Do You Wanna Touch Me There...on my C2 and C3 Vertebrae?

I am not a huge fan of Gwyneth Paltrow, but I am loving her Glee character, Holly the over-the-top crazy substitute teacher. I am going to miss Glee next week as I will be under the knife and in anesthesia la la land but this video definitely made me smile. Also, loving Glee's newest cast member, Ashley Fink as zaftig badass goddess Lauren and definitely a good inspiration for BBWW (Big Beautiful White Women) everywhere (Also, don't you just love the word "zaftig"? Very 1920s.) You can't go wrong with Joan Jett and sexual education...all righty, Glee, you are winning me back as a fan.

Some of this I've already written about on my CaringBridge site, but I tend to be a little blunt here. The whole world can't handle abrasive Ginny all the time. *wink* I'm preparing for the home stretch. I go into the hospital on Monday for my Neurovascular test then afterwards that I am ADMITTED. Admittedly (pun intended), I have been a little nervous. I've never stayed in the hospital over night. I think when I had my deviated septum surgery, I was outpatient that afternoon. But this time, it will be Ginny's week-long adventure at the hospital. Bring the camera and the fanny pack! Honestly, I don't know what to prepare for or pack, despite the fact that a very nice PA went over everything in my pre-op consult today and I have handouts and all that. I'm thinking books, ipod, shower shoes, and pajama bottoms. I'm a terrible packer in these kind of situations. It's a little overwhelming.


I admit: I am scared about fusing some of vertebrae together - C1 and C2 and C3, I believe. I've known about it since my diagnosis, but I'm terrified of my body changing. I understand it's a small price to pay for beating cancer, but still. I will lose some of my range of motion for a while. I should gain most of it back, being able to turn my head side to side and touch my chin to chest (important for singing and acting warm-ups and stretching), I won't be able to lift up my neck too far to look up. Which how often does anyone do that anyways?Well, I never had that double pirouette to begin with and I guess I never will now, haha. Time to let that dream float away. *wink* It's unnerving, knowing that my body will change a lot in the short term and a little in the long term. But I keep reminding myself, that it will all be for the best.

Despite the fact that I've felt very good the past few days, I was so exhausted today. NEWSFLASH: Cancer makes you tired for no reason at all. They did take a lot of blood samples from me, so maybe that's why. Or maybe I had too much fun when my cousins came over and played Jungle Speed and joked around with me last night. Maybe I'm just anxious and nervous. The most important part of a musical or play is the climax of Act I, and this surgery is my climax. So what does Act II hold in store?...it's a mystery! I better come back after the intermission. ;)


So I get admitted Monday. Surgery is Tuesday. From what I understand I'm going to have enough wires and tubes in me that I'm going to resemble Robocop. But I'll be under the whole time, so I won't even remember. Thank goodness for anesthesia and modern medicine. Depending on how things go, I may spend some time in the ICU, depending on my condition and if my plastic surgeon decides to wait a bit before reconstructing. Each doctor has to go in and do their part. Tuesday is going to be a doozy for my family and friends, but I won't remember any of it. I will probably have a neck brace temporarily. And then off to my hospital room to recover and from then on...who knows?

I have been wearing a ton of scarves lately, not just for style but I am a little self-conscious about my super swollen lymph nodes and I'm sure I will be swollen and bruised and stitched up afterwards. I'm not sure if I'm ready to wear my battle scars with pride yet. My soon-to-be Aunt Patti got this awesome scarf holder from Ikea for Christmas and I think I'm gonna need one after all the scarves I've found and been given. I tried to find it on the website but of course everything has a Swedish name (I call it the Scarfenblurgen), so I had to look on ebay. If you have a lot of scarves, this thing is awesome.


Also, just found out that my phone upgrade has come up and since mine is a piece of poo and doesn't like to receive calls and I want to hear from all of you, I might bite the bullet and get the Iphone since Verizon has it now. And maybe find out what this Angry Birds thing is all about.


Remember to think of me on the 8th. I won't be awake, but you all will be! When I am lucid and stabilized, I will have my laptop and be able to give updates. Thank goodness for Duke Hospital wireless internet! 

Generosity

Braden and I and the family got really lucky this weekend in that some friends generously showered us with gifts. His co-worker gave us a $100 gift certificate to Acme Restaurant, a very upscale place in Carrboro with upscale prices. So we were able to get dressed up and have date night on Saturday without having to worry about finances or cancer for a few hours. We both ordered special cocktails (don't worry, I made sure to avoid taking the narcotics in the evening), had THE MOST AMAZING calamari and Asian salad (seriously we would go back just for that.) He had the wild boar and venison pasta (manliest pasta ever!) and I had the crabcakes. I wish we could have gotten desserts but we were stuffed. We even had a little left over, so we can have another date night there sometime in the future.


