What? The? Actual? Fuck?

Okay, I am feeling a bit angry today. And sad. And a tad defeated.

Last week, my baby brother was diagnosed with Stage 2 testicular cancer that has spread to the surrounding lymph nodes. He is officially the 4^th person in my 6-person immediate family to be diagnosed with cancer. First my dad had brain cancer that killed him within a year of diagnosis when I was eleven years old. Then I was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer at age 44 and lost an entire year of my life to treatment and I am still dealing with the aftermath on a daily basis. Then one year – almost to the day – after my diagnosis, my mom was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer and went through painful surgery and radiation.  Now my brother is preparing to undergo a second surgery (he’s already had the testicle removed) to remove the affected lymph nodes, followed by possible chemo. Or radiation? We do not know yet because he is stuck in the infernal cancer holding pattern. Waiting for news. Waiting for a call. Waiting for an appointment. Waiting for a prognosis. Waiting for the shit that will fuck up his life for months to come to get started already for fuck’s sake so there will be an end in sight at some point in the distant future.

We’ve been genetically tested. Yep, both my mom and I were fully tested. There appears to be no genetic markers for cancer in my family. So what’s the deal? 66% of my family gets cancer (so far) and it’s just a fluke? Are we cursed? Does the Ralph family just have laughably horrible luck? Is cancer particularly fond of us? I mean we’re cute and all. But come on, leave us alone.

I don’t know. Honestly, I do not even know why I am writing this blog today. I am just feeling an intense sense of outrage on my brother’s behalf. I want to scream into the abyss about the unfairness of it all. He’s only 41 years old. He has two small children. He is in the process of selling his house. He has so much on his plate right now that cancer is the very last thing he should be thinking about.  But that’s what cancer does. It strikes you in your prime. It stalks you and attacks when you least expect it. I don’t think anyone ever sees it coming.

Here’s the other thing with cancer. Once it’s got you, it never let’s go. I am cancer free right now. Have been for four years. In December of this year, I will hit the five-year mark of being cancer free, which supposedly is a big deal because most cancers, if they are going to come back, will do so within the first five years.

But it doesn’t matter than I am officially cancer free because I still live with cancer every day. My cancer was in all three levels of my lymph nodes. My surgeon was only able to take out two levels (apparently, your body needs at least one level of lymph nodes in that area) which means that after my double mastectomy, I still had cancer in my lymph nodes. I underwent six weeks of grueling every-day radiation afterwards and then my oncologist declared me cancer free. Not in remission – he does not use that word – but cancer free.

For the moment.

But here’s the thing – cancer cells are tiny. Itsy bitsy little pieces of shit. How do I know that one tiny cell did not break off and decide to go on an excursion to Organtown. To my lungs? My liver? My bones? Or most terrifying of all, to my brain? I live every day with the thought that any minute now the cancer will take hold again. Every little ache is proof positive in my mind of bone cancer. Every cough is lung cancer. Every forgotten word – and I forget a lot of words – is brain cancer. The psychological fallout of cancer is even more insidious than the physical effects.

But I do have physical effects. I have pain. Pain that affects me every day. My scar hurts. And it itches. A deep, deep itch. But my armpit on that side is still numb four years later. You can’t scratch numb tissue. It just doesn’t work. So I live with the itch. My left arm aches. My hands and feet fall asleep from chemo-induced neuropathy. My feet hurt constantly.

I try to pretend I am fine. That I am “over it.” But that’s a lie. I am content, but not fine. I try to live my best life. I try to make the most of the life that was gifted to me – and I do consider my four years cancer-free a gift for which I haven’t quite decided if I am worthy yet – when so many others have died from the same disease. So many people were given the same diagnosis as me. Went through the same treatment as me and did not come out the other side. There is no rhyme or reason to my survival and others’ demise. Cancer takes and takes and takes. And I will live with the fear of a recurrence every day for the rest of my life.

As does my mom. And now as will my brother.

Cancer is shit.

Can’t it just leave us alone?

Please.

An Open Letter to Kamala Harris

 

Dear Madame Vice-President:

Wow. That’s a singularly cool thing to type.

I am going to start by getting the gushing out of the way early. It probably sounds utterly ridiculous for a grown woman to say, but I am just going to put it out there. When I look at you, my heart feels a bit lighter. I breathe a little deeper. A sense of calm is somehow restored to my anxiety-rattled brain. I see you as a beacon of hope. As a path to a better future for my children. As a symbol of our better natures.

Yeah…that’s probably a lot to lay on the shoulders of one person, huh? But we women are used to it. Holding the entire world on our shoulders while underappreciated, underrepresented, and underpaid at every turn is de rigueur. I am writing to you instead of Joe because I feel a sort of kinship to you. What, you may wonder, would a middle-class, translucently white, never-quite-rose-up-to-her-potential, frumpy lesbian mom from Minnesota have in common with a Jamaican/Indian, HBC-educated woman from California who was just elected to Vice-President of the most powerful nation in the world?

I would venture to say we have a lot in common.

As a fellow woman, I innately understand that nothing was ever handed to you. None of your success was a forgone conclusion. From the moment you burst onto a male-dominated political scene, your every win was an uphill battle. I suspect you were assumed to be weak, so you had to be twice as strong. You were assumed to be ignorant, so you had to be twice as smart. You were assumed to be gullible, so you had to be twice as shrewd. And when you were stronger, smarter, and twice as shrewd, you were called uppity, calculating, and combative. Just another angry woman. Typical.

We are all both victims and perpetrators of this system. While we rail against it as women, we also fall victim to the patriarchy that permeates every nook and cranny of this world. Even as women – even when every fiber of our being knows it is wrong – we tend to hold women to a higher standard. I am going to make an embarrassing admission now.

