I was diagnosed the day before New Years Eve 2003. I of course was in denial until the lab reports came back after my lumpectomy. So I mark January th as the official day of diagnosis.  Surgery was 3 weeks later and, in the ultimate small world story, my nurse was friends with someone who used to work for me, so I ended up babbling about media measurement to her at 2 am. But the best part was my exit. I was supposed to go home in time for dinner, so my friend Dan had brought fresh native shrimp for dinner.

As it happened I was still there at 7, so Dan used his Irish wiles to get the kitchen in the hospital to cook up the shrimp. In the mean time, Kent Allyn and his friend Agnes arrived to serenade me. So just as my doctor pronounced me fit for discharge, the shrimp arrived, the singing began and we all had a lovely feast! Dr. Butler left shaking his head.

The next day, I was still in bed recuperating when I got a call from HP that I’d completely forgotten I’d scheduled. I ended up talking them into hiring me to manage the implementation of their $ 1 million, global measurement program. The only difficulty was actually having to get out of bed to fax them back the contract.  (They didn't even find out I had cancer until June!).

In another wonderful moment of synchronicity, I had just gotten off the phone with my friend Meg Hirshberg who had recommended I talk to a doctor at Dana Farber named Eric Winer. The moment I hung up the phone, it rang again and it was my friend and first-ever client Barbara Marx who said “you have an appointment with Eric Winer.” Little did I know that this is the guy that Fortune magazine calls for background info when they’re doing a cover story on breast cancer! He also discovered that the initial diagnosis of Stage 1, that was  done after the lumpectomy, was incorrect, and the cancer had in fact spread to two of the 18 lymph nodes. Which meant that I needed more than just the routine chemotherapy. So I enrolled in a trial program that included an oral chemo drug called Xeloda.

MISC HAT PHOTOS 

The best news was as a result I am forever in the care of those wonderful people at Dana Farber. My wound still hadn’t healed properly by the time of my last town council meeting, so it chose that night, live on cable television, to explode — causing a fast trip to the emergency room. I’ll spare you the gory details, suffice it to say that Jeremy earns Hero of the Year status for cleaning up my bathroom that looked like a scene from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

In another classic moment, the next day I once again took a sales call from the prone position, landing the ING Direct account, having calculated the cost on the back of my hospital discharge papers because it was all I could reach.

But being sick wasn’t all that bad. I got wonderful treatment from all my friends, and I’m convinced that it was Ed Valena’s chicken soup that finally got the wound to heal. My friend Donna Wotton arrived just in time for my first Chemo treatment, and she and Kate Ferguson drove me down to Dana Farber. At the time I was terrified. The night before felt like the Last Supper. It may well have been the most traumatic experience of my  life. Looking back on it, chemo wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared.  You got to park in downtown Boston for $5, we got free sandwiches, the people were incredibly nice, and I came back to a meal of shrimp, mussels and the most delicious Brussel sprouts I’ve ever eaten. Never felt the least bit sick, just tired. And, I could still travel.

I was scheduled to speak at the big Miami International PR Research conference. Although, Jeremy was my back up, both he and I were keeping our fingers crossed that I could make it. The key factor was my blood count, which was expected to drop sometime after chemo. And, of course, my lab results got lost. So, the morning I was due to fly out, the nurse from Dana Farber called me at 6:45 and said I was good to go. Southwest got me on a flight and by 9 pm that night I was in Miami!  Of course by the time I got back my blood counts had dropped and the first round of tired-to- the-bone fatigue set in. So I learned to nap, and Jeremy and Marie picked up the slack. Not for long.

Shortly after the second treatment, I had the strange sensation of having all three cats sit on my head and shed simultaneously. After a couple days of that, I took a razor to the whole mess. A friend of Donna’s had sent me a wonderful blond wig, so I donned that and my sexiest emerald green ball gown and went out to Sue Mesick’s dress up party in Alfred Maine feeling not so bad at all. Of course it helps to have the sexiest man at the party tell you that you’re beautiful.

By April I was hairless, five pounds heavier, and feeling a lot like the energizer bunny without any batteries. So I was thrilled and enormously cheered up when Lucy and Amy arrived for Easter with their usual good cheer, good food and good conversation. Of course my HP client — whom I’d never met — did suggest that it would be nice if I could make it out for the final meeting that would approve the entire project. So after Amy was good enough to get me to Boston for Chemo on Monday, 2 days later I took off for California for the big meeting. I remember being in the meeting and very little else. I flew home on the red eye and slept for the next three days. Maybe it was fatigue, maybe it was timing, maybe it was the fact that Dan was no longer around to prop me up, but the following weekend was the worst of the year.

After 4 months of denial, I finally came face to face with the fact that I was scared out of my wits by the entire cancer experience. Interestingly, for the first time in many years, I found solace in prayer.

May 1was my last chemo (of 4)  treatment for which Dudley Dudley and Marcy were kind enough to cart me down to Boston  By this time the oral chemo I was on had started to give me “hand and feet” syndrome which is like walking on coals and having your hands frost bitten at the same time. Of course it didn't help that I was experimenting with dancing as a cure for cancer. Between the  annual Big Note Garage Dance, several dances at Sanctuary Arts, David and Cathryn Hill’s barn dance and Bastille Day, no wonder I couldn’t walk!

What I didn’t realize was how long it would take for my body to be chemo free. We had a wonderful house concert with Cormac McCarthy the day that my body went into full revolt and I was so tired I could barely move.  Radiation was a piece of cake compared to the rest of the ordeal. I started running again as soon as my feet were up to it and the exercise was wonderful. Somehow I managed to get to Tahoe, Washington, DC and LA to give speeches between treatments.

By the end of June I actually had a fine layer of peach fuzz on my head. Of course it was invisible to anyone but me, but it felt great.  What was funny about July was me thinking I actually had hair. Which of course was only visible to me. But the wig was too hot for summer time, so I just went around looking quite bald , which got me into a number of wonderful conversations. July 25th -- was the end of my treatment. Appropriate somehow that it was also my mother's birthday. I threw a huge party and then got incredibly depressed.