Sunday, one of my parents friends gave us tickets to see "In the Heights" and we got the VIP parking, Presidential Lounge privileges, 5th row seats and the show was really awesome. I was not very familiar with the show or the music, but it's one of the best contemporary musicals I've seen in a long time. Better than Wicked or Spring Awakening or Rent (which I guess is a relic now). It's about life in a Spanish neighborhood in Washington Heights and the American dream and family and love across race and somehow brings all those themes together without being schmaltzy. The relationship between the dad and his daughter Nina reminded me a lot of my dad and I, and it just goes to show, that so much reality crosses racial lines. The music is inventive, Latin sounds and hip-hop with a Broadway twist. Also the choreography is AMAZING. I was jealous watching it. Those dancers put me in awe, but then again all professional dancers do. So if "In the Heights" comes to your neighborhood, go see it! 100% worth it.


The generosity made me feel like a princess with perks this weekend, but it certainly doesn't outweigh the cons. Today, I had to consult with the chemotherapy doctor. Basically, we will not know until after the surgery exactly what kind of sarcoma I have until they run the pathology tests since they are a very rare cancer (1% of all cancers are sarcomas). It could be a "child/young adult" sarcoma or an "adult" sarcoma and that affects the type of treatment I will have post-surgery. We talked about clinical trials. Side effects of chemotherapy. And the possibility of my wedding in May started to evaporate. My brain shorts out. I try to control myself, but I get snippy and teary and I have trouble processing all this new information on top of old information. I know I have to adapt; the counselor told me that. But it's my G-D wedding, it's a tough thing to let go of. (Yes, wedding is still on, it just depends on what happens post surgery)

In general, I cope with this by living moment to moment, day by day. I cannot think about "what ifs" and hypothetical because there is so much information out there my brain would explode. And I guess that's why people applaud me in appearing so strong and courageous. But doctors don't do that. They have to go over all possible scenarios. They have to present you with all the options. The "what ifs" have to be explored. They have no choice but to tell you "the scary stuff". Everything has to be put on the table and my parents always ask a million (granted, legit) questions so I always leave the clinic feeling like someone took a hammer to my brain. It's easy, in a way, to take things one day at a time. It's harder to process the unknown.


My grandma Barbara was breast cancer survivor for 27 years. She got it the first time when she was 38. She dealt with it 3 times until it finally took her down in 2003. She passed when I was 17, but we were very close. I remember her being a strong, spiritual woman. She was a woman who valued her friends and life that she was given. She loved her family. I know she is looking down on me and is still in my heart, but there must have been times when she was at home and was angry and yelled "CANCER SUCKS." She hid that kind of stuff from my dad and my aunt and from us grandkids (I mean, this was a woman who hid the cigarettes behind her back when we walked into the house. Grandma, bless your soul, but we saw the ash and the smoke raising behind your head). And I wish she was still alive so I could ask her, "what did you do when you were frustrated with God, with the pain, with everyone, with life and you just wanted to scream about your life being turned upside down?" I would give a lot to be able to talk to her again.

A Cancer Clusterf**k

I did not know this but today I found out that the ribbon that represents sarcoma patients is yellow with a sunflower. This makes me happy because in spite of my illness, I have been wearing a lot of bright colors recently (instead of the brown and purple and deep jewel tones I usually wear. I've always been rather anti-pastel. I mean, my wedding colors are red, white and black. No lilac here!). I wore a bright yellow sweater and red sundress with flowers for Valentine's Day. Gotta love 65 degree weather in February in North Carolina! In spite of it all, bright colors cheer me up. 

I did some major post Valentine clearance shopping and got this giant heart pillow at Target. Not only does it make me smile, it's actually quite comforting to my neck. :)

But some days, cancer effing sucks. Today was a decent relaxing day. I had a routine gyno appointment and my gynecologist used to be a womens' oncologist so she had very positive things to say. She's always been an approachable doctor so I felt very reassured leaving with my mom. I then went to the salon to talk to my hairdresser about the cancer situation and what to do with my hair for the portrait and the wedding. She said that I have so much hair that a little shaving from the surgery won't make a difference (luckily it's on the side of my neck and base of my skull, so I won't lose too much hair during surgery). So I made the happy Caringbridge website, the social site for cancer patients.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ginnybuckner

But yesterday was a complete clusterf**k.

First of all, I did not sleep well because I was nervous about meeting with the oncologist and CT scan results. Oncology is cancer, and that means it's real. Time to man up, Ginny and face the truth. Not that I haven't, but sitting in that department made me anxious. Also it's in the SUB-basement of Duke hospital. Of course, cancer would be in the dungeon of Duke (it's actually because of all the radiation machines, but still it's a little coincidental  that oncology is in the sub-basement.)

I met with my oncologist for the first time and she tells me a) there are questionable lymph nodes in my chest from the full CT scan and b) she's not convinced that my sarcoma is one that surgery is necessary for because my samples from the biopsy were not all that great and maybe we should push my surgery back and run more tests. 

So I literally go crazy and yell, NO NO NO. In a doctor's office, for the first time, I lose my shit.

Usually I am very polite to doctors, but each appointment keeps bringing bad news and I have had it up to here with news and she says they could cut open my thorax for the chest biopsy and I go into effing hysterics (as a soprano singer...not cool with cutting near the throat). I pretty much start freaking out on the table. My dad is clearly firm and angry about all these tests because we've already pushed back the surgery once and when it's clear I'm in pain and this tumor is growing. My mom goes into supermom mode and actually calls my neurosurgeon on her cell 4 times and tells him to get his butt to the oncology department (she's ballsy like that. sometimes it backfires, but not this time.)

