The Martian (movie) and cancer

My brilliant oncologist, Dr Sheldon Goldberg, writes several blogs on top of treating patients, staying current with cancer research, reading more than 100 RSS feeds daily, studying Jewish texts and raising a family. His brain must be bigger than most people's, and he can store and access so much information.

Recently he saw the film "The Martian," in which one astronaut is accidentally abandoned on Mars after his colleagues believe he died in a storm. It was a great book and a good movie. Dr G blogged about it here and asked me to share his comments on my blog. His take on the film was wholly different from what I expected, and yet it makes perfect sense to me as a cancer patient.


medical philosophy

Friday, November 27, 2015

The Martian: How much is a person worth?

Recently, I saw The Martian, a movie about a man accidentally abandoned on Mars. The movie is about the struggle for survival, the marshaling of forces to allow the survival of that one man, the sacrifice of compatriots and the politics of rescue.

 
Cancer patients, and the people who care for them, can feel like they are abandoned on Mars. The feelings elicited by this movie are similar to those we, who care for cancer patient patients feel. When do we call the situation hopeless? When do we give up? How much can we put into the effort for one patient? How much can we spend?

In the movie there is no limit. Billions of dollars are spent, scores of people work without rest, people give up years, in the prime of their lives, to attempt to rescue a single man. In our real, medical world the money, the time, the energy are all limited, The resources are shared by thousands of patients. This places every part of the medical system in the position of distributing a limited, precious resource. The doctor must balance the chance of benefiting the patient against the cost to the system, which could mean denying another patient an equal or better chance. Doctors differ in their approach to this problem.

How can we do any less than our best? Our efforts are not like those in the movie. They are not as good as they should be.. The basis for saving the Martian was adoption of a nonstandard strategy, a strategy that would work, in theory, but was not a usual approach. A methodology that involved unanticipated expense and sacrifice.

Currently, the pressure to follow standard procedures is almost overwhelming. Deviation from such standards risks the label of malpractice. Obtaining insurance coverage for a treatment that is not recommended in guidelines, or for a problem that deviates from the FDA approval parameters is a Herculean task - and getting harder. .

Knowledge and Resources are always limited. The Martian was rescued, he beat the odds. It is very expensive and difficult to take on the odds... sometimes it works.

E B, phone home!

I know you're out there….Hope you're feeling better and better every day and that you'll be back in touch soon. Wishing you a full and complete healing of body and soul.

Another cancer blogger award

I received this in my email today:

I hope this email finds you all in good health and having had a good holiday!  I am happy to announce that we have released our 2014 Top Cancer Blog Awards and if you are receiving this email, you have been chosen!  Attached is an updated badge for you to post on your blog (if you already have an older version, either Top Cancer Blog or Empowered Blogger, you can replace them both with this single badge).  We are in the process of updating our website with the new list, as well as publishing a story about the winners, so I will let everyone know when the story is posted.  Congratulations to you all!

I'm pretty sure the holiday he means is Easter, even if I celebrate Passover. Still, it's lovely to be recognized again as a good blogger.

A new year

I've written before that I have several new year markers in my life: January 1, Rosh Hashanah, my birthday, and of course August 20 -- the day I got the news that my cancer came back. Each day has its own special moments.

On January 1 Rik and I share new year's predictions with friends. We predict on movies, politics, sports, and anything else we can think of. (The next year we check to see who was right.)

Rosh Hashanah brings time in synagogue, meals with friends, and casting off our troubles at Alki Beach.

My birthday, November 15, is fun with friends and sometimes family joining the celebration. I am a true Scorpio -- volatile and passionate in too many ways. The years have mellowed me somewhat. I think family especially would agree with that.

August 20 is the one day in the year I send a giant, Bronx cheer/raspberry (tbbbbh!) to my cancer. We have a party every year. Sometimes it's only a few friends. Family have been here. At momentous anniversaries such as the first, the fifth and the tenth, we've invited more people. I try to serve my favorite foods: dark chocolate (vitamin CH! gotta have your daily dose), whipped cream, champagne and potato chips. If you don't get the combo, it's not worth puzzling over. I will say that I've never met a fried potato that I didn't like.

