cancer

Scanning The Future And Maybe The Past

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Driving across the state at this time of year, the hills are dotted with color, white and pink blossoms and the soft green of spring. I left the turnpike around Carlisle, Pennsylvania and drove through small towns with remarkable names like Jim Thorpe and Zooks Corner and acre after acre of farmland, lush with early growth. The hillsides here are dotted with cows, sheep, horses, and the occasional goat. With my air conditioner issuing only an unenthusiastic whisper of warm-ish air, I’m relying on vintage, 4×65 air conditioning. It’s mostly effective, cooling, if also fragrant with the earthy smells of animals, not the least of which was the 18-wheeler filled with cattle, their large noses pressed through the grates like dogs hanging out the car window.

When I lived in Florida, my car didn’t have AC. I’d get in and, first thing, wind down the windows – yes, with a hand crank – before going anywhere. Even if I was driving the mile and a half to the Piggly Wiggly, the windows had to be down. It was so hot in the car that, no joke, my camera tripod handle warped and it wasn’t even in direct sunlight. The 4×65 air conditioning didn’t exactly work. The breezes were mostly warm, smelling of asphalt and fumes. My roommates laughed from their white, AC-equipped cars but I didn’t care. I was 20 years old and living the dream, as they say. 

Back then, I had only an AM radio but now I listen to audiobooks while I drive. This time it was Dragon Day by Bob Proehl, a fictional oral history by survivors of dragon attacks. It was immensely enjoyable, though its audible and goodreads reviews are rather middling. I joke – often – about reading books with dragon sex (yes, they exist), but I generally prefer my literary entertainments sans dragons. This, however, is worth a listen. 

My quarterly scans were this morning, scheduled early, allowing me to visit a favorite breakfast spot as a little post-scans celebration. The tests are a love/hate experience but the after-scans breakfast is a way to honor being here for another day, something I might not have except for that life-changing CT in December 2023. If this feels like a nudge, it is. YOU too probably need preventive care that you’ve been putting off. 

I’m writing this from another hospital, where I’ve spent my afternoon, acting as the patient support for someone getting their preventive colonoscopy. There was just a code O in obstetrics, which made me worry for strangers in the way one does at a hospital. As another patient once reminded me, very few of the people at a hospital are there for happy reasons but I always think of obstetrics as being one of the exceptions. Until that code O. 

An accordion-playing busker in Squirrel Hill has garnered much attention during his performances. He was good enough for me to cross the street to throw some cash into his open case. I’ve looked for him since and regret not asking his name. Buskers are frequent throughout the city but good buskers are rare. Years ago, there was a great singer, in our Oakland neighborhood, who could stop traffic. He busked in the late 80s, his voice deep and rich as he sang gospel, swaying to and fro on his flipped-over milk crate. I looked for him — a big, stooped-shouldered man with a tangle of black hair and dirty clothes — long after he stopped busking on the sidewalk near the McDonalds.

Much love.

Scanning The Future And Maybe The Past

Don’t Look Unless You Want to See

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The coffee shop is quiet today, except for the woman telephonically negotiating her dance team’s performance schedule. No complaints; it’s a fun view into a world I’ve not previously experienced. Apparently, there’s an issue with one of the mom’s being pregnant. I’m not entirely sure how that impacts the schedule but I’ll admit to an unhealthy amount of curiosity.

Unfortunately, I’ve moved seats; I was sitting next to an outlet and someone needed to plug in so I volunteered to change tables and lost the thread of the discussion. Now, I’ll never know what they decided to do about expecting-mom. 

I made a terrible discovery today when, for the first time in weeks, I visited the diner across from the coffee shop. It’s a shocking story so get yourself a drink and a comfy seat. I’ll wait until you’re settled.

Okay. Are you ready? Here we go. I may have mentioned before that I always give a massive quantity of cookies – dozens each of 10-ish different varieties — to the diner staff in December. I’ve been doing this for 6 or 7 years. I’m not really sure how it got started, an impulse probably that was popular enough that I just kept it up. 

In 2024, my son left his job at the diner but the head cook – everyone calls him Fresh – asked me if I’d continue to make the cookies. Of course I said yes. The day I delivered the treats, Fresh was not working – get this – because he objected to the way my son was treated in his final days at the diner. It’s a whole thing that we don’t need to get into. It’s sufficient to say that my son was treated poorly by *name redacted*, Fresh objected vociferously and got suspended. 

I didn’t know this until I delivered the treats and got all the hot tea, as they say. The servers promised that they’d save cookies for Fresh. Today, on my return to the diner, I found out that he never got any. Not a single cookie. I know. I know. It was naive of me to think that cookies would survive the swarm of locusts, I mean cooks and servers. Nonetheless, injustice must be addressed. Fresh is getting a personal selection of valentine-themed cookies to enjoy with his wife, Tish. I may not be able to control the actions of Congress but I can make some cookies, damn it. 

