Welcome to Cancerland

The title of my blog is the same as of an essay of a writer who has a very cynical take of the pink, cheery aura surrounding breast cancer patients. See http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/cancerland.htm . She takes on many of the myths of breast cancer, including its detection, the differences in attitudes between cancer 'martyrs' and 'cancer survivors' (none), corporate sponsorship (exploitive or helpful), pink ribbons, the infantilization of the patient, the ignoring of the environmental causes of BC, etc. Suffice it to say, she won't go cheerfully into that good night with a pink teddy bear tucked under her arm. Aside from the annoyance of facing your mortality at a much earlier age than you thought you would have to and the many discomforts of the treatments that might not even be helpful, she is annoyed at the approved cheerful mindset that everyone, including other BC patients, expects of you. For fun, she would post her negative (true) feelings about her situation on various support boards and for the most part, would be criticized for her bad attitude and warned of certain doom for entertaining such bad thoughts. Anyway, she's a good writer and takes an interesting, philosophical approach to life in cancerland.

It was sunny and spring-like again yesterday, which improves my mood. I took a couple walks with Sunny, who left past midnight with her owners, and cleaned up my patio a bit. Many people out and about. Aside from sore feet, my myalgia seems to be gone and I took no meds at all for it yesterday. Still my nails seem like they might fall off and my fingers are stiff and very swollen. I can finally blow my nose without losing a teaspoon of blood. I was very surprised that my hemocrit improved with all my bloody noses.

We leave for Seattle in two days. I can't wait. It's been too long that I've been stuck here while everyone else is out having fun.