It Happened…(a Year Ago Today)

I adopted Marcus Aurelius one week ago today. I had fostered for two years, but he wasn’t a foster fail. I adopted him based on a picture I saw on the Bad Ass Animal Rescue instagram. His face reminded me of my last foster dog, Goose. I got Goose adopted by a couple who lived in my building. I have gotten all my foster dogs adopted through connections. Between fostering and being the dog whisperer of adoptions, I felt ready for the general.

I noticed three things about Marcus right away. He never sat down. He was really hard to walk. And he jumped on everyone he came into contact with. At his first vet appointment, the vet told me she could tell he was a good dog and that he would calm down. I had fostered enough to know the transition isn’t smooth and it can take months before their true personality emerges. I was hoping for less psychotic and a little more bubbly down the road.

I GOT COVID AND NOT A SINGLE CLIENT GOT IT FROM ME!

I thought I had COVID no less than 10 times before I actually got COVID. I thought I had cancer a million times before I got cancer. I cannot tell if therapy is actually paying off and I am spending less time in my head imagining things or my window between shitty events is actually getting smaller.

My cancer showed up as a rash on my nipple. I went to a dermatologist who said it was probably "runner's nipple". I have never run a day in my life and would and let any bear, robber, or old boyfriend catch me before I ran one step, so I did not believe her. I asked for a biopsy of what was probably eczema.

Cut to my fever and a slight cough on the evening of February 26.

It's Cancer, Deal!

I thought I had a cancer a million times before I actually got cancer.

I am a worst case scenario kind of girl. I like to lay my scenario on a friend (not a new friend, that would be risky), come up with the triage plan, and then treat myself to an evening of Netflix and raw cookie dough in celebration of another, not really close, call averted.

Here’s a typical meltdown: “Gigi, I have a serious, came out of nowhere, bump on my arm. It is more like a tumor, really, with all the symptoms of cancer. It is kind of growing as I speak, all spikey and asymmetrical. My nodes feel swollen. Where do you go to confirm arm cancer? Is there an arm cancer? Am I the first? How shitty is it that I have cancer of the arm and no one has any experience dealing with it? Why live in New York if we can’t muster up an arm cancer specialist at Sloane?”

Then Gigi will remind me I tripped over my dog’s leash and fell on my arm last week. I am relieved.

Relieved enough to celebrate with cupcakes and feel rewarded for a whole five congratulatory minutes before the self-loathing kicks in.

When I found a rash on my nipple, and it migrated a bit, I saw my dermatologist, aired out the skin cancer scenario with a few key friends and started making the cookie dough.

Instead, I was told I had breast cancer.

Are You in or Are You Out?

Even when you are running the most fabulous of studios, summer can be slow. That’s why I try new things in the summer. That, and I look better doing anything -- especially things that are new and I might not do well -- with a tan.

First, got the tan. I rented a house in the Rockaways for 3 weeks. I have always wanted to have a beach house. It’s a 20-year dream that I terrorized everyone about every summer until hello, this year I realized, I could just do it.

I love summer barbecues at Amagansett and picnics on the sprawling lawns of ‘Sconset like the rest of them but give me the overly-tattoed, weird and wonderful array of Rockaway characters any day of the week. Those be my peeps. I am in.