Yet Another $%*!@ Cancer Blog

Those were the days -

2009-10-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

I just found this song today and can't believe I've never heard it before. Seems appropriate to the month.

Boobs A Lot

Pinkwashing Month Begins

2009-10-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

Last night I was reminded by my blogmate Carny Asada that today marks the beginning of BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH, which should be re-titled 'Slap a pink ribbon on everything from candy to vodka and call it a Good Cause' month.

Sadly for Mr. Cancer Survivor I didn't get to the larger supermarkets to lay in the supplies we'll need for the next four weeks so he'll have to go one day and bear up against all that pinkwashing. I can't do it. I learned after a recent episode with some Lyndon Larouchers outside my local Trader Joe's market that I can't really keep my composure the way I could when I was younger and less grizzled. The Obama as Hitler poster taught me that I have a button that when pushed by a total stranger will cause me to let that stranger know how what they are doing/saying/supporting makes me feel, as loudly as will make me feel better.

So let's get out there and support all those companies that use chemicals in their products that might be carcinogens because they support fighting the cancer that they may have caused. Wait, don't the cigarette companies do this already?

And in an unrelated thought, does Benjamin Moore have a Breast Cancer Pink shade of paint yet?

The Up Side?

2009-06-18T20:18:00.000-07:00

Argh. I've gotta have surgery. Gall bladder this time. People (I'm talking to all three of you) you don't want to have gall stones. Bad, very bad. Pain like you can't imagine. Then there's the throwing up, the pain, the intestinal adventures, the pain, the feeling that your next meal may try to kill you, the pain...are you getting the picture?

Dr. SIL says that she's much happier without hers, that now she can eat anything she wants with no problem. I wonder if she wants to eat as many chicken wings as I do.

No matter, the offending organ will be dispatched with no regrets and then I will be free to ogle the donuts again. But I wonder if I will want to because one of the 'good' side effects from all this food drama is the aversion to fatty foods and large portions of anything that I've developed. And the liquid diets in the wake of recent attacks have resulted in some impressive weight loss.

All this is to say that my boobs look bigger. Woo hoo. Well, at least I can get into my smaller jeans just in time for summer when it's too hot to wear them.

No, nothing makes me happy right now. Constant pain can make a person cranky.

Stay tuned...

Thoughts while trying not to breathe. Or move.

2009-04-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

I have to believe that if men had to have an annual screening for testicular cancer that involved having their nuts crushed in a vice, every insurance company in America would fully cover the cost of an MRI as an alternative.

March madness in April

2009-04-19T01:17:00.000-07:00

Yeah well it's been a whole year so it was time for me to go see the oncologist for the annual weigh-in and chit chat. The last few years I was seen by the fabulous and funny right hand woman. I'm embarrassed to say I never knew her official title. Is she a nurse? Is she a nurse practitioner? If I ever knew it's been lost to the mists of time and chemo brain. Anyway, she's moved on to one of the other branches of the wonderful outfit that took care of me and so this year I saw the doc herself.
It was great seeing her again, and after all this time I no longer associate seeing the doc in charge as meaning I've got something that only the doc in charge can talk to me about. You know, the kind of visit where you the patient ends up sitting in your car in the parking lot sniffling and wondering if you can see through the tears to drive home and collapse in the privacy of your own bathroom.
So we're chatting, and she goes over my history, and then she asks me if we've ever talked about genetic testing. This would be to see if I'm at risk for one or two other cancers. I told her that my memory was that we touched on it once a long time ago but we all (me, the spousal unit and the doc) decided that doing the testing might screw my chances for getting health insurance in the future. She seems to think differently now.
But the thing is, I don't wanna think about any of this. I don't want to find out what my genes might indicate for the future, and I don't want to have to think about the possibility of maybe having all my girl organs yanked to be on the safe side. I'm manly enough, thank you.
I don't wanna think that THIS SHIT WILL NEVER EVER EVER END UNTIL THE DAY I FUCKING UP AND DIE.
Really, who would want that? I know, there are lots of people who have to think about much more serious, life threatening things all the time; regularly facing the choice of some fucked up medical procedure or death, and they happily choose the procedure. I know if push came to shove I would too, but not now. Not this week or month or year.
No pithy ending this time. Just a pissy one.

Summer's a-comin'

2009-04-19T00:47:00.000-07:00

Time for the hot weather breasties. If only such a thing existed. I suppose I could make a pair out of lightweight fabrics like linen and silk (and stuff them with cold packs. Whee!). At least they'd be cooler than plastic.

Anyway, that's not why we're here right now. Today's sermon is about words. I had occasion recently to spend some time with Carny and she was sharing her feelings about words. And personal stories. And she got me thinking. I hate when that happens.

She got me thinking about the times when I think that there's no point in relating any part of one's own story to anyone other than the shrink who gets paid to help you make sense of that mess. It all seems so freaking pointless. I mean, in a thousand years, these words will probably be forgotten, never read by more than a handful of humans, and even if they survive there will probably no longer be the proper version of Windblows that could enable someone in the future to read them.
But here's the thing. I also started thinking about other people's words and how they've affected me. We could go down the list of the usual suspects, like Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll, Joseph Heller, Katherine Dunn, and every author of every cookbook I own, but there's one author who stands out in my head as someone who gave me an important gift at a time when I really needed it.
His name is Evan Handler, and he's an actor who also happens to be a cancer survivor. His first memoir 'Time on Fire' leaped off the sale table at Big Corporate Bookstore right after I'd been diagnosed with the first cancer.
Time on Fire

I read that book and clung to it like it was a lifesaver in a sea of soft focus PG rated cancer books.
Having spent half a year in the hospital when I was a mere sprat I was familiar with the horrors that can come with living in a ward with eight other girls in a hospital that was understaffed with nurses and overstaffed with roaches. I learned the art of diplomacy dealing with the humans and a deadly aim with whatever was handy dealing with the bugs. And that was while I was bedridden.
But getting back to the PG books, I found at the beginning of the cancer tour that many aspects of the experience are cloaked in pastel colors and spoken about in restrained tones. This was a bit of a challenge for me given that my brain was needing to express itself more like it was dressed in black with and sporting a safety pin through its cerebellum. I needed one other voice in the world of cancer that resonated with mine. I found it in this book. It's not that he was so defiant and off the wall and crazed beyond what would be considered appropriate under the circumstances but rather it was that his story, his words, didn't read so much like a Hallmark TV movie but more like a twisted indie film that few people see but those that do no longer feel alone.

