, but together we must!

I can't even do my normal yoga practice any more.  Too wobbly, knees kill, legs too weak to stand.  I push anyway, I pay in the middle of the night with terrible cramps and scary spine wierdness.  Remember the spine metastasis? I do.  It's back.  Thanks to not getting my chemo now, I worry the spine and liver are going to flare again.  It's like trying to hold down three beach balls under you in the pool at the same time.  One or the other, all keep popping up.  It's extreme vigilance.  These are my worries.  Plus money worries which hurl me into a a cold sweat every night.  Always helpful in curing cancer.

I do a floor bare and lots of twisting and tonglen breathing.

I am disillusioned with yoga again, sick of it all being about the brand- the glam and yes, the Alec Baldwin factor of the 25 year old yoga teacher lighting the way to our collective spiritual path as Americans.  Collen Saidman Yee.  Steals Rodney Yee from his current wife but it's all ok because she's pretty and blonde.
I was once.  Now I am bald and swollen.  Stripped of any "ego".  Nothing left to lose.  Everyone will know this at some point, I just hope you're all at least 97 years old as it should be.

I'm a total bitch.  I hate this and know I should be more grateful but it's hard and I'm terrified and alone.
It sucks.
Back to meditation.  At least "God" will get me right?

Pray for a Christmas miracle.  For my dad as well.

xoxo Kelly

Carnival

What a trip.
This whole brain thing is horrifically fascinating.
I'm up at 4 am NOT with crazy spinning.  For the first time.  I think it will get better.  I think it's working.  Hopeful!!
I woke up with the strangest terrible feeling.  Body cramp.  Whole chest, shoulders and back seized in one massive charlie horse.  Heart attack?  Stroke?  Is this the seizure part? WTF?

I stand, it's bad,  it moves across the chest, hard to breath.
Sternum scars still pulling tight, I raise arms to flow with blood, stand, walk keep moving, pace, circle, sit, stand, get away from me.  I want to run from the house, run away from whatever this is.  God.
Feeling like my Grandma Millie now in her later years, always warning us with the certainty that she'd have a stoke in the night.  She would warn us kids every night and we would indeed, worry.

Post radiation muscle spasms.  They will pass with time.
I am losing my hair by the fistfulls now.
My face is a moon pie.
But I digress.  Literally.

I saw the wierdest thing yesterday.

14th street and Irving Place, I'm walking in my bubble of extremely well controlled vertigo with much thanks to meditation and Lorazapan when my triple vision catches a sight.

Two elderly women with walkers going after each other on the corner.  They are having a full on walker fight.  One's screaming at the other and trying to chase her down.  The first one must have gotten in a good one though because the lady right in font of me was spitting blood from her mouth and I believe I might have seen a tooth come out.  I had to side step the bloody spit as she slowly swung her walker up in the air and tried to position it atop the head of lady number 2 who was making her slow motion getaway west on 14th St.   Many expletives were heard.

All this is spinning daylight.  Just as her walker had reached it's laborious crescendo, a man stepped in.  Sirens right there, it was mayhem.  My only validation that it even happened was the random NY commiserate convo that took place after with complete stranger. "did you see that"?  "So much blood"  "Oh my god"  "Jeez"  and ends with, "Crazy".

Off under the radar again.

I love this town.  I fit right in.  If I should happen to go insane soon, please just let me know.

Head Dragons

Then it all falls apart.
Living with uncertainty.  Facing the dragons head on.  Curiously numb.
Brain metastasis.  Final frontier.  12 tiny tumors.  That they can see.  3 in cerebellum.  No balance.  Vertigo constant.  Perpetually seasick.  Vision tripled.  Images sliding off the earth- screaming fast.

Pretend to be normal.

Full brain radiation.  10 hits finished this week.  Symptoms worse, but to be expected.  Seriously- full brain radiation?   I feel trapped in a 50's Sci-Fi scene.

