Never thought I’d say a rap made me cry. Could just be because I’m super emotional today, but it’s probably because this is so awesome.
death
A Doctor’s Musings on His Terminal Illness
Just want to share this NYTimes article, How Long Have I Got Left?, because it is so beautifully written and insightful. My favorite quote is:
“I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.”
The Desire to NOT Die
When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2011, I thought a lot about dying. Now that I’m 2 years out, dying is moving further and further off my radar. The other night, though, I had a really intense dream about it.
I lived in some kind of futuristic society with a controlling government (think The Hunger Games), and I was going with a group of people to a big gathering. The group I was with (myself included) had previously decided that, because we didn’t like the government, we were going to wear bombs to the event and blow ourselves up in protest (think Al Qaeda).
Yes, it’s morbid. Don’t ask me how my subconscious comes up with these things because I have no idea. Anyway, on the way to this event, I realized what it actually meant to blow ourselves up and I started uncontrollably crying and begging the rest of the group to let me back out. I remember being so upset about the thought of dying that my insides felt like they were made of stone and I would be able to make myself so unwieldy that no one could push me forward and make me do the dark deed.
Then I woke up.
In conjunction with this dream, I’ve also been watching The Big C, the Showtime series about a woman who is diagnosed with terminal skin cancer. Besides the first season, during which I found the main character, Cathy, to be insufferable because she wouldn’t tell anyone about her diagnosis, I have really enjoyed the show and felt many of its moments to be relatable to my experience. Cathy searches for meaning in her life, tries to focus on what’s really going to make her happy, and, finally, tries to come to terms with her inevitable demise. I laugh, I cry, I sob, I cry some more. I marvel at the fact that this character is hurtling toward her death and doing it so gracefully. That’s Hollywood for you.
I’m not sure what the point of all this death talk is, except to say that, even though I don’t think much about death these days, I still really, really don’t want to die. I just don’t know how anyone can find peace with dying, though I know many people do, and one day I’ll have to, also. Hopefully, that will be in 80 or so years, after I’ve run a marathon, played Eponine in a production of Les Mis, and visited every continent.
Dear Diary
One of the joys of spending time at home is exploring my childhood bedroom and finding old diaries and j0urnals I kept through middle and high school.
The other night I was reading one from my last year of middle school and pretty much every entry was about a crush on a new boy who didn’t crush me back. OMG! The pain in my heart was palpable through my written words – and I felt a familiar twinge of the unrequited love syndrome that was all-too-familiar back in my teenage days.
Why do I write about this now? Well, after I put down the journal and laid down for bed, I thought a lot about how priorities change throughout life, especially when facing a mega-crazy situation like cancer. Back then, I
probably felt like I was going to die if Lenny* (*names have been changed to protect my innocent crushes) didn’t like me back. Today, there are times when I feel like I’m going to die because of cancer. It just puts things in perspective.
Also makes me long for the days when things were simple – though I’m sure my 13-year-old self wouldn’t have seen it that way.
Wearing my BRCA genes 