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What’s All This, Then?

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.”

Orson Welles
director, actor and producer

Honestly, this blog is supposed to be funny, but sometimes it’s hard to get there.

I am a cancer survivor. You cannot imagine how good it feels to write that. This blog was established to help me document my journey, process my experiences and, ultimately, inch away from thinking of myself as a cancer patient and towards being a mindful, peaceful and accepting (that’s a tough one!) creature on this Earth. Be warned, some of my posts are self-indulgent and unnecessarily wordy; I have much respect for anyone willing to slog through them.

Right now, this blog is anonymous: I need to stumble through my feelings, complain when I feel like it and be blunt when necessary — and I need a safe space to do it without fear of judgmental glances. While my goal is to keep this light-hearted, I realize that I have the pleasure of being a survivor and chuckling about my cancer experience; there are many who are not granted that opportunity. Writing this blog is a privilege.

Cancer sucks. It’s an indiscriminate spectre that has haunted the lives of practically everyone at some point, whether relatives, friends or ourselves. For me, cancer cannot pass into faded memory quickly enough, but at the same time, I am infernally curious about the disease and how it has changed me.

So here are my facts:

In early 2017, I was diagnosed with triple-positive (estrogen+, progesterone+ and HER2+) breast cancer. The lump was 1.6cm in diameter, removed at the end of March, along with three sentinel lymph nodes that were revealed to be unaffected. Chemotherapy (Taxotere & carboplatin) started a month later and lasted the entire summer, 6 hefty courses, one every three weeks; adjuvant therapy (Herceptin, a monoclonal antibody) also started at this time, but went for 17 courses, ending in April 2018. Daily radiation treatment lasted six weeks through autumn of 2017. A 3-D mammogram in February 2018 showed nothing, in a good way. That marked my first year without the tumor.

I wish I’d been able to write in 2017, but my head wasn’t there. I was not processing, I was existing and enduring. After my final Herceptin infusion, my port was removed and I turned around to see what had happened. It took several months of writing before I tossed out my first post in September 2018, privately at first, and then, “Hello, world!”

It’s going to be a bumpy, unpolished ride. Bear with me.

Sometimes I Hate Yoga

(Photo by Avrielle Ali on Unsplash)

So, I’m gonna bitch a bit. If you didn’t come here for that, I’ll see you in next week’s post.

If you’ve decided to stay and slog through my complaints, please know that I’m writing this as someone who is not only a certified yoga teacher (RYT-200) but also a certified teacher of yoga for cancer survivors (y4c), so I have to exert conscious effort to make sure that I’m not part of the problem.

My gripes mainly have to do with beginner-level classes in the US. And I have a list.

Most classes provide insufficient warmup for the majority of students. Important: Stretches are not warmups. Warmups warm up the body, get blood flowing and improve mobility. Stretching cold muscles is a shortcut to an injury. Other fitness modalities have figured this out but many yoga classes start out with static stretches.

In the same vein, some introductory poses are held too long. Look, I get it. I’ve done this too. But getting into twists soon after starting and then holding and trying to deepen them…let’s just say that I’ve spent enough time in Physical Therapy to know that this is not a good idea.

What’s up with the Eagle Arms obsession?
(Photo by Erik Brolin on Unsplash)

Similarly, I’ve been to multiple classes that seem to be in love with Eagle Arms (Garudasana Hasta). Why? And especially not without proper warmup for the pose. I tweaked my shoulder muscles in one class that put us in three sets of Eagle Arms throughout the session including close to the start. Wha???

Particularly in beginner classes, care needs to be taken because as a teacher you are making assumptions about people’s abilities that (a) might make certain asanas inappropriate for them, and even worse (b) might make them feel uncomfortable about backing off from them during a live class, even when they risk injury. Peer pressure is real. Heck, I don’t even want to back off during a recorded class!

Along those same lines, for Pete’s sake, don’t automatically assume that everyone is going to love it when you burn sage or palo santo or whatever it is you’re planning to light on fire in the studio. On the other hand, it’s worth mentioning that I’ve had very astute teachers use aromatherapy in a way that was limited to individual spaces, where students had a chance to indicate whether they did or did not want a waft of essential oil in their direction, and that was perfect! But burning something in a class where you have no idea whether a student has an allergy or even a serious condition like cystic fibrosis means that you may inadvertently send someone to the hospital. Smoke is still smoke, no matter what its role is in traditional beliefs.

