Posts

Chemo brain

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I’d been thinking my next blog post would include some kind of derisive commentary about “chemo brain,” a term I’ve run across on cancer discussion boards and some of the cancer literature, where it is sometimes listed amidst the A-to-Z compendium of misery called chemotherapy side effects.   Here’s what the Cancer Alliance for Research, Education and Survivorship says (it's one of those gimmicky acronyms, so naturally I discount their literature): The phrase “chemo brain” has come to be used by cancer survivors to describe changes in memory, attention, concentration, and abilities to perform various mental tasks that are associated with receiving chemotherapy treatments for cance r. [i]     I take roughly the same view of chemo brain that I take of “pregnancy brain,” “widow brain,” and all the other excuses humans devise for our failings. With that caveat, I may invoke it  to explain my particular failing for today. But first, some context. I had my last adriamyci

All that we don't know

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I don’t spend a lot of time wondering how I got breast cancer. I basically believe we encounter a lot of non-point-source carcinogens throughout our lives, and cancer’s genesis in a person largely remains a medical mystery. We know that certain factors are correlated with an increased risk of breast cancer, including: -sedentary lifestyle -obesity -smoking -moderate alcohol consumption (3 drinks/week or more) -early-onset menses -family history/breast cancer gene -diet high in animal fat -not bearing children or bearing first child after age 30 -not breastfeeding -advanced age I don’t have a single one of these risk factors, and two years ago a life insurance company examined me inside and out and deemed me fit for the ultra-healthy rock-bottom rate (ha, fooled them!). But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t or shouldn’t have gotten cancer, just that it was statistically less likely. Overall, a woman’s lifetime risk of developing breast cancer is about 12 percent

Anchors

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A friend who beat endstage cancer wrote that work and his colleagues pulled him out of the disorientation of his unexpected second life, and anchored him to his future. While I’m not facing the emotional confusion of stage 4 cancer, I’ve been thinking about what anchors me to life. Clearly, my children are the unbreakable link. I distinctly recall, upon learning of John’s death, feeling that I was now the one remaining lung, the one kidney, and had to guard my life that much more carefully. I thought of our friend’s daughter, born with with only one functioning eye. She wears clear eyeglasses to protect her good eye. The risk calculus changes when there is no back-up, and I have made more conservative decisions than I otherwise might have, turning back in uncertain snow conditions, avoiding small planes. I have been keenly aware that widows have a high rate of death, especially in the early years, from disease, accidents, self-destructive behavior. Wanting to stay alive fo

Addendum: water rocketry

I wanted to add pictures to the last post but had technical difficulties. Now partially resolved. Instead of a picture, however, I offer a moment (31 seconds, actually) of levity. Tonight we finally launched the water rocket Alder got in December at Corrine and Jamie's gift swap (thank you, Rorie, MK and Susan!).

Death, life and trauma

I just read the number-two-most emailed article in the New York Times, “The Trauma of Being Alive,” by psychiatrist Mark Epstein. He argues that grief and trauma are real and enduring, and we do ourselves a disservice by suppressing our emotions. In his words:  “In resisting trauma and in defending ourselves from feeling its full impact, we deprive ourselves of its truth. As a therapist, I can testify to how difficult it can be to acknowledge one’s distress and to admit one’s vulnerability. My mother’s knee-jerk reaction, ‘Shouldn’t I be over this by now?’ is very common. There is a rush to normal in many of us that closes us off, not only to the depth of our own suffering but also, as a consequence, to the suffering of others.”   His words are a relief, a sort of balm in themselves, offering the soothing reassurance that it’s ok to not be ok. The trauma of John’s sudden death, followed a year later by Ali’s sudden death, followed lately by the shock of breast cancer, has