With this treatment the odds of survival are upped to 50 to 70%.  That's good.
Upped to 3 to 4 months.  Not as great.
Internet stats.
Not mine.

Diving Cenotes in Mexico one day, radiation at BI West the next.
Steroidal insanity.  Crackhead energy, can't stop cleaning, then drop to the floor dead nodding out the next moment.  Not hungry, feeling huge.  Sick, metallic taste in my mouth.  Good, cold Sauvignon Blanc is warm salty blood.

Remain positive.  Apologetic.  Right in the middle of work.  So so so so much work.  I'm useless.  It's the nightmare of trying so hard to function but feet are stuck in the ground and no matter how hard I try to stand it's pulling me down into the black.  The spins get faster and faster.  I look down to avoid more dizziness.  Close one eye.
So freaking scary.
Breath in the fear.  Breath in the suffering.  Breath out the fear.  Breath out the pain.
I can't see.

Hope on the horizon, will press on and will survive yet again.  Still reeling from shock, radiation and medication.   Work next week?  Meet with Opthomologists to see if there is an actual vision problem.  Relief from a pair of actual glasses would be ideal.

I'm not sure.  Uncertain.  Oddly calm within this place.

Energy all around.   I bolster up against the eight million other New Yorkers and get to my life everyday.  Hating the hellish reek of the subway, but it holds me up and gets me there.   The anonymity of the city is my refuge.  I can flow with the chaos easily, blending in total awareness yet feel detached, un-present to others.  Look down.  Can't see eyes. too many.  Stand still, try not to tip.  Crosswords barely able to read, puzzles, brain checks vigilant.  Heinous side effects too horrible to mention.  Not to me.
No.
Not this time.

One small joyful thing a day.  Just one little thing.  Helps.  It's everywhere.

We got it early.  This is residual brain swelling, handled by steroids.  I feel wierd.  Surrender.
Breath, meditate.  Boddhisatva.

Slip under the pain, under the earth and into the water.

Duality

Duality

Better to have bad luck than no luck at all.

Do you really create your own luck?

The yogis say yes, but I disagree.

Sometimes you wake up with the proverbial bluebird on your shoulder only to have it shit all over you for the rest of the day.

Or maybe, you live and work like a slave in NYC through another brutally hot summer with no hope of escape.  Somehow I have chosen this?

Case in point

Slept in today which felt really good.  Like a kid on a Sunday, I was able to breathe at last.  I had the day off, not only from working, but from chemo as well.

Chemo will be for the rest of my life, which apparently isn’t too much longer- apparently-

Anyway-

As I drink my fabulously forbidden coffee I feel better and better.  The building super came up and replaced my light bulbs in the hall, which have been dark since 4 days after moving in.  He didn’t even charge me!  I win at last.  These ceilings are over 7 ft. high.  A luxury problem.  

Then I open some bills.  Tons of money hemorrhaging from my poorly bank account.  Don’t stress.  Yogic thinking.  Money is energy, you will make it back.  Keep the focus strong, keep working toward your goal.  Pay what you can but be responsible.  Take charge.  Work smart, keep the rhythm.  Keep going.

Then total panic again.  This goes on for hours.

I notice there is a work function I signed up for weeks ago, not a paid gig but one that will secure a better partnership for a freelancer like myself.

Gone are the ideas of doing laundry, picture hanging or any type of domestic improvement or relaxation.  Gone is my whole afternoon off.  Said event is an hour away by heinous subway.

I go.

I show up and pay attention.  With every fiber in my chemo addled brain, I do not want to do it.  I am sufficiently tired, angry and stressed.  I am crying over how ugly I am already, a side effect not only of ageing but of seven years of constant struggle with cancer.  Hair thinning, face sagging and everything happening 10x faster thanks to hormone suppressants, my body thinks I’m 65.  Estrogen causes me to have deadly cancer.  You do the math.

