What Chemo Feels Like for Me

This weekend felt like being squeezed in a full-body vise while a steel pipe is shoved down my throat and preschoolers beat my kneecaps with Wiffle bats. But otherwise, great!

Okay. Bit the bullet. Sent this E mail out tonight under the subject header "Sing Along!":

For some of you, this is recent old news with an update. For others, this is new news. But considering the whirlwind of the last few months...hell, the last few weeks...hell, the last few days...you might understand why it was best to hold off until all info was in.

Luckily, the good news is that Mom had a lovely 80th birthday, with fireworks all across the country celebrating along with us in Florida. She was truly touched by the cards and calls from y’all. Obviously, Marty and I also made it safely on the 1,200 mile drive from PA to FL in my late father-in-law’s 2000 Nissan Sentra (a gift from my wonderful brothers-and-sisters-in-law to my brother Steven, who is in desperate need of transportation).

The not-so-good news is that about two weeks ago I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer--odd, because otherwise I am fabulously healthy. The encouraging news is it was caught early and that tomorrow, starting at 7:30 a.m., Brian Slomovitz, M.D., of the Carol G. Simon Cancer Center in Morristown, NJ, will be removing those Snooki-like cells and a few other parts I have no further need of. It will be robotic surgery, so I’m hoping R2D2, and NOT the robot from “Lost in Space” (“Danger, danger, Will Robinson!”) will be scrubbing in. It will be an overnight hospital stay, then I’ll be tossed out by noon Saturday.

I’m telling you this NOT because I want flowers or cards or---please oh please NO—fruit baskets. No, none of it. (I’m not even home but in an undisclosed location now, so I’d appreciate holding any calls or Emails until afterward, during my two-week vacation--er, recovery period.) Just wanted to keep you in the loop and use this as an excuse for not getting in touch lately, or for any failure to respond quickly or coherently to your messages or for being belated in birthday greetings, etc., in the past and coming weeks.

I am also asking for a favor (as I’ve already asked of some of you and those who have “friended” me on Facebook):
Between 7:30 and 10:30 a.m. tomorrow, sing your favorite song loudly and in public. (It doesn't HAVE to be in public, but the idea amuses me greatly.) Need a suggestion? Try "Old Time Rock and Roll" (my cousins know why), "Thunder Road" (or any Bruce except "Highway Patrolman"--Marty knows why) or Imogene Heap's "Let Go" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDiCr7BNVY4&feature=player_embedded). I would love to know what song you chose!

Thinking of you all with a song in my heart...
XXOO,
Cheryl

Side Trip to Cape Fear

I'm weeping on a toilet seat at a rest stop outside of Lafayetteville, North Carolina.
The last time I sobbed in a multistall bathroom was about 15 years ago. I had spent three hours editing 20 years pages of mind-numbing crafts and recipe instructions for Family Circle magazine, painstakingly building fractions, cutting widows and realigning diagrams. With my last keystroke, I pushed myself away from my desk in triumph...and kicked out the power plug. Lost everything.
I forgot to hit "SAVE."
Today I have pulled over on our 1,200-mile journey from PA to FLA because M is angry with the GPS. He is trying to find Cape Fear, after I suggested we stop there for dinner. The irony amused me: why not face your fears in Cape Fear? M is trying to please me while he wrestles with the Gamin, re-enacting his lifelong adversorial relationship with mechanical objects. His frustration, which includes swearing, is summoning up my inner DeNiro. I hear Bobby D's mockable Southern accent "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

I pull over at the rest stop, pass 12 vending machines that contain nothing I want or need, dive into the first stall and burst into tears.
When I come back out to the car, I say, "So if I die, how are you going to find your way around? Will you be lost forever? Chill OUT." I take over the GPS. Cape Fear is too far away. It will take us out of our way. Stay on track for Savannah.
Hit "SAVE."

Bad Luck and Jersey Shore

Thanks to a mitzvah from someone whom I've never met, I get an appointment this afternoon with the top gynecological oncologist at the Carol G. Simon Center in Morristown. The Dr. S is refreshingly blunt, saying more or less, despite the clues that this is early stage cancer, these Snooki cells are out to get me. When I ask him what might cause them--hereditary, diet, hormones, reality TV--he said, "Bad luck." My middle name. So I can't blame my parents, Cape Cod potato chips, menopause or "Jersey Shore." Though I'm still going with "Jersey Shore," because, fuck, The Situation and Snooki are a cancer on my home state and they aren't even FROM my home state. Governor Christie, get your mitts out of the arts budget and toss that puttana and cazzone outta there!
Dr. S. says I am taking this surprisingly well. At that moment, all I care about is getting this taken car of without ruining my mother's 80th birthday. Then he says, "From now on, you are a cancer patient. Other people have heartburn, they take an antacid. You come here to see if it's something else."
Daughter, wife, sister, writer, friend poker player, fisherperson, cancer patient. I need new business cards.

Summer with Snooki

At approximately 11:35 a.m., Tuesday, June 21, the first day of summer 2011, I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. Punchline: I am spectacularly healthy otherwise. It is the most common women's cancer and has a very high cure rate, and mine seems to have been caught early. What seems to be causing the long faces on my gynecologists is that my cancer cells are what they call Grade 3--very aggressive aberrations that can show up anywhere. Ironic, considering that my own aggression level generally hovers between stoned (Willie Nelson) and comatose (the late Terry Schiavo, buon'anima).
After the diagnosis, I exchanged a phone car charger at Staples, phoned around frantically for a consultation with gynecological oncologist and went to my monthly poker game in Manhattan. Won 25 cents.