For 2014, I want to revisit a cancer dream I had almost 11 years ago. I dreamt that I was in my house, but a wild party was going on, and I wanted it to be quiet in the house for Rik, who had to wake up at 5:30 AM to teach. I ran from room to room, asking the partygoers to quiet down.

After I awoke, I realized that the house was my body and the noisy partygoers were my cancer. So I decided that the cancer could stay as long as it was quiet. If it acted up, I would bring on the tough stuff. Basically it's been on the quiet side for 11+ years now, and I hope it stays this way for a long time to come.

And those are my thoughts on the new year.

Another loss

My support group friend D went into the hospital last week and began comfort care over the weekend. He died today at 3:45 pm, just as we in group had finished talking about him.

Cancer, this terrible disease, strikes too many people at too young an age. D was diagnosed less than a year ago. He came to group filled with anger at his diagnosis and unsure how to react to it. Over the few months I knew him, he moved from anger and frustration to acceptance and focused on living his life with cancer. I am sure going to group helped him to learn coping skills. Meeting other people with advanced cancer also played a big part in his acceptance of his situation.

D was a gentleman in every sense. When B and I needed rides every week this  summer, because Rik was working and he needed our car, D came though week after week. We three developed a deeper relationship during our weekly commutes and even on our last ride, we benefited from one another's wisdom.

D leaves behind a wife and teenage children, as well and many other family and friends. Zichrono l'vracha -- May his memory be for a blessing to all who knew him.

A must-read

This is a wonderful piece by Roger Ebert, published at www.salon.com. Click here for the full article.

I do not fear death

I will pass away sooner than most people who read this, but that doesn't shake my sense of wonder and joy

BY ROGER EBERT

Roger Ebert was always a great friend of Salon's. We're deeply saddened byreports of his death, and are re-printing this essay, from his book "Life Itself: A Memoir," which we think fans will take particular comfort in reading now.

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter. You can’t say it wasn’t interesting. My lifetime’s memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

I don’t expect to die anytime soon. But it could happen this moment, while I am writing. I was talking the other day with Jim Toback, a friend of 35 years, and the conversation turned to our deaths, as it always does. “Ask someone how they feel about death,” he said, “and they’ll tell you everyone’s gonna die. Ask them, In the next 30 seconds? No, no, no, that’s not gonna happen. How about this afternoon? No. What you’re really asking them to admit is, Oh my God, I don’t really exist. I might be gone at any given second.”

Me too, but I hope not. I have plans. Still, illness led me resolutely toward the contemplation of death. That led me to the subject of evolution, that most consoling of all the sciences, and I became engulfed on my blog in unforeseen discussions about God, the afterlife, religion, theory of evolution, intelligent design, reincarnation, the nature of reality, what came before the big bang, what waits after the end, the nature of intelligence, the reality of the self, death, death, death.....

Living with cancer

Here's a take from a fellow soul who's living with cancer.

Once, Twice, Three Times Malady: My Love Affair With Cancer and Why I Decided to Tell the World

... Some cancers just can't take a hint. You can poison with chemo cocktails, butcher with surgery, burn with radiation, and they still won't leave you alone. You can't get a restraining order against a tumor, I've been told. My cancer can't get enough of me. My cancer keeps coming back. And so I've decided to accept my illness in order to move on with my life -- instead of cure or die, I've chosen truce. I'll keep my life -- and cancer can have supervised visitation rights...

Playing the cancer card

There are times that I just want to say to people, "Stop that (annoying behavior)! Don't you know I have CANCER?" This is known as playing the cancer card.

Annoying behaviors might be any of the following:

"How are you?" (said with great emphasis on are and with Bambi eyes). How do you think I am? I have CANCER!

"That haircut is so cute on you!" My hair is this radically short and has barely grown in months because I have CANCER.

You can imagine other annoying things people with cancer face on a daily basis from even the most well-intentioned family and friends.

Or we living with cancer might play the cancer card to get on the disabled line at the airport security check in ("I can't stand on a longer line because my CANCER disabled me"). There's more, I'll leave it to your imagination.

Well, now we can really play the cancer card, because the people at The Stupid Cancer Store have actually invented one. I bought a pack of ten for $14.99 plus shipping and was thrilled when they recently arrived. I immediately put one in my wallet and added the fob to my keychain. Yesterday, participants at my support group received the other nine cards. Everyone was delighted!

