"May I Be Blunt With You?"

In the wink of an eye

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

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

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

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

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

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.