Reaching out
A fellow Stage IV early mets person sent me this article, which allowed me my first night without a semi-panic attack I've had since being diagnosed. She had a similar experience with DCIS/stage IV, and a similar path with Tam, and the same sense of guilt. But if what the article describes is true, then it seems possible-- probable? that the metastasis may have started way before I ever even had my first mammogram. "The findings “challenge everything we thought we knew about
What's real?
The few weeks since my diagnosis have felt like the longest, roughest year. Maybe that's a good thing-- maybe time slowing down is just what I want. It's not just the word "terminal" and all that implies; it's hard to describe how every single aspect of life has been hurled upside down. There isn't any part of me or my life that feels real right now. I used to think of my body mostly as a capacity (thank you, Iris Marion Young), but now it's really just about degrees of pain.
From way back when
I wrote this right before my mastectomy in 2013. It seems so crazy now that I cared at all about my breasts. Because really, if your breasts are trying to kill you, why would you want them clinging to your heart? Lifecycle of a boob “Is your boob going to explode?” My kindergartener looks up at me, waiting for an anwer. That boob did explode, sort of, so it’s not such a crazy question. I had been changing the dressing of an insufficiently stitched biopsy wound when blood that
What happened?
In 2013, my very first mammogram found DCIS in my right breast-- Ductal Carcinoma in Situ. Not even real cancer, DCIS is considered a vague precancerous condition, and often never turns into cancer at all. I'm the sort of person who labored in childbirth for 66 hours trying to have a vaginal birth after a previous C-section, so I was very resistant to the idea that I would cut off a perfectly good boob-- and, it must be said, a really beautiful boob-- to prevent something tha
Ghosts in my Machine
I started having pretty severe back pain coming home from ASTR in November, right before the election. Then, on my way to vote, I tripped on the beautifully maintained Roslindale sidewalk, and felt that dreaded tweak of muscle spasm that usually means some vertabrae pulled out of place. Fucking Trump. I did all the things you do for back pain: I went to the chiropractor, I got massages, I did yoga and some pilates. I gobbled down Ibuprofen. Then I went to London to do resear
