The genome test score was low enough that I was on the borderline between “skip the chemo” and the gray area suggesting “it’s up to you and your doctor” as far as whether I’d benefit from anything but surgery and radiation.
Ever persistent, the oncologist kept shaking her pro-chemo pom-poms (“Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? Go, chemo!”). I had to remind myself that that was her job. Clearly she believed in the stuff, or she’d be in another field. But that didn’t mean I had to go along with her.
I remember thinking—and saying—“It’s my body, isn’t it?” Didn’t I get to decide my own path?
Just to cover all my bases, I discussed the situation with my other physicians, including my long-time physician who’d found the lump; my breast surgeon, Dr. O; and Dr. G, the radiation oncologist who would be in charge of my radiation therapy. All of them agreed with me that chemotherapy wasn’t necessary for my recovery. When I said, “Thanks, but no,” to the oncologist, she was not a happy camper. Ultimately, she and I never gelled, and I was relieved when I was able to cease making appointments with her. Seeing her virtually guaranteed a rise in my blood pressure.
My meeting with Dr. G and the radiation oncology department was another story entirely. I loved everyone in that department the moment I met them. Dr. G was wonderful: open and warm and gung-ho about healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle. The radiation techs were quirky and funny. I couldn’t be around them without finding myself in a better mood. Before my sessions could begin, I had to do a CAT scan so they knew exactly where all my organs were situated. Dr. G would map out where precisely the radiation would go, with the goal of avoiding as much lung and heart tissue as she could.
Once the plan was in place, I showed up specifically so they could set up the machine that would shoot the beams into my breast area. That was when they took a laundry marker and drew points around my chest so that the machine and I would line up. I was told to be careful about the markings—something they used to create with tattoos—and that, if I exercised, to dust cornstarch on the dots so they wouldn’t erode. At any rate, I was not supposed to touch them up. (Although I must confess that I did repair work now and then, if I got on the treadmill to walk, sweated a bit, and forgot the cornstarch. Oops.)
Dr. G wrote me a prescription for something called Biafine, a cream used on burn patients. I often say the Biafine saved my skin, because it did. I’m so fair and prone to burning, I was afraid I wouldn’t make it through thirty-four radiation sessions without bubbling and peeling, which would have delayed continuous treatment. But I started rubbing on the Biafine even before my rad therapy started, and I would highly recommend patients ask their doctors about it (so far as I’m concerned, it puts aloe, vitamin E cream, etc., to shame). After that, we were set, and I began showing up every weekday to get zapped.
My mom and Ed’s mom made a pact that one of them would drive me to each of my thirty-four sessions so I would never have to go alone. I will be forever grateful to them both for such a generous act. I scheduled my therapy so it was in the morning. I figured I’d get it done with early and then be able to rest and write the remainder of the day.
A wonderful mystery author and breast cancer survivor gave me some advice for when I was lying on the machine, listening to the noises as it fried my cells. She told me to repeat something like “Kill the bad stuff,” over and over until the zapping ceased.
What amazed me most was how mere seconds of being pelted with radiation could have such an impact on my body. Though, unlike chemo, you don’t lose your hair with radiation to treat breast cancer—nor do you get a metallic taste in your mouth—you do get very “sunburned” and tired. I’d been warned that I’d need naps every day; but I didn’t really feel any soggier than I had postsurgery. Besides, I had to finish up Too Pretty to Die and start The Debs, and I had that new mystery coming out. If my body needed rest, I rested. If I had the energy, I worked. Being productive was about as close to feeling normal as I would get for a while.
There were also odd sensations that accompanied the rad therapy. One night, I awakened in the dark, howling with stabbing pains in my chest. It felt like I was having a heart attack. Ed comforted me and talked me down so I didn’t dial 911. When I went for my next day’s session, I asked the techs, “Was that normal? Or is something wrong?”
I never really got a solid answer to my question, not from the medical staff. I did find out from a friend and fellow survivor that she’d had similar pains, sometimes when out running errands. “Wait’ll you get one of those when you’re standing in line at the grocery store,” she told me.
Oh boy.
On weekends in February and March after Night of the Living Deb came out, I kept my schedule of local book signings, appearing at various independent and chain bookstores wearing my best comfort clothes: jeans, a camisole, and a similarly colored zip-up sweatshirt. The Soft Surroundings camisoles were a lifesaver. My chest was way too sore to wear a bra for a long, long while. Those who came out to see me were so supportive. One of my rad techs from Dr. G’s office even showed up at Main Street Books wearing a “Save the Ta-Tas” T-shirt, something Ed will never forget!
I did several radio shows during my radiation therapy, too, one for the local NPR station, where I was asked by a caller if I was angry at my doctor who initially told me my lump was a cyst. “No,” I replied, and I meant it. “I’m grateful that she found it at all when I wasn’t looking.”
And who’s to say that there wasn’t a cyst? When Dr. O removed my tumor, she noticed a “benign growth” attached, which has always left me wondering if that was really what we felt, not the tumor itself.
