Little Things in the Long Boring Middle of 20 Weeks of Chemo

cw: cancer

I've been ocassionally listening to a podcast called Breast Cancer is Boring. This week, I agree, or maybe I should say chemo is boring. To be clear, I think that being bored by my chemo is great news. It means I'm not experiencing serious symptoms and things are pretty predictable. 

tried to do yoga this morning, and this guy climbed up on my lap while we were suppsed to be focusing on our breathing

Wednesday was my 6th weekly infusion of Taxol. I have 6 more weeks to go. I've been doing this whole chemo thing for 14 weeks and that seems like a long time and I've still got more than a month to go, which also seems like a long time. To put that in perspective, though, the lady next to me at infusion this week said it was her last infusion; she'd started a year ago. I also know folks who've been doing this for 2 or more years. My nephew has to have infusions through 2024!

my daughter's friend gave me some stickers, so I used them to celebrate milestones in my planner

My nephew's situation is also much improved, which helps with everyone's worries and allows for boredom. His surgery was successful, he's healing well, and he's very active (he went from walking to running in seconds, by the look of things) and making huge progress on his motor control and all that. 

port-a-cath sprigs fresh out of the bisque

My symptoms from the start of the Taxol are much improved. I've only had two days of mild nausea during Taxol and the medicine I have was easily able to handle it. My appetite is back (with a vengance) and food tastes mostly normal. Ironically, the only thing that tastes funny to me is milk chocolate, I don't know why that is. Dark chocolate is fine.

port-a-cath sprigs in use

Last week they switched one my premeds in the infusion and that helped a lot. I'd been experiencing a pretty painful indigestion (or, Idk, pain in my chest) during the premeds while on Taxol, but the new stuff isn't painful at all. I also switched from Pepcid to Omeprazole to deal with the daily indigestion and that seems to help with the permanent feeling of pressure on my chest and back. The amazing thing about medicine that is preventing pain is that you start to forget that it's doing anything because not being in pain starts to feel normal.

new port-a-cath bulb with a bit more complex layering of the catheter

I still have, just random aches and back pain a lot of the time. Apparently one of the side effects listed for Taxol is pain in the joints and muscles, so I assume that's what I'm feeling. It's one of those symptoms that is more annoying than really disruptive, and pain killer takes care of it when I remember to take it. My weeks have developed a distinct pattern--or maybe its fairer to say this is the same pattern as during A/C but less dramatic. 

I wanted to play around with the idea of a heart / port-a-cath because I am aware the the port-a-cath is a bit creepy to some, but the heart is far cuter than I usually do in my work

On Wednesdays after infusion I'm tired and feel drowsy, dizzy, and kinda yucky. Thursdays I generally feel great. Fridays and Saturdays I start feeling a kind of undefinably badness that sometimes rises to mild nausea, but it has more often been presenting as soreness and depression or worry. I finally started labelling it to myself a few weeks ago and last week I make a consious decision to spend much of the day reading on the couch. I went for a walk in the morning, but avoided the computer and didn't try to clean or do work or even get into the studio. My mood was much more stable and by 6:30pm I wasn't in pain (usually I've been hurting by evening). I plan to take it easy again tomorrow.

I took a picture as soon as I started noticing discoloration on my hands so that I could compare later if the discoloration got worse. (When I was having hand symptoms before, I thought it would be funny to tell my oncologist that the neuropathy had caused my pinkie finger to not straighten--a symptom I've had since the 80s.)

