kttcroadtrip.com

I arrived in San Francisco and will be spending the next few days in “the city by the bay” getting ready for the big roadtrip and taking in some of the sites while I’m here.

I’m staying by Union Square -something of a Times Square of San Francisco. Here you can be entertained by what seems like a continuous stream of performers in the square. My favorite act was the flaming hula hoopers. Now that is something I’d like to say I know how to do. (Note to self – learn to hula a flaming hoop. Hmm, maybe wait until hair is shorter.)

I then headed over to Chinatown. I went here on a family road trip way back when I was 11. It was the first time I had ever used chopsticks. This time I again used chop sticks, but for sushi. I know, sushi is Japanese but I didn’t put the restaurant in Chinatown. Anyway, what was most entertaining about this place was that the sushi arrived on boats that floated around and around the oval bar where you sat. When you saw something you liked float by, you just grabbed it. You would know how much your selection cost by the design and shape of the plate it came on. While I embraced the novelty of this food presentation, since I didn’t know how long these boats had been out to sea, I stuck to the safer sushi bets like cucumber and avocado.

Next order of business was to get the car, an obvious necessity for any roadtrip. I headed over to Mercedes-Benz of San Francisco and met up with Liz Boeder. Liz is a fashionable, petite woman with a head of strawberry blonde curls that frame her face. I wouldn’t say perky, but if there was a word for a hip version of reserved perkiness, I’d use that for Liz. Liz showed me all the car’s features, and all the buttons that do amazing things. And it does a lot of them. This car can practically drive itself. OK, that’s not true of course, and I should not be telling myself that, because that’s a sure recipe for disaster.

But, at the touch of a button, you can shade the back window, close the trunk, ventilate your seat, have your back massaged, answer your phone, get directions, change the songs on your mp3 and for fun, screw with your passenger every few miles by reclining his seat.. Actually, I like that idea. Whenever your husband/significant other is being a backseat driver, recline them to the back seat so it’s official.

Liz explains the car and gives you lots of positive reinforcement when you, let’s say, figure out how to put it into park all by yourself. And she does this in a way that makes you really feel a bit smarter than the pack for figuring out this clever trick. There’s something very warm about her, and personable and sincere.

I also knew that Liz had had breast cancer. Or has breast cancer. That’s one of Liz’s thoughts on being a survivor. Had, have? When can you say you are truly done with it? When Liz was first diagnosed they didn’t immediately detect the larger tumor in her breast until much later. So how does she know there isn’t something they still are not or will not detect?

Throughout the hour, the conversation would weave back and forth between setting the fog lights to the effect her cancer has had on her 14 year old daughter, how to close the trunk to her boyfriend picking up her prescriptions, or not picking up her prescriptions.

Certainly cancer changes one’s life in a global sort of way but also in a very logistical way. Taking care of cancer takes up a lot of time. Liz shared with me her belief that “every cancer patient once diagnosed should be assigned an advocate.” Not a loved one, but “someone who knows the system.” Someone who can help with all the other stuff that comes with cancer, the appointments, the prescriptions, the insurance, the bills.

I asked her what can those close to women dealing with cancer do to help? She paused a bit. And then in a quieter voice Liz admitted “I’m not one to ask for help.” But she said this in a way that it was very clear that this didn’t mean she didn’t need it. And in her face there was just a hint of admittance that maybe she should ask. I also gathered from what Liz was saying that people’s help eventually trickles off - prematurely.

I asked Liz how cancer may have changed her outlook on life. She replied “cancer makes you keep the promises you’ve made to yourself.” Liz told herself that if she made it through she was moving to San Francisco. 3 months later she did.

Liz Boeder at Mercedes-Benz of San Francisco.

Tomorrow I’ll be attending a “Sip and See” to meet the new baby of cancer survivor and Fertile Hope Founder, Lindsay Nohr Beck.