Failure is a badge of honour; it means you risked failure. If you don’t risk failure you’re never going to do anything that’s different than what you’ve already done, or what somebody else has done.
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@hellyeahangeline
Failure is a badge of honour; it means you risked failure. If you don’t risk failure you’re never going to do anything that’s different than what you’ve already done, or what somebody else has done.
Charlie Kaufman
It may not look like much. This was my view, 365 days ago in Lexington, Kentucky. This was my view when the doctor called to say, “I’m sorry, but you have cancer.” Some days, it feels like a nasty paper cut. The kind that looks harmless but hurts like hell. Sometimes, it feels like someone else’s distant story of which the details have grown blurry. More often, it feels like ain’t nobody got time for that.
If you write it in 3rd person, then it's fiction.
"Are you scared?" she asked.
The answer was yes. Scared shitless. She hadn't been able to sleep through the night in weeks.
But no one had bothered to ask before.
Everyone was "Ra Ra, Sis Boom Ba!"
They gave the same speech about being brave and strong. Terms meant for people who brandish big f'ing swords, not those whose body parts have just lost their way.
They were there, well-intentioned, but unable to walk down the entire way: to the brim of uncertainty where there are waiver forms and accidental death clauses.
She knew she would have to face it alone.
That there would be no one else's consent as she lay like a dissected frog: legs spread, cut open in a state of purgatory existence.
As she waited with her gown exposing her backside to all of the hospital 3rd floor, IV prepped, rights waived, she kept telling herself over and over again that if she had the privilege of waking up on the other side of the medically-induced haze, then she'd be sure to send out the Thank You notes her mother had been nagging her about for weeks.
May your choices reflect your hopes, Not your fears.
Nelson Mandela (via jus-ad-bellum)
Why 2013 didn't completely suck.
New Year's Eve is almost upon us. That time of the year where we kiss loved ones (or strangers) freely and make promises that we never keep to be better human beings.
Last year, I spent it in Vegas with a few of my favorite people, covered in sequins and a 4am barf-a-thon as the result of, count it, two drinks. I had no clue at the time that my body was waging a war inside itself, which makes me feel a little less pathetic for my awful alcohol tolerance.
This year, I'll be spending it in the ICU of a lovely Beverly Hills hospital, with a morphine pain button at the stroke of midnight in lieu of a champagne toast.
I'm getting a thigh boob. Surgery these days, man. It's incredible what they can do. My fancypants plastic surgeon, who happens to look like an asian David Duchovny (totally, right?!) will take my THIGH FAT and make a new fleshy, fun, barely A cup chest appendage.
While I hang out in some weird state of limbo for 6-12 hours, he'll use a microscope to connect the fragile lil' blood vessels. And if it succeeds, voila! New boob. New boob made of my own jiggly thigh tissue that needs no implant exchanges. New boob that will get weird and saggy as I get weird(er) and saggy. New boob that doesn't feel like a hard, plastic water bottle with funny lumps like the temporary one I have in me now.
New year, new boob.
I have a feeling 2014 will be great. However, despite the lameness that is, you know, being told you have cancer and all, 2013 wasn't a complete wash. This year gave me a crash course in how to chill the eff out and get some perspective on life.
I present to you the best lessons from 2013, making the year by far not my suckiest:
1. Go towards what scares you. It's in my nature to be risk averse. You could chalk it up to being the child of immigrants who survived one of the most controversial wars in history. When I was little, I was genuinely terrified of the moving trucks that would come down my street. In my mind, they were the communist government coming to get my family. No joke. I've always liked knowing what to expect. How to get from point A to B. Googling all the way to page 25.
Being diagnosed with cancer will make you accept that you can't always know what's peeking around the corner, and that's okay. Sometimes, the best rewards come from taking the risk. Going past the "Do Not Cross" line. Not planning everything along the way. And, as the sneaker company says, just doing it.
Early this year, I had a near meltdown one night after watching Safety Not Guaranteed on Netflix. Why? I just watched a decent movie. Nothing ridiculously groundbreaking, but decent. And I cried because I thought, "Wow. I want to create something that amuses people, and I am nowhere close to that." This feeling of helplessness flooded over me. There I sat, feeling completely incapable and paralyzed over what was at best, an entertaining movie.
Yet I felt compelled to do...something.
I desperately thumbed through the troves of writing books collecting dust and found a gift: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I highly recommend it. I devoured it that night and started writing. It was terrifying.
But, I wrote my first short film, a comedy where a girl who gets hit by a car unknowingly finds a tumor. The doctors say it's probably benign, but just in case, she starts going out and doing all the things she had saved up for the future. Number one on her list: homewreckin'.
I wrote this before I knew I had cancer. It's amazing what you know about yourself, even when you don't realize it. I haven't wrecked anyone's home though...yet.
2. You were made to create. I used to take a lot of pictures. They were decent enough to be published in The New York Times, USA Today, SPIN Magazine.
And then I stopped.
I used to write comedy sketches. I was in a group that put on two plays in Second City Hollywood. I actually acted in one of them.
And then I stopped.
