Back to Work: The Cancer Vacation is Over

Yes, it's been a while since my last post. As they say, no news is good news. The holidays came and went, and involved staying at my husband's family cottage along with about 25 other people, including seven children under the age of eight. (Like clockwork, a new critter has been born into the family each year for the past seven years). Then there were two dogs, one of which perpetually had drool icicles hanging down his jaws. Whenever the dog would shake his head vigorously, in the way that dogs do, the stretchy saliva would haphazardly land on a stairwell or on the water cooler. Add to the mix some mice and throw in the stomach flu, and you have yourself a party.

I returned to work on Thursday, January 3rd, after barely recovering from the stomach flu that I had managed to dodge until New Years day. Between chemo and the stomach virus, I now consider myself an expert in puke. There are many different types and styles of puking, which vary based on the individual but also the cause. The stomach flu, for instance, can involve some truly impressive projectile vomiting, whereas chemo vomiting is more controlled. If you aim for the toilet, it all gets in.

But enough about that. Work is going well. It was inevitably awkward to return after a six month hiatus, and on my first day back I stayed close to my office, a little anxious to stray too far away from my home base. By the second day things already began to feel normal again. I received the usual array of odd comments. During a brief encounter in the washroom, a partner on my floor said: "I haven't seen you around in a while, guess you've been hiding in your office!" Then there were those who gave me the old bait and switch, the bait being a sympathetic call asking how I am, and the switch being the part where they ask me to work on a new deal. The best was the frantic call I received on Friday at 4:30 p.m. about a new deal that needed all documentation prepared for Monday morning.

The bottom line is that most people are self-interested. When you return to work after having something like cancer, expect very little sympathy. Your doctor may want you to take it easy for the first few weeks just to ease back into things, but in practice if you say no to too many things, you are bound to stir up some discontent.

That being said, several people took me out for lunch to welcome me back to the firm, and others dropped by just to see how I was doing. Overall it is good to be back, because it means that things are getting back to normal.

And the Holiday Parties Begin...

Even though I have not yet returned to work, I decided to make an appearance at my firm's holiday party. It was an opportunity to catch up with colleagues and watch the articling students perform their highly anticipated skits for the evening's entertainment, and it all seemed like a peachy idea until the day before the event, when butterflies began to take up permanent residence in my belly.

You see, unlike other work events that I had attended while on leave, the holiday party included more than just the lawyers. Pretty much everyone at the firm attends the event, from law clerks, to assistants, to kitchen staff. The holiday party is in fact more of an annual staff appreciation evening, where nine-to-fivers and overtime employees are thanked profusely for putting up with the demands of quirky, workaholic lawyers.

While I had already made numerous wigged appearances in front of my fellow lawyers, this would be my grand debut as a blond in front of the staff. Admittedly, this may sound a little self-centered - who really cares if I show up, and why does the colour of my hair even matter? The world does not revolve around me, whether or not I have been on a six-month cancer vacation. And why would the staff take particular interest in the arrival of a chronically absent mid-level associate?

When you work in a law firm, you quickly find out that it is the assistants who carefully cultivate and fuel a sophisticated system of gossip that rivals the London Underground in its vastness and complexity. If you want to know which lawyer is having marriage troubles, who is leaving the firm to work with a competitor, or who is expecting, you simply need to tap into the Network of Assistants who Gossip (NAG).

Lawyers would probably want to gossip as well, but they don't, mainly for lack of time. Plus they are isolated in their offices, working independently most of the day (and night) and often remaining at their desk during lunch. This frequent isolation and intense focus on work is why a number of lawyers at my firm actually have no idea that I am on leave (and this includes lawyers who work in my department), despite the fact that I have not stepped foot into the office for six months, and that a jet setting colleague from the New York office uses my Toronto office so often he practically has squatting rights.

Unlike lawyers, the assistants work in open-concept cubicles in the company of others, a veritable breeding ground for gossip, and every day at noon they meet in Ikea style lunchrooms where they can disseminate all the latest firm news. So perhaps now you can appreciate the anxiety that was building up inside of me during the hours preceding the holiday party, where I would make my entrance in a voluminous wig (to cover up my pathetic wispy hair) and in a high necked blazer (to hide my gross radiated skin), the Schadenfreude practically palpable among the assistants.