So to my comrade in arms I say, the words may still count for something, so don't give up on them just yet. Besides, in fifty years when we are creaky old geezers we won't remember most of them anyway, so let's play with them while we still can.

You never know who's reading.

New Year's Resolution, Lose Weight, Buy New Rack

2009-01-05T11:01:00.000-08:00

I wrote this entry in January. I've still got the same set, but they are another month older and their wrinkles are set. So now it's Oscar Sunday and I'm feeling like I need some girly girly dresses. But not strapless.

It's been two years plus and it may be time to buy a new set. Prosthetic breasts wear out over time. My first ones leaked at the seams, my second set saw one boob suffer a rupture of its skin, revealing a slightly sticky gelatinous "flesh" colored mass of silicone. Good thing it was an external rupture. (O.k., I know the substance that fills implanted breasts is different in consistency and color but apparently behaves the same if let loose from the skin that contains it.)

Two years of body oils and the soaps that remove said oils take a toll on the integrity of the skin of the prosthesis and eventually they fail. So then it's off to the store to get fitted in one of the latest improved (no really, these are so much better than those old ones that fit you perfectly and looked like what you remember your breasts looking like.) awesomely good new styles that are now available in that same weird "flesh" color.
Oh, you don't want that color? Well, we can order ones that are as far from your real color as these but in the other direction, so they'll be much darker than you, but that's closer, yes? No, we don't have those in stock because we don't have many women of color shopping here at high end department store what carried the brand that you like.

Are there really lots of black women walking around with white girl (and not exactly white, it's that "flesh" color) boobs on? Or do they all know about a store where we are catered to, but still can only find boobs the color of root beer candy? Me, I'd be happy with Kraft caramels.

I can't really think of a title for this one

2008-12-22T12:31:00.000-08:00

I was rereading Point of Dreams this week, a wonderful novel set in Astreiant, a Renaissance-era city in an alternate Europe where women, by virtue of astrology, control all the fixed property. It's a delicate and thoughtful exercise in world-building and the authors never step outside the narrative to explain things to you, giving you credit for being clever enough to figure it out. Plus, there's a rattling good murder mystery at the heart of the plot.

I got on Google to search for a sequel. Instead, I found this obituary for Lisa A. Barnett, who with her partner Melissa Scott, created the city of Astreiant and its fascinating inhabitants.

Samantha battles breast cancer, and looks fabulous doing it

2008-12-18T21:46:00.000-08:00

I finally watched those episodes of "Sex in the City" where Samantha is diagnosed with and treated for breast cancer. We originally got the disk from Netflix around the time I was diagnosed, and I just had a hard time seeing that particular plot line as entertainment. So, yeah, this review is about three years late.

There are two moments in this season that I truly loved. More on them in a minute. In the meantime, I have a couple of questions:

1. When Samantha is going through chemo, her mental ordeal around losing her hair is fully chronicled. But she continues to wear lung-baring tops, with nary a scar or chemo port in sight. Where, exactly, are they supposed to be sticking the drugs into her?

2. In a similar vein, we see a chemo-fied Samantha having sex with her boyfriend Smith while wearing a tiny metallic bra of the sort that Madonna probably sleeps in. How much morphine would she have to take for that thing to be comfortable over a lumpectomy scar? I'm guessing, in layman's terms, a metric buttload.

2.5. Let's back up for a second: Sex. While in chemotherapy. Heh heh heh heh heh heh. Whoo. Had me going there.

3. Finally, when Samantha's treatment is over, she whips off the bra to have more sex with Smith. Revealing. Perfect. Breasts. Um, guys? Even the hottest surgeon in Manhattan is going to leave you with a souvenir. Or two. Or four.

4. So, apparently, Samantha must have had DCIS/Stage 0, but decided to have chemotherapy rather than radiation because... the writers have never actually known someone with breast cancer?

OK, enough quibbling. The moments I loved were when Samantha uses her boyfriend to jump the line to see the hot shot oncologist, and the moment before her "inspirational speech" when she tells the committee to nix the pink ribbon cookies for the cancer fundraiser: "These women have cancer. They need more than a ****ing cookie."

THOSE moments were pretty real.

The Think System...

2008-11-03T00:17:00.000-08:00

Cancer sucks.

I just got an email from a friend who is asking all of her friends to send some positive energy to a little boy who has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

Cancer sucks for all times.

So for you little M., we are telling that cancer to bounce. Hit the bricks, take a hike, don't let the doorknob hit you in your fucking out of control cells on the way out. You are so unwelcome tumor, that the light from Friendly won't hit you for a bazillion years.

Go. Go now. And let us not speak of this ever again.

Drinking in the Pink

2008-11-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

Thank Jebus, October is over. I can safely return to the supermarket and not be bombarded with pleas to buy pink, eat pink, think pink, and drink pink. This Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a burden that gets more and more onerous as the years go by.

This year, along with pink drink coolers, pink ribbon faux carabiner key fobs, and pink cereal, I could buy a fifth of vodka in a bottle that sports a pink ribbon and claims that a portion of the proceeds will be donated to breast cancer research.

GetHammeredForTheCause

Funny, the vodka pictured at the link above isn't the one I saw while shopping in a market recently. Nice to know there's more than one way to give while getting hammered on "pink" martinis.

And let me just say that I was sorely tempted to respond to the checkout boy's rote question "would you like to make a donation to breast cancer research?" by whipping out my Foobs™ and declaring that perhaps I've given enough already. It's not his fault that he was instructed to ask this of every customer he spoke to while ringing up their groceries.
I would, however, like to spend a few minutes alone in a room with the genius MBA who thought that it was a good idea for all checkout people to ask that question. I'm just trying to buy some food, maybe a magazine, and I've gotta think about breast cancer? Again?? Would that genius MBA like to be reminded of some trauma he/she suffered every time he/she wants to buy a pint of ice cream and a copy of Vanity Fair?

