Hope from Vivi Herself

Vivi in her Happy Place: Mahopac

Hi Everyone,

My mother is now quite a few months into treatment at the Bruckner Center. This miracle of a place which houses two brilliant doctors, a team of passionate nurses, and a family of patients, all from varying backgrounds of life and cancer, all who travel near and far to seek something that other places could no longer offer them - hope.

Hope. This is exactly what my mother and our family have been able to regain for the first time in a long time. There is now hope. Great hope.

It is still hard to wrap my head around the fact that - just a few months ago - I sat across a table from our doctor at Sloan Kettering holding my mother's hand through the toughest news she would have to hear since her original diagnosis - the battle was over. The cancer had won. The treatment options had run out. Time was officially going to run out sooner rather than later. Much sooner.

It is even harder to wrap my head around the amount of people that have walked out of similar meetings - at similar and equally respected institutions - and accepted defeat. I waiver somewhere between sadness and anger when I think about how many lives that have been unnecessarily lost to cancer because people either aren't informed or aren't encouraged to keep fighting.

I must note that we know as well as anyone - after three long years of this endless battle - that there are many days when the thought of all of it just being over is actually a relief. People's spirits and bodies are so beaten and broken by a certain point, that the notion of no longer needing to muster up strength that they don't have is a gift. If my mother had walked out of that meeting (and I half expected her to) and had simply said "enough" - I not only would have accepted it, but I would have supported it.

However, she didn't - and she didn't have to. We are part of the lucky few who have access and resources to know that there are options beyond conventional treatment and artillery yet to be discovered to keep going and keep fighting. With her new armor in hand, my mother chose to keep going. She chose to fight - and now we can say - she chose to win.

My mother had her first CT scan after receiving her new treatment a few weeks ago and I could not be more thrilled to inform you that she is officially back in remission!!!

Does this mean the battle is over? No. Does this mean that life is back to normal? Far from it. Does this mean that we are out of the woods yet? Not even close. Do we now have a reason to be hopeful? Absolutely.

As you all know my mother is an incredibly beautiful writer (if you didn't know before, you will now), and since I was not able to be present for the results of this scan, I encouraged her to write about the experience herself - as well as share some of her journey over the past few months with you.

So, I will let my mother - the beautiful Diamond Warrior herself - take it from here. However, I want to encourage all of you to please spread the word on this amazing place - The Bruckner Center. They are working true miracles. Unfortunately, the majority of us are touched by this horribly cruel disease in one way or another - so I ask that you help those who you may know that are fighting their own battles to keep fighting - even when they think they have run out of ammunition.  There are more options than you think - you just have to seek them out. So - KEEP FIGHTING! KEEP DIGGING! KEEP PUSHING! FUCK CANCER!

As I said earlier, too many lives are lost to cancer, and if I can help save even one by writing this pithy post - this all will have been worth it.

With that said, here is a very special treat from Vivi herself. Please note: my mother asked me to edit this before posting, but I told her I would not. Grammatical errors aside, I wanted you all to hear Vivi's voice straight from her heart - as it should be. I would also like to note that I have many pictures to share, and promise to post them soon, but will leave you with just these words for now:

Hello everyone! I'm actually writing this after 2 days of intense chemo. Why? Who knows. I'm doing this while downing a brioche drenched in butter and orange marmalade. Next a magnolia cupcake and then a home baked choc chip cookie. Yum! I'm alone at the kitchen table and there are no staring eyes piercing me with that "this is no way to eat" look! I think fuck it I'm going to enjoy this. It's hard enough to eat after treatment as it is although all the steroids that get poured into me before chemo put me on a stomach high! Whatever that is!

Anyway back to the blog. I really wanted my sweet girl Aly to do this but she is up to her eye balls in work and new ventures that she insisted I try but promised to edit and add photos. She is such a damn good writer I simply cannot fill those magnificent high heels!!

