Are You Pregnant?

I slipped out of work a couple of weeks ago to have a nice quiet lunch at Noah's over a Metro newspaper and enjoy the fabulous September weather we're having. I had just taken my first bite of sandwich when I noticed a woman enter in shorts, a t-shirt, a do rag and no hair anywhere on her face or head. She had a bandage on her arm where I'm assuming a picc line had just been removed or was hidden. She was obviously being treated for cancer.

I felt an immediate kinship with this woman whom I've never met before due to a disease that we had in common. I planned to wait for her to sit down so I could strike up a conversation with her. I was interested how her treatment was going and what kind of cancer she had. I wanted to connect with this person, to tell her good luck, to listen to her vent, and to enjoy a nice lunch with someone else who had cancer. I wanted to let her know that there are other's out there going about their lives, dealing with hardships similar to hers. Most of all, I just wanted to hear her story.

Alas, I never got that far. The more I thought about it, the less appropriate it seemed to approach a stranger in a restaurant, ask them if they had cancer and then ask them questions about it. The risk of putting my foot in my mouth was akin to inquiring if a woman was pregnant. What if the woman didn't have cancer after all? What if the last thing she wanted to do was talk about her treatment or disease with some random stranger? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed best not to approach her.

The feeling that settled over me and prevented me from approaching her was a combination of respect and fear. I did not want to risk causing this woman to focus on her cancer and potentially ruin an otherwise escapist meal. I wanted to respect her privacy despite her appearance making her cancer public and I feared potentially upsetting her.

I have the fortune (depending on your viewpoint) not to have any external signs that I have cancer. I've made it 4 months at my new job without any of my co-workers guessing that I have a medical condition, let alone cancer. I don't hide it (this blog is public and has my real name and picture attached to it), but I don't advertise it or offer information about it either. I find it a relief to shade my cancer in anonymity such that it's not the first thing that comes into someone's mind when we speak. I don't have to second guess people's expectations or evaluations of me, they expect from me what they would expect from a normal person. This woman did not have that luxury. She had no eyebrows and no hair. She was sporting the tell-tale "cancer hat". She couldn't hide her cancer if she wanted to and there was no way for her to get through a day without someone doing a double take as she passed due to her appearance.

But oh how badly I wanted to speak with her! I kept debating until she finally got up and went about her day, ambling off down the sidewalk with her companion. I'm now left with a feeling of loss for never having met this woman and experienced her story.

I would like to believe that people with cancer are in a club and we get some special privileges that others might not. We can broach topics that would be taboo for others because we've been there and done that. Despite the wildly varying treatments and procedures for cancer, we can at least sympathize with what a cancer patient is going through in ways that people who have never been through them cannot.

The reality is that each person deals with this differently. Some guard their privacy fiercely while others broadcast every trial and tribulation to anyone who will listen. You'll never know unless you ask, and this time I felt it best not to ask.

To the stranger at Noah's: I wish you all the luck possible with your treatment. There's someone out there that you don't know hoping that a positive outcome somehow finds you soon.

Beauty and the Bun

I convinced Wendy to model for me in the backyard. She's really starting to show and I wanted to have some pictures of her in different stages of pregnancy.

Here she is at 24 weeks.

Wendy and our Gleevec baby.

Banal

Wendy and were at Stanford yesterday for my quarterly checkup. We did the usual blood draw and then had a quick "drive-by" visit with the oncologist.

It was no big deal.

It's so strange how normal and banal this has all become. I used to fret for a week beforehand and wait on pins and needles for the PCR results to come back. Now it's just all part of life. I forgot about the appointment until last weekend and I didn't even take the whole day off work. My CBC and metabolic panels came back normal and I'm not worried about getting the PCR results back. I'm just assuming that it'll be a good result.

It's so strange how my attitude has changed in the last 5 months. My mindset is shifting from "this is something that will always be with me and I'll never be free of it" to "I've beaten this and I'm moving on". Thank you Gleevec!

On a distinctly non-mundane note, Wendy has grown quite a large belly! All the tests and ultrasounds show a normal, healthy baby. She's 23 weeks along and going strong! Our house is slowly starting to fill up with baby furniture, clothes, towels, strollers and all the other paraphernalia, brick-a-brack, contraptions and "essential items" that soon-to-be new parents blow their money on.

It's still a little hard to believe that this is really, honestly, finally happening but we're pretty much over the "too scared to get excited" hump and have fallen into giddy excitement and anticipation.

Here's to banality!

I'm In Newsweek!

I hate tooting my own horn but I can't resist this. This blog has been mentioned in an article in Newsweek called "Real Funny People: Young Patients Laugh At Cancer". It's only a "web article" and won't appear in the print magazine, but cool none-the-less.

It's great to see young adult cancer patients getting some exposure in the media. We're often overlooked in favor of the very young or very old.

Northwest Cancer Convention 2009

We recently returned from a wonderful trip to Seattle to visit our "cancer" friend Yanni and her "special friend" John**. She was diagnosed with CML in the fall of 2008, then with Lymphoma in the spring of 2009, and most recently with TIA (basically mini strokes). If anyone is qualified to say "I'm fucked" it's her.

We've gotten to know each other quite well over email, instant messaging and a brief meet up in San Francisco last winter. She's an extraordinary individual with the spirit of a fighter. She's always a delight to talk with, even when things are going poorly for her (which is pretty much the entire time I've known her).

We were treated by our gracious hosts to 3 fabulous days of pacific northwest culture and scenery. The highlight of our trip was something very simple but very special. On Friday we had a group lunch with 2 other individuals who also had CML. At one table, in the suburbs of Seattle, sat 4 cancer survivors. Each shared the common thread of cancer and yet each had a unique story.

Clockwise from front: Marissa, Yanni, Tyler, Hans,
Han's son, Han's mom, Matt, Wendy.

Tyler recently underwent a bone marrow transplant and is doing excellent. His friend Hans plays on the same soccer team and was diagnosed mere months after Tyler. Hans has failed Gleevec and is now on Sprycel. Yanni has been diagnosed with more illnesses than should be present in the population of a small town. And of course, you know Wendy and I. (For the record Marissa raised money with Team In Training and ran the Seattle Half Marathon. Thanks Marissa!)

We enjoyed a long lunch sharing stories about bone marrow biopsies, radiation, chemo-therapy, nurses, needles and doctors. We also talked about death and those we've lost to cancer. Much of the conversation was macabre, frank, open and blunt. It's so refreshing to be able to let down your guard, tell it like it is and not worry about how people will react or whether you'll make them uncomfortable. We joked that the waitress probably didn't even know what was going on. Even though the topics of discussion were heavy and necessarily dark you'd never have known by the laughter and smiles all around the table. After all, we're still here.

On Saturday we were treated to a whirl-wind tour of Washington. We did a little hiking around Mt. Rainier, drove out through Yakima and visited Leavenworth. Washington is indeed a beautiful place.

Matt and Wendy at Shadow Lake
in Mt. Ranier National Park.

We'd like to thank Yanni, John and Ryan for showing us such a wonderful time and being such gracious hosts. My toast to Yanni before we left: "I'm sorry I met you, but I'm glad I know you." In other words, if we didn't have cancer we never would have met, but I'm glad to have found such a good friend.

** Yanni could supply enough material for a reality show and soap opera. This is an inside joke that no one but Yanni, her family and John will get (or the paramedics in Snoqualmie, Washington) but I can't resist putting something up about it. Maybe in time she'll let me share the story of the paramedic visit to her house on Sunday the weekend we were there. You won't be disappointed.