CTCA

A few weeks ago, I traveled to a cancer treatment center to check out the possibility of enrolling in a clinical trial. When I researched this particular trial, there were only a couple of hospitals offering it. I spoke to the University of Pennsylvania, but soon realized that the expense of traveling, etc., would be far out of my capability to pay - flying back and forth every week, etc.

The other facility was called Cancer Treatment Centers of America. They had a location in the Chicago area that was offering the trial. Plus...they would pay my airfare every time. -- I was in.

CTCA is very unique in its approach to patient care. When you walk in the hospital, you are greeted by staff who are falling all over themselves to make sure you are pleased. The only way I could describe it was a "Disneyland" for cancer patients. Except for enjoying Disneyland with my girls as youngsters, I'm not particularly a fan of the wonderland. And, being the cynical person that I am......I instantly put up my guard. By the time I left my initial consultation to go back to the hotel, I had an assortment of free gifts, a leather notebook, a bathrobe, a souvenier lanyard, and stuffed animal. I thought to myself, "The only thing missing are my Mickey Mouse ears."

Throughout the next several days, I met with my doctors and began the process of catscans, bloodtests, etc. They suggested surgery the following Monday, which would mean staying over the weekend. So, I decided I wanted to go into downtown Chicago to visit the Art Institute. I asked the concierge about catching the train, and he replied that they would have a car pick me up and drive me to the train station, and whenever I decided to come back to the hotel, they would be at the train station waiting for me.....and indeed they did. Hmmm.....I was beginning to lower my guard. I mentioned to my doctor that my brother would be flying in for the surgery, and moments later, they had a plane ticket reserved for him. Now that was impressive.


So, as the story goes, I had my surgery and as an inpatient received the best care I've ever had (and I've had a lot). I will return to CTCA in a couple of weeks to begin my treatment. And this time, there will be no cynicism whatsoever...

Now, where did I put those Mickey Mouse ears?....

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

love, Mom

I wish I had someone to tell this to

I wish I had listened to my parents when I was a young adult, making life decisions and figuring out what I was supposed to be. I'm sure it was frustrating for my parents to see me make poor decisions as far as my schooling, marrying too young, marrying a second time, and the list goes on and on. Oh well, because of those type of choices, I ended up at the very least, a much wiser person for it.

If I were talking to a young person starting out on their adult journey....for whatever it's worth, my advice would be as follows....

Time is on your side. If you haven't found what your life's vocation is, you still have time. Time to go to school. Time to get experience. In a person's twenties and thirties, even if you don't believe it.......you have time to figure it out and make it happen. So don't give up on your dream thinking you are too old. You're still just beginning.

Cherish what you have. Don't compare your life to other's around you. I remember when I was very young and newly married and all of the people that we hung with had nice homes and jobs.....but we were just starting out. We felt an urgency to come up to speed to try to catch up a little, but in the end, we should have just enjoyed our small house and lifestyle, because in reality we had everything we wanted .... our beautiful little girls.

Get a college degree. Even if it is three hours a semester and it takes you ten yrs to get it......do it. And get it in something you love, or you won't finish it. A degree in anything opens doors to jobs, to friendships, to social acceptance.

Don't play the blame game. I played that game way too long and you know where it got me? Absolutely nowhere. So, if you want to go nowhere fast, always place blame on someone else.

Be around people that have their life in order and are on their way to being successful. Learn by observing their everyday lifestyle, what makes them that way. Perhaps they have a lot of energy. Perhaps they are very ethical. They may have a daily goal. I've learned from a friend that I need to be very structured like her. If I'm not structured for one or two days......things easily get out of hand.

And, structure is your friend. Wake up early every single day...make toast and coffee, then prioritize your day. Make a daily schedule of things that you do everyday, especially if you have children, because children crave structure. A schedule for the child and a schedule for you. When dinner time rolls around, you will have had a better day.

