Drama is a situation women create themselves, based on jealousy.

And that quote lets you know we’re not in Kansas anymore and tonight’s post is not about breast cancer.  It’s about grown women acting lie prepubescent mean girls.

So once upon a time in a post far, far away I recounted the amusing take of a woman who sent a Facebook message through another woman complaining that she could not see my posts.

Well, duh, lady, they are called “privacy settings” and I choose not to interact.

Apparently that drives some of these Stepfords bat sh*t. Oh yes I almost said the “s” word.  But it’s my blog, is it not?

A lot of these Stepfords congregate on a community board on Facebook that a woman I know is the admin of.   They definitely have issues if you aren’t cookie cutter them.  (So you know they all love me, right?)

I decided to put a link to a post I wrote on a local blog and oh my! The drama. As in D-R-A-M-A.  It was so good I took screen shots of all their comments.  They did not like that I said in my opinion I thought a local business owner was being a little b*tch.  They went on and on and on.  One woman even went so far as to basically say I did not have the right to my opinion.  And then she said “no hard feelings here.”  The funniest part about this woman?  She owns and runs a small indie newspaper that she would not be able to run if it wasn’t for the First Amendment that exists in a free country.

So I get contacted by the board admin who is a lovely woman.  Apparently she came home to an inbox stacked with complaints about my post – a post that is written on a stand-alone community blog that  has nothing to do with this community page on Facebook.   Along with those complaints come repeat complaints that certain people I filter out with my privacy settings can’t see my posts and how that is so unfair. Saying that this is an “honor system and that posts should be available to all members for viewing and comment.”

Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. 

Privacy settings and quasi public boards are not mutually exclusive.  Nice to know something on Facebook works.

So what does this woman do?  She deletes the post because all these Stepfords are berating her.  Yes, peer pressure.  Does it every time.

I am highly amused.  But then I can be.  I don’t need any of those women.  I find them pathetic.  Here they are grown women and if they can’t get their own way they throw in essence tantrums until they get their own way?  I guess that must be filed under the First Amendment for selective readership/censorship?

Wow.  I survived breast cancer only to deal with bitches.  Yes I said the “b” word.  All the way out with no little asterisks to soften the blow.  But I have survived breast cancer, so pardon me if I don’t bow to peer pressure and am not afraid to speak my mind.  Not that I was afraid to speak my mind before breast cancer, mind you, because I wasn’t.

I guess all in all this just goes to the nature of some women.  They can only be supportive and friendly if you subscribe to their narrow perception of reality and the universe.  I find that sad, truly I do.  But I wasn’t put on earth to pacify cookie cutters.  I only use cookie cutters for baking.

After an experience like this, it makes me appreciate all the more human beings who are not afraid to be individuals.

O.k. enough fear and loathing in suburbia.  I have important things like Tamoxifen induced hot flashes to get back to.

It’s one of my gals, and not with happy news.  Added bonus?  Both bits of unhappiness have to do with breast cancer.

First comes the news that a mother of a mutual friend is in the hospital in some coma-like state.  This older lady has metastatic breast cancer.   She fell or something and ended up in the hospital, and it’s pretty grim right now.  This is the woman’s second round with breast cancer.   This is so sad, and her family waits and prays.

Second comes the news that another woman we know has been diagnosed with breast cancer.   My friend doesn’t know if she has been staged yet, or what is going on, and well that freaks me out a bit.  Another woman in my area, in close proximity to me with breast cancer.  What is it about the area in which I live?

And here I am, taking it day by day, one step at a time.   Damn it, will I always fear the specter of breast cancer that always seems to hover not so far away?

I wonder if the emotional roller coaster aspect of breast cancer will ever truly fade, or will it just abate to consistently manageable levels?

I am starting to sleep a little better a little more consistently.  I am not certain if my sleep patterns will be moderately or massively inconsistent throughout my five years of Tamoxifen and chemically induced menopause.  Some days I honestly  feel tired all day long.  And when I go to sleep, I often wake up flashing.  Getting back to sleep from there is not the same, and never really deep enough.

In addition to the hot flashes and sleepus interruptus, there are the inexplicable leg aches.  I don’t know how else to describe it.  On Tamoxifen I am fighting my moods and my darn weight again.  I feel like  such an unattractive blob some days. I met a woman at that event I photographed yesterday who told me her mother was a survivor and had done five years with Tamoxifen.  She said that the first couple of years her mother often did the strip around the house because of the hot flashes.

