I was walking on the beach and I found this little hunk of driftwood. I have a friend who collects natural objects which are vaguely heart-shaped. Rocks and leaves and stuff. This thing looked like a heart to me, so I picked it up and held it for a while. It was so smooth. It wasn’t always that way. It used to be a part of a tree. Maybe it was a tree branch and there was a terrible wind and it broke off and fell into the storm drain and then made its way to the sea in a stream of leaves and chewed up gum and used condoms and scraps of paper and cigarette butts. Maybe it was a tree that was chopped down and was made into something else which fell into the ocean and was greatly missed.  Maybe it was something that fell off a ship and no one cared. Maybe it was a special keepsake which someone threw it into the water in a fit of rage in hopes that it would disappear forever.

It sank down and down. It rolled around and around in the surf. The waves ground it against it and it tumbled through the sand. Maybe a crab crawled over it. Maybe it rested in quiet darkness for a long time. The tide came up and then the tide went out. It was abandoned on the beach and it lay in the sun. I walked over and I picked it up.

What was I before I was this? What were you? What form are you now taking? Are you becoming smooth with the grinding and tumbling of it all? Where will you go? What beach will I wash up on? Will someone be pick me up and stroke me gently in their hand? Will they wonder where I came from and ponder the shape I once held?

The worst part about finding out you have cancer is figuring out exactly what to do with that information. Of course we’re all going to die. Everybody knows there’s an end to this road, they just tend to think it’ll happen at some foggy later date. Like in the time of flying cars! After we’re famous! Like when they’re old and decrepit and looking forward to death!  Still, in the last few weeks after I have shared my horrible fucking news, more than one person (quite a few, actually) have said,

“Well, you could walk out the door one day and get hit by a bus.”

Exactly when did getting hit by a bus become our collective benchmark for untimely death? Do you even know anyone who’s been run over by a bus? Me neither, and I know a person who was struck and killed by lightning. I poked around on the internet and found a handful of unverifiable, totally  untrustworthy websites place the odds of being hit by a bus at approximately 2 in 10,000,000.

On the other hand, The National Cancer Institute, a component of the National Institutes of Health, estimates that, based on current rates, 12.2 percent of women born today will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some time in their lives. I suck at math, but they tell me that’s 1 in 8.

Now, being diagnosed with breast cancer, and dying from it are two totally different things, to be sure – but I think we should all forget about getting hit by a bus – although, it sure would be nice to never know what hit ya. I bet this lady would agree.

Night of the supermoon. I was already pretending at being a ghost. I had a party to crash- a guy who I used to be super good friends with had been traveling all over with his new girlfriend and a mutual friend had mentioned he (the first guy) had settled back in town, just bought a place with said gf, and was having a small gathering at his new work/live space in SOMA. Somehow, the evening’s plan became crashing this dude’s party. If there’s two things I cannot stand, they are 1) showing up someplace uninvited an 2) house parties.

So I decided, fuck it. Sometimes I use imagination to carry me through those uncomfortable situations. I decided that I would pretend that I was dead, and I would pretend that the party was my designated afterlife. I mean, it’s going to be some sort of scenario – it could be anything, right? So why not get a little practice in? Try a little something on for size?

As you can see from the photo, I have a hunch it isn’t too far off.

There’s nothing on the walls, there’s nowhere to sit. People mingle around awkwardly in small groups, making chit-chat and nibbling Costco crackers. A handful of dogs snort around in the corners looking for crumbs. The lighting isn’t great, the music is bland and tuneless. No one’s making any sweeping gestures, eating each other’s faces doing blow or otherwise behaving inappropriately. The sense of anticipation is palpable, and ceaseless. Nothing ever happens.

I went out on the balcony to have a look at the moon. Two weeks ago I may have also snuck a puff or two off a cigarette. As it was, I simply stood there, looking up at the sky like a sheep or some other dumb animal. I looked to my left and noticed multi-colored lights pumping from skylight a few rooftops over. “I wonder what’s going on in there?” A young fellow in a stocking cap and a smattering of chin piercings was skulking around beside me in the shadows. Without muttering so much as a word, he lifted his leg up over the railing and strode across the neighboring rooftops, gingerly stepping around the glass rectangles of light. Reaching the one blue, now green, now red – leaned over and peered in. “Band practice.” he called over his shoulder.

Now, that’s where I want to go when I die.

Watched the Derby today with a friend. Bought a stupid expensive hat, the whole nine. We were atop an SF hotel, amongst a bunch of angel-faced 22 year olds in bow ties and suspenders. Before the race, Everyone sang “My Old Kentucky Home”, and I was like, you gotta be kidding me.

