Category Archives: Oy vey (cancer gripes)

The diary of another nobody

Posted on September 20, 2014 by SC

It’s the nature of autumn, perhaps- those barred clouds blooming in the soft-dying days (not mine, Keats), days which die noticeably earlier with every sunset now- that has got me thinking more than usual about how long I have left … Continue reading →

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Just cherish it all- A small personal tribute to Graham Joyce (1954-2014)

Posted on September 10, 2014 by SC

I maintain a roster of writers who live with cancer and write about it in the media, and I check in on them every so often to see how they are. If they seem to be doing fine it makes me … Continue reading →

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And Beth shall be no more- Little Women, heroines and Nora Ephron

Posted on July 30, 2014 by SC

I’ve done the maths- for my most recent bout of treatment, which lasted 166 days, I spent 63 (in all, not consecutively) having chemotherapy. If you want to know what having chemotherapy is like, here’s how Christopher Hitchens described it in … Continue reading →

Posted in Doodles, Oy vey (cancer gripes) | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

The bee

Posted on July 2, 2014 by SC

  Footnotes 1. I used the iPad app Paper by 53– an app that allows people who can’t draw to draw- to create this. I am indebted to the “Mastering Paper by 53” series on a website called Made Mistakes for … Continue reading →

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Ars vivendi

Posted on May 23, 2014 by SC

Cancer sucks, but life is great – Stephen Sutton, Stephen’s Story Life is bearable even when it’s unbearable: that is what’s so terrible, that is the unbearable thing about it – Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage What do you … Continue reading →

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Ars moriendi

Posted on April 7, 2014 by SC

I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After … Continue reading →

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Cancer 101- dispelling two popular misconceptions

Posted on March 3, 2014 by SC

A lot of people seem to think that this is how cancer treatment works: You get cancer You get treated for it If you’re alive at the end of treatment it means that it worked and you’re cured. You’ve defeated … Continue reading →

Posted in Oy vey (cancer gripes) | Tagged , | 22 Comments

The best-laid plans (and stories)

Posted on February 27, 2014 by SC

Five months ago, when my first round of cancer treatment came to an end, I’d imagined that I’d inhabit one of the following stories: 1. My cancer disappears, never to return, and my life proceeds as planned with minimal damage. … Continue reading →

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Not the sheep

Posted on October 13, 2013 by SC

The picture below is that of a PICC line. It’s a long, thin tube that’s inserted into a vein in the arm, through which all my treatment was administered. One end dangled out of a hole in my skin just … Continue reading →

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The isolation wall

Posted on June 2, 2013 by SC

A nurse once asked me about the effects of one of the chemotherapy drugs in my regimen. “One of my patients said it feels as if a wall comes up around you,” she said, which I thought was a pretty … Continue reading →

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