Chapter One: Why Me? Why not that mean lady in line at the grocery store?
Herein exists the first public appearance of the first chapter of my book, Mostly, I Just Miss My Nipples.
Chapter 1
Why Me? Why Not That
Mean Lady In Line at the Grocery Store?
I’m not a doctor, but maybe I had breast cancer because:
It skipped a generation.
I didn’t love myself enough.
I held things in and didn’t let them go.
I’m too sensitive.
I work too much.
I can’t handle my stress.
I was born a Capricorn.
Karma.
It was my life lesson.
I drank too much wine, smoked too much pot and ate too much cheese.
I had father issues.
I wasn’t nice enough to people less fortunate than me.
I couldn’t deal with other peoples’ illnesses.
It was sympathy cancer for June.
It was the final straw of postpartum anxiety/depression.
It was written.
Three pregnancies in three years.
I didn’t breast feed long enough.
I breast fed for too long.
I had an infection in my right breast during breast-
feeding and it festered into cancer.
I had children (child) too late.
I started my period too early.
We microwaved plastic when I was a kid.
I didn’t eat enough spinach.
I forgot to exercise for the first two years of my
daughter’s life.
I forgot to exercise lots of other times besides that.
I lived in big cities with toxic air and water.
I used deodorant with aluminum.
My high school was built with asbestos.
I am type A.
I worry too much.
I’m too much of a pleaser.
I have extremely high expectations.
It’s genetic (but not BRCA, or one of the 19 other genes they now measure).
It’s completely random.
My estrogen was imbalanced.
I had a Single Malt Whiskey phase.
I let my yoga practice slide.
I had never meditated.
I smoked three cigarettes once.
I jaywalked.
I drove too fast.
I missed my pre-kid life.
I was a control freak.
I judged.
I cheated on my college boyfriend(s).
I once spanked my daughter when she bit me.
I didn’t pay enough attention to my own needs and health.
I lost myself in my work.
I harbored attachments.
I didn’t believe in Church or God or anything.
I make lists like this one.
Oh, that woman in the grocery store. Back to her. She was outright rude to the checker, had bad energy, scowled at me and was so not cute (hello, judger self).
Yes, I know this is all bullshit.
There is cancer all over both sides of my family. Some live to be in their seventies. Some die in their fifties. Were they bad people? No. Am I a bad person? No. Sure, I could have used a gentler wake up call earlier in my life (oh, wait, I had one—um, that time a disk in my back burst and I had to have surgery).
But we don’t listen until we’re ready. And I could have missed this one big sign too. I think some people do. I refused, maybe not consciously. And sometimes I find myself slipping back into some of my old bad habits and I think, “Wait. What was it all for? That time I had cancer so bad that it knocked me on my ass for 12 months? So I could bust my ass working 12 hours on a project for an ungrateful client who under pays me?” For fuck’s sake. No. It’s so I can remember to limit my work, take walks, make time for myself and my family and breathe. And perhaps even have some fun.
Why do I really think I had breast cancer? Because, obviously, I have thought about it. Over and over again (add to list above: I over think things). Again, there is cancer all over both sides of my family. And, beginning with the minute my daughter was born through the minute I was diagnosed I was treated to these lovely life experiences:
That pesky infection during breast feeding was exactly where one of my tumors appeared.
I had three pregnancies in three years — the second and third of which were miscarriages, the second of which was exactly one year earlier than my diagnosis which gave my cancer the honor of being deemed “pregnancy induced.”
I had a panic attack that put me in an emergency room in San Francisco, which was the first place I felt sane since my daughter was born (once I stopped hyperventilating and could breathe and the EKG confirmed I was not having a heart attack). My mental state and hormones were in a full-on frenzy.
Per my husband’s one-sided decision, we packed up and left San Francisco and moved to Los Angeles, the last place on earth I would have chosen to live at the time.
We bought our first house in a place we knew two people out of four million.
My dog of fourteen years, Stuszi, died.
I had undiagnosed postpartum depression for two and a half years. Depression lowers your immune system.
I left a thriving graphic design firm that I built from scratch with my best friend and business partner, David.
I chose to take a step back from my business and limited my participation to bookkeeping for my business partner. I was a creative trying to be an accountant. Bad idea. It was a breakup without the final break. I then chose to leave my business entirely because I was so unhappy.
I was drinking too much, eating poorly and wasn’t exercising.
I had a complete mental breakdown in the middle of 2005—six months before I found the lump.
Take some stress, throw in some death and a rocking of foundations, sprinkle it with an immune system that was beaten down with depression and anxiety and bad food and it can cause a girl to break. I was exhausted, sad, sore and plain cranky. And I was not managing it well. Hello, perfect petri dish for cancer.