As luck would have it, on the day of the event, I was having an undisputed good wig day. You may initially assume that a wig will always pretty much look the same because, well, it's a wig. While synthetic hair isn't quite as unruly as natural hair, wigs still vary considerably in how they will look on a given day. Some days, they just have too much volume and you look like you are stuck in an episode of Dallas. Other days, they are a mess of static flyaways. But once in a while, they can actually look pretty decent. And on the day of the holiday party, I looked like I had just stepped out of a salon sporting real, actual, honest-to-good fake highlights and a great blow-out. In a world of bottled blonds, hair extensions and Jessica Simpson hairpieces, natural hair is a relative term and wiggies like me are just a little further down (okay, way down) on the spectrum, especially on a good wig day.

So the moment was finally upon me and I ventured into the Royal York hotel, past various other corporate parties until I found the right one. As planned, I arrived just as cocktails were winding down and dinner was about to begin, wearing my carefully selected BCBG Christian Jacket, which not only managed to have flair and remain professional, it also had the distinct advantage of having a collar high enough to cover up my peeling skin.

As soon as I entered the cocktail room, I bumped into colleagues and the conversation was neither stilted nor awkward. There are a cluster of lawyers who follow-up with me regularly to chart my progress, and it was good to see them.

I gradually made my way into the reception and to my pre-assigned table, which consisted of a semi-circle of assistants, facing a semi-circle of lawyers. It was clear that the hour-and-a-half of cocktails had gotten the party started. One assistant, sitting directly opposite me, shouted from across the table that it was good to see me, and when was I going to return from my leave. Well, anyone at the table who might not have been aware of my questionable status now certainly knew. I politely replied that the plan was to be back in January, and then attempted to divert the attention away by complementing her on how well her necklace matched her blouse, which seemed to do the trick.

The remainder of the evening went relatively smoothly. There was the odd employee or too who exclaimed, "Where have you been!" - to which my cheeky reply is always, "Where have YOU been?" One computer tech person, after asking how long I have been married and hearing my reply of four years, seemed absolutely flabbergasted and asked "And you don't have kids?" I chose not to promptly disintegrate into a spiral of depression and instead gritted my teeth and excused myself. To his credit, he is a nice guy and did try to recover by saying, "waiting to become partner, are you?"

By the end of the evening, it was clear that NAG was in full effect, since all the assistants who said good-bye added that they would see me in January when I was back at work. Which led to some puzzled looks from the lawyers who asked if I had been away. To which I replied that I was just hanging out for a bit and would be back soon.

Wigs Can Fall Into Toilets - And other perils of an afternoon out after chemo

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Life can get a little more complicated when you've had cancer and prefer that passing pedestrians were none the wiser. Simple things, like an afternoon of shopping and exercising, now take cunning, skill, determination and balance.

The afternoon might proceed as follows: Walk into stores blasting "All I Want for Christmas Is You". Try on belted dresses, frilly tops and cropped jackets in search of the perfect outfit for upcoming holiday parties. After slipping on each outfit, carefully reposition wig. Exit fitting room, since store strategy is to place mirrors outside of stalls so that salespeople can walk up to patrons and gush over how perfectly the garment fits while thinking how dreadful it really looks.

Complete shopping experience without any luck and continue on to gym. Walk into said institution, step into locker room and dart straight for the bathroom. Remove wig, tuck into gym back, and retrieve pink and grey bandanna, carefully chosen to coordinate with pink and grey Lululemon ensemble. Gently comb out pathetic wispy hair that survived chemo onto forehead and tuck behind ear to try and create illusion of boundless tresses. Check hair in tiny makeup mirror. Ensure that top is zippered all the way up to the neck to hide spectacularly unappealing, or more accurately, unapeeling, skin from radiation burn. Exit bathroom stall. Attend class.

Following class, repeat steps in reverse, carefully balancing wig, bag and bandanna in tiny cubicle and gracefully catching wig just before it falls into public toilet bowl and floats there like a dead rat, mocking all Herculean efforts to appear normal. Place pageboy cap back on top of wig so that blond hair becomes less conspicuous relative to mousy brown hair seen peeking out of bandanna. Leave gym and walk home.

All I want for Christmas is hair! And all I want for Chanukah is health.

What Does it Mean to be Sick?

