Parenting through kancer

This post has been brewing for a long time. I haven't written it out of fear. Fear of admitting that I'm less than perfect. Fear of criticism.

Parenting at the best of times is challenging. But parenting with cancer? It's shit.

If you think I'm fishing to be told how wonderful I am, I'm most definitely not. I'm hoping that by putting these words down, I can try to get the bad feelings out of my system and let them go.

I have met women who share how much of a bonding experience cancer was for their family. Everyone together as a unit, ready to fight the evil cancer. My reality is I feel like cancer is trying its best to tear my family apart.

These days, more often than not, I feel like I'm doing a terrible job.

Though I'm physically strong given what my body has been through the past several months, emotionally, I'm all over the place.

Like most 5 year olds, mine likes to test the boundaries. He started kindergarten and has had some challenging days that have resulted in his being sent to the office.

I'm doing all the things I've been told are the right things. I've talked to the teacher, to the counsellors, and to the principal. We've been to the cancer agency's children's group. We've tried to keep some semblance of structure at home.

But sometimes, I feel all this effort doesn't mean a damn. And I'm at a point where I'm tired of everything: a never-ending roster of appointments, trying different types of counselling, being told that everything we're experiencing is "normal".

I have become a more patient person in many ways - stopping to collect chestnuts on the way to school instead of trying to make it there in record time to prepare for my return to work, for instance - but I still have not-so-stellar moments. I yell when a hug is needed. I cry when I it's time to buck up. I stress when I should let go.

Trying so hard to make everything better is, well, trying.

I have this little person who depends on me for so much. My biggest fear of all is that while I'm fighting to get myself better, I am letting him down.

Pee and garbage harsh my beach buzz

These beach feet don't like to step on other
people's garbage.© kittelberg writes

The tough part about going somewhere that provides excellent people watching is that you have to take the jerks along with the good people.

Enter Mr. Beach Pee

You know, like the guy who openly took a leak in the water at English Bay tonight.

As in stood there up to his knees in the water, with a stream of pee clearly arcing from his shorts to the water.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm no Pollyanna. I know people pee in the water all the time, from babies who don't know any better to adults who are just plain lazy.

But this took the cake. Not only was beach pee guy too lazy to walk the two minutes it would have taken to get to the public washrooms. He was too lazy to even sit in the water and attempt to hide the fact that he was peeing in the water. The water that tons of people, thrilled that summer might have actually started in Vancouver, were swimming in.

His nonchalance made it evident that he's the type of entitled young adult that the old folks like me sniff about. I mean really, what's more entitled than the act of purposefully and obviously relieving oneself in English Bay without regard for nearby swimmers?

Garbage tide

Then there's the garbage that was being hurled onto the shore by the incoming tide. I had visions of wading and perhaps even swimming in the water with my son tonight. I always forget how cold the water is. Then once I saw the garbage, it was game over. This mama wasn't swimming.

There was a plastic bag, then a bus ticket, and broken bits of bottles. These got added to our garbage to be placed in a - wait for it - city garbage can on our way home. Imagine that? Later, there was the disposable soda cup, a straw, then the condom wrapper. Frankly, I lost count after a while.

The sense of entitlement that must grip the people who feel free to leave their crap on the beach infuriates me. If you want to enjoy the beach, why trash it? Do people honestly like wallowing in filth? Didn't their mothers teach them right from wrong?

How can we fix the problem

I'm not sure what the solution is. Have more police officers on the beach, ready to hand out tickets? Not sure I'm a fan of that, as I'm sure the nice couple next to us quietly enjoying a beer would have been ticketed too. Hey, provided you take the beer cans back to get your deposit or donate them to a binner, cheers mate.

What I really wish I had done was take a picture of beach pee guy. Then I would have posted it with today's blog. Maybe someone would have recognized him. A little public shame could go a long way.

Operation fuck kancer: Chemo 3 and an attitude adjustment

My wall of happy.

Had my third chemo yesterday, the second last of the AC part of my ACT treatment. This puts me close to the half-way mark chemo wise, which I'm quite pleased about.

The huge thing was yesterday, I had four members in my chemo posse: my husband, current colleagues Kirsten (who doubled as our driver) and Melissa (who had me laughing about making Elizabethan ruffs for dogs), and Erica, a former colleague who's now a great friend.