Feel free to support the underlying organization, The I'm Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation - i[2]y.

Young adults, a largely unknown group in the war on cancer, account for 72,000 new diagnoses each year. That's one every eight minutes. It's also seven times more all than pediatric cancers. This is not OK!

Stupid Cancer (aka The I'm Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation, i[2]y) is a non-profit organization that empowers young adults affected by cancer through innovative and award-winning programs and services. We are the nation's largest support community for this underserved population and serve as a bullhorn for the young adult cancer movement.

Our charter is to ensure that no one goes unaware of the age-appropriate resources they are entitled to so they can get busy living.

For more information, visit http://stupidcancer.org.

Seattle's hidden treasure for cancer patients

Gilda's Club Seattle (GCS) recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. I've gone to yoga here almost every week during the past six years. I help out with fundraising and have tried to model in the annual fashion show several times (health issues always prevented me from walking down that runway).

Although GCS has 20,000 members, it's struggled during the economic downtown. Gilda's Club is one of Seattle best-kept secrets for cancer patients. Why don't more people know about it?

Check out this Seattle Times article to learn more:

Rachel Clark of Issaquah was 8 years old when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Less than nine months later, Rachel stood by a hospice bed, unable to find words as her mother drew her final labored breaths.

Cancer can be like that.

Jerry Liebermann of Seattle was 22 when a tooth extraction that wouldn't stop bleeding led to the diagnosis of his leukemia. Doctors gave him three years to live. But, while he's had remissions, relapses, rough days and painful moments, he's still around, 33 years later.

Cancer can be like that, too.

Although their experiences are markedly different, Clark and Liebermann both say cancer always will be part of their lives.

They share something else as well: Gilda's Club.

Another cancer loss

Yesterday my friend Stephanie died of the metastatic lung cancer she'd lived with for three years.

Stephanie and her partner had celebrated an early new year's eve over lunch with Rik and I just a few weeks ago. Later I learned that S got very sick that same night and stayed so for the next couple of weeks. After hearing that there were no other options to treat her cancer, she started on hospice in their home a few weeks ago and her health began to fail. By the end of last week she was clearly "terminal," and between one day and the next, Stephanie died.

Stephanie's death hit me very hard. I read the email in the morning but still started my typical day. While walking the dog and listening to some music, I remembered how Stephanie and Michael had come to the Dunava concert last December, just to show me support. I recalled the time they came to dinner at our home; I was sure we would all become good friends. I looked back on all the times at group that Stephanie and I took opposite views, simply because we saw the world as glass half full or glass half empty. And I sobbed.

I cried for the loss of our friendship which was just starting to deepen. I wept for her partner, who held her as she died and now has to pick up the pieces of his life. I sobbed over the parallels between Stephanie's life and mine, for our similar diagnoses and for my ability to visualize through her dying, what my death might be like. I read Michael's posts and I can see what my partner might go through.

You can read about Stephanie on her blog, The Taffy Times.

Stephanie, may your memory be for a blessing to all who knew you.

Resolutions

I said on Facebook that my new year's resolution would again be to eat fewer carbs and less sugar*. Despite my good intentions, I am still addicted to both. So as a way to keep myself honest, every so often I will post about what I ate. And since Rik teaches on Tuesday nights this quarter, we eat dinner very early, making this is a good opportunity to share (tattle).

Breakfast One egg scrambled in the microwave, a slice of rye toast with soy margarine, some of a decaf "mocha" made with one piece of 88% chocolate and the daily half water/half tart cherry juice mixed with L-glutamine powder. (Tart cherry juice is supposed to help with the neuropathy. I do so much that is supposed to help with the neuropathy that I don't know what works and what doesn't.)

Lunch (I was a bad girl but there was no time to eat anything healthier) Fast food burger but no bun, small fries, glass of water.

Afternoon snack The rest of the morning's decaf mocha, one spoonful of peanut butter.

Dinner (I think I excelled here) Six Brussels sprouts roasted with olive oil and salt until crunchy, a quarter of a baked sweet potato spread with the soy margarine, halibut spread with mustard and mayonnaise to keep it tender, a glass of viognier.

