The Party Girl's Guide to Cancer

Road Trip I started my month-long break from chemo with a bang.  I have to continue with Herceptin every three weeks for another nine months, which will make a total of one year of treatment.  I also have a month's worth of radiation to look forward to.  I have a house in Florida that I have visited ONCE since we got it.  Once since last December.  So we are driving down, so we can have a car down there  instead of renting, and bring some stuff down.  It's not the time to UHaul it, so stuffing the sedan with clothes and basic needs will do the trick.  I need to work on my Florida Wardrobe, so I see some Lilly Pulitzer in my future.  I've already purchased a dress with tropical flowers on it.   The other John Oliver We have stops along the way to visit friends to cut down on expenses.  First stop Delaware with Bigtwin, an artist I met at my first advertising job at Mezzina/Brown working on Joe Camel (Yeah, I know.  I probab...

Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in the streets.  I finished 12 weeks of Taxol, and I get a full month off from treatment.  This really is like being on parole. I do have to go back to Herceptin IV every three weeks for a YEAR.  Just when I thought I could start over and start a new life in Florida, I started a new life alright.  I had to put my life on pause to save my life.  Now my treatment is on pause!  What next?  I've been so good!  16 weeks without booze.  What kind of life is that?  At least in the joint you can make hooch out of hairspray and shoe polish.   Good news is I don't have to do that - I just have to run for it.  Literally.  There's a Cider Run in an apple orchard.  It starts downhill which I can handle.  Then you run up a hill - no problem.  THEN the apples are growing on a hill and you have to run up and down the rows of apple trees.  Why am I doing this?...

Cancer christmas yielded many things I didn't know I needed until I needed them.  Joey Kotfica worked with us at Coney Island High doing all the things I was too old, stupid or busy to do, like updating our website with the latest gigs and doing all the tech stuff.  She now lives in SF with her husband.  She mails me a care package with hand sanitizer (understand that), a knit cap (as mentioned in my last blog), hand lotion (can always use that), hundred of those granny peppermints (nice to have), a dozen pocket packs of Kleenex (this one I'm scratching my head over) and nail polish, because chemo BOREDOM!  At my first chemo they gave me a backpack, a blanket, and a "box of hope" made by volunteers.  I packed up all my little goodies and my laptop in every session.  I have not used everything, but I've got it if I need it.   I'm ready for anything.  I ran/walked a 5K 10 weeks into a twelve-week cycle of Taxol....

Bald is Beautiful - At Grace Jones Movie Promo There is just no hiding the fact that I have cancer anymore.   There's no hiding if you don't have hair - especially if you are a woman.    You lose your hair and your eyebrows and your eyelashes and you look like David Bowie in Man Who Fell To Earth but not as cool. No one will think this is a fashion statement or a choice. There's no disguising it.  It's winter and it's cold and I really do like to have my head covered for that reason alone.  I gave away my awesome faux fur hat to a twenty-something cancer survivor, and my Coney Island High knit cap to a friend because I was never going to wear it, right?  Now to acquire some "new favorites".  I have some amazing scarves I got as gifts, some I stole from my mom, a couple of knit caps, some handmade (thanks Joey and Stephanie) and a bunch of other ones like "Fuck Cancer" (Thanks Laura!).  I am also fortunate to have a lovely human hair...

Flaunt it while you got it. Nothing prepares you for it.  You know it's gonna happen, but when it happens, it's not what you think happens.  Everyone knows that chemo makes your hair fall out.  I'm on 12 weeks of Taxol AKA Attacks-all and they said my hair would fall out after my third or fourth session.  I get all kinds of helpful and unhelpful advice.  Helpful: "I hear if you wear an ice cap your hair doesn't fall out."  Unhelpful:  "My aunt had chemo and her hair didn't fall out."  I felt like I didn't care.  I raided my mom's vintage scarves and had a box full of wigs.  My friend Lindsay sent me a beautiful wig that looked like my real hair but BETTER.  I shaved my head almost down to nothing in high school.  I am PREPARED!  I'm READY!  BRING ON THE BALDNESS! If I'm going to cut all my hair off, I might as well have fun with it.  I'm going to have the mohawk I've always fantasized about, lik...

LATERZ, hair and FUN and WINE! Everyone knows that chemo sucks.  Like root canal or a spinal tap or films where Jack Black plays a romantic lead, it is universally understood as nothing any human should endure.  What they don't tell you, aside from your hair falling out and nausea, is what to expect in the process.  They don't prepare you in any way, tell you what the steps are or even tell you how long it takes.  They don't tell you about all of the other trappings of chemo, as it's presented as one event.  I even asked how long it would take.  The woman on the phone said 3 to 4 hours for the first session.  It was closer to six. I get to the infusion center, and there are signs indicating this is a grim and joyless place.  No more than one visitor at a time as a courtesy to other patients, like you are in ICU.  No cell phone usage (how are you supposed to pass 3-4 hours?).  My friend Tracy was very good in telling me bring a co...