The Performing McKeowns

So, Emily went to a summer theater program at Columbia University a couple years ago and came home declaring that she could never major in Theater. Having gone through a similar epiphany after my freshman year of college (and a year of Theater classes), I heartily supported this decision. She went off to UCSB in the Fall and dove into some really interesting classes in Philosphy, Art History, Comparitive Lit, Geography, and more. She was thinking she might major in English (this was beginning to feel a bit too familiar: I majored in English Lit).

Meanwhile, she had been "dabbling" in Theater at UCSB. She worked costumes for the Fall production. She took a Theater Movement class second quarter and a beginning acting class this quarter. But still, her communication with us indicated a "probably English" major. So, imagine our surprise. ;-)

After writing in her livejournal last Fall that she would *never* major in Theater, since that would probably just kill something she loved, she found it impossible to ignore the siren call. She auditioned for the BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) program in Theater last weekend. And out of 40 kids who auditioned, she was one of the 13 who got in. Heh. Heh heh.

I've asked her if "Table Waiting 101" is part of the curriculum. She mostly ignored me.

But Maggie will not be outdone. She has been singing with the middle school choir this year and has been enjoying it tremendously. And she was fortunate enough to be asked by the 8th grade Jazz Workshop if she would sing a song with the band for the Spring Concert last night. Here she is, bookended by the passing BART trains.
And stay posted for the further adventures of the Performing McKeown Girls.

A Wonderful Weekend

I can't even believe it's already Thursday. Em's Spring Break is almost over, and it feels like it's barely even begun. We had a most fabulous weekend, bringing her home.

It started on Good Friday: I drove down to Santa Barbara, taking my time. I listened to Ragtime on tape, courtesy of Dennis and the SF Library, and stopped off at two missions on my way(Santa Ines and Soledad). It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

I checked in at the Ramada Inn (which is, thankfully, upgrading its rooms) and Em called me around 6 to say she was done with her last final (yay!). I picked up her and two stuffed duffel bags (girlfriend--how long are you going to be home?) and brought her back to the Ramada. We dressed and went to dinner at the Four Seasons. Di.Vine.

The next morning, after breakfast at Alfie's in Goleta/Isla Vista, we drove up to Cambria to rendezvous with Robert for the rest of the weekend's festivities. We all enjoyed a lovely lunch in the sun at the Indigo Moon and then headed over to San Simeon.

We went on tours two and five (evening tour) and had a fabulous, fabulous time. <sigh> Really. Wonderful.

After our two tours (preceded by a visit to the beach at San Simeon), we went to the Madonna Inn, in San Luis Obispo, for a picnic dinner in Emily's and my room, the Highway Suite.

The next morning, Easter Sunday, Robert, Emily, and I had breakfast at the Copper Cafe, and then Em and I hit the road. We were home by 1:30, well in time to enjoy an Easter Supper with Frank and Maggie, and also Jackie and Zaheer.

A lovely, lovely weekend.

T Minus Two

Just two radiation treatments left. I'm so very, very pleased. To celebrate the end of my morning radiation routine, I'm thinking I might force Frank to change our routine this Friday and have him take me and Maggie out for breakfast on Friday (Maggie has no school).

Speaking of Maggie, she is doing a great good thing and having her head shaved in support of the St. Baldricks fundraising event for childhood cancer research. You can see a pre-shave pic of her here. She's part of a team for her middle school, and they'll all get their heads shaved on St. Patrick's Day (next Monday). I'll post a pic of her new "look" after that.

Meanwhile, I am so looking forward to seeing Emily next Friday night. Her last final is at 4 p.m. that day (what a sadistic professor, to give a final mere minutes before Spring Break), and I've promised her a lovely dinner with her mother as a reward. The next day, we'll meet Robert in San Luis Obispo for our 24 hours of fun (San Simeon, Madonna Inn, mad hijinks...) Of course, I only realized this week that the Sunday is Easter. We typically have friends over for a feast on that day, but Em and I won't be rolling in to the Bay Area until about 2 p.m., so this year Easter will be a bit more lowkey than usual.