Then I couldn't help myself. The Graeter's ice cream a friend brought over was calling to me. The other day I accidentally left the freezer door ajar for a few hours, and I just had to do a quality control test. After ten or twelve tiny bites of the chocolate-chocolate chip, I'd had enough.

So much for new year's resolutions. Still, I try to keep everything in moderation. I have so much going on that I can only control and limit my diet to a certain degree before my frustration level escalates. And a daily dose of vitamin CH helps me a lot.





* About two years ago Dr G told me he'd been thinking about PET scans and cancer.  24 hours before a PET scan one stops eating carbohydrates, then fasts for 12 hours before the scan. The glucose and radioactive dye injections measure activity -- the more active the cancer, the more it "lights up" on the scan. Dr G said this made him believe that carbohydrates fuel cancer cells, and so he recommended I eat fewer carbs and less sugar. Note he said "fewer," not none.

Happy new year

As the founder of my online support group said in a post yesterday, "We are still here!"

That alone seems reason to celebrate. When you live with metastatic cancer, you never know if a certain day will be your last. Holidays can be especially tough Who wants to imagine that this is their last birthday/family celebration/New Year's Eve?

And somehow, despite this ongoing fear, we move forward. Yes, it might be the last time to do _____________ (you fill in the blank). I, however, prefer to live in the moment. I experience the nostalgia and sorrow, that this might be the last time, and then I remember that everyone is in the same boat. None of us knows when is our last holiday, our last family visit, our last you-name-it. It's just that people with cancer feel the likelihood more acutely.

And with that, here are some selected moments from the past few days of new year's celebrations:

Shabbat dinner with friends who truly appreciated a home-cooked meal (especially the kid, who almost never gets to eat kosher chicken!)

New Year's Eve day lunch at Blueacre Seafood with friends who know the chef. Chef Kevin Davis came out for a visit several times during our meal. Meeting the chef, that's a treat!

Low-key dinner with yet more friends and a relaxing, non-competitive Scrabble game. At one minute to midnight, we realized the radio was playing Auld Lang Syne and that it was time for the ritual Happy New Year greeting and kiss.

Shopping!

Watching an oldie but always goodie, A Fish Called Wanda, with our regular Sunday night dates G and W, followed by Indian food for dinner. Our wonderful server let us sample several beers, and the kitchen offered us a piece of baklava still warm from the oven.

With such a sweet start to the new year, I feel refreshed, rejuvenated and ready to start 2012.

So far, so good

Yesterday's acupuncture treatment may have begun a revisal trend in my neuropathy -- or at least helped me tolerate it better. The acupuncturist placed two needles below my ribs, two along my collarbones, two in my feet (he left those in place for about 30 minutes) and two in my right hand. Evidently the needles that stayed in place for some time were sedating, or at least I fell asleep and when Dirk came in, he seemed pleased that I had dozed off. I came home feeling more energized and was able to make dinner and putter around the house.

This morning I awoke early (for me) and made waffles for breakfast, changed the sheets on the bed, started some laundry and am about to go to the grocery store.

It's not that my feet really feel better, but more that I am able to tolerate the discomfort.

I thought of another way to describe neuropathy. When I curl my toes against the balls of my feet, it feels as though my feet are swollen and tender. But when I examine them, that's not the case. My feet appear totally normal. That's the thing about nerve pan -- it's not visible.

And that's the thing about disabilities. They're not always visible. You can't see my cancer. You can see the side effects of the treatment, such as baldness. But cancer itself is invisible to the naked eye.

What I am thankful for

Self-care, no matter how long the painful neuropathy in my fingertips takes me to pull on my socks.

A loving husband who reaches across the dog to warm me when my toes are so cold the neuropathy is more severe than usual.

This visit with my Mom. She lets me take every day at the pace I need. She moves as slowly as I need to, or sits on the couch reading a book and letting the dog love her when I can't move at all.

Speaking of dogs: Bobka the Cavalier King Charles spaniel, who excels at showering affection on one and all.

Baking yesterday's apple pie. Even the simple act of cutting apples made me feel more like I was part of the Thanksgiving meal prep.

