Defrosted

I’m sitting in a hotel lobby in Brooklyn, New York. Right now, 2,910 miles away, there is a woman being surgically implanted with four embryos that were created from my eggs and cryogenically frozen three years ago.

All around me, the Second Annual Food Book Fair is happening. The room swarms with 20-somethings wearing mom-waisted floral cotton pants with mismatched blouses and saddle shoes. I sit on a designer tree stump and try to make myself invisibile while scanning all the while for omens or portents.

Across the country, our surrogate’s husband sits in a clinic waiting room. I wonder how bizarre it must feel to read months-old magazines while some doctor you’ve probably never met impregnates your wife with another man’s babies.

In this soaring cement lobby, “My Girls” by Animal Collective just barely pierces the foodie din. Maybe it’s the sign I have been waiting for.

There isn’t much there if I’d need

A solid soul and the blood I bleed

With a little girl and by my spouse

I only want a proper house

The room we slept in last night had an entire wall of windows looking out over the East River, towards the New York City skyline. I woke up at dawn and my eyes found city glowing in a pink I had never seen. There is a feeling of forces at work. How can we know what is coming? Is one embryo even now beginning to divide? What’s the ending? Perfect symmetry or maybe just disaster?

Oh hello deer

Deer, deer, deer by the road all through the foggy night drive from Savannah, only I was the only one who saw them. “Deer!” “Deer!” I was randomly blurting out from the passenger seat. Necks lifting to shine silver reflected eyes out from the deep grass along the highway. They make me so nervous, I heard way too many stories when I was in Wisconsin: they’re heavier than they look. They smash the windshield and the people in the car die too. One moment they’re calmly standing there chewing plants and the next they just leap right out in front of you and there’s no telling what might set them into motion. I was a nervous wreck through through the whole leg of the trip, Brett speeding along, oblivious to all those quiet, still watchers.

Next day, I strolled into an art gallery in Charleston, SC and look who was waiting there for me. The Deer Woman again? Yes. I think so.

We must . . .

Deer Woman

It’s the new moon and also the night of the week I meet with a group of chicks at a space up in the Oakland hills. All of us, for various reasons, are exploring and learning how to deepen our intuition through moving our bodies. Yes. I know it sounds gross.

I never knew how “outside” my body I was until I started exploring ecstatic dance. When I first witnessed the abandon and power that manifest when the body is allowed to speak its own language, I realized how disconnected I was and all I could do was cry. Looking back I now know that it was this disconnection that has ultimately led in one way or another to my life’s most major missteps — to putting myself in physical danger by distrusting and second-guessing my senses, to allowing access to my body to people who did not deserve it and finally, of course, to being totally unaware of the cancer which was growing inside me.

Every time I make the conscious decision to step into my body, to inhabit it fully, I learn something new. It has been difficult to overcome the yoke of shame and embarrassment of my physical self that I (like nearly every other woman I know) seemingly takes on at puberty. I’ve come across a few here and there that were effusive and expressive with their arms and legs and hips, but they always made me so, so uncomfortable. Those people were never my friends. Now, when I dance with intention, I get a taste of just how truly fucking great it feels to be alive — and then I go back to my normal slouching till the next time rolls around.

So anyway, ecstatic dance once a week wasn’t cutting it any longer, I wanted more so now on another day of the week I go and meet with these ladies and a teacher who makes us do horribly embarrassing, crazy sounding exercises which I hate to do, but afterwards make me feel unspeakably brave.

“Go stand in the middle of the room and introduce yourself to everybody using only your body and no words.” Shit like that. Ugh.

Last week she said, “Lie down on the floor. Get comfortable, I am taking you on a journey. You are going to meet your teacher. Your teacher in the feminine form.” I lay down on my back. In my mind I went walking into a forest. I saw a hole in the ground and I went down and down. Down a spiral of slippery, wet stone steps.

If you’ve never done any directed creative visualization, the idea just doesn’t make any sense. Most would think, “Well, you’re just making that shit up. How can you be surprised by something you’re imagining yourself?” But I’ve been surprised before, but not as surprised as I was this time.

She was very tall or maybe that was just her antlers. Try as I might, I couldn’t make out the form of her body, but it sure seemed female. Impression of a red dress. She very pointedly turned her head and looked directly into my face with one large, deep brown eye. I saw her brown fur and her big doe eye. For a deer, she certainly didn’t radiate what I would consider to be “deer energy.” I think of deer as timid and shy. She seemed haughty, imperious. Ancient and wise. Kinda scary, frankly. We stared at each other, me with two small eyes, her with one big shiny one. After a while someone started banging on a drum and it was time to stop our daydreaming or whatever. Then, later I did a little bit of research.

Within the eastern Woodlands and Central Plains tribes, Deer Woman is associated with fertility and love – a benign spirit who might help to conceive children. Among the Seminole, Cherokee and Chocktaw tribes, Deer Woman is a super bad omen, a dangerous being who can seduce men (especially adulterous or promiscuous ones) and lead them to their deaths, to pine away from lovesickness, or maybe just kick the shit out out of their furniture if being allowed into someone’s house.

