The Big C and Me: death

Showing posts with label death. Show all posts

Saturday, March 7, 2015

PHOENIX, RISING

Lisa Bonchek Adams was like a phoenix, rising.

(Copyright Lisa Bonchek Adams)

She was a beacon of honesty. The transparency in her blogging was unsurpassed.

She wrote in great detail about her life with metastatic breast cancer — the good, the bad, the ugly. She wanted — needed — to tell it like it really is. Like it really was. Like she really felt.

She didn't sugar-coat s#@%.

She wrote bluntly, bravely, beautifully...

A BLESSING AND A BLUNDER

Once there was a writer named Emma Keller who posted a very disruptive article last week on The Guardian website about a highly regarded breast cancer blogger named Lisa Bonchek Adams. (I have written about Lisa many times on this blog.)

The article in question has since been retracted by The Guardian "pending investigation" — but you can find it here! (Oh, the wonders of the internet, where nothing ever really disappears…)

Continuing on...

2013 REVIEW

2013? That was so yesterday.

It was a year in which I wrote 30 fewer blog posts than I did in 2012. The year I forgot my diagnosis anniversary. The year I started focusing on other stuff. Stuff I haven't felt a need to write about. And that, my peeps, is progress. (For me.)

I did review the 50 posts I managed to pen in 2013, and found a few snippets to highlight here...

JEN "JELEBELLE" VENNES

The breast cancer blogging community has lost another wonderful woman, wife, mother, blogger to the scourge that is breast cancer — Jen "jelebelle" Vennes. She was 39.

Jen penned the supremely well-written, super honest, often raw and always inspiring blog, KeepTheCalm. I'd been following her story since Spring 2012, when she first wrote about the chemo drug Navelbine (something her nurses jokingly referred to as "navy bean"), which was part of the trifecta of chemo drugs she was desperate to have work...

3 REASONS FRIENDSHIPS FADE POST-CANCER

I wrote a blog post back in January 2013 about how our relationships change at various points during our cancer treatment, how the demands on our time changes, and how this can leave us feeling invisible. It struck a chord with many, so I thought it might be important to post again. Maybe you (or someone you know) can relate...

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A CANCER SURVIVOR

I've just read a brilliant and profound article on what it means to be a cancer survivor. I wanted to Tweet about it, but there's so much more to say than can fit in 140 characters.

The article I'm referring to was written by the indomitable Gayle A. Sulik, PhD (author of Pink Ribbon Blues: How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines Women's Health and founder of the Breast Cancer Consortium)...

THE ROAD FROM ANXIETY TO RESILIENCY

Lately, every click I make leads me to more bad news. Storm clouds seem to be everywhere I turn. I need a buffer between me and life.

I need to become more resilient.

By definition, resiliency is being able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions. Um, that would be my life this week. A tale of too much. Allow me to explain...

OF FUNERALS AND FRIENDS

We had a death in the family. My husband's only sibling died suddenly three weeks ago. He was not young; he was not old. He was middle aged. And his death sent shock waves throughout the family.

Which reminded me that the rituals surrounding death, while varied, exist for a reason: Society has been following mourning rituals for thousands of years — because they work. No matter what those rituals are, they're important, and they're in place to help soften death's blow. These traditions have vast intrinsic value in helping to push us gently along our own pathways of grief...

PROS AND CONS OF CANCER

It's Day 27 of the WEGO Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge and the finish line is in sight! Today's task: List the five most difficult things about having breast cancer, as well as the five good things that keep me going. A total of 10 things I got out of cancer.

TOP 5 CONS OF HAVING BREAST CANCER

Being forced to face my mortality
Having a lack of energy during the day and trouble sleeping at night
Hiding my under-construction chest
Taking Tamoxifen
Spending so much time dealing with doctors appointments, preparing for surgery, having surgery, recovering from surgery and follow-ups — it's inordinate, ridiculous, and a full-time job!

