Always look on the bright side of life...

Did Monty Python come up with that?  I know that's the song that's going through my head this morning...
(Click here to see that clip from the movie, but please come back to the blog afterwards, okay?)

I fell down the stairs yesterday.

It's not as bad as it sounds.
Well, maybe it's actually worse than it sounds.

My little cat Jinx is dying very sick.  (Stay with me.  There will be a bright side to this.)

In the words of our very good, but not-exactly-a-people-person vet, "he's living on borrowed time."
Jinxy has been a good little cat all these years (11 1/2), or let's say 11 and 1/3.  

I did not name him after the cat from "Meet the Parents." I named him after a bartender I knew in Durham, North  Carolina, named Jenks.  The best story I remember about Jenks is this : It was Christmas Eve, 1983. I took the shift at the bar (why not?) and Jenks was there having his usual...a vodka and coffee. (Redbull had not been invented yet.)  The crowd had died out, it was the regulars and the staff... We were playing the music loud. Suddenly Jenks jumps up and grabs the Christmas garland, drapes it over his shoulders like a feather boa and before I know what's happening : Jenks is strutting his stuff and singing his heart out to "Santa Baby" dancing on my nice clean bar top.  It's been one of my favorite Christmas songs ever since!

Where was I? Oh, Jinxy.

The last month or so he's been getting a bit yucky, as animals do when they are reaching the pre-death stage of decrepitude.  I think this helps making the good-bye a little easier.  I don't mean to sound so callous, but to put it right out there, Jinx has been completely missing the cat box for about 2 months now.  He smells terrible. I could go on, but I think you get the idea already and I'm bumming myself out.

So I've been doing my best to clean up after him BEFORE stepping in his messes, and trying to remember the good times, but he's taken a bad turn.  As of now, he's still drinking water, and eating very expensive, special, canned, gooey, stinky food, into which I have to mash a pill, and stir it with a spoon.  (Of course it has to be me.)

When I got home from work last night, after a very long day, I mixed up this revolting concoction and brought it downstairs, to the cozy little spot he's chosen to spend his remaining days.  But I missed a step on the wood stairs and slipped down five stairs on my back.  Getting his foul-smelling brown slop all over my linen pants and wool sweater.  Landing hard on my butt and wrist onto the tile.  AND, right into the cat's random poop, which was several feet away from the catbox, as usual.  

I did not curse.  There is no singular curse that exists for OUCH-YUCK-SHIT-WOW, REALLY OUCH-GROSS-UGHCH-. and besides, my young,  niece was upstairs, and she's a high school junior.  I didn't want to shock or offend her innocent ears.

So I picked myself up, and gave the cat what was left in the bowl. I pet him and tried to show him a little love, and cleaned myself off.  I changed my clothes and took an Advil with a healthy swallow of a Seabreeze.   I went in to tell my husband what happened, and he had no clue at all that I had fallen down the stairs, and, in fact, forgot that Jinx was sick. 

Jinx, in September of 2013

I hobbled to the couch and put on the tv.  An infomercial was advertising Carol Burnett's DVD. And I thought about how comical this story could seem, telling this story in a few years.  Okay, days. Okay, so I'm telling it now.  Because sometimes you just have to laugh.  Because sitting there, despite my already aching back, sore wrist and smelling like cat food, I remembered that my life doesn't suck. My kids are healthy, so are my parents.   I remembered that the reason my niece was hanging out here is because her other grandmother (my sister-in-law's mom) just had a stroke, and my brother and sister-in-law had to rush up to New Hampshire to be with her. She's doing much better as I type this, but that's the big stuff, and we can pull together as a family to do whatever they need us to do.

We have a roof over our heads and food on the table.  

I have to get to work, but I thought you'd enjoy that little glimpse into a moment in my life.  For a look into the lives of two people who right now are living extraordinary lives, I am sharing the links to two blogs I've been following.  Both will make you feel  grateful for what you have, and both will  might even make you want to do more for others.  At this time of Thanksgiving, I hope you find them meaningful, as I do.

I started both of these stories from the middle, and worked backwards and then forwards.  The are both compelling and both made me cry. They are both a lot bigger than losing a beloved cat and falling down the stairs.  I thank both of these sincere brave women for sharing their personal stories with the world and putting it all out there.

Click here to read about Rabbi Phyllis' story about her son Superman Sam's battle with Cancer
Click here to read about Rabbi Tziona's journey to become a parent.

Stay in touch people.  We all need each other.  When we see each other remember to hug.  (I promise I don't still smell like catfood.)