I was waiting to see if the nurse would kick two of them out, but it wasn't a full room, and only one other patient had one visitor with him, so I guess she decided it wasn't a big deal. Now more about that attitude adjustment...

Getting needed perspective

It was a huge kick in the pants for me. You may recall I've been having a pity party.

Then a few nights ago, I was magnetized to a magazine in our laundry room called Fresh Vancouver. The feature story was an interview with Bif Naked, a rockin' woman who happens to be a breast cancer warrior. One quote really stuck out for me:

"...there are cancer patients who take the bus in from Surrey for chemo, or who have four kids and can't find child care so they lug their kids in with them." Sweet merciful crap. I can't imagine taking my one kid with me, much less four.

Challenges are just that

Yes, we have had challenges arranging child care, or finding someone to do daycare drop-off and pick-up for us at times. My husband has taken over that task because it stresses me out (thing one to be grateful for).

And every single time, whether it takes 10 phone calls or one, a friend steps up to the plate (thing two to be grateful for). Indeed, the childcare posse is in full effect y'all, with Shemim helping us last night Yvonne this morning, and Nikki tonight since George is working. It takes a village, folks. And our village is pretty fucking awesome.

My wall of happy

All this brings me to my wall of happy (sorry about the photo quality, will try to get something better, but you get the idea). The wall started with a couple of art pieces by my son and one of his best friends. Last night it grew to include photos and greeting cards.

I've been posting my progress on Facebook with some uncertainly over how much I should be sharing. But within a few hours of posting that I'm almost halfway through chemo, the number of responses floored me. And that's why I do it. Living far from most of my family, I need to know my friends are there for me.

When I roll over to get out of bed every morning, and when I'm lying down because I feel like hell, I now have a hard-copy reminder of how many people have my back. And a reminder of how much hair I had when I was young and wild (yeah, that's a perm - don't judge, it was the 90s).

Finding solace in books

Last week was chemo appointment two. I ended up arriving early at the cancer agency with an hour to kill, so decided to check out their information centre on the first floor. Basically, it's a small library with free hats.

After nabbing a couple of new skull caps and discussing the merits of doing the head-shave with another cancer warrior, I asked the volunteer working that day if she had any books for children she could recommend.

Lo and behold, she found Where's Mom's Hair? If you read last week's post, you'll know talking to my son about the whole cancer thing has been weighing heavily on my mind.

All about timing

Even though I had already shaved my head, this book landed in my hands at the perfect time. Not only does it go through mom's shaving her head (at a head-shaving party, no less!), but it also walks through mom's experience going to chemo, with photos of her with the IV in. It talks about dad feeling sad when mom doesn't feel well after treatment. And it ends on a hopeful note.

I brought it home and that night, my son and I read Where's Mom's Hair? He was curious about the IV and wanted to know if my treatment was the same as the mom's in the book. And then he got very quiet. We finished the book and he gave me multiple hugs before bed.

He has no interest in reading the book again. And that's okay. I'm pretty sure it served its purpose.

How do I broach death with my kid

With all the goings on of late, the fellow in this photo is the No. 1 person I worry about.

Yesterday, my husband and I are took wee man to kindergarten orientation. I have all the normal fears about my child starting school, and then some.

On Monday, I had the chance to hash out these fears with a family counsellor at the cancer agency, and I'm grateful for that. My fears:

• Another child who has lost someone to cancer will tell my child I'm going to die.
• My child will act out because of frustration, making his first year of big-kid school not so fun.

The basis of my fears

There are a couple of reasons I'm worried about these particular points, especially the first one.

I have been warned by other parents who have gone through cancer treatments that kids can come home with misinformation from their peers.

My husband and I have kept our language simple and straight-forward when explaining my surgery and treatment to our son. However, this is his first experience with cancer. He knows my mother-in-law was sick, her lungs didn't work properly, and she died before mommy and daddy got married. But he doesn't know that she had cancer.

My sister, on the other hand, has the opposite challenge. My nephew, who is a year-and-a-half older than my son, knows people who have died of cancer. So my sister has been avoiding using the word when describing what's going on with me, out of concern he'll be upset because until now, for him cancer = death.

Time to tackle my fears

The counsellor and I talked about preparing my son by talking to him about what my cancer means, and what it doesn't - namely that I'm strong, I'm young, and my doctors are doing everything they can to help make sure it doesn't come back. 

