This is a bitterroot. It was one of the staple foods of a lot of Native Americans, and it was eaten by Lewis & Clark. It is the state flower of Montana, and my nominee for new symbol for Easter, death and rebirth, and such.
I bought this plant, and one other, at a farmer's market last July in my hometown, Missoula, Montana, where I had gone to visit my mom. I had been looking for bitterroot plants for years, and had never found any until that day. Years ago, I had ordered some online from a grower in Oregon, but they all died. Anyway, the guy at the farmers' market in Missoula had two plants left, and I bought them both. It was only the second time I'd ever seen live bitterroots in person. The first time was a million years ago, in high school, when my church youth group went on a hayride in the North Hills and we caught the bitterroot bloom. They were everywhere. The ground was pink. I suspect the spot where we saw them that day has now been plowed up and turned into a housing development. But I know they still find bitterroots in the wild and some people are propagating them, because you can find vendors at powwows who sell the roots for throat medicine for the singers.
Well, I carefully packed my two little plants in a big plastic container, cuddled them in bubble wrap, and nestled them carefully in the overhead bin on my flight back from Montana to Maryland. They made it through the flight, and bloomed happily on my kitchen counter for a couple weeks. Then they absolutely withered. They just crumbled and disappeared. I don't know if it was too much water, or too much air conditioning, or too much humidity, or what. They rotted away. August in Washington, DC, is nothing like August in Montana. Something was not to their liking, that's for sure. I felt awful for murdering the only two living bitterroots I had seen in thirty-five years. I could not bear to throw them out, so I just put the pots in the garage. At least I had photographed them while they were blooming.
Well. I went out to the garage the other day to look for something, and hunting among the junk on the shelves out there, I came across the pots of the two poor dead bitterroots. But they weren't dead! They completely had come back. They have lots of new little bitterroot leaves. I hadn't killed them. They had just died back temporarily because that's what bitterroots do. That's how they get through winter.
I now have two very happy little bitterroot plants on my front step. I do believe they are fixing to bloom again. I am renewed.
Why did I go through that whole long story? Because they remind me of me.
I saw a photo of myself a couple days ago that was taken that same week in July. I looked God-awful. My whole self was red and swollen, no hair, no eyelashes, puffy face, the whole deal. I looked like death warmed over. I must have scared my mom:
That was pretty close to rock bottom for me. I wish I could express how much better I am feeling now. Here's what I look like these days:
Today, Ground Hog Day, I had my first big post-cancer checkup with my surgeon, Dr. Colette Magnant. She is the person in charge of the team of doctors who are saving my life. She is also the director of than the Breast Cancer Program at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC.
I aced my exam. Dr. Magnant proclaimed my non-robo-boob “Perfect!” (In the medical sense, of course; in the aesthetic sense, this breast is a whole different size, shape, texture, and latitude than the robo-boob. But we will be fixing those issues next summer, God willing, via the magic of plastic surgery). For now, we are just grateful to have one functional, healthy breast and no sign of cancer anywhere. John was there, too, and we both thought that Dr. Magnant seemed genuinely happy with how it’s going.
And she does think my hair will come back. Right now, it is disappointingly sparse and sketchy. It looks okay in front, but there are big bald patches in back, like a newborn baby who was born with a lot of hair but wore it off the back of the head by too much sleeping. Yes, I’m still pretty funny-looking. And my eyebrows, which were so dark and bushy that I was teased about it for oh, thirty-five years, also have bald patches that I have to color in with an eyebrow pencil.
I have been afraid that this patchy hair I’ve got now is as much as I’m going to get, and that my hair would never look normal again. After all, it’s almost seven months since I finished chemotherapy. I had been told not to expect to feel normal until maybe January. But Dr. Magnant says it can take a year to get over the effects of chemo, which could take us to the middle of next July or August, before things really get back to normal. Ouch. I was hoping to look better much sooner than July! This baldness thing was funny for a while. It’s not so funny anymore.
So it goes. She also says my eyes, which have been very dry and irritated, will also continue to gradually get better. I should have asked her if the brain cells would continue to gradually get better, too, but I forgot.
Overall, Dr. Magnant seemed very pleased by the progress I’ve made. She asked me how I’m feeling, and I told her I am feeling so good I’m scaring people. Which is true. I am now to the point where I’m doing five miles on the treadmill or the elliptical machine, several times a week, and nasty workouts with my relentless trainer, too. I am pestering people to go dancing with me. I said aloud, in front of witnesses, that I might run a 10k, which is something I’ve never done, even when I was young and healthy. I’ve begun dragging John to concerts and such. We went to see Steve Earle in Annapolis last week. He was awesome. We had a couple drinks. We stayed out until nearly midnight. On a school night! If I keep improving from now until July, I am going to be feeling better than a girl probably should.
It's nice to be a happy cancer statistic for a change. It's been a roller-coaster week for cancer among my family and friends. My neighbor's mom died of cancer on Monday. On Tuesday, a friend learned she has a probable recurrence of ovarian cancer. On Wednesday, my brother, a colon cancer survivor, spent the whole day having tests which turned out, happily, to show that he is not having a recurrence right now. Great news! And then there was my good report today. While I am glad for my brother and me, I know some of you out there are coping with much worse news. We are thinking of you, hoping that like us, even if you die back, you live to bloom again.
Dr. Magnant and me
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