A Good Book Ruined By A Bit of Reality

I am a bookworm. As a child I always wanted to go to the library and didn't mind that if I read my newly selected books on the way home I might start to be a bit woozy from the wiggly New England roads. (Highways are much better for car reading.)

In times of stress (read 'medical disasters' among other things) I often turn to books as my personal form of avoidance. This was fine until my medical maladies kept interfering with my reading enjoyment. That would really suck.

During college, after thyroid cancer, with my small paperback book collection, I would avoid studying or read in bed something less enlightening than any required reading. At point, I remember I had a book I really was getting into, something about a young woman and her life.... and she needed a heart transplant or could die... That was enough for me. I had a cancer diagnosis and was trying to deal with the same issue - I could die. I remember throwing that book across the room and giving up on it. It hit too close to home for that time in my life.

It took several tries and several years before I could finally read it. But it was a good book ruined by a dose of the mortality of man. To this day I hate it when that happens.

Shortly after my breast cancer diagnosis, someone recommended to me that I read this book written by a breast cancer patient. For the life of me I can't find it now. But I did like it. The author was writing the story about her breast cancer journey. She was a cartoonist so she wrote it in cartoon format. From diagnosis through treatment, it talked about everything - scanxiety, chemo side effects, etc.

I really enjoyed reading it. Until I got to the part where she died.... And it was finished by her husband. I was very upset.

Since then, I have been very selective on what I read. Sometimes it seems that book and book and TV show after TV show are about someone's cancer journey - good stories ruined by a bit of reality.

I found a library book this week, Virtually Perfect by Paige Roberts, about a woman who was a chef and had a TV show on the Food Network until it all falls apart. The back cover blurb promised a story about her summer adventures as a chef of the very rich and who she reinvents herself. It looked interesting. I love books about chefs because they talk about food - which is something I could talk about and eat for ever and ever. At no point did it realize it included a secondary plot.

Twenty pages into a 300 page book there is a hint about her mother's health. And presto, the secondary plot is exposed as the story of the mother's breast cancer journey and how she tried to figure out how to tell the star, her only daughter, about her breast cancer. The second plot appeared and left throughout the novel.

At first I was a little annoyed as to how a good story was being ruined by the cancer story. But then I discovered it was handled extremely well. It showed the range of emotions of how do I tell, I need to tell her, but no I don't want to ruin her summer, to no don't tell her yet. A breast cancer story was there but it was a subplot. I could handle that.

This time I decided it was handled so well, and perhaps I have come further along emotionally, that I ended up enjoying it. And would recommend it.

Maybe i won't be so selective about books I read in the future. Cancer won't drive me away as often.

Breast Cancer the Socially Acceptable Cancer

A breast cancer diagnosis is no fun. Actually any cancer diagnosis is no fun. We all know that. But maybe because of all the 'awareness', it is now more socially acceptable than other forms of cancer. Isn't that just weird? I think so.

Meanwhile, a woman in New Zealand was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer and she wonders if breast cancer would be better because of the stigma surrounding smoking and lung cancer.

I think lung cancer is the only cancer which is regarded as 'self inflicted'.  Face it, as normal human beings we associate lung cancer with smoking. But not all smokers get lung cancer and not all lung cancer patients were smokers. I think we look at lung cancer patients, even us former smokers, as people who have done it to themselves. They smoked and they got the lung cancer they 'deserved'.

The problem then is with the original cancer stigma, all cancer patients can feel isolated and alone. Which is no fun. But lung cancer with its added stigma makes it even worse. How to find the best support when you don't have the 'in' cancer?

First of all breast cancer patients seem to be all around us but lung cancer patients are fewer and harder to find. Then its got this additional stigma. I think all cancers should be equally treated with the same resources available for all.