My Great Breast Cancer Adventure

Dry Nights, Dry Nights!

Fingers and toes, hands and feet,
bedtime and cream, this isn't a dream,
I'm wrinkled and shriveled and dry.

Smearing it on, rubbing it in,
Thick cocoa butters, goo for the udders,
My soles and my palms require aid.

I take it real slow, I pamper my leather,
I coo to torn cuticles, try to be gentle.
We all fall apart. Oh look, there's a wart!

Poem (couplets!): Learning Curve

In case you haven't noticed, I'm on a death-poem roll. Perverse as this may sound, I'm having a lot of fun with it, mostly because I'm playing around with formal verse and discovering that it's not necessarily as boring as I thought it would be. In fact, I quite like it. Free verse is more hip and modern, but formal verse can be just as conducive to a decently written death-poem. :-)

Learning Curve

I wasn't around death that much, as a child.
My experience in this arena was mild.
My arsenal of knowledge was scanty,
based on a minimal firsthand reality.
It was a distant thing for me, this topic.
Nobody ever really died. They got sick,
of course, but then they got better.
Finally, however, my mother got cancer.
By then I was forty-seven, no spring chicken!
Yet death was still a show I'd only seen on television.

I'd never observed, up close, the drama
of a body torn apart by pain, that panorama
of bloody piss, sores and pus and cancerous
flesh. I'd considered it, sure, had even gotten furious
at the Famous Director who provoked me to question
the harshness of mortality. I'd imagined cremation,
then studied up on heaven. I'd soberly
reflected on the prospect of wavering
on the edge of that ledge,
of being on the verge.

I'd thought about it, sure; I'd mused, I'd reflected.
But never did I touch my mother's carcass,
or even see the urn that held her dust.
Then came my own diagnosis: unexpected,
to say the least.  At last, at last,
I began to feel the power of the beast.

 

Sonnet (Italian!) - The Right Idea

The Right Idea

When you have the right idea,
I say to myself, you'll know it.
Simple. So I drink tea and wait,
often for years, for that right idea.
It's such a relief when it finally
arrives (wearing sweats, out of the blue)
to tell me what I already knew.
(Sweats and an old shirt, so casually!)
I tend to expect more grandeur,
I suppose, from a right idea.
Not such a plain-clothed oracle.
But in one quick blink, no fanfare
The right idea can break thru rock, voila.
January, February, March. Then April.

INSTEAD of NSAID: 10 Inflammation Fighting Supplements

America is the “Inflammation Nation.” According to the Centers of Disease Control, 7 of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States are attributed to chronic low-level inflammation. Last week in our blog, we discussed diet changes to help reduce inflammation. This week we will go into the biology of the issue, and discuss how pharmaceutials are doing more harm than good.

via blog.radiantlifecatalog.com

Mother's Day Poem

She has not been struck by lightning, no,
it's Mother's Day, and she's doing well.
She's not out in a storm. Her life is safe
and dry. She's stirs a soup of beans and kale.

She's not all soaked, not shocked and pale,
Not stricken by a bolt of fire, not lying
on the ground in mud. She's not knocked out.
It's just a Sunday morning, and she's frying

eggs in ghee; dishrack full of dishes drying.
She has opened an email from her son
who says he'll call or skype her later. He's
performing in Berlin (an acrobat), what fun!

They'll play the catch-up game, he'll run
a few things by her. She's fifty-nine, he's twenty-eight,
her only child. She hasn't seen him in a while.
The sky is calm, no rain in sight, today her fate

is not a lightning bolt, she's fairly sure of that,
but what awaits her, then? When he was born
black thunderclouds of pain and bliss had
struck her single-mother's heart and torn

her world wide open. That child, adorned
in angel light, a wonder to behold.
And now? Her future seems so small
and yet, eternal. Oh baby boy, unfold, unfold!

Poem

Like a Honeybee

Okay, I admit it, I've been obsessing,
clutching at clichés: wise trees, mystic rain.
I've been waxing poetic, frantically embracing

a pseudo parental Universe, interlacing
holy rays of sun with magical visions; inane.
Oh yes, I admit it. I've been obsessing.

