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Zoe is a full-on kid. She and Vera had their first sale of random junk. They hollered “get your stuff for a dollar” most of the afternoon. And wound up making $5 to split.

Mark and I were a little jealous. Our early entrepreneurial ventures (lemonade for me, a croquet course for Mark) were never so lucrative. Mark laments the maps of the croquet course his dad dutifully copied at work were never even given a second glance by potential paying customers. And I recall Becki and Jackie and me spending hours at the end of Jackie’s driveway with lemonade–to no avail.

Here are the two successful shopkeepers–along with a sample of their on-message marketing

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can summer be far behind?

Another post about waiting.

Mark and I saw the oncologist today. The chest x-ray shows slight (3 mm) growth on the measurable nodule in my lung. It shows no new nodules (good news) and no pleural effusion (don’t ask me what this means, it has something to do with fuzzy stuff that might indicate the cancer is on the move)–also good news.

But the growing thing, not good news.

However, the drug I’m on usually takes 6-8 weeks to be effective. My x-ray was taken at more like 5 1/2 weeks. So, we are going to wait another 4 weeks and see what my lungs look like on a CAT scan. If it seems the Faslodex is ineffective, we need to (in our doctor’s words) “pull the ripcord.” Pulling the ripcord means chemo.

And I really don’t want to do chemo again. Really, really, really.

It is not crazy to think that Faslodex still could work, or I’d be off it as of today. When it does work, it often works for years (like 3-5) so we’d really like to give it a fightin’ chance.

So, we’re waiting until May 22, at which time we should know what’s next.

Just like every time we have an appointment with the doctor, Mark and I waited for over an hour to see him. However, this time I was reading a great book and didn’t really care when he showed up. By the time he did, I was even still in a pleasant mood and rather reluctant to put my bookmark back in.

Hmmm, perhaps that pile of books in my living room might be just what I need for the next four weeks. Waiting may not be all that hard after all.

We just got back from 5 days with my sister’s fabulous family.

It seems that, when our families get together, we each have our counterpart. Becki and I have each other, Jim and Mark get along famously. And Ike and Zoe are simply cut from the same silly cloth. Ramona and Josie have always known the joy of twin-ship. When we visit, the rest of us get to experience it too.

Becki and I have not always appreciated people thinking we look alike. When we were younger, it drove us nuts. Now, though, when our times together are so few and far between and our sister-friendship so insanely precious, I absolutely love it when we enter a store and someone gives us a double take and says, “y’all twins?” It happened almost everywhere we went in Atlanta. And I relished it every time.

I miss my seester.

Remember the Paul Simon song?…

“Something goes wrong, I’m the first to admit it. First to admit it and last one to know. Something goes right, well it’s likely to lose me. Apt to confuse me, it’s such an unusual sight, I swear, I can’t get used to something so right.”

Mark and I have become the ones who get used to something going wrong. Cancer diagnoses and lost hopes seem to be the news of the thirtysomethings. Weddings and babies? Those seem to be the gifts of our twenties, gone and forgotten.

So, when Mark’s sister Beth called with the gleeful news that her boyfriend Jamey had proposed, we couldn’t quite wrap our heads around it. And to think, they’ll get married about the same time that my brother Chris and his wife Alison welcome a new baby. We are overjoyed.

We have a hard time getting used to these “somethings so right.” But we’re happy to try.

Congratulations, Beth and Jamey!

Mark and I have often observed at the oncologist’s office that the right hand doesn’t always know what the left hand is doing. The place is always hoppin’ and the doctors are always running late (a 1 1/2 hour wait this morning–it only has taken us two years to remember to bring books!). There are some folks there who run the place beautifully (like my cousin‘s lovely mother-in-law) and others who gum up the works and ask us questions we think they should already know the answer to. Last time, someone asked me why I needed a CAT scan. Um, I have cancer and the doctor said so?

Today, I was chit-chatting with the injectionist who was readying my $1,500 shot of Faslodex. Here is our conversation…

She asks me how many kids I have.

“Just one. My initial cancer was when she was 18 months old, so that was the end of kids for us. I found out about my mets on her fourth birthday. She’s turning six on Saturday.”

“Oh”, she says, “you have metastatic breast cancer!?”

“Yep,” I answer, “it’s in my lungs.”

