Tam That Cancer!

Living Out My Truth and Reigniting this Blog

Dearest friends,

We are quickly approaching the one year anniversary of my diagnosis and I am recommitting to making more regular postings on this blog once May rolls around and I’m easing out of my incredibly busy schedule and full plate at the moment. I took the photo above from a lovely dinner with some wonderful inspiring friends tonight.

This week, I’ve been bombarded with to-do lists, emails to respond to, and a body that aches for rest. Today, I took a yoga and a pilates class, one at lunch and one after work. It feels like I’m tipping toes back into normalcy, while still having some pangs left from treatment. My knees are still in pain, but it allows me enough freedom to be able to exercise physical ability and agility, and for this I’m truly grateful. This photo reminds me of culling out the beauty and essence of our daily and what seems to be mundane, actions. Eating and cooking are basic tasks of life. Yet, there is liberation, release, and freedom I find in the kitchen and at the dining room table that is sometimes lacking in other aspects of life’s daily routine. This quote on the staircase of Traveler’s restaurant in Beacon Hill, reminds me to slow down, and remember the core of everything from eating, to working, to exercising, communicating, and connecting. It sets a standard of intentional living, being, existing. It is to live in the present, with our whole selves, and not let the flow of living sweep us away. 

On this note, this blog has been a huge blessing for me and I hope to continue to cull out gems of intention and lessons learned from my life journey with you. I hope it will continue to be a resource that you can forward to any one who could use a helping hand. 

What you can expect: 

HOW TO’s

• How to build a digital community
• How to find a good doctor and cancer center
• How to stay motivated and inspired
• How to look and feel fabulous all through treatment
• How to simplify your beauty routine during treatment
• How to find comfy chemo clothes
• How to set up a feeding schedule
• How to find a creative outlet
• How to find your cancer community
• How to talk about kids about cancer
• How to be there for a friend through cancer
• How to forgive yourself for missing life events during cancer
• How to ask questions of your healthcare providers
• How to thank your healthcare providers
• How to say no to certain gifts during treatment
• How to ask for what you need and want during treatment
• How to ease out of your “normal” life and transition into “cancer world”
• How to set up a Google Calendar and share it with your caregivers and friends and family during treatment
• How to still enjoy your favorite foods during treatment
• How to keep your spirit up during treatment
• How to use Twitter during treatment
• How to use Facebook during treatment
• How to set up a Tumblr site
• How to use Instagram
• How to tread the boundary of sharing enough to communicate and not “sharing too much” of your cancer journey and major health events
• How to count your blessings when it doesn’t seem like there’s not much left to be thankful for
• How to cultivate a mentor relationship to pull you through treatment
• How to live a life filled with bliss and happiness through treatment 
• How to manage your meds
• How to manage your appointment schedule
• How to arm yourself with entertainment during the long wait times between appointments
• How to throw yourself a pre-chemo party
• How to have a potluck party in your chemo-room
• How to make long stays in chemo more pleasant
• How to schedule and establish rules for visitors during chemo

INSPIRATION

• Poem or quote of the week
• Book or blog of the week
• Excerpt of the week
• Photo or art of the week

SUPPORT & RESOURCES

• Cancer Lifeline
• Livestrong
• Thrive
• Gilda’s Club
• SCCA resources
• UW resources

LIFE & RELATIONSHIPS

• What to say to a friend after they’ve been diagnosed
• What not to do or say
• How to be there for a friend (guest posts from Team My Tam)
• How to ask for, seek out, and maintain relationships with mentors, patients, and survivors

INSPIRATION
100 Days of Gratitude (May-July). A friend to honor and thank a day for one hundred days, and lessons to learn from how they lead their lives.

The above is just a rough outline of what I would love to be able to share and give on this blog continuing on this life journey post-treatment. To be so incredibly blessed with a life after cancer, I’m very open to other blog post suggestions as well. Please feel free to write, comment on this post, or email me with additional post ideas, questions, or concerns.

Here is to living out our truth with intention, integrity, and honesty.

