There is a tightrope walked by folks after a cancering diagnosis. On one end of the rope is the diagnosis, on the other is death. A diagnosis changes your perception of how long that rope might be. Whereas prior to diagnosis most folks imagine themselves living to a ripe old age while dandling smiling great grand babies on…
Category: Cancering
Is it time to retire my Oncologist?
Joe sent me a thought provoking article from the New Yorker on the need for incremental medicine, the kind practiced by old fashioned generalists, contrasted with the heroic medicine practiced by specialists. Which of course had me thinking about how Cancering treatments might be different if we valued the more subtle aspects of medicine as much as…
Beyond Awareness II- The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
Yesterday I sent out a long post contrasting the Shirtwaist Strike with the whole October pink mania. In Part II we will discuss the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire which followed the strike, as it relates to metastatic breast cancer – which is when cancer has spread beyond the breast into other parts of the body, the brain, liver, bone…
Going Platinum – Visions of Carboplatin
Platinum, the rare, the noble, the impervious to corruption. Also a toxic heavy metal when administered as the drug Carboplatin. What does it mean to go Platinum? I will answer that today, continuing the summing up of my take on the chemo drugs I took. Why would I want to do that? After all it has been over two…
Movie Review: Living Proof, the story of Herceptin
Last night we finally watched Living Proof, the Story of Herceptin which came out in 2008. The central character is based on researcher Dr. Dennis Slamon, and was played by Harry Connick Jr. in the film. The story was first captured in the 1998 book HER2, the making of Herceptin by Robert Bazell. Usually I am distracted while watching a film adaptation of…
The Teeny Tiny world within.
You are what you eat. Food is Culture. The way to a person’s heart is through the stomach. Let food be thy medicine. Food is Love. You eat first with the eyes… and on and on. Everyone eats, and we have countless adages about food that attest to this. The question is how can we eat to…
Feeling sexy is an inside job.
Today, I was a Beauty Queen. I walked in the Astoria Regatta Parade at the front of the Blue Scorcher “Float” which we put together out of banners we made yesterday, combined with the signs from our farmers market booth, and flags made for the Lughnasa festivals of the past. It was held together with bamboo and zip…
Any way you slice it, the fiscal realities of cancering
Let me start by saying I am immensely blessed. That even though the financial consequences of my cancering extend into the foreseeable future, I get just how lucky I am. I get that the good fortune is inclusive of my financial picture. Despite the fact that my healing sabbatical led to taking on debt to cover my lost wages,…
Cancer is a Dinosaur
For those who have been reading since the beginning my slight obsession with the idea that cancer is a verb and not a noun, hence my use of the word cancering, is very familiar. For those of you who have only recently happened upon my blog – my word choice might seem a bit peculiar. Sort…
Going Public . . . and now the rest of the Story
To what purpose is this blog? The universe deemed that my little intro draft be published when I merely wished to save it yesterday. So the question still stands, is this blog meaningful to anyone besides myself? Are there standards as to how many people need to be reading or liking or commenting in order for…
Portals to ALL ONE!
Recently I connected with a another blogger, after words on her blog sparked a chord within me. She got me to thinking about how our actions and choices and approaches impact others – often inadvertently. Arriving at work today, still thinking about her post, a convertible pulled up beside me with the radio blaring, it was the…
Ah Statistics! Tamoxifen Update #3
As I continue to question and research Tamoxifen I see that there is no way of applying statistics to the individual, just the possibility of having a generality. Statistics are like a squall passing through, who knows where the rain will fall? Or who will be at the right angle for a rainbow? There are always those…
Riding the Pooka 