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…
Tag: chemo
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…
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…
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,…
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…
The Happy Anniversary Conundrum.
A year ago yesterday I was given a diagnosis, and got on the Pooka’s back, thereby starting my wild transformative journey. I could not even say the word mastectomy out loud then, I had lots of fear. (I now know that some of my anxiety the week of my biopsy and diagnosis was directly related to a…
On the other hand . . .
When I look down at my right hand, I see the progression of my treatments visually etched into my nails. Stripes mark the 3-week intervals. The discolored areas that separated from the nail bed, due to the toxins in the yew-based chemo, are now nearly grown out, while the pale stripes marking the Herceptin continue. I…
Resiliency
Early on Dr. Allderdice had me fill out a whole page of questions, and sign it. One of the Questions was “How committed are you to your healing?” He was asking for a percentage. I said 100%. So when I feel whiny about taking 25 pills everyday, or doing hydrotherapy in the shower (which means…
Grateful
Wow. Thank you to everyone who attended last night – we were surprised to see so many venture out in the weather. What a beautiful event. Grace Episcopal is a gorgeous church, Andrew filled the sanctuary with sweet notes, and Rex held the audience spellbound with the fascinating story of Mozart. We snuck in at…
Inspirational People
My chemo treatment in Portland went well- the 2/3 dose of Steroids seems to be working much better this week- less grumpy snarling, though I am still a bit of squirrel girl on speed. I also found a most excellent hat in the hat basket in the treatment room – the kindness of a stranger…
Pick your Poison
There are times when we all have to pick our poison. When I chose to use big Pharma medicine, I signed up to get poisoned. This is definitely a case of the ends justifying the means. From the perspective of the mainstream Oncology world, I will have a hard year that hopefully will be followed…
Riding the Pooka 