Stand by Me

I am going to start with an apology (to you and to me). I'm sorry for failing to write for two months. It is true that I have been very busy and tired, but it is also true that I was pretty depressed and was finding it difficult to accomplish any thing that lay outside of my usual daily demands.

But, I think that I managed daily life surprisingly well. In the last two months:

• I have increased my strength and range of motion (I can even carry my sleeping daughter home after an evening with friends and can do most yoga poses).  
• I survived a poorly timed week and a half of chicken pox where my daughter, full of energy, complained incessantly. I am very proud of myself for refraining from saying, "try having cancer" every time she whined (instead, I calmly applied more calamine lotion). 
• I had a birthday and threw my first real party since my surgery; there were many margaritas and tacos served and people stayed well beyond the stated end time. 
• I helped two of my M.A. students submit their theses by the deadline, the most demanding and satisfying of my recent accomplishments.

However, along with these achievements came a pretty big blow. I found out that I needed chemotherapy (as a preventative measure, thankfully). I was prescribed 6 months of two different kinds of chemotherapy (for three months each). This is apparently common protocol but it really came as a shock to me. I was under the pretty naive impression that surgery was sufficient (especially after finding out that my cancer did not spread to nearby lymph nodes).

I actually started chemo on Monday (today is day 6 of 168) and it is pretty much as nightmarish as I had imagined. But, I am thankful for my daughter's grandparents who helped me out at the beginning of the week, for day camp so that I can rest up for the evenings, for my daughter who is resilient and kind, for my friends who are all standing by me, and for french fries (the only food that I seem to be able to eat).

To help you relate (or, maybe to bring you down to my level), here is a link to the best vomit scene in the history of film. It is the first thing that I thought of when my chemotherapy side effects started with a vengeance. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S7kg1IhZ7M&feature=related

Boobs do not make a mom...

Over the course of my 6.5 years as a mom I have had two strikingly ambivalent moments where I was simultaneously concerned about and proud of my parenting (incidentally, both occurred during pretty trying times). The first was during a kitchen dance party when my then 18-month old daughter was caught dancing on the table to a Hank Williams Jr. tune, wearing nothing but a cowboy hat. I often joke that this was the moment when I realized I should not be in charge of raising a child, but it is truthfully also when I knew that we were going to be just fine.

The second occurred more recently when I broached the topic of my diagnosis with my daughter. I didn't want to scare her by talking directly about cancer so opted for a frank discussion about my surgery. I told her that I was taking this approach to avoid being in the same situation as my mom, so that I could live a nice long life. She put on a teary-eyed brave face and listened attentively to all the details and asked good questions about the surgery and about our lives in relation to it. I gave her honest answers and I let her have some control over the situation by asking her to decide whether she wanted to tell any of her friends (she didn't) and whether we should keep our nonchalant attitude about nakedness since she may catch a glimpse of my scars (she didn't think so).

And, after a bit more pondering she said, "Boobs do not make a mom"--a statement so sophisticated and astute that it made me question whether I was speaking with a child. It seems that I may have pushed my daughter into some kind of pseudo-adulthood by trying to raise her to be responsible, independent, and a critical thinker. Although I definitely appreciate her maturity (especially right now), I may need to bust out the Hank Williams Jr., host a kitchen dance party, and bring a bit of her childhood back.