Finished.

This is the face of someone who doesn't have a port anymore!

It's also the face of someone who waited FIVE AND A HALF HOURS with no food or drink to get said port out, and who didn't even get any sedation via the pointless IV that had been inserted all those hours before and therefore could totally have eaten breakfast and had coffee like a normal person, but I digress. It's out, I'm done with treatment, that's that. 

I have a mammogram at the end of March and one in September, and the next year I go back to annually like any other woman my age. I don't see my oncologist until June. It's hard to trust they know what they're doing - that apparently the statistics bear out no further regular tests - but as my friend Emily said, "they've been right about everything else so far, haven't they?"

I GUESS. 

So here I am. Just a regular person again. "Weird" doesn't really begin to cover how it feels to come out the other side of this. I have no recollection of what it was like to be someone who had not been diagnosed with cancer. I don't think it's possible to go back to being that someone, even if I remembered what it was like. 

For a year I have taken life a day at a time; cancer took from me the ability to make assumptions about the future. Today I know for sure that in two weeks I'm going to have high tea at Kensington Palace with my mom (and hopefully Prince Harry), so I guess I'm starting to take it a couple of weeks at a time now. Maybe that will someday become months at a time, or even a year, but I'm not counting on it. Right now what I have is enough. It's certainly better than it has been, anyway, and if I don't lose the sense of urgency that goes along with learning we can all lose everything in the blink of an eye, that's not the worst thing in the world. 

LOOK AT MY CAR THAT I GOT

I've wanted a little Audi since we lived in LA. For well over a decade. It wasn't until a few months after the cancer diagnosis that I realized, "hey, I should go ahead and get an Audi." I'm a grown up! It's okay to have the thing I want! 

I was going to lease it but Ben did the math and kind of freaked out and we determined it made more sense to buy. I went to the Audi dealership with more than a bit of trepidation about the whole process, but it turned out to be much easier than I expected. There was only one new 2015 left on the lot, so it was already discounted. The salesman was very disapproving when I tried to negotiate further ("I can tell you right now my manager is probably not going to go for this,") but surprise! His manager went for it. Shocking.

I wanted an Audi mainly because of the following:

1. It looks awesome.

And I wanted a new car because:

1. Diet Cokes always fell over in the shitty cupholders of my Mazda6.

2. I couldn't see very well out of that Mazda, either. It was too big.

3. I wanted heated seats and bluetooth.

Look how I can park this right in the center of the spot without even trying! My terrible spatial awareness in the Mazda had become a running joke in the McClure household. I was seriously the worst at driving that car.

To my surprise I totally love driving it - so fast and powerful! Ben told me I would love the engine but I thought I wouldn't care about engines. I guess maybe everyone cares about engines when given the opportunity, though.

I keep trying to think of places to drive so I can hang out in the car. Yay!

On This Day

I don't usually pay attention to my "On This Day" things on Facebook, but I've gotten pretty sucked in over the past month or so, watching 2015 me blissfully post pictures of my kitties and statuses about TV shows, having no idea what was about to be discovered in my right breast. It's like a slow motion trainwreck, watching my life about to come to a screeching halt. It was on this day, February 4th, that I went to work as usual and then to barre, where I chatted with an acquaintance about trying to make our husbands come to a class on Valentine's Day. I went about my evening and got in bed to read, and a few minutes later sat straight up and made shocked, terrified eye contact with Ben. I still don't know how I noticed that tiny lump at all. I can't figure out what I would have been doing to feel it; my best guess is that my book, a heavy one from the library, was resting on my chest pushing my hand into the underside of my breast. Or that it was my Higher Power at work.

A lot of people date their Cancerversary from the official biopsy results and diagnosis, or from the day of surgery when it was removed. But my life changed forever in that instant. Never for one second did I believe it wasn't cancer. I guess that's the hypochondriac in me - most people would play the odds and assume that as a 38 year old woman with no family history, it was surely benign - but as it turns out, my hypochondriac instincts were not wrong. (Finally! Vindication!)

So here we are, one year later. One Herceptin treatment to go before I'm sent back into the world like a normal person who only goes to the doctor every few months. Not too long ago I would have called it "a year from hell," and of course it's not been any picnic, but I guess like with any trauma, our minds do a good job of helping us forget (or block out) the worst of it. Somehow I have gotten used to this state of being, as a Cancer Person, and forgotten what it was like before.

At the Cancer Center they make you fill out these forms with each visit, rating your overall distress on a scale of 0 to 10. For the first time yesterday, I couldn't think of a single thing to be distressed about. I was feeling ZERO distress. How is it possible? 

So I guess I've turned a corner. For now.