Other symptoms have also improved during Taxol. My hands are in really good shape. The neuropathy / hand and foot disorder of the first weeks of Taxol seems to have gone away entirely. The skin on my fingers is smooth with only one broken bit on my thumb and I haven't had pain or stiffness in weeks. My fingernails have an almost imperceptible amount of discoloration (something they tell you to watch out for), but I don't think it even shows up in a photo. I've been icing my hands during the Taxol infusion every week to help prevent neuropathy or damage to my nails.

icing my hands (well, the one not holding the camera) during chemo

A lot of my symptoms are really mild and stupid, though a few are annoying. For several weeks I've had a pseudo bloody nose in the morning. I say "pseudo" becuase it isn't dripping, but I discover the blood when I blow my nose. But even that's improved; today I woke up without this problem. My mom says that the bloody nose might be related to the anemia. My oncologist says it isn't something to worry about. 

chemo this week. I'm sure these weekly pics are sooo interesting with the mask on

I didn't talk to the oncologist this week, so I didn't get much detail on my bloodwork other than it looks fine. That means that both my anemia and my liver enzymes must be improved from earlier in this process. I don't know if they are still "watching" these numbers or if I'm just fine. They always offer to give me a print out of my numbers, but I think having it would just allow me to obsess about something I don't need to obsess about. 

All through the pandemic online teaching the cats showed no interest in climbing on my lap during class, but now they love to climb on my lap while I'm typing or in a Zoom meeting. I guess they needed 2 full years to get used to the idea

I have noticed that I am mostly able to walk more without getting my heart rate too high. I even started walking all the way around Franklin park a couple of days in the past week, though I have to take a break partway up the hill on the 19th Ave side. I've been trying to keep my heart rate below 140 on the doctors orders. I'm using my fitbit watch to monitor it, but I do sometimes wonder how accurate it is. I went for a short walk with my husband the other evening, just about 6 blocks total (there and back) and when we got home my heart rate had reached 166. Oops.

This pic is from a week ago, but I already had a gap in my top lashes. now I have gaps in the top and bottom

A new symtom I noticed a week or two ago is that my eyelashes are falling out. It's very strange to experience because each one seems to start by going sideways and poking into my eye, so it is uncomfortable. My husband says he doesn't yet notice the difference, but I have several gaps along my eye lids (top and bottom) where the lashes are gone. Also, it is very difficult to take an in-focus photo of one's own eye lash gaps. My daughter thinks my eyebrows are also thinning, but I notice those changes less than the lashes since they don't insult me by first poking me in the eye on their way out the door.

peach fuzz does not photograph clearly

A new "symptom" I noticed today is that my head hair has apparently been replaced with super soft white/blonde peach fuzz. I say white/blonde because I'm trying to avoid considering the possibility that my hair grows back all white. I don't know if this peach fuzz is temporary or indicative of what will grow back eventually. The soft peach fuzz is mostly on the sides, but I still have very short dark stubble infrequently interspersed throughout. I assume this is the hair that didn't fall out when the rest did and thus got shaved.

I got some glazing done last week, I'm using the Mt. St Helens Ash mix on the sprigs

Today I had an ultrasound on my lump to determine the size. We knew the tumor had shrunk because the oncologist said so. I can't really distinguish it anymore which also makes me think it shrunk. The ultrasound person today said that they'd have someone else read the images and give the official measurements in a week or two. I, of course, already forgot the tentative numbers she gave me anyway. They seemed a lot smaller than what the MRI said and only a bit smaller than what the first ultrasound said. (I was kinda hoping she'd say "gosh, I can't even detect a thing. You must be full cured!") The only thing she really told me, which we already knew, is that the tumor has shrunk, but it's still clearly there. Today's ultrasound person also was unable to find the clip in my lymph node, but tried to find it in a bit of friendly competition with SCCA.

This guy is in the kiln now, I though it woud be easier to keep the glazes separate if I fired between applications

I wasn't able to see the ultrasound of the tumor during the first ultrasound in November, but today the screen was at an angle I could see. I had asked about getting a picture of the tumor, with the idea of maybe including the imagery in a sculpture. As it turns out, I have no idea how I would translate the image to a sculpture. On the ultrasound the tumor looks like a blank, black space between all the interesting bits of breast tissue. My tumor looked like a black, featurless gap in the shape of a tall isosceles triangle with fuzzy edges. It just seems like, for all the stress it causes, the tumor should look a lot more like something, rather than nothing.

