She gazed, unfocused, through the scratchy thick airplane window. She pressed her body against the curved exit row wall, her paperback open to the chapter she left off cradled in her breasts. Her seat mate did not accept the invitation of quiet, and continued to tell her about himself through wine and hours-old cigarette breath. No escape.

A tattered boarding ticket turn bookmark fell from her book on to the cheap airline carpet. She picked it up from its backside and read the print: Please Retain As Evidence Of Your Journey. She read it again and again like a mantra. Middle-seat man continued on; she politely nodded occasionally then returned to the mantra. She looked at her hands, now showing signs of age. She looked at the scar on the top of the back of her hand; monkey bars, fourth grade, five stitches. She looked at her slightly twisted right pinkie finger; horse accident. She looked at the tattoo on the inside of her wrist that reads, “courage” surrounded by a turquoise and blingly horseshoe. She did this just before her year of treatment so she would remember to be brave. It bled, then scabbed, then scared, then healed, then became beautiful.

Recently, she had been reflecting on the various journeys we all take and the battle scars–both good and bad–left in the wake. This ironic fortune cookie arrival of philosophy on that boarding pass made her laugh as if God was doing Stand Up comedy. Soon after, she went shopping for a grown up girl suit, choosing the Hugo Boss section at Sax. When the size 6 pants easily zipped up and fit perfect she squealed with delight like a 13 year old in her first prom dress. Two years ago she wore a size 22. Through tears, she shared this with the saleswoman. The saleswoman blinked her milky eyes and asked her, “Oh, will you have to get surgery now to remove the excess skin?”

“No” she said, “I will retain as evidence of my journey.” Her heart smiled and she meant it.

There once was a little girl that kept bumping into objects because her focus was always backwards. She made mistakes. She broke things because she was clumsy. Her father yelled at her; she began walking on eggshells. Soon her feet had trouble maneuvering the fragile shells and she became awkward; too aware of the space she was taking up. She began looking over her shoulder to make sure she didn’t tip things over as she passed by. This became habit. Habit became psychology.

She entered a dream world best satisfied in fantasy. She found solace diving in to her backyard pool where she would swim underwater for hours. The aqua silence comforted her loud self-doubting thoughts. She swam until her hair was chlorine green and her skin was pickled. In the water, she was a sleek mermaid, yet athletic, a strong princess of her domain. The water was void of bumps and humps. There was no bumping and breaking objects.

When the girl grew up, she abandoned the water but not the habit of looking back instead of forward. She missed so much of the present. She looked back so much that the years flew by like a deck of cards being shuffled. Each year folding upon itself.

Until she got sick for over a year and her body yanked her into the present like a wise crone shaking her shoulders, “wake up! wake up! life is short. life is short.” The girl-woman rubbed the sand out of her eyes. Her twisted backwards neck released slowly. She held her head up straight and ahead, taking deep breaths. She is simply looking, both at the now and towards the future. It’s remarkably bright — a bright aqua marine sparkly bright. She remembers the water, but not as escape, she hears and embraces its floatiness.

Release.
I made it. I completed 48 weeks of treatment. The last shot and the last meds was on May 3. I threw my hands up in the air and yelped loudly in the Doc’s office. More than likely, I scared the other patients. Hopefully, my ear-to-ear toothy grin showed them my scream was that of joy not pain.

Let go. Breath deep: in and out. That’s what I kept thinking then and keep thinking now. When I climbed into my F150 in the parking lot, heaving tears poured out of me and I prayed right there, lightly grasping on to the antique cross and horseshoe that hangs from my mirror. My entire body cried; my entire body released the dark 48 weeks prior.

I ran my shirtsleeve over my eyes and nose, then gulped my water before starting up Jillie — her full name is Jillie, the Ford F150 Filly. I drove straight to see my mares, Mustang Sally and Mimi. I cried into their manes and kissed their velvet noses.

Mustang Sally is here giving me love back. She is magic. She and Mimi truly healed me.

To quote Winston Churchill:

There’s something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.

Sweat.

