Entirely TMI, but IDGAF.

Plus, I've told you about puking, and pot brownies, and ER visits, and losing my hair, insane amounts of pain, and confessed suicidal ideation--and even if you haven't been reading these blog posts, you've been reading my FB which deals with sex, politics, and money, so, this is really a minor issue by comparison, but I JUST GOT MY PERIOD for the first time since my first hormone depot in June to induce a temporary menopause that doctors believe will preserve ovums (even thought the research does not show the effects to be statistically significant) since there wasn't enough time for IVF or ovary freezing.  And if I were the praying type, I'd be praying: "Please, please, please, let me get another in a month.  And the next month.  And the next.  Please."  Because I don't want to be in eggless and in menopause and wrinkly and spotty and having hot flashes and saggy at 28.  No offense, my ladies who are in menopause.  I'll take it when I'm 40 like everyone else.  It's just it's not supposed to be my time yet.  Ya know?

I never thought that I would be happy to menstruate, but here I am.  Ecstatic.  The things cancer makes you happy about.  Seriously.

Today is Full of Firsts

Today is full of firsts.

It the first time in 17 months since my skin has reveled in the sun.  

That's all I can think as I sit on a chair on a deck 

outside a breakfast shack 

in South Bay in February, blinking like a mole emerged from underground.

I am reading a book for leisure, 

"The Orphan Master's Son."

Something about the misery and desperation or an orphan underground tunnel solider in North Korea ordered to kidnap Japanese victims for the pleasure of his emperor,

the internal conflict captured in the black symbols on these pages resonates with me--

the dull acceptance of Pak Jun Do, who knows his life has been

pre-determined by circumstance out of his control. 

Yes, it applies to socioeconomics--the struggles that chained me to unending wheel of chasing minimum wage while studying nursing,

but it applies to something more ancient than that--our genotypes.

In every cell in my body

there is a silent code that predisposes me to death--

something I have no control over--

that brought me, every day of my life, closer to the chaotic explosion of lymph cells that nearly took my life, 

and may still take it.

Jim Do knows, as do I, that one must do what one must to survive. 

Don't examine your actions too closely.

Ignore the fact that what you do 

harms you as much as it helps you.

Better to charge ahead with impaired vision,

rely on instinct and proprioception.

Detached.

And attack your opponent with fury--

even if your opponent is yourself, your body, your mind, your soul.

Chase it down mercilessly, your body already quivering with chronic suffering.

You fight yourself because you're the only enemy you can identify.

The waiter interrupts my thoughts with my breakfast order

and I put down my book, and spoon raw salsa--

fresh, off the vine raw tomatoes and onions and cilantro and garlic--

all things I hadn't eaten in 17 months--

since the summer before last--

onto my burrito, prepared at a restaurant by persons unknown.

I am reveling in that unknown.  

Perhaps the cook had a cold, 

or wiped sweat from his brow, 

or hadn't washed his hands properly.

I took a bite of burrito with confidence that whatever the case, my immune system would handle it--

confidence I hadn't had the luxury of having for 7 months as the chemo burned away all my defenses.

I peeled a grapefruit, yellow skin flaking off in a mine mist of citrus and bit into a wedge

red, raw juice exploding in my mouth and streaming down my chin.  

First grapefruit in 12 months.

It is sweet, and bitter, and has a mild soap smell.

Or maybe it's the soaps fashioned to smell like grapefruit that makes that association in my mind. 

These are just a few things chemotherapy takes from you.

Sun, fruit, vegetables, enjoyment, living. 

All the other customers had taken the seats under the shade of the awning,

I can see their eyes following me and hear them thinking "that poor girl, sitting under the hot sun..."

but I don't mind.

My skin is threatening to turn pink by the time I finish my food, 

and perspiration has gathered on my scalp 

underneath the fuzzy hair I've grown these last three months.

Hair. Another first in 6 months. 

I throw away my wrapper,

and pause to drink water from the public fountain--

and revel in that little act of freedom.