On Wednesdays, we do chemo.

On Thursdays, we eat carrot-ginger soup, and on Fridays, we expand our mind.

Poisonous Yew tree bark courses through my body, along with mouse protein. These vigilantes are on the hunt for marauding immature cells that started bad trouble in my breast and are looking to wreak havoc elsewhere in my body, those unruly cells — “a street gang intent on mayhem,” says Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, in his book How We Die.

No wonder I don’t feel so great.

My friend MJ introduced me to Nuland’s evocative description of the adolescent cells that rampantly turn into cancer. I’d skimmed Nuland’s book when it first came out in 1994. I felt immortal then, so didn’t retain much. Revisiting the book at this more relevant time, I appreciate Nuland’s way with words.

Knowing no rules, cancer is amoral.

Knowing no purpose other than to destroy life, cancer is immoral.

A cluster of malignant cells is a disorganized mob of maladjusted adolescents, raging against the society from which it sprang.

Sherwin B. Nuland, How We Die

***

It takes a big leap of faith to willingly subject yourself to toxins when you can’t see your enemy.

MJ, who went through chemo last year and has been an invaluable source of practical information, told me that thinking about cancer cells in Nuland’s way helped her shift the chemotherapy paradigm. When they hooked her up to the drip, instead of thinking of chemo as poison, she thought of it as avenging medicine.

That framework is helping me too.

MJ also told me about a nun friend of hers, who said a healing prayer over her chemo infusion bags. I decided to try something similar, but something that felt more personal.

Mustering up my best New Jersey native spirit, I turned to the bag of Paclitaxel and said,

Do your fucking job.

And it did, initially more aggressively than any of us would have liked, raising my blood pressure and turning me beet red, apparently a common reaction for chemo newbies. The calm and quick-thinking oncology nurses brought me down, adjusted the dose, and kept things moving, with no further incident.

Bravo, health care workers. You are our unsung heroes.

My new best friend

The days that followed matched my expectations —the initial rush from the Benadryl and steroids I’d been given to help me withstand the immunotherapy and chemotherapy infusions; the onslaught of fatigue; the unpredictable digestion; the stomach-churning sensitivity to smells; a metallic taste in my mouth; weird little side effects, like red cheeks. In many ways, it was a lot like early pregnancy, complete with food cravings.

Coddled eggs (a favorite from my childhood), crumpets, anything Japanese, everything with ginger (recipe below).

The wild and wet Seattle weather lent itself to cocooning, but even before the sun came back out, I was ready to emerge. In addition to my daily morning Yoga With Adriene sessions (best chemo-coping advice!), I walked, I swam, I played a little pickleball, and I even ran a little bit.

I went to see the Hokusai exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum, I ate Taiwanese dumplings, I visited a cannabis shop for the first time since 2017.

Trying to figure out which products would be best for my slightly queasy stomach, and the correct ratio of CBD to THC to CBG, which I had never heard of, was daunting. I will say that the Peach Honey CBD gummy I ate after overindulging in dumplings and half of a brownie seemed to help.

Yew tree bark, mouse protein, Benadryl, steroids, anti-nausea meds, CBD, THC, and soon melatonin — there is so much stuff coursing through my body, it feels overwhelming.

“Icing” on the cake - iced gloves for hands and feet to prevent neuropathy

I went down some rabbit holes trying to understand how drugs are made (I mean, who thought to check out the Yew tree? Read the history about how plant specimens were collected and tested. It’s amazing.), I decided I should revisit Siddhartha Mukherjee’s seminal work The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, another book that I skimmed when it first came out, but decided wasn’t relevant to me.

I thought about the acquisition of knowledge. In one lifetime, how do we decide what to learn about, what to master, what is relevant, what to ignore? How does something like Hokusai’s Great Wave inspire so many unique interpretations?

Each December and April, I am fortunate to receive a poem a day curated by a man I’ve never met, a retired public radio producer in Minnesota who is the brother-in-law of a former colleague of mine. She used to read us his poems at staff meetings. I was so enchanted, I asked if I could join the list. That was eight years ago. When the first poem of the month arrives, with the description of why it was chosen, I am always pleasantly surprised. The poems are the first thing I read each morning for the rest of the month, and I am sad when they are finished.

On a recent family visit to Michigan, I listened to my poet daughter deconstructing poetry with her literature professor grandfather. Apart from December and April, poetry is one of the things I’d chosen to ignore until recently, but poems are speaking to me in new, more sustaining ways now. So is art. So is music (my latest favorite - Sampha. Check him out on Spotify).

I thought about all these things and maybe that’s just the trippy steroids talking or maybe it’s the fact that I have lots of time to reflect, but I am becoming insatiably curious.

One of the things I’m most interested in right now is narrative medicine and metagnosis. I look forward to telling you more about my involvement in these spheres in a subsequent post.

On my best day of the cycle, I went for a run in Seattle’s beautiful Discovery Park

One of my favorite podcasts is Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso. He is one of the most intuitive and astute interviewers I’ve ever heard and he’s only 29. On a recent walk, I listened to his interview with the actor Willem Dafoe. Here’s me paraphrasing what Dafoe had to say about aging and the passage of time. I recommend you listen to the entire interview and this passage, which begins at around the 57 minute mark (these remarks are actually from an older interview Fragoso did when Dafoe was about to turn 60 and the two revisited it at the close of the podcast).

It’s good getting old because you see the cycles. You see the rise and fall of things much easier and also, I’m never bored. You look beyond, in the origin and the rise and fall of things. At the end, you are interested in your relationship to everything.

The Western Yew

When I settled in for my second infusion this week, I decided to try a gentler approach with the bag of Paclitaxel, in the hopes that it would be gentler with me.

C’mon Taxol, I said. You do Yew.

J. rolled his eyes. I’m sure that MJ, who shares a love of corny chemo jokes, will appreciate this.

You know what? It worked!

The Best Thing I Cooked After Chemo

I’ve been craving ginger in everything. The day after my first chemotherapy session, still energized from steroids, I made a batch of this soup. It kept me soothed and energized in the more sluggish days that followed.

Carrot and Ginger Soup from the Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook

6 T unsalted butter; 1 large yellow onion, chopped; 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh ginger root; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 7 cups chicken stock; 1 cup dry white wine; 1 1/2 lbs carrots, peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces; 2 T fresh lemon juice; pinch curry powder; salt and fresh ground pepper to taste; snipped fresh chives or chopped parsley to garnish.

1. Melt butter in a large stock pot over medium heat. Add onion, ginger, and garlic and saute for 15-20 minutes.

2. Add stock, wine, and carrots. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered over medium heat until the carrots are very tender, approximately 45 minutes.

3. Puree the soup in a blender or food processor (I used an immersion blender). Season with lemon juice, curry powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with chives and parsley. Serve hot or chilled.