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Hug a Nurse

Tricia Andron # # # # # #

On Monday I sat in the lobby of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for 14 hours. For the first time, I was on the other side of the fence – waiting for a loved one to come through surgery, as has been done for me numerous times over the past four years.

It’s not a fun job, but at least I had crappy hospital food, a couch to doze on and an internet connection. You might think the patient has it the worst… but they’re under so much anesthesia that by the time they wake up they’ll think five minutes has passed and will ask when surgery starts. I’d venture to say the surgeons and nurses participating in the 12+ hour surgery have it the worst; on their feet all day, not eating, performing tasks I can’t even begin to imagine… in order to prevent and protect.

Recently, Miss Colorado, a contestant for the Miss America Pageant, delivered an inspiring monologue about nursing, rather than showcasing singing or dancing talents. http://kelley.littlethings.com/miss-colorado-nurse-story/?utm_source=LTts&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_campaign=inspiring
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Normal after Cancer

Tricia Andron # # #

I’m so grateful for anyone who reads this. For anyone who clicks on the link I’ve sent around, and bothers to read what’s going on in my mind, I thank you. I’ve always been a voyeur, and I like that about you. It gives me a boost of confidence, knowing that you want to hear what I have to say. Makes me feel less alone, more understood. Perhaps we’re only acquaintances, but you’ve followed my story throughout breast cancer, and your interest is piqued. Will she write something else this week? Will she fall off the blogging truck again? What’s this blog about, if she beat cancer?

Cancer changed me, and my perspective. Everything around me seemed to be in sharp focus that has since softened into a strong sense of purpose. I’ve said before: my tolerance for bullshit was hit as hard by the chemo as my cancer was. My bullshit meter is as close to zero as it could be; it’s why I quit corporate to spend time with my kids. I have an easy time saying no, and my filter has become non-existent (which also doesn’t jive with corporate). I have no problem talking about my work of art and science boobs. If you asked, I just might show them to you, they’re so cool. I’m an HR nightmare.

perspective

I have a renewed belief in science and better living through chemistry, and am alive thanks to drugs that literally burned my insides. Why yes, I will take those anti-depressants you put me on after I was diagnosed, as well as the hormones I was prescribed after you took my ovaries at 40. All of those things help me from being a raging bitch, and well… a “normal” 40 year old wife, mother of two, cancer survivor and aspiring writer. Oh god! I’m crying I’m laughing so hard right now. That’s me, normal after cancer.

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Post Vacation Blues (PVB)

Tricia Andron # # # #

Vacation is over. I’m not sitting on my porch in Wellfleet, sipping wine and slurping back some oysters. My skin is not salty from the ocean, but sticky from Dean’s PBJ. Grace is being a sassy pants, and had an epic tantrum last night; balled fists,  screaming bloody murder from her bedroom. Dean won’t settle down, and the ocean air seems to have made the brute stronger. In the day and a half since we’ve been home, my voice has gone hoarse from yelling, and I feel like I’m losing the battle. The only one in the house that is truly happy to be home is the dog, and she didn’t go on vacation with us.

Any good vacation worth its salt (see what I did there?) has the potential to induce the Post Vacation Blues, and this one is no different.

Take the directions with you.
Take the directions with you.

The thing that I like about Wellfleet is that everything slows down. There are lots of unpaved roads that force you to drive slowly. The best way to get to the secret pond is to walk, following the path through the woods. Just remember to pick it up on the other side after you cross under the power lines, and let the rest of your crew know where to meet you, before you lose your phone signal.

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Picking Scabs

Tricia Andron # # #

Within a few hours of submitting my story about the Boblo Boat, I had booked a flight to Detroit, where the SS Columbia documentary was being filmed. It was Tuesday, and they had selected my story and scheduled the interview for coming Saturday. Everything fell into place so seamlessly, I couldn’t help but think it was all supposed to happen.

IMG_1708
Detroit at Night

I had a day to get ready; look through old letters, dig out the stuffed bunny Mike won me, make arrangements for the kids while I was gone, grocery shop, laundry, keep stuffed bunny away from the dog, and pack for a 5 day trip. I flew through my chores, and finally ready to go, collapsed into bed with my laptop the night before my flight. At which point, my brain started to kick into high gear.

I read my blog. I re-read it. I thought about Mike’s family, whom I hadn’t spoken to in years. At some point, towards the end of my college career, we had parted ways. It felt as though I would always be a reminder of where their son would be in life had he lived, and it was keeping me from moving on with my life. Now that I’m a parent, I can’t fathom losing a child. I would imagine it is something that they (try not to) think about every day. I was just the girlfriend, and it was easy enough to move on with my life once I made the decision to.

