just the balls, please.

Jerusalem

It's raining here, those glorious, thick, large rain drops that pelt against the windows and completely drench everything. Almost like a complete cleansing. I love this kind of rain. I'm still analyzing in my head the whole Manhattan vs Chapel Hill thing, and I keep thinking I really want to see my nephew soon. Ever have that feeling of wanting to just leave everything behind? Sometimes I have that urge. I'd go to Israel. I can't believe it will be 3 years on June 6 since I went on my trip. That was truly one of the best experiences of my life and has shaped who I am as an American Jewish woman. I felt instantly at home there, maybe because I speak and read Hebrew, I don't know. For some reason, I had no fear about suicide bombers - I just didn't. I loved the waterfalls of Ein Gedi, the view from the Golan Heights, the view of the Kinneret from the corridor of our hostel, the hot springs on the border of Jordan, and our Shabbat service at our Jerusalem hostel. And, of course, the Wall - the Kotel. I've blogged about this before, about my experience of going up to the wall to pray and bursting into tears. The emotions that run through you in such a holy place cannot be described. The mechitzah separated the women from the men, and to my surprise, I didn't mind. It was actually nice and peaceful on the women's side. I went to Israel with over 10 years of daily, full-time Jewish education behind me. I had gone to a private school where the morning was alloted for secular subjects, and the afternoon was Hebrew/Bible/Jewish history/Holocaust. I was no stranger to the landmarks of Israel and the stories behind them. But when I came back from Israel.....my faith was renewed. I can't describe it any other way. For weeks after coming back to the States, I was so incredibly homesick for Israel. That's really the only word for it. I still miss speaking Hebrew. I miss authentic falafel, and the feeling of being among...my people, if that makes any sense. I loved how on Fridays, everyone said "Shabbat Shalom" - to everyone. After years and years of being wished "Merry Christmas" during the holiday season (EVEN when I'm wearing my Star of David), it was nice to be wished a good shabbos. I think when things get tough here, I often return in my head to my 10 days in Israel. That trip taught me so much about myself, what I could do, what I really believed in....And of course, I got to eat amazing falafel. I would order it in Hebrew, and since I don't like any of the salad or sauce or anything in my pita, I would say, "Falafel, b'vakasha - aval, rak ha cadoorim." Which means, "Falafel, please - but just the balls." I swear to G-d. This is what one of the Israeli soldiers told me to say. And it worked. But I laughed to myself every time I said it. 

I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love right now, which could account for my Israeli nostalgia. I've been reading lots of books on faith this semester - Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts....I'm looking for a good Judaica book. Fiction, non-fiction, doesn't matter. In NC, it's kind of hard to find decent ones (shocker). 

me, stressed? never......

I have been waking up in sweats nearly every single morning since before graduation. Of course, my first thought, being an oncology person is, oh G-d it's lymphoma. But I have no lymph nodes of questionable nature, and though I am fatigued as all hell, that's pretty much par for the course. So it leads me to think I am more anxious than I realize. I also have dreams where I dream I forgot to return library books I used for my thesis and they won't let me graduate, or I messed up something or other and I won't graduate. Classic anxiety. But graduation is over, so why am I still dreaming it? 

I have a phone interview with ASCO tomorrow, and an informal in-person interview at UNC on friday. Keep your fingers crossed....I'd really love to stay here, but I have to see where life takes me, I guess. It's all so...ambiguous, my future right now. And I hate that. I like plans, organized little boxes and instructions. I don't like panicking about money or jobs or a place to live and rent and food. 

Some friends and I were talking, and many of us have taken to having a glass or two of wine in the evenings. A nightcap, courtesy of MCH, if you will. It reminds me of when I lived in FL, my roommate E would have a glass of wine at night on the days when she had her practicum. I didn't understand it until I was at Columbia for social work - my roommate, O, and I would have glasses of wine while we wrote up our progress/session notes on days we had practicum. Wednesday nights were wine and Chinese food nights, and the people at the wine store across the street knew us. Maybe not the best situation, but after interning in the areas I did, I understood E's glass of wine. I found an awesome pinot grigio, Middle Sister wines. It's just such cute packaging, and it's really smooth. For those of you who are red wine drinkers, they also have a merlot. 

