Monthly Archives: August 2017

Ten Questions, or stuff we want you to know about breast cancer

Posted by Britt in Uncategorized and tagged with , , ,

Nancy’s Point is a blog I’ve followed for years. Her summer challenge is a call to share. So I did. And if you’re so inclined (as a cancer veteran from the front or sidelines), please join in!

  1. Share anything you want about your cancer diagnosis. Share your age, cancer type, stage, when you were diagnosed, family history (if any), your reaction, how you learned the news, or whatever you’re comfortable sharing. 

I was 40. It was my first mammogram. They never said, “Hey, looks good! The radiologist will send the report in a few days.” In retrospect, I think I knew then. My husband, Bernie (a plastic surgeon who has treated over a thousand women like me) looked at my films before the radiologist ever called. I had a diagnosis of invasive cancer by the end of that week: stage 1, high grade, scary family history, but no damning genes. My maternal grandmother had had a radical mastectomy at my age; one of her sisters died from breast cancer before age 40. Mom and her twin sister always assumed it would be one of them. It wasn’t. It was me.

 

  1. What is the most outrageous thing someone has said to you about your cancer?

Probably we’ve all gotten the “Well, at least you got a boob job out of this! Ha ha ha! I hate my boobs. I would LOVE to have them done! Amiright?” But maybe not many of us have gotten this from her own primary care doctor.

 

  1. What is your biggest cancer pet peeve? I know it’s hard to choose, as there are many to pick from, right? But what irks you the most?

It’s the Facebook memes that drive me bonkers. The single heart emoji posted as a status IS AN AFFRONT TO ALL WOMEN WHO HAVE HAD BREAST CANCER. The latest one was a classic cut-and-paster message claiming that it was Breast Cancer Prevention Week, which was four months ago, and I’m not really sure is a thing. These often are accompanied by private messages to “feel your boobies” which is wildly insensitive when delivered to women who no longer have them. Otherwise lovely, supportive friends feel bullied to post these things and pass them along or… what… they don’t care about cancer? I wonder who starts these.

 

  1. What is something you want others to know specifically about breast cancer?

First, another truth about those fucking memes: they can be a jarring reminder. Occasionally, we’ll have entirely cancer-free moments. Maybe we’re still in jammies and didn’t shower so haven’t revisited our scars; maybe we haven’t taken the Tamoxifen yet and are still doing the normal things normal people do, like yelling at children that the bus is coming or cutting crusts off of sandwiches. Then… WHAM. Your fucking heart emoji. Oh yeah, cancer. Thanks for the reminder. We live with it on our minds and bodies every single day and have all of October to endure. Unless that heart is a link to donating money toward metastatic disease research, it isn’t doing a single thing for us but providing a bit of posttraumatic stress.

Most people also do not realize that there is no “remission” for breast cancer, only NED (no evidence of disease). Asking us if we are “in remission” or “all good now” or if it’s “all over” forces us to lie to you, or get into uncomfortable discussions about how we’re secretly sure this is the thing that is going to kill us. I know what you mean when you sort of quietly ask, “How are you?” And when I say, “Fine, thank you so much,” we’re good. When you ask a breast cancer veteran if it’s “all over,” we assume you need it to be “over” and that really isn’t about us, at all.

 

  1. If applicable, do you worry about recurrence rarely, from time to time or a lot? What is your biggest worry today, right now, this minute?

I worry about it all of the time, but in the past five years I’ve had only one, true freak-out that landed me in the scanner. I’m fine. I tell myself I’m fine. I remind myself of the statistics for Stage 1 and how grandma lived to 83 after her radical mastectomy and how long some of us are living with Stage 4 disease. But it’s the pink ribbon monster under the bed.

