About 30% of people diagnosed with breast cancer at any stage will develop distal metastasis. I am one.
According to the Israeli Ministry of Health, about one in eight Jewish women in this country will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lives. The figure has traditionally been a little lower for Palestinian and Arab-Israeli women but their numbers have been rising and are approaching the same levels....
I cried this evening. I began to get tearful while talking to a friend on the phone, describing how tired I’ve been lately. Just tired. “It scares me,” I said, and I welled up. I did my best to keep it in but only partially succeeded, so I went and...
I read this post over at Guerrilla Aging – Navigating the Third Half of Life and I am reposting it here with the permission of both the author and the blog owner. Although I’m still in my fifties, I’ve already been introduced to the curbs that are inexplicably higher than they...
In what may be the unkindest cut of all, having cancer doesn’t give you a pass on all the other ailments of (in my case) middle age: GERD, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, joint pain… I am dying of cancer but I want to be as comfortable as possible until then...
I was thinking about anxiety attacks today. I had one on Sunday in the taxi on the way to the neurologist. I was sick to my stomach, sweating and my chest felt painfully tight. I hadn’t been expecting an anxiety attack, so I didn’t recognize it at first; I thought...
October being Anniversary Month, I am republishing some of my favorite posts. This one seems appropriate after my drama queenery of last week. It was originally posted on January 25th of this year. I chose it because it’s always good to remind myself that I am in charge of deciding where...
Sometimes I just can’t tell the difference between being in touch with my feelings and expressing them appropriately – or playing the Stage IV card and milking it for all it’s worth. I’m having a rotten week or so and you, Internet, are the lucky puppy who gets to hear...
I had an interesting exchange with fellow twitterite and blogger Medical Skeptic today. The topic was denial on the part of the terminally ill. Is it something you can decide to stop? Does that mean it’s a choice? It is a normative response, but was it conditioned by a “death-denying society”?...
