The Assertive Cancer Patient

Getting My Hands Dirty

Yesterday morning I weeded at the women's shelter for the first time.

I walked over, pulled weeds and murdered snails for an hour and a half, and then walked back to the Manor in time for lunch.

That was a total of two hours, mostly on my knees. I loved it. 

More soon.

See: My New Life

A footnote: I forgot to rub my nails across a bar of soap before I started weeding, so I came home with filthy, filthy, battered nails. Next time I'll remember the soap. I don't like to garden in gloves, unless I'm pruning. 

© Jeanne Sather 2012. 

Pink Ribbons, Inc: The Movie

"Pink Ribbons, Inc." will be in theaters soon, but for now here is the movie trailer on iTunes:

Pink Ribbons, Inc.

As my readers know, I've been angry about the commercialization of breast cancer for a very long time. My blog has two categories on this topic: 

Pink Ribbons

Boycott October

Many--but not all--of the posts are in both categories, which makes for a bit of redundancy. And here are two posts I wrote about Samantha King's book of the same title:

Words to Think About

A Different Kind of Book Review

How many months until October? Argh.

 

© Jeanne Sather 2012. 

Grieving Doctors

An excellent piece from The New York Times, by  Dr. Leeat Granek:

When Doctors Grieve

Here's one paragraph on an issue I've been concerned about for a long time:

Unease with losing patients also affected the doctors’ ability to communicate about end-of-life issues with patients and their families. Half of our participants said they distanced themselves and withdrew from patients as the patients got closer to dying. This meant fewer visits in the hospital, fewer bedside visits and less overall effort directed toward the dying patient.

Here's I post I wrote on this topic in 2008 called MIA Doctors. In it, I quoted Dr. Tony Back, a Seattle oncologist, extensively. 

And here's a 2005 interview with Dr. Back in The Seattle Times. I was interviewed for the story as well. 

Discovering the Power of Goodbye

Tony pops up quite a bit on my blog. If you want to read more about him: Dr. Tony Back

 

© Jeanne Sather 2012. 

The Professor Returns

The Professor went off to the hospital more than a month ago, and then to a rehab center.

He was my first friend here at The Manor and sat at the same table at lunch and dinner. I really missed him while he was gone. 

Then yesterday, out of the blue, The Professor returned. He arrived at lunch time, so we could see his van pull up outside the dining room windows, and another resident and I rushed out to greet him outside the front door. 

He wheeled himself into the dining room and did a circle of "our" end of the room, collecting kisses, handshakes, and pats on the back. He was obviously happy to be home, and I was delighted to have him here. I think I've mentioned before that he tells stories of all types and sings snatches of of old ballads at the table. 

He was so happy to be home that I missed the underlying fragility at first, but it is there. He hasn't been coming down for every meal, so I suspect he is having trays in his room part of the time. 

Manor Trivia

I don't want to imply that The Professor's return was trivia, it was not, but some of these other things are just small bits of news about life in assisted living. 

On Sunday, the Manor put on a lemonade sale out front, and also a plant sale --mostly or all tomato plants. When I woke up, it was raining, so I figured these events were canceled, but they put up tarps and carried on. 

I bought a yellow cherry tomato, which is on the ledge outside my room. I also have two pots of strawberries with both flowers and small green fruits. These I dug up from my garden at the house. (Still no formal foreclosure notice on the door there.)

If we get some heat, I'll be able to pick tomatoes and strawberries just by opening the window. 

Lilacs

Last week, one of our residents (I don't know who) went off for a walk around the neighborhood and came back with a huge bouquet of white lilacs, picked from someone's yard. She left these at the front desk to be put in a vase. 

I don't know about you, but I found this sad. 

Very Trivial, and Not So Trivial 

I have an appointment to get my hair cut this afternoon--that's the highlight of my day. (Negativity alert.)

Actually, that's not the highlight, I received an e-mail this morning from the volunteer coordinator at the women's shelter I mentioned the other day, and they have accepted me as a volunteer. 

So I'm busy making notes to help me outline the writing class I offered to teach. I think the shelter wants to see a draft proposal of some kind, so I'm doing that first. I may be asking for input, especially from those of you who don't consider yourselves writers. 

 Read more: Assisted Living

© Jeanne Sather 2012. 

 

Problems With Blog Comments

I've been receiving e-mails from readers ever since Typepad changed the format of its "verification code" to leave a comment. 

The letters that readers were required to type were just too hard to read, and they would give up after a few tries. I had trouble with it myself.

Finally this morning I decided that it was time to fix this, and I dug down into the Help section on Typepad. I was going to ask Typepad if they could give me a simpler verification code, but then I discovered that I could do away with that verification code and still be able to see and approve comments before they went live. 