Speaking of Congress, I called and talked to an aide to my Representative, Summer Lee. It felt good to have someone listen to my concerns. It felt like action, though I was, sort of, singing to the choir since she’s a pretty loud voice aligned against giving access to our social security numbers to an immature billionaire. You can make your voice heard, too, by calling the Capitol switchboard and asking for your Senators and Representatives. It might seem intimidating if you’ve never done it before but it’s actually easy and doesn’t take very long. Note, however, that it’s not anonymous; if you are calling, I suggest you use rational arguments rather than invectives, no matter how mad you are about threats to the department of education, DEI, social security, deportations, Guantanamo, USAID, NLRB, Kennedy Center, your family’s LGBTQIA+ members, grocery prices, etc. 

And hey, if you’re happy with what is going on right now, you should, at least, not be surprised that I’m unhappy about the current administration’s deliberate and dangerous cruelty. I’ve been pretty clear here that I believe life should be centered in kindness; thus, I feel compelled to remind readers who did not actively vote against this, that there are no voters “safe” from harm under these new policies. Tariffs will increase everyone’s prices. Eliminating the NLRB will impact all union members, not just people who voted for Harris. Also, do you really think we’re going to annex Canada, Mexico, Gaza, and Greenland? Why would we want to? And why would those countries allow themselves to be annexed? SMH.

Honestly, it’s strange to me to think that some people believe a billionaire – I’m referring to Musk, here – is the best judge of whether or not children should receive free school lunches. (Have you ever seen anyone waste money the way Musk and Bezos do? Seriously, does anyone think they could manage if they suddenly lost it all? Ha.) Don’t even get me started on the deadly impact this administration is having on cancer research; seriously, don’t let me talk about it. It’s bad for my otherwise good blood pressure. 

The furnace is making a noise. It just started yesterday. I’m not sure what it means, other than $$$$$. I’ve learned that noises always mean something expensive. The technician will be taking, at minimum, one hundred of my dollars, my precious, precious dollars, tomorrow. Any guesses what’s causing the noise …? I’m betting that there’s an acorn stuck in a mechanism. No particular reason for that. It just amuses me to envision a squirrel thinking, “Here’s a good place for me to hide this tasty snack.”

Yesterday, a chimney specialist came in to check out our four fireplaces. I’m trying to reduce my homeowner’s insurance but in a situation surprisingly reminiscent of my MRI, when they look, they always find things. Damn it. One of my three chimneys is actively collapsing inward and I now have pictures to prove it. Sigh. Both of my options – removing it entirely or repairing it – cost significantly more than $1.29. My next door neighbor very helpfully – if I had a time machine – told me that he got his chimneys repaired when he got his roof replaced. Too bad I didn’t have that suggestion a year ago at this time, during preparation for my own roof replacement. Now, I’m going to pay a second time for scaffolding – which, alone, is estimated to cost approx $2,000. If I ever buy another house, it is going to be a single story (shakes fist at the sky). Who am I kidding? I have so many books that I’m never moving again.

The tree trimmers will be in our backyard this afternoon, trimming the 20-foot honeysuckle that has become sentient and is taking over the entire yard, plus part of the neighbor’s yard. We were going to remove it entirely but the tree guys laughed when we suggested that. Literally. They laughed and said that I should totally remove the honeysuckle if I want a zillion individual honeysuckles rising from the ground in rebellion. 

The neighbors will be very happy with the trimming. They’ve been complaining for several years now that it’s blocking their view of the climbing gym two yards over. LOL I’m just joking. They’re actually more upset that it’s endangering my rhododendron, which is, astonishingly, one of those massive creatures that gives giant blooms every year. It’s one of the weird but lovely things about city living – the neighbors actively care about my yard and gardens at least as much as they care about their own. 

Since I’m actually supposed to be editing my latest manuscript today, without a pen because I forgot to bring one (SMH), I’m going to get back to, at least, reading the darn thing. It’s far too long but funnier than I expected, given that I wrote most of it while I was on chemo – I felt very funny but not very amusing at the time. (HA)

I saw a quote – sorry, I don’t know who said it – that applies to our current world: history shows us that no one who has ever banned books was on the side of good. Reading and writing have always been acts of resistance. Now, more than ever, reading banned books, educating yourself on why someone else has decided which books children shouldn’t read, helping to make banned books available in your community are simple ways to stand against the thought police. Charlotte’s Web is a dangerous book. I recommend that you give it another read. 

Much love.

Don’t Look Unless You Want to See

Have You Visited Your PCP Lately?