Update: 12/17/13 :  Jinx is alive and darting around the house.  He's on life #6 or #7 I guess. My bruised derriere is mended, my sister-in-law's mother is doing very well, and life goes on.

Update: 1/10/14 

Jinx died in his sleep last night. He was a good little cat, and I'm much sadder than I thought I'd be. 

I Will Survive

A True Story.  

About being in the prime of your life and learning you have cancer.

My husband has a motto:  Sweat the small stuff.  It's funny, and if you think about it, you may as well, because sometimes the big stuff is just so big that if you think about it you'll just have to crawl under the covers and never come back out.

I went for a mammogram yesterday.  This weekend I'll keep nice and busy and wait for my results Monday or Tuesday.  I'm sure they'll be fine.    I go every year right around now.  At this point, you are probably thinking I am a breast cancer survivor.  I am not.

Here is my story.


It was about twenty-one years ago.  I know a lot of people would remember the exact day they were diagnosed.  I don't, but I know it was in January of 1991.  

I'll back up a little bit.


My second child, a perfect, beautiful daughter, was born on September 18, 1990.   Our first child, a son greeted his baby sister with delight, and relatives glowed to see that a baby girl had finally arrived to the family on the Cantor side... where we had so far only had boys.  We named her for my beloved grandmother, who passed away only two weeks after my Bat Mitzvah and her naming was a joyous affair at my parents' house. 


It took a while for me to get my energy back after this baby though.  In fact, I never did seem to get my energy back.  Unlike after my  first pregnancy, I was lethargic and napped each time the baby napped.  I shed the weight quickly, which I thought was great, but developed a slight cough, and then a skin rash which spread from my knees and elbows to my arms and legs... and then suddenly... everywhere.


I finally dragged myself, upon my mother's insistence, to the dermatologist,who took a look at me and decided I should be hospitalized.


WHAT?


This is one of those life changing moments when you seem to catch up to the others who are seeing things way before you.  It's a skin rash.  I'm just tired.  It's post-partum!  I have a new baby.  I can't go to the hospital.  And, Dr. Fine (his real name and the man who saved my life) wants me at NYU Medical Center.  I live in New Jersey.  We have hospitals here, in fact, my dad works at a great hospital here... I JUST HAD MY BABY THREE MONTHS AGO AT A HOSPITAL HERE!    I didn't seem to have a say, and people around me all had this solemn and serious manner. 


I went, of course.  I don't remember packing. I was placed on the Dermatology floor, since the primary cause for alarm was a skin rash that was, as yet, undiagnosed and spreading like crazy. The next few days were a blur...the itching was unbearable and no amount of creams, or antihistamines brought relief...a lot of tests, a lot of poking and prodding, stronger medication, steroids, that made my face turn into a big round dumpling, and ruined my appetite and my sleep, but also gave me back my energy... and the itching is giving way to blisters and hives.  A week goes by.  I had a few visitors, but mostly I wanted to make sure that my children were being taken care of.  Save your schlep into the City, and help by driving my son to Nursery School and my daughter to my parents' house. 


I kept busy by watching tv, reading, when I could focus, and looking after my elderly roommate.  Mrs. Rosenbloom was a tiny woman, of an undisclosed age, with the nastiest infection on her leg that I have ever since, before or since.  It was gross, and she was feeling pretty bad for herself... and was a bit of a kvetch.  I think she saw my placement in the bed next to her as the arrival (AT LAST) of that private nurse she had been hoping for. I helped her get up and down from bed, change the tv channels, order food, and translate what the doctors were telling her, from "Doc speak" to "Little Old Lady from the Old County" speak. 


Midmorning:
"Are you Kosher, Mrs. Rosenbloom?" 
"No, no. Just tell me what they have." 
"Okay, they have the matza ball soup, the turkey sandwich, the chicken pot pie, or the ham and cheese." 
She looks up suddenly.  
"Oh, is that what you want, the ham and cheese?"
 "NO!" She screams at me. "That's trayfe!*"


It's funny the things you remember.


The tests were endless.  At this point, I'm feeling better, missing my children so badly it feels like a physical ache, and losing my patience for the patient next to me. I have been given a Gameboy (the first one ever made, I believe) by my husband, and I learn to play Doctor Mario.  I see a lot more of Doctor Mario, than any other doctor at NYU Medical Center, and he and I get pretty good at gobbling up germs.  


On one occasion, when my dad, a doctor, was visiting, he heard me coughing, and I guess my cough had worsened by this point.  He asked if I had gotten a chest x-ray.  I hadn't.  With the myriad of tests I had been subject to, a simple x-ray was not one of them.  


