CONTEST ALERT!!! I like cold, fizzy beverages: an evolution

Supposedly the pharmaceutical industry has made great strides in developing drugs to curb the nausea attributed to chemotherapy. I don't care. I will put all my energy into avoiding non-mandatory medications whenever possible. (In lieu of Advil, waving my arms and legs wildly to relieve bone aches has been known to happen.) Therefore, I'm pretty much never without a fizzy beverage by my side for when the waves of nausea arrive.

And now, 12 doses behind me, I have become a serious connoisseur of the clear soda. (Colas have caffeine. Caffeine inhibits vein health.) And now a carbonated journey:

 You didn't think I was just going to lay all my nausea-combating secrets out this easily? Nope, I'm putting you all to work. Out of these six choices (Canada Dry Green Tea, Canada Dry ORIGINAL, Generic Seltzer, Whole Foods Ginger Ale, Schweppes and Topo Chico Mineral Agua) which did I turn to first but subsequently and overwhelmingly detest? What can I still stomach?  Determine the order in which these became my beverage of choice. Once a winning solution has been posted, I will provided a detailed explanation of this progression. (I know, serious incentive.)

HOW TO ENTER: In the comments section of this post, list the correct order and tell me YOUR favorite fizzy beverage.

WHAT YOU'LL WIN: Bragging rights. I don't have any advertisers to donate giveaway prizes yet. If you're so inclined I'll post your picture in a special post!

BOOYOUNG'S GREATEST HITS! Declaring my love of the music infomercial...

Some crucial accompaniment

More often than not, when chemo rolled around every two weeks, I wasn't eagerly hopping in the car for more blood draws, draining treatment sessions and subsequent side affects. Early on (treatment #2) I decided to create an empowering tradition to get geared up for what was inevitably in store. It is the Cancer Dancer mantra that almost nothing makes life more upbeat and hopeful than dancing to a great song.

Since including ALL 11 editions seems excessive, I'm offering a revised greatest hits playlist of Lauren and my bi-monthly jaunts to Evanston Hospital. As part of our superstitious nature, the first five songs made it onto each playlist in identical order. Each volume is titled thanks to an early treatment exclamation of triumph (Booyah!) transformed by the name of a hapless home searcher during my HDTV obsession. I present "Booyoung's Greatest Hits..."

Six cycles complete!!

12 doses/6 cycles, December 19-May 24....

In the words of my very wise friend, Jessie, "And stay out!" In my own celebratory words, "Wheee!"

The Cancer Dancer dances on this June!

 
   Join Zephyr Dance for our 20th Anniversary Concert

in the looking

June 24, 25 and 26 at 8:00pm

Epiphany Episcopal Church
201 S. Ashland in Chicago (map)
Tickets are $20 for adults,
$15 for students and seniors
For tickets and information, visit our website. 

...And don't forget to sign our birthday card!

Hitting the pavement for blood cancer research

Training for her fifth Chicago Marathon, my friend Jill Forister has generously elected to raise funds for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society.  There's nothing more inspiring than getting a brief glimpse of running friends enclosed in an athletic herd. This year she's doing it for a worthy cause thanks to my own connection to LLS. Check out her fundraising page:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/il/chicago10/jforister

Run, Jill, run!! (Because "dance, Jill, dance!" elicits a very different response...)

Welcome back...

Behold my calloused, filthy gems:

I've been extra cautious about the welfare of my feet throughout treatment. They've been heavily guarded by the ever-durable Target sock (perfect thickness and warmth for a marley floor) for fear that I'd manage to slice my foot open while doing some treacherous pas de bourrées.

But the weather's getting warmer, and unless I can shuffle around in my dingy old J. Crew flip flops something is truly missing from my spring/summer self. Plus, Zephyr's annual Illinois Wesleyan Tour de Dance Appreciation class is upon us. And my turquoise socks ARE NOT considered nice rehearsal attire in any sense of the word. (Check out the neglected ones heaped in the corner...)

Oh bare feet, I've missed you so very much.

Third time IS a charm.

Every time I try to plug this article I inevitably begin discussing something completely different. Hence, my third post in two hours.

This is semi-related to my last post in regards to sharing information with others and the degree of hesitancy that follows. It's a recent NY Times blog post that talks in circles in a way that my brain seems to be spinning recently. Nice to see something align with my crazy orbitting head: 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/with-cancer-lets-face-it-words-are-inadequate/

The Social Media Conundrum...a continuous plight

With our convenient and exhaustive list of ways to instantly share anything and everything with  400+ friends, you would assume that it would have been easy to sound the alarms with an ever powerful Facebook status update the moment I got my diagnosis last December.