When I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease, there were a lot of things that I wanted to learn. In addition to educating myself about the disease, I wanted to understand more about what it meant to be sick in general, and to have cancer in particular. There is a whole language associated with having cancer that reveals how emotionally charged and socially constructed it is. You hear about someone's "battle" with cancer. The person who has it is admired for being "strong" and never complaining and "fighting" through it and is often considered a "survivor" whether or not they survived and whether or not they are cured.

I was already beginning to feel the stigma associated with having a disease like cancer. One or two well-intentioned family members advised that I keep very quiet about my diagnosis and that I should limit the number of people who I told. In their view, there just wasn't any need for colleagues or acquaintances who didn’t really care about you to find out and to start gossiping. There was a concern that these people would then see me only as the one dimensional "sick person" rather than as "Andrea".

When it comes to cancer, there is just such a range of perspectives and beliefs. Some people, whether consciously or unconsciously, even feel that reading an article or seeing a movie about someone who is sick could bring on bad luck, or that cancer is somehow contagious and that you might "catch" some terrible disease by being around someone who has it. This is sometimes called magical thinking. I for one have skipped reading obituaries due to a very irrational fear that they would somehow result in bad luck. (So much for that theory...)

There is certainly a tremendous, raw sense of fear, partly rational, and partly irrational, that a great number of people associate with the disease. Cancer is associated with many scary things, like chemotherapy and hair loss. Oh yes, and death.

So I set out to learn about different perspectives on what it means to be sick. As it turns out, there is a whole area of anthropology devoted to this very topic, referred to as medical anthropology. I went to various McGill libraries and loaded up on textbooks and papers, which I found to be interesting although perhaps a little too dry and scientific at times.

I next turned to bookstores and always beelined for the cancer section. I wanted to read about people's experiences with cancer in order to try and contextualize my disease. I read Dr. Marla Shapiro's candid account of her battle with breast cancer in Life in the Balance . I read John Robert McFarlanes touching, even charming stories of how cancer has changed him in his book, Now that I Have Cancer I Am Whole.

I also tried to prepare myself for what lay ahead and to gain a better medical perspective on cancer.
My all time favourite book in this category was, without a doubt, Chemotherapy and Radiation for Dummies. I also read Cancer is a Word, Not a Sentence: A Practical Guide to Help You Through The First Few Weeks . The main thing that I got out of this book is that "cancer" is a misnomer. In fact, there are disparate kinds of cancers and they are each vastly different diseases. Lumping them all together is like lumping all viral infections together, from the common cold to HIV. If "infection" were a term as loaded as cancer, then it would be hard to cope with hearing that you had an “infection”, even when all you have is a cold.

I do think that the author, Dr. Robert Buckman, makes a valuable point. But at the same time, there really is something concrete that binds together most cancers, and that is how they are treated. There is a real bond you share with others who have gone through chemotherapy or radiation. And so, there is a veritable culture that has developed around cancer. There are sub-cultures for survivors, and for their family members, for children, young adults, and for women. The list goes on. And then there is the culture of cancer that has permeated society as a whole. There are pink ribbons and yellow bracelets and runs for cures and enumerable charitable foundations.

From time to time, I planted myself in a little corner of the cancer self-help section of Chapters and Indigo and read excerpts of many other books, for as long as I could in a single sitting until a dutiful bookstores employee asked me, as politely as possible, to stand up as I was not permitted to read on the floor. (How annoying is it that there are so few chairs in bookstores? But I guess that's the whole point - they aren't libraries).

Along my literary journey, I learned so many interesting perspectives. I encountered the feminist photographer Jo Spence, who used phototherapy (literally using photography to heal) to document her experiences as a patient with breast cancer. Some of her views were a little too extreme for me, but the point is that she presented her disease as a social experience.

I watched the documentary, Crazy Sexy Cancer, about a young woman, Kris Carr, who is diagnosed with an incurable type of Stage 4 cancer, and as she notes, there is no stage 5. Kris sets out on a journey into alternative medicine, and discovers various treatments, some helpful, some counterproductive, and some plain wacky. She meets fellow survivors along the way, including Glamour editor Erin Zammett Ruddy, who has leukemia but was able to control it by taking a drug called Gleevec. She makes the difficult decision to go off the drug in order to get pregnant, and we find out from her blog that she ultimately gave birth to a gorgeous baby boy. But lightening struck twice when Erin's sister Melissa was also diagnosed with a blood disorder - Hodgkin's. I had read about Melissa's story before the documentary came out and we actually exchanged a few emails when I consulted her about radiation. She was incredibly compassionate and responsive.