Which sounds great in theory. But this brings up another fear, the unspeakable for everyone around me: what if we're all wrong? What if it does come back, and my son feels lied to?

This is one of those posts where I don't really have any clever quips to make me or anyone else feel better.

Mum's the word

Right now, I'm still a mommy. But I have a feeling that will be changing soon.

Yes, technically I'll still be a mother. But my son is trying on "mom" from time to time. And I'm sad.

Last weekend, one of his best friends slept over. Though her birthday is only one month ahead of his, hers is in December, meaning she is in kindergarten. She refers to me and my husband as our son's mom and dad. Being in kindergarten means letting go of things that are considered babyish. I'm not sure when my mom ceased to be mommy, but I think it was some time between kindergarten and grade 1. And I'm pretty sure my son hears other kids use "mom" and "dad" so it's natural he'd consider calling us that.

It's that conflict of wanting my son to grow yet keep him a little boy at the same time. It's funny, I've heard other women say they hate the word "mommy" but I'm having a hard time letting go of it. I have become attached to it.

I like it when my son sees me at the end of the day and yells, "Mommy!" as he sprints across the room to hug me. And "mom" is so much easier to drag into that whiny, multi-syllabic, "Mo-om," which is usually accompanied by an eye roll.

At the same time, I don't want to be that weird, overprotective mother who forces her kid to act like a baby, becomes the overbearing mother of a teen who hides from her, and finally, becomes the monster-in-law to his significant other.

So I'll enjoy being mommy while I can and hopefully, mom will grow on me when the time comes.

Freelance, I've Missed You

Let me get this straight right off. There are plenty of things that are great about my job in particular and about having a regular, 9-5 gig in general. But freelance reporting? Man, I've missed you.

When I first started freelancing many moons ago, it was tough. All that work to be told "no thanks" many times over seemed masochistic but I persisted.

And then I got it. I figured out how to turn writing about things I liked doing into assignments - at the time, I was spending a lot of spare time in a dragon boat so I started pitching articles about it. I rewrote and sold the same story 3 or 4 times. And I was hooked. Yeah, there was still rejection involved and the work of constantly networking, researching, pitching. But I had figured out how to rock it.

I balanced freelance with a part-time job for several years. Before having my son, I assumed I would file stories as my angelic baby would peacefully nap, play or contemplate life. Yeah, right.

Reality Bites
Reality hit a couple months into my maternity leave. I would still need daycare if I actually wanted to get work done, at home or otherwise. And without full-time work? It would be impossible to afford. Oh, and the PPD that turned me from a sometimes-neurotic artiste into a sobbing mess? Yeah, staying at home was not going to be my cup of tea if I wanted to save a sliver of sanity and actually be a half-decent parent.

So I found full-time work as a writer. I'm now at a different job, but still plugging away at a career as a writer in communications and marketing. But you know what? I still miss freelance reporting because:

1) It gives me the freedom to write about something I enjoy and/or feel passionate about.
2) I work with editors I like.
3) I get to meet and learn more about cool people.

A Little Inspiration
During a yoga class a few months ago, the teacher who was leading it struck a nerve with me - and I mean in a good way. Something he said made me think, "He has a story to tell. And I will not stop until it's told." I did a few more of his classes and kept thinking the same thing. I contacted my editor at Xtra West, who I had kept in touch with, and she agreed.

You can see the result, my interview with the fabulous yogi and singer Will Blunderfield at on the Xtra West website, with photos by my deliriously-talented husband, George Smeltzer. Enjoy!

Explaining Rainbows & Dodging the Bullet

My son is 4 years old. That means we're really in to words now. We're into rhyming, sounding things out and even trying a bit of spelling now and then. And he wants to know what every single one means. Sometimes, it is surprisingly easy.



Walking with daddy a while back they passed someone with a rainbow patch on his jacket. "Why does he have a rainbow?" our son asked. "Well, because he's gay," said daddy. "What's gay?" Perhaps because he was honestly curious about what I would say and I'm the one who writes on and off for Xtra West, daddy told him to ask me when he saw me later that day.

"Well, you know how mommy and daddy are a couple, we're together, right? Well, if two men are a couple or if two women are a couple, they are 'gay'," I said. (I wasn't going to get into explaining the the entire LGBTQ alphabet soup just yet). "Oh, okay," said M and that was that. See, easy, right? I was feeling cocky.

