About 30% of people diagnosed with breast cancer at any stage will develop distal metastasis. I am one.
I’ve been considering survival as a concept for a long time and my ideas have developed and changed. Two of my early posts, in October of 2011, were “Have I Survived Yet?” Part I and Part II. At that time and until recently I disliked—even resented—the label “breast cancer survivor”....
Today I read a wonderful post by Nancy Stordahl of Nancy’s Point about the phrase “lost his or her battle with cancer”. I agree very strongly with Nancy on this point and it made me think of some posts I’ve written on the same topic, but with a more personal...
I’d like you to meet Nick Sadler, director/producer of Times Like These, a documentary film about male breast cancer featuring my friends Bob DeVito and Bill Becker. Bob is a breast cancer survivor and Bill passed away from the disease last September. Nick tirelessly advocates for male breast cancer awareness....
On the phone with my dear friend Aliza: “I want to write a new post but I don’t have a topic.” “A good day.” “What?” “Write about a good day.” Hmm… It never occurred to me, but what a great idea! So here it is: what a good day looks like...
This is a scary topic. For some reason the thought of ocular (eye) metastasis horrifies us far beyond reason. I felt some of that when I read that a couple of the people in my metastatic breast cancer support group have eye mets, and that is why I did a...
It’s been a year and a half since I last posted a book review on the blog because it’s been a year and a half since I last felt strongly enough about a book to write one. Julie Frayn’s Mazie Baby is the book that got me going.* Mazie Baby...
I’ve had some scary experiences lately. * My cordless phone suddenly switched to speaker. I had no idea how it happened and could not for the life of me figure out how to switch it back until I had randomly pushed lots of buttons. * I somehow managed to delete...
The breast cancer blogosphere has been abuzz with responses to a blog at the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) by Richard Smith: “Dying of cancer is the best death”. According to Wikipedia Smith, a former editor of BMJ, is “a medical doctor, editor and businessman”. There is a lot of silliness...
It’s been a very difficult year for me. All those friends who died, first of all. In addition, the pain (I rebel at calling it “my” pain) increased and my resilience decreased to the point that in March I finally accepted narcotics for pain relief. I am glad I did,...
After far too long a hiatus that was due to technical difficulties far beyond my control, Telling Knots is back in our new home. Your email subscription should work, but you will need to change your browser favorites and bookmarks to the new URL: tellingknots.org in order to get here...
