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| Friday, December 5, 2008 |
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Dear Friends, Big week! Big thank yous. Thank you for the beautiful meals that we received, for the heavenly challah and for the incredibly yummy and super healthy biscotti. And thank you for the photos and the Whole Foods coupon – which we’ve already used on a ton of great stuff! A very big thank you and yasher koach to Leah Bennet who collected 280 wigs from all over Yerushalayim for a sale that netted over $61,000 to be donated for Hachnasa Kallah in my zechus. That’s a lot of chasunas!!!!! A very heartfelt thank you to everyone who wrote to me this week. Your words of chizuk carried me through this particularly rough spot. It’s a huge comfort to know that I’m not alone. Many of you shared perspectives that really gave me something to hold onto. This one is from my dear friend Lisa in Ramat Beit Shemesh: It is now chodesh kislev. I was reading tonight about the sign of the month - the bow/archer. The bow is not as precise a weapon as a sword. When you shoot the arrow, you do not know exactly where it will land. That is why it is likened to prayer, we pray, and do not know how high it will reach, but the closer we pull the bow to the heart, the further it will fly. I was thinking about it with your medicine as well. You take the medicine, and don’t know the exact path of healing it will take. My bracha to you as we enter this month, is that your tefillos, and your refuah will go directly to the Source and your treatments will be guided to target the weeds of your beautiful garden, and your Tefillos will bring your refuah, and the Ultimate Redemption, all the more closer. May it be NOW. Motzei Shabbos, Team Chemo went to the Ohel, the gravesite of the Lubatchiver Rebbe, to daven. It was amazing being there, as always, and even more amazing to send our tefilos to shamayim together. I am always comforted when I go to the kever. And I never want to leave. It feels like time stands still there and the channels to heaven are wide open. IY”H, the Rebbe and Rebbetzin will intervene on my behalf. Shabbos was beautiful. Clare had the day off on Friday and she came by to cook with me. We made a free range turkey with most of the trimmings – mashed potatoes (made with organic vegetable broth and olive oil), roasted sweet potatoes, yams and rutabagas, sautéed kale with sliced garlic, steamed broccoli, organic cranberry sauce, Mom’s yum gravy and her apple pie, and a pumpkin pie made by my neighbour. It was a fabulous meal, shared with the Ansbachers (just back from England), and I had to push my plate away after the first round for fear of really overdoing things. Chaya Ita and Yitz joined us for lunch. Esther Rachel came to visit after lunch and we talked and talked and laughed a lot. It was a Shabbos filled with love and friendship. So, I’m ready for the new healing liquid on Monday. Dr. Gatto worked me over and I’m all set to receive this drug that will surely stop the cancer in its tracks. I’m getting a little bit more okay with losing my hair as each day passes. It’s a tikkun. Hair represents din, strict judgement, something that I’ve been blessed with an overabundance of. It seems fitting that my hair should be the last thing to go. It will be a very interesting spiritual/psychological/emotional journey and test, one that will surely bear fruitful breakthroughs in my personality and in my dveykus, my closeness to Hashem. Dr. Krug said that this drug will deplete my white blood cell count more than the others, so no sick visitors please! I’ve been feeling pain in lots of spots in my ribs, back and hip, which is always scary, but Percacet is wonderful stuff and it got me through a couple of tough days. The pain seems a bit better now and I’m doing fine drug free. I spent the afternoon on Sunday with Akiva at Dave & Busters in the city. I showed him all of the favourite attractions and he showed me what a natural he is. He can really drive! We had dinner together at Sushi Metsuyan and had a nice talk. It’s amazing spending time with one kid alone. I get to know them each so much getting them away from the rest of the gang. I’m looking forward to spending afternoons with each of them alone and in the spring, IY”H, we’ll do some overnight trips too. I met with Elka Weber, a writer friend, who is helping me organize, write and edit my book. We sat together for two hours and got so much done and now I feel really inspired to do the work. Elka already read a forty page draft chronicling the first forty-eight hours after my diagnosis and her feedback was deep and on target. I’m looking forward to working together to tell my story. I had to go to Sloan yesterday for an eye exam and CT scan of my head in preparation for the new test trial. In between appointments we met with Donna Wilson, an exercise specialist at Sloan Kettering’s Integrative Medicine facility. She was amazing! She showed me some great exercises to practice good breathing and to maximize oxygenation of my body. Then she showed me lots of things I can do to tone up and get in great shape without hurting my bones. Yoni and Ella and I lined up in front of the big mirrors doing the exercises with Donna. It was quite a sight. We’re going back a week from Monday to do it again, this time with Tsvika and his cameras and with Atara, who will be helping me follow through on the exercise regime. Ella thinks we should get Team Chemo shirts, hot pink, of course, but I don’t think they’d arrive in time. Some upcoming events to put in your calendar: Embrace the Light of Kislev! Join me on Sunday, Dec 21 at 8:15pm for a Women’s Healing Circle, a gathering for the women in our community touched by critical illness. Facilitated by Racquel Houpt, Director of Bikur Cholim Passaic/Clifton, the evening will provide a safe space for sharing, connecting and creating. For information and to reserve a space please call Racquel at 973-249-8811. If you or someone you know is battling illness alone, please call or have them call. Please join us for a Chanukah Melava Malka on December 27 at 9pm at our house. Bring your instrument and play along with the musicians. Lots of great food, great friends and great music. Sending blessings for a beautiful and light filled Shabbos!!! Love, Simcha Esther |
