Dee lives in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, with her boyfriend and their cat. She works, cooks, knits, writes and is studying to be a CPA. She plans on living to be 106.

Dee Wieczorek

Four years ago, my boyfriend and I moved into the flat we call our home. Aside from the usual assortment of necessities that you look for when you’re searching for an apartment, one of the most important things to me was that it be pet friendly. Or, more specifically, cat friendly.

I grew up with cats and I missed owning one. So after making sure our landlord added a line in the lease that said we could have a cat, we made our way to our local SPCA. A few hours later, we were on our way home with a grey and white fur ball named Frogger. Frogger kept himself occupied on the trip home by singing the song of his people and attempting to slice his carrier box open with his claws.

Time moved on and he became part of our little family. He’s our snuggler, CFO (Chief Feline Officer) and the reason why the occasional grey and white tumbleweed rolls down the hallway. When I came home after being told I had cancer, he jumped into my lap and purred and kept me company while I hugged him, waiting for my boyfriend to come home.

There’s a rich and wonderful history of animals serving as therapy companions, but I never really thought too much about it. I didn’t have to; didn’t think I’d need to. And now here I was, an absolute wreck, hanging onto our cat for dear life. Who rescues who?

The answer to that question is that you both do. On the days when I’d be exhausted from chemo or radiation or just from thinking too much about everything, Frogger would find me, cuddle up next to me and purr. I’d often joke and say, “I’m going to teach you how to make me a cup of tea”, knowing that if he could, he probably would.

Finding comfort is a necessary piece of feeling better, getting better. It could be a favorite pillow, your knitting, a loved one’s hand or the comforting weight of a fifteen-pound grey and white cat settling in on your lap for a snooze. That soft, well-worn, comfortable spot is where you go when it all seems just too, too much. And the place you return to again and again.

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Being covered in cat fur feels wonderful.

Finding Cancer Comfort in a Four-Legged Friend

A few months ago, I had a little bit of brain surgery done. I had two large aneurysms on the left side of my brain clipped so that I wouldn’t have a massive stroke. That fine December morning, I was in the pre-operating unit of Temple University’s Boyer Pavilion, waiting for my surgical team to get the show on the road so we could get this thing over and done with.

I was in that pre-surgical state of mind that many of us are all too familiar with. Arrive the hospital at an almost ungodly hour of the morning to check in, then surrender your belongings for a hospital gown and a laminated paper bracelet. Introductions are made, vital signs are taken and, if you’re lucky, you’re given the remote control to a television set the size of a postcard to keep you and your loved ones occupied while you wait for a shot of “something to relax you.”

Little by little, my surgical team arrived. It consisted of the assisting resident neurologist, the operating room nurse, the anesthesiologist and my neurosurgeon. I couldn’t help but think of how it reminded me of how MLB introduces the National League lineup at the All-Star game.

I was antsy and ready to be knocked out, snipped and clipped. I was half-listening to my anesthesiologist with one ear when he said, “Oh, and we’re pretty sure we’ll be able to intubate you. We may scratch you, but you’ll be fine.”

I woke up groggy and hungry a few hours later, and sort of realized there was a thing on the inside of my mouth, right below the gum line. I put two and two together and decided not to worry about it, especially since I was in the neuro ICU and had a drainage tube coming out of the side of my skull.

A few days later, it was still there, and my mouth became sore. As a head and neck cancer survivor, I was starting to get a bit nervous. Even though common sense was telling me that I got scratched from the intubation and this is nothing to worry about, I was starting to panic a bit. My cancer was discovered when my dentist found something suspicious in my mouth, and who is to say this isn’t a recurrence?

And why wasn’t it healing? Yes, I’ve probably hit my lifetime’s limit of radiation and rationally, I knew that any little irritation in my mouth was going to take ages to heal. But this wasn’t going anywhere.

So I had nearly every doctor I had look at it. It wasn’t until my surgical oncologist, the one with both the MD and the PhD after his name, took a peek that I felt better.

He peered over his glasses with a look on his face that said it all. The look said, “You really need to calm down.”