But what if they came across this documentary at some point? They would want to know, wouldn’t they? They should know, I thought. I began to super-sleuth.

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The Wayback Machine: Boblo

Tricia Andron

I’m headed out in the wayback machine, to a time before cancer. A little history of me, along with history of Detroit, to relaunch my site.

I recently saw a post on Facebook from a high school friend regarding a history film being made about the Boblo Boat Memories Wanted . The Boblo Boat (aka the SS Colombia) was the historic steamboat that transported you to Boblo Island, an amusement park in the middle of the Detroit River. I met my first boyfriend at Boblo Island, and the project inspired me to start writing again, and share my story for the film project…

boblo

In 1989, the summer before my freshman year in high school, my best friend’s family took me along on a day trip to Boblo Island. Being an island (and 1989), her parents let us run off on our own for the day, and we met a group of boys from a neighboring Detroit suburb. I hit it off with Mike, and we all spent the day riding roller coasters and walking the island. Mike won a stuffed blue bunny for me, that I have to this day.

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Living Up to Second Chances

Tricia Andron
Off to the Mountain!
Off to the Mountain!

I looked at my blog recently, and came to a realization. My worst fears had come true; Cancer Trish was quickly becoming a distant memory, and I hadn’t done any writing in ages.

If you want to look at the “upside” of cancer, it’s that you develop an acute awareness of spending your time wisely, and doing what you want to do. I began writing about my cancer experience, and realized that was my calling. I named my blog “View from Upside Down / Living Up To Second Chances”. I realized that despite all my blessings – full recovery from breast cancer, and a healthy, happy miracle baby – I wasn’t doing what made me happy. I’d returned to work, and was miserably part of the rat race. Was I living up to my second chance?

 

So, I’m beyond happy to say that today I resigned from my position at Bose. To say that I’ve grown up at Bose is an understatement. In my 6.5 years here, I got engaged, married, bought a house, got pregnant, had a baby girl, was diagnosed with and beat breast cancer, had reconstructive surgery, got pregnant and had a baby boy. I’ve learned so much, and have made so many friends here… but now it’s time to go. And with every cell in my body (genetically mutated and non), I know I’m doing the right thing.

#LivingUpToSecondChances, #BCSM

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Perspective

Tricia Andron

It has been six weeks since my foob started leaking, and nearly four since the expander was removed. If there’s nothing in there, I have to wonder – what’s left to leak? My plastic surgeon reminded me of Radiation – a real creeper. With chemo, it flat out, in your face sucks. But Radiation? I made jokes! I wrote a blog about it, going so far as to accuse my radiation techs of playing space invaders behind their double cement doors. I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t feel it, and thought I had breezed right through it. But boy, is it ever a pain in my ass right now, having fried whatever is left of my breast so completely that all the cells can manage to do is weep.

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For Foobs’ Sake

Tricia Andron

My conference call was just wrapping up on a Thursday afternoon when I broke into a cold sweat – this time, completely unrelated to the project I was working on. I began to feel nauseous, and put my head down on my desk, realizing that the leak in my left foob (my term for a breast expander… the temporary solution after my mastectomy, given I was scheduled for radiation) that had put a damper on our vacation a week earlier, was not improving with antibiotics. Turns out all that radiation that I couldn’t see had done its job; the area had first become swollen, then began leaking through the thinned and damaged epidermis layer. By Wednesday, I could see what looked like corner of the implant sticking out of my skin. And so I found myself in another boob related drama… Breast Expanders Gone Bust…
Vacation in Wellfleet… the calm before the booby storm…

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Cancer-versary

Tricia Andron

An edited version of this was posted by Hair’s How on 8/16. The complete story is here…

I celebrated my cancer-versary marking the date of my diagnoses recently, and found myself marveling at the difference a year can make. A year since I was diagnosed – forget our trip to Greece, chemo, Big Hair Date Night and the Haircutting Party, losing my hair, 3 trips to the ER (Grace: 1, me: 2), a double mastectomy,6 weeks of radiation, returning to work, personally raising $4k dollars and walking Relay for Life, several awkward “pump up” visits to my plastic surgeon to fill my expanders, a wedding in San Diego and Grace’s 2nd birthday, and an appointment with my friend Michael at The Loft Salon to die my wonderful new chemo curls platinum blonde… all within a year?! After facing the biggest challenge of my life, I’m back at work, hair on my head, struggling with balancing the day to day just like everyone else… almost like nothing ever happened. I’m a survivor, but if I thought that survival was the end game with a cancer diagnosis I would miss the biggest lesson I took from the experience; that the real work begins after treatment is complete.

 

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