Work hard. Either on you job that may not even be your dream job, or if you are at home with kiddos. Lazy gets people nowwhere fast and turns into depression. In this day and age, jobs are competitive, we have to work harder than the person next to us.

Don't make choices on impulse or out of emotions. I can look back and see how one choice impacted the rest of my life. So, when you make just a handful of bad choices, they impact each other and snowball to where life is nowhere near what you thought it would be.

Treat people with respect. Even if you don't feel you can respect a certain person, pretend. A lot of success in life comes from pretending.

Finally....be happy. Just be happy, be content. If you aren't then get therapy and take some meds...Seriously. Life's too short.

Moving Day

The vase that you held for ten hours on the plane, I put in a box, wrapped up in my pain.

I carried my pain down the stairs through the door, but tripped over pieces of you on the floor.

I handed the box for another to bear. The pain is too heavy...It's beginning to tear.

The box is now hidden. But when I am strong, I'll open it often....Pain can't last that long.

Inner Artist

Summer class is in full swing, and as I bask in the words of Yeats and Hemingway, I continue to struggle to find my inner artist. The second day of drawing class, I walked in to find the instructor piling a stack of bones on the platform in the center of the room. We then proceeded to draw these bones for the remaining three hours of class. I kept telling the instructor that I was sure I was finished...there just were no more bones to be drawn. But he insisted that I continue drawing until the three hours was up. By the end of class, my head was spinning and to top it off, my instructor held up my sketch to the remainder of the class as a good example of "what your second day in drawing class probably will look like" - Ouch.

Thankfully, no more bones...although I never know what to expect when I do walk into the studio. This morning, we were introduced to our nude model...and before I could throw back my first cup of coffee, we were already frantically drawing in timed sessions. I believe that there are just some things that a person shouldn't be presented with that early in the morning....at least not until after the second cup of coffee.:)

By the end of the class, I was pretty excited about my progress. At my brother's home later this evening, I pulled out my sketches. I waited expectantly for him to tell me what a good job I did.... Instead, he looked a little puzzled and said, "Did an alien come to your class and model?" Ouch again. He was right....instead of a man, my drawing really did look like E.T.'s older cousin. But, I proudly said that was the "look" I was going for.

I'm not discouraged however.....that inner artist is inside of me somewhere :)

My Ruler

Today, I looked through my posts from the past year. I noticed that I seem to write a lot about my ongoing cancer conundrum. That's a bummer - I suppose writing about something helps me process it to some degree. But, I really don't think or talk about it much - except for the few days out of the month when I'm on my back after chemo. In fact, I just realized that yesterday afternoon, while I was painting a chair, I had missed a lab appointment....oops.

I haven't always had this attitude, and depending on what my doctors tell me occasionally, I still may think of it more than I admit. But when I do, something my sister said a few months back always comes to mind. She said we should think of life as a ruler. And, looking at my ruler, cancer is just a marking among many that make up my life. Does it make a lasting mark? Yes.... but it does not define me.

I really liked the metaphor that she used, and so I try to apply it to every situation in life. Whatever accomplishments, mistakes, experiences and relationships we have, are simply marks on our ruler - the measurement of life that help define us as a whole. But they are simply marks.....we define ourselves.

I think that is pretty powerful. My hope is that my ruler gets stronger and straighter as I go along.

Hello Art

Today was my first class of the summer semester. As a reward to myself for getting through Algebra, I enrolled in a literature class and Art 101 (basically, it's a beginning drawing course).

Of course, I was by far the oldest student in the art class - And apparently very approachable, as three other students borrowed pencils or pens from me. You would think that they would have brought a pencil to DRAWING class.....

After about three hours of instruction, we were given our first assignment - a self portrait. It's not my favorite subject, but I tackled it as though I had been commissioned to repaint the Mona Lisa. After four hours on my assignment, I finally decided I was finished with my first masterpiece. To be honest, the only thing in this self portrait that resembled myself, was the fact that I had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.

But, I don't care. I'm delighted with my first effort. So, goodbye to graphing calculators and panic attacks. Hello art. :)