I arrive at the event.  I am attentive and friendly-at least I think I am.  The party turns out to be poorly planned and myself and one other person attend.  I cannot leave.  I make the best.  I engage, listen, tell stories, laugh, joke and bring food to the party.

Such a liar.   I hated the idea of going to this thing in the first place and yet was able to be present once there.  I like these people very much but know in my heart of hearts they are only laughing at me.  The stupid, old, ugly cancer girl.  This is why I hate everyone and never want to leave my apt.

But, I digress.

Moving on.

My scholarly and awesome girlfriends are hanging out in a spot on my way home and I want to see them.   I miss my friends.  This cancer will isolate you more than you will ever know.   I choose to go.

I jump on an uptown train cringing that it’s already 5pm, only to discover– there is an “earlier investigation” meaning jumper.  Someone has inconsiderately jumped to their’ death during rush hour.

Jerk.

My “express” train drags along at a snails pace while local trains will not run at all.  I panic again, jumping across tracks (via stairs-thank you) at stops never intended.

Fuck it-going home.

Lately, I have constant pain.  Spine, liver and chest.  Bones ache, even my jaw.  Can barely breath and there is a charley horse in my chest that never goes away.  Bones are breaking in slow motion thanks to tumors growing larger inside them.  Sternum has sharp, shrieking pain and the chemo leaves me with joint and bone pain, totally awful.  I do not take anything for it.  I have had a headache since 2005.  Shall I become a junky too?  I tell no one about this.  Who wants to hear whining?  Not me.

Yogic thinking keeps me somewhat sane, yet makes me feel insane for being in so much fucking pain and lying about it.   I cannot deal.  Nor can anyone else.

I chose this?  Are you fucking kidding me?

I do so much to make it better but at this point I am done.  Fuck these people that think we have done this to ourselves.  I cannot do it.  I hate everyone.

Duality.

FINALLY- a local train pulls into the station on the other side of the tracks.  Shit-

run up the stairs, over and down again, get the local heading back downtown.  All the while carrying 5 lbs of dog food purchased at my downtown shop.  What an idiot.

I trudge 4 long ass blocks uphill in July heat and I’m finally at the restaurant.

I forgot my water bottle.  Too heavy for my apparently broken spine.  Perfect!

90 minutes later I arrive at my destination.  Yippee!

We have a great time.  A glass of wine with my wonderful friends, a bit to eat (got dizzy) and I’m out.  I get to the subway this time-I hear the train a-comin and I bolt, trying to keep the flip flops on my feet- but just as I swipe….

Insufficient fare.

The End

66 lines about 44 men-or so

Boyish Grin

My beautiful sexy guy with the boyish good looks who speaks several languages and is tremendously successful in finance.

He came to my bar every day around 3-just the time I needed that desperate cigarette.  Yet, I would stay inside and serve him copious amounts of wine while I secretly yearned for such a sophisticated boyfriend.  We spoke of New York, my hometown, the arts, money, love and so forth. 

He was my intense crush for 3 years.

He dated my replacement after I left.

They lived together in love for the next 6 years.

He came to NY on business a few times.  We hooked up for a drink, sometimes dinner.

I actually liked his “new” girlfriend very much-my replacement at the bar.  She was of course over 10 years younger than me but she was smart, funny and cool.  I liked them together-eventually, after getting over my own imaginary relationship with him.

Imagine my surprise when I got a Facebook message from her that they had broken up.
I had no idea what happened but somehow figured he wouldn’t marry her so she split.
That was a year ago.

He emailed me last night that he is back in NY.

I texted back today and it’s a flirtatious back and forth about what to do-what’s happening and where to meet.

We meet.

At my gay Hotel terrace on the West side on a beautifully warm summer night.  I ask immediately about “Jane” and if they’re married yet.

He says no and changes the subject.