I am going to be fine. I am worried sick over nothing. I need to get a grip. Onward. 

Sometimes rational thinking isn't my strong suit.

Get a Grip: When Cancer Brings Irrational Fears

I was a quiet and sometimes moody little kid.

I grew up next door to a small park, but preferred the quiet of the local library. I taught myself how to do macramé and origami. I became a bread baker and writer of really awful, angsty teenage poetry. I preferred a really good book to shooting hoops next door. I was a cranky 51-year-old in the body of a 12-year-old.

It didn’t come as a huge surprise to me when I began feeling like that again after I was diagnosed — the moodiness is a part of how I’m wired. After all, I’d just been knocked for the biggest loop of my life and my brain was trying to wrap itself around the fact that everything I knew as normal was going to change forever. I wasn’t sure what I was going to look like or how I was going to sound. All I knew was that I was going to be different and I didn’t want to change.

Well, change did come and much to my surprise, it wasn’t all that bad. The hair that thinned out from the chemo is growing back nicely and it’s not coming back grey, so there’s that to be happy about. I’m still working on the lingering lymphedema with daily self-massage therapy and my voice is good and strong.

The mood swings, however, decided to stick around and make my new life miserable. As good as I felt physically, I’d wake up on the wrong side of the bed and feel like doing absolutely nothing except throwing on a pair of sweats and collapsing into my corner of the couch. I know there’s a time when you should start to become concerned about how long the blues stick around for, but I figured as long as there were more good days than bad ones (as well as a pint of chocolate ice cream in the freezer), I was going to be just fine.

It made more sense to me not to fight them and just accept the bad days as they came along. Unlike some patients, I didn’t feel depressed or hopeless; I just had a good case of the blues. I also figured that considering everything I’d been through, that was perfectly OK. I had cancer and I’d had surgery. I’d just completed two months of treatment and I was more than allowed to have a bad day here and there. If I woke up in the morning didn’t feel like doing anything except curling up with my knitting, it was OK. And if you didn’t like my attitude, well, you are more than welcome to go and stuff it.

I’m much better than I was, but every once in a while, I wake up and realize it’s going to be one of those days. So I put on the sweats, grab the knitting and the ice cream and head for the couch. I put some music on and get comfy.

Like the song goes: "Some days are diamonds, some days are stones."

Pass the Ice Cream: Dealing With Bad Days as a Cancer Survivor

About a year ago, I was in my fourth week of cancer treatment. I had two more hot dates in the chemo infusion room and two more weeks of radiation before it was all over.

It’s now been almost a month since having those nasty little aneurysms clipped. Goodbye and good riddance. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

I’m healing again. One year after all the cancer nonsense, I find myself settled into my little corner of the living room couch, television remote in hand, crocheting project at the ready and completely covered in grey and white fur thanks to our cat.

Recovery is an ever-so-strange state for me to be in. I’m an antsy little thing; an early bird who likes to knock stuff off her to-do list. I like to wake up in the morning with a purpose and take care of business.

Over a mug of tea, I’ll open my Day Runner up and see if there’s anything that needs to be done. My spring classes start next week and I have to meet with my academic advisor to see if I can get all of my requirements out of the way for a June 2017 graduation. My resume needs updating. And I have to plan what I’ll be teaching in my crocheting classes for the next few months.

How quickly I’ve forgotten that I have to heal a bit more before I can tackle any of that. It’s entirely escaped me that my cat’s got the right idea. Naps are good ... really good. I have to keep reminding myself what my neurosurgeon, his resident and his nurse all told me: While your brain is heals, you’re going to get tired. Really, really tired.

I also need to remember that there are no heroes when it comes to this healing business. I had major surgery and this is going to take time. This shouldn’t be rushed and there’s no timetable to follow on when I’ll be ready to take on the world again. It could be another two weeks or it might take a month. The key to this is to throw all of my expectations out the window and take it as it comes. For someone who likes to be just a wee little bit in control (ha!), that’s a really hard thing to do.

