SPREADING THE WORD ABOUT CHEMOBRAIN

I met Jean Campbell at Per Se Restaurant at a writer's luncheon a couple of months ago.  I was SUPPOSED to see her again last Friday at the Cancer and Careers National Conference in NYC.  Instead, I was derailed.  Technically, I was more deflated than derailed as I was stuck home waiting for a vehicle repair compliments of another issue with these "low profile tires."

I hit a pothole similar in size to, ummmm, perhaps the Grand Canyon.  I wasn't driving fast and I didn't see the damn thing. I'm pretty careful about those things and after an episode in the fall, I am overly cautious about road conditions.  I had BOTH front tires blow out one fateful night last September.  It was approaching midnight.  I was on a pretty dark and desolate stretch of road.  I thought I had special "run flat" tires on the car.  And, even if I didn't, I had no intention of stopping.

Besides, it wasn't a fateful night because of the stupid tires anyway.  It had more to do with a game of deception in which I was an unwitting (and unwilling) participant.  All I'll say on that topic is, nothing is a secret and the truth always surfaces. It's never a question of IF, it's always a question of WHEN and for NOW, I cut it with the cryptic crap.

Friday's calamity stretched throughout the weekend and into today.  I have a loaner vehicle.  Two wheels and one tire-shot. Perhaps the repairs will be done today.  Maybe, it will be tomorrow.  No matter, it ruined my plans to be at the Cancer and Careers seminar and I didn't get to see Jean, either.

Cancer and Careers has outstanding information on their website they now have presentations of some of the workshops I missed thanks to the road, the tire, the wheels, my driving and/or a combination of all of these events.  Jean Campbell also has an outstanding website.  She is a two time survivor of breast cancer and served as the director of the American Cancer Society's NYC Patient Navigator Program.  Her website is called (cleverly), No Boobs About It.

No Boobs About It is packed with resources and information to help navigate through treatment and beyond.  And now, there is a little blurb about Chemobrain, too.  It's more than a blurb.  Jean asked me if I would share my chemobrain story and since I love to hear myself talk or see myself type or whatever, I happily agreed!

It took several weeks for me to condense the story into something that didn't resemble War and Peace.  We all know that's the punchline for a really LONG novel but here's a fun factoid from the font.  That's actually number 17 on The Long List. Technically, the longest novel honors belongs to In Search of Lost Time.  Ironically, the theme of that book is "involuntary memory" and surely I'm not the only person who finds it a tad witty that I'm trying to make a point about my inability to embrace brevity and in doing so, learn about this novel thanks to my ADD/OCD messed up, short circuiting chemobrain. The brain whose working memory doesn't work at all citing a book whose theme is ANYTHING to do with memory???

I wanted to publicly thank Jean for inviting me to share my story with her readers and I wanted to be sure everyone who reads this blog is aware of the stellar information one can glean from No Boobs About It.  Plus, it's a good spot to read the not so condensed version of my stroll down (I have no) memory lane.  And, there's a snazzy photo I found on my phone. So, what do you think about the longer hair?  Cut it or leave it alone?  I vote: "leave it alone."  Really?!!??  Hair???  Maybe it's insensitive to talk hair on any blog where cancer talk is the main event.