The proprietor came by to  kiss my friend’s ass. He was so old, I thought his teeth were going to fall out and rain down on my head like a bunch of porcelain chicklets. There was a silent auction (for cancer, natch) so I bid on a package for a meet and greet at a literal local “Mr. Douchebag” contest PLUS a bottle of Jaeger. Of course I won. A fucking bottle of Jaeger! Priceless! I hope that my $80 bucks cures cancer. That $80 of mine is going to push it over the edge! Somewhere, in a lab, some scientist will be like, “Where are those goddamn pitre dishes I ordered two months ago?” and someone will say, “Shit! Dammit! We were waiting for the new donations to roll in to order those fuckers!” “Ah, whew! Here’s 80 dollars – I’m gonna order those lab supplies!” Then, the brilliant scientist will squirt some stem cells and some banana peels and some koala piss into a shiny new dish and, voila! Cancer will be over! Yay!

I floated around downtown and pretended I was a ghost. Then I drifted on up the hill. I looked down at the house I live in. I thought about all the secret messages I have stuck inside the walls. Theres a whole bunch. I do that whenever we change a light socket, or add a fixture. I wondered what will happen to my secret messages? Will anyone find them? What will happen to me? Will I float up into the sky and look down at my house until it disappears from view? Or just one day someone will  suddenly switch off the light? Click.

The friend I watched the Derby with, said she takes comfort in something C.S Lewis said. She told me he said we can’t hunger for something that doesn’t exist – we hunger for eternity, because we come from a source and long to return to it. Pfft. Plenty of people hunger for stuff they’ve never had and are never going to get. What’s the difference? Sophia Loren was once beautiful. Some good dog spends all day chained up in a tiny dirt back yard, a kid goes to bed hungry. What’s the fucking point again, exactly? Oh, that’s right – there isn’t one. Giddyup.

I went and got my big shots. One in each butt cheek. Adios, maidenhood. Praying it works. Praying.  . . .

Then I went and got a keratin treatment. I held my breath practically the whole time. I know they reformulated the stuff, and the chick doing my hair certainly didn’t seem to mind the huge chemical clouds wafting into her face – but whatever. Funny how I used to suck down the cowboy killers all day long – now a little cancer diagnosis makes me all precious about the air I breathe. Ridiculous.

In other news, a quick glance at my phone on the way home revealed an email from my ex-mother-in-law. A woman I haven’t spoken to since – well, the last time we spoke it wasn’t very pleasant – put it that way. Anyway, all I read was the first line,

“I am very sorry to hear your cancer has returned . . .”

That’s as far as I got. Maybe I’ll finish it later.

Have you ever heard yourself cry? Like, really sob? I bet you haven’t. It sounds different than you’d think.

You gotta be fucking kidding me.

Tomorrow at 9 am I’m having my ovaries shut off and will officially launch into menopause! Wtf does that mean, anyway? Well, according to my oncologist, it means I’ll ” . . . have trouble concentrating, have hot flashes and feel like [I'm] about 56 years old.”

Yes. 56.

I have no idea how he came up with that specific number, but because he is a doctor, he must’ve used some super-scientific method.

Until I took a gander at the terrifying image above, the only things I ever heard about menopause is that it makes lube a total necessity and it eats your bones and you shrink into a wizened old crone. My friend in Oregon, who is studying to be some sort of advocate for old people or some shit, tells me that in cultures that have no word for menopause, the women suffer none of what we think of as common “symptoms” of menopause. Interesting.

Another thing I learned today (from my new acupuncturist, and this is second-hand -don’t go taking this as factual info)  is that all of the women on this planet who are so desperately staving off these so-called horrible hot flashes with hormone-replacement therapy are depositing estrogen into our water supply via their pee, therefore contributing to my early medically-required menopause! Total bitches!

I decided that when I have a hot flash, I’m just going to pretend that means at that moment that I am EXTRA HOTT.

Frankly, hot flashes I can deal with. I just hope I have them for a good long time.

I don’t have mood swings. I have mood tsunamis. Sometimes I’ll catch myself thinking about which girlfriend is going to get which purse after I die, or I think about whether or not I’m going to haunt the house I live in now. Sometimes I fantasize that tomorrow I will sit down in front of my doctor’s desk and he tells me that it was all a BIG MISTAKE! Ahhahahahaha! Then we’ll all have a laugh and I will go to the nearest bar and get fucking hammered. “Whew.” I’ll say, “That was a close one!”

I know there are all those famous Kubler-Ross stages of grief which are normal,  but I don’t think that it’s normal to cycle through all of them on an hourly basis. I am. Right now, this second, I’m in “anger.” Nope, scratch that, I just shifted into “bargaining.”

Oh, and the company that I do copywriting for on a contract basis just let me go because I can’t commit to 40 hours next week. Way to “empower women,” you skanks. You can stuff your soccer mom jewelry.

PS Katie, you are NOT getting the Chanel, because everyone knows sometimes you carry knock-offs.

