An improvised life

Waiting two weeks to update the blog is a bad idea! There is now too much to write, so I plan to break it down into a series of theme-based posts. I may also need to institute a regular publication day: the ultimate inspiration is the deadline. Today’s topic is breasts: real, fake, cancerous, cadaverous and gone. I’ve been ruminating on what to do with the space left by my soon-to-be-missing right breast. In June when I went back east for a consultation, I was told I would foreclose the possibility of reconstruction if I did not get a tissue expander [i] at the time of my mastectomy. After radiation—which begins about a month after surgery and consists of six-and-a-half weeks of daily zaps with some kind of atomic energy to the affected area—the skin will be too taut too stretch. So I was told. I said I really didn’t know yet about reconstruction; I am constitutionally inclined toward less medical intervention and my breasts are pretty small anyway. “But you’

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

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