Nina Foxx's Blog, page 5
September 25, 2015
No Shortage of Blessings- Just Short of Crazy-The Stage Play
I wrote Just Short of Crazy: The Stage Play years ago. After mounting Marrying Up, The Stageplay, I learned so much about taking a story from book to stage. In Closer to Crazy (Web Series), I took the same characters and continued their story. Watching them on stage left me with some unanswered questions for some of the characters and I was fortunate enough to be able to see it play out on film.
BY the end of the process, I was full of love for the theater, and absolutely cognizant of the amazing opportunity and abilities that I had gained during the process of taking the characters I'd dreamed up and REALLY breathing life into them. It was as if I had created a pop up book that had somehow become three dimensional. Something about having to shop for clothing for a character you created makes you really think about them and their lives and motivations in a way I had never before. Most writers never get to go through this process. So often, if your work gets optioned, you sell the rights to your story and then the producers and screenwriters take over and maybe you get to be a consultant in the process.
When I moved to Seattle, I was fortunate enough to meet another playwright and producer, classically trained, that had a similar love for the stage. She fell in love with Just Short of Crazy and encouraged me to keep developing the story. There is so much that changes from book to page. In a book, all you have to do is write it and it shall be done. In a play, you are constrained and challenged by the stage. Each scene change can potentially mean a set change, and that can get cost prohibitive. Stage challenges you to really take a close look at what information in your story is important and what moves the story forward. It also makes you learn to rely on you actors to convey some things that you might otherwise write. Stage challenges the writer to think about which angle they are going to approach the story from and back story often falls away.
In the first play, I was really worried about set. One thing she said to me was that I shouldn't worry about all that. If your play is well written, many of the details I think I need to paint will be conveyed by the talents of my actors. This forced me to think about my own experiences as a theater-goer. Of course, I love Broadway style productions with huge beautiful sets and moveable stages, but I can't say I enjoyed most of those productions more than the ones I saw in feeder theaters done on a more intimate scale and in black box theaters. When I thought about it, one of the best plays I'd seen was done in the round, and the only set pieces were a chalk circle drawn on the ground and a djembe drum.
At the end of all of that, we decided to do a reading of Just Short of Crazy this upcoming weekend with the purpose being to workshop the piece with the intent of doing a full production in February,
The first time I did this, the whole idea grew legs. I looked up and there were forty people working for me, the audience was full and the curtain was about to go up. I remember feeling so overwhelmed and amazingly blessed. I stood back stage and realized that God may give you the talent, but you can do nothing alone. Just as no work is without faith, you cannot clap with only one hand. Things happened because of God's grace and the other people in my life who either believed in me or were too afraid of me to tell me I was crazy. This is happening again.
So for this weekend, here's the cast. I'm grateful to them for lending their talents without knowing if they will end up in the final production. We'll have a limited number of audience members so we can work on the script.
Just Short of Crazy: The Stage Play
Written, produced & directed by Nina Foxx
Produced by by: Alma Person
Cast:
Alexis Pearson Dedra Woods
Angel Alex Ung
Athena Montague Cynthia Andrews
Ayzah Brown Camille Campbell
Erica Danela Butler
Mama Cheryl Chapman
Monty Miller Dan Williams
Paris Montague https://www.facebook.com/brooke.shell
Prince Jones https://www.facebook.com/sean.winter....
Remedy Brown Stacey Washington
Sarah Sarah Schweid
Narrator Rob Person/Barry Jennings
BY the end of the process, I was full of love for the theater, and absolutely cognizant of the amazing opportunity and abilities that I had gained during the process of taking the characters I'd dreamed up and REALLY breathing life into them. It was as if I had created a pop up book that had somehow become three dimensional. Something about having to shop for clothing for a character you created makes you really think about them and their lives and motivations in a way I had never before. Most writers never get to go through this process. So often, if your work gets optioned, you sell the rights to your story and then the producers and screenwriters take over and maybe you get to be a consultant in the process.
When I moved to Seattle, I was fortunate enough to meet another playwright and producer, classically trained, that had a similar love for the stage. She fell in love with Just Short of Crazy and encouraged me to keep developing the story. There is so much that changes from book to page. In a book, all you have to do is write it and it shall be done. In a play, you are constrained and challenged by the stage. Each scene change can potentially mean a set change, and that can get cost prohibitive. Stage challenges you to really take a close look at what information in your story is important and what moves the story forward. It also makes you learn to rely on you actors to convey some things that you might otherwise write. Stage challenges the writer to think about which angle they are going to approach the story from and back story often falls away.
In the first play, I was really worried about set. One thing she said to me was that I shouldn't worry about all that. If your play is well written, many of the details I think I need to paint will be conveyed by the talents of my actors. This forced me to think about my own experiences as a theater-goer. Of course, I love Broadway style productions with huge beautiful sets and moveable stages, but I can't say I enjoyed most of those productions more than the ones I saw in feeder theaters done on a more intimate scale and in black box theaters. When I thought about it, one of the best plays I'd seen was done in the round, and the only set pieces were a chalk circle drawn on the ground and a djembe drum.
At the end of all of that, we decided to do a reading of Just Short of Crazy this upcoming weekend with the purpose being to workshop the piece with the intent of doing a full production in February,
The first time I did this, the whole idea grew legs. I looked up and there were forty people working for me, the audience was full and the curtain was about to go up. I remember feeling so overwhelmed and amazingly blessed. I stood back stage and realized that God may give you the talent, but you can do nothing alone. Just as no work is without faith, you cannot clap with only one hand. Things happened because of God's grace and the other people in my life who either believed in me or were too afraid of me to tell me I was crazy. This is happening again.
