42

I woke up in Chicago, and will fall asleep in NYC today.  And a bunch of funny stuff happened in between.

Today is my 42nd birthday.  I met a friend / colleague for breakfast this morning, and was surprised with birthday doughnuts.

Not much happened as we drove to the airport.  We hit some traffic, and our driver had really, super, inappropriately long nails.

Long nails gross me out to no end.

I like my nails nice and short.  Especially on men.  An our driver was a man.

We flew threw the airport - did some work as we waited to board the plane, and all my good Karma was paid back with a bump up into first class.

And the seat next to me was empty.

So for two hours I got to hammer out some work in peace.

A quick cab ride and we landed in Niketown New York.  Half way through the store walk through someone pointed out that Spike Lee was standing across from me.

As a lot of you know, Doug grew up with Spike in Fort Green Brooklyn.  His dad gave Spike a ticket to Game 7 of the Knicks vs I don't remember who.  I have met Spike a few times, all with Doug, so I was confident if I approached him he would have zero idea who I was.

But I was also confident, that upon hearing Eikenberry, he wouldn't think I was a total crazy person.

Our interaction went something like this.

Me:  "Hi Spike, I wanted to introduce myself, I am Dawnn Eikenberry - my husband Doug grew up with you".

Spike:  "WHAT!  Doug got married!"

Me:  "Ha ha, yes."

Spike.  "Did you know that his father gave me tickets to game 7?  Is Pete still alive?  I will never forget that he did that for me, do they still live in Brooklyn..."

And then he reached out, and I swear to you he kissed me right on the mouth.

Which cracked me up, since Doug kisses all my friends that way too.

Oh and Spike is about 5 feet tall...maybe.

Must be a Brooklyn thing.

Anyway - Spike and I exchanged a few pleasantries and went on our separate ways.

Next up, on this birthday day, was a cab ride to our hotel.

We jumped into the cab, told the cabbie the name of the hotel, the general location, and then the cabbie told us he had no idea where that was.

I said, "the east village"

Cabbie, "I don't know where that is"

I fell into full New Yorker mode, saying, "it is your job to know where that is."

And then, to my total surprise, he kicked us out of his cab.

No really he did.

During rush hour.

Took my bag out of the trunk, placed it on the street corner, and kicked us to the curb.

We eventually made it to the hotel, where the woman at the front desk promptly wished me happy birthday, and sent me up to an amazing room with views of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings.

Off to dinner we walked, up to a great dinner thanks to the good company of co-workers, and the bad humor and service of our waiter.

The walk back to the hotel was made even more enjoyable with a scoop of salted Carmel Gelatto.

Only one thing would have made this day better.

A kiss from my husband instead of a kiss from Spike Lee.

letting go

The two older Eikenkids were dropped off on Monday for a week of sleep away camp.

I have been thinking about all the fun I hope they are having, the friends they are meeting, the memories they are making.

But also I have been thinking about our lives together, and how I am beginning the slow process of letting them go.

Which reminds me of the slow process I am currently experiencing in letting my cancer go.

Cancer and I were never really good friends.  That bitch kept me up all hours of the night, stole my hair, and if I wasn't paying attention would have killed me DEAD.

So it is confusing to me why I would even want to give her the time of day, allow her any space in my brain.

It is weird, this new place in cancerland, the place where everything is looking alright.  Where all the marks of treatment are now well hidden.

There are days when I just want to let it all go, like a handful of balloons, left to float up and away - to an unseen fate.

Other days I want to hold tight, greedily keeping my cancer, and what happened during the last year, pinning it to my chest for all the world to see.

Like I must with the Eikenkids, eventually I will need to let cancer go.

No matter what an important part of my life it once was.

Lance

As a lot of you know, last year I had lunch with Lance Armstrong.

While I had never been a particular fan of his, even after my cancer diagnosis, I was happy to have the opportunity to listen to him tell his story, and to share mine.

I do not claim to understand the allegations against him.  How someone wins the Tour 7 times, is tested relentlessly during that time, and is now being stripped of his wins.

After never testing positive for illegal substances.  Not once.

What I do know is, Lance is a cocky guy, acts like he is invincible, and let me tell you, I can relate.  

Imagine being told you have an aggressive form of cancer, that your chances of survival hinge on a new experimental therapy, that the Dr's. are not sure if you will see your next birthday let alone compete as a professional athlete again.

Imagine receiving high doses of poison, potent enough to almost kill you.

Imagine loosing a very private part to surgery.

Then, if you can, imagine surviving.

And after all that hard work, all the effort it took to simply keep on living, imagine your Dr. telling you that now you have an, "obligation to the cure".  That, as one of the lucky ones, you now need to do something for the cancer community at large.

