Cuzco – Peru. Be Here Now

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Terri Wingham

The plane bounces through the turbulence like a kite cartwheeling through a gust of wind. I peer through the tiny porthole as we rocket above emerald green mountains – so close it feels like we could step out and surf across them. The aircraft banks sharply to the left and as we accelerate through the airstream, I see the first houses appear, perched precariously along the hillside. One more hairpin turn and we drop onto the runway, almost like a fighter jet landing on an aircraft carrier. Continue reading →

Shot Through The Heart

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Terri Wingham

‘You will need chemotherapy, your hair will fall out two weeks after your first treatment and you cannot go back to work for at least 6-10 months,’ Dr. L says.

One year ago today, my oncologist’s words ripped through my hospital gown, past my scarred breast and lodged directly into my heart.

Until that moment, I had convinced myself that she would give me good news. She would say that after careful deliberation, she couldn’t permit my tiny little tumour to cause any further disruption in my orderly life. She would refuse to let chemo steal my auburn locks, separate me from my livelihood, or leave me with dark under eye circles and hemorrhoids the size of golf balls (yes I said it).

But now, she has pulled the trigger and shot me with reality. I reel from the impact and plead silently with her for some good news. Thankfully, she reads my mind.

‘On the upside, we don’t need to get started until after Christmas, so you can enjoy the holidays with your family. Also, this type of chemo should not dramatically impact your fertility. Your periods should return to normal 3-6 months after chemo ends and plenty of women your age have gone on to have healthy babies,’ she continues.

Thank God! Last night, K had to come over to help me select my baby daddy finalists. (My sweaty palms and chest pain at the thought of opening the sperm donor website meant that I needed an accomplice). After running multiple contenders through her eight criteria system, she helped me settle on: 64573, a lawyer who likes to swim, read, and travel and 53296, a teacher who has a wife and two kids, but wants to provide other people the opportunity to experience the joy of children. He also enjoys photography and long walks on the beach (obviously with his wife and not me).

I had hoped that narrowing down my choices would give me the incentive to take the plunge into pseudo-motherhood. It hadn’t. (See my posts: Chemo and my Biological Clock and Finding a Baby Daddy to catch up on the fertility conversation) Now, I smile in gratitude that one day in the distant future, I will have the opportunity to create babies the old fashioned way.

My smile disappears as she outlines chemo’s side effects and hands me a stack of brochures with topics like: what to eat when everything tastes like a mouthful of dirty pennies, how to tie a scarf around your head and add one earring for an ‘interesting touch’, and how to keep your energy levels up by incorporating exercise into your chemo routine (do I look like Lance f*^@ing Armstrong to you?)

My Aunt and I inundate Dr. L with questions because we know that when she leaves, I will have to transition from the information portion to the ‘holy crap how did this become my life’ portion of the day. Dr L. humours us for a while and then gracefully makes her exit. After she leaves, I turn to face the bed, rip off my gown and pull my sweater over my shaking shoulders.

I grab the pamphlets, hide them in my purse, and turn to face my Aunt with a broad smile and a face dripping with tears. She mirrors me and we begin our manic routine of alternating between giggles and sobs for the next twenty minutes.

She suggests Starbucks and I mumble ‘yes please’ so that I can avoid my empty apartment. Besides, chemo will hopefully make me scrawny (finally, one fringe benefit), so why not take advantage by loading up on an Oat Bar and a Caramel Macchiato with extra whip cream? Let the good times roll!

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Finding a Baby Daddy?

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Terri Wingham

A couple of weeks ago, I told you about my visit with Dr. H and our conversation about chemo and fertility. If you missed it, I have included the link for you below:

http://www.afreshchapter.com/chemo-and-my-biological-clock.html

When I left that day, Dr. H told me that I needed to book an appointment with a fertility counsellor before I could get approved to use a third party sperm donor. In order to explore my options fully, I took his advice and have included a snapshot from that session below.

I hesitantly push open the heavy door into a wood panelled waiting room and a sign encourages me to take a seat in one of the rickety chairs. My nerves flutter in my throat. I pick up a dog-eared Reader’s Digest and take a deep breath as I notice the smell of old carpet and mouldy wood. I prefer Dr. H’s waiting room.

She calls my name and I look up in surprise. With bright green eyes, curly black hair, and skinny jeans tucked into her boots, she looks like she could be my age. She beckons me into her office and her positive energy bumps up against me. Still in pain from my recent surgery and overwhelmed by what lies ahead, I am not in the mood for bouncy smiles today.

As I settle myself on the couch, I pre-empt her questions. She sits back wide eyed as I regale her with antidotes about my diagnosis, my surgery, and the upcoming risk of chemo. I keep it light. I already cry on someone else’s couch, I don’t need to cry here.

