Thank you, Cancer: Lessons learned

Thank you, Cancer! Without you I wouldn't have decided to leave an unhappy marriage and travel the world. 

Much like a wedding, a cancer diagnosis is less about you than how everyone in your life is dealing with your illness. Here are some things that may help you as you navigate the early stages (whoops – didn’t mean to throw a C word around), days of your diagnosis. 

 1) Conversation stopper: Once your immediate family is told, you may experience many hushed conversations ending abruptly when you enter the room. Everyone’s faces will be instantly transformed into false cheer and jovial conversation will erupt to reassure you that everyone is perfectly confident you’ll be fine and nobody is worried. Still, your mom’s eyes will well up with tears every time she looks at you, belying her attempt to look casual and unafraid. Your illness will take her a while to process and her tearfulness will actually get worse, especially when you lose your hair, before it gets better. But she will come around – give her time. If your kids are really little, you will have to explain that even though it doesn't look like it, you’re sick, but not the kind with germs that are catching. Your mom will buy them picture books like Our Mom has Cancer and you’ll feel simultaneously grateful and sad such books exist. 

2) Your colleagues: If your colleagues are like mine, they will offer unwavering support and immediately start delivering meals to your house. You will be incredibly grateful because not having to cook really is a huge help. You can plan to not cook for a good six months. If you’re really lucky they will even throw you a “boob voyage” party and you’ll get all sorts of cools gifts like fancy PJ's to wear during your hospital stay, spa-type stuff you love, and gifts for your kids. They’ll even make cupcakes that look like boobs. Even after you leave that job, those awesome people will be your lifelong friends.

3) Preparing for chemo: You’ll need to explain to your kids that you need really strong medicine that will make your hair fall out but that it will grow back. They will process this news with mild curiosity because they don’t really get it, but that’s ok. Your very generous sister will pay for a really expensive wig that will even fool your oncologist who has experience with this look. The salon where you bought your wig will offer you a private room and, if you're lucky, a stylist who will make you laugh by giving you all sorts of decade-specific silly hairstyles until he’s finally forced to take out the razor. His good humor and playfulness will help you cope as what’s left of your hair gets buzzed off and you run your hand over your stubbly scalp. It’ll feel really weird for a long while, but your getting-ready time will rival that of a guy. You’ll promise yourself that when your hair comes back – and you’ll panic that maybe it won’t, but it will – that you’ll never complain about a bad hair day again. And you won’t. 

4) Preparing for reconstruction: The anxiety of your diagnosis may cause you to lose eighteen pounds without trying. When you go to your plastic surgery consultation and he is explaining reconstruction options besides implants, such as using your own belly fat to create new boobs, he will tell you that you’re too thin and lack enough tissue to create boobs even close to the size you have now. He’ll elaborate but you won’t process any of it, so elated are you that you're “too thin” for anything besides gastric bypass surgery that nothing else registers, and you’ll temporarily forget you have cancer. You’ll happily pick new boobs from an implant catalog, seeing as how you’re too thin and all. 

5) Preparing for your mastectomy: It’s best not to think too hard on this one. You know you’ll be in the hospital for a week so focus on leaving endless lists all over your house as random things occur to you that nobody else will think of or know how to do. You’ll fill your house with your kids’ favorite foods and attack all laundry with ruthless efficiency. You’ll have another big party with your family the night before your surgery and arrive at the hospital hung-over (though you drank nothing after 11:59 pm) at the crack of dawn, reminiscent of when you went there to have your babies. Your sister, who is a doctor at that hospital, will have arranged for you to have the hottest anesthesiologist you’ve ever seen, even on TV, and as you're on the gurney about to enter the OR, he will hold your hand, his head inches from yours, and tell you that you’re beautiful and always will be. Even if this is his standard pre-op pep talk, you'll get cartoon heart eyes and imagine he's your boyfriend. Despite, or perhaps because of, your dire circumstances, you’ll have an overwhelming urge to lean in and kiss him right there, but you won’t., you’ll just have wild fantasies about him. This will be the last you see of your libido for some time so enjoy this moment. Don't worry- it'll be back. Trust me on that one!

You’ll soon learn that there are so many people that love you and want to help that having cancer can make you feel like George Bailey at the end of It's a Wonderful Life. Your attitude will set the tone for how people react to you and your natural inclination to reassure everyone in your life that you are totally cool with the whole cancer thing will actually help you cope. You can and will get through this and life on the other side will be sweeter than you ever imagined. You may even be grateful for this entire experience and find yourself saying, "Thank you, Cancer."

My first fake boob

     Self-acceptance is the key to happiness. 

Thirteen years ago this week I found myself flipping through the pages of a breast implant catalog, ironically about the size of a Victoria’s Secret Catalog, marveling at the array of shapes available. Who knew there were so many? Round, oval, teardrop and, of course, every size imaginable. I glanced down at my soon-to-be-removed double D’s and it was hard for me to envision a new look. Much like when my breast surgeon had flipped through her day planner and asked, “How’s next Thursday for your mastectomy?” as though I were making a hair appointment, though she was not insensitive at all, this entire experience felt surreal. I wanted to say, "Sorry, but next Thursday's not going to work. I'd planned on waking up, going to school, and continuing life as I know it."

My phone buzzed. 

Text from my sister: How’d it go w plastic surgeon? 

Me: Still here – picking out new boobs from catalog. 

She: haha 

Me: Not kidding – have to order them. Thinking about getting boob tattoo Made in Taiwan. 

