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Update: January 4, 2008
I have to confess that I was sitting on the couch, watching Dr. Phil and eating Havarti cheese when I found out I'm in remission. That's right: At the most
important good news moment of my life, I was gobbling hunks of fat and watching a show about kids who "mattress surf," meaning they pull each other behind their cars
on mattresses. It was that kind of day.
I didn't tell my family I was sneaking into the city yesterday for a PET scan. I didn't want everyone to worry and wring their hands at the potential outcome. If it
was clear, I'd be in remission. If it wasn't, I'd spend a month in the hospital for a bone marrow transplant. Last month, my brother asked, "Where do you get the bone marrow?"
I replied, "Were you wondering what to get me for my birthday?" I'm not sure how you wrap that.
After the scan, I came home and tried to keep my mind off the impending phone call I'd get from my doctor. I figured I wouldn't hear from him until at least 7 p.m., perhaps even
the next day. So, I put up my feet and put on Dr. Phil. But it was just two hours after I'd left the radiology building when my oncologist called.
 "Jennifeeeer," he sang. "I have good news for you."
"You're kidding!" I replied.
"I wouldn't kid about remission," he said.
He added that there was "no sign of disease," and prescribed champagne and a trip somewhere warm with my husband.
In short, he put the "Happy" in our Happy New Year.
I called Pete at work and told him the good news. He replied by letting out a long sigh, as though he was purging seven months of worry and fear. All the positive PET scans,
the shots he had to give me, the trips to the hospital, the fights with the insurance company, the pain and the fatigue,
the household responsibilities dumped in his lap and the
deep down fear that our kids would grow up without their mom came out in that exhale. Last night, he brought home flowers, and we had that champagne.
Before Christmas, I spoke to a neighbor who, 25 years ago, also had non Hodgkin's lymphoma, only his was stage 4. Doctors gave him two months to live. Good thing he
switched doctors, because he's still here. He has to go for a PET scan every six months, and, he said, he still holds his breath waiting for the results. He told me,
"You will forever be changed by cancer," and judging how I feel today, I can see his point.
A friend asked me, "How do you feel?" I replied, "Like the governor just called the warden."
To mix metaphors, I'm happy to take this deep breath, but I understand that I could be dunked back under water at any time, too.
In six weeks, I'll get blood tests to check my tumor markers. In three months, I'll have another PET scan. But for now, I'm just plain happy that I'm in remission.
It is indeed, a happy new year. It's that kind of day.
Jen
Update: January 21, 2008
I really didn't care what the big muscle-bound guys in the free weight room at my gym thought about me when I grabbed two five-pound weights and occupied
valuable space in front the mirror while I lifted them. They gave me looks that said, "You don't belong here." I shot back look that said, "If I can kick cancer's ass,
I can kick yours, too."
 All of my muscle tone is gone -- gone like it's never been gone before, even when I was on bedrest for pre-term labor for five weeks. It's one thing to lie around a lot.
It's quite another to blast your body with adriamycin, a chemotherapy drug that's a derivitive of mustard gas. My body has been through biologic warfare.
That's why when I returned to the gym after taking eight
months off for chemo and radiation and generally getting enough energy to even walk into the gym, I was lifting five-pounds weights instead of 20-pounders, like I did a year ago.
That's why the guys didn't want me or my super short hair (Is she a lesbian?) in their free weight area.
Since I found out three weeks ago that I'm in remission, I have been every so slowly trying to get back to some sort of normal. Only, when I do, I have to lie down.
I nap after I go to the gym. I have to rest after a week of motherhood and its Cub Scout meetings, piano lessons and laundry. I have to skip over cleaning up messes
and making phone calls because I know they'll poop me out. But still, I'm more normal than I've been since I handed in the doctor's note to suspend my gym membership
back in June.
If I stay in remission, the war on my body will be over for good. Next time, I'm lifting eight-pounders. Then I'm taking a very long nap.
Jen
P.S. Read more about how I am on Good Grief!, my blog on Good Houskeeping.com.
Update: February 10th
"It's the post remission smackdown," said my friend Heidi Adams, creator of Planet Cancer,
a place for young people affected by cancer to hang out. I'd told her how I was nursing a "Man Cold",
which, for me, is a cold on top of lower white blood cells thanks to radiation and chemo. I admitted to her that
I had been so busy celebrating my remission and acting like I had bounced
back to normal that the cold came along and told me otherwise.
