CT scan today.

• Taoism: Shit happens.
• Confucianism: Confucius say, "Shit happens."
• Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn't really shit.
• Zen Buddhism: Shit is, and is not.
• Zen Buddhism #2: What is the sound of shit happening?
• Hinduism: This shit has happened before.
• Islam: If shit happens, it is the will of Allah.
• Islam #2: If shit happens, kill the person responsible.
• Islam #3: If shit happens, blame Israel.
• Catholicism: If shit happens, you deserve it.
• Protestantism: Let shit happen to someone else.
• Presbyterian: This shit was bound to happen.
• Episcopalian: It's not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve the right wine with it.
• Methodist: It's not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve grape juice with it.
• Congregationalist: Shit that happens to one person is just as good as shit that happens to another.
• Unitarian: Shit that happens to one person is just as bad as shit that happens to another.
• Lutheran: If shit happens, don't talk about it.
• Fundamentalism: If shit happens, you will go to hell, unless you are born again. (Amen!)
• Fundamentalism #2: If shit happens to a televangelist, it's okay.
• Fundamentalism #3: Shit must be born again.
• Judaism: Why does this shit always happen to us?
• Calvinism: Shit happens because you don't work.
• Seventh Day Adventism: No shit shall happen on Saturday.
• Creationism: God made all shit.
• Secular Humanism: Shit evolves.
• Christian Science: When shit happens, don't call a doctor - pray!
• Christian Science #2: Shit happening is all in your mind.
• Unitarianism: Come let us reason together about this shit.
• Quakers: Let us not fight over this shit.
• Utopianism: This shit does not stink.
• Darwinism: This shit was once food.
• Capitalism: That's MY shit.
• Communism: It's everybody's shit.
• Feminism: Men are shit.
• Chauvinism: We may be shit, but you can't live without us...
• Commercialism: Let's package this shit.
• Impressionism: From a distance, shit looks like a garden.
• Idolism: Let's bronze this shit.
• Existentialism: Shit doesn't happen; shit IS.
• Existentialism #2: What is shit, anyway?
• Stoicism: This shit is good for me.
• Hedonism: There is nothing like a good shit happening!
• Mormonism: God sent us this shit.
• Mormonism #2: This shit is going to happen again.
• Wiccan: An it harm none, let shit happen.
• Scientology: If shit happens, see "Dianetics", p.157.
• Jehovah's Witnesses: >Knock< >Knock< Shit happens.
• Jehovah's Witnesses #2: May we have a moment of your time to show you some of our shit?
• Jehovah's Witnesses #3: Shit has been prophesied and is imminent; only the righteous shall survive its happening.
• Moonies: Only really happy shit happens.
• Hare Krishna: Shit happens, rama rama.
• Rastafarianism: Let's smoke this shit!
• Zoroastrianism: Shit happens half on the time.
• Church of SubGenius: BoB shits.
• Practical: Deal with shit one day at a time.
• Agnostic: Shit might have happened; then again, maybe not.
• Agnostic #2: Did someone shit?
• Agnostic #3: What is this shit?
• Satanism: SNEPPAH TIHS.
• Atheism: What shit?
• Atheism #2: I can't believe this shit!
• Nihilism: No shit.
• Narcisism: I am the shit!
  

arrrgh...

For the record, gratuitous commercials for cancer make me mad. I am sitting here with a perfectly good cup o' joe only to be reminded that I, too, might get to have another birthday next year. She looks so damn sad. Only people without cancer find this moving. Birthdays are to celebrate irresponsibly with too many drinks, giggles, friends and party favors... not this. Go away.

Feelings. Nothing more than feelings.

1. I can't drive by the road where I received chemo without a visceral reaction.

2. I had to throw away the pajama bottoms I wore during the experience. They haunted me.

3. In the middle of the night, I hear the furnace and it reminds me of the pain I was in.

4. Certain foods will never taste good again... and it is only in my mind. Memories linger.

5. Commercials on TV are ever-present. What are they thinking?

6. I don't read statistics. Please don't enlighten me with them (you know, the ones telling me I have 70% chance of survival. Are you just stupid?)

7. My hair so different. My skin isn't the same. My joints are stiff. Chemicals suck the big one.

8. My mouth is always dry. I feel like I'm on a desert.

9. I found out who my friends are, and most of my favorite ones, I've never met in person.

10. I adore my short silver hair. I deserve something out of this, don't you think?

Smooch!

Facebook.

Rant: my friend Maggi died a few weeks ago, and they keep posting on FB that she likes Viking River Cruises. Somehow it worries me that when I die, there will be messages about the fact that I like Marriott Hotels, Ethan Allen furniture, HGTV and Miller Lite. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

It's downright disturbing.

Abilify

Abilify for depression: call your doc if you have unusual changes in behavior, chills or thoughts of suicide. Dementia patients have an increase risk of heart attack, death or stroke. Call doctor if you have high fever, stiff muscles or confusion. Go to the ER if you have uncontrollable muscle movements or an erection over 72 hours. May cause high blood sugar, and in extreme cases can cause coma or death. Kidding me?