So for this weekend, here's the cast. I'm grateful to them for lending their talents without knowing if they will end up in the final production. We'll have a limited number of audience members so we can work on the script.
Just Short of Crazy: The Stage Play
Written, produced & directed by Nina Foxx
Produced by by: Alma Person
Cast:
Alexis Pearson Dedra Woods
Angel Alex Ung
Athena Montague Cynthia Andrews
Ayzah Brown Camille Campbell
Erica Danela Butler
Mama Cheryl Chapman
Monty Miller Dan Williams
Paris Montague https://www.facebook.com/brooke.shell
Prince Jones https://www.facebook.com/sean.winter....
Remedy Brown Stacey Washington
Sarah Sarah Schweid
Narrator Rob Person/Barry Jennings
September 7, 2015
My Grandmother's Gift
For Labor Day, and other holidays, my house ends up being the house where you can go to eat and hang out. Ever since I became an adult, it has been this way. I don't know if it's because I moved away from home after college, or because I'm just social, but having friends over has always been one of the things I enjoyed about holidays, any holiday.
On the menu today: Ribs, and Jerk Chicken, Cornbread (which I can't eat), BBQ Beans and fresh grilled corn.
Living away from the proverbial "Home", that place where you grew up, where your parents live, forces you to rethink family. Your blood relatives will always be your family, but 2500 miles between you and your kin forces you to create a new kind of family, one filled with people you collect in your travels, people you feel some kind of kinship with. Distance forces you to curate your collection of friends as others might an art collection.
Desert: Some spades, adult beverages, Cards Against Humanity and trash-talking served with a dash of "what do you think about..." and "what should I do about...?"
It's good to come together in the good times. I have found that my home, whether it has been in Arizona, New Jersey, Austin, San Antonio or California, has been a safe haven not just for me and my immediate friends, but for their friends as well, especially in times of trouble, too. On 9/11, My house was New York Central. I can't recall if anyone called me on that day and asked permission, but as the towers fell, Expatriated New Yorkers showed up at my door and we watched the news coverage together, then stared at the replays all day in disbelief, alternating between crying and our remembrances of a city that would never be the same.
There were similar scenes for Katrina and Rita. Friends from the coast evacuated to my house, some bringing people I didn't know with them. I put them up, too. We filled two houses with folks sleeping everywhere there was an empty space. We watched the news coverage of the drowning of New Orleans and cried, together.
I have blessed to have great friends. It's easy to forget how people make you feel with miles between you, but fortunately for me, I have collected some people that make me feel good most of the time. It doesn't matter if we haven't seen each other for awhile, when we get together, we tend to pick up right where we left off.
Beverage: Homemade wine
My grandmother's house was like this, too. I have dusty memories of her always having a house full, everybody with a plate, or more likely, a jelly jar full of some brown homemade liquid that she ladled out of a big clay vessel. People would walk to her house from what felt like miles around. These people had lived near each other for decades. Their ancestors shared the same heritage, both African and Muskogee, ad everyone was related to everyone by either marriage, blood or choice, many times removed. She died when I was fifteen, and I never got the recipe for the brew since I was never old enough to drink it myself. Folks would come from the surrounding area and she would give them a mason jar full of her brew for a dollar a jar. That was a lot of money, more than a pack of cigarettes, and I have many memories of her removing a white handkerchief from her bosom, untying it, and revealing a wad of dollar bills that she would lock up next to her gun at night.
Was my grandmother a bootlegger? Probably, but her whatever else she was, she was a creator of community. The brew created a reason for people to gather and play bid whist and spades and dominoes and talk. They brought their problems and talked them out. Grandma ladled the brew and laced it with a little advice. Her house was the center of a community.
Somehow, I ended up making my own brew to share with my friends. Maybe it was an ancestral memory, or maybe all of those chemistry classes, or maybe just memories of my grandmother lurking in the recesses of my mind, but my husband and I make wine that we share with our friends when we gather. Unlike Grandma, we don't charge by the jelly jar. Inflation would have use charging seven or eight dollars a glass. In grandma's day, people would save their money for their brew. They'd roll their own cigarettes and gladly spend their hard-earned dollars with her instead, opting to spend the afternoon on her porch or enjoying the warmth of the fireplace that warmed her home.
My parents migrated north, then we migrated west, and friends can no longer walk down the road to Grandma's house for some conversation and some brew. My parents are long gone, so "home" is no longer even there. The house I grew up in has been subdivided and is now a multi-family home. Now, home is a theoretical place, one that exists where I exist, where friends gather and sip the new brew that we make, and my friends bring me their dollars in the form of laughter. We may have thrown off many of the things that Grandma took with her from the reservation and sharecropper lands, and we don't live next to the same family that we have lived next to for decades, but we still find a way to create our own kind of community.
On the menu today: Ribs, and Jerk Chicken, Cornbread (which I can't eat), BBQ Beans and fresh grilled corn.
Living away from the proverbial "Home", that place where you grew up, where your parents live, forces you to rethink family. Your blood relatives will always be your family, but 2500 miles between you and your kin forces you to create a new kind of family, one filled with people you collect in your travels, people you feel some kind of kinship with. Distance forces you to curate your collection of friends as others might an art collection.
Desert: Some spades, adult beverages, Cards Against Humanity and trash-talking served with a dash of "what do you think about..." and "what should I do about...?"
It's good to come together in the good times. I have found that my home, whether it has been in Arizona, New Jersey, Austin, San Antonio or California, has been a safe haven not just for me and my immediate friends, but for their friends as well, especially in times of trouble, too. On 9/11, My house was New York Central. I can't recall if anyone called me on that day and asked permission, but as the towers fell, Expatriated New Yorkers showed up at my door and we watched the news coverage together, then stared at the replays all day in disbelief, alternating between crying and our remembrances of a city that would never be the same.
