Fucking Cancer

BRRREEEEAAAAASSSSSTTTTTTSSSSSS

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

Jesus, pinktober, would you just fucking end already? No? Alright, then let’s talk about sexualization of cancer. You started this, pinktober, and now I’m going to finish it.

Yes, hetero male world, we know–you love breasts. You just do. I get that. That’s why they’re fucking EVERYWHERE. You’re like fucking zombies only instead of looking for bbbbrrraaaaaiiiiiiinnnssss, you’re looking for BRRREEEEAAAAASSSSSTTTTTTSSSSSS.

But here is the thing about my breast cancer: it’s not in my breast anymore. Because I don’t HAVE that breast anymore. It’s been cut off. Still turned on?
No? Of course not, because making cancer about breasts is FUCKING CREEPY. Seriously, it’s cancer for the love of Christ. It’s not hot.

Except during pinktober. Because pinktober isn’t about people with cancer. It’s about marketing. It’s about selling t-shirts and making your fracking company seem less evil for destroying the planet and making people sick. Because breasts are sexy, and sex sells, and sex also distracts people from the shitty things your company does. Who can think about the carcinogens you’re pumping into our water supply when they’ve got breasts to think about? BRRREEEEAAAAASSSSSTTTTTTSSSSSS.

Ever wonder why there isn’t a month for esophageal cancer awareness? Have you ever SEEN a photo of an esophagus? Was it sexy? No? There you have it.

What really gets me about slogans like “save the boobies” and “cop a feel” and all the other “Hahaha, I am so witty, I made breast cancer into a sexy joke” crap that happens every October is that it doesn’t seem to be about keeping women alive or curing disease. It’s about breasts, and how important they are to heterosexual men, and shouldn’t we do something to save the breasts, because BRRREEEEAAAAASSSSSTTTTTTSSSSSS. Where are the people attached to those breasts in those conversations? Oh right, we’re NOT in those conversations, because women are nothing more than the sum of our parts. Parts that sometimes get cut off as part of our treatment for cancer. And we can’t have that happening, can we? Because BRRREEEEAAAAASSSSSTTTTTTSSSSSS are what’s important, not the people they are attached to.

I have a feeling that’s also why there is such a focus on early detection. It doesn’t ACTUALLY save lives, if you look at the data. But if you find your cancer early, you might get to have a lumpectomy instead of a mastectomy, and then your booby is saved. And what’s more important than saving BRRREEEEAAAAASSSSSTTTTTTSSSSSS? Certainly not research that saves actual lives. Lives are boring–boobs are hot.

Look. I know there are people in the marketing world who aren’t assholes. I know at least some of you must have a fucking conscience. Men of Madison Avenue, please stop living up to your stereotype, and for the love of all that is holy, just stop making my cancer into some creepy sex fetish thing. It’s fucking gross.

On Anger

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

When I first got diagnosed with cancer, I was fucking pissed. I feel like people say “I was fucking pissed” and sometimes what they mean is, “I was seriously annoyed.” As in “That dude stole the parking spot I was waiting for, I was fucking pissed.” That’s not what I mean by fucking pissed. I mean FUCKING PISSED. Rage-filled, shaking with anger, ready to beat the shit out of those asshole cancer cells. I think I actually frightened my oncologist when I explained to him how I’m channeling Frank Underwood from House of Cards and that I was going to (spoiler alert if you’re one of the 5 people on earth who haven’t seen Season 2 yet) calmly push my cancer in front of a metro train and walk away. Because, when I’m fucking pissed, it’s a little bit terrifying.

Now, though? It’s been more than 6 months since my diagnosis, and I’m not mad anymore. I’m just not. Disappointed? Yes. Frustrated? Often. Scared? Hells yeah. But angry? Not really. And when I read stuff about cancer being a war, and like, really angry “I am going to fuck you up, stupid asshole cancer” posts, like, I don’t know. It just doesn’t resonate with me anymore.

