Thirty Years Later

The title of my book, Chemo on the Rocks: My Great Alaskan Misadventure, pretty much sums up the years leading up to diagnosis, and the aftermath of surviving a brutal disease while living in Ketchikan, Alaska. Humor rules the pages and I’m grateful I was one of the fortunate ones who can call ovarian cancer a footnote to a much longer story.

I’ve never felt comfortable with the survivor label, but today I’m wearing a T-shirt that states that beautifully, in an understated font surrounded by flowers.  I guess after 30 years it’s time to acknowledge that my “survival” is a helluva feat.

I recently exhibited my book at a conference where the main focus was ovarian cancer. The attendees were cancer survivors, spouses, family, friends, physicians, and pharmacological folks. We were provided a pin that says _ xx__ year survivor. I was reluctant to place a number in the blank space, as it was obvious by some flashy headscarves and sporty short hairstyles that some women were in the throes of the fight. There’d been some buzz about the woman who was 30 years post ovarian cancer, who’d had children after chemo.

“Go talk with her, she’s down there, selling her book. It’s amazing.” They weren’t referring to my amazing book. They were referring to my beating heart.

I was unprepared to have a number—apparently a big significant number—be the focus. The budding, and necessary, mini-marketer in me thought I better change the tagline quick, from “misadventure” to “30 year survivor”. These folks were hungry for hope. My very presence was inspiration to them. Some were experiencing cancer for the first time. Some were experiencing multiple recurrences. There I sat looking all pretty with my healthy red hair, with cancer so far behind me, while women hugged and thanked me for giving them confidence that they could beat the malignant monster inside them too. I will be forever humbled by that experience. It’s hard to go there—to be reminded that all I hold dear could never have been realized. To be defined by one number of 30 years, and another do-not-exceed number of 35, which is a cancer antigen blood test indicator of a possible recurrence.

One lovely and spunky woman asked me, “Becky, do you ever forget? Is there ever a day or a time you forget about the cancer?” The simple answer is no. And I don’t want to. It’s a part of me—this illness that has been silent in me for a while. It has jumped out from behind dark corners a few times, thrown my life in a tailspin, demanded CT Scans, and more than my yearly blood test to make sure the number is not over 35.

Cancer could happen again. I suppose the odds are higher, based on my health history, but I will not be defined by a what if, not when I’m having more fun experiencing what’s next.  

I love to laugh—to find humor in the absurd. I experience and often create a lot of absurd, so laughter’s prevailing winds usually keep me safe, and sane. Surviving a major illness, however, does not shield one from foibles for the rest of their life, and like everyone else, I experience headaches, heartaches, and life’s joys and sorrows. In a bizarre way, cancer, while taking so much from me, provided me the ability to be a compassionate, empathetic woman, and sometimes fearless in sharing with others how I feel.  I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? I’m pretty sure that cancer toughened me up enough to fight again, should that be necessary.

I’ll be 54 this week. My body sort of feels the years, but in so many ways I’m still that young woman who took a detour at the age of 24 and is just now realizing her strength. I’ll celebrate in my “survivor” shirt that I bought from the spunky woman at the conference who challenged me to own my survival.

Enter the Hormone War Zone

Hot Flash.  Cold sweat. Change at thirty-five

A scorching hot reminder that I am still alive

 Changes, changes, changes are happening to me

I wonder what it’s all about

I wonder why me 

The ovary snatchers had thrust me into Meno Meno Land.  No survival kit accompanied my crash landing at the base of the Mount Hysteria, and I wandered desperately through a scorching hot valley.  The volcano rumbled incessantly as I dodged lava streams and tried to deflect the molten rocks falling all about me. 

I felt alone in the inferno.  Sharing stories about cancer was easy.  A twenty-something Alaskan woman in her first year of marriage, battling for her life, is a jaw-dropper in any crowd, but discussing menopause with friends who were still young and vibrant left me cold. 

 I could no longer concentrate on their chatter, I was too busy waving down the waitress who’d been remiss in refilling my glass of ice water—the cool condensation-clad container that doubled as a freeze pop to roll on my neck. My relaxed friends didn’t seem to notice. As they were chilling out, I was melting into menopausal mush. They had time to ease into “The Change” to prepare, to change eating habits, to exercise.  They were on a gradual descent into the heat, while I’d been plunged into the inferno.  I’d crash-landed in six hours flat. 

Other than cancer, my ovaries had never given me any grief.  It is only the absence of them that had me yearning for the keys to the body parts room where I imagined them floating like buoyant eggs in a canning jar. I longed for them—especially at night—when a warm tingling in my cheeks rapidly moved to my neck and I found myself in hell dodging fireballs.  Impaled on a rotisserie rolling round and round in my bed, my once cool sheets threatened to suffocate me until a gust from the ever-present fan hit condensation beads on my skin and plunged me into an arctic freeze.  

My outfits consisted of loose sweat pants, a tank top, and a polar fleece jacket. My beverage of choice rotated between ice-cold water and jitter-laced coffee.  All thoughts of social interaction were peppered with panic; was there a chilly escape route?

It was hard to remember a life beyond cancers borders, where once upon a time I was a normal girl whose fairytale enemies bore benign sticks and stones. But my fairytale ending had been rewritten.

The twenty-three year old baldheaded woman turned her blazing blue eyes to face the malevolent cancer dragon.  She consumed mystical potions concocted to shrivel the creature, and her two children—born in defiance of the monster—forced it to recoil back into its lair. 

Several years later, her ovaries were wrenched from the malignant clutches of the cancerous beast, but as she smote the dragon it exacted vengeance, huffing and puffing its final death flame—a scorching menopausal heat—licking the back of her neck for eternity. 

My doctor eventually pulled the patch and prescribed a little green pill consisting of conjugated equine estrogens called Premarin—Pregnant Mare Urine.  I wondered if things could get any worse. I’d lost my reproductive organs and replaced them with horse pee to trick my brain into thinking I was still vital. 

 This is an excerpt from my book, Chemo on the Rocks: My Great Alaskan Misadventure. For more information about Chemo on the Rocks, click here.