Love in the time of chemotherapy

Originally published October 21, 2011 on SingleShotSeattle.wordpress.com

My second personal essay on breast cancer, Love in the Time of Chemotherapy, went live this morning on Today/MSNBC and yet again, I’m wondering if I’ve done something completely stupid, self-sabotaging, or — who knows — slightly inspirational. Here’s how it starts:

Call me crazy, but I went on a date two weeks after my double mastectomy.

It was also my first social outing since the surgery, not counting the shambling walks around my neighborhood or the sobering follow-ups with my doc who told me I needed both chemo and radiation since my cancer had been upgraded from Stage 1 to what I called Stage WTF.

The date — a double date, to be specific — was with some married friends and a buddy of theirs. It was very casual, which was good since I was still wearing my surgical drains (stuffed down the front of my pants at this point) and was about as prepared to hold a conversation with an eligible man as I was to walk on the moon.

Thanks to the painkillers, half the time I thought I was on the moon.

To read the rest, click here.

From the online comments so far, it appears that the essay seems to have provided a little humor and inspiration for people (particularly people who’ve gone through something similar) although my guess is the trolls will be waking up shortly and sharpening their knives (and keyboards) for the kill.

Needless to say, I’m feeling slightly exposed.

Not so much because of the essay itself but because of the before-and-after photo shoot that accompanied it. I normally don’t go out of my apartment — or even down to the basement to do my laundry — without makeup and hair. Granted, I do go “commando” (sans wig) when I run, but I wear a baseball hat and sunglasses and figure as long as I keep moving, no one’s going to recognize me. (Of course, the first time I ran without hair, one woman in my ‘hood did the whole sunglasses-pull-down-open-jawed-gape. Nice!)

Anyway, I’d love to discuss the difficulty of “coming out” to a national audience (not to mention every single man within a 1,000-mile radius) at some point, but need to leave that for another day. Right now, I’ve got a deadline looming and a radiation treatment awaiting me in just six short hours. Burn, baby, burn – radiation inferno!  (I’ve been trying to come up with soundtrack to encapsulate each phase of treatment. Hey, you do what you can.)

Again, thanks for all your support, kind words and interest in my writing.  And Enchilada01, if you’re reading this, thanks for the offer of the date! I’ll give it some thought. ; )