And I think maybe part of it is this: there are wars like World War II, where we went in, we fucked up the Nazis and Japan, and those who survived came home. (Mostly. I mean, there are still bases in Germany and Japan, but like, nobody is shooting at anybody there anymore.) That’s what non-metastatic, non-recurrent cancer is like. You go in, you fuck cancer up, and you’re like “Goodbye asshole.” Remission is permanent for the majority of people with breast cancer. The Nazis never came back. Oh sure, you’ve gotta be vigilant and take your meds and watch out for those Neo-Nazis who think they can somehow bring about a Fourth Reich, and you’ve got to deal with the emotional trauma that your battle caused you, which I don’t mean to minimize at all, because PTSD is no joke. But facing death isn’t part of your daily existence anymore. It’s easier to stay pissed off during a battle of that duration, to sustain your anger.

Then there are wars like the ones we’ve been fighting near the Persian Gulf. I mean, we fought the first Gulf War, and we were like, “Hooray, it’s over, we won, and it was relatively easy!” And then 10 years later, oh wait, we have to back and do it again, only this time, it’s an ugly 8-year slog. And then 3 years after we get out of that mess, oh look, we’re headed back there again. That’s what cancer that recurs is like. You get all the PTSD and none of the “but you don’t have to take poison ever again” benefits that the WWII vets got. I don’t personally know anyone who’s had a recurrence, so, I’m not really sure if the anger comes back with a recurrence–those of you who have been there, tell us in the comments.

And then there are wars like the war on drugs. It just goes on and on and on, and it’s not likely to end in my lifetime. And everyone sort of forgets it’s going on anymore unless there’s like a big battle between the cartels or something, because, it’s just part of the background noise of our lives. That’s what metastatic cancer is like. It’s hard to stay angry when you know it’s just going to keep on going. Rage isn’t a big part of my world anymore (other than when I get shots that make me go hormone-insane). It’s just too hard to sustain that level of anger when you know it’s just never going to be over.

I think anger can be useful. It motivates people to take action, like, if Lucy Burns hadn’t been angry, she never would have accomplished all she did. But as a patient, there’s only so far my anger can take me. And frankly, I’m gonna be living with cancer for the rest of my life. I don’t want to live the rest of my life feeling pissed off all the time. But even if I did want to be angry, it’s just not there anymore.

I feel like that sounds defeatist. I think there is an expectation when we talk about badass cancer warriors that we’re supposed to be like some rageaholics drill sergeant screaming in cancer’s face or something. There are a lot of things cancer patients are supposed to be–bald, sickly-looking, but self-confident, positive, but not too positive, there has to be room for rage too. But 6 months of this shit, I have learned that cancer looks different on every person that has it. Just like every parent is different, and our choices are informed by our circumstances, every cancer patient is different, and there is no right way to look or feel.

One of my favorite cancer books is Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person, by Miriam Engleberg. She says all this better than I do, and you should read her book.

Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

As we continue the long uncomfortable slog through Pinktober, where nearly every day brings a new crassly marketed product, we now find ourselves on the 13th, which is the day we dedicate to learning about metastatic breast cancer. For those of you who haven’t been reading my blog for a while, metastatic breast cancer is the kind I have, where the cancer has spread outside your breast area and attached itself to other body parts. In my case, we’re talking bones, but it can attach to all sorts of other places too.

Last week I became a traitor to the breast cancer community by saying I don’t think breast cancer should have its own month. Today I become a traitor to the metastatic breast cancer community by saying that I am really uncomfortable about this whole metastatic awareness thing. Before everyone gets their pitch forks, let me explain.

The Boy was a preemie, and I do a lot of stuff around World Prematurity Day, because there are still waaaaaay too many doctors performing medically unnecessary early inductions and c-sections, and the consequences to babies born early are real. So, it’s important that women become aware of those risks, so they can tell their doctors to go fuck themselves when they suggest a medically unnecessary induction at 38 weeks. (Obviously I am not talking about the ones that ARE medically necessary. I’m talking about “I’ll be on vacation next week, so let’s get that baby out now.” Yes, that stuff still goes on. A lot.) Awareness about prematurity is important because pregnant women actually can make choices that improve health outcomes for their babies.

