words from rebecca

rebecca died on march 24th. she fought to the bitter end. it is hard to put a judgement on that statement. would she have lived longer if she had stopped treatment? I think that may be true. but it was not my choice. so as I am cataloging and parcelling out what remains of all the stuff left behind, I am coming across things. writings and pictures and old home movies and facebook. i know she wasn't "done" yet. I am NOT surprised at what an influence she was on people she didn't even know. she took the role of cancerlebrity seriously, even though she found it burdensome at times. she was alone, unmotivated and tired in the last 1 1/2yrs. cancer became a full-time job and energy was finite.
I thought about hacking into this account and posting some of the writings I've found. it seems fitting somehow. her facebook page has been made public and there is a wide-spread outreaching from all over the world. so, if people are still following this, leave a comment of whether or not those words deserve to be heard, or were even meant to be heard. it is pretty raw stuff so far. may b hard to take. maybe not but either way she will be missed.

Dichotomy

I was reading a book awhile back (granted MANY people have read this book as of late, as I do believe it's being made into a movie currently. still...this was bout 3 years ago). A part of the book the characters were discussing that everything: every being, every entity, every object, every city, every genre, culture, and individual has A Word. One word that in an overall average or medium...most accurately embodies that thing.

I'd say, for instance, Chicago, as a city...it's word could be "VARIETY" OR "PLENTITUDE". If you want something, chances are good you'll have ALOT of options for that thing in Chicago. I think it must almost be a subliminal bit of pride in some of us born Chicagoans knowing that we have so many choices.

But my word?? I'm sure at any given point in my life, my "word" could and has changed. We're transient beings, after all, right? And who more to be transient than my airy gemini as I am? (not that I could claim to really know so much about astrology. But i digress...)

So. My word? I think, at this very moment in my life, I am going with "DICHOTOMY"

A Dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts.

I have such a capacity for love, peace and serenity in me. A massive capacity for it, actually. It's difficult to reach that place, but it exists within me.

And at the very same rate, I have an immense capacity for spite, rage and seething anger. It's easier to reach, of course, as it always goes.

The path towards both of these places, within me, are vastly different. Obviously. But each require much the same amount of effort, regardless of how different the path is.
I can't say it's more fun to pursue peace, love and all that fuzzy warmness, anymore than it is to drift chaotically into hate, rage and blazing iciness.

Each path leads me to places that have different names. Different physical locations within myself, and different atmospheres surrounding them. Except with the common theme of ultimately just being a place in which I am alone. Utterly alone with myself.


Ssssoooo...your word is?

Priorities

I need to get my priorities straight.
Here I am. midnight.
chemo begins in T minus nine hours. and counting.
and here I am. whining.
complaining.
cracking snarky jokes about fallin' off the wagon,
but they're trying to save my life.
Have I gotten SO adapted to having cancer that it's become an annoyance??
I've gotten so good at being a patient that I have forgotten I am actually under attack?
All day long, every minute of every day my cells are at war. They are fighting for their (or rather, MY) life, and here I am complaining.
How can I remind myself that I have a terminal disease which can (and chances are will) kill me, when I'm feeling so good?
Its been a nice couple months. I've been off chemo since february. And although I've been plenty busy with many many trips to hospitals, it was such a change of pace...the whole cyberknife thing...that I guess I just got too comfortable.
I got to accustomed to having my skin back to what I remember. To having my hair actually have a shine to it again, instead of the dull look from all the various chemicals coursing through me. I got way to comfortable not having any taste issues, and being able to eat and drink ANYthing at ANYtime I wanted. I was too spoiled to actually have fridays OFF.
Trivialities really.
Really.
Because in the grand scheme of things, why should I be so concerned with these trivial things when my actual existance is at stake?
I could die. very easily. very quickly. and with no notice. specifically FROM this cancer. any given moment or instance, this tumor growing inside me (or ones they don't see currently) can wrap around some key artery, or impede an organ's function, or anything. and next thing you know, no more Becca. I'm not exaggerating over overreacting.
But because I feeeeeeel good and healthy at this very moment in time, I seem to feel it appropriate to bitch and moan about the inconvenience of chemo.
Really.
Its an inconvenience. It gets in the way. It cramps my style. I have too much living to do to be bothered with sitting in an infusion room.
GAH I just want to SCREAAAAAM. Fuckin' chemo. I thought I was done with you! How did I ever manage to convince myself of that?
And so Here I am.
Here I sit.
at my desk. at midnight. trying to get my head right. And trying to organize my priorities.
It seems somethings never change.

Nothing Like Barium in the morning!

(on a sidenote, I am not sure why the frame of the videos i'm embedding from youtube are being cut off on here...you're not missing much with the other inch of screen in the frame really, but i suppose if you wanted you could click the video screen and it'll just take you the that video on youtube's site. If anyone wants to help me out on this one, i'm much obliged)

Thwarted.