I was in tears for hours and despite the fact that I had pretty much bitched out the doctor, the RN AND the PA (yes ladies and gentlemen, I was Cancer Bitch), everyone pretty much had to keep their distance, parents included. I exploded everyone out of the room. Eventually, the PA who is about my age came in with some water and  talked to me about opera and music while we waited for Braden to come in from work. Then a  cancer counselor came in and sat with Braden and I. I felt like I expelled all my emotions, but it was actually really nice. Duke has really awesome cancer counselors that are free. He said that my emotions were perfectly acceptable and it was nice for me to hash out some issues that I had been dealing with since the diagnosis and let Braden in the room hear it all (who is a very good listener and I love him for that). It was also good for me to give Braden some time to express how he was feeling in a safe place.

In the meantime, my neurosurgeon and oncologist talk it out and realize that the tumor is growing on my bone, causing severe pain and needs to go. ASAP. So surgery is still on for the 8th. She was actually very sweet to me and called me today...I mean, she's an oncologist, she probably gets a gamut of emotions all the time. I feel a little bad about going crazy on her...but some days cancer sucks.

New Normal

The lump is visiable now. On the side of my neck. It used to be just a little tender spot on the lymph node, and now it’s clearly grown. Only if you’re looking for it…but it’s there. I was getting ready for the play tonight and pulling my hair back and there it was, the alien toxin on the side of my neck. Even though I knew only I and close family would notice, I was embarrassed. Like I was branded.

My mom calls our lives the “New Normal.” I just don’t know how I’m going to deal with this pain for another two weeks and then surgery and then the real fun begins.

Tonight, we had a family date at Deep Dish Theater. I rarely go to the theatre just because I want to go. Usually it’s because I know someone in the cast or I’m trying to network or something. Okay, I was trying to network a little bit, some volunteer work to get my face in the scene. The show is called “Superior Donuts,” by Tracy Letts, who is definitely emerging as a prominent voice in American playwrights, if he hasn’t already done so. The show revolves around an aging hippie who owns an independent donut shop in the land of Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts, and his relationship with his young black employee. It’s a comedy at times, but also takes some dark turns. Lots of themes about race and immigrants and the American Dream.  I was pleasantly moved. I love a good American drama.

Diagnosis

Like many women, I was diagnosed with HPV a few years ago. A couple of times I have had abnormal pap smears and they have had to do something called a colposcopy where they clip off the suspicious looking cells. Or maybe they scrape them off. It always feels like they are doing it with nail clippers. I know, ouch. That's why it's so important to get regular pap smears, because those suspicious cells can slowly mutate into pre-cancerous cells and then malignant cells and then full blown cervical cancer. It's a very preventable disease and trust me, I am super conscious about my regular gynecologist appointments.

So when Mom, Dad, Braden and I went to Duke for my diagnosis conference, I was prepared for suspicious cells in the tumor and some malignancy that would be taken out of my body and I would be free of pain. I felt confident. What I was not prepared for was what the doctor was telling me. I have an incredibly aggressive epithelial sarcoma on the left side of my neck and the bottom of my head. I have cancer. There, I said the word. The Big "C", as the Midwesterners call it. Southerners always whisper when they say it, as if the devil is listening and going to make it worse.


My sarcoma is extremely rare; It is usually found in the elderly and on young people it's found on limbs and extremities, not on the neck. There are only a handful of cases in this location have been documented. In fact, when Dr. Bagley came in to share the diagnosis, he spoke about how him and his colleagues had a meeting the previous morning discussing "my case" and how it's an anomaly. I'm pretty sure that I will end up in some medical journal as "Caucasian 25 year old female." (I did not want to be famous for this!) So I am so happy to be in the best academic institution in the world, where I know they will be all the more aggressive and precise with my treatment.


So this is going to be a challenging surgery. It is not in or on my brain or spinal cord, and we can all be grateful for that, but the tumor covers a sensitive area near a significant artery, the occipital artery, I think. So an angio surgeon (or whatever he is called) will have to analyze me before the surgery to make sure that the team of doctors takes special care around that artery. The surgery will require metal studs to stabilize my neck. There will be reconstruction of muscle tissue and a plastic surgeon will make my neck look beautiful again. So this is Big Potatoes. I will likely be in the hospital at Duke for at least 3 days to a week. And will spend 2-3 weeks taking it easy and slowly easing back into life the next 3 weeks. I have to meet with the oncologist next week to discuss radiation after I recover for six weeks. Thankfully, because we believe the tumor is isolated, I will probably not have to have chemotherapy. But if I do, I do. Hair grows back.


Taking it all in yesterday was like having the wind knocked out of me, and watching my mom and dad mentally collapse was hard to take as well. Mom had to leave the room, and I understood. Dad looked exhausted and shocked. Braden was strong externally. He kept looking at me the whole time and mouthing "I'm here" and "I love you" and "I'm not going anywhere." He held me the whole time and the more the doctor talked, the weaker I felt. And he kept holding me tighter and tighter. Never has an arm felt so safe and strong. If there ever was a reason to believe this is the man I am meant to marry, this is it. It was so much information, I was writing it down like a madwoman, trying to take it all in.


