Someday, we'll look back and laugh

Cancer Wordle

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:48:00 +0000

I made this out of words from this blog.

Cancer treatment flow chart

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 19:54:00 +0000

A friend sent this to me yesterday. It's so true. Sad, but true.

(Here's the link if you want to see it on xkcd, where it originated.)

Recuperation

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 03:28:00 +0000

It has almost been a week since surgery and I can definitely summarize it in one word: ow.

I was starting to feel very down about how slow the recovery has been. I was successfully off prescription painkillers on Sunday, but then had a major setback Monday and have been needing them since. For me, getting off painkillers is significant. Of course, it means my pain level is less, but it also means I sleep better (prescription painkillers screw up my sleep), can think more clearly and can get back to work at least for a few hours at a time.

So, it has been hugely disappointing that I'm not feeling well at this point. Then, my surgical nurse called with some test results today, asked how I was doing and said, "You know, a lymph node dissection is the hardest surgery you've had."

REALLY? "Harder than a lumpectomy, even harder than a mastectomy. It is really a painful surgery."

I was so relieved. I had been thinking this, even saying it to people, but it was hard to believe - thinking maybe my memories of the other surgeries had gotten fuzzy with time. But I seem to recall going back to work (from home) for a few hours a day a week after my second mastectomy.

Really.

Everyone around me acts like I'm a bad-ass for doing this, but I'm really not. After every surgery, I went back when I could hack it. I took naps when I couldn't. I took Tylenol as needed and it made me feel better. Sure, I could have taken a few weeks off and relaxed, but I was terrified of not being able to feed my kid and pay my mortgage. Times have not changed.

In fact, with each surgery or procedure I've endured, I've become decidedly more wimpy. It took them an hour to find a vein to start an IV before surgery last week. And when they did, it was the top of my foot. The last thing I remember before they knocked me out was not the anesthesiologist telling me to "count backward from 10" or to "say the alphabet backward," but me very loudly crying "SHIT" and "FUCK" as my foot was probed and the young assistant surgeon patting my arm and telling me I'd feel better in a second.

I'm not hesitating to take the medicine I need to control pain, but it's disappointing. I'm bored, depressed and need to get back to work.

So, it was a relief to hear today that this is normal. This surgery sucks. Think: very sensitive area with lots of nerve endings and several muscle groups coming together. Many movements set off the pain.

Furthermore, I still have a drain and probably will until Monday or Tuesday. The nurse confirmed - as I had suspected - that the drain in this super sensitive area is aggravating the pain. I have to get below 30ml of drainage in a day. Today was 120ml, down from 245ml the day I came home. Ugh.

I shouldn't complain, but I would like this to feel better now.

The results are in ... mostly
The nurse also shared the results of my pathology from the surgery. Of the 31 lymph nodes removed, two were positive for cancer - the largest measuring 2.1 cm. I take this as a good sign. :)

My tumor is ER/PR+, which is the same as the original, but the HER2 expression is not yet clear. This is different from the original in 2006, when I was HER2-. They are now doing what is called the FISH test for further evaluation. If it is positive, that will indicate a change in my tumor (which is possible when a tumor leaves it's original location) and I will end up with Herceptin as part of my treatment plan. I don't really see this as good or bad; it's just an important thing to know for treatment. If it has changed, it would also indicate a level of aggressiveness that would help explain the recurrence (after surgery, chemo and tamoxifen).

I see my surgeon and oncologist on Aug. 12 and will have a full treatment plan then. My educated guess is radiation (starting soon), ovarian ablation (soon), an AI and, if HER2/FISH is positive, Herceptin.

I will try to remember to explain this better next time. I'm too fuzzy right now to explain it all.

Weeds wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 03:08:00 +0000

Weeds is my absolutely, positively all-time favorite TV show ever. It is funny, dark, surreal, shocking and exciting. And it has great musical taste. It makes me want to start a business selling pot - all the way up until people start getting shot. Then, it just makes me grateful I don't have to sell pot.

On the first season of Weeds (which you can find on Netflix), the rude, obnoxious desperate housewife Celia is diagnosed with breast cancer. Shane, the younger son of the main character (a woman who has a thriving drug business in order to make ends meet following her husband's untimely death) is struggling with the loss of his dad. The two cop a squat on a curb and have a little chat.

Celia: Everyone thinks I've lost my mind.

Shane: Everyone thinks I'm weird.

Celia: Well, I can see how you might give that impression.

Shane: I really don't care what they think.

Celia: Good for you! Let your freak flag fly! ... I've recently stopped giving a shit what anyone thinks and, I gotta tell ya, I feel great.

Shane: But you have cancer!

Celia: And you have a dead father. Both of us make people really uncomfortable. There is no way around it. So, we can feel all self-conscious and pretend like everything is normal or we can just be our strange selves.

Shane: Thanks Mrs. Hodes.

Celia: For what?

Shane: For telling me the truth.

Celia: You are welcome. It's a bitch, though, ain't it?

It is a bitch. I have surgery tomorrow (Thursday) at noon to remove the first and second level axillary lymph nodes on my right side to get the cancer out. It would be awesome if that's all there is. I'm not sure I can get any weirder.

The good of it

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 02:48:00 +0000

Hey! The next time you hear someone say breast cancer is cured after five years, go ahead and punch them in the face for me, would ya?

After five years, three months and two weeks, I've been diagnosed with a recurrence in my lymph nodes.

First, the bad news: five years ago, I didn't have lymph node involvement. Having lymph node involvement now means the disease has progressed. Having cancer show up after complete removal of my breasts and serious-ass "fire in the veins" chemotherapy means this beast ain't playing around.

Now, the good news: after a multitude of scans in May and June, when crippling back pain scared doctors into trying to find some cancer (which turned out to be my little ol', no-longer-present gall bladder) and a chest CT today, it does not appear I have breast cancer anywhere else.

I've been noticing these lymph nodes for about a year. I've shared these elusive lumps with my doctors, but no one felt they were a concern. Then, late last fall, I had some intense swelling in my armpit. At first, I got gravely concerned, but then when the swelling got really big overnight, I realized it couldn't possibly be cancer. I nearly didn't go to the doctor, but then the pain from it got to be a bit much and I decided it was at least an infection that needed attention. She felt the same way and gave me antibiotics.

It went away quickly, but then returned soon after the antibiotics were done. Another round of those. Then, a few weeks after those, when the swelling was gone, I discovered some hard, painful lumps deep in my armpit. I asked my doctor to take another look and she felt I needed an ultrasound.

This was December. Due to the swelling (which went away), we took a wait and see approach to the ultrasound results. I repeated it in May (during the hunt for what turned out to be my gall bladder) at which time the radiologist suggested I come back in one month and, if there was no change, I should get a biopsy. I did. The biopsy happened June 29. I got the phone call last Friday (July 1). I saw my oncologist today.

Actually, today was like this: 8:30 a.m. oncologist; 9:30-11 a.m. frantic messages to friends; 11 a.m. CT scan of chest; 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m sleeping on a waiting room couch and trying to keep my extremely sleep deprived (to the point of drunken behavior) boyfriend from telling inappropriate jokes in public; 12:30 p.m. met with my onc nurse (who was relaying info from the doc) that said the CT scan had good news; 1 p.m. lunch; 2 p.m. met with a breast surgeon; 4:30 p.m. told my daughter the news (see more below).

It has been an exhausting day.

Andy was the hero of my day, though. When I was sent for the CT scan but before it happened, we were killing time in the cafeteria and he was ruminating about why we couldn't get the results of the CT that day. He made great points, but I didn't have the emotional energy to deal with trying to convince the staff to let us see the doc again. So, I told him to go for it. Five minutes later, I receive a text from him a floor away that I would see the doctor at 12:30! This absolutely changed my whole day and probably saved my weekend - heck, it may have saved me from a week of anxiety.

And his sleep-drunkeness was very entertaining. Keep him awake for 48 hours sometime and see.

So, what's the plan?

First, I'll have my first and second level lymph nodes removed. That will be later this month, but not sure exactly when yet. Then, I'll have radiation.

I will also need ovarian ablation - which means either surgical removal of the ovaries or chemical shutdown. As hard as it is for me to say this, I'm probably going to opt for surgical removal. With shutdown, I run the risk of it not being completely effective. Furthermore, it will need to be shutdown for years. So many years that it won't make sense to ever restart them.

Why do I need this? I'm on the drug Tamoxifen, which is intended to prevent recurrences. Obviously, that didn't work out so well for me. Tamoxifen is the only maintenance drug for pre-menopausal women. There are several other better options for post-menopausal women. Ovaries produce estrogen and my cancer was estrogen-positive, meaning estrogen feeds it. Cut off the estrogen and the cancer finds it harder to live. Cut off the estrogen and I'm forced into menopause, which gives me the options of more drugs to fight any cancer that manages to live.

