How could I not forget-me-not ?

Today is forget-me-not day. Little blue flower, emblem of The Alzheimer Society. Makes me think of my dad, diagnosed with dementia in 1985, four years after my brother died at the age of 38 from leukemia. Mom & Dad never got over Bill’s death. I remember my dad coming to my bedroom, kneeling by my bed, holding his head in-between his hands and saying “Chrissie, I think I’m going crazy.” I cannot imagine the torture when he realized he was losing it, slowly but surely. When I took Dad to the neurologist for an exam, the Dr. told me in front of him that I mustn’t let Dad drive any longer. As we left the doctor’s office, my Dad, who had never sworn in his life, looked at me and said vehemently “If that son-of-a-bitch thinks he can take my keys away from he, he has another thing coming to him.”

Dad’s condition deteriorated as Mom & I tried valiantly to care for him at home. Always a docile man, he became violent and on several occasions, I cringed thinking he might hit her or me.

A social worker I called to the house assessed Dad and put him on the A-1 list. I took Mom to see the home we were waiting for him to be placed in as soon as there would be a vacancy. Mom said the place looked nice & that Dad would enjoy the garden. That was in the fall, and I thank the Lord, God took Mom in the winter, before she had to see my father go.

In February I moved Dad to the home. On my first visits, he would see me coming, and beam to the nurses “That’s my daughter!”. As time went on he didn’t recognize me anymore. And so, I would go before work, feed him his breakfast, do his laundry to give the nurses a hand & occasionally help track down his dentures which he might have taken to another room. It broke my heart to visit because Dad who always loved nature and the wide open spaces was like a wild animal caged in that home. He walked and walked up and down the corridors with nowhere to go.

Pneumonia was the angel that took him on that February 25th twenty years ago.
But I still remember like it was yesterday and oh yes, the forget-me-nots, they remind me too.

Do you know what time it is?

Innocuous question. Perhaps. But not for a breast cancer survivor. When I was diagnosed 10-1/2 years ago, I happened to glance at my file and see that my tumour was at 3 o’clock. If you look at a clock-face, my tumour was on the right quadrant, mid-breast. No big deal you say? Well, since then I have ascertained that most tumours occur at 11 o’clock. So I am in the minority. Why does that not surprise me?

Fast forward to two years ago when during my annual mammogram, the radiologist spotted something unusual at 11 o’clock. Oops. My surgeon being self-admittedly OCD, ordered an MRI just to be sure. The wait for the appointment was agonizing. Not to mention the oft repeated question: “Are you claustrophobic?” No, I answered. But by virtue of being asked time after time I was poised to become so.

Nevertheless, I had my MRI– surreal experience that — and waited and waited for news.

I will never forget the call from my surgeon. I understand you’ve been calling the office anxious for your results? Duh, yes, I replied. Well, nothing of consequence there, he said. You can breathe again. How did he know I had stopped?

So, just to tell you, if you’re a breast cancer survivor, you never look at a clock the same way again. I bear the scar — at 3 o’clock.

An All Hallow’s Eve tale

A young man was in love with a beautiful girl. Sadly, the woman did not return his feelings. He tried for months to get her attention. Finally, out of desperation, he visited a group of witches. He asked them to create a love potion. They refused on ethical grounds. But they did give him a bottle of small white pellets. They instructed him to bury one in her yard at midnight for a month.

The man returned five weeks later, elated and thankful. He and the woman were to marry in two weeks. “Ah,” said one of the witches. “Nothing says loving like something from the coven. And pills buried say it best.”

A creepy story for Halloween

When I say creepy, I mean creepy. As in formication, etymologically derived from the Latin word formica, meaning “ant”, precisely because of this similarity in sensation to that of crawling insects. The term has been in use for several hundred years. In the 1797 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, a description of the condition raphania includes the symptom:

…a formication, or sensation as of ants or other small insects creeping on the parts.