Metastatic breast cancer, however, is not something you can prevent with more knowledge. Like, there is literally so little we know about metastatic breast cancer still, that there is nothing I can suggest you do to prevent it. I mean, eat healthy, exercise, whatever you do to hopefully reduce your risk of cancer generally? All that is good stuff, but none of it will guarantee you don’t get breast cancer, and none of it guarantees that your cancer won’t become metastatic. Even breast cancers caught early can and do come back years later as metastatic breast cancer. In fact, roughly 1 in 4 women who have early stage breast cancer will later develop metastatic breast cancer. Why? Nobody fucking knows. So, what good is awareness of metastatic breast cancer going to do you if we don’t even know how to prevent it?

Besides, what I, a person with metastatic breast cancer, need is not awareness. What I need is some scientist to figure out a cure, or at least, a way to keep me alive that doesn’t involve nausea, making my hair fall out, or mood swings that terrify everyone around me. Research is fucking expensive, and we know all that the pink shit you see at the store isn’t going to actually fund much research–it’s mostly going to pointless awareness campaigns that do nothing to help people like me. Actually, it’s mostly going to line the pockets of the person selling it, and a tiny portion is going to awareness campaigns that do nothing to help people like me.

So, I’m going to pretend that what today is really about isn’t awareness of my flavor of cancer. It’s awareness of organizations that fund metastatic breast cancer research–so you know where to send your money to make sure it actually helps people with metastatic breast cancer. If you are interested in donating to the cause of breast cancer, please don’t just go out and buy pink crap–it’s too hard to know if your money is going to research or not. Instead, donate to one of the organizations listed below (note: they did not ask me to write about them) or to another organization that funds metastatic breast cancer research. We’re the ones dying–cancer that remains in the breast will not kill you, it’s when it turns metastatic that shit gets real–and our cut of the research pie is smaller than our percentage of people with breast cancer.

First up is the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. They do just what it sounds like–raise money and spend it on breast cancer research, including metastatic breast cancer research. 88% of what they raise goes to research. That’s a shitload more to research than the big breast cancer charity whose name I will not mention for fear of them suing me. Don’t laugh, they seriously sue people for saying “for the cure” without permission. Oh fuck, now I’m going to get sued…oh well, then I guess I might as well mention that they also spend a way smaller portion of their money on research than most people realize. BRCF, on the other hand, funds research.

Next is the Mary Kay Foundation. These guys have two causes: domestic violence prevention, and women’s cancer research. This year alone, they gave to 4, count ’em, FOUR metastatic breast cancer research projects. You can donate directly (and earmark the money for cancer research, although domestic violence prevention is a pretty damn important cause too), or if you really must shop this pinktober, you can talk to your friend who sells Mary Kay stuff about products that have proceeds going to the Mary Kay Foundation.

Now, if you are curious about metastatic breast cancer and just want to know more, even though there is no information that will help you avoid this shitty condition? Well hey, I have a resource for that too. It’s the Metastatic Breast Cancer Network, and there’s tons of info on their website. I always find something interesting on their Facebook page, too. Their mission is to advocate for folks with metastatic breast cancer, like me. Your dollars won’t be wasted there either if you wanted to send some their way, but they’ll be spent on advocacy for people with metastatic breast cancer, rather than directly on research.

Just a couple more weeks of pinktober to suffer through. I think I can I think I can…

Worst Wife Ever Moment: Medically Induced Menopause

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

Small cancer update: I had my radiation, it’s done, and now I am waiting for the effects of radiation to go away so I can have a PET CT to see how much cancer is left. That’ll take a couple months, so in the meantime, I am taking an aromatase inhibitor called anastrozole, and I had a shot called leuprolide that shuts down my ovaries so they stop making the estrogen that my cancer loves so much. Which means, I had a shot that suddenly put me into menopause. Like, I had chemo-induced menopause already, but now, it’s like, all of a sudden, for real.

