February 2, 2017
“Cancer is like a snowstorm. Every snowflake is different just like every cancer tumor is different.”
– Dr. Barry Taylor, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
“It’s impossible,” said pride.
“It’s risky,” said experience.
“It’s pointless,” said reason.
“Give it a try,” whispered the heart.”
This quote popped up in my memories from a year ago. Similar to the note I found to my parents a year after it was written, I questioned why I would have saved this last year, forgetting it was there sitting in my phone all this time. Saved prior to my diagnosis, prior to having to make any decisions about the amount of chemotherapy and radiation I would need a few months later. Prior to hearing the doctors say it would be nearly impossible to contain the cancer without treatment, while also knowing the risks from their years of experience of the side effects of receiving treatment at a young age. My everlasting fear of every needle, every drop of poison running through my veins, every beam of radiation penetrating through my body, that it would all be pointless because the cancer would come back. But that big heart of mine, the one that took the radiation team so long to decide on my exact position to receive those beams to avoid hitting my heart, was what made me realize my own strengths and the need to give it a try.
Last week I had the pleasure of having a follow-up CT Scan after the initial one 9 months ago in the midst of scanning my body for any other pookie berries (as Mason named my cancer tumor) identified a 7mm lesion on my liver. The pleasure part barely came from the god awful orange creamsicle flavored Barium Sulfate mixture I grudgingly chugged down on my hour long drive to Albany that morning, but rather the person who would be sitting there in the waiting room of NYOH awaiting my arrival. Kelly is one of those people you just instantly fall in love with. Piercing blue eyes, an amazing smile and a style that blows anything that I own out of the water. We met while we both sat in those big brown chairs, IV’s hanging out of us, pumping us full of poison to kill off what was making us “sick”. We gravitated towards one another from the first minute we said hello. She was accompanied to her chemo sessions by her father, Mark, who in turn connected with my Mark as they both watched over their girls each week, making small talk while sharing the same yet unspoken nervousness. Kelly is one of the few people in my circle who truly understands why the smell of Meyer’s Lavender soap makes me cringe, a smell that brings me back to the smells of treatment days. She gets why I sat in the big brown chair during each of my four Adriamycin & Cytoxan treatments, chomping away at ice chips the entire time the nurse du jour was manually pushing the red devil through my veins in a mythical attempt to prevent mouth sores. She gets my frustration as I talk about my gums, that once lined my perfect cavity free teeth, that are now swollen, sore and bleed every time I brush or floss. She understands being chilled to the bone, another chemo side effect, and the constant flip side of throwing off clothes because of a hot flash. She knows the same fear that keeps us up late at night, or prevents us from falling back asleep after a bad dream. She knows all too well why you will sometimes hear us crying behind the door of a lonely bathroom.
She also gets why, when my vein collapsed in the middle of receiving the IV contrast dye during the CT Scan, we would immediately laugh it off in the dressing room as I changed out of the ridiculously oversized pants and gown with the third arm hole you are made to change into. I felt like a clown trying to put them both on, cinching the drawstring on the waist of the worst possible shade of green pants as tight as possible, while Kelly and I studied the picture guide on the back of the dressing room doors showing you how to and how not to use that third hole of the gown. I mumbled out loud that this just may beat the ridiculousness of the back-fat showing radiation gowns. We laughed because we knew it was better than the alternative. We laughed because sometimes, most of the time, laughter is the very best medicine. Not the poison that ran through our veins all those weeks, and for Kelly that continues to. Not the radiation beams that Kelly bravely refused. But genuine, heart warming laughter. That morning was full of situations that could have made for an awful day full of awful memories. Aside from my vein collapsing, Kelly hit an ice bank causing extensive damage to her cherry red sports car and the CT machine at NYOH was down, leaving the two of us scrambling through Albany to find the closest imaging center because as I told the receptionist, there was no way I was drinking that lovely orange mixture again the next day. Later that day, our laughter and some tears, flowed over a lunch filled with sharing stories about our lives: present, past and future. We talked about how even though we technically both have the same diagnosis of Stage 2 Breast Cancer, our treatments have been very different, both amazed at what the other has gone through and the different ways of handling each thing that has been thrown our way. Never comparing our journeys in a way that would make the other feel that theirs was less or more of a struggle. We were now bonded because of an awful, yet magical circumstance. A circumstance that allowed us to love each other because of our similarities, and respect each other for our differences.
