And this is on a good day
I’ve been out of control the past few months—driving, flying and riding trains. Taking care of shit and visiting folks. Having adventures. Tying up loose ends. And damned if it isn’t fabulous that I...
View ArticleIt ain’t over ’til it’s over
Several weeks ago I got a call from a friend who is also battling stage IV lung cancer. He’d gotten bad news; very bad news. His cancer had spread in such a way that his oncologist felt he had only …...
View ArticleFrosted
Yesterday I had two slices of chocolate cake for lunch. And yet another for dinner. This is so not my usual behavior, but then again, desperate times call for desperate measures. Sigh. Desperate is...
View ArticleRead this.
This blog by my friend Arash Golbon may be the most true and important thing you’ve read yet regarding lung cancer. Arash gets right to the heart of what losing your beloved wife and the mother of your...
View ArticleTerminal & Terminated
I realized yesterday that I have had continuous health coverage from the moment I was born until just now–fifty eight years of buying into the American Dream of health and happiness. And it’s hard to...
View ArticleThe lung cancer blues
I was a miserable child. As in, I was miserable; a good deal of the time. As a ward of my parents, I felt a good many things to be out of my control. However, with careful observation it became …...
View ArticleWhere do I go from here
It’s an interesting question contingent upon several prepositions. See, I have a problem and the fact that it is a good problem (all things considered), makes it no less daunting. It would appear that...
View ArticleThese are mine, this is mine.
Peter has been in Hawaii for the past week, studying the environment with his program at MIT. He has been sending me joyful photos of jungle, ocean, volcanic ash. Obviously he is in his element and it...
View ArticleThe relaxed hostess
Cancer crashed my party more than fourteen years ago. The guest from hell. Uncouth, unkempt, possessed of a nasty disposition and with no respect for boundaries. Lousy fucking company. And then there...
View ArticleIASLC 2019 World Conference on Lung Cancer
So it gets better. Not only did I travel to Italy this summer, I also attended the 2019 World Conference on Lung Cancer in Barcelona, serving on a group panel addressing ways to improve clinical...
View ArticleDeets
I am generally possessed of a mighty thick skin. Not a quality I was born with but rather one acquired through repeated injury. I don’t say this with any drama—it’s simply a fact. And I, being a...
View ArticleSix oh
I am sixty. Six omg I can’t believe this is true. The first thing I said when I got up this morning was ‘Linnea, it’s your birthday. You’re still alive. Not sure how you do it, but you do.’ Gotta say,...
View ArticleScaling
I have hit the wall that is week two. Massive fatigue. Rheumy eyes. Gums that weep, a mouth that feels like sandpaper. Nosebleeds. Loose of bowel, I’ve lost five pounds. Neuropathy is both afoot and...
View ArticleUp and over
When titling my previous blog I had a verb in mind. An action verb. Chemo is a wall. And–frankly–that is the point. What sucks for me hopefully sucks for my cancer as well. All those side effects are...
View ArticleIf
When I was a wee child I would recite a prayer before bed each night: Now I lay me down to sleep and I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. And then...
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It was
Me giving me encouragement: the Wall of Hope on floor eight of the Yawkey building at MGH. When I first started getting treatment, a secret goal was to one day appear on the Wall of Hope. A long, long...
View ArticleWhat the hey
I don’t know if it was the Captain Marvel movie (love me some scrappy heroine), the hot water with lemon that my friend Peter prescribed to start my day, or Jenny Ro’s bone broth soup. It couldn’t be...
View ArticleAnd some piece of mind
I have scans again one week from today. Two days later I am to review them and to have another infusion. I already know that my new oncologist will not be able to meet with me that day—I believe she...
View ArticleLiving and loving an imperfect life
As I zipped through my social media this morning, I noted that two friends were posting that they were either NED or cancer free. Good for them I thought. And then I, little miss Never Been Ned,...
View ArticleInside out
Yesterday was like no other. I picked my friend Marc up at 10 am and we headed to Andover where we had a date with an old piano. Built in 1907, it was beyond repair and its owners–friends of Marc–had...
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