And oh yes, let us not forget that some days my left breast where the tumor came out just hurts. Not only is it lop-sided, but yep, some days it hurts – little darty aches that are damn annoying.

I understand all of the above is normal, but hell, it still doesn’t feel normal to me.  Nor do I want it to remain normal.  Yes, another common compliant of the breast cancer survivor: new normal is not the old normal and while some of the new normal ain’t bad and we’re all trying to be healthier, this new normal can pretty much suck some days.

I have traveled so far, yet the journey is not yet so old that I can leave it in my rear view mirror.  So when I hear of people dying of breast cancer, and being diagnosed with breast cancer I find myself at emotional sixes and sevens as a result….and that messes with my be positive credo.

Meanwhile, back on the sidelines cheering me on is the most awesome sweet man imaginable.  He and the kid have developed a very amusing soft shoe of dealing with my hot flashes: they literally blow on me.  It makes me giggle.

I just had a hot flash.  It felt like my back was glowing and then my face.  Is this my reward in life for not being particularly crampy?  I haven’t had a period now since October.  I have also had a couple inexplicable allergic reactions to I am not sure what.

What other fun facts do you want to know?  Truthfully, I am a little anxious about the next round of doctors appointments.  I want to NOT have breast cancer again, ya know?

I think this is enough of a flowing stream of consciousness for one day.

Tamoxifen girl out.

Making good on my promise to myself to do what brings me pleasure, I had buckets of fun photographing an event today. So this post is not about breast cancer, but it is about life!

I had made no secret since my diagnosis that my career and I no longer suited.   Even though it is a disastrous economy, I was forced to make a decision.  So my sweet man and I made it together.

I resigned.

The stress was reaching levels which were truly untenable to me as well as toxic, and add that to the problems adjusting to Tamoxifen, well I need a break.  Some will think I am completely nutty for doing this, so here’s the 411:  I have never done this in my life.  I decided I owe myself more.

My sweet man is so good to me.   He is giving me the gift of time.  He is so unselfish a human being, some days I wake up and can’t believe how lucky I am.

I left in as professional a manner as possible, but needless to say, it went over like a lead balloon.  (i.e. “you can’t leave” and “you’re unprofessional for doing this”)  But as I said before, having spent too many years prior to my sweet man in a bad relationship, I wasn’t willing to do it any longer on the job front.   I am owed money, and it remains to be seen if I will have to fight to get money I rightfully earned.

Not once was there a conversation of “what can I do to get you to stay?”,  so I know I made the right decision.  Perhaps if things had been different around the time of my surgery and seven weeks of radiation I might have stayed.   But after four years of no benefits, no PTO/vacation days and increasing levels of stress, I knew in my heart of hearts if I want the best possible chance to remain breast cancer free, this had to happen.  So I cut the cord.  I am worth more than I ever received.

Some may say I am just being selfish, but I prefer to think that I am taking care of myself and trying to put myself first.

I am not the first woman who has had breast cancer to decide to change her life, and I won’t be the last.   Once again, as yet a new journey begins I find myself blessed by the love and support of my sweet man, friends, and family.

I am smiling again.

Merci.

I knew when I was diagnosed my life would change, and part of that change would and will have to do with me.

One round of breast cancer is more than enough.  Besides, if I do not value myself more in every aspect of my life, who will?

Some of you may think I am speaking in tongues, but I am not.  I am merely taking a minute to take stock of what I have been through and what lies ahead.  W.ith the love of my sweet man, the future is indeed a happy prospect.

Happy Valentine’s Day to myself and Happy Valentine’s Day to each and every one of you.

Be happy and be healthy.

BOND AND FREE

BY ROBERT FROST

Love has earth to which she clings With hills and circling arms about– Wall within wall to shut fear out. But Thought has need of no such things, For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.

On snow and sand and turn, I see Where Love has left a printed trace With straining in the world’s embrace. And such is Love and glad to be But Thought has shaken his ankles free.

Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom And sits in Sirius’ disc all night, Till day makes him retrace his flight With smell of burning on every plume, Back past the sun to an earthly room.

His gains in heaven are what they are. Yet some say Love by being thrall And simply staying possesses all In several beauty that Thought fares far To find fused in another star.

Just thought I would share a poem on this snowy winter’s morning.  We all need to take those moments where we slow down and savor, and tune out life’s irritations so we can appreciate the simpler things.

I have now taken the time to do that in my own life on a larger scale, but that is a story for another day.

