I often joke that I try not to make the same mistake twice because there are so many other new and different mistakes I can be out there making! Same applies for to this second ride on the cancer carnival ride. Not that I ‘made mistakes’ on the first go around, but I learned more than a few lessons about my own coping mechanisms and am being purposeful about things this time.
I’m not cancelling my life in advance. Last time my diagnosis coincided just as I’d signed up to perform in a circus show. I withdrew from the show so I could avoid flaking on my performance commitment and focus on being available for doctors appointments and surgery. In the end, my surgery date ended up happening after the performance and I regretted not being in the show. Not only did I regret missing out on the performance opportunity, but I actually could have used the mental distraction preparing for the show would have provided. This time I’m saying yes to future opportunities despite the uncertainly of my life. It feels good to have non-cancer things to look forward. Yes, I may need to cancel on some things due to treatment, but I’ve realized that people are very understanding in circumstances like this.
Art therapy. As a circus performance artist, I’m directing some of my anxiety driven energy into creating something. So far, it is working well and I have ideas for ways I to adjust the project as my body capabilities change over the upcoming months.
Sharing on social media. There are times when I do want to retreat and curl up within myself and just talk to my close family and friends, but other times when oversharing is a helpful way to stop thoughts from spiraling in my own head. I share when it feels useful and keep it to myself when it doesn’t. I’m also getting a lot of useful information from several breast cancer focused Facebook and Reddit groups. The benefit I’ve received learning from other people who’ve been down similar paths is huge reason why I’m so open about my own journey through this carnival ride.
Actual therapy. I participated in a very helpful zoom based group therapy program through Gilda’s Club https://www.gildasclubtoronto.org after my previous cancer treatment. This time I’m journaling a lot and found an in-person one through WellSpring that starts at the end of September. https://wellspring.ca
As far as updates go, right now I’m in purgatory waiting on a surgery date. Had seperate consultations last week with a breast surgeon (same one that did my lumpectomy) and plastic surgeon. The plan is that they will work together so I should only have one surgery overall. Breast surgeon takes out the breast tissue/cancer and then plastic surgeon will close the incisions for a good aesthetic result.
Okay friends, it’s a fork in the stream path day for me and things could be getting turbulent. Heading into Princess Margaret Hospital for biopsy to find out if my pal ‘leftie’ is sprouting another round of breast cancer.
3 years ago they caught it super early thanks to a screening mammogram and this new bit of sketchy business was spotted the same way. Wish me luck!
TLDR: don’t put off your cancer screenings!!! Cancer fucking sucks, and I’m not keen to get back on this horrible roller coaster, but catching it early is the next best option.
6 June 2025
Waiting for the biopsy results to come in I’m learning more about how to read my hospital reports. BIRADS is like the DEFCON levels of breast cancer diagnostics.
BIRADS 0: incomplete imaging. Please try again
BIRADS 1: nothing of concern. Return to your normally scheduled life.
BIRADS 2: benign. Whatever you’ve got, it’s not cancer.
BIRADS 3: probably benign. See 2, but with less certainty so let’s keep an eye on it.
BIRADS 4: sketchy. Gonna take a biopsy sample and see what’s up.
BIRADS 5: totally suss. Not looking good, but can’t know for sure without a biopsy.
BIRADS 6: it’s cancer.
I’m still holding at BIRADS 4 Healing well and waiting for lab results.
27 June 2025
Still no biopsy results yet. Looks like I’m in for a weekend of trying not to go too squirrelly waiting.
In the meantime I’ve learned that I now carrying a butterfly over my heart. More specifically, a butterfly HydroMark biopsy clip left behind to help identify the area of concern in future imaging tests. The clip itself is actually 2 pieces – a shaped metal coil (mine’s the ‘butterfly’ shape) to show up on xrays like mammogram. The coil is embedded in hydrogel that starts out small during installation and then slowly absorbed my internal boob water just like those weird expanding toys we put in jars in the 1990s. The hydrogel part is so it shows up on ultrasound where the metal butterfly wouldn’t.
5 July 2025
Biopsy results are in and the news isn’t good. Pathology report has words like carcinoma, comedo necrosis, nuclear grade 2-3, and recurrence.
Good news is that it also says ‘no evidence of intrusion’ which means it looks like they are catching it early (again). Not my first ride on the breast cancer coaster.
Got the news Thursday night and have had time to tell my family and stop feeling quite so numb. Can’t know what comes next until the doctors have time to run more tests and make a treatment plan. Early stage means there isn’t as much of a rush which is overall a good thing, but hard on the anxiety levels as I wait for the medical machine to fit me into the production schedule.
Feels like I’m in that moment on the rollercoaster when after standing in the endless line up have finally sat down in a car and the security bar just clicked into place. Nothing moving yet, but the ride is definitely going to happen.
I’m in the early stages of developing what will become a group machine performance. It will be based on the industrial welding robot lines that are common in automotive manufacturing. These cells will often have 4-45 robots inside a single perimeter fence area. As a result of these close spaces the robots will extend vertically as they operate standing tall and moving in a way that resembles a forest of trees bending in the wind.
Applying for residencies and recruiting others into my silliness means I’ve been looking back on the previous manufacturing circus projects. Here’s a summary!
Primary activity for this International Women’s Day is cleaning bathrooms and doing laundry. I wish I were kidding, but thankfully it is in service of an upcoming vacation so must be done regardless of how my feminist self feels about optics. I can laugh at the optical irony of today because I spend every work day of my life leading an engineering firm and mentoring women in a male dominated field.
As a Canadian I’m thankful our family trips for this year were all planned for in country so no need to make last minute itinerary changes like so many our fellow Canucks cancelling trips to Florida while the US president threatens to economically destroy us and then annex our country… it wasn’t funny the first time he made that ‘joke’ and has only gotten less hilarious as the weeks go on.
And so I’m doing the things I can to support Canada in this ‘economic wartime’. Grocery and shopping choices are Canada first (have always aimed for this one, but now I’m paying more attention), followed by ‘anything but US made’. US made used to be my #2 choice, but things change and clearly I’m not alone in this approach because many grocery stores have started clearly marking Canadian goods and offering more produce from Mexico and other parts of the world. I even found sunflower oil that was clearly marked as 100% Ukraine produced.
Our household has also cancelled our Netflix and Disney streaming. The teen reports commiserating with other friends similarly cut off from their entertainment supplies. I’ve also stepped away from all Facebook and Instagram activity, which has been as much about improving my overall mental health during this time of insanity as it is about not supporting the Meta corporation.
No training video this week because I came down with the plague and spent most of the weekend in and out of a fever fugue. Husband is deep in the grant writing trenches so we’ve been eating a lot of takeout and using our limited combined free energies to walk the dogs. Thankfully the teenager can fend for themself and had covid earlier in the week. Kid had such a mild case we didn’t even think about testing for it until I got walloped. Partner received a different variation of the Covid vaccine last round which seems to be protecting him from the one that broke through the vax kid and I got.
I’m now on the upswing side of the recovery curve, but still doing battle with the wads of cotton that keep getting jammed into my sinuses. Partner claims to be on a similar trajectory with the grant so we have hopes of getting him to the grocery store and eating something for dinner tonight that does not include tipping the driver.
Fuzziheadedness combined with a photo of an ex on social media sent me down a rabbit hole of sentimental thinking. I dated a lot in my teens and twenties (am poster child for what is now termed ‘serial monogamy’). Not sure they would say the same about me – ‘indecisive’ is a kind way of saying that I was a generally terrible girlfriend until my late 20s. Essentially, I ran an extensive catch and release program in the dating pond and looking back can see I must have fantastic fishing skills because there are very few that would ever count as a regret. Lots of top notch humans at least from what I can see on social media and the odd time we are able to meet up in person.
But returning to the specific one that showed up on my feed today, I would never think of him as the one that got away. I purposely placed him back in the pond, but he was one of the first that I seriously considered keeping. He was (and almost certainly still is) a huge personality who wears his heart on his sleeve and showed me what it is like to be in a relationship with someone who says exactly what they mean and asks for what they want. Ultimately though, we had desires for fundamentally different career and family paths that made us incompatible. I’m always thrilled that the glimpses I see on social media suggest that not long afterwards he found someone who did want those things.
Fast forward to current life and it doesn’t take much to make me schloppy and sentimental about where various bifurcations in this chaotic system of life landed me as well. I have a partner that makes me feel like I won the relationship lottery, but I can also see how it might not have worked out if we had met 10 years earlier. Or maybe it would’ve/could’ve/might’ve worked out differently and 2024 me doesn’t want that either. I’m happy to be right here on the sofa with one dog on the floor under my feet, another splayed and snoring on the couch kitty corner. Teen sleeping upstairs and in another room squinting at his monitor is the person I look forward to having next to me while we navigate through whatever comes next.
Currently Reading:
Hard book: The Pact by Jodi Picoult
Audio book: To Say Nothing of the Dog: Or How We Found the Bishop’s Bird Stump at Last by Connie Willis
Ten years ago I used the impetus of turning 42 as my wake up call that waiting to ‘get in shape’ before signing up for circus classes would only result in even more time passing. And wow was that ever the right thing to do. I celebrated the last night of 51 in the studio training for a student show planned for April and happily was able to safely do all my favourite bigger tricks that will be going into the routine.
It’s been a full year now since I finished cancer treatment and I’m feeling physically recovered and positive about this upcoming trip around the sun. There was a lot of head time spent asking myself what I want from this next phase of life. I’m in a really good place and the conclusion is applicable to both my work and play worlds. I don’t want to feel like I’m coasting, but I’m also not interested in climbing up ladders (circus or corporate) to increasingly harder things. What I am motivated by is the idea of taking what I have right now and working to make those things better.
Turned out that blogging about cancer treatment in real time was too much for my capacity. I did post things on Facebook and Instagram and am copying them here onto my digital scrapbook.
Looks like my biomachine will be getting some serious work. Apparently even Stage 0 breast cancer warrants major treatment.
News from my oncology appointment today is that I’m getting surgery and then radiation (plus MRI, molli seed placement, and other stuff I’m probably forgetting). So lots and lots of appointments and inconvenience, but that they expect a “full cure” after all is said and done.
I know full well that cancer doctors don’t use the term “expected cure” lightly. I’m insanely fortunate to be in the luxurious position of being more worried about the inconvenience of my cancer treatment than the actual cancer.
Turned out that blogging about cancer treatment in real time was too much for my capacity. I did post things on Facebook and Instagram and am copying them here onto my digital scrapbook.
15 August 2022:
Even a trained biomechanic needs to go into the shop sometimes. Today felt very much like I was a car at the auto mechanics. The hydraulic table goes up and down with a hole for the part they are working on to poke through so the experts had access to work on my left breast from underneath.
I loved seeing such a practical ergonomic best practice from one industry (automotive) applied in the world of healthcare. My favourite work as an engineer is all about this kind of design cross-pollination!
Results in a week or so. Feeling slightly paranoid about accidentally bleeding a bit on my subway home… Why on today of all days did I deviate from my usual black?!?
