Our upcoming treatment calendar:

I am afraid of chemo (hence the “Lions and Tigers and Bears…”) I start next week, November 7.

Lucas will have surgery on Tuesday, Nov. 14, and likely be at the hospital for 5-7 days.

My chemo will be every three weeks for four rounds, which is the lightest chemo cocktail they’ve got for breast cancer.

My hair will probably fall out by December. We have a dozen wonderfully terrible wigs from Goodwill (see family Halloween costumes past and present), and based on how much I can’t wait to get those wigs off my head, I assume (a) there are better wigs, (b) I still won’t want to wear them.

Lucas will probably be staying home, learning from home, through December. Which means I’ll be at home, going through my chemo cycles of working and then feeling awful and then getting better and then going through it again, with Burke, Lucas, and his nurses also in our house. I won’t be lonely. I may wish for a second house to recover in.

My last chemo will be early January, but it will not be over. Shortly after that I’ll start the hormones.

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This past weekend friends organized an amazing, kid-centered call for a cease fire in Gaza. And Burke was at a conference in Albuquerque with some incredible movement leaders talking about radical and progressive organizing, thinking about how to fund grassroots, political strategy to stop the rise of neo-fascism in this country.

I was reading scientific studies on micrometastasis in premenopausal women with ER+HER2- early stage breast cancer.

I’m not creating a global hierarchy or asking for reminders that my own health matters. (And, full disclosure, I also had a really good time hanging out with the kids, and, thanks to them, I couldn’t go too far into the cancer research vortex.) I’m just here to say there are so many things I’d rather be doing than reading obscure medical journal articles. Especially as I’m trying to make these major decisions (like whether or not I follow my doctor’s “maybe, who knows if it will be helpful or necessary” recommendation on chemo), the world of cancer research feels like a giant energy black hole.

Thankfully, I am not alone. I am grateful for the reminders that I not need to become a cancer doctor in the next week. (I think, in one of my many questions I sent my doctor, in trying to display my humility, I prefaced in question with something like, “I think you probably know more about this than me…” Oops.)

Thank you, Alice and Carol, for burning the midnight oil and reading the medical journals with me and for me (and following the footnotes, reading the conversations at the medical conventions) to help me understand. Mostly, I now feel clear that I don’t understand because there is not good data – yet – on my particular situation, not for my lack of trying. (Carol loves science so much that she was able to help me feel some awe at the scientific method — wow! now there’s this genetic technology, but it also opens up more questions, and scientists will be able, in time, to get even better at treating cancer, and will one day have answers that I want now.)

I’m also so grateful for my new friends with cancer. Alex texted me at just the right moment about wigs and the incredible privilege we have, as white women in the U.S., even with cancer. Alex said something like “I try not to spend too much time on decisions,” which feels so countercultural and so helpful. I felt relief just reading that. I am a responsible patient if I do my best with the information I can gather from my doctors and the internet over one weekend. Another new friend with cancer also has said similar things — we don’t have to try to know as much as our doctors or pretend that’s even possible. And thank you, Karina, for offering to let me try on your collection of cancer hats before I go ordering. It feels like such intimate generosity.

And still, I am mourning that I have not yet been able to be out in the streets, protesting our country’s military aid to Israel and calling for a ceasefire. I may not make it out. There is a lot to do to prepare for Lucas’s surgery, and there are IEP meetings and planning-for-learning-from-home meetings… but maybe. I have been calling my Senator to ask her to heed the call of the kids to stop the bombing. Please join me. Someone actually answered yesterday, and she had to listen to me tell her how important it is that we listen to kids. Here is Jewish Voices for Peace’s call to action (if you’re not in Washington, call your Senators).

Kids on Duwamish land in Seattle are taking the lead to protect kids in Gaza and getting our message to Senator Murray. Over the weekend, over 100 families rallied on Beacon Hill and made their message to Senator Murray clear: Ceasefire now! ⚠️Right Now⚠️, they’re delivering signs, letters and petitions to Senator Murray. Kids here and in Gaza need all of us to keep up with our calls to Senator Murray.

Call (206) 553-5545 and tell Senator Murray,

“My name is [Your Name]. I am a constituent of Senator Murray. Thousands of children have been killed by Israeli assaults on Gaza; over 600 under the age of four. I am adding my voice to the children and families delivering letters to Senator Murray right now. I am asking the Senator to immediately call for a ceasefire, commit to no funding for genocide and address the root causes: the occupation of Palestine and Israeli apartheid.”

As a constituent, we need you to amplify our kids’ messages! Can you call Senator Murray right now and tell her to join the growing anti-war voices in Congress calling for a ceasefire?

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People keep asking what I need. Thank you. Besides making calls or raising your voice for peace in whatever way you can, I think we need:

* More meal deliveries, especially around Lucas’s surgery. We will post more dates soon on our Meal Train, or you can just tell us when in late Nov/early December you want to bring us food. We’ll set a cooler on the front porch when we’re at the hospital.

* Calls and texts are always good, even if I can’t reply. I love beautiful and cute and snarky and ridiculous things in a text.

* Ida pick ups and drop offs the week after 11/14 — we’ll reach out directly to ask for this. And Ida playdates Nov. 18-26. That’s a long time with no school.

* Cards and calls to Lucas. The week of 11/14 you can text us and we’ll read messages to Lucas. Starting around Thanksgiving, he will probably start getting back to his email, lucas@estansbury.com, so you can use that. Or old fashioned get-well cards in the mail are good, too.

* Encouragement to find outlets for the stress. Dealing with two massive hospital/medical systems at once, and all the ways we are both reliant on and disempowered within them, can make me want to break things. Yesterday I finally got back to running — the rhythmic pounding of running can be relieving. Meditation is good for some things, but I might also need to go to batting cages or take up boxing.

* Writing and art that holds the complexity of broken and perfectly imperfect bodies; art that sees our bodies’ vulnerability and resilience; art that celebrates all the divergent and non-compliant and disabled and different bodies; poetry that bears witness to our human bodies’ interconnection with all the other bodies on our ailing planet.

* And sometimes I need break from all that with escapism and humor. Lucas and I are listening to David Sedaris. I’ve listened to and watched almost everything Tig Notaro has ever made. More like that.

Thank you all for asking. Maybe there are things I haven’t even thought of that I need. I found a therapist (thank you Carol and Mike) and will start that soon, too, and maybe she’ll help me figure out more that I need.

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And finally, for your enjoyment — Ringo, John, George, and Ma-Turtle (Matilda + turtle).