Note to self: next year, stock up at the end of September, then send the spousal unit to the store for anything I might need in the dreaded month of boob corrosion awareness. It's amusing that our awareness ends with Hallowe'en. Trick or treat! Tricky tits!

Oh, and re that article Carny mentioned about the time it takes to get back to normal - word.

October madness

2008-10-20T16:52:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, I had an interesting conversation with an acquaintance who developed colon cancer in her 30s.

"I am kind of jealous of the ones with breast cancer," she said, "because NO ONE wants to talk about colon cancer."

We did find many things we had in common, however:

We both wish people would treat us like we've never had cancer... except when we need them to understand that we've had cancer.

We both find we've reached a broader perspective on life... you can't really call it enlightenment, because it sometimes involves wanting to smack the shit out of other people for being so stuck on the petty stuff.

And we've both made bargains with the Universe to do whatever it asks of us, anything at all, just as long as we get to see our kids reach adulthood.

And speaking of long-term survivorship, I read this article in Cure magazine last week while waiting to see my oncologist for a follow-up. It's pretty badly written, so I'll cut to the chase for you: New studies of survivors suggest that it can take years for life to go back to "normal" after cancer. Pain, fatigue and fear of reocurrence can persist even 11 years after diagnosis.

All I can say is: O RLY?

Signs of the Apocalypse No. 7

2008-10-10T22:56:00.000-07:00

Madden NFL 09 Pink: Yes, Virginia, it's a video football game that "fights" breast cancer.

If I had a rocket launcher...

2008-09-25T16:44:00.000-07:00

The place where I get my mammograms done is rescheduling mine because... they've decided to stop doing diagnostic exams on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

This is the same place that sent me a form letter a few months ago announcing when my mammogram would be. Without consulting me first about what times would work for me.

So, I'm wondering what the message is? Because it feels something like this: Hey, cancer survivor. We know you are just sitting at home with your gold AmEx card flipping through the home shopping channels. Since you're not capable of doing anything worthwhile, we expect you'll be happy to come have your boob hammered flat whenever we feel like doing it. And, yeah, we have Saturday appointments... with openings sometime in 2010.

Another country heard from

2008-07-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

"You just have to decide if you're a Tigger or an Eeyore. I think I'm clear where I stand on the great Tigger/Eeyore debate. Never lose the childlike wonder. It's just too important. It's what drives us."

Randy Pausch, 1960-2008 (pancreatic cancer)

A Junior brain trapped in a Misses body

2008-07-23T00:17:00.000-07:00

I went clothes shopping. Again. This summer has found me in a fruitless search for a cute little summery dress, some cool casual tops, and maybe a nice button down shirt or two for dressy casual.

Here's the challenge: my flat-chested temple of a body doesn't lend itself easily to this year's fashion trends. Low cut bodices that show exactly what color my fake boobs (foobs!) are won't do. And the dresses that don't have the low cut V neckline have the deep U little milkmaid style bodices with puffed sleeves that are so not flattering on fifty year old arms. And the foobs are visible in either one.

That said, I'm not ready to give up and start wearing men's T-shirts. I'm going back to my sewing machine. We've been apart for awhile, but we need to get back together and heat up the sewing room.

Stay tuned.

Why so serious?

2008-07-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

"What doesn't kill you makes you stranger."

--Joker, "The Dark Knight"

Schwety boobs

2008-06-25T02:00:00.000-07:00

Oh how I hate going to the east coast in the summer. It's hot, which is bad enough, but the humidity pretty much guarantees that my strap-on boobs are going to feel worse than usual, all damp and sweaty. They have these COOLMAX® pads that lay between the plastic encased blob of femininity and my skin, but that's only so helpful since the COOLMAX® pads are covered in some space age material that doesn't breathe on its own, it has to be shot fulla holes to make it cooler. And it's all encased in a fabric boob cover, sort of like socks for tits, but the cotton they are made of NEVER cools off.
Maybe someone could invent boobs that cool, like a cooling vest only smaller and able to fit inside a bra. I bet a lot of women, and not just mastectomy mavens would like to have something chilly to strap onto their chests when it gets hot.

That's enough. I'm going to watch some opera now. Jessye Norman rocks.

Let's draw a tasteful veil across the scene

2008-06-24T16:53:00.000-07:00

Dear sister-in-breast-cancer:

I don't know how to tell you this nicely, but discussing your vaginal dryness with me at a co-ed cocktail party? SO not a bonding experience.

"You'll have to deal with this for the rest of your life."

2008-06-12T20:38:00.000-07:00

Dear reader, the odds are good that at some point in your middle age, your doctor will diagnose some condition and tell you, "You'll have to deal with this for the rest of your life."

Surprisingly, this means you'll have to deal with this for the rest of your life. When things break after 40, they tend to stay broken. We learn this every day, yet denial remains one of the most powerful forces in the universe, stronger Peet's coffee or the under-car suction force that attracts Frisbees and dropped keys.

I'm typing this with one very tender left hand. I had a lymphedema flare-up last week, and my knuckles and fingers are still as puffy as if I had punched a wall. Which, frankly, sounds like a good idea right about now. I don't really know what sparked the flare-up -- maybe my lymph system reacted to the touch of flu I seem to have acquired, maybe I overused my left tipping books off the library shelves at my daughter's school for the end-of-year inventory. Maybe I put too much stress on my left side doing the physical therapy for my right shoulder -- the right shoulder I strained last spring trying not to overuse my left hand.

So I've spent the past nine days doing two sets of physical therapy exercises a day, one for my shoulder, one for my arm. Plus walking my daughter to school every day -- gotta get the aerobic exercise in to control my estrogen levels. Plus having the flu. I'm telling you, it's a good thing I don't have to go to a 9 to 5 right now, because my boss would be pretty close to firing my ass. As it is, I'm behind on household projects and I haven't even started to think about prep work for my fall classes.

My husband, trying to be helpful during one of my freakouts, said, "Don't worry -- you won't have this forever."

I just about snapped his head off. Because that's what I realized last week: Yes, I will. Yes, I have lymphadema. And I'm going to have to deal with this for the rest of my life.