I asked the doctor to leave the room before my scheduled CT scan to have a moment with my family. Dad went to find Mom. I stood up and cried. "I HAVE CANCER," I wailed. "I COULD DIE." And Braden just looked at me and said, "You cannot think like that. You will beat this." Mom and Dad came back in the room and we all made a pact to be strong for each other, as we will all have our weak moments. But we all have to be strong in our own way.


Before the full body CT scan, I had to drink some fluids and wait an hour. Thankfully it is 60 degrees in February in North Carolina so Braden and I sat outside. It was surreal. We wanted to talk and didn't want to talk at the same time. We reminisced about the first time he knew he loved me. A couple of weeks or so when we started dating, we had been out at The Station having some drinks, like we do. It was summer and it was pouring rain. So we decided to go somewhere more intimate. We were soaking wet running to the car. He said he knew of a gazebo on a lake...somewhere where we could be alone, but when we got there, it was just a deck with a picnic table. I guess the gazebo part had burned down. It didn't matter, we made out in the rain, my embroidered hippie jeans soaking wet, his plaid collared shirt slightly unbuttoned, and we kissed for what felt like hours. That was when the spark happened.


We talked about how we've got a long life ahead of us; marriage, road trips, careers, kids, house. And how I would pull through because my life is just not ready to be over yet. How blessed I am to have such a wonderful man to help me through this ailment.


I retreated to my room that evening for some alone time. I sent out emails to my respective families, friends, theater families, professors and the response has been overwhelming. Some people have even forwarded my message to others...people I haven't spoken to in ages. For someone who has had long time issues with loneliness and insecurity, this outpouring of love and concern from so many is emotionally overwhelming and exciting and makes me cry happy tears. I had no idea. I really didn't. I never have.


There's a passage in James in the Bible...I don't have it verbatim, but essentially it says that through the Lord we can face always adversity, and there will be peace. And I truly believe it. Yes, I have cancer and yes, there are risks and the surgery is intense and frightening, and yes, there is a part of me that is scared, but for the first time in 6 months, I do, in fact, feel a sense of peace.

My take on Sondheim's Cinderella in "Into the Woods"

Blogger is being annoying and won't let me put this in the previous post. So you'll have to read the previous post on character development to fully appreciate this.

Let’s take, for example, my favorite musical in the whole world, "Into the Woods" by Stephen Sondheim. I have always vocally wanted to sing Cinderella but before I was like “she’s a princess” and I am just not. But now that I've done this discovery I've realized she is not really that at all. Sondheim’s Cinderella is complete solitary and has no family who loves her or knows her and she just wishes and wishes to be someone different. Plus she is kind of abrasive and quirky…hello, she talks to birds. So she meets the prince and suddenly she's this beautiful princess and she's not really sure that that is what she wanted. She is a big pile of worry and confusion, but she’s sharp and takes a risk and lets it happen. She becomes the princess even if she isn’t sure she is on the inside. And she has the prince.  But life, as it always is, is not perfect. 

In the Act II, her prince cheats on her and her friends start getting killed via Giantess and she becomes the nurturer for many of the surviving characters. And I just GOT it. I realized that I can, in fact, EMBODY her. This system really does work. And I love this musical so much, not because I can sing the hell out of this character, but because I understand HER. I can BE her. It's very fulfilling as an actor to make this kind of discovery. And I'm so excited to find and discover more characters just like this. Let's just hope I get to play them someday. :)

Sondheim is a genius and Patrick is a bit of genius too. Not to be hyperbolic, but he has yet opened another door for me. And I’m so thrilled to walk through it and discover what’s inside. 

The Psychoanalysis of Character Development

I had to divide the last post which included this into two posts. I diverged on a tangent and I've been writing so much. There's not really much else I can do except sit, watch TV, write and think. I can't sit down and read a book (the tumor and pain make my brain disoriented and unable to focus), I can't exercise obviously, singing is hard because my energy is very low and the meds have been causing some vocal blockage, and my driving is limited because I get drowsy and disoriented and have tunnel vision. So writing has been my big outlet when so many of my other ones have been shut down. Which is good in a way. When you are ill, you have lots of time to collect your thoughts, so you may as well record them.