That part sucks a lot for me. I don't want to be post-menopausal for a million reasons, not the least of which are that it's not that healthy for someone my age. Estrogen gives you healthier bones. Healthier heart. Youthful skin and hair. Functioning lady parts. The mood issues with "instant" menopause are not small. Ok, I'm not going to dwell on this right now because I will get really upset, but I'm sure you get the picture. It sucks. I'll do it because I have to do it, but it blows chunks.

Chemo is also possible, but it's not definite. I should know more about that in another week or so. I'm really not that worried about it either way. My biggest fear was that it was more advanced than my lymph nodes. It appears to be only there, which is wonderful news! I'm going to live to show this asshole who is boss.

I told my daughter, Colleen, about this tonight and she was amazing. AMAZING. She kept saying, "I'm not really scared. I don't know why, but I'm just not." While I was talking to her about the surgery, she interrupted me and said, "Then, will you have radiation?" I laughed and said, "Yeah, that's exactly what happens next. How did you know that?" Books, of course. She told me all about Marisa having radiation in The Cancer Vixen. She makes me laugh so much! I hope she is a doctor when she grows up. An artistic doctor who creates the art that hangs on her office walls.

She really has been very unconcerned about this news. My parents were here and she listened to us talk about details a bit and also listened to me on the phone, asked me some small questions and really seems fine. I am really OK, which I am sure helps! I'm just so freaking relieved to have a clear chest CT, this all seems manageable to me now. Of course, that means Colleen thinks it is, too.

So, that's my story. The worst part of the last week has been trying to keep this quiet until I knew a bit more. Once I started sharing it with friends today, I had an immediate sense that it was totally manageable. :) I'm so glad I have you all, even those far away. One of the most important things in cancer treatment is having a supportive community around you - and I'm so grateful to have that!

Five years ain't just a Bowie song

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 04:49:00 +0000

Let's get something out of the way right now: five years of surviving ER+ breast cancer don't mean jack.

Yeah, surviving means something.

Yes, every passing year is nice. Krikey, after a cancer diagnosis, every passing day is nice. Five years without flat-out passing is even more spectacular.

But five years doesn't mean I'm cured. It doesn't really mean much at all when you are ER+. My risk went down following chemo, following surgery, following tamoxifen, following about a two-or-maybe-three year wait. Then, my recurrence risk stabilized and will stay at the same rate forever.

Forever.

(I was going to cite some statistics for you, but revisiting some sites right now to get that information, I thought I was going to puke. A few years ago, I was numb to that feeling. I could still look up stats and share them. Not right now. A few years ago, I was still cancer drunk. Still blogging very regularly. Still immersed in the info. Today, I have a few years of of cancer sobriety under my belt and I can feel again. I would like to keep it that way. For now. Someday, I will probably be able to regain a healthy relationship with medical statistics, but not today.)

Now, while I know the risk remains the same for me forever, I don't think that really puts me in a different category from all other types of breast cancer survivorship. While it does from a medical standpoint (in my very own category, as we all are unique patients), I think it would be true to say if you are surviving a breast cancer diagnosis - probably any cancer diagnosis - for the rest of your life, every twinge and pain and icky feeling gets a heightened level of concern.

Pain in my back? I get sent for a bone scan.

Generally bad feeling and other vague symptoms? Let's check my liver enzymes.

Lumps in my armpit? Let's run, not walk, to the nearest sonogram machine.

On an average day, I probably think of cancer about five times, down from an all-time high of a 100 percent focus on breast cancer from March 17, 2006, until about October 2006. Not a single day goes by that I don't think of it. It's really hard to forget. I have this giant mirror in my bathroom that shows my reflection as I get into the shower. I have a scar that runs from my left armpit, across my breast, to the center of my chest, skips about two inches, picks up again, goes across the other breast and runs into my right armpit. And I can feel nothing in the area formerly known as breasts. It's surprising how annoying a persistent lack of feeling can be in any part of your body, especially since it's not a body part I need to walk or type or move my head or anything else important like that. It's certainly not essential that I feel the area formerly known as breasts, but it's annoying that I can't.

So, I am unlikely to stop having daily thoughts about breast cancer until the day I stop thinking. It's a part of me as much as the color of my eyes.

At some point in the last five years, the risk become meaningless. I used to know, off the top of my head, all of my statistics, all of my health numbers. I could have told you my exact risk. I even faked a medical degree to get access to a personalized statistical tool. (Not nearly as dangerous as that sounds. It took two seconds.) But at some point in the last five years, the exact risk stopped mattering. The risk, you see, is no longer "the thing." The risk is just the risk.

The thing is that I have the risk at all. That's the thing. That I went from being someone who hardly thought of cancer to someone who has to think of it - a lot. I went from assuming if I ever got cancer it would be when I was old to being someone whose cancer risk put her left expectancy worse than people I thought were old. Consider that. Let it sink it. Yeah, that is the thing.

In this ramp up to my absolutely, positively meaningless five year breast cancer diagnosis anniversary, I have been thinking about cancer a lot.

I have been thinking about how stupid it is to think about it.

I have been thinking about the rollercoaster of it all and re-experiencing the rollercoaster of it all. It has been all I could do to keep myself from a full-scale meltdown, which I ultimately might not succeed in resisting. (As of this moment, I'm still a few hours away from D-Day: Diagnosis Day. Who knows? By the time you read this, I might be drowning my sorrows in some green Peeps or dancing around accusing people of being after my Lucky Charms. That's what I imagine a full scale St. Patrick's Day meltdown looks like for me.)

I have been thinking about how insane the last five years of my life have been, how most of it is a story that will never get told and how some of it is a story I had better start writing before I forget. I have been incessantly dissecting how much of it was ever really related to breast cancer and how much was not.

I have been thinking about all of my friends who have died. I have been painfully missing them. I've been really sorry that you didn't get to meet them. I've been trying to remember the names of some women I didn't know well. I've been really sad for the ones I never knew. I've been feeling so guilty. So, so, so guilty that I am here and they are not. The randomness of this disease is horrifying.

I've been thinking how glad I am I got to know any of those women. How glad I am for all of the women I know now and how they get in me in ways I can't explain. I wish you all could have that experience without having cancer.

I have been constantly taking stock of the last five years and wondering why some of it went the way it did. Parts of it were fleeting and I am sorry they were. I want to reclaim some of that time. For the life of me, I can not figure out why I stopped roller skating. That needs remedied.

In all of the reliving, I've been feeling emotions I haven't felt in years and wondering how I can make them go away faster. It's not that I don't want to deal with them, but I feel like I have. I'm just re-experiencing, so those emotions feel strange - they are out of time, out of context. They need to be gone. Their time is done.

I have been thinking this and so much more. It's exhausting, all of this thinking. It makes me cry. Then, I try not to cry and trying not to cry takes a lot of energy. I try to think about happy things and those make me cry. I try to think about nothing and then I just want to sleep. I have never been very good at meditating. It just seems like a convenient time to take a nap. Exhausting.

I believe - goodness, I hope - this is going to melt away in a few days. If there is one bit of wisdom I have gathered in the last few years it's that everything passes. Every damn thing. I know this is going to be earth-shattering information to some of you - some of you won't even be in a place to hear it - but this is a truth that took me about 36 years and stupid cancer and rotten divorce to realize: worry is a choice. Anxiety, fear, most any negative feelings - they are choices. I know, right? It's stupid and it's true. These are not legacies we have to carry with us. We get to choose whether we have those feelings or not. Most of the time, I just choose not to have them any more. But there are times - like this - when I can't make that magic decision work. So, the best thing I've figured out to take a deep breath and wait. It will pass.

So far this absolutely passive plan of mine has been working.

I survived cancer and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

Here is a brief list of some of the things that have happened to me since March 17, 2006, in no particular order except how I thought of them:

I was diagnosed with cancer.
I had four months of chemo, lost all of my hair, almost couldn't walk by the end.
I had seven surgeries.
I had an estimated 60 doctor's appointments, but that figure might be low. Definitely more like 150 with visits to the cancer therapist.
I realized I have the best friends in the world.
I watched my daughter start kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade and fourth grade. (Just started crying. See how that is working?)
My father-in-law died from cancer.
I won a trip to Rome by a random drawing of co-workers and I can still hear them screaming through the phone.
I went to Rome and it was awesome. I walked up the Spanish Steps twice and almost didn't make it the second time and it was awesome. I got lost walking around Rome and it was awesome. I got front row seats for the canonization of Saint Mother Theodore Guerin and it was awesome. I got flat-ass drunk with nuns and it was awesome.
I walked around Rome nearly bald and I thought I looked great because I was so excited to have a thick layer of peach fuzz, but pictures don't lie.
I got separated and I thought my whole world had fallen apart. I got divorced, too.
My hair grew back and it was super soft and curly. I loved it!
I realized that I probably won't have more children.
I traveled to Washington, D.C., Jacksonville, Fla, Dallas, Nashville, Atlanta, Philadelphia (twice), N.J. (via NY and Philly), Orlando, Fla. (twice), Palm Springs, L.A., Las Vegas, Chicago, New York, Key West, Kansas City and various Midwest cities.
I ate a cheesesteak and a pretzel in Philly.
I had water ice.
I saw Celine Dion in concert and lost my little mind.
I saw AC/DC in concert and lost my voice.
I sang karaoke for the first time by myself and didn't pass out.
I started dancing (for fun not profit) again and hanging out in bars where dancing was encouraged.
I went to a drag show.
I went to another drag show.
I met new friends.
I reconnected with old friends.
I met a man who was much too young for me.
I told him that no matter how much I liked him, he was never going to meet my daughter.
I introduced him to my daughter.
I told him that I loved him first and I didn't give a poop if he said it back or not. I had nothing to lose.
He said it back.
I embraced having nothing to lose. I made a lifestyle out of nothing to lose.
My house went into foreclosure. I didn't panic. I cried, but I didn't panic. I had several plans mapped out, including living out of my car.
I waited a lot and finally got a modification on my mortgage.
I filed (am filing) bankruptcy, which is something that ranks right up there with divorce on the list of things I never wanted to do. I'm going to survive it, too.
I was on the Today Show. I was in the crowd who stood outside, but I have video evidence that I was there.
I learned how to text message during a mini-crisis where I couldn't find my BFF in a bar and phone calls were not helping.
On the day I learned my ex-husband was moving in with his girlfriend, I drank an entire bottle of Merlot, drunk-texted many people and puked.
I no longer drink Merlot. I still text.
I met a porn star.
I just thought of the title of my book, "From canonization of a saint to hanging out with a porn star: how I survived cancer." Yes? No? I think yes.
I went to Las Vegas and totally forgot to gamble.
I went to DisneyWorld!! It would be more accurate to say my sweetie treated my daughter and me to a vacation at Disney. It was awesome.
I almost got heat stroke at Epcot. It was still awesome.
I drove from Indianapolis to Key West with my boyfriend and we picked up a man named Huff on the way. It took almost exactly 24 hours.
Huff talks a lot - about really fascinating things - and talks really fast. In the middle of one of his really interesting stories where I was hanging on every word (serious, no sarcasm - he has great stories), he said, "And then this happened and this happened and that and IS THAT A FUCKING ZEBRA?!?!?" Sure enough, there was a fucking zebra alongside the road - a real live one, and another, and another. Pastures for miles and there were cows, horses and, suddenly, zebras. Totally random zebras. I think I laughed for an hour straight after the zebra pronouncement and, months later, Andy and I are always asking each other if we just saw a fucking zebra.
I got to see sweet chickens and roosters and the Hemingway House and the Hemingway cats with extra toes and two sides of an island and the Truman White House and cute little lizards and an amazing sunrise and a sunset wedding and a wild thunderstorm and Key West is my new favorite place in the whole wide world.
I went to a Miranda Cosgrove concert for my daughter - and I liked it.
I went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and drove my sister crazy using my down home country music voice to declare we were in "Nashville, Tennessee, home of the Country Music Hall of Fame!" repeatedly and without regard to those passing by.
My sister then retaliated by telling me it was easy to climb this 142-story jungle gym to see the lookout over Nashville. And I did it.
I got certified to become a sex ed teacher for adults. Yep. I sure did.
So many more things that I can't remember at 1 a.m., aren't fit for print or I choose to keep for myself. :)

Because I know Tim McGraw would appreciate my down home country music voice

This came on my radio today. It has been ages since I heard it and I don't think I ever realized what it was about until today.

So, from me to you, just a little video with a hot man in a black leather cowboy hat to remind you that you don't need to have cancer to live like it.

Are you a survivor with a story to share?

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 22:34:00 +0000

Living Beyond Breast Cancer is seeking people to interview for their Spring 2011 issue of Insight newsletter. If you are a woman who is willing to share her story and who:

had or has inflammatory breast cancer
is an African-American woman with breast cancer
is a woman living with metastatic cancer
used physical rehabilitation after surgery
or used complementary or alternative medicine during cancer treatment

they may be interested in speaking to you. See additional details below from their recent e-mail. They want to hear from you by Jan. 12, 2011!

Inflammatory Breast Cancer
An article in our next issue will help women and providers learn more about the symptoms, treatment and impact of inflammatory breast cancer. We seek 2-3 women who have or had IBC to share their stories. We hope to find women of diverse ages, experiences and backgrounds. If this sounds like you, please send an e-mail to janine@lbbc.org by Wednesday, Jan. 12, with your name, age, where you live, the number of years since your diagnosis and a few sentences about why you want to participate in the article.

Share Your Story

Are you an African-American woman who was diagnosed with breast cancer before age 45? Motivate and inspire others by sharing your story! If you are interested in being profiled in a future issue of our newsletter or on our website, drop an email to Anna at editor@lbbc.org by Wednesday, Jan. 12, with your name, age, where you live, the stage of your breast cancer diagnosis, the number of years since your diagnosis and a few sentences about your breast cancer journey. Please put “Profile” in your subject line.

We are also seeking women living with metastatic breast cancer to share their stories in their own words. In a special section of the next issue, we'll give you 750 words to write about anything you want! If you like, our editor will help you narrow down your idea. Your story is due on Friday, Jan. 21. To be considered, write to Anna at editor@lbbc.org by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 12, and let her know your name, where you live, your age, how long you've been living with stage IV breast cancer, and a general idea of what you'd like to write about.

Physical Rehabilitation After Surgery

Did you use physical rehabilitation to help you recover after breast cancer surgery? We want to hear from you! Tell us how physical rehabilitation helped you maintain your endurance and stamina. If you lifted weights to build strength in your arms and chest before surgery in addition to engaging in physical rehabilitation after surgery, we also want to hear your views. Did you recover quickly, and were you helped by working out prior to surgery? What practical things did you do before and after surgery to promote healing and recovery?

To be considered, write to Robin Warshaw at robinwarshaw1@verizon.net by 5:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Jan. 12. In your email, tell Robin your name, age, where you live, the number of years since your diagnosis and why you’d like to be interviewed for this article. Please put “Physical Rehab” in your subject line.

Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Physical Approaches to Wellness

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has become a popular way to manage treatment side effects and improve quality of life. Our next issue will feature an article on how to augment traditional treatments using physical approaches to complementary medicine. We're seeking 2-3 women living with metastatic disease who have used yoga, yoga therapy, Tai Chi, Ch'i Kung (Q'i Gong), Reiki or other physical approaches to complementary medicine to share their stories and insights. We hope to find women of diverse ages, experiences and backgrounds. If this sounds of interest to you, kindly send an e-mail to michael@lbbc.org by Wednesday, Jan. 12, with your name, age, where you live, the number of years since your diagnosis and a few sentences about why you want to participate in the

Forwarding texts won't donate money

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:05:00 +0000

A friend of mine sent me this text message yesterday and asked me if I knew whether it was legitimate or not:

Msg: I know what your saying. Im not sending that it dont work. Well im  asking you why not try? If you have unlimited txt do just because you  can. What if it was ur grandmother, ur mother, daughter, sister, niece,  aunt, cousin or ur best friend who had breast cancer? How would u feel?  Everytime this message is sent ur carrier will donate $1 to the Susan G.  Komen foundation. Verizon, Sprint/Nextel, Tmobile, AT&T, and  MetroPCS are all taking part in this race so please fwd this back to me  and every1 in ur phone if u have a heart! If u can send all the nasty  fwds then u can surely send this. it'll take 10 seconds of ur time.  PLEASE FWD!! EVERYONE!!!! (life is a blessing) 

My first thought was, "impossible. You can't track text messages from one person to another, unless maybe you are a sexy actor on CSI. Cue rock music and emo shots with high-tech sparkly things. And, for God's sake, people, can someone wipe some of the Vaseline off Marg Helgenberger's camera?"

I really said that all out loud.

My second thought was that I should check on Snopes.com to see what they knew about it. If you don't know about Snopes, you should. They know EVERYTHING. The site has been around for 14 years. They are well-known as fair, honest people who focus on facts. It's a husband and wife team who are total information and research geeks. They rock. They make gullible people like me look like I have my shit together.

Snopes has heard of it. The text message is a hoax.

However, if you would like to donate to Komen using text message, you may text "Komen" to 90999 and $10 will be charged to your cell phone bill. YOUR bill, not the cell carrier.

You may also donate to Komen by credit card here. If you want to do things the old-fashioned way and write a check and mail it, you can do that, too.

For those who don't know, Komen is "the largest source of nonprofit funds dedicated to the fight against breast cancer in the world," according to their website. During my own journey with breast cancer, I have found the Komen website to be one of the best resources for factual information and, very often, a starting point for my research for this blog.

(An aside: their website seems to be all kinds of jacked up today. It might be a breast cancer awareness month traffic jam.)