So we will see how this works. Please leave me a comment!  Jeanne

© Jeanne Sather 2012. 

 

Dreams

My nights have been crowded with intense dreams recently.

Some of these dreams are positive, and I wake up with a smile on my face. Some are scary or negative in some way.

The other night I had a long dream about Jabba, my breast prosthesis, which I haven't worn since 2007 and rarely think about.

I dress in a way that doesn't make it obvious that I have only one breast, and no one seems to notice. 

In the dream, I decided to wear Jabba again, and also tried various substitutes, like a wadded-up sock. 

Now Jabba is too big (a D-cup, from my chubbier days), and it's at the house anyway, but I dreamed that I wanted to wear it again.

See: Retiring Jabba 

The link above has links to a number of other posts I've written about breasts, boobs, and Jabba over the years. You can also find everything on this topic here: Breasts & Boobs.

Despite the dream, I have no plans to start wearing Jabba again. A note to those of you who may be new to my blog: I decided not to have reconstruction and, later, to stop wearing a prosthesis. That does not mean I am critical of women who made other choices. These are very personal decisions. 

 

© Jeanne Sather 2012. 

A Gardener Without a Garden

I've been missing my garden, big time.

So when I found a women's shelter that needed volunteers, and one of the things they needed volunteers to do was GARDEN, I jumped right on it. I e-mailed and signed up to go to a meeting for potential volunteers. The meeting was Friday. 

One important criteria for me was that I volunteer somewhere close by, and this shelter is a 15-minute walk from The Manor. 

However, I found out during the one hour meeting and tour of the shelter that they already had a volunteer taking care of the pea patch and growing vegetables. I wanted to shout, "But that's MY job." (I didn't, of course.)

The landscaping around the building and in the backyard does need someone to weed and so on, so I said I'd like to do that. I also offered to be part of the advocacy committee and to teach writing, either as a class or one-on-one.

Don't worry about my overloading myself. I won't start doing all these things at the same time. 

I'm almost finished with the application. I'll mail it back in a day or two and then wait while they do my criminal background check and so on.

See: My New Life 

© Jeanne Sather 2012. 

Plagiarism!

A Missouri blogger discovered that a blog post from his site, All American Blogger, was stolen (or plagiarized) from his blog and used word-for-word by a small-town newspaper.

The blogger stood firm and ended up being paid for his story. Here's how he did it: 

Asserting Copyright Over Plagiarized Work

Plagiarism has been a huge issue for me, both as a college teacher of various subjects, a writing teacher, and a writer. 

Most of us don't have the time to patrol the Web, but when I do find a post of mine that has been ripped off and published on someone else's blog, I e-mail them, point out that this is my intellectual property, and ask them to either pay me the going rate or remove the post immediately.

Needless to say, they'd rather take it down than pay. A newspaper is rather different in that once they've published the story, it is out there. I also would have pushed for payment, especially if the publisher is within driving distance. 

Face to face is the way to go. 

 

© Jeanne Sather 2012. 

 

My New Life

My new life is finally coming together. It only took four months or so, and you can read about it here: Assisted Living

If you scroll through those posts you will see that I wrote about depression, loneliness, days that were too long, and a lack of purpose. (One of my cancer blogger friends suggested sleeping and watching TV as a way of making the days pass more quickly--I hope he was kidding.)

I also dealt with two medical crises since I moved into The Manor: another tumor in my brain, which was treated with cyberknife, and a poop transplant to treat my C. diff.

But now, THINGS ARE BETTER. I'M HAPPY AGAIN. I HAVE AN APPETITE (not huge, but I'm eating and I'm enjoying meals).

** Going out with friends or with Younger Son makes me happy and revs up my batteries.

** I've been able to tackle some medical paperwork and bills, something I absolutely cannot do when I am depressed.

** Best of all, I have a couple of possibilities to give meaning to my life. One of my good friends is writing a book, and she asked for my help with it (feedback, some copy editing, that kind of thing). It's going to be an important book and I am more than happy to do what I can.

** On Friday, I'm going to a volunteer orientation at an organization that is only a 15-minute walk from The Manor. More on this one after I go to the meeting and check it out.

Footnote: I've started a new category on my blog, My New Life. I don't think these posts about my life going forward belong under Assisted Living.  

 

© Jeanne Sather 2012. 

More Mother's Day Bubbles

What's a picnic without soap bubbles? 

 

I'm beginning to really like my new neighborhood, Capitol Hill.

Mother's Day Bubbles

Younger Son and I celebrated Mother's Day with a picnic brunch at Volunteer Park.