Category Archives: Bumpboobs

A Petition for #FairCancerCare

Posted in Bumpboobs, Treatment by

This is just one of the many reasons, and many stories lived and/or heard, that make me want to support #FairCancerCare:

When I was told it was definitely breast cancer in my lungs, I was also told it was slightly estrogen receptive. That means it kinda likes to eat estrogen. (A change from the first time, when it really liked to eat estrogen.) My options in this case involved hormone therapy.

Except I’d already been on Tamoxifen, the only breast cancer hormone therapy I know of for women before menopause, and it had stopped working.

That meant I needed to but put into menopause.

I would be put (back) on Zoladex, I was told, which is a drug that puts your ovaries to sleep. Zoladex is not covered by OHIP. The oncologist wasn’t sure if it would help, but he figured we should try that first and foremost before doing anything else. Except. . . except that monthly shot costs about 500 bucks a pop. Or I could pay 1500 a go and get the three month shot.

But insurance would pay for it.

Right?

…

Oh wait, you don’t have insurance? Well then, you need to have your ovaries removed via surgery.

!!

That is seriously what I was told. And if this post seems a bit fragmented in pace, it’s because to this day I’m stupefied by the solution to my struggling to afford medication – cut out perfectly healthy pieces of my body, despite there being an effective pill that could do the same thing minus the traumatic surgery.

Ultimately I was able to get onto Trillium because we’re a lower income family. Though even that has had its challenges – and of course I am grateful to have that. But for many others they end up paying loads out of pocket (not on the table here, but also worth mentioning is the cost of alternative treatments. Wouldn’t it be lovely if the cost of complimentary health care was built into our treatment plans?)

facingcancercare

Anyhow, for many, many reasons, I want to direct you to #FairCancerCare, an online petition for Ontario healthcare that moves for more treatment coverage. They want to gather signatures before the provincial election to bring urgency to these needs.

“As Canadians, many of us are understandably proud of our health care system. In Ontario, most of us believe that, should we ever be unfortunate enough to get cancer, OHIP will cover us. Unfortunately, in far too many cases this doesn’t happen.

Sometimes, the very best treatment that your doctor prescribes for your cancer is not covered by provincial insurance. Patients have to choose between a fully-covered treatment plan that may be less effective, or following the recommendation of their doctor and paying the high cost for chemotherapy out of pocket.

This is two-tiered health care. Wealthy patients and those with good private insurance have access to the best care. Those who are not so lucky either go deeply in debt or take their chances with what OHIP will cover.

In 2014, no Ontario cancer patient should be accumulating thousands of dollars of debt. And yet it’s happening more often than most of us would think.”

If  agree with their mission, then do sign the petition and please share their campaign.

 

Life between the scans

Posted in Bumpboobs, Life, Life despite cancer, Love, Travel, Writing by

So, upon my request, my oncology and CT appointments are being moved.

It’s funny, a lot of this business with cancer really does take place in the mind. I happen to be in the very fortunate circumstance where there isn’t any pain. Many others don’t have that luxury, but I do and I am thankful for this moment. The pain in my chest has quieted down, and I only get that wheeze when my anxiety kicks in. Actually, as I’ve said before, different moods seem to trigger different reactions in my chest.

Anyhow, all that to say, the appointments are being moved. Some may say it’s risky to move the scan back five weeks. But there are always risks in this “game” of health. There’s the risk of over-treating, the risk of under-treating, the risk of too much radiation, the risk of not knowing what is happening, the risk of knowing too much, the risk of knowing too little.

Or I guess you could say, they are the choices. There are a lot of choices, and yet sometime it also feels like I have no choice at all. This shit is happening and I am dealing.

little bug

Lady Bug. She’s happy to offer a distraction from the swearing in this post.

I have chosen to move my CT scan by five weeks so that for just a little window of time, it can feel like life isn’t all about cancer. This isn’t a cowardly decision, it’s a brave one. That’s how I see it. What is life all about anyhow? Is it about the terror of scans and the waiting for results? Fuck no. Those are not the benchmarks I want to live by. I get the need to be aware and be strategic and yet I need my dose of “normal” too.

Anyhow. Don’t get me started 🙂

The scans are postponed and I’m happy about it (and apparently defensive). They aren’t gone, but they will keep. And then, once they arrive, life will reboot and we’ll start again from scratch. That’s what it feels like after each of these tests, it feels like starting again from scratch – for better or for worse and no matter what the news, I need to recover and rebuild.