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Walking to the coffee shop today, I got stopped by one of those sidewalk sales/charity teams. (I have no idea what they were pitching.) They greeted me and of course I greeted them, super friendly, no defense in place. However, when they said, “Stop and check us out,” I said, with a huge smile, “I can’t. I have a DATE.” I’m still laughing. I have no idea where that came from. I don’t have a date (unless it’s a date with my manuscript?). Even better, the young woman said, “Awww.” It’s making me laugh again as I sit here at my little coffee shop table. Was she awwing about my excitement or was it because this little old lady is getting some action? (The last one is absolutely the funniest but both thoughts are making me laugh.) Where did that lie even come from? I haven’t been on a date since I was 22. SMH I may go to hell for that lie but at least I’ll be laughing.

Haley and I were at a thrift store a few weeks ago. She prefers to thrift her clothes and I love to watch how she chooses items. We had to park rather far from the store – it was a busy Saturday for thrifting – and as we were walking toward the entrance, I saw a man pushing a cart toward his car. There’s no cart return option at this thrift store. So, obviously, I offered to return the cart for him. What surprised me was his reaction: He was so pleased, so shocked, as though I’d offered him money or bought him lunch. He was unprepared for someone to do him a kindness. 

I’ve been thinking about that a lot since it happened. Community is our first line of resistance and kindness is our best beginning. It costs literally nothing to be kind to others. We’re all struggling and if you’ve read any of Project 2025, you know that we’re going to be struggling a lot more. Forming community and protecting the most vulnerable in that space are essential actions as we face down the egregious destruction and evil coming at us.

Last week, I encountered an elderly woman as I was heading into Costco. She was filling her car and stopped me, asking if I would be willing to wait a moment and take her cart. Even if I hadn’t been headed into the store, obviously, the answer was yes. I checked the contents and offered to put the heavier items in the car for her. She said, “No, no. Those are heavy. I can’t ask you to do that.” Here’s me thinking, ‘Ma’am, you’re, at minimum, 20 years older than me. I think I can help here’. When I insisted, she fussed a little and said, “Oh, thank you. Today’s the first day I’m walking without my cane.” And yet, she didn’t want to impose by having me lift a case of water for her. Honestly, I wanted to give her a hug for even asking me to take her cart back to the store.

Have I ever mentioned how much I like estate sales? Haley and I went to a crafter’s estate sale on a recent Saturday and came home with dozens of skeins of hand-dyed yarn – primarily wools and silks, the most beautiful, rich colors. Imagine my surprise when my 18-year-old shows me that he’s already snagged three skeins of a deep red wool to crochet himself a blanket. Being a much faster crocheter than I am, he quickly needed to go to our local yarn store to find some complementary yarns. He’s added a deep purple to the blanket and it is gorgeous. 

I just had my annual preventive care doctor appointment. My blood pressure is great. My blood work (which I get every three months) is perfect. I have appointments for my annual mammo and my every three-to-five year pap test. Last year’s colonoscopy was good enough that I won’t need another for 10 years. I even got my pneumonia vaccine (yay, asthma). We also talked a bit about how very lucky I am to be alive. Probably not a conversation most patients have, am I right? I think they – the doctors – want to be reassuring when they bring it up. Apparently, it’s a bit of a thing in the office – the nurses told the residents about the ‘miracle’. If the story helps someone else, it doesn’t bother me to talk about it; I still feel, frequently, that stab of gratitude for the technician who spotted an anomaly on a random CT. 

Maybe I talk about it too often but I think it’s worth remembering the gift of a ‘second chance’, if you will. What does that look like? Should I climb Kilimanjaro? Run a marathon? Learn a new language? Travel the globe? There are, absolutely, a few trips on my bucket list – the Isle of Man which was my great grandfather’s birth place, a few more National Parks, Padre Island National Seashore again. More important, though, is my hope to spend more time within my little community. After all, it’s not where you go but who you are with on your journey. 

Much love.

Have You Visited Your PCP Lately?

Scanning for Fear or the Fear of Scans

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I allowed scan-xiety to get the better of me. 

Most cancer patients – in news that will surprise absolutely no one – experience some level of scan-xiety. We remind ourselves not to worry. We deep-breathe before our appointments and sweat out the wait for our results. Some of us have nightmares. Some don’t sleep well for days before their scans. We bargain with ourselves and our gods, hoping against rational thought that our pleas will ensure that this latest scan will be clear. 

For a variety of health reasons that are not cancer-related, I have had many scans over the past 20 years and never really worried about them, until that first time, in December, 2023. Since then, I’ve had five or six additional MRIs (and that’s without counting the extra two I got in September). I’ve sort of lost count from the monotonous sameness of the experience, though, if I cared to, I could go back through my electronic record and count the results. 

The facts show, without elaboration, that I don’t currently have cancer. My liver resection and chemotherapy eliminated it. So, how did I allow scan-xiety to take over, to control my waking hours, my sleepless nights, my infrequent dreams? I honestly don’t know, though, clearly, I’m not alone in that experience. 

Part of me wants to blame my VeryBadCancerTM with its high (70-80%) recurrence rate but that isn’t fair to the many people with more common and more treatable cancers. They, too, experience the gripping anticipatory grief of scan-xiety. We’re a large and growing population of individuals who both hope and dread those quarterly, semi-annual, or annual scans. 