T Minus 28 Days

I now have normal hair. I know this because a couple of weekends ago, two separate people I haven't seen in a year (a barre instructor and my dry cleaning lady) briefly didn't recognize me and then said, "oh! you cut your hair!" when they heard my name. To which I naturally replied both times, "no, I had cancer so it all fell out." 

I'm trying to stop saying that. It's kind of a bummer.

Four weeks from today is my last Herceptin. I'm getting my port out the next day. After that I have a mammogram at the end of March, one at the end of September, and I'm back to once a year like a normal person. I guess they really do think Stage IA breast cancer is usually cured after treatment.

When I was first diagnosed everybody wanted to hook me up to talk with their friends who had gone through this. One of the people I emailed with was a friend of one of Ben's coworkers. She'd been diagnosed with Triple Negative Stage IIIB cancer before she turned 30. She's now four years out from the end of treatment and has a toddler. Her sense of optimism was unfathomable to me at the time; how could she have a child, knowing she could essentially go at any time? She told me, "You can't worry about recurrence. You just can't." 

Now, almost a year later, I understand what she means. It's not that you can't let yourself worry, it's that you become physically and emotionally exhausted and have no other choice but to move on. I'm reaching that point, I think, where my brain is starting to let go not because I want it to, but because I simply cannot continue to worry every day that there is cancer in my body. I have to think about something else. The reality is that the five-year relative survival rate of Stage IA breast cancer is 100%. That doesn't mean it's definitely not coming back, but it means I'm as likely to be killed by something else in the next five years as I am by breast cancer. Those odds are about as good as they can get. I feel pretty certain that even if breast cancer does kill me, I won't die wishing I'd spent more time worrying about it. So: Onward.

Right now I'm spending more time obsessing over my March trip to London & Paris (why do I always book these things so far in advance?) than I am about dying of breast cancer. That's a big step toward being who I used to be. I'm not quite there, and I don't know that I'll ever be there, but closer is progress.

Christmas in the Mountains

I had a Herceptin treatment in December 23rd and neither of us felt much like flying on Christmas Eve, so this year we decided to stay in North Carolina, and ended up renting a house in the mountains near Asheville with our friends Todd & Elise. We drove up there after my infusion and stayed through the 27th.

Unfortunately it rained 80% of the time and was 75 degrees the rest of the other day, so it wasn't quite the winter getaway we had envisioned when booking the trip. It's a good thing, though, because the "road" to the house was a Scottish-style single track path straight up the side of a mountain. I don't know what we would have done if it was icy; it was terrifying enough in the rain.

The house was great, though! Perched right on the side of the mountain.

The view from the deck was fantastic!

On Christmas Eve we drove into Asheville in the downpour and went to the Biltmore Estate. My company sells their wine, so they hooked us up with free tickets, a special private winery tour, a red wine and chocolate seminar, and then a sparkling wine tasting. And then we had dinner. It was a lot!

We had to buy ponchos and umbrellas on the way there.

On Christmas Day the rain finally relented, at least for part of the day. Christmas morning Ben said he was going for "a little stroll" so I decided to join him in my pajamas, given that we were isolated on a tiny road with only a few other houses around, most of which appeared to be empty. Also I figured there wasn't much of anywhere to go. Fortunately he managed to find a steep path up the side of the mountain that we could climb up.

Later that day the wifi went out so we all sat around reading our books in silence for a few hours. It was lovely. 

However, by the 26th we all had cabin fever and drove into Asheville despite having no concrete plan for how we would spend the day. Elise and I ended up sitting in the Asheville Bier Garden reading books on our phones all afternoon while Ben and Todd wandered in and out. It was pretty perfect, actually. We finished with dinner at Chestnut and drove home early Sunday morning. A nice quiet Christmas!

28 Weeks Post Final Chemo

It's ten months to the day since my breast surgeon called and told me I had breast cancer. "I got your biopsy results back, and it is a small cancer." I guess she was trying to make me feel better with that "small" business. My oncologist also said, "Well, it's small," the first time he felt it. WHO CARES?? CANCER.

Anyway, now that December is here, I've been thinking a whole lot about how glad I will be to put this garbage pit of a year behind me. I'm not usually one for artificial milestones and all that, but god, 2015 has been the worst. But I decided that rather than listing out all the things that made it terrible - because everyone reading this knows about my big personal ones, and the sadness in my friends' lives is not for me to share - I should instead probably write a post talking about the things that made it good.

I'm absolutely not one of those people who thinks we should Learn Lessons from going on a Cancer Journey or some bullshit, but I have learned something whether I wanted to or not, and mainly it's that I'm living the life I'm supposed to be living. I know because when I found out I had cancer, I didn't feel like I had a pending list of items to take care of. I didn't want to change anything or do anything differently. I just wanted MORE. More time with Ben and my family and friends, more traveling, more books, more sitting around my house in pajamas with cats.

