5 YEARS AND COUNTING

(Photo © TheBigCandMe)

It's been a good long while since I've updated this blog (as you may have noticed!), and while I think about writing often, it never seems to happen. Today, faced with a new year, I have mere hours left to post an update. This will be my last post in 2016. And also my first. 

I guess I didn't write much in 2016!

That doesn't mean nothing happened this year. Quite the contrary. Plenty of good happened (and a bit of bad, too).

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Related posts:

Courage

Cancer Credo

A Poetic Cancer

Acrostic Breast Cancer

To Suffer and Be Strong? Sublime!

THERE IS NO CURE FOR CANCER

I've been writing about Pinktober since I started this blog in 2011. See 2011's The Hunt for Pink October, 2012's Six-Word Memoir, 2013's Pinktober Preparedness, 2014's Sugarcoating Cancer. (For more about the Pinktober phenomenon, last October I compiled a list of posts written by my bloggy BC friends; click here for a good read to go with your coffee this morning.)

This "Pinktober 2015," I'm writing about Metastatic Breast Cancer. 

STUPID THINGS PEOPLE SAY TO CANCER PATIENTS

Nancy over at Nancy's Point recently blogged about a phenomenon that many of us have to deal with post cancer: people saying stupid stuff to us.

As Nancy points out, "There are way too many people telling patients how to feel, how to act, how to do cancer and yes, how to do survivor-ship." True, dat.

(Copyright 2015 TheBigCandMe)

And dat got me thinking. (Play along with me here.)

See if you can recall something someone said to you during (or after) your cancer treatment. A comment that struck a negative chord inside you. Maybe it was something like, "You'll feel stronger soon, and then you'll be able to put this whole event behind you." Or "You'll be back to normal in no time." Or maybe they said nothing at all. 

15 RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME

Copyright 2015 TheBigCandMe.blogspot.com

Thanks to Nancy's Point, I'm tossing my sun visor into the "15 Random Facts About Me" ring. It's been too long since I've blogged, and this is exactly the push I needed. (Thanks, Nancy!)

Without further procrastination, here are 15 random facts you probably didn't know about me...

MOTHER'S DAY: IT'S COMPLICATED

I wanted to share a beautiful, personal and poignant essay that my friend Kim wrote about the many complications of motherhood. It's entitled "My Mother, Mother-In-Law, and Me: A Love Triangle" and WOW, what a great read. It's featured on Buzzfeed today...

ARE YOU A BC BLOG READER?

Do you find breast cancer blogs helpful? If so, please consider taking a brief survey by fellow breast cancer blogger Rebecca Hogue. Rebecca blogs over at BC Becky and she is studying the impact that BC blogs have on breast cancer patients, their caregivers, their friends, and their family members. 

If you or a loved one has had breast cancer...

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...

CAN YOU KEEP YOUR HAIR DURING CHEMO?

(Copyright 2015 TheBigCandMe)

I'm woefully behind in blogging. Six weeks into 2015 — and this is my first post.

I'm jumping in today to talk about a topic I have absolutely no experience with: Hair loss during chemo. 

Though I didn't have chemo, I feel the need to become knowledgable about a certain aspect of it. My good friend R. was diagnosed with ovarian cancer last week. She is still reeling from the diagnosis, still recovering from the (very) invasive surgery, still bereft about the thought of losing her cascading hair. 

So I did some research on Cold Caps...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As we say so long to 2014, here is my wish for us all in 2015:

May you have...

• The strength to say NO to the things you don't want to do
• The confidence to say YES to the things that you do
• The wisdom to know when it's just the fear talking...

CANCER IS MY INFAMY

(Copyright 2014 TheBigCandMe)

Four years ago today, December 8th, 2010, cancer called my house. (Actually, Dr. S. called; he gave me the news here.) 

Fast forward two years, and in an attempt to put a Six-Word Memoir face on the beast that is breast cancer, I wrote these six words on this blog: "Cancer called. Wish I hadn't answered." 

Do I still stand by those words? 

OPPOSING PINKTOBER, FREE MEMES AND MORE

We are smack dab in the middle of Pinktober. Hmmm.

I created a couple of Six-Word Memoir memes a while back, and thought I'd share them now. Feel free to reuse them and repost them!

To learn more about "Pinktober," please read any (or all) of the following posts from some of my favorite blogging sisters...