It goes on, he pays for Cava and Tuna Tartar while we discuss everything but what’s really happening.  He’s far more argumentative than I remembered.  He’s heavier too but with that boyish grin, I still had that old funny feeling when I looked at him.

He still drew me in.  I could love him forever.

It was when we left there to meet his friends that things took a turn for the worse.

He fought with the cabbie, for no good reason.  Now I fight with cabbies all the time, because they are apt to scam-and I grew up here.  Doesn’t work.  I am also a bartender and appreciate the hell they are in.  I give them the benefit of the doubt usually.

Boyish grin is now in my bad books.

Getting over it.  I get there, the chef is awesome, his friends are lovely.  We eat more, we have a drink.  He makes an odd remark about my looks then about my career.  He asks if I am Jewish, cause I look Jewish. He then makes the assumption after I tell his friend I was a dancer that I was a “pole dancer”.

15 years of Russian trained ballet followed by a stellar yoga career teaching cancer patients.

Not to mention that he’s making “gay” jokes all night.  Really?

His best friend then says to me,

I can’t believe I’m the best man at his wedding on Sept. 30^th !

What?

Wait what?

Why did you not tell me?

Boyish grin’s next response is,  “He is not my friend”  “How could he do that to me”?

Wow.
Not my replacement behind the bar, this is a new one.

I left immediately.  Graciously.  Saying goodbye to all of the lovely people I met that night, thanking the chef and bartender, and even him.

Bought myself flowers from the corner and headed for the subway uptown.

I started crying on the platform.  I am dying.

Why do I allow this?

Gone.

I was rescued once again from a cheating douche.

Buddha says, holding on to hate is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Too right.

Scanxiety

So, another new year.

I wish I were feeling more hopeful, but I just can't seem to shake this sadness.  I miss David, still.  Because I'm an Idiot.
I can't find a home for Honey and I don't really want to lose her anyway.  Cancer is back again-on top of the cancer from 8 months ago.  The big scan was yesterday to see what's happening.   Results to be read with the doc tomorrow.  I've got some weird colitis again, my stomach has sharp, shrieking pain 24/7.  I can barely walk, doubled over and not happy.   I'm missing yoga, subbing out classes and even cancelled a private client.  Sucks.  Maybe it was the barium?

Maybe it's the stress.  My dad has recently been ill and nearly died from side effects of his cancer treatments.  It was touch and go there for a while.  I visited as much as possible, called every day.  He is stable once again, but it was a wake up call for him.  And me.

Scanxiety.

The above was written in January.

The results of my scans were not good.

The whole stomach pain thing?  Cancer.  All over the liver.  Inoperable.  Lesions everywhere on the surface where the nerves are, making it hurt.  I was scheduled at once to surgically place the port back into my chest.  Chemo and Herceptin began immediately.   The pain was getting worse by the day and a week later I was unable to eat, unable to work and very much alone.

The chemo wreaked havoc at first, combined with the painful lesions, I got all the wierdo side effects, mouth sores, rashes, couldn't eat, couldn't even swallow.  Lost 10 more pounds.  They just gave me tons of oxycodone and told me to take it.  I did, I had to.

I had help from my friends, buying groceries, walking my dog, making sure I was ok.  Mom came out from Ca. and saved my life, cooking, crocheting and being a general mom.  It makes all the difference to wake up to the smell of homemade chicken soup on the stove.  It changed everything.  I started to feel better, appetite back, chemo shrinking the lesions and 3 weeks later, back to work.  It took weeks to gain strength again and it's still not back all the way yet.  Trying to run for the subway with weak, skinny legs made of rubber-not good.  I run late for pretty much everything now.

I move again April 1st.  On top of treatment I was running around looking at crappy apartments on the edges of town that I can afford, that take dogs.  Honey is no way leaving me now.  Too much loss already, she stays with me.  I may have found a decent studio, I've applied with mom as co signer- disability and working off the books is no good for getting a lease in my name.  Feeling low and poor, so nice.  I miss joy.  I miss being happy and free.  I feel so isolated and sad now.  That was close.  Cancer sucks.  It is coming at me faster and more aggressively than ever and I have to face it.  I may not have alot of time left.  How do I wish to spend it?  Not with 5 roommates in Brooklyn, that's for sure.  And not without my dog.