Spiritual messages prance in via angels, promising me
easy death, rebirth, breath turned to wind, no pain.
I've been waxing poetic, carefully caressing

the years since that lump appeared, confessing
my addiction to epiphanies: to seek the Aha! (that drain).
I admit it. For sure, I've been obsessing.

And I've become a photographer too (so surprising!).
Mystery after mystery lurks in my viewfinder. Reborn,
I've been waxing poetic, visually addressing

immortal leaves, fallen armies, mottled, torn, resting
their way through the portal, then bursting into oblivion.
Oh yes, I've been obsessing, and I'm confessing.

Will my fleshy body shift like sand, my cells all nestling
into new formation, millions of grains born yet again?
I admit it, I've been greedily fashion-hungry, dressing

myself up in every color, primping and requesting
solutions to size and hemline problems, petty and vain,
while honeybees are dying in droves, scientists left guessing

as to why. Okay, but I won't give in to obsessing about
this epithet: stage four. The beekeepers are forlorn, it's true,
and yes, we are all disappearing. It's distressing, but still I am
waxing poetic; they require all we've got, these arduous blessings.

Vanishing of the Bees | Documentary Film

A Purdue University study found multiple sources of pesticide exposure for honey bees living near agricultural fields, including high levels of Clothianidin in agricultural machinery exhaust, in the soil of unplanted fields near those planted with Bt corn, and on dandelions growing in those fields. The chemicals were also found in dead bees near hive entrances and in pollen stored in the hives.

via articles.mercola.com

Broccoli Targets Cancer Stem Cells- Quick Video

Here's a great video all about yes, broccoli! And breast cancer! And how they can occupy the same space, in a good way. But don't stop at the video. Be sure to follow the link below to the breastcancerchoices.org page from whence this video came.

That page, created by breastcancerchoices.org's owner and Breast Cancer Reseacher Extraordinaire, Lynne Farrow, gives even more information, plus a compelling little graph that gets the point across even better than words do.

via www.breastcancerchoices.org

Obama's new Wall Street foes - Taxes - Salon.com

Next Monday most Americans will be filing their income taxes for tax year 2011. This year, though, Tax Day has special significance. If there’s one clear policy contrast between Democrats and Republicans in the 2012 election, it’s whether America’s richest citizens should be paying more.

via www.salon.com

Medicine Needs a Dose of Creative Thinking - Technology Review

Admissions panels have unforgiving standards for new medical students. That scares Jacob Scott.

via www.technologyreview.com

Breast Cancer Choices Supplement Strategies - Curcumin

via www.breastcancerchoices.org

Just another example of the good information to be found on my favorite breast cancer website.

Coming Out of the Sickness Closet (part 2 of yesterday's webcast)

Confronting Cancer Webcast by Mary Elizabeth Williams

via Salon.com

Breast Cancer Choices Supplement Strategies: Melatonin

via www.breastcancerchoices.org

For Adrienne Rich, May She Rest in Peace

Adrienne Rich (Credit: AP)                   Salon.com article HERE

In the Kitchen of All Women 
 

Blue cup 
             aswirl 
on the microwave carousel 
 
I stand here and grieve 
in the kitchen of all women 
 
I see her 82-year-old face 
short hair, elfin ears, 
                   eyes ablaze 
on the cover 
of the New York Times, 
March 28th, 
                  1929 to 2012 
 
Too many of us 
are still wed 
to clueless grooms, 
still bound 
to our brooms 
and chains of pearls 
 
I am aware 
of the little girls, 
their clitoral removals. 
                  I carry 
my knowledge 
of their mothers' faces 
       raped 
by biblical acids, 
turned to lava 
and born again 
            and yet again 
into the reins 
of terror 
at the hands 
         of their beloveds 
 
I say 
a prayer of thanks 
to you, Ms. Rich, 
              beacon of light 
for so many cloistered, 
drifting hearts. I lift 
      my blue cup 
in a toast to you, 
I salute the way you strove 
to lift the veils, to write 
         for us all, 
the way you dove 
             into the wreck.