The sculpture above with the sprigs fully glazed, before firing.

The other thing  was reminded of this week is that the staff at Northstar Lodge are so utterly, consistently wonderful to work with (or be worked on by). When I went in this week, the nurse asked about the heaviness in my chest I had complained about the week before. The other week a different nurse asked about my nephew because I had talked about him the week before. It is so nice to know that the nurses actually have a clue who I am. Of course it also helps that they are all very competent, efficient, and kind. I was chatting with a colleage who had experience there and she was effusive in her praise, but I have also been following the cancer progress of someone in a different city and it is just heartbreaking that folks have to deal with medical staff who don't know them, or give unclear information, or don't seem to care. And that's not even to mention the awfulness of billing errors. 

I under glazed the first batch of port-a-cath bulbs and I'm enjoying the brightness

We dealt with plenty of billing errors at Regional/Astria over the years, so I know where the baseline can be (sending the bill to collections instead of insurance, for example). I know our cancer billing experience has been helped by the fact that I have such a popular/well studied cancer and the care is pretty standardized, and also by the fact that we met our out of pocket maximum on January 13 this year (those growth factor shot's will get you), but stuff has simply been covered by insurance and the folks at both Ohana and SCCA have been quick to help us navigate billing errors or insurance rejections. And, amazingly, we've only had one billing error this whole time! Northstar hasn't had to talk to us about bills or rejections because all that's been smooth sailing.

Taxol vs A/C and Savi Scout Fail at SCCA

cw: cancer

studio assistant (getting in the way)

Taxol vs Adriamycin/Cytoxan

This week I finished my 3rd infusion of Taxol. The side effects of the Taxol continue to be much milder than the side effects of the A/C infusions. After the first round I had some problems with my hand which we thought were neuropathy. After I saw my oncologist, she indicated that it might not have been neuropathy from the Taxol. but might have been "hand and foot disorder" as a leftover reaction to the A/C.

peeling skin from hand and foot disorder (or neuropathy)

The hand problems are getting better, which doesn't clarify what the cause was. My fingertips had been sore and starting to get dry and brittle during the A/C, but the pain and heat in the fingers started up in between the last A/C infusion and the first Taxol. During each of the Taxol infusions I've held on to bags of ice, which is supposed to keep the chemo from damaging the neurons in the fingers. 

I've also been putting Arnicare cream or Aquaphor on my hands several times a day. The tips of my fingers a quite a bit better, but it seems I have to be much more diligent about keeping them moisturized than usual. Usually when I'm teaching in the clay studio in winter, my hands will get pretty dry from being outside and from being in and out of the water all day. But I've never before had the tips crack as much as they have this month. I don't remember the skin literally peeling like this, like after a sunburn. Lucikly, the pain and heat only lasted about a week.

Darter tolerates me in small doses; she was curious about my bald head

The nausea is the best thing, in that it has mostly gone away. I was feeling so good last week that I put away my nausea medicine (meaning I took it off of my desktop medicine stash and put it in the cupboard). This Friday I had to get it out again, but just once, which is still an improvement over A/C. 

The quantifiably good news this week was that my anemia is better. My hemoglobin and related numbers had been steadily dropping since I started chemo, but this week they finally moved up. I'm still anemic, but not as bad as last week. The increased hemoglobin numbers also mean that I'm less likely to need an intervention in the form of blood or blood products, which is what I was a bit worried about last week.

I don't know if anything I did helped with the anemia. I asked the doctor what I should do and she said there wasn't much I could do, but I made some adjustments in my diet anyway. We replaced our broken blender a few weeks back so that I could make smoothies when I wasn't feeling like eating. So now almost every morning I'm having a smoothie with a whole bunch of spinach and some wheat germ, along with whatever fruit we've got. I also tried to eat more protein in stew or soup or other meals over the past week.

