Don't hit me!

Used to be if you claimed that you got cancer because you were hit there (wherever on the body there was), people would scoff. Now research...

Living While Black/O, the Tribune

[Is this breast black or white?] For a while, there's been the term DWB--Driving While Black--African-American drivers report being pull...

Soyoyoy

Soy has been another one of those things--unclear whether it's bane or boon to women whose tumors feed on estrogen. The reason is that s...

How do you solve a problem like tamoxifen?

I take it and don't think about the side effects very often because I can't bear to. The oncologist said to take it so I take it. I ...

Ducks in a Barrel

OK, it's not fair to attack the Tribune twice in a row--it's too easy, but I had to point this out. An editor was sleeping when work...

All solutions are individual.

That's what I learned from reading the Chicago Tribune today, specifically, a little wrap-around page touting itself. But wasn't it ...

...and now Pap smears...

["Curiouser and curiouser."] Holy Toledo! Now we don't need Pap smears as often. Have we been (the equivalent) of navel-gazing...

Everything They Told Us Is Wrong...

...or at least it seems so. Now they say that self-exams aren't necessary and that you don't need a mammogram until age 40. I'll...

Horrors! Woman touches own breasts on TV!

{ Sorry--I couldn't figure out technically how to capture a still of the woman examining her breasts. It is much less sexy than this sto...

Breast Cancer Drove Her to This

[Imagine a red slash through the smiley face] The pinkness and cheeriness of the breast cancer industry made Barbara Ehrenreich note the per...

Self-conscious Narrators

L took the picture of me above and it didn't seem to look like me. It reminded me of young Leonard Michaels (1933-2003), whom I talked a...

The Need for Health Insurance

At present the United States has the unenviable distinction of being the only great industrial nation without universal health insurance. He...

Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe I'm wrong about the reason the original oncologist didn't give me Cytoxan. Maybe there was another reason, which I forgot in m...

Please vote.

Dear Cancer Bitch readers, I will relate a scenario to you and I'd like you to vote on my response. Today I went to a town hall sponsore...

Neighborly

D called at noon when I was finishing up my morning sun salutations and we decided to meet for lunch at 12:30. I rushed out and got into L...

Where's your wife?

Cancer Bitch recommends that you do not ask this question. She has asked it twice in the last 2 years and it was awkward in the first case. ...

The Passive Cancer Patient

She said, Did you ask your oncologist what she thought about the calcifications ? I said, No, I forgot. Then I thought better of it and thou...

Talking to a stone

I am the stone. I've heard over and over that exercise is important in keeping breast cancer from coming back. I even have an exercise b...

What's on my food?

I found a new-ish (launched this summer) website that tells you what pesticides you're ingesting with each piece of fruit or vegetable....

Follow-up

Swedish researchers found that eating foods that were high in acrylamide did not cause breast cancer. To wit: During a mean follow-up of 1...

Hello, Sweet; Good-bye, Crunchy

First the sweet: A pot of bright tomato-red-orange lilies appeared in one of our flower beds yesterday. It seems new, since the tag is still...

Eat, drink, be merry and quick & get health insurance

The New York Times reported today on a study by the American Institute for Cancer Research. Conclusion: Women can cut their risk of breast c...

On a scale of one to ten...

That's what they always ask you: Where is your pain on a scale of one to ten? The question, of course, is, what's ten? I imagine ten...

Cancer has left the family...

downtown Litchpatch ...as far as we know. My mother-in-law's melanoma was removed from her leg, skin was grafted over it, and there'...

Sonia's Antibiotic

My mother is a subset of the category of Typical Jewish Mother--she's elegant and tasteful, The Jewish Jackie Kennedy, my cousin has cal...

The bitch is rich!

I got my first royalty check ever today: 895 whole dollars, US. I still owe money to the publishers of my other two books; the difference is...

Red and Black

As a kid, it seemed that everyone else had gotten the guidebook. The other kids knew what it meant, for example, when someone asked if you w...

Trust

I am sitting at the dining room table in the house of strangers who are vacationing in Oregon. I have never met them, but they left their ke...