Sun and Wind

Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. “

(Mary Oliver, Wild Geese)

Today I am trying to write my way out of despair.  On Thursday evening, a sore throat gradually made itself known, and then almost strangled me.  I spent all of Friday and Saturday resting, drinking quarts of hot tea and watching hours of network detective shows.  I have not slept through the night since this all started, and those 3AM – 5AM sleepless spells are taking their toll.

While the rational me knows this is nothing but a very bad cold, the two surgeries in two weeks, five weeks of recovering from surgery and now this! me feels really down. 

“Meanwhile the world goes on. “

(Mary Oliver, Wild Geese)

Bob has been absorbed in problematic proposals and deadlines, and Josh is living his teen-age life.  I lie on the couch, hacking and coughing and watching from the periphery.

Tomorrow, April 1^st, I am supposed to meet with the oncologist to come to an understanding of the next course of treatment.  I am afraid I will not be well enough to make the appointment.  If I do go, I need to track down one of those masks so I do not bring this pestilence to any other cancer patients (with compromised immune systems) in the waiting room.  There is something sickly appropriate about this happening on April Fool’s day. 

The sun is out today, but the wind is howling.  I try to focus on the sunny things – my incisions are healing and my left arm is getting a little more range of motion.  The birds who were so noticeably absent all winter are returning to my bird feeders.  And, really it is far better to be sick this weekend when there was nothing on the schedule than last weekend when there was so much I wanted to do, and I was able to do.  But it is hard to silence the howling in my head that says, “This is your fault.  You did too much last weekend.”  There is part of me that believes disease – dis-ease – is triggered by life out of balance.  But I don’t find any of that very helpful at this moment. 

My sister sent me an article about the healing powers of cinnamon and honey, so I am drinking green tea laced with cinnamon and honey, and cinnamon toast made from Sue Gunness’ fabulous brown bread.   I will go with the power of suggestion, but my dark mood is lifting a little. 

The temperature topped out at 38 degrees today, and the winds are about 25 miles per hour from the NW.  Not horribly cold, and not horribly windy.  Yet it feels like this particular year spring in Minnesota is going to need to claw its way into existence.  And this particular day, I needed to claw my way out of a fairly dark place.  But Minnesota girl that I am, I know spring and even summer will get here just not on my schedule. 

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world  offers itself to your imagination

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things. “

(Mary Oliver, Wild Geese)

Some Days are Diamonds

When I woke up last Thursday morning I felt good.  Not 100% good, but essentially pain free and anxiety free, for the first time since this whole journey with breast cancer began.  And from there, the day just kept getting better and better.  When I took a shower, I was able to use both hands to wash my hair.  This was the first time since my initial surgery that I had the range of motion in my left arm for my hand to reach my head.  If you have ever tried to wash your hair with only one hand, you realize this was a small but meaningful victory!

That day a package arrived in the mail from my cousin (okay, first cousin once removed) Karen Nelson.  Inside was a beautiful prayer shawl that had been handmade by her mom, Jeannine Rusinko, wife of my first cousin Deane Rusinko.  Karen is a cancer survivor and spoke from experience in her note when saying, “The road won’t be fun, but I know that you have a huge support network and it really does help.  Trust God will provide you with all you need for journey – a helping hand, a card in the mail, a compassionate health care worker and much needed hug.”

It also contained the following blessing:

Prayer Shawl Blessing

May you feel God’s warm embrace

as you wrap this prayer shawl around you.

May you experience the comfort,

strength and love of God,

encircling you in good times,

as well as difficult times.

May you be

lifted up in hope

surround by joy,

graced with peace and

wrapped in love.

Please know that you

are being remembered in prayer and love.

 . . . the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever.

Psalm 107:1

Lord of life Lutheran Church

Maple Grove, Minnesota

This blog is not the platform for me to venture off on my scattered thinking on faith, but I will simply say I believe in a whole lot of things that I cannot touch in the physical world.  I believe in the sacred within every living being, and when others pray for me and send me healing thoughts, I believe I am stronger for the journey ahead.  And, I know when I wrap that prayer shawl around me, I will feel surrounded by the love and support of family, friends, and all that is ineffable but still very real to me.

