Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

Notes from [the other side of] the road.

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I didn’t drive on right hand side of the road (the complete opposite of our Antipodean driving) until I’d been driving for 30 years. Apprehensive, I’d managed to avoid it till then but on this occasion I had an extended stay in the US and my lovely friend and host, with a view to offering me her car, simply asked me “You can drive, right”? So I gulped (imperceptibly) and answered with a simple “Yes”.

She tossed me the keys to her big ol’ 4×4 and I went for it.

In my recent Eastern Europe adventures I picked up a rental car for a couple of weeks to do some driving through Austria, Poland, Czech and Hungary. Left hand drive, of course, and a manual transmission to boot (which was a bit of a surprise and) to which, I’m relieved to say I adjusted reasonably well (in that I only stalled the car once).

“You’re so brave” was a common response when I told people what I was up to.

Or, “are you crazy?”

I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.

In undertaking such a change of driving context it never occurred to me that I would learn some profound lessons in the process.

These are some of the observations I made during this experience.

On Risk

The increased adrenaline of doing something with moderately elevated risk makes you ever so much more careful about what you’re doing.

If you’re driving in such unfamiliar context you’re going to be way more careful about making sure you’re on the correct side of the road. You’re going to be extra careful about ensuring people know what you’re about to do and where you’re about to go. You’re going to be significantly more observant of what the people around you are doing. You’re also going to be way less likely to ‘drive on autopilot’, because your autopilot would put you and the people about you in the wrong place, going the wrong way, and at much greater risk.

Note: The same is true in other contexts… take some risks, see what happens, ride the adrenaline into new and unexpected places and let the risk make you careful… and yet so, so alive.

On Making Mistakes

If you make a mistake you really have to humbly own it. It helps if you’re easily identified as an outsider… (my rental car had Austrian plates) this helps people steer a little more carefully around you and in most cases makes it more likely they’ll be forgiving. So driving with L(earner) plates, putting your hand up to say ‘I was in the wrong, sorry!’ is a relief. You don’t have to be perfect, you just have to be humble enough to say that you’ve blown it.

I have this on good authority as even though I’m familiar with driving with trams in Melbourne, I found myself in Kraków surrounded by perturbed tram passengers climbing off their conveyance and swarming around me to get back to the pedestrian side of the road. I stayed there, let them go past, nodded and smiled all the while blushing. They shook their head ‘stupid tourist’ and then the emptied tram, the passengers, and I all moved on. No harm done (and thankfully no ticket).

Note: Don’t be afraid to be in the wrong, wear the embarrassment when things don’t quite go according to plan and use those moments to learn what not to do next time.

On Comparing Yourself to Those Around You

When you’re feeling more confident, driving in the fast lane and you see someone screaming up behind you, pull into the slower lane and let them go past. Especially in places where the upper speed limit is 140kmph or more (a far cry from Australia’s 110kmph on the freeways). The thing is, you don’t gain anything by thwarting them. You’ll probably catch them up eventually, and with less stress. Let them go their own path, to their own destination. You’ll get to yours and with a lot less anxiety.

The thing is, you may be going different places along the same road, you may be going the same place but comparing your path and trajectory with someone else’s discounts the progress you’ve made.

Note: Drive your own road, don’t worry about anyone else’s.

Funnily enough, now that I’m home and driving back on Australian roads, back to my normal context I still have occasional moments when I can’t quite remember which is the right side to be on… I have to chant my driving mantra “passenger in the gutter, passenger in the gutter” (thanks Pam, I Am) to make sure I have my head and my car in the right place.

I’m not sure what the lesson is there…

San Francisco leaves an impression.

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The blogging of this trip isn’t really turning into a travelogue, I would have called a shame in days gone by as I’m pretty rubbish about remembering what I did on any given day. However, the older I get, the less I am concerned by the details of what I did and when, and the more important things are the people I spent time with, the things I learned, and the ways these experiences change/d me.

So in thinking about the time I’ve spent here in San Francisco, I have distinct impressions. Ones that will stay a long time. At least, I hope they do.

It’s been 8 years since I was last in here. My experience has been different now than then, maybe because I’m with different people, I have been traveling more alone this time rather than relying on hosts to look after me, and I’ve been staying in different neighbourhoods.

Very. Different. Neighbourhoods.

