Well, one woman posted asking for advice. This is a letter to her and everyone else out there:

Dear M,

You asked how you can keep painting and drawing even though your body is so tired. You said you’re plagued by the shoulds and must monsters. You know the ones, the voices that tell you your best isn’t good enough and will never be? The ones that say your health issues are really just a mask for laziness?

Well, guess what? Those monsters are wrong. Your best is good enough. It is more than ok to work within your limits, both physical and mental. It is perfectly fine to take care of your needs before you can take care of others.

I know how hard taking care of oneself first is. So I’ve made a permission slip that you can save and print out. Paste it into your sketch book, set it as your desktop image, put up on the fridge. Just keep it near you and remember only you can take care of you.

Be well and much love,

Vanessa

I haven’t been too much in the mood to knit anything requiring too much attention so stockinette socks it is.

For more WIPs, check out Tami’s blog.

I participated in a Reddit gift exchange all about pens and stationery. I was really excited to get my gift yesterday!

That’s 11 vials of Noodler’s ink for my fountain pen! My pen accepts both cartridges and bottled ink if I use the converter/plunger thing it came with. Now I just have to find out which box I packed it away in. The other nifty gifty is a pad of Triomphe paper. And since everything was purchased from the Goulet Pen Company, I got a sticker and a book mark. Sadly, Goulet is sold out of their Triomphe envelopes but I have plenty of my own. I can’t wait to start writing letters. I think my first one shall be a thank you letter to my generous partner.

I’m really proud of how this frog came out, though the line between his mouth and where his foreleg connects got smooshed together. I’m hoping to take a painting class or something that will help me trouble shoot when I notice things like that happening. But I’m still proud of how my skills are improving. Plus, it’s such a cute frog! I made the spot of white in his eye with a white jelly roll pen. I’m planning on using this pen to make some white zentangles instead of my usual black ones. It’ll be fun to play with tones and values on a different and lighter scale.

A little more info on the Golden Mantella frog. They live in Madagascar and are a critically endangered species. They’re related to the brightly colored poison dart frog. Golden Mantellas are found in the forest and near fresh water ponds. They are social creatures who live in family groups called armies with twice as many males as females. You can learn more about them from the Bristol Zoo’s conservation page.

The pattern is Anne Campbell’s Circle Socks. They were designed for self striping/crazy striping yarn. I’m planning on changing out the heel for a short row heel because I’m bent on trying out the technique. Plus, I think it’s an usual pattern.

For more WIPs, check out Tami’s blog.

I did purchase a wig. In fact, my insurance did cover high quality human hair wigs. I never got around to buying a real one. Mine was a $20 synthetic Beatle-esque bob. I thought that maybe I could deal with life if I felt a bit more normal. I had shaved my head the week before when huge snarls of hair were trapped in my pillow case. I still had my eye brows, they had thinned out but still looked normal.

So I bought the wig. Looking at the few photos I have of me in that thing, it looked terrible. And it felt even worse. It was hot and uncomfortable and itchy. I couldn’t get it to line up nicely on my head.

But you know what? For the one day that I wore it, I felt normal. The next day, I realized that I was normal. I just had cancer. And if anyone wanted to say something about being bald, they had that right. I also had the right to ignore them.

On the other hand, a friend’s mother also lost her hair to chemo. She wore her wig every day of treatment because it made her feel empowered. Other people only wear a headscarf. I sometimes wore a scarf around the house, but mostly I stuck to either going au natural or wearing a hat if I was very cold.

There really is no right or wrong answer. Perhaps you will chose to wear a wig when going out or deciding, “Fuck it. Bald is beautiful.” And if you don’t feel that way, that’s okay too. You reserve the right to tell off anyone who says anything different.

A few weeks ago, I posted about my idea capture journal. That’s where I scribble down my to-do lists, any thoughts for patterns or blog posts before I organize and transfer them into Evernote. Here are all of my notebooks that I currently use:

The owl notebook (gifted last summer by Underground Crafter) is my capture notebook. The big black notebook in the back is where I do my writing exercises. Much like anything else, writing requires lots and lots of practice if you want to get better. I often forget that most novels don’t fall out onto the page fully formed. There’s not just tons of revision involved but an author needs to constantly write in order to improve one’s voice. So a plain spiral notebook works best for me.

Next to my owl notebook with the grey spine is my journal. I don’t write too often in it but it’s where I write about the highs and lows of my life. I also maintain lists of books I’ve read and milestones/cool things that have happened to me each year. On the front flyleaf I also write down my resolutions for that year and how old I was when I started and finished that journal.

The aqua notebook is a page a day diary where I keep my appointments and random doodles sometimes. I also write about what happened each day. It’s more of a log than anything else. So far, it’s been fun seeing how long it’s taken me to finish a book or the last time the Sgt and I went out on a date was. Austin Kleon talks about the importance of keeping a logbook in his book Steal Like an Artist:

[...] keeping a simple list of who/what/where means I write down events that seem mundane at the time, but later on help paint a better portrait of the day, or even become more significant over time. By “sticking to the facts” I don’t pre-judge what was important or what wasn’t, I just write it down.