| Friday, November 21, 2008 |
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Hello Everybody! I’m feeling great today. Ignoring the weird pain in my armpit and something else in my upper back. I just don’t have time for nuisances like that. Life is too much fun. So it’s there, but there’s nothing I can do about it, so on with the show. I just finished cooking for Shabbos. Sarah Zulauf is coming to us with her boys. Yay! Haven’t seen Sarah in months. I really enjoyed the cooking this morning. I didn’t make much, but it was very cathartic for me just to be back in the swing, listening to my favorite jazz station, with my big old knives and chopping boards and getting my hands into the food. I’ve got chicken tagine with prunes and almonds simmering on the stove and a big pot of harira good to go. We’re also having fresh beet salad, carrot salad with fresh squeezed orange juice and rosewater and sautéed green beans with shitake mushrooms. Did I ever mention that I LOVE Moroccan food? I picked up a real adoration for the stuff when I traveled there a few times after college. While I was there I had the great opportunity to sit (yes, sit, Moroccan women sit on the floor quite a bit while they cook) and learn from the great women that I met there. Yum! I’m getting hungry. I get hungry a lot these days. Amazing! Have to start watching what I eat I think. Tuesday was an award winning day. Chaya Ita joined Tsvika and me for the picking up of the new sheitl from Miriam Tsinman. But this was not just any old come and get your wig, oh no, Miriam made it into a day to remember forever. First she arranged for me to have a makeover – can you believe it? We went to Orah’s house, and, despite all of my protestations (I HATE makeup!) she really did make me look great. I felt only a little bit weird leaving there to go to Miriam’s house. When we got to Miriam’s we were greeted with a beautiful sushi spread and red carpet treatment. She took me upstairs and dressed me up to the nines. Then she brought the wig, and wow! I was completely transformed. It’s amazing what great hair, makeup and some fancy clothes can do for a person. It was really fun and I’m sure it’ll be great footage for the film. Who doesn’t love seeing a makeover? I hope that it will lighten up the trauma of getting a wig when all your hair falls out for the people with cancer who will see the film. As far as my own hair is concerned, it really seems to have stopped falling out and I am REALLY happy about that! Must be everyone’s tefilos. What a chesed from Hashem. On Wednesday Atara and I took a long walk in the park. It was FREEZING but I thawed out pretty quick when we got back home. My hamstrings are quite sore – boy can she walk! I’m looking forward to working out with her again a couple of days a week. I have the most beautiful friends. I am incredibly blessed. Everyone wants to see the preview and I’m so sorry but we’re keeping it under wraps for now. In a few weeks we’re hoping to have a 2 minute piece and we’re starting to build a Time of My Life website where you can see it. I’ll keep everyone posted on that progress. If anyone would like to join the awesome circle of women taking challah for me every week please let me know. We could use some more sista’s so there’s no chance of coming up short on any given week. And on that note, I’m looking for about ten regular challah bakers in Passaic to let us film a few minutes of baking/making the brocha for the documentary. Contact me if you’d like to be included. We NEED you so don’t hesitate! My next CT scan is scheduled for this Monday. Please keep me in your tefilos. I get the results on Wednesday, before the next round of healing liquid. The team is in place and ready to go. I can’t imagine how we’ll be able to keep topping the fun. I can’t believe how much I look forward to my chemo days! Go Team Chemo!!!!! Here’s my favorite recipe for Chicken Tagine with Prunes and Almonds (I adapted it from Kitty Morse’s recipe in Come With Me to the Kasbah): 4 tbsp + 1 tbsp olive oil 2 organic chickens (2 ¼ to 3 lbs each) cut in pieces 1 bunch parsley, chopped 1 bunch cilantro, chopped 2 garlic cloves, minced 2 tsp ground cinnamon 2 tsp turmeric 2 tsp ground ginger ¼ tsp saffron threads, crushed Salt and pepper to taste 2 cups water 1 cup pure honey 1 lb. pitted prunes 1 cup organic almonds Heat 4 tbsp olive oil in a heavy large pot, and brown chicken pieces on all sides. Add the herbs, garlic, spices, salt and pepper to taste, and water. Cover and simmer until the chicken is tender (about 1 ½ to 2 hours). Remove chicken to platter, and keep warm in the oven. Let the sauce cook down for 5 minutes over high heat. Lower heat, add the honey and stir until the sauce thickens. Add the prunes, mashing them down in the sauce, and cook for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, bring a small sauce pan of water to a rapid boil. Drop the almonds into the boiling water, cover the pot and remove from the heat. After two minutes drain the almonds and slip off their skins. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a sauté pan and brown the almonds over medium heat. Set aside. Return the chicken to the sauce, and reheat. Place chicken on serving platter, spooning sauce over top. Sprinkle with the almonds and serve. Blessings for a sweet, delicious Shabbos! Love, Simcha Esther PS Please write to me! I miss hearing from everyone. |
| Friday, November 14, 2008 |