This is the point where the people who live with someone who is menopausal say “Instant menopause?!?! HOLY FUCK RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!”

Two days after the shot, after a particularly ugly-crying session just before bed, I sent my oncologist this email:

“Holy mood swings Batman! How long can I expect to be riding the crazy train from that injection? (The Hubs is really hoping the answer is ‘not much longer.’ Poor guy has a cold AND an insane wife.)”

My oncologist asked for details and asked if I had already begun taking the anastrozole, so I wrote this back.

“Lemme see, like, unreasonably angry about things that I know I am being unreasonably angry about but I am still angry, then crying because I am an asshole for being unreasonably angry, then laughing at myself for crying. Like, in the span of 5 minutes. Hubs, does that about cover it?

Yep, taking the anastrozole. (Which my iPad wanted to autocorrect to astrodome. Which is absurdly funny to me right now. Don’t worry, I’ll be unreasonably angry again here in a minute or two.)

-Beth”

Like, I am not even making that up. That’s literally what went through my brain. It was like the worst PMS I ever had, multiplied by infinity. One of the things that made me angry? That The Hubs had a cold. As if he got one on purpose? The amazing part is how, as I said, I knew I was being unreasonably angry. Like, the rational part of my brain was still there going “Damn, girl, you CRAZY” while the rest of my brain was like “SHUT UP I AM NOT CRAZY…OH FUCK MAYBE I AM CRAZY, I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON…HAHAHA I AM CRAZY HAHAHA!”

What. The. Fuck.

Maybe it’s not quite this dramatic for people who do this naturally. Otherwise, I am confused why our prisons aren’t more full of menopausal women who murdered their husbands because they got a cold. Like, for reals, you guys, this shit is not for sissies.

Anyway, after reading that crazy, my doctor was clearly terrified that I had turned into some kind of rage-bear and decided he’d better make sure nobody got mauled. I mean, who wouldn’t be terrified by my email? I obviously wasn’t kidding about going round the bend. So he wrote back a very kind “please don’t hate me for constantly making you feel like shit” email with some proposed solutions. (You know, it’s gotta be hard being an oncologist, because, yeah, all the treatments they have at least come with the possibility of making you feel like shit, and frankly, most of the ones I’ve had actually HAVE made me feel like shit.)

We exchanged a coupe more emails about my hopefully temporary insanity before the whole email conversation devolved into The Hubs and my doctor and I exchanging Youtube clips to express ideas. Because we’re all GenXers and we communicate via postmodernism. (If you can express complex ideas using nothing but YouTube clips and animated gifs, you were probably born between 1960 and 1980.) My favorite is this gem that my doctor shared. You’re welcome.

The good news is, after another day, the mood swings subsided, and nobody was murdered. The bad news is, there is a very real possibility this shit could happen again at some point in my treatment. Everyone should now send their condolences, along with protective gear, to The Hubs.

Fuck Off, Pinktober

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

This is my first breast cancer awareness month as someone with cancer, but already I hate it. I mean, I REALLY fucking hate it. It brings out all the cancersplainers, and Jesus, the marketing.

When I was pregnant with The Boy, I obsessed over which baby things to buy. Which car seat was best? Which crib? Which stroller? Which baby bottles? I felt like if I chose wrong, everyone would think I was a bad mom. And conversely, if I got it right, everyone would know I was an awesome mom. Which was crap, of course, but marketing is powerful stuff.

It feels the same with all this pink stuff in October. As if you have to buy shit with pink ribbons on it so you can prove you are a good person who is supporting cancer patients like me. Or even more absurdly, post pink ribbons on Facebook and Twitter to “raise awareness.”

Look, if you are my friend, I know you care. I know it because you brought us dinner when I had chemo, or offered to take the kids on a play date, or made me a quilt, or sent me a note saying you were thinking of me. You don’t have to get with the pink marketing to prove you hate cancer. I already know you do.

