The Merits of the Case

We’ve spent months training and preparing, covering miles and miles. We’ve grown from a pair of old friends planning to walk together, to a team of 12 amazing women. We’ve raised over $40,000. And it’s finally time to walk.

The Chest Nuts and I will be walking 60 miles this coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, along with somewhere around 2000 other people. We will be walking to support Susan G. Komen for the Cure and, more importantly, to do what we can so that hopefully YOU will never have to go through what I went through last year. We are walking for ourselves, for our mothers, our daughters, our sisters, our grandmothers, our aunts, our nieces, our fathers, our brothers, our sons, our husbands, and our friends. We are walking for everyone who is battling this disease right now and in honor of those who have lost their battles. Every step we take and every dollar we raise represents another step toward the eradication of and a cure for breast cancer.

I am so lucky to be strong and healthy and alive and able to take part in this event. Thank you so much for your support in my journey to get here.

Update: I have been invited to be one of two survivors who will speak at the camp show on Saturday night. There will only be between 1500 and 2500 people there...I'm not nervous or anything. (!)

Here is a link to the supporter page at the 3Day website. At the top of the page is a feed from the live webcam at camp which will be active between 2:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. (CST). (Video only, no audio.)

Posted by Kim at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Saturday was media blitz day for The Chest Nuts. Not only did we appear on the local NBC morning news, but there was an article about us in the local paper, too.

Rachel, Diane, Karen, and Lesli and I met at my house at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and were on our way at 6:45 a.m. We were supposed to be at the NBC studio no later than 8:45 a.m. On a light traffic day, it takes about an hour to get into the city so I thought that would give us plenty of time to park and walk. As we pulled out of my driveway, one of my passengers reminded me that this weekend was Lollapalooza in Chicago. Then I began to get worried about making it on time. And sure enough, we hit traffic early in the trip. It was a good thing I had a car full of people to crack jokes about it, because I may have panicked if I was by myself.

At NBC5 Studios in Chicago

Despite the traffic, though, we made it downtown with time to spare. We used the extra time wisely with a stop at Starbucks, and then it was on to the studio. Rachel had some guests staying with her from out of town and they accompanied us into the city, so we had them snap a couple of pictures in front of the NBC building before we went in. Just before we knocked on the door, Kristi joined us on the plaza.

Per my instructions, I knocked on the “secret” entrance to the studio and the door was opened by one of the crew members. We were greeted by a staff member, shown the bathroom and the coffee maker, and then we were told to wait. The back of the studio was nothing like I had pictured it in my mind. There was no glamour or greenroom or craft services or hair and make-up crew. Instead, it was just a long narrow room filled with pieces of equipment and a few computers for the crew. There was a microwave and a coffee maker in one corner and there were a few stale doughnuts lying on a counter. There was also a refrigerator covered with 4 x 6 photos of various celebrities. Soon after we arrived, the producer introduced himself to us and explained that we needed to be quiet since the set was just on the other side of the curtain we could see at the end of the room.

NBC5 Studio

NBC5 "Greenroom"

The first thing we all did was use the bathroom, which was about 5 feet behind the green screen used in the weather broadcast. As we were standing there, we saw the shadow of the morning weather woman appear on the other side of the screen and adjust her jacket. We were whispering…okay, maybe we were laughing a little bit, too…about how funny it would be to go up behind the screen during the broadcast and make shadows on the back of it, when suddenly we heard the disembodied voice of the producer call for “QUIET in the back!!” I felt like I was in middle school and had been talking in class as we all clamped our hands over our mouths and tried not to laugh. Eventually we were able to laugh about how terrible it would have been if we had gotten kicked out of the NBC studios within 5 minutes of our arrival.

They let us stay, however, so we settled in for a 45 minute wait. Just before the show started, crew member Kevin appeared with a mike and asked me to thread it up my shirt. After I did that, he attached it to my collar and then attached the transmitter to the back of my skirt. (Note in the picture how Karen is watching to make sure Kevin’s hands don’t stray where they are not supposed to. Thanks for watching out for me, Karen!)

Getting miked by Kevin

Another morning guest was waiting in the “greenroom” with us. He was dressed in a lab coat with an embroidered label that told us his name followed by the letter “MD.” He had a metal briefcase filled with small opaque white plastic bottles labeled with masking tape. He opened the briefcase and set it on a table next to him, and then pulled out a contraption that looked like a small laser gun. Always friendly, Rachel soon engaged him in a whispered conversation and discovered that he worked at the Smell and Taste Research Foundation and that he was there to talk about how much people smelled. The laser-like piece of equipment was a smell-meter that he could use to detect smells in a room.

