Category: Thyroid Cancer

ACHTUNG BABY

On By mymanymeltdownsIn Grief, Thyroid Cancer, UncategorizedLeave a comment
black vinyl record on wooden surface
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April 9, 2018

 

This morning I found out that an old friend had passed away. He was 45 years old. He had a rare lung cancer that metastasized…everywhere. I met him in 1991, on a school art trip. He went to the other high school and was a senior; I was a freshman.  The guy had a magnetic personality. He was a guy that everyone wanted to be around. He was silly, creative, funny, and kind. I was completely drawn to him and his super curly head of hair. We were friends instantly and stayed friends for many years after.

 

The U2 album, Achtung Baby, was the album of the summer of 1991 for us. It seemed like it was always on – wherever we were and for whatever we were doing. It played in the car on the way to Horseshoe Falls, on the stereo if we were hanging out at our buddy’s house, and in my head every day. For years after, I associated that album with my time with him and our gang. Today, as I listen to it, I think of all of the fun we had and how fleeting time can be. How moments can be stolen and can stay in your heart and your head forever. Today, I think of how fortunate I am and at the same time utterly tortured with guilt.

 

Cancer is something that no one wants. No matter what kind. It changes your perspective and how you look at the world. It changes how you love and how you live. And it makes you really look at the fact that you only have this one life. But there are also varying degrees of cancer. Those that people battle and can beat, those that will eventually take your life, and those that are like a prolonged, severe cold and will pass with some quick meds. I’ve got the kind that’s like a really bad cold. It’s been a pain in the neck, but it’s not killing me and will never kill me. I even have an elevator pitch for it: I’ve just got cancer, I’m not dying. And it’s true – I’ve got cancer, and I will not die from it. At the same time, I feel like I can’t even really say or own the fact that I have cancer. I don’t have to go through months of chemotherapy or radiation. I am not debilitated. I am not going through various types of clinical trials just to give myself a few more good years or even months. I am just sick sometimes. I just had to have surgery and, so far, a week-long treatment. I don’t even feel like I have the right to say that I have cancer. I feel guilty that I have even uttered those words from my mouth – because people feel instantly sorry for you. And what do they have to be sorry about; I’m not going to die.

 

My friend died. And his family is completely shredded by the loss of someone so fantastic and so loved, and they will never get to laugh with him, hug him, or talk to him ever again. Their hearts are broken. Their lives will never be the same. So, while my life will never be the same again either, I am alive. I have this one life, and I should probably think very seriously about living it. I should think about what it means and what I can do with it. I should think about every single last human that I love very much and tell them every day how much I love them. I should not let things or people that do not serve me, or my family’s happiness control my life. And it’s not that I should, I will.

 

Although I didn’t talk to him much in the last decade, I watched his progression through social media and the words of all that loved him. In the last year of his life, he ran a marathon; he skied, he painted, he created, he loved, and accepted everything. He lived every single day as if it might be his last, until his last breath at 6:30 pm on Sunday, April 8th. That is an inspiration to me, and I will do the same until my last breath of life…whenever that day is because I just have cancer, and right now, I’m not dying.

I HATE FOOD.

On By mymanymeltdownsIn Thyroid CancerLeave a comment
avocado close up colors cut
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*Note: this is from when I was going through radiation for Thyroid Cancer. Totally not fun.

April 6, 2018

 

I hate food. Not true. I love food. I love making food and experimenting with flavors and ethnicities. I love tasting layered, complex flavors; sweet, spicy, salty, tangy – sometimes all together! I love the kick of acid in vinaigrette or lemon curd, the kind that gives a quick punch to the face and wakes up your senses. I love the taste of cumin, pepper, and orange in Carnitas and the way the pork melts in your mouth. It’s a little salty and spicy, but the orange gives it a hint of semi-sweet and citrus flavor. I could go on forever about the joy of food and cooking, but right now I hate food. I even hate making it.

 

For the last few months, my relationship with food has been terrible. It’s been tumultuous. Somedays I miss being in my kitchen and creating something amazing out of a few essential pantry items. Other days I want to blow up my cupboards and destroy my stove. I want to throw out everything in my pantry and my refrigerator. I want to take the ten different kinds of flour and five different kinds of sugar I have out of my pantry and toss them into the air, so it looks like it’s snowing cocaine. Today is that kind of day. I want to make flour and sugar look like cocaine snow.

 

I had Radioactive Iodine Treatment this week. I am not enjoying it, and today, I hate everything. And today, I hate food. Nothing tastes good. I made a very flavorful herbed chicken, a recipe from Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook, “It’s All Good,” and normally it is all good. That chicken recipe kills. I use it as a base for a broccoli, quinoa casserole and I use it as the main dish for roasted chicken and even as is as a grilled chicken. But today, it sucks. I couldn’t even get it down. What was worse, is that I paired it with an avocado. I love avocados. But the herbed chicken with the avocado was absolutely nauseating. I got three bites in and threw my hands up in the air and said, “Fuck this shit!”

 

Now I sit here, knowing: 1. I’m soon going to have an avocado crisis because I have too many avocados and I currently hate them and 2. I am sad that it is all going to go in the compost. There are starving children in the Philippines that would love to eat that and would never complain. Hell, there are starving homeless here in Seattle that wouldn’t complain about it and would be sad to see me throw it out. Maybe, I should drop off all of my food at the homeless shelter. After that, perhaps I should change my attitude. I’m not dying. I’m not homeless. I just have lost interest in eating and making food; which is devastating to me today. And today, I am depressed over it – today. Tomorrow – who knows?