I'm not sure if I've ever talked about this before, but when Patrick and I had an artistic career meeting, he discussed about how to connect to characters you play and how you pick the ones that are perfect for you. He says that you have to go back to the root of your childhood and identify a motif that affected how you behaved for the rest of your life and why you do what you do. And all your strengths and weaknesses come from that. It's an interesting theory. The reason we started this conversation is because he says he thinks my "awkwardness" is a wall I put up. It's a defense mechanism. For what? I'm not sure exactly...I'm still on that road to self-discovery. But if I had to pick a core psychoanalytical moment it would be being an only child and being surrounded by large extended families, 4 kids on side, 3 kids on the other, and that feeling of loneliness and solidarity, seeing the bonding of siblings around me that I didn't have. It's rather ironic that I'm marrying a man who is the oldest of 4 because of this. There have been moments, as an adult, with Braden, where I will cry when I get home from family functions, because of the bond and vibe and that unique relationship of the siblings. It's like a bunch of us are in the house together at Christmas and then the Adams kids all leave together and the Apple kids all leave together, and then I'm just alone. And sometimes this involuntary crying just flows out of me. I get embarrassed, and he reassures me that I will always have him. This is why I bond so closely with my friends and why it's very very painful to me when friendships fall apart, either naturally or delibaretely

So I guess to deal with my solidarity, I became incredibly shy as a child. I mean, I wouldn't look anyone in the eye. I was afraid to look or talk to their friends, salespeople, anyone. It was kind of freakish. I think my parents thought I might have had Aspurger's syndrome. My whole life I've struggled with eye contact. Kids made fun of me sometimes. By high school I had an abnormally high case of social anxiety. But I made friends and because I grew up in the same school for 13 years, I kind of became that quirky, awkward, funny girl that everyone liked in spite of her oddness. But by college, I had all these walls that had been accepted before; social anxiety eye contact, awkwardness, funny abrasiveness, a need for lots of alone time, quirkiness and SOLIDARITY and they were my protectors and I had a very hard time making friends. Plus, I was painfully insecure at Elon about my talent and got shit on by many a self-absorbed, ladder-climbing actor. And occasionally a professor. And I just kind of let these walls run my life for years.

And it wasn't until I found myself in the heat of this illness that I was able to start letting all those things melt away. My experience at Elon did not cause a burning pain for me anymore. I could greet new and higher status people with confidence. A CATHARSIS, if you will. Patrick called it, in simplified terms "the ugly duckling turning into a beautiful swan." Not just what we think of as physical beauty but the evolution of self.

Another facet of this is that I am a complete nurturer and mother figure to those who suffered like I did for their social inadequacies. Like there was this kid in Evita who was kind of annoying but sweet. He was constantly singing random showtunes over and over and would say really inappropriate jokes, blow up at authority figures and didn't seem to have an "on deck" for ideas to come out of his mouth. My friend said "Does he ever power down?" Then it was a down low thing that we found out he really DID have Aspurger's and suddenly I had to be his big sister. I had to take care of him. I actually became quite fond of him, in spite of his quirks. Cruelty towards the socially anxious kills me on the inside. I HAVE to protect people from it.

This entire conversation really spoke to me and I saw myself and my past in a mirror that I had never seen before. I feel a new breath inside me because of it. He really should write a book on it. (And let's not even get started that he shared that his motif is SEDUCTION. Oh Lord, could it be any more clearer?) And so now I am discovering myself and with that, I am discovering how to connect to characters and which ones I should strive to play. I am suddenly excited about reading plays and librettos again. It will give me lots to do when I am recovering from my surgery.

The Penultimate

Tomorrow (well today, technically) I get the news about my biopsy about my tumor. What exactly those "suspicious" cells are. I am not really terrified or scared. I'm sure I will be when I get there tomorrow with my entourage of Mom, Daddy and Braden. I have been jittery all day.

After a lot of bad days (for example, yesterday was pretty much non-stop pain and crying, despite the fact that Mom and I were shopping all day for relief), today I was actually quite happy and perky and energetic. Which is strange because I had a bought of night terrors last night, which my mom witnessed for the first time. Braden has seen them a few times over the last 6 months. They are not really night terrors, but more "disoriented pain and anger and fear." It's not mental, it's physical. It's like when you wake up in the morning from a dream and you are groggy and it takes a while to realize where you really are. For me, I'm sleeping peacefully and all of a sudden I awake to pain on an 11 on the 10 scale and I scream or moan or cry or start yelling. Last night, because we had to to wait so so so long to hear back from the biopsy, I was a ticking time bomb. And I was so angry that I had only slept 3 hours. I just wanted more sleep and no pain. I was disoriented, sleep-deprived and lashed out at my mom in a psychotic manner. She was scared, and rightly so. Braden had to come over at 4am and medicate me. It's embarrassing, I haven't really told anyone about them and they've only happened half a dozen times over the past 6 months and usually no one is in the room with me, I'm on the couch or something. But I guess I just cracked.

But now the day of results is upon us. And I guess that put me in a happy mood. I went to visit my grandmother, Honey who I hadn't seen in over a month and since we heard of my diagnosis. My mom and grandma have a very co-dependent relationship, and my mom takes care of her frequently, several times a week, despite the fact that Honey has a caretaker, Fatmata (who I am convinced is an angel. Some people just have a beam of light around them, and she has it.) But when Honey found out I was sick, she told my mom to solely look after me. We were all really surprised...but in a way it makes sense. She understands what it's like to take care of an ailing child.

