CANCERPUNCH

I am a fat girl, a congenital amputee, and a survivor of triple negative metaplastic breast cancer. In 2011 I suddenly developed severe head-to-toe psoriasis, which cut down my already limited social life. After finally getting medicated for that, I found a lump in my right breast. Then in 2011/2012 I went through five and a half months of chemo, a modified radical mastectomy, seven weeks of radiation, and hospitalization with a staph infection. I have a constellation of other weird health problems too (genetic lottery ugh), so I find simple joy where I can. I have severe anxiety, am socially awkward, and have weird aversions to things like driving and talking on the phone. Btw this is a secondary blog, so if I follow you it will be as corinnajune.tumblr.com

[cancerrific]

So my mom now has triple negative breast cancer

*let me update this, now several years later, that she went through treatment and beat the cancer. She’s still going strong.

[staranisetea-deactivated2016032]

[teachmelittle-deactivated201608]

Nobody gets this 😕

[blue-diam0nd-deactivated2021032]

Nobody gets this and nobody gets how it can lead to a very scary place where you are completely unable to trust your recollection and a lot of people will take advantage of that when they realize it . It’s so hard.

[corinnajune]

Oh yeah, I saw this as I was leaving my appointment on 8/1/16 at Baptist Hospital South in Jacksonville FL

WHAT an ass. Not surprised by the bumper sticker at all 😠

[cancerrific]

Me: [doesn't realize or recognize the severity of the situation I'm in]

Everyone: wow u are so chill about everything

Me, definitely dissociating: lol yeah I just roll with the punches I guess

[12lotus]

white chronically ill folk

i cannot tell you how many times, that people dont think i am chronically ill. because i’m brown. even on tumblr, the amount of people who immediately assume i am not chronically ill because i talk ab racism at the same time.

when i talk ab racism and racism with white spoonies, you all white ppl default to assuming i am not a spoonie myself. that is just. racism like you wouldn’t even know.

if you knew the racism that doctors perpertuate against chronically ill people of colour you would shut the hell up.assuming a nonwhite person talking ab racism with white spoonies to not be chronically ill is a form of racist medical violence

.you’re not better than the doctors who laugh at us and say we’re just lazy or that we try to milk the medical system like fuck all of you.i see to many of you like this and none of you hold yourselves accountable

[12lotus]

this is ok to reblog even if you are not chronically ill but i would like other chronically ill people, esp white spoonies to reblog this please. there is a huge amount of racism with the spoonie community and its never really addressed

[cancerrific]

Had a new type of anxiety dream last night- I was mistakenly arrested and convicted of a crime because the authorities would not believe all my pill prescriptions were legit Wtf? My usual anxiety dreams in recent years are some variation of - I'm failing classes at some school because I can't remember my schedule or where my classes are - I have caged pets in a room in my house, and they are dying because I forgot about them Heh Other anxiety dreams have included - mom disappears while driving car down a scary highway/ or disappears while out in a crowded public place/ mom dying (these were when I was a kid obvs) - TORNADOS - plane crashes (usually witnessed from the ground) ... So this nobody-believes-me-but-I'm-innocent dream was new Hmm

[cancerrific]

Feeling kind of vaguely crappy and annoyed Been having bruisy feeling stabby pains in my only boob, and a couple of times this weekend I got dizzy/started to black out when changing positions, and a little while ago I had random stabby kidney pain At least I finally seem to be getting over the nasty dental abscess I've been dealing with since mid summer! I need a new body ugh

[corinnajune]

This is a friend of mine from my cancer support group. She’s an awesome person and is in need of a little financial help. Please share/ signal boost even if you can’t donate

[zoeylamoureaux]

Los Angeles–based designer Emily McDowell was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 24, enduring nine months of chemo and radiation before going into remission.

“The most difficult part of my illness wasn’t losing my hair, or being erroneously called ‘sir’ by Starbucks baristas, or sickness from chemo,” McDowell writes on her website. “It was the loneliness and isolation I felt when many of my close friends and family members disappeared because they didn’t know what to say, or said the absolute wrong thing without realizing it.”

The 38-year-old designer has been cancer-free ever since. But the emotional impact of the experience lingered, inspiring her to design a newly launched series of Empathy Cards—emotionally direct greeting cards that say the things she wanted to hear when she was ill.

The blurbs about each card are great to read (click on the photos), as is the Slate article describing the inspiration for the card line

[thraenthraen-blog]

Autism Awareness Failed Me

I was aware of autism five years before I even started to consider that I could be autistic. It was six years of that awareness before I was diagnosed by a doctor who knew autism is a lot more complicated and varied than what fits neatly into “autism awareness” campaigns. I was never like the poster children for autism, who are white, cisgender boys (never adults) from (upper)middle-class families. I didn’t think I could be autistic until I found what actual autistic people had to say about autism.

Autism awareness, at least as it currently exists, fails a large segment of the autistic population. Most people aren’t white, cisgender boys. We need awareness that includes atypical autism traits. If I or my family had read that list of traits when I was fifteen, I might have realised I’m autistic a lot sooner and found the resources and support I need much sooner, too.

My autistic traits are atypical, and they’re full of contradiction. I’m intelligent and even good at language, even metaphorical and idiomatic language, but sometimes I can’t remember how to form sentences or forget words for everyday things like chairs or my own native language just starts to sound like complete gibberish. I struggle to answer “how are you?” but I’m often complimented on my self-awareness and understanding of both my own and other’s emotions. The tiniest sounds can distract me or give me a headache, but sometimes I can’t even hear someone shouting my name. Autism is inconsistent. It’s complicated.

If you want to know what autism looks like, if you want to spread real awareness, then you need to listen to the people who know autism best: autistic people. Maybe this “Autism Awareness Month,” instead of wearing blue, walking to raise money for a dangerous organisation, sharing stories meant to incite fear or pity, or putting blue ribbons on everything out of the irrational belief that ribbons solve everything (seriously, stop it; ribbons don’t cure cancer either)–instead of spreading unhelpful awareness created by non-autistic people, you can help spread and deepen awareness of what autism actually is by reading and sharing the accounts of actual autistic people.

I’m starting by picking up a copy of Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking, written and published by autistic people (autisticadvocacy, to be more specific). Click here to find it at an independent bookshop near you on IndieBound. Or see if a library near you has it.

[cancerrific]

YEP

[cancerrific]

Ok so I've had recurring unpleasant pains for a week now, maybe I should do a thing

[cancerrific]

Welp, back to that random waking-up-with-body-wide-pain thing -_-

[cancerrific]

CONGRATULATIONS! :D

Thanks :D

[cancerrific]

The mass consists of benign lipomas I don't have more cancer :D

[cancerrific]

I have feelings but not sure what they are yet

[cancerrific]

Pet scan in about 10 hours Nervous about what it will find :/