Anna's Book of Days

13 down, 5 to go!

Some women in my support group were talking last week about feeling like we have a lot to be grateful for and a lot to complain about. One said that on the anniversary of her diagnosis, she was happy to be alive, and to get to watch her sons grow up - but frustrated to still be in pain from her surgery, and to not be done with chemotherapy. Another said that she was simultaneously grateful for and exhausted by her daily radiation therapy. Personally, I know I'm fortunate to be triple-positive, because it means I can benefit from Herceptin and Perjeta and tamoxifen - but it's hard not to be jealous of the triple-negatives who had six cycles of chemo and were done - when my treatment will go on for years. I suggested that we could call this feeling "whankful" - whining, but thankful. It's a funny word that gave us a laugh, but the ambivalence that it describes is very real. This is the paradox of cancer - you know you should hate the disease and love the treatment, ...

I've been looking forward to #12 as a milestone - I am now halfway done with my adjuvant therapy, and 2/3 done with my total treatment. Only six infusions left!

"I have learned that I never really knew what to say to others in need. I think I got this all wrong before; I tried to assure people that it would be okay, thinking that hope was the most comforting thing I could offer. A friend of mine with late-stage cancer told me that the worst thing people could say to him was “It is going to be okay.” That voice in his head would scream, How do you know it is going to be okay? Do you not understand that I might die? I learned this past month what he was trying to teach me. Real empathy is sometimes not insisting that it will be okay but acknowledging that it is not. When people say to me, “You and your children will find happiness again,” my heart tells me, Yes, I believe that, but I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have said, “You will find a new normal, but it will never be as good” comfort me more because they know and speak the truth. Even a simple “How are you?”—almost always asked with the best of intentions—is bet...

There is a woman whom I've never met, but who is friends with some of the same women I am friends with. She had early stage breast cancer, like me, and had a double mastectomy, like me. About a month ago, she found out that she had a mass in her liver, and now they think it's in her bones too. She is the first person in my breast cancer world whose cancer has metasticized. She may be the first person in my breast cancer world to die. She probably won't be the last. I think most people don't understand the sharp divide between early and late stage breast cancers - I know I didn't prior to my diagnosis. Early stage breast cancer is local, meaning it occurs only in the breast, and it is highly curable - as high as 98% in some cases, according to some sources. Late stage breast cancer is metastatic, meaning it has spread to other parts of the body, and it is incurable. Chemotherapy and other interventions may be able to keep it at bay for months, sometimes even year...