Life is a verb

Every week at work, we get take out for lunch. Its our little splurge and relieves lunch boredom. We don't get anything fancy - any local restaurant will do from salads, pizza, Chinese, Vietnamese, deli, etc. Each week we start our little discussion on where to get lunch around 830am. Some people think that is a little early to start thinking about what I consider to be the best part of the workday, but some of us think that's right on time.

Our current favorite is a little Vietnamese place. We each have a favorite dish. And it comes with fortune cookies. Go figure. I didn't think the had Chinese fortune cookies in China, let alone in Vietnam. But this is my cookie from the last time we ate there.

We all thought that was a good fortune cookie as fortune cookies go. It didn't tell me about some gold in my future or anything. That was actually a good week for fortune cookies for everyone. I think we all got ones we liked.

I do believe life is a verb, as in an action word. You can't sit still because life will pass you by. But when I try to be active, I pay the price the next day.

I go to the gym three times a week, usually Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. Yesterday I went after work. Today I am very sore in all the usual places and then some. Every three months at the gym, I am entitled to a free session with a trainer to tweak my work out.

Last time we cut it way down because my rheumatoid drugs had yet to kick in. She wanted me to up the cardio from two sessions of 20 minutes each, to each session of 25 or more minutes each.I have done this so I am closer to an hour of cardio three times a week which is a good thing.

We also cut back the number of machines and free weight sets I do to have of what it was, but we increased the reps on the few that were left. She said try 20-25 reps and one or two sets. This has been working but if I get ambitious and try to do more, I spend the next day paying the price.

My hands are not as sore as they were but other body parts hurt more. I think the RA meds might finally be kicking in but that leaves me with fibro pain, which is way more 'fun'.

But I will continually to be active in my life and not sit idly and let it pass me by.

I got the d*mn memo

The current advice is to be 'Fit by 40'. Because as you age its harder and harder to lose weight and to stay in shape. As my 40th birthday approached, I told myself that I would take better care of myself when I was in my 40s.

As part of my birthday celebration (which included a planned Caribbean vacation):

• I joined a gym
• I got my first skin cancer checkup
• I joined a dating service after several years of being single (and met my husband)

I actually had a few years of being fit and healthy and then my pesky health issues started and that cancer thing, but now more than a decade later I am a gym junkie where I go three times a week.

So I did get the damn memo on being fit at 40 and take care of my health. Its not my fault everything else happened and put me in my current dilapidated state. But before I start the 'woe is me' mentality, I will say I am proud of myself for some of the things I have accomplished in that time.

• I learned to kayak and snow shoe
• I took up knitting and crocheting and hope to sell some items in a local store this fall
• I greatly increased my medical vocabulary
• I took a weedy neglected garden at the house we bought and now can say it will bloom from February through November (no small feat in southern New England)
• I made lots of new friends both on and off line
• I started a little blog.
• I think I just made lemonade out of life's lemons.

Moving on from cancer

I have noticed in recent months, make that years, that I blog less and less about cancer and my medical adventures and more about cancer and research and treatments (and other people's stupidity). Its not that cancer is less important in my life but that it stresses me less. I do have impending doctor appointments that make me cringe. Who was it who said that going to the oncologist is like visiting your parole officer, you never know when they are going to yank you back into some kind of hellish prison?

I only visit an oncologist four or five times a year. My radiation oncologist and my medical oncologist like to see me twice a year. My surgeon's office likes to see me once a year and will be in charge of my mammograms for life. My endocrinologist likes to seem me twice a year. That is like visiting an oncologist because she is there for thyroid cancer. So I guess I was wrong 2+2+1+2=7.

They like to have their visits nicely spaced out as well. This spring I was a bad patient and saw my medical oncologist and my radiation oncologist on the same day. One appointment was rescheduled a few weeks after it should have taken place and another one I moved up a few weeks because I wasn't available when it was scheduled. They didn't like that - I got that message. I was just trying to fit them around my schedule. Instead of sticking to theirs. They like to see me every couple of months to check for those pesky cancer cooties in their own way.