On day ten, an x-ray showed a grapefruit-sized tumor in my chest.


I met with a top notch thoracic surgeon who gruffly let me know just how busy he was and how lucky I was he was squeezing me in to perform a biopsy on this "mass."  Yep.  Feeling pretty lucky.  I remember lying there, thinking about his abrupt nature and callous attitude; wishing I could tell him that a person was lying here in this body. This "person" has two babies at home and a huge tumor in her chest and right now her time is way more valuable than his, no matter how famous he might be in the medical world.


That night I dreamed I was shot in the chest. 


The biopsy showed that the mass was indeed cancer, and it is a blur now how we learned that it was Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  A more treatable type.  After several more uncomfortable and invasive tests to see how far this cancer spread, I was finally promised I could leave the hospital.  15 days later.  


I do not remember coming home, or hugging my children that first day.  I don't remember sleeping in my bed that first night.  I remember the sickening feeling of anxiety that would overwhelm me. I went in to NYU Medical Center for more tests to discover if I would need chemotherapy and radiation, or just radiation.  Thanks to the fact the the bone marrow biopsy was clean, I met with the oncologist and he said we could try just radiation for 12 weeks and see if that would work.  If not, then we would have to introduce chemotherapy. I told him about my anxiety and my difficulty sleeping.  He prescribed Valium, and told me it was normal.  He did not say I'd be fine.  He did say my prognosis was good.  I trusted him.


The radiation treatment became my new job.  A really horrible job, where you dread going in,  your co-workers are nice and you feel like puking all day when you are done.  You are never comfortable,  or happy, and there's always someone much worse off than you.  To make sure that you don't get zapped in the wrong spots, you get tiny little tattoo marks on your body so that the machine gets lined up correctly.  


The radiation did burn out the cancer... and while it made me feel bad, the medical marijuana helped a lot during that time.  I'm not getting on the political bandwagon about that right now, but it saved the day, gave me an appetite, and no, I would never have considered smoking it, I could barely swallow from the radiation.  It was a tiny little pill that was legal even then. 


I had to go in to New York every day for 12 weeks.  I took only one day off (which I had to make up at the end) for a dear friend's wedding, and I also remember truckin' up to Buffalo to see the Grateful Dead.  Nothing like a little music therapy to soothe the soul.   I remember my husband and I each took our younger brothers to the concerts and though I didn't have my usual energy, remember feeling wrapped in love that weekend. 


When the treatment was over, it was time to get back to life. Was I cured?  The tumors had shrunk down, and would continue to shrink.  I was to go to the doctor every three months for scans for the next year.  Will I be able to have more children?  I was told no, and not to try, due to the radiation and the damage it likely had done to my ovaries.  And I would not be able to breast feed. 


I got back to work, and enjoyed my children.  We went to Seaside Heights in the summers, and saw the Grateful Dead when they came around.  I went to my doctor appointments and each time got good news.  The cancer was disappearing.  No new signs of cancer were showing up anywhere.  The side effects of the treatment were vanishing. 


After no trace of the lymphoma or other blood disorders for three years, and defying my doctor, we did have another child, a healthy boy.


He was born on Shavuot... this is the Jewish  holiday when we received the law on Mount Sinai... so we gave him the middle name of "N'tanel" which translates to mean "Gift of God."


The little tattoo marks are still there, as my constant reminders that I am Super Woman.  So is my scar from my biopsy.  I don't try to hide it when I wear a v-neck top, I'm proud that I am a survivor.


And most of the time I don't think about it.  Until I do.  Like now, when I am waiting for that phone call that tells me I don't need to go back for a mammogram for another year.






*Yiddish word for not Kosher.

Today's blog is dedicated to all those who are fighting cancer, who love someone who is, or lost someone because of it.




Feb. 29, Leap Day, 2012... got the results of my mammogram today.  This is the one case where I like being told I'm "normal."   Leap day... an extra day in every four years...despite the fact it's somewhat cold and rainy, I'll consider it the gift that it is and gift it back to others today.  


And the healthy baby boy I mentioned above has just gotten in to Tufts, and will be starting there in the fall.  

In Memory of a Friend at Christmas

Click here to hear Christmas Wrapping By the Waitresses


What's a nice Jewish blogger like me doing with a Christmas opening like that?

Whenever I hear this song, I think of living in Boston in my early 20's, Christmas of course, and I think of my friend Patti.


Patti was my college roommate, randomly chosen, but deliberately kept.

