Marcia Strassman, 66, died of metastatic breast cancer this Pinktober.
October is over, and with it maybe some of the extra pink. Joan Lunden waved in the month on the Today Show, all over Rockefeller Centre Plaza with many, many bald-headed women in pink—and the network invited bald women, but only bald women, to join her (read Katherine’s post “Hey Joan Lunden: Stage IV Wants More! in her blog Ihatebreastcancer). Joan has triple negative breast cancer, my breast cancer. A woman whom I only knew through a common friend, but who gave me a wig in my first month of baldness, died this month of triple negative. She had 10 years of treatment.
Tessa came back from her 78-day visitor’s visa to Kostroma, Russia, and her biggest shock was cancer-shock—the pink, the news stories in every medium. In one of my guilty TV watches, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Amber celebrated her five-year mark of surviving breast cancer with a topless photoshoot (some shots were of scars down her back). Netflix viewing this month included the last years of Nip/Tuck and Christian’s breast cancer, complete with his support group. Marcia Strassman, the stunning woman above, who played many roles including that of Julie on Welcome Back, Kotter, died this month of metastatic breast cancer. She was diagnosed in 2007 with Stage IV invasive lobular carcinoma that had already spread to her bones. Drug therapy, then a lumpectomy, then more drugs. She was on treatment for seven years before breast cancer killed her. She was fully public with her metastatic disease, speaking and fundraising and showing that people do live with cancer until it finally takes them. Pink is so freaking perky for a disease that grinds you down until you stop altogether.
Last post, I said I would post the writings of others who say how I feel about pink October. This is the best one: “I survived breast cancer, but I hate Breast Cancer Awareness Month,” by Leah Nurik in The Washington Post. I thank the Cancer Curmudgeon and her blog Anotheronewiththecancer for finding it and passing it on.
A view of Kostroma, Russia, taken by Yuriy Chulkov, not Tessa. I’ll post her photos in a later entry.
I have almost finished writing the thank-you notes for donations in my father’s name. We had Thanksgiving dinner in Stratford, the first of a whole year of “firsts” without Dad. When it came to siting at the table, there was his chair at one end, opposite my mother at the other end, and as the eldest child, I guessed that I should sit in his place. I had never sat at the end of that table. When we were all seated, it was me who said we should say grace, and then I said we should hold hands. I thought Juli might choke, but at the time, it seemed the right thing to do. I woke three times that night crying and screaming, but couldn’t remember a single dream.
I started a 10-week exercise program—Healthy Steps Lebed Method at Princess Margaret/Toronto General—that concentrates on the lymphatic system. I had 15 lymph nodes removed during my partial mastectomy, so that lymphatic system needs to work as smoothly as possible. All of these classes have flattened me—each Wednesday I have slept from 4 or 5 in the afternoon straight through to the next morning. It doesn’t say much about my fitness! Fatigue is my enemy now, as is chemo brain, or chemotherapy-related cognitive dysfunction, as a seminar I attended calls it. Tessa attended with me. She had thought we would get the skinny on this condition at the seminar, but we really just got an excellent overview on what I have already experienced.
Lonnnnngest caaaption in my blog thus far: A map shows the front of the brain with bright yellow and lime green hues predominating along the left half of the brain medially. This region corresponds to the left superior medial frontal gyrus, the part of the brain known for its role in prioritizing thoughts and actions. The bright yellow and lime green hues in the left superior medial frontal gyrus sharply contrast the cool blue hues in the same region on the right side. The brain uses glucose as its energy supply. The bright colours represent large decreases in glucose usage by the brain. Chemotherapy can induce changes in the brain that may affect concentration and memory, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Using positron emission tomography combined with computed tomography (PET/CT), researchers were able to detect physiological evidence of chemo brain, a common side effect in patients undergoing chemotherapy for cancer treatment. http://www2.rsna.org/timssnet/Media/pressreleases/pr_target.cfm?id=629
Wait and see. That’s what my oncologist and psychiatrist say. Like just about everything in life, that’s easier said than done. Right now, I am waiting on the results of my first mammogram since last November. Next week I see my oncology surgeon one day (he will tell me how the mammogram looks) and my plastic surgeon on another (she will tell me how I’m proceeding to the next surgery—how things are settling in each breast, and how much smaller the right one is than the left one—to me the difference is very noticeable). Radiation has made the right one smaller and it continues to shrink even now, and it hurts all the time—my oncologist says “radiation is the gift that keeps on giving!” Well, as far as I’m concerned, it can back the fuck off. I really, really don’t want another operation there.
And I have started my own year of cancerversaries. When Graydon had leukaemia, the other mothers on my list serves and I called them crapversaries. October 21 was the one-year crapversary of finding my lumps under my right arm during a Monday-morning shower. I knew it was cancer, I told my GP it was, and off I went to start 11 weeks of testing to confirm my paranoid, but correct, self-diagnosis.
Last, but by no means least, November 5 is Bring Our Grade 9 Kids to Work Day, and I am not back at work yet. Luka might have mentioned this a week or more ago, and like anything that I do not write down several places, it slipped away until he produced a form that needs signing now. That’s next Wednesday. So, if you are reading this, live in the GTA, and can have Luka shadow you at work this Wednesday (I will cover lunch, deliver him and pick him up), please let me know ASAP here, or call me at home, or on my cell, or email me at jacquelynwv@yahoo.com. This is a huge program that has run since 199r, and has support nation-wide. Luka is clever and cute and will not show up looking like this unless you request it:
Seriously. He can come in his navy and grey Bishop Allen Academy uniform. Quite dashing. I know he’s secretly happy he won’t have to watch me edit for eight hours. He could do a half day if you can’t have him for a whole day. And he is skilled at coffee runs.
Appy-polly-loggies for the bolshy post.
Filed under: breast cancer, breast-conserving surgery, health matters, mental health, partial mastectomy, radiation, radiation side effects, school stuff, surgery, triple negative breast cancer | Tagged: anxiety, bald women, breast cancer, chemo side effects, emotional stuff, exercise, Graydon, hate that cancer, healthy steps, Joan Lunden, lebed method, Luka, Marcia Strassman, mental health, Princess Margaret Hospital, Tessa, Toronto General Hospital, triple negative breast cancer | 5 Comments »
Mom (with cancer, twice) blog: It's Because I Said So! 