Chemo Stinks

I wanted to be a bit more rude in that headline, but decided to spare the feelings of some of my gentler readers. Suffice to say that I would happily donate to any cause that could find a way to cure cancer without chemotherapy. It is a serious drag.

We drove to Santa Barbara on Friday (about a five hour drive) to visit Em for Parents & Family Weekend at UCSB and I was feeling tired but mostly okay. Saturday I was wiped and losing energy fast and by later in the evening, I was accosted by the same cramps that had attacked me on the Saturday after my second infusion of AC. I was pretty miserable for most of Saturday evening/night and Sunday just kept nibbling at carbs to keep my stomach on a mostly even keel as we drove home.

Today, Monday, I feel mostly better but really am so ready to be over this. Ah well. One more infusion of the AC left (next Tuesday) and then we get to do a change-up to the Taxol. I figure, if nothing else, at least my body will be faked out by the change in meds and things should improve, even if just temporarily.

Meanwhile. It was wonderful to see our older daughter in her new milieu and thriving. She's a non-partier at a party school and so I think it's fair to say that she's not finding a surplus of new boon companions. But she's putting herself out there (interning for CALPIRG and working costume crew for the theater department's fall production of Woyzeck) and she seems to be loving some of her classes.

After a five+ hour drive, we arrived Friday evening and picked up Em and took her downtown to State Street for dinner. The next day, Saturday, I was partially mobile and after an aborted campus tour (We bailed after this pithy observation by one of our tour guides: "We have five nobel laureates here at Santa Barbara and they are professors. And they teach"), Em took us into the infamous Isla Vista where we had pizza for lunch. For the rest of the day, I hung out at the University Center while Frank and the girls walked the campus. Em and Maggie had some nice sister-time and went rock climbing at the Rec Center later in the afternoon (Emily: "I'm pretty sure Maggie is part spider monkey") while I got cozy on a sofa at the University Center and Frank checked out the bookstore.

The weather was mostly foggy and/or undecided, so we never did get to the beach or the pool, but that's okay. Emily was the main attraction and we got to see lots of her.

We're looking forward to having her home, if only for a few days, at Thanksgiving.

Ready, Set, Go!

What a busy couple of days we've had.

First: we got Emily happily esconced in her dorm room (Anacapa Hall) at UCSB over the weekend. We left home at about 10:30 a.m. on Saturday with a borrowed van (thanks again, Sarah & John!). We hit a bit of traffic around Watsonville, and some very icky rain a couple times, but got to Santa Barbara before 4:30. We managed to wrangle our way on to campus, stopped off at the bookstore (where we picked up Em's preordered books) and then left her bike locked up in front of her dorm. (Emily's room is one room away from this back door to the dorm. Not too shabby.)

After spending a lovely evening at the Ramada Limited and a quick morning visit to the Mission Santa Barbara, we got Emily moved in to her dorm, had lunch with her in the dining commons, and said "see you in five weeks" around 1 p.m. on Sunday. (I didn't get weepy until we were halfway down the hall.) Frank and I were back in Albany around 6:30 last night.

Second: On to today. I had a 10:30 appointment with my medical oncologist. All went well and she said that, as long as my surgeon is okay with it, I can start chemo next week. Finally! Don't get me wrong. I'm not exactly excited about chemo, but I do feel that the sooner I can get started, the sooner I can be on the other side of this, and I'm really ready to get started.

(It turns out I will not be doing the Taxol test. The treatment involved pills and self-injections and Dr. Kuan nixed the whole idea. It was kind of funny listening to her talk to the research department. "That's not a good test. No, you really should just scrap that test. What about this other one? <listening> No. That's not a good test. These are not really good tests." Anyway. We're doing the prescribed 4 cycles of AC and 6 cycles of Taxol, each two weeks apart.)

