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Well, it’s been a really, really long time since I posted. I blame this on my tendency to be a poor communicator (good thing I’m in the department of communication for grad school!).
Anyway, I don’t know if anyone even bothers to read this anymore, but I do know that this is a fantastic personal reference to help me remember things that might have otherwise been completely forgotten due to both my tissues and my memory being burned by chemical cocktails.
I have been doing work at USF on illness: I have talked about the social construction of illness, performance theory and illness, illness narrative as a means of patient empowerment with medical care providers as well as personal empowerment with their illness, and I am currently working on a piece about how illness narrative might help change the landscape of private health insurance. Eventually I hope to take all of these bits and pieces and turn them into one, cohesive work.
In my various academic ventures, it has been very helpful to be able to reference back now and again and remember how the sensation of touch was so noticeably altered after my first chemo treatment (whilst making salsa), and how bad my skin hurt for unknown reasons, and how bad my bones hurt after shots, and how difficult it was to engage in normal social behavior (chemo brain), and how having super short spiky hair made me feel stigmatized in public.
Thus, I shall make an effort to continue writing, if for no other reason than to maintain the memory of why I became so interested in health communication in the first place.
Everything went well, I somehow woke up with “breasts” almost the same size as the originals, and once they’re finished with reconstruction, I’m going to have a fantastic rack.
Right now, though, it hurts to type much and I’m too fuzzy headed to think coherently anyway, so details will have to wait. Until then, the Nintendo DS and Playstation are keeping me company.
Now I lay me down to sleep
May what I’ve sown good karma reap,
But if instead I up and die
Throw a party that lasts all night.
Invite everyone I know to my kick-ass wake,
And in my honor ass-hyphen jokes make.
Hire a band that will charge no bill
And take donations for those less fortunate still.
May life bless those I’ve loved,
And who have loved me well,
And may the jerks and users all go to hell.
Eight weeks ago today I sat quietly in my recliner in the Cancer Circle (as I like to call it) receiving my second Taxol/Herceptin treatment at the Cancer and Blood Disease Center. Sitting in the recliner to my left was a seemingly cheerful older woman who, I overheard, was in for her first chemotherapy treatment. I also overheard her talking to the nurse about having lived in California and that she used to be a mental health nurse.
Now, I had never been much for conversation when I was there, as I usually tended to feel quite out of sorts and not at all myself, but my first Taxol/Herceptin treatment left me feeling relatively good and I felt up for conversation, so I asked Doreen about her life. We talked for the rest of the time we were there that day, which was quite a while as we both have treatments that run for approximately 6-7 hours in total.
The following Friday I walked back to the Cancer Circle and saw that there was a seat open next to Doreen. I happily took the seat and we chatted away the time. She gave me string cheese, dried fruit and nuts, although I had nothing to offer her.
We continued on this way, although we were not always able to sit near enough to one another to really be able to chat. Doreen has made me lunch on numerous occasions and brought me citrus fruit and small citrus trees and she has made me several knitted hats to keep my bald head warm (not to mention bags full of knit hats that she made and donated to keep other’s heads warm). I have brought her strawberries and string cheese and, hopefully, as many smiles as she has brought me.
Today was Doreen’s last of her eight treatments and while I am very happy that she does not have to have any more chemo at this time, I am going to miss her. We were able to sit near each other and chat today, and even though I didn’t feel up to doing much talking for a couple of hours, the talk time we did manage to squeeze in was quite nice.
I have always dreaded going to the cancer center because that is the place I go to get shot up with drugs and poisons that make me feel disjointed, nauseated, achy, cranky, tired, out of sorts, not myself, weak, irritated and generally uncomfortable; but I found myself actually looking forward to chemo days because I got to see Doreen. We exchanged addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, so hopefully we’ll be able to keep in touch, but I’m going to miss Fridays with Doreen.
I’ve been calling it “Bob” ever since we found the lump. There is no particular reason that I chose that name, and no particular reason I named it, it’s just that one day Ben and I were standing around and I said, “I think I’ll call it Bob,” and so I did.
People seem to find it incredibly difficult to call cancer what it is, and instead of saying “I heard you have breast cancer,” they’ll say, “I heard you’re sick.”
But I’m not sick. I have cancer. There is a difference.
On the other hand, I not only have no problem saying “I have cancer,” but I also seem to want to humanize it somewhat by calling it Bob. Psychologists could probably come up with dozens of reasons why I would do this, but I think it’s because it makes it easier for me to consider everything in terms of fighting a unit, not a concept. I know that cancer is a bunch of cells that create tumors and is therefore a thing, but thinking of it as a single unit and calling it Bob seems, in my mind, to be a more direct thought process. I guess what I’m trying to say is that calling it Bob cuts out the large, imposing idea that the term “cancer” carries with it, all of the images, and makes it more of a thing that I can defeat.
A friend of mine was reluctant to even say “cancer” when discussing the technicalities of my cancer because, he said, he didn’t want to empower it. I told him that I call it Bob and he seemed to be rather alarmed by this, but I explained to him that by naming it I was kind of making it mine, which kind of makes me feel like I have more control, even if I don’t.
Bad things happen in threes.
I got breast cancer.
My brother flipped my mom’s open top Jeep while NOT wearing a seatbelt, broke the windshield with his head, broke two vertebre and fractured his tail bone in two places.
This leaves me worried about lucky number three.