So, my teacher is Deer Woman. She’s either a real sweetheart or she’ll fuck you up AND trash your house (especially if you deserve it.) I’ll let you know when I figure out which one she is. Maybe she’s both?

Some solution

I just got a call from my oncologist’s office. They called to tell me that the PET and CT scans I had scheduled for next week have been denied by Aetna’s “radiology benefits management” company, MedSolutions.

PET scans produce a 3D image using a tracer molecule (some kind of glucose) that light up in areas where unusually active metabolic action may indicate cancer. CT scans, on the other hand, basically take a bunch of X-rays of a specific region which are combined by computer algorithms to create an image of an area of the body.

Bad things can be found earlier in PET scans than they can in CT scans. But CT scans are cheaper. Way cheaper.

So, what the office lady was calling to say, was that instead of the full-body PET and CT scans my doctor had requested, MedSolutions has authorized only a CT scan. Of my abdomen.

I went to the MedSolutions website and read this:

“MedSolutions began in 1992 as an owner/operator of diagnostic imaging centers, but quickly saw an increasing need in the managed care industry for intensely focused radiology benefits management. In 1997, we sold our diagnostic imaging centers and MedSolutions set out to focus solely on managing the cost of imaging and helped pioneer the new industry of radiology benefits management. We soon established ourselves as the industry leader, helping healthcare payers control the soaring costs in radiology.”

In other words, pioneering the industry of saving insurance companies money by denying access to the same imaging technology they formerly provided to patients.

So, I have a diagnosis of metastatic cancer but it’s not “clinically appropriate” for my Oncologist to order a PET scan?

In other news, I’ve just read a recent study that found that Tylenol has been found to “reduce anxiety over existential uncertainty and death” so I guess I’ll just stop at Walgreens on the way to next week’s scan and hope for the best.

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

So, if you read this blog you most likely know that Fireboy and I have been working very hard on bringing a Firebaby into this world. (Hopefully being one of the 21 embryos which we froze back in 2010 after my initial cancer diagnosis, with help from the amazing Fertile Hope Foundation.) Three years and a hundred thousand dollars later, last week we finally got the news that our gestational surrogate is finally ready for action. Shots were ordered and appointments were scheduled. It’s an exciting time. Hopeful.

This past Friday before chemo, I had an appointment at CPMC’s integrative health center, the Institute of Health & Healing. That’s where the hospital’s “woo-woo” modalities go down, like massage and visualization and EFT, etc and they have a super awesome store that stocks crystals and energy clearing spray and sage bundles and all the other hippie shit that I love. When I walked in, I happened to notice a 50% off basket of books and right on top was Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great and Small, by Ted Andrews. Yes, please! This story is going somewhere, bear with me.

An hour or so later, I’m bored during chemo so I bust it out. The first chapter is all about how different totem and power animals don’t remain static throughout an individual’s life, but change in relation to energies and challenges that are constantly rising, subsiding and shifting. The chapter concludes with a caution not to allow the ego to cloud the vision regarding what animal medicine may or may not be currently moving into your life; but rather, to figure out what your current power animal or totem may be, to just remain open and receptive and see what comes. Fine. So I shut the book. I’m going to see what comes.

I’m in my regular pink naugahyde chair, and I’m reclining. The foot rest is up. I’m just kicking back minding my own business when this Native American woman I’ve never seen before comes into the infusion room. This is all true. I swear. She has shiny black hair and long earrings. She walks over and puts her hand on my ankle, which is inside a mukluk. A rabbit fur mukluk. She pets the fur and says, “Ooh, RABBIT.” and walks out of the room.

You don’t have to hit me over the head with an omen. Holy crap, I get it. So, I reach for the book and flip to the index. Rabbit. Clearly, rabbit is a symbol of fertility — but I read on and learn that as the animal with the shortest gestation period (28 days) when rabbit hops into your life, it is also a signal that a 28-day cycle is in progress. Hmm, 28 days? This happened on Friday, April 5th. What’s in 28 days I wonder? Certainly, not — whoa. I count . . . 25 . . .26 . . .27 . . yep.

28 days from April 5th is May 3. The date our surrogate is scheduled for a frozen embryo transfer.

An added ambience of restful elegance

Most days, I take a total of 22 pills. Vitamins and supplements and stuff, which vary by day, depending on where I am in my course of my chemo. To make things even more complicated, the number and type also vary between morning and night. It can get pretty confusing trying to deal with that on a day-to-day basis, so every Friday after my infusion, I take a few hours (kidding) to sort out everything for the coming week.

The person who comes up with this plan for me is my acupuncturist Michael McCulloch. He’s a very respected TCM practitioner who works with many people struggling with serious illnesses and has recently published his research on dogs’ ability to sniff out and detect certain cancers.

Anyway, he’s great and every time I get new scans, he revisits my plan and adjusts my herbs and vitamins and he’s kind enough to make a blueprint that I can follow to know what to take, and when.

