Anna's Book of Days

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of my cancer diagnosis. It's not a date to celebrate, nor even one that I like to acknowledge, but I also can't ignore what it is to me, its significance and its sadness. I did feel sad yesterday. The world seems almost unbearably full of cruelty lately - children torn away from their parents at the very moment they hope to have arrived at a better life - a mother orca swimming with her stillborn baby on her back for weeks, unable to let him go back into the sea - the horrible abuse of innocents by the men of God entrusted to save their souls - a genocide being perpetrated against defenseless women and children, today, on this planet, without a finger lifted by those who have the might to stop it. It's hard to see any purpose or plan in so much suffering. But then I think that the world has always been cruel, no more or less so now than at any time in human history. What is different is me. Becoming a mother and becoming a cancer patie...

Words that have many syllables tend to be bad things. Undemonstrativeness. Compartmentalization. Unilateralism. Abominability. Remilitarization. Misidentification. Unmanageability. Oversimplification. Irresponsibility. And this new one that I have just learned: Dermatomyositis. Dermatomyositis is a rare autoimmune disease marked by muscle weakness and a distinctive skin rash. People who have dermatomyositis also sometimes feel tired and run down. In adults, dermatomyositis usually occurs from the late 40s to early 60s and affects more females than males. There's no cure, but periods of symptom improvement (remission) can occur. After dozens of negative blood tests have ruled out other diseases from Lyme Disease to lupus, amyopathic dermatomyositis is my "working diagnosis", according to my rheumatologist, Dr. Alan Gorn. My illness this spring does not perfectly correspond to the typical symptoms - I had no muscle weakness and only a mild rash - but I tested positive...