Kathi

So, here’s a little of what’s changed, what hasn’t, and what I’ve learned in 65 years. And in the right-hand photo, it’s obvious that I stopped having it colored about three years ago. Between then and now, I was diagnosed with breast cancer; treated for it; gained about twenty pounds because of the fatigue, the tamoxifen, and other collateral damage; got rid of ten pounds with arduous effort; got stuck with the last ten pounds for what seemed like forever; and then finally lost those last ten pounds in the past couple of years. ’s derriere than I did twenty years ago, but that I am a lot more certain about what is and what is not worth caring about.

On October 1st, the same day I was told my latest mammogram was negative, I found out that a friend, sister blogger, and breast cancer activist had just died of metastatic breast cancer. This same friend’s sister died of metastatic breast cancer right before Christmas in 2015, so she, like me, is not a fan of the pinkified merchandising of breast cancer in October. And finally, I got an email telling me about a memorial service that will take place next weekend, the day after Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day, for another dear friend who died of MBC almost a year ago. The last thing I want to do today is go out and get a copy of the radiologist’s report on last week’s mammogram, to find out exactly how dense my breast tissue was perceived to be this time around, and then to contemplate whether or not, despite the negative mammogram, I need to go talk to one of my doctors about getting another breast MRI.

On October 1st, the same day I was told my latest mammogram was negative, I found out that a friend, sister blogger, and breast cancer activist had just died of metastatic breast cancer. This same friend’s sister died of metastatic breast cancer right before Christmas in 2015, so she, like me, is not a fan of the pinkified merchandising of breast cancer in October. And finally, I got an email telling me about a memorial service that will take place next weekend, the day after Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day, for another dear friend who died of MBC almost a year ago. The last thing I want to do today is go out and get a copy of the radiologist’s report on last week’s mammogram, to find out exactly how dense my breast tissue was perceived to be this time around, and then to contemplate whether or not, despite the negative mammogram, I need to go talk to one of my doctors about getting another breast MRI.

You’d think, in the age of patient portals and electronic medical records, that even cancer would generate less paper. When you’re single and have cancer, this is how you cope with stuff you can’t cope with, because you can barely cope with the stuff you have to cope with. I’d watched them by then, but the memory of how I came to possess them went into that slush pile that our brains seem to create the instant we are traumatized by a cancer diagnosis. It was hardly surprising then that I’d forgotten something as trivial as a credit card bill for a box of DVD’s.