There is a sense of urgency now underlying everything and I'm not really sure I want it to go away. That sense of urgency is responsible for being six weeks from paying off our house, for making the decision at the last second to go to my 20th high school reunion and having an awesome time, for booking a trip to London next spring with my mom (sorry, Hillary), for realizing that if I've wanted to drive an Audi A4 for ten years I should probably just go ahead and get one. I mean, not until we pay the house off - I haven't lost my mind or anything. But after that.

It's like I'm constantly walking a line between wanting to live my normal life and also feeling like I need to treasure every second and take every opportunity to do everything interesting or fun. For now that feels okay, and part of me hopes I don't ever lose that feeling of conscious gratitude I've gained as a result of learning in one terrifying second how fragile the little life I've created actually is. Part of me is still pretty pissed off about that one terrifying second, though, and wants my naive little life back.

My hair is weird, and I am tired of talking about it, but here it is. 

I know I need to not cut it and just push through until it grows enough to not look like an elderly style, and I know I should be glad to not be bald. Essentially, though, having hair like this feels the same to me as when I was bald. "Oh, but I like it!" people say. Well, fine, but I didn't do this on purpose, and it's different from anything I have ever seen on my head before, and it's a constant reminder of my year from hell. Someone recently said to me, "Some people pay a lot of money for curls like those!" but of course I did pay a lot of money for curls like these. Like, way more than anyone has ever paid for a perm.

I have 78 days until my last Herceptin. I'm going to try to schedule my port removal the same day. I'm ready to move on. Yeah, it might come back. I might have cancer growing in my body right this second. But I need to try to at least pretend I believe it's going to be okay for a while.

What's Up?

Nothing much is up. After a second consecutive October of getting no sleep and having the DVR build up to frightening levels of to-be-watched television, the baseball playoffs are over, but this time the Royals WON. The Royals won the World Series! It's been a few days now and I'm still not over it. I keep watching Hosmer's slide into home in the bottom of the ninth on YouTube. At least I lived long enough to see that happen! World Champions!

Benjamin is tired of me making "at least I lived long enough to see _____" jokes and similar. I don't really think they are jokes, though, not completely. I still don't believe I'm done with having cancer. I believe it a little more than I used to, and I think I will continue to believe it more and more as time passes, but for now I haven't had a day yet where I believe it for the whole day.

I have six more Herceptin treatments, which doesn't sound like a lot but unfortunately they're every three weeks so that adds up to 112 more days before it's over. I like that I'm still getting an expensive drug pumped into my body, though (especially one that doesn't cause any side effects), and I like having the morning off work to read my book in a comfortable chair, so I don't mind too much. Ben gets to go with me to two of the remaining six, since he now works for the government and gets a million paid holidays. He's never been with me to a treatment before, so it will be nice for him to see what it's like. And to show off my handsome husband to the nurses.

My hair is quite something.

My head looks very much like my Grandma Dorothy's head, or at least it will in a few more weeks. Every week I take this overhead shot, and I keep expecting it to sort of start settling down, but each week I'm surprised how much it's changed in only seven days. I am really, really tired of discussing with coworkers how curly my hair is. It didn't used to be curly, did it? Isn't that weird how it's growing back curly? Oh no, not really, most times it grows back curly after chemo. Really! Why is that? WELL I DON'T KNOW CAN WE STOP TALKING ABOUT IT NOW.

Deep breath. 

Really, though. It was better being bald. At least everyone was too shocked into silence to make me talk about it six hundred times a day. I really would be better off living alone with Ben and Papaya on an island in the North Atlantic. Except then I wouldn't have access to the Duke Cancer Center, I guess.

Trip Report: Denmark, Day 8

Our last day! We were done with walking a hundred miles everywhere and by now were taking the bus as much as possible. This is the bus stop at the corner by our apartment. So helpful, telling you how many minutes until the next bus!

First we went down to Christiansborg Palace again so we could get some prints of the tapestries to frame. This is the canal around Slotsholmen, the little island where the palace and some other government buildings are located. There was tons of construction in central Copenhagen because they are expanding the metro to be more useful - right now it's just one line.

We stopped in at the Radhus, Copenhagen City Hall, because it was one of the few frequently mentioned tourist places we hadn't been yet.

It was pretty but I don't know what you are supposed to do there.

There's an old fancy clock to look at.

Then we went to the train station to set out for Malmo, Sweden, across the water. It didn't really seem like there was much to do in Malmo, but when you have the opportunity to take a 30 minute train ride to another country, you should do it! 