ACT WITH LOVE!

In two days, the first day of "Pinktober" will have arrived. Again.

Rather than rehash my feelings about the pinkification of breast cancer (read that October 1, 2011 post here), let's act with love and make history together by signing up for the HOW (Health of Women) study...

THE ICE BUCKET BACKLASH

You've seen the videos all over Facebook and other social media: People participating in The Ice Bucket Challenge to raise money and awareness for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig's Disease). A vast array of my Facebook friends participated, too. 

A few have mentioned making a monetary donation. Fewer still have made an attempt to educate people about ALS in their videos. Most only mention money as a penalty. Most opt for the ice water dousing, though some also donate dollars and get doused. 

It took some time for me to figure out why I felt so uncomfortable when viewing these videos. Then it hit me: This challenge isn't really about ALS at all...

BLOG ENVY REVISITED

Below is something I wrote two years ago. (My writing mojo seems to have taken some kind of summer sabbatical, so I'm dusting off a popular post and revisiting it.) The topic? Blog Envy. 

Prior to May 2012, when this post first ran, I had never even heard of such a thing. Urban Dictionary describes blog envy as "the jealousy you feel when you see another blog getting recognition in the mainstream press" and "the jealousy you feel when you realize your friend's blog is more popular than yours." 

Seriously?

And that's how my morning started off May 11, 2012...

GREEN MONKEY UPDATE

(Copyright 2014 Green Monkey Tales)

You may remember my blogging buddy, Shannon, a la Green Monkey Tales fame; we bonded over our breast cancer, our bilateral mastectomies, our subsequent surgeries and our complications.

One year ago, she was diagnosed with rectal cancer...

BLOG SOUP

Thank you to my blogging buddy extraordinaire Jan Hasak for asking me to participate in a world-wide "Blog Tour" that asks four simple questions to reveal the essence of why and how we write. I am honored to participate from Southern California.

It's fascinating to see how each blogger answers the same four questions. Read what Jan has to say about her writing process on her insightful blog, Mourning Has Broken. 

Besides answering the queries, the best part of the Blog Tour is that each participant gets to pick two bloggers to continue the Tour! (To find out who I am passing my Blog Tour baton to, keep reading.)

Here are my answers to the four Blog Tour questions...

MOVING ON AFTER CANCER: SUE (SECOND IN A SERIES)

The Rubies are back! Diagnosed with breast cancer within weeks of each other, we were a string of strangers that met via breastcancer.org. We jelled like a good marmalade, forming a cohesive support system for each other that saved our collective sanity. We grew close, as real besties do, and I have since dubbed them The Rubies (read more about them here). 

As you can imagine, each Ruby has her own unique breast cancer story to tell, and I want to give each Ruby space to share her story on my blog. My first guest blogger was the marvelous Melanie, our youngest Ruby. (You can read Melanie's story here.)

Today I am introducing you to my second guest blogger, Sue. You'll soon see why Sue wears the "inspiring" crown in our group for making the most changes since her diagnosis. Sue is a military spouse who took stock of her personal circumstances, pushed through her limitations and pursued her dreams in the face of breast cancer. I'll let her tell you how she did it. So without further ado, here's Sue!

"One thing that being a military spouse has taught me is to take control when I can, and give up the desire to control when I have no other choice. We learn to just deal with it, uncomplaining, silently carrying on. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I sucked it up and decided to just deal with it like I did everything else. No one told me that was impossible. You don’t just deal with cancer...

TOP 10 TIPS FOR A HAPPY LIFE

 © TheBigCandMe.Blogspot.com

I came across a blog post that feels worthy of a repost. 

Originally written as a letter to my 16-year-old self, these tips apply to folks of all ages — not just to teens. After all, we're never as young as we are right now, right?

I've renamed them RENN'S TOP 10 TIPS FOR A HAPPY LIFE. Sit down, grab a cup o' coffee, and...

CYBER SUPPORT

My first blog logo, circa April 2011

It's been nearly three years since my first blog post hit cyberspace. It was April 2011, and I was in the thick of my frustration, anger and sadness following a breast cancer diagnosis. If I didn't write down what I was feeling, I thought my head would explode. Blogging became a natural way for me to process my cancer "situation."

I wasn't always aware of what I was dealing with; enlightenment often came after I hit the "publish" button. Writing is weird that way...