The Party Girl's Guide to Cancer

You may be thinking, “WHAT NOW?   What trouble did she possibly get into this year?”   I’m sorry to report there is nothing as spectacularly dramatic as a cancer diagnosis in this year’s letter, nor are there terrorist attacks or murder trials or another failed marriage.   There was not even a feline fatality.   I still have a cat, I still have a boyfriend called Kevin, I still have a house in Florida, and I still have ten fingers and ten toes.   Well, I almost escape unscathed.   In the end of September I tripped, hit a concrete wall and split the middle bone of my right pinky down to the joint.   After a heavy dose of denial in a half cast for two weeks, I had to bite the bullet, with Novocain, and have some pretty medieval-looking hardware installed so I could retain the use of my finger joint.   I still have it but who knows if it will get back to being fully functional.   Opening a jar makes me feel completely incompetent. ...

Favorite fur hat, Liv and Finn I felt like I was on the ropes.   Bad mammogram (OOF!), Blind Alan put down 15 minutes before my biopsy (BIFF!), cancer diagnosis the next day (POW!), got served with $17,000 summons night before surgery (SOCKO!), breast cancer tumor surgery and lymph node biopsy (BAM!), and two days later Mom’s house is sold (KA-POW!).   Her home of 35 years, the place of many family gatherings and milestones, was where I last recovered from surgery.   The cops showed up that night, but that’s another story.   I cannot rest even though I’m supposed to recuperate.   I feel like inertia equals death.   I gotta move. What, me worry?   The night before my biopsy. We joked about it.   Yotel NYC with Emma. I have a month of “recovery”.   After that, I start 12 weeks of Taxol, and another chemo for Her-2 positive breast cancer called Herceptin.     I’m expecting to be knocked out (BANG!).   No,...