Then, we move on to my single status. She wants to know how I feel about being alone at this time in my life. She suggests that I am lucky that I have the freedom to make all of the decisions myself. Apparently a lot of relationships break down under the pressure of sickness and fertility preservation. I avoid her smile by looking at my feet. I don’t feel lucky.

She continues her questions. Have I looked through the sperm donor websites yet? Have I come up with my criteria for selecting a donor? I continue to avoid eye contact. I don’t want her to know that I have a paper bag in my closest full of syringes, hormone prescriptions, blood test requisitions, and donor profiles. I keep it in there so that I don’t have to look at it.

I distract her by cracking jokes about dating with cancer. Her peppy smile returns as she tells me that I will meet the right man when I least expect it. I glance at the wedding ring on her left hand and want to reach over and scrub the smile from her face. Does she know a contingent of single 30-year-olds that walk through life not expecting to meet someone? I am pretty sure that any woman over the age of 29, who wants to have a family, has her baby Daddy honing device charged up at all times.

I hide my irritation as she moves our conversation along by sharing tips on how to select the perfect donor, tell my future child about where he or she came from, and explain to a potential boyfriend how I already have babies in the freezer. She suggests that we role play some of these conversations. I smile and tell her that as tempting as that sounds, I would rather wait until I have made some decisions. I am still just reviewing my options. Maybe I won’t need chemo or maybe it won’t affect my fertility.

I stand up to leave and she encourages me to take my time with the donor websites and come back if I want to talk further. I nod, tune her out, and wonder how I got here. Six weeks ago, my biggest concern was choosing a Halloween costume and today I am supposed to decide whether to inject my egg with a random guy’s sperm and then store my future babies on ice?

I walk out the door and leave the conversation in her office. I am still not ready to make any decisions.

Chemo and my Biological Clock

Posted on November 23, 2010 by Terri Wingham

November 23, 2009 – Exactly one year ago today…

As I shuffle out to the waiting cab, my gelatinous legs and weak lungs do their best to propel me forward. The November air slices through my raincoat and I try to keep my left side still as a shiver runs up my spine. I give the cabbie the address and focus on inhaling the pine freshened air and ignoring the teeth of anxiety that gnaw at my stomach.

When I pull up, C is waiting for me in the lobby of a non-descript office building. I gingerly give her a one armed hug and let the cold elevator railing support my weight as we ride up to the eighth floor.

The doors open and we step into a living room like office with a panoramic view of the city. I check in with reception and try not to notice the expectant mothers who rub their bellies and look up at me serenely. I don’t belong here. The skin on my back prickles and I restlessly tap my foot. Finally, I force myself to sink into a plush chair and idly flip through one of the glossy magazines.

Instead of reading, my mind drifts back to a conversation where I told a former candidate that I might need chemotherapy. He instantly asked me if I had consulted a fertility specialist yet. I stared back blankly. What did he mean? When we parted, I called my genetics oncologist and she told me that she would expedite a referral to a leading fertility clinic. I had hoped she would downplay my concern, but instead she escalated it.

I had always pictured myself with a big, loud, messy family. As a kid, I thought I had won the Game of Life board game when I needed two cars to hold the 8 children in my blue and pink stick figured posse. I thought that as soon as I found Mr. Perfect, we could get started. To find out that cancer had the potential to take this away from me really pissed me off.

Thinking about that conversation still makes my hands shake, so I take a deep breath and focus on my magazine. A moment later, I hear my name and Dr. H welcomes C and I into his office. With a gentle tone, he outlines my options. He can’t give me exact statistics about the damage chemo might do to my body. He does tell me that the drugs will rev up my biological clock. At only 30, I might end up with the reproductive health of a 35 or 40 year old. He then mentions his limited success with freezing and thawing eggs. He tells me that he has a much higher success rate with freezing embryos; he has helped women in my exact situation go on to have healthy babies that way. We talk in surreal, hypothetical terms about injecting myself with hormones, selecting a third party sperm donor, and creating and freezing embryos.

Even though I sit in the room, my mind floats forward. I picture an intimate conversation, over a nice dinner, where I tell my future boyfriend that I already have kids. He looks up at me in shock, but I follow up and tell him that he won’t have to babysit next weekend because Johnny and Suzy are lounging on ice for now. How soon into the relationship would I broach this subject? How would he handle it, if ‘our’ kids looked nothing like him? These questions ping incessantly into my daydream.

When I come back to the present, Dr. H looks at me expectantly. What do I want to do? I have no answers for him. He notices the post surgical glaze in my eyes and suggests that we re-visit this conversation after I have had time to recover properly from my lumpectomy. Who knows, maybe I will get lucky and not need chemo.

I grasp the side of the chair with my right arm and push myself up to standing. I thank him for his time and leave the heavy decisions locked snugly in his office. I can’t face them yet.

