Pink Door House

Does this angle make my wounds look open to you? I'm looking in the bathroom mirror after my shower. The eucalyptus scented vapors are dissipating. Eucalyptus, because the jury is still out on the relationship between lavender and estrogen and hormone positive breast cancers.... The adhesive used on my port site last week caused a reaction. And instead of going away, it's creeping across my sternum. An area that was scraped to bone during my 9 hour mastectomy. A tender area t

"These are Third Grade monkey bars." Quinn had climbed the three-step ladder and stretched her arms to demonstrate the bars were just beyond her reach. The sun was bright, the afternoon was mild, and when I fetched the girls from kindergarten, we peeled sweaters and walked to the playground instead of the car. They were showing off their new favorite skills and pass times. Quinn...climbing. London...evading spider webs. (As a side note, one of these apples fell closer to the

October 1st. The starting line of that marathon called Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Though if you were to walk through the Pink Door House right now, you could look around and quickly surmise that October started pushing it's weight around here sometime in mid-September. I felt it, truly felt it, last night. I was frantically digging through our mountain of clean laundry...sure that there must be one more pair of clean little girl underwear...when the puppy peed. On the flo

Four days to Forget Cancer. A year ago, I wrote those words in this post about a long weekend spent at Priest Lake. It's still true. It's still my place. This July, Mom and Dad rented a house on the beach for a full week... Perfection. Our own little spot to master sand castle engineering. Clear, shallow waters for hours of splashing. My mom's collection of no less than 37 floaties. (My personal favorite: an oversized tube with a mesh bottom so I could sit in the cool lake wa

"Umm...why is there a dent in my arm?" We were both brushing our teeth. Getting ready to face the day. Preschool drop-off. Milk run. Mediating decisions like Octonauts versus My Little Pony. We live large. The fleshy part of my arm, just below my elbow, was firmer than usual and sporting a welt about the size of my thumb. Another reminder that complications after cancer treatment don't evaporate after ringing that graduation bell. They just....change. Don't get

Life provides plenty of irony when you are in your mid-30's and have Stage 4 cancer. Take my favorite example...faithfully applying anti-aging eye cream each night. Or this.... After receiving an article from my dad about how melatonin suppresses breast cancer growth, I spent several late nights plugged into my iPad screen, reading up on the topic. Ishouldhavebeensleeping.......... The study was from Michigan State University, where researchers found that melatonin, when appl

A three hour wait in the walk-in clinic (to do: find a GP) to hear that it appears I have one of the worst cases of strep throat ever....but a negative strep culture. Bah humbug. At least the doctor was willing to treat it. I was feeling exhausted and defeated by the time I got home. And then this: Christmas music. Our old playlist from 2010. Jason singing at full volume while he cooked dinner. The kids catching onto the words as they danced with uninhibited toddler/preschool

As moms, we are biologically programmed to put everyone else first. Going for days without make-up (or a shower, for that matter!). Sleep deprivation. Lunching on cold crusts of grilled cheese sandwiches.... As cancer patients, we are told, you have One Job. Get better. Focus on yourself. On making it through treatment, recovering, staying alive, moving forward.... For seventeen months, I have been both. And let me tell you, we're not talking yin and yang here. I consider mys