Attitude

So, I think it's all about attitude. Or at least a lot about attitude. Tomorrow is my first day of chemo. I'm fairly nervous, although not as much as one might expect given the circumstances. I know God will get me through it. It may not be fun, but I have confidence it will be effective. I've got to barrel through.

To that end, I've done a bit of reading up and several authors have given me some fantastic ideas about having a good attitude through chemo. One author wrote a book titled "I wore lipstick to my mastectomy" -- I didn't even read that book but got the sense of the attitude just from the title. Another, titled "Cancer Vixen" is a book about a fabulous young New York cartoonest (her cartoons appear in Glamour and the New Yorker rather than the funny pages on Sunday morning) and her journey through breast cancer. It's shown in cartoon format and is funny, endearing, and heartwrenching. She would start each chemo session in the book by showing a close up cartoon picture of the fabulous shoes she was wearing, or the fancy lipstick she had chosen. It was all about maintaining her sense of self, of tackling cancer while still looking and feeling fabulous. And I can tell you that even though I'm not a fancy person in general, the attitude spoke to me. It must be something about cutting off a breat, then being told I'll likely gain a good amount of weight on chemo (due to the steriods) and lose my hair -- even the most un-vain person needs a bit of help to still feel fabulous. I decided to take on Cancer Vixen's attitude with a pedicure I got over the weekend (mother/daughter pedicure I might add -- fun girl time).

Greg's co-worker (to whom I told this story) decided to take it one step further. She is a quintissential shoe person -- maybe the only person I know who actually owns Manolo Blanick shoes. They're not exactly the most practical shoes for a mother living in Alaska. She surprised me over the weekend with some Cancer Vixen shoes -- my very own Yves Saint Laurent strappy, manicure-toed showing beauties. And yes, I will wear them to chemo tomorrow in an effort to look and feel beautiful and show cancer who's the boss. Look out, cancer cells.