There were similar scenes for Katrina and Rita. Friends from the coast evacuated to my house, some bringing people I didn't know with them. I put them up, too. We filled two houses with folks sleeping everywhere there was an empty space. We watched the news coverage of the drowning of New Orleans and cried, together.
I have blessed to have great friends. It's easy to forget how people make you feel with miles between you, but fortunately for me, I have collected some people that make me feel good most of the time. It doesn't matter if we haven't seen each other for awhile, when we get together, we tend to pick up right where we left off.
Beverage: Homemade wine
My grandmother's house was like this, too. I have dusty memories of her always having a house full, everybody with a plate, or more likely, a jelly jar full of some brown homemade liquid that she ladled out of a big clay vessel. People would walk to her house from what felt like miles around. These people had lived near each other for decades. Their ancestors shared the same heritage, both African and Muskogee, ad everyone was related to everyone by either marriage, blood or choice, many times removed. She died when I was fifteen, and I never got the recipe for the brew since I was never old enough to drink it myself. Folks would come from the surrounding area and she would give them a mason jar full of her brew for a dollar a jar. That was a lot of money, more than a pack of cigarettes, and I have many memories of her removing a white handkerchief from her bosom, untying it, and revealing a wad of dollar bills that she would lock up next to her gun at night.
Was my grandmother a bootlegger? Probably, but her whatever else she was, she was a creator of community. The brew created a reason for people to gather and play bid whist and spades and dominoes and talk. They brought their problems and talked them out. Grandma ladled the brew and laced it with a little advice. Her house was the center of a community.
Somehow, I ended up making my own brew to share with my friends. Maybe it was an ancestral memory, or maybe all of those chemistry classes, or maybe just memories of my grandmother lurking in the recesses of my mind, but my husband and I make wine that we share with our friends when we gather. Unlike Grandma, we don't charge by the jelly jar. Inflation would have use charging seven or eight dollars a glass. In grandma's day, people would save their money for their brew. They'd roll their own cigarettes and gladly spend their hard-earned dollars with her instead, opting to spend the afternoon on her porch or enjoying the warmth of the fireplace that warmed her home.
My parents migrated north, then we migrated west, and friends can no longer walk down the road to Grandma's house for some conversation and some brew. My parents are long gone, so "home" is no longer even there. The house I grew up in has been subdivided and is now a multi-family home. Now, home is a theoretical place, one that exists where I exist, where friends gather and sip the new brew that we make, and my friends bring me their dollars in the form of laughter. We may have thrown off many of the things that Grandma took with her from the reservation and sharecropper lands, and we don't live next to the same family that we have lived next to for decades, but we still find a way to create our own kind of community.
July 21, 2015
June 12, 2015
Adjust.....and eat the damned cake!
When I woke up from my surgery, I was clear as a bell. I guess the anesthesiologist did not lie when he said he was the most important person in the room. I felt no pain, but enjoyed a deep annoyance of the tubes that were coming out of either side of my body. I had Jackson-Pratt drains attached to me, and they did quite a job of making my feel like a Cyborg or a person in the last installment of the Divergent movies, floating in the air with these tubes attached. Unlike in the movie, I didn't grab them and snatch them out. (After experiencing waking up with tubes, I must tell you that those characters in any movies that do that are REALLY bad ass.)
In my head, I felt as if I had been tied to the bed by the Lilliputians, so I opted for as little movement as possible. That only lasted so long. They were pumping fluids into me like I was a dry swimming pool and the fluid had to go somewhere. Before long, I had to pee. I had to get up. In fact, I was commanded to do so.
I will spare you those details. I also had a bandage around my chest. I was curious, but was afraid to look. Because the doctor had placed tissue expanders, I was pleasingly not flat as I imagined I would be, but I really wanted to know what was under there. I opted to wait to see my surgeon and ask her what I had been dying to know. "Do I have nipples?"
She didn't even look up. "No."
I only thought "damn" for a moment.
One damn to be exact. I refused to dwell on it. The tubes hurt too bad.
That was just about 3 weeks ago, and I am adjusting to my body. The tubes are gone and so is that annoyance. I had them for two weeks. Makes getting dressed REALLY hard. Lots of comedy. (Maybe I will tell you about the time I had the bright idea to pin the drains to my pants. It kind of made suspenders and I didn't realize it until I had to use the bathroom. Awkward!) Now, I have to wear a crazy looking surgical bra, limiting my fashion choices (but far less than the drains), but that's okay, too, because I am here.
If you have been following this blog, you are probably saying "damn," yourself, or you might be terrified. Some of you are scheduling mammograms and doing self-exams nightly. Guys might trying to do exams for their women. Breathe, people. There is a bright side to all of this.
The following is terrible. I'm warning you now, but it is a benefit nonetheless. My friends know I was in training to compete as a Figure Athlete. I was supposed to compete on June 20th (Since I am banned from the gym for another few weeks, I won't be doing that at this moment.) I'd been training hard, and had gotten down to about 16% bodyfat. I'm 5'8", and I had built 152 lbs of lean muscle mass. (That meant I'd actually have to lose some muscle once I started cutting fat for the show). To achieve those results, you absolutely must eat clean. For me, that meant I was eating foods that were natural and not processed. Chicken, fish, lean meats. Fresh vegetables, sweet potatoes, asparagus, broccoli and green beans. Low sugar fruit--Blueberry, strawberries, grapefruit, and the occasional Granny smith apple. NO SUGAR. NO DAIRY. NO BREAD. NO PASTA. (Basically, nothing that tasted really great).
