Category Archives: Adrenal Cancer

It’s always nice to come home

Adrenal Cancer, Cancer, Family, Writing October 16, 2013 Comments: 4
I love this place even though I am a rock 'n roll kind of girl!

I love this place even though I am a rock ‘n roll kind of girl!

Just spent ten days in Arizona on vacation with our daughter Joy and her family. I thought I would find time to work on my blog and on my book, to think about adrenal cancer. I didn’t end up doing any of that. OK—I did spend some time thinking about ACC, how could I not? It’s my life now, even in my Facebook news feeds. Listened to a podcast from MD Anderson of a Stage 4 ACC survivor on the trip home from Boston. Encouraging!

We were busy all of the time and I loved every minute of it. Especially the constant warm temperatures (90’s!), blue skies, and sunshine, which I blame on preventing me from sleeping. That would have been a good time to write but I didn’t–blame it on Ken Follet’s long book, “World Without End.” I can only dream about writing a book that keeps someone up until 2 a.m.

Vacation with the grandkids is always go, go, go. Football practice. Football games. Shopped at the malls, so many to choose from, so close, not like at home. Celebrated Joy’s birthday. Skipbo marathon with Haley. Yoga with Joy .

Breakfast at Liberty Market with Haley followed by the splashpad while Joy taught a class at Gilbert Yoga. Lunch at Queen Creek Olive Mill. Dinner at San Tan Flat—a blast and I indulged in one of their awesome margaritas. Not all on the same day–but we do tend to eat out a lot while we are on vacation!

Went on a trail ride at MacDonald’s Ranch in Scottsdale with rattle snakes, a rabbit, a coyote, and a runaway horse—Haley’s, not mine! My horse, Holiday, and I were a perfect match. Nice and easy……My buddy, Holiday.

Swam in the pool fully clothed with Haley. Hiked a new trail (to us) in the San Tan Mountains. Toured the Phoenix Zoo.

Met with Dave and Toni Bellin, travel agents (yes–they do still exist!) at Sunrunner Travel to plan our trip to Hawaii. (So exciting!)

Finally arrived in Boston after a disappointing boarding of our flight in Baltimore on Southwest. After several elevator rides elicited the assistance of a Massport employee to find our truck in the Logan parking lot. Rain and 47 degrees when we finally headed out onto I-93.

Vacations are great but it’s always nice to come home.

It’s okay to sweat the small stuff

Adrenal Cancer, Cancer, Family September 27, 2013 Comments: 3

Change. My life has changed immensely in less than a year, since the first doctor acknowledged there was an issue with my liver or kidney—but not my adrenal gland. So much has happened since then: surgery, being diagnosed with adrenal cancer, retiring. Dealing with the idea that I have an ultra-rare cancer that I could find out at any three-month interval has metastasized, making the focus of my life fighting the disease instead of living it to the fullest. That is change.

You can’t prepare for it nor would you want to be prepared for it. Who would want to live a dismal life like that? I have a positive attitude yet I am a realist. If those cancer cells are in my body, no matter how positive I am, they will find their way into my lungs, my liver (please not my left kidney since I only have one left). That I can’t even fathom. Are we talking about someone else? Am I the one with adrenal cancer, the one who the odds are stacked against? That is change.

Ask my husband and he will say the biggest change is I am a nicer person. 

The other day my grandson said when he pulled a handful of coins from his pocket, “look, I have change.” I truly enjoy being there for those moments. That is change.

Maybe I was never fully there for those moments, always preparing for the next moment. When people say “don’t sweat the small stuff,” I get it but on the other hand I see it differently. (I prefer “life is good.”) The small stuff is what your life is made of, so why shouldn’t you sweat it? Don’t take it for granted. Watching the kids pick apples, fixing the flat tire, making the casserole for the neighbor whose father died. It’s not the birth of your child-it’s when she takes her first step or says “I love you, mommy.” It’s not the job promotion—it’s when your boss says “thanks for the great job.”
That’s what we shouldn’t lose sight of.