 A long-time cancer survivor, Heidi explained that it's natural for people to go a little crazy when they find out they're in remission, only to get "smacked down."
Remission doesn't mean you're suddenly back to normal. I've still got to recuperate from the effects of chemo and radiation. Also, a Man Cold.
That means a little less running around Manhattan and piano lessons and basketball games and a yard full of kids and food shopping and cleaning bathrooms and doing laundry
and generally acting like a normal, crazed mom and a little more lying on the couch, watching CNN's Ballot Bowl and eating popcorn. It means feet up, not feet up and down the stairs.
It means I need more time to recuperate.
At least, until the Man Cold is gone.
Jen
P.S. Read about how everyone's so darn happy around here on Good Grief!, my blog on Good Houskeeping.com.
Update: March 22, 2008
We never would have spent the money or the time before. In fact, my husband, Pete, and I hadn't gone to a Caribbean island together since our honeymoon 17 years ago, back
before kids. Back before cancer. But somehow, it seemed we deserved to spend this week in Turks & Caicos sans kids. At least, that's what everyone told us when we booked the trip.
It was our "cancercation," the vacation you get after cancer puts you through the ringer.
 We didn't want to do much more than lie on the beach under an umbrella, which is pretty much what we did all week. We'd eat breakfast around 9ish and then set up our lounge
chairs between two umbrellas and a palm tree. We'd read. We'd swim. We'd nap. We'd drink mimosas in the morning and "rasparitas" at Happy Hour in the Cabana Bar just off the hotel's
beach.
We took one long walk together, Pete collecting a bag full of big conch shells while I snapped photos along the way. We went on a snorkeling trip, where I encountered a small
baracuda who, luckily, didn't try to eat my fingers. Every night, we went out for dinner and every morning, Pete went for a run on the beach.
When we got home, my 11-year-old, who, along with his brother, spent the week with my in-laws (Thanks Omi and Opa!), asked what we did. I told him about the naps and the walk and he
said, "That's it?"
Yep. That's pretty much it. And that's the point of a cancercation. Hopefully, we'll never need another one, though I wouldn't mind a rasparita at Happy Hour today. Meet me at the Cabana Bar.
Jen
P.S. I came home to discover that my new book, "You're a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren't So Bad Either)" is now available at Amazon, and that my mother-in-law folded and put away all of my laundry. I'm not sure which is more exciting.
Update: April 9, 2008
When other authors reach the official publication date of their books, they spend the afternoon getting ready for their book parties. Me, I have a PET scan. And yet, for this
book anyway, that's rather fitting.
I had four chapters left to write in "You're a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren't So Bad Either)" when I found out I had cancer. I wrote parts of it in chemo and parts
in the hospital. Good thing you don't need hair to write. (Click on the photo to watch the trailer.)
So when my first post-remission PET scan fell on the day of my book's release, it seemed to make sense. While folks were at the bookstore picking it up and deciding whether to buy it,
I was lying in a multi-million dollar machine, listening to Norah Jones and praying the scan would come up clear.
 A few hours later, my doctor called me at home with the good news. "I hope you're feeling as good as this scan looks," he said.
Today, I am indeed.
P.S. Check out this behind-the-book video from Women for Hire.com filmed
back in January. At least I have bangs now. Sorta.
Update: April 27, 2008
 I know I was entirely too excited but getting a haircut this past Friday, but I couldn't help myself.
This time, I actually had enough hair to warrant a "full head" haircut and 45-minutes of chatting with my
hairstylist, Michele, whom I've missed quite a bit this past year.
Unlike the cursory trim she gave me in March, followed by a minimalist's application of "man gel," this time I had layers she could cut
and waves and even some curls. Thanks to chemotherapy, my previously stick straight hair is growing
back in all full and wavy, and I gotta tell you -- that was one hell of a perm.
Now my hair looks a lot like it did back in the eighties when I really did perm my hair. It's short and wavy and pretty nice, though I could really use
some more bangs. You could show a movie on my forehead. If it rains tomorrow, maybe we will.
