The One in Which I Want to Make a Difference

Warning: The following blog post contains language which is intended for Mature Audiences only.  (I would have to count how many F words I used to actually rate it R or PG-13, and "Ain't nobody got time for that!")  Discretion is advised.

This is a true story. Anyone that was a junior or senior at Hopewell Valley Central High School in Pennington, NJ in the early-80's will back me up on this if they were a witness. My memory is a little fuzzy on the detail, partly because of my age, partly because...ummmm...I have BRAIN CANCER. Hello?! (#freepass) But mostly because I'm really not sure what was going on that day. The best I can determine is that I was a witness to someone's psychological meltdown. So, some of the specifics might be inaccurate, but remember what my mom and dad told me: "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." [P.S. Yes, that means that you should always be slightly suspicious about any stories they tell you.]

Back to the story:

I never realized before that our mascot looks kind of like a rabid dog, no?

When I was about 15 or so, the whole high school student body - actually, I think it might have been juniors/seniors -  were ushered into the auditorium because the principal...or ass't superintendent? (fuzzy, unnecessary details) ...was going to address us. So, we took our seats, and there's this man at the podium, wearing a suit, looking really serious, ready to speak. Only, when he started talking, he didn't make sense...except that it was clear that :1) He was having some kind of mental breakdown, and 2) He wasn't going to have his job after that day. He was rambling on about something or other...The part that I do remember quite clearly is that he said:

"25% of people are going to require psychiatric care sometime in their lives....Look to the left of you." (Everyone looked to the left.) "Look to the right of you." (Again, everyone reflexively looked to the right, albeit with a baffled expression on our faces.) "If it's not one of them, it's you." [Kiddos, I'm pretty sure his math was faulty... ] Shortly there after that, he was politely escorted off the stage by some school district personnel and I don't think I ever saw him again. I swear I'm not making this up! Who would make something like this up?

I was thinking about that experience recently as I was looking at cancer statistics this week. Not that mental breakdown part, but the odds of being afflicted with something.This is Brain Tumor Awareness Month, but as I said, Cancer is cancer is cancer. And everyone has been/is currently/or will be touched by cancer sometime in their lives. That's not some crazy rambling fact from a poor person having a very public mental breakdown. Honestly, I wish it were. That's some hard, cold facts. For example, if 1 in every 2 males will have cancer in their lifetime...Male readers: it could be YOU. or your father, or your brother, or your grandfather...but anyway you look at it,  you are going to be touched by the pain and anguish of dealing with this disease. All of you. Sooner or later.

Female readers: Apparently, we have a 1 in 3 chance in our lifetime of getting cancer.  I've already been "touched by cancer" in my family  - twice, actually. My maternal grandmother and her sister (my great-aunt) both died of cancer.

There's my Grandma Gobinski with most of her grandchildren. I think this may be the only time the plastic covers weren't on the sofa cushions.

 This fact is always written in my chart when I visit a new doctor. So, I'm thinking I've done my whole odds thing, right? But then when you include my good friends that have been diagnosed with cancer... my mother-in-law and father-in-law who are also Warriors (I'm not going to blab about the specifics because that's their stories to tell)...it seems like I've already reached...no, FAR exceeded the statistical average... But then, son-of-a-bitch! I get diagnosed with brain cancer? [It's just like me to be afflicted with the weirdo, pretty rare kind of cancer. Always gotta be "different", huh, June? j/k] 

Seriously, though. Don't we all think, deep in our hearts and minds that someone else in our lives has already fulfilled our statistics? "It's not gonna be ME!" I've talked to other people who have been diagnosed with cancer, and it's very common to have that thought early on in the process: "Why ME?!?!" But the real question is, "Why NOT ME?" Unless you have some super, special force field around your body to prevent it , I hate to break the news to you, but...you are not safe. I'm a Mother Fucking Ninja Warrior, for fuck's sake! I thought I was safe. No, that's not exactly true. The truth is (...it sounds moronic to say now) but I didn't think about it at all. And I can say with absolute certainty that the news was the most shocking, surreal thing that I've ever experienced. So, I say to you again, male or female: Anyway you look at it,  you are going to be touched by the pain and anguish of dealing with this disease. All of you. Sooner or later.