I gnashed my teeth, but the truth had been spoken

2008-05-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

I am weeping with jealousy that I did not write
this blog post. Nor did I come up with the slogan "It's a disease, not a marketing opportunity."

Curse you, Assertive Cancer Patient. Now I have to make a donation.

Shoulda Seen It Coming

2008-03-07T16:25:00.000-08:00

Blue Shield doesn't want to pay for my screening MRI this time. They say a mammogram should be just fine, thank you. Oh, and we can certainly appeal their decision if we want to, but since I'm supposed to get screened every six months, an appeal would be pretty pointless -- by the time it was decided, it would be time for the next exam.

I'm not a big fan of the MRI, and it tends to give more false positives, with all the unnecessary stress and anxiety that implies. But I'm fucking pissed off at Blue Shield for overruling my doctor this way.

Knots n' tumors

2008-02-29T23:17:00.000-08:00

All I wanted to do was find a new conditioner. The hair that I've managaed to grow since I finished chemo seven years ago needs some new 'product.' So I visited my favorite hair care supply store and it was suggested to me to try a product I'd never tried before. It comes in a pink bottle, has a big pink ribbon on the label. The product felt good on my hand and so I imagined one day soon being able to run my fingers through my smooth and detangled hair.

But there was a pink ribbon on the label that was totally harshing my shopping buzz. Why do I have to think about cancer when I'm buying conditioner? Or cereal? Or anything?

Maybe all I want to do is have a fabulous head of hair floating over a brain that is free of thoughts of reality, if only for a brief moment.

Pink shmink.

2008-01-29T17:45:00.000-08:00

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll got it very right this week:

So I talk to the afflicted, and almost always I say, "Please let me know if there's anything I can do." It's a thing that people say. They say, "I'm sorry for your loss," if an actual loss is involved - would that include amputations? They say, "Everything happens for a reason," and then a large bolt of lightning turns them into a mound of charcoal, and a ghostly voice says, "What have we learned from this experience?"

Cancer has made me a crankier person

2008-01-27T18:38:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month, distinguished cancer blogger Lymphopo powerfully described the experience of revisiting the ward where she got chemo, only to have a full-blown panic attack once she got there. She concluded:

And now, even though the worst appears to be over and I'm coping extremely well, adjusting, healing, rebuilding, still, at a very deep cellular level, permanently etched in my very neurons, I remain deeply traumatized. And this buried cellular trauma can be triggered and might rise up to haunt me and debilitate me at any time. Fun, eh?

So in one sense there's healing and moving on, but another sense there's no such thing. No matter how strong or brave I try to be, reality will never be the same.

She also admitted that she was tired of writing about having been sick:

If I decide to start another blog it'll probably just be a trivial chatty little what-I-ate-for-lunch dealie, amusing for me and my dogs and a few close friends but not so much to anybody else.

I've been meaning to blog about this post since I read it, about a week ago, but I've had a hard time getting around to it. Partially because I've been busy, but also -- let's be honest here -- because I am also tired of writing about having been sick. This is the damnedest thing: I want to shut up about it, as if I can will it into nonexistence through my silence.

In physics, there's the story of Schrodinger's cat. It's supposed to illustrate the strangeness of quantum mechanics. A cat is shut up in a steel box with a device that, at some unknown point, will kill the cat. While the box is closed, the cat is, in a sense, dead and alive at the same time.

This story also beautifully illustrates what it feels like to be a cancer survivor. Everything is both fine and awful at the same time. You may be alive; you may be dead and just not know it yet. The exquisite awareness of your own mortality wears away at you, like sandpaper, leaving you exposed and irritable.

Which reminds me: Got offered the senior discount again at the health food store up the street. That's it: I'm done shopping there. They can kiss my 49-year-old...

"May I Be Blunt With You?"

2007-12-06T20:30:00.000-08:00

In the wink of an eye

2007-12-05T01:36:00.000-08:00

One can occasionally be transported to another time and place and in that moment be awake and aware and it can be sweet.

Last week I was getting ready for bed and pulled my T-shirt over my head and then realized that I'd forgotten that I was still wearing my Removaboobs and that was a funny little moment where I'd forgotten about my cancerous past. Aahh...

A few days before that I almost left the house without putting on the Removaboobs and I thought it was interesting that my body felt like they were on when they weren't.

Phantom pheelings make for frantic feelings.

Insert tasteless "stiffs" joke here

2007-11-26T23:31:00.000-08:00

I am really too speechless to comment on the "Men of the Mortuaries" calendar, which raises money for breast cancer survivors. I guess if you've gotta go, it's good to know the guy putting you in the box looks good in his underwear.

Rules for spectators

2007-11-25T10:33:00.000-08:00

Rule No. 1: You do not ask me if "they found the cancer early" or whether I'm "cancer-free now" or "all done with this" in front of my 9-year-old daughter. Unless, of course, you just want me to lie to you.

Rule No. 2: You especially don't ask me, "What's your long-term prognosis?" in front of my 9-year-old daughter. Unless, of course, you just want me to punch you in the face and then lie to you.

Dream a little dream for me

2007-11-02T09:33:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago my husband stayed up late to pay bills. While I was sleeping alone, I dreamed he had divorced me because he was tired of my shit. What's more, he had completely moved on and found a woman he thought was more fun than I am. I was devastated.

At that point, he must have come to bed, because I woke up enough to realize I was dreaming. I fell back asleep and dreamed I was telling him my divorce dream. He said, in a very serious voice, "That's ridiculous. I would never leave you."

And the fact that he was saying this while walking down the street in his underwear didn't faze me a bit.

Life-changing experience

2007-10-27T18:45:00.000-07:00

There's a kid in one of my classes who has become sort of a scapegoat. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with him; he's just younger than his classmates and his adolescent posturing doesn't play well with them.

Earlier this week, I caught the end of an interchange between him and Student X, whose mother died of cancer several years ago. What I heard was X saying to Scapegoat, "I get it: You haven't had a life-changing experience yet."

I remember Cancerella saying something similar to me many, many years ago, after her mom died. It's possible to explain how falling through the mirror changes you, but to a certain extent, there's no point. Either you've had a life-changing experience and no explanation is necessary, or you haven't, and no explanation will suffice.