You were not my first choice in the Democratic primary.

I found you be extremely intelligent and well-spoken, but maybe a bit cold. I hate to even type that now. I hate to admit that I participated in the completely unfair patriarchal labeling of another woman. What a crock of bullshit! Over the course of the excellent campaign you and Joe ran, I became a convert. Then a fan. Then a fawning fangirl. In short, I am proud to have you as my Vice-President and I want you to succeed on every level, in everything you do.

So let’s talk business.

The American people are hurting. We have been traumatized by the last four years of attacks on our common decency. We are mourning the loss of humility and humanity and honesty in the world. We are afraid that our allies on the world stage will never trust us again, and where will that leave us when we need friends? We are scared of dying from a devastating illness that has killed 440,000 of us and counting. We are grieving the entirely preventable loss of our loved ones. We have lost our jobs and our livelihoods. Many of us can no longer feed our children, an eventuality we could scarcely even imagine a year ago. We are trapped in our homes, unable to see our family and friends. Unable to frequent our favorite neighborhood small businesses. We watch as many of them close their doors for good, while America’s 614 billionaires grew their net worth by $931 billion during the COVID pandemic. Our kids can’t go to school. And if their schools are doing in-person learning, we have to weigh the very real consequences of sending them to school where they may contract a deadly virus or keeping them home where they will surely fall behind their classmates academically. We hate that there are no good choices and worry that our kids are doomed either way. We are traumatized by the events of January 6^th. We are terrified of the homegrown Nazis and white nationalists who have infiltrated and are quickly destroying the Republican party. We see Republicans refusing to hold Trump and his violent minions accountable for their crimes, and we fear we may be seeing an end to the rule of law and even the death of our hard-earned Democracy. We are struggling to come to terms with a nation that was built on racism and where racism not only exists but thrives two hundred years later. We don’t know how to respond to police officers who claim to protect and serve, but choke and shoot and kill our neighbors who do not look like them. I live in the neighborhood where George Floyd was mercilessly killed, and I am afraid that his murderers will walk free. I am afraid of what will become of my beloved city when they do. We are filled with sorrow and outrage and anger and frustration. We are exhausted from the injustices of the last four years. We are a people in excruciating pain.

Worse yet (if you can imagine anything worse than the paragraph I just typed above) is the anxiety I have for my children. I have three teenagers. Lucas is 18. Sophie and Nicholas are 14. They are bright children who have watched everything unfold over the last four years. They have very real fears for their futures. Aside from not getting to go to prom or cheer on his team at the Homecoming football game or walk across the stage at graduation – silly things I mourn every day – my eighteen-year-old son is afraid of being a victim of random gun violence. He is afraid that there will be no jobs for his generation when he graduates college. He fears living in a white nationalist dictatorship. He is terrified that global warming will destroy the world in his lifetime.

What do I tell him? What can I say to ease his very real fears? I think of myself way back when I was eighteen years old and realize that I did not have a care in the world. I took our Democracy and our standing in the world for granted. I was under the assumption that my country worked for me. And as a white, middle-class, college-educated young woman, it mostly did. As I have grown older, however, my eyes have been opened to the fact that this country does not work for everyone. It does not value everyone in the same way. And in the last four years, it has come to value fewer and fewer of us. Certainly not people of color. Not Jews. Not Muslims. Not women. Not immigrants. Not LGBTQ people. What message are we sending to our children? What are they learning about their value? Their potential?

I know I am preaching to the choir. I realize you understand all of this and much more. I guess the reason I am writing to you is because I am grieving everything these days. I am hurting. We are hurting. And I want someone to know about it.

We need help.

I am writing to you to beg for that help. Over the course of the last year, Americans have received $600 from our government. Six. Hundred. Dollars. That is insulting and laughable. Six hundred dollars will not make one mortgage payment or pay one month’s rent for most Americans. Six hundred dollars will not feed our families. It will not clothe our kids. It will not pay for college. It will not pay our medical bills if we, heaven forbid, end up being one of the millions of Americans who have contracted COVID. It will not save us from having our cars repossessed. Our home foreclosed on. It will not satisfy credit card companies. It will certainly not stimulate the economy. Does our government actually think we are going to go on a spending spree when we are seven months behind on our mortgage? It’s a token. Nothing more. A token of our government’s antipathy toward its own people.

We need you and Joe to act. Right now. Decisively. Without Republican support, if necessary. If America – and even more importantly, Americans – are to recover, we need help from our government. I implore you to act. I beg you to act.

I believe you have faith in the American people, and I have faith in you. I look forward to seeing how you will make this country a better place. I know you and Joe are working hard to do just that. I am just imploring you to also work quickly. We need help. We need you.

Sincerely,

Shannon Ralph

A New Leaf

Hello strangers.

It’s been a very, very long time since I wrote in this blog. It started out years and years (and years!) ago to share funny stories and find solace as I cluelessly raised my three rambunctious children. When marriage equality was being debated in Minnesota, you may remember that this blog became a daily diatribe against faux religious conservatism. Then when I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in 2016, it morphed into an online group therapy session and a glimpse into the often-ugly underbelly of cancer treatment.  Writing daily and honestly, sharing my struggles with you all, is still something I consider instrumental in my survival during that tough time. After I recovered, I briefly tried to turn this blog into a book review site since I read so many books, but that did not pan out for me. Books are a purely visceral experience for me, so writing about them felt almost sacrilegious. So, what’s a girl with three independent teens and relative health to blog about now?

Fast forward to 2021. It’s a strange new world and nothing that I could have ever envisioned in my craziest imaginings. I mean – right? The world is pretty effed up right now. Forget potty training and trying to provide adequate nutrition to children who will allow nothing but Tyson chicken nuggets to grace their gullets. And forget gay marriage (actually, please don’t forget gay marriage, but we’ve sort of moved on, right?). Forget cancer and all its glitzy and glamorous trappings.