Eating clean means in lunch meetings, when everyone else was eating the delicious sandwich, complete with the huge chocolate chip cookie they provided, or better yet, the fancy pizza, I was not. Instead I was running to the microwave to heat up my precisely measured meal.
How is this related to my diagnoses? Simple. When something like this happens, people cook for you. You get a pass to relax the rules a little, and I did. I received my Cancer Cakes. Comfort food is called that because it makes you feel better. If you have a cold, chicken soup soothes your aches and pain. If you have cancer, carbs are the answer. My friends, my sisters...they made me cakes and pies and I allowed myself to have some. Did they make me feel better? HELL YEAH. They made my kids feel better, too. Dumb? Maybe? But there is nothing like a little life threatening disease and amputation to put things in perspective. Sure, my progress might slow down (or in my head, I would blow up like a balloon if I ate a piece of cake), but some things make you realize that life is just too damned short to not eat the damned cake. I also know that when I put on my bathing suit this summer, people are going to be too busy staring at my chest to notice whether I have a six pack or not.
Speaking of that, I am adjusting to my new, albeit temporary, shape. Because I can't exercise, I am losing weight I'm trying to stick to my clean eating (other than the occasional bite), so I hope I'm losing more fat than muscle. Truthfully, I'd would have to lose some anyway when I started to cut before a show. Now that my old boobs are out of the way, I had some epiphanies.
They were a little (ahem) long in the tooth.
My foobs (fake boobs = foobs) are placed where they are supposed to be. Who knew there was an actual formula for that? Post babies, that isn't where they were living, and without them, I have discovered that...I...have...actual....abs. I just couldn't see them.
And those nighties that just wouldn't fit right because the tops were never in the right place? (Even if they were, my body wouldn't stay in that place. Visual.....visual..) They fit perfectly now. Bathing suits are different, too. When I tie them behind my neck, I no longer feel like the straps are fishing wire trying to cut into the back of my neck because of the weight of my... endowments.
That being said (if I didn't have to wear this damn surgical garment.. built like chain mail, it's an extreme runner's exercise bra), I could respectfully go braless...because skin expanders don't move. Not even a jiggle. It's like I have two stones strapped to my chest. I haven't been able to do that since...well, never.
I have a few more surgeries to go. The next one is tentatively in August, when they will exchange the expanders for implants. When that happens I'll adjust again, and gratefully accept my cancer cakes and adjust, because that is what he have to do to keep living and loving, adjust. But in the meantime, I think I'm going to give button down shirts another go. Previously, they didn't work for me too well. Buttons would always gape open. Ladies, I know you will get it.
In my head, I felt as if I had been tied to the bed by the Lilliputians, so I opted for as little movement as possible. That only lasted so long. They were pumping fluids into me like I was a dry swimming pool and the fluid had to go somewhere. Before long, I had to pee. I had to get up. In fact, I was commanded to do so.
I will spare you those details. I also had a bandage around my chest. I was curious, but was afraid to look. Because the doctor had placed tissue expanders, I was pleasingly not flat as I imagined I would be, but I really wanted to know what was under there. I opted to wait to see my surgeon and ask her what I had been dying to know. "Do I have nipples?"
She didn't even look up. "No."
I only thought "damn" for a moment.
One damn to be exact. I refused to dwell on it. The tubes hurt too bad.
That was just about 3 weeks ago, and I am adjusting to my body. The tubes are gone and so is that annoyance. I had them for two weeks. Makes getting dressed REALLY hard. Lots of comedy. (Maybe I will tell you about the time I had the bright idea to pin the drains to my pants. It kind of made suspenders and I didn't realize it until I had to use the bathroom. Awkward!) Now, I have to wear a crazy looking surgical bra, limiting my fashion choices (but far less than the drains), but that's okay, too, because I am here.
If you have been following this blog, you are probably saying "damn," yourself, or you might be terrified. Some of you are scheduling mammograms and doing self-exams nightly. Guys might trying to do exams for their women. Breathe, people. There is a bright side to all of this.
The following is terrible. I'm warning you now, but it is a benefit nonetheless. My friends know I was in training to compete as a Figure Athlete. I was supposed to compete on June 20th (Since I am banned from the gym for another few weeks, I won't be doing that at this moment.) I'd been training hard, and had gotten down to about 16% bodyfat. I'm 5'8", and I had built 152 lbs of lean muscle mass. (That meant I'd actually have to lose some muscle once I started cutting fat for the show). To achieve those results, you absolutely must eat clean. For me, that meant I was eating foods that were natural and not processed. Chicken, fish, lean meats. Fresh vegetables, sweet potatoes, asparagus, broccoli and green beans. Low sugar fruit--Blueberry, strawberries, grapefruit, and the occasional Granny smith apple. NO SUGAR. NO DAIRY. NO BREAD. NO PASTA. (Basically, nothing that tasted really great).
Eating clean means in lunch meetings, when everyone else was eating the delicious sandwich, complete with the huge chocolate chip cookie they provided, or better yet, the fancy pizza, I was not. Instead I was running to the microwave to heat up my precisely measured meal.
How is this related to my diagnoses? Simple. When something like this happens, people cook for you. You get a pass to relax the rules a little, and I did. I received my Cancer Cakes. Comfort food is called that because it makes you feel better. If you have a cold, chicken soup soothes your aches and pain. If you have cancer, carbs are the answer. My friends, my sisters...they made me cakes and pies and I allowed myself to have some. Did they make me feel better? HELL YEAH. They made my kids feel better, too. Dumb? Maybe? But there is nothing like a little life threatening disease and amputation to put things in perspective. Sure, my progress might slow down (or in my head, I would blow up like a balloon if I ate a piece of cake), but some things make you realize that life is just too damned short to not eat the damned cake. I also know that when I put on my bathing suit this summer, people are going to be too busy staring at my chest to notice whether I have a six pack or not.