Malmo looked newer than Copenhagen, but didn't seem much different overall.

TGI Friday's, weirdly, is one of the only American companies we saw with a significant presence in Denmark, and we were dismayed to discover when having dinner with Morten's parents that Danes are unaware TGI Friday's is terrible. I guess they think this is what all restaurants are like in the United States. Ugh.

We found a restaurant in this square for lunch.

Swedes also give you blankets for outdoor eating.

We got cheeseburgers.

Fortunately the patio was very efficiently covered with interlocking tents, because it poured the entire time we were eating. Despite this being the forecast at the time:

Honestly! How hard is it? IT'S CURRENTLY RAINING. Update the forecast.

Anyway, it cleared off by the time we were done.

We walked through the pedestrian shopping area of Malmo, which was charming. Swedish people are definitely not as accommodating as Danes, though; we have never been to a less annoying city for being a pedestrian than Copenhagen, but this courtesy did not seem to extend across the water.

We ate some of these same berries in Newfoundland! But they are called partridgeberries there.

Malmo is similar to Copenhagen re: canals.

We took the train home mid-afternoon to pack up all our things. Last night in Denmark!

We had about a 40 minute bus ride to dinner. When I booked the restaurant I sort of didn't understand how far away it was, but fortunately the bus from our apartment went straight there. It was an interesting trip right through the center of town and then took us to some other areas we hadn't seen before.

Our last dinner was at Amass, one of the most highly rated restaurants in town - I wanted to have at least one other fancy dinner besides Noma. The chef here is American and has worked at Noma (and many other of the best restaurants in the world). 

They seated us right next to a half-wall looking into the kitchen, which was exciting! 

We got a set 5 course menu. First up was corn pudding with rye crackers.

There was also this delicious potato bread with broccoli chutney from the restaurant garden. Like Noma, they are really focused on local food here.

Danish tomatoes with white currants, really delicious.

This was squid and black garlic and nasturtium and flowers from their garden. Most of the squid I've had has been vaguely rubbery, but this was not at all.

Beets with Danish yogurt and herbs. The beets were a little dehydrated and chewy, very good.

And pork with thinly sliced apples, fermented grains, and wormwood.

By this time it was getting dark so the picture of dessert didn't turn out - it was caramelized whey ice cream with sweet potatoes and honey, and was absolutely fantastic. Then they brought us rosemary cake with rhubarb preserves and some chocolate crackers.

The next morning we were up at 4:00 and off to the airport on a metro train full of drunk people who hadn't been home yet, so that was fun. But we made it home without incident, and Papaya was happy to see us for five minutes before she went back to her normal life of sitting around doing nothing. 

Trip Report: Denmark, Day 7

The morning after Noma, Ben had come down with the cold, so we were forced to get breakfast that had a lot of fruit in it for vitamin C purposes. We got these delicious tarts at Torvehallerne, a newish food market near the Norreport train station with all sorts of different types of foods.

Mmm, bread. We decided we'd grab dinner here too, on the way home.

We set out via train for Helsingor, home of Kronborg Castle. Kronborg is famous as the setting for Hamlet, but of course Hamlet wasn't real and Shakespeare never visited this area. In reality, Kronborg was set up as a tax collection fortress. It's right on the water, on a narrow strait across from Sweden.

I liked how Kronborg was no-nonsense compared with the ornate palaces we'd visited earlier in the trip. 

There is Sweden across the water.

You can also wander around in the casements beneath the castle. There is a big statue here that is supposed to come to life and defend Denmark if the country is ever attacked, but since nothing happened when the Nazis invaded it's safe to assume the statue is in fact useless.

For lunch we walked back into the little town and got some smorrebrod. Ben ordered two (one smoked fish, one fried fish).

And I got a sampler plate, which turned out to be a terrific deal. I couldn't finish all this stuff.

In addition to butter we got this delicious spread, which we later learned translates as "lard with onions."

After lunch we got back on the train and went south a bit to visit the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. 

A big Yayoi Kusama exhibit had just opened the day before. 

I liked it but Benjamin thought she was obnoxious.

The best thing about the Louisiana is the building and setting. It's beautiful, right on the water. We wandered around for a long time and then just sat on the steps by the ocean for a while.

Back in Copenhagen, we stopped in at Torvehallerne to examine our options for dinner,

We ended up getting takeout Thai. I had big plans for saving money by cooking dinners on this trip, since we had a whole apartment, but we didn't ever cook anything except coffee.

Since Ben was feeling a little under the weather, this was another Stay at Home and Watch Arrested Development evening, which was fine by me. We walked at least 10 miles every single day and I was always ready to sit quietly by early evening!