Besides, barely any of the money you spend on pink crap is going to the research to cure my cancer. The little bit that actually flows to real cancer charities is often spent on education and awareness programs. And of the few dollars going to research, only a tiny fraction goes to metastatic research. I mean, thanks for the hundredth of a cent from that $3 bottle of water you bought and all…but if you want to buy a $1 bottle without a pink ribbon instead, I won’t be offended.

And posting that pink ribbon to your Facebook page? Yeah, that does nothing. Seriously, is there anyone left on the planet who isn’t aware of breast cancer? Like, seriously, we need a whole month of pink ribbons and inspirational Facebook posts to make us go “oh wow, I had no idea you could get cancer in your breast until I saw that pink ribbon in my news feed”? Seriously?

Also, and maybe this makes me kind of a traitor to the breast cancer world, but I don’t see why breast cancer needs its own marketing separate from other cancers. Like, I have tumors on my bones too. Cancer is cancer. As Reverend Al Sharpton said, “The most insane thing for sick people to do is to lay up in the hospital debating about who’s the sickest. We all need to unite and get well together.” When we single out one type of cancer for special treatment, it divides our community, instead of helping us all get well together.

I could go on, but this blogger really said it better than I could have. Go read her words, and then feel free to change your profile picture back from that pink ribbon to a picture of your kids covered in finger paint. Because THAT picture will really make this cancer patient smile.

Little pieces of me

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

Did you ever see the movie Boxing Helena? Please don’t go seeking it out if you haven’t, because, man, that is one fucked up movie. The basic storyline is that it’s about a woman whose captor cuts off parts of her body one at a time. She literally becomes smaller and smaller. That movie has been on my mind recently as a metaphor for what having cancer has been like, because I keep losing pieces of myself. Let’s make a list, shall we? These are in chronological order.

1. My hair. First it went from long to short, then it went from short to gone. It’s growing back now, for now, until more IV chemo happens and it falls out again. In the meantime I am left with a pixie cut that lots of people compliment me on, but I hate. Because it wasn’t my choice. I won’t be growing my hair long ever again, because the shed with long hair was so awful, and I know the odds of me needing chemo in the future are so high. From now on, I will have short hair.

2. My menstrual cycle. The last time Aunt Flo visited was in May. This isn’t actually a bad thing, since I had no interest in kids and I hated my extremely heavy period, but it has meant hot flashes and vaginal dryness, neither of which are awesome.

3. My sex drive. It left with Aunt Flo.

4. My breast. It has gone to the big medical incinerator in the sky.

5. My nonchalance about my appearance. I never used to think or care much about how I looked. That was before I was bald and missing a breast.

6. My job. I used to be a civil rights lawyer, and I’m not anymore. Technically I am still a lawyer, since I still have a license, but I’m not a practicing one. Being a civil rights lawyer was something I was really proud of, and that’s gone now.

7. My ability to engage in everyday conversations with regular human beings without making them feel awkward. Tell me about the new hair style you are considering and I will tell you how I hate my hair style because of cancer. Tell me about the new job you are applying for and I may clam up because it hurts to talk about careers when mine was taken from me. Talking about what the kids will be when they are grown up is like stabbing me in the gut and I may start crying, which is really awkward.

Every time I lose another thing to cancer, I wonder how many more pieces of me I can lose before I cease to be me. And if I’m not me anymore, what will I be then?

But my real fear isn’t so much about what I’ll become. It’s that I will lose all these little pieces of me, and then die from cancer anyway. That I will lose so many of the things that make me who I am, for nothing. On my darkest days, that’s the thought that cripples me.

And yet, what choice do I have? Because, cancer has taken that also, my ability to choose. I have no choice but to keep up the treatments and try to stay alive as long as I can. The only alternative to losing so much is losing everything.