Massell Quad, Brandeis University, Fall 1977, Usen Dorm is to the right.
Photo Credit: Michael Eggert

It might seem like we were opposites back then, in 1977.   We were both young, obviously, but Patti had been a bit more sheltered before she stepped foot on the Brandeis campus.  Catholic school, all girls, until then. Good clean living, right from Lowell, Massachusetts. Here comes Juliet from New Jersey with big plans for college.  I remember I got there first on move-in day, in our little third-floor dorm room double.  Mom and Dad helped shlep my stuff up all those stairs, and set up the stereo (record player and cassette deck, of course) with all my Billy Joel, Beach Boys and Beatles records, among many others, in alphabetical order in milk crates, which held up the huge speakers. The little fridge and hot pot, as Patti and I had discussed by letter, were all set up, and I went off to get my mealbook and phone.

Yes, I've saved my meal book all these years.

Hours of waiting on line, filling in forms, and getting settled. Mom and Dad left and still, no roommate.  When she finally arrived, I couldn't tell whether to be happy or not. She was with her sister, not her parents, and they appeared to have been fighting.  I offered to help her with  her stuff and there wasn't much to bring up.  The good-bye between Patti and her sister was brief and made me uncomfortable.  I remember I started to talk too much to ease the tension, and Patti was very quiet.


That night Usen dorm had a "getting to know you" event. It helped.


Two nights later they had a wine and cheese party.  That REALLY helped.  We got to know quite few of the people who are still good friends today.  Little by little, I got to know this shy, quiet person.


Classes started and I got busy and involved and met lots of other people.  I had a  boyfriend and joined the chorus.  I got connected with the people in my Hebrew class so we could practice our Hebrew at lunch.  (I just realized how lame that must have looked, but we had fun.) I made it into the Gilbert and Sullivan Society.  I joined the Waltham Group and became a "Big Sister" to a young girl in town. But there was always Patti, back at the room at the end of the day.  More often than not, we headed to dinner together.  And before I knew it, we were becoming true friends. When Christmas came around, I brought home a few scraggly branches from Faneuil Hall and made her a little Christmas tree in our dorm room.  She and I exchanged small gifts and shared stories of our family traditions. (No, Patti, that was not a latke that you had in the cafeteria.  That was a hash brown.  Wait until you taste a real latke.)  At the end of the year, we agreed to room together as sophomores.

Champagne brunch on a Sunday at the Marriott Hotel in Newton.  High Times.

Our friendship grew stronger, with only a few moments of tension here and there.  We socialized together and our group of friends grew bigger.  When Patti's mom died, we all supported her, and spent the day in Lowell, attending the funeral.  During breaks, she would visit me in New Jersey, or we'd both visit another Brandeis friend somewhere else. 


 After college, Patti and I lived together one last time, in Brighton, Massachusetts. It was just the two of us, with her cat, Sugaree , my cat Jasmine, and thousands of cockroaches.  We had a lot of adventures that year.  Most were great:  a Halloween party that couldn't be beat, a road trip to see Simon and Garfunkel in Central Park with half a million of our best friends.  Some of the times were challenging, like the break-in to our apartment that left Patti without the precious earrings that had been her mom's.  The most difficult was the death of her beloved father, Jack.  Jack spent weeks sleeping on our couch as he traveled back and forth from Lowell  to Boston for his Cancer treatments. When he died, I knew that Patti was changed.  I think she wanted to get closer to her brother and sister then, but didn't know how.   I finally broke the news to her that I was going to live with my boyfriend, Michael.  She knew that it was bound to happen.  


While I still lived in the Boston area, we spent a lot of time together.  We both worked jobs where the hours were 3 - 11pm, so sometimes we would actually go out after work.  One night we saw The Cars play a midnight show in Boston.  We really thought we were hot shit.  Another time we saw Hot Tuna at Jonathan Swifts in Cambridge and realized it was too late to take the "T" home.  I felt it would be fine to accept a ride from a couple of guys we didn't know.  The whole time she kept frowning at me and reprimanding me with her eyes.  Or  the time I picked up a hitchhiker on the way back from Martha's Vineyard because he looked cold.   Patti glared at me til he got out of the car.  (He did not stab us, you'll be happy to know.  But she was furious with me.)


Then I moved away.  Michael and I took off for Durham, NC.  And Patti continued with her life, caring for adults with developmental disabilities.  She had moved up in this field and was working 9-5 now.  She was a compassionate, caring person who was no longer shy, especially when it came to speaking up for the needs of the clients she served.


Over the years, Patti would visit me wherever I lived.  North Carolina, Portland Oregon, San Francisco, and especially New Jersey.  When my kids were born she'd be here, and when she needed a little vacation, this was where she'd pick.


