Ten Year Cancer-Free-Aversary!

10 Year Cancer-Free AVERSARY

Today is a very special anniversary; I bet not too many people out there get the chance to celebrate it:  On this day 10 years ago, I took my final chemo-therapy treatment.  

I was a mere 21 when I got sick.  Immersed in college and crazy busy I kept coughing and wouldn’t get better.  My condition worsened.  Movement was too difficult and I began sweating profusely.  My joints ached and tired easily.  Lying down was a challenge and finally after being misdiagnosed with several conditions for over a year the doctors noticed something on all the scans- I had pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane around my heart)  It took a pericardialectomy (a surgeon removed the membrane around my heart) to discover the problem- a stage 3B Hodgkins Lymphoma tumor was growing around my heart and killing me.  The surgeon, only prepped for the pericardialectomy removed the tumor the best he could, salvaging the nerves and muscles in my chest and neck that give me the ability to speak.  (Thankfully!)

I had about two weeks to recuperate from open chest surgery (which isn’t enough)and then go straight into a rigorous chemo -therapy treatment.  Don’t ask me what it was called.  All I know is it was green and made my urine red.  

Treatments took about two hours I believe and took a lot out of me.  I had them on Mondays.  Tuesday I would have to come back and take a shot that would elevate my white blood count.  It was way too low, but they couldn’t stop treatment because of that.  (in other cancers they do)  The shot would make my bone marrow produce something and would cause my entire body to ache as if I had the flu times like a thougsand.  A pain I wouldn’t wish on most anybody  I would go home and writhe in pain for the rest of the day.  Even drugs wouldn’t take away the pain entirely. 

I took the semester off of college, not to “find myself” but to save myself.

The pain meds made me ill.  I would vomit and also get very constipated.   

My hair slowly receded.  I held onto it, instead of shaving it like so many do.  I cut it shorter and then a little shorter until not much was less.  I wasn’t bald, but I was very close.  Every time a clump of hair would fall out it would remind me that no matter what I was doing at the moment, I was still very ill.  I still find clumps of my hair that fell into books I was reading at the time.

I took so many steroids that I ended up gaining 30 pounds in that 6 months.  

 Walking was difficult and sometimes impossible.

I would sometimes wake up and be surprised I was still alive because I was sure I would die that night in my sleep.  I would awake early and sit outside watching the sunrise.  Each was more beautiful than the rest.  I got closer to my creator than I’ve ever been.

My family spoke to me more and we all got so much closer.   

People are nicer to you when they think you might die.

For 6 months of hell all I could really do was stay home and watch TV and on TV was coverage of the war 24hrs a day.  A war was being fought over seas as I was fighting a personal war of my own. 

I don’t talk much about it.  Maybe it was too painful to talk about.  Maybe I just wanted to spare people the details because I knew it wouldn’t make them happy and thats what I live to do:  make people happy.  I know I don’t think about it everyday of my life and most times completely forget it happened altogether-sometimes people mention my zipper (the scar on my chest) and I have no idea what they are talking about because I forget its there.  

BUT anytime I get a cough that hangs on or a new pain somewhere then the thought creeps into the back of my mind that perhaps the cancer has returned.  When you are diagnosed late, as I was and only treated with one thing, the chances are greater for a reoccurrence.  Its something I live with everyday.  I’ve had countless cancer scares since then, luckily they all turned about to be something else- the most notable being my two children.  I was told that the treatment would most likely sterilize me but am happy to say that it most definitely did not.  Since the treatment I’ve become pregnant three times and given birth twice.  Being pregnant feels a lot like a tumor...but I digress.

In short, Cancer sucked.  It still makes parts of my life suck.  But it didn’t ruin my life.  I think it just made my life better.  When I returned to school after taking a semester off for treatment I was more thankful for being able to walk to class and study books than any other student in that room.  And when I gave birth to my two children, I was more thankful for those children than I would have been if they hadn’t been such a miracle.  And tonight, when I kiss my husband goodnight, it will be better than if I didn’t ever have cancer because I know how fragile and precious life is and how much each kiss really means.  Because you really don’t know which kiss will be your last.

Pickling and such

My incredibly talented husband has planted quite the garden in our backyard and it has produced lots and lots of produce.  We planted green beans, tomatoes, peppers, Jalapeno, Zucchini, Squash, and cucumbers.  I’ve tried to be very creative in preparing meals to include the vegetables that we have harvested. Im really good at sautéing

 squash and frying it.  We’ve had countless tomato sandwiches, lots of salads, and have even resorted to making hearty stews... HOWEVER, there are just way too many to eat!  So I’ve taken to canning.  Its actually really fun.  If you enjoy baking or cooking I think you would also enjoy canning.  Last night I had the pleasure of making my own pickles out of the cucumbers.  Other than pickles and cucumber sandwiches, and salads I have no other ideas for their use!

One days take from the garden!  We had several days like this :-)

I cut them in spears first. The recipe said to cut them in half, but some of these suckers were huge!  Some of them were so fat and I cut them into 6 pieces instead of 4.  Ball has a recipe for Kosher Dill pickles, however it called for Red Pepper and mustard seed, but I didn’t have that so I just added Dill sprigs, a Clove of Garlic and a bay leaf to each Quart- I ended up making 8 Quarts.

I’ll have to wait about a month before I know if I totally screwed them up.  BUT they look great to me and my kids and I cant wait to try them!

In all, I think I worked on them for two hours,(chopping takes some time and I could have been multi tasking by boiling the jars while I chopped)  but now I have 8 quarts of pickles to enjoy.  I hope we have another harvest of cucumbers so I can do another batch!  If not, I’ll just have to wait till next years harvest.  I’ve been bitten by the pickling bug.  :-)

Improv Woes

As an improviser I've noticed something.  Im wondering if Im the only improviser out there who has this issue or if its wide spread?  Here's the issue:  At one point my close friends and family would come to my shows often.  But now that I perform regularly and have for nearly 6 years, my audience tends to be complete strangers (which is exciting!) I welcome meeting new people at shows and its very exciting, however Improv shows are never the same, so Im curious if there's anyone out there who does improv and has found out the trick to have the same people back over and over again?  I often get the comment "We've seen your show!"  But we are not doing a play, so its not like once you see it once, thats it!  Every show is unique and has a different theme, different actors, different improv games, different suggestions, different audience members/participants, and I could go on and on!

Now I perform two regular shows a month so I don't expect my friends/family to come to every show, just sometimes.  I just wonder if they think that same thing "Oh yeah, been there, done that!"

Any thoughts?  Suggestions?  Rude remarks?  Questions?

Just trying to start up a conversation for improvisers

BTW  Here's my improv group:  www.crayonsimprov.com

Chicago, Here I come! (AGAIN)

Earlier this year I submitted a grant proposal through Fund for Teachers.  I proposed that Jess Branston, Tony Schneider, and myself should all go study Improv at the Second City in Chicago this summer. We are all theatre teachers at different levels in Union Public Schools.   Last month, we found out our grant was chosen!  We are amongst only about 54 teachers in the state of OK who were awarded funds by Funds for Teachers.  If you are a teacher you should check them out and start planning your unique professional development opportunity!  http://www.fundforteachers.org/

WE ARE STOKED!