I made excuses. I was too busy with work. I was too tired. There wasn't enough time in the day.
In the end, I know that I stopped because I felt like I wasn't good enough.
Who knows. Maybe I'm not "good enough" to make a living out of these things. But, I realized it doesn't matter.
It feels good to be productive. To create in order to give your life purpose and meaning.
I started waking up earlier so that I had more time to write. I picked up my camera again so I could re-appreciate the world through composition, stopping and thinking about what's in front of me a little longer.
I realized that no one thing needed to define me. That I could just create as I please, with no expectations, and that act alone would be utterly, wholly satisfying.
3. Embrace and love the fact that you are human, not perfect. You know what we jokingly called "B"s in school? Asian F's.
Our society and this generation is so consumed with perfection and not just keeping up with the Joneses, but kicking the Joneses asses. Add the realization that most of us will never be as well off as our parents and throw in a potent dose of self loathing for good measure, and it's easy to see why things never seem good enough.
I am my number one critic.
I can feel my insides shrivel when I read my first drafts. Or when I see the glazed over look on a client's face mid-presentation. Or when I take out my frustrations out on the lady in the billing department because it's rainy and I'm driving and screw you for telling me I owe money when you said the test would be free in the first place.
God forbid, I am human. And being human means being imperfect, accepting that, living with it and most importantly, forgiving yourself.
Life is already hard enough with the other assholes that are out there. Don't make it harder by being an asshole to yourself.
4. It's okay (and necessary) to put yourself first. Now, this is going to sound bonkers, 'cause it kind of is: I feel a lot of guilt for being alive. I don't feel entitled to life. I feel extremely lucky, like by some kind of random fluke, I've been allowed to live a way-more-than-decent existence. Again, most of this is probably due to the whole parents from a war-torn country type of deal, but I'm reminded of how lucky I am every time I walk through the doors of my cancer center for therapy.
I do my walk of shame by the chemo patients, hooked up to their IVs. All I have to deal with is physical therapy for some excess arm cording with my lymphatic tissue. I feel guilty for having hair, for getting to keep my nipple, for not having the same battle wounds as them.
And then I snap myself out of it.
Because we are all dealing with our own personal, mini shit storms in one way or another, and there's no point in feeling bad about that.
Life is hard. But unless you are going to be the next Mother Teresa, it doesn't mean you have to be a modern-day martyr to those around you.
I learned to push back. To say no. To do things because I wanted to do them rather than because I felt obligated to do them. To ask people for help because I couldn't do it all.
Ultimately, I learned to take care of myself. Because you are the most capable person in the world of doing that.
5. I wish I had a fifth one because I like odd numbered lists, but I don't. Despite whatever hardships, this existence can be so incredibly rewarding if you let it be.
Above all, I think the biggest lesson I learned is that I'm just happy to be here.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, Y'ALL!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo, Your friend Angeline
The meds make me dizzy, so I thought I'd capture the blur on this perfect Los Angeles type of winter day.
I've been quiet.
Mostly, I've been holding my breath, waiting to hear all of the test results and predictions. I should feel less comfort in them than I do, as I am already part of a rare club that no prediction or statistic should have led me to.
But, nevertheless, I found out that I do not need to do chemotherapy. They say I have a low risk of recurrence or distant spread in the next 5 - 10 years.
It is such a relief, but with it carries so much more.
But I know this is far from over.
They don't considered you cured until there is no evidence of disease for five years. Five. Years.
People look at me, and I guess I seem okay. Like normal, jokey, maybe just a little sore and stiff, but still the Angeline they know. And in some ways, I guess I am her.
I often think about how fleeting youth is.
In five years, I know I will still be young. I will be 32.
But I will never be as young and beautiful in the traditional aesthetic sense as I am in this very moment, even though I've got scars and an implant and a little too much of a pudge around my belly from not working out.
So, I try to cherish it. I savor it through superficiality that I never imparted much meaning onto before: fancy haircuts; wearing a faux fur vest because it makes me feel like a rapper; a tube of bright red lipstick.
It makes me happy.
That's all that matters now.
I start to reconstruct at the end of this month. I start physical therapy. I try to bring myself to a sense of normalcy.
But, this is not just back to normal.
This is on to something new.
I was reminded of that when I walked back through the doors of the cancer center.
So many wheelchair-bound, chemo-ready seniors and me.
And then I hear my oncologist saying, "Can you get me the protocol for metastatic cervical cancer?" Moments later, out walked a woman who couldn't be much older than me, looking delicately beautiful in her scarf-wrapped head and knit sweater, head hung low, lightly grasping her speechless husband's hand.
These moments hit me with a harsh wave of gratitude. An injection of life that's been lit on fire. A new vibrancy that will never dull. Everything does lately.
I no longer have the facade of youth's invincibility. I am now fully aware there's an end to this consciousness.
I will never, ever be the same again.
What life feels like a lot of these days.
I just heard back from my oncologist on my recurrence rate. He left a voicemail. They never leave obscure voicemails unless they are about to tell you news you wouldn't be ecstatic to hear.
