Guest blogger: Katey

A few people have commented that I haven't been updating my dog-blog lately. I've been dictating but my mom hasn't been posting for me. What's a dog to do?

I think I'll have to bite her ankle every once in awhile to remind her...

signed Katey the Wonder Dog
Visit my blog at http://kateythewonderdog.blogspot.com/

What I'm most grateful for today: kibble, chicken livers, treats, my bed, my favorite pillow and my Pawz booties that protect my tender tooties from the salt.

What my mom is most grateful for today: me!

Thufferin Thuccotash

There are a gazillion blogs out there written by people with cancer (and I thought I was the only one!), so many in fact that I can only manage to read a few on a regular basis. One of my favorities is called Thufferin Thuccotash - Laughting and Suffering. While the posts usually make me laugh, there is almost always something I can relate to in a serious and real way.

Here are a few lines from a recent post about the author's thoughts while waiting for x-ray results.

"I thought of the worst case scenario and how I might react? Surgery, chemo, bald, thin. Lord knows I've been on worse diets! I remember my reaction the first time I was diagnosed with cancer. I was hysterical, phoning everyone I knew, and then I started at the beginning of the phone book with people I didn't know. It was all about me! I panicked. I cried. I planned my funeral and thought of songs I wanted them to play. You know that song from the movie Platoon - Adagio for Strings, opus 11? Gah..that's such a moving song, perfect for my rainy afternoon funeral in March, a few days after my birthday where I turned 51 years old and so cute still!! The songs I chose would make me cry and then I'd get depressed. I was gnashing my teeth (what few I have left), back of my hand to my forehead. I picked out a lovely coffin, even wrote my guest list on a post-it note. Had chemo, went bald and survived (so far).

Now I sometimes feel guilty that people who grieved with me initially are annoyed that I dragged them into an emotional frenzy yet I didn't die. I mean, all that drama for nothing (or for, what now feels like, nothing in the scheme)."

What I'm grateful for today: All of the amazing, honest, crazy, ballsy, funny and inspiring women so willing to share their heart and souls with all of the other amazing, honest, crazy, ballsy, funny and inspiring women out there who need to know they are not alone.

Not Done Yet - Alice's review

Some time ago a group of us attended a book launch of Laurie Kingston’s “Not Done Yet”. Alice kindly offered to write a review of the book. (Thanks Alice!).

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Not Done Yet: Living through breast cancer by Laurie Kingston 2009
Review by Alice McClymont

Laurie Kingston was 38 with an active life, a family and a demanding job when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2005. In November 2006 she learned that the cancer had spread to her liver. Her book “Not Done Yet” published in 2009 by Women’s Press Toronto is a very personal journal of her diagnosis and treatment, written with the utmost honesty, wit, insight and feeling. What makes the book unusual is that it is in the form of a blog with various lengths of entries and that it is a positive, witty and inspiring book in spite of the severity of the topic. Reading this book is like reading someone’s personal journal which involves the reader in the day to day life of Laurie, her very supportive spouse Tim and her two sons. Especially touching are the entries about her sons Sacha and Daniel and, as children often do, they provide some light moments in the midst of difficult times. For example when the boys are playing “pirate treasure” they find Laurie’s prosthesis in a box and ask what that pinkish. squishy thing is. When Laurie replies that it is something to make her look the same on both sides her sons retort with “ Cool”, taking it all in stride.

The book is very informative about various procedures such as bone scans, chemotherapy, ultrasounds and radiation and gives an honest account of both positive and negative communication with various health professionals. It is chilling to read about the kinds of comments that can be made by those who should know better like the medical student who referred to her portacath as a “lump” and the radiation oncologist who, when told the area radiated was still too tender for a prosthesis said ”Well, you have to wear something in public”, this the same doctor who objected to her having a different surname than that of her spouse.

The book will be of interest to different people for different reasons. To other cancer patients or survivors, the book shows how someone with a difficult prognosis can have a superlative outcome and the ups and downs of getting there. To the medical professionals, there are many hints about the importance of treating the patient with care and respect and being very careful of what one says. It is always better to look at the glass as half full no matter the prognosis. To relatives and friends of a cancer patient, the book clearly shows the importance of small gestures and kindness. As one of Laurie’s cards says “Between me and insanity stand my friends”.

As a breast cancer survivor with metastasis I particularly related to this book. I am much older than Laurie but relate so well to her love of reading and how getting into a good book can take your mind off the cancer, and like Laurie I believe a glass of wine can cure many ills. I also relate to Laurie’s wanting to write about her experience, both as therapy and to provide information to others who need positive stories. No one would choose to have cancer but as Laurie says “ my life with cancer is infinitely better than I would have thought possible”.