With love,
My Tam 

A Clean Bill of Health & Relearning Boundaries

Hi dear friends,

My schedule has been incredibly busy and I’m finding myself pulled along its current with my full calendar these days. I’m taking a self-imposed night off tonight to regather my energy, my thoughts, and recommitting my intentions for my post-cancer life. 

I’m so amazingly grateful for the opportunity to speak in front of Cancer Lifeline’s audience during their annual fundraiser, and am completely humbled and inspired by their work. The photo above is from the middle of my speech/ask, and I gathered some guts to pull of my scarf and show how my hair is progressing.

It is a continuing challenge to balance my health, community commitments, work, and life schedule. I am doing better and better at saying no, and maintaining healthy boundaries to make sure I am able to sustain my health and happiness. 

On the health side, I received a full bill of health last week from Doctor Farah after my quarterly check-ups and scans. I have an appointment with him next week, and will post some more after our visit. I know it sounds bizarre, and as much as do not miss treatment, I do adore my friends and circle of healthcare professionals who took such incredible care of me all through my journey.

So I am still transitioning out of Zee Cancer world, and am counting my blessings every single day, and pretty much at least once an hour. I’m especially grateful for the gift of sight, mobility, and freedom to choose the path and projection of my life once again. We are all so incredibly lucky to be living, surviving, and thriving.

I have also been preserving some lovely time at the end of the day to savor in some books (yes, real ones, not the digital stuff ;) and am grateful for every page I turn that I did not lose my vision. I am incredibly thankful to be able to once again appreciate the beauty of the written word… 

I leave you an excerpt from one of my favorite poets:

“It is the lumps and trials
That tell us whether we should be known
And whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star.” 
-John Ashberry, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror 

Magnificent days.

Dear friends,

Just a quick one today, and will post a more substantive one soon. I had a lovely lunch today with one of my mentors, and our sessions always puts great fire beneath my pants to keep me motivated and going. I’m having many realizations after our talk, and one of which, is the significance of every day. Oh, how we take all our moments we’re given for granted. There are no mediocre days, each and every sunrise and sunset we see and witness is an absolute present.

I’m preparing a speech for the annual Cancer Lifeline luncheon, and am reviewing and reflecting on everything that’s happened in the past nine months or so. How much my life has been whipped around, and how full and grateful I am to have life and health. It is a bit of culture shock to come back to living a daily regular routine after what seems like going to the moon then back. I’ve been having a bit of a hard time readjusting, switching between deep gratitude and complete confusion about what I’m supposed to be doing with myself and trying to meet what’s expected of me. 

Today though, I see through it all and have a bit more clarity. I’m challenging all the images and messages thrown at me about what it’s like to be a woman in our time. It was all so easy to see when I was sick, and now that I’m out and about, it’s all getting a bit muddled. No, I don’t want to spend time and money on clothes, make up and hair and short term material goods that do not bring long term pleasure and joy. Yes, I do want to invest in my health, my education, my career, my relationships, my community, and my spiritual and physical well being. Our culture tells me to desire more, and at the very root of me, all I’m yearning is balance and the luxury of time and health.

So here’s to real wealth, living from our core, speaking our truth, standing our ground of who we really are, and not ever taking any day for granted. There are no insignificant days.

Love,

My Tam

P.S. Feel free to read this entry in a British accent, it’s what I wrote it in after watching so many episodes of Downton Abby. 

Are we worthy of this life? On the eve of my 28th birthday…

{All illustrations in this post are by the phenomenal Maira Kalman, all photos are from my recent life adventures frolicking in nature and around the city.}

“How are we all so brave as to take step after step? Day after day? How are we so optimistic, so careful not to trip and yet do trip, and then get up and say O.K.” - Maira Kalman, in The Principles of Uncertainty.