We are all pretty screwed right now.

Let’s just be honest. 450,000 of us have died in the last year – with many more to follow in the coming months. Our Narcissist-in Chief called the (Chinese) virus a hoax perpetrated by a blood-sucking ring of Democratic child pornographers intent on making him look bad. (See! Who could have ever imagined that sentence being written four years ago??) People are losing their jobs. Their homes. Their dignity. Their minds. Our economy is in the shitter. Our kids can’t go to school. We can’t go to work. We can’t visit friends. We can’t meet up for a much-needed drink. We can’t even drown our sorrows in a volcanic cheese-oozing Jucy Lucy from Matt’s bar where everything in the room – including you if you sit still long enough – is coated in the most appetizing of decades-old grease. I mean, you can get a burger to go I suppose, but the ambiance (perhaps for the best) is not the same on my living room couch.

And to top it all off, 70 million of our fellow Americans voted for more of the same, and Donald Trump (this is the last time his name will be mentioned in this blog) and his Republican co-conspirators peddled daily lies about a free and fair election and encouraged an armed mob to descend on Washington, DC with the intent of storming the U.S. Capital and hanging/shooting/murdering the Vice President of the United State and our elected officials in Congress.

What the actual fuck??

And, if yesterday is any indication, nothing will come of it. Our big orange colostomy bag of an ex-president will face no consequences for his crimes. Senate Republicans are making sure of that. Hell, he can even run again in four years if he wants!

I think all of this may be why it’s been so long since I’ve blogged anything. With the constant, daily outrages of the last four years, it’s been hard to wrap my mind around, much less find the words for, the situation in which we find ourselves as a nation. (That’s another phrase I never expected myself to be writing – “as a nation.” I mean – how haughty am I?) Smarter people than me have written hundreds of thousands of words on our current multiple crises. And I have found myself weighted down by every single one. The cognitive toll has been too great. The anger that boiled over into rage at the most inopportune of moments (my apologies to anyone and everyone who has experienced firsthand the ire of my car horn these past months). The sadness that dissolved into tears when I least expected it. The melancholic wallowing I have perfected to the level of Ju-Jitsu master.  I love writing about a silver lining but have had an extremely difficult time finding any at all for the last four years.

Today, however, I am recommitting myself to the silver lining. Today I am turning over a new leaf. Hell, I might even bathe and put on grown-up clothes today (don’t get excited – I said might)! So here are the TOP TEN positive things I am choosing to focus on today instead of the sorry state of our affairs.

1.  The grown-ups are in charge once again in Washington. Though 70 million Americans voted for the incumbent asshat, many, many, many more rejected him.

2. In February of 2020, right before the pandemic took hold in the U.S., Chipotle released their new Queso Blanco. And like God when (s)he created the earth, they saw that it was good.

3.  The New York Attorney General, the Manhattan District Attorney, and E. Jean Carrol’s attorney in the defamation lawsuit are not beholden to Republicans in Congress, so he may get what’s coming to him in some form or another. Fingers crossed!

4.  President Biden (this is probably the first of many times his name will be mentioned in this blog, as he is kind of my new straight, geriatric, grandpappy crush) rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization. Now when I jet-set around the world, I won’t feel like such a backwoods hillbilly. (Okay, so I realize that I am a backwoods hillbilly by definition, but Grandpappy Biden makes me feel like a Parisian runway model – yeah, or…ummm…something like that.)

5.  Joe Biden is not a homophobic, narcissistic, racist, serial rapist. So…there’s that.

6.  My son has, so far, been accepted to all the colleges he has applied to. We are still waiting to hear from Grinnell College and Carleton College, but he has been accepted to Gustavus Adolphus, University of MN – Duluth, University of MN – Twin Cities, St Olaf, and the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He has received a significant scholarship to most of these schools, so I am an unabashedly beaming momma these days. (I still feel weird bragging about my children. I think it might have to do with 12 years of Catholic school. I feel like I should maybe be yelling at them about the myriad reasons they will be going to hell. But I’m going against instinct here, and publicly praising them instead. We’ll see how it goes…)

7.  I must mention my girl crushes, Kamala Harris, Dr. Jill Biden, Stacy Abrams, and Janet Yellen! (Okay, that last one is less of a crush and more of a healthy respect). First female Vice President! (Woot!) First First Lady who is both a doctor and a teacher and will have a career outside of the White House! The woman who saved us all and turned Georgia BLUE! And our first Female Treasury Secretary!

8.  The Minneapolis Public Library system is a Godsend in times of crisis. As you probably know, my daughter and I are voracious readers. Ruanita, on the other hand, promised herself when she finished graduate school that she would never crack a book again. For the most part, she has maintained that promise over the years. COVID-19, and the soul-crushing, all-encompassing boredom it has rendered, has forced her to reconsider her previous declaration. She actually started reading in the second half of 2020. She now reads ALL THE TIME. It’s almost annoying. (Seriously – have I been that completely nonresponsive with a book in my hand all these years??) She is now outpacing me for the number of books read in any given month. And I’ve read seven so far in January! We haven’t reached the point where we can talk about books yet because our genres are entirely different. She likes light, escapist lesbian romances. I like tragic literary dramas with fucked-up characters that rip your heart out, throw it on the dismal worm-covered pavement after a rainstorm, and dance a jig of shame and degradation on it. You know…happy stuff. Books are my drug of choice. And the Minneapolis Public Library is a most excellent dealer!

9.  There are dogs in the White House again. And we all know that if a dog loves you, you can’t be a homophobic, narcissistic, racist, serial rapist. (Okay, so I am being told that statement may not be entirely technically correct, but my point stands. Dogs in the White House are a good sign of actual, authentic, fully formed human beings in the White House.)

