October 2, 2007
I knew when I saw the pink t-shirt in my CIBC Run for the Cure bag that I wouldn’t be running the race. Yesterday was not a good day. My bag of t-shirts, identifying number tags and other race paraphernalia contained an extra t-shirt. A pink t-shirt. A survivor t-shirt. And I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t even look in the bag once I realized what was lurking there. I “earned” that pink t-shirt because I have an embodied relation to breast cancer that is recognized in this particular fashion. I am, in some way, symbolically aligned, now, with the motivational engine that runs the race - that makes the race run. No survivors, no race. And yet, I can not identify with the survivor emblem, nor the survivor discourse. I have written about this before.
It’s surprisingly hard, in this space, to tell a story that is not happy, or that doesn’t contain some generative moment of insight, or victory against ignorance, or fighting back against “the system”. I am very aware that you may not like this story, or that you may think it should have a different ending. Sometimes I think that blog entries should have ratings like movies do. This entry could be rated as, RA (Reading Avoidance advised): Theme or content may be excessively maudlin and introspective. May contain trite observations and narcissistic self-indulgence.
Yesterday was a sad day. It was a day of remembrance, and of mourning. I don’t know how to be a “partner with cancer”. I miss my old body. I miss the carefree relationship to my body that I had before cancer. Sure, it was often an unhealthy relation. As if immortal, I used to smoke, drink to excess, and ingest olive oil as if it were air. Cancer eats through fantasies of the displaced body. Cancer is really not sexy. And cancer makes happy places a lot harder to find and to sustain. I don’t need any extra burdens in the “look on the dark side of life” department, believe me! My life has always been a precarious race against anxiety, and now, I feel like I am dragging some enormous and unwieldy set of bags alongside me that I just can’t shake. I can’t talk my way out of this one.
Lots of good folks contacted me this morning to give me their CIBC Race for the Cure news. Thanks for that! Brandy’s Babes is the team I was registered to run with, and they had a really great time, despite the deluge of rain that blanketed Vancouver yesterday. And I heard from P/J who ran and fund-raised in my name, that they raised serious cash and were like gazelles from start to finish. My buddy S, in Regina, was led through a pre-race warm-up to the tune of “it’s raining men”, which, knowing S, he may have been hoping for. S ran on a 23-person team that raised lots of dough. WAY to GO!!!!
Thousands ran yesterday, and I was not amongst them.
October 2, 2007 at 6:17 am
My less than profound words on this topic are - cancer sux! For me, that applies if you’ve got it yourself or had it or if you have a friend with it.
Maudlin introspection, trite observations and narcissistic self-indulgence are all (IMNSHO, of course) healthy ways of dealing with this uninvited parasite that has taken up residence in your life and the lives of all those who love you.
Katrina
October 2, 2007 at 3:44 pm
There is no correct way to live with shitty things like cancer. The noble and brave survivor is an archetype that, in my experience with folks living with addiction, HIV, or depression, is a minority one. Inspirational stories are great for that–inspiration–but they also create pressure on others to be (or, perhaps, feign) that chin up, growing and learning through fear and pain, and (my personal unfavourite) thank you for this shite because “it’s made me who I am.”
I’m a much bigger fan of the fuck you/I’m scared discourse. fuck you cancer/HIV/depression/addiction, you can fuck right off and leave me/us the fuck alone! And jaysus this scares the shite out of me, and saying that isn’t a request for platitudes.
You are awesomely great at being Mary. Deal with this as only Mary can.
xo
JE
October 2, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Where did the “partner with cancer” thing come from, if you don’t mind the question? As far as I’m concerned, that bastard gets to be ALONE. Not my partner.
I wonder sometimes if the lack of resilience we experience after dx is because of our age. I know people who had cancer in late adolescence and they are waaaaay past being owned by cancer: they just go about their lives. I think it’s possibly the double whammy of the suspicion that death might someday happen (this is called “maturity”, I’ve heard, but I don’t act very mature, so I don’t know) combined with the proof that death can happen (cancer). So, even if we don’t die from it,it’s now connected to our awareness of aging & living & everything.
Think about it: cancer has a massive cultural weight to it. It’s got mythology, urban legends, scientific journals…people spend their whole lives dreading cancer: it’s pretty hard to stop dreading it, once you’ve actually met the fucker.
It sucks that there’s even an urge to apologize for feeling crappy/depressed/not-perky, but I’ve been there too & know it well. I hate the canon of the pretty & happy breast cancer patient & I intend to smash it. You’re invited to help.
October 2, 2007 at 10:48 pm
First, THANKS FOR THE LOVE KATRINA, AND FOR THE KISSES JAWN… Love that.
Second, Tina, the “partner with cancer” — I mean, in my relationship — I could have written, g/f with cancer — I didn’t intend a more metaphysical meaning (for once, ha ha). It’s just a very tangible thing for me that in my, what to call it, primary partnership, domestic bliss … that cancer follows me everywhere these days, like Linus and his dusty blanket, and so like Linus, that dirty dusty blanket folds itself over me and Janice. And I feel little or no control over the accompaniment of cancer. It’s just there now, the uninvited guest with a permanent place at the table.
And I am not sure where “resilience” becomes “denial and disavowal”. I feel really resilient, but not in denial or prepared to disavow the effect of cancer. Whereas when I was younger, I would say that whereas I wasn’t very resilient, I was really good at denial and disavowal.
October 3, 2007 at 12:36 am
1. Doh! Man, I pomo’d all over that one, didn’t I? Looking back on it, I realize it would have been “a partner TO cancer”, but I was about to go off on a tear, and re-reading would have only slowed me down.
2. I’m inclined to agree (re. resilience)…but isn’t that what a happy life is, denial of the eventual outcome? I think it’s a sort of existential issue…we’re temporarily unable to forget that we’ll die one day. Or we’ve forgotten *not to care* that we’ll die one day, maybe.
October 3, 2007 at 7:33 am
yep. what you say pierces me with familiarity. ouch! but if i can provide some comfort without intending to sound all “oh, now now, you’ll be alright” i’ll say this- unlike linus, you’ll lose that nasty old blacket… someday. trust me. hope’s the dope. xo to you both.