This wonderful peri-menopausal experience happened to me a couple of months after I met my now DH, dear husband. Can you imagine, sitting on the couch, necking as we called it in my youth, and all of a sudden you have the sensation of an army of ants crawling all over your skin. Scratch my back, I pleaded and threw myself upon my stomach across his lap. This happened repeatedly for several months. The funny thing is when I reported the symptom to my gynecologist he had never heard of it. Yo, Doc, get with the program !

What about the emotional risk factor for breast cancer ?

We hear about the risk factors for breast cancer. Not having children, or having them later in life is a risk factor.

But what of the emotional risk factor? What if your heart is broken so badly that your pain manifests in a mass, a tumour? I believe this is possible and here is my story.

In 1981, I lost my only brother to leukemia at the young age of 38. My Mom and Dad never got over Bill’s death; it is so unnatural and unacceptable for your children to predecease you. So, I became an only ‘child’ at the age of 32. I had never moved out on my own and I surely wasn’t going to do so then, not with Mom being so depressed and all. And so I stayed and life carried on.

Fast forward to 1988, Mom’s suffering with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease , frequent ambulance rides to the hospital and intubation, ended with her dying of a stroke on January 15th. I couldn’t keep Dad at home any longer as his Alzheimer’s Disease had progressed so that even a male attendant I had hired couldn’t adequately care for him. In February 1988, I placed Dad in a Centre d’Acceuil where he ‘lived” for one year until he succumbed from pneumonia in February 1989.

I found myself alone for the first time in my life, still living in my parents’ apartment. My next-door neighbour introduced me to a fellow and we began dating. In March, we were cross-country skiing at my country home in the Laurentian Mountains, when my home caught fire and burnt to the ground. If I tell you the shock was almost too much to handle, would you believe me?

My relationship with R developed and in the summer I gave up my apt to move in with R, in his house. I was in love. We were in love. R had been married before and didn’t want to marry again, but at 40 years of age, my biological clock was ticking to beat the band and I desperately wanted to have R’s baby even on the condition that he wouldn’t marry me. So we tried, and we tried and I didn’t become pregnant. R managed a hospital, so he had easy access to all the fertility testing possible. He was tested; I was tested. Everything was normal, but still I didn’t conceive.

August 1990 — my 41st birthday — I confronted R who had been acting distant. He said I’m not sure I love you anymore. Pardon me? I stuttered. I think I’ll go away for the weekend and think things through. Um, OK, I said, if that’s what you have to do.
Two days passed, somehow. R returned. I was right, he said, I don’t love you anymore.

I don’t know to this day how I drove from the house to my hair appointment 30 miles away but I did. Sue met me and we hugged the way BFF’s do. Chrissy, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. R doesn’t love me anymore, I sobbed.

In one month, unable to live in a house with no love, I moved out to an apartment of my own, childless, yes, but finally on my own, at the tender young age of 41.

May 1999, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. 10 years since that emotional upheaval. They say it takes about 10 years for a mass or tumour to become apparent.

Coincidence? God only knows.

Saturday silliness

A food critic was traveling throughout England. He found most of the food bland and disappointing. Then, one day, he stopped at a small London pub for fish and chips. The meal was so good that he asked the owner for the recipe. The owner eventually admitted that he had bought the food from the monastery next door.

The food critic went to the monastery and knocked on the door. A brother opened the door. The critic asked the brother if he was the fish fryer. “Nope,” replied the brother. “I’m the chip monk.”

It’s never a good sign to get a phone call from your doctor at 10:30 p.m.

The phone rang at 10:30 that night in 1997. Christine, it’s Dr. G. calling. Oh, Dr., I said, this is a surprise. Guess you’re calling about the Queen E Hospital. No, he replied with a question mark in his voice. Oh, they said there is something cloudy/unclear in my mammogram and want me to have it redone. I didn’t know that, Dr. G. replied. I was calling because your pap smear came back with abnormal cells and I need to schedule you for a cone biopsy.