In my life pre-all this I used to make excuses not to exercise. The cure? Take it away for a year. I was too fatigued, or too sick, or too dizzy to work out. I would look longingly at joggers and observe their freedom to simply move and sweat. This simple change of perspective radically changed my view on exercise.

So, with newly flushed-red cheeks and sweating, I look at myself and say, “welcome back.”

Spirit.

There is always a gift through every journey. My gifts are many and I am reborn with gratitude, joy, and a deep sense of cherishing the moment. Oddly, I am grateful for the horrible experience because I found out who I am by finding my true spirit. I have a cowgirl spirit and I promise to never forget her again.

Music deeply moves me; it has played an important role in my life since I was 13 and bought my first album. During this time of my life, on my incredibly difficult yet somehow wonderful journey, I’ve needed music. I turn to many genres: rock, country, gospel, alternative, folk, r&b and soul.

Mary J. Blige has sung to me many times since the release of her album in January: Stronger With Each Tear. The title alone grabbed me at my throat. When I ripped off the cellophane seal and popped the newly opened CD into my truck’s CD player, her voice washed over me like wave. I had to pull over to listen and cry when I heard the title track’s song. These words have meant everything to me and I hold them in my heart every day:

Tears by Mary J. Blige

You’re much stronger than the struggle you go through
You’re not defined by your pain so let it go
You’re not a victim, you’re more like a winner
And you’re not in defeat, you’re more like a queen

In each tear there’s a lesson
Makes you wiser than before
Makes you stronger than you know

And each tear brings you closer to your dream
No mistake, no heartbreak
Can take away what you’re meant to be

I anxiously await the next three weeks. I will be done with treatment. I will have survived getting sick for 48 weeks. I will be a survivor and will no longer be defined by my illness and my chemo. I am powerful and each tear has made me stronger than I ever thought possible.

Lonely Street

Being Sunday, I woke late. I craved more sleep, but knew that chores needed to be done to prepare for the coming rain. Sunday can be a good health day for me because most of the harder treatment medication is nearly out of my system. I do my chemo shot on Monday evenings and start all over again. However, this weekend I’ve been on “blood transfusion” alert because I’ve dropped back to the white blood count danger zone so I’m not feeling or moving that well. So this particular Sunday morning, I longed to say, “Honey, can you please make the coffee this morning? I’m not feeling my best.” I ached to say this simple sentence.

I pulled myself out from under the fluffy down, gave Olive and Jack morning greetings, and padded down the cold wood hallway. I winced when I noticed an unusual amount of dust bunnies and Olive hair on the wood floor illuminated in the morning sun. I let the dogs out in the backyard to the relieve themselves. I fumbled with the coffee pot and while brewing, I stepped into my small backyard. The cloudless sky gave no indication of the el nino rain storms predicted to come our way. Coming back into the kitchen, I saw my large stockpile of recycling tumbling over itself. My heart just cracked like a dry desert floor that hasn’t felt rain in years. No partner, no team, have I to occasionally lean to for help. It’s just the recycling! I say aloud. But it’s also the trash, the dog poop in the backyard, the housecleaning; these are the symbols of loneliness: the little stuff.

Grateful Street

I turned my truck left into the barn, and rolled down the window as I passed the arenas. I smelled the horses, dirt, pine, eucalyptus, and timothy, and felt my nerves thaw. I heard the soft whinnies of the horses and my heart warmed. A smile crept across my face; like an excited child on Christmas, I couldn’t wait to park and see my horses.

We’re expecting two weeks of rain, which is hard on horses. If they were out in the wild, they’d keep moving which would be natural. However, when horses are in a barn or a stable environment, they’re confined more then they’d ever choose to be which is as not as enjoyable for them. I lunged Mimi to make sure she got some energy released, then put both Mimi and Mustang Sally in the bigger arena so they could mill around and play. Lunging Mimi nearly caused me to faint so I had to move slowly and carefully. I mucked both of their stalls and added extra pine bedding to help keep things dry. I love this kind of work. Granted, it took me more than twice as long because I had to move so slow because of my dizziness and nausea, but slowing down and doing things purposely has taught me a powerful lesson of staying present and remaining mindful.