Cookies photographed are from Picket Fence Confections - found on Esty at http://www.etsy.com/people/pfconfections

Last night I had a photography shoot at an event I was working on and when I got home, I swear my left breast where the lumpectomy occurred was throbbing and full of sharp little pain darts (for lack of a better description).  I couldn’t get out of my bra fast enough.  Wow talk about a reminder of what I have been through.  And it got me to thinking yet again about the whole Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood Debate, the cut in funding, public outcry, backlash, and restoration of funding.

At my event last night I got into a conversation with a dear male friend who is  in the field of  conservative talk radio.  He is a true conservative.  I am not.  Much about me is conservative, but my views on women’s health issues are far more individualistic as I wasn’t meant to be part of the proverbial Stepford.  And besides, any reasonable thinking person knows breast cancer has nothing to do with abortion.

I have known since I was much younger that I would not be able to bear children easily, if it at all. Of course having breast cancer sort of sealed the deal on it all once and for all as well as my curent age.  As a result, I am not a woman who has faced the decision of whether or not to remain pregnant.  But I have thought about it, and my decision has always been that we do not have the right to tell women what to do with their bodies.  I am sorry, but it’s just not right.  That is not advocating anything nefarious, it is just being realistic.  Every woman’s situation is as unique as she is.

So my friend and I went back and forth for a while about our positions, and it was a party setting so it wasn’t entirely appropriate for me to get into the nitty gritty of it all.  He felt that Susan G. Komen caved and that Planned Parenthood was just an arm of the Demeocratic Party.  Alrighty then, I disagree.  But now I will clarify my position to him, and to all as an example of how lucky I was, but what I was thinking about a couple short years ago.

Way back when  before my sweet man was on the scene, I was then recently post break up of an engagement to someone else.  When my engagement ended, I was for all intents and purposes sort of dumped off the health insurance I helped my ex get.  (He is a lawyer and will undoubtedly argue that point and every other point known to man as was his wont, but he can’t argue my right to my opinion. Besides it happened.)  Of course what was ironic there is for years he had been on my former corporate health insurance as my domestic partner.   Which given the fact he was a decade plus older than I, can I tell you how that shot my premiums up monthly?

So there I was starting completely over (did I mention he left his old and dying dog with me too?), trying to get health insurance in a country and economy that really doesn’t provide too many options to individuals who need individual health insurance.  My employer doesn’t offer employee benefits, so I had to get insured under my own steam.

What if I had been diagnosed with breast cancer at THAT point in time?  While applying for new health insurance?  Let’s get real, if I had popped a breast cancer diagnosis IN BETWEEN plans or as I was coming off the old plan would anyone have wanted to carry me or politicians given a damn about one more woman with breast cancer?  We know what happens to women like that given the state of health insurance in this country, don’t we?    I would have been S-C-R-E-W-E-D.  My only option if that scenario had occurred would have been to go to an organization like Planned Parenthood, or something similar to get donated mammograms and other breast health related diagnostic tests.  God knows how I would have covered my surgery and treatment.

I get very emotional when I think about this, because I know a woman bravely fighting late stage colorectal cancer – which she was diagnosed with when she had no health insurance.  She was at the time too young for medicare, but out of COBRA.  And hadn’t done anything because she probably felt she couldn’t afford health insurance and gambled.

I could not take that risk and I fought to get individual health insurance.  And thank God I did.

So when I think about what Susan G. Komen did, it is almost personal for me, because but for the grace of God, I could have been one of those millions of scared women who needed help from a group like Planned Parenthood so I wouldn’t run the risk of dying of improperly or untreated breast cancer.

I was one of the lucky ones.  As I type this, I can tell you I am extremely emotional just thinking about it.  So to have a philosophical political debate with a friend who sees this issue as “Komen caving”, with all due respect, is bullshit.   The only thing Susan G. Komen did was reverse itself kind of sort of to try to dig itself out of the quick sand pit of a public relations nightmare it created by bowing to political pressure and the politics of the uterus.

Politics has NO place in women’s health.  I do not need people who are politicians dictating their ideological preferences at the expense of MY health as a woman and limiting any choice under the sun I might need – after all health insurance in this country kinda sorta already does that.  And the 411 although none of anyone’s business, I say this as both a Catholic and a Republican.  So maybe I am going to hell, but I will do so as a breast cancer survivor who is not afraid to speak her mind or look her God in the eye.

