About 30% of people diagnosed with breast cancer at any stage will develop distal metastasis. I am one.
I was listening to an audio book, a detective novel by Jeffery Deaver called XO, part of the Kathryn Dance series. The story is about a young country singer who is being stalked. This stalker is very clever, very intelligent, very skilled at not being where he might be expected to...
First a quick update on the cancer front. There is new pain in my ribs. The diagnostic radiologist didn’t see anything on the ultrasound, so she’s recommending a PET-CT as the next step. I haven’t been able to reach my oncologist (who is the one who has to order it)...
I wrote Part 1 – Discovery of this series in December 2012, followed quickly by Part Two – Biopsy. It’s taken me over half a year to write the third part of the series. The biopsy was a traumatic experience for me and the way I write is to bring...
It seems to me that while we should never forget the possibility of the miraculous, and try always to avoid despair, that our patients are powerful beings and perhaps our true goal should be to move from the limits of hope, to the freedom and possibility of cope. (Emphasis mine –...
Today’s video is from facesofmbc.org. These words and images open a window into some aspects of living with metastatic breast cancer. The video is mostly upbeat and if I were to sum it up I’d say that it is about living until you die.
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...
(Please click here for Part 1 – Discovery.) It was after Christmas when I went in for the needle biopsy. My friend J, a critical care nurse, accompanied me. We sat in the corridor outside the ultrasound room until I was called in. J was ready to come in with me,...
Mid-December 2003. Hot shower on a cold day, steam filling the shower stall – I felt it. A lump about as long as my thumb and twice as wide in my left breast. Terror. I sat with that for a while, reminding myself that most of the lumps that women...
Today is, I think, the sixth day of the Israeli offensive in Gaza. It did not come out of the blue, but many people believe that it is aggressive and disproportional. Some see it as a cynical political exercise at the expense of human lives, and still others believe it...
