Monthly Archives: March, 2014

Call Me Pamela: The Breast Reconstruction after Mastectomy

Finally, the day of my boob job was here. I felt incredibly guilty for feeling excited about having another surgery but getting my boobs back, and bigger then before, really made me happy. I knew I was never going to look completely normal and that no plastic surgeon could recreate everything exactly right, but I …

Continue reading

Oh Hair, Where Art Thou: The Chemo Hair Loss Journey

I sit here, three and a half months after the last poisonous infusion that scared my hair follicles into stupor, and I can still see my scalp through the little bit of hair that managed to grow back. What’s the holdup? I ask in my head rolling my eyes upwards as if the hair could …

Continue reading

Dance Party in the MRI Machine

“Everybody dance now…give me the music” C&C Music Factory screamed in the headphones that the MRI tech put over my ears. I lay on a hard narrow table with a wedge under my knees, about to enter the scan tunnel. “…come on let’s sweat, baby…let the music take control…let the rhythm move you…sweat…sweat”. The music …

Continue reading

Last Chemo: The Anti-Climactic Victory

My last chemotherapy was on December 5th, 2013. The evil Taxotere, the vile Carboplatin and the wicked Herceptin. I dreamt about it for weeks, for months. It was going to be a glorious day marking the end of my torture but instead I sort of felt like a kamikaze fighter – going into the battle, …

Continue reading

The Cancer Fight Myth

When I think of a fight, I think of the battles in the Middle Ages with swinging swords and horse riders, metal armor and long marches into unknown territory, face to face combat. I think of the Matrix like bullet dodging and wall scaling. I think of cage fighting, boxing, wrestling. I think of car …

Continue reading