It's been a lazy day for me. Not really because I wanted it to be. I actually had quite a few things I intended to get done today. It's friday, my one actual day off (don't take that to mean that I'm some sort of workaholic or anything, its not that I work hard...I just seem to be at work at least every day of the week, for at least some hours. Helps when you love the place you work though).
I digress, SO, it's my day off, and it just so happened to be an absolute GORGEOUS day, reaching near 80 degrees. Knowing that the end of April in Chicago could mean things as crazy as blizzards, I wanted to take full advantage of a full day off in good weather. I wanted to clean out my car, finish the hat I'm crocheting for a friend, bake a loaf of bread (heh....yea, i know. random. don't judge me) wanted to pick up yarn for a new baby blanket I will start, book tickets to new york for the OMG Cancer Summit at the end of May.
You get the idea, I had plans.
I had so many plans I almost forgot I had a doctor appointment today. You know why I almost forgot I had the appointment? Because I haven't had to see my Oncologist for (well, for me anyway) a stretch of time. What with being off of chemo, and my counts being good, I didn't have to see him while I was having my cyberknife stuff going on. Cyberknife is a completely different hospital, doctor, and staff, all in a completely different suburb than my Onc. Luckily, yesterday, the doc's office called to remind me.
No problem, I thought, I'll just scoot on over to see the Doc, and continue on about my day. I supposed I figure it was just a "Hey Doc, cyberknife is over now. For the moment I wait a month to get re-scanned and see how it worked. I'm feeling good, no real side effects to note" kinda visit.
My doc....has other plans.
I don't hold him at fault or anything, he is very dutifully doing exactly what I need him to do, which is worry about my numbers, my lack of treatment, and my potential cancer growing. He was nervous because my CEA counts were seen to be rising, and I hadn't been on treatment since maybe end of january or very beginning of Feb. I hadn't had a petscan since late december. The LOCAL reoccurance was hopefully being treated by the cyberknife, but he was concerned about two small spots on the ct scan seen on my liver. That could, of course, just be blips from the hiccup I had back in august with chemo-toxicity...oorrr....well, duh, we all know what the 'or' could be.
So he felt I should have my CEA drawn again, and have a scan tomorrow (saturday) and then come in to start chemo again a week from today.
YEEOOOWWZA's.
Should I be surprised? Nah. I mean, rightfully, noone ever told me I was never going to have chemo again. I was only really given a break to recoup from my skin reaction and to figure out exactly what to do next.
Should I be upset? Nah. It's happened time and time again that I come in to the office completely oblivious that I very well could be plopped in a chair right then and there, an IV plunged into my port and put on treatment right while sitting in the exam room. It's not like I'm new to this.
Should I be sad? Nah. The scan and blood test results aren't back yet, and I still am hoping for relatively good news from the cyberknife people. So theoretically, we're just trying to keep on top of things, rather than playing catch up later.

But either way, despite any of my rational thoughts, I walked out of the doctors office with all the steam let out of me. I felt defeated and punched in the gut once more. How many times have I felt that very same feeling? That feeling of "What. The. Fuck." Of "Why am I keeping on with all this? Everything that they do to me? It hasn't ended since it all began four years ago. No rest for the weary. Why do I keep at it?"

So instead of finished ANY of my aforementioned tasks...I attempted some retail therapy. (Being poor, retail therapy for me consists of Forever21 and/or a thrift store. cuz...well...I'm poor). That didn't really help as I mostly just wandered around the store and thought about how pointless it is to wear nice stylish, cute outfits...in the chemo room. But, a new pair of gladiator sandles, $2 pair of earrings, and 2 $3.50 tank tops later I walked back out to that previously mentioned GORGEOUS day to drive home. I felt maybe instead of retail therapy, maybe I could fool myself with a tasty indulgent icey coffee drink. Dunkin' Donuts called my name, but didn't fulfill any void.
After those attempts at distraction, I just came home. Avoiding all the various texts and calls. I came home, put my bread out to rise, and sat on my front porch to finish crocheting that hat. I still had that defeated feeling. That feeling of unmotivated listlessness. I tried to let myself cry. Maybe a pity party would help. I was angry and pissy and tired and worried and disappointed and...and...and...but tears didn't feel like coming. I think I was just too defeated to even make that effort.
Instead I just sat there. Watching the sky grow a bit gloomier, feeling the wind kick up, listening to my neighbors chatter away in spanish, smelling the sewage-y aroma of the canal a few blocks away waft over me.
It's going to rain. In fact, I believe its going to storm....badly. How appropriate for my mood, I thought....

Well, the entire day has passed, its a little after 10pm. I guess there's not much for me to say. or do. So, logically, the next step for my day of thwarted tasks is off to a Gypsy Dance Party. Naturally.

G'night.

Aw Video-Schmideo

(oh, and in case anyone is interested, the music in background is some awesome ukulele playing by Jake Shimabukuru)

The Elusive Hope

Sweet curls of smoke slid past her lips lazily trailing to the ground.
she leans back and lifts her chin, staring off into neon curves.
Amidst shadows and voices, she's all at once present and absorbed in her own distance.
The bassline paces her breath and her thoughts.
Clutching tightly to who she's known for years she begins a process of seperating and sorting.
In the company of chaos her ideas can be hers and hers alone.
Opinions, joys, beliefs, and fears all spin together in a hazy stream
Filtering through her carefully constructed defense she can only believe this is some form of that elusive feeling she assumed to been rid of for so very long.
The elusive Hope
Humbled to be given a glimpse of it again, she'd almost forgotten it existed.
Savory traces of it teased every pore, flirting with a fabric so fragile that every fold verged on collapse.
She quickly inhaled those curls of smoke attempting to capture what she felt
before slipping quietly off into an abyss of ambivalence once more
curiously eyeing the bodies around her, caught up in a world that has felt skittish since she lost her place in it
Could she still belong here? Would a fight be warranted? Is the taste on her tongue that of something previously unattainable?
Closing her eyes and succumbing to a delicious weight where seconds, hours, days, weeks ago there was only emptiness.
maybe its time to face the same question she's had many times before.
And search for answers within perfumed pillows of silken smoke.