My friends, if anyone is still reading this wee little blog, I know it has been a very long time. My apologies for that. It is time I have spent keeping my head down and getting back to work, finishing up some treatments, reaching some milestones, and slowly learning how to be back in my body. Put differently, it is time I've spent learning how to be a survivor. I am still processing and feeling things I have never felt before, both in the physical and emotional sense. Doing so during a global pandemic has been challenging. So much and so little has happened, and it feels like a day and a lifetime have elapsed since I last posted. The dualities I have felt since cancer only feel exacerbated by this pandemic, which has greatly distorted our sense of event-based time. To give you my general vibe as of late, it mostly involves weathering the NYC winter, with masks finally having the added benefit of keeping my nose warm, as I did today in our dear friend Amina's backyard:
It's been cold and a bit dreary- as the year comes to a close, it's hard not to reflect on the alternate reality in which I finished cancer treatment and got to travel the world to see loved ones, experience new things and places, and, well, had a fucking break after the toughest year of my life. But in spite of the drag that this year has been, there have been a fair share of events worth celebrating. To start with the most important one, last week, my brother and SIL had a whole human baby! Meet my wonderful little niece, Zella Darling Stahl:
She's so cute, right? We were supposed to head out to California to welcome her to the world, but with COVID cases absolutely skyrocketing, well, basically everywhere, it did not seem wise. It sucks, we are deeply sad and not sure when we will be able to get out there and see her, but yet again, cancer has taught me a thing or two about uncertainty. For now, I'm happy for my brother, glad to be a tata and wishing that my niece has a beautiful, interesting, long and healthy life.
What else? Let me try and do a little month-by-month recap. In August, after the stress of the beginning of the month, I took most of the month off of work and I tried to have little escapes where I could. I started a new treatment, this bone density infusion thing that I'll be getting every six months or so. Greg and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary, where we went to an outdoor dining spot and I ended up throwing up in the bathroom, because, well, the eternal joys of cancer side effects. I also had an upper endoscopy at the end of the month, which turned out to show some acid reflux- hence the vomiting in restaurant bathrooms.
In Maine with girlfriends (after negative COVID tests):
September was all about soaking up the good weather and outdoor hangs before the chill of fall and winter. We spent a lot of time in our backyard, went on tons of walks, and ate in as many parks as humanly possible. One of the highlights of the month was being awarded a post-mastectomy training grant by Coach Joselynn Corredor, aka Body en Route. Coach Jos is a fitness guru and climber who found out that she was a BRCA carrier a few years back and decided to have a prophylactic double mastectomy. She generously offered a few months of virtual training to women who've recovered from mastectomies via a grant program, and I applied and won! It has been infinitely amazing getting stronger in my body, and I am so grateful to Coach Jos for the confidence and literal strength that she has given me. I also got back to my work and got up the nerve to start a group of cancer survivors/patients in the academe, which has turned into a lovely monthly group meet-up with some truly wonderful women with different kinds, stages, and statuses of cancer all over this world.
October was breast cancer awareness month, and tbh, it was a bit of a doozy. October 1st was the year anniversary of my mastectomy, aka one year of me being No Evidence of Disease (NED). It is a kinda odd thing to start to see pink shit everywhere and celebrate my NED day at the same time. But truly, it was a beautiful day. Nicole and I took the day off to go up to a delightfully empty MET. I met Greg for jazz in Prospect Park in the evening and a dinner outdoors at a great local spot. We celebrated in the ways that we could, and I am so grateful for the friendship Nicole and Steve have shown us these past few years.
November and December, I don't really feel like recapping. I kicked ass on my dissertation- made some great progress. We celebrated holidays just the two of us, and missed out on trips, and it got cold, aka harder to see people safely outside. Oh! One cool thing- starting back in October, I started an 8 week wheel pottery course, which has been an absolute delight. The feeling of the clay and act of creating is a tremendous catharsis for me. OH and Trump fucking lost and NYC was one big party on the most beautiful and unseasonably warm November day:
To close on a pensive note, the past few months have been at times extremely joyful, and at times extremely challenging. Beyond the tropes and "you're so braves", it's hard to encapsulate what survivorship actually is. In many ways, you're somewhat between two states of being– one of extreme gratitude that you're alive and getting to experience little and big moments with loved ones, and another of extreme fear and a sense of precariousness that you're only one bad scan or biopsy away from being thrown into a worse version of your illness; one that is incurable, permanent, deadly. And then, of course, there are the other difficult realities of it. The ongoing hormone therapy I'm on remains truly rough for me, with night sweats and stiff joints and mood swings, not to mention reckoning with my resulting infertility, which is a whole other boat of logistics and sadness and difficulties and emotions that I'll save for another post.
I will go ahead and close on this note (pun intended here). Over this long weekend, Greg and I watched the latest Pixar movie, Soul. As some of you may know, I have not always been the biggest fan of Pixar, but this one hit really close to home. Without giving too much away, it gets at the fact that the meaning of life is basically just living it. I've intimately learned that basic fact through cancer, and I hope I get that *spark* for decades to come. Okay, I'm wishing any remaining readers the happiest of new years. I love you and wish you some bright lights at the end of the tunnel that 2020 has been.
*I can't believe how much I love the latest Taylor Swift album. I've never been a fan but I decided to have a listen and consider myself a convert.
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