In the meanwhile, I’m dreaming again. It’s a possibly bad habit that I am associating my happiness with my busy project creation, but ever since last year I’ve been compelled to go-go-go.

There is the book, my Literary Love, which I will leave alone for a little while apart from a book signing in June.

And I’m also working on a project to help local writers find one another more easily within Ottawa. Kevin and I are creating a podcast to go with the #OttawaWrites venture, and that is rather exciting. More news to come.

Zsolt and I maintain our big dream of living in both countries, though I’m honestly scared sometimes we won’t get to realize those moments if we keep putting them off. Next year is our ten year anniversary and Zsolt wants us to go back to Nice where we met. 🙂 He is awfully romantic. And I just want to make it there. I want to make it there, and then I want to make it much, much further for years upon years of growing businesses, travelling to Hungary and back, visiting new places, writing in this blog and so much more. Maybe we’ll get a dog?

I’d love to start planning writing retreats for writers, bloggers, authors, etc. Can you imagine going somewhere beautiful and being encouraged to write, write, write while also having a group of like-minded folks to bounce off ideas? A special time made just for you and your passion? That’s what I’d like to do, and I have absolutely no idea how to start that rolling!

Hello gorgeous place to write and retreat! This is from Le Nordic outside of Ottawa, it’s a cabin in the woods by a spa with about 10 different saunas, rest spaces and excuses to live in your bathrobe.

I’d like to also maybe one day set up a writer’s house – which would work just like those shared office hubs – where people could book time to come and work/write and have resources for editing, designing, printing etc. And this place would be in a gorgeous location that feels like a retreat even though it’s really connected to town. 🙂 I don’t know. I just feel like creating and entrepreneuring 🙂

Plus, I want to give myself time for my own personal creativity – whatever that may be. My next project may not be a book, or maybe it will be . . . I don’t know until I find the quiet space in which to experiment. I have this mental image of throwing spaghatti against the wall till something sticks. That’s kinda the way it goes with me and my mind.

So many ideas.

So many ambitions.

There is so much life to live in between the scans. Putting them off five weeks is a good compromise, I guess. Ideally I’d run away from everything and go live on a beach with Zsolt somewhere. But since isn’t an option . . . five extra weeks, and then we’ll start again.

P.S.

Holy Moly, look what just landed in my inbox today (1 day after the post). Did some sophisticated cookies or internet spiders do this? I swear I didn’t google Nice, France, I only wrote it in the blog. I’m quitely freaking out now as I read way too much into this as a sign . . .when it could simply be very strategic marketing. How is a girl meant to distinguish a sign from the universe from google ninja internet crawlers?! Now I’m all “maybe we should jump on a plane now while we can!” vs “be practical, you are saving for big dreams!”  Air Canada, you done confused me. Probably best to ignore the coincidence since it’s most likely google ninja crawlers. . . I hope, hope, hope.

Air Canada

Blog Out Loud 2014! (And breath out)

Posted in Blogging and Other Fun, Bumpboobs, Fun, Life, Writing by

No one is home. That normally means this is the time for me to eat junk food en mass, but for two reasons I won’t be doing that: One . . . Ha! Junk food . . . in my sweet, sweet dreams of the past. And two, I’d rather write about BLOG OUT LOUD!

Dream Come True

Dream Come True

Yesterday Zsolt and I went to Ottawa’s very special event, Blog Out Loud. This is organized by a lovely lady named Lynn of Turtlehead, along with a group of volunteers and other bloggers to help her out, and has become a regular blogging tradition in the local area since 2009.

In past years, I’d see talk of this event pretty much always after it had happened. But this year, thanks to way more time spent on twitter than I should be spending, I caught the news! Not only did I catch the news, but I caught it in time to submit a post to the reading. 🙂

Amazingly the post was chosen (along with 10 other blogger’s posts) from over 60 entries.

Gosh, it’s challenging to choose a reading from 2013. Many of my blog posts don’t stand alone, and others touch on stuff that I just didn’t want to represent at an event like this. The part of me who is a “writer” needs space from the part of me that just . . . gets too much attention, I mean the cancer stuff.