My mom has spinea bifida and you wouldn't know today, but until she was 18, she was constantly ill and in and out of the hospital. When she was born, they didn't know if she would be able to walk, if she would be paralyzed, if she would be slow and so many other things. She's had dozens of surgeries in her lifetime. At age 17, she had a major surgery that fixed her spine, colon and urethra and made her just about as normal as everyone else. I did not know this till I was 20. She never wanted to burden me with her disability. I was blown away when she told me...I remember just not being able to comprehend that my mom spend her childhood disabled. She claims to walk with a limp (I've never noticed it) and she uses some special instruments for her lower extremities. But she had me naturally and basically she is healthier than me or my dad. She gets it. Both Mom and Honey are two of the strongest women I know in a health crisis. The Crouse-Adams women have strong blood.

So I decided to visit her today and talk about what was going on with me and how I felt. Sometimes I get weary around the elderly. Part of it is I move really fast and am a bit self-absorbed and talk a lot and it's hard for me to slow down and just listen. But because of this ailment, I've HAD to slow down. And it was nice, just to sit there and talk to her, just me and her and listen and watch her take everything in. She is an 86 year old woman and she is frail but she is 100% lucid when she is on her medication. (She does have some long time chemical mental problems...like so many of us....) She's sharp and she's not going to last forever. I think I want to spend more time with her, getting to know her better. I'm always around her with my mom and they have a very love-hate-up-down dynamic and I want to spend time just her and me, hearing about her life and wisdom before she goes. I guess I've always been a little intimidated of her. She was, in her prime, a Type-A version of my mom. A southern Martha Stewart, with some loopy mental problems. And she's always been loving and generous, but she's not warm and fuzzy like my other grandma Barbara was.

So I felt good visiting her. Then I went to visit my aunt Jane and uncle Rick, Happi's parents, who live down the street, to fill them in too. And again, I don't get to spend a lot of time with them either with anyone else around, since they have 4 kids and my mom and dad or someone is usually around. I really love them, we're very close and they have a wonderful spirituality, conversation skills and sense of humor. I really enjoyed talking to them...I didn't want to leave when they had to go to work. I think in my youth they thought I was this self-absorbed, super anxious, artsy kook...which I kind of was. But now I feel like they really respect me and my life choices. And of course, I'm glad to have them by my side during this ailment.

And the thoughts kept rollin' in and out...

Before I had the biopsy, Dr. Bagley scheduled an MRI scan of my entire head and neck. Now the first MRI back in December was not all that bad. I got to listen to opera on headphones and while it was mildly uncomfortable to lay still for 30 minutes, all that padding felt like I was laying on tempurpedic bed. In a way, it was a little relaxing.

The second MRI at Duke, was a panic attack nightmare. While I still got to lay on the pillowed bed, there was no relaxing music. My head was strapped down to the bed. My chest was strapped down. I only move my arms a bit. I asked for an eyemask but they didn't have one. They did however give me a washcloth to put over my eyes because I knew if I saw the inside of that machine 6 inches from my face, I was going to freak out. Now most procedures if I've had them before, piece of cake. IVs, blood drawn, pap smear...I can handle it. And I am not usually a claustrophobic person, but this was awful...I felt like I was being sent into space. On top of that they inserted some kind of iron dye into my IV to make the films more readable which made me dizzy and hallucinate. So here I am in this loud, blaring machine with no calming music, completely tied down to this bed for AN HOUR AND A HALF and I'm hallucinating that I'm going to miss the opening night of Evita and Lynda Clark is going to eat me for breakfast (and then some). I am freaking out and all I can think about is "sing Musetta in your head! Sing Quando M'en Vo in your head!!!" Because that's what I do when I get nervous during intense medical procedures, I sing opera in my head. (It worked during the biopsy too.)

A few days later, we go to Bagley's office to view the MRI. And there I am, in radio form. Now, the inside of a person's head is supposed to be symmetrical. But on the lower left side of my head and neck have this huge mass on them. Not symmetrical at all. And it becomes clear that I very much have a tumor. And this is cliche, but it was one of those moments where life slows down to half time, like a heartbeat. I'm looking at this film and I have tunnel vision and hearing. It was one of, if not the most, slow burn shocks, I've ever ever had in my life. My mother is breathing hard and whimpering, my dad is anxious and asking question after question. And I just want to hear the doctor's plan. Here is the tumor. It is real. How are you going to fix it, doc? So he says I have to have the biopsy to determine the benign or malignancy of it. Good. That's all I need to worry about for the next couple of days. If there's one thing that's gonna keep me sane, it's doing exactly what the doctor says and taking this process one day at time.

Mom left the room with the doctor to ask more questions. I went to look out the window and I got choked up and started to tear up. Dad did the same thing and embraced.
All I could do is look at him and say "I'm scared."
He said, "I know."

Then I just kept talking out my feelings through the tears," I am going to get better. We are going to get through this together. God is watching over us. And I have a strong, stable man who loves me and is going to stay by side no matter what and we are going to get married. Whatever happens, they are going to fix me." Of course, this monologue came out rather choked up and blubbery. It was what I felt in the moment. And Dad reaffirmed it all.

I'm still scared. The image of the tumor mass of the MRI is permanently cemented into my brain, and at times, it weighs me down. I have good pain days and bad pain days. It's day 5 and we still haven't heard back from the biopsy. I am ready to get this toxic alien out of my body. I am ready to move on. I am ready to be free and back in my old body again.

Have I said too much? Is there nothing more I can say to you?

It's amazing what you can get done when you're practically bedridden on pain management medication. You can finalize your wedding guest list and your registry. You can make and cancel the dozens of doctor's appointments. You can reorganize your iTunes. You can respond to all the emails you've been avoiding You can read plays and order some online on Amazon.com (whoops) You can watch the entire 2nd season of Parks and Rec and laugh your butt off. And sometime in there you try to sleep when your not smothered by headaches and when your neck doesn't feel like it's being stabbed constantly.

I had my biopsy on Monday. I had to get blood work done first and because they told me not to eat or drink any water, I was completely delirious. Now, I'm a prideful gal but a wheelchair was necessary. I had a little snack after the blood work and Aunt Wendy came down from Greensboro to support us. She used to be a nurse in neonatal so I'm glad she was there. Then I went into the biopsy prep with Braden and I guess I missed the memo about not eating for the biopsy because I was supposed to be sedated, but because I had eaten they couldn't do it. That scared me a little to have another local. There was lots of praying and tears and tender kisses between Braden and I. He is my rock. So the biopsy doctor was very kind and gentle...he did offer me lots of pain meds through the IV. It was uncomfortable being in the CT scan machine and there was lots of sore pressure, but not as painful as the spine injection. Good thing I had taken some valium because I was just thinking of me playing Musetta and babbling to the nurse about the wedding.

The cells they found were "suspicious" which could mean a number of things. We just don't know. Now we're just waiting for the pathologist to analyze them...and all this waiting is the hard part. There were some tears, but we're all trying to stay strong day by day. The spot on my neck where they clipped the cells is very VERY sore and hard to sleep on.

I've been receiving an outpouring of love and support from blood family, friends, and all of my theatre families. :) Despite all this, I pulled through Evita strongly and we pulled off a great show. I'm so proud of being a part of it. As Patrick said, "you were in agony the whole process, and yet you were passionate and professional every single night." So I guess that says something about commitment to my craft. Even La Diva Carolina Lynda Clark has adopted me as one of "her girls". She is gonna coach me on some monologues when I am on the mend. I made a lot of new friends and professional contacts and mentors during this show. It was all worth it.

Becca "Evita" and I hoofing it during the Buenos Aires number. She was the kindest most gracious antii-diva but boy did she have some PIPES!

Even though this horrible medical incident is happening to me, in a way, I feel like it's put my life in a focus. It's given me a sense of drive, a sense of planning, and sense of not getting every little desired detail of life right is okay. If there's anything I have learned, you cannot plan for life, but boy it does make you re-evaluate what's important to you and how you have to be strong, even in the bleakest moments.

Advice from the wonderful Lynda Clark

"You must be as HUMBLE as possible off stage and ARROGANT as possible on stage."

A New Argentina!

This has not been much of a performance blog since I have been ailing, but there is light at the end of the tunnel on that front. The Duke doctors have been very aggressive in diagnosing me. They have found a growth on my lymph node which is pressing on my C2 nerve, which makes sense why the pain is so acute. My doctor believes it's a benign tumor and I am having another MRI tomorrow to get a closer look. It's all been a little scary, but hopefully soon they will cut me or laser me or do something proactive and I'll be on the road to recovery.

Our final dress rehearsal for EVITA was tonight, and boy has it been an exhilarating but exhausting process. You try putting up a big budget musical in 3 weeks! Somehow Patrick and Cinny and the Moore Onstage crew have achieved it. I cannot wait to open and for my friends and family to see the show. It takes place in a giant theater, a 1500 seat house with a big orchestra, New York and Broadway actors in the show, vintage costumes and crazy costume changes. I have a 25 second costume change that me and my fabulously dresser Ryan manage to pull it off seamlessly. (pun intended).  To perform on that big stage is breathtaking...it's like having a little piece of the Broadway dream.

I am in the featured ensemble, I play Eva's sister, get a few solos here and there. I have had many epiphany moments during this show that I realized how much of a professional I actually I am. Despite how silly and quirky I am, I always come to rehearsal focused and committed to work and explore. The pay may be diddly but it's my job and I treat it with respect. I began to notice that cast members were looking to me for musicality and blocking cues, even coming up to me with questions and helping them run numbers. And I was getting so many compliments on my soprano voice even from the leads. Che is played by a Broadway actor named Jose who is one of the coolest and most down-to-earth actors I've ever met (we bonded over our respective spinal injuries) and though many an Evita has had a reputation for being a diva, Rebecca is a complete sweetheart and humble and gracious and fun offstage. It's a wonderful production and I wish we could run longer. I have never ever considered myself a leader but it's funny how I just fell into that position.

It's a new dawn, a new day, every day

It has been a long while since I've blogged. I have been busy, yes, but more importantly I have been ailing. And I haven't really felt like rehashing any thoughts, as all my thoughts have been exhausting me. And then some.

