Cancer Boobs

My name is Karen, and I have cancer.

[cancerboobs]

The only good thing about cancer is I finally have the time and just the right energy to do all the steps of my skin care regime, so my pores look AMAZING

[cancerboobs]

I think about death a lot lately. Can’t help it. Cancer is constantly reminding me of my own mortality at the most inopportune moments. 

Sometimes it’s because I go to a room of our house that I don’t frequent but my husband and son do, and I see that it’s a mess, and I wonder if that’s what the whole house will look like when I die. Sometimes it’s when I lie down and I can feel the energy draining out of every cell in my body, and I wonder, is this what it feels like to die? Maybe it is. And I remember that we’re all dying a little bit, every day.

I imagine that when I die, there’s going to be very little I can do to stop the situation. And that’s a recently unique feeling for me because I’ve spent most of my life depressed and not wanting to be alive. Sometime around the cancer diagnosis, I realized that I actually wanted to live, but may not have the choice. That doesn’t feel very fair, but few things about life are.

By talking about my death, I’m opening the possibility of it into the conversation, and no one wants to have that conversation with me. It’s as if speaking it gives it power. But death has had power the whole time, whether I talk about it or not. The odds are still on my side, but the fact that my cancer is stage 3 out of 4 means my odds of surviving the next 5 or 10 years goes down.  That’s out of my control. Once the chemotherapy and surgery and radiation and hormone treatments have finished, I’m always going to be more likely to develop cancer again. This is a lifetime diagnosis.

All I can do is put my body through the rigors of medicine and treatment, and hope I make it out the other end. There will hopefully be years and years after that of life and love and happiness, but I have to get through this first. 

[cancerboobs]

Deep thoughts

I’ve found that when I’m exhausted but can’t sleep, it’s very helpful to watch Youtube videos of artists working. Lately, this includes hairstyling videos, and I’m wondering what this says about my current state of mind.

Am I appreciating fascinating art? Is it that I miss having hair so much, I watch videos of other people playing with it? Is it providing comfort in a sense of normalcy? Do I miss the times when I was a child and people would play with my hair, and I long for that combination of trust and hope you put into someone when you let them style your hair? I’m not sure. 

Watching the videos is a very calming experience for me, no matter the medium or artist. But I have noticed I look for the hair ones first. Maybe it feels more accessible as an art form because I believe I will have hair again, which means I believe I will get through this. Maybe it’s just a manifestation of me being hopeful for the future. Maybe it’s because Youtube’s algorithm is always suggesting them, and I’m being manipulated by code instead of making my own conscious choices. 

Maybe I need a new hobby.

What do you like to do when you need to relax your mind?

[cancerboobs]

How to Help Someone With Cancer

Do not call me a warrior.

If you do, I know you mean well. I know you are trying to gear me up and get me ready for the battle ahead. The problem is you’re being dismissive of the emotions I am feeling about cancer. The fear, the anger, the sadness. You’re ignoring those feelings and therefore me, and giving me a pep talk I didn’t ask for and may not be ready to hear yet.

You want to say something that makes it better? No words can make it better.  It’s cancer, not a hurt feeling. What I want is for you to acknowledge the pain I’m going through. Tell me it sucks. Tell me you’re sorry I’m going through it. Offer to listen if I want to unload my burdens, or to distract me from them. And accept whichever I choose at the time, or if I decline both. Understand that some days, I want to talk about anything other than cancer, but often it’s the only thing on my mind. 

Don’t ask me to let you know if I need help. That puts the burden on me to think of something for you to do, and frankly I’ve got too many other things to think about. Instead, think of something you can do. If you’re at the grocery store, text and ask if there’s anything you can grab for me while you’re there. Or at the pharmacy. Ask if you can hang out with my kid for a bit so I can have a nap. Or if you can bring food over soon so we don’t need to worry about dinner. If you’re feeling super generous, coordinate for a maid service or food delivery. Because I’m never going to ask anyone for these things on my own, but I’ll always accept kindness.