Goodbye, Hooker Wagon

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

I briefly had a blog several years ago about my experiences riding the bus to and from work. As I have shared before, I live in a neighborhood directly adjacent to a major road that has a lot of no-tell motels, and thus a lot of seriously sketchy individuals. This means the bus that runs down that road, which goes to downtown Seattle and to my (former) office, has a lot of sketchy individuals riding it. I’ve learned valuable lessons on that bus, such as “Don’t get kicked out of rehab in winter, if you’re living on the street, your heroin could freeze.” And it’s provided a shitload of free entertainment over the years. I often referred to that bus as The Hooker Wagon.

Perhaps the most memorable of my rides, though, came on my last day of work. I went in for a half day of paperwork and I took The Boy with me–first, because school hadn’t started up yet, and second, because it was his last chance to come to work with Mom before she “retired.” So, on the way home, we were riding the bus during midday, rather than during typical commuting hours. This meant that the ratio of commuters to hookers/drug addicts heavily favored the hookers/drug addicts.

The Boy selected a pair of seats for us near the back of the bus. Now, if you have ever ridden a bus with a high ratio of hookers/drug addicts on it, you know that the back is probably an extremely poor choice of seats, unless you want to learn where to score some meth. But, to be fair, that was the only spot on the bus with two open seats together. And, the seats he picked were directly in front of another family, with two kids, so at least he wouldn’t be the only kid learning where to score some meth? So, to the back we went. I immediately pulled out his earphones–the kind that cancel out some noise, thankfully–and an iPad, and plugged him into his electronics for the long ride home.

In the very back, a few seats away from us, sat a woman who was high. Or, I hope she was high, and not just totally inappropriate–she was certainly loud, and used a lot of profanity. At least, she did at first. Then a few stops later, she realized there were kids on the bus, and then she very loudly apologized for using profanity. I smiled at her as if to say “Dude, he has me for a mom, he knows the swears, it’s cool. Also, noise-canceling headphones.”

The next stop, a couple of methadone clinic patrons got on the bus. I know they were methadone clinic patrons because they were discussing their methadone clinic. Now, High Woman was SHOCKED! SHOCKED! that they would discuss drug use in front of The Children, so she did her version of Mrs. Lovejoy and yelled “Hey fuckwads, stop talking about drugs, don’t you fuckers see there are kids on this bus, show some fucking respect!” The Methadone Man and his friend were like “Dude, chill out, we’re just talking about methadone” and High Woman was all “Everybody knows you talkin’ ’bout drugs, show some fucking respect!” She kept using that word “respect.” I don’t think it means what she thinks it means.

Luckily, before keeping it real could go wrong, she got off the bus, and at that same stop, a friend of Methadone Man got on the bus. He seemed like he might have been mildly stoned? (It’s legal here!) He was happy to see Methadone Man and his friend, and the three of them chatted about football for a while–the Seahawks were playing Green Bay the next day, so they were disagreeing in a friendly way about who was going to win. Mildly Stoned Guy turned to me and said, “You know anything about football?” And I said, “Just a little” and he said, “You know what happened with Green Bay last year, right? With that bad call? I think they gonna be hungry.” And I said, “Like we were after that call for the Steelers in the Super Bowl, it made us want it more the next year.” And he turns to his friends and says, “SEE?!?! She gets it! That’s what I’ve been saying this whole bus ride!” And we all laughed.

They talked football a bit more and then Mildly Stoned Guy says, “Hey, are you a prosecutor or a defense lawyer?” And I thought “Wow, do I really look that much like a lawyer? Just as I’m quitting, I finally nailed the look.” And I said, “Neither, actually, I’m an education lawyer. Or I was, today was my last day, I quit.” And he said, “Can I ask why?” And I said, “Yeah, I have cancer.” And they all said how sorry they were, and Methadone Man said, “Hey, I had cancer, in my liver. They found it in the joint. I’ve been well for 10 years now.” I told him that was great, and asked if they gave him good medical care inside, and he said, “Yeah, it was great, actually!”