I joined the conversation between X and Scapegoat and recalled the moment 18 months ago when I learned I had cancer. A few weeks later, something went hideously, horribly wrong in one of my classes, and I remained unflapped.

"I realized that if it wasn't going to kill me, it wasn't worth getting stressed out about," I said.

"Yeah, well, you seemed pretty stressed this week," pitched in Student Y.

I laughed. "It's hard to live in the clear spot," I acknowledged.

-----

This morning, I had a hot flash while sorting my pills into the weekly organizer. Then, I realized that I was running out of tamoxifen. For some reason (hormones?), this brought on an attack of the weepies.

"I'm so tired of being a cancer patient," I told my husband.

I have been tired and achy this week, and it's hard not to listen to that bad angel who tells me it's because the cancer is back, that my next checkup won't be clean. I haven't been able to keep up with my exercising for the past three weeks, and if something does turn up on my next mammogram, I will be convinced it is because I didn't walk enough.

Cancer candor

2007-10-17T23:48:00.000-07:00

So I'm watching a few minutes of 'The View' because this particular show is going to be all about breast cancer, and their first guest is Dr. Susan Love. She's a big macher doctor at UCLA. So I'm watching this interview and noting that the ladies are all asking their scripted questions one by one and not talking over each other too much so that we in the audience can learn all manner of important and useful info regarding detecting breast cancer.

That's when I notice that Dr. Love is prefacing some of her answers with "Well, with the grant money from (fill in corporate entity here) we are developing a test blah blah blah...."

Oh - mygod. It's the ultimate promo. Who better to have mentioning your company than a doctor who is doing research that will help your biggest demographic?

It made me sad, because I began to wonder if maybe I AM supposed to be buying the pink shite in order to make a difference in the amount of money available for research. More cosmetics from Avon? I guess I'd better get busy if I want a cure for breast cancer found. How much lipstick do I have to wear in order to affect progress in the lab? And is there lead in that lipstick?

See, this is why I don't want to get out of bed some mornings.

eRant

2007-10-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

Please Jebus, no more. No more chain mail/junk mail 'send this to ten friends' email. This assumes that I have ten friends, and that I'd want to inflict this shite on those ten friends that I might have, as though I can afford to squander those ten friendships by sending them this crap.
I don't care how well meaning you are, how much you want to help "the cause," DO NOT send me any emails that ask me to go to some site and either click on an ad or buy something because that will help pay for mammograms for poor women.

You want to help 'the cause?' How about sending some real money to a real charity, not some online faux charity that is actually a for profit company that doesn't make it easy to find out how much of their income they donate to 'the cause.' I'm looking at you, thebreastcancersite and CharityUSA and Homeline Publications.

As for me, lately I've been feeling like I gave a lot to breast cancer research when I had the mastectomies and the survived the chemo. What more can I do? Oh, right, go shopping and buy some pink shit.

9/11; cancer epidemic - just go shopping, that'll make it all better!

Cripes.

2007-10-11T18:20:00.000-07:00

Frankly, I have no idea what this story about Taxol's ineffectiveness against breast cancer means. I'm not even sure how closely Taxol is related to Taxotere, one of the chemo drugs I was given.

I also have no idea whether I should be eating soy or not.

I do, however, fully understand why women with breast cancer tend to do less and less research on the Internet as time passes.

Dr. Fatherly says everything will be OK

2007-10-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

I saw one of my many oncologists this week. OK, actually, I only have two. This is the one who handled my chemotherapy. He reminds me of my dad.

Dr. Fatherly said that one of the downsides of frequent screenings is that you will get frequent ambiguous readings. It's good to be alert to what could be early changes, but it's also nervewracking.

And, indeed, when the formal letter reporting the results of my mammogram came on Thursday, it said right there in English, "No cancer was detected." (But we want you back in six months, even though it's probably nothing.)

So, Mom calls me Thursday night and asks me how my mammogram went.

"No cancer."

"That's good! I was just wondering, because I hadn't heard."

"Well, at this point, you know, you can figure no news is good news."

"... because I know sometimes you hide things from me to protect me."

"Heh heh heh. No, I'm fine."

Am I going to hell for this?

More ugly weather

2007-09-27T16:12:00.000-07:00

...and they called me back in from the waiting room to have additional pictures taken during my mammogram today. Let me just say, you really don't want to hear them calling your name in those circumstances.

The technician, who was upbeat and chatty, told me I have what look like calcifications on my "good" side. So they're going to want me back for even more pictures in six months.

Bad breast. No cookie.

Perfect storm

2007-09-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

I'm having one of my biennial hurricanes of doctor's appointments: Surgeon, screening, oncologist. (This time, it's a mammogram. Next time, it'll be an MRI. Wash, rinse repeat.)

Am I cool with this? Well, I was so anxious about missing an appointment with my surgeon, I showed up one day early. Uhhhh....

Take two, today. I'm sitting in my paper shirt, waiting for the physician's assistant, and reading some crappy magazine called Cure. I'm not sure who the target audience is, but it's full of articles about how to keep from getting breast cancer. (Why did no one tell me?)

I found myself getting emotional, even though the appointment went very smoothly: My breasts look and feel as they should.

I got home, realized I didn't have one of the ingredients I needed to make dinner, and had a mini meltdown. It's not even 9 p.m. now, and I'm so tired I can hardly type this.

And tomorrow? I get to do it again with the mammogram.

Really, I ought to be getting paid for this.

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes)"

2007-09-23T11:53:00.000-07:00

So here I am, less than a month after saying I would rather poke myself in the eye than attend a breast cancer fundraiser featuring Jill Eikenberry. Yet sitting on the table next to me is a pile of crap I received for participating in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure this morning.

Item: Pink baseball cap with pink ribbon logo outlined in Swarovski crystals, courtesy of the Shane Company.

Item: "Warriors in Pink" tribal pattern scarf, courtesy of Ford Motor Co.

Item: Pink "Survivor" T-shirt, courtesy of various corporate sponsors.

Item: White "Race for the Cure" T-shirt, ditto.

Item: Pink baseball cap with the Komen logo that reads "I am a survivor" across the back.