10.  And finally, speaking of dogs, after two failed attempts to adopt puppies (we quickly discovered that puppy energy is entirely too much for our laid-back, bordering on comatose, family dynamic), we will be welcoming a new family member to our lazy fold on Friday. Meet Bleu!

She is a 72-pound border collie/Bernese mountain dog cross (we think) that was rescued from a breeder. She recently weaned her last litter of puppies. She is just the sweetest, most gentle girl. She has the most soulful brown eyes that look straight into your psyche, as if she sees every questionable decision and regrettable choice you have ever made in your life, and is saying, “It’s okay, Shannon. You tried your best. No one is perfect, but I see you. I see you striving to be better. And I will always love you for it.” Yep. That’s the conversation I had with her eyes. Verbatim.

Why I Refuse to Go Along to Get Along

Yesterday, my uncle posted this picture to Facebook. I did not immediately see it because, contrary to popular belief, I have a job and do not spend every waking moment on Facebook. My mother, however, has a lot of (too much?) free time on her hands and immediately noticed her big brother’s post.

Activate: Howler Monkey Mode.

Almost as soon as my uncle posted this picture to Facebook, my mother called me in full-on howler monkey mode. How dare he? How could he? What the fuck was he thinking? (Okay, the “fuck” may have not been a direct quote, but I definitely heard a fuck-y tone.) Needless to say, she was upset. And, like any loving parent, she took to Facebook to defend her children.

My mother has three lesbian daughters. She is, by far, the most supportive parent any gay girl could ever hope for. Seriously. She is a gay kid’s dream. Unfortunately, due to her all-encompassing love and support for her gay children, living in small-town Kentucky can be difficult for her at times. To say Owensboro is not the most progressive town in the world is a gross understatement. I’m proud of where I come from, but I left for a very real reason – as you will likely come to see in the course of this ranty blog post.

So I was not surprised when my mother called me yesterday. Nor was I terribly upset at the time. Hate speech is rampant on the internet, and haters are a dime a dozen. Was I sad that this particular picture was posted by a family member? Sure. Was I angry? Not right away. Honestly, I was busy. And I tend to dismiss my mother at times as an over-reactor. It’s an unfair characterization, but we all have pre-conceived notions about our parents that we re-think the older we get.

Then I read my mom’s response to his post. And I swelled with pride. There was my mom, smack dab in the middle of Trump country, calling out her own big brother for his ignorant, hateful attack on LGBTQ people. His attack on her own children. I knew this was not easy for her. I knew she would get grief for it. I knew she would eventually be forced to apologize for shit-stirring, though she was absolutely right in her response. I knew she would be pressured to go along to get along. I knew all of these things intrinsically.

My uncle knows a few things, too. He knows very well that my mother has lesbian daughters. He knows very well that his youngest sister has a gay son. He knows very well that his brother has a transgender son. He knows very well that his own deceased brother was gay and died of AIDS. He knows almost all of us LGBTQ family members left Owensboro because it was not a place we could live a healthy, happy life. He knows we were driven from our hometown because of the exact attitudes this photo represents. He knows all of this, yet chose to post a nasty, demeaning meme of Facebook.

And for what purpose?

To hurt? To belittle? To get a laugh? From whom?

I have to believe he did not mean to hurt my mother’s feelings. I have to believe that he did not mean to upset her to the point of activating her howler monkey mode. I have to believe he did not expect the backlash he received. I want to believe these things. But honestly, it doesn’t matter.

Words are powerful.

Words have consequences.

Regardless of my uncle’s motive for posting such an ugly meme – and honestly, I can’t fathom what it would be – it was hate speech. Plain and simple. My uncle called me a perversion. On Facebook. In public. For all to see. My uncle’s hastily, and probably mindlessly, shared post attacked me. It attacked my sisters. It attacked my wife. It attacked my children. It was deplorable, and I will not just “let it go.”

As you can imagine, the post did not go over so well with my mother. Or with me (eventually). A small Facebook feud ensued, with my uncle’s daughter and granddaughter calling me self-righteous and telling me to get over myself. His wife implored my mother and I to drop it for peace’s sake, arguing that it was a “difference of opinion.” One of my aunts evoked my late grandmother, declared that we were family, and asked that we all just get along. When a different uncle tried to comment on the issue this morning, he was shut down saying that the discussion happened yesterday and he had no right to stir the pot. My cousin texted me to ask me why I bothered engaging my uncle’s daughter, and indicated that he had to believe my uncle could change. My mother deleted her post.

What. The. Fuck.

For the record, we DO NOT have a difference of opinion.  You aren't allowed to have an opinion on who I love. You are not allowed to have an opinion of my family's right to exist. You do not get to have an opinion on whether or not I am a beloved child of God. 

Things that constitute a “difference of opinion:”

• Waffles versus pancakes (Waffles. Obviously.)
• iPhone versus Android (iPhone is trash.)
• Chinese take-out versus pizza (Asian food FTW! Always.)
• Star Wars versus Star Trek (Well, duh.)
• Dogs versus cats (Dogs. 100% dogs.)
• Scrambled versus sunny-side up (Depends on my mood.)
• Crocs versus adult shoes (No one over the age of 12 should wear Crocs!)
• Pepsi versus Coke (Diet Pepsi for life!)

Things that DO NOT constitute a difference of opinion:

• “My niece is a human being worthy of respect” versus “My niece is a perversion I can demean on Facebook whenever I feel like it”

Did anyone even see my uncle’s original photo? Does no one care that he personally attacked at least five members of our family and their spouses, parents, and children with his ignorant meme? We delete all evidence of it and just ignore his ignorance? We just let him get away with it so we can keep peace in the family? With our silence, we condone his comments?

