The diagnosis that transformed my life came five years ago today. I was vacationing, driving east on I-10, toward Tucson, when my cell phone broke the monotony of interstate pavement. It was the urologist who had done my prostate biopsy; we had played phone tag for several days, the apparent lack of urgency giving me […]
Continue readingSpeaking of Cancer…
September 19, 2021 
5 Comments
cel·e·brate v. to observe a notable occasion with festivities I never look to celebrate the anniversary of my prostate cancer diagnosis, not at all. I’ve never seen it as notable, never seen it as an occasion worthy of any festivities. It’s more like something to pretend doesn’t exist, to just…elide over. And I’d never — never — […]
Continue readingIn This, My Eleventh Year
July 10, 2018 27 Comments
“You should write something,” she said, “like, ‘I’m still here.’” As in, I’m still alive. It’s my 11th year now – 10 years and counting – since they found cancer in my pelvic lymph nodes. In this decade of the ups and downs of cancer, I find that I pass milestones less frequently, my self-discoveries […]
Continue readingThe E and the H Words
September 11, 2016 15 Comments
I can’t believe I said it. I actually used the “E” word talking about my cancer. E. As in Enjoy. No, no, no. I do not enjoy — and never have enjoyed – having cancer. Cancer Sucks, as my t-shirt shouts. But there’s cancer my disease, and then there’s cancer my experience. Cancer, my disease: […]
Continue readingKicking the Can(cer) Down the Road
January 4, 2016 20 Comments
My most recent semi-annual cancer check-up came last year, quite coincidentally, on my birthday. “Semi-annual.” That’s the check-up that arrives so soon that there couldn’t possibly have been that much change in your cancer. Yet it’s also the check-up that’s so infrequent that maybe — just maybe — enough time has elapsed for something to […]
Continue readingOf Beginnings, Odds & Ends
May 10, 2015 19 Comments
Beginnings Autumn, 1942. Mother is in the hospital for a hysterectomy after years of (what were then called) “female problems.” She awakens after her planned surgery, tactilely examines her abdomen but finds no bandages, no stitches — nothing binding her back together. At the last moment, there had been no surgery, no hysterectomy. She inquires, […]
Continue readingLiving with Cancer
July 20, 2014 15 Comments
Seven years, three months and 24 days into my cancer journey, I’ve arrived at a new way station on this indeterminate itinerary: Living with Cancer. Oh, I’ve known since pathology reported after surgery (“carcinoma in two lymph nodes”) that cancer would inevitably be a permanent part of my life, that an outright cure was of […]
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My First Cancer 
18 years — and Counting
Eighteen years. On March 26, it will be exactly 18 years since my diagnosis with prostate cancer. Eighteen years. It’s been that long. And the past year has been marked by my doctor and me looking for a trend in my PSA – you know, the prostate cancer blood-reading that tells how you’re doing and whether you […]
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