As the girl who makes everything in her life more difficult than it has to be, you would be so very wrong. I have spent every day since so cautiously keeping my NEWS out of the news feed. As I sat in the hospital that night, I tearfully begged my mom not to tell her close friends what was going on with me yet because I thought that they might spread the word. I feared it would end up posted on my Facebook wall before I had the chance to make obligatory phone calls, send countless emails or patiently explain what a lymph node was while perched on my couch with concerned friends. Meanwhile, I had my sister lock my Facebook wall so that no one could post anything "suggestive." (Or anything at all for that matter.) My "friends" did not need to be digesting this new information at the same rate/timeline that I was.

And when you don't feel like you've got control of much else, what's more satisfying than shutting people out on the internet?

Cancer is really tough thing to share with people in your life who are not family, close friends or bosses. There is an obligation and need to notify in these cases. When I consider whether I should let people know who are outside this circle, the thought of just having to bring it up inevitably changes my mind. Especially having to bring it up to someone you haven't seen in six months or a year. And it certainly doesn't get any easier. Therefore, Facebook does not know about my recent adventures without some sluething (via my other very neglected blog link).

Although it does know about the small, accidental fire I started in my kitchen last week.

On the Boat

I keep stumbling across this term: survivorship. I can't really wrap my brain around what it means. I guess it has to do with the club I'm working to join. And as I continue my (web-based) quest to figure out what's next, it only brings more questions, concerns, musings. The most daunting of them:

What if it comes back? (Insert silence, fear, uncertainty, nervously shifty eyes.)

I'm trying to learn how to cope with that possibility. In working to get better, it was enough to be just getting past chemo dose #12. Now that I'm just 10 days from that date the expanse of this bubble I've been in is shifting.

Meet my new friend, http://i2y.com/. Apparently survivors rule. I am officially signed up. (And trying to get The Cancer Dancer into their blogroll.)

New great links!

I was experimenting with just how hard I have to try to get The Cancer Dancer to show up on the first page of a Google search. (The answer is really hard or by using my URL.) I stumbled on a few new blogs to share and also a great Newsweek article about how young people are using technology and humor to cope with their disease. (Me? Attempt humor? Never...) Without more ado, some additions to my blog list:

I'm Too Young For This! 


http://igotthecancer.blogspot.com/

And the Newsweek article that lead to these blogs (definitely worth a read): http://www.newsweek.com/id/209319/page/2

Defining Normal, an attempt

Chemo #11 yesterday: just one more treatment to go. I decided to ask my doctor about what to expect in life after chemo having, you know, ravaged my body with intense doses of poison for the past six months.

"Well, you'll just go back to normal," she replied.

Just go back to normal?

"Actually, since you've been doing great and had so much energy, you may not really feel a lot of changes." (Which makes me feel a bit rock star when she points out that my treatment regiment is particularly intense AND that I'm kind of amazing!)

I supposed that I do have moments of normalcy, but combined with a pinch of paranoia and a dose of self-consciousness, it's what I'd call a very tentative normalcy. I've been pushing towards the moment  that last IV comes out of my arm for months, but what then? Oh right, everything will go back to normal.

How DO YOU define normal in your life? No seriously, I'm asking...comment and share if you wish!

Lymphoma Researcher named to TIME 100 List

For his steps towards advancing lymphoma research, TIME named Dr. Larry Kwak to their annual list of the most influential people. LLS' blog has more details, but here's the TIME article too.

And I can't resist sharing Joel Stein's list of the least influential people. Still laughing out loud.

Remedial Veins

When I opted out of receiving chemo treatment through a port embedded into my chest back in January, I was accepting the fact that somewhere down the line (ha, ha) my veins would start to slack. Choosing to stick with IV treatment was not a decision I came to easily. (Although actually seeing one really tipped the scales in the favor of needles. I didn't envision a compatible relationship between dancing and something floating around under my skin.) Ultimately, I was not interested in anything else involving the words "surgical" and "procedure," and with treatment doses spread out by two weeks I hoped that would be enough time to let them chill out between infusions.  (Sounds so serene and spa-like, doesn't it?)

I began requesting lidocaine injections with my IV about a month ago. By numbing the area around the injection site, it makes treatment and subsequent side effects much more comfortable. Why not, right? Enter my treatment room last Monday and you would find a nurse highly trained in vein navigation doing some serious digging. Talk about elusive. After wiggling around in my left arm for awhile (I alternate arms each treatment.) she moved on to my right arm which was already exahusted from the past two weeks. Success at the expense of my poor right arm: all lumpy and hardened as I write this post. My nurse kindly reminded me to get some electrolytes next time. Hydration makes for a healthy vein, and even though I really try to drink tons of fluid before treatment, my efforts pale in comparision to the mighty chemo drug.  Hello Gatorade!