Even a month later, it’s been really fascinating taking a look at just what happened day-to-day in my life. I’m sure as more time passes, I’ll be able to see more patterns emerging. It’s also been a great way to track when I get sick (from a cold or the flu) and when I start to feel better.

The two gilded notebooks were Christmas gifts. The one in the front row is quite small and stays in my purse. It’s where I doodle while waiting or jot down addresses. We’re currently house hunting so I’ve written down the pros and cons to the different houses we’ve looked at. It’s saved our butts more than once! The bigger one is a far more personal diary. I write in it every night just everything that needs to come out of my mind. Every thought no matter how profound or mundane gets out of my soul and onto the page. I view it as thinking out lout but silently. It’s a form of talking to god, I just use the written word instead.

Lastly, the spiral top notebook is not mine. I purchased it from Phantom Limb this weekend as a gift to the Sgt who started a new job today. He jots down his to do lists and random notes in them for work. Sometimes, it’s easier to put pen to paper than it is to open up a program on the computer.

So that’s my notebook collection. I have a ton more that are all used and a few that are empty waiting to be cracked open. Once my page a day diary is filled up, I think I might switch to a Filofax.

What do you use to organize and track your day? Have you gone paperless?

I made sure that I kept my sketchbook and my travel set of water colors out along with some of my knitting. He looks more like a little whale than a goldfish but that’s alright! I think he’s super cute. I got to use my Pen & Ink sketch fountain pen over the water color washes. I use my pen mostly in my journaling but the insert said this pen is designed for sketching. It was really smooth over the washes and I enjoyed zentangling with it. However, the ink it comes with is not water proof. I tried to run a wash over one of the fins and it started to smear. That means I’m still in search for a fine tipped pen that won’t smear if I watercolor over it.

For more Finished Objects, check out Tami’s blog.

One of the bigger issues facing cancer patients and survivors is body image and sex appeal. It effects survivors of all ages, races, and genders and gets little to no attention from the medical community. It’s also something that very few survivors also talk about amongst each other.

Well, I’m talking about it today!

During chemotherapy and radiation, your body changes and it changes quickly and permanently, sometimes. The photo on the right was taken two weeks after the photo on the left. In two short weeks, all the hair on my head and pubic hair (I wasn’t prepared for that part!) fell out. In four weeks, my eyelashes were gone. After four months of chemo, my eyebrows finally left.

Your hair falls out which can be permanent. Some people have lost a limb or have under gone a biopsy which has left a scar. You’ve got either a port installed or a PICC line sticking out of your chest/arm like some new weird invention put out by Google. The removal of your port or PICC also leaves a scar. I have a scar between my breasts from the pericardial catheter was inserted and one on my arm from my PICC line.

And if you’re prescribed steroids, like I was, your face is now swollen and you look like a chipmunk.

And while all of that is going on, you feel cranky, nauseous, and overwhelmed. Your body is no longer responding or looking like it had in ways that are familiar to you. You look bad and feel even worse.

As a cancer community, we’re not talking about the emotional and psychological impact these changes are having.

Why?

We, as patients and survivors, are too overwhelmed with what can be done and just getting through the day. Our doctors aren’t bringing it up because there isn’t enough research to nor is it really on their radar. They’re trying to get us through our days as well. And our family and friends? I think they have no idea where to even begin if they’re to talk about it.

My hair fell out in big fistfuls. I was leaving odd dark brown tumbleweeds everywhere. I finally decided to take matters into my own hands and had the SGT shave my head. When my husband was done, I looked in the mirror and burst into tears. In high school, I had a lime green mohawk. I did that on my own and I proudly rocked it. This? Was suddenly very different. There was nothing punk rock and anti-establishment about having my head shaved.

Seeing me break down in sobs over my hair was difficult for him. I avoided looking into mirrors or talking about how I felt. I thought I looked horrible and wigs made me look worse. I felt like my body had betrayed me and I had no real idea why.  One my hair started coming in, I again didn’t want to go back to those dark times that I had just escaped.

So what can we do about this?

We, as a community of doctors, survivors and family/friends, can talk about our body image issues. Telling our loved ones that we are feeling low, asking our oncologists to hook us up with cancer support therapists, and for survivors to bring it up with doctors and loved ones.

As a survivor, I’ve found that that there’s a new normal with my body. As more time passes between my last chemo and today, I’ve learned that “normal” has a fluid and evolving definition.

I’ve also learned to define myself differently. My hair, my scars and body (cancer and all) do make up a large part of who I am. So does my knitting, my art and martial arts.

Cancer patient or not, you need to figure out just who are you? What does that mean to you? What makes you special? What do you want from life, from your loved ones and from your body?

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Everybody say: “Eff cancer!”

I’m whipping up a bunch of brooches and larger nodes that fit into a pocket in preparation for my Etsy store’s grand opening in three weeks. Keep your eye on this page for more behind the scenes sneak peeks and some fun goodies.

For more FOs, check out Tami’s blog.