OK, red devil, here I come ...

I'm still recovering with a capital R — feeling better than I figured I'd be so soon after surgery. Aside from two plastic tubes looping out my side and draining lymphatic fluid into a couple of plastic bulbs hanging from my shirt by safety pins, you'd probably never guess I'd had a mastectomy five days ago. More so than any discomfort from the surgery, it's the lack of sensation under my arm, on my side and across most of the left side of my chest that's taking some serious getting used to. Some sensation might come back in some spots weeks or months from now — or not. It's one of those is-what-it-is things. Wish as I might that I didn't have to put up with this much nerve damage, I sure am glad that my surgeon cut as much cancer out of me as he possibly could. I don't miss my ex-breast. I'm quite glad it's gone. It'll be a while before I get used to the look of the scarred remains, but I feel quite relieved knowing that I'm not carrying cancer around with me anymore — as far as we know. I was hoping that there wouldn't be anything amiss in any other lymph nodes besides the one they biopsied back in early June, but there is — no, therewas — cancer in six of the eight lymph nodes my surgeon scooped out last Thursday. Four of them had "macrodeposits" measuring 2mm or more and two had "microdeposits" measuring less than 2mm. This bumps me from stage 2 to stage 3 and means I'll have to get the big, bad "red devil" chemo drug adriamycin. Another is-what-it-is reality. As my brother put it when I broke the news, "I'm not feeling anything positive about this lymph node news." Nope. Me, neither. The only remotely "good" thing about it is that we now know more about how far my cancer has spread and that we have some more searching to do. A week from today, I'll get CT and bone scans to see if they can pick up any other signs of cancer elsewhere in my body. I'm so used to the testing-waiting-testing rigamarole at this point that I'm trying not to worry about what those scans might or might not find. We'll deal with the findings, whatever they are, and move forward with more knowledge about what the next step(s) will be. On a happier note, I'm smiling ear to ear this week as my dear friend Roxanne Martin is staying with me as I recover from surgery. Sean, the kids and I had planned had been to visit her and several other friends during a family road trip to Northern California. As soon as Roxanne found out about my cancer, she asked when she could come up to help. How nice for some of my vacation that couldn't be to come up to Seattle instead.

So here she is, cooking us tacos, doing our laundry, cleaning our kitchen, playing catch with the kids, taking me out to lunch (that photo of us is at Geraldine's Counter, where I enjoyed one helluva chicken pot pie today), helping me shop for easy-on easy-off button-up shirts at our neighborhood consignment shop ... Life is good. Even with a shitbird like cancer trying to drag me down. As I gear up for my "red devil" chemo, which will start in about a month once I'm all healed up, the song that keeps playing in my head is the one in the trailer of the new Mission Impossible movie: "Ready or not ... here I come ..."

An epiphany, a poem and a meditation

I had an epiphany today, one that made me and a friend chuckle a bit. I'm sharing it with you today (how is it The Day already?!) in hopes that it will ease any anxiety you might be feeling, like it did for me. So here goes: How is the mastectomy I'm getting tomorrow that different than giving birth to my kids, really? I'm going to the hospital to get something in me taken out of me that's going to be good for me. A bonus that's dawned on me since: The piece of me they're taking out/off today will never throw a tantrum or whine about broccoli. Nice, right? Now for a poem written by my brother, one of the most caring and eloquent people I know — a writer of superb talent:

Idda's poem*

A new bundle of red, you arrived in my life, My sister, my friend . . . don't run with that knife!

Atlanta, Sewanee, Torino, and Cali, We traveled the world, via highway or alley.

Summer at Grandmom's, then on to Vermont. "I get off here," you knew, if the driver did not.**

NHS, then Stanford, some Frisco, Seattle, Along came Sean, then Sylvia . . . with a rattle.

"Aunt Lizzie" to some and Idda to one, "Mommy" to Tyler (he'll walk, mostly run).

So many laughs across so many miles, Splashing in water, dancing on tiles.

The sun shines its brightest on those who love best, My sister, my friend . . . no problem, this test.