I have stayed in and near the Tenderloin district this time. It’s an old district, it’s close enough to all the places I needed to be, but it’s sketchy…

Nestled near the downtown area, the Tenderloin has historically resisted gentrification, maintaining a seedy character and reputation for crime. Squalid conditions, homelessness, crime, illegal drug trade, prostitution, liquor stores, and strip clubs give the neighborhood a seedy reputation. ~ Wikipedia

I saw all of the above; dozens of people sleeping rough, their dignity on the sidewalk alongside their excrement. I don’t remember many of them being white.  I have been a racial and socio-economic minority in this neighbourhood, and as I press the RFID key against the door to open it and make my way inside this beautifully appointed, pristine loft apartment it is way too easy to feel above all that I’ve seen.

But with every person I walked past I wondered if they always felt close to the edge, if homelessness was always just around the corner or if it was a surprise, and if it still surprises them. I wonder if anything can be done, because it all just seems so hopeless.

I am acutely aware that the opportunities I’ve had, and do have. I am completely mystified that a country with such opportunities as America has so many problems. I’m incredibly grateful to have been raised in a country with social healthcare, access to education for so many (and I hope fervently that we in Australia don’t lose site of its importance screw that up). I realise the cash in my wallet and the tools I have at my disposal to make an income set me a long way apart from the people I have seen here.

It’s hard not to stop and stare, it’s impossibly difficult to keep walking, confidently, purposely so as not to make myself vulnerable in this area of ill repute.

As if I was in any way as vulnerable as they.

Bravery

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As I write this my adored little sister is under the surgeon’s knife 2,600km away.

This isn’t minor surgery, this is a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy and free flap reconstruction. (You can google those if you want) In short, she’s seeing off her ‘girls’ (the ones who made overt threats that they wanted to kill her in November) and the surgeons are recycling other parts of her torso into new boobs. All in the name of removing that long term, underlying fear that one day she might have to hear the words ‘the cancer’s come back’.

It’s sobering, as I know that had my own journey last November taken the same turn, I too, at some point, would be doing the same. The idea is sensible and good, and brave. And the reality is bigger than I expected.

When she and I spoke earlier in the week, she talked about the fear of not waking up from surgery on one hand, and almost in the same breath we joked about Deb Cohen’s Mastectomy Beyonce Dance off (neither Hills nor I have Deb’s killer moves). We also sent the video below to her surgeons for a laugh (no doubt they get sent it often)

We talked about the after and the prospect of going from a D to a B, from an hourglass to a pear, and how her middle son who loves to snuggle in will be sad about there being less snuggle room.

I sent her a text yesterday full of love and empathy about becoming gorgeously dainty in the boob department, she replied with love and with calm. The decision is made, the post operative bedlam will be weathered with great support from friends and family, and I get to travel those 2600km on Saturday and be big sister, and auntie Dee and I am glad to have the flexibility in my world to make that happen.  I am glad that family is only 2600km away and no more.

But above all I am awed by her bravery, and in making a big decision, a big change all in favour of a better chance at a long and healthy life.

It’s made me wonder what changes I am, or am not prepared to make for the same.

The Awkward In Between

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You remember the rules, right? Don’t blog about work – you can’t call out a client on your blog and not expect it to come back and bite you on the arse……and don’t blog about the family as each person’s story is theirs to tell, and not mine.

Well, I’m breaking the second rule today for one reason, and that’s the same one I’ve broken it for before, and that’s to emphasise the fact that you should take care of yourself, you should be aware of your family health histories and be smart, keep an eye on the signs.

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time you’ll have come across the Boob Checking Archives. I’ve kept you guys up to date from first mammogram, through Mum’s diagnosis and so on, and I know, you really don’t want to be thinking about my boobs, or your mum’s boobs at this moment… but take a deep breath, and let’s get this over with… because to NOT think about them with their health in mind, doesn’t bear thinking about (see what I did there?).

Anyway… a couple of weeks ago I missed a call from Lil’ Sis. Thinking nothing of it I texted her that I was out on a train, and promised that I’d call her in the morning.

I didn’t get a chance to… Mum called me first.

“Dee, just letting you know…*”

It was that call that had been in the back of my mind for years… the one that said, one day, our family history would catch up with my generation.

And it has.