Maybe I went too far calling my uncle a “Trump deplorable.” But I don’t think I did. This was not the first hateful post of his I’ve felt compelled to address. He posted hate speech against Muslims, and attacked my sister and her children when she told him that their father is a Muslim from Morocco. (I seriously doubt he has ever even met a Muslim person.) He inferred that the children in cages at the border deserve to be there until their parents “go back where they came from.” (Hmmm…that phrase sounds vaguely familiar this week.) He had the audacity to say to my mother, “I don’t mean to upset Shannon. You know I love your girls.”

Umm….yeah. Okay.

My family would like me to go along to get along. They would like the self-righteous Minnesotan to just shut up and take it. Be the bigger person, they say. But that’s bullshit. Intolerance and hate and bigotry should NOT be ignored. That is how it festers and grows. When we do not address hate speech head on and make the speaker accountable, these ideas spread. It may seem insignificant in the moment, but it grows exponentially. It balloons at a rate that is unfathomable. One only needs to look at how our country has changed in two and a half short years to realize this is an absolute truth.

Intolerance begets intolerance. Hate begets hate. When we allow someone to paint another human being as an “other” as my uncle’s ridiculous (and honestly, juvenile) meme did, it is easier to dehumanize that person. It is not a huge leap. It is a natural progression from dehumanizing words to dehumanizing actions. By attacking LGBTQ people (or Muslims, or immigrants, or brown people, or women), we set up a them versus us dynamic. They are not like us. They are different. They don’t deserve the respect we deserve because they do not look like us. Or sound like us. Or think like us.

Or love like us.

It is easier to turn our backs to injustice because it only affects “them” and not “us.” It becomes easier to refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple. It becomes easier to verbally abuse women in headscarves on city buses. It becomes easier to attack transgender children for their choice of bathroom. It becomes easier to say that a dead trans woman deserved it. It becomes easier to shoot first and ask questions later when a person has brown skin. It becomes easier to keep minorities “in their place” with policies that reward the greedy and victimize the poor.  It becomes easier to accuse people who disagree with us of being un-American. And it becomes extraordinarily easier to put little kids in cages.

Because they are not one of us. They are different. Strange. Unacceptable.

Perversions, even.

Do I think my uncle was thinking of me (or my sisters, or my cousins) when he posted this meme? No.  Do I think he meant to call me out personally? No. Do I think it matters?

Absolutely not.

I’m not going to just go along to get along.  I will not apologize. I will not keep the peace. I will not be a “them” to your “us.” I will not make anyone else a them. When I face my creator one day, she is going to know that I was not perfect, but I was not complicit either.

Call me self-righteous again.

Please.

The Struggle

It's hard to admit when you are struggling. It's hard to admit when things get hard. When the path you are walking suddenly veers sharply to the left. Through a dark wood. With overhung branches blocking out the warm rays of the sun. And crows.

(God, there are a lot of crows in my forest!)

I've always used this blog as a sort of therapy. First to talk about the struggles and joys of raising three young kids. Then to advocate for LGBT rights generally, and to discuss my gay marriage specifically. Then later to process my breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. Through the years, I have used this blog to entertain. To laugh with my friends. To commiserate. To find the silver lining in my notably normal life.

What I've never used this blog to do is to ask for help. I'm going to remedy that situation right now.

I don't need to tell anyone who has been affected by cancer - and way too many of my friends have been - that it is tough. It is difficult emotionally. Financially. Physically. It affects every relationship in your life. It depletes your spouse. It worries your children. It drains your parents. Some friends disappear. Others circle the wagons. The love and support is both sincerely appreciated and mildly suffocating.

While you are undergoing active treatment for cancer, people ask how you are doing. Often. Friends of your parents (who you have never met) tell you they are praying for you every week (in churches you've never attended). Your aunts send you cards. And blankets. And funny wigs. Your friends stop by with food. You are the center of attention in a way that makes you uncomfortable. You want nothing more in the world than to finish your treatment and get back to normal.

What no one tells you - or perhaps they try to tell you but you refuse to believe - is that your old normal no longer exists. There is no going back there because it has vanished. Gone. AWOL. Finished. You can search and search, but you're not going to find it. 

But that's not all. Not only is your normal gone.

So are you.

The you that existed for forty-four years - the only you you've ever known is your entire life - is also gone. The you that was comfortable in her own skin. The you who was finally becoming confident in her own thoughts and words.  The you who enjoyed a hard-scrabbled self-reliance and the fruits of an uphill battle for resiliency. She's gone.

Gone is the body that you knew inside and out. From the straight, oily hair on the top of her head down to the scar on the side of her left foot she procured when her sister pushed her down one day playing in the flood waters at the bottom of Holly Avenue. You knew her intimately. You knew her strengths and weaknesses. You didn't always like her, but you knew what to expect from her.

Yeah, that chick? She left the building.

She's been replaced with a person you do not know. A woman you probably would not befriend if you met her on the street. She's uncertain. She's timid. She suffers from cognitive deficits resulting from the powerful chemo she received that causes her to get confused sometimes. To say the wrong word. To call an item the wrong thing. To drive all the way across town with no memory whatsoever of driving there. As a result, she doubts her thoughts. She doubts her words. She doubts her intelligence - something she always took for granted. She was never the prettiest girl in the room, but dammit, she was smart. She was capable.

Now she is not sure who or what she is. Who or what she is supposed to be.

Ruanita tells me that I'm not the same person I was before. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to respond to that information. That woman is gone. She didn't leave a forwarding address. The me that remains is the only me I have left.

I often wonder if she's enough.