Speaking of that, I am adjusting to my new, albeit temporary, shape. Because I can't exercise, I am losing weight I'm trying to stick to my clean eating (other than the occasional bite), so I hope I'm losing more fat than muscle. Truthfully, I'd would have to lose some anyway when I started to cut before a show. Now that my old boobs are out of the way, I had some epiphanies.
They were a little (ahem) long in the tooth.
My foobs (fake boobs = foobs) are placed where they are supposed to be. Who knew there was an actual formula for that? Post babies, that isn't where they were living, and without them, I have discovered that...I...have...actual....abs. I just couldn't see them.
And those nighties that just wouldn't fit right because the tops were never in the right place? (Even if they were, my body wouldn't stay in that place. Visual.....visual..) They fit perfectly now. Bathing suits are different, too. When I tie them behind my neck, I no longer feel like the straps are fishing wire trying to cut into the back of my neck because of the weight of my... endowments.
That being said (if I didn't have to wear this damn surgical garment.. built like chain mail, it's an extreme runner's exercise bra), I could respectfully go braless...because skin expanders don't move. Not even a jiggle. It's like I have two stones strapped to my chest. I haven't been able to do that since...well, never.
I have a few more surgeries to go. The next one is tentatively in August, when they will exchange the expanders for implants. When that happens I'll adjust again, and gratefully accept my cancer cakes and adjust, because that is what he have to do to keep living and loving, adjust. But in the meantime, I think I'm going to give button down shirts another go. Previously, they didn't work for me too well. Buttons would always gape open. Ladies, I know you will get it.
May 31, 2015
I accept my blessings
My husband laid 4 quarters on the table yesterday, lined up in a straight line, and proposed a toast. The quarters measured almost 12cm across, the size of the cancer removed from my body. He toasted the blessing of clear margins and lymph nodes, and i almost cried. I was almost brought to tears because he gets it. I've had two weeks of people talking in hushed tones around me, alternated with me showing my new chest to anyone who asked. People who don't know me and my family well seemPerplexed about my joy. I met with my doctor to review my pathology report and listened intently when she told me that they couldn't see anything like this on imaging. There was no way they could see this much disease. They also couldn't see the rare melanoma that was Inside one of my breasts. They couldn't see that one of the suckers was trying to kill me and the other had been laying in wait, slowly formulating a backup plan should it's partner fail. I am a rational woman, so of course I came home and googled, binged and searched every line in my report. I'mNot the type to leave my final conclusions based on one words from one source.
They may not have been able to see, but I could clearly see the blessings. I may be a rational, logical person, but I am also (finally) smart enough to realize that there are some things I will never understand.
It is a blessing that a random doctor advised me to have an MRI even though my mammogram was normal.It is a blessing that I actually did it. (I'm a little stubborn)It is a blessing that I was born when I was. Ten years ago, they wouldn't have been able to see my disease, and I wouldn't have had this choice. I would have been waiting until a much later stage and would need chemotherapy and radiation.It is a blessing that I have such good health insurance, in a country without socialized medicine. I didn't have to wait, I chose my surgery date, the basic course of action, and my doctors.
Many would believe that all of these things lining up were a result of things going right in the universe, but I know better. These things are blessings I was given, and I accept and am thankful for them.
They may not have been able to see, but I could clearly see the blessings. I may be a rational, logical person, but I am also (finally) smart enough to realize that there are some things I will never understand.
It is a blessing that a random doctor advised me to have an MRI even though my mammogram was normal.It is a blessing that I actually did it. (I'm a little stubborn)It is a blessing that I was born when I was. Ten years ago, they wouldn't have been able to see my disease, and I wouldn't have had this choice. I would have been waiting until a much later stage and would need chemotherapy and radiation.It is a blessing that I have such good health insurance, in a country without socialized medicine. I didn't have to wait, I chose my surgery date, the basic course of action, and my doctors.
Many would believe that all of these things lining up were a result of things going right in the universe, but I know better. These things are blessings I was given, and I accept and am thankful for them.
May 26, 2015
Part 3 Cherry Blossom Eyelashes
Funny things happen when you tell people you have cancer, especially breast cancer. They give you "the face". The face is interesting, because it's not like a pity face or even a sorry face, it's a face that says "I'm scared shitless. What happened? If this happened to you, it can happen to me." And it can, for no reason whatsoever. That's where the scared shitless part comes in. Then they want to know details, not because they really want to know, but because they need to do their own mental checklist and measure it against yours, to see if we've done the same things.Then you tell people what you've decided to do, and it really doesn't matter if you have no logical other choice (like me), or you have options, a look of disbelief will come over their faces and you get either "girl, I don't know if I could make that choice" which is of course, ridiculous, because, of course they could. If someone says "you do this thing or you will die," dammit, you do that thing. The other response is "I don't think I can take away my womenhood." This is an interesting one. My tits are not my womanhood. My swagger is my womanhood. My walk, the way I look over my shoulder or turn a phrase, and maybe the way I lower my Cherry blossom laden eyelashes and then blink two times slow while my lips are moist when I want my man to do something. And the truth is most of my friends are getting long in the tooth, so the womanhood that we think we are trying to preserve look like arrows damn near resting on your knees, so new ones
Could be a welcome change. When they told me, I did not fret about any of the above. Instead, the anesthesia was the thing, and needed to have a word with the anesthesiologist. It did not matter that the root of fear was based on on something irrational . It did not matter that my real fear was based in an event that happened almost 50 years ago, one that I did not even witness. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I remembered being told that my mother went into cardiac arrest during some typeOf cancer related surgery. It did not matter that so much time had passed and that the science of anesthesia had changed dramatically, or that a multitude of advances had been made in oncology. It also didn't matter than I was much more fit than she had been, that I had been working on being a figure athlete so much that people now looked at me and said Things like "you're kind ofStrong-looking for a girl ", and I was in excellent cardiovascular health, I was still scared. Nor did it matter that I had been praying unceasingly; the doctor was not God. I still needed to let the anesthesiologist know what time it was. He sheepishly entered the room. I told him I had two daughters and three sons and they needed me. I ToldHim That I had read everything I could about what they were going to do to me. I told him to list the drugs he intended to use, and then to his surprise, I discussed their side effects. I discussed my weight and my bodyfat percentage and how that might affect my metabolism of the drugs. He listened and then he asked "what don't you like most about anesthesia?"I paused, thought a second and told him that I did not like lost time. That and the absence of dreams. He nodded and looked thoughtful."Your one job is to wake me up. I have a book deadline."He smiled. "Thank you for letting me know this. You're a smart woman. I'm the most important person in the room, " He said. I dreamed.And then I woke up.