Thursday evening I felt well enough to attend the final dress rehearsal for the Gustavus Dance Company’s 25^th Anniversary Concert.  Though I rested a lot in between, I also felt well enough to attend every performance the next three days.  And it was glorious.  In addition to my current students, 27 alumni returned to campus to perform in a special closing dance called “25”. Over the course of the weekend, numerous other alumni, friends and colleagues attended the performance.  I got to connect with so many people who are important to me.  At some point, I will need to write more about that concert and everything I experienced, but for now I just want to point out that the reason I have not posted anything to this blog for a while is because I was too busy having fun.

Tomorrow is the 15^th Anniversary of the devastating tornado that hit St. Peter, MN. In reflecting back on that event, city administrator Todd Prafke wrote, “As others rushed to our aid that night and in the weeks that followed, we learned how to accept help when it is offered and how to come to the aid of others when they need it.”

I really do not believe bad things happen to people for a reason, or because they are meant to learn something from a situation.  Tornados hit hometowns, and cancer strikes individuals and both are devastating.  However, I hope to take a lesson from my hometown, and continue to whole-heartedly accept help when it is offered, and down the road I hope I can equally whole-heartedly reciprocate for others in need.  

Anxiety and Hope

Over the weekend, I was completely overwhelmed with anxiety.  I worried that my incisions were not healing properly, and there would be other complications.  But mostly I worried that it would be painful to have the drainage tube removed.  I have no idea how I ever got this idea in my head, but it was there.  I did not want to ask anyone – because I was afraid they would confirm my fear. 

All of this is somewhat understandable because there have been a number of procedures along the way that have been far more uncomfortable than I was expecting.  For example, the morning after my surgery, it took two technicians and multiple tries to get a blood sample from my right arm.  Apparently along with her migraine headaches I also inherited my mother’s “rolling veins.”

So going to see my surgeon on Monday morning, I was totally on edge.  I really, really like this surgeon.  She is a calm, no nonsense, and currently immensely pregnant woman with a pierced nose and multiply pierced ears.  She told me everything was healing very well and that generally people thought it felt kind of “weird” when the drainage tube was removed but it was not usually uncomfortable. 

And, then it was out and over – and I never felt a thing.  Seriously, it is way more painful to remove a band-aid.

Then I felt silly, and that I had wasted way too much of a perfectly fine weekend being stressed about this.  Floating through my head was a quote that I first heard attributed to Corrie ten Boom, an incredibly brave Dutch woman, who along with her father helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust, and later wrote a book about it called The Hiding Place.  “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”

Recently, I have come across a variation of this quote attributed to 19^th Century influential British Baptist preacher named Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who wrote “Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength.”

I don’t really care who said it first - I just like the idea.  The problem is I have no idea how to embody it.  Writer Anaïs Nin described anxiety as “love's greatest killer.  It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you.  You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.”  Feeling like I am “strangled with panic” – is a good description of how I feel when anxiety takes over.

So I turn to the tools I have.  I write. I meditate.  I escape with hours of bad network television.  I am trying to rewire the default setting on my expectations. 

But in that re-write, I don’t want to dial back hope, which perhaps makes me a challenger to Mary Pipher, who claims to be the “worst Buddhist in the World.”

Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist Monk, whose work I admire a great deal, writes, “Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can’t simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment. We feel that someone else knows what’s going on, but that there’s something missing in us, and therefore something is lacking in our world.”

Googling around on the word hope I came up with lots of interesting perspectives.  Sometimes it is described as a feeling, sometimes as an expectation.  The one that was the most interesting to me was the fact that the Hebrew word “yachal” which means “trust,” is sometimes translated as hope.  I guess it is all of those things, a feeling, an expectation and an intuitive sense of trust that things will get better. 

I often tell my students there are no “shoulds” or “should nots” where feelings are concerned.  What you feel you feel.  And today, on this first day of spring (vernal equinox) I am frustrated that the wind chill was -11 this morning and there is still snow in the yard.  But I do not feel anxious and I continue to feel hopeful.  I am good with all that.

Red cars and rollercoasters

I haven’t written much lately, because post surgery my life is mostly about pain management (drugs and ice) and drainage tubes.  Not the stuff of inspiration. 

I spent about 24 hours in an actual hospital room before they sent me on my way and Bob carefully chauffeured me home. My sister, Mary Jo, and her daughter, Marit, arrived at my house that evening.  Marit was only able to stay a day before heading back to the Twin Cities.  But it was fun having her here.  She is getting married in June, and talking about showers and weddings was a good distraction. 