While my hair has been busy making its glorious return, so has my energy. Instead of dropping my son off at the Cub Scouts pack meeting last night
after his baseball game ran late, I went in and stuck around for a while, watching my husband help run the obstacle course with the other pack leaders while I
caught up with some friends. Normally, I'd have to get home to go to bed by then, tired from the after effects of cancer, chemo and radiation. But last night,
I felt like a normal mom with normal energy and a brand new haircut. Also, a normal headache from all that noise generated by 60 boys running through the gym.
So while things slowly return to normal, I just wake up every morning hoping and praying they'll stay that way -- and that my hair stays so wonderfully
full and wavy for a while.
P.S. Listen to me on XM's Take Five, Channel 155, on Tuesday, April 29th at 2:15 ET. Also, if you're in the New York City area,
join me for an author talk back and book signing at Secrets of a Soccer Mom,
an off-Broadway play.
Update: May 28, 2008
This weekend, a bumble bee got tangled up in the curls on the back of my head. When I tried to extract him from my hair,
he stung me.
Now there's a hair problem I can get used to.
My hair has grown back gloriously curly, even though, before chemo, it was straight. So curly that insects confuse it for a nest.
Next, birds will try to lay eggs in my hair. And that's fine with me.
 Finally, I could go
to my Extreme Quarterly Lunch with my brother as well as with hair. Not stubble that made people wonder if I was home from Iraq like
at our December lunch. I was just a normal woman with normal hair -- and glorious curls that attract honey bees.
Aside from a summer cold, I've been feeling pretty normal, too. I ride my bike and go to the gym. I even got out on the tennis court this weekend, though my knees can't keep up with my arms yet.
I looked like a baby giraffe trying to figure out how to move on these wobbly legs. But I did get to the ball some of the time, pelting it at my
mother for making me run in the first place. Obviously, she's jealous because bees aren't interested in her hair.
I had a clean tumor marker test earlier this month. My next PET scan is slated for July. Until then, I'll try to get back in shape. And I'll
check my hair for baby birds. Please, don't be jealous.
Jen
Update: June 30, 2008
A year ago today, I shaved my head. Well, my husband did the shaving while I tried to make jokes about it so
my friends and family who watched wouldn't feel sorry for me. After they left, I cried in the bathroom.
Today, one year after I got bald, I had my photo taken by tourists while I was on the outdoor set of CBS The Early Show, talking about
Please Take My Children to Work Day, my holiday for full- and part-time at-home moms.
Friends who watched the segment but hadn't seen me in a while were surprised to see my curly mop of darker brown hair. I'm just happy I had hair at all.
I'll post a link to the segment when it goes up, but here's a photo that a tourist was nice enough to take for me before we shot the segment.
It was a lovely day in New York, but then, considering what I was doing a year ago today, they're all lovely days.
My next quarterly PET scan is coming up in a few weeks. I try not to think about it, but as it gets closer, it's on my mind more and more often.
Frankly, I'm happy to have the fun distraction of TV appearances and other stuff to keep my mind off it as much as possible. And, if nothing else, I've got the
very wonderful experience of watching the 4th of July fireworks with my husband and kids. Last year, I watched the Macy's New York City fireworks from my hospital room
with my roommate, Virginia, who has since passed away.
This holiday -- whichever holiday it is -- I've got my family, my hair and...knock on wood ... my health. And that's worthy of a grand celebration.
Jen
Update: July 12, 2008
Seconds before I was to go on the air on ABC News this morning, the anchor broke the news that Tony Snow had died.
I had been following Tony's battle with colon cancer ever since I got cancer last year. When his cancer returned, one news program
interviewed the former White House press secretatry while he was having chemo. He was losing his hair -- and his voice -- and yet he still
had the chutzpah to go on national TV and talk about the disease that ultimately took him. A husband and a father of three children, he was 53.
I turned my head away from the set and tried to compose myself. That could be me. Dammit, I told myself, be funny. And then I thought about something Snow had
said in an interview, which I've since dug up from several news reports:
"Not everybody will survive cancer, but on the other hand, you have got to realize you've got the gift of life, so make the most of it. That is my view, and I'm going to make the most of my time with you."
And so I pulled myself together, smiled for the camera and gave the best interview about my book that I could. When I heard the weatherman let out a laugh, I knew
I'd done my job. I also knew I'd made the best of my time.
On the way home, I took off the jacket I'd worn on the set before heading into a bagel shop to get breakfast for my family. A woman behind me was staring at me. I wondered
if she'd just seen me on TV.