Could be a welcome change. When they told me, I did not fret about any of the above. Instead, the anesthesia was the thing, and needed to have a word with the anesthesiologist. It did not matter that the root of fear was based on on something irrational . It did not matter that my real fear was based in an event that happened almost 50 years ago, one that I did not even witness. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I remembered being told that my mother went into cardiac arrest during some typeOf cancer related surgery. It did not matter that so much time had passed and that the science of anesthesia had changed dramatically, or that a multitude of advances had been made in oncology. It also didn't matter than I was much more fit than she had been, that I had been working on being a figure athlete so much that people now looked at me and said Things like "you're kind ofStrong-looking for a girl ", and I was in excellent cardiovascular health, I was still scared. Nor did it matter that I had been praying unceasingly; the doctor was not God. I still needed to let the anesthesiologist know what time it was. He sheepishly entered the room. I told him I had two daughters and three sons and they needed me. I ToldHim That I had read everything I could about what they were going to do to me. I told him to list the drugs he intended to use, and then to his surprise, I discussed their side effects. I discussed my weight and my bodyfat percentage and how that might affect my metabolism of the drugs. He listened and then he asked "what don't you like most about anesthesia?"I paused, thought a second and told him that I did not like lost time. That and the absence of dreams. He nodded and looked thoughtful."Your one job is to wake me up. I have a book deadline."He smiled. "Thank you for letting me know this. You're a smart woman. I'm the most important person in the room, " He said. I dreamed.And then I woke up.
May 24, 2015
If thy boobies offend thee
There was no lump. No bump. No discharge. No itch. No shadow. No image. There was only a hunch. The doctor thought that what she saw was atypical hyperplasia, but she wasn't sure. That's not cancer, she said, but precancerous and it would have to come out. I was good with whatever wasn't supposed to be there being in a test tube . I was not good with being asleep to have things happen. For my first and second biopsy, I was awake and talking. The second one was actually classified as a partial mastectomy, but I was allowed to talk to the surgeon throughout the entire procedure. My biggest question? If they can take fat from your butt and put it in your face, why couldn't they do that for your breasts?The answer: Because. Just. Because. I was going to have a hole. Good thing my breasts don't define who I am. Good thing my man isn't a boob man. The margins were not clear after that procedure. That meant that when my Mimime asked me, I had to tell her that no, they had not gotten it all. They also told me that what they thought was hyperplasia appeared instead to be early stage cancer.
My choices were simple. I could let them take another chunk out of my breast, now much smaller than the other, add some radiation and medication and "rearrange" the other to match. This was not guaranteed, if they couldn't get clearl margins, you only get three tries, I would be facing mastectomy. Since reconstruction was not a successful on radiated skin, they would have to perform reconstruction using skin they took from elsewhere, eg, my stomach or my back. My muscles would be compromised and I could kiss my bikinis and my figure competitions goodbye.
The other option was to go right to mastectomy with reconstruction. No radiation, no skin flap needed. Problem here/--the surgery was too long for me to be awake.
Images of 1960s mastectomy lurked in my mind. Women severely disfigured and forever in pain. This was not how I pictured me. I was not the Hunchboob of Notre Dame. I am a shoe diva looking good in a bikini at 50.
I so couldn't picture myself stressing every six months because of what might be on a breast exam. Or my kids mourning me becauSe things had turned aggressive, I'd lived that and didn't want the same script different cast.Ever since my daughter was born, I'd said the same prayer every single night. I'd asked God to let me live long enough to see them grow into adults. Maybe I should have been asking for no cancer. God has given me what I'd asked for, and there was only one decision that could possibly be made. If thine boobies offend thee, cast them out. Out they would go.
To be continued
My choices were simple. I could let them take another chunk out of my breast, now much smaller than the other, add some radiation and medication and "rearrange" the other to match. This was not guaranteed, if they couldn't get clearl margins, you only get three tries, I would be facing mastectomy. Since reconstruction was not a successful on radiated skin, they would have to perform reconstruction using skin they took from elsewhere, eg, my stomach or my back. My muscles would be compromised and I could kiss my bikinis and my figure competitions goodbye.
The other option was to go right to mastectomy with reconstruction. No radiation, no skin flap needed. Problem here/--the surgery was too long for me to be awake.
Images of 1960s mastectomy lurked in my mind. Women severely disfigured and forever in pain. This was not how I pictured me. I was not the Hunchboob of Notre Dame. I am a shoe diva looking good in a bikini at 50.
