10,000 steps

on journeys, heroines, and "chemo-nesting"

Shortly after my lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy, I became obsessed with walking 10,000 steps each day. I learned that this magic number is arbitrary. The concept dates back to a Japanese marketing campaign from the 1960’s and has been largely debunked.

There were restrictions the weeks after surgery - no lifting, no swimming, no pickleball, no Pilates. I knew from experience that staying active hastens surgery recovery.

So I walked.

Seattle had a memorable November. Crisp, clear beautiful days and no rain. Perfect for walking. When the days are like that, it’s hard to imagine they won’t always be that way. I used my walking regimen as an excuse to connect with friends or walked alone, listening to music or podcasts, almost always running into someone I hadn’t seen for a while.

It all felt very festive and I thought, I’m gonna rock this cancer thing.

Once my breast cancer diagnosis became official, I had received calls several times a day from healthcare providers or their schedulers, which was jarring because I didn’t feel sick. One of these calls was from a social worker offering support and resources, for which I was grateful, though it didn’t seem necessary.

I don’t want to be a full-time cancer patient, I told her. I was eager to find a volunteer opportunity, maybe facilitating writing groups with other cancer patients, as my friend Peggy has been doing for years.

The social worker listened and was encouraging, but cautioned me that I probably wouldn’t be able to work with a cancer support group until I was at least one year out of treatment.

We want to honor your cancer journey, she explained.

Drinking tequila with J and friends the week after surgery, we began referring to my cancer journey with ironic air quotes.

Plotting trips (Baja! Portugal!) when the windy season in various places coincided with the intervals between chemo and radiation and later, radiation and immunotherapy, our friend G, who is always game for a good time said, repurposing those air quotes, I think this year will be your cancer vacation.

#goals

Photo by Rafael Cisneros Méndez on Unsplash

I am well aware that I will have it easier than many. My early stage cancer is “curable” (doctor’s words), I am expected to tolerate chemo well, I am well supported, and have already shown how tough I am after weathering two challenging medical events in the past three years.

I don’t think I’ll want to join any support groups, I told the social worker. I wouldn’t feel comfortable complaining about my small inconveniences when others have it so much worse.

I could feel her nodding through the phone.

That’s called survivor’s guilt, she said.

Friends who have had cancer have shared their wisdom with me and this has been a godsend.

My tribe is formidable — I remember doing 5:30 am winter stair workouts with K in our women’s bootcamp group, while she was receiving chemotherapy. In between sets of stairs, we would drop down on the cold concrete underneath the freeway to do pushups and crunches and I hated every minute of it. K didn’t complain and she didn’t miss a day. And you also climbed Mt. Rainier on chemo with an ostomy bag, I said admiringly, when she accompanied me on a walk.

Mt. St. Helens, she corrected me. As if that were no big deal.

My other friend K described an audience she had with the King of Spain while in the throes of chemo. Her wig looked so naturally beautiful that no one knew she had lost her hair.

My friend and fellow Ox, Torchy, is a force to be reckoned with in any circumstance and she took the bull by the horns during her cancer bout, which roughly coincided with my intestinal intussusception (2021 was a shitty year to be an Ox). We talked a lot then about heroine mythology during illness and the battle language prevalent in cancer (which thankfully seems to be on the wane).

This time around, when I was feverishly exercising in the days before surgery, I turned to Torchy’s spotify playlists to pump myself up.

And then there was Cl.

Diagnosed with breast cancer more than 15 years ago, she suffered a recurrence some years later and the cancer metastasized. But in between participating in clinical trials and commuting from Seattle to Michigan to help her aging parents, she regularly traveled to Nigeria, to work on child and maternal health projects.

Cl had had a rough year, but, as I awaited the details of my diagnosis, we met for lunch and she educated me on the workings of the hospital’s oncology team and told me which questions to be sure to ask.

If I’m honest, I like heroine mythology, at least when it applies to me.

You’re such an inspiration, two different friends I passed on a walk told me. That day when I reached 10,000 steps I kept on walking.

Preparing for the next round of treatment, I started “chemo-nesting.”

I laid in a supply of tea and books. J’s creative and generous cousin lent me a Liberty puzzle and sent me a diorama of a Portuguese schist house with a windsurfer and a pickleball court to remind me that our dream move was still viable, just postponed.

I found a rewarding volunteer opportunity after all, and signed up to do dragon boat racing with other cancer patients and survivors. To celebrate receiving an excellent pathology report, I got a new huggie earring for one of my recently resurrected second piercings and bought a soft angora sweater in hot pink.

The first sign that my “cancer journey” might take some unexpected and unwelcome detours came when I was seized with nerve pain (a normal, yet uncomfortable sign that the nerves were waking up). Then, the swelling under my arm grew more pronounced and painful and when I went to see my surgeon, she confirmed that I had developed a seroma (lymphatic fluid buildup) and gave me strict orders to take it easy.

To reinforce this point, I was given a pillow to hold under my left arm to prevent me from using it. I could still walk, and in fact this was encouraged. I just couldn’t swing my arm.

My Pillow Guy.

I wasn’t allowed to cook Thanksgiving dinner and had to trek to the hospital on Wednesday and Friday to have the fluid drained from my armpit. I would be allowed to take a family trip to Michigan with J and our daughters to visit my in-laws, but was warned to watch for signs of infection.

Suddenly I didn’t feel quite so invincible.

There was a flurry of activity to prepare for chemotherapy and I discovered that each weekly session would last approximately three hours, not the 30 minutes I had for some reason expected. The first session would be five hours. And if I decided to use the cold cap in an attempt to save my hair, I would have to add two hours onto each session.

I feel like I’m walking into a lion’s den, I confessed to J.

Meanwhile, sandwich generation realities set in. I wanted to help my aging in-laws and support my young adult daughters. Not just sit on the couch.

On our last night in Michigan, our extended family watched American Symphony, the beautifully moving story of

Suleika Jaouad

and Jon Batiste, during an extraordinary year when he was writing a symphony and winning Grammy awards and she was enduring a bone marrow transplant because her cancer had recurred.

I cried as I watched them tenderly care for each other. I cried when he shaved her head in preparation for chemo, realizing that in a few weeks that will be me.

When we returned to our Air BnB that night, I got the news that Cl had died.

****

Everyone is on their own journey, Jon Batiste says in American Symphony, and his words resonate with me, no air quotes necessary.

We returned home and the next morning we went to the hospital so I could have chemo training and try out the cold cap. When I decided it wasn’t for me, I went to the cancer education center to try on slouchy snood hats and scarves and make peace with my inevitable hair loss.

I’ve got a pile of reference materials to read, a bag full of prescriptions to prepare for nausea, and soup to put in the freezer. On Monday, a port will be implanted in my chest. On Wednesday, chemo begins.

I feel like I have climbed up a tall ladder to a diving board and there’s nothing to do but take a leap of faith.

And even though the rain has returned to Seattle, I’ll keep walking my 10,000 steps.

It’s all part of my “cancer journey.”

For Clea

The Best Thing I Cooked Before I Was No Longer Allowed to Chop

Tassajara Warm Red Cabbage Salad from Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbooks

I don’t know if there’s a formal connection between red cabbage and Zen Buddhism, but the two delicious red cabbage recipes I recently made have the imprint of Edward Espe Brown, Zen teacher, author of The Tassajara Bread Book and co-author of the Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison.

Heidi Swanson riffed on a red cabbage recipe she found in The Complete Tassajara Cookbook and it is absolutely delicious. There’s a similar recipe in The Greens Cookbook, which I made with my leftover cabbage. Also delicious. You’ll never think of cabbage the same way again.