Well, that was bummer news, huh? But I have HOPE, and I know you do, too.  I believe that the collective intelligence and ingenuity of researchers working together around the world, we will eventually find a CURE for cancer. Selfishly, I'm hoping it comes sooner rather than later. These stable MRI's are great for right now, but I'd like to have the fucking cancer cells completely out of my body, FOREVER, at some point ....while I'm still alive. (In case I didn't make that clear enough.)

So, I've mentioned this already, but I wanted to dedicate a whole blog post to this. I am participating in a Relay for Life team. And it would be totally bitchin' if you could donate some money to the cause.  It's pretty simple. Just click on the link and follow the instructions.

 June's Wine Girl Ninjas' Relay for Life

You can donate to any of us on the team. And feel free to stop by and cheer us on!

Saturday, June 27-28, 2015

9:00AM to 9:00AM

Livermore High School

600 Maple St, Livermore

Oh, and pay no attention to whether I've "reached my goal" or not. We will have "reached our goal" when we don't have to think about the statistics any more because we've found a CURE. I'd love to see that happen in my lifetime, but if it doesn't work out that way, I will know that this Mother Fuckin' Brain Cancer Fighting Ninja Warrior did something to help because she has the most amazing Warriors standing beside her.

 No One Fights Alone!

Love,
June Xoxoxo
#mfbcfnw

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FYI - At some point soon, I will address the fact that May is Brain Tumor Awareness Month - and not all brain tumors are cancerous. Many are "benign" which is a misnomer in some ways because people can die - many do - from "benign"brain tumors.

The One in Which I Reveal that George Washington was a MF Ninja Warrior

I woke up this morning, in bed with my arms around my Schmoopy, to the sound of rain drops falling softly against the window. And I was immediately transported back to a memory of laying in a pop-up camper with my family and hearing the rain drops plop on the canvas sides and the breath of my siblings beside me and my parents across the way. And it was so vivid.

I don't have a picture of our actual camper.I 'm sure my mom has many. I don't remember us having propane underneath. Other than that, it seems pretty accurate.

It's weird how the brain retains things, and how they are retrieved instantly from a smell or a taste or sound. Let's face it. The brain is weird. Magical. Powerful. Mysterious. and Weird. Which I guess is my round-about apology for this rambling post...

Today's radiation/chemo will mark the halfway mark of my current treatment regimen. I've learned a lot lessons from fellow Ninja Warriors out there that have seen battles with cancer, but one of the wisest is: Your journey is your own journey. Sounds simple, but it has given me a great deal of perspective after I first attempted to google"GBM" and got all freaked out.  Remember that? (Warning: Absolutely No Unicorns or Rainbows Contained in this Post (sort of)
Thank you to all the Ninja Warriors that helped through that particular hissy fit difficult time.

When I first got my prognosis, another wise Ninja Warrior (Bethany McIvor!) suggested that we google "GMB Survivors". I wasn't ready then, but I am now. Remember, kiddies, how I said we're all on our journeys? But this is a great lesson in how important keywords are when searching the internet.  Entering the keyword "tea party" will yield you VERY different results than entering in "tea party food ideas". These things are important to know because it would be very shocking and disappointing  for some Tea Party lobbyist to arrive at this:

Hint: Sometimes things end up in my blog just because they make me giggle to think about them. Giggling is a good thing.

P.S. I have lots of other lessons about google, but I'll save them for later...unless I get that inevitable communication from their lawyers.

So, I took a deep breath and googled that shit yesterday: "GBM Survivors". And yes, it contained (some) of the information that I was avoiding: The survival rate for GBM is... <June sticks pointer fingers in her ears> "La la la la...not listening!" But this time, I sucked it up and looked at the actual numbers. I already KNEW them, kinda-sorta. It just confirmed the whole Outlier thingy I've talked about it. That wasn't what I was looking for anyway. I was looking for WHO survived and WHAT they are doing.

I know that there are no secret recipes or cures, especially for the particularly nasty variety of Cranium-Threatening Bastard Thugs that are in my brain.... I realize that "cranium" isn't really the right word, but I can't think of a really good synonym for brain?" Oh! I know!!! How 'bout "gray matter"?

Okay, so henceforth, I do decree that they (the fucking tumor cells in my brain) will be referred to as Gray-Matter Threatening Bastard Thugs!  I'll just call them Bastard Thugs for short. But y'all will know what I'm talking about now, k?

Ninja Warrior attacking actual Bastard Thugs (GBM cells) with ninja stars! Fuckin' Awesome, right?!

