About 30% of people diagnosed with breast cancer at any stage will develop distal metastasis. I am one.
I am so ashamed. All these years I’ve been living in a snug little, smug little complacency bubble. At some point in the past decade and more I lost track of the fact that bone mets doesn’t stay put. I managed to turn my back on the fact that at...
Like so many other people I have had a challenging life, but as hard as the universe seems to be trying to kill me sometimes, I’m still alive. I’ll leave out the iffy moments in my childhood and go straight to my adult adventures. There was the time in Northern California...
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,...
I recently read a blog by Dr. Danielle Ofri in the New York Times “Well” blog about how as a physician she learned to respect the patient’s wishes even when they contradict her professional inclinations. It’s called Doctor Priorities vs Patient Priorities” She writes that the patient is looking through...
Pink-to-ber n A portmanteau coinage used by many people who live with breast cancer to refer to October, the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which is heavily dominated by marketing in the color pink and cute tags like “Save the tatas”. (See Komen, etc.) During the month of October 2013, I am running guest...
Whew! That was a Telling Knots first! I’d like to put things into perspective now with a summary and my analysis of the issues. On the blog I first became aware of the Flight of the Tatas event when fellow-blogger Scorchy Barrington posted a link to this article about it...
Yesterday I posted the text of my email to Living Beyond Breast Cancer about their supposed association with a topless skydiving event in Las Vegas that claimed to be raising money for LBBC. It is with great pleasure that I can confirm that Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC) had absolutely...
I was already simmering with anger about the trivialization and sexualization of breast cancer when I wrote yesterday’s post about men with breast cancer. My rage boiled over when I saw that a fellow rabble-rouser living with breast cancer, my friend Scorchy Barrington, had posted a link on Facebook about...
I am a wimp. It is so easy for me to sit here and expound: “I am so marginalized! The breast cancer awareness community doesn’t talk about people with mets. We scare them. That 30% figure just doesn’t bear thinking about. That’s why they marginalize us.” And we are marginalized....
