Tag Archives: Cancer
The Great Cancer Escape a.k.a.Two Weeks of Being my Old Self
For over two years now, my world revolved around cancer. Eye cancer, breast cancer, re-occurrence, treatments and the fall-out of those. When one counselor asked me what I did for fun, at first I couldn’t think of anything and then I found myself stuttering something about cooking and taking walks with my dog. Even I …
PTSD Is Not Just For Soldiers
I stepped on the outside staircase landing, leash in the right hand, my dog pushing past my legs, tail wagging. But instead of going down the four flights of stairs, I stood rooted to the cement floor. My heart was pounding against my chest and I felt like my torso was being squeezed by an …
Eye Cancer Check-Up: Take Two
My alarm clock rang at 4:30 AM, pulling me out of a pill induced sleep. It was still dark outside and the narcotic was pushing my eyelids closed. I flung the covers off me, knowing my carefully scheduled morning routine didn’t allow for any snoozing. It was the day of my eye cancer check up …
Could You Please Push the Elevator Button for Me?
I was on the red line metro, two stops away from the Union Station, when I noticed a guy in an electric wheel chair in the middle of the car, facing the door. There was a large thick straw like tube that forked at the end close to his face. He operated his wheel chair …
“It’s a Good Thing You Have a Feeling There” a.k.a. The Nipple Reconstruction
“It’s a good thing you have a feeling there!” exclaimed my plastic surgeon as she plunged her scalpel into my breast. I was reclined in a chair in her office and she was starting my nipple reconstruction surgery. Ever since the mastectomy, which involved removing my nipples and all the breast tissue, I had little …
Compartmentalizing for Sanity
Having two cancers makes you really good at compartmentalizing. Your brain transforms itself into one of those old timey apothecaries, filled with hundreds of tiny drawers and bottles with stoppers. Each drawer holds a different fear, anxiety or feeling, excitement, happiness, wonder or thrill. You go there every day, stay all day long, and slap …
Life After Cancer Treatment
“So are you cancer free now?” My hair stylist asked me a couple of days ago. She was trying to conjure up something normal out of my three inch orphan Annie curls that started taking the shape of Jagr’s mullet. I watched her in the mirror and replied: “I guess…I mean, for now, I guess …
So You’re Done, Right?
Next week is my last chemo infusion. It will be one year and thirteen days after my very first poison drip. Everybody keeps smiling at me and exclaiming that I must be really excited. Excited is not a word that has populated my vocabulary for quite a while now. I am glad I will not have …
I Don’t Want To Try
During a checkout, a clerk in a shoe store glanced at my driver’s license issued pre-chemo and said with a crooked smile: “Oh…it is you…just your hair is different.” He didn’t hide his disapproval with the change of my look. His voice was screechy, like a goat. I bit the inside of my cheek and …
Neither Here Nor There
As I near the completion of my active treatment for cancer, I often think of what others call the landmarks and milestones I reached and passed. The biopsies, surgeries, the chemotherapy, the hair loss, the reconstruction, the PET scans, the follow ups, the blood work, the hair re-growth. It sounds as if I walked around …
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