Let’s talk about necks. Just because you can turn your neck in a certain way does not mean you should. This is includes even beginner-friendly asanas like Cat-Cow (Marjaryasana-Bitilasana). There is no need to crane your neck to look at the ceiling during Cow. No, no, no. There’s nothing up there worth looking at. And if you’re a teacher, don’t demonstrate potentially injurious extremes.

“Look at meeeeee, all you beginner people!”
(Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash)

When I was studying for my personal trainer certification, I spent a lot of time learning anatomy and kinesiology. When I went through yoga teacher training, not so much. Yoga is complex because of its roots and I agree that proper attention should be paid to them during teacher training with ample opportunities to deepen study later. There are few forms of movement that have such a rich and culturally important tradition. However, in the US, most beginner students are there for the movements and not the philosophy. A teacher being knowledgeable about ayurvedic medicine is not going to prevent one of their students from slipping a disk.

And along those lines, just because an asana exists does not mean that it’s biomechanically safe. I know that yoga imbues certain movements with a sense that they will heal your mind. But if they wreck someone’s body in the meantime…no bueno. So this is a caution for both teachers and students to teach and/or practice material appropriate for the class level.

Finally, for a beginner class, the teacher shouldn’t say something like, “and now, I’d like to give you a chance to do an asana that calls out to you, that we didn’t do in class.” If it’s truly a beginner class, no one will have such an asana. However, if you are giving the more advanced people a chance to, let’s face it, show off in front of everyone else, well, that’s kind of an asshole move.

That’s not what yoga, even in the US, should be like.

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Disclaimer:
I know. I know about the Eight Limbs of Yoga. This is not about that. This is about a garden-variety basic beginner yoga class that you might encounter in the wild. I get that you have the choice of whether or not to do an asana. But as I mentioned, I know better and I still do stupid stuff. What if someone doesn’t know better? Yes, a lot depends on the teacher. Some teachers will try to encourage their students to challenge themselves, which might backfire in a beginner class. Actually, that’s another gripe in itself, but I have more than enough listed up there already.

Make Stress Your Friend

(Title image: Photo by Mina Rad on Unsplash)

Stress…is not my favorite thing. In fact, when it results in anxiety it is absolutely horrible.

But what if you were to take a stressful episode and view it as an alert to interrupt the cascade of reactions that you are in the middle of.

Instead of allowing stress to take on the runaway locomotive feel, it would serve as a time-out flag, a warning of sorts that right *now* is the time to take a short break, reshift your focus, resettle your body and release some tension.

In order for this to be more effective, it helps to actually notice the stress building. That can be a task in itself as we can get swept up and carried away with intense feelings and not realize what’s happened until we’re in the middle of it. But no matter, wherever you are when you become aware that you are in desperate need of a calming break, just take it.

You can re-wire your brain to de-fang stress.
(Photo by John Barkiple on Unsplash)

If you know that the effect that stress has on you is unsettling, don’t tell yourself you don’t have time. Don’t say that you’ll do it later. Don’t try to convince yourself that what your body is telling you is “not that bad” and that you can “work through it”. Just do it.

Use that opportunity as a reward to immediately focus on your hands or feet, notice where they are at that moment and then take a deep breath with an extended exhale. Maybe you have time for only one breath, that’s okay. Focus on it as if it’s the only thing in the world. This doesn’t have to be a ten-minute meditation session. It’s just a break from the craziness of the day to show your frazzled nerves some much-needed love.

Looking at stress this way takes the teeth out of the effects that it has on you. Yes, it may take a while to re-learn your reaction to the heart-pounding and stomach-churning, and while the relief might not be 100%, it’s definitely an improvement.

The best thing is, the more often that you do it, the more you will re-wire your brain to accept stress merely as a signal that your nervous system is asking you to help it release some steam, and not anything scarier than that.

A Survivor’s Perspective: Gray Is In So Why Am I Coloring My Hair?

