I will walk 60 miles in 30 days to help raise money and awareness for Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance.
I have teal heart earrings on etsy available. And for the month of September I will include a teal cancer awareness ribbon pin and a $5 donation to Ovarian Cancer Research.
I am in remission. Officially. Was told by two different doctors that I can say the word remission and mean it. It feels like it’s not real, but it is.
Cancer has changed me in so many ways, I don’t think I can even describe the scope of it. but I’ll try to tell you some of the things.
There are some obvious changes.
If you look at my belly you will see a foot long scar (pubes to boobs). It’s healing nicely and I have unexpected impulses to show it to people.
I am still bald, but my hair will grow back. I’m almost tempted to keep it shaved. It’s my cancer card. My excuse for having groceries delivered (the delivery drivers don’t seem nearly as judge-y when you answer the door with a bald head).
Inside of me there are a whole bunch of parts missing. Thankfully, I don’t seem to miss them at all. Although their absence creates some menopause like discomforts, like hot flashes and heart racing and vaginal dryness, but we don’t need to talk about that.
I think I escaped most of the neuropathy, but I do have some tingles in a couple of fingers on my right hand sometimes.
Less obviously is the tiredness that comes from the treatments. They say that recovery time is 2 months per 1 month of treatment, so I should be back to something like normal in about a year. Although because I’m on a maintenance drug that may take longer. In lessons and socializing with friends, I seem to have enough energy to act “normal”, but then I definitely need a nap that afternoon, or the next day.
My brain doesn’t work as fast as it once did. And I sometimes get words mixed up as they are coming out of my mouth. It could be amusing, I guess, but mostly it’s just a little frustrating and I have to slow down and reset and have compassion for myself and speak slower.
My spirit is struggling to make sense of the cancer still, but more than that, I’m examining my life and the way I spend my time. The things that I want to do with the time I’ve got left.
Because cancer reminds you, that you will die. Hopefully I’ll still get to be an old lady with long white hair, but I don’t know that for sure anymore.
And so, I rest. I play. I love. I write. And I try to create more music, because my voice is most easily expressed in music.
Kate, wearing glasses and a black beanie, leans back in a chair by the fire pit in a friends back yard.
LAST CHEMO! For real this time! We’re sitting here at UCLA and I waited until the blood work came back and they will start it shortly.
There’s a tradition amongst chemotherapy patients that they get to ring a bell at the end of the chemo treatments! I’ll be ringing that bell this afternoon!
Ring a bell for me this afternoon if you want! Or just think of me around 3:00…
FROM MY DEAR FRIEND LAUREL
On Friday, June 30 at 4 P.M. MDT (3 P.M. PDT), I invite all the Friends of Kate (FOK!) to Klangfest. To celebrate Kate’s last chemo (hopefully), all of us FOKs, wherever we are, will be ringing bells, chimes, cymbals, banging on pots and pans, etc. Let’s make a joyful noise together!! FOK, forever!
Thanks for joining together in celebration,
Laurel Yost (FOK)
If you’d like to send me video or audio of your personal noise making, I’d love to see/hear it later!
Ringing the Bell!
Love,
Kate
Thanks to all KlangFest participants! Videos and Pictures: Laurel Yost, Kathy Wietlispach, Bridget Barrett, Christian Knudsen, Anna Kohler and Georgie, and Lee Kohler
Responders with more private Klanging: Rob Kohler, Marjorie Kohler, Ken Kohler, Maria Kohler, David Illions, Judy Herr, Suzanne Lunak, Carol Lord, Lois Knudsen, Bob and Jean Peterson, Maja and Nealon Jeffers, Lynn Knudsen, Marianna Curry, Tove and Frank Hoch, Kim Alley , Michael Sieverts, Denis Buckle, and Ian Le Cheminant