 

  1. Do you feel cancer has made you a better person? Yes, I know this a loaded question.

It has made me a different person, for sure. I already assumed I was pretty awesome before The Diagnosis. I think I care about little things even less than I did before. Just last week a gaggle of teen boys had a wrestling match in my guest bedroom and ran the doorknob right through the drywall. And I thought, “It’s just a wall.” I honestly could not muster any feeling other than, “ugh, boys.” Sometimes I think cancer contributed to that kind of nonchalance about non-life-threatening things like holes in walls.

 

  1. What is your favorite cancer book?

For sure, Hester Hill Schnipper’s After Breast Cancer. It was like food to me in the aftermath of chemo and surgery. I just kept reading and nodding. I still cannot believe how lucky I am that I could sit on her couch and bask in her wisdom during the scariest times.

 

  1. Besides your family, where do you turn for emotional support?

All of you: the cancer veterans. The blogging strangers and friends from real life who have walked this road—I call us the Shitty Sorority– you ladies are a life line. But in the day to day, it’s Steve, my writing partner and testicular cancer veteran who I text with, “Can you believe these fucking memes are going around again?” And he gets it.

 

  1. How many cancer blogs do you read and why do you read them?

 I follow quite a few. Nancy’s has always spoken to me because she heralds science and refuses to give into the Cancer Made Me a Better Person trope. Terri Coutee is doing fabulous work with her diepcfoundation.org and her Facebook group that connects patients with each other and really fabulous microsurgeons. And like many of you, I bet, I still miss Lisa Bonchek Adams.

 

  1. Do you call yourself an advocate? If so, what drives you?

You bet your ass I do. Just writing answers to these prompts is advocacy. Also, I will talk to ANYONE who is going through this. I was a surgical resident many moons ago, and my husband is a world expert in breast reconstruction. We know stuff. I’m happy to share information. Even more importantly, especially in the wee hours, I can text, “I’m here. I get it.”

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Confessions of a non-sporty mom

Posted by Britt in Uncategorized and tagged with , ,

In New England most schools don’t begin before Labor Day. It makes for a long, long summer– if you don’t have sporty kids. Those with more coordinated teens are racing them to tryouts (some for spring sports, wtf) or pre-season practices. It was a common conversation thread among the parents I chatted up while watching my own boys play tennis this summer: how sports interrupt everything from family dinners to spring break vacations. And because I’m on an actual sideline watching my kids do sports (this is rare for me), moms who don’t know me well assume I have all of these logistical difficulties, too.

A typical conversation:

“Your boys play squash? Did you know my son recently transferred to Squash University to play Division 1 squash with squash squash squash people?”

“That is great! Love the sport. Love any sport that doesn’t involve a windy sideline or freezing rink. My boys have been playing at a winter clinic since they were little, but we don’t do a lot of matches.”

“Oh, you’ll be right there soon. (knowing nod) They’ll only want to squash with squash squash squash this Club, that Club blah blah blah. You’ll be in your car all of the time. It’s all coming soon. (knowing nod)”

“No. Not my kids. Teddy got beat handily by an 8 year old girl at his last match. My boys play squash, but they’ll never be good at it.”

“How can you say that about your own children?!? I bet they’re great!”

“No. Really. Brodie forfeited his first match because he ran into the wall. They’ll never play at any sort of brag-able level. How do we end this conversation?”

I never say the last line. But I think it. Maybe I should just nod appreciatively and pretend to memory bank all of their sage advice about coaches and clubs and teams and other nonsense. But I don’t. My boys play passable tennis and kind of terrible squash and enjoy basketball in the backyard. And that’s it. I sleep in on Saturdays and there are no muddy cleats or stinky gear in my pristine car. But it excludes me from a very common conversation among parents: how to get multiple children to multiple sports with the added worry over meals and homework and family life. And if you’re a mom who hates Soul Cycle and would never do Barry’s Boot Camp, really, are there any talking points left?

