Over at A Gai Shan Life, Revanche is climbing back from her recent shocking loss and, I suppose, from the equally shocking (potentially) good news. Resonating off a theme launched by eemusings, she lists several things she’s grateful for and asks readers to join in.
Just now, I must say, I’m finding it difficult to evince much gratitude.
The modern medicine that recently has made Revanche’s life more comfortable has disrupted my life Big Time. I’ve been cut up, half-healed, infected, bloated with hematoma, ruptured and bleeding, in pain, sickened by drugs, and waiting to be cut up again since the end of June, and whether Dr. P manages to “get it all” on her next fishing expedition or whether she has to lob the boob off altogether, the nightmare is not going to end much before the middle of December. If the surgery ends with success (heh…) on October 15, I will then have to heal up again — a month or so — and then be subjected to at least three or four weeks of radiation therapy, which will be followed by some weeks of debilitating fatigue. And God only knows how long it will take to get over that!
The longer the mess goes on, the more evident it becomes that the disruption, pain, and distress were utterly unnecessary, the result of massive overtreatment of women’s breast issues institutionalized within our healthcare system. As each day passes, I learn how many more women have gone through some or all of this ordeal. The number is huge, many more than the one in eight who are said to develop breast cancer over the course of a lifetime. That is because women who do not have and probably will never have breast cancer are being subjected to the same treatment they would get if they did have cancer: mutilating surgeries, risk-fraught radiation therapy, and chemotherapy, all in the name of prophylaxis.
Sorry. I don’t feel grateful for that at all. Yes, I’m glad I don’t have cancer, but I very much doubt that an extremely indolent growth that, if you believe Dr. P on the rate at which these things expand, has resided harmlessly in my body for a good ten or fifteen years, would ever have developed into cancer. And if it did, it could have been treated then, in exactly the same way it’s being treated now — only for an actual reason.
I’m grateful this happened while the stock market is up, so I can take money out of retirement savings without totally raping what little remains of my future. Like unto “grateful it isn’t cancer when it clearly was not cancer, is not cancer, and probably never would have become cancer,” that’s a pretty piss-poor target of gratitude. Gee, I’m so glad I had plenty of money to be taken away from me pointlessly by doctors, hospitals, cancer centers, household help, pool help, yard help, dog help.
I’m grateful my business partner was here to cover for me. I’d have lost my shirt three ways from Sunday if she weren’t picking up my work. As it is, I’m probably going to lose one lucrative account, because that project simply cannot be done without my contribution, and I’m too sick to do it. The plan to expand The Copyeditor’s Desk into indie publishing is down in flames. I can’t even get my act together to build the website Jesse established for it, much less actually do any work.
I’m grateful my son has kindly taken uncountable hours of time off work to drag me back and forth to surgery after surgery. But I’m not the slightest bit grateful that I had to ask him to do that, and that I have no other resource to take the pressure off him.
I’m grateful that the corgi breeder who charged me $1,200 for Ruby will probably let me return her, now that I’m too sick to take care of her and that she’s decided to turn Cassie into a doormat. No refund, of course; nor will there be refunds for the astonishing amounts of cash outlay on vet bills, special UTI dog food, dog gates, dog crates, dog leashes, dog collars, dog harness, the wrought-iron gate to keep her out of the pool, and on and on and on and on. I’m grateful my son has taken her off my hands for a couple of weeks. I’m not grateful at all that I’m going to have to take her back where she will be kenneled for heaven knows how long, and that I probably would have had to do so even if the boob fiasco had never happened.
I’m grateful the weather is cooling a little. And that there are no disclaimers to that one.
So… Gratitude? Mixed. Very mixed. Tepid, one might say.
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Ooof.
Cancer. There is nothing good to be said about it. I can’t believe it’s continuing on drag on this way.
A large part of the issue here is IT’S NOT CANCER.
The surgeon keeps saying this to me over and over: IT’S NOT CANCER.
Some medical researchers and practicing physician specialists believe the word “carcinoma” should not be used in connection with DCIS at all. These experts suggest such entities be called “Indolent Lesions of Epithelial Origin.” The particular type of DCIS that I have, which is so rare it accounts for .5% of all breast lesions including actual cancers has been found to be extremely unlikely to progress from DCIS to invasive cancer, and in spite of gouging 5 cm of tissue from my breast, the Mayo’s doctors have yet to find any evidence of invasive cancer.
It’s NOT CANCER but I’m being put through all the tortures of the damned that would be applied if I did have cancer, for the simple reason that an unknown, probably small percentage of DCIS may morph into invasive cancer, which triggers our individual and collective hysteria about breast cancer. We don’t know which way to jump with DCIS, so we jump off the deep end.
Can you get any money back for Ruby? She’s never really been healthy since you’ve had her. Is there any clause regarding health when you bought her?
No. Breeders do not return your money. Even if they claim they will, I’ve never met one who actually would. However, some will take the dog off your hands for free… If they’re decent breeders, they’re committed to finding good homes for their puppies and seeing that they don’t end up in an abusive situation.
It is our choices that define us.
?
Don’t recall having chosen to develop a rare type of DCIS. Nor did I have much of a say in the medical establishment’s current approach to treating it. Nor was the information that a significant number of doctors and researchers think the sort of DCIS that arose should be watched and waited rather than aggressively cut out — it’s hard to make an informed choice under pressure when you don’t have enough information to do so.
I’m sorry for what you are going through, Funny. I completely understand why you aren’t driving the Gratitude Wagon right now.
I hate it when people start lecturing me about how flipping grateful I should be when I try to vent about my problems. Oh, they mean well but… it really irritates me, which is not a good thing to do when I’m under stress. In other words, I feelz ya.
Thanks.
LOL! I’m not looking for sympathy, really. It’s that I’m beginning to feel pretty annoyed about this. I’m feeling a deepening suspicion that I and thousands of women just like me have been stampeded into painful, mutilating procedures that may be unnecessary. That’s not a happy feeling…and it’s not something to be grateful about.
To be clear, the one thing that meds worked for is, in the scheme of things, incredibly minor. It’s unbelievably irritating to me given my condition but pathetically minor in the face of any of the other medical issues that either of us have or still face so I was digging deep for that one!
And mein Gott, I can’t imagine finding a thing to really feel grateful for in your shoes at the moment. Only tried cause I needed to distract myself for a minute since dwelling on the other facts just makes me angry and can’t change a thing.
🙂 Revanche, it makes me feel better just to know that I’m not the only person who gets angry at this stuff.
And by golly, if you are chronically uncomfortable, over time that adds up to not minor at all.
Oh heck no, you’re not the only one!
And true. Chronic discomfort piled on top of chronic pain? *baugh*