Our lives are like snowballs, made up of unique snowflakes, small events, that when rolled together become something much larger than the individual snowflakes that comprise them.

That’s why it’s okay to sweat the small stuff. For a lot of us, if our lives were only comprised of the big events, there wouldn’t be much to them, would there?

I’m a winner!!

Adrenal Cancer, Cancer, My Novel- Anne, Writing, Writing Group September 5, 2013 Leave a comment
NaNoWriMo Winner Certificate 2011

NaNoWriMo Winner Certificate 2011

It’s a great day to be alive even if it feels like summer is over and fall is on the horizon. Frost warnings tonight!

I spent the morning yesterday at the Cider House Café at Windy Ridge Orchard with three women from my writing group. I can’t think of a better way to spend a morning—except if the one member who is “not a morning person” had been there.

As I had already eaten a bagel, the scrumptious apple cinnamon pancakes and bacon counted as my lunch, along with a Cortland apple from the peck I purchased in the gift shop. A lifetime ago I worked with the husband of the woman running the register—actually I started the novel (“Anne”) I am still struggling with when we began working together in 1986. He died of cancer five years ago.

She said she is finally coming to grips with his death. I can see that when Steve looks at me. I know he is thinking, how am I going to live without you? I am fortunate, I am only Stage 2 (of an ultra-rare cancer, unfortunately). It doesn’t mean I can’t become Stage 4 overnight. Or that I remain NED (no evidence of disease) forever.

I didn’t know in October that I would have surgery for ACC in November. I was living for tomorrow. It’s a wakeup call to find out that tomorrow may not come. Now I try to live my life as though today, this very moment of today, is all that I can count on.

But the reality is that most people don’t live their lives that way. They live as though death only happens to other people.

The ability of the women in my writing group to motivate, energize, inspire, me is priceless. They make me want to sit in my seat and write until I can’t write any more. To hone my skills until I can’t write any better.

We decided to participate in the National Novel Writing Month event this November, where you write a 50,000 word book in 30 days. I participated a few years ago, something I admit I am proud of. We’re going to meet in a neutral place—meaning no distractions—to write together in November. It’s a lot of work to write, and a lot more to do NaNoWriMo, but together I have no doubt that we will be successful.

Paddle harder

Adrenal Cancer, Cancer, My Novel- Anne August 27, 2013 Leave a comment
No wind and we had the pond to ourselves. Serenity....only spoiled by the dead loon and its lonely mate.

No wind and we had the pond to ourselves. Serenity….only spoiled by the dead loon and its lonely mate.

Last week we had a gorgeous evening, especially by late summer standards. The air was still and warm. Blue sky. No humidity. (Why can’t we have this weather year round? Then we wouldn’t need to winter in Arizona I suppose. And some pathetic souls actually like it cold….)

Perfect for kayaking on Long Pond. As soon as Steve walked through the door from work, I was ready for him to load the kayaks while I filled the cooler.

Saw some ducks and what we believe was an immature bald eagle (we determined after we looked it up in the bird book when we returned home). In the middle of the pond we watched a lone loon dive and surface, careful to keep his distance from us. The week before we had seen his (or her) partner floating dead trapped in the tall grass along the edge. This week it was gone. We missed their haunting soulful cry.

No moose. It’s always the moose we hope to encounter and rarely do. And no sign of the heron we usually see. Could it possibly have migrated south already?

As we neared the launch on our return, I didn’t want the glorious evening to end. I just stopped paddling, drifted, prolonging my enjoyment. I could have stayed there until the sun set.

You can’t do that with life. Even if you don’t want it to end, it will. Paddle or drift, your life will end. It doesn’t take a genius to know that. When you have an illness as I do, you know it–you just don’t want to accept it.

As for my book—that I do want to end. I need to paddle harder. And faster. Give it my all. But it’s so hard. Like kayaking on Long Pond when there’s a head wind off Mount Moosilauke.