Every single time I get an MRI, I analyze the technicians’ behaviors, even knowing that they are not foreshadowing my future. Why, I ask myself, did the tech tell me that they hoped I’d feel better soon? I feel fine. Oh my god. What did they see on the scan? TAKE CARE? Why did they say that? It’s back, isn’t it? They’re wishing me well because they saw another growth. 

It’s relentless – the imagined pity, the casual humanity turned to sympathy by my overactive brain. It wasn’t so bad in September. Having just finished chemo, I assumed that the cancer would be, at least temporarily, beaten down. Something about these most recent scans, though, took hold of my psyche, shook me to my essence, encouraged me to dread, instead of hope.

Again, my scans were fine. I’m still hanging in, cancer-free, but it – the scan-xiety – cost me this time in a way that I need to remember. It cost me moments of joy and peaceful nights. It cost me in snapping, anxious words and absences when I should have been present. 

I am determined not to pay that high price again but it is so much easier to profess that goal than to apply it. The strategies are all in my scan-xiety avoidance toolkit: yoga, mindful breathing, therapy, exercise. The problem, you see, is that, like most people, I, and so many other cancer survivors, have a lot to lose. The difference between us and the average healthy person is that we have experienced the real possibility of an earlier than expected death. But, to quote Cordelia, “I think I like this little life, this silly little life.” 

It isn’t just the pain and discomfort of surgery and chemo and possibly radiation that frightens me. I’ve done that before – well, not the radiation. I know what to expect – even from the radiation, having watched my husband endure it – and I know I can do it again and again, even the vomiting, if I have to. It’s not the words that could be in any of our futures: incurable, inoperable, terminal, palliative. 

It’s the pain to be endured by my children, my extended family, my found family and friends – but most horribly AGAIN by my children – that really makes me fear my scans. My (adult) babies are strong and they love each other deeply. I know that, if, through some future scan, I receive my ‘notice to quit’, my children will support each other, will be ‘okay’ but I would give a lot to prevent them from enduring another parental cancer death. 

It’s a lot to ask and I’m not sure who, in fact, I would be asking since I’ve been, previously, very clear on my uncomfortable relationship with the possibility of an all-powerful deity who occasionally pops down to help you find your pen but allows a lot of kind, gentle, loving people to die of cancer every year. 

With all due respect to your beliefs, please miss me with the “God needs them” and “they were called home” business. I hope those thoughts comfort believers but they offer nothing to me when compared to the idea of my children having to stand by my bed, watching cholangiocarcinoma turn me yellow and poison my blood. I don’t know if God was present in the room when my husband gasped out his last. 

I do know, though, that my children were there, at Ken’s beside, and they suffered – and still suffer – from the experience of watching their father die after watching him fight to live. Since none of us know what the future holds for us, I am determined to embrace the lesson that this scan’s anxious moments taught me – I need not die before I’ve finished living. 

Much love.

Scanning for Fear or the Fear of Scans

31 Gratitudes at the End of an Infamous Year

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking recently about gratitude. In particular, I’ve been pondering what gratitude feels like, how we express it, what it means to be grateful. Initially, I planned to write some profound thoughts. In a year absolutely packed with grief, sorrow, anxiety, and hope, thoughts are plentiful, if not actually profound. The ability to write them down is oddly absent. As such, in place of those pithy thoughts, I have made a list (who doesn’t love a list?!). 

I am filled with joyous gratitude for:

  1. My family and friends, biological and found
  2. Healthcare workers in all their various and lovely forms
  3. Butter toffee cashews
  4. High-top converse
  5. My 90-something neighbors
  6. Being able to compliment others
  7. Sunny days, warm and cold
  8. Hugs
  9. Fall leaves
  10. Spring blooms
  11. Dogs
  12. Cats
  13. Richard Armitage’s voice
  14. The rest of Richard Armitage
  15. Whoever wrote Hot Frosty
  16. Time spent beside a crackling fire
  17. Laughing until my sides hurt and my eyes are wet
  18. Walking 
  19. Noah Kahan
  20. Acorns
  21. Hummingbirds
  22. Corny tshirts
  23. Yoga with Adriene
  24. Crochet
  25. Community
  26. The coffee shop
  27. Writers
  28. Books
  29. Homemade cookies
  30. The neighborhood fox 
  31. Homemade hot cocoa with fresh whipped cream

What’s on your list?

Much love.

31 Gratitudes at the End of an Infamous Year

7mm From Free

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Fall in Pittsburgh – foggy mornings, brisk sunny days. Walking to the coffee shop again is like putting on fluffy socks as the temperature drops. Much about the store itself has changed but not the customers. Every day, I see someone I know and we share a smile, sometimes a few words. Community, my friends. 