Dr. Smellgood (names have been changed to protect the innocent) was one of the first guests on the show, so we got to watch his segment from the back room. As we listened to him describe how smelly people are, we began to steal glances at one another and soon we were laughing hysterically. Even one of the crew members was chuckling and shaking his head. The title of Dr. Smellgood’s segment was “The Stinky Truth” and he discussed how much stinkier it is in bars these days now that we don’t have the smell of cigarette smoke to cover up the stink of people—mostly men. He said that men smell worse than women (and attributed that to their less acute sense of smell) and that men’s rooms rank right up there with pig pens and bars as the smelliest places. His solution to the problem? Axe. Let’s just say that TV is not Dr. Smellgood’s calling. He was definitely nervous, and we all began to wonder if he was actually even a doctor as he stuttered and babbled his way through his demonstration of his smell-meter.

Dr. Smellgood and his "smelpers"

I had a lot of sympathy for him, however, because I was definitely starting to get nervous at this point. By this time I realized that there wasn’t going to be any preparation…no one had said anything to me about what the newscaster (Ellee Pai Hong, for those of you in Chicago) was going to ask me, and in fact we had only seen her very briefly when she came back to talk to one of the other guests. (And by the way, she and the weather woman were teeny tiny. They were probably no more than 5 feet tall in their spike heels, and both had hips and waists no bigger than a minute. Since they look regular size on TV, we all began to wonder if we would look like an Amazon walking team standing next to them.)

The segment just before ours was called Firefighter Fitness and consisted of a group of Chicago firefighters demonstrating exercises on the plaza outside the studio. As they neared the end of their demonstration, Kevin came and hustled us outside for our appearance. As we stood there waiting for the producer to tell us where to stand, Ellee Pai Hong came over to us, introduced herself, and then asked me one question about the walk. She wanted to know if we had just done one already this year (she was confusing it with the Avon 2 Day walk). I noted that she was probably thinking about the Avon walk and explained to her the difference between that one and the Breast Cancer 3Day. (I had spoken with a 3Day PR rep a couple of days before to do some media training and luckily she had mentioned that this is a source of confusion, so I was ready with my answer to that question.) After that, Ellee was called back to be on air and that was it—that was all the preparation I got!

After that things happened pretty quickly. The producer placed us next to Ellee and the weather woman, they did a final weather forecast, and then we were on. Ellee was so nice and kind and asked just a few questions about the walk. At one point in the middle of one of my answers the camera man moved very close to us and the camera was within inches of my face. I can tell exactly when that happened when I watch the interview because I lost track of my answer and had to search for a word as I felt the camera get closer and closer to me.

Luckily Randy recorded the show, because I had no memory of what she asked me or what I said right afterward! I think the whole thing lasted maybe 3 minutes, although I completely lost track of time, as well. After we were done the producer asked us to stick around to be in the “crowd shot” at the end of the show, so we did.

After that we all had breakfast and went shoe shopping as we tried to fight off the paparazzi looking for photo ops and autographs.

Oh, wait a minute…that might just have been in my dreams. (We really did have breakfast and go shoe shopping, however!)

Breakfast at Nordstrom

YouTube documentation can be found here. And see the July 24th post for a link to another article that appeared on Tuesday in the Spartanburg-Herald about Alison and Mandy!

Posted by Kim at 04:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

CR Magazine
Loyola Law School Alumni Magazine
Northwest Herald
Spartanburg-Herald
NBC5 Interview

Posted by Kim at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Good, because it's the 15th of July. Do your monthly self-exam!

Posted by Kim at 03:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here is a picture of my beautiful cousin, Jenny, and her daughters Maggey and Abbey. Thank you so much to those of you who have visited her site and left comments for her! I know that she really appreciates the kind and supportive words right now.

Jenny, Maggey and Abbey

Posted by Kim at 06:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I find that all the exercise endorphins and the effects of a healthy diet and my joy at living are easily tempered by the sobering news that I have received in the past few weeks. One day a month or so ago a friend of mine called me to tell me that a mutual friend of ours, Rosemary, had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. The moment the words left her mouth I felt the world stop for a minute as I digested the news. Hearing those words brought me right back to the initial words and weeks of my own diagnosis…the confusion and depression and denial and fear. I called Rosemary immediately and have tried to pay it forward a little bit while she has gone through the initial surgeries and planning stages of her diagnosis. I feel so helpless though. I want to make it go away. I know what she’s up against, and I want her to not have to go through it.