The last few weeks have been rough for me. There have been many times I have lost my focus and my purpose, realizing that while I was going through treatment my sole purpose and responsibility was just that: to get through treatment. To be strong and brave and defeat every cancer cell that was left in my body so that I could feel confident that it wouldn’t come back again. It was something my doctors had mentioned, but my response was always that I would be fine. I remember having to do a mandatory meeting with the social worker at the cancer center after starting radiation, trying hard to contain my annoyance with sitting in a room with someone who had likely not been sitting on the other side of the desk before. Trying politely to tell her that I work with people going through much worse on a daily basis, and that I was once again fine. Months after that meeting, I was finding that not only had I lost track of my purpose, I had lost clarity within my own mind and body. I had lost sight of my heart whispering to give new things a try, and had allowed experience and reason to take over, convincing myself that my purpose was pointless and risky. I reminded myself on a daily basis that having clarity in our lives is so incredibly important; it affects how we see things, what we smell, what we hear, what we feel, how we love ourselves and in return love others. I reminded myself that our minds needs to be clear and be strong to know what means the most to us; what’s important, what’s going to motivate us to be better people and to push past the hard times and enjoy and love the good times. To see the beauty that’s right in front of our nose that so often gets forgotten, and to try to find the good in people when the world seems harsh and cold. I knew all of those things, yet I was having a hard time making it happen.
Lately, my camera has been my best friend. I’m not a photographer by trade. I haven’t taken any professional classes or received instruction on how to take the perfect picture using the perfect aperture or shutter speed. I don’t have a fancy camera or equipment or lighting or lenses. But, what I do have is a vision that provides me with the ability to take pictures that have feeling, and meaning, and importance, and clarity. A memory of how I was feeling in that exact moment; a captured moment of happiness, solemnity or peace. The amazing thing about clicking that button is that it results in a vision that only the person behind the camera can see. You own it, and while the quality or sharpness could be better or worse than others, it’s the meaning that has the most impact.
Feeling lost and confused, I headed to one of my favorite local parks for a hike through the beautiful, winding trails covered in the fresh fallen snow, overlooking the powerful and ice covered Hudson River. I was totally alone and totally at peace with my thoughts and my camera. Leaving a track behind me in the snow, each step I took, kicking a small snowball with my boot was a release of the feelings that were building up inside of me, that were preventing me from having clarity. With each brisk step, my purpose and my goals came back to me. With each deep, cold breathe, I started taking in all the beauty around me. The sky became bluer, the sunshine beating down on me warmer, the earthy smell of the bare tree branches covered with fresh snow becoming more apparent. I began to think how much we lose track of who we are as we get overwhelmed with the world, with life, with day-to-day tasks. We get stressed, we start to compare ourselves to others, and as a result feel inadequate and we in turn take those feelings and take it out on ourselves and on our loved ones. We stop enjoying life, the same life you may have loved days before. We stop taking care of ourselves, the person we must take care of before she can take care of someone else. And we do these things at a time when we have the least amount of clarity and purpose, the times when we should be doing them the most. But as I continued to kick each patch of fresh fallen powdered snow, with the cool air and wind blowing against my face, I found my clarity again. I began to let go of negativity, and the comparisons I was making of myself to others. And as I was snapping that magical button on my camera that allows me to catch these perfect moments, I noticed that my eye was no longer drawn to the beautiful but dead trees but instead to the blue sky and sun and lingering leaves and the way the bright sunlight bounced off the white snow covered branches. The open fields, covered in blaring white snow that had gone untouched. I had allowed myself the time and the peace and the serenity to breath in my clarity and purpose that was right there in from of me. I allowed myself to be totally present in that moment. To take the time to shut off the outside world, where there was no anger, or hate, or cancer. I allowed myself to block out reason, pride and experience and just listen to my heart.
At the end of my walk and as I walked back to my car, feeling refreshed and smiling, I realized that my purpose in life is to connect with people. Whether it be through my cancer journey, reaching out to help others as they begin their own journey or help those they love through theirs. Or through a picture: a candid shot of my babies laughing, or the picture holding my grandmother’s hand while she laid in her hospital bed, a picture I am so happy I captured and one that I know many of you have of your own hand holding on to a loved one before you had to say goodbye. Or through my work, where I have the privilege of helping those who need our help the most. Or through these writings, something that cancer allowed me to express. But what I also realized as I made my way back to my car, is that I can’t do any of those things if I’m not connecting with myself. The most powerful thing we have as humans is the ability to know who we are, and then to share ourselves with others. Share our love, our hobbies, our talents, our weaknesses. But, we must take the time to work on US first. Know what your real purpose is, know how to love yourself from the inside, know that what you achieve in life doesn’t have to be perfect or better than anyone else. It only has to make you happy, make you feel a sense of clarity and give you purpose for YOU.