Buddy can be a snuggly guy, until he bites (surprise!)

My oncologist had indicated that the anemia shouldn't be as bad on Taxol. Either way, time passing or my diet adjustments made a difference and that feels good. I'd been feeling the effects of the anemia when I go for a walk. I get winded more easily and have had to take breaks or even call for Sean to pick me up. Around the time of the last A/C or first Taxol, I had a bunch of conversations about all the symptoms that were worrying me, including being out of breath. It made me feel better to know that the anemia was the reason I was out of breath. It made it less scary, really.

third taxol

Also that week, after 8 or 9 weeks of chemo, I finally got a specific number for where I should keep my heart rate. When I first started seeing doctors about my cancer treatment, both in Seattle and in Yakima, I asked about excercise and how much I could continue to do. Both oncologists said I shouldn't work out too hard or bring my heart rate up too high, but were a bit vague about what counted as too high. I got the impression in Seattle that I shouldn't take spin class, but that leaves quite a bit of leeway between going for a walk and doing some kind of high intensity exercise. 

As I've continued to do chemo, my energy has waned a bit, but I've still been unsure what is allowed or reasonable.  Last week the nurse navigator told me I shouldn't let my heart rate get above 140. It has been nice to have a specific number, especially as I now can get my heart rate above 140 just by walking down the street or doing yoga at home.

All the cats like to come check out what I'm doing in the clay studio, especially right before dinner time

Last weekend my daughter and I walked to the downtown library. We'd done this the weekend before, too, and its a bit shorter walk than the walk to school which we do most weekday mornings. Last weekend, armed with the 140 number, we made it less than 2 blocks before I needed to take a break. On the whole walk, we needed to stop and let me breathe maybe 5 or 6 times. My husband ended up picking us up at the library because I wasn't sure I could handle walking home (or it might take forever).

This was the worst I had felt just walking, though I'm pretty sure my heart rate would have gotten higher the week before (when I forgot my watch at home). This week I hadn't walked as much because the schools were on midwinter break, it had been cold, and I had to go to Seattle on Thursday. Today I went for a nice long, slow walk to check out a new (to us) little free library and I only had to slow down twice to let my heart rate get below 140.

a sculpture I've been working on in the past weeks

Savi Scout Fail

The trip to Seattle this week was a bit ridiculous. In November, when I had my biopsy in Yakima, the people at Ohana put markers into my tumor and into the lymph node that they biopsied. These markers were meant to identify the location where the biopsy was taken. If the biopsy showed no cancer, these markers could be seen in future mammograms and show that these anomolies had already been checked. If the biopsy showed cancer the markers could help identify what needed to come out, at least I thought that was the plan.

For reasons I only partially understand, the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA, where I plan to have my surgery), wanted to put in a different type of marker, called a Savi Scout, into my lymph node. They called me a little over a week ago and scheduled the appointment for this past Thursday, then they called again (four times) that day and wanted me to come in the very next day as there had been a cancellation. We determined that skipping chemo for this procedure didn't make sense, so I waited until this week.

after I started adding texture on the bottom of the sulpture, I broke my sprig

It seems like this procedure is usually done before chemo begins, or very early in the chemo process. It sounds like it is also sometimes done shortly before surgery, but I think that's for folks who aren't doing neoadjuvant chemotherapy (before surgery chemo). I'm not sure why SCCA didn't have this Savi Scout put in in December or even January, though I suppose it might have been a miscommunication or a difference between how things are done in Yakima vs Seattle. 