Overall the physical pain is very manageable. On the old 1 – 10 scale, it rarely goes above a three.  But it is fairly constant – like a dull ache. The drainage tube sucks in more than just the literal way.  It is a Jackson-Pratt drainage tube, so there a little grenade shaped bulb at the end.  After draining what is collected there, I squeeze all the air out of it, so a vacuum is created that draws the fluid from the surgical site.  Besides the discomfort, it makes the left side of my chest look like a really creepy modern sculpture. Tube comes out on Monday.  While I am dreading the actual removal, I am looking forward to it being out.

After speaking to a number of my friends today I realized I am trying to keep myself knit together.  On a physical level I feel much like a slug.  I am moving slowly and get worn out very quickly.  I decided I needed a little fresh air so my sister and I went to the St. Peter Food Coop for an outing today.  That is three blocks from my house (we drove) and the entire adventure took about 25 minutes.  But that was pushing it for me and I needed to lie down and rest when I got home.  Emotionally I am riding an extreme rollercoaster – the type I would never go near in real life.  I feel fairly grounded and calm one minute, and the next minute I am plummeting straight down in a frenzy of fear and sadness.  And, a few minutes later, I feed the dogs, check my e-mail, and go about the normal business of everyday life.

Before my surgery this past Tuesday (a completion mastectomy, where they removed what was left of my left breast), a number of people asked me if I was ready for all this.  I didn’t know what to say.  How can you ever be ready for all this? 

On Sunday evening when Josh was on his way to the gym, he drove past a car dealership and spotted a Red Fiat 500.  When he got to the gym he called me and said, “mom, since you are not going to feel like doing so much after your surgery, do you want to go test drive a Fiat 500 tomorrow after school?”  This was not high on my list of “things I wanted to do before my next surgery” but because he wanted to do it, I said “sure.” 

And that is what we did.  I doubt there is a perfect ritual to prepare to lose a body part, but I think going for a joy ride in a small Italian car came pretty darn close.   

It is all how you frame it

3.10.13. A palindromic day

A skilled photographer can take a photograph of an alley you have walked past hundreds of times, and help you to see it in a new light.  A skilled choreographer can take a gesture from every day life, and place it in a context, which fills with nuance and meaning.  This is what artists do – they take their training, talent, and unrelenting perseverance and frame the materials in front of them in a way that illuminates the way for others to see and experience what they are seeing and experiencing. 

I am a dancer, a teacher, a choreographer, a writer, a sister, a wife, a mother, a friend and an artist down to my very core.  I also plan to add breast cancer survivor to that list of roles by which I self-identify.  

Last Thursday, I had a cup of tea with my friend, and departmental administrative assistant, Kelly, and she said she was surprised that I kept sending her work related e-mails.  She thought I would want to just check out on everything work related and just focus all my energy on dealing with my cancer.  I told her that work is an area where I feel I can control more of the outcomes.  I have a lifetime of experiences that have taught me how to deal with issues at work.  However, in this whole area of breast cancer, I feel I have little control and I don’t have the lifetime of experiences to know how to tackle this.  The minute that sentence came out of my mouth I knew it was not true.  I corrected myself.  The more and more I thought about it, the more I realized not only do I have numerous skills and life experiences which have prepared me to participate in my journey of healing, there are a number of things completely out of my control that have aligned to provide additional support for the road ahead.

First of all, I have a long, long history of listening to my body.  I took my first ideokinesis class from Peggy Hackney the summer of 1977, right after I graduated from college.  I didn’t really understand or value lying on the floor and listening to my body, but I was exhausted from the other dance classes I was taking and simply appreciated the opportunity to rest.  It wasn’t until I was in graduate school at Arizona State University (1981-1984) when I had the opportunity to study ideokinesis from Pam Matt, that the habit of stopping, listening and feeling on an internal level took root.  Anyone who has studied dance with me over the last 29 years knows I love to lie on the floor, pause and listen to what is going on inside me. It was this practice that lead to the timely diagnosis of my cancer – one that could not be felt by anyone’s fingertips and most of which was “microscopic.”

Two years ago while on Sabbatical I wrote a blog called “MAD and TAJ go around the World,” which was about the year I spent teaching (dance and writing) and traveling in Europe, Israel and China with my teen-age son, Josh.  I discovered during that time I could often write my way out of anxiety.  Often I did not even know why I was feeling anxious, but if I sat down and starting writing I would usually find my way to some understanding and a calmer place.  Last summer I decided to pursue this area more and I spent a wonderful week on Whidbey Island, Washington at a workshop called “The Self as Source,” with writing teacher Christina Baldwin.  I left the workshop even more convinced of the healing power of writing. 

