Zippy Lomax

While it feels so wrong and tone-deaf to post about this now, I really don’t have much choice.

I’d been waiting for a less horrendous moment, but weeks have turned to months, and my financial circumstances have become dire.

The stark truth is that I don’t know how I’ll pay rent next month, much less cover bills. Though my GoFundMe never reached its goal, I still managed to stretch those funds over 13 months.

As I’m not yet able to productively work, I have to find other means of surviving. Turns out being alive is damn expensive.

So, it’s time; I’ve been sitting on this inventory for years, not having the bandwidth to manage whilst navigating cancer and its aftermath.

Having poured so much love (and money) into the creation of these designs, it’s been a source of great sadness, knowing these threads have yet to find the bodies meant to wear them.

Perhaps you’re one of ‘em, ready for a cozy new jacket or sexy lil’ onesie. Just in time for the Eclipse Festival. 😏

*link in comments

today’s better than yesterday — and it looks like the forecast has improved moving forward — but it’s still very cold and will be through tomorrow.

pass it on:
More warming shelters were opened on Friday night: here’s where people can go without a referral. Pets welcome. Free rides available by calling 211.

- Salvation Army: 5325 N. Williams Ave. Portland
- Cook Plaza: 19421 S.E. Stark St., Gresham
- Friendly House: 1737 N.W. 26th Ave., Portland
- Ascension Catholic Church: 743 S.E. 76th Ave., Portland
- Powell Shelter, 7332 S.E. Powell Blvd., Portland
- Market Street Shelter, 120 S.E. Market St., Portland

I’m a bit late in sharing — I’ve been preoccupied with surgery prep, then recovery — but here’s our annual collection of ‘Hat Portraits’!

After the year I’ve had, I’m sincerely grateful to have spent a few days with beloved family, especially after missing everyone last year. 💕

I do so love this enduringly sweet tradition of ours! 🍂

Seeing these images for the first time inspired such uneasiness that I considered the session a total failure, producing zero ‘acceptable’ images.

Rather than subject myself to further unjustly critical self-examination, I asked friends to help memorialize my breasts the night before undergoing a bilateral mastectomy. (Yes; I’ll share a few of those later.)

Only recently did I dare revisit this series, and found I could appreciate its raw poignancy. Through a slightly more compassionate lens, I see a pensive tenderness in my unsettled expressions. A sort of delicate, transparent, unmasked beauty.

While it is difficult to square the glaring differences between the young girl I imagined I was with the middle-aged woman I now perceive, I suppose this is true for anyone who’s ever aged in a human body.

Perhaps it’s only my ability to recognize time’s inevitable influence that has increased. Or, Chemo really did age me about a decade or so.

Either way, I’m slowly learning how to lean into the discomfort — resisting the temptation to retouch bits I find ‘unsightly’; to ‘fix’ or soften or erase the ‘old’.

This is me, at my most naked and vulnerable — fully exposed — in all the ways that truly matter.

I’m choosing courage over cowardice — allowing all to view these intimate glimpses — trusting you’ll see what I’m only just beginning to; immeasurable strength, hard-won wisdom & unshakable grace. 🙏🏼

This series of self-portraits — taken in the few days leading up to my mastectomy — convey much of the discomfort I was feeling then.

I can see the inner conflict between the part of me that so wanted to honor ‘the breasts that were’; as they naturally developed — before they were forever changed — and the part that recoiled at the thought of being so seen, *even if only by me.*

The 8 rounds of chemo wreaked havoc — like nuclear bombs — leveling everything, forever changing my physical and emotional landscapes.

After 4 infusions of Taxotere & Cytoxan, administered in 21 day cycles, I was switched to a more aggressive treatment; the strongest chemo ever created (Adriamycin) and more Cytoxan for an additional 4 rounds, given every two weeks.

Whatever systems had slowly begun their delicate recovery towards the end of TC, buckled when the AC hit them.

No part was spared — from brain to skin to heart to nails to hair — so complete was my annihilation.

I felt….and still do…undeniably awkward. Like I’m bumbling around in an ill-fitting suit; a borrowed garment belonging to someone older. Someone heavier set, with softer edges and darker spots.

She doesn’t feel like…me. Not really.

I feel…unfamiliar — both in and out.

Still fumbling my way through the wasteland — picking my way through the fall out — discovering that which remains as I slowly come to know this new shape.

While I’m not sure such specificity matters at this point, I feel inclined to share a few details.

At first, all I could think about were these new terms — an entirely new language — carrying heavy, life-changing meaning.

• Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, Grade 3
• Ductal Carcinoma In Situ, High Nuclear Grade
• Hormone Receptor Positive
• HER2 Negative
• Ki-67 (Growth Rate) 70%

I learned all I could about my diagnosis, shedding quiet tears as I realized how aggressive it appeared to be. Yet, somehow, such intellectual understanding comforted me, making the physical experience easier to endure.

It’s been through a lot, this miraculous body. Cancer is simply its most recent adventure, but one that has changed more of me than anything that came before.

I’m alive, and grateful for being so. But the cost of that truth has been undeniably high. Though I’ve maintained a decidedly level-head about everything, I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit how uncomfortable I am in this present iteration of ‘self’.

3/3

On January 7th, 2021, I showed her to my naturopath.

A week later, on January 13th, I had a diagnostic mammogram & ultrasound. That visit confirmed I had a 2cm ‘mass’, as well as a large swath of ‘micro-calcifications’ between the mass and the outer edge of my breast tissue — both of which the radiologist found ‘concerning.’

Precisely one week later, on January 20th (while everyone else was watching the inauguration), I underwent what I not-so-fondly refer to as ‘the Smash n’ Jab’; both mammogram & ultrasound-guided core-needle biopsies.

The clinic called the following afternoon, on January 21st. The woman didn’t mince words…

‘I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this, but…we found cancer in all the samples we took.’

Everything got really quiet then; both an internal and external muffling of all sound — like the slamming shut of a book, followed by a protracted pause.

What I remember most about those first few days is…

…an ‘untouchable’ sort of pristine silence.

2/3

She was about the size and shape of an average grape, resting right on the edge of that soft depression beneath the ar**la.

I’d first found a fibroadenoma in that same breast when I was about 21. Since then, I’d come to know my various lumps and bumps pretty well — enough to know that this wasn’t like anything I’d felt before.

I thought perhaps it was related to hormones — that it might resolve over the course of my following menstrual cycle.

Over the next few weeks, I’d occasionally palpate, always finding her still there. Sometimes she’d hide amongst my dense breast tissue, momentarily tricking me into believing she’d gone.

This was before I’d given her a name and pronouns — before I knew she was, in fact, a tumor — before I came to understand how significant her presence was.

To me, she was still just…’that strange lump that I should probably keep an eye on.’

1/3

It was early December 2020 when I first found my tumor.

I was sitting with in her living room when I experienced a series of spasms; intense nerve pain in my left breast — a few bursts, traveling from my ni**le out towards my armpit — like little lightning strikes.

Reflexively, my fingers pressed against my chest, and found an odd lump beneath them.

Though I wasn’t terribly concerned, I did immediately recognize its shape, location & density as being abnormal.

My awareness of its ‘differentness’ was just enough raise a tiny flag — like a quiet earmark — occasionally drawing my fingers back to that spot…