Live in the Layers — Cancer house

I stole the title from a line in Stanley Kunitz’s poem “The Layers.” I’ll include more of it later.

This month has had its sorrows and joys. As I’ve noted before the cancer has now moved to my liver and I’ve started a new chemo regime of sacitumizab. I’m on for 2 weeks and off the third. It does drop my white count and gives some GI distress but i think i can tolerate well. The clincal trial drug caused problems too—my lung lining filling up, glaucoma, exacerbated my lymphadema, neuropathy so my fingers don’t work, fluid retention in general. I’ve lost 10 pounds since I’ve gone off it and hope that the fluid in my lungs has stopped. My lungs were drained a few weeks ago and had the most I’ve ever had drained on right side—850 ml. Left lung wasn’t drained. (see photo below.).

For valentine’s day i just sat in a chair all day—watched Netflix and chilled. My hair is falling out for the 4th time which is never easy. I thought maybe this new drug wouldn’t do that, but I took a shower and it came out in my hand. It had started to come back after being off taxol for about 6 weeks.

I am tempted to have a pity party and then I hear about a metastatic sister suffering more than I am and last week a dear friend had a full term stillbirth. Life is not always fair. and after a conversation with a friend who is suffering we both concluded if there’s a God, great, if there is not, we can accept that too. I’ve been given so much in this life and I am grateful. Personally I like to believe God is real as I look at the beauty around me and experience love.

And now i can write about happy! 25 poetry friends got on zoom, wished me happy birthday, told me how I had impacted their lives and read a favorite poem or one they had written. My friend Marilyn had even written a poem using my name!!! What an honor.. And then my friend Nancy said “Go to the front door.” And at the door one of the hubs had brought a copy of all the poems in the box in below photo. Marcia Goldenstein, UT emerita, and artist extraordinaire, hand painted the cover with January’s flower, a snow drop. I am so very grateful for these friends who keep me going. Best birthday ever!

And speaking of poetry, here are the ending lines of Kunitz’s poem:;

“and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

“Live in the layers,

not on the litter.”

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes.“

So that’s what i’m trying to do—live within the many layers of my life and not on the litter—regrets, failures, anger, doubts and sorrows. And more good news—got a new arm pump that massages my lymphatic left arm. I put the sleeve on for an hour. Love new toys.