A quick health update: scans show no evidence of disease in my liver. That 7mm spot in a pulmonary lymph node – found in my December 2023 scan – is still there. We’re calling that a watched spot, lol. Next scans in January. So far so good. 

There’s a group behind me talking about sourcing materials. It’s a very serious discussion, almost presentation-like. Reminds me a lot of standing in front of a client, pitching our enrollment tools. That’s an experience I don’t miss at all. One time, many years ago, when I was responsible for creating the health plans that self-insured clients purchased, a potential customer approached us about creating a policy that did not cover pregnancy. We had a lot of internal conversation about that and as was often the case, I was the only woman at the table. Of the six or eight men in the room with me, only one agreed that it was grotesque to even consider that request. Luckily for me, having to write that coverage, and for the women who would purchase it, the man who agreed with me was the vice president of sales. We didn’t write the business. 

The coffee shop is bustling, lots of people enjoying the weather. A child – early teens, maybe – has just come in. They have that tentativeness of the teen years, when you think everyone is looking at you and you really want to act normal, whatever that is, or really cool, again however that looks. Their money is folded in their hand. They have to unfold the little square of bills to pay. 

After a few moments, they’re handed a large mocha with a mound of whipped cream and a drizzle of chocolate syrup. It looks delicious. Apparently, it’s not quite ready to drink, though. They head to the coffee bar, use a straw to stir the whipped cream into the drink and then pour in a bunch of cream. A taste of it confirms that it needs even more cream. A second quality check confirms that perfection has been reached. The lid is snapped on; their remaining money is carefully folded and tucked into a pocket, and off they go into the sunny afternoon. 

I just finished reading Demon Copperhead. Oh Lordy. Was that a journey of a book. It took me a couple weeks to read because it is stark, filled with trauma, making it one of those novels to be read in short sessions. I have to say, though, that it deserved the Pulitzer. Barbara Kingsolver has written a protagonist whose voice is so powerful I can still hear him talking in my head, days after I finished the book. 

Recently, thanks, I think, to all of the death in Demon Copperfield, I had a dream about my paternal grandmother. She died when I was 17 – cancer, plus two strokes – a particularly bad death. She was dying again in my dream and I was going to see her one last time. It doesn’t make sense – do dreams ever? – because in the real world I was with her when she died. It was, in fact, the first time I watched someone pass away. 

My sister and I had a challenging childhood. Grandma made things better. I felt closer to her than I can express; she only had two grandchildren so she lavished all her attention on us – not money as she had virtually nothing that wasn’t provided by my parents. We didn’t need to have expensive adventures. Sometimes we’d walk through the mall and buy a Friendly’s junior milkshake and fries to share. We’d guess how many steps it would take to walk the neighborhood and then we’d count as we walked and cheer whoever had come the closest. She taught us how to play Crazy Bridge and we taught her and her friends to play Uno.

Losing her in my teens was as inexpressible as re-losing her in my dreams. She already spends a not insignificant amount of time in my head. I can picture her clearly, a tiny woman with a huge personality, assertive, mouthy, fearless → except for cancer. She didn’t even tell us she was sick until it was far too late. 

When she eventually called my mom (rather than her only son!) and went to the hospital, it was her final trip. Doctors did exploratory surgery and concluded there was more cancer than body. It was the early days of hospice care. Grandma stayed in a regular hospital room surrounded by all the normal hospital noises. The care team did all they could to keep her comfortable while we waited for her to die. Just a few days after she was admitted, Grandma had the first stroke. She lost the ability to speak but could gesture to me that she wanted to roll onto her side (her left side because it was her favorite sleeping position). 

None of this reality occurred in the dream. Instead, she was sitting upright in a hospital bed and talking, her candy floss mass of white hair curling all over her head. I, on the other hand, was struggling to get out of bed, frantic to get to my last visit with her. What cruelty are dreams. I’d give a lot to dream instead about her driving us to Dunkin Donuts where we’d get honey sticks and the plain donuts with the dunking handle, the kind my mom liked to dunk in her coffee. 

Much love.

7mm From Free

I Thought I Was Olive Oyl

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I’m sitting next to a black lab puppy at the coffee shop. He’s being a good boy so I can’t pet him, which is a cruel, cruel fact of training one’s puppy. Still, I get to look at his delightful face so I can’t really complain. 

There’s a group of women directly behind me who are having a very girl-talk discussion of their relationships and it is MESSY. One of them just said she can’t wait for her frontal lobe to develop. (Same, girl) It’s very clear that they’re having far more robust sexual lives than I did at their age. Hehe Anyway, I am exhausted just from eavesdropping.