The following week, we traveled back to Albany to meet with my favorite oncologist and to get the results of my CT Scan. There waiting in the NYOH waiting room wasn’t Kelly, but it was a close second: her father. Standing tall with equally piercing eyes, a full head of white hair and a smile that makes you immediately feel at ease. A cancer survivor himself, he wasn’t just another person in the waiting room, he had become part of a very special family, one that only cancer could have birthed. Someone who, despite his own hardships, was able to give so much love to others just through his smile, something Kelly does equally well. And then, there they were together again, the two Marks. One a husband, one a father, both continuing to worry about their girls. Both smiling, both sharing the same nervous laughs as we said our goodbyes before learning the results of my scan. Four people who were once strangers were all now linked by a unique experience, none of which were lesser or greater than that of the others, just our own. Knowing from that experience that every day is risky, and knowing from reason that things can seem pointless. But as we stood there in the waiting room, it was love that we knew would get us all through the next day, the next week, the following years. As Kelly’s dad hugged us goodbye, tears filled all of our eyes, not because we were sad or scared, but because we were thankful to have each other. He, thankful for his daughter’s new friendship and I, thankful for hers.
As we met with Dr. T, we heard her utter the words: “You are boringly normal today”, and we smiled, and we laughed and our eyes filled with tears once again just as they had in the waiting room. And for the first time in nearly a year, we were able to take a deep breath, allowing ourselves to revel in the belief that all the fear and risks and impossibilities over the last year had been worth it. And not only had they been worth it, but they had enriched our lives by allowing us to open our hearts to new people and experiences. And they had given us a purpose, a purpose to live.
We allow outsiders to influence our minds about what is good and what is right. What we should look like, how we should parent. Worried how strangers will perceive the way we live OUR lives. I’m not a writer by trade. I’m not a photographer by trade. I”m not a professional athlete. But I enjoy writing out my thoughts, helping myself and others process and own their deepest feelings I enjoy taking pictures and capturing those moments others may miss. I love to sweat and push myself and see the changes that I can make to my body the harder I push. These things give me the clarity I need, that in turn becomes my motivation to move forward and do better. I am not a professional of those things. The only thing that I am a professional at is being me. And no one can do that better than I can. We don’t have to be perfect all the time, or the best at everything we do. If it makes you happy, and makes you feel accomplished, than you’re on the right path.
My cancer journey may have been harder than others, but what I do know is that it wasn’t nearly as hard as most. I still have my breasts, while my newest, dearest and sweetest friend Kelly does not. I am alive, my grandmother is not. But the struggles I faced, both internally and externally were and are real. Just as real as those struggling less than and more than I. Our journeys through life are always, and will always, be ours. Just like the snowflakes falling outside my window, it makes us unique and makes us who we are today and who we will be tomorrow. Like the vision of the person behind the camera, our vision of life is the ultimate lens. We can see things clearly, with clarity and purpose or we can choose to live a dull and cold life, never seeing the beauty that stands in front of us. Life is not easy regardless of the challenges that we face, but the most important thing we can do for ourselves is take a step back, take a deep breath and show ourselves what our purpose is and allow ourselves to find clarity in what drives us out of the dark and into the light.
Like Dr. Taylor’s comparison of cancer to a snowstorm, we are all our own individual person. Our struggles and our journeys through life will always be looked at as easier or harder by others, depending on the person looking at us. But just like each snowflake falling outside my window right at this very moment, we are all individually and beautifully different. We are who we are because of the things we have been through, our trials and tribulations, our successes and our failures. But each of those events can not be compared to others’ trials, tribulations, successes, or failures. They belong to us, and make us the person we are today and the person we will be tomorrow. And that person is unlike any other person in this entire world of beautiful people. There is only one of you. Own her, love her, and never give up on her. And by all means, please stop comparing her to everyone else. And be gentle. We all know how delicate each of those snowflakes falling outside our windows is.