(Title image: Photo by Markus Kammermann on Unsplash)

Seems like a big thing in hair these days is the concept of “embracing your gray”. You can see it adopted by both celebrities and the average woman on the street. And I respect that, as accepting your gray hair is a positive change from the mindset that we should erase all signs of aging as if older people don’t exist and older women have no value.

You might be surprised to learn, therefore, that some months ago, I started coloring my hair blonde, my original color.

Why would I do that?

Because some of the collateral damage from going through cancer treatment was that I was pushed through sudden physical changes to the point that I could not recognize myself in the mirror.

It literally felt like I lost my sense of self.

Let me back up a bit: chemotherapy obviously brings on hair loss, but it’s not just the hair on your head. It’s also eyelashes and eyebrows, and surprise surprise, due to their relative slow growth as compared to your head hair, these last two might continue falling out after you’ve finished treatment. Just when you think you might be on the road to getting back to “normal”, your face may become even more foreign-looking.

And then there’s the speed with which your hair grows back. I kind of thought my follicles would resume functioning after the side effects from my last chemo faded away. Maybe that happens to other people, but for me, it took about three months before I started to even notice regrowth. This was in part due to the fact that my hair came back white even thought I was only 51 years old (thanks, genetics), so the new hairs were harder to spot.

Pastel pink hair was very pretty and I got into it for a while. But it was not the real me.
(Photo by laura adai on Unsplash)

It took a long time to grow my hair out because I kept cutting it to maintain a pixie cut…and then a longer pixie. Cute cuts for sure, but all the different iterations that my hairstyles went through were SO different from what I had worn pre-cancer.

As a result, even though I was years out from chemo, I was still struggling to recognize myself. During COVID lockdown, I dyed my hair pastel pink a number of times, even tried pastel purple (which I hated). After a couple of years of this I stopped with the wild colors because as fun as they were, they were so different and so far away from the real “me” that had been wrenched from normal life and thrust into cancer treatment.

It wasn’t until about 7 years out of chemo, I decided to try growing out my hair. Just a bit, into a bob. And FINALLY, when I shook my head, I felt movement at the back of my head! Up until that point, I hadn’t realized what a difference it would make psychologically. I was shocked to walk by a mirror and actually see a familiar face! And with some very gentle semi-permanent color, I found myself again.

After 9 years of stumbling around, lamenting the loss of my self to cancer treatment, I got her back. Coloring my hair is less about what age I am and more about getting myself back on even footing after feeling off-kilter for almost a decade.

It also doesn’t help that my hair turned white before its time.

I admit that when I let my hair stay white, people automatically identify me as way older than I am. One gentleman assumed that I was my husband’s mother. His MOTHER! No matter who you are, I cannot imagine any woman not caring that she has been mistaken for her spouse’s parent!

For me, that mislabeling was particularly difficult. It came at a point that I felt very distant from my husband and children. Dealing with a lot of tiredness, often the first in the family to go to bed while every one else was still up. I felt like I was being erased from their lives, watching them engage in activities that I should have participated in. A heavy loneliness set in.

It hurt a lot. For a long while, I thought that this was going to be what the rest of my life would look like.

I am delighted that this has not been the case. Time marches on and brings changes, once again. My body has continued to strengthen. Familial bonds have been revitalized. Attitude has improved. And while it’s not the greatest factor in this turnaround, enjoying a head full of blonde hair again has helped.

Being Where You Are Now

(Title image: Photo by Shantanu Kulkarni on Unsplash)

Following up on last week’s post where I wrote about the gradual effects of practicing mindfulness and meditation, I wanted to briefly focus on one aspect of this.

It has to do with the process of insulating yourself from situational stressors and the anxiety that accompanies them. These types of stressors have plagued me for a large part of my life.

I’m talking about dealing with, say, bad news that could affect my future. It used to be that an uneasy feeing would overtake me, starting in my gut. Nausea was the most prominent symptom and it would wash over me, with anxiety bulding a nest in my head. From there, my brain would promptly resuscitate the anxiety if it started to fade, like some maniacal defibrillator.

Feeling better? Too bad, time for another jolt of anxiety!
(Photo by César Badilla Miranda on Unsplash)

It was an uncomfortably electric feeling, like getting zapped over and over again.

