Long time no post people. I am still here, and theoretically not cancering. Part One is about Chemo Brain, and Part Two is an update of sorts… Part 1 : Chemical Brain Remodeling So, the Brain, what is up with the brain? If I know anything it is that the cancering treatment experience resulted in…
Category: Side Effects
Neuropathy: the numbing down of cancering folk.
Neuropathy is a side effect of many cancering drugs. It can have long lasting, and even permanent impact. Balancing effectiveness with neurotoxic side effects is the job of the oncologist. I for one would not want to be in the driver’s seat for that one. Especially with a rubric where weight and age are the…
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…
What you need to know about Existential Suffering
Pain and Suffering are different things. This is something I have pondered in superficial ways at times. After reading quite an amazing post, Pain vs Suffering: Why they’re not the same for Patients, on the blog Heart Sisters, my mind is whirling. Carolyn Thomas’s well researched article explains so much. Though she is a longtime cardiology patient, her insights…
Burning Books and The End of Bad Expectations.
I have a confession. I have burned two books in my life. I am not a fan of censorship, I did read Fahrenheit 451, and to be fair I didn’t seek out every copy and destroy them, or start to steal them from public libraries to prevent others from reading them. Nonetheless I am a book burner. The…
Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
When my MRI appointment came onto the scene in September my anxiety reached near epic proportions. It is stunning to me that I could be more, much more, anxious waiting for a routine check up than I was at nearly any time during my year of treatments in 2014. I am coming to recognize that anxiety is in part simply a communication between…
Attack of the Gallbladder Sludge Monster!
Polyps and Sludge and Cysts! OH MY! When one thinks of the stereotype of elders exchanging complaints around the dinner table, things like “the rheumatism” “gout ” and “gallbladder troubles” likely come to mind. In the hubris manner of the young and the healthy I imagined that I would never fall prey to such topics of conversation. Ye…
Holding up the sky for Chicken Little.
First off my MRI results came to the Clinic yesterday and the Nurse Practitioner, Marion, gave me the all clear. I looked at the report – and it is annoyingly brief. One would think with all the angst I have been feeling this past week that it would have more than a few sentence fragments….
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…
Dreams of Yew, or coming to terms with Taxotere
While reading on the blogs of some gals, who are currently going through chemo, I have been reminded of the immense respect and love I now feel for the beautiful Pacific Yew tree. These complex and gnarly trees are in a fabled family associated with mystery from way way back. Like two hundred million years…
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…
On the Emotional Aftermath of Mastectomy.
This is another post from the draft vault. Written May 2014 a few weeks after my mastectomy and never posted. Though I have written more on the theme of this piece since 2014, I post this now, at the two year anniversary of my surgery, in service to all those who are wrestling with their own feelings either in the…
Riding the Pooka 