And then imagine you do it.

Say what you will about what Lance did or didn't do during his 7 Tour wins.  That is not his real legacy.

L I V E S T R O N G is.  

A few weeks ago I took off my yellow bracelet, I felt like I was done with Cancer.

Today I put it back on.

Bubbles

It is difficult to get 3 siblings interested in the same thing at the same time.

Last night was one of those rare moments when I had all 3 Eikenkids engaged in an activity that each enjoyed.

Blowing bubbles.

They received a great bubble blowing insect at a friends birthday part a few days ago, and while I enjoyed a glass of wine, they enjoyed making bubbles.

The way they individually approached bubble blowing said a lot about their personalities.

Harris liked to blow long streams of bubbles one minute, and then the next he was trying to blow the biggest bubble possible.  He enjoyed the bubbles his siblings were making just as much as his own.

Harper wanted to make sure I was watching her bubble making, and she bounced between what Harris was doing and what Graham was doing.  She was also making sure the plate had enough bubbles at all times.

Graham was only interested in the science of bubbles.  Trying to understand if a larger bubble lived longer than a smaller one, which type would fly the farthest, and figuring out how much liquid produced the best bubbles.

As for me, I sat back and watched it all, only wishing it would never end.

Hoping nothing would ever burst my bubble.

"I like the Pop family..."

Harper has been accompanying me to work this week.  The lucky little imp gets to go to an all day sports camp at Nike.

While we were driving today we were talking about what we liked better, popcorn or candy.

As any friend of mine would know, candy is my kryptonite.  I would choose candy over almost everything.

And we are not talking about some high falutin' candy - I like me some bit o honey, laughy taffy, chicko sticks.  The cheaper the better.

Harper, being the good little Eikenberry that she is, loves her some salty snacks.  So if given the choice, she is diving into a bag of popcorn.

Except, apparently, when it comes to the, "pop" family.

And by "pop" family Harper means:

"otterpops, ringpops, pushpops, poprocks, popsicles..."

All of this  reminded me of when I was a kid, growing up on Honolulu Lane, five houses away from Eddie the Ice Cream Man.

I thought it was incredible that such a celebrity lived so close to me.  We would see him everyday of the  summer at the bay.  I would run from the beach to the sidewalk whenever I would hear his music.

My sisters would get pushpops and big sticks.  Sometimes one of them would just get candy - the kind with the white sticks and the powder.

None of that worked for me.  Each and every time I would gravitate towards the rocket pop - you know the red/white/blue ones.

Which made me realize.

I love the "pop" family too.

"You should never never doubt what nobody is sure about.

I spent the entire day organizing my house.  We had big plans, that included a trip to the swimming pool with multiple families, but thanks to an overcast Oregon day those plans fizzled.

What I have been realizing, over the last few days, is that I am FINALLY getting my energy back.

After cleaning out the pantry, organizing the kids toys, scrubbing the nanny apartment,  going to Target, and multiple loads of laundry, Doug even noticed.

It is no wonder that instead of going to a party tonight I decided to stay home.

I am simply pooped.  Hard days work pooped.

The kids got their jammie's on, piled into my bed, and decided on a movie.

Tonight's choice, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

This is, without a doubt, my favorite kids movie of all times.

Harper screamed with laughter when the golden hand took Grandpa Joe's hat.  I thought she may never recover from the surprise / silliness of it all.

Harris was worried when poor Augustus fell into the chocolate river, and even more so when he was sucked up into the tube.

Graham has  read the book, seen the movie, and researched the making of the movie on the Internet.  ("Mom, did you know that on Wikipedia it says that Rohl Dahl didn't like this movie?").  I have to keep shushing him - he keeps telling the little kids what is happening next.

As for me, I want to try and listen to what Wonka is trying to tell akk of us when he says,

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams"

I finally met my match

There are a million different types of Breast Cancer.  Different stages, hormone receptor positive, HER2 status, lobular, ductal.  The list could go on and on.

When you sit with your surgeon and finally hear your diagnosis, you realize that each cancer is different.

So I was surprised today when I finally met my breast cancer match.  A fellow Nike employee who is about a year behind me in her BC life, but who shares my same diagnosis.

We were both stage 2a.  We both had lymph node involvement.  We both had chemo, surgery, radiation.

When you are diagnosed with something like cancer, you just want to find another living breathing human who has the same type you have.  Someone you can look to and think, "they don't look any worse for the wear."  Someone who has survived.

I remember when a man who had lived with Pancreatic cancer for 5+ years came and visited my father.  Only now can I understand the bond they instantly had.  I can't remember that man's name, but I am so grateful that he took the time out of his day to bring a little hope to our house during a very bleak time.