Anyway, this is some of what I took away from my initial search for Stage 4 GBM Survivors is:
1) They exist! Yay! They're not unicorns! (Whoops! Sorry, kiddies! Ignore that last part.)
2) There are Mother Fuckin' Brain Cancer Fighting Ninja Warriors who are Long Term Survivors (LTS)!
Check this LTS ninja out: Cheryl Broyles's Inspirational GBM Brain Tumor Survivor Story
3) Knowledge is power. If I want to be a Long Term Survivor, I have to ACT like one.
Anyone who knows me knows this: I'm not quitter. I'm going to research and train and use my body, soul, and mind in this fight.

Sorry to break the news to you all, but this was a big a-ha for me (But remember what I said, kiddies: knowledge is power!):

4) This is only the first battle. This is an all-out war, and there will be more battles. There will be more treatment cycles and more battle scars.

The Good News: We don't have to think about them today. We don't even know what they are! What a waste of time and energy - and I can't afford to waste either of these things.

Because I'm a history geek, a thought that keeps running through my head are stories my father sometimes tells (fellow history geek! fist bump!) about George Washington during the Revolution War. Did you know that he lost more battles than he won in the war? And he had many close calls that could have ended his life.  (You'll have to ask my dad for the specifics. He's much better at telling those stories!) But it's obvious that George Washington was a Ninja Warrior, too!

Google truly failed me this time. The best I could to was a GW vs. Zombies pic.Which is also pretty bitchin'!

Although I couldn't find confirmation of it on the internet, I'm pretty sure GW's battle cry at Yorktown was, "Die, you Mother Fuckin' Bastard Thugs"

P.S. Did you know that I went to George Washington University, and I lived in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania for a time in my life?

Coincidence, or something more?

The Outlier

I've mentioned before that I have not -  nor will I EVER - google the type of cancer I have and read about the survival rates. Much as I love google, I know all that I need to know already, thank you very much.

Statistics mean nothing to a Mother Fucking Brain Cancer Fighting Ninja Warrior like me. (My father, who has a PhD in statistical measurement is probably developing his own seizure disorder after reading that. And not because of the cursing. He has a bit of potty mouth, too, when he gets really riled up about something. You know what they say: "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!")

But seriously, the outcome that we're hoping for is what we call an "outlier" in statistics. An outlier is data that is outside the statistical norm. In the world of testing, if they see data that is way outside the average, they suspect you of cheating. In the world of the lottery, if you get an outcome that is way outside the statistical average, they call you a lucky bastard. And if you get struck by lightning, it means the opposite - you are one unlucky bastard.

Okay, I just googled that shit...

[Side note: Don't you love google? Steven and I were just talking about that on our walk yesterday. You see, kiddies, in the world before google, when you were curious about something, you couldn't look it up right away! And sometimes, you could never find the answer! Imagine that world...all those of you that were born after 1998, when google was started. (yes, I just googled that. DUH!) The rest of us don't have to imagine it, because we LIVED it. While we were walking uphill to school, both ways. Oh, the horror! the horror!]

Anyway, I looked up the statistics on getting struck by lightning and it's actually a little bit deceiving. Your chances of getting hit by lightning in any given year are 1:1,900,000. But in your lifetime, it's 1: 12,000. Improbable, but not as unlikely as we might think.  They don't specify if these guys are walking around a golf course with a gigantic umbrella while wearing chain mail.
(strangely enough, there are no legit image results when I googled "chain mail and golfing". Bummer. I was thinking that a good visual inserted right here would be just the thing. Google, you disappoint me.)

But  then I found THIS:

Which is actually better. I take back everything I said about you, Google. <smooches!>

But let's just say, without using actual statistics, that my odds are not as good as avoiding lightning. It doesn't matter!

Because, you see, I'm looking to be the OUTLIER. The statistical anomaly that makes statisticians twitch.

In fact, I'm thinking of getting my name legally changed to June Ellen "Outlier" Fremer Mirassou.

Well, that's just ridiculous, isn't it?

So, let's get rid of the Ellen, shall we? I'm not sure where the Ellen came from anyway (Sorry, Mom!), but it's far too vanilla for me.

Okay, so my new name is: June "Outlier" Fremer Mirassou. Oh, and let's not forget my suffix: Mother Fucking Brain Cancer Fighting Ninja Warrior. But I'll just use the initials, because that gets rather unwieldy.

Done.

June "Outlier" Fremer Mirassou, MFBCFNW, at your service!