Items: Pink lip gloss from Shane Company, pink-ribbon shaped emery board, box of "investmints" from Charles Schwab, flimsy plastic flashlight keychain from Dockers, slightly less flimsy "Redwire" jogging headphones from Levi's, two Tyvek Academy of Art bookbags, two pink bathtub ducks, a "Warriors in Pink" temporary tattoo, and one of those cardboard-and-tongue depressor fans that I always associate with funerals.

I have to ask myself, as I eat my Sun Chips (Harvest Cheddar flavor, with the Susan Komen logo, which were tucked into a pink "Race for the Cure" backpack along with the rest of the swag): How much did corporate America spend on this junk?

What if, instead of giving all the survivors a hot pink goodie bag, Energizer and American Airlines and Coldwater Creek and Yoplait and New Balance and Quilted Northern put that money directly into research or services for low-income women?

Nevertheless, I have to confess that I enjoyed myself this morning. The 5K race/walk goes along San Francisco's Embarcadero, from the Ferry Building to Pac Bell Park. It's flat and scenic, and as my daughter and I walked past Claes Oldenburg's giant bow and arrow piercing the buried heart of the city, I felt my spirits lift.

Among the runners and walkers were a number of women wearing the pink (of course) registration number that marked a survivor, and it was affirming and empowering to see all those former chemo and radiation patients looking so good. Some of the walkers still had bald, bandana-covered heads, and I wanted to hug them and tell them it would stop sucking so badly very, very soon.

Then there was the one pink-numbered, pink-hatted lady being pushed in her wheelchair by her husband or partner. I have to admit that, from time to time, I've been guilty of that Schadenfreude you feel when you see someone in the waiting room who is clearly worse off than you are. But it was hard to feel that today -- and far too easy to wonder if it will be me in that wheelchair sometime in the next five years.

I had originally planned to walk with one of my daughter's teachers, also a survivor. She encouraged me when I was in treatment to just hang on and she and I would do the walk together this year. I called her yesterday to arrange a meeting time and place, and she had just returned from her doctor with a diagnosis of phlebitis and orders to stay home with her leg up.

I'm off the hook! I thought to myself.

"... But it means so much to me that you're walking," she said, and I was back on. Oh, well -- I needed the exercise, anyway. And Quilted Northern needs the business.

Just walk away...

2007-09-08T19:29:00.000-07:00

(Him, leafing through the mail): "Um, Dr. B----- sent you a flier for a conference on surviving breast cancer. It's all day Saturday, Sept. 29"

"Oh... (glancing briefly at it). Um, I would actually pay good money NOT to have to go to that."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. I'm already pursuing alternative therapies and exercising and writing about my feelings... I really don't want to have to be lectured about it for a whole day."

"So, I'm guessing you're not interested in going to this fundraiser with Jill Eikenberry either."

"I am SO not interested in going to see Jill Eikenberry. In fact, they would be better off mailing a letter threatening to send Jill Eikenberry to my house unless I give them money."

Me, Myself & I - with Auntie's help

2007-07-26T02:34:00.000-07:00

Hmm, support groups. They weren't for me. I tried to be good, and follow the pink brick road, but I just couldn't make myself take that step. Luckily for me, in the midst of all that procrastination, I had a chat with my Auntie who'd been down this road ahead of me by a couple of years. She called to offer (wait for it!) support, and she told me of her experiences going to a support group. There were some very nice people there, she said, but then she added they were more than trumped by the people in the group who whined all the live long day. She dropped in a few times and then, if memory serves, decided it wasn't for her.
My auntie was not a person to put up with whining; I learned that when I was a teensy niece. I thought my mom was fierce about that, but Auntie took no prisoners.

So I found solace elsewhere, bending the ears of my dear friends & family and my ever patient spousal unit, and the fantastic nurses at the Casa de Chemo. They'd heard it all but they always listened as though you were the first one telling them about whatever trial you were enduring. Goddesses on earth, they are.

It would have been nice to have a kind of anti-support support group, but how would we ever find each other? This must be what it's like for the procrastinator's club trying to set up a meeting.

"You are old, Father William, the young man said..."

2007-07-24T20:37:00.002-07:00

I was walking out of Ye Olde Quaint Market when I glanced down at my receipt and saw that the checker had given me the 5 percent senior discount.

This is getting $%*!@ing tiresome.

My husband shrugs it off: The checker is in his 20s; anyone with a wrinkle or gray hair looks old to him.

But the fact is, now I've had cancer, I have an investment in how I look to people. I don't want to look 12 to 17 years older than I am; I want to look damn good.

Also, hey: check it out. Being in a cancer support group does not make you live longer. It just feels longer when you're listening to other people's problems.

Cancerella's Cancer Back-Story

2007-07-05T20:34:00.001-07:00

Cancer the First-

I was diagnosed with my first cancer in 1997. While it was as upsetting as you might imagine to get that ominous call from the gynecologist in which she says, "Come in and see me as soon as possible...can you come this afternoon?" it wasn't a complete surprise as I was looking back at a family history that produced breast cancer in the three previous generations of my maternal family. Whether it was genetics or environment or both doesn't seem to matter so much when you hear the doctor say that the results of the tests revealed a malignancy.
So there we were, my devoted husband and I, getting the life changing news together. (Sometime after that fateful day he reminded me of the first thing I said after hearing that I had cancer; I said I didn't want to die.) I think I said it because my family data points for the disease were, someone gets cancer and then not too long after the diagnosis they die. So in spite of my diligently getting mammograms every year starting at age thirty-one, after my mother succumbed to the disease, and having to fight to get insurance approval for said mammograms, I became another family data point. And even though it was caught early, I had the thought that I could die from this disease, that I would die from it if I didn't do everything I could to get rid of it.
Needle (punch) biopsy, lumpectomy, mastectomy and chemotherapy were the experiences I was bound to endure but destined to hate hate hate with the white hot heat of a thousand suns. Each one worse than the one before, with chemo being a sidestep into a whole other realm.

