Just as I’d forgotton about the magazine article, Rhode Island Monthly has hit the stands with their glossy covered “Best Doctors in Rhode Island” issue, with not a blurb, but a full page spread replete with giant picture of... me. And a bad picture at that. Even the few friends that have seen it have admitted, yeah, that is a really bad picture. I look wan, tired, and having a very bad hair day. I read the article once, there is one unfinished quote that leaves me a tiny bit uncomfortable, but all in all, it’s such a sweet, generous piece. None the less, I’ve read it once and that is that.
Just as I was feeling awkward about it, I got an email from a woman who said she was sitting in her doctors office today, reading the article while wearing a LuckyBird Studio necklace, which is my business name, and she too had just gone through breast cancer and was compelled to contact me. That alone, makes me glad I did it. To have connected with someone through a magazine page was a really cool feeling and I hope she will take me up on my offer to come to the studio for tea, because my story is told, I’d like to hear someone elses. Without a doubt there is a kinship among those that have heard the words “you have cancer”.
It’s been a year and a half since I finished treatment and two years since my surgery. While I still wrestle with the physical after effects, it seems like so much longer past, while at the same time, I can barely remember the simplicity of before, hazy, a bad dream. I feel like I can finally start my new life, my post-bad-marriage-life and I’m excited. So excited it makes me nervous, because my track record is poor. So many times I’ve thought that I’ve used up my quota of bad luck, but then when I get too comfy, the giant anvil falls from directly above a lá Wile E. Coyote. Maybe I’ve got to learn to dodge instead of standing still and letting it land squarely on my head, or maybe, at last, I really have used up my quota.
My next appointment with my oncologist is in July, I feel like I can only breathe freely until then, when hopefully he’ll give me another five month pass. Five more months, life in tiny increments is not enough, but it is what I get. I have never wanted to do more, never felt so energized, I can’t nearly fit in all the experiences I want to have in five months. I have to hope that the mind/body connection will see me through. That the happier I am, the more protected from harm I’ll be. We all grow cancer cells occasionally, but our bodies are built to remediate them. I think I had marriage cancer, childhood trauma cancer, it all built up and my system was just too stressed or maxed out to notice or bother with what was going on. I just have to hold on to the idea that a happy body, happy heart is as powerful as I need it to be. Trip planning is good too, because if I plan a trip in advance, surely, it is etched in stone and the universe won't let me lose my deposit.
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