I realize that I am whining. This fact is not lost on me. As a matter of fact, I carry around a hefty little bit of guilt over this. How am I able to whine about all of this...shit...when so many women aren't here to complain? Aren't here to hug their children or kiss their spouses? How can I not be grateful for this second chance I've been given? How can I complain about what I've been through when so many families have been through the same with worse outcomes than mine?

I realize that I am one of the incredibly lucky ones. My story could have very, very easily gone the other way. December 30th will be the two-year anniversary of the end of my active treatment. That was my last day of radiation. I know that many (way TOO many) women do not get to celebrate a 2-year anniversary. So I do appreciate how very lucky I am. And I want to take my second chance and make it into something worthy of the good luck and love I have in my life. This is what I want more than anything, but here's the thing: I have NO idea how to get there.

Because my cancer was stage 3, was quite large, and affected all three levels of my axillary lymph nodes, I received chemotherapy first in an attempt to shrink the tumor and prevent any spreading prior to surgery. This is called neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The goal was to be as aggressive as possible. After I finished chemotherapy, I had a double mastectomy. Following my surgery, the pathology report was not great news. I had 28 lymph nodes removed during surgery. Of those, 14 were still found to be cancerous. Following surgery, I had radiation to the area, with the hope that it would eliminate any remaining cancer.

Today I am healthy and cancer free, but I am obsessed with those 14 lymph nodes. Cancer was still there after all that I endured during chemotherapy. It was still there. And I can't help but think that it had to go...somewhere. Nothing truly disappears. It's hard not to imagine microscopic cancer particles making their way into my liver. Or my bones. Or my brain.

When one thinks this way, every twitch becomes a death sentence. Every normal ache and pain of being 46 years old becomes an inevitable recurrence of cancer. Every day becomes THE DAY. The day the other shoe will most certainly drop. The day those 14 lymph nodes decide to rear their ugly heads once more. Its exhausting being so self-absorbed. Being so self-aware. It's obnoxious and selfish and makes me an incredibly uninteresting person to be around. I know all of this, but I can't seem to get out of my own head. 

This is my struggle.

I've begun seeing a therapist, but I think her sole purpose in life is to make me snot and blubber for 50 minutes straight. I leave her office with a pounding headache every time. I don't know how effective therapy will be at easing my mind or helping me to move past these circumstances, but I have promised myself I would keep an open mind. In the meantime, I am taking it day by day. 

So here is my request.

Please be kind to one another. There are struggles you may know absolutely nothing about.

BOOK REVIEW: Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orϊsha #1) by Tomi Adeyemi

You may have heard of this book. It has been heralded as the next Harry Potter. Adeyemi, a 23-year-old Nigerian-American first-time author and newcomer to the world of YA literature, received a seven-figure book advance and a movie deal for her debut fantasy novel – the first in a proposed trilogy. You may think to yourself, Seven figures? Could this book possibly be worth seven figures?? I am here to answer that question with a resounding “Yes!”

Children of Blood and Bone follows the story of Zélie Adebola, a strong, fearless young woman living in Orϊsha under the rule of a ruthless king. It is also the story of seemingly-docile Princess Amari who doubts her own inner strength and ability. And Amari’s brother, Prince Inan, who feels bound to family honor and duty to country.

The kingdom of Orϊsha used to hum with magic until King Saran ruthlessly destroyed it. Under his order, access to magic is cut off and the kingdom is purged of all the adult maji, leaving their children completely disempowered. Often referred to as “maggots,” their language and rituals are outlawed and those who have the potential to manifest magic—marked by their snow-white white hair and darker skin—are abused or enslaved. The Raid, as the purge of maji has come to be known, left Zélie without her beloved mother, who was hung from a tree in a fashion reminiscent of lynchings in the American south.

Zélie’s sense of loss and longing is palpable in Adeyemi’s writing, and will feel familiar to anyone who has lost a loved one.

I try not to think of her. But when I do, I think of rice. When Mama was around, the hut always smelled of jollof rice. I think about the way her dark skin glowed like the summer sun, the way her smile made Baba come alive. The way her white hair fuzzed and coiled, an untamed crown that breathed and thrived. I hear the myths that she would tell me at night. Tzain's laughter when they played agbon in the park. Baba's cries as the soldiers wrapped a chain around her neck. Her screams as they dragged her into the dark. The incantations that spewed from her mouth like lava. The magic of death that led her astray. I think about the way her corpse hung from that tree. I think about the king that took her away.

 

At the beginning of the book, Zélie stumbles upon a mystical artifact that may have the power to bring magic back. She has one shot – one chance in 100 years – and she is determined to strike out against King Saran and return magic to her oppressed people. With the help of her overprotective non-magical brother, Tzain, and a rogue princess, Amari – and on the run from a conflicted and dangerous Prince Inan, determined to earn the affection and respect of his cold-hearted father – she leaves home and begins a 500+-page adventure that kept me riveted from beginning to end.

This book is good. Really good, actually. It is well-written. The characters are great. It is fun. It is exciting. But beyond all of that, this book is important, and I’ll tell you why. Though every single character in the book is a person of color, I found myself imagining some of the characters as white people. The book is clearly set in an African-like imagined world and relies heavily on African terms and African myths. The characters even speak Yoruba, a real language spoken by the Yoruba people of Nigeria. Despite descriptions of clearly dark-skinned people, my brain still white-washed them. I’m not proud of this. I don’t like that I did this. I find it extremely distasteful, but my brain transposed white features onto people of color, nonetheless. And I think the reason I did this is because the books we read and the television we watch and the movies we view are all targeted toward a white-centric audience. It is ingrained in us from an early age that the heroes are white. (Black Panther aside [which was a phenomenal movie!], the new highly-hyped Marvel movie coming out this weekend is pretty dang white – and a little green if you count the Hulk.) Sure, you can argue that the media we digest today is much more diverse than it used to be – and that’s true – but we still have a long, loooooong way to go. And books like Children of Blood and Bone need to be published and consumed and enjoyed by all of us.