Now, it’s a little different, and it has to do with the practice I’ve had staying present. Yes, I experience the initial jolt of anxiety, as one would expect. But as the day passes, the absolute intensity of these feelings fades more quickly. And they’re less likely to recur as strongly.

Focusing on the present moment means that your thoughts stay here. And in doing so, it’s easier to compartmentalize the feelings, keeping them further away from your face. They are still around—we are not going to make them suddenly disappear—but they are manageable and somewhat muted.

This presence in the now helps you realize that where you are in this very moment is safe. This one point in time keeps you up and out of potential future and past fears that you might otherwise get lost in. You can perch on this point like you would on the head of a pin (admittedly, this might take some imagination). And so you can hop, moment to moment, noting that things are still okay.

Again, those worries continue to circulate in the background, but they are there and not here now. And all of this gives you space to breathe.

Staying in the present is like perching on the head of a pin, a single moment in time.
(Photo by Sarah Dao on Unsplash)

Interestingly enough, one suggestion for people who are habitual ruminators is setting aside about 10 minutes every day for “worry time”. This is time that you allow yourself to go through all the concerns that you have with the understanding that once your time is up, you set aside the worries until the next day’s session.

I have personally never tried it as I’m not sure it would work with my tendencies, but it is considered an effective strategy for many.

For now, I am consistently returning to the present and compartmentalizing effectively, even bringing in some soothing stories when I need a more dramatic focus shift. Of course, this is not meant to “fool” me into thinking everything is peachy. I’m simply allowing the space I need to keep anxious thoughts from taking over.

“Worth the Wait”: Fruits of Mindfulness

(Title image: Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash)

No matter how long you’ve been practicing meditation, there generally comes a time when you begin to question whether it’s actually doing anything.

For me, it was when I was going through cancer treatment. Granted, I had only started meditating following my diagnosis, but even knowing that it wasn’t like a pill you took to calm yourself, I was kind of expecting “something”.

And I did get “something”, usually with breathwork, which was more distracting myself than anything else, but also tapping ever-so-slightly into the relaxation response.

Take a breath and notice how it feels to breathe. Then take another one. Notice. And keep going like that.
(Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash)

But the rest of the stuff? Where you focus on sensations in your body? I don’t think it really clicked for me at that time.

It wasn’t until later. And exactly how much “later” it was, I don’t know. Probably long enough that it would be hard to get someone enthusiastic about beginning a meditation practice. To really feel something definite about how my body was reacting differently? Yeah, I would say years of daily meditation. That’s not a great selling point although it does drive home the importance in consistency in practice.

But fast forward to somewhere around now. Over nine years of meditation, some days very calm and focused, other days, well, kind of a struggle to rein in my thoughts. There are a lot of stressors these days, some going as far as disrupting our hopes for the future.

Oh, that uncomfortable “WHOOSH”…that drags you away from the present.
(Photo by Daniel Dan on Unsplash)

If you’ve dealt with anxiety yourself, you may be familiar with that “whoooosh” feeling in your head, when a wave of anxiety hits you. In addition to a chill in my gut, I feel a disconnectedness, like my brain is trying to protect me by taking me out of the situation. I don’t know what to say because I’m not thinking clearly.

Recently, it hit me, however, that I don’t have that experience anymore. As a matter of fact, during a recent heavy conversation that I had been dreading, in the midst of it, I felt remarkably grounded. My words were there and accessible. My sentences were clear and meaningful. I was processing the information in real time. Not rushed, not taken by the wind.

Sure, it was stressful. I was worried about how things would turn out. But the panicky out-of-control feeling was no longer there.

I have no idea when everything changed, but likely it was bit by bit, over the weeks and months and years of practicing breathing through everything.

Experience showed me that even the worst situations can have positive outcomes. Perspective matters.

So, if you’ve ever questioned whether setting time aside every day for quiet contemplation was worth it, I can assure you, yes, it is. It might not be apparent outwardly, but be confident that behind the scenes, things are changing for the better.

Checking-In via Mindful Moments

After writing the last two weeks about things that I am not doing—such as attributing what I perceived as my own shortcomings to cancer treatment side effects or pushing myself into experiences/responsibilities that end up causing distress—I wanted to write about what I am doing.