I so couldn't picture myself stressing every six months because of what might be on a breast exam. Or my kids mourning me becauSe things had turned aggressive, I'd lived that and didn't want the same script different cast.Ever since my daughter was born, I'd said the same prayer every single night. I'd asked God to let me live long enough to see them grow into adults. Maybe I should have been asking for no cancer. God has given me what I'd asked for, and there was only one decision that could possibly be made. If thine boobies offend thee, cast them out. Out they would go.
To be continued
May 23, 2015
An Overachieving Between
I am an overachiever. The doctor told me that after he told me that I had breast cancer. He said if I had to have it (as if), I'd picked the best one possible. That doctor's statement is how I started my 2015. That was not what I'd planned. I'd planned a year of writing two books, a patent at work and training to compete as a figure athlete in the summer, followed by a bang-up bash to celebrate my milestone birthday in a pretty place in October. I'd planned college trips and dance recitals with my children, and a beach holiday with tons of friends. Here I was, in the best shape of my life, yet I was diagnosed with the disease whose mention made every woman and quite a few men take a serious deep breath and the blood to drain from many a face.
I've always known that breast cancer was coming for me. I have lived like one of TheBetween as described in Tannanarice Due's novel, someone who cheats death and because death can never be cheated, it is always lurking, waiting, just out of sight, except my cheat was on a generational level.
My mother succumbed to breast cancer at 38. When she died, they made me go canvassing for donations for the American Cancer Society from door to door. Who would turn down a cute seven year old bearing the message that her mother had died? What kind of heartless person would that be? Besides, if I did that, maybe the cancer gene would skip me and my life would be spared.
I was not scared. I started mammograms at 26, and had 4 biopsies of suspicious areas since then. I procrastinated every year, sometimes scheduling my yearly dose of poking and boob squishing months after the doctor ordered it, as if not knowing would mean it didn't exist.Years ago, I found a lump when I was pregnant and nearly died from stress. I wrote about this in my book, Momma: Gone. My mother had been diagnosed while she was pregnant and at the time, the choice was baby, or cancer, and she chose baby.In my case, it turned out to be nothing but a clogged duct, so it wasn't long before I fell back into my false sense of security. In the back of my mind, if I did the requisite tests every year and did my monthly exams, then I couldn't get cancer. Mammography would protect me. Only, It didn't.
My fear got bigger when I turned 38. As the years progressed, I was living in more and more borrowed time, In that space between life and paralyzing worry. That changed this year. I have a great job, a loving husband and wonderful kids. What could go wrong?A doctor could suggest I have an MRI--that was the new suggestion for women like me, people with family history of breast cancer and dense breast tissue. My mammogram was normal. My ultrasound was normal. My MRI was not.
To be continued
I've always known that breast cancer was coming for me. I have lived like one of TheBetween as described in Tannanarice Due's novel, someone who cheats death and because death can never be cheated, it is always lurking, waiting, just out of sight, except my cheat was on a generational level.
My mother succumbed to breast cancer at 38. When she died, they made me go canvassing for donations for the American Cancer Society from door to door. Who would turn down a cute seven year old bearing the message that her mother had died? What kind of heartless person would that be? Besides, if I did that, maybe the cancer gene would skip me and my life would be spared.
I was not scared. I started mammograms at 26, and had 4 biopsies of suspicious areas since then. I procrastinated every year, sometimes scheduling my yearly dose of poking and boob squishing months after the doctor ordered it, as if not knowing would mean it didn't exist.Years ago, I found a lump when I was pregnant and nearly died from stress. I wrote about this in my book, Momma: Gone. My mother had been diagnosed while she was pregnant and at the time, the choice was baby, or cancer, and she chose baby.In my case, it turned out to be nothing but a clogged duct, so it wasn't long before I fell back into my false sense of security. In the back of my mind, if I did the requisite tests every year and did my monthly exams, then I couldn't get cancer. Mammography would protect me. Only, It didn't.
My fear got bigger when I turned 38. As the years progressed, I was living in more and more borrowed time, In that space between life and paralyzing worry. That changed this year. I have a great job, a loving husband and wonderful kids. What could go wrong?A doctor could suggest I have an MRI--that was the new suggestion for women like me, people with family history of breast cancer and dense breast tissue. My mammogram was normal. My ultrasound was normal. My MRI was not.
To be continued
March 8, 2015
Color, cut, clarity, brilliance and blessings
I have a friend that has the best diamond earrings. So good, In fact, that once when we went to dinner, I almost didn't hear anything she said because the color, clarity, cut and brilliance of those damned diamonds was blinding me. I was mesmerized like a cat following the beam from a flashlight. I came home from the dinner and looked at my own diamond earrings. They seemed bright enough, but still hers seemed somehow brighter. I went on line and searched for ways to make my own earrings look bigger. No luck. Then I switched to searching for ways to upgrade my earrings to bigger, shinier ones, but I was interrupted by my children. They were fighting over dishes again.
A few week later, I went out with my friends again, this time, she wore a fabulous diamond bracelet that might have been a tennis bracelet if the diamonds were half the size that they were. Each one of the stones was as big as the ones in my own diamond earrings. Again, I was mesmerized, came home and tried to see if I could take all three of my tennis bracelets, melt them, combine them, and then reset the stones to make them more eye catching. My research was once again instead interrupted by my children, one needing money, the other homework assistance.
The next time I saw my friend, I couldn't take it. She was wearing her diamonds like I wore my Fitbit. I had to compliment her, tell her about the magnificence on her arm.
She didn't reply with a thank you or a chuckle. Instead a sadness came over her. "These are heartbeat diamonds."