Being invited to someone else's home for the holiday celebration. My afternoon nap gave me enough energy to participate in a lovely Thanksgiving dinner party last night. And I didn't have to cook or clean up afterwards.

I'm not thankful for cancer. If it was a gift, I'd be first in line to return it.

I am thankful for Dr G and my wonderful medical care team who have helped keep me alive, alert and able to celebrate yet another holiday, nine years after my initial diagnosis with metastatic breast cancer.

To all who live in CancerLand, I hope you are able to find something in your life to be thankful for every day.

Last day of Pinktober

I read on Facebook about a woman who uses the last day of October to remember those she's lost to breast cancer. I thought this was a beautiful custom to share.

I remember....

My grandmother, Mary Neuer Cohen, who also had metastatic breast cancer and lymphedema. In the late '60s and early '70s, no one knew how to control lymphedema. She suffered with an arm the size of her leg. My first cousin became an oncologist because of Mema's cancer.

(My other grandmother, Esther Aaronson Poppel, lived for a long time with breast cancer and as far as I know it was not responsible for her death at a ripe age.)

Emily, my dear young friend. We met on an airplane going to a conference on the other coast and talked for the entire time there and back again. We could talk for hours, despite the differences in our ages and backgrounds. She only wanted to live to turn thirty and died soon after her 30th birthday, leaving a husband and two young children.

Dena, who underwent a simple surgical procedure and entered a coma from which she never woke. Dena used to say that with neuropathy, she could wear the fancy shoes. Her feet were so numb from neuropathy that she couldn't feel how uncomfortable the shoes were! Her husband didn't know her wishes regarding hospice care because they hadn't figured out how to talk about it. She left a young child.

The "other" Jill, who I met by accident when I heard her say her name. I was near her house a few months ago and recognized it, almost by accident, as the seeting of our many talks. She left a husband and young child.

Wynne, who I met at a young survivors retreat in Las Vegas. She looked me up on a trip to Seattle and from that point on we became friends. Wynne and her husband had just adopted an infant daughter when her cancer took a turn for the worse. She died before her daughter's first birthday.

And although they didn't have breast cancer, I remember...

Josh, the bravest person I knew, who lost his left hand after a growing sarcoma forced amputation and who with his wife raised three children, worked in his field, volunteered, wrote poetry, and made a movie about his struggles with cancer (My Left Hand). He was a mystic and spiritual person who brought the spark of the divine closer to all.

My beloved friend from high school, Rabbi Charisse Kranes. Although she died from cervical cancer and not breast cancer, she figured hugely in my developing years and helped make me the person I am today.




My father, who suffered from non-Hodgkins lymphoma and whose treatment may have helped him decline from robust man to bed-bound. Still talkative in his last days, he told me he wasn't going to die, even when his quality of life was very poor. On our final visit we reminisced with my mother about childhood days with my sister. Now, as my mom says, there's no one left who remembers when they were all young together.

Zichrono l'vracha, may their memories be for a blessing to all who knew them.

How to help

Yesterday a new follower named Janelle commented that her mother had recently been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer and she didn't know what to do to help her mom. Since Janelle posted a common question, here is my take on how to help someone you love when they've been given a diagnosis of advanced cancer.

Janelle, I am so sorry to read that your mom has advanced breast cancer. I imagine that everyone in your family is upset about this diagnosis. No doubt all of you are reacting in different ways.

Every person diagnosed with cancer has to find her own path on this journey. And those who care about them have to somehow allow themselves to let their loved one find their own way.

It's been my experience that no one can walk the cancer road with me unless they themselves have been diagnosed with cancer or another major illness. No one else really understands how I live with facing my own mortality on a daily basis. No one else grasps just how badly the treatment side effects can make me feel. And no one else can plumb the depths of my despair at my body's betrayal of me.

That said, there are things you can do to support your mother. If you live in the same town, you can driver her to appointments and bring her meals. You can visit, spending time just being with your mother. Or on a good day, you can take her out for a break from cancer to see a movie, go to a restaurant, or do something together that you know brings her joy.

You have to deal with your own issues too, whether that means talking with a good friend or family member, finding a support group for caregivers, or seeking counseling from a trained professional.