At the end of the last academic year, my sister, Mary Jo and her husband, Bob D., both retired (she was a high school Spanish teacher and he was school district superintendent) and relocated from Bemidji, MN to St. Peter, MN.  So my sister and her husband now live around the corner from me. 

And, while I was devastated when the individual who had been my department’s superwoman academic assistant told me in the fall, she was leaving her part-time job at the college for a full-time position elsewhere, I could not imagine that my friend and yoga teacher, Kelly, would end up being hired in that position. 

During January term at my school I was teaching a course I have taught before that combines my two passions – moving and writing.  I had these seven amazing students, who dove down deep into their own lives and wrote powerful and healing stories based on their own life experiences.  Their courage and strength inspired me.  It was the second week of classes when I went in for the mammogram that set this journey in motion.  My mammogram was scheduled for early in the morning and should have been done before my class, but since it lead to further tests, I did not make it back in time for class.  I called Kelly and she went down stairs and taught a yoga to my students that day and they loved it.  During the entire month of January these seven students and I listened to our bodies, wrote our stories and sat in circle together.  It all nourished me to face the days that followed. 

After college I spent four years teaching high school biology and chemistry, and while that was a long time ago, I still have the foundational knowledge to understand, at least on a superficial level, the science behind each layer of my diagnosis.  I have had a number of people ask me “Isn’t all the information overwhelming?”  And, to answer honestly, it has not been.  I have been given, and understood, enough of the information to make an informed choice about each step along the way. 

And for me, that will be a “completion mastectomy” on Tuesday, March 12^th.  As I have said before, I will join the “clan of one-breasted women.” (Terry Tempest Williams) As I recover from that I will meet with an oncologist, and my next decisions will be made as they need to be made. 

What has overwhelmed me is the outpouring of support from so many people that I know.  Meals that have been prepared and given to us, dvds dropped off for healthy distractions, cards, messages, gifts – so, so much.

Just the delivery guy

My surgeon called about 2:30 today with the MRI report.  There are four small nodules in my left breast superficial to (or in front of) the site where the known cancer was removed.  There is no way to confirm that these nodules are malignant without a biopsy of each one  - but there is a strong possibility that they are.  Everything on my right side is clear, and the MRI again confirmed there is no sign of cancer in my lymph nodes.  

I am going to sleep on all of this and meet with my surgeon at 9:00AM tomorrow.  It is currently my plan to have a complete mastectomy of my left breast next week.  This is my surgeon's recommendation, and is what I feel is the right choice.  I am very comfortable with this and surprisingly at peace with all of it.  I will join what one of my favorite writers, Terry Tempest Williams, referred to in her memoir, Refuge, as the " clan of one-breasted women."  (Of course she is referring to her own family who lost so many to this disease.) 

Today was the first turn of events where the news was better than I have feared.  So mostly I feel relief.  Being an academic down to my core, now my research will begin.  

Last night Josh returned from a solo trip to St. Paul, with four bags full of home cooked meals and other goodies from five families at Mt. Zion Temple.  The sweetest thing was watching Josh come in the door carrying four bags of food.  I think he felt like it was the first time he could really do something to help take care of me, even if he was just the delivery guy.  

This morning, I had a calming up of tea with my friend and colleague, Kelly Holland, and she delivered my campus mail that included a card and treats from my friend and colleague, Amy Seham, and a package containing the book Returning to Health with Dance, Movement and Imagery by Anna Halprin, a gift from one of my fabulous former students, Katy Becker.  I cannot wait to read that this weekend. And, in the mail, I got a hysterically funny card from the mother of one of my other fabulous students from years past.  (Okay Ashleigh Penrod, I know where you get at least part of your sense of humor.) It had contained a list of 20 fun things to do while you are recovering from an operation.  Right now I am focusing on #13, “Practice Exotic Bird Calls.”

The sun is shining, and it just all feels like it is going to be okay.  Thanks for being there with me for this wild ride.  I know it is not over.  

