Too Much Cancer

I've just been reading my friend Martha's blog. Marty is our neighbor's daughter, a 36-year old who I've always connected with because she lived in Taiwan and Hong Kong. She has 3 young children, and was just diagnosed with breast cancer, which is at Stage II. Reading her blog is really difficult for me because it reminds me so much of everything we went through with my mom, and she's so young.

I want to say she's going to "beat" the cancer. But the truth is that there is nothing that one does "right" in order to survive, or "wrong" to have it get worse. No one deserves to get it, or is immune from it, and family history or personal habits are not good indicators. Cancer is indiscriminate and impersonal and viciously kills the body that hosts it. But I do know that having love and support can help, and I want to give her as much support as I can.

I also have an on-line friend who I first "met" on a thread about parents with a terminal illness (her father has brain cancer). His cancer has recently progressed to Stage IV, and I have recently met her IRL through a strange set of circumstances, which puts a more immediate face on it as well.

I just wish cancer did not exist.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Oh fuck. I'm so sorry to hear this. :(
April 7, 2008 at 10:42 AM
Anonymous said…
oh yes. this is Jaime
April 7, 2008 at 10:43 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Brutus

Image
In 2019, we were on our way back from spring break when Cheryl, who Beatrix had interned with at GiffyDog, reached out to us about fostering a pomeranian (since she knew Beatrix loved the breed). The day we got back, the person who had been fostering him brought him over. Brutus sauntered in, grabbed a rawhide as long as he was that Coya had been chewing, and settled in next to me in the chair. Patrick says "I knew at that point he was never leaving." And he didn't. He got the name "Brutus Brewpup" when, as we initially had him and thought we should expose him to people who might want to adopt him, we took him out to a taproom and found he LOVED it. Pretty soon, taking him to taprooms turned into a regular pastime. But he liked other things too. He loved Christmas: And Halloween: And springtime: And snow, especially the first snowfall: And really winter in general: He loved to go up to the cabin (and I'm so glad we got to go up this last weekend): And to sun...
Read more

Choosing Happy

Image
This post is brought to you by a few thoughts from yesterday: First and foremost, Patrick's new book that he wrote for Beatrix for her sixteenth birthday. Available for a hot second before we leave for spring break tomorrow. The response of someone he knows on the internet, who wrote yesterday that he had decided years ago that he would never be happy (and reading his posts, he seems to be right.). It was one of the saddest things I've encountered in a long time. A friend's social media post, in which she discusses another person's comment of " I really think a sizable proportion of the population has become addicted to being angry" with the sage response of " I think a lot of them are doing it because it's more enjoyable to be angry than to be depressed." A nd we finally finished watching this season's Fargo last night. I won't give any spoilers, but it's extremely on theme with this post. So this is the deal. There's a lot on ...
Read more

New Year's Eve 2023

Image
I did not want to be laying in bed, wearing a fleece onesie and still shivering, while my husband and daughter headed out to the several wonderful NYE parties we have planned. I have a beautiful new dress that I got in Duluth for tonight, and was looking forward to the collection of friends we would be seeing. Our friend Whitney in particular is throwing the last party at her B and B, and it's breaking my heart not to go. But I feel logey and coughy, and more to the point, I have a low fever, and I don't want to mess around with possibly getting anyone sick. I'm still holding out hope that I'll miraculously feel better and the fever was a mistaken reading, but I doubt that. And I feel lucky to have 3 sets of people who want me in their lives tonight and who I don't want to get sick. As our yoga teacher Viv says, it's not like a page turns and everything is magic. You get some things that are good, and some that are not, and life is living in the middle. -- In 20...
Read more