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Hi Everyone, It feels like a looooong time since I’ve written. So much has happened. The new drug cocktail is awesome! So much better. Only the slightest headache for one morning, no exhaustion and only “walking nausea”. My hair thinned a lot, but it’s still more than enough to call “a head of hair”. The nurse said that whatever is going to fall out will likely be done before the next round. It feels like it’s slowing down. For a while it was coming out by the fistful every time I shampooed and conditioned. And I noticed that little hairs were falling onto my face for a while, not sure if it was eyelashes or eyebrows, but praise the Lord, I still look normal, and I feel great. I’ve been busy busy busy and the only trouble I’ve had really is that I can’t eat much at any one time and then I get suddenly starving and as soon as that hits there’s this wave of nausea till I get something in my mouth. Unfortunately, after all the cheesecake tastings, now all I want is junk. Leslie made me some delicious kale this week and it was so yummy that I was inspired to get back to my healthy organic good for me diet. So no more cheesecake. But boy do I want a prune Danish right now!!! And these amazing chocolate chip cookies just walked in with the Brands and a cinnamon chocolate cake from the Koltais and I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to hold myself back. We brought a condensed version of the film preview to the ATARA conference last Sunday and it was a huge hit! Lots of tears, tons of laughter, the whole gamut of emotion in seven and a half minutes. When I left a line of women followed me out and ambushed me in the hallway. It was great. I can’t believe the impact it’s having on people. I feel so incredibly blessed to be able to tell my story in a way that makes a difference in the world. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. To make a difference. I’m picking up my new sheitl this week – yes! It’s just like the one in the film but cut especially for me. Miriam Tsinmin has this whole shindig planned with makeup, food and fancy clothes for the modeling of the wig. I’m bringing my entourage. Should be lots of fun. I want to say a very very special thank you right here to Reva Korn who brought me her wedding dress this week. It was my wedding dress too and Reva gave it to me for Batsheva and Eliana, in case they’d like to wear it under their chuppahs. Before she left she gave me a brocha that she and I should dance together at those weddings, regardless of what gown my daughter’s choose to wear. Amein to that! Thank you also to Menucha Rothenstein who brought me the most beautiful necklace from Eretz Yisrael. It’s amethyst and red crystals on a long black cord and every time I wear it I’m reminded to go to my “secret and separate place” – a place that I created in my meditations that I must remember to go to several times a day to bathe in the white healing light of the Universe. I love my secret and separate place and the crystals take me right there. I had the great pleasure of meeting Dr. Lawence LeShan on Wednesday. He is the author of “Cancer as a Turning Point”, that awesome book on mind body healing that was given to me by Rachel Pollack. He’s very very old now. I can’t imagine how old. He spoke wistfully about a heart attack he had at 72 and years of life he’s experienced since. But he’s completely together and such a special person. Every time he smiled it was like the sun rising again and again. And when he spoke about his wife, and her love for the theater, he lifted his head, closed his eyes, and smiled with the bittersweet glow of loss and love that only decades of life with a treasured soul mate can produce. How lucky. But before we interviewed Larry, he interviewed me and he was so taken with my story that he let us stay for the rest. And in the interview he shared all about his long beautiful life and when we were finished with the interview we asked the last question. The one about what does he think about how I’m doing my own journey and he said “she could have written my book”! And somewhere in his interview of me he asked me what I was going to do after this documentary and I said, “well, make another film!” and he asked me what about and I said “about G-d”. And he said that’s a subject he’d really like to talk to me about. Somewhere in the interview he quoted the Baal Shem Tov and he told us that he’s Jewish. As we were leaving he said he really wanted to stay in touch and I blurted out “I will. And I plan to live a long long time!” And I meant it. I called him this morning and he asked me again to please keep him updated about my life and my work and that yes, indeed, he wants to talk to me about my discoveries about G-d. So I’m calling him in a few weeks and it should be fun! Thank you so much to so many people for being there for us this week! We’ve had such yummy meals delivered from so many great cooks! And thank you to everyone who sent donations for the film – many were additional donations beyond what had already been given at the concert. We still have a long way to go to cover our budget, in case anyone else is feeling inspired. It’s been a busy week, but relaxing too. And I’m noticing now so many times that when I have an hour, a day, or whatever with nothing urgent on my agenda, I’m able to just kick back and chill. It’s a whole new way of living. I still have the thought “what can I get done with this time, and if I don’t do something on my to do list then I’ve wasted it”. But it’s awesome just stopping and giving myself permission to do nothing, anything, something, whatever is good, and fun and healing. And sometimes that really means doing absolutely nothing. Whew. I’m feeling good. Blessings for a sweet and restful Shabbos. Love, Simcha Esther |
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