I'm not always a fan of Komen - I have definitely been opposed to some of their corporate partnerships in the past. However, I think when you become an organization of their size, you can't make all of the people happy all of the time. Despite my occasional beef with them, I still think they are a great organization. The money you send them is used to fund a huge amount of the breast cancer research in this country. I'll be writing a bit more later this month about Komen Race for the Cure and what I like about it.

You have my permission to buy this t-shirt

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 12:15:00 +0000

If you think I mention that people should be wary of buying products in support of a cause a lot on my blog, you should try being around me. I'm even sick of how much I mention pink marketing.

Just be smart. Not everything with a pink ribbon or bathed in pink is actually a company that supports a breast cancer cause. And, if they do, it's usually not as much as you would think. And, sometimes, your purchase doesn't actually change how much they do or don't donate. Just understand this process. Finally, I also think there are better things you can do with your money - like write a check (no matter how small) directly to a breast cancer (or other) organization that you support.

Of course there are other reasons to buy those products. I know this. Just really be aware. Not just "oh, it's breast cancer awareness month," but go above and beyond in your awareness.

This t-shirt from Urban Outfitters honors the life of Kristen Martinez, who was involved in my favorite organization, the Young Survival Coalition, and was a 15-year employee of Urban Outfitters. She died in June after surviving Stage IV breast cancer for four years. She was 36 years old.

100% of the proceeds from the purchase of this shirt go to the Young Survival Coalition. One hundred percent.

If you aren't in need of a t-shirt right now, how about you head right on over to the Young Survival Coalition website and make a donation. You don't even have to write a check. They take credit cards.

And thank you for supporting this cause. I really don't know how I would have made it through my treatment without them.

Beth's video - because it's awesome!

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:55:00 +0000

My friend Beth has a passion for "breast cancer awareness" the way I do: in your face, asking "what are you really doing about this crap?" kind of awareness.

I write. She likes to make videos. Her videos make me cry buckets.

Some of it is the music. Some of it is that I know what a sweet person she is and how much she wants something, ANYTHING to happen to make sure no more of our friends die. It's such a helpless feeling.

(You'll see me at 3:40 in the video.)

This video makes me cry for lots of reasons.

1. I know almost all of these women and I know almost all of them are leading full, happy lives right now. This makes me cry tears of joy.

2. They are so beautiful. I don't know how any woman can see this video and ever worry about being bald. These women make it look so damn good! It makes me sad, though, to think about how very painful treatment is on many levels.

3. I know most of them have ongoing problems (mostly small, some very big) from treatment. Me included. That sucks.

4. I miss my friends who have died. A lot.

You can also see Beth's YouTube channel for more videos. I highly recommend watching the one that tells her story here. It's worth the 12 minutes.

Know thyself & hire good doctors

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 11:44:00 +0000

Probably some of the weirdest and most confusing breast cancer studies of recent years are the findings that breast self-exams are not as beneficial as once believed. I have a huge emotional response to this merely as a suggestion, so I'm going to quote information directly from the Komen website:

Breast self-exam seemed promising when it was first introduced, and it has been widely promoted. However, it is not clear that it offers a benefit as a screening test [13,42]. Results of studies on its effectiveness at finding early stage tumors and improving chances for survival have been mixed through the years. Some studies supported its value and others did not [13].

A meta-analysis combined results from the two largest randomized controlled trials on breast self-exam to date (one in Shanghai, China and one in Russia) [43]. The Shanghai study included about 266,000 women and the Russia study included about 122,000 women. The combined analysis found no difference in breast cancer mortality after 15 years between women who did routine breast self-exam and those who did not [43]. And, the breast self-exam groups had nearly twice as many biopsies with benign (not cancer) results as the other groups [43]. This means breast self-exam caused many women to have follow-up biopsies with false positive results. These studies show that breast self-exam does not offer the benefits of other breast cancer screening tests.

This says breast self-exams do not reduce death rates from breast cancer and result in more unnecessary biopsies.

But ...

I can't tell you how many people I know who found lumps themselves, either through diligent monthly exams or even just occasional examinations of their own bodies. Although I didn't find a lump, knowing my own body was exactly what led me into my doctor's office with concerns for my health.

A few years before I was diagnosed with cancer, I was treated for postpartum depression. Though I saw my doctor (at the time) regularly, she missed the signs and, I feel, never properly screened me for PPD. I was clueless as to what was going on with me and when I did finally say the right words to get her attention one day, she did a poor job of explaining what was happening and allowed a suicidal me to walk out of her office without help.

Thankfully, I happened to know (and seek out) another practitioner who understood what was happening and explained it in a way I could accept. She helped me along the path to treatment.

In the intervening years, I went on something of a quest to learn about my body and to recognize the signs of any sort of problems. I wasn't very aware of problems within my body before then. I couldn't even tell the difference between a cold, sinus infection or allergies. I rarely needed a doctor and when I did, it was for these everyday ailments.

Fortunately, my close call made me realize I had to be a proactive patient. (We all do.) I had to be my own best advocate when it comes to my health care. This is a fact that still drives me crazy - who wants to have to demand more answers when you feel like poop? But it's reality. So, I fired my doctor and went on a quest to find a really good one. After much searching, one name popped up several times. I went to see her and she has been my primary care doctor for about seven years now.

She listens to me and takes my concerns seriously. Even though I know she must be very busy - as all primary care doctors are - she never seems in a hurry to get out of my exam room. Anytime I visit her for any reason, probably 80 percent of the time is spent talking and 20 percent is spent on the exam. This has paid off.

In February and March 2006, I experienced a few strange pains in my breast. I had several in one day, then nothing. A few days later, I had a few more. I easily could have ignored it. I often adhere to the "if it goes away in a few days, it must be nothing" rule, which isn't always a bad rule! These were sharp pains, though. Surprisingly sharp. I examined the breast repeatedly and felt nothing - I couldn't even make the pains happen when probing around. I dismissed it the first day.

The next time it happened a few days later, I decided to sit with my body and just feel. I lay down on my bed in a quiet house and did my best to settle my mind. I could feel my heartbeat. I took a few breaths to slow things down and I just "listened." It was then that I felt an immense heaviness emanating from an area of my breast that wasn't actually close to where the pains were. From that point forward, even walking around minding my own business, I could feel the heaviness. I didn't have many more of those pains, but when I did, it was as if I could "see" in my mind's eye the lightning bolt of pain shoot from that spot out my nipple.

Of course, I was fairly certain I had lost my flipping mind.

I made an appointment so my doctor could tell me I was losing it. The appointment was several days away and as time passed, I nearly canceled - I was about to chicken out because the pains had all but disappeared (but not that heaviness) and I knew my symptoms were borderline crazy. But it wasn't the first time I'd seen her with a crazy set of symptoms and she had never made me feel crazy, so I went.

I explained my symptoms and she did a thorough exam. She found nothing. The whole situation was made difficult because my 4-year-old daughter was in the room with me. I think the doctor and I both had the feeling of, "this is probably nothing, so let's just make sure it's nothing and get out of here." She stepped back after she was done and I said, "I guess the heaviness is just what is so weird to me." She looked at me and said, "where exactly do you feel that?" I pointed to the spot. She told me to lie back again, pressed the entire weight of her teeny little self into her fingertips on the area and said, "Oh, there it is."

There it is.

I couldn't feel it. When she forced (shoved, really) my fingers deep into the spot, I only felt it for a split-second. I couldn't find it again when I got home.

But there it was.

We - my doctor and I - found it because I knew my body and I had a good doctor "on staff" to take care of me. I had a doctor who listened and who knew her patient.

She told me later she was so glad I had paid attention to those pains and had come to her. She felt the pain was from the tumor breaking through the milk ducts and irritating surrounding nerves and that it would have faded within a short time. It would have been six months or (or maybe longer) before the lump would have been found. At the time of my diagnosis, I had blood vessel invasion, which is quick hop to lymph node invasion and a higher stage disease.

I know that one person's story doesn't have any medical significance in whether a procedure or process is important. Even the 100 or more women I have met who found their own lumps isn't statistically significant (and doesn't address the, probably, 1000s of people I've met with false alarms). I also know that only time will tell whether finding my cancer then saved my life. (Time - as in, when I die at 120 years of age of something else.) But I do know that knowing my body and having a good primary care doctor got me on the road to earlier treatment.

All of the major cancer organizations say that all women should know the "benefits and limitations" of breast self-exam. This is true. I also feel it's their way of saying "we don't have the studies to back this up and actually, studies are leaning the other way, but it just feels crazy to tell you not to know your body."

And do you know what would solve this issue once and for all? Better diagnostic tests. Right now, the only way to definitively diagnose cancer is through a biopsy. If you find something scary, there are a few tests you might get in an attempt to avoid a biopsy. But in the end, if those tests are the slightest bit questionable, you'll have a biopsy. These are not without danger. They are invasive and can be painful. (I won't go on about that because, in the end, biopsies are a cakewalk compared to the alternative.) But it's all we have to get a definite answer.

