Lucky

Two weeks ago, my Monday kicked off with an unintended bang. While picking up two five-gallon jugs of water, I had a runaway shopping cart incident.

Heavy lifting is a challenge since surgery in June, so I went to the store prepared, wearing a compression sleeve. When a store worker offered to pick up the jugs for me, I had to hold back tears. It’s common these days for simple acts of kindness and generosity to move me to tears. A fellow survivor reminded me it’s because of all the chemo-induced hormonal shifts, and while that is partly true, it’s not the whole story. Closing out a solid year of cancer treatment, it’s safe to say my heart has been cracked wide open.

The parking lot is on an incline, so I had to hold the cart with my foot while getting the jugs in the back of my car. As soon as I closed the trunk, I lost my hold on the shopping cart, which started rolling quickly downhill. I wish I had a video of what happened next because I know we would laugh. Or at least laugh before the bad part happened. I chased after the cart, bald head and all, but no matter how fast I tried to go, I could not catch this damn cart. It kept going and going and going. Until it hit a parked car.

I walked back to my car, which took a bit. That flyaway cart traveled. Then I wrote a nonsensical note in pencil on the back of an old envelope. I couldn’t decide between the cart “ran away” or “rolled away” so I wrote both. It was ridiculous. As I was laboring over the words, I looked up and noticed someone in the car, so I drove over, thankful I could just explain without overthinking. Only, by the time I got out of my car, the car was gone.

I felt awful. In New York, where I lived for almost two decades, most cars get dinged. It’s part of on-street parking life, almost like the cars come with pre-packaged dents. People just get used to it, like they get used to spending 1.5 hours in their car twice a week during alternate side street cleaning hours, which happens at the most inopportune times. Where I live now, though, there’s a reasonable expectation that you can go to Stop & Shop and not going to get your car dinged from a runaway shopping cart.

Not the best omen for my week! Then a song came on that reminded me of my friend Betsy and her late son Charlie. So, I left her a voice message explaining what happened.

Betsy, my astro-Sun-moon-twin, is the rare person who always has the right words, no matter the circumstance, and this runaway shopping cart was no exception. (For more of Betsy’s wisdom, wit, and beautiful prose, I highly recommend her book, Grief Glimmers Grace.) She replied with a story of an old lady trying to get out of her car and denting Betsy’s in the process. Betsy tells it so much better, but the gist is, the dent makes her smile and serves as a reminder to give grace to others and ourselves.

Also, she laughed at the image of me chasing that shopping cart, which made me laugh, too. Then she told me to keep the envelope in case a video of that incident went viral. I could at least prove that I had tried to do the right thing.

After the shopping cart incident, I joked that I should not be out in the wild this week. It’s true that the tail-end of this cancer treatment is kicking my ass. I’m tired, which feels uncomfortable. I have an insane amount of energy normally and for most of this treatment, I have been keeping up a schedule that would make people not in treatment exhausted. Well, God heard me, apparently about not being out in the wild because the day after the shopping cart fiasco, I came down with my first flu symptom.

It’s hard to distinguish between what’s a flu symptom and what’s a side effect of these drugs, and it wasn’t until later in the week that I tested positive for the flu. I had been masking, so hopefully that limited my contagion. No one I was around seems to have gotten sick, thank god.

I only went to the doctor because I felt something in my chest and wanted to make sure there wasn’t a bigger issue. It was lucky timing as I was able to connect with my care team and they told me what to look out for over the weekend (fever over 100.4, which can be dangerous in those who are immunocompromised like me). So, my fever did spike and I did wind up in the ER (with a tall, dark, and handsome PA, thank you Jesus for this small and very much appreciated mercy) and after a lot of Saltines, water-drinking, and long sighs, my bloodwork confirmed that my immune system was doing its job. Despite the pounding headache, I was safe and so were my food-shopping neighbors. I would not be manning any shopping carts anytime soon. I had to cancel everything.

Recovery has been slow but steady, and this grounded time has had a silver lining: giving me time to reflect on all that I have to be thankful for. The good cheer, well-timed check-ins, the stretches of life shared with kindred spirits and those nearest and dearest, invitations to Mexico, Spain, Utah, and California, flowers to brighten my day, cards that make me smile, thoughtful care packages, and a hand-painted gold-leaf pinecone, road-tripping dreams, the ways that loved ones show up in a pinch, the fog getting cleared off the windshield, so to speak, appreciations large and small, hilarity large and small, and most of all, the feeling of being safe, home, and cared for.

