Tag: travel

Hands in the Air if You’ve Had Radiation

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The last week of September I took advantage of a cheap flight and travelled to my home state of Michigan for a week of visiting with family, friends, my beloved home yoga studio, all the yummy food I miss and cooler fall weather.

I also decided to take this opportunity of proximity to drive to Toronto and visit my dear friend, Kevin. Those of you who read my blog regularly might recognize him as the main character from my days on the El Camino de Santiago. (Catch-up on those here)

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Kevin in his natural habitat

Toronto is only a few hours drive from Detroit. As I crossed over the border, I texted Kevin giving him my ETA and joking that I had successfully duped border agents because I won’t be coming back to the United States. I mean, how could I resist affordable healthcare, sane leadership and Tim Hortons? I’ll tell you how – snow and cold weather. Politics, healthcare, coffee and hypothermia aside, Kevin, I and his partner had a lovely evening catching up, followed by Kevin and I spending the next day eating and walking around his Toronto neighborhood (a la Camino style).

On the way home, I enjoyed the drive and opportunity to catch up on my podcasts. Thankful for only one car ahead of me in the US Customs line, I pulled up to the Border Agent window and handed him my passport, ignorantly thinking I’d be home soon for a nap before evening yoga.

“Ma’am, have you had any recent medical procedures?” How much time do you have? Was my first thought. Then I looked in my rearview mirror to see six Border Agents and two German Shepherds.

I explained that I had a radiation procedure three weeks ago and the group of agents asked me to pull over to Secondary Inspection. It was a little surprising to find I’m still emitting radiation even though I’m well out of the quarantine period of six days for pregnant women and children and two days for general public.

In Secondary Inspection I retrieved the card provided to me by Excel Diagnostics – Thank God I kept it. They asked me several questions about the procedure all the while scanning me with a radiation detector, which first indicated I was emitting “Plutonium”. The following several scans revealed an “Unknown” substance.

Since they couldn’t determine the isotope, Border Agents asked me to come into the US Border Customs & Immigration building while they “called it in”.

While I sat and waited in the lobby, the only other person who entered the building for Secondary Inspection was a man with a turban, who was held by Agents at his wrists and taken into a room. I have no idea why he was selected for additional questioning, but the skeptical liberal in me drew some conclusions. The Agents never doubted my story and were only following protocols when I was told they’d have to “call it in”. There was no holding of my wrists and I wasn’t taken into a room, even after testing positive for Plutonium. Instead the Agents offered me a bathroom, let me hold onto my passport, called me “Ma’am” and promised they would be quick. I’m not trying to make a moral of the story case here, but a large part of me felt for this man and others who endure this type of treatment throughout their lives.

For those of you who have travelled to other countries for PRRT or another radiation procedure, this story is not unique. Had this experience occurred while I was a cancer underclassman, it might have upset me, but as I enter my senior year as a survivor, I was able to call my husband laughing as Agents cleared me 30 minutes later.

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Cloudy with a high chance of affordable healthcare

All is Unfair in Cancer and Hurricanes

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As featured on curetoday.com

Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy (PRRT) is an exciting treatment for Neuroendocrine Tumors (NETs). While considered investigational because of its pending status at the FDA, Europe has performed this therapy with an 80% success rate for over a decade.

When a May Gallium-68 scan found microscopic tumors, my specialist recommended I pursue this treatment.  It took a lot of coordinating, but I was able to access this therapy at a facility in Houston under Texas’s Right to Try law, a preferred option compared to traveling to Europe.

My first treatment went great, leaving me virtually symptom free and slashing my blood tumor marker a whopping 75%. Investigational therapies are not always covered by insurance, so it was also pretty exciting when I found my insurance company paid for the treatment.

Life was looking like sunshine and kittens, so my husband and I decided the next trip to Houston should not be completely about cancer. So, we booked a romantic beach weekend in Galveston before my next therapy, scheduled for August 31st.

Cancer has already taught me to quickly develop back-up plans, so when the Houston clinic called to explain there could be a delay due to the approaching hurricane, I jumped into action, developing a Plan B and Plan C. Little did I know after all the events transpired, I’d end up on Plan F.

Plan A – Fly from Nashville to Houston to enjoy a weekend on the beach in Galveston before returning to Houston for treatment.

Plan B – Take the scheduled flight to Houston, drive to Dallas for the weekend. Return to Houston when the storm passes.

Plan C – Drive from Nashville, stopping to visit Memphis, Little Rock and Dallas, where we would wait for the green light.