I sort of feel like Carrie, from "Sex and the City", when she wants to buy her apartment that's going co-op and doesn't have the money, but realizes she has $40,000 worth of Manolos in her closet. There's a point where she wonders if she will become homeless and she wails, I will literally BE the old woman who lived in her shoes! That's sort of how I feel. I will LITERALLY be a bag lady. I'll carry all my belongings in my Marc by Marc Jacobs bag and my Vineyard Vines tote and scrounge together coins for a bagel. G-d forbid. 

If this is what being an "adult" is like, I don't think I like it very much.  

the first step.

I realize that I talk about it incessantly. I have BEEN talking about it for years now. Since 2003, to be exact, when I was at Columbia and deciding I didn't want social work. I was looking at Hopkins and Penn's post-bacs.  And yet I don't do anything about it. Well, that's changing. I am applying to the UNCG post-bac premed program. I've already sent the application, I just need to fax my transcript requests. Even just sending in the application made me feel so much better. And that mixture of relief/excitement/anticipation/settling in my heart seems like it's too significant to ignore. 

This is in the midst of new job interview opportunities...which begs the question, what would I do? 

I'm not sure. 

hitting a wall.

I want this Jeep. It's a Lilly Pulitzer Jeep Wrangler. How prep-tastic is this??

So. It's been a week of applying to jobs, soul-searching, nannying, and sleeping. It's getting discouraging, the whole job situation. I am still waiting about MSKCC and calling the HR woman this week, and I've looked at Georgetown's cancer center and Northwestern. I applied for a position at UNC today that sounds neat, and hopefully it will lead to something. I'm just struggling to find my place right now. And so are many of those in my cohort, so I don't feel so bad - because I know how amazing everyone is, and how lucky employers would be to hire us. I've been thinking a lot lately about my life here in Chapel Hill and how much I love it, but I was also reminded today about how I loved living in Manhattan last summer. I was watching "The City", and it reminded me of when I'd leave my apt and walk to the 96th st subway in the already-stifling humid morning air, feeling confident in my clothes and excited to go to work. Every day I could honestly say I loved my job. How many people can say that? So why am I so ambivalent about the possibility of returning?? How many people honestly ever say no to MSKCC? It's an amazing place. I left every day exhausted and spent, but inspired and satisfied. Seriously, I read my journal from last summer, and nearly every entry starts with "I had the best day". I love just soaking up all that it had to offer, and I miss my coworkers and attending. I miss free Starbucks iced coffee on wednesdays with Rika. I miss gchat conversations when we were 3 cubicles away from each other. I miss Pinkberry lunches and Buttercup BakeShop obsessions and snack runs. I miss the energy of the city, the humming that seemed to infuse the pavement and electrify the environment. I miss the Barnes & Noble across the street from my office (dangerous) that opened at 7am and going there for a morning coffee and magazine browsing time. I don't miss paying $5 for a box of cereal and always feeling poor and unattractive (because living in NY has the tendency to make one immediately feel ugly and fat). 

How do I reconcile my love of the city and my love for Chapel Hill? Here my life is so much more relaxed, that's a given. I don't feel pressure to "be" a certain way, or dress a certain way. People are nicer, life is affordable, I love my neighborhood....I don't know. The two seem at odds with each other, and I'm not sure I can resolve it. I mean, I wear a sterling silver 5th Ave charm around my neck! Its weight reminds me every time I wear it of Manhattan and my connections to the city. 

But I've been obsessing over MSKCC for nearly 5 years now. Working there last summer has been the highlight of my life, to date. Working there full-time....would be what I've been waiting for and working towards. So it's a lot to think about. 

There is a girl I went to high school with, J, and lately she's been on my mind a lot. After we graduated high school, she had breast cancer at the age of 19 and went through treatment, etc. Recently she was diagnosed with a recurrence, at the age of 29. She just had a bilateral mastectomy - mandatory on one side, prophylactic on the other, with tissue expanders, and eventually, reconstruction. And then chemo/rtx. This terrifies and angers me. It terrifies me because how could this possibly happen to someone my age?? And yet it angers me because....how could this possibly happen to someone my age? The questions are the same, and I keep running up against a wall when I try to search for some answers. Faith provides no comfort, medicine provides no acceptable explanations. I'm not sure what I would do if I were faced with her situation. Although I had come to the decision a few months ago that if my grandmother was positive for the BRCA gene, and I turned out to be positive, I would elect to have a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. Thankfully, I do not have to make such a decision, because my grandmother was negative. But that's not to say that, G-d forbid, I won't have to make that decision in the future at some point. 

