The Party Girl's Guide to Cancer

Headed South I had just taken the little money I had saved and played the market to invest in a flip house in Florida.  I was finally going to be free financially, free from my family obligations, free from my old life to start a new one, just me doing my own project with Kevin with my own design sensibility and wits.  Sweat equity – that’s all I got.  This is cause for celebration.  I booked a gig for my  going away party in NYC and planned to ride victorious into the sunset.  I’m exuberant in rehearsals.  I’m tying up loose ends.  I’m checking off my “to do” list.  One of them is getting a mammogram.  I get called back.  I get the diagnosis one week before my show.  I am going away, but for a completely different reason.  I have to stay with my family.  I have to stop the band.  My time and resources will be focused on treatment.  I’m on a bungee cord of neck-breaking disappointment.  The needle rips across the record, with a deep scratch in the victory tune. Riot Grrrl (p

“Did you do your pre-surgery check up yet?”.   Only one week to surgery, and I forgot that the only appointment cancer secretary does not make is the checkup and blood test with my GP.   I’m now in fire drill mode.   I met with the genetic counselor the Monday after my Friday meeting with the surgeon.   I went through their battery of questions.   The outcome?   I had a 2-7% chance of testing Positive for the BRCA gene.  I’m a numbers gal, so I’ll take those odds and skip the test.   This means I can move my surgery date up by a MONTH.   In my mind, the speed of getting the tumor out is more important than satisfying an emotional urge to take a test and wait when the outcome will most likely be negative.   That was the first hurdle of my flow chart, so with that box eliminated, I called cancer nurse and moved my surgery date from Valentine’s Day to January 17 th . This means all my other appointments move up.   My radioactive seed implantation changes, my pre-surgery ch