Plan D – Reschedule therapy until September 12th, the one week my husband had an important commitment.

Plan E – Get my older brother lined up to take my husband’s place by booking him a flight out of Tampa September 10th. Enter Hurricane Irma.

Plan F – Break my husband’s commitment so he can come with me to Houston and spend the next few days calling airlines, hotels, etc. to reschedule…yet again.

While all of this was unfolding, I could rationalize that it would have been pointless for me to try to enter Houston during the chaos or for my brother to leave his family in the midst of a disaster, but still, it was stressful. Cancer already creates feelings of powerlessness, fear and uncertainty. Piling on more seems unfair. Before I spun into a ball of anxiety, I stopped and gave myself an attitude and perspective adjustment. I am lucky my situation is not critical because there were/are others impacted by cancer who had/will have urgent situations in the midst of these disasters. Rescheduling is a minor inconvenience when a hurricane is barreling toward your home.

As I rationalized and calm myself, I realized the similarities between hurricanes and cancer. Both are natural disasters, with human contributing factors. Both are completely unfair. Both can be devastating by taking everything you have. Both have the potential to create resilience. Both can bring out the best in people. Both create perspective because when we or our loved ones are in danger, the stresses of daily life don’t seem so stressful. And both are reminders that there is so much we can not control.

“If plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters – 204 if you’re in Japan.” – Claire Cook

Read my others articles with Cure. 

 

2017: Overcoming Addiction & Being Present

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It seems like many people were happy to bid adieu to 2016. As for me, not even the disappointment of a surprise surgery, putting my dog to sleep and the election outcome could trump the train wreck of my 2015, so I’m going to declare the year pretty darn awesome.  I travelled to the Dominican Republic, Mexico, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and Spain where I walked 258 miles to fulfill a dream of completing the Camino de Santiago.  In April, I preformed at the Bluebird Cafe in a production called My 2nd Act: Survivor Stories from the Stage. In July, I spent the month in Michigan completing 200 hours of yoga teacher training.  Then in September, I went to California and learned to surf with fifteen other cancer survivors through an organization called First Descents.  And in between all those adventures, I published several blogs, articles and wrote nearly everyday.  So, yes, I’d say 2016 was not so bad.

 

Of course, I’d like to continue and increase the adventures in 2017, so I spent some time thinking about my goals for this year.  I realized setting and accomplishing SMART* goals has always come easy for me, but what I want more than anything is something not so measurable.

Somewhere around when I got an iPhone, I developed an obsession to anything connected to my device.  The internet, social media, streaming TV, etc.  Then while I was going through treatment my addiction intensified because I would spend my days in bed watching the iPad. Now that I’m well, I can see the addiction has gotten out of control.

What bothers me most about my problem is how it distracts me from the activities and people I truly care about. It eats at precious time I could spend writing, doing yoga, reading, hiking, running, etc. and it steals my attention from my husband, friends and surroundings. Ultimately, I hope addressing this addiction will allow me to be more fully present in my own life, which is what I want more than any check box next to a goal.

One of the many life lessons cancer taught me is the only guarantee we have is the present moment – the one we are in right now.  I’ve realized in addition to my device addiction, I spend a lot of precious time reliving traumas of the past and the “what ifs” of the future.

This morning I came across a perfect passage in the book, The Artist’s Way:

“In times of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me. Each moment, taken alone was always bearable. In the exact now, we are all, always, all right.”

And there it is again – being present in my life as a method for coping with trauma of the past and uncertainty of the future.

I wish you all health, wealth, strength and whatever else you need to accomplish your measurable and immeasurable goals of 2017.  Also, I’d like to take this time to thank you for reading my blog. If someone you know has been affected by cancer and/or chronic illness, please feel free to share my site with them, or better yet, have them send me a message.  Below you’ll find my most popular blogs from 2016:

Waiting for Hair: The Toll of Chemotherapy – The fact that this was the number one post of the year doesn’t surprise me. When I was going through hair loss, I wasn’t able to find a lot of info on what the growing out process was like. I also did a follow-up to this post, One Year of Hair After Cancer. That has been a few months and I’m happy to report I have a ton of hair. It’s in a bit of an awkward stage right now, but whatevs, I’m happy to have hair.

Living Universal Truths on My Cancerversary – I really love this post and the seven universal truths.

Cancer Camp – Details on my week surfing with First Descents, an organization that takes young, adult cancer survivors on adventure trips.

 

*Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time-Based