I'm feeling better and after I write this, I'm off to teach a private and then go to work at the bar.  Like nothing happened.  I am feeling better and getting stronger by the day once again.  Took a Yin yoga class last night which was excruciating but ultimately felt better for it.  It's frustrating to watch my practice diminish but need to leave the ego behind and stop worrying about judgements of others, and myself.  Now is the time to be extra kind and forgiving.

This is life.  This is what happens.  Death, disease, loss, separation.  All inevitable.  It makes the joyful moments so, so much more valuable.  If I had one regret it would be that I didn't see it sooner.
Famous last words.

Losing Stuff

Non attachment, or vairagya, is one of the yoga sutras (not unlike the commandments).  It's in there amongst ahimsa/non violence and abhyasa/practice.  It's deeply connected to the practice part.  Without constant practice we will just keep hanging on to the stuff that's not working.


I am convinced that my lesson in this life is non attachment.  I have lost everything like 4 times over now. Is it "loss" or what I perceive as loss?  Did I really need it?
Was I just rescued from my own perceptions of what I NEED?  What I WANT? 


..."But Daddy, I want it NOW!!!"  Veruca Salt, Willie Wonka.  And me, all the time.


I've been taking stock of all of the things that I have lost recently due to this crap cancer.  The list includes 26 lymphnodes, 1 breast and 2 boyfriends.
There are more things, but really, do we need things?  What makes us happy?  Is it really our idea of happiness or someone else's?  Did that idea come from a box or the internet?  Who needs any of it?  Actually, I do miss the lymphnodes, but I digress.


The latest loss will be my dog Honey.  I just can't keep her any longer and it's breaking my heart.  We got her as a couple and it took 2 of us to get her where she is now compared to the skinny neurotic waif she was when she was found on death row at Animal Control 3 years ago.  The "guy"  bailed on both of us.  I lost him and lost our home a few months ago.
I couldn't afford a decent place in NYC on my own, let alone with a dog!


But I did, and I do it.  Her vet check ups are current.   Heartworm/flea meds are ordered online, she gets Wellness canned food, no wheat, no chemicals, and no dry food.  She has boxes of toys, clothes, brushes, shampoos healthier than mine.  Treats, raw hides and suppliments, oh my.  I love getting her stuff, making her happy.  It's also a bribe to keep her quiet.  We've bonded, she loves me and I love her.  She follows me everywhere, talks to me constantly-I think she's telling dumb jokes, mostly about David, but don't speak dog so can't be sure.  She cries softly when I pet her.
She sleeps next to me at night.


I put down a hefty dog deposit for this incredible studio sublet that I lucked into lately.  It's beautiful here.  it's also a commute across the river and impossible for me to get home between jobs.  It's sometimes 10-12 hours out, welcome to freelance.  Not to mention, the crap cancer is back.  Chemo again if this therapy isn't working.  A reality.  "Think positive" they say.


Honey is howling/barking like mad while I'm out.  My dick neighbors went straight to MGMT and I received 2 formal complaints.  I hired a dog walker.
Her humane no bark collar arrived in the mail today from Amazon.com.  $50 more.  Ka-ching. 


I am exhausted and feel like a prisoner here, I don't dare go out at night in case she pulls another midnight bark fest.


She needs more attention and training.  I move again in April, no idea where.  I have to let her go.  Here's hoping there is someone out there who will love her as much as I do.  Until then I will keep her.

She's got her eye on me right  now, feigning sleep but making sure I'm not leaving.
Oh God.




Loss.  Vairagya.  You choose.


How did my mom do this with 2 kids-and make it?