As a cancer patient, your mother has many resources available to her. I attend a support group that meets weekly at the hospital where I receive treatment. Although not everyone in this group has metastatic breast cancer, everyone has a diagnosis of advanced cancer and we help one another.

There is a Gilda's Club in Seattle and I've been a regular at Friday yoga classes for many years now. Gilda's Clubs also offer many other classes and workshops and are found in many large US cities. In Seattle we also have Cancer Lifeline, which provides a similar program.

I also belong to Club-Mets-BC, a listserv for women with metastatic breast cancer and their caregivers. You can find us at http://www.acor.org; click on Mailing Lists at the top of the page, then browse alphabetically under "C" or look for us under Most Common Cancers or Women's Cancers. Ours is a closed, or private list, meaning you have to apply to join us. There is also BC Mets, which is an open list, meaning anyone in the world can read any posts at any time.

Your family and friends may want to donate their money or time to breast cancer causes. I am partial to METAvivor, which funds research exclusively into metastatic breast cancer, and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. I don't particularly think Susan G Komen For The Cure does much for women with metastatic breast cancer, but they are the largest such charity in this arena. I stay away from all the pink ribbon marketing (check out Think Before You Pink).

Your mother is on a tough road. It took me months to come to grips with my re-diagnosis at stage IV when I was 42 years old. The thing that helped most was writing an ethical will. In this ancient Jewish practice I found insight into the values I cherished the most at a time when I thought I would die within a year. You don't have to be Jewish to write one.

And lastly, we say in our home that sometimes we take it one day at a time; sometimes one hour at a time; sometimes one minute at a time. When it's one minute at a time, that's when I eat a piece of dark chocolate (vitamin CH!), because I know that at least this one minute will be a good minute. It's a bit flippant and doesn't help too much when things are really bad. But I like chocolate, and if iI can concentrate on something other than cancer for one minute, that takes my mind off cancer for one minute.

I hope this helps.

Hair loss

I woke up this morning with hair loss that is so spotty, I looked like a clown, all tufts and patches of thinning hair that don't quite cover the bald places. It was so disheartening to realize that yesterday was the last day I could get away with nothing on my head -- and it was Shabbat, so I wore a hat to shul.

I don't know why hair loss is so powerful for women, but can be traumatizing. Somehow I thought I could avoid it, even when my hair has been thinning for weeks. I guess I wanted to have one more week with my own hair. But now it's entirely clear that in order to look like a normal human being. I have to start covering my head with a scarf or a hat or my wig.

It was a very emotional morning. I snapped at Rik when I thought he wasn't being supportive enough. He suggested that maybe he was offering solutions when I didn't want them. We worked it all out but it was a frustrating few minutes for me, between freaking out at the hair loss, trying to decide what to do about it, and wanting (and getting) emotional support from my hubby. That's why I married him -- Rik always comes through for me.

Then I called Cherie at Essence Salon, who last year buzzed off my hair as it began to fall out. Rik and I remembered how tough that was for me, so I asked Cherie if she could just trim up the wispies instead. She did a great job, and I now feel as though I have a really short haircut with a few bald patches. It's short enough to go hat-less around the house, but I feel it's more under my control this way. And bless Cherie; she wouldn't accept any payment. This is her mitzvah work, her charity project for the American Cancer Society. Next time you need a hair cut or other salon work, please consider going to Essence. You'll be happy with the result and you'll be supporting a business owner who does the right thing for cancer patients losing their hair.

We took out my wig, tried it on and fluffed it up. It looks OK, not great -- it certainly looks like a wig -- but this way I have the option of looking like I have hair if I want it.

I pulled out all my scarves and put them in the big basket on my dresser, so I can find exactly the one I want for the day when I get dressed. And I pulled out the cute black and white polka-dotted cap my sister sent me last year.

I guess I am as ready as can be to face the world bald again.

Gilda's Club Fashion Show

I will model at the Gilda's Club fashion show next week. I've been active at Gilda's Club Seattle for about eight years and am a Friday yoga regular. Please consider attending or supporting this very worthy cause with a donation. 

Having trouble viewing all the details below? Click here to go straight to online registration.