By late afternoon the rain began to softly come down; like a Seattle rain, or a feminine rain. I brought Mustang Sally back to her stall, gave her carrots and love. Her bright, clear, brown eyes sparkled at me and she nuzzled in to my belly. I hugged her thick neck and began to quietly weep into her soft coat. She stood patiently while I let my gratitude-tears wet her neck mimicking the rain. I took a deep breath in and released my earlier loneliness.

No, you can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
And if you try sometime you find
You get what you need

– Lyrics by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards from “You
Can’t Always Get What You Want”

Dread, well-mixed with terror, washed through me. I feared for my life but I knew not why. With a horrified scream, I crashed to the floor, bringing my boy dog, Jack Bauer, with me. I was holding on tight to him. As before during my nightmares, my girl dog, Olive, sat painting loud next to the bed, watching me close with her piercing green eyes. I could see the “what is wrong with my master and how do I protect her?” in her eyes. Jack Bauer stayed close and was doing his job of comforting me; Olive, the protector, Jack, the comforter. I had been having nightmares. Someone else’s nightmares.

Thirteen hours earlier, I was at the Women’s Cancer Center having a blood transfusion. I decided to dress up! Hail yeah! I wore bright red lipstick, my best red cowboy boots and polished up my silver jewelry. I spent extra time on my sparse hair and pressed my white blouse. Why give up, even on my shittiest days?

I watched the blood bags slowly deflate. I followed the long narrow plastic tube with my eyes to its end: my vein. I received blood for six hours; it goes slow. Drip, drip, drip. A blood transfusion is not just a matter of matching your blood type to a donor’s blood; antibodies are checked to make sure there won’t be a rejection. For me, this pre-step underscored the obvious reality that a stranger’s blood was entering my bloodstream and mixing with my blood. Occasionally during my long day, I shivered at this.

Leading up to my transfusion, my side effects went into overdrive. I was so dizzy and weak I could barely walk without holding on to a wall or anything to nearby to steady myself. I had fainting spells, nausea, and limb numbness so radical that I lost control of my hands and feet. Finally, the doc’s and I found out that my white and red blood counts dropped dangerously low and I needed a blood transfusion to get me right again.

And now I’m mostly right. Going forward, I have to go in and get infused with a drug called procrit once a week to keep my blood counts up. It mostly works, but not all the way. I may need to supplement with more blood transfusions. I check my levels once a week. I’m a pin cushion!

But alas, like any good cowgirl will repeat to herself:

Even though you’ve been bucked, kicked, bit and stomped…

Never Give Up

She runs through the woods barefoot, in hand-me down clothes that are slightly too large and colors that have long lost their original shade. Her skin is smudged with dirt and dotted with freckles. She is as fast as her brothers and catches up swiftly. Together, they reach the ridge, strip off their shirts and dive into the strip mine pond, laughing and splashing in the rusty water. They welcome the cool relief of the water. The brood cools down from Ohio’s unbearable humid mid-summer day until the hunger pangs from their empty bellies pull them out of the pond. They crawl up the mud path, retrieve their shirts and walk to the small town barefoot. They have no money, but they hope to coax a day old baked treat out of the local bakery; the head baker has a soft spot for the hungry, dirty kids.

Jenny is naturally athletic like her brothers and prefers the adventures of outdoors to being inside with her sisters. The clan grew up in the coal rich, but poor part of the Ohio Valley, at the triangle point of Wheeling, West Virginia and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The round the clock mining allowed a heavy soot to hang in the air under the clouds.

Jenny’s oldest brother is my father. He is the oldest of fourteen children. Jenny is in the middle. My father never knew indoor plumbing until he went into the Army at age 18; they were that poor. Like most of the men in the Valley, my grandpap was a coal miner. Coal was heavily mined in their part of Ohio, and those who didn’t work in the coal mines, worked the steel mills in Pittsburg. It was long, hard, dirty work. Although my grandpap lived a fairly long life, he died of black lung, a common coal miner’s plight.

