Good evening, and welcome to Monday Night Cancer Club. Have you been here before? If this is your first visit with MNCC, welcome and please be comfortable.
If you've had or have cancer, or someone you care about has been diagnosed, most of us have been here:
After your followup appointment; during which you took meticulous notes, and tried to concentrate on the voluminous information your oncologist discussed with you? Your notes are illegible. Your hands were shaky. I understand. You can't remember exactly what the doctor said about a particular treatment being pro or con for you. You're exhausted. You're overwhelmed. Even if you were feeling tip-top, this is just too much information to think through . . . . and your memories of the conversation aren't any too reliable.
After you've had some therapy, or decided not to, you have a weird pain or a quirky symptom, the kind of thing you wouldn't think twice about under normal circumstances. That said, normal circumstances are squarely in the past tense for you and I. We can't slap a Dora band-aid on a little cut that simply will not stop bleeding, or allow a cough to linger on and on while our minds work overtime with thoughts of "oh my God, it's nothing . . . . but I'm a shivering wreck. Will they think I'm crazy if I go in for a check-up and I just have a cold?"
You don't understand. And that ain't on you, amiga or amigo. You are a blameless victim of (among other things) both too much information and too little information.
Monday Night Cancer Club is a Daily Kos group focused on dealing with cancer, primarily for cancer survivors and caregivers, though clinicians, researchers, and others with a special interest are also welcome. Volunteer diarists post Monday evenings between 7-8 PM ET on topics related to living with cancer, which is very broadly defined to include physical, spiritual, emotional and cognitive aspects. Mindful of the controversies endemic to cancer prevention and treatment, we ask that both diarists and commenters keep an open mind regarding strategies for surviving cancer, whether based in traditional, Eastern, Western, allopathic or other medical practices. This is a club no one wants to join, in truth, and compassion will help us make it through the challenge together.