So, know yourself. Know your body. All of it. Pay attention to changes and tell your doctor. Make sure you are getting an annual breast exam by a medical practitioner. Discuss breast self-exams with her (or him). Have a really good primary care doctor on your medical team. Make sure you trust her and that she listens. See her regularly so she gets to know the difference between the "healthy" you and the "sick" you. I really think for many ailments, it makes all of the difference in the world.

Just so you don't think I'm a total hater

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 11:52:00 +0000

There are pink products I like.

No, really. It's true.

I like the ones people who love and support me have given me! I have a super coffee mug with a pink ribbon on it that I drink out of every day it's not dirty.

I have a great pink Cubs hat. I'm not even a fan (of baseball ... at ... all ... sorry, Wigi), but I am a fan of the friends who passed it along to me and the friends who delivered it. And it's a good hat. And it's from CHICAGO, which is my absolutely favorite city on Earth.

Despite my desire to scatter large displays of pink candy on grocery store floors and watch people slip and fall down, it's hard to pass up pink M&M's when they are offered.

And here is one of my all-time favorite pink products:

It's a card designed by a 20-something survivor. I work with one of her sisters and all three sisters have a design business (Blustery Day Design) that has more talent in it than the Cirque du Soleil.

One of the very worst things that happens to women who have breast cancer is that you are almost immediately stripped of your sense of femininity. Boobs are gone. Hair is gone - everywhere - your eyelashes, your eyebrows, everything. Sometimes, they take out your ovaries to get the estrogen-producers out. If you have chemo, it shuts down your ovaries anyway. If you are young, you are thrust into instant menopause. You feel like total crap. And you either gain ridiculous amounts of weight from steroids or puke your guts up and get very sickly ... or both.

This card reminds women that despite all of this, they are still beautiful. YOU think they are beautiful. I kind of wish I'd gotten this card every day until my hair grew back.

And then there is this card for the pink haters among us:

It's a "thinking of you" sort of a card with not ONE DOT of pink on it.

Finally, here's the card I think every cancer survivor should be issued by their doctors. (It's good for all survivors, not just breast cancer ladies.)

Get this - it has a REAL cancer card in it. That's right, a card you can put in your wallet and when something is not going your way, you can whip it out and say, "be nice, I have cancer." You can ACTUALLY "pull the cancer card."

Cancer has to be good for something.

As a survivor, I can tell you I would have appreciated any of these cards. Anything that was supportive or funny, without being sappy or tearful, was the exact right thing to send me when I was feeling my worst.

You can order these (and some other cool stuff) on Blustery Day Design's shop on Etsy.

Just so you know
I'm trying to post something informative about breast cancer every day during the month of October, which is breast cancer awareness month. Medical facts, information about causes I think are important, friends I want you to know and pink products I like. (Yes, there are a few.)

If you are a friend of mine on Facebook (and I actually do keep it to people I know/have known or survivor friends), you'll see status updates with more facts in them, too. Same for Twitter (and you are all welcome to follow me there).

If you are reading this on Facebook, be sure to stop by my blog at http://www.rosieblankenship.com to see pictures and get links. You can also subscribe to the blog and get posts delivered straight to your e-mail.

Think Before You Pink

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 11:34:00 +0000

I'm going to try not to get too rant-y here. It's hard. This is probably my biggest rant-y trigger of all of the rant-y triggers I have in my life.

Here is the short version: a lot of pink stuff is sold under the guise of raising money for breast cancer research when it does not and of those that do raise money for breast cancer the marketing surrounding the sales is often very misleading.

Think Before You Pink is a national campaign of Breast Cancer Action to raise public awareness about pink marketing. BCA is radical. They ask questions a lot of people don't dare ask. They demand that companies are held accountable for the bad things they are doing. They start campaigns to change bad practices.

I know their approach isn't for everyone, but I love what they are doing. Whenever I get pissed off about some injustice in the business of breast cancer (and, yes, there is a business side, sadly), BCA is always already on the job.

I was in our local JoAnn's the other day buying supplies for someone's Halloween costume ($60-bleeping-dollars worth of supplies) and I came across an end cap display of pink products: pink scissors, pink cutting mats, pink "notions." Some of it carried the distinctive pink ribbon that some people think means "raises money for breast cancer causes." So, I started reading labels.

I have unanswered questions about this product:

It's a sewing basket. It has pink ribbons all over it and little supportive phrases all over it: Fight. Believe. Love. It's sweet. If I liked the color pink and wasn't partial to my "random grocery sack collection" sewing basket, I might buy it.

I couldn't find anything on the tag that said whether the company producing the product is donating money to any cause anywhere. (It's manufactured by Dritz.) Yet, this basket sat in a display with other products that do donate a portion of their proceeds (but how much?) to breast cancer.

There were other items on the shelf that didn't have information about whether they were raising money or just cashing in on the color pink during the month of October (and even using the pink ribbon to sell their stuff.) We'll save the conversation of "how much are the ones donating who are benefiting from pink ribbon marketing?" for another day.

I would like to say this is an isolated incident, but it's not. I guarantee you I can walk into any store that has a display of pink items and find a few that have no clear indication that they are donating to any cause. And with further probing, I generally turn up nothing.

This makes me want to say really mean things and take those damn pink scissors to that damn pink sewing box.

Think Before You Pink does a better job of discussing all of the nuances of this issue. They have people on staff who don't have emotional meltdowns in the notions aisles of fabric stores with little girls following them saying, "Mommy, why are you taking pictures of that stuff?"

But here's what I want to you to know:

1. If you buy pink ribbon stuff, I will still totally be your friend.

2. I am not entirely opposed to pink ribbon marketing. I think there is a responsible way to do it and an irresponsible way. I feel very strongly that companies should not have unlimited abilities to generate "pink ribbon" sales when they partner with a breast cancer organization. I also feel that the relationships need to make sense. (More on that last thought in the days to come.)

3. Manufacturer's should have to clearly state on their labels how much they are donating and to what cause. It should also be clearly stated when there is a cap involved.

4. Most "deals" are that the business will donate up to $X by X date, regardless of how many of a product are sold. I feel very strongly their websites should display exactly where they are in that process ("your purchases have raised $X toward this organization. We'll cap it at $X by X date.") Furthermore, I think they should have very short grace period - one month or less - to get the pink labeled stuff off the shelves after they reach their sales cap. (Or, perhaps, if it only takes 10 sales to reach the cap, then they only get to produce 10 pink labeled products to begin with.) They don't get to keep cashing in on breast cancer when they are no longer donating.

5. When a business gives a flat donation in exchange for using the pink ribbon on their product, it needs to be clearly stated on the label that the purchase of the product has no impact on the amount of the donation.

6. Writing a check to your favorite breast cancer organization (or any non-profit) is the single best way to make a difference - even if it's just $5, $10 or $20. Millions and millions of dollars have been raised with $20 donations.

7. Stay tuned and I'll give you some good ideas to whom you should write those checks in the coming days!

Just so you know
I'm trying to post something informative about breast cancer every day during the month of October, which is breast cancer awareness month. Medical facts, information about causes I think are important, friends I want you to know and pink products I like. (Yes, there are a few.)

If you are a friend of mine on Facebook (and I actually do keep it to people I know/have known or survivor friends), you'll see status updates with more facts in them, too. Same for Twitter (and you are all welcome to follow me there).

If you are reading this on Facebook, be sure to stop by my blog at http://www.rosieblankenship.com to see pictures and get links. You can also subscribe to the blog and get posts delivered straight to your e-mail.

Yuck-tober

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 10:52:00 +0000

Me in July 2006 on
Michigan Avenue, Chicago.

It's the first day of October. For everyone who lives under a rock on Tristan da Cunha, it's breast cancer awareness month.

(If you don't get my sense of humor, that is the "most remote place on Earth." Makes me laugh. You should, too.)

I really dislike this month very much. Very much. (That's an understatement. I'm trying to restrain myself here. Imagine those previous words spoken through gritted teeth. Fangs, even.) I think "awareness" is overrated. I don't think most people even understand what they need to be aware of. (That breast cancer exists? That people die from it? What, exactly, is the point?) I think it's mostly about marketing and I have a number of issues with pink ribbon marketing. And, my very personal issue with October is that everywhere I look for 31 days (plus a few more), I'm reminded of times and scars I try not to think about every day. I'm also painfully reminded of my friends who have died and those who are struggling to live.

Instead of getting all pissed off about it the way I've done the last few years with a "rant and retreat" mentality, I'm going to tell you what I think you need to know about breast cancer.

I'm not a doctor or a researcher. I'm a survivor. I'm a reader. I'm also an experienced writer. I think that makes me a reasonably good candidate to share some important information out there for you (even if it doesn't make me an expert). I'm also very opinionated, but usually try to suppress what I think is probably an annoying aspect of my personality. But this month, I'm going to let it fly - but in little bits of controlled, hopefully useful opinions that make you think about issues surrounding breast cancer.

I'll post something informative about breast cancer every day — not just medical facts, but information about causes I think are important, friends I want you to know and pink products I like. (Yes, there are a few.)