Jenny grew up active and remained so all of her life. She never smoked, drank only moderately, and never had a ounce of extra weight on her. After she got married, she settled in Kentucky, not far from her childhood home in the Ohio Valley. She played tennis, golf, and worked out. Aunt Jenny died on Thanksgiving of lung cancer. Lung cancer. Lung. Cancer. It was the coal. It was what we did to the earth to mine the coal. It was just innocent, poor, children playing…

Jenny, I see your spirit and your smile. I will miss you. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry. May God carry your soul.

Her bald, red, craggy head dips into the dead carcass and feeds. She hunches over; scans the surrounding area with her keen black eyes for predators before ripping more rotting meat from her find. Pieces of stiff hide fall away in the dirt. Smelling first and then hearing a nearby jogger, she lifts away flapping expansive black-brown and gray wings lacking style and finesse. She catches a thermal and soars high away from danger; her small belly full of rotting dead meat. She perches her chicken feet on a telephone pole stares at the dead animal below. She does not return to it.

She leaves the telephone pole and settles on sharp boulder higher up on the ridge. She can hide well here. She balances; shoulders up high around her bald blood stained neck. She sits alone. Soon she will be joined by others of her kind. She closes her wet dark eyes and vomits up small bones that she accidentally ingested with her earlier feed. Vomit and blood dots her mahogany colored feather belly; she makes no effort to groom. Vultures do not care about such things.

If I were asked to give a name to the darkness I feel with my treatment, I would name it the Vulture. I watch the vultures at the barn, flying clumsily among the magnificent hawks and eagles. And while I long to soar with the beautiful red tail hawks, I’m limited to flying wounded. Darkness wraps it scaly fingers around my neck at times when I’m overwhelmed with sickness. I look to the sky and see the vultures, but force myself to look beyond them to the strong hawks and eagles soaring.

In addition to my doctor team, my horses have been my healers, my touchstones, my spirit guides.

I see them almost every day, except the day after my chemo shot when I can’t pick my head up off the pillow. Many days, I have about two to four good hours a day if I’m lucky; other days I’m not so lucky. On those days when I’m feeling up to it, I ride Mimi. Sometimes I’ll whisper in her ear and ask her to carry me because I’m weak and dizzy, and she does skillfully. And I slowly walk my baby girl, Mustang Sally, around, take her for a big long turn out, and back for lunch. I sit outside her stall and listen to her baby teeth rhythmically chew her hay. I breathe her baby horse smell in, and exhale a simple joy out. I read and have my lunch next to her. I look out to the brown dirt dry hills past her stall, typical terrain for late Southern California summer. I focus on a parched California oak; I know this tree will change. I look at this tree everyday as a symbol for my own health. It’s hot, dry and rough now, but seasonal change is on the horizon.

Each week, I battle a new and sometimes very odd side effect of my chemotherapy program. It is, as the saying goes, a cure that is harder than the disease. As with any drugs, doctors are obligated to detail every side effect that may occur from taking the medication, and it is couched with words like, “in extremely rare cases….” or “one in five hundred people could possibly experience….” So we listen like good pupils and weigh the risks versus the rewards and go forward because we want to get better, and because our doctors and second opinion doctors are reassuring.

Feeling Funky

It started with what I expected: fever, chills, and flu-like symptoms after my chemo shot for about 3 days. I also started with 6 pills a days, for 7 days a week, as part of the cocktail. This kept me in a low grade funk of extreme fatigue and dizziness that I had to work hard to push through. Depression is a side effect of said cocktail so I was advised to move and get air even when I feel like, as my mama says, “that I’ve been drug through a sick cow backwards.”

Swallowing Swords

Within a month or so, I developed lesions and ulcers all over my tongue and throat which pretty much felt like swallowing razor blades. I had two swish and swallow two medications that cleared that up in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately though, I have moved yeast into my esophagus (ahm, yuck). I have a horrid taste in my mouth that no amount of teeth brushing seems to budge; picture eating soap and washing it down with rotten milk. I am now on a different medication to clear this before we go to a more aggressive method.