In the late 90's she began to have health issues.  I brushed them off as unrelated.  Maybe she did too, or maybe she was being deliberately vague with me.


One time, though, in the summer of 1998 or 1999, she called and said she had to go to the hospital.  She had been at Cape Cod, with some friends, but had to leave due to what she referred to as "hemorrhaging," had driven herself all the way back to Boston.  It didn't make sense to me.  When I asked her questions, I didn't get answers.  When I went to visit her, she had received a transfusion and was seemingly okay, but I was alarmed.


I made several more trips up to Boston and Lowell to visit Patti, in and out of the hospital after this.  I never really understood what was wrong.  It was as if her body was just breaking down.  But at the age of 42, this didn't make sense.


Patti had moved out of her own place, and into the apartment of a dear friend who agreed to help her out. On one visit, she collapsed as we walked down the hallway.  I tried to help her up.  I could smell smoke on her skin, and another smell too.  I wondered if the friend smoked, or if Patti had started smoking.  She offered me a beer.  I took one, and asked if she were having one.  She said no, she had to stop drinking, those were just for me.  I sipped at it and started to wonder about that.


While we sat, Patti asked me to "do her funeral when she died."


Patti, a lapsed Catholic, asked me, a Jewish Educator to "do her funeral."


I said ok. I asked what she'd want.  She said I'd know.


Patti died on February 11, 2002.


I did her funeral.


I put together a playlist of music and invited everyone to get up and speak about Patti.  It was a beautiful and touching tribute to our dear friend and sister.
I think she would have liked it.


Sometimes I get mad at her for missing these great moments life has offered up since she died, nearly ten years ago.  She loved her niece and nephew deeply.   She adored my kids, how she'd kvell to see them now.  She could never understand how I could let them go away for a month to camp.  Imagine how she'd feel as I now face imminent empty nest-hood. 


How many more people could she have helped in her work?  Patti was patient, calm, and never judgmental.


Mostly, now, though, I just miss her. And I think of her with love. I think of the Beatles albums she snitched from her brother.  (Yes, Jeff, that's what happened to them.)  When I see an SNL skit that's actually funny, I think of her, or wear the jacket we bought together, or the earrings, or that leather bracelet...  When I think of Christmas, I think of Patti.


And when I hear a song by Sting (her favorite) I stop what I am doing and I remember Patti.


Fields of Gold




By the way,  I inherited Jack's guitar, and I plan to learn to play it.  That's my New Year's  Resolution.  I think she'd tell me it's about time. 

All We Are Saying...

Today is September 12, 2011.


Yesterday the world stopped to remember a day that we still cannot get our brains around.  


The very anticipation of the Tenth Anniversary of September 11 felt like a slow drumbeat to me. 


It began in July, when I visited the site which is no longer called Ground Zero.  I was invited in to hear strangers' stories, thanks to a program hosted by Facing History and Ourselves and the World Trade Center Tribute Center.  When I arrived at the World Trade Center area I was struck by the intensity of thousands of people, moving in all different directions. People in business suits, and in shorts. Techies, tourists, teachers, analysts, lawyers, financial people, construction workers, security people, and lots of police trying to move human beings and traffic.  It was a Tuesday.  A beautiful Tuesday... just like... don't think like that.... I looked up.  A new skyscraper was being built.  I had no idea.

On that day in July I learned the power of the personal narrative.  I shared mine, and got tears in my eyes as I heard others tell theirs.  


Yesterday, when I watched the survivors' families reading the names of those lost I could not stop thinking that every one of the nearly three thousand lost souls has a story.  Some of the readers shared tiny windows to  their stories with the world yesterday.  A little boy, nearly ten, had never met his father, and thanked him for loving him.  A woman was still in so much pain she could barely pronounce her husband's name.  A father lost his son and daughter-in-law... a whole generation gone. 

Click here to see photos of the Memorial


People my age do not remember Pearl Harbor, and we are a little too young to have been felt the full impact of the weight of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King.  But we are the generation that will forever share this.  I know that everyone goes through terrible life-changing crises ... a near death experience, an illness that leaves them changed or scarred, the loss of someone dear to them... but a catastrophe shared by so many on a such a deep level leaves a profound mark on a generation.  


There is a movement to make September 11 a day of service.  A mitzvah day.  Will that keep the haters from hating? Of course not.  Will that bring back the deceased?  Nothing will, but I guess it will honor their memory a lot more than turning to hate.  Every generation must become more loving, more compassionate, more tolerant than the one before it.  That is the only path to peace.  I know that not everyone feels that way.  But it's the only way.


Give peace a chance.