Looking back on this year, my care teams have given me so much excellent attention and good cheer, too. I’ve been lucky on this front, encountering true healers. I came into this diagnosis with medical trauma and a general distrust of physicians (thanks to the one who raised me) and sometimes, I wonder if the whole purpose of this extra step was to experience this level of impeccable care, in the hands of extraordinary physicians and nurses. The last six months has healed my heart beyond what I can express with words.

It hasn’t been easy, obviously. Actually, it might not be obvious. There’s an invisibility factor with this diagnosis that truly surprised me, despite having heard about it from loved ones who experienced this firsthand. I read recently an article on “cancer ghosting,” meaning loved ones went MIA post-diagnosis. As one of my friends said, “Some people just can’t.” I’ve experienced shades of that. It was shocking at first, but I am grateful to close out the year with a more accepting perspective, e.g. some people can’t…and that’s OK. This has freed up my energy and helped me focus on the friends who have been present on this wild ride. All things considered, I am lucky.

It has been strange to go through this and not have my mother. We are estranged. I assume she knows I have this diagnosis. Early on, a few relatives asked if I wanted them to communicate my diagnosis to her. My response was the same every time: “I fail to see how telling someone who has been calling me a liar behind my back is going to be conducive to healing.” Every time I said it, the response I got was laughter, like, Oh-k! Fair point. Five years ago, I tried to open a conversation with her about the things she was saying to others, which to this day she has never said to me, and her response showed that she could not engage in an on-the-level conversation, sadly. Some people can’t, and that’s OK. It devastated me at the time, and sometimes, it devastates me still. Yet in a way, the facts being what they are, I like to think of it as her gifting me with peace. As I told her in my last communication, I love her regardless.

This fall, I met a survivor of the same type of breast cancer I have. She is 17 years out and a ball of upbeat energy. She has been so thoughtful about checking-in, especially when she learned I am relatively new to the area and don’t know many people. A while back, we went to have dinner one night, and a man sitting nearby interrupted our conversation. “I couldn’t help but overhear,” he said. “I really hope you make it. My wife didn’t.” I started to laugh…thanks? But my new friend swatted his comment away like a fly, “She’s fine!”

She is a great example of care and generosity in action and her support, no doubt, is one way to counteract the invisibility factor that so many people with this diagnosis encounter. It’s inspiring and has given me a lot to think about for what happens—where to focus my energy—on the other side of treatment.

For now, I am focusing on the finish line, which is so, so close! In less than a month, I will have my last infusion.

With astrology, when I share that a difficult transit is nearly complete, people are usually very relieved. Pluto is almost off your moon…HALLELUJAH. And I get that, I really do. But I also feel that knowing there’s a limit to this influence, why wouldn’t you want to get the most out of this opportunity—to reflect as much as you can, to experience the magic of moment? From 2014 to 2024, I had some serious Pluto (death, decay, rebirth) action, starting with my descendent, then moving to contacts with my Venus, Jupiter, Chiron, Saturn, Mercury, and moon. I don’t think it was my knowledge of astrology that helped so much as being present and realizing (over and over) that there were forces out of my control. If I learned anything from that decade, it is that if you’re going to be in a transit, be in it 150%. And I can’t believe I am going to say this about a drug that causes nausea and other lovely side effects, but that is how I feel about treatment. If there’s gold to be mined, I am finding it.

After my cousin Karen died, one of our relatives said, “Everybody needs a Suzie.” It was a sweet nod to the path I had walked with her, particularly at the end of her life. At one point this year, this comment crossed my mind, and I realized that I could really use ‘a Suzie’ right about now. I am blessed with incredible caregivers, and yet parts of this road are inherently solitary.

Can you tell it’s been one hell of a trippy year?

Sending you all year-end wishes for love, health, peace, prosperity, happiness and infinite joy. Wherever you are, may you be 150% in the moment. Before we know it, there will be many a new moment calling.

Happy holidays and happy New Year to all.