She: Hahaha 

No matter your circumstances, a sense of humor is essential. In all seriousness, I was definitely downsizing to a C like my teen idol, Madonna, and that’s when I remembered feeling my first fake boob. 

At seventeen I started working in a lingerie and swimsuit shop near Vassar College. This was in the days long before Victoria’s Secret was a mall staple. No garish colors or prints, this shop featured muted shades with names like ecru, buff, and opal and the fabrics were creamy silks and softly woven lace. From the moment I walked in amid the finely stitched pieces and faint scent of lavender, I felt like I was in a museum of femininity, though the swimsuits were too matronly for my taste. As I followed the owner, Barbara, who was the epitome of elegance, through the store my first day, I fingered a tiny, handwritten price tag attached with a tiny gold pin, and when I saw the price my eyes widened. Who in late 1980's Poughkeepsie pays $68 for a camisole? (Vassar girls, my mother later told me.) I quickly realized I had much to learn. I didn’t know what tap pants were, envisioning tap dancers and wondering why they sell them there, and while I recognized a teddy, until then I’d had no idea it had a name. 

She showed me a room in the back where she said she met with “private clients.” She didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask, too busy mentally shopping for fancy lingerie that a)Even with my discount I couldn’t afford, and b) I had nobody for whom to wear. 

Occasionally somber-faced women came in and headed straight to the back, barely glancing my way. I wasn’t overly curious though. I liked waiting on customers, eager to showcase my new knowledge that you wear a nude-colored bra, not white, under white shirts. When the men came in I imagined a future husband or lover picking out expensive lingerie for me someday, though it would have depressed me to know then that when I did marry, my husband would only ever bring me a cheap thong with the logo of his brother’s flooring business on it and some pun about “laying it right.” Good riddance there.

One day I noticed a bathing suit had been left in the private fitting room. Then I did a double take. The left side was fully popped out like a ghost boob was filling it while the right side hung limply. I squeezed it and sure enough there was something in the cup. I felt around inside and there was a flap under which I could feel something cool and rubbery which I removed and studied. It looked like a chicken cutlet. I stared down at my own chest trying to envision one real boob and the other side flat, with one of these stuffed into a pocket inside my bra. None of my bikini tops would successfully pull off this look. Did having fake boobs mean you have to wear matronly one-piece swimsuits with two inch wide straps? 

As I brought my attention back to the implant catalog I realized they looked just like the prosthetics, the only difference being that these would be surgically implanted rather than stuffed into the pockets of bathing suits and bras. Thank God for modern medicine and plastic surgeons! 

I can honestly say I love my new boobs. I can wear all sorts of tiny little tops and I haven’t worn a bra in thirteen years. I do resent people that ask me or anyone well-built if their boobs are real. A former boyfriend had this to say about the topic, “Babe, if you can see them and touch them, they’re real.” With that in mind, they’re real, and they’re spectacular!

Layover mayhem: Why getting there is half the fun

Who better to kick things off with than a bunch of crazy Scotsmen pregaming 😊

I came across this photo recently of a particularly memorable layover and was reminded that wherever I’m headed, getting there is always half the fun.  I was at London’s Heathrow Airport at 11 am as I traveled from NY to Greece and my flight to Mykonos wasn’t leaving until 2:30 pm.  Groggy after flying all night, I was in search of coffee when I saw these two guys drinking beers.  Well played, I thought. 

What the hell, I'm on vacation, and into the pub I go. So I'm next to the old guy at the bar and he turned and said something to me that sounded like complete gibberish, yet somehow I knew was English spoken in some thick, heavy brogue.  The inflection in his voice indicated that it was a question, so I smiled politely and sort of nodded in what I hoped was a non-committal way, and he promptly handed me the beer he’d just been poured and got himself another.  Aha! So that was the question. 

It really is true that the universe brings me exactly what I need the minute the thought enters my mind. I thanked him and we clinked glasses. Then he asked me something else (still couldn’t make out a word) and this time I gave a sort of shrug/nod combo (which I’ve found to be effective communication in foreign conversation) and he smiled enthusiastically while I returned to my table.  Suddenly he and the other guy were gathering their stuff and heading over.  Evidently I'd invited them to join me.  Ok, now it's a party! 

As I moved over to make room for them I learned that Connal (older, unintelligible guy) and Graham were in town for the Glasgow/Arsenal game. Evidently this is the only pub in London open and serving beers by 9am so this is something like their tailgate party.  This is their routine, Graham explained, and more friends are en route, nine (!) in all. This day just keeps getting better.  

I could understand Graham fairly easily but was still not catching ANYthing of what Connal was saying, so Graham was interpreting and mocking his friend's heavy accent.  As more of their friends began arriving, we began rocking out that tiny pub.  They were some good fun!  They asked all about New York and my travel plans, repeatedly suggesting I abandon Greece and hang out with them. They told funny stories that involved a lot of shouting, insulting one another and slaps on the back.  Who doesn’t love shouty stories over beers? Before I knew it, though, I realized I needed to get to my gate. Where had two and a half hours gone? Regretfully I announced, “Aw, fellas it's time for me to go.”  

Collective sounds of disappointment ensued, along with cries of, “We'll get an extra ticket and bring you to the game,” and, “You don't really want to go to Greece -stay with us!” and similar. Lots of hugs all around and they seemed genuinely sorry to see me go (especially Graham...).   

But Mykonos beckoned, as did my final boarding call, and though the sounds of their merriment grew fainter as I made my way toward my gate, the warmth of camaraderie stayed with me.  Next time you can't get a direct flight, don't lay over plugged into a wall checking your messages- make some friends!