Children of Blood and Bone is a love story to African culture and people of color. The characters, despite being oppressed and denigrated their entire lives, are strong and resilient. Zélie and Amari, in particular, are stunning young women of extreme talent and ability. Both women start the book doubting themselves – unsure of who and what they are – and the reader watches them grow and mature and become forces with which to be reckoned. They take back dominion over their bodies and their futures. They become bad-ass women who change the world! Now that’s something I can definitely get behind!

In the author’s notes at the end of the book, Adeyemi says that this book was written at a time when “I kept turning on the news and seeing stories of unarmed black men, women, and children being shot by the police. I felt afraid and angry and helpless, but this book was the one thing that made me feel like I could do something about it.” She goes on to mention Jordan Edwards and Tamir Rice. Aiyana Stanley-Jones. Philando Castille. She ends her notes with the following call to action:

“We are all children of blood and bone.

And just like Zélie and Amari, we have the power to change the evils of the world.
We’ve been knocked down for far too long.
Now let’s rise.”

Children and Blood and Bone is a story about love. It is a family saga. A war story. An exciting adventure. A magical romp. A coming of age tale. A “BLACK LIVES MATTER-inspired fantasy novel.” The book seamlessly weaves West African mythology and spirituality with a newly created world that somehow manages to feel familiar to this Midwestern white chick.

Children of Blood and Bone is a call to action. One that you can’t help but feel compelled to answer.

And what about that stunning cover??

 

Circe by Madeline Miller

When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.

So begins the story of Circe, eldest and least favorite daughter of Helios, sun god and the mightiest of the Titans. Not pretty enough. Not clever enough. Unloved by both her powerful father and her alluring mother, Circe must find her own way in an unforgiving world.

Early in the book, Circe discovers that she has the power of witchcraft. One tragic act of love, followed by an ill-conceived act of jealousy that will haunt her throughout the book leads Zeus to banish Circe to the deserted island of Aiaia, threatened by her growing skills. There she hones her craft and comes in contact with some of the most famous names in mythology – Daedalus and his son Icarus, Medea, the Minotaur, Odysseus and Penelope, Hermes, and the powerful Athena.  

Her desire to protect what she loves the most leads to a final show-down with Athena. Circe must come to terms with her own power as a woman and as a god and decide, once and for all, where her loyalties lie. I’ll give you a hint.

You threw me to the crows, but it turns out I prefer them to you.

This was a fabulous book. I enjoyed Madeline Miller’s previous book, The Song of Achilles, but Circe won me over 100%. Perhaps it was because it was such a personal story – one woman’s journey – that it resonated with me so completely. We see Circe develop from an unsure, awkward, daddy-worshipping nymph to a strong, resilient, powerful witch. She is not perfect. She makes mistakes. But she rises above her shortcomings and embraces her power as a woman and as a witch.

It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures—flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment’s carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.

You do not have to be a lover of mythology to enjoy this book. The writing is stunning and there are so many quotable lines that I am in awe of Miller. For being a story about an immortal being, it is incredibly relatable. Circe’s is not a happy story – this is Greek tragedy, after all. You know when she is exiled to Aiaia that her life is not going to be an easy one. You want her to find love, to find happiness. But instead, she is dealt heartache after heartache. But it’s in that heartache that you see her character really develop. And watching her deal with adversity is what makes her story so very relatable – despite being a god. Despite being immortal. Despite being a witch. At heart, she is a woman who has been beaten down time and again by powerful men and a world order that values brute force over intelligence. That values beauty over strength. That values men over women. I don’t know a woman anywhere who could not relate to Circe’s struggles. To the unfairness of the cards she is dealt.

“It is not fair,” I said. “I cannot bear it.”
“Those are two different things,” my grandmother said.

But bear it, she does. The unfairness and everything else life throws at her.

I loved the relationships within the book, the best of which is the relationship between Circe and her son. Motherhood is described so perfectly in this book. It is not all happiness and light. Like all first-time mothers, Circe is ill-prepared for the truth of motherhood.

I did not go easy to motherhood. I faced it as soldiers face their enemies, girded and braced, sword up against the coming blows. Yet all my preparations were not enough.

Circe’s son is not an easy child. He screams incessantly. He never sits still. Though she is a god, he exhausts her to the depth and breadth of her being. No matter how ill-equipped she was for motherhood, however, the love Circe feels for her son is all-encompassing and something to which most parents can relate. The ferocity she feels as a mother was so intense that she thought it would surely be her undoing.

I would look at him and feel a love so sharp it seemed my flesh lay open. I made a list of all the things I would do for him. Scald off my skin. Tear out my eyes. Walk my feet to bones, if only he would be happy and well.

He was not happy. A moment, I thought, I only need one moment without his damp rage in my arms. But there was none. He hated sun. He hated wind. He hated baths. He hated to be clothed, to be naked, to lie on his belly, and his back. He hated this great world and everything in it, and me, so it seemed, most of all.

Have you ever heard a more eloquent description of the ferocious love and drowning uncertainty of parenthood? Miller described it perfectly. Remember that old saying about having your heart forever walking around outside your body? Circe got it.

My madness in those days rose from a new certainty: that at last, I had met the thing the gods could use against me.  

At its heart, Circe is a re-telling of classic mythology with a feminist slant. All of the characters – but particularly the female characters – are fully realized and perfectly written. There is love and madness and murder and mystery and mayhem and dysfunctional families galore, but ultimately, it is the story of one woman claiming agency in a world that has underestimated her from the beginning.