Well damn, I thought. Was heartbreak a new brand? What in the world had her husband done that was bad enough to warrant diamond the size of boulders yet they were still married?
When she told me, my heart broke, too. Her husband has bought her those diamonds when she lost her baby, the one thing they wanted more than anything in the world. My friend is childless. They had tried many times, but had been unable to have a child.
Her diamonds no longer seem that bright. Something about the look on her face made me feel small for covering her jewels the way I had. I thought about all of the things I could have if I didn't have kids. I realized I wanted none of them.
My children are not perfect. They get on my nerves. The teens are selfish, the younger ones messy. My Lamborghini? It's in college. My birkin is taking ACT prep and my house in Barcelona just got her braces off.
I pray for my friend and hope that she receives the blessings she wants, her own personal ball of energy to mess up her house, throw up all over her, keep her up at night and then grown up to steal her designer shoes. I also give thanks for being blessed--which I am by just having my children in my life.
I cut my eyes at them when they act up, their sibling rivalry adds color to my life, their actions bring clarity to my world--and watching them grow--pure brilliance. My children are my diamonds. Not upgradeable, and they certainly can't be reset, but still priceless.
January 8, 2015
Teen Alien Warp Signature Vapors
My home was visited by aliens last night. I recognized their warp signature from the last time they came to visit and abduct my sweet little girl to take her off to the planet Teen. Just like then, they left an evil imposter in her place. Although the imposters they left look like my children, they do not act like those sweet urchins that would listen to me and laugh with me and smell my hair lovingly when they were sleepy. Instead, these creatures are surly things that ignore my wardrobe advice and will occasionally talk back to me. Just like last time, the signs are there that the imposters have arrived. For Midime, she morphed from a sweet girl that wanted lime green walls and billowy curtains in her room, to one that leaves her bathroom a mess. No, scratch that, to a creature whose bathroom looks like Mogadishu after an air raid. I STILL have to deal with that. This time, the aliens took Minime. She was my sweet baby that always took my side and would love to just be in my presence for hours, no matter what we are doing. She was the kid that always did her chores and put her stuff in the hamper rather than on her floor. I've decided to crack down on these aliens. I've tried a lot of things. They don't have a lot of chores. I know from experience that these teen aliens have an underdeveloped pre-frontal cortex, (one of them told me that was the reason she couldn't remember things. She read it in her AP Psychology book). Because of this, they can't take more than 3 directions at a time, often make bad decisions and they forget things easily. Interestingly, they thing that the world is about "fairness" and often complain about the lack of it. I do not remember going to Planet Teen. I think the aliens must wipe your memory before they send you back. I do remember my father walking into my room and telling me that I should study hard as I needed to be very successful. He would say that I was so messy, that I was going to have to be able to afford a housekeeper, or learn to do better. I did better eventually, because my house is not (generally)a mess, but I am also a very literal person, so I have always been able to have a housekeeper. But the alien kids, they sometime forget and think the housekeeper that my husband and I pay for is for them. They are sorely mistaken here. I have tried docking the allowance they get when they do not complete their meager chores, and they really are meager. They have to go to school and get good grades, and then they have to take turns doing the dishes. I do not think that is a lot to ask. After all, the aliens are freeloading in my house. I found that I had to remind them that dishes are not like dishes used to be. The house I grew up in was built in the 1930's. I didn't have a dishwasher until I was in high school. Now all they have to do is rinse the plates and throw them into state-of-the-art, high-tech machine that does all of the work for you. The allowance thing doesn't work, but this morning, I think I discovered two new tactics which the alien imposter children respond to very well. First, when I walked into the rooms of aliens A and B, they were both in disaster zone mode. Generally, mess is okay as long as it stays contained. But one of their bathrooms was beyond beyond. I stood at the door and fumed, and then it hit me. I yelled down to the alien that lived in that room and told her that if everything wasn't up off the floor, I was not going to let the housekeeper I pay for go in there at all, and she would have to clean her own bathroom. (The woman might have demanded hazard pay for this one, and she would have been entitled to it.) You wouldn't believe that this teen alien had superpowers, but the bathroom got tidy so fast that I also believed I had hallucinated the mess that had been there ten minutes before. The younger teen alien was on dish duty last night. We reminded her, but this morning, her dishes remained untouched. For this one, I told her that when she arrived home from school, she was to turn in everything that plugged in and it would all be returned to her the next morning. This means no phone, table, computer, television....you get it. Furthermore, this would happen every time I woke up to a dirty kitchen. I did not expect the response I received. It seems as If I discovered the kryptonite. She writhed in pained. She whined. Her eyes welled up with tears. And then she said that I was not fair. (Life isn't fair.) That she'd been doing homework and had been engrossed in dance class. (I was sure she had ten minutes to spare. Maybe it was that closet filmmaking that was taking up her time.) She refused breakfast (Mini hunger strike?...not concerned. I'm convinced she wasn't going to starve herself). And then--she did the thing that was the punch in the gut. She sat in the back seat (probably belonged there anyway. She's barely over the weight limit)..and she gave me the silent treatment all the way to school. I will admit that kind of hurt, but I prevailed. I turned up the music and I sang. Nothing soothes the soul like car karaoke. Every now and then she breathed loudly. I reminded myself that I'm not their friend, I am their mother. And I sang some more, confident that I was doing the right thing. I know that one day, God willing, they will call me up and complain about their children doing the same things, or they won't remember their time spent on Planet Teen. I also have faith that one day, them alien warp signature fumes will dissipate to an almost imperceptible vapor and my sweet little girls that were spirited away will return as young women, and hopefully they will have gained the lessons necessary to make sure that their own homes are livable. Or they will have worked hard enough in school so that they can afford their own housekeeper.