Still in this dance

As Josh slowly got better over the weekend, Bob went down.  Nausea, fever and chills – the whole package.  My friend, Cheryl called me late in the morning on Sunday.  Cheryl used to be an athletic trainer at the college and later become a massage therapist.  Her further studies have taken her to training with John Barnes in myofascial release and with Thomas Myers (author of Anatomy Trains).  She said, “Do you want to come over right now, or later this afternoon?”  I saw her in the afternoon and she worked on my head, neck and upper body for two hours.  When I left her house I felt I had returned to my own body abeit a bruised and stiff version of it.

Sunday night, Bob was still running a fever, so my friend Cheryl drove me to the meeting with the surgeon.  It was a good meeting, but, once again, was not the information I had hoped to hear.  The pathology report from last Tuesday's surgery showed "microscopic foci of invasive lobular cancer" - near two margins.  The tricky part of this kind of cancer is it is not "palpable" or visible on a mammogram or ultra sound.  So the surgeon is very uncertain that "all of the cancer" was removed.   I had an MRI on Monday to try to see if there are other suspicious areas.  If there are we could 1) do biopsies of all those areas, or 2) I just vote for either a single or double mastectomy.   I am waiting to hear what the MRI shows.  I am leaning toward option 2 since, but I am waiting for all the information.  

My surgeon said she would get the information from the MRI to me as quickly as possible.  That was Monday.  It is now Wednesday.

I swing rather wildly between feeling fairly grounded and ready to face whatever tasks are in my future and wanting to curl up in a pile of blankets and have a good sob.  I answer e-mails and write letters of recommendation for students.   I stare into space.  I look for words to inspire me.  Recently I came across a poet named Jewel Mathieson.  She is also a dancer, storyteller and breast cancer survivor.   She wrote a poem called Ravenet following her mastectomy.  The last lines read:

a dance with the mystery

a dance with destiny

I’m altared by this holy, wholly dance

my dance

the one that only I can do

As I have said before.  I am still in this dance.

I believe in stories

The end of December my ten-year-old, golden retriever, Yankee, started following me around the house whimpering.  At first I was somewhat sympathetic and concerned that something was wrong with him.  As it continued, I found it quite annoying, and a started calling him "shadow dog" because he continued to be so clingy.   One night during the first week of January, I woke up at about 3:00AM with just an odd sensation of discomfort in my left breast, armpit and arm. Not pain, just a faint achy - ness.  As I was laying there trying to figure out how I had a pulled a muscle in that area and trying to go back to sleep, the image of Yankee staying close to me and whimpering entered into my night consciousness.  It was in that moment I realized he might be picking up on something wrong with me.  I did the most thorough self-exam I could manage and could not feel anything with my fingertips.   Nonetheless, the following morning I called my general physician and scheduled an appointment for a few days later.   She also performed a very careful manual exam and could not feel anything.  Fortunately, she trusted my intuition and scheduled a mammogram for the following week.  The routine mammogram was followed by a magnified mammogram, which was followed by an ultra-sound.  The ultrasound showed a small questionable area that the radiologist said was “was not clearly worrisome but was worrisome enough to warrant a biopsy.”  

The next step was to meet with a “Breast Health Nurse” and schedule a biopsy.  All of this was going on during the weeks and days just prior to my husband Bob’s complete hip replacement.  He was in constant pain, needed crutches or a walker to just move around and was unable to do much of what he normally did at work and at home.  The mammogram, ultrasound and meeting with “Breast Health Nurse” all happened the day after I had been with Bob at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester for an exhaustive pre-operative checkup.  During much of this Mayo visit, I was battling a fierce headache and took some generic equivalent of Excedrin.  Because I had this “blood thinner” in my system, the Breast Health Nurse said it was necessary to wait five days to do the biopsy.  Which would have landed it right on top of the day Bob had his complete hip replacement.  While I wanted to move ahead on this, it was at this time I decided I needed to set aside feelings of “urgency” regarding this.  I made the decision to get Bob through his hip replacement and then scheduled the biopsy for the following week.  My sister Mary Jo and her husband (also named Bob), graciously delayed their departure for Arizona, and stayed in Minnesota an additional ten days to help with Bob’s recovery, and be with me through the scheduled biopsy. 

On January 28^th, I had the biopsy done and while it all went fairly smoothly, it was more complicated that I had expected.  A core sample of the questionable tissue was removed, and sent off to the lab.  I was told I would hear back from my primary care doctor in approximately 24 – 48 hours. 