"I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours"

Posted on November 3, 2010 by Terri Wingham

I took a slow sip from the hotel room glass and relished the warmth of the tangy red wine as it ran down my throat. My arms tingled and my toes loosed their grip on the carpet.

I had met D only 15 minutes ago when we struck up a conversation after one of the conference sessions and she had then invited me up to her room for a pre-dinner drink. Now she looked at me intently and bluntly offered to show me her breasts. I took a second gulp and suggested that maybe I finish my glass of wine first. We looked at each other and doubled over in laughter.

It didn’t take long before other women started knocking on the door and the room began to buzz with stories of surgery, low libido, chemo, baldness and drug-induced psychosis. We instantly related to the challenges that came with our unwilling membership to the same club. A glass and a half of wine later, three of us opened our tops. We compared the differences between diep, tram flap, and tissue expander reconstruction. I hadn’t factored in this version of ‘show and tell’ when I signed up for the Body, Mind, Spirit breast cancer survivor conference.

Although I kept my shirt on for the rest of the weekend, I continued to connect with women from all over the country. I heard many stories of strength and courage, especially from women fighting through reoccurrence. I learned about advocating to government, managing infertility, and telling your personal story.

On the second day, I attended a session called Management of BRCA1/2. A genetics doctor reminded me about all of the things I should do to help manage my substantial risk. Remove my breasts (check), remove my ovaries (thanks for the reminder), avoid smoking (check), get pregnant earlier in life (why not rub a little more salt in the wound?), eat a healthy diet (working on it) and avoid alcohol (are you crazy?) I am trying to focus on moderation, but complete avoidance? I met a fellow BRCA carrier and we joked about our genetic curse. She said to me, ‘you an take away my tits and my ovaries, but you can’t take away my wine.’ Hallelujah sister!

Later that weekend, I sat in awe as Bif Naked spoke. I haven’t followed her music and didn’t know what to expect when a tiny, tattooed, black clad woman took the stage. She kept 350 of us captivated over a period of 90 minutes with her raw honesty, self-deprecation, and dark humour. By the end, I wanted to block her path out of the hotel and demand that we start sipping lattes together on Fourth Avenue in Vancouver. After all, we both live in the same city. Doesn’t that make me a good candidate for her new best friend? Thankfully, I reigned myself in.

Here is a link to an article that hi-lights some of her story. Bif Naked – A breast cancer survivor

I also heard Carol Ann Cole speak as well as had the opportunity to meet her personally. Her candour, feisty attitude, and poise instantly impressed me. As a former VP of Bell, she has conquered both the business and the survivor world. She has written three books, battled breast cancer twice, and founded her Comfort Heart charity that has raised over $1.5 million for cancer research: http://www.carolanncole.com/

As I met more and more survivors, I saw how differently each of us manages both the physical and emotional challenges of the disease. Like anything in life, I related more easily with some people than with others. I hope to forge new friendships with some of the women who shared my black humour and positive outlook.

Although I enjoyed my time in the concrete jungle of Toronto, I gratefully stepped off the plane in Vancouver last night. I valued the dialogue and information that I scrambled to absorb over the weekend. But, I am also happy to slip back into a world where I am about so much more than my breast cancer experience.

Do I Look F*&@ing 40???

Posted on October 21, 2010 by Terri Wingham

I focused on the grey rubber moulding that merged the stark white wall with the industrial floor. If I concentrated hard enough, maybe I could forget that I sat gowned and ready to bare my pretend breasts to yet another new face.

I heard a knock on the door and a resident cleared his throat as he entered. He sat on the wheeled stool and shuffled the papers in my file. I saw the slight tremble in his hand as he pulled out his pen and a blank page.

‘Theresa, is it ok if I ask you a few questions and examine you before Dr. L arrives?’ he said.

‘Sure’ I replied. I wanted to like him. Support his education and coax him past his nervousness like a responsible, seasoned patient should. He ruined his chances with his first statement.

‘So, you’re 40.’ He said it in a punctuated, matter of fact way.

Do I look f*&@ing 40? I wanted to scream. Instead, I gave him my best death glare and a curt correction.

‘I’m 31.’ I said.

He apologized profusely for not properly reading my chart and then went on to interrogate me for twenty minutes. I answered sullenly. Maybe if I acted like a teenager, I could reinforce my distance from middle age?

We moved on to the physical examination. I let him feel up my armpits, still sweaty from my walk over, and then he instructed me to inhale and exhale repeatedly. I tried to ignore the smell of disinfectant and latex gloves as well as the knowledge that he was straining to hear whether any cancer cells had decided to start a party in my lungs.

