I don’t know why I decided to decorate the living room. May I needed to add to the room as I was losing my hair. Maybe I was tired of looking at bare walls and naked windows. Maybe I needed something to take my mind off cancer and chemo. Maybe I needed to show myself and my girls that this is what living people do.
My sister, Rebecca, has a gift for interior design and she can sew. Both talents skipped me. Rebecca was only too happy to help and take charge. In the face of my battle with breast cancer, it gave her something to do. She didn’t like feeling helpless and that’s what watching me grapple with bi-weekly chemotherapy treatments did to most of my family. They could each take turns driving me to Dana Farber and sitting with me while I was poisoned with toxic drugs like Cytoxin and Taxol but nobody could take my infusions for me.
Rebecca and I met when our parents got married. I was nine and she was eleven. She came with mom and I came with dad. I remember the day we met. Dad had just moved me and my three brothers from our house on Cedar Hill Drive to the new multi-level house on Carmel Court. My new mom had already moved in with my two step-sisters and youngest step-brother. As I rode my bike around the cul-de-sac with my new best friend, Mary Howard, I saw a girl with long blonde hair holding my baby step-brother, Kenny, in her arms. I skidded to a stop in front of her.
“Hi!” my nine year old self said. “You must be Rebecca.” I waited for her to say ‘hi’ back. Instead, she pursed her lips together, which made her look like she had a beak, flipped her head back, turned, and walked away. Her blonde hair swished back and forth as she huffed her way inside the new house. We didn’t get off to a good start and growing up we didn’t like each other too much. Mostly, I stayed out of her way and mostly, she ignored me. It wasn’t easy growing up blended.
As adults we carved out a friendship. At some point in our late 30’s we became the sisters we never were as kids. Maybe it was the night in October she slept over at my new house. She had just found out her husband cheated on her and she was really (and I mean really) angry. When she arrived, I handed her a vodka cocktail and a carving knife. Three pumpkins awaited her slaughter.
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With cancer, it was my own body that was cheating on me – or at the very least, my cells were in full rebellion. Rebecca couldn’t hand me a vodka cocktail and a carving knife but she could bring me samples of paint and fabric swatches.
I didn’t agonize over my choice of colors or fabrics. Without knowing cost, I picked the most expensive paint. A Ralph Lauren brand, sage green, texturized with sand. The sand gave the paint dimension. Dimension made my living room vibrate with a welcomed aliveness.
Not one to stop at the most expensive paint ($35 a gallon!) I selected the most expensive silk fabric for my curtains, valances, and throw pillows. My choices made Rebecca happy. Not because they cost the most but because my selections were her favorites. After she packed the samples away, she gave me a hug and whispered, “you can tell we were raised by the same woman. We both have her taste for finer things.”
My mom lived 3,000 miles away. After she and dad divorced in 1990 she lived in England for awhile. That’s where she met her fourth husband. By the time I was diagnosed with breast cancer, mom had been living in her home state of Washington and was married to husband number five.
The woman I call my mom didn’t give birth to me. My father gifted her with me and my three brothers when he married her. I suddenly, in one fell swoop, went from being the oldest and only girl to being number 3 of 7. I now had two older sisters and another baby brother. As far as I’m concerned, my bio-illogical mother, Suzanne, gave up the honor of being called mom or mother the first time she beat on me. I distinctly remember three beatings (not spankings, beatings) and that’s three too many.
I often tell people that Suzanne is like a box of cereal: a fruit, a nut, and a flake. Dad divorced her in 1970 and by the grace of God was awarded full physical and legal custody of four children between the ages of 1 1/2 and 8 years. The State of California declared Suzanne unfit to raise rocks let alone children. I never saw Suzanne again (at least not until I chose to contact her when I was 28.) When dad remarried a month before I turned 9, I glommed onto my new mom. When I was 12, she adopted me and my three brothers and somewhere along the line, I adopted her taste in finer things.
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The weekend after my fifth chemo treatment, Rebecca and her crew of helpers showed up to transform my living room. My brother-in-law, Brian, was in charge of installing new hardware for curtains and all things electrical. He was also responsible for moving heavy things. My daughter, Christina, and her friend, Molly, were in charge of taping and painting trim. My stepmom, Sharon (dad’s 4th wife), was in charge of her paintbrush and acting as Rebecca’s gopher. Me? I was in charge of laying down on the couch and watching my living room go from blah to WOW.
The weekends after a chemo treatment were the worst. I had what is known as dose dense therapy – chemo every two weeks rather than three. I needed eight treatments so the upside was that I’d suffer this for sixteen weeks rather than twenty-four. On the downside I felt like shit most of the time.
Chemo made me feel queasy. Zofram kept nausea at bay but I always felt green around the gills. The Neulasta shot 24 hours after chemo was the worst. The drug triggered my stems cells to become white blood cells and these cells would congregate in my joints. No one warned me how painful this would be and there wasn’t a lot I could do for the pain. Except take Decadron, a steroidal wonder drug. At least it kept me from feeling like I was dying and it made me crave bread. I blamed Decadron for my 15 pound weight gain durning chemo. So much for my cancer weight loss plan.
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I couldn’t wait to see what the very expensive Ralph Lauren paint would look like on my walls.
“Ready, Peg?” my sister began rolling out the paint.
“Ready,” I replied. But no sooner had I said that when the smell of paint assaulted my queasy pain riddled body. I bolted from the couch, through the kitchen, and outside to my screened in porch (minus the comfortable deck furniture because I sold it when I moved.) I sat on one of two cheap plastic chairs and gulped in air. Rebecca ran out after me.
“You ok?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?” Here hands were on my shoulders. Her blue eyes bored into mine.
“The smell,” I began.
“Ah! The paint.”
“Awful.”
“At least you’re not painting.” Rebecca was satisfied that I was ok. I stayed outside while she and my daughter and our stepmom spent the afternoon making my living room worthy of living in.
