*Dancin'* — looks like I'll live a little longer yet <relief>
The incidence of breast cancer has gone up about a percentage point every year since 1940.

'Good' News? Going Amazonian, but: From all the tests they've done so far, it *looks* like there are no other signs of the cancer spreading beyond its main body and the nearest axillary lymph node. Greatly relieving to my most fearful worries.

The surgeon wants to operate on me next week. Because the bodily damage is less than my previous operation I may only have to stay in hospital for a week. He says that most people can return to work between 4 and 6 weeks after that, and they would usually let me recover for some while more before starting further treatment.

After the operation, when they've had a chance to look inside, and can study what they take out closely to see just what it is, we'll be discussing the best alternative for further treatment. It all depends on which type or combination of the many treatments available seems to be best, given all the information we'll have by then.

General Information from
www.abc.com.au/ health/ library/ breastcancer_ff.htm

From www.fenceliners.com.au/ news.htm
The Radical Mastectomy
The Sentinel Node Biopsy
by Paul Crea FRCS FRACS. General Surgery, Surgical Oncology and Breast Surgery.

See also www.breasthealth.com.au/index.html (tho' it's freezing up the browser at the moment).

Why I'm lucky - one reason I'd hesitate if time travel became practicable.
Thank goodness for anaesthetics (& of course antisepsis).

A small memorial to Fanny Burney's September 30th, 1811 mastectomy: with only "one wine cordial" for her anaesthesia, she endured "the most torturing pain. I felt the knife rackling against the breast bone -- scraping it! cutting against the grain, attom after attom" until "the air rushed into those delicate parts, and felt like a mass of minute but sharp & forked poniards."

www.abc.net.au/ rn/ talks/ firstper/ stories/ s1308221.htm (Thursday 21/04/2005 at 10.45am, as part of Life Matters, in Real Media Format)
www.abc.net.au/ rn/ talks/ firstper/ audio/ firstper_21042005.ram Read by: Kate Roberts
Also at
www.wesclark.com/jw/mastectomy.html - the full letter
www.asylumeclectica.com/ morbid/ archives/ morb0801.htm — a brief excerpt given at the entry for August 7, 2001

Welcome to Tit-Bits, a website for women with breast cancer
www.titbits.ca (this site requires the latest flash drivers)
Here you can:
  Share your thoughts and feelings about breast cancer with other women;
   Post art work, poetry, and other ramblings about living with breast cancer;
  Exchange practical titbits for surviving breast cancer;
   Download cool creative projects to help with the healing process;

Get Tit-Bits - hip, hand-knitted breasts - [shop, not patterns]
www.titbits.ca/v1/tb_shop.html

Knitting Patterns
www.straw.com/ cpy/ patterns/ cot_chenille_boob.html

www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall05/PATTbits.html

PDF of knitting pattern knittwotogether.typepad.com/ TitBitPattern.pdf

A sort-of-related clothing company www.toughtitties.com

www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Going%20Amazonian
www.flickr.com/ photos/ spike55151/ 50874304
www.flickr.com/ photos/ 18575352@N00/ 90232901

An alternative to the knitted version
www.sff.net/ people/ lucy-snyder/ brain/ 2006/02/ tit-bits.html

Comments, discussion, etc.
www.everything2.org/index.pl?node_id=1779808&lastnode_id=169667

Ah, chemo; Yes, chemo: Can't live with it; Can't live without it.
www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=chemotherapy
This links to a bunch of personal stories, comments and definitions
{If my courage fails, this might be an alternative to the usual injections: www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1323675 }

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero
Enjoy today, trust little to tomorrow.
     From Horace's Ode I. xi. 8.

You can translate it literally as pluck the day.
Not to be confused with carpe deum which means "God is a fish"
[See also www.everything2.com/ index.pl?node_id=583853 ]

Ah, but I am torn in warring pieces. Hope/relief war with fear, frustration, anger at myself for what I haven't got done in the interval since my last illness; grief wells up with reminders of my mother's and my partner's deaths (anniversary) and flows together with grief for my body - to be mutilated again - for my strength, and growing hope I had of getting clear of shadows of despair, for the world and our society that seems to be heading in a disturbing direction instead of the great possibilities that could be opening up.
[permalink][comment] - posted by Mez @ 3/29/2006 11:22:00 pm