Regardless, we went to SCCA on Thursday this week to have the Savi Scout put into my lymph node. My oncologist had already indicated that she couldn't detect any swelling in my lymph node any more. Both the lymph node and the tumor in my breast appear to have responded positively to the chemotherapy treatment. I asked my oncologist last week if SCCA would be able to put in the Savi Scout if she couldn't detect the involved lymph node anymore. She seemed to think it would be fine.

once I broke the sprig, I had to figure out what to do with the bottom section

When we got to SCCA, they had a doctor come in to use the ultrasound to find the old marker in my lymph node. This first doctor seemed a bit unsure of herself and didn't feel confident that she had found the marker. So she brought in another doctor. I think he was an attending, but I'm not totally sure of the difference between doctor ranks. This doctor seemed very confident and happy to help. So he looked for the marker with the ultrasound machine. He agreed with the first doctor that the thing that might be the marker wasn't clearly the marker and that together they didn't have confidence in identifying the right node. So they decided to talk to my surgeon.

My surgeon was out for the week, so they came back with a third doctor, this woman must have been some third level doctor as her confidence sort of glowed out of her. She took over the ultrasound, looked a bit and agreed with them. All three doctors asked me if I could help them by remembering where the mark was from the bioposy. They couldn't find a scar from the biopsy because the procedure was in November and tiny needle marks heal in 3 months.

I ended up mixing up the sprigged texture on the bottom section

The upshot was that they simply couldn't do the procedure because there was no visual evidence of cancer in any of the lypmh nodes and no sign of the original marker. Three different people squeezed goo on my armpit and searched with the ultrasound wand thing. I got to see my arm muscles and lymph nodes on the screen and I agree that nothing looked like anything. I got to hear the same information from an increasingly senior and more confident doctor, but the result was the same. They didn't put in a Savi Scout.

I wonder what this particular bill will look like.

Though driving to Seattle for basically nothing might not be my first choice activity, the "problem" that caused the trip to be in vain is, ultimately, that I don't have any evidence of cancer in my lymph nodes (and also that my body seems to have absorbed or hidden the marker thing). So I can't be too upset about that part. I'm just over halfway through my chemo treatment and clearly the cancer is responding the way we want it to. My daughter suggested that my immune system is so strong it consumed the marker.

I had planned to use the port-a-cath in this sculpture as well, but chose something easier once I got started

All three SCCA doctors assured me that not getting the Savi Scout wouldn't be a big deal. If I understand correctly, they will still take out some lymph nodes during the surgery. They'll do a procedure to identify the "sentinel node(s)."  I believe this amounts to putting some dye stuff in the tumor and tracking where the dye drains to. The lymph nodes that the breast area drains to first are the sentinel nodes. We've got a bunch of lymph nodes in our armpit areas and this procedure helps the doctors find out which nodes are mostly likely to have cancer in them. Then they can remove just the lymph node(s) that are likely to be a problem and not the rest.

Back in the day, they used to take out a whole bunch of lymph nodes which could lead to lymphedema or swelling in the arm. By removing just a few, they can reduce that risk of swelling. The Savi Scout would have allowed them to take out the sentinel nodes and the previously biopsied node, but the previously biopsied node might be (probably is?) also a sentinel node so it may come out regardless.

building without a plan, and adding repetitive textures, feels comforting in a way that building sculpture that is trying to communicate something about the feeling of cancer is not

As I understood it at the start of this whole process, the neoadjuvant chemotherapy had three main goals. First, and most important, was the goal of eliminating cancer in the rest of my body. Scans of my bones and body didn't reveal any evidence of cancer anywhere else in my body, but there was still the risk that there was a little bit of it somewhere that could grow in that new location, causing the cancer to spread.

The second goal was to reduce the size of the cancer in the lymph node, possibilty eliminating it. The third goal was to reduce the size of the tumor itself. As I understood it in December, the doctors thought they could do a lumpectomy (cut out the lump rather than the whole breast) even if the tumor didn't shrink and the tumor was unlikely to go away with just chemo. I think I thought that the lymph node might get smaller and might even go away.  

I did want the form of this sculpture to suggest hiding or curling up on onesself for comfort

As it turns out, the lump is smaller and the lymph node appears to have no cancer. I have to assume that means good things for any bits of cancer that might have been left in the rest of my body. All of this is clearly good news. I can't tell if it is better than expected or about what we expected. 