Last night on the 11 PM newscast as I was flipping channels, I lit on the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia.  They were at a Susan G. Komen kick off event  something for that 3-day.  Of course if they were kicking off in Philadelphia for this, they were also kicking off in other major metropolitan cities, weren’t they?  So I would say the “timing” of their “reversal” was a big case of C.Y.A. (“cover your ass”).  During this film snippet they interviewed for a nano-second a woman with brown hair at the event twaddling on how Susan G. Komen bowed to political pressure, blah, blah, blah.  And there she was wearing a damn pink ribbon.  I swear if I had been standing right in front of that chick at that event I would have given her a piece of my mind AND thrown my drink in her face.

Here is some more from Komen’s “reversal” statement yesterday that CBS 3 reported along with a comment that “The Susan G. Komen organization has restored funding to Planned Parenthood following criticism from liberal groups and lawmakers“:

“We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.

The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process…

Susan G. Komen?  Millions of people will never trust you again, and it is entirely what you deserve.  Susan G. Komen needs to be humbled and remember that fighting breast cancer is not about making people buy tons of vomitorious plastic garbage.  And CBS3?  I take umbrage to your statement that Komen reversed itself solely because of “liberal lawmakers” .  Who the hell writes your copy and fact checks?  Unless of course conservative politicians are the ones who solely fund Susan G. Komen like Planned Parenthood is run by liberal politicians out of Nancy Pelosi’s basement?   Don’t insult me or my intellegence, along with all the other women who have had breast cancer, are currently undergoing treatment, or lost someone to the disease.

I apologize to my faithful readers for the rant, but I just feel very strongly about this.  And once again I am going to suggest breast cancer charities WORTHY of your time (and I might add all founded in the area where I am from.  All but one have a national focus, and aren’t just local).:

BreastCancer.org

Living Beyond Breast Cancer

Save 2nd Base

Great Guys Group (serves people in the greater Philadelphia area solely)

I also encourage support of any group, including Planned Parenthood that focuses on women’s health issues.

People who practice politics of the uterus, even fellow women, are to be shunned and ignored.  Not embraced.  Deadly diseases like breast cancer don’t discriminate, so keep politics out of this.

Of course, the even more alarming thing to contemplate now is the dangerously extreme nature of American politics, which I feel is diverting from the mission of equality that was embraced and bled for by our founding fathers circa 1776.

Perhaps now the Susan G. Komen Mean Girls Charity needs the public relations equivalent of a morning after pill?  Won’t that upset certain quarters if they order one up?  Oh, the ironies….

Here is some suggested additional reading:

The New Yorker Daily Comment

Komen’s Choice

In 1731, Benjamin Franklin’s nineteen-year-old sister, Jane, wrote to her  brother that their sister Mary, a mother of three, was dying of breast cancer.  Franklin was in Philadelphia; his sisters were in Boston. “I know a cancer in  the breast is often thought incurable,” Franklin wrote Jane, “yet we have here  in town a kind of shell made of some wood, cut at a proper time, by some man of  great skill (as they say,) which has done wonders in that disease among us,  being worn for some time on the breast.”  Mary died later that year. There was  no cure. There is still no cure.

New York Times:   Outcry Is Fierce to Cut in Funds by Cancer Group

Philadelphia Inquirer: Komen foundation needs cure for backlash over Planned Parenthood cutoff

Huffington Post: The Komen Controversy: Enough Already With “The Power of Social Media”  (this is a particular favorite of mine, because technically Huffington Post is a big assed blog which makes it in and of itself social media, correct?)

San Francisco Chronicle:   Can Susan G. Komen for the Cure erase blemish? :

“These events have revealed the organization is willing to play politics with  women’s lives,” said Anika Rahman, president of the feminist group Ms.  Foundation for Women. “Women feel betrayed … so I think the emphasis will be  on the ribbon and what lies beneath. It’s something that will have long-term  implications.”
Read more

Boston Globe:  Not so pretty in pink: Komen’s funding reversal is proof of the power of social media and the support for women’s health   By     Renée Loth     February 4, 2012    :

Breast cancer doesn’t care if its victims support abortion or not. The disease doesn’t discriminate. The Komen foundation learned the hard way that it shouldn’t, either.

