When I understood the challenge ahead in my personal battle with a cancer still to find a cure, and a projected two year longevity prediction, it was time to dig in for answers—all while avoiding the world of quackery and misinformation.
There’s often news of such patients overcoming the incurable and substantially extending projected survival times. Admittedly, those patients hold infinite amounts of discipline that I’ve yet to achieve.
Photographers like this hillside. It’s juxtaposition. It’s unique. It’s a challenge to photograph because one must be mindful of traffic, mud, holes and lord knows what else to get that perfect photo.
For me this moment paralleled how I feel these days: Like a poppy seeking the sun and holding my delicate bloom together against a hard and rocky environment.
Now imagine yourself listening to a specialist in this field of cancer treatment basically telling you that father time, cloaked in his black garments and clutching a sharpened scythe, has established his death-dealing self within your body. You have choices to make. Here’s 10 incites that will probably happen with that diagnosis:
“What island am I on?” I asked myself. Outside is a leader belittling countries of dark-skinned humans. Outside is a legion of angry white men at war with themselves and a changing world. Outside is a living contradiction of faith. Outside we’re told that it is us versus them. But I was on an island where ethnicity and social station did not matter. This island’s mission was human kindness.
Through these 12 months, a medical cancer did strike my friends and colleagues. It was as if a deluge of rogue cells from what I call cancer-world rained on many people I know. And at the same time it never dawned on me that, I, a breast cancer survivor, should have kept my umbrella at hand.
From an extended family member, I learned about Kimberly, the mother of a 15-year-old daughter. On this Mother’s Day, Kimberly and her daughter will likely make the most of every minute because Kimberly is in Stage 4 breast cancer.
I read Silent Spring in 1968. It changed my view of the natural world and was more than incidental in my personal growth. Carson’s plea for moderation and close observance to what and how we walk upon this earth speaks louder today than it did 50 years ago. Her opponents live on and rally against anything that smirks of environmentalism. To my point of view their arguments remain shallow and manipulated.
Author’s Note: Here’s the link to the podcast on Animal Radio http://animalradio.com/top.php The interview begins at 00:33:20 Before the day’s commotion begins I like to rise… Read more “Now I’ve A Soon-To-Be Celebrity Cat”
Between the continuing events in Japan, the breakdown of our own democracy, and the passing of Robert this morning, I can’t seem to get the spirit of the Irish excited enough to don the green or even hunt for a four-leaf clover.
understand those who criticize breast cancer research nonprofits and the commercialization of the pink ribbon, along with the high cost of treatment. But now that I am a breast cancer survivor, I’m grateful for the research funded by donations; I don’t care if a large corporate gives a just penny from a profitable sale to breast cancer research (pennies add up), and the day your doctor says “you have cancer,” it may well become the worst day of your life. So when asked if I’d take conventional treatment again, I answer, “In a minute.”
The Muse Pallet 