Talk about the other shoe falling.

I had the cone biopsy and I’ve had another last year for pre-cancerous cells. Dr. G. said he’s only performed three cones on one other patient. I don’t intend to be his second case.

My Breast Friend

Monday, May 18, 2009 was a milestone in my life. 10-years cancer-free.

Breasts are important to pubescent girls. In Grade 7, I was teased by the in-crowd for being a late bloomer. Tomboy, they called me. How many days did I come home from school crying. Mom consoled me & taught me ‘Sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but words will never harm me.” I remember checking the newly budding areola in the mirror when I was thirteen. Found that pretty amazing and oh, so, welcome. Soon I was bugging my Mom to buy me my first bra, a 28 AA. To make the occasion even more memorable we took the CN train on a Maple Leaf excursion all the way to New York City to buy my first bra at Macy’s on an Easter weekend.

I was so proud when I returned home. Now when the local neighbourhood boys stroked my t-shirted back to see if I was grown-up or not, I had proof positive. And having a bra merited my first French kiss, not to mention drinking Tony’s dad’s homemade plonk in his basement. I can still remember the headache.

Then came the arm exercises to increase my bust size — oh and running my breasts under cold water was supposed to work too. Don’t think so.

Breasts became pretty much a fact of life except around ‘that time of the month’ when they became sensitive and reminded me of their existence. Oh, the joys of being a woman.

Fast forward to 1999, a newlywed of four years, and the discovery of a lump in my breast. Surgery was scheduled for May 18th. Waking up in the recovery room with my husband at my bedside, the doctor gave us the news. The growth was malignant, but the operation was a success and ‘we think we got it all.’ I didn’t cry much, too numb I guess. One night in the hospital, sleepless despite the Demarol and the painkillers. Then I was sent home, although I would have preferred to stay another day. Coming home with a drain in my breast was rather daunting.

Enter my best friend who flew in from Toronto to be with me that afternoon. There is no better best friend on the face of the earth than my bff, Susan.

Ten years have passed. The six weeks of radiation are but a distant memory, as well as the five years of Tamoxifen.

People say congratulations to me for being a survivor. I don’t feel that I did anything to deserve the congratulations, I am blessed beyond belief; that’s all.

The Witchie Hour

All Hallow’s Eve is soon upon us & it harkens me back to memories of my childhood. See, the thing is, I had a hook nose, thanks to my Mohawk Iroquois relatives I think — that, or else, it comes from when I remember my desk top hitting the top of my nose — whatever.

Anyway, when I was a child, I can vividly remember playing Witch in the schoolyard and guess what? Christine was always the witch. Fun at the time, I think, but it left me with an inferiority complex. I couldn’t ride the bus on the sideways bench without thinking that the person next to me was staring at the bump in my nose. No big deal, you say? Well, I beg to differ. It is a big deal for a teenager growing up with all kinds of self-esteem issues at the forefront.

So, after many years of inferiority complex, I finally decided at the age of 35 to do something about my insecurity and sought out a surgeon to do a septo-rhinoplasty. I can still remember the sound of the hammer as it broke the cartilege in my nose.

When I came home from the hospital, all black & blue, my dear Mom said I looked like Barbara Stanwick. I said: “You mean Barbra Streisand?” And Mom replied: “Oh yes, Barbra Streisand”.

Boobie video

I thought I’d shift the focus off cancer to the breast part of “October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.”

When I was growing up, my mom didn’t talk about breasts at all. It wasn’t her fault; I guess her Mom didn’t tell her about the birds and bees. My best friend’s mom referred to breasts as buzzums, so when I came across this funny audio I thought I’d share it with you. You’ll see a really young David Letterman on the game show. What a hoot ! Or is that hooters?

Well, whether we refer to them as breasts, buzzums, knockers or hooters, this is the month to enforce the habit of doing regular BSE’s, Breast Self-Examination. Early detection = better chance of survival