Yes, indeed.
Do you know what it's like to have someone say "Because of you, I didn't get reconstructed and I'm okay with it." because *I, as in me, HorseDoovers* didn't get reconstructed? That's pretty damn cool.
Do you know what it's like to have someone say "Thank you for what you said on your blog because I've had the same thoughts, I just never said anything. You said it perfectly." and it was unsolicited?
Do you know what it's like to have someone say "Thank you for having the Cancer Bitches group because it's real?" and know they really mean it because the were in a group where they were hassled for their realistic perspective of the shit related to cancer?
It makes me pretty damn pleased with myself that I've been enough of a bitch to speak up against what is the anticipated social "norm" of "acceptable behavior" and keep on speaking up, regardless of what others said/thought/did and now, others are speaking up.
We just all need to find each other because yes, we all do exist, those of us who are speaking up about what was done to us and it's okay and tolerable and acceptable for us to have a very ugly view of the cancer industry. We admit that cancer didn't make us into "better people" and that what it did to us was turn us into people who don't tolerate shit from anyone now.
That's what speaking up has done for us, we realize we aren't alone.
Recently, I was out with my husband and we ate lunch. At the next table, there happened to be two men sitting there eating their lunch. With going flat, I've become accustomed to people looking at me strangely. Normally, it doesn't bother me, I don't gaf, I don't try to hide it. I suppose some people would say I flaunt it and I don't care. Their issues are just that, theirs, and I don't make their issues with it into my problem, which is why I don't try to hide being flat. But, I noticed this guy was looking at me like I was a complete freak since it was obvious with the kind of shirt I had on, I'm flat. Flat as in concave, let's say.
So, I looked at him as I was getting up to leave, turned around, and followed my husband out of the restaurant. I walked out as if I owned the fucking place. My husband doesn't realize what happened and that's okay. This is my issue to deal with. When someone gives me a strange look, I do look back at them so they see I've noticed and I go into "I own this, fucker." mode, even if a tiny part of my brain doesn't want to, I still fucking do it because eventually, all of my brain will catch up with that 99% of I Own This Mode.
I have days when I struggle with being the ugly duckling, for lack of a better way to put it, even even though I'm 3+ years out from surgery. Other days, it's not a big deal for me to own it the entire time I'm out and about and no, I don't get overly analytic about why a day may go into one category or the other, it just is the way it is. I also don't lie to myself about how great I am now since I've had cancer by trying to convince myself I'm "new and improved" and super de duper better since that would be fucking lying to myself because I'm not "new and improved" or "better" and I refuse to go along with what's expected of me now as a former oncology patient, since there was nothing wrong with the old, functional me.
Someone who doesn't lie about how things are is Knot Telling. In her post, Why I Lied to My Doctor, she's very truthful about why and how being honest with your doctor isn't always helpful for people like us, believe it or not.
4 Times and Counting talks about how cancer patients are not Collateral Damage in this post and many of us feel that way. Some of us acknowledge it, others remain in denial and refuse to say there is a deeper and even multiple impact of breast cancer on our lives.
Your Body, After Cancer, by Diane Mapes, is about seldom covered issues of the post-cancer body.
Life, Interrupted: Lost in Transition After Cancer, by Suleika Jaouad writes beautifully about trying to figure out who she is now.
Study Reveals Treatment for Women with Breast Cancer Suffering Cognitive Difficulties tells of brain fog which causes problems with concentration, organization, and even activities such as following a schedule or planning things to do.
15 Things You Don't Owe Anyone (Even Though You Think You Do) Do yourself a favor, pay attention to this and ponder how you can apply it to your life.
Song of My-Selfie by Sara Sophia Eisenman is a wonderful article about finding our identities and sharing ourselves in this day and age of media all over the place. (Here's what I said: I loved reading this. As someone who has completely lost my identity and both breasts to the abuses of the cancer industry, and yes, it is an industry, I appreciate every “selfie” I see of other women also trying to find their way through wrecked and mangled bodies, bald heads from chemo and/or radiation, and other assorted collateral damage that is now our lives as people who somehow managed to survive what was done to us. We can find out we aren’t alone in trying to reconfigure our identities as women, even though men can and do get breast cancer, also.)
Julie Frayn wrote a delightful post called Warning - foul language ahead, in which she goes into profanity, swearing, and F bombs in an entertaining and agreeable manner.
Let me wrap this post up with some helpful commentary; it pays to bake for the mechanic guys. I randomly bake them cookies for no reason, other than I like to bake for other people, as well as my family. I have baked for the mechanics, teachers at school, neighbors, construction people building our house, etc. because I like to bake. Some people knit and I'm not that coordinating, so baking it is.
My husband needed a vehicle to drive to work since he was in the process of changing jobs. We took a trucky thing to the place we get oil changes, engine work, etc. done. They looked it over and confirmed it had a timing problem because it idled very rough. Didn't charge us at all and if they had, it would have been around fifty dollars.
To make a long story short, we found a vehicle for him and purchased it. The tire light came on, so we took it to be looked at. They fixed that right up and didn't charge us. The cost would have been around ten dollars.
We got on the big road and my husband noticed it was slightly off at a high speed, so that meant the tired needed to be balanced, so we dropped it off. A few hours later, I took him to pick it back up and there was no charge. If there had been, it would have been around forty dollars.
I spent the evening baking a ton of cookies to take to the mechanic guys because they, by all rights, should have charged us for their time and what they did, but they didn't. Since they didn't, I figured the least I could do was take them cookies. That was definitely worth every chocolate chip, as was seeing how pleased they were at being given cookies, so that was a lot of fun.