I did end up canceling the out-of-town appearances during radiation treatment. Initially, I thought I could do one of them, as I had a friend in that particular city. I’d hoped she’d help me out, picking me up at the airport, getting me to the hotel, making it easy on me since I still couldn’t lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk with my left arm. But instead she let me know that I’d have to figure out how to get to and from the airport on my own, which had me in tears. I told Ed that was a sign, and I should stay home. Fortunately, the event’s organizers were very understanding when I bowed out.
I didn’t travel out of state until late March of 2007, a week after finishing radiation therapy. The left side of my chest had turned a deep red with white bubbles beneath my skin. Though I didn’t peel, the area was very sensitive. “You came through with flying colors,” Dr. G insisted, and I was just so thankful to be done.
Still, I was fearful as I packed my bag to travel to San Antonio for the Texas Library Association’s annual convention. Ed accompanied me, and he was great about lifting my suitcase and making sure I was in the window seat so no one could bump my left side. Once we were there, it was a lovely experience. I felt so supported by the loud applause at the mystery dinner that first night, and the next morning, the amazing librarians lined up at the HarperCollins booth as I signed copies of The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club. I came away from TLA feeling like a rock star. It was just the mental boost I needed.
My next trip was to Houston for the Romantic Times’ Booklovers Convention without Ed by my side. The worst part of it was asking the flight attendant if she could help me get my carry-on into the overhead rack. “I’ve just gone through breast cancer surgery and radiation treatment, and I can’t lift anything heavier than a milk jug,” I confessed.
Instead of being gracious and giving me a hand, she scowled and said, “If you can’t lift the bag overhead, you’ll have to go back to the gate and check it.”
Seriously? I would have broken down and cried if not for a gentleman in a nearby seat who jumped up and said, “I’ll put that in the bin for you.”
I appreciated his kindness more than he would ever know.
The Houston trip otherwise went off without a hitch. I saw lots of friends at the convention who were relieved
that I was getting around so well. It was a nice diversion, but I was incredibly glad to get home.
Though I had pared down my obligations in order to take better care of myself—and had turned in Too Pretty to Die, about a month late—I still had my Debs deadline to meet and a wedding to plan. Ed and I had decided to get married on February 24, 2008, slightly less than a year away, and I wanted to be fit and healthy when we said, “I do.” Once I got clearance from Dr. O, I found a local trainer who was sympathetic to my plight and tailored workouts so I could slowly regain strength and tone without jeopardizing my recovery. I only saw her once or twice a week and, in between, I used my treadmill, my exercise ball, and my hand weights to gradually build up my endurance.
It took endurance of another kind entirely to be my own wedding planner, but it was something I wanted to do. I felt like this wedding was more than a celebration of our commitment. It was a celebration of life and survival, of the loved ones who’d supported us during a very tough ordeal. Maybe that was why pink played an important part in our color scheme. It symbolized my breast cancer fight. I even considered having a wedding dress made by a designer who sewed pink ribbons inside the skirt; but that didn’t pan out. Instead, I found a very simple but elegant ivory dress while shopping with my mother. The seamstress who did the alterations sewed cups into the ruched bodice so I didn’t have to wear a bra (ah, that was lovely!).
Soon, the florist was hired, the invitations ordered, the caterer selected, and deposits handed over for the venues for ceremony and reception. I managed to get through a messy first draft of The Debs and worked like crazy on the revision notes my Random House editor sent (luckily, the revisions on Too Pretty to Die for Avon were minimal—whew!).
I went in for boob checks every three months and sometimes in between, like when a few miles on the treadmill caused Frankenboob to turn rainbow colors again. Even months and months after radiation therapy, my skin and tissue were supersensitive. Dr. G wasn’t sure why that had happened but she had her nurse take pictures, and I imagined my multicolored boob as part of a Power Point presentation, shown on a large screen at some radiology convention for hundreds of white coats to see.
Before I knew it, summer had turned into fall and then the holidays were upon us. I finally felt as though the worst was over. My wedding would take place in a few short months, and Ed and I would start a new phase in our lives, one I envisioned as filled with good health and the hopes of a baby.
Then I heard from my mother that my aunt Mary had been diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer. Just as I was on the path to regaining my health, Mary’s fight was only beginning. And her diagnosis would not be the last for the women in my family.
In October of 2010 as I was planning a fund-raiser and toiling away on my second women’s fiction title, Little Black Dress, I would not only find out that I was pregnant—surprise!—but my mother would show up on my doorstep, telling me she had cancer as well.
. . . And a Baby
Chapter Seven
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Feast or famine.
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WHEN I WAS in high school, my mom would often say, “It’s either feast or famine.” I either had several boys pursuing me or no one interested at all. In those days, I much preferred the “feast.” As I got older, however, I thought of that saying in terms of life in general. It seemed like I either had way too much on my plate or very little, and I began to realize how wonderful it was when “famine” set in. Those were the calm times, the days when I could get everything done and still had time to breathe. It was the feasts that scared me as they always came so unexpectedly, often dumping both the bad and good into my lap at once; shattering any peace I’d found and filling my world with stress.