TOP 5 PROS OF HAVING BREAST CANCER

Taking a stand against Pinktober (read my posts here, here and here)
Discovering a vibrant, worldwide and uber-supportive web of fabulous, fascinating and funny cancer survivors
Realizing that right now, this moment, is the only "for sure" that any of us have
Making exercise, eating well and being kind to myself a top priority
Falling in love with writing again — and finding my voice via this blog

Monday, February 6, 2012

SPOKE TOO SOON

Another heroine has fallen... Susan Neiber (aka WhyMommy) of Toddler Planet fame passed away today from a rare and aggressive form of inflammatory breast cancer. She leaves behind a family that includes two small children. She was a scientist for NASA.

I discovered Susan's blog just a couple of weeks ago... January 22, 2012, to be exact; it turned out to be her last post; for me, it was her first. I was only just beginning to "know" her. An article about her blog ran in The Washington Post online on January 24, 2012. And today she is gone.

Rest in peace, Susan.

FALLEN HEROES

When I started blogging about breast cancer 10 months ago, the world wide web opened up and extended her loving arms around me. I came in contact with (and was embraced by) a great many people fighting this disease — all writing about it with humor, with bravado, with insight. I knew, statistically speaking, that some of these lovely bloggers that I "follow" would one day stop blogging.

Not because they had writers block (though that certainly happens); and not because there was a dearth of things to blog about (the Komen controversy alone could fuel us the rest of our days). Nope. I knew they would stop blogging because they would pass away.

This morning, I read that Rachel from The Cancer Culture Chronicles died at the age of 41 from metastatic breast cancer. She had a tenacious wit and a marvelous sense of humor. She wrote a guest blog for Breast Cancer Action in December; her last blog post was just a couple of short weeks ago.

And now she's gone. You can read the amazing story of her life here.

I created a "We'll Never Forget" section on my blog. It wasn't my idea. I'd seen it done by other bloggers. I just never wanted to have to do it. But I have one now. It's a place our fallen angels can now rest in the blogosphere.

Rachel was not the first to fall silent.

Cheryl, of Indigo Dreaming blogging fame, passed away in mid-January. Cheryl lived in Australia and battled secondary breast cancer and was also a very brave and upbeat gal; you can read about her story here and also here. (Thanks, Alli and Julie.)

But the first to die, for me, was Lynn — age 50, who passed from metastatic breast cancer on December 29, 2011. Lynn's husband was the blogger in the family, and he wrote (and continues to write) with great heart and compassion about his experience as caregiver of a BC patient. He is now a husband without a wife; a father of two children who are now without a mother. You can find Lynn's story (and that of her husband and family) here.

I wish my list didn't exist. A virtual graveyard is not what I had in mind when I stepped into the design section of Blogger. But it is a brutal reality of breast cancer.

So what can we do about it? Stay educated about cancer. Live a clean life. Donate time (or funds) to organizations that you have vetted and are confident will make the most of your donation.

And keep laughing. Find the humor in life. That's something Lynn and Rachel did in spades.

Rest in peace, pretty ladies.

Monday, June 13, 2011

SISTERLY SUPPORT

What do you do when you're knee deep in do-do and about to go through something as awful and terrifying as surgery? You Google It, natch. And after you've researched said awful, terrifying something, if you are like me, you then go about finding others who are going through the very same do-do as you. (Because sharing do-do is much better than dealing with do-do alone.)

That's how I stumble upon a vast network of women who are going through breast cancer just like me. Tens of thousands of women. And I find them just 12 days after I am diagnosed. How lucky am I? This online community of sistahs keeps me laughing, sane, supported and in check. They are my lifeline on an otherwise do-do filled journey.

One of the things I love most are the insightful moments that come out of our online discussion threads. Everyone has their own unique perspective as they wade through the all-too-familiar mire known as cancer. Sometimes people's perspectives match mine dead-on (pun intended); other times we differ dramatically. One day during a rather frank discussion about death and dying, a woman shared something quite profound. A close friend of hers had recently passed away (and not from cancer, BTW). The deceased friend came to this woman in a dream and said, "Just because you have cancer doesn't mean you are going to die — just like not having cancer means you are going to live."