So yesterday as I was sorting all my pills into their respective M-F/Am-Pm slots, I happened to notice that I had somehow overlooked a very important component of his prescription:

Never really my strong suit, but I’m going to attempt to start working that in immediately.

Well, this’ll probably make someone mad

Tonight, after a certain person attempted to smoke weed and ended up leaving we two ladies stranded at the table of a restaurant immediately after ordering because s/he had to go lie down in the car; the subject turned to blogs. “Hey, do you have a blog?” I asked the single most likely human I know to actually have a blog. (Why I didn’t think of asking this question six months ago, I have no idea.)

“Why yes. Yes I do.” she said, because that is actually how she talks.

“What’s it called?”

“Style Porn.”

“Oh. I’m totally changing the name of my blog to “Cancer Porn.”"

At this moment, I can’t believe I actually said that, but at that moment, I thought it was so funny that I spit out my firecracker shrimp and my cackle echoed so loudly through the tiny restaurant that the ancient Asian dude dining alone at the next table put his spoon back into his ramen and craned his neck to deliver me an evil glare.

He really delivered it, if you know what I mean – and I’m not sure it was because he actually heard what I said, or because I was just some loud-mouthed round eye who was interrupting his peaceful noodle slurping but either way, I don’t really care because today was hard and it felt good to laugh.

Roger Ebert died today, and although I can’t say I was a fan, I can’t explain how disheartening it is to hear every.single.day that someone has died after a long or short battle with cancer of some area of their body. Is it even possible to beat cancer? Permanently and forever?

Anyway, tonight and tonight only – the honorary name of this blog is Cancer Porn, in honor of Jo and here she is in the exquisite vintage Celine blouse I totally helped talk her into buying. Isn’t it amazing?

Whee!

Dogs have spas. Why can’t there be chemo spas?

I LOVE spas. I love robes and I love white towels. I love the whisper talk, the locker key on the springing plastic doodad and the rubber shoes and I even love the “seed array” in the glass jars with tiny spoons and the cucumber water they always have in the treatment waiting areas. I don’t even really object to a mandatory 30% gratuity. The most tragic thing that can ever go down in a spa is having some smug bitch with a perfect, lithe body come stand right next to you in the locker room while you flail around, tits out, in mid-underwear hike-up. Man, that is the worst. Overall though, the main draw of a spa, is the overall feeling of peace that comes with the deep sense that while you’re there, everything will be okay.

So, if there are hushed, soothing places for people go to get their labia waxed or the contents of their filthy clogged pores extracted – FOR FUN, there should be similarly cozy and well decorated locations in which to receive chemo.

I understand there can’t be nice rugs and upholstery and sumptuously draped window coverings because people hooked up to IV drips occasionally bleed all over the place, but how about a nice little cozy fireplace? Why can’t we have cucumber water or gluten-free carob coconut granola? How about an Egyptian cotton robe? And while I’m on the subject, who are the people responsible for designing the scrubs, curtain dividers and chairs they use in these places? “Aw man, I was really kinda bummed out about my cancer today, but I took a seat in this luxurious Pepto pink plastic recliner — you know, the really, really wide kind, for super obese people — and this nurse rolled up in her teddy bear scrubs and I was so stoked. The teddy bears were holding STETHOSCOPES! I couldn’t stop laughing! I flipped down my tray table and boom – Costco tea in a styrofoam cup, yo. I didn’t even have to ask for it. I felt like I was at the Soho House. I really wanted to pull the privacy curtain but it’s just so much fun to people watch. I like to see what kind of sweatpants the others are wearing and, you know how much hair their losing, how feeble and sick they’re getting.”

Sorry. I’m sarcastic. I really did get to sit in the fat person chair today. Right behind the British fellow. The nurses were fussing over him:

“Are you comfortable? Are you okay?

(Cough) squirm (cough) squirm “No, I’m fine. I’ll let you know.”

“Really? Are you sure?

(Cough) Squirm “Yes.”

Five minutes later . . .

“Excuse me. I think I had better go to the restroom now!”

He gets up from his own plastic recliner in a big hurry and wheels his IV trolley past me to the restroom 4 feet away. He closes the door and proceeds to start vomiting loudly and dramatically.

I glance over at the girl on the other side of me. She’s pretty and young. She avoids my eyes. The bag hanging over her is dark and looks as if it is full of rusty water. The brown liquid drips down a tube and disappears into her arm.

I frantically fumble around in my bag for my ear buds and jam them into my phone. I find my music folder, hit play and turn up the volume as loud as it will go. It’s a jaunty little number. A favorite, which contrasts nicely with the setting and the overall vibe of claustrophobic, institutional terror.

“No crickets, no creatures are a’ stirrin
On the last night of the Chinese year
I need a warm hand, over the water
Ever since I lost mine . . .
(Fireworks disaster)

I laid up wide awake,
Gonna take my life . . .
Gonna take my life back one day.”