Something Evil This Way Comes

So, someone sent me a blog comment which basically amounted to them telling me that I should work on a more prolific blog presence. That posting once a month was, perhaps, less than ideal.
Having given it some thought, I think she is right.

How to catch you up on the last month…
A couple of weeks ago, I went to Seattle for an ex-gf’s 60th birthday. At first I was horrified because I thought this meant that I was old, but what I realized is that it really means she is a chicken hawk.
Being in Seattle was good on a lot of levels. Part of what was good was seeing friends who have been in the same relationships for the last twenty years and seeing how they interact. It’s not perfect and sometimes they bicker, but at the end of the day, it’s pretty sweet.
I confess that I try to learn as I go when it comes to those big time relationships. I kinda got knocked back to kindergarten, but that’s okay. I can hone my humility some. It’s still really interesting to me to see how people interact when they have been together for a long, long time. I think it’s easy to get in an absent-minded groove and to be upset about whatever grumbly and annoying things are messing with your utopian vision today. It’s hard to remember to be kind and sweet to each other.
Thankfully, I am no longer put to that test, but for those of you in relationships, I think you should try to remember to be sweet to your sweetie. How else will they know that you care if you don’t extend yourself?

On other fronts, this week has been a week of coming out all over again.
I don’t know how to explain it and this thing has certainly consumed a lot of my mental and emotional energy and… if it needs to be said publicly then let me be the one to do it but after a long haul with sobriety, I have decided that I want to see if I can be just like a normal person.
Like I said, I don’t know how to explain it nor do I know how much I need to explain to the general public.
The details that are available for the general public are that I am awfully tired of being the person who is always different than everyone else in the group.
It’s also true that I have felt more and more isolated with the whole sobriety thing over the last few years, so that ultimately,crossing that line seemed like a way to re-connect with people.
It’s an experiment, and if I screw up, I know where to go to drink bad coffee and be hugged non-consentually. But in the short term, this is where I am at.

S’cool?

Last week, in a spontaneous moment, I confessed to two co-workers that I owned this domain name/website/blog/corner of the internet universe.
And then I instantly had a Homer Simpson “Doh” reaction and thought, “Was that the wisest thing I could have done?”
See, for years, I have read the blog entries of my OVCA sisters and thought, “Man, how sweet would that be to just say, “My partner is an amazing id-jit” or “My co-worker is as useless as tits on a bull.”
Long have I envied the candor which my more anonymous compatriots have brought to their blogs.

So, there it was, hanging there. And I wondered, “Did I ever say, ‘Damnation… I work with a legion of fools and wankers!”?
Cuz, frankly, I have had my moments of thinking that. As have we all.

Anyhow… I am at least partially outed as a OVCA blogger, at least at work.

And this outing has sparked a couple of cancer related conversations, which have caused me to think, even three years after the fact.

So, here’s a thing I should say.

Sorry I have been so crabby. I tried to be all Lance Armstrong-like, but unless you know what it’s like to lay in bed for the best part of a year, wondering if you are going to croak like all the statistics strongly suggest, well, I am not sure you get to be critical.

I took a book out of the library recently. It was a Cancer Survivor’s Notebook, or some such title. I really should memorize the title because somehow the book got water damaged and it ended up costing me over $30.
And after all that, I didn’t even read much of the book, since I was trying to get ready to move. But one wee tidbit that I did read was about how cancer patients/survivors can come across as angry, because we are so absolutely terrified right to the bone of dropping dead. So, angry is really about scared. Scared in a way that you can’t know till you get here.
So, forgive me. And forgive any other crabby seriously ill person you encounter.
It is frightening in a way that you can’t know yet.

More later.

Okay… so I moved and I keep trying to write something about me and my new place and my spectacular view and how weird it is when life changes and all that happy crap. But every time I write something, I decide it’s weird and wrong and I yank it down.
So sometime soon I will write about my new place and the view and the getting settled and the ripping the brother cats apart and all that happy crap.

In the meantime, there was important cancer news today. I found this on the CTV’s website (www.ctv.ca)
For me, it is extra great that the research is happening right here where I live.

