Saturday, November 29, 2008

If you think breast cancer is a gift, you can't come to my birthday party..

The above is from a book Steve bought me, five lessons I didn't learn from breast cancer..in which the author, now a breast cancer survivor recounts her experiences in cancerland and tackles the myths surrounding the disease. I am not finished yet but so far a good read. But one of the issues she tackles is the idea that cancer is a gift because it gives you true insight into what is important. Her take on that, not so much. Also she questions the attitude police constantly reminding you that you need a good attitude or you are not going to beat this, death by bad attitude. As she says, it isn't like you make the decision to think..screw it. I'm going to be depressed and negative until this thing is over. Of course, most of the time people don't criticize you (most of the time) when you seem to be in self-pity land. They do the positive reinforcement trick "Oh, you have just the right attitude, you'll beat this for sure." when you seem in a relatively good mood. Same message. And studies show that attitude really doesn't matter in survival despite Norman Cousins curing his fatal disease by thinking good thoughts. Still nobody wants to be around a gloomy gus and the right attitude people might take care of themselves better.

I seem to be insured. Now telling various health providers that I have a new policy number will be a pain. My prescriptions have the old number on it. And in January, we still have to figure out what insurance to get.
Naomi has an all day bball tournament today. Knock wood, she is healthy although she looks like an abused child with a black eye and numerous bruises. All of this from her own teammates. The coach teaches them to be very aggressive. They are now officially ranked in the top 25 teams in Michigan. They will do very well once the season starts this week. Hopefully I can see a few games..

We will see the first one this morning then off 75 miles to Armada where there is a memorial for my uncle. Then Steve and I will stay..I don't know where.hopefully he has arranged this...for our night out before I go into chemoland.

A good running day yesterday. Later one of the moms came over and we watched Respiro, one of the Italian films in my cinema class last summer. In literature, there is prose and poetry. Same with cinema. Some films are prose-they tell a story but some films are poetry. Respiro is a prime example of poetry in film. Very lyrical and beautiful.

Got to start the day.

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