The good response so far does make me wonder if I need the full 20 weeks of chemo. It has always seemed like a long time. At this point it feels doable, but it still feels like I have a long way to go. The doctors assured me that even if my tumor is gone after surgery, I still need radiation, and I understand that my treatment regimen has been tested and found to be the most effective at preventing recurrence (the cancer coming back), but at the same time, it feels like a lot.

the head section of the sculpture rests on the body and is only visible from certain angles

As for the Savi Scout procedure, apparently they've only been using it to mark the involved lumph node for about a year.  Had I been doing this process a year ago, I wouldn't have had the Savi Scout anyway. On the other hand, had we caught the cancer a year ago (like, had I started mammograms at 40) I'm thinking that the whole process would have been shorter and less unpleasant. PSA: Ladies, get your mammograms!

texture detail

 

Port-a-cath Sculpture

CW: needles and blood

my most recent sculpture, nearly finished

I started this sculpture without a real plan. Building feels good and in the week after my last, roughest, round of A/C chemo, it felt good to get into the studio and squish clay. Shortly after I started it, though, I got thinking about how to communicate the feelings of going through chemo, visually, in a sculpture.

port-a-cath bulb

My friend Cheryl prompted me to start thinking about what I would make during this time and how making could be therapeutic or part of the process of going through cancer treatment. My initial thought was to do a kind of daily journal or art-a-day making process where each bulb I made would have a visual representation of chemo: needles and vomit bags and, breasts and lumps. I've done something similar with my protest/patriot/politics/resist bulbs.  But how do you represent not eating? But before I'd thought too far, I realized that I didn't want to do this. Not only are a lot of the real feelings of chemo hard to represent visually, but the things that are easy to represent seem trite. Everyone already knows that breast cancer and chemo is about needles and vomit and breasts and pink ribbons. Plus I've already done a vaccination bulb. Yawn.

alternate port-a-cath design bulb

What do I really think about when I think about my cancer and my chemo? It's the port-a-cath that's in my chest. I think about this thing all the time and as my Aunt Di phrased it, it gives me the "willies." I don't like needles and IVs and blood and all that, but all that is exactly what we have to do all the time for chemo and most of that comes through my port. For my pre-chemo blood draw, a nurse "accesses" my port. To be clear, she takes a needle and sticks it into this medical device that's been semi-permanently implanted in my chest. Ick. 

port-a-cath bulb variations

Then the next day another nurse accesses my port again for the chemo. I could leave the port accessed, but then I'd spend the entire day and night in between feeling this thing hanging out of my chest and I can't handle that kind of ick factor. They would cover the accessed port with this huge plastic cover thing, like my chest has a big sticky saran wrap cover over it, but I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about the port getting accessed, I would not feel comfortable actually having the physical thing just sticking out there for a full day.

Overkill port-a-cath bulb

From the outiside, the port looks and feels like a lump on my chest. Ironic, isn't it, that to remove a lump from my chest (breast), we've implanted a lump on my chest (upper)? Having this lump on my chest, under my skin is strange, though less strange than I thought it would be when I thought they were going to have the plastic/silicone part sticking out of my chest with a little cap or something they opened to access it.

scupture in progress with the port-a-cath and catheter lines in place

But the thing that consistently creeps me out about the port is that I can feel the tube that connects the port to my vein (artery? idk). I can feel this tube, hose, catheter thing under my skin. I can feel how it comes out of the top of the port and then dives down into my anatomy somewhere. The idea that this is just under the skin, that it is not me, that only a thin layer of me protects it, and the idea that this thing goes into my blood stream, all of that I find gross and scary to think about. It makes me think how fragile human bodies are, at least when competing with sharp tools.

catheter lines disappearing into the surface

The first time my port was accessed, for my first blood draw, it didn't work correctly right away. My (possibly warped) understanding it that the catheter line was kinked inside my body, like a hose that someone has bent to stop the flow of water. The nurse had me move my arms and neck to try to fix it, which worked, but she also had to recline my seat for me as the edges of my vision faded to grey because the idea of a kinked hose inside my body made me feel faint. 