Reblogged from a little c:

I was writing this post earlier this morning, and planning to finish it some time today–but, I’m going to go ahead and hit ‘publish’.  As many of you already know–Komen has ‘amended’ their policy.  So, you know…victory!  Victory that still has a tinge and a taste of something very, very bitter.  (I said on my friend Carrie’s wall today that I kind of wish Planned Parenthood was in a position to be all “Yeah, we don’t need you.  TTFN!” Sadly, that’s not realistic.  But, it would be really really …

Love this! Give it a read!

Nancy Brinker Chief Mean Girl at Susan G. Komen says as  per ABC News:

“We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives,” president and founder Nancy Brinker said in a statement today. “We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.”

I am glad Planned Parenthood is getting their money back, but let’s get real: Komen is only reversing itself because they have a public relations nightmare of their own creation.  So now they are only a little bit pregnant.

I say too little, too late.  As a survivor, they have done nothing for me or anyone I know, while I can point to several smaller charities who have.

Susan G. Komen has had a reputation in the charity world for a few years.  And can we just say it’s not all flattering?   And this recent action against Planned Parenthood shows them just to be the charity of mean girls.    I don’t do mean girls so they can keep all their pink plastic crap, their pink plastic perfumes, their pink guns, and so on.

I hope that people look at their bottom line really closely now.  I think women everywhere should know their precise overhead versus what actually goes to research or breast cancer patients.

Too little, too late Susan G. Komen.  I felt no kindred spirit of breast cancer solidarity with you before, and this changes nothing. I am just one of the millions of ordinary women affected by this disease, and well, Susan G. Komen is all about the celebrity of it all. Not the rest of us.

To me, breast cancer charities should be about what they can do for us, not what we can do for them first.

Here’s the press thus far:

Detroit Free Press: Susan G. Komen for the Cure drops plan to cut Planned Parenthood grants

 11:42 AM, February 3, 2012 

ABC New: Susan G. Komen Apologizes for Cutting off Planned Parenthood Funding

Philly.com:

AP: Komen charity reverses Planned Parenthood cuts

After three days of controversy, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure  breast-cancer charity says it is reversing its decision to cut breast-screening  grants to Planned Parenthood.

“We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast  doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives,” a Komen  statement said.

As first reported by the Associated Press on Tuesday, Komen had adopted  criteria excluding Planned Parenthood from grants because it was under  government investigation, notably a probe launched in Congress at the urging of  anti-abortion groups.

Komen said Friday morning that it would change the criteria so it wouldn’t  apply to such investigations.

Read more HERE 

My ENTIRE point of posting this is the sheer hypocrisy of Susan G. Komen and their frozen faced leader Nancy G. Brinker .

I find it amusing that they cut funding to Planned Parenthood, yet they partner with Discount Gun Sales for a pink hand gun?

Seriously:

Walther P-22 Hope Edition 3.4″:

Discount Gun Sales is proud to team up with the Susan B. Koman Foundation to offer the Walther P-22 Hope Edition in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. A portion of each P-22 Hope Edition will be donated to the Seattle Branch of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

The P-22 Hope Edition has an exclusive DuraCoat Pink slide in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness month. Utilizing the same reliable controls and firing mechanism that has made the Walther P-22 America’s top selling handgun, the Hope Edition will be a limited production pistol offered exclusively through Discount Gun Sales.

So if you are going to play devil’s advocate here, why is one form of death more acceptable than the other?  Why is it that the constitutional right to bear arms is o.k., but not a woman’s right to choose?

I simply can’t see people flipping out the pink Walther at shooting ranges.  I don’t know any self-respecting gun owners who want a gun that looks like it got borrowed from the gun safe in Barbie’s Dream House.

Are the companion bullets pink with polka dots?  Do we get pink fries with that?

Seriously, the more I learn about Susan G. Komen and their quest for endless pink crap, the more I hope people seriously continue this boycott of them.

I can’t take credit for this latest Komenism, but here is where I learned about it:

HOPE KILLS: Susan G Komen Foundation Would Rather Be Associated With A  Handgun Than Planned Parenthood

Well, here’s an interesting weapon!

The Susan G. Komen Foundation, which collects and distributes money for  Breast Cancer research and prevention is  in the news for withdrawing its (relatively small) grant from Planned  Parenthood.

So the Komen Foundation doesn’t want to be associated with the nation’s  largest abortion-provider. But they don’t mind partnering  up with a handgun maker.

This gun is a beauty.

And a portion of the sale of each P-22 Hope Edition will be  donated to the Seattle Branch of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Here again is Breast Cancer Advocate Barbie waxing poetically in defense of lots of pink garbage: