Five years ago today, I walked into the chemo room wearing a mortarboard and humming “Pomp and Circumstance.” I got my laugh and admitted that I’d stolen the idea from Suzie, who’d recently finished chemo in New Jersey.

Today I celebrate being alive, thrilling… Read full post »

I was taking all advice from anyone who’d been through chemo. One bit I had no trouble accepting: eating a carb load the night before a treatment. So on the evening before Round Five began, I drove to a nearby town with two friends to have dinner at a… Read full post »

On April 19, 2007, facing my fourth round of chemo I wrote that I went to sleep, wearing one of the three new hats sent to me by a woman I’ve only spoken to on the phone. She’s the receptionist at the company I’m freelancing for, and she has/… Read full post »

Round 4, 2007

            One of the hidden blessings of chemo is seeing old friends in new ways. Today Marie used part of a vacation day to take me to and from chemo. So far, she’s coordinated meals right after my surgery, come by… Read full post »

            When confronted with human suffering, on any scale, the impulse is to do something. I understand this—I have it myself. Right now, I’m feeling sick enough, however, that I don’t want helpful, doing folk aroun… Read full post »

I am the Ancient Mariner, and this is my blog.

Cancer is my albatross, and I will never be free of it. You might think that the albatross is my Stage III ovarian cancer, often called “deadly,” because five-year survival rates are statistically stuck at… Read full post »

            We laugh in the chemo room—you mustn’t imagine us as always somber. We laugh at the nurses when they miss a vein or port. We tell funny stories of our lives before chemo. We laugh at the symptoms we have—ann… Read full post »

            Just five years ago, I had cradle cap. At 55. Medically speaking, those itchy sores on my scalp were known as folliculitis—yet another new vocabulary word for my growing lexicon of cancer-related words. Nurses recommend… Read full post »

Well-behaved women, we sit in our recliners, betraying our discomfort only with the occasional grimace as needle pierces vein. We should all be keening in our chairs, moaning, not-so-silently screaming, but we act as if we are ladies being served high tea instead of lab rats being chemically… Read full post »

            The first short Friday of chemo did not begin auspiciously. Linda, the chemo nurse that day, had trouble accessing my vein (each failure hurt) and another patient’s port. Finally another nurse put the needle int… Read full post »

“Don’t change a hair for me

Not if you care for me

Stay little valentine stay

Each day is Valentine’s Day.”

Lorenz Hart, lyrics

            I had no plans for Valentine’s Day, 2007, wasn't awar… Read full post »

I always overpack for a trip, especially if I’m traveling by car. How should I know if I’ll want to wear the blue sweater or the olive jacket in a few days? Will I need a skirt? How about an umbrella? Shouldn’t there be some snacks, just in… Read full post »

Chemo makes your eyeballs swell.

It sounds like a school yard taunt, but the man who told me so—in a much more adult fashion—was a doctor.

When I travel somewhere I’ve not been, I’m the one who gets Fodor’s guides and reads up on the place,… Read full post »

At the chemo information session I attended after the port was inserted, I was given a navy blue portfolio folder, its dual pockets stuffed with handy information, including several brochures about losing one’s hair and getting a wig. Three different local businesses offered me $10 off or a fre… Read full post »

On the morning my doctor was to insert the port for direct delivery of chemo to my abdomen, he came to see me in pre-op.

“I know what you’re probably going to say, but I want to say this anyway. I want you to change the protocol. I don’t want… Read full post »

I was taking my time to process the realities of cancer; three-week lags seemed to be about the right speed. That time span was required for an appointment with the gynecologic oncologist, to schedule surgery (because I refused to be in the hospital on Thanksgiving), and to get… Read full post »

Following the shock and horror of a cancer diagnosis, the patient faces a number of decisions. For me, told a week before Christmas that I had Stage IIIB ovarian cancer and would need chemotherapy, the first decisions included, Who do I tell? How? Whose Christmas shall I ruin as… Read full post »

 For a week, I had breast cancer. From the night I picked up the message to call the imaging center until yesterday’s follow-up, I was once again a cancer statistic. I would be just one of the women who learned that her ovarian cancer had triggered… Read full post »

Five years ago this week, I woke up in recovery, afraid to slide my hand under the sheets. My recently acquired gynecologic oncologist had told me that if the large (4 x 4 x 6) mass on my left ovary were cancer, he would put in an abdominal port for chemotherapy… Read full post »

After finishing chemo in May 2007, I had a follow-up CATscan, then a meeting with my gynecologic oncologist.

“It all looks good,” he told me as he entered the examining room.

“What’s my CA-125?” I asked, referring to the tumor marker that isn’t always ac… Read full post »

 Just as every body is different and every body’s cancer is different, every doctor, hospital, and treatment plan is different. But this is the only way I know, based on IV/IP [intravenous/intraperitoneal] chemo for ovarian cancer in 2007. I had five rounds [of a projected six, but… Read full post »

I was brushing my teeth, scanning the mirror over the sink to see if my freckles had faded as the cream I’d ordered and faithfully applied had promised. They did fade a bit in winter, and it was a cold January morning. I dressed in the bathroom, which was warmer than… Read full post »

Cancerdancer

Cancer is the guy you try not to look at

in the halls of junior high,

the one with fuzz on his upper lip,

whose clothes don’t fit,

whose hair needs washing.

You hold your breath when… Read full post »