If you are a friend of mine on Facebook (and I actually do keep it to people I know/have known or survivor friends), you'll see status updates with more facts in them, too. Same for Twitter (and you are all welcome to follow me there).

If you are reading this on Facebook, be sure to stop by my blog at www.rosieblankenship.com to see pictures and get links. You can also subscribe to the blog and get posts delivered straight to your e-mail.

Ok, everyone. Take a deep breath and maybe we'll get through this month without throwing a fit and stomping on a bag of pink M&M's in a grocery store aisle.

You are beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:40:00 +0000

The other day, I noticed one of my beautiful friends had changed her social networking profile pic to a Post-It note, of all things. So, I took a closer look and noticed it said that I was beautiful and fabulous. It included a handy website address as a point of reference. Since my friend is not prone to promoting marketing messages, I decided to take a closer look.

The website was Operation Beautiful and one of the first things I saw was this video:

In case you didn't watch it just now, I'll tell you the very first thing on the video is a statistic that says, "51% of 9 and 10 year old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet."

Gut, meet fist.

My daughter is 9. My beautiful, precious, perfect-in-every-way baby is in this age group that is already being made to feel bad about their bodies.

Every since she was born, I have pledged to myself not to let her feel bad about her weight. I stopped, before I was pregnant with her, constantly criticizing myself (out loud) and constantly complaining about my need to lose weight. I even stopped thinking about it as losing weight and starting thinking about it as being healthy. (I also let go of even thinking I'd ever lose any amount of weight to make doctors happy and just hoped I could work toward having a healthy body.)

I have never told her she needed to lose weight. Although I'm very aware of the need to keep her at a healthy weight (an issue I'm constantly reminded of by her pediatrician and cardiologist) and I am aware the weight of both of her parents will have a great influence on her to be overweight, I don't let this be her problem. I have always provided her with healthy food. We don't eat junk food and we have never eaten dessert on a daily basis. She loves veggies. She is not a very active kid (she is sadly not involved in any sport and elementary school gym class is about 45 minutes a week), but she is also nowhere near sedentary. Her TV and computer time is limited to an hour a day (and most days don't even allow for that), but she's a bookworm (a plus for academics, a minus for keeping a healthy weight). So, despite my best efforts to get her moving, I feel like I've failed on this regard. My feeling of failure, too, I try to shelter her from. I try to subtly encourage and lead by example (taking her to the park, going swimming, etc.), but not to hound or to make her feel like she is somehow not good enough.

I have spoken to her about why it's important to keep a healthy weight, but always say the way children can do this is by eating good foods and playing a lot. I tell her the reason we don't eat sugar all of the time is because it's not good for our bodies and that we want to fill up our bodies with good fuel.

Recently, I've felt panicked on this subject. As she gets closer to puberty, she is getting further from her ideal weight. As I've been reminded by her doctors, puberty is where girls pack on the pounds.

My concern is for many reasons. She needs to stay healthy. She has a serious heart condition that doesn't need the stress of extra weight. (I've been told by her cardiologist that just a few extra pounds could be life-threatening for her.) Long-term, she now has an increased risk of developing cancer because of my history and as I know from attending many conferences in the last few years, the best way to greatly reduce your cancer risk is to maintain an ideal weight. (SCREAM!) We all need to maintain a healthy weight for a host of medical reasons, but she has these two additional challenges.

Then, of course, there is just the ongoing hell of living life as an overweight person. You are treated differently - often as if you are invisible - and made fun of frequently and in casual conversation. You can't find clothes easily and, when you do, they are way more expensive than "average" sizes. You are prone to horrible self-esteem issues, which can lead to being in emotionally or physically abusive relationships, feeling unloved, depression and suicide. In short, it sucks. Do I need to say more?

Add to these worries the fact that very recently, my daughter told me she needed to eat healthier so she could lose weight. I told her she had no reason to worry about losing weight (it's true - her doctor says children her age without serious weight problems only need to be active and eat healthy and let their bodies grow into their weight). We talked about what eating healthy meant and I also reminded her how important being active is. Then, I angrily ruminated for a few days about where she picked up this negative message.

I decided it could have been me (children can read minds, you know) or other adults; it could have been from TV or friends. It didn't really matter. But suddenly my job here feels harder. Now, I have to keep up her self-esteem while trying to keep her close to an ideal weight.

Then, I saw this video and I started crying my eyeballs out.

I don't want my baby to believe for a minute that she is anything but beautiful. I don't want any of her friends to think they aren't beautiful, either. I don't want to think that I'm not beautiful. I don't want my friends to think they aren't beautiful.

Operation Beautiful is trying to do something about it. It's a really simple idea. You write a positive message on a Post-It note - a message designed to counter the negative self-talk that plagues many of us - and you place it in a public place where someone will find it.

A few years ago, when I was shortly post-chemo, I had an amazing experience where two beautiful women "filled me up" with self-esteem. I was at a lifetime low, completely filled with self-hatred and constant negative self-talk. I was struggling from the low self-esteem that comes with breast cancer and related surgeries, plus about a dozen other whammies life was beating down on me. When I verbalized some of this self-talk, these women basically told me I was nuts. I didn't believe them at first, of course. In fact, I just kept crying a lot and telling them how wrong they were. But they kept at it, telling me in every possible way how awesome I was and how beautiful I was, almost begging me to see it. It took a few days, but I finally got what they were saying. It was a transformative experience for me. Once I finally accepted what they were saying, I was able to believe for the first time in my life that I was a beautiful person. The first time. Ever. At 36.

For a year or more after that, I was approached by strangers regularly who would tell me I was beautiful. It totally amazed me - still does. These people wanted nothing from me, as far as I could ever tell. They would come out of nowhere, tell me something like "you are really a beautiful woman" and go about their business. They just wanted me to know what they were thinking about me. It was like little self-esteem angels were popping up all over right when I needed them. Again, this was a first-time experience for me.

In the last two years, my self-esteem has declined. Not nearly to pre-transformation levels, but it's waning and I know it. I've been struggling with my weight - it's skyrocketed over the last two years and I can't seem to make it stop. So, even though I had all but eliminated the negative self-talk, it seems to grow every day. This affects all parts of my life.

As I read the notes posted on Operation Beautiful, I felt a little like they were talking to me. They were, of course. They are talking to all of us.

We need to love ourselves, for better or worse. We need to accept that we come in all shapes and sizes and that we are worthwhile people no matter what the number on the scale is. We need to really, truly believe that we are beautiful - inside and out - and that has so very little to do with what we weigh, how tall we are, how much money we make, whether we have varicose veins or cellulite, what our age is, whether we have fake breasts, one breast or no breasts, or whatever else we tell ourselves makes us imperfect. We need to believe this and we need to teach our daughters to believe it, too.

Operation Beautiful is such an awesome idea. I must do it immediately - starting with my own bathroom mirror.

It's just a few little cells ...

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:55:00 +0000

If you are a healthy woman looking for a way to really make a difference in breast cancer research, think about donating to the Komen Tissue Bank at the IU Simon Cancer Center. That's my cancer center, in case you didn't know, and I am very proud they are home to this project. (And if you visit that link, you'll see my oncologist, who is the president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology this year. Woo hoo!)

The Komen Tissue Bank is a repository of healthy tissue samples to help scientists in their search to find the causes and cures for breast cancer. It is a project of critical importance to research and has contributed samples to numerous studies.

They are looking for donors this Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010, at the center in Indianapolis. If you are in this area and are a healthy woman age 18 or older, I'd encourage you to read more and see if you can participate. If you are not in this area, I would encourage you to contact the bank to see if they have a collection event planned in your area in the future.

Because it works the obliques like nobody's business

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 22:13:00 +0000

My friend Amy has this cool little place called The Healing Chi and belly dancing classes started there last night.

I've been wanting to take belly dancing for about 10 years now, but the closest classes were probably a 45 minute drive. I wasn't THAT committed to the idea.

But The Healing Chi is 10 minutes, if I stop for ice cream on the way there. It's hard to say "no" to that.

The class was taught by a beautiful young woman named Rosie. I suspected that was an awesome sign of good things to come. It has to do with the name. There are not many of us and we are all incredibly cool. We are right up there with the Madonnas and Eloises and Colleens and Amelias of the world. (Yes, my daughter has two of the coolest names.) Don't try to dispute this. It's a fact.

So, I thought we were off on the right foot with Rosie the belly dancing teacher, but that's when the torture began.

First, she tried to teach us this rather unnatural move called a head slide that makes it look like your head is disengaged from your body and operating independent of your central nervous system. I am fairly certain my lack of ability to immediately master this very slight, yet important, move is due to years of repeated, self-inflicted whiplash incurred during headbanging rock concerts. My mom was right: I really should have been more careful and a lot less stupid. I am going to need a massage, intense stretching, a few cortisone shots, muscle relaxers and half a bottle of whiskey before I attempt this again.