Want to hear the story of my scans earlier this week? After accidentally going to the hospital instead of their outpatient facility two blocks away, I got an MRI with and without contrast. I should have known it wouldn’t go well, given the awkward start. (First I accidentally went to the Cardiac MRI unit at the hospital, then I waited for 30 minutes to get checked in – which made me 15 minutes late even before I walked all the way back to the parking garage, drove two blocks, parked in another garage and went to the third floor of the outpatient center.) According to the staff, this happens a lot, which makes me think they need to work for a solution since we patients are too stupid to do it right. 

Anyway, I had my MRI. If you’ve never gotten contrast, let me tell you that you can feel contrast enter your bloodstream; it’s cold. So, when my MRI was done, I pointed out that I hadn’t felt the contrast, you know, in case they’d forgotten to do it. Well, guess what? They’d accidentally closed the IV connector on my arm and since it didn’t form a seal, the contrast leaked everywhere (and left quite a welt on my arm too). They cleaned off the whole MRI bed and we did round two. Luckily for me, I only had to repeat about half of it since the non-contrast MRI had been successful. 

We’re not done yet …. Usually, the tech announces when they add the contrast. Instead, I knew I was getting the contrast in my arm because it burned like a hot match held to my flesh. Burned and burned and burned. Meanwhile, I’m going through the announced instructions to hold my breath, and breath normally, and hold my breath, and breath normally. I’m trying not to pant while this stupid contrast is – in my head – stripping the flesh from my body. Then, suddenly, it’s over. The bed slides out of the MRI and I tell the technician that I didn’t know the contrast hurts because it never did before. 

Friends, it isn’t supposed to hurt. The IV needle was through my vein and pouring 10 ccs of contrast into my bicep, which had ballooned into a football. The tech called the radiologist who, after quickly checking the scans, said, despite the oopsie, enough contrast had gotten into my system. No need to do a third MRI. We all had a good laugh about my Popeye arm and I went back to the garage, back to the hospital, into their garage, and then down to the correct radiology unit for my CT. 

Again, my friends, we aren’t finished. I arrive in the waiting room and someone comes up to me: “Ms Zuroski?” That’s weird. Right? I say as much and the staff person tells me they’ve received multiple phone calls about me. About me? Yes, because, upon a second review, the radiologist determined that there wasn’t enough contrast and I needed a third MRI. Lol

Before that, they did my CT. Then, three – true story – three radiologists came in to look at my well-inflated football arm and determined that I would, in fact, survive to experience another MRI. And so I did. They had a hard time finding a working vein so I have a few extra holes in me today but overall it was a remarkably amusing experience. Sadly, my arm has since deflated. Perhaps I’ll try Popeye’s solution and eat a couple bags of spinach.

Don’t ask because I won’t have results for maybe 10 days. There’s a radiologist shortage. I’ll let you know the news when I know the news. 

Much love.

I Thought I Was Olive Oyl

Walking a Razor-thin Wire

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

I’m at the coffee shop again, the second time in months. It actually feels a little uncomfortable today, though I can’t articulate why I feel out of place. It’s as pleasant as ever on this edge-of-fall day. The big garage door is open, a cool breeze rustling the napkins and my chemo curls. I usually shave my head with a #3 razor but lately, defying the chemo thinning and chemical damage, I’ve let it grow out a bit. It’s a touch silver now with a little flip at the ends, slightly flattened by the baseball cap my daughter insists I wear in the sun. 

The sidewalks are quiet today. Schools are back in session but since projects aren’t yet due, the students haven’t settled into seats at the back of the coffee shop to work while they talk in hushed tones about their assignments and the cute student in chem class. 

A few minutes ago, a young woman, early 20s I’d guess, came over to my table and asked me a question. It was somewhat hurried; I’m somewhat hard of hearing. I asked her to repeat her question. She said, with a touch of pink on her cheeks, “Do you have wired headphones I can borrow?”

I don’t, my friends. Like most of the 21st century, I use bluetooth headphones. We all know, however, why she asked the silvery-haired lady. I’m pretty sure she just generalized that I, being of an older persuasion, would still be using wired headphones. Next, someone will address me as ma’am and I’ll have to acknowledge that only mentally am I still 17 years old. 

There’s a couple just seating themselves next to me – 70s or early 80s, I would guess. He leans a little forward as he walks, his hands slightly behind him, knees bent like he’s learning to ice skate. He’s on his way to the counter where he’s to order his (probably) wife a small coffee. She emphasized the size to him, as though he regularly brings her a 20oz cup. Now, while he awaits her order, she sits quietly awaiting him, her sky blue sweater flattering the stark white bob of her hair. 

I’m splitting my time today among a synopsis for a novel I’ve been working on for months, a creative nonfiction piece, and this blog. Occasionally, I’ll stop for a moment to look at my peeling nails and wonder about the year’s journey. Mostly, I put it aside but every now and again, I’m struck by the difference between my expectations and the year’s reality. I spend a few anxious moments reminding myself that the cancer was all removed and sometimes touch my tender scars as reinforcement. As much as I disliked the constant poking and prodding, the pills and the appointments, I sometimes now feel like a tight-rope walker who is performing without a net.

