potato chips

No, I don’t trust my body

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

The big fad nowadays in health–and trust me, when you have cancer, EVERYONE tells you about the latest health crazes–is to listen to your body because its signals will lead you to health. The idea is, your body knows what’s good for it and what’s bad for it, so if you just listen closely to it, your body will tell you what it’s supposed to be eating and doing and whatever.

Yeah, right. This is the body that tells me to eat the entire bag of chocolate and the entire bag of potato chips when I am menstruating. It knows what’s best for me? Chocolate and salt is what’s best for me? Really?

This is the body that decided to spit out my son 3 months early, because, who the fuck knows why. That’s what was best for me? To try to kill my baby?

This is the body that decided to start making cells that will literally kill me, and it, if left to its own devices. That’s what’s best for me? To kill me?

My body has betrayed me in ways that have caused me more emotional pain than I hope anyone ever has to bear. I see my body as a necessary evil that I must keep to survive, but it is not on my side, and it lies to me every day. It said “You don’t feel sick, that lump can’t be cancer.” It said “That chemo is killing you, don’t you see how sick it’s making you? You have to stop this!” My body is either an idiot or a cruel, sadistic bastard.

No, I don’t trust my body. I don’t trust it for one second.

I had an awesome dream

Posted on by Beth Caldwell

This post is a total non-sequeter, but I had the coolest dream the other night when I was all chemo’d out. I was at the Oscars, except, they were honoring TV shows, not movies, but it was definitely Oscars people were getting. I wonder if that’s my brain’s commentary on how TV is becoming way more interesting and with better story-telling than movies?

Anyway, at the start of the event, there were tables like at the Golden Globes, like with people eating dinner and getting drunk, but halfway through it turned into theater style seating. And my seat was next to Meryl Streep, who I ADORE. She was looking gorgeous in a red corset gown and she was eating a bag of potato chips. The producers of the show could hear her bag rustling and were like “WHO THE FUCK IS EATING POTATO CHIPS DIDN’T WE JUST FEED YOU DINNER THAT BAG IS TOO LOUD” so she surreptitiously dumped the chips into a bowl under her seat and kept sneakily eating them. And I turned to her and quietly sang “Did you ever know that your potato chips are my hero?”

And without missing a beat she said “They are the wind beneath your wings. You want some?” And then we were best friends and we drank wine and laughed at the reality TV stars that were getting awards while she anxiously waited to hear if her project was going to win…but I woke up before we found out.

Meryl, if you like wine and potato chips, as a scene in Postcards from the Edge suggested you might, and cheesy references to Bette Middler songs, look me up because I think we could be kindred spirits. Also, I really hope you win your TV Oscar someday.