“Wow,” she says, as she depresses the plunger into my gluteus maximus…”are you getting treatment for that?”

Now there may have been other chit-chatty lines in there, but I swear that last line is exactly what she said.

Perhaps her left brain wasn’t aware of what her right hand was doing.

Two weeks ago, when Mark and I were sitting in the waiting room at the cancer center trying to keep it together, we were recognized by a woman who had graduated from high school a few years ahead of me. She had been a cool cheerleader and I remember following her fashion sense when I was in junior high.

We swapped breast cancer stories as we all waited for our respective appointments. She had been diagnosed only a few weeks before and was anticipating more chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, etc., etc. As she was filling us in on her treatment and trying to explain the smile on her face, she said, “I’ve been through heart disease, and now breast cancer. I just figure that I’ll do what they [the doctors] tell me and try not to get hit by a truck in the meantime.”

A good philosophy, I think. Perhaps she should still be a cheerleader.

I’ll be trying not to get hit by a truck today. And appreciating the sun coming through my dining room windows.

Two years ago, when I was reeling from my metastatic diagnosis, I retreated to Atlanta for a long weekend to be with my sister. She, wisely, brought me to the High Museum of Art to see the quilts of Gee’s Bend. They were amazing and soul-nourishing, and I swore that the next quilt I made would be in the spirit of Gee’s Bend–made from the recycled fabric of shirts, pants, tablecloths, etc., and pieced back together without regard for perfect alignment. Ultimately, a more organic quilt both in material and in design.

This fall, I dug up the old clothes I had been saving for such an opportunity, and started ripping them into strips. They are the materials of Mark and my life. The shirt he wore the night we met, some pajama pants I wore to shreds, etc., etc.

I ripped them rather than using scissors and estimated their width rather than measuring. What emerged was indeed organic and imprecise. And full of love and stories just like the Gee’s Bend quilts.

Then, however, I said good-bye to the impoverished, artistic, optimistic, inspiring women of Gee’s Bend and embraced my own heritage…

Power tools.

My mother-in-law, an amazing quilter, has started a small business doing quilting in her basement on a machine that would make my father drool. It is huge. And fun to “drive.” The two requirements of any power tool–and guaranteed fun for our favorite Meyer contractor (my dad, that is).

Jane and I loaded the quilt on her machine last Saturday and I quilted like crazy. It was great fun. And the quilt turned out exactly the way I had wanted it to. I haven’t bound it yet. That’s the tedious part, but here it is…

(Oh, I did use scissors on the applique part.)

Mark and I have been enjoying Zoe’s literacy skills lately. She is constantly doing her “kindergarten writing” and has even begun leaving us notes as a way of communication. We find them to be such delightful and extraordinary gifts. Somehow, of all the things she has learned in her almost 6 years, this seems extra cool. Here are a few that we’ve gotten in the last week:

“Mommy, don’t tell Pop that I will be doing art this morning. Thank you”

“Would you wake up when I tell you to tomorrow morning please.” (Heh, heh, Mark and I do like to sleep in…)

Then this one came my way, slipped under the door just now. Right when I needed it. My sweet blonde girl, after hearing me talk for the last 24 hours all about my health is…

Somehow, that’s all that really matters to me.

Mark and I met with my oncologist this morning and learned that the Femara I’ve been taking for almost two years has lost its effectiveness and the cancer is growing again. The cancer has a slow metabolic rate, so it isn’t growing quickly, but it is definitely on the upward trend, so it’s time to switch meds.

I was quickly given a CAT scan to see more clearly how big the lung nodules are and then, shortly thereafter, given a shot of my new medicine, Faslodex. I will get injections once a month. We’ll be able to see in 2-3 months if it is working.

This switch in meds, while disappointing, is not a huge surprise. The course of action Dr. Campbell mapped out for us two years ago included the switching of meds over decades of time. Perhaps because of this, I don’t feel knocked down and run over. I feel disappointed. And grateful for two years of one medicine. And hopeful for at least two years out of this next one. And the next one. And the next one…

I’m sure I’ll write more about this in the weeks ahead as we feel this uncertainty and hope commingled. But tonight, I’m pooped, and just want to crawl into a warm bed. I had strength for today. And I have bright hope for tomorrow. That’s huge.