I am in awe of this life. I’m overwhelmed. Overcome. Here I am, on the eve of my 28th birthday, I’m thinking about this past 27th year of  life. So filled with gratitude, the overcoming of significant life hurdles, and a flooding sense of calm and delectable realization. Do we know anything for sure? I always love the American Cancer Society “The Official Sponsor of Birthdays” commercials. Every time it’s shown on TV the past nine months through treatment, it’s either brought a smile or tears to my face. Through the days of unknowing, of bravery, of feign hope through certain fears and in the face of death, of pain, of frustration…persisted these commercials. A reminder, that perhaps, I will make it to my 28th birthday, and how much it would mean. And here I am…given another day to live, hopefully another year and lifetime to be, and another chance to make it all worth while.

The weight of life’s blessings has never felt heavier, and my sense of obligation has never been more lifted. One of my dear friends told me recently, “who you are is enough”.  I so needed to hear that. Gone are the days of my college and early-twenty-something self, the need to please is now tempered by the need to survive and live a healthy life. Who am I to my friends, family, community, humanity and the world if I am not my whole and present self with all of my being? To be alive and well, to be who I am, and to live in alignment with my core through everything which emanates from me, is enough.

One of my favorite quotes this week, that I’ve written on the chalkboard in my kitchen is: “And that is one very big point in the plus column of life.” - Maira Kalman, in The Principles of Uncertainty. Lately, I’m counting all the “very big points” in the “plus column of life”. I’m a list-maker, when I have a million to-do’s running in my head, the one thing that keeps me sane is  to create a list, a timeline, a plan to get it all done. This week especially, I’m making a list of all the very big pluses in the phenomenal column of life…to be alive is at the very top of that list. To spend Sundays with my mom is another one. We often forget that our days are numbered, and so are the times spent with our loved ones. How often do we ask ourselves as we plan out and spend our days in our routines, are we worthy of this life? How often do we pause, to make it matter, and to take in more big points for life’s “plus column”? 

I’m slowly easing back into my work and community life. To live a life that matters, a life that is worthy of the wonders of being human, on this magical planet, to be a tiny bleep worthy of the greatness of the universe. I see-saw between the vastness of what is possible, and the humility and simple true joy of what truly matters in life and I eventually find my grounding. Seeing my little cousin perform in her elementary school talent-show, slowly limping around Greenlake—-and actually making it (though not pain-free) through all three miles with my mom on a sunny Seattle day, talking to a young woman of color who wants to truly be engaged and involved in a work project, pretending I didn’t know where we were going (even though I really did) and cracking up with three of my best friends in a car trying to surprise me with an early-birthday present of dinner at an Iron Chef restaurant. Simple beautiful pleasures, these are my great plus points of life. What is the point? That is the point.

So here’s to taking flight, and to make an existence worth living. I am not who I was a year ago, and definitely not who I was 28 years ago ;) I’ve learned the very hard way the difficult lessons of balance, self-care, and moderation. I’ve learned to let go, of the many cancers of life, in the form of unhealthy friendships, of ill-will people, of time-wasters, inefficiencies, and the idea that we are boundless. We all know life has an ending, the challenge is how to make it count, in almost every moment. I’ve learned the art of perseverance, that every day, through some action, we can do anything within the capacity of life, including overcoming something seemingly insurmountable, like Zee Cancer.  So that is the great equation of life, we are all given a finite time, but infinite possibilities within what we’re given by the deep well of potential that burrows within, are we going to live an existence that is worthy of this life?

“There is nothing illusory in this tiny heaven. 
I am silent with gratitude.
I will go and bake a honey cake and that’s all.” 
- Maira Kalman, in The Principles of Uncertainty.

My cup runneth over with goodness.

Hi friends, 

Wanted to do a quick post to let you know I’m doing TAMAZING! Radiation is going swimmingly *knock on wood*. I have some VERY minor side effects beginning to rear its head like sensitivity on my scalp. Am loving having a different wonderful friend each day driving me to my radiation journey. It’s made what could’ve been a monotonous part of treatment shift to be a very fun daily adventure!

My wonderful aunt is also here from Arkansas and I’ve been spending some quality time with her and Mom. We eat very well and laugh very often when the three of us are together (like today at Snoqualmie Falls in the above picture). Such simple happiness can be found around the family dining table. I’m so grateful to be well and living to experience such goodness.