I don't know....I was thinking about this the other night. I don't want to sound like a traitor, but when do we stop fooling ourselves? Like with certain Stage IV cancers, when do we stop fighting and start palliating? Of course, this is a per-patient decision, but on a larger scale....survivorship. I'm interested in the field, I've worked in the field....sometimes it just seems cruel. Sometimes I want to scream, SHOW ME A LONG-TERM SURVIVOR OF GLIOBLASTOMA MULTIFORME WITH A DECENT LIFE when confronted with a survivor of GBM that's 1 or 2 years post-dx. Maybe I'm just in a pessimistic mood tonight, but right now, I feel like we are NOT winning the so-called "war on cancer". And maybe we never will. But damnit, why are the drugs still so toxic? Why are the surgeries still so disfiguring? Why do we not have better screening? Why are there such still disparities among populations? Why are some cancers virtually ignored, while others get money thrown at them with abandon? It is this anger that propels me into the field of oncology. This anger is that voice in the back of my head saying, don't you dare waste this passion for oncology, don't you DARE. This anger stems from watching friends and family deal with cancer and die from cancer. This anger makes me want to do something, it reminds me that there's still so much that needs to be done. 

post-bac ponderings

How did I get here......again? My friend M was over tonight for dinner, and we were talking about what our fellow graduates were doing, and she mentioned that C, one of our classmates, mentioned something about a post-bac premed program, which was weird, because he has NEVER, ever, mentioned any interest in medicine. Ever. It's just so.....not him. But I looked at the program, UNCG (greensboro), and damn - I want to go. It's like an hour or so away (I think), and you can finish the program in 12 months, and then take MCATs and apply to med school. It's like....when I finished my MS in clinical health psych, I took a year off to work and figure out what I wanted, because I seriously was considering Bryn Mawr's or Penn's post-bac program. And at the time, I thought I was "too old" and decided to go into public health. But here I am, 3 years later, at the same place. I love medicine. I love oncology. I was talking to my friend E, who is finishing up his internship and then starting a surgery residency, and he doesn't feel so passionately about medicine. He likes it, but doesn't LOVE it. That's unthinkable to me. And yet here I am, reading medical books FOR FUN. On my own. I devour medical books like they're the latest issue of Vogue. (Although I read that, too). Why have I been resisting this so much? What am I so afraid of? This semester - this YEAR - my favorite class was my peds pharmacotherapy class. And I got an H. Not bad for someone who's not even in the pharmacy school. Pharmacy is HARD - and I got an H. Because I absolutely loved studying. I am a huge geek, I admit it. So why am I not pursuing this? Why did I think public health would be a panacea for this? Why did I think getting my MPH would be "just as good"? Why did I see it as a substitute for an MD? 

So here I am, 7 years after graduating with my BA in psychology, 2 Master's degrees later, and feeling like I've wasted my life since undergrad. Every job I want to apply for, you need a PhD or MD. Every time I go into a hospital, I look at the doctors enviously. Hell, I am even envious of the interns, getting pimped by their attendings and running on no sleep. I read med school memoirs when I'm not reading medical books. Why the hell have I not pursued this? Is the fear really that big????? (or am I so afraid of the debt?) 

All I know is this: right now, I'm not sure I've ever been so adrift in my life. 

the language of love

So it's official, I am Jaime, MS, MPH. 3 more letters after my name. But I just haven't been able to muster up the excitement everyone expects me to feel about this. In many ways, I could care less. Even though I definitely worked my ass off for the past 2 years, I don't feel satisfied. I got an H (high pass) on my Master's Paper, which was great, but at the same time, it leaves me wondering, then why the hell did I get a less-than-stellar rec letter, if my research skills are clearly great? Anyway. 