Cancer the Second-

Here's the thing. When you get cancer, there's this five year clock that begins ticking after your diagnosis. I don't know who decided it should be five years, but after five years I guess you are dubbed cancer free if there are no re-occurences within that time.
The clock starts ticking and almost every day you think about how you are holding your breath until that five year anniversary is reached, where you think you can go back to your pre-cancer brain, the one where life is good, and you might just be the one to beat the odds of humanity and live forever, but you can't ever go back there after. In that way it's like sex; you are never the same after. No judgements here, I'm not saying whether you are better off or worse off, but you are forever changed.
So it was a real punch in the breadbasket when we got the news four years after the first occurence that I had cancer again. Every year between the first and second diagnoses the hard working radiologists found something that needed removal, so every year I had to go in and have a little bit more of my remaining breast cut out. By the end of the third year my breast was looking like it had been through its own disfiguring car wreck. It wasn't pretty anymore, and it didn't feel so fabulous from the inside, and my nipple was now pointing as if to say 'Hey, look at that up there' instead of pointing ahead into the mirror and the future as it had done for so many years before. I had grown comfortable with the idea of a prophylactic mastectomy when my breast beat me to it and spoiled before I could throw it away.
Take two. Cancer the second time meant having the oncologist decide to use the "stronger chemo" just in case this was a reprise of the first cancer. Would I be sick? For days. Would I be bald? Like the proverbial cue ball, except a cue ball doesn't need hair to keep the dust from falling in its eyes or the snot from falling out of its nose (oh yeah, thank your nose hairs for being there; talk about a thankless job).

I celebrated reaching the five year mark after Cancer, Part Deux by having a colonoscopy. The onc. suggested getting one done given my family history even though I wasn't yet fifty years old. Thankfully I passed that test with flying colors.

Sadly, near the sixth anniversary of my second diagnosis, my co-blogger Carny Asada was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Which brings us to here and now. We are blogging it out, talking about the journey that begins after the treatment ends.

Thanks for reading, and do stop by again. We so enjoy having visitors.

Unexpected Feelings

2007-07-01T02:45:00.000-07:00

I'm not talking great emotional tidal waves of heart wrenching angst or crushing depression. No, what I'm talking about are phantom feelings. "Strange" sensations. Sensations that made perfect sense when the breastages were still attached and hadn't even had any core samples or divots taken out. Things like that feeling that something is brushing against your breast right through your shirt/bra, or my personal favorite, the itchy nipple.

I ask you, how might you scratch an itchy nipple that is no longer there where you kept it tucked away for so many years? Because when you get cut on in a surgical way, the nerve pathways are disrupted, sometimes damaged, and forever changed. Things like an itch or a pain or a tingle don't respond the way they once did when attended to with a relieving scratch or other kind of physical contact. For me, even if I scratch where I think that pesky nerve is saying it's itchy, the scratch no longer satisfies because that nerve is sending me down a neural dead end. Literally, a dead end. Places where I could scratch with a garden tool and find no relief even as that mystery nerve continues firing the "hey, it's itchy here!" message.
Nowadays I have to literally beat my (faux) breast in order to send some distracting sensory signals along that messed up nerve pathway in order to get my mind off the itch.

So if in your travels on your life path, you come across a woman punching herself in a place that you wouldn't expect any rational woman to be punching, just know that you are witnessing one rational woman's response to a most irrational neuron.

On a Sweatier Note...

2007-06-13T00:31:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, here in the land of prematurely hot weather, I was out for a little bitty walk today and realized that I couldn't wait until I got home and had a chance to remove my HOT, SWEATY, STICKY AND UNCOMFORTABLE prosthetics. See, my breasts spoiled so completely they had to be removed for my health. There are days when I ponder what a great rack I would have had if I'd chosen to be a middle aged corpse, but then I remember once again that I'm happy being alive even if it means having the figure I had when I was, oh, five years old. Flat chested and a little bit of a belly. (Note to self: Maybe that's why I look so young...)

My co-blogger asks "Why should I be a prisoner of some mass-consumer-driven body image?"
Well, from where I'm standing, it seems kind of difficult to throw off the shackles of a culture that says that girls like to wear high heels and makeup and lots of pink! and they 'should' have long hair and big breasts and teeny waists and round butts or else we won't know they're girls and we won't know how to interact with them if we aren't sure they are girls and if they challenge us by not embracing the trappings of girl/womanhood oh the confusion, never mind the ickiness of dealing with someone who obviously has (had) something wrong with them that left them visibly scarred and/or deformed in some way.
If we don't do all the girl drag, we consign ourselves to some kind of cultural ghetto where we become a poor representative of womanhood (no longer conventionally attractive) and face stares and questions and whispers. Or profiling, as in my case, travelling post 9/11 when I didn't have the strap on girls yet and I was still bald and wearing my lovely Afghan skullcap with the bunnies on it to keep me warm, I was pulled out of every line on every leg of every plane flight I took for months. See, as soon as I felt good enough to travel I went visiting all the people who I couldn't see when I was sick with the chemo. But because I didn't dress like a girl (I wore baggy pants and baggy long shirts because when your breasts are taken away you tend to develop a few self image issues) I believe I was flagged as being a potential something or other. The brown skin didn't help, I suppose. I guess I looked like a vaguely Middle Eastern/African/Not From Around These Parts guy, so of course I must be searched.
The capper for me was standing in the line at the gate waiting for the last leg of my flight home, standing there reading 'A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again' by David Foster Wallace. Freaking David Foster Wallace! My nose was buried so deep in that book I couldn't see anything but the pages hanging before my eyes and didn't hear anything because I was reading. You know how that is when a book sucks you in so deeply you go deaf? So I didn't hear when the TSA drone was calling me by name and asking me to step out of the line for another bag check. I responded to my name being hollered out for the third time. I looked up from the book and saw the overworked and under trained TSA 'bots waving me over to the table next to the gate. By this time people were boarding the aircraft. So I put my bag down on the table, got yelled at for trying to open it for them, stood back and spiritually bent over. When they were done with me, one of them looked at me with what I thought was an apologetic gaze but who knows? Don't they know terrorists don't have time to read such long-winded writers as Mr. Wallace?
I know, lots of types of people were getting searched over and over again in those days, but I would have thought the no hair on head, no eyebrows, no breasts look might have been a stronger visual cue for 'cancer patient' than for 'potential terrorist.'