Speaking of good food, I’m settling into my charming new place and am loving baking alot more than cooking in this new home! I’ve discovered madeleines this weekend. They are my new favorite thing and I’ve already made five batches of them for two women parties! They are such joyous bites of love. And I adore coming home to the comforting scent of baked goods.

My weekend has been filled with the love of community, the comfort of sisterhood, and the hope of speaking my intentions for 2012 out loud to a loving circle of compassionate listening ears on two separate occasions. 

I’m going into the week filled with so much gratitude. My sciatica is almost gone, and I’m able to walk with little or no pain. Though my awesome pimp limp is still there, I’m so deeply grateful for the ability and freedom of movement. 

We are two weeks away from being completely treatment free of Zee Cancer! YIPPPEEE! I’m counting down the days and will be kicking into party planning high-gear very soon, so stay tuned!

I found this poster on Pinterest tonight (a new online social media obsession, let me know if you’d like an invite) and found it to be so appropriate to how I’m feeling at this stage of Zee Cancer journey. Something about Zee Cancer makes me feel like some right to freedom and dignity is taken away from me. As if I’m trapped in a physical health limitation and are not able to freely function in the ways In like to. Stuck in physical barriers of chemo, and the repercussions of treatment. With my new found “normalcy” of wellness and return to daily living, I’m reflecting on so much gained because of what I could’ve potentially lost: my vision, my life, my health, my freedom.

There have been many moments of overwhelming beauty and awe in my existence lately. Today, the cracks of blue skies against a canvas of layered gray clouds and the unvealing of a pregnant full moon, the shared meal with my family, and the deep connection of conversation with meaningful friends fills me with a deep sense of gratitude and contentment. I’m so incredibly lucky to be alive and well.

So here’s to appreciating the small gems of goodness in our days and breathing in the moments of awe inspiring living. May all our intentions and dreams for 2012 materialize, may our daily lives be filled with the people we love admire and respect, and may we live out the kind of existence and being we envision our lives and selves to be capable of.

Love,

My Tam

…and here are some pretty food pictures. Enjoy! =)

tangerine salad, celery, walnut, anchovy, pecorino

smoked trout, lentils, walnut, crème fraiche, pickled onion

shaved celery root salad, mint, pine nut, pomegranate molasses

all food above from the walrus and the carpenter.

Truffle fondue at the Coterie Room. Amazing. 

Deliciousness at vegan restaurant, Plum Bistro, esp. those pumpkin pancakes!

17 Days of Radiant Friends.

Dearest friends,

YIPPPPPPPPPEEEE!!! As we’re riding off into Zee Cancer treatment sunset, I would LOVE to hop skip and jump over the finish line with some quality time with 17 of you on my 17 days of radiation! This is totally for fun and catching up purposes, and if your schedule is bonkers right now, do not even stress about it, there will be many more celebratory and catch up opportunities to come!

The deets: pick me up from my place on N. Cap Hill at 7:20 a.m. every day for an 8 a.m. appointment. You’ll have to wait for about 15 minutes while the radiation takes place so we don’t expose you to any yucky beams, but that will be the only time we’ll be apart I promise so bring a good magazine or book! The appointments should all be done by 9 a.m. and drop me off at work in downtown Seattle after. Appointments on Mondays may take a bit longer, those are the days I meet with my radiation doc so plan on a 10 a.m. completion time. We can grab coffee/tea before for a quality catch up session and reminisce on the ending last days of ZEE CANCER! 

Shoot me a text, call or email at tamthatcancer@gmail.com. Below are the dates, I’ll fill them out as I get responses in so we know where we’re at. WHOOHOO!!! It’s like the 12 days of Christmas, but SO MUCH BETTER. HERE WE GO!!!