We chatted some more until it was our stop, and Methadone Man asked me my name, and said he’d be praying for me. I thanked him, and when we got off the bus, The Boy said, “Why did he ask you your name?” And I said, “Because he wanted to pray for me, isn’t that nice?” And The Boy said, “What was his name?” And I said, “How rude of me, I forgot to ask him! Next time we see him, we’ll ask him.”

But, I won’t be riding the Hooker Wagon much anymore, let alone riding it with The Boy. So, Methadone Man, if you’re reading this, I am sorry I forgot to ask you your name, and I hope your cancer stays in remission. Also, I was wrong about Green Bay, they must not have been hungry after all.

Returning to Cancerland

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

Before the mastectomy, I approached my cancer treatment with enthusiasm. I mean, chemo sucks, and radiation makes you tired and sunburnt, but killing cancer kicks ass, and I was just so happy to be doing SOMETHING. Having cancer is kind of like having a cockroach infestation–the first one you find, you’re like “OH FUCK KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT RIGHT NOW OMG SO GROSS” and you just want the exterminator to come over and get rid of the roaches RIGHT THIS MINUTE. So, you’re happy to get chemo, because it’s like having an exterminator come in and clean things out. Same with radiation. When that exterminator shows up, you’re elated. You practically leap through the oncology department’s doors on your way to your first round of chemo.

That’s what happened the first time I had treatment. Then the mastectomy happened, and that was really emotionally traumatizing and it almost broke me. But then I had this long break before starting radiation and chemo again. And during that break, I slowly got back to a normal energy level, and my hair started to grow back, and I started to feel like me again.

But now I am headed back into treatment, this time six weeks of radiation with chemo in pill form during those six weeks. And maybe more IV chemo after that. It’s like having the roaches come back–and metastatic cancer means those cancer roaches always come back–and because you’ve already been through the roach experience before, you’re not freaking the fuck out like you did the first time around. Instead of doing a happy dance when the exterminator comes, you’re more like, “Hey, thanks man. I mean, I wish I didn’t need you to be here again because I had hoped we were done with all these poisonous chemicals and shit, but I guess not. Sigh.”

So, it’s hard to muster the enthusiasm I had with the first go-round of treatment. I’m starting to realize that for whatever time I have left, which I hope will be a long time, I am probably going to be doing this crap over and over again, and the break I just got is going to be more of an exception than a norm. It’s hard to get excited about treatment when it’s now my default setting.

But, excited or not, here I go again, back into Cancerland, because honestly, I can’t live in a house filled with roaches. That’s just creepy. So, I’m shaking my oncologist’s hand, giving him a pair of “My Oncologist is my Homeboy” beer glasses as a wedding gift, and saying “Alrighty, let’s go kill some shit.” As Frank Underwood says: let the butchery begin. Again.

Enjoy Every Moment Redux

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

Last year, I wrote a post about how I hate when people tell you to enjoy “every moment because they grow up so fast.” And since The Cancer, as my worldview has become increasingly unique, I have begun to hate it even more, for two reasons.

First, as I explained in my post last year, it’s absurd to expect moms to enjoy even the shitty moments with their small kids. It’s absurd to tell me to enjoy the moment when I have to tell The Girl that I can’t pick her up because my arm is still too sore after my mastectomy. It’s absurd to tell me to enjoy the moment when The Boy acts out because he isn’t getting enough time with me, because I am too tired from the chemo.

When I actually do have an enjoyable moment with the kids, even those are tainted by The Cancer. I think to myself, “I am so grateful to have this moment, because I know I will feel like shit again soon.” Yep, that’s how fucked up this experience is, that even when you’re happy, there’s this layer of sadness underneath it. The NICU was like that too–even in a victory where The Boy made progress, they were victories because of how shitty the situation was. The good felt so good because of the bad that came before it.

Second, my kids are not growing up fast enough. I don’t mean that I wish my kids would be more worldly or act older than they are, because that would suck. I just mean that even in the best case scenario for my illness, I don’t have as much time left in my life as your average mom. I will be really lucky to see them both graduate from high school, and that has become my dream, the thing I long for more than anything else–to see them both to adulthood. And that feels like it’s so. painfully. far. away. Especially when The Girl STILL is not interested in being fully potty trained. They aren’t growing up so fast–they are growing up so slowly.