Finally, the door opened and my Oncologist joined us in the tiny room. My demeanour changed instantly. I asked her warmly about her recent sabbatical and joked about my non-paying, new career as a writer. The resident looked up from his papers in surprise. He hadn’t factored in our history or the importance of good bedside manner. Dr. L and I had first met in December and she had always treated me with respect and genuine concern. She had even managed to inject humour into some of the more difficult appointments.

We caught up like old friends as we discussed my pesky cognitive limitations, my vacation induced weight gain, and the scary topic of reoccurrence statistics.

We glided from there onto the subject of my substantial (50%) risk of developing ovarian cancer, due to my faulty BRCA1 gene. She reminded me that as I get closer to 40 (which is still a long, 8 ½ years away Mr. Resident), I should strongly consider asking a surgeon to launch me into early menopause by stealing my ovaries.

On that note, when did I plan to start a family? I have heard this question before. Between the potential damage done by my chemo cocktails and the threat of this future surgery, I can understand the curiosity. But, I prefer to avoid thoughts of my aggressively spinning biological clock.

I smiled and said I didn’t know. I thanked her for her time and her advice and waited for them to both leave the room.

Unfortunately, my problem does not come with a color by numbers solution. Whispering into a man’s ear that we had better immediately decide whether we should spend our lives together because my doctors want me to get knocked up as soon as possible is not a viable option. Even if I did ask and he ran away in terror, I don’t have a good back up plan. Would I create an online dating profile advertising my shrinking baby timeline and my risk of future cancer? Even with the perky breasts incentive, I don’t think I would get very many hits.

So, I did what I do best. Got changed, walked out of the hospital, and pretended that we didn’t have the conversation. Sometimes denial is the only option

Once upon a time…

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Terri Wingham

So, where do I begin? Maybe with the questions that won’t stop ringing through my mind. What now? What happens after cancer? Who am I now that this nightmare is on its way out?

As I walked the beach in Kitsilano on a cloudy day in June, I contemplated my life’s direction. With chemo and the second of three surgeries behind me, I tried to pep talk myself into a state of optimism. It didn’t work. I continued to feel like a depressed drifter: caught between a past that no longer belonged to me and an unpredictable future.

The best selling ‘self-help’ books made it sound so elementary. I obviously just needed to tell the universe what I wanted. If I could envision it, I could make my future a reality. So, I selected the most powerful woman in the world as my conduit.

If I didn’t know what to do, maybe Oprah could help me. Isn’t she all knowing? Doesn’t she rescue people from the depths of their communal despair? Maybe she could ‘hook me up’ and I could begin my new life? I giddily composed and sent her an email, then checked my inbox every day for a week.

Dear Oprah,

You don’t know me yet, but I hope that one day you will. I am 31, single, and live in Vancouver, Canada. On October 27, 2009, life as I knew it ended. Perhaps the universe was trying to send me a message to slow down and question whether the stresses of my life were serving me. It worked. My diagnosis of breast cancer brought my career, my quest to meet the perfect man, and my obsession with slimming my hips to an abrupt halt.

The last six months have included a lumpectomy, lymph node dissection, four rounds of chemotherapy, and a bi-lateral mastectomy and those are just the bright, shiny clinical words. I have also contemplated issues surrounding my future fertility, stared at my bald head in the mirror, and experienced what feels like worst PMS of my life as well as the inability to remember even my own name (courtesy of the chemo drugs). The next six months involve procedures to transform my now flat chest back into a perkier version of its old self.

My story may not be unique, but I believe my journey could inspire many. My dream is to write a book. I believe that impacting people in a positive way is what I was put on this earth to do. I believe that the recent events in my life are opening a door to who I was always meant to become.

This isn’t just a book about cancer. This is a book about surviving hardship, but not identifying yourself as the victim…a book about using humour to laugh your way through terror…a book about the search for God or a deeper meaning to life, but not a religious book …a book about finding love in the strangest of places, but learning that someone else’s love can’t save you…a book about realizing that underneath all of the fear and shame we cloak ourselves in, we (even with all of our imperfections) really are enough.

I thought it might be fitting to ask the universe (and you) to help me. I am not an English major and have never written anything except emails and the odd high school essay. I would be grateful if by telling my story I might meet people that can help me navigate this new chapter in my life

Terri

It’s almost 3 months later and I still haven’t heard back. WTF? Yes, I could kid myself and believe the producers are going to show up at my apartment (cue sappy music and me with surprised look on my face when I open the door) and then whisk me away to Chicago. But, let’s be real. Even though I used all of the appropriate Oprah language, my email had probably long since been buried in a harried administrator’s inbox.

So, here I am. Stubbornly ready to take on the challenge. Join me in my journey as I write my first book, navigate through a post cancer world, and do my best to uncover the future with a little class and hopefully a lot of humour.

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