I also went to an amazing young adult cancer support group in Montreal, and in our sessions have cried but have also laughed very hard. I approached the first session with a great deal of trepidation and uncertainty (what would these people be like…? Oh yes, I was one of them…), but since then have felt tremendous warmth and camaraderie from the group.

So, what does it mean to be sick? What does it mean to have cancer? It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It means that life is fragile. It means sleepless nights. It means pain and it means that wounds heal. It means that life is not always fair, and that you sometimes end up in a club that you didn't ask to be a part of. It means summoning inner strength and courage and discovering there are reserves of it deep within. It means that some people care and some don't. It means get well cards and telephone calls and packages and lunch dates. It means love and fear and compassion and reaching out. It means finding what you need from the most unexpected people and places, and being able to give in the most unexpected ways. It means hope and faith. It means that we are all going to die and it can mean a new lease on life. It means treatment and support and self-healing. It means acceptance and it means fighting back. Perhaps it comes closest to being a microcosm of life, of experiencing life in its most concentrated form with all of its ups and downs and lows and highs.

Finding Our Way Back

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Monday was Radiation Day 20, and with that, my treatments came to a close. After my last nuking, the radiation technicians asked me if I wanted to keep my plastic mask. Nodding my approval, they went looking for a bag. It seemed that the only one they could find was a pink and purple pastel gift bag with pretty flowers, shimmery organza handles and turquoise sequined tassels, so they dropped the mask inside and handed it to me, apparently oblivious to the rather odd juxtaposition of the terrible radiation mask against the sugary sweet gift bag.

I proudly showed off the mask to my parents and husband, who were actually a little stunned by how absolutely horrific it looked. I am not sure what I am going to do with the rather large, bulky mask, but it just feels right to hold on to it, its vacant eyes a witness to the month I spent being microwaved. I now have this curious attachment to it, like I used to have with my retainer, which incidentally, I don't think I have thrown out either.

The end of radiation was a little anticlimactic. In September, when it was thought that the completion of my chemotherapy marked the conclusion of my battle with Hodgkin's, my family, including in-laws, went out for dinner to celebrate. A month later, when my oncologist called to tell me that the cancer had made a comeback and that I would need radiation, in some ways I was catapulted back to the time of my original diagnosis and all the associated feelings of fear and uncertainty. So this time around, when it came time to celebrate the end of my radiation treatments, while we once again commemorated the occasion with a dinner, we were a little more guarded. Instead of toasting to the end my treatment, we reframed the event to mark Dan's and my departure back to Toronto. We really aren't a superstitious bunch, but why tempt the "evil eye".

With treatment apparently over, I was overwhelmed with the unsettling feeling that I had been trying to avoid for months as I thought, "What Next"? Yes, I had my job to return to - but when? Would I be able to achieve a better work-life balance this time around? And of more immediate concern, how would I transition back into the world of the healthy? The doctors have repeatedly advised me to take a few months off, although my plan has been to take a few weeks off at most. I realize that the focus should be on my health - and it will be. However, it makes me anxious to feel that I have fallen behind my cohort, that I have fallen behind in my carefully constructed life because I was slapped with a disease that put everything on hold.

For some people, an abrupt interruption to their lives followed by months of treatment will dramatically shift their world view. They may wish to leave their job and set out on a new path and do the things they always wanted to do. For others, this same interruption just means that the pause button had been pushed for a while on their life (thankfully not the eject button), and they just want to go back to doing what they used to do. While having Hodgkin's Disease has certainly been life-altering, and has allowed me to grow in new ways and discover new interests, I still just want to get back to the office.

No matter what impact cancer has had on an individual, I would imagine that for most survivors, it isn't always easy to immediately glide back into the world of the healthy. When you have cancer, it really can feel like you have landed on a different planet. The hospital, with its blue gowns, its sanitizers that reek of alcohol, its weird machines and long needles, is an alien world when you have been healthy all of your life. That is why the name of the immensely helpful website for young adults, Planet Cancer, is so apt - when you get cancer, you just aren't in Kansas anymore.

