I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind, But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, Yea, all the time, because the dance was long: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.… Continue reading Gone With The Wind
Tag: breast cancer
In Praise of Angelina
I have always been one of Angelina Jolie’s biggest fans. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences saw fit to reward her 1999 performance in “Girl Interrupted” with an Oscar, but I wasn’t well and truly smitten until the second Lara Croft Tombraider movie was released in 2003. In that film, Jolie, who performs… Continue reading In Praise of Angelina
The Curbside Consultation
Recently a friend of my husband’s in San Diego had a mammogram which showed some suspicious microcalcifications in her right breast. She underwent a stereotactic biopsy which revealed ductal carcinoma in situ, the earliest form of breast cancer also known as Stage 0 breast cancer. This type of cancer is non-invasive and does not metastasize,… Continue reading The Curbside Consultation
Love in the Time of Cancer
I used to be able to paint my own toenails but that was before age and arthritis caught up with me and these days I can’t SEE my toes, much less paint them. Here in the land of perpetual sunshine and flip flops one is not allowed to have ugly feet, so off I went… Continue reading Love in the Time of Cancer
Primum Non Nocere
I don’t have much in the way of eyebrows. They were victims of too much plucking back in the 1960’s and when you do that, sometimes they don’t grow back. There’s a very nice woman in Solana Beach who shapes and darkens what I have left, infrequently, when I bother to think about it which… Continue reading Primum Non Nocere
Happy Birthday To Me
Ex-marines are some of the toughest patients I ever see, when it comes to dealing with pain from cancer. And CAREER ex-Marines have the market cornered on toughness. Take for example, an elderly friend in Kansas who woke up one morning with severe upper back pain, feeling faint, and decided as was his Marine Corps… Continue reading Happy Birthday To Me
The Way I See It
When it comes to surgery for cancer, having a “positive margin” is a bad thing. It means that when the surgeon said he “got it all,” even though he meant it with all of his heart, likely he didn’t. For a woman undergoing a lumpectomy for breast cancer, that positive margin means a re-excision of… Continue reading The Way I See It
When Life Gives You Lemons
When I was about ten years old, swimming on a Texas swim team, I remember hearing that the child of one of the local coaches had been diagnosed with leukemia. The idea of a kid dying of an untreatable disease was so foreign to me that I am sure that I have blocked out most… Continue reading When Life Gives You Lemons
Mama’s Gonna Sing You a Lullaby
I have had patients and their families do strange things during a consultation. Patients taking notes and recording what the doctor says are pretty commonplace these days, as are answering a cell phone and arguing with a spouse over what really happened while giving a history. Some patients go to great lengths to disconnect from… Continue reading Mama’s Gonna Sing You a Lullaby
Denial Redux
Today I saw a new breast cancer patient in clinic. She was a lovely lady of 64, who had retired last year from her job as a special education teacher. Her medical history had been unremarkable until last November when she began to gain weight inexplicably. She was also short of breath, but did not… Continue reading Denial Redux