Whew. That statement, spoken to a woman in a dream by a woman who is dead, makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Here I am fretting (albeit understandably, gotta cut myself some slack here) about the possibility of dying. But what's changed? I'm the same person I was 6 months ago. (My breast cancer was in me then too; my surgeon says it's probably been growing for 10 years). Yet now the word "cancer" and my name are forever tethered together.

I think cancer brings me closer to death. Or does it? Aren't we all just a hop, skip and a jump away from biting the big one? Some of us are fortunate (and I use the term most loosely) to get a glimpse of our potentially shortened lives. It's one of the many, ahem, "opportunities" that cancer conjures up. (Cancer provides plenty of other "opportunities" too, but I haven't the time to delve into that do-do right now.)

But this I know is true: We all die. And we all spend our lives trying not to think about it.

Your not having cancer doesn't mean you are going to live any more than my having cancer means I am going to die.

Think about it.

Monday, April 11, 2011

CURTAIN OF DREAD

Oh My God, I am Going to Die. But don’t I already know this?

Knowing it and facing it: two very different beasts.

Cancer stirs up a big ol' pot of primal fear, that much we do know. And since our minds are programmed to go just a little bit crazy upon hearing the "C" word, it's off to terror town we go. Fight or flight? I’ll take flight please. Except there is nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. My senses are all kafloozy. If I could cook up doom, it would taste like today.

The word "cancer" ushers with it a crushing curtain of dread that never retracts. Draw back the fabric an inch and you'll find plenty of screams, tears, terror, tissues, less oxygen than is necessary to breath, dizziness, darkness (lots and lots of darkness), a bottomless pit and two massive fists trying to clutch at your throat.

Oh. So this is what it feels like to lose your mind.

For me, it happened immediately after I hung up the phone with my primary care physician.

I am in a cloistered place of abject terror, sitting at the kitchen table for what feels like forever (but in reality is actually only about 10 minutes). I remember putting my hand over my mouth (the way you do when you see or hear something so shocking you are unable to process it) and feeling dizzy. the instant I heard Dr. S. utter the word "cancer."

My body had turned into a knife: Every thought and feeling I had, every breath I took, hurt like I imagine a stab wound would.

But something primal deep inside draws me back to the moment. I somehow gather my wits right there in the kitchen chair and suddenly sift through a mental list of people I should call to tell them I have The Big C. Obviously my husband tops the charts — but that must wait until tonight, as I can't bear to give him this news over the phone while he's at work.

I set that desire aside.

Next up: My two closest friends, P. and K (the one on the west coast and the one on the east). We three met 30 years ago at a fraternity house party and immediately clicked. We've been through every life event imaginable together. Last week I told them that "No news is good news." I told them I would only call if the news was bad. They assured me all would be well. But this is news. Definitely news. Definitely bad news.

I call P. at work but she doesn’t answer her cell. I don't leave a message, knowing she'll see that I called and buzz me back (remembering my "I'll only call if the news is bad" pact).

I move on to K. She is also at work, and doesn’t answer her cell either. ERGH! Didn't anticipate this. Can't just hang up though. I think for a second, then put a smile on my face (because I know this will positively affect the tone of my voice) and I leave K a lighthearted message: “Hey! Just calling to check in. Give me a buzz!” I didn't feel it was right to lay out the actual news in a voicemail. I couldn't do that. Call me crazy.

Then I curl up on the couch and wait. And wait. I feel like buckshot in a rifle on the first day of hunting season, waiting for a trigger finger so I can release this fragmented feeling of death.

An hour goes by and I am still laying on the couch, in a sub-catatonic state, when the phone finally rings. Whew! But it's neither P. nor K.; it’s my husband. Crap. Why did I answer the phone? I don’t want to lie if he asks me if I’ve heard from the doctor. Thankfully, he doesn't ask. That may sound weird, but he doesn't want to know the answer any more than I want to give it. So I don’t tell him the news that will soon spoil our dinner. Instead, we talk about what's for dinner.

Then I sit back down on the couch and wait for K. or P. to call. (To continue my story, see Hike Therapy.)

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