Grateful

The long, never ending highway of grief continues.  My husband's maternal grandmother passed away two days before Thanksgiving.  As if remembering this last holiday without my son wasn't hard enough to get through, this wonderful woman leaves us.  We won't be going to Morocco at this time but we were dreaming about going in April and still might, inshallah.  My husband calls his mother every night.  She paid a few thousand dollars to create a tent outside the house on the plaza and is feeding all who come by to pay their respects.  Relatives are still arriving from all over the country and the house is full of guests.  I wish we were there to help.  There is so much that goes with grief I wish we were there for, those that come to comfort you and those that just cause more pain.  His aunt was telling my husband how there are people there wanting to be waited on hand and foot while all this wailing goes on around them.  It was so horrible to hear about his grandmother's condition at the end.  

I think back of being with her in her bedroom in 2002 and her showing me photos of herself in her twenties.  She was so proud of being a "hottie".  I am also thankful that I remember better times with her - when the disease was just starting and her arms just starting to shake.  She was still able to get around great, so filled with life and able to let me know how much I meant to her.  One time she came fully dressed into the hammam (the baths) to give me shwika for my teeth - this horrible tasting stuff that cleans and makes them white - going past everyone and yelling in Arabic to them things that made them howl with laughter until she found me naked and being washed in the back hottest room with the girls covered in henna and babies playing in buckets of cool water.  I remember going off with my husband/then fiance to Agadir and when the cab came to get us it was dawn and I clearly remember his mom and grandmother in the front window of the house staring down at me, waving and blowing kisses.  What were they thinking about this American girl in an Adidas track suit and baseball cap that had come to take their golden boy away?  So many great memories I hold on to with fondness.  Anyway, we're doing better today. 

To take our minds off things we went and saw the movie Life of Pi yesterday.  It was in 3D and visually stunning like the reports say.  Such a spiritual and colorful story, it would be hard to believe if you heard it from someone.  Impossible and amazing things happen all the time to people and yet they come through them still internalizing and processing, asking the age old question, "Why did this happen to me, why was I chosen for this, and what am I to do with it after this experience is over?  Wait for some journalist to come along and put it into eloquent words and make it into a movie?"   

As for my health, I would just like to wake up one morning and not be afraid of what might be happening next.  Got up Friday morning at 5:30am, drank my barium and made it to my CAT scan on time.  Almost forgot about the horrors of diarrhea for a moment until it came rushing back.  Been trying to flush the stuff out of my system now.  I have the results on CD and may try to look at it later.  Last time I had the film and looked at it I could see I needed more medical training to notice anything.  Hope nothing is visible for me on it this time.  There is still the colonoscopy appointment to do on Tuesday.  Saw the oncologist last week and she reports that she sees nothing in the vagina but ordered the CAT scan with and w/o contrast to be sure.  Almost cried in her office when she told me.  The feeling of having the mass there has subsided but I know something is still there, it just may have shrunk and I'm grateful for that.  It's a beautiful day and people are in a shopping mood.  Not me, just thankful I'm still here to shop another day.  

Still trying to get my bedroom dark, putting in foam board in that upper window today.  Can't sleep unless it's a cave in there.  I hope to get to the Post Office to mail out more family photographs I found and call my drummer friend today.  His home was recently robbed twice and he is an older gentleman that doesn't need this kind of stress.  I can hear his silky voice shaken by it.  I'm so sorry he got displaced during my latest sad news.  I was hoping to have him here for Thanksgiving dinner it just didn't turn out to be a good time for company.  Anyway, that's my news.   Hope all is well with you and you are getting your Christmas decorating done.   So grateful to be able to think of you, toast to you, and wish you well this holiday.  Here's to good health - Your health is your Wealth!

I am Radiant

I realize I have allowed some time to lapse since my last post.  I recently received about a dozen inquiries wondering if I am still blogging since there hasn't been any update.  I was surprised more than 3 people out there were even reading these rambling messages.  I'm very touched you are still interested and that I haven't completely grossed you out.