9 a.m. Wednesday, December 28: Jean, Mimi, Dao 

8 a.m. Thursday, December 29: Sri

3:45 p.m. Friday, December 30: Suzanne

8 a.m.  Tuesday, January 3: Bob 

8 a.m.  Wednesday, January 4: Sharee

8 a.m.  Thursday, January 5: Adriana

8 a.m.  Friday, January 6: Anita

8 a.m.  Monday, January 9: Wendy

8 a.m.  Tuesday, January 10: Nancy

8 a.m.  Wednesday, January 11: Martin & Saara

8 a.m.  Thursday, January 12: Victoria

8 a.m.  Friday, January 13: Jamie

8 a.m.  Tuesday, January 17: Joel

8 a.m.  Wednesday, January 18: Nora

8 a.m.  Thursday, January 19: Marian

8 a.m.  Friday, January 20: Deborah

8 a.m. Monday, January 23: Jack & Janice

Thank you!

Love,

My Tam

An honest good look at what is…and what’s ahead. Today: radiation!

[Photo credit: All paintings and images from this post are by Samuel Flores, one of my favorite artists.]

Hi friends,

I’m long due for a substantive post. I’ve been keeping busy with the holidays, family, friends, lovely visiting out-of-towners, moving into a new home (setting up a new internet connection, hence the posting hiatus) and returning to the office physically full time.

It’s an interesting transition back into my pre-cancer existence. Everything is geographically the same, but it’s as if my spirit has transcended and then asked to return to the same physical plane to exist with this new knowledge. I find myself stopping to reevaluate the things I say, the people I surround myself with, and the choices I make so much more. I need a bit more substance out of each moment and action. I now feel like life is so much more measured and am not comfortable with the mundane, un-evaluated routine of daily living.

There are also health repercussions post-cancer. I’m still dealing with sciatic nerve pain shooting regularly from my lower spine, to my tail bone, and down to my thigh, calf, and toes. It is excruciating. I feel like I have no more right to say anything measured related to my physical health and condition because Zee Cancer is gone, I should be OK, right? As much as I wish that were the case, it isn’t. I still have a pretty fair amount of pain leftover from the shunt surgery and the sciatic nerve, which may be a remnant of all the chemo and spinal taps to my system.

So this is where I am, the other side of cancer, aka full wellness and feeling “normal” lasted for a week. And now I’m back to experiencing regular shooting nerve pain and limping my way down the street with a bum leg. It is hilarious, and severely humbling at the same time. Yes, I am feeling like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and am feeling the levity of being cancer-free. Yet, the leftovers from Zee Cancer including round two of treatment in radiation, and these remnants of pain and not insignificant discomfort are causing me to hold back on my celebrations until the very end…

RADIATION

Today at 9 a.m., I begin radiation with the hand holding of my three very best friends. I continue to be so deeply grateful for the ways my friends, family, and community show up for me. Even though the cancer is gone, this journey is still a long ways to go before completion, and it feels like I need even more prayers, energy, and good will than ever to push through this very last hump. And they still check on me, allowing me to be and meeting me where I am. For this, I’m deeply grateful.

The radiation appointment tomorrow should last about an hour, and it will map out where they’ll zap me, they’ll also give me a schedule of how things will look the next few months and what time my daily radiation appointments will be.

I’ll be going into radiation every single day for awhile. So if you are free on a weekday and would like to offer a ride, I’d take you up on it to give my close friends and family a break =) Just send an email to tamthatcancer@gmail.com. I’ll post the final time tomorrow.

COUNTING BLESSINGS

As impatient as I am for this whole process to be over, wishing my health and body would participate and get me back to “normal”, a part of me knows that what was will never be again. This disease has completely transformed me. My body has changed, so has my attitude and approach to life. Little things are easier to let go, and the daily pettiness take a back seat to the bigger picture to that which truly matters: having a healthful body and mind, living a painless life, surrounding myself with people I love and respect, aligning my values actions thoughts and perceptions, and really savoring in the beauty of the human experience. I have a deeper desire for direct service, for a more honest human connection, to get beyond the B.S. of the everyday and to truly reveal the core of what every moment, interaction, decision really means.

So let the peeling begins, and hopefully it will unveal a truly beautiful post-cancer life.

Love,

My Tam