Now I have a phone interview this week with Memorial Sloan-Kettering, an interview here at UNC, in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and I plan on applying for a Student Wellness Coordinator position at the University of San Diego. I don't want to live in Cali, but the interview would be great experience. And who knows, maybe the salary would be pleasantly surprising. I'm running on very high energy right now, mainly fueled by anxiety about money, rent, job, etc. And my nephew. 

It's obvious I adore my nephew. I love him as if he were my own. I never knew it was possible to love this much. And every time I think my heart is at capacity, he manages to stretch it a little more. But something is wrong. And even as I write that, I hate those words, because nothing is wrong with Trey. He is wonderful. He is perfect to me. But he isn't talking. He is 25 months old and if he has 10 poorly articulated words, that is a lot. At this age, kids are supposed to have 50 - 70 words, and are supposed to be putting 2 word phrases together. He is not. He needs to be prodded to speak. His receptive language is wonderful -- he understands absolutely everything you say, and doesn't miss a thing. He is outgoing and social, and physically demonstrative with affection. It's just his expressive language is a bit underdeveloped and/or delayed. As someone who (thankfully) has never had to struggle with learning or anything like that, this breaks my heart. It breaks my heart because I don't want anything - anything - to be difficult for my baby nephew. (Yes, at 2, he is still my baby nephew). I don't want him to have to struggle with anything at such a young age. He is such a kind, happy little boy, with a heart so big I don't know how anything else manages to fit in his tiny body. I know boys tend to mature and develop slower than girls, and this isn't THAT uncommon. But I can't help but worry about him, and I wish I could make everything okay. He will be okay, this I know - I just want to make things easier for him. 

texas toast and texting

Me and my favorite boys. 

It can be so easy to forget the connections we have with other people, maybe because of distance, or time, or lack of communication.....but they're always there. And sometimes, a reminder comes right when we need it most. 

Today I was in the supermarket, and being that my last paycheck was mailed on thursday, and I haven't received it yet, I was really down. (our last paycheck isn't directly deposited, for some unknown reason). So I was trolling the aisles, looking for something familiar to eat that would bring some comfort. And for some reason, I found myself in the frozen food section, staring at Texas toast. Now, for those of you who don't know what this is, let me explain. Because before fall of 2006, I had no idea, either. It's thick garlic bread-type slices of bread, with a yummy mix of butter, garlic, and cheese on top. It is SO good, and SO bad for you. But I had never really eaten it before, until I babysat for Jonel and Michael. The boys loved it, so I would make it for them. So I grabbed a box of it today, and had 3 slices for lunch. As I was heating it up, the toaster oven smelled like it was burning, and I thought back to one of my first days nannying - if not the first day - when I nearly set their kitchen on fire trying to make the damn Texas toast. So I sent Michael a text today about texas toast, and hours later, I get this text back: Remember during your training when it caught fire and we put the toaster oven outside on the bricks? the boys still tell that story. Sad, but true. We had to put the toaster oven outside because it was smoking and everything. Great first impression, huh? I think I took care of that when C got a bloody nose from B going down the slide the first day I met the kids. I'm sure this just added to my Mary Poppins persona. So I texted back that by the end of my time with them, I became a good cook, thanks to them.....and get this text back: Good is one of those relative, subjective terms. Ha ha, point taken, Michael. In all seriousness, I did learn how to cook lots of stuff. And I have many good memories of kitchen lessons and mishaps. But seriously, today was one of those days where I felt very un-anchored, very....not quite homesick, because this is my home now, but I wished that more people I knew were down here, instead of up North. And getting that text made my day. Even if it did highlight my lack of cooking expertise. 

And it just reminded me, that even when we don't think so, we are always tied to those we care about. Maybe when we feel least connected, is when we need to remind ourselves that we are more connected than we know. I've blogged before about how lucky I am to know this family - and even now, when I didn't get into UNC, Jonel was the first person, besides my grandparents and my parents, to find out - and one of the few who saw me in tears over it. During the NCAA tournament, I was waging bets with Chase and Jonel over who would win.....btw, I think I'm owed a cocktail! ;)  In the midst of all this uncertainty of jobs and graduation and moving, this was something that grounded me. Thanks, guys.