The moment you were diagnosed, you were abducted by odd creatures in white lab coats (with a proclivity for spewing out long lists of side effects), and you have spent months on end trying to adapt to this strange new world. Then one day the frequent hospital visits come to an end. You'll be out with friends and it will be fabulous, and then your mind will wander for a moment back to all that you have been through, all that may still happen, and you know that no one else can really understand. That healthy state of denial that most people have is a luxury that is not available to you after you have had cancer, particularly in the weeks and months after its aftermath.

All of a sudden, the alien creatures that have taken you captive for months on their foreign planet have said that you are free to go. But they don't take you back to the land of the healthy - they basically just show you the exit sign. So when treatments end, the question becomes: How do you find your way back?

Strangely, since my treatment has ended, I keep getting that feeling of "did all that really happen"? In the weeks after I was diagnosed, there would be moments where I would almost forget what was going on, and then a surreal feeling would wash over me as part of me asked the rest if this was really happening. This mind-bending state wasn't entirely unpleasant, since it was in those fleeting moments that I could allow myself the possibility of being in a reality where none of this was happening, where everything was fine and this was all a very, very bad dream. The worst sensation was what came next, when the kaleidoscope of thoughts came into focus and I could no longer deny that I really had left work, that things like IVs and CT scans and chemo were no longer foreign, and that, in essence, I had cancer.

I think that these eerie moments have recurred because I am trying to build a bridge back to the world of the healthy, and it just isn't easy to connect your "healthy" identity with your "sick" identity. I suspect that as the days go by, the memories will fade and life may become a little more carefree. I am reminded of a comment in my "Chemotherapy and Radiation for Dummmies" book. It lists ten myths about cancer, and number 10 is: "Nothing is ever the same after cancer". The authors say that "this myth has a lot of truth to it. But then, nothing is ever the same after your first kiss, or the birth of your first child...or your first trip to Venice. Frankly, nothing is ever the same - ever - whether you get cancer or not. Some people say that change is good. You may or may not agree, but this we know to be true: change is inevitable".

Cancer Warrior

Today, I went to a hot power yoga class with my sister-in-law. There is a true feeling of serenity that comes from the yogic breathing, the meditational silences and the astonishingly beautiful poses that we create. The "warrior" and the "dancer" are among my favourite positions. With each class, I feel that my balance is improving and my muscles are strengthening.

The classes also focus on heightening awareness of the body. When I am working at the office, I tend to spend long hours sitting at my desk without a break. The result is that I arrive home stiff, sometimes with excruciating foot cramps as soon as I remove my heeled shoes. When I am focused on my work, I forget to eat, and am not even aware that I am hungry until my stomach starts to growl its discontent. I will stay at work until the wee hours of the morning, and I am not conscious of how very tired I am until I fall asleep during the cab ride home.

Sometimes, in our very busy lives, it is more convenient to ignore our bodies and to just press on. It should not take a serious disease for us to learn to be in tune with our bodies and to listen when our bodies are telling us that they are tired, stiff, hungry, in pain, or just need a break. Nourishing our bodies with rest, relaxation, nutritious food and exercise are really the only things that we can do to help our bodies stay strong and powerful.

Thirty for an Evening

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Yesterday evening after my radiation session, I flew into Toronto from Montreal for my colleague's farewell dinner. Michelle is leaving our law firm for a fabulous in-house position in New York that has better pay and better hours. I helped organize the firm-sponsored event and Michelle chose the guest list, which consisted of all the remaining lawyers in our year. Our cohort started out with 38 lawyers back when we articled in 2002, and now, five years later, there are nine left, and that includes Michelle.

Working at a law firm is a bit like being on Survivor. People drop like flies, and you never really know who will outlast the others to become partner. There are any number of reasons why people leave, ranging from a decision to go back to school, to a spouse finding a job overseas, to a realization that their true calling is art, to not being a good fit with the firm (this decision is not always a mutual one), to simply wanting a balanced life.

Despite a snow storm and work emergencies, eight out of nine of us managed to attend the dinner (and the ninth person I understand is on leave, like me). This was actually an extremely impressive attendance rate, particularly if you consider the long hours and stressful deadlines that are part of being a lawyer. There are many reasons why people made the effort to attend. Of course, they wanted to show their support for Michelle, plus, going out for dinner is always a bit of a treat. But I think the attendance rate also reflects the strong sense of solidarity that exists among the people in my year. There was an unquestionable bond that developed among my cohort from the very beginning when we articled together. I am close to several among this group, including both alumni and those who are still at the firm. And I think fondly of each my colleagues who attended the dinner.