— Frank Murtaugh III, July 29, 2015

*Frank's nickname for me is Idda — short for Idda Bidda Widda, a name he gave me one summer when we were young and he delighted in finding silly ways to annoy me. **This is a tribute to my first ride on a school bus in our hometown of Northfield, Vermont, where we moved right before I started third grade. On the first day of school the bus driver was about to pass the Gray Building (where kids in kindergarten to third grade went to school). "Why isn't he turning right?" I thought. "This is my stop." Not giving a thought to all the other elementary school kids on the bus who seemed entirely unfazed by this apparent blunder, I stormed to the front of the bus and declared "I get off here!" Turns out the Gray Building stop was the last one on his route. I surely embarrassed Frank, but like most 8th graders with little sisters, he did a good job of pretending like he didn't know me. And now, a gift from the interwebs that I hope will give you some deep and relaxing belly laughs today and in the days to come. Thanks to the handful of friends and family members who have sent it my way in recent weeks. Here it is ... "F*ck That: A Guided Meditation."

#CaringBridge #cancer #meditation #mastectomy #Idda

If there's anything you can do ...

We are grateful for all the expressions of “If there’s anything we can do …” so many of you have offered the last couple months. We know we’re going to need helping hands — but what we don’t know (yet) is exactly what what help we’ll need, when we’ll need it and how best to mobilize Team Liz without it becoming a logistical headache for us or anyone else.

We’re going to start off simple by posting tasks on my CaringBridge Planner, where you can sign up for things like meal delivery, errands, help around the house, or taking the kids off our hands so we can chill, get some exercise or go out on a date.

We might move toward a system of setting up certain tasks of certain days of the week and sticking to a set schedule. Or we might post tasks as needs arise, like steam cleaning the stinky carpet in our daughter’s room. (Sweet old Pepper recently got over a bladder infection and apparently did much of her indoor peeing in Sylvia’s room. Pee-yew!)

There are only a couple tasks up for grabs right now. We’ll add more soon. If there’s something you’d really like to do for us that’s not in the CaringBridge Planner, let’s try this:

• Email Sean the what and when details (i.e., “Can I come by from 7 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, August 5 to help you take out the trash, get the kids to bed, or whatever else you need?” or “We’re going grocery shopping DAY/TIME. Can we get you anything?”). Sean’s email is spgillespie@gmail.com.

Some other ways you can help, whether you’re near or far:

• Email rather than texting (at least for a while.) Some days, our phones light up with so many texts, we have a hard time keeping up. I’m compulsive about responding to as many as possible, as quickly as possible (bad habit!). I have an easier time fielding emails and not responding right away. You can also message me on Facebook or leave a note in my CaringBridge guestbook. If it takes me a while to reply, you'll understand (and thank you for that).

• Help us stay nourished. Two ways to do this from afar: 1) Gift certificates to PCC, an awesome grocery store where we can get cooked meals that just opened two blocks from our house (online order form here). 2) Munchery, an online meal delivery service some friends rave about it. Go to www.munchery.com, set up an account, click on the gifts tab, choose an amount to give, enter my email (elizabethmgillespie@gmail.com) in the recipient’s field, then we get the Munchery cred and can order yummy meals.

• Instead of flowers, consider giving to Fred Hutch. Flowers are lovely, but curing cancer is way better. If it makes you feel good to give, you can make a donation to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in honor of the ass-whupping I’m about to give cancer. You can dedicate your gift to breast cancer research or simply support the greatest need.

OK … go time is 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, Thursday, July 30 at Overlake Hospital in Bellevue. The surgery should last about two hours, and I’ll most likely stay just one night.

Knowing that surgeons generally don’t encourage a parade of visitors for mastectomy patients, please just send me “you got this!” vibes and know how much I’ll appreciate all your warm and healing thoughts. Sean will do his best to post a quick update on CaringBridge once we’re settled in my recovery room.

“You will do well,” my surgeon wrote me yesterday. “The road to recovery starts Thursday.”

Yes, I will. And yes, it does.

Ready … set ...

#cancer #CaringBridge #FredHutch #gratitude