Lately, I’ve been breaking meditation sessions into shorter, more frequent mindful chunks. Instead of a prolonged sit, I stop what I’m doing and sink into where I am, as a sort of check-in for a few minutes.

This works best for where I am now, with some anxieties about the future rising and others ebbing. There has been a lot of change. It feels like the swirling tides of the Bay of Fundy, putting me in a state where the best work I can do is to remain at an even keel while moods lift and fall all around me.

Tides rise and fall, try to bob with them.
(Photo by Stephen Walker on Unsplash)

This is how it goes: when I notice the mental waters rushing in, I pause and look around. Am I safe? Yes. Am I healthy? Yes, or if I’m fighting an illness, I check to see if I have what I need on hand. Have I been fed and watered? Yes. Is there unrest in my body? Perhaps, and I locate a point if one exists, then slowly release that tension if possible. Do I have everything I need to do my work or complete an errand? Do I know what I’m doing next? Perhaps I should jot some notes? All of this gentle questioning gives me an opportunity to settle and refocus on what is going on right now.

I stretch, as this helps me expand my chest, take a deep breath and feel what it’s like to take up space. Many of us spend our days hunched over our work, contracting inward. That’s tough on our bodies and tough on our minds. I find it really helps to reverse that body posture, which reminds us to open up and reset our perspective.

Finally, I take a moment for stillness, feeling into my entire body at once. Noticing how everything is interconnected and how I blend into my environment. Then recognizing how the ground is solid beneath my feet and how smooth everything feels: flowing time, movements of my body, thoughts in my mind.

This check-in allows me to manage upsetting thoughts and bring my attention back to where I am. Because it’s short, I can intersperse these little sessions into my day, so I’m never too far from one. If you’re feeling too restless to sit for a longer meditation, try this out and see whether it suits you.

Doing Things “For My Own Good”? Maybe Not.

(Title image: Photo by fotografu on Unsplash)

I know this sounds like one of those satirical “de-motivational” messages, but hear me out. I have done a lot of activities at which I was the ‘worst’ in the room. I was convinced that it was “for my own good” and would “build character”. Isn’t that what we’re always told? What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger? We will rise to the challenge?

I went through Yoga Teacher Training as the oldest student, the least flexible one, the only cancer survivor, the only one also working a job while taking care of a family. Ten years ago I had better balance and greater flexibility, but at the time that I took the training, my abilities lagged behind those of the other students.

Yes, I finished the certification. Yes, it was an “accomplishment”. No, it didn’t feel great by the end. My confidence took a beating. I did the same with a specialty yoga certification, one that was very important to me. I was one of the most inexperienced teachers when I did those classes. I paid a lot of money. I put in many hours of effort. Everything took longer because I was always pushing my boundaries. And it sucked.

Sometimes, I’m barely holding on. And that sucks.
(Photo by simon on Unsplash)

I have a history of doing things like this (college calculus, I’m looking at you). You know what? It sucked. Yes, I got the experience. But it still sucked. Hey, I survived cancer, my absolute number one biggest health nightmare. I’m still alive and being on the other side of the illness is such a relief. But it still sucks.

I realize that the way I’m supposed to be describing these experiences is that I’ve done difficult things that I’ve struggled through. Sometimes I succeeded, other times I flailed and failed, but I got through it all and came out “victorious”, however, you chose to define it. And I was strong enough to not let it bother me.

However, that would be a lie. It did bother me.

There were times that I dragged myself back to my room at the end of the day, hating what I was doing. Yes, “victorious”, I guess. I would have thought that victory would feel more uplifting. Eventually, however, I realized that it was time to listen to what my insides had been screaming at me all along.

It’s okay to give yourself a break once in a while. Not everything has to be like pulling teeth or doing the old “grin and bear it” to get through it. There will be things that you will have no choice about (anyone who’s gone through chemo knows that), but it’s okay to yell “uncle” when you know the fit is just not right.

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So, I get that perhaps the bigger struggle is to get people to not give up. For the vast majority, it’s too easy not to challenge yourself. That’s an entirely different issue that also needs addressing. But for those of us that have been trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole because we were raised to not back down from challenges, sometimes you need to take a breath and give it a rest.

