April 29, 2008
Dr. R, I suspect, is not pleased. Since the day we started chemo, seven weeks ago, he has impressed upon me that I need to call him immediately if I have any signs of fever. Today I let slip that I don’t own a thermometer.
I have a theory that only three groups of people own thermometers:
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The Ghost in the Room
A few weeks after my surgery, when I was busy shopping for an oncologist, is about the time I started making regular, unannounced appearances in an old lover’s living room. This would not necessarily be unusual except that we had not spoken for a very long time. Also, I was shopping in Philadelphia and he lives in the Midwest.
He does not believe in the supernatural but knows I do and so he, somewhat haltingly, told me the story, perhaps not quite believing all the details himself, of how one day, there I was in his house out there on the prairie. “A presence” is how he described it. I wasn’t an apparition, and I didn’t speak, I was simply, on more than one occasion, there.
He does not believe in the supernatural but knows I do and so he, somewhat haltingly, told me the story, perhaps not quite believing all the details himself, of how one day, there I was in his house out there on the prairie. “A presence” is how he described it. I wasn’t an apparition, and I didn’t speak, I was simply, on more than one occasion, there.
“I must have been waiting for you to call me,” I said.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Dispatch from the Infusion Room
It is Tuesday, April 15, and I am stressing, not because it is chemo day (it is), or because of the tax deadline (got that wrapped up right on schedule early this morning), but because I’ve been obsessing for two days now that I don’t have anything interesting to write about this week. Half a dozen blog posts and I’m plumb out of ideas. And then it hits me: Of all the creepy aspects of this whole surreal cancer thing, the creepiest just may be that the creepy stuff is all starting to feel normal.
Doesn’t everybody go to chemo on Tuesdays?
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Day 17 & $200 Martinis (Hair, Part 2)
For my second wig-shopping extravaganza, I chose a second TV reporter friend. Not having seen each other in a few years, we both gave a pre-rendezvous heads-up:
“After three years of island and boat life, I don’t exactly have TV hair anymore.”
“Well, I’m blonde now. About as blonde as a black woman ought to be.”
My journalist friend—let’s call her Beyoncé—arranged for us to meet with someone from the American Cancer Society’s free wig program. Having seen some of the ACS publications, with all their photos of (gasp!) CANCER PATIENTS wearing (ugh…) horribly outdated 80’s-styles, I was snobbishly skeptical about this. I was not one of those people.
“After three years of island and boat life, I don’t exactly have TV hair anymore.”
“Well, I’m blonde now. About as blonde as a black woman ought to be.”
My journalist friend—let’s call her Beyoncé—arranged for us to meet with someone from the American Cancer Society’s free wig program. Having seen some of the ACS publications, with all their photos of (gasp!) CANCER PATIENTS wearing (ugh…) horribly outdated 80’s-styles, I was snobbishly skeptical about this. I was not one of those people.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
The Chemo Versus Sex Ratio
“So... how often do you get it?” asked a friend in an e-mail.
"More often than sex? You better not have to get chemo more often than sex. (Now, remember, I’m middle-aged and married… so “more often than sex” to me means you can have chemo once a week—but NO MORE!)”
Here is her question posed as a word problem:
"More often than sex? You better not have to get chemo more often than sex. (Now, remember, I’m middle-aged and married… so “more often than sex” to me means you can have chemo once a week—but NO MORE!)”
Here is her question posed as a word problem:
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