We got our tree this weekend, much to the delight of my son. I usually have a pretty strict no-Christmas-decorating-until-after-my-birthday policy -- I'm not a fan of losing my big day in everyone else's holiday festivities -- but he's been nagging me for a month and I couldn't take it anymore.
My neighbor was similarly appalledhorrified concerned about my delayed decorating plan -- and the fact that my (uncarved) pumpkins were still sitting on the front porch from Halloween. So she took matters into her own hands last week.
One day, when I returned home with my kids after an outing to the park, we found this:
Hilarious! She's brilliant -- and she's got a lot of felt. Have I mentioned how much I love living here? And do you think the pumpkins will last long enough for her to come over with bunny ears in a few months?
December is my birth month. And yes, I like to stretch out the celebrating as long as possible. I'm a huge fan of birthdays in general, but mine in particular. When people complain about birthdays as a marker of getting older, my response is always, "It's better than the alternative."
The American Cancer Society has started a campaign for more birthdays, proclaiming that "there's no such thing as too many candles!" And even if I do get a little nervous about growing older, I completely agree with that slogan. I know that my friends who are cancer survivors are celebrating every candle, and I'm cheering right along with them.
In honor of my birthday, I hope you'll take a moment to read the guest post below from a great blogger, mom, scientist and cancer survivor. You might also want to read her more recent post in defense of mammograms, following the new guidelines released by the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force -- as a scientist and a survivor, she knows what she's talking about.
There’s more than one kind of breast cancer. Did you know that? During October, we’re so often flooded with “buy pink” campaigns, and reminders to check ourselves for lumps, that it’s become almost commonplace. We all know that we should do regular self exams, and we’ve heard it so often that the urgency often fades into the background of children, spouses, laundry, and work. But did you know that there’s a kind of breast cancer that forms without a tell-tale lump?
It’s called inflammatory breast cancer, and it spreads FAST. The cancer forms in thin sheets, or in nests, like a bird’s nest of cancer growing inside your breast. There are few external signals or symptoms, and they’re sneaky too, since most of them are similar to mastitis, which many of us have experienced while breastfeeding a baby, or bug bites, or sunburn. But taken together, one or more of these symptoms can signal a dangerous cancer lurking in your breast.
* Swelling, usually sudden, sometimes a cup size in a few days
* Itching
* Pink, red, or dark colored area (called erythema) sometimes with texture similar to the skin of an orange (called peau d’orange)
* Ridges and thickened areas of the skin
* Nipple retraction
* Nipple discharge, may or may not be bloody
* Breast is warm to the touch
* Breast pain (from a constant ache to stabbing pains)
* Change in color and texture of the areola
There’s a great illustration of these symptoms over at Worldwide Breast Cancer that is guaranteed to be not like anything you’ve seen before….
In my mind, it boils down to this. If you notice ANYTHING DIFFERENT on one breast that’s not on the other breast, please CALL YOUR DOCTOR. Today. Because this cancer moves fast, faster than almost any other cancer, and is deadly. Only 40% of patients survive 5 years after diagnosis.
In the 2.5 years since my diagnosis, I’ve already lost a dozen friends to cancer. Many of them were moms and bloggers, readers just like you. They fought hard. They fought with everything they had. But cancer treatment is largely still in the experimental stages, and it’s a tough road. Just to be here today, I had to not only survive cancer, but also survive 6 months of chemotherapy, 7 weeks of daily radiation, 2 surgeries to remove my breasts and ovaries, and a lot of physical therapy to deal with lymphedema, which makes my arm swell in the heat when I step outside (as a lovely side effect of the mastectomy that took all my lymph nodes on that side). It’s been a hard, hard road, but I’m grateful for the chance to be here today, to hug my children, to play their games, to laugh at their knock-knock jokes.
There is joy after cancer. But first we have to get there. So please, take a moment, call/email/blog/tweet/update your friends, and SHARE the SIGNS of inflammatory breast cancer with the people you care about. You never know. You might just save a life.
_________
Just in case that's not enough to motivate you, check out this fantastic video courtesy of Ilina. She reports that "Emily Somers created, directed and choreographed this video in Portland for her Medline glove division as a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness. This was all her idea to help promote their new pink gloves. I don't know how she got so many employees, doctors and patients to participate, but it started to really catch on and they all had a lot of fun doing it. When the video gets 1 million hits, Medline will be making a huge contribution to the hospital, as well as offering free mammograms for the community."
My baby girl turns one this weekend. She is beautiful and amazing and I love to watch her proud smile as she walks around, trying desperately to keep up with her big brother.
But I am not yet ready to let her charge head-long into toddlerhood. Not that I really have any say in the matter.
With my first baby, it was not this way. The transition to motherhood overwhelmed me in unexpected ways -- I was much more afraid of life with a newborn than I thought I would be. When his first birthday finally arrived, I was so happy. After a year of insane sleeplessness, it seemed like a milestone that might finally mean we were past some of the exhaustion. Each new stage with him was like some kind of miracle -- as if he were the first baby to tackle the world -- and I couldn't wait to see what magical thing he would do next.
I was reminded of this feeling reading a friend's blog last month as her son approached his first birthday. She was right when she wrote, "Babies are hard. And often not fun. They are needy and demanding. They are exhausting." They are all of those things and then some -- and watching them grow up is such a thrill.
The second time around, I was just as tired, but also much more relaxed, less afraid, more able to enjoy her newness. I thought maybe it would last longer, that I'd remember it better this time. Instead, time seems to pass even faster, and I'm so busy trying to keep up with her that I take fewer pictures, post fewer moments online, write less often in her baby book.
Now, with every new step, Pippi is literally and metaphorically moving away from me. She doesn't want to be carried, pushes away when I pick her up. She wants to walk everywhere now, all the time.
And so I will cheer for her as she grows, while also cherishing every little baby moment that I have left... the bedtime nursing, the mostly toothless grins, the wobbly toes-out walk, and yes even the 4 a.m. cuddles. She's my baby and I'm holding onto her as long as she'll let me.
Wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, neighbor, part-time employee -- blogging to remember how to write something other than FB status updates and education research reports. Junius (5) and Pippi (2.5) occupy most of my time, which is often fun, sometimes exhausting and usually entertaining. Their names have been changed to protect their innocence -- I'm trying to keep them that way as long as possible.