After I say auf wiedersehen to my vitamin D-hogging roomie, I get moved into my own room. Now I am living the dream. I lie in a Kraftmatik adjustable bed, on 20-thread count sheets. I rest my head on a rubber pillow. People stream in and out, my man, a friend, doctors, nurses. No one will tell me anything. Finally, my oncologist shows up. It’s a bit awkward because the last time I saw him I basically told him to screw himself. After being diagnosed with breast cancer,  my fiance and I had frozen a bunch of embryos. In my opinion, now was the time for them to come out of the freezer and go instead, to my uterus. My oncologist told me that he strongly felt I should stay on Tamoxifen for five years. Unbeknownst to him, I had already taken steps with my fertility clinic to do a frozen embryo transfer at the end of my next cycle. I was determined. I yelled at him. I reminded him Tamoxifen can cause ovarian cancer. I told him I didn’t even know if I would be ABLE to get pregnant anyway, so no more Tamoxifen dammit. Then I huffed out. I remember passing him as he held the office door for me and saying, “I hope I never see you again.” What an asshole. (Me.)

Anyway, there he was at my bedside. I said “Sorry I was so mean to you,” which he totally brushed off. Making it pretty clear to me he wasn’t hanging around for a chat about feelings. He was all biznezz. He said, “Did they tell you about your lung?” I said, “Yes. Does this mean my cancer has metastasized?” “Maybe. Make an appointment on Monday for a biopsy.” Then he split.

Maybe. Wow, thanks for the info.

I checked myself out of the hospital as soon as I could after he left. Spent the rest of the weekend on the death/hope see saw.

I don’t remember being this upset by my original diagnosis. I think maybe that means this time, it’s going to be much, much worse.  There’s a quote from David Carr’s The Night of the Gun which keeps coming back to me. I can’t quote it verbatim, but it’s something about once you’ve had cancer, you try to keep a low profile so it doesn’t somehow take notice of you again. I feel like I was too happy. I took it too lightly. I didn’t fear it enough and I brought it back upon myself. “Ah ha! You there, I thought I had taken care of you already . . .”

Many, many people came in and out of my room, beginning early in the morning. Different doctors, new to me. They all took my blood pressure, listened to my heartbeat and then my lungs. Depending on how much Adavan was currently cycling through my bloodstream I’d calmly ask, “What’s up with my lungs?” or sob, “Am I going to die?” The only doctor I remember clearly, was a very earnest, young-looking dude. He gave off a distinctly Mormon vibe. He was treated to one of my more less controlled outbursts, and looked as if he too, would burst into tears any moment. “I don’t know” is what he said. Then he got up and left the room.

WHAT? Who the fuck does such a thing? I’m trapped, behind a curtain. With some depressed-sounding German chick for a roomate hogging the sunny side of the room, babbling on endlessly into the telephone about  her fucking methadone prescription.  ”VEEER is it? VEER is my methadone? Who VILL pick me up? VAT TIME? Vat about my methadone?” As far as I could postulate, through eavesdropping, this woman had actually been discharged from the hospital many hours ago, but her loser friend’s car had suddenly broken down, (sounds like a story, no?) so there was some concern about when said person would arrive with car. And methadone. In the meantime, she was hogging the sunny side of the room and holding me hostage with her loud rantings.  I wanted to scream, “Hey, lady! Have you tried Uber Cab? It’s awesome, they come in TOWN CARS.” But I didn’t. Because as far as I know, Uber Cab drivers do not carry methadone.

I had a stomach ache. After day three of excruciating pain in my lower abdomen, I left work and did what any self respecting San Franciscan would do. I did a Yelp search for “Best SF Emergency Room.” CPMC was the big winner so I drove on over. I didn’t have any sense of dread, or nervousness. I just wanted my fucking stomach to stop hurting. After waltzing in to an empty ER, breezing right on through to a delightful morphine IV drip – my fiance joined me in my little curtained room where we were holding court with the staff. Everyone joking and laughing hahahaha, etc. The attending ER doc, who bore a terrifying resemblance to the Dr. in my favorite movie of all time, “Cannonball Run” (photo here) had requested a CT scan. After some amount of time, who knows how long – I was so high – returned. “I believe you are having an episode of colitis.” Colitis! Yay! WTF is colitis? A clearing of a throat. “And, also we have found something else on the scan. Something in your lung.” Huh. Time slows, room tilts. “Are you telling me I have LUNG CANCER? IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE TELLING ME?” The doctor was wall-eyed. I was finding it difficult to establish or maintain eye contact. “I cannot say that. But because of your history of breast cancer, what I am seeing on your scans is of a serious concern.”  I remember asking, no — demanding to be sedated. I remember crying. And then blackness.

Waking up at sunrise, alone in the hospital. I dragged my tubes over to a window and looked out over Downtown and the Bay. I watched a container ship for about 40 minutes, until I realized it was anchored, not moving.

I went into the hospital with a tummy ache and I woke up with cancer.