twisty, wrapping, icky medical hoses

The fact that you can fix whatever the problem is by moving around makes me think that you can also cause problems by moving around. Did I cause this by exercising after the port-a-cath was put in? Should I hold my shoulder really stiff now, for, like, the rest of my treatment so that my hose doesn't kink again? The nurse said this wasn't necessary and it hasn't been a problem since.

these little guys were my first try with the port-a-cath forms

As you can perhaps tell, the feelings I have about needles and implanted medical devices that can be felt through the skin, and blood, and tubes inside my body are strong. The imagery of the port-a-cath really encapsulates my kind of curious, queasy, disgusted, fascinated, uncomfortable feelings around chemo. The port-a-cath and the catheter lines themselves capture what chemo feels like to me much better than would a regular needle, though I've been poked with those plenty of times during this process, too. An emesis bag or a bottle of pills might communicate something about the routine after chemo, and might communicate to an unfamiliar audience, but the port-a-cath is this very specific medical device with very specific feelings for me.

the port-a-cath placed roughly on what I think of as the chest of my scupture

And I think those feelings hold somewhat true for my fellow cancer patients/survivors/caregivers. I tried out an experiement the other week. After making a model port-a-cath on which to form a sprig mold, I shared a picture of it online and asked if folks knew what it was. I specifically tagged my cancer/chemo friends who immediately recognized it and shared stories about their experience. Folks who presumably hadn't had experience with cancer/chemo that requires this type of infusion offered other suggestions for what it was: a lawn sprinkler, a UFO, or a wine stop.

catheter lines weaving into the surface, photo right after the top fell off

I also really wanted to capture the way the catheter line goes into the body. Visually, I don't think that leaving the port-a-cath and the line under the surface of the clay would communicate, so I tried to make it look like it went in and out of the surface of the form. Now that I'm finished with it, I'd like to see more variety in the depth of the line. I could try to make parts of the line appear to be just below the surface and that might capture the feeling I'm trying to express a little more clearly.

lines weaving under one another

Obviously the real thing is much less impressive looking under my skin. I've got a scar from the surgery and then a bump. It so unimpressive that I've been unable to take a picture that really communicates what it looks like (the picture just looks like a scar line). I don't think someone looking at me could see the line of the catheter tube under my skin, so I've tried to exaggerate beyond the look of the thing and the real physicality of the thing to the way it makes me feel to know it is there (or to know that it needs to be adjusted to work right).

As the sculpture is about bionics, a mechanical sprig mold makes sense for this sculpture

For many years, I've been trying to explore, in my sculpture, the place where nature and machinery meet: bionic additions to natural forms or mechanical or human made elements. How ironic, then, that I have become a natural form with a human made element added into my biology in order to try to improve my life. Life imitates art, in this case.

the scullpture pre-sprigs and while I was tring to sort out the surface

This sculpture, in particular, felt like it got away from me a bit. I think that's a normal feeling when trying to explore a new space in art making. I wanted the surface to feel like it was getting out of control in a creepy kind of way, but in the meantime the form got a bit out of control, too. In fact, I had to support the top with a lump of clay (we'll call it an external armature to sound fancy) after it fully fell off at one point. It fell off because I was rushing the day before my last chemo because I wasn't sure if I'd feel up to working on it after.

the block of clay won't be there after firing

The surface also got away from me on this one. I didn't entirely have a plan for how the surface would be once I added the tube lines, but I found that I couldn't smooth the surface next to the lines as well as I would like. This happened in part because of timing. I did take the day of chemo off from the studio, which meant the surface had dried more than I wanted it to. When I came back to it, I kept gouging the lines themselves or scratching the surface. I had to go back and do a lot more repair on this piece than I usually do. Part of the need for repair was the newness of the idea, but part was also my irregular studio time.