The scans that I’ve been anticipating for a month are next week and then the usual wait begins. I’ve been working hard on addressing my scan-xiety but it’s there, despite my efforts. I tap my chest where that 7mm mass is located (right under my breast bone) and remind myself that I’m feeling better, more energetic and less sick. That must be a good sign, right? But that argument doesn’t really work for me since I felt fine while there was a cancerous tumor growing on my liver. I guess the point I have to learn is that the only thing I can control is how I respond to the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

For a time, I obsessively googled cholangiocarcinoma, looking for miracle cures, hope in statistics, comfort for the fearful, perhaps. What I found was statistics that you wouldn’t bet against (my cancer has a recurrence rate above 70% and is terminal in something around 87% of cases). Since that kind of searching did nothing to appease my anxiety, I decided to stop looking for hope in those searches. Instead, I try to remember to spend my free time relishing the moments I have, sitting on the deck with my daughter, teasing my sons with terrible dad jokes, playing with my dogs. I won’t – I hope – waste whatever time I have pining for options that I may not even need. I could be one of the 13% who survive past the five year mark or I could get hit by a bus on my way home from the coffee shop. 

I may have mentioned that I broke another toe about two weeks ago. It’s still swollen as a grape, not an image you necessarily wanted implanted in your brain but … hey … it’s already in mine so why not share with you?! I finally decided to call the doctor today because my walk to the coffee shop was painful. Can’t have my activities restricted by a stupid broken pinky toe. Unfortunately, I probably reinjured my plantar plate, which would be a bummer, but I’ll wait for yet another doctor appointment instead of opening up google to do more anxiety-causing research. The doctor asked if I got my foot x-rayed. HAHAHAHAHAHA Like I went to a doctor.

Two people just walked by with bouquets of flowers from the flower shop, Toadflax, just down the street. They hug and separate just outside the coffee shop entrance and one of the people comes in for a drink. The bouquet she brings with her is tucked into a little bag reminiscent of a flower pot. I want to take a big whiff of her flowers but I know they’re from a hothouse and have no scent. Still, the pink paper wrapped around the blooms complements the overall color scheme and adds a delicate air of elegance to this brick and wood establishment. More importantly, she’s clearly delighted with her purchase and isn’t that charming?

Much love.

Walking a Razor-thin Wire

A Case of the Augusts

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No nap today, which is a big step up from Friday and Saturday. Those two days you’d have found me on the sofa, dealing with a bad case of WONKY. It’s hard to describe wonky. It comes in many forms. Sometimes, the world seems tilted a little and I can’t keep my balance. Other days, I’m slow-moving through molasses, heavy of limb and empty-headed. 

Life is going relatively well, all things considered. And by that, I mean my nails are still peeling and my heels are cracked, my stomach and my intestines are unpredictable, but those are my normal so, actually, I’ve got no complaints here.  

My daughter is in San Diego, enjoying a much-deserved break from all things cancer. Since she’s been doing the vast majority of the cooking, I’ve created a menu of low-effort meals for the week, necessary, since my energy is still rather sapped as the chemo slowly leaves my body. We’re having, in case you’re curious: pancakes and bacon, burgers, a ham slice and potatoes, a small roast with carrots and some roasted delicata squash, sandwiches, and meatloaf. If things get too real, there’s pizza in the freezer. And I won’t feel sorry in the least if I need to invoke pizza night because who doesn’t like pizza?!

The nurse who takes care of me called to wish me congratulations on my chemo break and to let me know that she won’t be checking in anymore. I knew that but it was still a bit of a jolt. It’s not that I need her to do anything but it feels again like the protective net is slipping. No doctor appointments, no nurse checking in with me, no bloodwork. What am I, a healthy person?

It’s move-in time at the college across the street. There’s an illegal amount of laughing and giggling going on. It’s weirdly like the kids are looking forward to ditching their parents and living without supervision. (This is sarcasm.) 

I never lived in a dorm. Even with some scholarship money, I couldn’t afford to live on campus. Besides which, during college, I worked 4-11 most nights to try to make up the financial gap between the bill for college and those beloved scholarship funds/student loans. By the time I started grad school in Pittsburgh, leaving the house wasn’t something special. My dad had already warned me that if I planned on living at home, he’d charge me $500/month rent. That was more than I paid for my first Pittsburgh apartment ($325/month baby, utilities included).   

The yearly karaoke hasn’t started yet. Believe me, I’m on tenterhooks, waiting for it. When it begins, if I go across the street and sing, do you think they’ll get the hint? I’d guess not. My singing is at least equivalent to some of the people who have performed there in the past. I know why karaoke is popular: alcohol. Since there’s no alcohol on campus, I cannot explain the success of this annual event. And since I only have part of a liver, I can’t even add alcohol to MY day to make the event more pleasing to my sober ear. 

