Sexy sex

My tracking software has recently informed me that when you do a google search of "sexy topics" my blog comes up second. Hot. Hot. Hot.

And of course I still win when you google "the world will end tonight."

I am pretty fucking proud of that.

My post "On the sexy topics of sex and dating" may actually be my most popular hit. And self aggrandizement aside, maybe kind of relevant if you're a hot cancer chick who feels like her mojo is a little low due to some crazy hormone whacking chemo, the loss of hair, the placement of a port, the constant constipation/diarrea... you know, the sexy parts of cancer. Maybe.

Well, low mojo chemo bro, there is a light at the end of tunnel. And least, I'm seeing it.

Here are things that make me sexier because of cancer
-I love my body and appreciate it like never before
-the cancer experience gave me lots practice in voicing my needs (meaningful look)
-I still have a great rack
-I have adorable short hair
-yoga, my chemo rehab, has made me really flexible and increased my endurance

Lately the world has felt like my oyester. I think my boyfriend, Seattle, is making one last attempt to woo me even though he knows it's too late. But that doesn't stop him from pulling out all the stops: non-metaphorical boys to date, fantastically good times with old friends, connection to community, better weather... Nice try Seattle, I know it's time for a change.

Berkeley sent me an email yesterday with info about... you know, starting school. Lately I've been so overwhelmed by work that I can't possibily imagine anything past June 29. On June 29 I'll launch 3 of my summer programs. By that day I'll have compliance paperwork for over 125 members completed as well as a fully trained staff of 15 ready to do my bidding. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I mean, it HAS to happen, but how? So I can't possibly be thinking about things like finding an apartment, re-learning high school math (calculus? really?), and registering my car in the state of CA. Bleh.

Another interesting fact about my "class": no other Washingtonians! Only 4 PNW-ers! 2 Portland, a Boise, and me. In a class of 84 people! What the heck! Everyone is from California, DC, or New York. Bleh! Will people judge me for wearing chocos to formal events?

Bah, I'm going to yoga because I can only get sexier. Am I right?

She's got (no) game

mOh man. I just went on my first date post-chemo. It was a blind date so I went wig-ed thinking that would be easiest. I would wear my fake hair, not bring up cancer, and see what that kind of interaction was like.

I am a failure at subtlety.

So pretty much it was a good time. Scrabble, beer, get to know you conversation. I felt like this was someone I might want to go on a second date with. When we got to the end of the evening and talked about going out again, I kind of snapped. All of a sudden, the half beer, the heat in my cheeks, the itchiness of the wig... I couldn't do it. I couldn't bear the thought of doing it again. I was like "well, if we go out again, I need to tell you something..." and then I awkwardly told him about it and was like "I just feel fake with this wig on, blah blah blah" and then having gotten that out on the table, not being able to stand another minute with the damn hair on, I PULLED MY WIG OFF AT THE TABLE. Yes. That was really, really weird of me. I get it.

Anyway, poor guy. He proceeded to babble about medical conditions that afflicted him and his family. What a trainwreck. I somehow doubt this person will be calling me.

So this is my lesson learned: just show up without a wig. People can't tell. They just think I made the unfortunate choice to shave my head. I don't even have to talk about cancer.

The thing is, I didn't want to talk about cancer, I just wanted to not wear my wig for another second. I wanted to be liked for being bald.

In other news, tonight was my first meeting with Team and Training for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I'm going to be the Whidbey Island Marathon team's Honored Teammate. After a few practices with them, I'll be able to determine whether or not running a half marathon at the end of March is feasible. If it is, I will need to raise $1000. But I realized that would be pretty easy. If 40 people each donate $25--that's $1000! Or there's other stuff, of course.

So this is a good way to give back to LLS.

And the team's coach couldn't tell that I was the honored teammate--and I was talking to her bald. So there you go.

