By Second round of AC chemo on Monday. Same recliner, same red devil drip, same Maria the nurse with her calm hands and her steady voice. I know the drill now — sit, drip, wait, go home, feel fine for about twelve hours, then get hit by the nausea truck. The knowing doesn't make it easier. The knowing just means I spend those twelve good hours dreading what comes next instead of enjoying them, which is a terrible way to use good hours but apparently the only way my brain knows how.
The fatigue is new this round. Not just tired — tired is what I was after a fourteen-hour day with two kids and a full-time job. This is different. This is cellular exhaustion, bone-deep, the kind of tired that makes you wonder if your body has simply decided to stop. I slept fourteen hours on Wednesday. Fourteen. I have not slept fourteen hours since I was a teenager, and even then it was a choice. This was not a choice. My body shut down and refused to reboot.
Scott is managing the household. He gets the kids to school and daycare. He picks them up. He heats up the freezer meals (the stockpile is dwindling — I need to ask Carol or Brett to cook a few batches). He does the dishes. He does the laundry, though he puts the darks in with the whites and everything comes out gray, but I am in no position to critique laundry technique when I can barely get off the couch. He is doing the physical labor of family life, and he is doing it competently if not beautifully, and I am grateful. But grateful and connected are not the same thing. He moves through the house like a machine — efficient, impersonal, completing tasks. He does not sit with me. He does not ask how I'm feeling. He does not touch my bald head or tell me I'm beautiful or say any of the things that the cancer books say partners should say. He just does the dishes and goes to the garage.
Brett came Wednesday — Brett Day. He brought Mason a new book (a chapter book about a boy wizard, which Mason devoured in two days) and brought Lily a small plastic horse (she named it Buttercup and hasn't let go of it since). He sat with me on the couch and we watched a cooking show — one of those competition ones where people make elaborate desserts under time pressure — and I said, "I can't even taste toast right now, and these people are making mirror-glaze cakes," and Brett said, "Overachievers," and we laughed, and laughing while bald on a couch during chemo is its own kind of triumph.
I've lost eight pounds. I've lost my hair. I've lost the ability to taste food properly, which for someone whose entire identity is built around cooking and feeding people is a particular cruelty. Chemo doesn't just attack the cancer — it attacks everything that makes you you, and then dares you to still be you when it's done. I will be. I am stubborn and I am a Dawson and I will be me when this is over, even if me looks different and tastes different and moves slower.
I managed to make oatmeal on Thursday. Just oatmeal — oats, water, a tiny bit of brown sugar. It was the first thing I'd cooked in two weeks, and it was so bland it was almost nothing, but I stood at the stove and stirred it and felt the wooden spoon in my hand and the steam on my face, and it was like remembering who I am. I am a woman who cooks. The cancer can have my hair. It can have my breasts. It does not get my kitchen.
That bowl of oatmeal cracked something open in me — it proved I could still stand at the stove, still feel that particular rightness of stirring something warm. So a few days later, when I had a better morning, I decided to build on it: same oats, but this time with brown butter and pecans and maple syrup, something that asked a little more of me and gave a little more back. I can’t always taste things the way I used to, but I can still smell brown butter foaming in a pan, and that alone felt like enough. Here’s what I made.
Brown Butter Pecan Granola
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 30 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 8
Ingredients
- 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1 cup pecan halves, roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
Instructions
- Preheat. Heat your oven to 325°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Brown the butter. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter, stirring occasionally. Continue cooking until the butter foams, then turns a golden amber color and smells nutty, about 4–5 minutes. Watch it closely — it can go from brown to burned quickly. Remove from heat.
- Make the coating. Whisk the maple syrup, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt into the browned butter until the sugar is mostly dissolved.
- Combine. In a large bowl, toss the oats and pecans together. Pour the butter mixture over the top and stir well until everything is evenly coated.
- Bake. Spread the mixture in an even layer on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 25–30 minutes, stirring once halfway through, until the granola is golden and fragrant. The granola will crisp up as it cools.
- Cool completely. Let the granola cool on the pan for at least 20 minutes before breaking it into clusters. Transfer to an airtight container.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 280 | Protein: 5g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 34g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 75mg