Oh, but I digress. We were thinking about body image and breasts. Breasts? Love 'em. Wish I still had 'em, glad I can go buy 'em when I need 'em. Body image? Working on that. Last week I wore false eyelashes for the first time ever and ooh la la, I have found my inner diva, and she likes to dress up. Ah, the circle is complete. I love the makeup but I hate that I love the makeup but I love the makeup...

I always believe what the doctor tells me

2007-06-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

I was in the locker room at the pool this afternoon -- first time since Cancer -- and just started whipping my suit off without thinking about it. Then I had this moment of going back and forth: "Ack! People will stare! Fine, let them. Oh, but I don't want to deal with questions. On the other hand, I'm setting a good example if I just let it all hang out. Why should I be a prisoner of some mass-consumer-driven body image?"

What finally settled me was that I had visited my oncologist this morning, and she told me my boobs looked great. So, if the doctor validates me....

But on a lighter note...

2007-06-08T16:22:00.000-07:00

There is a zen parable that goes something like this: A man being chased by a tiger falls off a cliff. By chance, he is able to grab a vine and he clings to it for dear life. Below him is a raging river. Above him, he sees two mice start to gnaw at the vine. But then, growing next to him on the cliff, he finds a strawberry. How sweet it tastes!

Stronger than dirt

2007-06-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

Another day, another platitude. I haven't had any aimed at me for a while, but I've been thinking about them this week, probably because last Sunday I woke up, turned on CNN to see what new slice of the world hated our red white and blue guts, and I was greeted with a softly delivered yet upbeat narration telling me (in a commercial spot) that today (first Sunday in June) is National Cancer Survivor's Day.

Gee willikers, we get a whole day to survive in public now! If post-chemo memory serves, the featured survivor was an older man who battled prostate cancer, and was now going on a walk. Not a regular old perambulation around his neighborhood, but rather, one of those meaningful "Walks" with sponsors and little bottles of water with logos on them, and crowds of cheering humans who are all probably sharing the same thought; "Jesus H. Christ, I'm glad it's not me.'

Because when you come right down to it, we are glad it isn't us, aren't we? Right up until it is us. Then we are not at all happy. Then we are very sad. Then, when the news gets out to those who know us, the deluge begins.

"Be grateful it wasn't worse." O.k., I guess I could sit around imagining all manner of diseases that would be truly catastrophic, but I don't much care for quantifying the unquantifyable. And anyway, thinking about all those awful maladies would be such a downer.

"You are so brave for dealing with this." No. Let's get this straight. Bravery is leaping onto the train tracks to save someone's life. Or falling on a hand grenade to save your comrade's life. Fighting cancer? Not so much bravery as pure human selfishness. I wasn't interested in dying right now, so I did everything I could to make the bad cancer go the hell away.
This was a no brainer; either I fight the cancer and probably live (a long time) or I don't fight the cancer and surely die (in relatively quick time, and painfully, too!).

"God doesn't give us more than we can bear." This is my personal fave. This is the one that makes the teensy veins in my head pop. This God entity that is spoken of, why does this God seem to be o.k. with throwing this crap into my life in the first place? Wasn't being born a Negro enough? Personally, I think that toting the burden of Negro-ness is more than enough for a person to deal with, esp. in this great land of ours.

Honorary mention: "I/We will be praying for you." Um, could you please not do that? Because, this God you're praying to, isn't this the same God who afflicted me with this malady? If it's all the same to you, I'd prefer this God entity not hear my name too often, lest I end up the focus of the all seeing, all knowing, all smiting cosmic gaze. I can do without the added attention. I'm kind of shy that way.

And now, a thought for the day: You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

You said it, Al.

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me

2007-06-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

So, let's talk about gratitude.

One of the recurring themes people return to in dealing with death or illness is that, if nothing else, this experience will make you appreciate the blessings that remain in your life. This is part of the old "cancer made me a better person" mantra. (For a brilliant and hilarious rebuttal to this, see miriam engelberg's book.)

Gratitude is the emotion we feel when someone gives us a gift. It implies a sense of indebtedness, and an understanding that the gift cost something.

Am I grateful to be alive? I think that question, somehow, assumes that I deserve to be dead.

Am I grateful that my cancer was discovered before it metastasized? More times than I like to admit, I wish like hell it had been discovered while it was stage I.

Am I grateful that I got to keep my breast? Frankly, I have mixed feelings.

Am I grateful that there's a better than 50 percent chance I'll get to see my daughter through her adolescence? Hmmmm.....

In other words, when you get right down to it, I'm not that gratful. If this post-cancer life were a Christmas sweater, I'd say it was the wrong color and a few sizes too small.

The breast as boyfriend

2007-06-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

I suppose I should be grateful* I got to keep my breast, but I have to tell you that, since cancer, we've had a complicated relationship. First there was all the bruising and healing post-surgery -- no sleeping on my stomach or left side for months. The purple scar and the dimple where the tumor came out -- another adjustment. Then radiation, which gave that whole quadrant of my body a lightly cooked appearance.

Then, post-radiation, the shooting pains that eventually seem to have resolved themselves into a case of lymphedema. ("You can get lymphedema of the breast?" I asked the nurse in disbelief. "Oh, yes," she answered. "Of course, we don't refer you out for treatment for it.")

So now, I'm starting to look at my breast with the sort of mingled emotions one used to feel toward that boyfriend who was hot, but sort of a project. Oh, if only he would show up on time for dates or get a job or stop looking down the waitress's shirt, he would be so perfect! But my breast, unlike those boyfriends, isn't giving me much of a return on my investment, and frankly, I think we're either headed for counseling or a nasty breakup.

When I talked it over with my co-blogger, she summed it up succinctly: "I love you! I hate you! I love you! I hate you! Why can't you be a good breast?"

I'm trying to recapture some of the tenderness I felt when I was first diagnosed: "You poor thing!" I thought toward my breast. "You've worked so hard all my life, and now this!" I felt protective, nurturing -- we'd get through this thing together, I promised my breast.

Now, exhaustion and disillusionment has started to set in. The idea that I'll ever have a left breast that looks and functions roughly like its twin seems laughable. Still, we're stuck in this together. I have to ask myself the old Ann Landers question: "Are you better off with or without...?"

---------------------------------

*The issue of whether "gratitude" accurately defines what I'm feeling could be fodder for a whole separate blog post.