Our evening bore semblance to a reunion, since we had not truly socialized together as a group since our articling days, which had been filled with swanky events and nights out on the town. Over dinner, we reminisced about old times and shared updates on alumni. Between the eight of us, we were able to determine the status of most of our former colleagues - one was in Australia, another one in England, a third in Curacao, several had children (although only one out of the nine of us at the firm had time for progeny), some worked in government and others had moved in-house. Some of these individuals had left a strong impression, while a few we could barely recall.

The evening was certainly meaningful for Michelle, who thoroughly enjoyed her sendoff. She was also grateful to me for coordinating the event, for saying a few words about the Top Ten Things that we would miss about her, and for selecting a gift on behalf of the firm (which was a gorgeous little Kate Spade wristlet - the Gansevoort noel zippered chrissy, pictured at right) and a Kate Spade key chain.

The event was perhaps hyper-meaningful for me because I am currently on leave from the firm while undergoing my fabulous cancer treatments. When I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease back in May, 2007, I left work to start my life as a cancer patient - biopsies, fertility treatments, bone marrow tests, chemotherapy and self-administered neupogen shots (to increase my white blood cell counts) followed. Perhaps the worst part of it all was the isolation that I felt and the loss of my daily routine. It is not until your life is devastatingly interrupted that you realize how comforting it is to have a routine and to see the same colleagues on a daily basis. While vacations are fantastic, there is something grounding about having a reason for waking up early, and something validating about going to work.

Living in a different city intensified my sense of isolation. I decided to receive treatment in Montreal, where my parents are physicians, and so my husband and I relocated to their home for several months. While my parents have been invaluable, I was inevitably infantilized both by them and by the hospital system where I was plastered with the labels "sick" and "patient". My life as a functioning adult existed only as a memory.

Returning to Toronto for yesterday's dinner was something that I had looked forward to for weeks (could I sound more pathetic?), and the evening itself lived up to my expectations. I drank too much, and probably talked a little too much - I was hungry for camaraderie, conversation, collegiality and normalcy. The focus of the evening was on Michelle's departure and on shared experiences - my cancer was not discussed, and that was perfectly fine with me. Some colleagues mentioned that they were glad that I was there and that they were pleased to see me, but overall, I could cast away my cancer patient persona and just be an associate among a group of colleagues who had grown up together from naive students to sophisticated lawyers. Sadly, we did not snap any photos of the event, and I am really kicking myself over this.

We closed down the Yorkville restaurant, Pangea, when we left at midnight, and went our separate ways. I walked one of my friends, Nadine, from the event to her apartment and then continued on my own the few blocks to my place - I could have taken a cab, but had a craving to walk along the familiar Toronto streets. I even relished the cool winter air, which seemed to freeze the walk in time. I arrived at my apartment where I was greeted by my husband - he was back in Toronto for the week on business.

That night, I dreamt that I was productively working on a file at the office, when it suddenly dawned on my that I had missed the flight into Montreal for my radiation treatment. I approached various colleagues to ask for help, to see if anything could be done, but they simply shrugged their shoulders. They didn't understand.

The following morning I returned to Montreal where my mother sat waiting for me at the airport. She picked me up and a few hours later she drove me to the hospital, where I had my head strapped in a mask to the radiation table for my nineteenth treatment. As usual, I lay perfectly still and let the technicians draw on me, measure me and position me. As usual, both my parents sat in the waiting room. When I emerged from the treatment room, my parents stood up and we walked down the hall together. My father kissed me goodbye and went back to work, and my mother drove me home. Afterwards, my mother drove my brother, who was visiting from Washington, D.C. during Thanksgiving weekend, and I, to see my grandmother. We went to her apartment and my grandmother - our Nanny - stood in the hall and opened her arms and pretended to bend down so that we could run into her arms like we did when we were little. She adored having us all there, like when we were little. It is a good thing to spend time with family. But not when you are thirty-years-old and are made to feel so little.

Looking Out the Window, copyright Judy Guiao 2006 Image Source