Laurie's blog: Not Just About Cancer

Read about Alice's journey

Tribute to Yolaine

Peggy sent me this great picture of Yolaine dancing at the Vancouver dragon boat festival, along with some lovely words of rememberance.
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Yolaine embodied a warm spirit and had a quiet joie de vie that radiated from her smile. She was a quiet woman, not because she was shy, but because quiet was her nature.

It took me a little while to get to know Yolaine, and then I realized that Yolaine spoke her life, not through words, but by action. She didn't tell people that she was going to run the Half Marathon, she just did the training then ran the Half. But when complimented on her running success, she glowed with the joy of her own success and with the pleasure of people having noticed what she did.

Dragon boat was the same - she never complained; she just got to work and paddled her heart out. Even during the last few years, when she may not have been feeling her best, she would come to practice and smile radiantly, with the pleasure of being in the boat.

Quietly but passionately, she spoke about her children, about how much she loved them, about how proud she was of their accomplishments and how they each brought special gifts to her life.

Mostly, I remember Yolaine at the Vancouver Dragon boat festival in 2006. I can close my eyes and see her still - wrapped in her pink feather boa, and along with thousands of others, dancing in a frenzy of Pink Celebration. Her smile, her dancing, and her paddling spoke for her, telling her story of dedication to the things she loved.

Peg
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You can read the lovely words that Elaine Scarboro spoke at Yolaine's memorial service at Yolaine.

For those of you who knew Yolaine, please feel free to share a memory of her in the comments section. Add your name to the text portion if you want, but you can avoid having to log on by clicking on anonymous at the bottom of the window.

HAIR - by Mary O'Rourke

Here's something my friend Mary wrote about yet another lovely side effect of chemo. Thank you Mary, for being my first official "guest blogger".
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I have a bad comb-over. And I am not a used car salesman. I’m a middle-aged woman with male-pattern baldness.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a happy camper and a remarkably vigorous one for someone “living with cancer.” I bike, hike, paddle, ski and travel – with product, hair product that is. When I roll out of bed in the morning, I look like a cross between Albert Einstein and a crested grebe. The wispy bits of hair on top of my head stand on end. It takes time and product to get things slicked down and plumped up just right. Then I’m ready to face the world.

At the beginning, 15 years ago, I had great hair. Long, dark, thick and lustrous. Wore it down past my shoulders to make my skinny-haired sisters jealous. Then the doc announced I had the big C, breast cancer.

A momentous, movie-of-the-week moment. Some people worry about dying. Some worry that they’ll miss little Johnny’s graduation. Others fear spending all their time throwing up. Me, I wondered how I was going to handle the humiliation of wearing one of those creepy little cotton turbans that scream, “Look at me, I’m a pathetic sick person.”

So I got a list of the best rug experts in town. Number one fell way short of the mark. Tammy Faye and Loretta Lynn look great at the Grand Ole Opry, but don’t really cut it on Parliament Hill here in Ottawa. “Do you have anything shorter, more business-like?” I asked the girl. “Most people don’t care what kind of wig it is once their hair starts falling out,” she replied helpfully.

Luckily, when friend Martha and I finish laughing ourselves sick, we find Caralyn. Mature, wonderful Caralyn is a hairdresser with a separate entrance for the follicly challenged. In the inner sanctum, she tactfully suggests a chin-length brown bob. It has a few strands of grey woven in to match my natural colour. The con job works so well that I get far more compliments than I ever get on my real hair.

Fast-forward six months. Summer’s coming and I’m now so sick of the damn wig that I’m ready to embrace my inner skinhead. Which I do, until my hair finally grows back. Same hair, life goes on.

Until the next time, that is. Who knew that a persistent cough would lead to more adventures in hairdressing? But it does. I get a new wig, sail through treatment for the spots in my lungs. And then the cosmic joke strikes. Just as I’m admiring the hair growing in, I realize it’s re-arranged itself, without my permission!

It may not actually be male-pattern baldness, but thanks to the cocktail of chemicals I’ve been treated with, my hair is now thinner on the top third of my head than on the back and sides. Call me crazy, but this annoys me far more than the bone mets in my hip which were later treated, very successfully, with radiation

Well, as my friends say, bad hair is still way better than the alternative. But just in case, here’s how I want my epitaph to read: She died after a long and cranky battle with cancer and hair care.

Click here to read more about Mary (who just happens to look lovely with her less-than-previously-abundant pixie hair cut).