Honestly, I love the college move-in tradition. What I dislike passionately is the capitalist effort to encourage parents to spend ridiculous sums on things their children will throw out in nine months when they clear out their dorm rooms. Trust me, parents, your children will not use 90% of the cleaning supplies you’re purchasing. Neither will they need a second set of sheets, shiny wall decor, and throw pillows. Many of them won’t even use the notebooks and pens that Target says you need to get them. I know this because I walk by the unopened packs of notebooks tossed on the sidewalk with the unopened cleaner, mops and brooms, hangars and clothes with price tags still attached. Community members, including me, have been trying for years to get the schools to collect these things for freecycling but it’s difficult to coordinate and easy to look the other way. 

There’s an interesting media frenzy about a celebrity’s child attending Carnegie Mellon this fall. Mostly, we residents (and the students) don’t care much about this stuff. CMU is renowned for its student – and alumni – fame. My roommate, a million years ago, was the son of an ambassador. I was in class with the great-granddaughter of our founder, as well as full professors, children of CEOs, international students of government officials. It’s hard to be entitled amongst the entitled. I suspect she’ll blend in with a student body that is singularly unimpressed by fame. After all, the shine of privilege gets decidedly less shiny the first time you have to tell your roomie that he has vomit in his hair. 

Much love. 

A Case of the Augusts

Mary Oliver Knows What’s What

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The neighborhood is quiet again. For six weeks during the summer, there’s a camp across the street. The kids are quite … audible from about 9AM to 4PM. It’s delightful, really, the sounds they make, their shrieks of laughter and chatter. Now, it’s easier, again, to hear birds but the noises of childhood are all gone. Probably that’s not true in most neighborhoods but ours is an older population. There are few children here and their giggles are muted. 

In her poem “Don’t Hesitate,” Mary Oliver writes, “Joy is not made to be a crumb.” She tells us to embrace the joyful moments we come upon because they are few and unexpected. Isn’t that a child’s laugh? The smell of the bread my daughter is baking? When my son teases me and we chuckle because I called Deadpool Spiderman? I can’t wait for an end to cancer to experience joy because there might not be an end to cancer but if we don’t seek it out and celebrate those found moments, there will definitely be an end to joy. 

It’s cycle 8, the last cycle of chemo for now. And it’s been full of delights – vomiting, attacks of unproductive nausea (if you know, you know), cold sweats, dizziness, and lots of unspecified gastrointestinal delights. At least I know I’ll have a break soon. 

My nails have started peeling but thankfully, my hands and feet are not. Yes, that’s a pretty common chemo thing – peeling appendages. Ken struggled with it. His feet especially looked like dried alligator skin. Nothing seemed to help him. I’ve been more fortunate and more responsive to my daughter’s entreaties to please use the body lotion people have so kindly sent me. It’s working; so, thanks, everyone. 

It gets tiresome, you know, to constantly think about your own wellbeing. We’re all mostly oblivious to the functions of our bodies until those parts are not quite working. Back aches, stomach upsets, sore feet are all experiences we’ve had and moved on from, not giving them a thought. But in the midst of an extended health event, everything is about what’s working and not. And after a bit, it’s annoying to be constantly spotting problems. 

One morning, I woke up thinking “I feel sick.” Then, I sat up and had terrible vertigo that did not end when I lay back down. Closing your eyes works (in case you ever experience vertigo). After a few moments, the dizziness was gone but the nausea stayed. I have to eat to take my chemo pills so I had a glass of milk for breakfast and an egg for dinner and nothing in between. Tiresome, you see what I mean? Who wants to constantly be thinking about whether they feel okay? 

Recently, I was shopping at Costco with my daughter – we had run out of milk which is a catastrophe in our house. We were discussing the merits of a clearance storage item when I suddenly felt very wonky and started to cold-sweat. My worst nightmare is to have a health event at Costco and there we were, health-event underway. I sat on one of their display sofas for a bit, visited the bathroom for reasons you can imagine without further explanation, sat on the sofa again, and then decided to wait in the car where I could direct air conditioning on my very sweaty brow. 

Alas, that was not to be as the car had a very dead battery. Yes, that’s right. A 90 degree day and a dead battery – so, back I went into Costco to sit on that convenient sofa. 

My daughter made sure I was okay on the sofa, did all the food selecting, checked out, and loaded the car. I took on the easier task of jumping the battery with our lovely battery charger (having one in the car is so unnecessary until your battery is dead!), with her providing the essential moral support because I was really going through something as we like to call it. On the way home, she even put up with the frigid car temperature so I could cool my very sweaty self. And then she put all the groceries away while I lay on the sofa. One of the silver linings, I guess, is having the opportunity to see my loved ones shine in my rather dark place. 

Next week starts my long chemo break. I’ll have scans in September and visits with my surgeon and oncologist in October. I wonder what our next steps will be.

Much love.

Mary Oliver Knows What’s What