She inched closer to me and said, "Do you want your dress zippered all the way up?"
And there it was: Proof that life is wonderfully silly at the same time it can be so sad. You gotta wonder why anyone lets me out of the house.
She zippered my dress and I got my bagels and left, giggling at myself and the good news I got this week: My third PET scan of the year was clean. Now to make the most of it.
Jen
Update: July 25, 2008
Last July, my husband practically poured me out of my hospital bed and into the car to drive me to the Jersey Shore, where we vacation each summer
with his family. I spent much of the week in the condo, napping, as I was too weak even to walk to the beach, let alone swim or do any of the things
we normally do "down the shore." My boys told me then that I would have to make up for a week of being waited on by waiting on everyone this year.
Instead, I went boogie boarding.
And swimming.
And feet first down the "Beast of the East" at the water park.
And on the boardwalk.
And up the 168 stairs at the Cape May lighthouse.
And on the tennis court.
And out to dinner.
And on a bike made for four.
And I had even more fun than the kids did.
One afternoon, I sent this picture I had taken on my cell phone to my friend Robin, who didn't respond. I knew why she didn't say anything, and she knew why I had sent it.
It was my way of saying, "Look what I got to do this year...Look what I missed out on last year." We didn't need to say anything.
The picture said it for us.
The morning we were packing up to go home, my nine-year-old said, "I'm glad vacation is over. I need some rest!"
Slacker.
Jen
P.S. To read more about this summer's trip to the Jersey Shore, visit GoodHousekeeping.com
and Yahoo Shine.
P.S. Thanks to my sister-in-law, Monica, for any pictures that have me in it, or else we'd never know I was there.
Update: August 11, 2008
I didn't want to see my oncologist. Not until October, after my fourth and final PET scan for the year -- the one where, as I envision in my head,
he tells me I made it through the toughest year post-cancer and can go home and drink champagne. But then I got dizzy.
Not dizzy, really, but lightheaded. The first time, I was walking up the steps of the Cape May Lighthouse while on vacation
with my family. I figured that it was hot, there were 168 steps (my son counted each one out loud), and I'm not yet in shape. So
it's no wonder I was getting lightheaded.
But then I started getting lightheaded after working out. And soon, I was getting lightheaded just sitting at my computer.
Crap.
At a routine follow-up appointment with my radiation oncologist, I told her about it. She told me she didn't think it was serious, but I should
call my oncologist. He fit me into his appointment schedule a few days later.
He took my blood pressure sitting up, lying down and then shooting up again. It would suddenly drop whenever I sat up quickly.
Crap.
He sent out my bloodwork while I went about the business of convincing myself I had lymphoma/a brain tumor/colon cancer/leukemia/breast cancer. Yet here's the thing:
It came back normal. No anemia. White blood cells, normal. Tumor markers, normal. He told me to drink electrolytes, hold off on exercising and call him in a few days.
I mentioned it to my mom who told me she gets lightheaded in the heat sometimes.
And then, the temperature dropped, while the lightheadedness all but disappeared.
I called my oncologist to tell him. He replied, "Good! See you in October!"
I guess I'll get that champagne chilled now.
Jen
 P.S. This week, Goodies for Mom
has asked people to Blog for Blood Cancer to raise awareness for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and its mission to cure leukemia,
lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. As a non Hodgkin's lymphoma survivor, I urge you
to take part in their Light the Night fundraisers this fall. I know I will.
P.P.S. That's a photo from in front of our house. It was the second rainbow we'd seen in three days.
The latest
Update: September 18, 2008
I have done a great job of running away. This summer, I tried to make up for last summer with cancer by cramming
in so many trips that there was no time to stop and think about my chances of recurrence. Not as long as I had to get to
the Liberty Bell/Grand Central Station/Wildwood boardwalk/Inner Harbor/Kenmore Square/Concord, Mass./Disney World.
But now that the long summer is over and the kids are back in school -- and I've got just a few weeks until my next PET scan --
all that has changed.
It isn't just any PET scan. It's the one that will usher me into a year in remission, if I'm lucky. November 9th marks
a year since I finished radiation, and I'm feeling pretty confident I'll make it to my anniversary all clear. At least I am now.
Ask me again in an hour.
For the type of lymphoma I had, my odds of recurrence are greatest in the first two years of remission -- even more so during the first year.