The link to the story is here

The text is below:

~~~~~

UBC study may lead to ‘smart’ cancer therapies

Updated Tue. Mar. 20 2007 6:40 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

New, “smart” therapies for metastatic breast and ovarian cancers may now be possible thanks to researchers in British Columbia, who say they have discovered a key cancer protein.

University of British Columbia researchers, along with cancer scientists, have pinpointed a protein called podocalyxin, which researchers believe is an accurate predictor of metastatic cancer — the kind of invasive cancer that spreads from its original site to other parts of the body.

The findings were recently published online by the Public Library of Science.

Researchers say the culprit was hiding in plain sight on the surface of tumour cells.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Dr. Kelly McNagny, a stem cell expert with the UBC Biomedical Research Centre, told CTV Newsnet.

“The nice thing about it is, since it’s on the surface of cells, it actually is something that we can target antibodies to, or find a way to prevent its action.”

McNagny, a co-senior investigator of the study, said the finding is a “small but important step” to developing so-called “smart” molecules to block the protein’s function.

The researchers say information from this discovery may speed development of new therapies to within 10 years.

“The ultimate goal is to generate new targeted, non-toxic treatments,” added Calvin Roskelley, an associate professor of cellular and physiological science, which is “very different from the standard ‘slash and burn’ chemotherapy.”

Two years ago, UBC discovered that this same protein was an accurate predictor of breast cancer.

Last year more than 22,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and 5,300 died of it, according to data from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

The Canadian Cancer Society estimates that approximately 2,300 new cases of ovarian cancer were diagnosed and about 1,600 women died from the disease in 2006.

I just received this in my inbox:
“It’s official, Kathy and I were able to obtain a formal Proclamation from
the Mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, declaring Sunday, February 25,
2007, to be Heather MacAllister Day in San Francisco.
Oh, how Heather would have loved it. Can’t you just see her “strutting
her stuff,” while complaining that she still couldn’t afford to live in San
Francisco.

She is honored for being a strong advocate for the transgender population
and for the rights of fat people, for being the founder and artistic
director of Big Burlessque and Fat Bottom Revue, “the first burlesque act
exclusively featuring large-sized* performers”, for helping inspire the passage of
San Francisco’s anti-size discrimination law, for helping coordinate a summit
to bring Muslim and gay rights organizations as a symbol of solidarity
against the civil rights offenses that occurred after 9/11, and being a member of
Al-Fatiha, the nation’s only national organization for sexual minority
Muslims, and of NOLOSE, an organization for human rights and culture for fat lesbians
and transgender people, and to honor this inspiring community leader and
performer who passed away at age 38 on February 13, 2007, after a 3 year battle with
ovarian cancer,…”

Another one of my OVCA cancer buddies died this week.
That fact fills me with so many emotions, I find it hard to say anything at all or to know where to begin. But I have heard the beginning is a good place to start, so let’s let the unfolding of time be the determining factor in how this story gets told.

When I got diagnosed in May of 2004, a friend of mine said she had a friend in San Francisco who also had some sort of gynie cancer and we could talk/swap e-mails/morbid support if I wanted. And that’s how I came to be cancer buddies with Heather McAllister.

She had been diagnosed 3 or 4 months before me and so was a good resource and mentor for me when I was right there at the starting line, terrified of what to expect. It was really important to me to be able to talk to someone who had done the procedures I was about to endure. Cancer patients/survivors get their love and support from their friends and loved ones, but the support one can get from a fellow patient/survivor is precious in its own way.
When I had bad side effects, and couldn’t sleep for days, Heather told me what drugs she had been given and what worked for her. That made a huge difference because sometimes information passes more quickly on the ground, among us in the silly blue gowns, than it does higher up, among the white lab coat set.

My chemo brought my CA 125 count down.
Heather’s first chemo didn’t take as well and she had to go back.
Again.
And again.
And again.

About a month ago, I got an e-mail saying she had decided to stop chemo, and that with that decision, the doctor’s thought she had 3 to 6 months to live.

On Monday of this week, I found out that she had arrange for an assisted suicide for the following day. By mid-Tuesday afternoon, I was receiving e-mails saying that Heather had taken the treatment and her fight was over and folks wished her well on the other side.

For me, it’s all so sad and strange.
We were cancer peers in many ways.
Diagnosed around the same time with the same stage of the same cancer.
I am sad, very sad that she died and profoundly aware of how easily that could have been me. I guess it’s a bit like having been in the trenches with someone.

Heather was a Fat/Social Justice Activist and the founder of the Fat Bottom Revue, a burlesque troupe full of really hot fat grrrls.

The thing Heather wanted to say, that message she wanted to leave us with, is that we should love our bodies, just like they are and appreciate all they do for us, and that we should love each other.

How about we all try that? How about that for a post-Valentine’s Day idea?

I received a light rap across the knuckles for having neglected my blog yet again.

So, first, island life.

In spite of enormous challenges, the island has been good. And challenging. And good.

As you may know, this part of the world got whalloped with a rather massive (by our standards) amount of snow. The snow made the island pretty. The trees were all dusted in layers of snow. So much snow, that many a branch collapsed and took out a fence or a power line. I was lucky, I had power for at least a few hours each day before it would croak again, and again and again. My neighbours lost their power last Saturday and went without even an  amp of juice until Thursday evening. And while my wee cabin heats with propane, most of the locals heat with electricity, so there were many busy fireplaces.