Leukemia is my bitch

It has been 223 days since I started my ALL protocol on February 13^th, 2008. In the last 8 and ½ months I have had:
8 different chemo meds
6 spinal taps
1 bone marrow aspiration
15 days of radiation
28 days in the hospital
1 trip to the ER

My blood counts have been down to zero on several occasions and today, today I am proud to report:
WBC 16
RBC 4
Platelets 37

What this means is I am now producing my OWN blood cells! I am totally out of the woods immune system-wise and as long as I stay away from knife fighting for the next few days, I should be fine.

Also, at my lowest points my secondary drug use looked like this:
GI: Zofran, pepcid, tums, stool softener, laxatives
Head: excedrine
Brain: prozac
Sleep: klonopin, ambien
Itchiness: Claritin, benedryl
Nueropathy: glutamine

Some days I would literally take ALL of these drugs. But for the last 5 days I have taken nothing but my glutamine. Goodbye secondary drugs!

And hello period! In the last 8 months I have only missed 1 menstrual period! Holler, ovaries!

I have several terrible pictures that I took over the weekend I spent in Corvallis, and I will post them later, but I had a WONDERFUL time seeing everyone. It was just so… nice. There was a lot of love and joyfulness everywhere I went and I am just so freakin grateful for everything that I have.

Next week Dr. K and I are going to talk Hickman removal, ORAL methotrexate, and long-term treatment.

This weekend is National Public Lands Day and I am going to Mount Rainier with 20 high school students. Jealous much?

I finally feel as amazing as a person finished with horrible chemo should. Thank you to all my readers who think nice things for me and my blood cells. I’m sure we’re all ready for phase 3 of this blog: Fall 2008—JessieO Dates Every Eligible Man in Seattle…

Crash, burn, get up

Ah, the fog has cleared. Every few months I have a Crash and Burn few days where I just totally, totally “bonk out” as they say in endurance sports. Last week was kind of a lot—the 4 mile run, yoga, work, Cytoxan, the party, the Portland visitors… and I bonked out. But the good news is I am much better at dealing with bonking than I was the first few times. Here are the lessons I’ve learned:
-continue to eat and drink water even though you feel like crap
-freakin take your Zofran before the nausea gets really bad
-it’s OK to sleep…
-as long as you are sleeping and not just lying in bed, lacking the motivation to get up

Once I reach the lying in bed with no motivation to get up, then it’s time to get up, force feed, and go to work and attempt to engage in life. That was today.

To give you a run down, I went to the party on Friday night where I must now digress and share the uninteresting update: party not that awkward. There were a ton of people there, including a lot of people that I am friends with so while I had many normal and pleasant interactions with the young man in question (including a moment I know he was checking out my ass in my jeans—and it looks good) there was no awkwardness. Well done, Jessie! As for the evening’s entertainment, my friend Elisa is a sex educator for Planned Parenthood and my new friend Nathan seemed to know a lot about sex and so most of us listened raptly to advice about... stuff. Let's just say I learned a lot.

Anyhoo, the Weeks and Verhoeven contingent made it down around 10, we met up with Birch and I did not go to bed until TWO IN THE MORNING. I know, it was so crazy. Saturday was a whirlwind of tourist-like activities and then just like that it was over. As soon as my friends left I got in bed and didn’t get out until yesterday afternoon when I realized I was hosting dinner club for 10 people. Luckily my mom was lurking in North Seattle, waiting to be useful and together we made BOMB polenta, red sauce, and used Virg’s awesome pesto to put together the perfect late-summer dinner.

Here is my red sauce recipe:
Sautee onions, peppers, garlic, summer squash
Add a bottle of beer (I used Pacifico)
Reduce
Add a goodly amount of fresh diced tomatoes
Salt, sugar, fresh basil to taste

Mmmmmm.

Today I made myself get up and go to work and tonight I went to yoga for the first time since Thursday. I was definitely a little stiff, but more than ready to hit it. Tomorrow I get to go to Eiric’s Wednesday morning class which I love but I think I’m going to have to start limiting my 9:30-11 yoga classes to about one a week if I’m going to start working “full time.”