So, I’ll make myself another cup of tea and get comfortable on the couch. Our cat will climb into my lap and settle in for a “cat therapy” session, which is incredibly soothing. I’ll work on crocheting the afghan and listen to my accounting lectures from last semester so I’ll be ready to go next week.

I'll take a nap too. Naps are good. Really, really good.

Recovery, like all good things, takes time. Don't short yourself.

Time To Heal From Cancer Treatment

Baked polenta with smoked cheddar, parmesan and roasted butternut squash. Little, itty-bitty crab cakes with panko bread crumbs. Brie and grapes. Yams with pineapple and brown sugar. Roasted salmon with Moroccan spices and red onion jam.

That’s just a small sampling of all the wonderful food I’ve been eating over this holiday season. I’ve been enjoying myself. My waistline may not be very happy with me at the moment, but my taste buds certainly are having the time of their lives.

And why shouldn’t I? I’ve been through a lot. This time last year I had just begun my six-week treatment plan. Chemo and radiation on Mondays and then radiation for the next four days with two days off for good behavior. I had been warned many, many times that I would probably lose my sense of taste for a while and that it might not come back. And if it did, it may not be same ever again.

Wait a second here. Taste? I may not be able to taste anything? Again? Maybe ever? Not fair. One of the best things about being alive is eating. I love food. I love to read about it, shop for it, cook it and share it with loved ones. It’s a hobby that borders on obsession. I mean, it’s bad enough I have cancer and now you’re going to take food away from me?

They were right. It was only about a week into my treatment that I noticed my sense of taste diminishing and it happened quickly. One day I was enjoying a bowl of spicy red lentil and winter squash soup and two days later I could barely taste my coffee. A few days after that, it was entirely gone.

To add insult to injury, I was starting to lose quite a bit of weight. Not only could I not taste a thing, the inside of my mouth was all swollen from the radiation, so being able to eat anything at all was becoming a real challenge. Now it wasn’t a question of eating for pleasure; it came down to finding something (anything!) I could eat to get some nutrition into me. There was no way anyone was putting a feeding tube into me. That was not happening.

Strangely enough, the one thing I could still taste was chocolate. Even though I had a pretty nasty case of mucositis, I could still swallow liquids. Salvation (and much needed calories) came in the form of a familiar looking yellow box. Carnation Instant Breakfast to the rescue.

I drank gallons of it. I made it with whole milk and half and half. I added huge scoops of vanilla ice cream to it. It was my breakfast, lunch and dinner on most days and I didn’t care. It tasted good, it was filling and strangely comforting for reasons I still can’t figure out. After losing 25 pounds, I was able to maintain my weight (give or take a pound or two) and my doctors stopped mentioning the words "feeding tube."

Ever so slowly and without me even noticing it, my taste started to creep back in. My mouth finally started to heal. One day, chilled to the bone, I made myself a mug of tea. I wasn’t expecting much of anything except a warming feeling but there it was. An ever-so-slight suggestion of tannins on my tongue. And a bit of sugar. I took another sip. I did my happy dance around the kitchen.

That’s why I’m spending my holidays enjoying anything and everything I possibly can. When the late Warren Zevon was in the final stages of his illness, he told David Letterman that he wanted to remind everyone to "enjoy every sandwich." That’s great advice for living, regardless of whether you’re a patient with cancer or not.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s a piece of spanakopita in the refrigerator that’s calling my name. I’m going to savor every single bite of it.

Never underestimate the power and inner strength of a hungry cancer patient.

I Have Excellent Taste: Regaining a Sense After Treatment for Head and Neck Cancer

Like most cancer survivors, I can remember with frightening clarity the moment I was told I had cancer. I was sitting in a dental chair in the oral surgery clinic at the University of Pennsylvania’s dental school. The post-graduate dental student bluntly said that I had head and neck cancer, that I needed to figure out what I was going to do next and I should do so very soon. And then he walked out the door.

My whole journey started out with a fairly routine visit to the dentist. I hadn’t been in a while and I needed a lot of work done. It was during a comprehensive exam that she found the lump of the floor of my mouth and said, “Uh oh. We may have a problem here.”