Aspirin: A Blockbuster Therapy for Breast Cancer Survivors? - US News and World Report

"Has it spread?" "Am I going to die?" These are the heart-sinking questions that invariably run through the minds of women who have been told that they have breast cancer. They courageously take on surgery, long and arduous chemotherapy, and radiation treatments, hoping to fend off the fate of the 40,000 women whose breast cancer will take a deadly turn this year, reappearing and relentlessly spreading throughout their body.

via health.usnews.com

OMG! Another Shot of Will and Heloise

I have to say I'm bummed that I wasn't able to galavant off to Paris to see Will compete in the Cirque du Demain circus competition. Did I mention that he and his partner Heloise won the Gold Medal? Only about ten times already? Oh, sorry (not). I also recently found out that he and Heloise won the TOP gold medal; there were three gold medals, and of those three, Will and Heloise got the most "points." So what that really means is that they were THE the gold medal winners!

Even after all these years, I still have a hard time comprehending that this is what my son does FOR A LIVING. It is the weirdest thing, to have a circus performer child. It would be different if he came from a long line of circus performers, but he SO doesn't. There are no other circus performers in our lineage, that is for sure. I wonder if he has kids, if they'll become little circus performers too. That would be a trip.

Breast Screenings Creating An Epidemic of Over-Diagnosis | GreenMedInfo | Blog entry | Natural Medicine | Alternative Medicine | Integrative Medicine | Consumer Advocacy

A new study that looked at 14 years of mammography screening in Norway found that the increased incidence of breast cancer observed in that period was due to over-diagnosis: “findings of tumours that in the absence of screening would never have given rise to clinical illness.”  

via www.greenmedinfo.com

Addendum to Today's Earlier Post

Three quotes I just came across, all of which helped my testy mood:

"Bless your uneasiness as a sign that there is still life in you." – Dag Hammarskjold

"Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?" – John Keats

"Gertrude's remedy for her mood swings was to print up hundreds of black bordered calling cards embossed with the single word "Woe," which she handed out, gaily declaring, "Woe is me." – Ross Wetzsteon

I think my favorite is the last one because it made me laugh. I think Gertrude and I may be related.

Now what? Life after cancer treatment - Cancer - Salon.com

Here's an article that I can identify with in many (not all, but many) ways. I'm currently taking a low-dose cancer drug that comes in pill form and, although it causes side effects, those effects are minimal compared to all-out, IV chemo treatments. So in that regard I am very fortunate, especially since the drug seems to be working. I've been on it for eight months now, and slowly but surely my tumor marker numbers have decreased...from over 1,000 to somewhere around 150 now. Normal is under 10. I am still not out of the woods, and the thing is, even if and when I get all the way back down to under 10, I won't be out of the woods. I'll never be out of the woods, unless they come up with some radical new miracle cancer treatment in the next few years.

I won't be out of the woods because most metasticized cancers  (not all...there are always exceptions...but most) come back. They mutate and become resistant to whatever drug was working so well for you. And at that point, if you can stand it, if you have the emotional and physical strength to keep trying, you have to go to Plan B or C or D or F...or...maybe not, because maybe you have run out of backup plans. Maybe you just used the only backup plan you had left in your and your many doctors' bags of tricks.

I'm getting closer to that point now. The current drug is working, and I am happy about that. I celebrate it, I am grateful for it every day. But I also live, every day, with the knowledge that it could stop working at any time. Yesterday I went to the acupuncturist, who is treating another woman with breast cancer; she now has mets to her liver. She was taking the same drug that I am now on. But when I asked my acupuncturist how she was doing (I don't know her personally, don't know her name), he said she just switched to another drug because the one she was on had stopped working...after only one year.

I always feel that I must put up a Big Positive Front to everyone I know. I must always emphasize the positive, emphasize what I am grateful for. That's what everyone wants me to do. If I don't, someone will inevitably say something to try and make me re-focus on the positive. I understand that, but I also feel chided, in a way, for not being upbeat enough, for not seeing the glass half full, for being pessimistic rather than optimistic. It annoys me, frankly. I have enough to deal with without friends chiding me (covertly) for not being Ms. Perfectly Positive all the time.

I walk a fine line. I do feel and want to be optimistic. But I don't want to be delusional, I don't want to imagine that I am "above" the realities of life and death. I'm trying to face every day realistically.

So anyway, I identify with parts of the article below. I admire the author for having the strength and guts to write it.

I had just settled into a chair for my regular Tuesday night cancer support group when I got the call. An unfamiliar number. A split second of wondering whether or not to answer. And then my doctor, calling from his own phone to say, “I have your results.”

via www.salon.com