I was just saying to my therapist that I was getting used to my cancer lifestyle—only working part time, doing lots of yoga, spending the rest of my time with the onc nurses at Swedish… Bah—Real Life, you loom large!

Here is Ben doing plow:

On the sexy topics of sex and dating

Bekah sent me a long email the other day that brought up what would happen if we blogged about the sex and dating lives of two hot chicks with cancer. The answer: who knows? Because enough of our family and friends and people we’ve had sex with (sorry, to out you as a non virgin, B) read our blogs and really…

Anyway. Tonight I’m going to a party. There will be a young man there who my friends would like to set me up with. They brought up the subject with him many months ago followed by, “Oh… and she has cancer… so you might want to wait a few months.” I guess he responded in a slightly horrified way (much as I would… cancer—no thanks! Those people have baggage!) and then when I did meet him at a party it was horribly, horribly awkward because I was obviously cancer-girl. In about an hour and half I am going over to his house (that he shares with my friend Brandon) for a party. As I have the ultimate cancer-perspective, our last encounter ceases to haunt me and I was just excited about a party (!) with my friends (!)

This afternoon CL sent me a text that said, “ps the other person whose birthday party it is is [Roommate X’s] ex… but don’t worry because you’re smarter than her.” Now I have a lot of anxiety and fear another awkward encounter; this time purely because I will be extremely awkward around this young man. But after trying on my entire wardrobe, I have found an appropriate outfit and as long as I remember to freshen up my deodorant and put some moisturizer on my “combination skin” things should be OK.

But back to paragraph 1: the sex and dating lives of hot chicks with cancer. Or in this case, my non sex and dating life. Dr. Oz said on Oprah a couple days ago that men don’t care about cellulite, so perhaps they also don’t care about temporary Alopecia. But I have also found out over the course of my short life that men are really uninterested in smart, empowered, and independent women so I fear cancer has made me even more of all of these things. It’s going to take a Salt ‘n’ Peppa “what a man” to handle me at this point.

Here is a list of things that make me feel unsexy:
-My shiny, bald head
-Watching my pubic hair fall out every time I go to the bathroom
-Being constipated for the last MONTH
-The huge bruises that I’ve gotten from being careless and low on platelets
-Suppression of hormones due to chemo

Here is a list of things that me feel sexy:
-The fact that I’ve lost almost 20 lbs with cancer
-My new yoga bod and my sexy lean muscle that’s poppin’
-The fact that I look GOOD bald
-The mysterious tan I’ve developed in spite of hiding from the sun all summer and wearing sun block
-I have an awesome rack

Well, expect more of my thoughts on this as I get totally “Real” about my sex and dating life which will hopefully materialize at some point. And don’t worry people who I have had sex with and who read this blog: I will not out you or speak of our encounters. I’m sorry I said the food at Geraldine’s was better than anything we ever had together, but the fried egg sandwich when a girl is on Pred and not on sexy hormones will make you say things like that on the internet…

How was that, B? I have a long email drafted to you that I will send soon. Mucho love.

A new hero

Forget Wolverine and Lance (who's a neo-con, anyway)

This is my new hero:
Maarten van der Weijden (he even has a cool name). He just won a gold medal for distance swimming and he had ALL seven years ago AND a bone marrow transplant. Thanks, Duane for the link!

New life plan: learn Dutch, move to the Netherlands (where they have good health care and attractive people), marry Maarten and be happy forever. Swimmers are hot.

Packages

My stupid organic deodorant failed about 20 minutes into today. It was sort of a sign that I was meant to wilt as well I think. The day was long, I had the new deep tired I've been experiencing weighing down on me and I was kind of a dud at all the meetings I had to go to. But the nice thing about this level of being tired is that you also REALLY don't care.

When I got home there were packages.

Package #1: Parafilm! I'm supposed to wrap the tips of my Hick in something when I shower. The Hosp uses parafilm, but apparently the homecare folks and the pharmacy have never heard of it... This is some bad communication. After weeks of using Sararan wrap and haggling with different people at Swedish, I took things into my own hands and dropped $40 on my own personal supply of Parafilm.