I'm lucky because with the type of cancer I have/had, they are able to run something called the Oncotype DX to give you a score from 0 - 100 that determines your likelihood of cancer recurrence to help determine whether or not you will benefit from chemotherapy.
Mine is 20 out of 100.
"Not low. Not high," were the oncologist's exact words.
So, now we wait some more and see whether or not I will need to succumb to the necessary evils of chemotherapy.
When I was struggling earlier on with all of this, I went for a hike up Beachwood Canyon. I get the strangest signs there. And as I was walking back to my car, three giant peacocks crossed paths with me. And it's not every day you see these birds just hangin' out, so hippy dippy me decided to Google the spiritual significance of a peacock.
And to my delight and shock, I came across this:
Peacocks live in forests with poisonous plants. They eat the poisonous plants that no other animals can eat, and instead of being poisoned, peacocks transform the poisons they eat into beautiful, colorful and vibrant plumage and thrive.
It was a beautiful reassurance that I still hold with me.
No matter what happens, even though I may be floating in the unknown right now, I do know that there is a beautiful, colorful and vibrant mess to be made of all of this.
Preach it, sister.
Photographer Angelo Merendino recently published a remarkable photo series of his wife’s fight with breast cancer.
Though some of the photos aren’t easy to see, Angelo’s photos brings a sense of grace and serenity to the painful process of cancer treatment.
Photographer Documents His Wife’s Fight With Cancer
via DIY Photography
You know what that is?
That is the On-Q pump, a CATHETER that my boyfriend just pulled out of my armpit/boob. It was my best friend that administered local anesthesia from this hideous nylon bag the nurses called my Louis Vuitton, until it didn’t.
And when it expired, that bastard caused me the most annoying, constant pain as I lugged it around.
So, after some googling, I realized that it could and must be taken out.
When I saw it laying there, I was so horrified and exhilarated that I made him hold it up and take some catheter selfies.
After this mastectomy, I’ve realized is how important it is to have good people in your life.
And by good people, I mean people who will rise to the occasion and pull 8-12 inches of catheter from inside of you.
Or even more importantly, people who stoically say, “Why yes, Angeline. I WILL wipe your butt for you.”
Because one day, you may need them to. And if you’ve surrounded yourself with people who don’t care about you enough to wipe your butt, then what happens? WHO WILL WIPE??????
So, in my delirium, I present to you The Angeline Vuong Butt Wipe Gut Check: if you are having an existential crisis, or you’re just bored during a never ending work meeting, I urge you to think about any person in your life.
And then ask yourself, would I wipe that person’s butt if necessary?
If the answer is no, it’s time to move on, buddy.
If yes, then maybe you express how much you care about them today in your own special way. Maybe you tell them you’d wipe their butt if you have to, or maybe you just say, “Hey, I appreciate you.” Either way, isn’t it fun to realize that you care about someone that much? Doesn’t that feel incredible?????
My mom will be horrified by this blog post. Sorry mom. My dad will be amused. But, hey. Be happy that "I appreciate" you both. ;) wink wink.
Honestly, I want nothing but the best for you. I'm sorry for aggressively punching you in the crotch.
Drunk girl outside my window to other drunk girl. 2:48am insomnia.
Teeny tiny baby steps. Slowly but surely. Grateful for everything, especially a strong body and a cuddly dog. P.S. I have shorts on, you perv! :-)
Sixteen more hours.
At about this time tomorrow, I should be nice and drugged up. The IV should be my new BFF. Some of my lymph nodes will be gone. I will have half of a fake right boob. My real one will be long gone and sent off for a final pathology report.
All of this, eight weeks in the making, will finally culminate into a lovely cocktail of antibiotics, narcotics and IV fluids.
I'm staying positive.
Throughout all of this, I've had my surgery date moved 3 times,I've had my operation plans change 1 week before (I'm now doing two phased procedures), I still don't know where my parents are going to stay, and I've had to roll with some serious punches such as having to have a weird half breast implant that I wanted to originally avoid.
The biggest thing I've learned from all of this is that life is just one pile of uncertainty. I don't know what's going to happen, and that makes me understandably anxious. And that's okay.
But the only thing that you can do about it is take control of what you can (such as acupuncture, going to Disneyland, eating the crap outta some yummy ice cream, telling people to chill out and leave me alone), and well, hope for the best with what you can't control.
So, that's it peeps.
It will probably be a few days until I write again.
Send me yo' good vibes and your sunbeams. I will be feeling them in my drug-induced happy fun place.
Unlike some of my body parts, I can always count on pizza. Mmm.
Fun 'til they make me lay down.
Tiny little feats of greatness.
Today was the first time in my 27 years of existence where I had my blood drawn and did not faint, cry or turn green. Instead, I made jokes. I even looked at my four vials of blood.
Today was also the first day where instead of saying, "I am healing," to myself, I found myself saying, "I am healed."
Every little thing is a giant win, even in the smallest instance.
I'll muster up the energy to tell you all my surgery plan. It's in 4 days. Things never go as planned, and I'm learning to live with the uncertainty, one deep breath and mental pep talk at a time.