I got the MRI for my cervical spine injury at the beginning of December and it turns out I have bone spurs on the left side of my neck where the pain is. We don't know what caused it and it's actually quite a puzzle to the doctors because I'm so young (most people get bone spurs in their 40s-50s) and it's in an unusual place and I didn't have any traumatic injury (that we know of.) For something so small that didn't show up on an x-ray is so incredibly painful. So we thought it was muscle, then disc and now we know it's bone on bone rubbing together in a horrible way.

I was doing Christmas Carol during this time and it took every fiber in my body to produce enough energy to do that show. It was really quite a wonderful show, the cast was great and I made a lot of new friends. Everyone was supportive of me and hopefully no one thought I was being lazy or anything. I was taking A LOT of Tylenol and Ibeprofun just to get through the day, sometimes two shows a day. And what happens when you take that much medication? Dry vomiting and rebound headaches. Lots of horrible headaches and stomachaches. It was the never ending cycle... neck pain, take meds, nausea and headaches, meds wear off, neck pain returns.

After the show ended, the following Monday before Christmas, I went in to see my Primary Doc and ended up having to talk to a stoic PA who asked me my ENTIRE history with this and I just had to recount every little detail, which I was not expecting "What medicine were you taking when you got the massages?" "How long did you do PT?" "What did they do?" "What dosage did you take after that?" "And then what did you do?" "And THEN what meds did you take and which dosage?" And it just went on and on and on and I started to get more and more anxious. I wanted to scream! Like, Lady I have no idea how many tylenol I have taken every week, I just know that I don't sleep more than 2 hours at a time and I'm constantly in pain when I lie down and exhausted and can barely function as a normal human being and no one seems to know how to fix me! So I got a referral to the Orthopedist again.

And I just started crying on the walk home, bawling into my sweatshirt. I wanted to sleep but I couldn't relax. I collapsed on the floor of my living room and had a complete panic attack. It was the first time in a few years that that has happened to me. I was in so much pain and Christmas was just a few days away and it just seemed like nothing made sense anymore. I called Braden and he came home and consoled me in my tearful heap. My dad came over afterwards and took me grocery shopping. And a full cart from Trader Joe's always makes me feel a little bit better.

Tuesday and Wednesday, at the crack of dawn I met with the Orthopedists. The whole story was recounted to them and the top doc of spinal injections suggested I have one. At this point, I wasn't even afraid of the needles and risks, anything to rid me of the pain. But I wouldn't be able to be scheduled until after the holidays , so he gave me some Vicodin to get me through the next couple of weeks. That made the holidays a lot more bearable. Less pain and no nausea. So I was much more pleasant at Christmas and Christmas turned out to be quite enjoyable. Braden got an Xbox 360, I got a new laptop and some lovely clothes from Anthropologie and I made everyone cookies and Bellini mixes and put them in baskets with champagne.

We had our engagement party at our parents friends' house at Governor's club. Their house is out of Architectural Digest and I felt like a movie star in my new party dress. After all, it's not every day you have a party thrown in your honor. It was so exciting to see my family and all my friends from high school and college, some I haven't seen in almost a year, and Braden's friends all dressed up and mingle together and support us in our union. The catered food was fantastic too. After the formal party, everyone came back to our much smaller house (seriously, our house could fit in the Lacefield's foyer) for games and drinks. It was the happiest I've been in a long long time, I have to say. I was beaming the whole night. A glowing light in the middle of dark dark month.

Amy, I'm gonna photoshop you in next to the plant. It just wasn't the same without out our PTP Naked Chef!

Last Wednesday, I had the spinal injection and even though I was on local anesthesia, it was no walk in the park. I got very anxious in the hospital room...I think it's the IVs, they are always so cold, so they gave me this narcotic lollipop thing and boy I went from anxious to loopy in about 10 minutes. I never imagined Braden would see me in a hospital before we had kids, but he was there to support me and it made me feel really good. I wish he could have been by my side in the injection room though. It felt like they were taking a drill gun to my neck.

After the injection, I felt a little sore but relief. They said it would take a few days so I waited...waited...waited...and I didn't feel better at all. The stabbing pain was still in full-force and sleeping was a nightmare. I would get an hour or two, have to take a pill, get nauseous, hopefully get another hour and just try and try to get some sort of rest. But how can you rest when laying down is the mots painful??? Back to square one. I was out of Vicodin. The Ortho sent over a new prescription of Vicodin but somehow it didn't get through to the pharmacist's. I must have looked really pathetic because the young, very pierced pharmacist said "I'm sorry. You look like really need it." Boy was my mom livid that it didn't get sent over. We were able to get some from a family friend doctor who works in the pain management clinic at Duke so I guess I'll be okay for tonight. Thank goodness.

So what next? Well we're trying to get all my papers and reports sent over to the Spine Center at Duke so they can have a look at me. There's a waiting list to get in, but knowing how persuasive my mom is when she's on a mission, I could be in tomorrow. lol. I might have to have surgery so they can shave the spurs off, I just don't know, and it's all a little intimidating. The worst part is, I want to be planning my wedding and finishing my grad school applications and working and saving money, but I am just unable to physically focus and do those things. I want to get better...I don't want to be in pain week after week and get addicted to Vicodin. It's scary stuff. But if I could feel like my old self again, that would be a prayer answered.