I was lucky with the electricity. Lucky that I had some and lucky that I wasn’t relying on it, (except to keep the mighty laptop purring while I lay on my butt, watching entire seasons of Buffy all over again).

I was less lucky with the water because our pipes froze the first night of the big snow. It was not completely dire because you can always boil up some snow and cook up some pasta. It’s just weird to keep picking bird seed outta the pasta water, but hey, everyone has to eat.
But there really is nothing quite as fine as a bath after a few days marinating in your own freeze-dried sweat.

I spent all day Wednesday and Thursday trying to get off the island because I had tickets to a show here in town. There were hurdles a-plenty to overcome.
On Wednesday, my big butchly truck was stuck on the ice and not capable of any sort of controlled movement. So, I set my heart of getting the early ferry on Thursday morning.
This ferry catching plan was made considerably more difficult when, on Wednesday night, the power went out in my cabin, and since I left every single one of my wrist watches at home, the only way I could find out what time it was involved firing up the laptop. And that meant prudently guarding the battery life (and not just watching Buffy reruns till I fell asleep) so that I could, at any time, fire up the laptop and find out the time.

So, Thursday morning I woke up, saw that it was 7 am, and realized that if I really hustled, I could make that 8:30 ferry. It would involve a great deal of motion, constant motion, but I was hell-bent on getting home at that point and if it meant dragging my cat and my laundry and my garbage and my recycling and my laptop and my guitar, each in separate trips, along that long path of ice that was once a road, well hell’s bells, I’d do it. I loaded myself down, all optimistic-like, with a duffel bag full of dirty laundry and began slipping my way down the lane, only to walk right past my truck. See, it was concealed beneath the two birch trees that had fallen for it and then fallen on it and sleuthfully disguised it from me. I did in fact walk right past it, didn’t notice it, just noticed something strange and wrong out of the corner of my eye.
And then I saw it was my ride to civilization, now slain, or at least on the ropes, not able to move an inch till the neighbour, the king of the Husquavrna, came to chainsaw me out.

I’m home now.
It took quite a few trips, back and forth, dragging drugged cats and such. I was second in line for that evening ferry.
Still all enthusiastic about making the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies show that night.
But by the time I got off the ferry and drove through the massive sheet of ice that was Delta, and then landed in my bathtub, I just couldn’t turn around and go back out into the drippy, awful night, apologies to firegrrl.

That’s your island life update so far.
I’ll be heading back sometime around mid-month. Spend some other chunk of time over there and then head back home once and for all and start looking for my next palatial estate. All you local folks, do drop me a line if you hear of any cheap, nice and cat-friendly places.

Other news…

The Globe and Mail piece has been enormous. It seems to have garnered the attention of various politicians. In fact, the week that piece ran, Steven Harper announced the creation of the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer,dedicating $260-million over five years on cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
Erin Anderssen came back to all the original participants and asked us what advice or kicks in the ass (my paraphrase) we might give politicians wanting to do a better job, and she also wanted to know what advice we would give to newly diagnosed folks.
Somewhere in between my final papers and exams, I really want to throw my 2 cents in.

In other health related notes, things are going well in a general sense, but I do have to go get a bone scan in a couple of days because someone in a lab coat thought that might be a good idea.It turns out that it takes over 4 hours to do this test. It remains to be seen whether this one will actually happen because of some island-mainland communication screw-ups.

And after that, I will be hurled back into the land of blood-draws and visits with the oncologist. Thankfully I can make it through the holidays without *that* added stress. But it’s funny, because I can feel the dread mounting, slowly, even though it’s weeks away.

And finally, for folks still following at home, the old man has got himself another room in the hospital. The doctors say that this time his lung/breathing problems are not pneumonia. I don’t know if that is good news or bad news. But I think, and the doctors think, that having him in the hospital is going to be a pretty regular thing.

It’s weird the things one comes to accept.

A few months ago I got an e-mail from a writer with the Globe and Mail, asking me if I would be willing to be interviewed about being a cancer survivor, and I said “well, sure”. The folks at the Globe were really thorough and conscientous and followed up lots of little details over and over again.

Today, that article came out. Much to my surprise, it’s the cover story of the weekend edition of the paper.
Here I am on Galiano, trying to find a copy of the weekend Globe, when there are only 10 copies delivered to the entire island. As luck would have it, I was able to snag two copies. Heh.

You can read the online version of the article here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/health/

I suggest you check out the slideshow. You will not get to see my now famous cancer survivor tattoo, but you can see a picture of me and Elaine on our last holiday together and a lovely shot that Elaine took of me playing with a dog on the beach on that same trip.

It’s great to have been asked to participate in this and Erin Anderssen and Moe, the photo editor at the Globe, were really considerate and smart and sensitive and just all-around good to deal with.

But my greatest accomplishment in all this is having created a situation where the Globe and Mail used the term “butch dyke” in one of its articles. I am told this has never happened before and I am all for pushing the envelope when it comes to respected institutions and language and gender and identity.

Please check out the article and also the slideshow. It certainly isn’t the whole story, but it is one part of my story and there are a lot of other really important stories in this article as well.

Over and out from the island.