So I think it's safe to say we all know which boy I fell in love with the summer I was 17, but I can narrow it down almost to the moment. It was after he tried to heat up some top ramen using a parafilm cover (it melted wax into his meal), but before he actually ate the noodles and parafilm. Gross.

Package #2: eBay purchased jeans. It seemed like too good a deal to be true. And it was. I found my favorite brand of jeans, favorite style, and new size on eBay for $130 off retail price. And it turns out someone hemmed the inseem to 30". All sales final. FUCK. They do fit perfectly, they're just a smidge too short. Someone pointed out that maybe I'll be able to let the hem out a bit, but upon further inspection, I think it's going to be close. Whatever. Andrea wears her jeans that short all the time and it look really CUTE so maybe I just need some Vans or something.

I am so tired right now. Going to Portland was an awesome time (drinking, friends, food, family) but it probably wasn't a good idea in the long run. I'm already deep tired and I have to get up at 5:15 tomorrow morning to fly to Pittsburgh for another work thing. I will be home on Saturday.

Cancer news flash: Today I started IV methotrexate and Dr K threw in a little Zofran and Decadron to ease any possible side effects. I am non plussed. The Z makes me really constipated and the 'roids make me crazy. Whatevs, still feeling OK tonight.

Alright, I must shower and pack and then sleep because QRachel will be here in about 6 hours. I can sleep on the plane right?

The sun is gone

Suddenly I find myself busy at work--with less time for blogging! Until I have anything interesting to say, here is a picture of me wearing my radiation mask. I can't decide if I should be a Buddhist Monk for Halloween or just wear this:

Challah!

It's like I tell my parents, "when you don't hear from me it means things are cool and I'm just really busy and occupied trying to be normal." Not that blogging isn't normal or that I don't love the blogosphere or that I didn't write stupid things here incessantly before I got sick. Bah.

Things are mostly good. I'm a little sick to my stomach/dehydrated from the 6MP, but other than that... I've been trying to be "active." This means I've been riding my bike on the trainer, walking to work/radiation/home again, and yesterday Christina and I took an erie (but pleasant) walk around Seward Park. The thing is, I have these really powerful memories of running around Seward Park right before diagnosis and saying to Christina, "I just need some answers about what to do for the next few years..." And other memories of walking around SP with my parents right before I went into the hospital for the first time. And another memory of not being able to walk further than the first little dock with my mom when I got really sick. Somehow I'm not capturing all the millions of runs I went on there with M-Rachel or all the millions of runs I went on by myself or the triumphant memories of getting up to two laps without stopping, etc etc. Blah blah. I love Seward Park, OK?

Here is something fun. The radiologist (in defense of radiation no doubt) told me that if hair never grew back where LB was, it was because the tumor (not the radiation) had damaged the hair follicles. So the other day, I'm checkin out my cute bald head and notice LB is darker than the rest of my scalp. Upon closer examination, it's because the most dense hair regrowth is where LB is! I have this habit of rubbing LB that started long ago. For a while it was painful, and then it was kind of gross feelings, but now when I stroke the remains of my tumor, there are all these soft little baby hairs. TMI? I don't care! You're reading it!

In the last few weeks I've had a 180 on my baldness. Of course I still miss my hair and the identity that went along with it, but most days I look in the mirror and think, "you're pretty cute!" Some other awesome things about not having hair are: not washing hair, not struggling in vain to make hair look cute, not buying hair products to straighten/defrizz/curl/condition/wash hair. And of course there's my on-going fascination with androgyny...

Which leads me to the general topic of how I feel about myself in relation to sex and all that. When y0u have a giant tube coming out of your chest it's really hard to imagine having sex with anyone. I also realize that my lack of hair sort of kills the fantasy as well. Isn't that strange? I never realized how much my hair played into my thoughts of my own sexuality until it was gone. Thankfully (I guess) the initial anxiety of having cancer coupled with these crazy powerful drugs sort of shut all of that off for a while. What I find is that as my anxiety goes away (goodbye, Ambian! For now...) and my hormones say, "fuck you, chemo drugs!" I need to reconcile how to hold on to my sexuality and still be bald, tube-ridden, etc.

