Archive | June, 2012

Jodi Jaecks: breast stroke of genius

23 Jun

Jodi Jaecks, superstar survivor. Photo by Kelly O./ The Stranger

It’s been a big week for me with regard to breast cancer news. Not my own personal breast cancer news — nothing much has changed there — but stories I’ve reported on. First, my editors at msnbc/TODAY.com asked me to write about Jodi Jaecks, the Seattle breast cancer survivor who went up against the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department over her right to swim in their pools — sans bathing suit top.

Jodi, who I met up at Cancertown a few months back, had a double mastectomy in March of last year, followed by additional lymph node surgery and a few rounds of chemo. Like many of us, she’s now trying to reclaim her life — and her athleticism — while dealing with the nasty side effects of her treatment: namely lymphedema and chest wall neuropathy. 

Thanks to the lymphedema, a lot of activities are off the list. But swimming, a suggestion that came up during a post BC treatment support group we both attended, seemed like something that might be both active — and therapeutic. I’m not a swimmer (hate getting wet) but the thought of water splashing against my aching chest sounds incredibly soothing.

Jodi, who doesn’t wear prostheses and isn’t going in for reconstruction, checked out Medgar Evans Pool in Seattle’s Central District then — out of courtesy — told the pool people she would be swimming there without a top. When you don’t have boobs or nipples and you don’t feel the need to fake it, why bother, right?

Well, the Parks people decided they needed to think about that. Which they did for a couple of months, leaving Jodi twisting in the wind. Finally, a few weeks ago, they told her swimming topless (despite the fact she has no “top”) was unacceptable and that she had to wear “gender-appropriate swimwear.” I suggested she show up in some early 1900s Victorian swimsuit– complete with parasol — but she wisely decided to go to the Seattle alternative newspaper, The Stranger, instead. They broke the story this last Wednesday. By Thursday, her story had gone viral — hitting both local and national audiences (including my readers at msnbc/TODAY.com). By Thursday, the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department had also decided to change their tune. Now, not only Jodi can swim there topless, but other breast cancer survivors will most likely be able to do the same in days to come.

I know I’m supposed to be the ever-objective journalist but I’m also somebody who has to look at a surgery-ravaged body every day and tell myself that I’m okay, that I have nothing to be ashamed of, that I’m still beautiful and normal and acceptable. It’s not easy to do this, especially in a society where breast worship is practically an organized religion. Policies that make cancer survivors — or anyone who’s a little different — feel ashamed of their bodies and their determination to heal need to be identified and overhauled. And if necessary, just plain jettisoned. Jodi’s willingness to come forward and tell her story helped do just that.

“It started as a personal fitness issue but once they said no to me, it became a far greater overarching political issue,” she told me when I interviewed her. “Ultimately, I just want to remove the stigma that women with breast cancer have to endure.”

Cheers to that, my friend. Cheers to that. It’s hard enough facing the mirror — and the fear — without some bureaucracy making you feel like a freak. Breast cancer awareness isn’t about pink power tools and fun runs, people. It’s about knowing what a double mastectomy looks like. It’s about learning about the side effects of what is still an incredibly barbaric surgery. It’s about letting survivors do whatever they need to do to heal. Not off in some dark corner full of well-worn ribbons. But out in the light — where it counts.

One more note: I think it’s appropriate to send a shout-out to Christopher Williams, the superintendent of the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department (and a cancer survivor) who only found out about Jodi’s treatment this week but quickly took steps to right an egregious wrong.

Have you been discriminated against because of your breast cancer — or any cancer? If so, I’d love to hear about it.

Also, stay tuned for part two of my exciting breast cancer news-filled week, where I talk about my story regarding the new fat grafting method of breast reconstruction.

Kicking cancer’s sorry ass

10 Jun

I “celebrated” my one year chemoversary this week. Last year, on June 6, I was sitting in a blue Barcalounger up at Cancertown for the very first time, waiting for the nurses to flood my body with a deluge of drugs: some poisonous, some designed to help me withstand the poison.

Celebrate, of course, isn’t quite the right word. Who celebrates the onset of excrutiating bone pain, nausea, fatigue and hair loss? 

I am thrilled, of course, to be a year away from all of the pain and the powerlessness of last year’s chemotherapy. Although to be honest, I’m sort of going through it again now (sans the hair stuff) thanks to my latest obsession: boxing.

I’m not sure where my fascination with boxing came from. I used to work out at a gym where they had a speed bag tucked away in a far corner and I would play with it in between lifting weights and doing cardio, finally figuring out how to pummel the thing without having it pummel me back. It was therapeutic to pound away at all the stressors in my life — a cranky boss, a misogynistic coworker, a bad boyfriend.