On January 30^th, I received a call from the "Breast Health Center" in Mankato, where the biopsy was done, telling me that they were sending my biopsy sample to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester for a second opinion.  The nurse who called said this does not mean it is bad news, it just means that was "not clear or decisive" and warranted a second opinion.

To make a much too long story shorter, it took a total of nine days to get my pathology report back.   On the 13^th of February I had my first consult with Dr. Rachel Jones, who is a surgeon in Mankato.  It ended up being a very long afternoon, because my pathology report had not been sent to her, and she needed to spend considerable time and energy chasing it down before she could have a meaningful conversation with me about it.  What the report essentially said was "microscopic foci of invasive lobular carcinoma (grade 1) arising in the background of a lobular carcinoma in situ".   This translates into is a very small malignant tumor, with a few little threads of cancer beginning to carry the cancer to the adjacent tissue.    

On the 20^th of February, I met with Dr. Singh, an oncologist.  I learned that the type of cancer I have is Estrogen positive, progesterone negative, and HER2 positive.  I will definitely need to have radiation, hormone therapy and some treatments that fall under the category of “chemo” but as my surgeon framed it, I may not need the whole “she-bang.” In part it will depend on the actual size of the tumor removed.  I do know from the preliminary biopsy that the type of breast cancer I have is Estrogen positive so Tamoxifen is in my future, and it is also HER2-positive, so I will take a course of treatment with Herceptin, which specifically targets HER2-positive breast cancer cells. 

On February 26th, I had a "partial mastectomy" or what we commonly think of as "lumpectomy." At that time the surgeon also biopsied the "sentinel lymph nodes" to determine if the cancer had moved into my lymphatic system.  The surgery went well.  No sign of cancer in the sentinel lymph nodes during the preliminary test.  The worst part was that I got incredibly sick from the anesthesia.  The 20-minute trip from the hospital to my home was challenging and it was a very rough night.

Three days later, on March 1^st, my surgeon, Rachel Jones, called me. The good news is that the lymph nodes are still all clear on the final pathology report. The bad news is that on two sides, the invasive threads are too close to the margins removed, so I will need to go back into surgery next week.  Not sure if it will be just additional tissue removed at the margins, or if it will be a complete mastectomy.  That will be decided after my meeting with the surgeon on Monday morning. 

So that brings us up to today.  Saturday, March 2, 2013. It is cold, but sunny and a beautiful day outside.  My former student and friend Ashleigh asked how I was feeling about this next surgery.  I replied to her, “My feelings about the next surgery are complex.  The underlying reason for the next surgery is more worrisome.  Even though this was caught early, those microscopic invasive threads of cancer have spread farther than originally thought.  Disturbing.  And they are microscopic so they would never show up on mammography. I just need to make an informed decision as to how to proceed (take more tissue on two sides, to give wider clear margin, or take the whole breast) based on the facts as we know them, and not on irrational fear and anxiety.  Last night when I could not sleep, I just wanted some "bodywork" - some hands on massage, and some energy work - reiki or bmc.  I need to work some of the fear out of my body, before I can hear what it is telling me.  Right now I feel fairly tied up in knots, so there is very little body wisdom flowing in my direction. “ 

When I returned from China, my dear friend Sue Maerlender, gave me the book The Foremost Good Fortune, by Susan Conley.  This is a beautiful memoir of a young American woman, living in Beijing with her husband and two small sons, who discovers she has breast cancer.  After returning to the United States for treatment, she and her family return to China.  The excerpt below is from that return trip. 

 “All year long the boys have been asking me what I believe in, and I’ve been able to avoid the full answer.  I smile at them and reach out my hands to touch their heads.  The next time they ask, I’ll be better prepared.  I’ll explain to them that I have a new kind of faith now.  A trustingness.  And maybe it’s passed down from a god, or gleaned from the earth.  I’ll say too that I believe in language.  Thorne will probably counter that language is not a god – that words can’t be my religion.  I’ll say, Why not?  Because I ‘ve come to see that words are what get me up in the morning.  What allows me to go down on my knees in the small temple and pray.  Maybe in the end, words are something we can carry with us.  Because the stories of our lives live on.  And I would like my story to be about hope.  It will also have the word disease in it, but that won’t be my whole story.” 

I love that passage.  So this is where I will leave this background story.  I too believe in language.  I believe in stories.  My story will contain this chapter about breast cancer – but it too won’t be my whole story.