Well, I'd say that's enough for now. It's Sunday! It's sunny! Have a great day!

Warning: Marathon of Cancer and non Cancer Thoughts

Friday afternoon EDWARD accepted our invitation to live in the Mansion! Hooray! We have a roommate! He seems great! The search is over!

On Friday night my mom came back in to town and thank God. When Rachel moved into the Mother-in-Law she left her room its hideous shade of beige, but first randomly painted some streaks of olive and sage green on various walls. Thanks, Rachel. I was pretty depressed about this, but I wanted the walk-in closet so much that it seemed worth it to move into the badly painted room and just deal with it… later. But my mom is almost as manic as I am (even without the Prednisone) and on Friday night she made a trip to Lowe’s for primer and paint. In less than 16 hours she primed my room and painted both the ceiling and the walls. It looks so beautiful. Besides being a brilliant theologian she also happens to possess a gift for painting.
Please note all the things about my room that White People Like: Ikea Bookcase, Expensive Sheets from Garnet Hill, and One Nice Piece of Vintage (nightstand in corner was Christmas gift from dad…)

Saturday afternoon the Pereirras were in town so they swung by. Birch and Cliff moved all of my furniture down the hall and Chere and my mom made my bed for me. I just sat there letting myself be helped. Besides primroses and muscle Cliff and Chere brought me a nice lavender heating pillow and these great White Blood Cell Tiles for My Team. When you touch them, you’re supposed to think good things for my white blood cells. I love stuff like this. I also love Cliff and Chere. They stopped in PDX on the way up and handed them out to some of my PDX peeps, so I know the love is well spread down the I-5 corridor. If you want a tile, shoot me and email! Let’s not forget that Q-Crew was around for the whole moving fiasco and helped by being awesome friends. I made pizza for dinner and they stayed and we got to have lots of good conversation that didn’t revolve around me having cancer or anything Old like that. If I don’t say it every day to someone, I’ll say it here: Q-Crew is my rock.

Today I was feeling pretty cracked out on the Pred (2 more days, 2 more days…) and so I started making a list of errands that I should do while I still only feel the need to sleep for about 3 hours a day. One of my errands was a trip to Target to return the Trainer I bought (Julian has one). Of course you can only find Target in the most disgusting outlying areas of Seattle and of course it involves driving more than 10 minutes from my house, but my mom and I ventured to Renton. It was horrible. Target was horrible. The suburbs are horrible. Right now I can only be thinking of reasons I want to live and so therefore I try to avoid anything that makes me want to commit suicide like complexes of Target/Lowes/Frys/PetCo/Etc. The return was simple enough but after about 2 seconds of attempting to shop for other necessities I felt myself panicking and my mom and I booked it back to NoBea for some Pho. Pho is the answer to everything bad.

This afternoon the Need to Do returned and in the shower I decided, what the fuck? I’m going to shave all of my body hair. It’s falling out anyway! In chunks! Gross! I have never, ever shaved my pubic hair. Oh my god. I don’t think I’ve seen such a sight since I was… 13? I’m not into it. I look pre-pubescent. So let’s re-cap the beating my sexuality has taken in the last 3 weeks:
Shiny, naturally highlighted (if not difficult), woman head-hair: gone
Fantastic, constantly highlighted cleavage: suffering from an ugly white tube protruding
Pubic Region: regressed 12 years.

I don’t think I knew I was attached to any sense of my femininity or that I walked around knowing that at any moment some man might see me and think Ah HA! I want to hit that! But now I feel fairly certain that is NOT happening. And it sucks. I’m not saying that the shaved head isn’t cute or that I deserve it when people gawk at my Hickman at QFC, but… fuck.