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I warned you about these. I'm a mom. I think everything my kid does is publishable material. Also, I had chemo today, so I'm protecting you from what would essentially be an incoherent acid-trip-esque jumble of a post. Easier to just copy some sassy Ingrid quotes from my journal. Life is better this way. A few nights ago I was reading Ingrid a bedtime story. Mid-sentence, she clutches my thigh and blurts out with alarming enunciation: "You. Are. Fat." Paul is still stunned I have yet to embrace a strict diet of iceberg lettuce and water.  Then this: In an unprovoked fit of rage, my delicate rose of a daughter threatened Paul with, "I'm going to kill you with boo-boos! " Probably, he was trying to change her diaper. Or give her dessert. Toddlers never make sense.  This morning: Ingrid struts into the bathroom with all the pomp that her 2-year-old self can muster. "Hey mommy. Remember me? I'm Ingrid." "Um, yes. I remember you. You're...

Leave it to me to put off blogging until I'm practically finished with my chemo regimen. But do you hear that, friends?? It's true: we are reaching the end of phase 1 for Liz! Just two more weeks of Taxol (the friendlier of chemo chums) and I am done! When I scheduled my last two infusions, the receptionist asked if I would be throwing a party. To which I, in a benedryl/zofran/steroid/chemo haze, most enthusiastically replied, "ALL OF JULY is going to be one enormous party!!!" It's true, to a point. As my neurotic super-organized planner reveals, next month is filled to the rafters with celebratory good times. "For life is short, but sweet for certain." (it's already been said: I'm the 90's biggest fan.) I feel a little bit braggy when people ask me how I'm feeling. Most of the time, I feel good. So much so, that I literally forget I'm sick. I'm still working (very part-time), and I still do normal mom things. Like forget to take...

There's a thing that happens when you get diagnosed with cancer. Or maybe I'm a total nutter and it's just me. Not sure, but it seems the further along I get in my treatment, the less actual hoots I give about what people think.  Wow.  That sounded horribly smug and self-righteous coming out...what I mean to say is - I've developed a (slightly) thicker skin about certain things.  Like this blog, for instance. Under normal circumstances, I would NEVER have started a blog. Mostly because I'd fret incessantly over the possibility of coming across as snobbish. Or self-absorbed. Or insecure. I'd worry that my posts would trigger collective eye-rolls and Facebook friends unfollowing me en masse.  I do care about people, they're lovely. I just don't have the energy to waste on worrying what they think about my false eyebrows. Or, more to the point, what they think about my ideas, my writing, or this silly blogging shtick.  Which, hooray for me because I alwa...

One more post should just about bring Paul's treatment up-to-date. Frankly, I'm itching to get on with things. So I'll be editing ruthlessly here. The thing about Meso is - it's incurable. We all hate that word. It signifies defeat. It suggests someone is going to die by the end of the story. It's something that, if I'm going to be perfectly honest here, took me some time to wrap my head around.  I definitely didn't process that fact when Paul was first diagnosed. We'll be kind and call it innocence instead of ignorance, but at 25 I still thought everything was fixable. We have science, people! Haven't we made enough advances in medicine to make my otherwise healthy husband tumor-free? But. We haven't. By the fall of 2015, his tumors had diminished slightly in size, but they were still there. They will likely always be there. So, unless we wanted to drive ourselves mad with worry, we had to adopt a new approach to Paul's cancer. Instead of l...

Life after Paul's HIPEC surgery was good. Real good. He was considered 'NED' (no evidence of disease) and required no further treatment beyond quarterly CT scans to make sure things stayed that way. I'm likely romanticizing those first two years of marriage (there I go again), but most of my memories look like this: Super Fantastic Explosion of FUN!!! We camped and took roadtrips in my old Volvo wagon and met interesting hippie folks at festivals and visited vineyards and had lots of bar-b-ques and hiked and watched Dexter . We also made this exquisite creature: Ingrid Philomena Coleman - born July 29, 2014 In August, with a proud, springy gait that is the hallmark of new fathers, Paul went in for his routine scan. That's what his CT scans had become to us: entirely ordinary, unremarkable check-ups. Just part of our routine. At that time I was, for some reason, extremely...I don't know. Naive? Yes. Silly and naive about what we were dealing with here. Mesotheli...

Honestly, I could kick myself for not having kept a better record of those first days. I mean, I write down everything. I have an obscenely heavy suitcase stashed in my bedroom closet that holds piles of old journals. Remember those plastic-bound diaries with the the mini locks on them that were just about the most glorious thing an 8-year-old could ever possess? No? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? I was a strange bird. Diaries were my lifeblood. Still are. Though, I no longer refer to my rabid, sometimes drunken, usually useless scribblings as diaries anymore. I'm a grownup now. And not one who's half as amusing as Bridget Jones, so we just call them "journals" now. Or even more to the point: "notebooks." So forgive me if I can't recall much of the details surrounding the days leading up to Paul's first surgery. This was, after all, over 5 years ago. Surgery # 1: Tumor Removal What I do remember is how weak he looked. I remember how I cried every time I e...

Let's do this properly and start from the beginning. Or the point in time that I'm now designating as the beginning : Friday February 3, 2012 - 2 AM My phone rings. "Liz I wouldn't ask, but the pain. It's not going away. Can you drive me to the hospital?" I can't remember the last time I was in the ER. No, I can. My college roommate had gotten food poisoning from some bad meatballs. This will be like that. They'll hook Paul up with some fluids, prescribe him some meds, and send him on his merry way.  But this is not like that, and he's not fine, and we won't be sent home anytime soon. And just like that he's draped in a too-small hospital gown, retching into an equally too-small receptacle. When the puking stops we make ourselves comfortable and look forward to what has just become an extended weekend. Word! We laugh and take grainy photos with our flip phones. And then some doctor spoils our fun with the words "emergency surgery,...

So I have this thing with amateur bloggers. Well, it's funny. I, um, hate them. Wait - n o, no, bad Liz: we don't use the word "hate" in this household. (unless it's directed at food bloggers, and even then it's pushing things) Get it together . OK OK. I don't HATE them. Not even the food bloggers. (but ugh, they are just the worst) I just sort of a little bit think they're generally, sometimes, a touch, oh ah - pretentious AF? There! I said it! I said it, and you were thinking it, so now we're even, and we can all breathe and move on! Down to business: the business, that is, of me introducing myself as (gag) yet another novice blogger schlepping her small words into the ether. I hate it as much as you do. It's just - you know. I kind of have this story I want to share. I've had this inner turmoil going on for months where one moment I'm like: "I need to write a book! A 12-part series! How do you self-publish on Amazon? Can I lea...