I joke. Pretty soon the conversations will pivot to where the kids will apply to high school or (gasp) the possibility of public school. We’ll revisit applications with entire sections devoted to itemizing a childhood of sporting accomplishments– and leave those blank. Have we done our boys a disservice for not forcing them onto teams to be a middling sort of good at a sport they don’t enjoy? In this world, probably. But when your kid tells you he chose soccer for a fall sport at school “so I can be goalie and just stand there and not run,” well, you see what I’m dealing with here. Acorn and tree and all of that.

Also, I like sleeping in on Saturdays.

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Lees on a Saturday: couch snuggling and Clash Royale. Division 1 level sloth, hit-ball-outta-park level happy.

Fighting the Nazis… by Steve Safran

Posted by Britt in Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , ,

“You see Nazis everywhere!” an exasperated friend once told me in college. She had a point. I brought up Nazis a lot, usually joking, sometimes not. I was raised to fear the Nazis, even though they had lost a war more than 20 years before I was born. I had Nazi Nightmares. I would be sitting in my sixth grade class in Wayland, Mass., and the Nazis would come for me.

I was raised to “Never Forget,” starting with Hebrew School in fourth grade. I went to Jewish summer camps beginning in 1977. Even there, amid the summertime fun of swimming, singing and doing plays, we honored the holiday of Tisha B’Av, which commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. It’s the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. We honored it at summer camp.

I remember being picked up at one of those first days of Hebrew School and saying to Mom: “Did you know about the Holocaust?” Of course she did. Although she was a toddler, she was a child of the war, and my grandfather, a first generation American Jew, helped build the ships that took out the Third Reich.

As the years went by, the Nazis became a punchline. They weren’t vicious genocidal maniacs anymore. They became “Springtime for Hitler” goofballs. Even the word “Nazi” has been defanged. It’s become shorthand for “strict.” There’s the “Soup Nazi” from “Seinfeld.” If you’re a pedant for word usage, you’re a “grammar Nazi.” And there’s Godwin’s Law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1.” Or, the longer a thread, the more likely someone will call someone else a Nazi.

But Nazis are real, they’re not a joke, and there’s nothing funny about this group of young, mostly male, Hitler-worshippers who have come out from the shadows. They have always been there, but now feel emboldened to take to the streets and foment violence. They can call themselves the alt-right, but that’s just rebranding. They want anyone who isn’t a “White American” gone. Stop calling them the “alt-right.” They’re white supremacists. And if they march under a swastika, they’re Nazis.

I believe—and this is very difficult to type– that the Nazis had a minor victory in Charlottesville. Yes, I believe love and compassion will win. But they want anger and hate, and they got it. They could have had their sick little demonstration, screamed about how life isn’t fair for white guys in America, and dispersed with little notice. Instead, we are left with three people dead. Chaos, death, fear means a win for the Nazis.

I spend a little time reporting these people to Twitter. This breed of hate-mongers are in violation of Twitter’s rules regarding abusive behavior. I search for racists with the biggest following, and I report them. It works. They get shut down. Often they’ll have the audacity to call being kicked off Twitter as getting “Shoah-ed.” The “Shoah” is another word for The Holocaust. That’s right– these people compare losing access to a social media site to being tortured and slaughtered for their religious beliefs. They are even sicker than you know. And, of course, they jump right back on Twitter with a new account. But I take a little pleasure knowing I’ve made it a tiny bit more difficult for them to spread their hate.

You can take the same action. Search the racist words they use and you’ll find no shortage of terrifying accounts. (Seriously: Twitter? You can’t crack this nut?) Report these people. They need social media to organize and spread their hate. We can stop them together. They act like it doesn’t bother them, but it’s a small delight to watch a Twitter user with 8,000 followers pop up again and have 10. Then I report him again. It’s not exactly “Simon Wiesenthal, Nazi-Hunter,” territory, but it matters.

We can fight the Nazis together, on line. Today’s Nazis thrive on social media. Let’s cut off their supply.

godwins-law

Maybe we can stop using “Nazi” as an umbrella term for those who do not agree with us… and save it for the actual ones in our midst.