In general my cancer stress level is a little lower than previously but its still there. You can't erase two cancers. Stephanie, over at 'Bah to cancer' announced this morning (in England so she is up earlier than me) that she is moving away from cancer defining her life and on to other things. She does phrase things pretty well but then she's a writer. I am not. I am a mere blogger.

Cancer doesn't define me more than it has shaped my life. Will I move too far away from cancer? Probably not.

Life with cancer

Here's some food for thought. Most thyroid cancer patients should expect the same life expectancy as the rest of the population. Now they tell us. I could have used that little tidbit 30 years ago thank you. It would have been appreciated. But with thyroid cancer comes a lifetime of vigilance as it has been known to recur decades later and you have life without a thyroid which comes with its own little ups and downs.

Another little tidbit is that five year survival rates are 90% for women with early stage breast cancer. A nice little factoid to see but what annoys me is that the Komen foundation for the cure is trying to take credit for it. I received an email from them (asking for money again) that said:

"Thanks to donations from others like you, the research advances funded by Susan G. Komen for the Cure® have helped extend the 5-year breast cancer survival rate to 90%!"

To compare this is what Avon said in their email to me:

"2012 marks the 20-year milestone of the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade and the 10th birthday of the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer event series. Over the past 20 years, we've made great progress globally, funding breast cancer research and improving access to care."

I don't know. The Komen email just annoys me with their wording. 

But anyway, I am happy to hear the survival rates have greatly increased and my life expectancy is not impacted by thyroid cancer. 

Would you share?

Two things happened yesterday (well lots more than two things happened in my life but these two made me think) and I started thinking. How much and when do you tell your cancer story? This isn't as easy as you might think. Once you tell the world you can't 'untell' it. And people still have a tendency to put you in that special category of 'on their way out' once they hear that c-word. Would a hiring manager, ignore the C-factor when reviewing your resume? Would people start treating you differently? Would it bring the crazies out of the woodwork? Would friends start rejecting you? These are very real questions.

First and foremost, your health is no one's business but your own. If you choose to share, its your decision. No one should 'share' for you. It is not their story to tell. And second, how public do you want to be? Again, you can't undo it. Once its out there, it never goes back. But I will say that my blog was picked up by Parade Magazine last fall (scroll down, I am below the fold) and it didn't change my life. I don't think anyone read it.

Yesterday morning my husband forwarded me an email from work where a colleague's wife has been diagnosed with breast cancer. The email came from an employee who had spoken with the colleague (husband) and he thought his wife could use a plant or something (a plant? get real) and they were going to send a thinking of you card. I'm not sure what good a plant would do but a card might be nice. (I think a plant is husband-speak for I haven't got a clue but its a really nice thought to do something.)

When I was diagnosed my husband didn't bring it up at work because he didn't think it was their business (and I agreed). I did urge him to privately tell us boss that I was having health issues and that is why he kept taking time off to take me to treatments. But  nothing was ever circulated through the office about me. I don't think I would want it.

Would you want your health to be emailed around your spouse's office? I would want to be consulted and ask what benefit would come out of it. A card is okay. A stupid plant not so much. A bunch of sympathy from people you don't know? Maybe if we socialized with my husband's colleagues and their spouses, but I do not make deep long term friendships through work environments. Work and friends are separate. So I guess I'm saying you can keep your cards and plants.

Later in the day I received an email from an online cancer community that Women Magazine is looking on Facebook for breast and ovarian cancer people to tell their story:

Breast and ovarian cancer survivors share your story! We love to include survivor stories in our quarterly print issue. If you would like to share your story in our fall issue, please let us know by sending an email to editor@omnihealthmedia.com.

In the first nano-second I was going to send in my name. But then I took a second nano-second to say 'no thanks, I want my privacy'.  I would prefer not to be put in the spotlight of national media. That's a big step that I am not ready to take.