In a simple kind of way, I have a head for numbers. Tell me your birthday and odds are I’ll remember it for years to come. (I won’t usually remember to send you a card, but that’s a different matter.) I remember lock combinations, phone numbers, addresses, passwords—most of the time—and, along with the birthdays, anniversaries.
I’m old enough at this point to have some crowded anniversary seasons. This stretch, from mid-January to mid-February, is one of them. Some of the dates have generally positive associations: my oldest daughter’s birthday last week; my own birthday next week; my dissertation defense and corrections sign-off, to name a few. Others are more ambiguous, such as the anniversary of a former long-term relationship, and yet others are definitely unpleasant, such as the date of my D & C, the news of my diagnosis, and then the staging surgery itself, which happened eleven months ago yesterday.
If I’m attempting to live more “in the moment,” which I am, it’s likely counter-productive for me to give much energy or attention to these anniversaries, especially the ones with the worst associations. On the other hand, I spent a lot of time in my young adulthood deliberately not thinking about my past experiences, and that was not a useful strategy for me either.
If I aspire to a greater level of metta, or lovingkindness, directed toward myself, which I do, then I suspect I will be better off adopting a different perspective relative to anniversaries than has been my habit. Usually, I am very mindful of the date’s approach (somewhat like the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass, feeling the pain before the occasion for it arrives), but I don’t do very much about it except remember and feel miserable. Perhaps the most helpful approach for me to take would be to explore what these events have signified to me, primarily to ask what use they are to me now—and then to let them go. We’ll see how well that works in the next few days and weeks, as I continue to pass through this heavy season.
Tonight I’m interested in knowing: What do you do with your cancer-related anniversaries? Which ones do you note, if any, and what do you do about them? Do you celebrate? Do you mourn? Do you attend to the day or do you ignore it? Is it another kind of birthday for you? Or do I simply ruminate far too much about these arbitrary calendar marks?
I have another, though I hope related, set of questions to ask you after the jump.
One of the big campaigns out of the American Cancer Society recently focuses on their role in increasing survival times for people with cancer. I assume you’ve encountered their slogan, “Celebrating More Birthdays,” somewhere; I’ve seen many TV ads, and just now I checked out the associated website.
I know that I am on the cynical end of the spectrum when it comes to responding to hype and promotion of any sort, so I ask this out of genuine curiosity: What do you think that the American Cancer Society contributes to helping people survive cancer? Or, for that matter, what difference do any of these big national organizations make, relative either to a specific cancer (e.g. the Komen Foundation), to cancer research (say, perhaps, Stand Up to Cancer), or to cancer advocacy?
This is a huge catch-all, I realize, and it’s likely irresponsible of me to some extent not to narrow the topic more precisely. But my questions to you tonight are these: Have any of you obtained what you consider direct, meaningful help from any of these large organizations? If so, in what ways were they helpful, and how did you go about getting the help you needed? If not, did you think that you should have, somehow, but the organization you contacted didn’t follow through? And in any case, what kind of help do you think is most seriously needed still, and what do you think it would take for that kind of help to be generally available?
Let me acknowledge again that I happen to be in relative financial security, for the time being. I have employer-paid private health insurance for a few more months, then I’ll have a COBRA period, assuming I can afford the premiums, and then I’ll be eligible for Medicare in August of 2013. So at the moment I am not subject to the terrible choices that people with cancer in the U.S. (hell—people on this blog) are regularly forced to make, between paying for medical care/insurance and paying for other necessities like shelter and food.
It may well come down to money, in the end, namely how much any given individual has to spend to buy good health care. Obviously, that alone doesn’t suffice, otherwise Steve Jobs would still be alive. But on the other extreme, is it not also true that access to medical care determines not only quality of life but length of life? And if that is so, then what is more important for these major cancer organizations to do than to work as hard as they can to make good care more accessible to all?
Monday Night Cancer Club is a Daily Kos group focused on dealing with cancer, primarily for cancer survivors and caregivers, though clinicians, researchers, and others with a special interest are also welcome. Volunteer diarists post Monday evenings between 7-8 PM ET on topics related to living with cancer, which is very broadly defined to include physical, spiritual, emotional and cognitive aspects. Mindful of the controversies endemic to cancer prevention and treatment, we ask that both diarists and commenters keep an open mind regarding strategies for surviving cancer, whether based in traditional, Eastern, Western, allopathic or other medical practices. This is a club no one wants to join, in truth, and compassion will help us make it through the challenge together.