BABY

Yesterday I saw Baby. Initially, she ignored me. Surprisingly, she did not get her nose under my shirt. She complained when I arrived but then she calmed down.

All right. I´ll rewind since I never told you about my relationship with Baby.

Baby is Gabby´s dog. Gabby is the daughter of my BFF Zazá (Maya just taught me what BFF stands for ;)). Baby hates me, or so I thought. To no avail I have tried to pet her in the last four years. I grew up with dogs. Dogs always liked me. Why is this cute Maltichon (cross between Maltese and Bichon) agitated when I am nearby?

In June, a few weeks before my June surgery I was even tearful when I told Zazá, that I was beginning to think that dogs didn´t like me anymore (one of those moments when I want to return to my life Before Cancer -B.C.). It wasn´t just Baby. My neighbors dogs bark every time I pass by. They do not bark at my parents, my aunts, my daughters, my husband. Just me at me.

Fifteen days after my last surgery I visited Zazá. I found a different dog. There was no barking, no agitation, hardly any sniffing. Baby even slept with her head on top of my belly (where is the camera when we need it?). She napped on top of my recently cut/super-glued abdomen for the entire afternoon.

That´s when we realized that she probably could detect my tumors. Since Dr. Bertagnolli had just debulked me, she did not have anything substantial to sniff and bark at. Instead she was sleeping on top of my belly. She liked me after all. It was the tumors she hated.

After that Zazá and I started putting the pieces together. My friend recalled other instances when other people came to her house and Baby was restless. We searched for cases of dogs detecting tumors and found out that there are cases where dogs smelled cancer in their owners before the exams. Some dogs are being trained to detect cancer. The net is full of these stories.

So yesterday, I was curious to see how Baby my other "radiologist" would react when I went to Zazá's for dinner.

Exam Report: She barked, but not as much as usual (good sign). She sniffed me and then left me alone (great sign). I tried to get her to sleep next to me but she did not go for that (oh, no tumor collapse yet).

Zé took this photo of my visit to Dr. Baby, yesterday. Even though she is not napping on my lap, this is a special moment. She is relatively calm next to me.

Hey Baby, this one is for you (Gabby told me she jumps when this song is played).

When I tried to fall into Kevin Costner's arms

...and when Sofia "stole" my microphone ;)

(back by popular demand, this clip is from the time I was a TV reporter in Macau)

No man is an island

Zé wrote a post about how much fun it is for the girls to stay behind with tio Armindo and Tia Didija and about how we get to be spoiled by tio Jorge Pedro and tia Maryanne when we are in NYC. He also wrote about the "mini-convention" of Retro Lipo Travellers that took place in the treatment room last week. The liposarcoma stories that were shared, were nothing more than stories of hope. Two topics, I wanted to write about, but since, as always, Zé wrote it a thousand times better, I am just going to copy/paste from his blog.

Elsa's Drug
written by Zé

For the past few weeks, as those who check Elsa's blog know, Elsa and I have been traveling to New York City, to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she is trying out a new drug. The traveling back and forth has been very tiresome, but hopefully worth it. She has found three other people that are taking the same drug. One lady has almost the same history as Elsa. Apparently there is a lot of hope and expectations riding on this drug. There are quite a number of people taking the drug, because it worked so dramatically on a patient who happened to have a liposarcoma, just like Elsa. Every time we go there, we hear of more people getting on the drug. They are all very hopeful people who have made a very calculated bet on science. They all have stories of struggle against this horrible disease, but they all share a common attitude that science will come up with a solution to their problem. I, for one, believe this is the correct attitude and have always encouraged Elsa to approach her battle this way.

But even if it is tiresome and sometimes stessful, like when I have to deal with NYC traffic, these trips have also had their moments of fun. Every week Elsa and I stay overnight at my uncle Jorge Pedro's and aunt Maryanne's house were we are pampered and regaled with stories like only he can recount.Tios Didija and Armindo stay with Maya and Filipa, at our house, while we are away, which I think is also a joyful time for them. Although it is a difficult ordeal to go through, our family has been supperb to us in helping us deal with it. I am reminded of the Donne poem: "

No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main ...

Indeed!

recaída

Tive uma recaída. Não estou a falar da minha saúde ;) pois continuo forte como um touro. Estou a falar do Haruki Murakami. Nao, nao estou a reler South of the Border, West of the Sun. Faltava-me devorar o último livro, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, a memoir. Entretanto descobri um blog onde os fãs do Murakami podem fazer detox ;)
Sim, Michael Salty estou a falar contigo.
Beijinhos
P.S. Nao me mandaste a tua playlist por isso estou a preparar the Murakami Mix.

(I don´t know why I ,wrote this post in Portuguese since half of the words I used are in English :)))) But as you can see I am talking about one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami).

Rita querida, compra este livro e oferece-o ao Rui, diz que fui eu :)))). Ele vai gostar. It is just like his blog.

Yesterday

Our smiles reflect what was going through our hearts. If you read the comments you will see that we only met last week, through our blogs. I found Michelle´s blog when I searched Brivanib (on google blogs). So, as you can imagine, we were excited to meet in person. On top of all, we have Doctor´s visits on the same day, same team at MSKCC.

If you have a sarcoma you know that it is not often that you bump into other sarcoma patients (sarcomas are one percent of the adult cancers and there are over 50 types). Even for those of us who are lucky to be treated in a sarcoma center it does not happen that often. First of all because we do not go around the waiting room asking: what do you have? what drug are you on? Also our doctors and nurses don't tell us: see that other patient over there, he has the same thing as you. There is something called patient privacy.

Anyways, there was more than one reason for Michelle and I to be smiling. We were smiling not only because we liked each other immediately and because we really know how the other one feels. We were smiling because when Michelle was driving to MSKCC, something wonderful happened. She had a terrible pain and horrible nose bleed. Yes, in our world we celebrate these things ;). Michelle's sarcoma tumors are located on her brain. What happened yesterday COULD mean that the drug is working and one of the tumors COLLAPSED. Read more about yesterday in Michelle´s blog.

watashi wa watashi wa, watashi wa ...

Speedy, estavas a falar de quando víamos a Tim Tim?
Carla e Pipas, este post é para recordar os tempos em que cantávamos em japonês ;)
waratte waratte, waratte CANDY
nakibesou nante SAYONARA ne,
CANDY CANDY

Love is all you need

Without it, I wouldn't be able to go through 8 surgeries, 10 clinical trials and 16 months and 6 weeks of conventional chemo. Without what I call amigo-terapia. Translated literally from Portuguese it means friend-therapy.

I have written a few articles about my liposarcoma journey. I talked about the medical aspect of life with cancer. I have tried to, indirectly, give hints of how I am spoiled by my compassionate medical team and by those close to me. Yet I have never attempted to write about my trick to go through all this without losing hope or, as a friend recently said, my smile.

Right from the start, in April 2000, when my doctor and friend, Paula Pimenta, found "the large mass," lots of amigo-terapia started pouring my way. Untiring friends (family included) immediately formed an incredible support system. A system still in operation 8 years later. A support system that has only grown bigger and now also includes blog friends.

The positive aspect of having cancer (oh, I know, it is a cliché) is that it lifts the fog and we can suddenly see clearly. We can see why we are here. We can hug complete strangers for no reason. We can see that love is all we need.

OK enough ;)

I really just wanted to do a post to thank everyone for all the wonderful messages, I have received but not answered. This time I can blame it on the study drug since it makes me sleep during the day (and spaced-out when awake). Yeap, I can blame it on the "fantastic pills." Check Michelle´s blog.