shortly after the top feel and I had to trim it down to replace it

The other day someone suggested to me, half joking, I think, that not teaching during my chemo is a bit like a sabbatical. They're right in that I've got time away from work, but I took a sabbatical about 7 years ago and this is not like that. This is like a sabbatical except instead of travel or deep exploration of a research topic, I go to the doctor a lot and and feel sick and cold and tired a lot. The moments I have for exploration of a research topic (working in my studio), are interrupted by pain, nausea, and exhaustion. 

tedius texture being added around the port-a-cath

When I took a sabbatical back in the day, I had my research idea mapped out ahead of time, as well as my timeline for the work. I was able to devote my entire day (at least barring child pickup and drop off) and my entire week to the studio. I felt physically and mentally strong and was able to work on quite a few items at once. Working all day and on multiple projects at once is pretty normal for me in the summer, too. Now I have trouble getting into the studio daily and have to limit the time I spend in the studio when I'm not feeling well or simply feeling tired or sore.

neuropathy in my finger joints

The nausea kept me out of the studio for up to a week every other week during my A/C chemo cycles. I've felt much better on my first Taxol cycle, but I've struggled with neuropathy (pain in my hands), soreness in my body, and general tireness. It's frustrating to go from doing a lot every day and every week, to feeling like you can't do as much. I was telling my family the other day that I felt like I wasn't sick enough to deserve to do as little as I was doing. My husband's response was to tell me I could help him in the garage. My mom told me I was allowed to rest. (Reader, I took my mom's advice.)

adding texture with the small tool

This week I've felt very lucky not to have nausea, like at all, but I have had neuropathy and pains in my chest. I'm hoping the check pain is indigestion, but it is still uncomfortable and when the pain radiates to my back, it makes working in the studio uncomfortable. The end of this project was somewhat conducive to making the back pain, in particular, worse.

larger texture tools (the bottom two are pin frogs for flower arranging)

On this project, since I was having trouble with the surface, I decided to apply a fine texture that will allow me some subtle color variation with underglazes later on. The process can be sped up with some texture tools (pin frogs for flowers and whatever the square thing is), but these only work on large flat or convex surfaces. When I try to use them in narrow spaces or inside curves, they don't reach or they bump into the catheter lines I'm trying to keep clear, so I need to switch to a much smaller tool.

applying texture one dot at a time inside the area where the other small tool won't reach

Applying this texture took me about three days, with lots of breaks. It took me longer to apply the sprigs on the top, both because the sprig mold became too saturated and needed to dry for a bit and because I kept hurting myself. My fingertips are particularly dry and sensitive, probably as a side effect of chemo. I'm not sure if this is part of neuropathy or a separate issue, but the upshot is that my skin breaks with minimal contact. 

trimming sprigs

I use a needle tool to cut the edges of the sprigs I added to the top of the sculpture, but at one point I stabbed my finger with the end of the needle tool. On another occasion, which I didn't even register at the time, I scratched my thumb with one of my scoring or texture tools and it left score marks on the thumb for over a week. These little hurts are par for the course and fingers often get slightly injured in the clay studio, but my typical response of letting the clay get rubbed in and moving on is maybe not the best plan now. 

layered sprigs on the top 

All the chemo take-home paperwork tells me that I should avoid cuts and bleeding. I'm supposed to limit the opportunity for infection and I think there is some concern that I could bleed too much. They specifically say to avoid contact sports and power tools. Obviously clay isn't a contact sport and these tools aren't powered, but it does make me worry more than usual about infection, so I try to wash out cuts and keep them covered as best I can.

finished form

I'm about ready to head to my second taxol appointment. This will be the 10th week of 20, though only the 6th infusion of 16. I'm feeling optimistic about symptoms based on last week, though the nurse yesterday made sure to tell me that I could still have an allergic reaction to the Taxol. Gee, thanks for that comforting thought. Wish me luck.