Now this is kind of a kick in the guts, not just because, you know, the big C, but because our aunt, (the one the doctors thought would be the MOST likely to have the BC gene mutation) had been gene tested; the results of which had proven inconclusive…

So for whatever reasons, the doctors thought my grandmother’s and aunts’ (both of theirs) cancers were less likely to be genetic (oh, and did I mention my mother’s? The advanced age at which she was diagnosed (60) also meant ‘not genetic’) – so while the girls in my generation had remained vigilant… we felt like maybe the pressure was off a tiny bit… maybe our family history was just an anomaly restricted to two generations.

Not so.

For as disconcerting is Lil’ Sis’ news is… it is compounded by the news that our cousin is also staring down the same barrel, and is by all accounts further along this path. That’s two in our generation in the same month. It’s WTF worthy, to be sure.

So, given that at the behest of my new Melbourne GP, I’ve been under the care of a breast surgeon, I called their offices and asked their advice… basically saying “should the proposed MRI we’ve been talking about be moved up?”

To which they replied, “Absolutely.”

Now, the wonderful thing about private healthcare is absolute speed at which things get done… I called on the Friday, got the word back from the surgeon to go ahead on the Monday and had the MRI on Tuesday afternoon.

The procedure itself is less awkward than the old mammogram, certainly less invasive… but well, if you’re a claustrophobe and sensitive to loud noise, it isn’t exactly pleasant. However, it was over in 20mins and I was there and back without losing more than an hour and a half of the day. I hadn’t really thought anything of the procedure, nor anticipated results, just got on with the rest of the week. Until Thursday when I got a call from the surgeon herself…

“Hi Dee, just ringing to let you know, your boobs are fine… but there are a couple of other things we’d like to look at further.”

“[redacted]!!”

I was in the middle of teaching a class… so I awkwardly listened to the doctor, accepted her advice and asked her to proceed with booking the extra tests and went back to class.

It was rather difficult to concentrate.

The tests required were an ultrasound of my liver, and an x-ray of my right humerus. There was no mention of what they thought they were looking at, though the surgeon did say, “Don’t worry, it’s probably just a liver cyst” – but no mention of what they could/couldn’t see in my arm.

And so, after the final call back I was booked in for the ultra sound and x-ray today.

I went, I got the scans and as suspected, the sonographer advised that I was one of the population’s 5% that has a liver cyst (I’m so special, me!). It’s asymptomatic so I’ve never been bothered by it, and it will probably remain that way. Hurrah!

The x-ray however, is still up for grabs, I won’t have any further info on that until Thursday when I meet with the surgeon.

I guess that whole story was the preamble for the following; some thoughts about living in that state between “we have some uncertain news” and the certainty that it is, or isn’t ‘something’.

I had a choice at the point the surgeon’s nurse said “we need you to come back in”. I could choose to be terrified and play through all the possible outcomes over and over in my mind and let them make me fearful or depressed. Or I could chose to ‘deal with it when the time came’ and carry on with the week as planned.

I chose a variation somewhere in between, there were moments especially early on when I’d wonder… I mean… when you’ve an issue in one place AND your liver, the first thing I think is… metastatic cancer… cancer of the arm… or, something.

I had a choice to take the surgeon at her word when she said “It’s probably just a cyst” or I could be the cynic, thinking instead that she was only telling me such a thing so that I’d feel ok for that ‘last week when I felt fine’ because everyone knows, you don’t actually start getting sick until you get that diagnosis…

I still have a choice; to believe that all will be well, even if all isn’t well. I can put my faith in the hands of the doctors and their wonderful sciences, and I can shore up my resources with my friends who have been standing in the gap and praying for good reports.

The truth is we don’t walk out our lives with any more or less certainty from one day to the next… it could be a diagnosis, it could be speeding car. We always think it isn’t going to be us, and frankly some days it just is.

So, I’m still in that ‘awkward in between’ – I have 50% less concern than I had this morning, and you know what? I feel like things are just fine. But there’s still that 50%… there’s still ‘something’ about my arm. And whatever it is, in the middle of all the potential fears, the best thing about this week has been the people around me who’ve checked in to make sure I’m ok, who’ve promised prayer from here, to Sydney and as far afield as the Eastern US. A significant few who would drop everything for me.

As I would for them.

You can say what you want about the church as an institution, but as a community. I’m glad for them, really glad.

So, I’ll keep you posted about any results on Thursday, and until then, your girls? When was the last time you checked them?

*About Lil’ Sis, I’m not telling her story here… any more than to say we’re as relaxed as you can be given that as she’s been as vigilant as the rest of us, it’s a very early catch by all accounts.