April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Speak out when you can. Support survivors. Take gentle care of yourself. I do. smile emoticon
-Cheryl Rainfield, author of SCARS, STAINED, and HUNTED, and incest, rape, and torture survivor.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Speak out when you can. Support survivors. Take gentle care of yourself. I do. smile emoticon
-Cheryl Rainfield, author of SCARS, STAINED, and HUNTED, and incest, rape, and torture survivor.
Trust yourself. You know what you need. We’re given constant messages from the media about what we need and how we should be. But we are each individuals, influenced by our past experiences–and we are not all the same. I’m queer. You might not be. I need to write, to have a voice through my writing, and to reach others. Maybe you have a voice in a different way. I need to talk about traumatic or painful things with trusted friends and a therapist–but sometimes I need time to think about them first. I also need time for fun, play, and hugs. Maybe you’re different. I love time to myself to read. Maybe you don’t. I need time with friends, but I also need quiet time. Figure out what it is you need, and follow that. Listen inside, and your heart will tell you what you need–to be happy, to be safe, to take care of yourself.
This can be a hard time of year for many people, so I thought I’d post more positive messages for people again–selfies along with the messages, so people can see the person (and author) behind the message. I think it helps make it more personal and real.
I will try to post photos most days of December for you all. Let me know if you like this idea. 
And if you like this post, if it speaks to you, I hope you’ll share it with others.
On medical progress and stage 4 breast cancer
By Gayle A. Sulik
Elizabeth Edwards died from stage 4 breast cancer (also known as metastatic breast cancer) on December 7th, 2010 at the age of 61. Ms. Edwards was a well-known public figure, notably the wife of former Senator John Edwards, and an accomplished lawyer, author, and health advocate. Her death inspired new discussions of Stage 4 breast cancer, finally shining a light on what has been a relatively invisible segment of the breast cancer community: the diagnosed who live from scan to scan, treatment to treatment, with the knowledge that neither medical progress nor positive attitude will likely keep them from dying from breast cancer.
Following Ms. Edwards’ breast cancer diagnosis in 2004, she quickly became a celebrity survivor. She expressed optimism about cure and continued to pursue an active personal and professional life. After learning in 2007 that she had a recurrence which had already spread to her bones, Ms. Edwards still looked for a “silver lining” despite the fact that her breast cancer was no longer considered to be curable. At that point, doctors called her breast cancer “treatable” – meaning that she would be in some kind of therapy for the rest of her life.
Ms. Edwards knew that she might not live to see her children grow up. Yet public discussions were hesitant to acknowledge this reality. I remember the PBS news report that featured clips from a press conference in which Edwards’ medical doctor, Lisa Carey of the University of North Carolina Breast Center, stated that many women with stage 4 breast cancer “do very well for a number of years.”
In the interview that followed with Dr. Julie Gralow of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the discussion of prognosis was similarly vague. Dr. Gralow rightly revealed that doctors have “no crystal ball” to see the future and that average survival rates cannot be used to predict an individual’s life span. However, she also circumvented the prognosis issue by using phrases such as “years of survival” and living out “long lives.” We heard about “terrific new therapies,” “great treatments…that don’t cause a lot of symptoms,” and and a new “era of personalized cancer therapy.” Dr. Gralow stressed that Ms. Edwards gives hope to those who are fighting metastatic breast cancer and that “her biggest issue is that she has a couple of young kids to raise.”
Immediately following Ms. Edwards’ death, Dr. Barron Lerner wrote a warm, thoughtful, and informative essay in The New York Times about the lessons society can learn from Ms. Edwards, including the limits of current treatments and the dubiousness of the term “survivor” that, while empowering in some ways can be misleading in others. For the 49,000 new people each year who develop what amounts to be a
“I do not have a favorite story,” said Dr. Olajide Williams about his book Stroke Diaries. “For me–a physician–the word favorite in the context of stroke does not seem appropriate.”
Dr. Williams is a general neurologist with special interest in stroke, and Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology at Columbia University. He is also a fellow of Columbia University’s prestigious Glenda Garvey Academy for outstanding teaching, and has been recognized locally and nationally for humanism in medicine.
Stroke Diaries is a collection of Dr. Williams experiences, both somber and hopeful. He told me, “Some memories are more vivid than others, some experiences more profound. Pedro’s story is one of those. I remember the morning Pedro told me in the stroke clinic that his greatest pain since his stroke was his physical inability to care for Lucy, his dog. I remember the noose of hopelessness dangling around his neck; the way he sat in front of me, scratching frenziedly at his paralyzed right arm, the deep excoriation marks, the trails of oozing blood from under his skin, my concerns about a drug allergy, and the way he talked about Lucy. I remember watching tears fall from his heavy eyes and the relief in my heart that he was opening up for the first time in months since his stroke. I remember not knowing what to do; a momentary lapse that seemed infinitely long.”
I have excerpted the story of Pedro and his beloved dog below. I can only hope you will find it as powerful as I did.
The Man Who Did Not Take His Medicine
Pedro was lying on the bathroom floor next to the toilet bowl. Water was still running from rusty faucet, overflowing the sink, and pooling around his body as he lay limp on wet porcelain tiles. Lucy was standing over him and whining. The young black Labrador retriever had not left her owner’s side since the previous night. It was as if she had predicted it, as if she was responding to some perceptible change in his body, perhaps even a “stroke odor” that her heightened sense of smell allowed her to detect. Lucy had followed him everywhere; she lay awake next to him throughout the night, constantly licking the left side of his body. She rushed after him into the bathroom that morning, before Pedro’s world began to tilt–the visual metamorphosis, tilting up to 180° in second, and developing into a violent vertigo that caused him to slump to the ground, hitting his head against the toilet bowl on the way down.
It was 5:30 a.m. The sun had just begun its ascent above the coastline when Pedro woke up to brush his teeth. And now, hours later, he could not get up off the floor. He could not move his left arm or left leg, and he could not feel Lucy licking his left palm. When he realized what was happening, fear filled his soul like a poisonous gas causing a great panic inside him. Dazed and desperate, Pedro dragged himself into the bedroom, sliding onto the wooden floor with his wet clothes, snaking himself around a large floor cushion, knocking over the standing lamp, dragging himself towards the far window by his bed, towards the sunrays that filtered though half-open blinds. Lucy began barking; Pedro began banking against the window. He cried out for help, thumping the glass with his one working arm, trying to alarm his neighbors or anyone who could have saved him. As Lucy barked louder, the stroked tightened its grip, claiming Pedro against his will, pulling he prize right out of him–a piece of his brain–against the tugging of a frantic soul.
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