Almost exactly one week later, my father called me one evening to tell me that a friend of his and my mom’s was diagnosed with breast cancer after an abnormal mammogram. Marilyn is exactly one week behind Rosemary in treatment so far. Talking to Marilyn about her diagnosis and treatment plan made me feel the same way I did in talking to Rosemary…it brought back some of the emotions that I experienced so clearly and I wished that I could somehow make it better for her.

When I was going through surgery and radiation and chemotherapy last year every single thing that happened seemed so dramatic and I thought that I would remember every detail forever. What I realized as I spoke with Rosemary and Marilyn was that some details have already become foggy. I can’t remember exact dates anymore, and in some instances I can’t remember what happened first and what happened second. I have looked back at my blog several times to refresh my memory, and I realize how thankful I am that I wrote everything down. This blog has become an important record for me.

And then two weeks ago my dad called me again to tell me that the other shoe had dropped for my cousin Jenny. I’ve written about Jenny before. She was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago and had been cancer free for almost four years. Jenny is only 35 years old and has two little girls, the oldest of whom is only a few months younger than Matthew. Jenny had breast cancer in her right breast and went through surgery, chemo, radiation, and then more surgery when she had a mastectomy followed by reconstructive surgery. And then she found another lump in her left breast. The good news, if there is any, is that this is not a recurrence of the same cancer, but a brand new primary tumor. That is “good news” because it means it is not a metastasis of the original cancer.

Last Tuesday she had another mastectomy on the left side, and will be starting chemo again in July. She found out this week that the cancer had not spread beyond the sentinel lymph node, which is also really good news. Jenny and I talked extensively before her surgery about everything that she is going through. Both of us expressed our dismay at the fact that it came back. (I know I just finished saying that it didn’t really come back, but that’s what it feels like nonetheless.) If you do everything they tell you to do and you work really hard at surviving, it’s not supposed to come back.

When my dad first told me about Jenny, I felt my stomach drop and the ground shift a little bit under my feet. When you have had cancer, you see, this is your very worst fear. Most cancer survivors don’t mention this part of it when you talk to them because it’s all about how well they are doing now. But it is always there. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about this possibility. The idea of cancer returning again colors every single thing that I do. When I watch one of my kids swimming in a swim team event or running down the field in soccer or football, when I celebrate their good grades or when I sit down to eat dinner with them or celebrate one of their birthdays, I also celebrate their lives and my life and the fact that I get to do those things with them. Even something as simple as grocery shopping or writing a paper for school or meeting a friend for drinks or taking a trip with Randy or going to work is a cause for celebration for me. I constantly note how happy I am to get to take advantage of these moments in life. And I think about how I need to live fully…in case the cancer comes back. It’s not that I live in constant fear so much as the fact that I try to take advantage of and fully appreciate each moment as it comes.

Hearing that Jenny found another lump meant that it could happen to me. She went through the same treatment that I did, and then some. She did everything the doctors told her to do. It’s simply not fair that she has to go through it all again. If you do what they tell you to do, it’s not supposed to come back. In talking to Jenny about all that is ahead of her, I realize how difficult it would be to face cancer treatments for a second time. On the one hand, you know what to expect so you are not facing the unknown. But on the other hand, you know what to expect and it is terrifying.

As I have struggled with my worries about Jenny, I have repeated my new philosophy of life to myself and to Randy and to anyone else who will listen. Drink the wine, I keep saying. Wear the clothes. Use the china. Don’t save them for a special occasion or for the “right” moment, because you might never get the chance. It would be a shame if I found another lump tomorrow because I purchased four bottles of really good wine two months ago and I haven’t opened even one bottle yet. What if I cross the street tomorrow and get hit by a bus and I never get a chance to wear those new shoes sitting in my closet? And isn’t it a shame that the lovely china I received as wedding gifts sits in my dining room hutch and only gets used for Thanksgiving and Christmas?

Jenny has a website here where she is writing about her journey this time around. I’d like to end this post with a personal message for Jenny:

Jenny, I am thinking about you and rooting for you, and so are every one of your family members here in Illinois. You fought this thing once and survived and thrived, and there is no doubt in my mind that you will harness all that Crum stubbornness and tenacity and do it again. Know that we are all cheering for you and that we stand ready to do whatever we can to help! We love you!

Posted by Kim at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Despite appearances, I have not abandoned this blog. After Randy asked me if I had decided to stop writing, though, I thought maybe I should post an update.

