Tag Archives: anxiety
10 August 2009: Choice
Terrible foreboding and loneliness. The two of us in this house together and nothing but discomfort between us. I wish I could feel warmth, comfort, closeness. All outward signs are there: he takes me to the hospital, makes my meals, … Continue reading
Filed under treatment journal, uncategorized
abnormalities
I thought I was in the all-clear for the moment as far as tests go, but April 30th’s pap smear–I’d assumed hearing nothing for so long was a good thing–apparently turned up abnormalities. This is not the first time this … Continue reading
Filed under uncategorized
26 June 2009: absence
Sleepless nights and strange morning-dreams. This free-floating anxiety shot into overdrive with the nurse’s call last night: yet another meeting with the surgeon on 7 July, and nothing to be planned until after. There is always this great sickness in the … Continue reading
Filed under treatment journal
a small thing. just keep swimming.
Sign outside the Regional Cancer Center today says: WORRY CAN GIVE A SMALL THING A BIG SHADOW. I thought–oh, indeed? As small a thing as 2.5 cm of cellular abnormality, couched in your breast and poised to kill you? I … Continue reading
Filed under uncategorized
15 June 2009: what’s waiting
Sitting in the back of a classroom devoid of students. London considerably quiet–exam time for sixth-formers. Our brief holiday in Rome was so strikingly wonderful–the usual tedious-brief arguments always instigated somehow by food; the urgency of expectation–but otherwise so beautiful, … Continue reading
Filed under treatment journal
cancer on my desk
When I got to work this morning there was an envelope on my desk. I opened it to find it full of literature on “young adults & living after cancer.” It might as well have been anthrax. I felt betrayed … Continue reading
Filed under uncategorized
16 April 2009: Chemo #2
I thought I’d be calmer for the second chemo treatment, which was obviously a gross miscalculation of my character. Upon arrival I was handed a sheet with a mammogram request on it; notes dated 26 March stated: ‘suspicious lesions on … Continue reading
Filed under treatment journal
still looks like cancer: or, reality bites
A confession: I really love this movie. I used to so adore and identify with Lelaina (Winona Ryder) and her angsty smart girl Big Gulp post-college existence. But now it’s Vickie (Janeane Garofolo) with whom I identify, or this part … Continue reading
Filed under uncategorized
Jade Goody & the mythology of redemption: the spectre of cancer in the media
Jade Goody–the Big Brother reality television “star”-cum-cancer martyr–died the day before I started my own chemotherapy. I remember standing on the platform at the Royal Oak train station, waiting to go to the hospital for my first chemo treatment, looking … Continue reading
Filed under uncategorized
23 March 2009: Chemo #1
I’d had nightmares about the chemo over the weekend–IVs filled with burning acid, driven mad by it afterward. K’s fed up with my panic & hysteria & rudeness. Anti-anxiety medication quelled that. We left in the pouring rain and I sit … Continue reading
Filed under treatment journal
