In Just Spring

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and the eyes are opened.)

Feeling grateful today. Another brisk spring day but sunny, sunny, sunny. I even wrote a poem yesterday when I woke up to bright sunshine. I must be feeling better and even attempted cleaning.

I’ve been mulling over several things this week. I got my second covid shot last Saturday (Fauci’s ouchie as my friend Allen calls it). And yet my white counts continued to stay decent when I had my labs drawn on Tuesday. So grateful for my strong body and the lifestyle that has allowed me the luxury of staying healthy. (Good food, hours to exercise, social connections (family and friends), insurance, an education, therapists, antidepressants, the list goes on. I’m the epitome of white privilege.)

Here’s the other thing that I’ve been venting about. Most of you know my story. I’ve been in treatment for an aggressive form of tnbc for 4 yrs—metastatic tx for 2. I want to urge you to be pro-active about cancer care—it’s a science after all. It almost always comes down to genes. For example, drugs like tcentrique or keytruda didn’t work for me bc i’m pdl-1 negative which is what they target. And last yr I was warned off a fda approved drug bc it tends to make ppl neutropenic. My previous Dr. wouldn’t put me on although I asked. The side effects from her drug were killin’ me and cancer moved to my liver. Now I’m with on trodelvy at 100% dose and my white count is staying decent. This is what I found out (myself) about drug—ppl with 2 specific homogenous UGT1 A1 alleles tend to bc neutropenic on this.

I must not have that bc I’m stable. There’s nothing mystical about it. You don’t have a character flaw or a lack of faith or bad attitude or don’t laugh enough if you don’t get well. I get tired of such victim blaming. It comes down to genetic structure. Just because your cancer doesn’t go away, it isn’t bc you’re a worse person than person x whose cancer went away. It’s science and you didn’t fail—your drug failed you. If something is not working, address your concerns w/ yr doc. You know your body best. This is the best I’ve felt in a year and even took a short run last week.

Chocorua Landscape watercolor ee cummings (1894-1962).