About 30% of people diagnosed with breast cancer at any stage will develop distal metastasis. I am one.
It is my great pleasure to host a guest post by Greg Smith MD, an American psychiatrist who blogs his “mental health musings” at gregsmithmd.com. We sisters in mets often feel sidelined by the breast cancer awareness movement, but Dr. Smith draws our attention to an even more marginal group:...
After speaking with my oncologist, my GP called me back this evening. The onco asked for more tests: CT scans of my chest, abdomen and pelvis. The referrals were faxed to me this evening – they’re marked “urgent”. The oncologist said that after the CTs are read she may ask...
I’m not a pretty picture at the moment. Today is Friday. On Tuesday morning I’ll have the bone scan to verify the extent of the new mets (metastasis), and the results from that should probably come in a few days later. I am stressed and anxious and my mood is...
Well, this is strange. In the weeks and days leading up to my recent CT, I was a quivering mess of anxiety and drama. I divided my time between obsessively cleaning my house and taking advantage of the kind and patient emotional support of my long-suffering friends. (You know who...
I don’t often use this blog to talk in detail about my health issues, but today I’ll make an exception. For the past several weeks or couple of months I’ve been experiencing disturbing symptoms that may be caused by any one of a number of different things, from the dire...
Full disclosure. I live with cancer. I hate that I live with cancer. Cancer and I may have reached a delicately balanced modus vivendi, but cancer still scares me. I have mets (metastasis, secondary tumors) in my bones, but the last chemo series greatly reduced them and I am pretty comfortable...
My very dear friend Aliza wrote this response to my Valentine’s Day 2012 post. Not only a dear friend, she’s a great writer and I am delighted that she gave me permission to publish it here. Aliza, I love you. My friend was about to undergo a major operation and...
Some very kind friends gently chastised me today for getting too wound up in following the news, which is… well, this is the Middle East. I was reminded of a sort of saying about personal safety in an uncertain situation. I don’t know its origin. Either there will be a...