Offer to take me to a doctor’s appointment. Not just chemo, because there are so many other doctor appointments besides chemo, and my husband can’t take me to every single one and still work full time. There’s chemo, which is 4 hours at a time, then the post-chemo shot 24 hours later, then an hour or more of IV fluids the next day, and the periodic follow-up appointments with oncology and the surgeon and radiologist, not to mention the other non-cancer doctor appointments, which are not rare thanks to chronic high blood pressure, migraines, depression and anxiety, and rheumatoid arthritis. But I can’t always drive myself to them these days, due to the physical symptoms and the chemo-brain.

Ask if you can visit. Send me a card or a text letting me know you’re thinking about me. Cancer is lonely and isolating, and I feel like I can’t reach out to friends because the state of my current existence is a total bummer right now, and I don’t want to make you feel bad, so that makes me feel even more alone. Ask me to do stuff with you. Tell me about that jerk at work. Tell me a joke. Remind me that I’m not alone.

Please help me remember that I am a person, not a disease.

[cancerboobs]

I haven’t written in two years.

Not really, anyway. A scattered sentence here and there, a brief post on social media sometimes, all tucked away in a notebook with the other idea orphans. I used to write copious amounts, thousands of words and pages and posts at a time. But then I ran out of things to say. I became an observer in my own life but stopped being a commentator. I lost the ideas and characters and words, and could only hope they would return.

Then I got cancer.

There are many types and stages that distinguish me from millions of others with cancer, but the thing we all have in common is this gray cloud hanging over us. I have stage 3, mid-grade, E+/P-/HER2-, invasive carcinoma of the right breast. I have cancer.

Emotions came back to me, and so did the words. The ideas and characters still hold back, but in their absence came more words. They’re starting to flood out of me, and this is the only place I can think of to put it.

So this blog is about cancer, and me. It’s about all the things I want to say about having cancer, without the fear of who may read them. This is what having cancer is like for me, with as much or as little detail as I can stand. 

[fnurfnur]

Welp, looks like today is gonna be a crying day

[fnurfnur]

I’m really tired of having a nervous breakdown every morning

[fnurfnur]

Anger

I got my genetic tests back and they’re negative. This should be good news. But after I got the news, I thought, then why the hell do I have cancer? Maybe somehow I thought that if I had the gene, it would explain why I got cancer so young. But now I don’t, and it’s like NOW I’m angry about having cancer.

This isn’t fair. I know that life isn’t fair, but why does cancer have to come with it? Why do I have to go through this? Why does anyone?

[kittenwitchandthebadvibes]

YOUR 👏 SYMPTOMS 👏 ARE NOT 👏 YOUR FAULT

[fnurfnur]

“Love and Support”, 2019. Pencil, marker, paper collage.

I started an art journal to help me work through my breast cancer diagnosis. This piece is about how my mental illness struggles to accept the positive comments and deluge of information.

[thinfatfit]

instagram.com/allwomxnproject

Ericka Hart

[altafpatel]

How to spot signs and symptoms of Breast Cancer 

[fnurfnur]

Hi!

Ok, so that time I said I was going to write on her again? That was the old me. She retired about two weeks ago. The new me is still going to write her, but she’s gonna write about why she changed.

Two weeks ago was when I learned I have breast cancer. Specifically, Invasive Breast Cancer, Estrogen Positive/Progesterone, HER-2 Negative, at least Stage 2. And now, everything is moving so fast that if I don’t write it down, I’ll never fully remember. Because while this time is hard, it’s also funny and life-changing and terrifying and rage-inducing. And like with my mental health, I want to overshare everything to I don’t want others to feel alone (others including old and new me) and I want to share the weird details to give a better picture of what it’s like.

So, yeah. There’s gonna be a lot more activity around here. And if you don’t want to learn an excessive amount about my body (especially my boobs), you should unfollow.