DON'T MISS OUT ON THE BEST SHOW IN TOWN!  IT WILL INSPIRE YOU AND TOUCH YOUR HEART. Tables of 10 are $1,500... single tickets are $150.  Put a group together for an afternoon to remember!      14th Annual Fashion Show & Luncheon DATE:June 3, 2011 TIME:11:30am - 1:30pm LOCATION: The Westin Seattle ::MAP MORE:Visit our website for more information or to purchase tickets    Featured Models Magarita Andrijic :: Judi Best :: Kathy Burdick :: Delaney Clark :: Jill Cohen :: Sara Cottrell :: Louisa Cryan :: Stacy Eckert :: Jaymee Espinueva :: Steffanie Fain :: Carol Gaouette :: Doneen Jasman :: Jesse Jones :: Victoria Kemery :: Amy Lanum :: Joanie Mass :: Camari Olson :: Norma Phillips :: Mario Prieto :: Pete & Jill Robertson :: Sherrill Slichter :: Lucho Singh :: Mike Walter :: Reba Weiss :: Jenni Whitney Boutiques Scheduled to Appear Alexandra's :: Barneys New York :: Betty Lin :: Brooks Brothers :: Catherine's Plus Sizes :: Champagne Taste :: Eileen Fisher :: Endless Knot :: Jack Straw :: Karan Dannenberg :: La Belle  Elaine's Bridal :: Mario's :: Opal :: Papillon :: Piazza Sempione :: Ragamoffyn's Road :: Rottles :: Sears :: Tatters :: THE FINERIE :: Via Lago

Shingles

Believe it or not, this is good news!

I called Dr G this morning about a rash that appeared overnight on my leg and he said to come in before the MRI scheduled for this afternoon. One look, that's all it took -- shingles!

When combined with the kind and spread of pain I'd been complaining about all week, the appearance of red vesicles (rash) enabled him to out all the pieces together. He immediately cancelled the MRI and started me on valacyclovir and gabapentin.

It will take quite a few days for the infection to clear up and perhaps longer for the pain to reduce. Gabapentin will also make me tired and I shouldn't operate machinery (i.e. drive a car) while taking it. I will stay on the fentanyl patches also, since one is supposed to increase the gabapentin slowly to a maximum of three per day.

I had chicken pox as a child and the odds favor that I have carried it around in my body ever since. There's little doubt low immune counts from the chemo caused me to be more susceptible to a flare up. That's also why I couldn't have the shingles vaccination. It's a live virus vaccine and would have put me at risk to develop shingles, which I did anyway.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website says,

Shingles cannot be passed from one person to another. However, the virus that causes shingles, the varicella zoster virus, can be spread from a person with active shingles to a person who has never had chickenpox. In such cases, the person exposed to the virus might develop chickenpox, but they would not develop shingles. The virus is spread through direct contact with fluid from the rash blisters, not through sneezing, coughing or casual contact.

A person with shingles can spread the virus when the rash is in the blister-phase. A person is not infectious before blisters appear. Once the rash has developed crusts, the person is no longer contagious.

Shingles is less contagious than chickenpox and the risk of a person with shingles spreading the virus is low if the rash is covered.

So I will cover my rash, swallow the huge valacyclovir pills (1 gram, the size of my thumb!), and hope the gabapentin controls the pain soonest, plus remember that shingles is NOT MORE CANCER.

Yet another death from cancer

A friend from my support group died this weekend. D, a very spiritual person, was a regular at this group for far longer than I. His cancer progressed quickly and his doctor recently told me there were no more treatment options that were likely to be effective. D decided to stop treatment and enjoy his life for as long as he could; the doctors hoped through the end of the year

Sadly, the cancer seemed to progress faster than anyone expected. D began to fail a little more than a week ago and started hospice at that time. He came to group on the 17th looking pale but still giving us suggestions on where to take a walk to enjoy the spring weather. D was looking forward to giving a talk on spirituality last week when we heard that he was failing and slipping in and out of consciousness. I heard this morning that he had died. I imagine that his grown children were able to make it back to Seattle in time for the funeral today, but don't know if they each had a chance to say goodbye. Rik and I will try to make it to a shiva minyan this week (if my health permits after tomorrow's planned fourth dose of Gemzar).

Zichrono l'vracha, may his memory be for a blessing to all who knew him.

Cancer sucks.