Do you know what it's like to have someone say "Because of you, I didn't get reconstructed and I'm okay with it." because *I, as in me, HorseDoovers* didn't get reconstructed? That's pretty damn cool.
Do you know what it's like to have someone say "Thank you for what you said on your blog because I've had the same thoughts, I just never said anything. You said it perfectly." and it was unsolicited?
Do you know what it's like to have someone say "Thank you for having the Cancer Bitches group because it's real?" and know they really mean it because the were in a group where they were hassled for their realistic perspective of the shit related to cancer?
It makes me pretty damn pleased with myself that I've been enough of a bitch to speak up against what is the anticipated social "norm" of "acceptable behavior" and keep on speaking up, regardless of what others said/thought/did and now, others are speaking up.
We just all need to find each other because yes, we all do exist, those of us who are speaking up about what was done to us and it's okay and tolerable and acceptable for us to have a very ugly view of the cancer industry. We admit that cancer didn't make us into "better people" and that what it did to us was turn us into people who don't tolerate shit from anyone now.
That's what speaking up has done for us, we realize we aren't alone.
Recently, I was out with my husband and we ate lunch. At the next table, there happened to be two men sitting there eating their lunch. With going flat, I've become accustomed to people looking at me strangely. Normally, it doesn't bother me, I don't gaf, I don't try to hide it. I suppose some people would say I flaunt it and I don't care. Their issues are just that, theirs, and I don't make their issues with it into my problem, which is why I don't try to hide being flat. But, I noticed this guy was looking at me like I was a complete freak since it was obvious with the kind of shirt I had on, I'm flat. Flat as in concave, let's say.
So, I looked at him as I was getting up to leave, turned around, and followed my husband out of the restaurant. I walked out as if I owned the fucking place. My husband doesn't realize what happened and that's okay. This is my issue to deal with. When someone gives me a strange look, I do look back at them so they see I've noticed and I go into "I own this, fucker." mode, even if a tiny part of my brain doesn't want to, I still fucking do it because eventually, all of my brain will catch up with that 99% of I Own This Mode.
I have days when I struggle with being the ugly duckling, for lack of a better way to put it, even even though I'm 3+ years out from surgery. Other days, it's not a big deal for me to own it the entire time I'm out and about and no, I don't get overly analytic about why a day may go into one category or the other, it just is the way it is. I also don't lie to myself about how great I am now since I've had cancer by trying to convince myself I'm "new and improved" and super de duper better since that would be fucking lying to myself because I'm not "new and improved" or "better" and I refuse to go along with what's expected of me now as a former oncology patient, since there was nothing wrong with the old, functional me.
Someone who doesn't lie about how things are is Knot Telling. In her post, Why I Lied to My Doctor, she's very truthful about why and how being honest with your doctor isn't always helpful for people like us, believe it or not.
4 Times and Counting talks about how cancer patients are not Collateral Damage in this post and many of us feel that way. Some of us acknowledge it, others remain in denial and refuse to say there is a deeper and even multiple impact of breast cancer on our lives.
Your Body, After Cancer, by Diane Mapes, is about seldom covered issues of the post-cancer body.
Life, Interrupted: Lost in Transition After Cancer, by Suleika Jaouad writes beautifully about trying to figure out who she is now.
Study Reveals Treatment for Women with Breast Cancer Suffering Cognitive Difficulties tells of brain fog which causes problems with concentration, organization, and even activities such as following a schedule or planning things to do.
15 Things You Don't Owe Anyone (Even Though You Think You Do) Do yourself a favor, pay attention to this and ponder how you can apply it to your life.
Song of My-Selfie by Sara Sophia Eisenman is a wonderful article about finding our identities and sharing ourselves in this day and age of media all over the place. (Here's what I said: I loved reading this. As someone who has completely lost my identity and both breasts to the abuses of the cancer industry, and yes, it is an industry, I appreciate every “selfie” I see of other women also trying to find their way through wrecked and mangled bodies, bald heads from chemo and/or radiation, and other assorted collateral damage that is now our lives as people who somehow managed to survive what was done to us. We can find out we aren’t alone in trying to reconfigure our identities as women, even though men can and do get breast cancer, also.)
Julie Frayn wrote a delightful post called Warning - foul language ahead, in which she goes into profanity, swearing, and F bombs in an entertaining and agreeable manner.
Let me wrap this post up with some helpful commentary; it pays to bake for the mechanic guys. I randomly bake them cookies for no reason, other than I like to bake for other people, as well as my family. I have baked for the mechanics, teachers at school, neighbors, construction people building our house, etc. because I like to bake. Some people knit and I'm not that coordinating, so baking it is.
My husband needed a vehicle to drive to work since he was in the process of changing jobs. We took a trucky thing to the place we get oil changes, engine work, etc. done. They looked it over and confirmed it had a timing problem because it idled very rough. Didn't charge us at all and if they had, it would have been around fifty dollars.
To make a long story short, we found a vehicle for him and purchased it. The tire light came on, so we took it to be looked at. They fixed that right up and didn't charge us. The cost would have been around ten dollars.
We got on the big road and my husband noticed it was slightly off at a high speed, so that meant the tired needed to be balanced, so we dropped it off. A few hours later, I took him to pick it back up and there was no charge. If there had been, it would have been around forty dollars.
I spent the evening baking a ton of cookies to take to the mechanic guys because they, by all rights, should have charged us for their time and what they did, but they didn't. Since they didn't, I figured the least I could do was take them cookies. That was definitely worth every chocolate chip, as was seeing how pleased they were at being given cookies, so that was a lot of fun.
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