As you now know we are in a different place and truthfully it's been an amazing experience. Full of courageous  people from every corner of the earth of every background race and beliefs. A real family of man. A place that is the salt of the earth and this disease that haunts so many is right there. In front of you. There is no escaping it. Some are sick beyond anything you could imagine. Some less. But there we all are in an open chemo room. Large and quite comfy. Each one always gets their own chair. I tell them I sold a diamond to get just the one that suits me best! Right by the bathroom where everyone passes me and many stop to chat. I've met the most amazing astonishing people fighting with everything they have to stay alive. One young man in his 20s comes all the way from Israel. He has brain cancer. Another wonderful woman I met yesterday comes every 2 weeks from Florence with her son. She speaks no English and we spoke thru her son who does. She also has ovarian.
So here it is and dr Bruckner walks around greeting patients and many take his hand and kiss it. Yes I'm one of them!!

I just finished my 7th round there and it's not for the faint at heart. I have one more to go and then he promised to re negotiate how he would handle the treatment. No idea what that means but I've begged for the summer off or at least a reduction to some extent. We shall see. That's alys favorite expression!

About a month or so ago I had my first Bruckner scan. I was scared shitless needless to say. It was at a new place and in the Bronx!! What did they know? Am I such a hard assed New Yorker? I was expecting a crowded place with a long wait time and didn't really want to go at all. Well it was the best experience of any I've had so far. The nurse who took care of me was this handsome dude from Jamaica with long dreadlocks. I could have run off with him and when I tried he said he would too but first I had to get this radioactive dye put into a vein and then sit still for an hour while it took and cooked. Then I would go thru a piece of machinery much like an abbreviated tunnel lying still as a cat waiting for its pray for almost an hour while they took hundreds of pics from my head to my knees. Luckily the guy doing the test would come in and tell me how much time I had left while I clenched my teeth and sang to myself. Finally it was over. Then the wait. That awful wait. First to see if they needed to re do anything then to get the radiologist to review everything. 

Suddenly some one came and told us that he needed to see us. Us was morty Aaron and myself. Never go to these things alone! I froze and refused to go with them so they went to his office and I stayed back in the little waiting area shaking and sure that I was doomed for good. I wanted to flee when all of a sudden another patient came close to me. Took my hand  rubbed my back and began praying over me. Chanting actually. I wasn't sure what to do. She kept telling me all would be ok but I couldn't hear that because I was numb with raw fear

Then there was morty. Waving to me. Both thumbs up. Jumping all around. I thought he was drugged as well. He had to drag me down the hall into a tiny office with a large sort of X-ray all lit up. I couldn't look at it. I clenched my eyes and began to cry. The news was good! The scan was clean! No evidence of disease! I still didn't hear it. "she's in shock" he said. "I see it all the time. The battle to win over this disease is too intense and exhausting and she can't fathom it. Will take time. Lots of time."

I went back to the clinic right after and saw dr Bruckner. He told me I got an A plus and said I should leave the office as I was too healthy! A joke of course I was sure. But he has a great sense of humor. My nose was bleeding at the time and he replied when I asked what I needed to do not to walk on a white carpet!  

So there you have it. But the fight goes on. This is when you push even harder to keep it away and he assures me there are lots of tricks up his sleeve. Again we shall see. Not sure what lies ahead and it's still very scary and courage doesn't always stay with me. But one step at a time. Brick by brick as they say.

For now? Where's that handsome dude? Ha ha. My 36th wedding anniversary is coming up. Aaron and Kelly are going to have a baby and Aly is getting more beautiful everyday with lots of great things happening. So I have to go on to fight. To never give up even when it's unbearable. To embrace my fabulous incredible priceless gem of a family and all of you who continue to travel this journey with me. I love you all and together we need to keep saying "fuck cancer". Or at the very least bump into a handsome dreadlocked Jamaican who you just want to hug while he says "it's all going to be ok". Now if I could only own that!!