Then, somehow, she managed to squeeze in 13 1/2 hours of shoulder rolls into an hour long class. My right shoulder was injured in October when I decided to roll down some stairs and I have not yet been able to convince myself to seek medical intervention. (Save the lectures; you try having a personal medical staff of 3,245 people, squeezing all of those appointments in between work, motherhood, field trips, Brownies, 4-H, and ignoring the laundry and see how fast you volunteer for an MRI of something that only hurts when you reach for the remote or wash dishes.) So, my right shoulder was VERY unhappy about the intense shoulder moves we were doing.

And the obliques. Dear God, don't get me started on the obliques.

I'm not sure exactly what the obliques are or how many we have, but I can feel every one of them today. I think I can feel a few that I don't even have.

But let me tell you, if working the obliques is going to change how my tummy looks after 3 1/2 years of Tamoxifen, then bring on the abuse.

Interestingly enough, by the end of class, we all looked like this:

I totally have a gold lamé outfit on back order now. I can't wait for next week's class!

120 percent

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:53:00 +0000

"I consider myself ... a 120 Percenter. Which means that if I'm not doing something at 120% I feel like I'm failing. And I know you all can relate to that." — First Lady Michelle Obama speaking at the White House Forum on Workplace Flexibility on March 31, as blogged by Heather Armstrong on Dooce.com.

Yes, ma'am. And this is why my therapist will be able to add that sunroom on her house this year.

Voices of Survivors

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:31:00 +0000

Ok, so, I'm only like 22 days late in sharing this with you. It's better than when I reported to you about my CR Magazine appearance earlier this week. That one was about three months late. And let's not talk about the unfinished baby blanket I started when my nephew was born and he is almost shaving now.

On March 17, my cancerversary, I was featured in the Written Word section of the Voices of Survivors web site.

If you have time, check out the rest of the site. The Written Word section is amazing, as is the video section.

Voices of Survivors is an organization dedicated to exploring what survivorship means to the individual survivor. The organization was founded by documentary filmmaker Lynn Lane. I really appreciate being invited by Lynn to contribute my story to the Written Word section of this site!

I puffy heart this forecast

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 22:21:00 +0000

Tonight and NEXT FRIDAY (10 days from now) are just necessary evils. (It makes things green, kids.) Look at all of those sunshines.

I wonder if my boss will notice if I call in tomorrow and say I have a flu-bug that is not likely to resolve itself until April 16?

CR Magazine's Cancerblog feature

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:15:00 +0000

I've been extremely derelict in my blogging duties the last two months. Ahem. 2 1/2 months.

So, I'm playing catch-up.

In January, my blog was featured in the Winter 2010 CR Magazine as the Cancerblog feature.

It was exciting and fun to be interviewed for this magazine, which is an incredibly good magazine. I don't say that just because I'm in it. :) I've actually been a reader for years because my oncologist's office keeps it around. (You can subscribe for less than $16 a year.) It had really interesting and good quality articles. In my opinion, it also tends to share a lot of heavy medical information in terms every layperson can understand. It's published by the American Association for Cancer Research.

I would say if you are a survivor or know anyone who is a survivor (does that leave anyone out?), you should take a look at this magazine.

National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 21:19:00 +0000

This week, April 5-11, is National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week.

While survival rates for age groups younger and older have improved, survival rates for those diagnosed with cancer between the ages of 15 and 39 have not improved since 1975.

As a young survivor of breast cancer, I can tell you that fact is hard to hear.

I can also tell you that young adult survivors deal with issues of particular importance to them, including fertility, maintaining health while dealing with the side effects of treatment, and long-term survivorship issues.

When I was diagnosed at 34, I was so glad to find the Young Survival Coalition for women diagnosed with breast cancer under the age of 40. As I was sitting in doctor's offices realizing in horror that everyone around me was at least 30 years older than me (and they staring back in horror that someone "so young" was a cancer patient — I brought at least one woman to tears just by my presence), I was so glad to be able to find women my age online dealing with issues I was dealing with. In addition to questions about fertility, sexual side effects, long-term side effects and surgery outcomes, I also needed to know the differences in treatment options for someone my age and the aggressive nature of my "young woman's" breast cancer.

Throughout treatment and onto "survivorship," I've been immensely impressed by the resources provided by Lance Armstrong's Livestrong organization, including the Livestrong Young Adult Alliance.

If you'd like to read more, Vital Options, founders of National Young Adult Cancer Awareness Week have a great set of resources focusing on cancer in young adults.

To all my survivor friends this week, a virtual high five!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie Blankenship) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:45:00 +0000

On this day in 2006, I was diagnosed with cancer. That makes me a four-year survivor today!

To celebrate, I made this t-shirt. :)

(Thanks to Andy for taking the picture.)

Yes woman

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:42:00 +0000

Last night, after doing the dishes, straightening the living room, scrubbing the floors with a toothbrush and replastering the ceiling (ok, I lied: I never straightened up the living room), I sat down for some laundry-folding time in front of the TV. HBO has been running "Yes Man" this month and it was just the light humor I needed.

When I first saw a preview for this movie when it came out in 2008, I was taken aback: did someone in Hollywood download my mind? Were there cameras behind a glass mirror? Was I being watched?

The premise of the movie is simple. The main character, Carl (played by Jim Carrey), is recuperating from a bad breakup - that happened a while before (and the girlfriend has more than moved on). For him, this "recuperation" manifests itself as just going through the motions. He hates his job. He avoids his friends. He hides from life. That is until one day he stumbles into a self-help seminar where he is challenged to say yes to everything - which is interpreted as he MUST say yes to everything.

You know the story from here: hi-jinks ensue, with a great moral to the story and a perfect Hollywood ending.

Almost a year before the movie came out, I had started a similar trek myself. I was "done" with active treatment for cancer. I had just recently found myself unexpectedly single. I think with either situation, people often come out with a "my goodness, I am tired of my life being on hold. I just need to get on with it" feeling. Post-cancer, I felt stronger than ever, more willing to face the challenges that would ultimately come my way and really looking forward to embracing life's highlights.

With all of this new physical and emotional freedom I had found in myself, I decided I was going to experience new things. I wasn't even sure what that meant. I just knew I had been holding myself back for far too long and my time had come.

I knew I was going to date, but not look for anything. By that, I mean I knew that after the end of a 14-year relationship, I had no business trying to find another until I figured out myNEWself. But I also knew that I couldn't avoid dating. As anyone who has re-entered the dating world after a long hiatus can tell you, it's freaking scary. And weird. And scary. Did I mention weird? And when scary comes a-knocking at my door, the first thing I have to do is get rid of it. The only way I know how to get rid of scary is to face it head on.

But this isn't actually about dating. That would be boring. Well, sort of boring. Ok, it wasn't boring at all. The truth is I'm afraid my mom is going to start reading my blog again, so that's where this part of the story ends.

So, there was dating, but there also was just a whole sense of "I have got to get out of the house and LIVE."

I spent a few weekends at a friend's house trying to get my head around this new life I had. Her regular social life - where every weekend there was a house full of people and I didn't know any of them - was like a tutorial in how to act like a single adult.

I knew what I wanted to do. I'd been having this urge to just pursue new experiences. I wanted to travel. I wanted to read a lot more. I wanted to write. I wanted to get out. And pretty soon, I also realized I wanted to dance and had just forgotten how important it was to me.

I decided to be open to anything. I actually decided to say yes to anything (just like Carl/Jim Carrey). Unlike Carl, who has no rules holding him back, I had a few: "anything" had to be budget-friendly and I couldn't feel like I was putting my life in jeopardy. Now, those might sound like two big limiting rules there. Maybe they were. But I just didn't have (still don't!) any money, so I couldn't go running up credit cards and spending cash I didn't have on crazy adventures. As far as not putting my life in jeopardy, my definition of that is pretty different from a lot of people. On a daily basis, I have no problem with minor injuries or Fear Factor moments. For example, bungee jumping was high on my wish list. Playing chicken on the interstate was not. I wasn't going to be afraid to push the limits of the law, but I was going to avoid situations that could lead to, say, losing my daughter, my home or the functioning of my extremities.

So, armed with these really very minor rules, I set out on this journey. And right away, I learned that when you are open to new experiences, they just find you.

One of the first things I found is that there is an entire world of 30- and 40-something divorced people (and empty-nesters) out there knocking around on weekends when they don't have their kids and holy cow do they know how to have fun. It's like compressed fun: the kids will be back on Sunday night and I won't get to do this again for two weeks, so let's stay up from Friday through Sunday and paint the town red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo AND violet.

I found myself dancing like a fool on most "kid-free" weekends. I was downloading music that brought words such as "shawty" and "Petron" into my vocabulary. (Thankfully, my daughter is not yet old enough to be embarrassed by me. The dog, however, hides his head in shame when I get out my iPod.)

This is me (woman on the left) and some of the "island of the misfit toys" members at a Jimmy Buffett concert. There was much dancing that night.