My oncologist put it this way: "If you make it to a year, you can drink three-quarters of a bottle of Champagne. At two years, you can drink the rest."
I like a doctor who prescribes Champagne.
But I've got to make it through my scan first, and I can't run away right now. Not with school (I'm a class mom) and soccer (I'm a coach)
and work to do around here. So, I'll stay home and face my next PET scan with the hope that I'll be chilling Champagne for November.
Jen
Update: October 13, 2008
For the record, it was still plenty sunny when I left the radiology office where I had my PET scan on Wednesday morning.
So I had expected I'd get the results of my fourth and final scan of 2008 before the docs headed home for Yom Kippur.
But when no one had called by 4:30 on Wednesday afternoon, I called my oncologist's office for the results. Unfortunately, everyone was gone.
"Call back tomorrow and we'll see if we can find out," the office manager advised.
That night, I took a sleeping pill.
The next day, I called the office, but most everyone was out for the holiday. So I kept very, very busy
shooting videos for Uba TV, coaching soccer and hanging out with my kids, who had off from school. Nobody called me with my results.
That night, I took a sleeping pill.
By Friday morning, I was a wreck. I kept trying to push out of my head that my odds of recurrence are 25% in the first year.
"Not bad," said a friend of mine. I replied, "Somehow if I told you that you had a 1 in 4 chance of getting cancer this year, you wouldn't think
Not bad."
This was my last scan before my one-year of remission mark on November 9th. After that, my odds of recurrence drop, and my scans are spaced four months apart, instead of three.
I called my oncologist's office, but found out he'd be on vacation until Tuesday, when I had an appointment to see him. "He'll let you know then," his secretary informed me.
I told her to have one of the other doctors call me, because there was no way I'd wait another four nights. Besides, I was out of sleeping pills.
I waited an hour, but no one called. So I called the other doctor's secretary and left a message. A half-hour later, I couldn't concentrate anymore, so
I called my oncologist on his cell phone. Within minutes, someone from his office called with the news: "Your PET scan was all clear." Then my oncologist
called with the same news. I told him I'd see him Tuesday, but he replied, "You can cancel that. I don't need to see you. You're a healthy person."
That night, I slept like a rock.
Jen
Update: November 9, 2008
I didn't mean to make the whole church cry. But by the time I got to the second sentence of my thank-you speech, my voice was already faltering,
and I suppose, that made it harder for people to stay composed. Here's pretty much what I said,
minus the quavering voice and welled-up eyes:
"I'm Jen Singer and it's time I said 'thank you.' You may know me as a neighbor, a class mom or as that really, really loud
soccer coach on the Rec. fields on Saturdays. You may also remember me as the mom in the headscarf sitting in the back of the church.
"Last year, I had cancer. Non Hodgkin's lymphoma left a 15-centimter tumor in my lung, and I spent much of the early part of summer in the hospital
and much of the rest of the year in treatments.
But you prayed for me and for my husband, Pete, and for our sons, Nicholas and Christopher. And you took my sons to swim team practice and to your houses.
And you cooked for us, which was especially appreciated since our house was under construction and we had no kitchen -- proof that God has a sense of humor.
"I chose today to say thank you, because today, I am in remission one year."
And then everybody clapped and I tried not to collapse into a puddle of tears while I walked back to my pew.
Then the priest -- who had told me "Mazel Tov" for my news -- repeated the prayer for the sick that I can't remember exactly, because I was trying
to hold it together and smile. But basically, it involves praying for the sick so that they may heal and return to share joy and love. And then he pointed to me and
said, "And that's what you did today."
After the mass ended, friends with tears in their eyes hugged me and people I don't know congratulated me. One older couple told me that their son-in-law
had the same cancer, which returned after 17 months, but that he had a stem cell transplant and now is doing well some seven years after his initial diagnosis. Everyone
promised to keep praying for me.
When we got home, my husband kidded me, "Are you proud that you made the whole church cry?" Then my son, the Catholic, asked whether it's, in essence, kosher
for a Protestant like me to get up and talk at a Catholic church. "Shhh," I warned him. "Don't tell them or they'll come after me with pitchforks. They're
still angry over the Martin Luther thing."
Then we went for a bike ride on a beautiful November day while I said a little prayer for the sick.
Jen
P.S. Here's more about good news on my Good Grief blog on Shine.
CONTINUE READING JEN'S STORY
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