I say call a friend and have a frickin' martini and some inappropriately decadent appetizers. Or, just go to bed with a bottle of Jack and a carton of Chunky Monkey.

It's safer.

Normal...

So, what is that anyway?

Normal is what every cancer patient wants. We want every day things to occur. All of the stuff you wish would go away are the things that people, like me, with cancer languish over. Working, cleaning, yard-work, and chores. When you are "normal" your desire is to relax and get away from the chores of life and hang out in bed and watch movies or do a hobby... you are always looking forward to find something better than the mundane usual things.

You have no idea how great it feels to be able to hop in a car and "run" to the store. I had one moment when I couldn't even walk down the street or make it up a whole flight of stairs. I don't want to go through that again but my cancer is the type that returns, and fighting it will be a matter of course. I know this. Most of the time I ignore it, but all of the normal things now seem a bit desirable. Most people at 60 want to retire. I want to work. Why? Because work feels normal. I want to exercise and complain about my abs because for me? That is normal.

My weight obsession has turned to a new bizarre angle. The only weight I ever had was in my abdomen. And now, because of the origination of my lymphoma, I am measuring my waist all the time. That is because a growing waist is a danger sign. Most days, I am in denial of the inevitable but I try to move forward. This is my new normal.

Most of the reason I write all this is to make everyone appreciate their's. Doing the wash, going to work, changing diapers or emptying the dishwasher may seem like a pain in the neck to you. Do you understand how grateful you should be that you get to do it?

Believe it. Please enjoy mundane usual things. Your life doesn't last forever.

Feelin’ (uh) not so wiggy.

(memories from one year ago)

No. I’m not feeling it and (bald or not) am completely convinced that this whole wig idea is just lame.

I Google “wigs in Indiana.”

The previous week I had gotten one on eBay which looked like HowDy Doody (i.e. poop). This lame idea was gonna cost me ($$$) whether I liked it or not. I hadn’t waited until the BIG CANCER FALLOUT. I would go to buy it early. I would be prepared… like a Boy Scout cancer patient with a plan of attack from an unknown stylist.

I was meeting with Monique, the wig lady. She was a very large black woman with alopecia. She told me she had no hair and no prospect of ever growing it. She was quite chatty and so I had plenty of time to look above her (very taupe-Munchkin-colored) hair at the Styrofoam heads covered with wigs of every shade. I was seriously having an out-of-body Wizard Of Oz moment-from-hell. There would be more Xanax when this trip was over. Face it. This entire cancer thing is one big trip with no way out other than consuming large amounts of drugs and begging Jesus and Mary simultaneously to make it go away.

I sit in the swively chair. I turn it around twice. I contemplate why (at 60 years-old) am I still so immature that I feel the need to twirl the chair around and around. Developmentally, I have come to terms that I am a five year-old in an older body. God. As I’m twirling trying to get dizzier Monique says…

“Stop.”

It wasn’t a demand but more of a sweet gesture of “we can do this… face the facts, you can't twirl this one off, girl.” Clearly, she had been down this awful road with other women and knew the drill. She asked me to close my eyes and promise not to open them. Monique was my angel. She was the first of many in this diseased journey of mine.

*This was the moment when I got it. I got cancer. I got fear. I got death, but (more importantly) I got life… for until you face death (and a wig) you don’t appreciate living life at all.*

You don’t comprehend cancer until you confront this kind of crap. For it is downright evil to shave off your crown of womanhood, and even more sinister to put on acrylic strands of hair that make you feel like a clown at a circus.

Truth is, I opened my eyes and I never looked better. Talk about white girls’ hair. This was more like smooth Beauty locks when (traditionally) my curly mess was like flat-ironing the Beast. Talk about twirling. I was convinced that I would be having a great time with this wig thing.

That lasted around a week.

It was the beginning of spring and the sunshine and there is nothing worse than wigs and sunshine at the same juncture. Too hot. That was when I got online to a place called LIDS and bought ball caps. I bought them in every shade. This was very difficult for me because as much as I am a gym rat, I have more of a Boho funk style and do not consider myself “Sporty Sal.” I always wanted to wear a tennis skirt, Nikes, and a ball cap and pull off Sporty Sal but she (frankly) doesn’t exist. It might be better if my body weren’t so curvy, but juicy women with big boobs do not fit the sporty ideal. This would be a challenge but I didn’t care. The wig was out. All $285.00 of it. My four year-old granddaughter, Reese, is in love with it, so okay. It’s hers when she comes over.

So, there you go. I was forced to be “Sporty Sal” until my hair grew back. I hated it, and (not to mention) the ball cap doesn’t cover around the ears, so I look (um) cancerous anyway. No way out. I was forced to look sick even on my good days. Whatever. More pitiful pity to endure.