I don’t suppose I’m alone in saying that I don’t particularly like medical exams, especially since they seem to have developed this very annoying habit of uncovering problems. Over the summer a post-cancer treatment hearing exam led to something I’d long suspected: I have a wonky left ear. I’ve lost some of the mid-range tones and I’ve got tinnitus. But hey, no big deal. I can still hear pretty well and if it turns out I need a hearing aid in the (very distant) future, I’ll get fitted for one.

But not so fast. The hearing loss is only in the one ear, so it may be a symptom of something called an 

I got shooed off to the open MRI place to have some pictures taken, which led to a phone call on the following Monday afternoon from my primary care physician, who very gently tells me that I have a 

and that I need to do something about it soon.

Two neurologists and one angiogram later, I’m scheduled for aneurysm repair surgery in the middle of December. Pfft!

My reaction to all of this was twofold. The first one isn’t fit for publication and the second one was a quote from one of my all-time favorite television characters, President Josiah Bartlet from “The West Wing.”

Because at this point, it’s the only reaction worthy of my time and any effort I want to put into having one. I could get upset, but that doesn’t solve anything. I could eat a bag of peanut butter truffles, but my waistline would object. Screaming would only scare the cat.

While this isn’t cancer, it’s also a condition that needs to be taken care of sooner rather than later. It’s something you do not want to fool around with. Yes, I’ve spent the better part of 12 months either recovering from my surgery or treatment, but if I’m brutally honest with myself, I’m actually looking forward to having this done since the alternative is just too horrible to even consider.

So here’s to jumping in with both feet, again. I’m getting way, way too good at this.

Here We Go Again: Dealing With Another Health Issue After Cancer

My name is Dee and I’m a knitter. A cancer survivor, yes, but also one of those people who is absolutely, and completely, obsessed with making things with sticks and pretty string.

I knitted my way through chemo, while waiting for my turn on the radiation table and for CT scans. I purled in exam rooms, before blood work, after speech therapy and while I spent five days in ICU. My surgeon came in to see me and there I was, knitting a sock. My bed and table were covered with patterns and sock yarn and stitch markers and I had a knitting needle jammed behind my left ear. I looked like I’d just wrestled a Muppet and lost. Badly.

I made a pretty fabulous pair of wool cabled bed socks while I got chemo and a lovely cowl in a gorgeous silk blend yarn as I waited for my morning radiation treatments. I finished another pair of socks in my post-surgical haze, half listening, to the nurses at their station.

And I understood the power of it, this knitting thing. Of course it was about control; that part I got. During a time when I had little say over anything that was happening to me, I could pick the pattern and choose the prettiest yarn and create something beautiful.

What I didn’t yet know about all this sticks and string stuff was how transformative it would be. Many knitters mark time by how quickly they can finish the sweater or the shawl, but this wasn’t about how fast I could knit that pair of socks or if I’d get a chance to wear the cowl this winter if my neck was still red and raw from the radiation.

When I pulled out my knitting from my project bag, I felt myself take a deep breath in and let it out, slowly. I would check my pattern to make sure I was in starting the right place. I’d feel the yarn (oh, the silk blend is so perfect for this) and maybe sniff it. The Irish wool for the fingerless mitts had a marvelously earthy, sheepy smell, and don’t those cables look great in it? Oh look, I goofed that one up.

And that’s okay. It can be fixed. I’m being fixed, too.

Stitch by stitch, I’d relax. I’d look up from my chemo chair and see my fiancé next to me, reading. I’d knit a few more rounds and check to see how empty the IV bag was. A few more rounds and this week’s treatment will be done. Three more treatments and the sock will be done. Cashmere, take me away.

And the socks were done. So were the mitts and the other pair of socks and the cowl. And a bag, too.

Well, not quite yet. I’ve still got more than a few sweaters left in me.

Dee Wieczorek is a head and neck cancer survivor. She lives in Delaware County, Penn. with her fiance, their cat and way too much yarn. She can be found on Twitter @littleredyarn.

I'm a knitter. A cancer survivor, yes, but also one of those people who is absolutely, and completely, obsessed with making things with sticks and pretty string.