I pulled a lot of all-nighters for no reason other than to dance, followed by breakfast at the greasiest greasy-spoons ever.

Besides the fun to be had with those hooligans, I found all sorts of opportunities to experience life. In this first "yes" year, I traveled more than I probably had in the previous 10 years and spent very little money doing it.

I spent time with several individuals of a different political bent and found out we are far more alike than I'd ever allowed myself to imagine.

I talked to people from all walks of life and found out I was a freaking elitist who needed to take herself down several notches. I did. It was good.

I once followed a cab driver into a crowded Las Vegas casino - I had absolutely no idea why I was following him and I was very concerned that the trap he was laying for me was going to end in my rape and murder - only to find myself holding a very cheap ticket for a third row, center stage seat to an amazing Cirque du Soleil show. Ah-may-zing. I could see the expressions on the actors faces. I could see every ripple of every muscle on their bodies! Spectacular. For $30. Uh-huh!

And then I walked three miles of the Las Vegas strip back to my hotel at 1 a.m. by myself because I was scared the same cabbie would pick me up and expect something for his generosity. By the way, Las Vegas is unbelieveably beautiful at 1 a.m. with the neon lights and sparkly things. And I got to eat dinner at midnight at the Bellagio.

Yes.

During this year, I said yes to a frightening but important surgery and found out the aftermath wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

I went out with a man 15 years older than me and one 15 years younger than me in the same month. For those of you doing math right now, he was totally legal. Barely, but totally. And I'm saving the rest of that story for the book I'm never letting my mother read.

For most of the year, I slept with my laptop and piles of books on the "other" side of my big bed. Best ... bed partner ... ever. It was so awesome to wake up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, to roll over and start reading or writing. Books are unbelievably cuddly!

I believed my sister when she said that a jungle gym at a Nashville children's museum was "easy, with a spectacular view at the top" and I found out on the way up it was really about 372 stories tall and narrowed at one point in such a way I thought my ass would be lodged in it forever, while the little children for whom it had been built charged over and around me. It totally had a spectacular view at the top.

This is me at the same museum, hovering three stories over Nashville, pretending to be an astronaut. (That is my daughter in the lower left corner begging to be unharnessed. Wuss.)

I did karaoke for real for the first time. I was not very good, but I didn't die of a heart attack on stage. (Sorry, Lisa, I don't count our "Stand By Your Man" duet with our added lyrics as a "real" attempt at karaoke.)

I accidentally gave a full-body naked show to two very innocent Jehovah's Witnesses, while shouting obscenities. (I should have thrown a caffeinated beverage in their faces to seal their fate in hell.) All I really learned from this experience is that my house isn't quite as isolated as I tend to think it is.

I traveled a lot: Las Vegas. Palm Springs (for a minute). Indio, Calif. Los Angeles. Chicago. Jacksonville. Nashville. Columbus, Ohio. (Yeah, my heart is not into selling you on that last one.)

This is me and 800 (some not pictured) of my BFFs in Jacksonville.

Believe me when I say that I could go on. It was a big year for me. I didn't actually mean for it to end. I was planning to make it more of a "life movement" rather than a year. But a couple of things happened that put on the brakes and my adventures rolled almost to a stop.

First, the surgery took more out of me than I wanted to admit. (Then, I followed up with another surgery five months later. The physical toll just seemed to compound.) Almost immediately after my surgery, my parents' lost their home in a flood. That put a damper on my spirit - I didn't feel like I could have too much fun while my parents (and many others) were not having any. Then, a project at work consumed me for months on end. All of this left me depleted in many ways, with little time for loved ones; I could scarcely imagine adding "pursuing life" to my "to do" list.

I don't regret slowing down the adventure for the last 18 months or so. It was what I needed to do at the time. It wasn't like I went without fun. I cut my travel back, but I still did it. I spent time with friends and my family. I went out less, but I got to know one person much better. :)

But I haven't been dancing. I haven't been doing karaoke. I haven't been reading or writing nearly enough. I haven't been taking many chances, either. Silly me! It's time to double down.

So, last weekend, I went to see a movie by myself. (That's one of my all-time favorite "to heck with the world" past-times.) I went dancing, too. It was a blast. I remember now ... the break was necessary, but the break is over! I gotta dance, people! This weekend, I'll spend quietly at home with my daughter (we might go see a movie together or with Andy and we might go swimming, but we are also going to clean that rat trap she calls a bedroom and do laundry).

But I'm also laying plans to travel again soon - to see my friends, to visit new cities, to learn something about how other people live.

When I'm not dancing, I'll be working on that book. Just do me a favor and don't tell my mother.

Bob the chipmunk

noreply@blogger.com (Rosie) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:40:00 +0000

When I first moved to my house, I was fascinated to watch the chipmunks that loved to play around my brick wall. I had rarely seen a chipmunk in my life, so this was a new experience for me. They were funny to watch as they popped their heads in and out of tunnels and dashed along the wall. I would walk out the front door and hear a flurry of activity as they ran for cover, but rarely could I spot them. Usually, if I wanted to partake of chipmunk watching, I would have to sit motionless looking out the front window for a few minutes before I would start to see teeny fuzzy critters moving around in my garden.

I really enjoyed them and discouraged the cats from chasing chipmunks, until the day I realized what destructive little bastards they are. Their tunnels, along with the ravages of time, had weakened the 8-feet tall brick retaining wall holding up my front yard and it was visibly leaning - more and more each year. Eventually, it had to be replaced, to the tune of about $5,000, which was the day I declared war on chipmunks.

But in the days when I watched them, I was fascinated at how their tiny little brains worked. They were smart, calculating and, above all, patient. They were little architects, too, as I witnessed in the various points where they would disappear into the wall structure and reappear several feet later. (Once, after I had declared war, I stuck a hose into one of their holes and water started seeping out of the ground in several different locations. I felt like I was in Caddyshack.) Despite having owned cats and having several neighborhood cats around (who stalk the chipmunks mercilessly), I have yet to see a chipmunk who has met his fate on feline teeth. I am sure some have; I just think my chipmunks are wily.

When a chipmunk wants to appear in public, it's never a spontaneous move. Whether he wants to make a mad dash across the yard to grab a bit of food or just pop above ground to make a move toward a different tunnel, he assesses the potential pitfalls of his play. To a casual watcher, this looks like fear.

Let's say our chipmunk is named Bob. Bob pokes his head out of the hole and spots a particularly meaty nut 20 feet away (a football field for us humans). He dips back down into the hole and thinks: did I see something moving? Am I alone? Do I have what it takes to make this run? Is the risk worth the reward?

In a series of flickering moves, Bob pops his head above ground. He needs to gauge the distance. Pop. He needs to do a sweep for predators. Pop. He needs to sniff the air for perhaps more distant threats. Pop. He psyches himself up, one last look. Pop. And then it's time to go.

In a dash that makes professional runners look like underachievers, Bob sprints toward his prize and in a swift move, picks it up in his mouth and reverses course back to his home. In mere seconds, he's back to safety, savoring his reward.

I'm sure, sometimes, the nut isn't as large or as tasty as he had hoped. And, unfortunately, I think a lot of times it's not a nut at all, but a disappointing nut-shaped leaf and Bob is left empty-cheeked.

The first time or two I saw something like this play out in Bob's world, I thought, "Oh, that cute little scaredy-thing. He looks so worried." As he would repeatedly poke his head out, I would agonize with him over the danger and concern. I would keep lookout for hawks. My cats would hiss and spit at Bob safely behind a window. But after seeing these moves play out many times, I realized Bob knew exactly what he was doing. I think he was definitely afraid, but the fear had to be turned into action. Sometimes, his moves paid off in big fat walnuts. Sometimes, just trash.

I feel like Bob the chipmunk right now. I want to stay safely curled in my little hole. But I don't really have that choice. I have to survive and in order to do that, I have to pop my head out and see what's happening. I feel like that's what the last few weeks have been like for me. Curl up in a nice dark place, think through what I have to do, then pop my head out for just a moment. Return. Pop. Return. Pop.

And though I couldn't see it, I'm sure Bob had plenty of times when he would retreat deeper into the tunnel and nibble on the nuts he'd already stored. He knew he'd have to go back out eventually, but that freaking close call with the cat was enough to keep him below the surface for some time. He needed time to calm down, think and plan.

Like Bob, the more times I've made the mad dash, the better I get at it. Like Bob, too, so far, I've never gotten one bit cocky about it. There are cats, hawks and plenty of unknown danger lurking everywhere all of the time. I can't give up the fear because the threat is always there. However, deep down in a place that has become instinct, I know what I'm doing. Of course, probably unlike Bob, I do spend a lot of time deep below the surface contemplating how I can possibly go back out there.

But I must survive, just like Bob, so I'll be making that mad dash soon. I just hope in my mad dash (which is going to look more like a slow-motion process that will likely take months or years to complete) there is a big, meaty walnut at the other end. And I hope I make it back safely.