I feel like when you have cancer, you’re supposed to be all positive and really get the most out of every day and all that shit. Like, you know, that cancer is supposed to make it so you don’t waste a moment of your life because you don’t know for sure how many moments you have left. For me, that’s just not how cancer makes me feel. I’m not cashing out my bank account and going on that vacation I always dreamed of, or whatever. Because the thing is, it’s not like the rest of life stops when you have cancer. Your kids still pee on the couch and spill finger paint all over the kitchen. Your spouse still gets a cold or throws out his back. There is still a mortgage.

And lots of days, I just don’t even feel like going on that vacation anyway. I just feel like sitting in my recliner and playing 100 games of solitaire, to distract me from The Cancer. Sometimes being distracted is the best I can hope for. Expecting enjoyment from me is just unrealistic right now.

And the thing is, every parent has reasons to not be happy sometimes. Most aren’t as dramatic as cancer, but the everyday grind of life can be pretty darn hard. And in this world of smiling advertisements and Xanax and being grateful every day, we also need to make room for us to feel sad sometimes. It needs to be OK to be sad, not just when you have cancer, but whenever the situation warrants sadness.

“Enjoy every moment” tells people it’s not OK to be sad. But it IS OK. It’s normal, and human, and perfectly OK to be sad sometimes.

What will do you with your time when you aren’t working?

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

When I decided to take a disability retirement from my job so I could focus on killing cancer, I had a lot of people ask me what I would do with all my free time, or ask me if I was going to be bored without a job. I think that’s because people don’t realize how time-consuming it is to be a cancer patient. It took 4 weeks to recover from surgery, then the following week when I was supposed to just be back at work, I had 3 doctor appointments, each lasting over an hour. Also, I’m not just a cancer patient, I’m also a mom, so, you know, all that “why is my house a disaster area, there is so much to clean up” stuff that goes along with having small children? I got all that to do to. I’m really going from 3 jobs (mom, lawyer, cancer patient) down to two. Which is plenty, thankyouverymuch.

But then I realized I wasn’t thinking outside the box enough, and I should come up with a list of things I was going to do with all that imaginary free time, so when people ask me, this is what I will say.

1. Become a professional internet troll. You know that asshole who posts incendiary comments on your local newspaper’s website, the ones that get everyone all riled up and arguing? That’s gonna be me. I’m currently researching racist and sexist things to say, such as “That black kid was asking to be shot by wearing baggy pants” and “How will that woman juggle a CEO job and kids?”

2. Pinterest. Seriously, all of it, I’m going to make all that shit, every single pin. Especially this. And these.

3. Take over the PTSA. ALL THE POWER WILL BE MINE. You may think that sounds like a hard and mostly thankless job, and you would be right, but hear me out. The Boy goes to school in a really affluent neighborhood (that I don’t live in) and they raise a lot of money. That could buy me a lot of trips to Tahiti, oops, I mean, a lot of wonderful things for the kids.

4. Become a connoisseur of Jerry Springer. I briefly experimented with this during the government shutdown last year, but I literally could only take 10 minutes of it before I had to turn it off. It’s going to take a serious training regimen to be able to watch a whole episode, but now I’ll have the time to do it.

5. Organic gardening. HAHAHAHA, that was a joke, have you seen my yard?

6. Learn to play the autoharp. I was inspired by watching Walk the Line–if it’s good enough for June Carter Cash, it’s good enough for me! And now The Hubs knows what to get me for Christmas.

7. Try out all the insane cancer cures that people have shared with me since I got diagnosed, and blog about them. I think I’ll start with “smelling farts will cure your cancer.”

I’m out of ideas, but someone’s gotta help me fill up all that free time when I’m not in a doctor’s office or unconscious from chemo fatigue–so share your ideas in the comments!