I scheduled a Monday morning first time infusion for the AC (I'll be there from about 9 till 1 p.m.) and a Tuesday follow-up for a shot of Neulasta (to get the white blood cell count going).

At 2:45, I met with my surgeon. He confirmed what Dr. Kuan told us--the margins were clean and there is no residual cancer in the breast or lymph node area. Yay! He said that, yes, I can start chemo whenever Dr. Kuan is ready. Then he brought up radiation. He talked about the "mammocite" proposal he had mentioned during our pre-surgery consult over a month ago. Mammociate radiation is when they put a balloon catheter into the tumor site and zap you with radiation from the inside as well as the outside, for five days. This greatly reduces the radiation time (from five/six weeks to five days), so that's a plus. On the other hand, there really aren't any long-term statistics for this form of radiation yet and so no one can offer assurances that it will be as effective, in the long run, as the good old six weeks of daily radiation.

If we pursued this form of radiation, we'd need to do it before chemo, and so we really needed to get Dr. Kuan's opinion. I called Dr. Kuan and after some phone tag, we spoke about the radiation. Given my high risk status, she doesn't recommend the mammocite radiation. So, there we are.

We'll start the AC on Monday and then do three more cycles over a period of eight weeks. When that's done, we'll get started on six cycles of Taxol over twelve weeks. Then we'll take a short break and get started on the radiation.

And, in the interest of fair and balanced reporting ;-), I have to say that I am in love with Blue Shield right now. They approved one of the more expensive anti-nausea meds (Emend) and so other than having a liter or so of toxic chemicals in my body next Monday, I should be feeling okay.

University of Casual Sex and Booze

Well, Em says she has heard UC Santa Barbara referred to in that manner. Of course, it was from a friend who was going to an even more notorious party school (not printed here for self-protection).

We're borrowing the Tonkyn's minivan (thank you Sarah & John!) to which they have attached their bike rack, and we're hitting the road tomorrow around noon. We get to move Emily in to her dorm (Anacapa for those of you looking at a map of UCSB) starting at 9 a.m. Sunday.

I've been a bit tired the past couple days and Frank keeps offering to do the trip solo with Em, but I don't think I could stand that. So, I plan to stay with the car while they're unloading and then go park and slowly make my way back to the dorm while they're putting things in the room.

Other than that, I shall be observing and trying not to interfere in the negotiations to fit three young women (and all their stuff) into a room built for two.

Maggie, meanwhile, will be spending the weekend with friends. She has a soccer game on Saturday, around noon, and after that, she'll go to Siobhan Bauer's house, where I know she'll be well tended.

Frank and I hope to get home Sunday before too late so that Maggie gets to bed at a reasonable time. Wish us luck!

Surgery: Double Check

....and just be grateful it won't be a "triple check".

There was some doubt as to whether or not we'd get approval for the port to placed during this surgery and I was starting to feel a bit pouty about the prospect of a third surgery. But, yay!, someone pulled a rabbit out of a hat, and they put the port in place yesterday, during the recision.

The recision doesn't hurt much, but the area where they put the port is pretty sore. I gather they had to move some muscles around to get everything in place.

But, all in all? Things went swimmingly. Surgery started a bit late (I was wheeled in to the OR a bit after noon, rather than at 11:30), but I was home before 5 p.m. and I got to sleep in my own bed (much more restful than sleeping in the hospital).

Thanks to Joanie, Karen, and Dorothy for cleaning our house again yesterday, while Frank and I were in the hospital all day. "Thank you" to Becky for a wonderful dinner. And thanks to my co-workers for the most fabulous box of chocolates (a box made out of chocolate, filled with chocolate), accompanied by the loveliest sentiments.

I will be meeting my oncologist next week to schedule chemotherapy. And in the meantime, we'll be getting Emily packed up and then settled at UCSB.