Pretty cool, huh?

Go read it. Now. You will not regret it.

Stumbling Around in the Fog

As of this writing, my last chemotherapy treatment was 20 months ago, but I am still finding myself heavily entrenched in the “chemo fog.” Though the term brings to mind cobblestoned alleyways in Victorian England filled with visibility-cloaking vapor and top-hatted gentlemen lurking in the shadows (that’s how everyone pictures fog, right?), the real deal is much less romantic. Much less mysterious.

 

Mayo Clinic defines chemo fog as: A common term used by cancer survivors to describe thinking and memory problems that can occur after cancer treatment. Chemo fog can also be called chemo brain, chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment or cognitive dysfunction.

 

Sounds delightful, huh?

 

During chemo, I spent so much time asleep on my couch, that the fog was not an issue. Then I had a bilateral mastectomy, and the all-encompassing pain of recovery trumped any cognitive concerns. Surgery was followed up by radiation, which again made the fog feel like nothing more than a mosquito bite on a burn victim. Then I had a second surgery to remove my ovaries. Again, I didn’t give a single passing thought to my thoughts.

 

But now that I am all done? Now that I am cancer-free and adapting to my new normal? The cognitive issues loom large in my mind. Literally and figuratively.

 

So what type of issues am I having, you ask?

 

I forget things. I sometimes forget things Ruanita says to me almost as soon as she says them. I forget to do things I tell the kids I am going to do, to their great disappointment. For the first time ever in my life, words are hard. I often find myself, in the middle of a conversation, saying a completely wrong word that has nothing to do with what I am saying. I think it is the right word – until it comes out of my mouth followed by an exclamation of, “What the hell?!” (Okay, full disclosure. Sometimes it’s, “What the fuck?!”) Or I can’t think of a common word at all. I will be in the middle of talking and will stumble over my words. I’ll have to ask, “Ruanita, what is the word I’m trying to think of?” Usually she knows. Twenty years of marriage has that effect. I also have trouble multitasking. If my attention is focused on one thing (reading a book, typing on my laptop), I cannot have a conversation. I can’t focus on more than one thing at a time. Driving is sometimes tough. If I am driving and talking to someone in the car at the same time, I tend to get rattled. Drive through stop signs. Stop in the middle of the street.  Not notice when the light turns to green. I get honked at a lot these days – I have no idea why. I let Ruanita drive more often lately when we are together, which is a huge concession on my part as I have always been the driver in our house and, frankly, Ruanita’s driving scares the holy shit out of me a tiny bit.

 

For someone who has always prided herself on her intellect, independence, and crafty turn of phrase, I am feeling particularly DUMB and USELESS lately. If my mind was intact, I could better deal with the changes in my body. But with the cognitive issues I’ve been having, it’s easy to feel like my body has forsaken me in Every. Single. Way. And. Means. Possible. (Geez – dramatic much, Shannon?)

 

Fear not, however. I have SCIENCE!

 

I just qualified to participate in my 4^th clinical study. This one is being sponsored by Wake Forest University and is looking at ways to treat the chemo fog in breast cancer survivors who are experiencing cognitive deficiencies as a result of the strong chemo drugs they use for breast cancer treatment.

 

I wasn’t sure I would meet the requirements, as I have tried to play off the cognitive issues as “not that bad” or “not too serious.” However, when my doctor recommended the study, I decided to at least see if I would meet the requirements.  

 

The assessment consisted of a very simple cognitive test. The study nurse read a list of 12 unrelated words. I was supposed to listen and then immediately repeat back as many words as I could remember. The cut-off to participate in the study was being able to repeat seven or fewer words from the list. Piece of cake! I focused intently – excited to prove to myself that I was still sharp. That I was still smart. That I was still me.

 

As the nurse read the words, I repeated them in my head. When she finished, I immediately repeated back the first four words from the list. Then I paused, wracking my brain to come up with the next word. I knew the 12^th word because it was the last word she had said and was the freshest in my memory. I sat and stared at her. I chuckled nervously. I thought and thought and thought some more. Nothing. In the end, I could come up with nothing more than the first four words and the last word – five in total. FIVE. Well below the seven-word cut-off.

 

Fuck. Me.

 

(Did I ever mention that cathartic cursing is a byproduct of cancer survivorship?)

 

I qualified. I am now officially a registered participant in Clinical Trial WFU97116 – A Phase 3 Placebo Controlled Clinical Trial of Donepezil in Chemotherapy Exposed Breast Cancer Survivors with Cognitive Impairment. What is Donepezil? It’s the drug used to treat….wait for it…this is exciting…Alzheimer’s Disease!

 

I am actually excited about the prospects of:

1. Finding some possible relief to my symptoms
2. Being able to once again pull appropriate words from the dark and dusty recesses of my mind rather than uttering the brilliant, “Ummm…uh…ummm”
3. Contributing to science in some sort of meaningful way that may help the women who come after me

It’s a double blind study, so neither I nor my doctor will know if I am getting Donepezil or a placebo. I suspect I might know if I get the study drug simply based on the side effects – nausea, possible vomiting, and diarrhea (tapering off as the body adjusts to the medication). I have a sensitive stomach, so if there are stomach-related side effects even in the itsy bitsy teeny tiny microscopic print, I will likely experience them.

 

I pick up the drug tomorrow and start it immediately. If I receive Donepezil and not the placebo, I fully suspect that I will be asked to join MENSA when it is all said and done. I expect to suddenly have a freakishly complete understanding of organic chemistry. And the words flowing forth from my lips will awe the likes of Zadie Smith and Ann Patchett.

 

On the off chance that I do not become a raging intellectual, I have started reading more and exercising as both are said to help with cognitive deficiencies.

 

You know, just in case.