After I quit the gym, I missed pounding away at the bag. So much so, that two decades later (at the age of 51 and a weight of about 190 pounds), I took a couple of boxing fitness classes at a Seattle institution known as Cappy’s. The class nearly killed me — I practically had to use the wheelchair lift to get on and off the bus afterwards — but I loved it. Unfortunately, my Achilles tendons didn’t. The jumprope warm-up exacerbated an old injury so I had to put my gloves on the shelf.

I didn’t shelve the exercise, though. I started walking and then running and then tap dancing and swing dancing. I also began watching what I put in my mouth and, to be honest, put a lot less in my mouth (I even managed to kick a lifelong friend — starchy carbs — to the curb). Within six months, I’d dropped 50 pounds and was feeling a lot better about myself and my body. At least, I was until I found a weird little tuck on one of my breasts.

Cancer had dealt me a firm left hook. And a right hook, as well, as it turned out. I had tumors in both my girls. But I made it through the surgery, the chemo, the radiation, and the recovery and now I’m hitting my one-year cancerversaries fast and furious.

You might even say, I’m knocking them out one at a time, thanks to the punches and combinations I’m learning in my new boxing class at Belltown’s Axtion Club.

That’s where I celebrated my chemoversary on Wednesday. And yesterday, I went back for my sixth session, an amazing feat considering that — just as before — the very first class nearly did me in. Each hour starts with an intense warm-up that begins with jumprope (my Achilles tendons have healed, apparently) and then folds in a slew of other exercises. There are footwork routines, medicine ball drills, punches and my personal favorite — one-handed push-ups. (The first time the trainer — a gorgeous South American demigod of a man — demonstrated these puppies, I nearly did a spit-take. Who does that?)

Thanks to the double mastectomy, the chemo, the radiation, and the fact I haven’t done a lick of upper body work for more than a year, I’m not even close to doing a one-handed push-up or these other ones that involve twisting one leg into some ungodly froglike position. I’m barely able to do two-handed push-ups. Girly style. But I give them my all. Ditto for the rest of the warm-up and the sparring that comes later. And so far, I haven’t embarrassed myself too much. Or at least I haven’t thrown up in class (according to the trainer, it’s happened).

But it ain’t easy. Nor pretty. Not knowing what I was in for, I wore makeup to my first class and by the end of the hour, my eyes were burning from a steady, sweaty stream of foundation and mascara and eyebrow powder (chemo took my brows so if I want ’em, I have to paint ’em on). These days, I go to class with only a hint of lipstick and not much else (yes, people, I am clothed). I even wear a headband, Olivia Newton-John style, because I’m such a Sweaty Betty, either due to the incredible workout my out-of-shape body is getting or the tamoxifen I take every day (it doesn’t give me hot flashes, but I’m definitely feeling the occasional hot flush). 

At the end of the hour, my head and body are sopping wet, my face is flushed and puffy and I look like a small, sweaty version of Billy Crystal, thanks to the out-of-control chemo curls. But I don’t care. Despite my long standing position as a girly girl, despite my overwhelming urge to “pass” (and trust me, the missing eyebrows are a dead giveaway), I’ve decided I’m not there to look pretty. Or normal. Or nice. I’m there to learn how to box. I’m there to get strong. I’m there to do whatever I can do to kick cancer’s sorry ass.

Am I crazy for pursuing a sport that makes me feel as nauseous, as fatigued, as overwhelmed by pain as the chemo I went through last summer? Maybe. It does feel strikingly similar to the infusion aftermath we all know so well, particularly a chemo session capped by one of those nice juicy Neulasta shots. You know, the ones that give you instant arthritis in your hands and feet.

The day after each boxing class, my hands ache from the punches I’ve given (and received). My arms can barely lift the blow dryer to dry my hair (ah, but what a miracle it is to have hair). It even hurts to pull my pants up after I pee. I’m beaten down, I’m bruised, I’m once again grabbing the furniture to hobble around my house. But then I take a few Ibuprofen and drape my body in ice packs and soak in a hot, hot bath filled with Epsom salt.

And then I get back up and do it again a couple of days later. Just as I did with the chemo. Just as we all do. Except this time, I’m going through the pain by choice. And this time, it’s not making me weaker, it’s making me stronger. This time, I’m transforming my body on my terms — through strength and endurance and sheer will as opposed to a surgeon’s scalpel. And this time, I can stop whenever I want. It’s just that I don’t want to stop — not yet anyway.

Not until I can get my scarred and poisoned and radiation-ravaged body to squeak out at least one of those wacky one-handed push-ups. Not until I can pound out a bit more of my grief and frustration and fear and, yes, pure unadulterated rage at being sucker punched by cancer.