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...

STILL NOT A GIFT

It's been a week since my last blog post, the one in which I answered the question of whether or not I think cancer is a gift.

Cancer is still not a gift.

A number of people commented on that blog post, including Ann, who blogs over at the incredible But Doctor... I Hate Pink — and for whom metastasis to her liver means she will never recover. She writes, "If breast cancer is a gift, I'm not exactly crazy about the wrapping paper. My 'gift' looks like a two year old wrapped it, then sat on it." Ann is funny that way. No matter what she is writing about, her pervasive humor seeps into every nook and cranny — every comma, every letter, every word.

But Ann also knows when to get serious, and does so in the rest of her reply...

A FUNGUS AMONG US

We know I am a slow writer. But I'm also a slow healer — something I never knew until my bilateral mastectomy nearly 22 months ago. It's been one long, bloody (in the British sense) battle after another with this right (aka "problem child") boob of mine.

After struggling for months with delayed healing followed by the loss of my right tissue expander followed by the replacement of said expander followed by additional delayed healing, it goes without typing that I was greatly anticipating the surgery to exchange my tissue expanders for permanent implants. (Why do they make "exchange" sound so simple anyway, like going in for an oil change?) Turns out I was more afraid of this "exchange" surgery than any of the others. My butterflies felt more like...