It was nice to be the one on the other side today.  The one giving advice and encouragement.

The one who didn't seem any worse for the wear.

cancer still sucks

I have been looking at the telephone number for the cosmetic tattoo parlor my plastic surgeon recommended for about two weeks.

After months and months (and months) of treatment, this procedure will signal the end of all of this nonsense.

And while I really want to put the finishing touches on his good work, I also really don't.

Part of me may decide to just leave my scars the way they are, the focal point of my chest.  I have never been particularly vain, and so leaving my blank canvas makes sense to me.

But another part of me thinks, what happens when Doug and I are on the topless beaches of St. Barths? Do I really want to be that bold?

I wonder what a French woman would do.

The other problem is, it is simply another appointment.  And I let all of my other health concerns slack over the last year, so I am overdue for a litany of maintenance.

Perhaps what I am realizing is that I am fine with it either way.

Missing

Doug and I were shocked when we found out we were pregnant with Graham.

After 12 years of marriage, the majority of it spent trying to get pregnant, we were resolved to live out our life without children.

I spent about 4.2 seconds with a fertility specialist, who ran us through our paces, and declared we had, "unknown fertility problems".  One round of hormones, and I was off that train faster than I got on it.

Ten years later, days before signing the papers on a penthouse apartment, (deluxe apartment in the sky!), one totally inappropriate for children, I discovered that I was pregnant.

It was a shock to both of us.  I think I handed Doug the pregnancy test then buried myself in my bed for the weekend.

Doug and I have been blessed with great timing for the majority of our relationship.  Thankfully, we were able to walk away from the penthouse unscathed, and into our new lives.

When Graham was born I could not believe that we ever thought it would be OK to live a life without children.

Then, nineteen months later Harper arrived.  The first thought to pop into my head when she was born was, 'someone is missing".

Seventeen months later that missing person arrived in the form of Harris.

And our family was complete.

Flo

The USA women's indoor volleyball team has never won a gold medal.

They came close in 1984 - with a team comprised of one of the best female athletes in the world,  Flo Hyman.

As a 14 year old kid I was lucky enough to orbit around Flo, and much of that team.  The club I played for was closely tied to the US team, and on more than one occasion Flo and the girls would come in our gym to scrimmage.

I can even remember being in a practice run by the then head coach, an Israeli immigrant chain smoker named Ari Selinger.  He ran us through the paces, with Olympian Debbie Green standing in as the setter, and I think Flo stood around shagging balls.

It was the hardest work out of my life.  I was terrified and exhilarated the entire time.

We idolized that team.

They were the first team to live and practice full time at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs - starting in 1979.  At the time the gym was yet to be completed, so they traveled all around Colorado looking for gyms to work out in.

When the US boycotted the 1980 games, the majority of the team decided that they would remain together, training up to 8 hours a day, until the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Don't forget, this was a time when the Olympics was for armatures only.  These women could have set their sights on the only paying game in town, professional leagues in Asia and Europe, but instead they gave it all up for a chance at a Gold Medal.

I have never cared so much for a team to win a game in my entire life.  We were on pins and needles in my Huntington Beach childhood home.

China beat the US in 3. After a close first  game, we sort of fell apart.

The players devastation is still there for you to see on YouTube. 

After that most of the team went on to play overseas. 

And 17 months later, Flo Hyman would die on a volleyball court in Japan.  The victim of a dissecting aortic aneurysm. Hyman had Marfan's Syndrome, which manifests itself in very tall, thin individuals, and  can make them prone to weakness of the walls of the major arteries.

The volleyball community was crushed.  The Michael Jordan of our sport gone.

I watch our current team with the same enthesuiasum as I did in 1984.

I just wish Flo was still alive to see it all.

365

I think my friend Allison said it best today when she wrote, "doesn't even know what to say besides the fact that a year ago today started out so very normal...and ended so very not."

A year ago I was feeling pretty sick.  I was 100 days into my new reality, and singularly focused on what was happening to me and only me.

And then we heard the devastating news that my friend Allison's 12 year old daughter Kayla had been hit by a car and was in a coma that she was not expected to wake up from.

It was a total shock.  Allison and her family have been a constant in my life since, literally, the day I was born.  We went to middle school and high school together.  Played on a championship Basketball team together.  We lost our fathers while we were in our 20's.

So for both of us to be each facing such intense, life changing moments at the same time simply did not seem fair.

Don't get me wrong, I would never compare the two.  But if you went back 100 thin days, our lives would appear very different.

I am not sure if either of us knows what normal is anymore.

While what I lost was replaced with expansion and surgery, what Allison lost is impossible to replace.