Today my fitness trainer, Guillermo Contreras, graduates with his Doctorate in Physical Therapy. Guillermo is an inspired and inspiring young man, who is kind, smart, caring and dedicated. He just got offered a job he's really excited about, and I'm very happy for him. And I will be very sad to say goodbye to him in a couple of weeks. G'mo has been a rock for me the past year and a half as I took on this new level of fitness as part of my leadership coaching training, and the past two months especially, as I took on my dance with cancer. His gentle and firm coaching got me through my tears of joy and disbelief on the very first day with him, when I did something every story in my head was telling me was not possible for me to do. On that day as I used my arm strength to pull my body up and forward in "TRX rows," I felt powerful in a way I had not felt since before elementary school, where I was usually among the last ones picked for teams and had some notable Presidential Fitness Exam bent-arm-hang failures. (My report card read: "Rebecca needs to increase her arm strength."  My parents' accepting and loving but not particularly empowering response was: "No, you don't, honey.")[...]

"Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht."  --Yiddish Proverb, Translation: "Man plans and God laughs."

Well this morning turned out to be only a dress rehearsal for the port installation. I awoke at 5:00am, was in the swimming pool by 6:00am, to the lab by 7:30 for bloodwork, had answered all of their questions, passed their neurological tests, read (!) and signed their consent forms, and had an IV with fluids and antibiotics dripping into me by 8:50. And was hungry. They then reported that my white blood cell counts (ANC 750 and WBC 1.9) were too low for them to do the port installation today (their cutoff numbers are 800 and 2.5, which are themselves considerably lower than the low end of "normal"). We argued with them a bit --- because we had asked about this yesterday when we were scheduling the procedure and the oncology nurse had reassured us saying, "Oh, it'll be fine, they've done it as low as 500." But they held firm, the doctor telling me "if you were my sister I wouldn't want you to have this procedure today; people have gotten infections even when they make the 800 cutoff." [...]

Thanks for all your messages of celebration yesterday. I was a little hesitant to share yesterday's good news before speaking with the oncologist, perhaps with good reason. [...]

Preliminary results from today's imaging apparently show that the fast-growing tumor in my right breast has shrunk nearly by half!!! I'm quite relieved as I was not able to feel this myself, but I have to trust they are being more scientific and precise than I am! We will meet with the oncologist tomorrow to get the official results and hear the treatment plan for the 2nd phase of chemo. [...]

I had a lovely time much of the week despite the chemo. My beloved Aunt Ellen was visiting from Berkeley, and we walked and talked and ate and saw friends and lay in the hammock. Ellen has always been a wise and grounding presence in my life; she is a psychotherapist and an artist, and among other things, she introduced me to feminism when I was 13. She encouraged me to "visit" my ceramics studio, which I have hardly been in since the diagnosis. We talked about my next steps on a couple of pieces I've been working on, and she helped me deepen into the question of whether and how I might make something even more special out of a piece that broke in the kiln, by embracing, enhancing, or decorating the crack rather than trying to hide it. This reminded me of  a Japanese ceramic tradition, kintsugi, in which broken pottery is repaired with gold lacquer, treating breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than as something to disguise. [...]

I've not been posting because I've been quite busy -- in part, working to get the CORE newsletter and my article for it done. I invite you all to check out my article here. It's about Breast Cancer and Tony Robinson (for those of you outside of Madison, he is the young biracial man killed here by a police officer while unarmed on March 6th, the day of my initial biopsies), and individual tragedy and systemic oppression. It also includes at the bottom opportunities to make donations to my organization, CORE, and a partner organization working on organizing in one of Madison's lowest-income neighborhoods. If you're not on CORE's email list and want to be you can also join there. [...]

I seem to have more to write about than time to write updates these days. And when I meditate and watch my "monkey-mind," it is sometimes in "blogger" mode -- crafting things to say in this semi-public forum about what my life is like. I've mentioned before, I think, that having this place to write has been very helpful to me. I think it makes me more mindful about what I am experiencing, to have a practice of writing about it; and sometimes, when I am having a hard time, it helps me be more in a place of choice about what to focus on. I realize I have a lot of authorial influence over what "stories" I live within, and knowing that I will be telling those stories, or some of them, to all of you, reminds me of that. I'm also aware, though, that I don't want to slide over into "performance" mode -- where I am pretending to myself about what I'm experiencing, in order to be able to convey a "better" story. I am committed to authenticity, as much as possible (even knowing that to some extent "authenticity" is also a story -- a social construct in our society that we collectively value and often poorly understand -- a fellow grad student did his masters' thesis on this back when I was in school in sociology!) What I mean by authenticity, I guess, is that I want to be as honest as I can be with myself and the people around me about this experience -- at least in measured doses that make sense given the context, social norms, my own comfort level, and what lessons I feel are most important for myself and others, etc.[...]

A few years ago, my step-son Sam who has a disability found this article about "spoon theory," written by a young woman with Lupus to help her friends understand what life with a chronic illness or disability can be like. It's about going through the day with a limited amount of energy, or "spoons," and needing to make mindful and sometimes difficult choices about how to use that energy. It applies of course to aging as well, and since reading it we often use shorthand, asking Sam or each other "do you have enough spoons for ____?"  [...]

On April 13th Jen wrote in her post to me: "I just learned a new word from a book I was reading: polepole (Swahili, pronounced polay polay) which means "slowly, slowly." Guides say this to people climbing Mt. Kilamanjaro as a way to help them sustain energy and reach the summit in a more fluid and graceful way than people who push too hard and fast and are wiped out at the pinnacle of success. It seemed like a fitting expression to share with you for the journey you are on. Polepole, Becca!"[...]

The trip to California went very well. It was short (sorry to my Bay Area friends & colleagues to not even try to see you!) but very sweet.  The Bar & Bat Mitzvah service was at Kehilla Community Synagogue, a wonderful Berkeley/Oakland Jewish Renewal congregation. My niece and nephew, Kaja and Tavi, did brilliantly, and I cried through most of the service, in part due to their talented, coordinated, heartfelt, and at times comic Torah readings and speeches, and in part because their biological mother, Kerstin, died of pancreatic cancer just after they turned 6. This was one of the first occasions since then that all of us who cared for her and the kids during her illness were together again, and it was the 7th anniversary of her funeral. She was there in spirit in so many ways (and, disconcertingly, there was a member of the congregation who looked remarkably like her from behind and the side – causing many of us to do shocked double-takes, and whisper amongst ourselves about it). Most of Kerstin’s family, which is a complex one with multiple sets of step- and half-siblings, were there to celebrate (and many were also mourning the recent & sudden death of Kerstin’s stepfather, Tom). The twins’ wonderful adoptive mother, Margot, has been in their lives since (I think) 2010, and her lovely extended family were all there as well. While I missed having Don and Sam and Sarah there, having Anita with me was a big treat. We talked non-stop the whole way there and the whole way back, and in between every event, and made the most of the opportunity for her to get to know my family better. She’s very good at connecting with people, and I loved getting to hear her perspective on some of the people she talked with. I felt pretty well most of the time, and even totally “normal” some of the time. I had great conversations with a lot of people -- something about having cancer really helped us make the most of the short opportunities to connect amidst the hubbub of large gatherings. We shared memories about our own B'nei Mitzvah experiences, which led to other storytelling...  It was also great to be with family on my birthday, and they surprised me with a chocolate mousse cake, singing, and presents in the middle of the Sunday morning post-B’nei Mitzvah brunch. Later that day we went to Palo Alto where my sister and my other niece and nephew live, and I finally got to meet their new dog, Lily![...]