See Spot Run

My eyes have been bothering me, so Dr. A sent me to the eye doctor, since, you got it, retinol problems are a side effect! Dr. Mac finds some spots on my eyes, so he sends me to a retinol specialist. Dr. Norm finds cotton wool spots on each eye. I looked at him through my dilated pupils trying to blink into adjustment and asked, “What word are you saying?” Yep, he is saying cotton wool spots. Sounds so simple, almost cute, but they can cause permanent vision loss. As a result, I go see Dr. Norm monthly to see if I’m growing anymore cotton wool in my eyes.

Lobster Girl

I love my hands, but not because I find them attractive. I love them because they are one of my most cherished gifts. I use my hands to create art, to write, to ride my horse, to love and groom my horses, to love my dogs, to cook, and thousand other things that make living exceptional. To be sure though, I am most grateful for the ability to create and to ride. My hands cramp up into “lobster” claws, and I need to press them on a hard surface to unwind them. I never know when this is going to happen and I hide it when it does. To the on-looker it may appear as if I am merely leaning over to make a point. No, I am unwinding my claw hands! I giggle inside when I do this, because so much is happening, I must laugh. I must laugh. Laughter will see me though.

Why Can’t She Smile?

Connected to my Lobster Girl Hands, is a problem with my jaw. My jaw tightens up so tight it feels like someone has wound it up like a fly fishing reel way too tight and it sends shooting pains up to my head. I am on a medication and a natural enzyme to manage this, and it mostly works.

Channeling Charlotte York

There lots more little every day stuff too, like severe fatigue, extreme dizziness, and skin rashes. But the most embarrassing, horrifying, and appalling incident that happened was two weeks ago when I shat my pants! Yes! I said it! Like when Charlotte, in the Sex in the City movie, shat her pants in Mexico and finally made Carrie laugh, as did I. Both shat and then laughed. I only laughed though after much time had passed.

Holding My Head Up

My illness and my treatment is a gift. My faith is reawakened and therefore deepened. I know now that our time here is merely pending and we need to make vital choices that make our quality of life beautiful, not only for our health, but for our spirits, our hearts, our emotional wellbeing, and for those that we love. Everything matters. Every choice and decision matters and ripples out like a pebble thrown into a still lake. So I put one foot in front of the other, hold my head high, thank God as frequently as possible, and cry into the necks of my horses when I need to. And I’m keeping the faith!

The hard dirt crunches under my dusty well-worn boots. I remove my hat and wipe the sweat and dirt from my brow. I gulp from my water bottle, it’s warm and not refreshing, but I gulp it down anyway. Thirsty, then satisfied. The water spills down on to my chin and neck. I mop my mouth with the back of my hand and keep walking down the dirt path. A rabbit zig zags in front of me before taking cover under bush. The sun beats hot on the back of my neck. My jeans are heavy and sticky against my legs. I look to the blue cloudless sky and see a large hawk competing in the thermals with two turkey vultures. The hawk will win, by sheer confidence alone. I breathe in deep and smell horses, manure, pine bedding and hay. This olfactory delight is holy water for my soul. This is my sanctuary; this is my church. This is what gives me strength to go on: I am with my horses.

Fine dirt settles on my bare arms. I am the opposite of glamorous and I feel my old attachments to silly things like Prada, Furla and Chanel slip away. I don’t remember that old self very well. In fact, my old self with attachments at all seems trivial. Now, I find I love my frayed jeans and dirty working boots.

I am scared beyond words at times. Will I get better? Will I have a full day of energy again? Can I make it through the side effects? Can I make it through the pain?

I crave companionship during my struggle. I wish I could be held at night. I squeeze back my tears of loneliness and try to face this alone. No one is here…no one really knows the depths of my fear or the ache of my loneliness.

Most days, except for chemo days, I go to my sanctuary to ease my heart and replenish my waning strength. I cry into my horse’s necks and kiss their velvet noses. I ask them to carry me some days; and some days, just ask them to carry my heart. And they always, always do.