More Cancer Karma
Once I had this blog up and running, I spent some time fleshing out the peripherals and racking up a pretty sweet blogroll. There are quite a few sassy cancer babes out there and some of them are terrific writers, too. It’s startling/depressing/comforting to discover that one or two of them seem to be living lives that are parallel to my own: young kids, solid marriage, suburban poster children, fighting like hell, still putting on makeup. Naming their wigs.
I don’t want to seem like I’m shamelessly trolling for readership, but the reason I started blogging in the first place (aside from a little ego-stroking) was to link up fierce cancer babes all over and build some support, outside of the established cancer communities, for keeping sane and surviving with your personality and sense of humor in tact. So I started dropping some comments on the blogs that really hit home – experiences I could relate to, really poignantly aching displays of honesty, hysterical tales of mishaps and chemo-induced forgetfulness. And one of the babes who read my comments and wrote back was My Name Is Not Cancer Girl, who’s knocking BC on its butt in the ATL while taking care of her family. And naming her wig. Now we read each other’s blogs and offer support and wiseacre commentary, just like I had hoped.
Last weekend I got an email from an old school friend (thank you, facebook) who wanted to introduce to me a dear friend of hers who’s fighting cancer, with a new bone metastasis, in Atlanta. I wrote back to say that I’m always happy (well, you know what I mean) to meet a new cancer chick and share tips, gripes, horror stories, etc. As I was writing the body of the email, I had a little tickle in the back of my brain… “Is there any chance she blogs? I asked. Bet you can’t guess the answer.
Karma? Coincidence? What do you think?
How To Help A Cancer Patient, Part I
When you first hear the words, “You have cancer,” instantly a million things pop into your head. If you’re like me, after the initial “Holy sh!t I’m going to die” comes, “Who’s going to run carpool this week?” or “Oh, no, my house is a disaster area and people will be coming over.”
Once other people hear you have cancer, they unfailingly end every conversation by saying, “Let me know what I can do to help.” But at the time, you can never think of anything, and then when you think, “Wow, I wish I had someone to walk the dog tomorrow…” you can’t remember who it was who offered to help (chemo brain). How can something so generous turn out to be such a royal pain?
Within about forty-eight hours of my surgery, my crack research team (read: family members with internet connections desperate to DO something) had located the best Gyn/Onc in the area for my case, researched the then-hot-and-trendy-new IP chemo protocol, sent Edible Arrangements, and hooked me up with a lifesaving website that would feature prominently in my treatment and recovery plans for the next three years (and may come around again).
Lotsahelpinghands.com is a website that allows an administrator (you? your BFF?) to set up a free homepage for the cancer patient and their family, friends, and supporters, who log onto the site and sign up with a password once they are invited to join. The administrator sets up “tasks” – events as simple as picking up drycleaning or running to the grocery store, or as complicated as making a meal with specific dietary requirements (not too spicy, the kids don’t eat tomatoes, etc.) and bringing it over to your house. The sky’s the limit; my administrator set up “daily laugh” tasks so people would send me email jokes, and people from my then-kindergartner’s class signed up to host playdates for him and his little brother. I had people weeding my garden, raking leaves and planting mums in the fall, and delivering more delicious dinners than any one family could eat in a month of Sundays, except Mr. Wonderful was involved so we ate it all.
The BEST thing about lotsahelpinghands (aside from it being free) is that it gives the overwhelmed family a way to pass off some of the crazy-lot of organizing that comes with the new regime. And the seemingly unceasing refrain of “How can I help?” has an easy outlet: sign up for the website and start taking on tasks.
The OTHER best thing about lotsahelpinghands is that it taught me to let go a little and lean on others. My family is so self-reliant (and Mr. Wonderful and I slight control freaks) that allowing other people to take over and fold my laundry was nearly painful at the beginning. But as my kids and I got more used to giving up some control so we had more time to be together as a family (especially important when it seemed there might only be a couple more years) I realized that it was one of cancer’s silver linings. My boys learned the value of doing for others, and we now are honored to pay it forward whenever we get the chance. The sense of community may have been more instrumental in my survival than the chemo.
I'm a two-and-a-half time ovarian cancer survivor who is not only determined to make it to sixty but also to look damn good while getting there. My two boys, husband, and dog are counting on me to get out of bed every day, so I might as well wear something cute and make each one COUNT. I'd love to hear from you about your odyssey - sharing makes it all easier to take. And laugh at.
The Carcinista 