Writer me is like, “no, cancer drama, you cannot play with Catherine today.” So I submitted a little post I wrote while on a train in Hungary about Zsolt’s friend. And it was picked.

Therefore . . .

Yesterday evening Zsolt and I rocked up to this beautiful church on Elgin Street, where the Writers Festival is being held. This year, BOLO has hooked up with the Ottawa International Writers Festival.

(A little side story about this festival. I used blog for the writing festival. Back in 2011 (?) when we first came to Canada, I really wanted to find the writing scene in Ottawa since we’d left my writing peeps in the UK. So, I volunteered to cover events and blog for the Ottawa International Writiers Festival. That was cool. Because of that experience I was able to attend several great events… I even sat right in front of Michael Smith while he went on about food porn, and grocery vs farms, and test kitchens. It was an accomplishment, in my mind, to be a part of this writing festival. Fast forward to yesterday night, and I was actually reading at that very festival. High Five!)

So, we get to the event and I’m stupid nervous. You’d think after attending about a million networking events with Sister Leadership, networking wouldn’t be scary. But it was. Maybe because I cared so damn much. You know, it’s easy to play it cool when there’s little to risk . . . but when you care, care, care about mixing and connecting and making actual connections with people you only see online, but really admire, casual cool just runs outta the room and leaves you there going, “ahhhugh?”

Therefore, we busied ourselves by looking at the books for sale. Zsolt was great. He is always great. We took pictures of covers that I liked, because it’s always good to notice eye-catching designs.

Then back to the mixing . . .

“Ahhhugh” was about all I said for the majority of the evening.

There were two rows of seats near the front, so I planted my butt down on the one with my name on it (AHH!) and relished that safe space.

BUT, I should say that I did meet a few people like Lynn herself (as warm and kind as I had anticipated), Tanya of Spydergrrl, (Tanya is doing a series on live tweeting at events, which I reckon is very useful and will be paying attention towards) and Laurie of Not Just About Cancer. (Along with many more talented and warm ladies after the event ended, and it was so much easier to mix. I don’t know why . . .maybe the live tweets helped? Thank you for the twitter hellos! They were really, really nice to read. Ottawa is awesome not just for its pockets of culture, but for the nice people living here too.)

I should also say that I was so happy to see Laurie – having followed her online through #bcsm and her blog for so long and admiring her and recently chatting with her via skype, to see her in person was such a pleasure. She was wearing this gorgeous red dress, and looked absolutely beautiful.

Anyhow . . . we settled in for the readings, and Lynn introduced us bloggers to a large room full of people one by one.

I was third. It went well. At some point a choir (this being a church) began singing in another room as I read. Maybe that’s a good omen? Anyhow, I didn’t pass out. That’s all that really matters.

(One time I was working at the library in England and this tour group comes in. My manager is away, so I need to describe the library services at the Avenue. As I begin to talk, I find that I cannot breathe in. I talk and talk, the breathe is going out and out, my voice goes up and up. I literally had to choke out the words: “Can’t talk anymore.” The tour guide took over and I hid in the office until they left.)

Screenshot_2014-04-30-22-21-36

There is video footage of all readings, and as soon as it becomes available I’ll link it here for you to watch. The event itself wasn’t too long, so if you settle down with some tea and cookies, it’s really nice viewing to enjoy.

One thing I realized while listening to the bloggers read was that we’re good at being darn tootin’ vulnerable. Whether we are joking about parenthood, or discussing anxiety attacks, reflecting on loss or fear, talking mental illness, looking at judgement, or glorifying that moment of joy in a delicious beverage . . .

. . . the best of blogging contains stories of real life, and real, raw feelings.

Heck, listening to these blogs being read, I realized many of the bloggers I am awed by were probably struggling with the same nerves and social jitters. After all, blogging is a levelling field between extroversion and introversion, between shy and outgoing, between familiar and new. Sometimes that is hard to translate into personal encounters . . . or at least the first encounters.

That’s what I tell myself, this was the first time meeting so many of these ladies. Next time I’ll know them just that bit more, and will be just that bit more relaxed.

It was a good event. I look forward to the next one, and I look forward to meeting more of the fantastic talent this city offers. Geez, I just love blogging.

BOLO 2014!!! WOOOHOO! (Check out all the wonderful readers/bloggers and the BOLO event here)

Next up: Friday. eep.