Well, life knows how to keep cockiness in line. You may recall recently one of our cats, Bella, had to be euthanized. Friends volunteered to take our son out that morning. He knew the cat was very sick. I told him she was dying and that he needed to say goodbye before he left; that she wouldn't be there when he came back. I was crying, so maybe he didn't ask questions because of that.

The next morning he sprinted into our room, climbed on top of my husband and asked, "When's Bella coming back?" This time it was his turn and frankly, I was relieved that he got this one. "Buddy, she's dead. She's not coming back." The other day, my son said, "Bella's with Grandma Sue." He knows his Grandma Sue died before mommy and daddy got married, so daddy must have had to elaborate on his answer at some point.



Then last weekend, the vet dropped of the urn - yeah, we're those people - and before he got to our place, I panicked. "What if M asks what's inside?" I asked my husband. I'm not a fan of sugarcoating things. Give me rainbow flags over that damned Rainbow Bridge poem any day please, because we all know how I am about death. Love is easy for me. Death? Not so much.

Don't get me wrong: I don't set out to scare or scar my kid. But at the same time, I don't want him to be misinformed. I tell him as much as I think he needs to know in basic terms and sometimes (like last weekend) I also cross my fingers that he doesn't ask for more. How do you explain cremation to a 4-year-old? Yikes.

Luckily, we dodged the bullet on that one. He didn't ask. But I'm sure one day he will notice the two urns, one Bella's, the other Bob's (another feline) on the shelf. Hopefully I'll be equipped to answer that one without giving my kid nightmares.

Why not a writer?

I was chatting with another writer this week about what we wanted to be when we were in high school. Turns out both of us wanted to be actors.

I didn't pursue it because the university programs I looked at required a singing audition. (Those of you who know me can pick yourselves up off of the floor now. I know I can't sing. Well, my son thinks I can, but he's only 3.)

My fellow scribe, on the other hand, didn't pursue acting because her parents wouldn't accept it and likely wouldn't have paid the bill for a fine arts degree. She did get a degree in another area that lead to writing, but she still feels like she disappointed her parents. I just don't get it.

Here's why. I ended up getting my first BA in Law. I flitted between Mass Communications and Law but ended up in Law because a) I was fascinated by it, b) second-year stats in Mass Comm nearly killed me and I just couldn't fathom doing it in my third year and c) one of the mandatory third-year Mass Comm courses was full and I would have had to take it in fourth year, dragging my degree into five years. No thanks. Law it was.

I toyed with the whole law school idea and even wrote the L-SAT once. I barely passed it and didn't get into any of the law schools I applied for. I worked a year of full-time retail knowing it would force me to make a decision one way or the other. I liked Mass Comm because I got to study the media. And I always enjoyed story-telling. Journalism it was. I somehow managed to get into the two-year program at Ryerson University. And then I managed to get work in the field when I graduated. I'm still plugging away, now as a technical writer.

My point is, there was never any point at which my parents told me or even hinted to me that I was a disappointment. Now, some of that may be because my dad was a reporter for many years. But I think most of it was because they had experienced moments where they were told they had to do something because it was expected of them.

My dad came from a poor family so the school system of the day tried to force him into hands-on courses like shop. I guess the reasoning then was that without money, you couldn't afford to continue your education at a university, so needed a trade. Or it could have been as mean-spirited and unfounded as if you didn't have money, you simply weren't suited for the more "academic" courses. (I know some brilliant mechanics, including my father-in-law, so I don't subscribe to this sort of outdated thinking). If you met my dad you would know how ridiculous this is. My sister told him how to put the gas barbecue together when she was 9. Handy he's not.

My mom, even though she came of age in the late 60s, grew up in a conservative, rural area. She was accepted by every university she applied to. But she decided to get married and have kids. You simply didn't do both where she was from.

So I guess my parents figured they wouldn't inflict their own expectations on us when it came to the professions my sister and I chose (she has a fine arts degree and worked for many years as a photographer). They never made me feel like they needed a lawyer in the family. They made me get my pictures taken for both graduations so they could send them to the extended family. My dad's media friends knew who I was by the time I graduated because he wouldn't shut up about me and how bloody proud he was.

I'll just never get people who can't encourage their children's dreams and goals. I'd like to thank my parents for being cool enough to let me figure it out on my own. I plan to do the same for my kid. And now I've said it on the internets, so you guys can keep me honest.