I even bought a Bob Marley wig and Princess Leia ear-braids. If I couldn’t laugh about it who could? Most days I was just bald. Lonely, bored, scared and bald. My granddaughter, Lily, gave me her baby truth in a nutshell as she visited one Sunday… “if you take that hat off, Non… I’m leaving.” Then she added, “I mean it. I will ask my daddy to take me home in the car.” Poor dear. She was as uncomfortable as I was.

Ah cancer. The big life-changer. It made me a totally different person. It also changed everyone in my family in sweet ways. I appreciate every day and have perspective of a lifetime. Most people with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma live five-seven years after the diagnosis. I’m going for twenty-five years.

It could happen, right?

Is that a pepper in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

Tristan Clarridge's bitchin' cello....

are you kidding me?

Bald mama and her hot shoes...

I had no flipping idea how vain I was. I was always the person who was a bit of a tomboy… forgetting to shave my legs, going commando if there isn't clean underwear, or falling asleep in my clothes. I have been guilty of even going to the store the next morning in the same sweatpants. I never understood why sleeping in something makes you dirty. My bed is clean. I am showered. I simply had zero motivation to find anything else to wear. People find this strange and wrong. But something clicked when I turned fifty. Something new. I had a new run-in with that thing called vanity.

It was mid-century when my face, my body, my memory, my joints and the Sally I once knew was beginning to dissipate. There she goes. That girl (who she thought) was fat at 135 lbs; that youthful girl taken for granted. That cute girl with the pretty skin who used to think she was pathetically ugly. Somewhere around fifty; feeling strangely different looking but even so… much smarter. Smarter, wiser and more honest.

Blunt? Me? I'll take it.

I don’t particularly care to pretend to hide my opinions or be everything to everyone anymore. I swear like a trucker, and pee my pants when I sneeze. So do most middle-aged women but (for godsakes) why is everyone trying to lie and be so inhuman? Who cares about being this perfect specimen of womanhood? Why is everyone hiding? Are there days when my house is a mess? Oh please. If everyone would just be real, life would be so grand. I’ve given up on that one but have decided to be real at least to myself, and consequently real to all around me. I am just about the most spiritual person you will ever meet – and (yet) I still swear like a trucker.

Shit. Call the Moral Majority. Get a priest. There might be a raid.

I’ve never worn much makeup. Firstly I didn’t know how to make it look right and secondly I looked great without it, so it never occurred to me to try. Then there is fifty years-old. I should say fifty and the beginning of cancer. Unbeknownst to me the last ten years have been this big fight inside my body, but I didn’t relate to the rings under my eyes, the thickness in my waist or the swelling around my ankles. I figured fat, unhealthy people just get that way. But no amount of obsessive trips to the gym would have eliminated my cancer belly.

Calling Bobbi Brown and Laura Mercier and their team of experts.

So around five years ago, I started to experiment with taking ALL of my expertise as an artist into becoming a makeup aficionado. And that I did. I became transfixed with it. There is the outer-V and the inner corner, and the water-line. There is all new lingo. And then there was hair. Or lack thereof.

I’ve had Halle Berry hair before and so I wasn’t worried about being bald. I could get through this. Women are shoppers and we live for the hunt, so I would just shop it off. Truth is, when you can’t zip your pants, you find other things to hunt for. I am now an utter makeup geek at Sephora and a complete shoe whore at DSW. The amount of shoes I own embarrasses me. Poor Bruce is 5’6” (he insists on 5’7”) but (face it) I know the truth because my shoes make me tower over the man I (almost) looked up to. I cease to care about that around 1987 when I first became obsessed with heels. I am one of those stepsister type shoe people who will buy them when they don’t even fit. If they are hot shoes, it doesn’t matter. Hot is hot and if I want them, I buy them even if I tower over family members. Bruce doesn’t care at all anyway. He knows he is short and that I like platform shoes, so what’s the big whoop. Unfortunately, Sephora doesn’t make something to disguise my baldness. I would be fine as a bald woman. Right?

Wrong.

Bald is different. It is not short hair at all, it is the badge of sickness which, believe me, you don’t want. It isn’t attention I mind so much, but the pity. Oh, the pity. It isn’t even the staring or the pointing. It is the pity. It is also the advice. Everyone has a story or someone else they know who has gone through cancer. They tell you stories you don’t want to hear. They make you run from them as they get to the end of the story when their friend dies, and tells me how sad the funeral was. Or worse, they inform you of all of the horrible side effects the chemo gave this friend or that friend… knowing that (OMG) maybe my teeth will fall out too, or even get another cancer FROM the chemo itself, or heart attacks… the list is endless as is the insensitivity. I’m afraid to go out. I find myself imploding from the people around me and wanting solitude from the masses. Take me away from this madness.

“Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma is the cancer my cousin died from.” I would rather go to DSW and find myself some hot shoes to take my mind off it all. I am an 8 ½ medium, average to oily skin... and obsessed with buying more of it all even if the shoes don’t fit me and I already have the Grabber Lime green eye shadow..

Rocket Dogs. That’s right. Jimmy Choos, MAC Viva Glam lipstick and Rocket Dogs. Woof.