The fall of 2010 was definitely a time of feast, a smorgasbord laden with plenty of good and bad. For one, I was working hard on my second women’s fiction book to follow The Cougar Club. Called Little Black Dress, it centered on two very different sisters and a magical black dress that would tear them apart. The story felt very personal as my sister and I are about as different as two people can be. The way she lives her life tends to tie my stomach in knots. While composing the novel, I was more emotional than usual, which I attributed to the fact that I was also spearheading my first fund-raiser, Wine, Wit & Lit, which brought together authors, wine, and baskets for silent auction and raffle in order to raise funds for a nonprofit called Casting for Recovery that supports breast cancer survivors.
When I described my weepiness, fatigue, and upset stomach to my mother, she showed up with a pregnancy test kit from the drugstore. I only realized then that I’d missed my last period. So as Mom sat in the bedroom and waited, I took the test . . . and it was positive! I was forty-six, a breast cancer survivor of four years, and I had a tiny bun in the oven! It was a dream come true, and not only for me. My mother practically bounced off the walls, and Ed was equally excited when I told him about the baby.
So added to my book deadline and the breast cancer fund-raiser was a surprise pregnancy. Feast enough, you say?
How I wish that had been all that dropped on my plate, but the universe had more in store for me yet.
Our baby cat, Blue, the youngest of our three felines, suddenly came down with a type of hemolytic anemia, where her immune system was attacking and destroying her red blood cells. When we realized something was wrong, she was already jaundiced. Our vet immediately sent us to the emergency animal clinic, which scheduled a blood transfusion. We were told she only had a fifty-fifty chance of survival and would likely not make it through the next forty-eight hours.
So there I was, terrified that our sweet Blue might not live; worried about my newfound pregnancy as I had some early spotting that scared me; determined to carry on with the breast cancer fund-raiser; writing a book that drained me emotionally; and then another shoe dropped.
My mom showed up at my doorstep unexpectedly one day, looking extremely anxious. Before she’d even gotten all the way into the house, she blurted out, “I have breast cancer.”
The news floored me, mostly because she had told me nothing about having a suspicious mammogram or undergoing a core biopsy. “I didn’t want to worry you,” she said. “You have enough going on.”
But that’s what daughters are for!
Oy!
Blunt as my mother has always been, she tends to be guarded with her emotions and awfully secretive when it comes to health scares. I realized since my diagnosis and Aunt Mary’s that she’d been extra-concerned about her own breast health, but she’d been there for me while I went through my scare. Was it selfish that I wished I could have been there for her when she was getting her bad news?
At least I knew what to do. I didn’t bawl or need references for breast surgeons. “We’re calling Dr. O’s office first thing in the morning,” I told her. “We’ll get you in for a consultation and then we’ll proceed from there.”
I found this page in a notebook that I wrote while sitting in the waiting room at the breast center, which describes my feelings the day of her appointment:
09/21/10
This time, when Mom picks me up, it’s for her appointment with Dr. O, not mine (tho’ I have a follow-up and mammo a week from today).
I’m holding her mammogram films that show the density and the copies of her core needle biopsy results. “Known malignancy,” they say
(I peeked).
There are path slides in a padded envelope. I’m not messing with those.
Seems so weird to think, almost four years ago, I was the one with the “known malignancy.” I was the patient, not she.
Strange how life comes full circle sometimes.
I am calm though, knowing they caught it early. But I’m still anxious about what Dr. O will say.
It was an odd juxtaposition, being the daughter yet having been the one who went through something first. Being able to reassure her
and answer any of her questions.
I felt like a hostess that day at the breast center, introducing her to the doctors and medical team that had taken care of me. Instead of tears, there were hugs and smiles. Everyone assured me that they’d take great care of my mother, just as they had me, and I knew they would. Mom’s cancer had been caught very, very early. It was no larger than a pea. It was not aggressive. At seventy-three years old, she would not be thrown into more treatment than she needed. The most conservative road would be the one taken.
While my aunt had undergone bilateral mastectomy, chemo, and radiation as well as multiple reconstructive surgeries, and I had undergone lumpectomy, re-excision, and thirty-four sessions of radiation; my mother would need only lumpectomy and seventeen sessions of radiation.
“That’s baby stuff,” I told her. “You are going to be just fine.”
My sister—the one who’s night to my day—was able to fly down to St. Louis to play nurse to my mother while I dealt with my deadline, my fund-raiser (which, of course, was set for the weekend following Mom’s surgery), and my sick cat, Blue (to whom Ed played nurse, dispensing pills and liquid steroids twice a day!).
Soon enough, the feast became less of a buffet and more like a Weight Watchers dinner. My mom would be good as new. Blue would survive her brush with death. My deadline would be met. The fund-raiser would raise enough money to send a survivor and a half to the Casting for Recovery fly-fishing retreat.
In the Pink Page 4