In the last few weeks I’ve finished up the spring semester, taken a summer session class, and started work (which I wish I could write about because it is fascinating!). During that time I have also continued to train for the 3-Day in August and I ran my first 10K in May. Yes, that’s right; I ran 6.2 miles(!). Six months ago I would never have thought I would do something like that in a million years. Of course, “run” might be stretching it just a little bit, because I didn’t actually run the entire 6.2 miles. I walked 3 or 4 times for about a minute each time, but I crossed the finish line nonetheless. And it felt great! I had a my six month check up with my oncologist a couple of weeks ago and things still look “perfect” (his word). As far as I’m concerned, that’s a good assessment. Next week I will be seeing my radiation oncologist for what I think might be a one year post-radiation appointment. It’s difficult to believe that it has been that long since I went through radiation, but I think it has.

I still have a few lingering side-effects from my cancer journey last year and some of them may never go away. For example, I still have some numbness and nerve damage on my left side under my arm and along my back shoulder. I notice a significant difference in strength on the left side when I try to lift something over my head or out to the side…basically anything I need to use my shoulder muscles to do. I still have my port, which isn’t really a side-effect so much as something that is just kind of constantly there. I don’t think other people really notice it, but I see the line running into my neck and along my chest every single time I look in the mirror. My hair is still short and has remained really curly. It’s kind of amazing to me and I’m still getting used to having brand new hair. I spent my entire life learning how to wash, style, and live with my straight blonde hair and now I have to relearn everything I ever knew about my hair. But I’ll take it…short curly hair is way better than no hair any day!

One of the side-effects that I’ve written about before is the early onset of menopause. I knew that some women revert back to their regular cycles several months after chemotherapy, but when I got to six months I was beginning to wonder if I would be one of those women or if I would be one of those who were sent permanently into early menopause. I’m truly happy to report that I’m not and that I’ve gotten at least some reprieve. Hopefully it will be a good long time before I have to deal with hot flashes and hormone changes on a regular basis.

While I am celebrating my health and life every single morning these days, however, it seems that around each corner there are constant reminders of what we are all up against every day. I will write more about those reminders in a separate post.

Posted by Kim at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

It's the 15th of June. Don't forget to Frisk the 15th!

Posted by Kim at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As you can imagine, I’m all about reminding women to do a monthly self-exam these days. Every time I tell my story to someone new, I always end with an entreaty to be vigilant about doing self-exams.

I confess, however, that I am not doing them.

I hope that by admitting that here I will be forced to walk the walk, rather than just talk the talk. It can mean the difference between life and death, so why is it so hard for us to do it? For me, I think that it is fear as much as anything else. I don’t want to find another lump, because if I do there is a high probability that it will be more breast cancer. I think that subconsciously I hope that if I don’t know about it I won’t have to deal with it. It’s the ostrich approach, and it’s the wrong one.

I wasn’t so great about doing self-exams before I had breast cancer, for the same reason. I didn’t ever always think about it when it was convenient, and when I did remember to do it I always felt a little foolish. After all, how in the world was I supposed to know what to look for? And if I did find something, would I know what to do next? But mostly,I was afraid to find something.

But everything you read about breast cancer says that the early detection is the key, and I am living proof of that. I found the lump in my breast myself. Not because I did a breast self-exam (at the time that I found it, I hadn’t done one for 8 or 9 months), but because I was in the right position at the right moment and because my pajama top was bothering me. What if I had decided not to read that night? What if I hadn’t tried to adjust my top? Who knows when or if I would have discovered the lump. And maybe the next time I remembered to do a self-exam or to schedule a mammogram, my cancer—a very aggressive form of breast cancer—would have spread to another part of my body.

This thought scares me….does it scare you, too? I hope so. I hope it scares you enough to remember to do a self-exam tonight!

And for the record, when I did find something I suddenly knew what I was looking for and I knew what to do.

In order to help you and me remember to do this, I am going to steal a reminder from Mary at Almost Somewhat Positive. She has designated the 15th of each month as Frisk the 15th in order to remind women to do their self-exams. I will do my best to remind you to feel your boobies each month on the 15th by posting a reminder. Will you please remind me if I forget?

Keep in mind that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer, either. If you notice any abnormal changes in your breasts, call your doctor. And make sure that you also schedule an annual mammogram.

If you need a little help remembering, why not order a free waterproof breast self-exam card for your shower from Susan G. Komen for the Cure (one per household)? You can also print the information out on paper here.

Posted by Kim at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Today marks my first anniversary, although it’s not one that I ever planned on celebrating.

Today I have been cancer-free for one year.

Posted by Kim at 02:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)