Mammogram Day

I am driving up to Stanford Hospital for my second post-cancer mammogram. I turn on NPR, looking for distraction from the fear that sits in my belly, just inside my solar plexus. I know I should “just sit with the fear,” the certain knowledge that the line between life as a survivor and life as a cancer patient is paper-thin. I know that life can change irrevocably in a moment, sitting in a pastel-colored room, half-naked with a paper gown crinkling on my shoulders.

I am driving up alone. Karyn is working today. She is jet-lagged from her trip to India and struggling to manage her first few days back at work. I made a half-assed effort to get someone else to come with me, but ultimately, I decided to come here alone. Do I really want to have to deal with someone else’s reaction should I get bad news?

The View From the Street

 I needed to walk 11 miles on Monday.. I decided to get up early and “run my errands” on foot. I walked from my house in Live Oak to my local video store to return a couple of movies, took the long way downtown, through the harbor and Frederick Street park and around the Boardwalk and back to Front Street, to mail a package to Lizzy at the post office. Lizzy is at sleep-away camp and I’m trying to send her a package for each of the three weeks she’s there. This one had some friendship bracelets Karyn had brought back from India with instructions on how to use them and a novel to read. I put the goodies in a brown mailing envelope and carried it the 7 miles it took me to get to the post office. By the time I got there, the envelope had grease stains all over it from sunscreen and sweat. The woman at the counter said she wasn’t sure she could mail it because it looked like something toxic was leaking out of it. I explained that I was training for a breast cancer walk and that my daughter was at camp and really needed this package. The clerk took pity on me and plastered the envelope with Priority Mail stickers to cover the grease spots and threw it in the big canvas cart to be mailed.

Being in Training Feels Like This

Being in training feels like this. I put on my no-sweat socks, my wicking underwear, my easy-dry shirt, my breast-cancer-3-day-walk visor, and my $90 walking shoes. I strap my double-bottled fanny pack around my waist, filling one bottle with plain water, the other, water and an electrolyte pill fizzing happily away inside. In the front pocket of my pack, I carry a Lara bar with chocolate and peanuts, moleskin in case of blisters, chap stick, a tube of Glide to prevent chafing injuries, and a bright red cotton bandana to wipe snot and sweat. My iPhone is clipped on the front of my fanny pack, headphones wrap around my ears. A pedometer is clipped on to my waistband. Sunscreen shines on my arms and chest. I open the front door and walk out into the day.

Laura's Old Friends: Ambition & Momentum

Here are a couple of pieces I wrote one day in class about two of my oldest friends, who fortunately have not been visiting me of late...

Ambition

Ambition is a short man with a small penis. He wears designer suits and has his own personal tailor. His $400 Italian loafers gleam as they did the first day he bought them. Ambition is personable and knows how to get people to like him. But he loses friends as quickly as he makes them. People feel they can't really trust him, and soon realize that he's not really listening when they talk to him. He's always looking around the room, his eyes shifting, as if his mind is elsewhere or he's looking for someone more important to impress.