My last radiation treatment was October 12th.  I was back to work on the 15th.  On that day, I found that my dance friend John Compton passed away of AIDS, the night before at 10pm.  I had met John when I first started taking Jamila Salimpour's classes at the old Poultry Factory on Sansome Street in San Francisco.  Mark Bell, Europa, myself, and John used to hang out on the shipping dock in front of the building between classes.  We darted in and out of each other's lives over the next 40 years and his death just marked another blow of loss for me.  Seems this trend of bad luck and trouble just won't quit.

I made it through the move although most things are in still in boxes, I have what I need to maneouver around the house and it's functional.  I've also emptied the storage I've kept for over a decade and moved that into the house as well.  I came to Vegas with my car, a boombox to teach with, a few dance costumes and teaching togs, my computer and a small suitcase of clothes.  Since that time, I have either had things I owned in California come here in the trunks and carloads of others or replaced the things I had before.  I now own so much I am on the verge of becoming a hoarder!  It overwhelms me how much there is.  I've tried my best to be ruthless and toss out much of what is old, unused, unloved, broken, once trendy, or things just taking up space, but there is still so much everywhere.  If I had this in storage for 10 years and didn't miss it, I certainly won't miss it if I toss it now.  Cancer changes your view of material things as well.  These things aren't the items that are of importance to me any longer.  The relationships I have forged with very lovely and talented people are.  Losing John just made me want to gather all of them up in a bunch at once, hold them tight once more and remind them how very much I love each and every one of them and how they have greatly contributed to the richness of my life with so many wonderful experiences.  So, every chance I get I try to go through more of these boxes and sort through, tossing, donating and gathering into one place for others to own and love as I have.  I've started to place all of my dance things as well as Marliza Pons' into one room and plan to make it into a "store" to sell off my costumes, props and wonderful lifelong collection of all things Orientale.    It's a task that's a job all by itself.  It's also a marvel I have the energy to do this.

Once they told me they could no longer see my tumors, I no longer needed treatment, to go get a second opinion from my oncologist, I was cut loose.  Got a mug and a certificate for bravery that I made it through radiation.  Saw my oncologist and she also confirmed that she did not see any evidence of a tumor but did that mean that the cancer was gone?  She could only test with epithelial cell scrapings and I was too raw from radiation to do that testing right now.  She will keep me in surveillance mode and test again in the next three months.

I feel kind of spun out into limbo, no support group, no advice, just the strong urge to get back to healing and a normal life again.  The problem is, that cancer returned once before when I didn't expect it to, how can I be sure it won't happen again?  I can't.  Yet if I cycle on it, perhaps I'll manifest it.  So I've tried to distance myself from the thought of the ordeal and carry on as if it was all a bad dream.  Haven't wanted to talk about it let alone blog about it.  The symptoms persists and although I am a 1,000 times better every day I am further away from a day of radiation, I know what I am feeling and it is definitely a result of the radiation.  They can tell me all they want that I was only radiated in the pelvic area yet I still feel it in my joints, feel it in my skin, still smell it.  The most alarming new trouble spot is the pressure I feel in the bladder and rectum that has me going back to the doctor this Tuesday.  Please Doc, just check me out and assure me that nothing is there and nothing to worry about.  Tell me I have an over reactive imagination and I will get back to carrying on with a vengeance and renewed energy.

Thanksgiving is coming up in four days.  It has been one year since this nightmare began.  I have a LOT to be thankful for.  I have made it through to the other side of treatment as difficult as it was unscathed, tempered from the experience, and filled with renewed interest in all of the people that are connected to me in this life.  Thank you for helping me make it through with your love and encouragement.  So I urge you:  Gather your loved ones this holiday, hold them like it's the last time, and say I love you with all sincerity.   I know I will.