Breast cancer gets creative.

Currently featuring:
Beth Gainer
Linda P Graham
Mandi Hudson
Trish Leake
and Anonymous (word of the day)
Suddenly, the world went pink.

Suddenly, the world went pink.

“Tittoo: the process by which your new nipple will be colored to resemble your old nipple.”

What new words did YOU learn today?

Recycling

By Trish Leake

Someone is wearing my clothes

Bought from the Charity Shop

Where I handed them to a plump smiling lady

Who thanked me profusely

Over black bin liner crackle

As I avoided her eyes.

They have folded and flapped around

My stick-insect legs far too long

I have shrunk, not them.

Someone is wearing my shoes

Nicely pointed toes of red

That made me glide, and wobble

When I stood still

Ankles slim, foot arched, blisters burning

High heels clicked on the ground with satisfaction

Demanding attention, announcing my arrival.

Now balance and comfort seduce.

Someone is wearing my smile

I have no need of it

People no longer smile at me

Only hushed voices, whispers, sympathy

“Can nothing be done?” they ask.

Their question makes me want to shout

“No, nothing … I’m being recycled!”

__________________________________________________

I’ve been writing for years, poetry and micro- fiction. I enjoy cutting to the least number of words. After a stroke at fifty years old I couldn’t work, so I decided it was time to take writing more seriously; it gives me a focus.  I think we all have stories to tell, and I’m working on a book of short stories from my Irish family.

Two years ago, my friend Meg in NewZealand emailed me to say she had breast cancer. she was forty with a three-yr-old son. I was so shocked, I couldn’t lose her! She’s been through a ton of horrible treatments but she’s ok now.

These poems are for Meg and Connor.       

Trish Leake

My Chemo Wordle By Linda P Graham Almost halfway through chemo, I had this thought-loop: I should call my oncologist and ask whether I’m likely to outlive my pets if I stop chemo now. Bernie, my canine furkid, was only seven; Huey, my feline, only 13.  I never made the call, never asked the question, never really considered quitting. But I knew I needed something to slowdown the meltdown. I knew the second half of my chemo—the dreaded docetaxel—threatened to be worse than the first. Starting it as a puddle wouldn’t do. Writing might have helped get the dark thoughts out, but that seemed to require more mental capacity than my toxified brain could muster. Then I stumbled upon “wordles” (thanks wordle.net).  Creating a wordle helped me exorcise some of the negativity. And it had more than a cathartic effect. It also helped me share my experience with others. While I wanted to protect my family and friends, reassure them I could go it alone—sending photos I took at my computer, grinning in my magic makeup, showing off my latest headgear—I still needed them to understand what I was going through, even just a bit. For them to get a glimpse of my real world, brutal as it was. I think the wordle worked. ___________________________________________________ Linda P Graham lives with her pets in a small town on the west coast of Canada. Before breast cancer, she was a consultant and hired pen working primarily on justice issues. 

My Chemo Wordle

By Linda P Graham


Almost halfway through chemo, I had this thought-loop: I should call my oncologist and ask whether I’m likely to outlive my pets if I stop chemo now. Bernie, my canine furkid, was only seven; Huey, my feline, only 13. 

I never made the call, never asked the question, never really considered quitting. But I knew I needed something to slowdown the meltdown. I knew the second half of my chemo—the dreaded docetaxel—threatened to be worse than the first. Starting it as a puddle wouldn’t do. Writing might have helped get the dark thoughts out, but that seemed to require more mental capacity than my toxified brain could muster. Then I stumbled upon “wordles” (thanks wordle.net). 

Creating a wordle helped me exorcise some of the negativity. And it had more than a cathartic effect. It also helped me share my experience with others. While I wanted to protect my family and friends, reassure them I could go it alone—sending photos I took at my computer, grinning in my magic makeup, showing off my latest headgear—I still needed them to understand what I was going through, even just a bit. For them to get a glimpse of my real world, brutal as it was. I think the wordle worked.


___________________________________________________

Linda P Graham lives with her pets in a small town on the west coast of Canada. Before breast cancer, she was a consultant and hired pen working primarily on justice issues. 

The Suckling

By Beth Gainer


During her shower, Andrea finally relaxed as water melted away the hard day’s sweat.  Then she heard the baby cry. 

Loudly.

She scrambled out of the shower, frantically trying not to slip. Water still running — in the shower and down her body. “No time to dry off,” thought the new mother as she ran to the crib naked and scooped up the wailing child. A mom for less than a day, Andrea was distressed and resented her daughter’s angry cries.

Suddenly baby Hannah latched onto Andrea’s right nipple and began suckling. She seemed satisfied just to suckle, though no milk came out. And Andrea felt content, though her nipple was numb. 

Since breast cancer resulted in infertility, she’d travelled to another land to adopt this year-old baby. Years ago, she had had a double mastectomy with reconstruction, further shattering her dreams of birthing and breast-feeding a baby. Ironically, the tumour had presented itself in the very breast Hannah had latched onto.

Andrea now looked down at this suckling stranger and felt comforted. The child obviously had some sort of nursemaid in the orphanage, she thought. That could be why the baby rejected the bottle in favour of soft foods and a breast. 

Suddenly, she felt weird “breast-feeding” with a fake breast that yielded no milk. Andrea gently pulled Hannah’s mouth off the tattooed nipple, but the baby raised a fuss. Resigned, Andrea sat in a comfortable chair in the hotel and rocked the now-satiated little one to sleep. And she felt satiated, as well.


 _____________________________________


Beth L. Gainer is a breast cancer survivor who has been published in the anthology Voices of Breast Cancer by LaChance Publishing. She has just finished a book on medical self-advocacy titled Calling the Shots: Coaching Yourself Through the Medical System. She is currently seeking an agent. Her blog Calling the Shots, which focuses on the breast cancer and medical experience, is at www.bethlgainer.blogspot.com. She can be reached via Twitter at @bethlgainer.


From Mandi Hudson of Darn Good Lemonade

Mandi was diagnosed with breast cancer on December 30, 2010, the day before her thirty-first birthday. She found out that she had stage IIB breast cancer and had a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction, eight rounds of chemo and thirty days of radiation. She is living in NED land right now and is married and a proud dog mom of two pooches (a.k.a. no “real” kids).  Mandi is a marketing  professional and self-proclaimed workaholic.

Read her more of her story at http://www.darngoodlemonade.com

As I grow to understand life less and less,
I learn to love it more and more.
Jules Renard

The Hat

By Trish Leake


She sat scrunched in her chair

Doubled over, eyes shut

So I was free

To take my time and stare

She wore a knitted hat, deep over brows

And down her ears and neck

The rim was black

But further up it flowered

In shades of red and yellow-brown

Rainbow overhead

Halo slipped a bit

Tightly clamped around her crown

I guess it kept her head together

For this was Cancer Ward

And she had lost more

Than her hair.

_________________________________________________

I’ve been writing for years, poetry and micro- fiction. I enjoy cutting to the least number of words. After a stroke at fifty years old I couldn’t work, so I decided it was time to take writing more seriously; it gives me a focus.  I think we all have stories to tell, and I’m working on a book of short stories from my Irish family.

Two years ago, my friend Meg in New Zealand emailed me to say she had breast cancer. she was forty with a three-yr-old son. I was so shocked, I couldn’t lose her! She’s been through a ton of horrible treatments but she’s ok now.

These poems are for Meg and Connor.       

Trish Leake

Suddenly, the world went pink.

Suddenly, the world went pink.