My Great Breast Cancer Adventure

In Thailand, an Innovative Fight Against Cervical Cancer - NYTimes.com

In Thailand, an Innovative Fight Against Cervical Cancer - NYTimes.com

I am posting this link to an article not about breast cancer but about cervical cancer. Why? Because it's a great example of how simple, relatively inexpensive solutions CAN be found to fight cancer. Doctors here often poo-poo any "simple" ideas that are not promoted by the all-powerful health insurance/pharmaceutical corporations (who prefer to offer the high-tech expensive options, of course).

Doctors, Doctors, Who's at the Doctor's?

I believe this is called "cross-posting."  (???). It's for industrious but also lazy people who are trying to keep more than one blog going (industrious) but who also don't want to keep more than one blog going (lazy). So they put a link in one blog that takes you to their other blog, like I'm doing now:

My Open Salon Blog Post

CHANGING: MORPHING INTO MATURITY - Ande Bliss - Open Salon

 I haven’t done much to make me look better. I’ve done a whole lot to make me feel better. It took a lot of living for me to get to look like the mature woman in the mirror. At my age it is about remaining vertical, as well as vital. It is balancing act and here is what think is going on.

via open.salon.com

I recently went crazy and started yet another blog on Open Salon (a blogger's haven on Salon.com magazine). I've done five or six posts and have been reading other blog posts there. I read this one today and enjoyed it (in a rueful sort of way).

Flashback to August 2010 - A Letter to The Great Mystery

Poking around this morning in a folder filled with old "daily writes," I came across this letter that I wrote to the Great Mystery, a bit over a year ago, shortly before my descent into a year that was mostly comprised of Hell.

I think I'll share it (again) now that I have exited Hell for a while, I hope. Beware, it includes some cuss words that you might find offensive. Sorry, but I am not going to censor myself.

August 2010

Dear Great Mystery,

I want to thank you for letting the sun come out today, yesterday, and the day before yesterday. It has been an unusually cold summer, overall, and I know that the gray chill was depressing me, but I didn't realize how much until you gave us the gift of this outburst of sun. I'm still depressed and angry about all sorts of things right now, but less so . . .  and that is thanks to this glorious sunshine and warmth. I even ordered a freaking hammock, as you know.  It has been downright hot, some would say uncomfortably so, but I am not complaining. I will take all the heat I can get.

Thanks, too, for suggesting that memoir or personal essay title, Land of the Floor.

In addition to thanking you, I hope you won't mind if I also put out a request or two. You aren't a God per se, so I don't know if you grant requests, but if by some chance you do, here goes. I'm confused. Of course, I'm always confused on some level, but right now I'm especially confused. To be more specific, I'm confused about how to handle the rising tumor marker numbers.

Xeloda Update and All that Goes with It....

A week ago I had another "check-in" appointment with my oncologist. He looked at my latest blood tests: CBC and tumor markers (CA15-3 and CEA) and said they were great, as in my grade would be an A+ if were in a school for cancer patients. My tumor markers are continuing to decrease at a very good rate. In three months my CA15-3 has gone down from 1005 to 440. Normal would be close to zero. And my CEA has gone down from around 100 to 35'ish. Again, normal would be close to zero. (However, it's good to keep in mind that there are very healthy people whose numbers are much higher than zero, and there are very sick people whose numbers are in the normal range. So....as I said in an earlier post, tumor markers are best used mainly as a way to see how your disease is "trending." Nothing more.

Living with Cancer - And Even Writing About It

I admit, I do at times get sick of trying to keep this blog going. Must I really continue to write about it (my breast cancer)? Well, no. Nobody is holding a gun to my head. I could stop. Could just close it down and get on with leading a more private life. Not this glaring, blaring self-exposure. Why do I do it? Why be this open book for all to see?

I do some version of this post on a fairly regular basis. But here I am again, still posting, even if not every day.  I guess I sorta feel like: Shit, I started this thing, I committed to it, and now I need to stick to my commitment. Because...because... it helps me cope, and I hope it helps a few others to cope. Or to better understand what this disease is like.