Time to Stop Complaining?

(Title image: Photo by 光术 山影 on Unsplash)

Nine years after my initial breast cancer diagnosis, I was still finding things to complain about. Yes, it’s 100% true that cancer treatments (surgery, chemo, radiation, endocrine therapy, etc.) are kind of like taking a 2-by-4 between the eyes. You do your best to keep yourself afloat but, with the exception of the effectiveness of the treatments on the tumor cells, you could argue that they are a net negative for the rest of your body.

Once treatments are done, side effects can linger. Some of them may linger for quite a long time, years even. And that’s where I got caught up in all of this.

The problem is that along with cancer treatment, other things are happening in parallel. Because I was pre-/peri-menopausal at the time of diagnosis, the onset of chemotherapy also resulted in a hard stop to my menstruation. This brought with it effects, although luckily mild, that aligned with a menopausal transition.

But there was more. At one point I was so panicked about memory issues that my oncologist decided to do a brain MRI, which found nothing (well, it found my brain…but no brain tumor. I’ll take it). But this was also during a particularly anxiety-driven point in my life, and that’s something that can also affect memory and basic mental functioning.

Imagine taking one of these planks to your face; that’s my impression of cancer treatment.
(Photo by Patrick Robert Doyle on Unsplash)

And so it went, on and on. I saw a cardiologist because I was experiencing heartbeat irregularities—probably anxiety-related also—but even after a stint wearing a Holter monitor (which reminded me of my chemo port, ugh), nothing serious was identified. In fact, the cardiologist remarked that I had a very strong heart. Not what I had feared, but good news.

I was frustrated with the effects of endocrine therapy on muscle wasting, something that I perceived as a huge loss, but when I finished up physical therapy for my shoulder a month ago, the therapists pointed out my strength and flexibility.

I was focused on how much I had lost, somehow ignoring the fact that I just turned 60. I was comparing myself to my abilities in my 40s, which—no big surprise—isn’t reasonable.

It really hit me when I attended an online event with other cancer patients and survivors. I wasn’t experiencing the level of impairment that others described.

This made me think hard about how I perceived myself. I finished my main treatments over eight years ago. That’s a long time, so why was I attributing anything that went “wrong” to cancer? I was doing very well. Still exercising. Still working my job. Still trying new things. Still not feeling my age.

I have nothing to complain about and a lot to be grateful for. The fact is, I left my post-cancer struggles behind some time ago. The “side effects” I thought I was still experiencing are miniscule compared what others, particularly those my age, are dealing with.

So I’m going to do my best to shut up about them.

Choo-Choo Therapy for the Soul

(Title image: Photo by JK on Unsplash)

Note: I am not affiliated with Abao Vision (https://www.youtube.com/@abaovision) not have I received compensation for this post. I just greatly enjoy his channel.

The last weeks have been a mix of seasonal illnesses and seeing my daughter off for an out-of-state internship.

In a word, it’s been frantic. I’m tired.

All those things I’d been planning to write about have flown out the window. So instead, I’m going to take you on a train ride, where you can languidly gaze out onto the landscape and watch the changing scenery.

There are two options, and each comes with an ambient-only version if you don’t fancy the gentle piano music (see the link in the description, or pinned as the first comment). I get that. Sometimes you just want to allow the clak-clak-clak of the train to lull you into a dreamy state.

And if you prefer a frostier environment, there’s a white winter version of the train too (again, the ambient-only link is in the description and pinned comment).

When the world gets too crazy and high-pressured, this train ride is a lovely escape. Relax and stare out the window.

I hope you enjoy it.

When Life *is* a Bed of Roses

As I dig my way out from under a nasty virus (yes, still!), I’m forgoing the usual post and instead presenting photos from the flowers that are currently blooming around my home.

They make me so happy. I know that parts of the United States are just beginning to shake off the cruel cold that has overstayed its welcome, and I am so grateful that, where I now live, I no longer have to deal with harsh winters. For everyone else, I hope the snow melts soon.

So, as a lead up to warmer days, here is a smattering of the beauty that I see every time I leave our apartment. Happy Spring, everyone!