The Literature of Caregiving: Cancer Vixen

Graphic novels—also called “comics” --have become so popular with readers of all ages that many bookstores have stopped segregating them on a single shelf and now integrate them with traditional books and related categories: fiction, nonfiction, parenting, health, memoir. 

This year Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, Fun Home was adapted for Broadway and became the Tony award-winning Best Musical of 2015. So it makes sense that graphic novels and graphic memoir are having a moment. So we can find them in the Literature of Caregiving and The Literature of Cancer genre.

One of the graphic/comic cancer books that I especially love is Marisa Acocella’s Cancer Vixen. Acocella had long been a cartoonist for The New Yorker, Glamour and Modern Bride magazines when she took a flying leap and wrote a book about her experience with breast cancer. 

Diagnosed just a few months before her wedding, Acocella provides a powerful visual story about getting the news, her changing relationship with her fiancé/husband, and the trials of treatment and the terror of being uninsured. 

Acocella also includes her dilemmas dealing with shoes, clothes, lipstick, girl friends, shopping and tribulations at her job, making it one of the funniest and most honest cancer stories. It is a mad combination of Girly-Girl advice and fierce advocacy.

Another graphic (in every sense) book about cancer is “Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person” by Miriam Engelberg. Engelberg was a cartoonist living in San Francisco and her book is a memoir created by a series of comics that take us through her cancer journey—first diagnosis, treatments, family, workplace, second diagnosis, more treatments and her internal reactions.

A couple of things set this work apart from Cancer Vixen: unlike Marissa Acocella, Engelberg was not a trained cartoonist, but her outsider-naïve style lends an air of vulnerability and immediacy to the work. Unlike Cancer Vixen, Engelberg’s book does not have a happy ending. She died a few months after the book was published.

Both of these books are funny and inspiring. At the center of each story is a view of the ways that many of us react to difficult things. For Acocella and Engelberg it’s cancer, for you or a friend it could be divorce, aging, trouble with kids etc.Yes, there is humor in these stories, as well as pain and hope and honesty.

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The Literature of Caregiving is a monthly series here at Love in the Time Of Cancer. 

Angelina Jolie's Pro-Choice Decision

You have by now heard that Angelia Jolie chose to have a double mastectomy as a preventative measure after assessing her risk for breast cancer. News reports are saying this is controversial and social media is filled with Pro and Con and WTF? messages.

So I am attaching the original New York Times OPED piece here below for you to read and consider.

This is an important cancer story and this is an important story for couples facing cancer or, as in Jolie's case, couples faced with the risk of cancer. But one important thing we have to remember and that some in the debate are missing is that: This is her body and this is her choice. Pro-choice means all of your body ---both above and below the waist.

Take a look. Here is the link.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/opinion/my-medical-choice.html?smid=pl-share

Sexy Funny Smart Breast Cancer

Yes, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month so let the pinking begin! For the most part the pink insanity infuriates me. Girly? Babyish? Infantilizing?  Yes, all that. But I was tickled pink when a cancer colleague sent me a link to a great cancer org that combines sexy, funny and in-your-face advocacy for breast cancer.  The perfect combo for for Love in the Time of Cancer.

Take a look at the website at  www. Save2ndBase.com

http://save2ndbase.com/store/womens.html and note the tee shirt that has a drawing of two baseballs at oh, about breast height, with the slogan, “Save Second Base.”  Brittany who sent me the link said, “Some find this a bit “in-your-face, but we find breast cancer a lot more “in-your-face” – especially the havoc it wrecks on patients and their families.”

Save 2nd Base began as a cancer charity walk team for Kelly Rooney. Rooney, a mom of five who died of breast cancer at age 43, designed the T-shirt.

Proceeds from the sale of these items benefit the Kelly Rooney Foundation (www.kellyrooney.org). The Foundation inspires support, research on breast cancer in young women.

Check it out and get one of these great shirts. You can’t imagine the double takes you’ll get at baseball games. It’s kind of a boob IQ test.

Poetry Month: Sunday by Kathy Davis

When I teach The "Literature of Caregiving" class I love to share "Sunday" by Kathy Davis. It is a seemingly simple poem describing a seemingly simple interaction but it is loaded with power and the ever present ambiguity and confusion of cancer and caregiving. Here it is:

Sunday

Joan leans over

the fence, says she had a mastectomy

last Tuesday. And I think: A meal,

I should have known

and taken her one. Chicken Tetrazzini,

tossed salad. She winces when I touch

her arm. A wasp,

for a moment, gives us both something

to wave at. Any degree of mobility

increases survival. “What can I do?”

I ask knowing the answer

will be “Nothing.” Tomatoes, onions, squash

to be chopped.

On my kitchen table, the knife

I use to cut everything in little squares. A breeze,

from somewhere the scent of honeysuckle.

“Let me know if you need

anything,” I say. Joan’s face blank.

The zinnias shouting red. She nods, weaves

gingerly back inside. Her screen door

misses the latch, hanging open like a dare.

                                                      By Kathy Davis

Sexy Funny Cancer

This week a colleague sent me a link to a great cancer advocacy and apparel organization that combines sexy, funny and in-your-face advocacy for breast cancer. That is the perfect combo for Love in the Time of Cancer.

Save Second Base came from women helping women and offers a hilarious tee shirt that has a drawing of two baseballs at oh, about breast height, with the slogan, “Save Second Base.” Brittany who sent me the link said, “some find this a bit “in-your-face, but as you’d probably agree, we find cancer more “in-your-face” – especially the havoc it wrecks on patients and their families.” I do agree.

Save 2nd Base began as a cancer charity walk team for Kelly Rooney, a mom of five,  who died of breast cancer in 2006 at age 43. Rooney designed the tee shirt for her freinds. Now the friends are raising money for research and advocacy for breast cancer especially in young women.

Take a Look:

http://www.save2ndbase.com/

Put Away the Pink

Ladies please. Put away the pink and get out the red. October’s pink boob month would have all of us convinced that we are within minutes of dying of breast cancer. Not the case. Not even close. Breast cancer is no picnic but even though some people die it’s not likely to be your killer.

What is very likely to kill you is your heart and cardiovascular system.

Read this and tell your friends: The NUMBER ONE killer of women is Heart Disease.

Read this too: More women die of cardiovascular disease than the next five causes of death combined, including all forms of cancer.

Saddest fact: Less than 50% of women know that heart disease is our biggest killer. We are so swept away by the pink propaganda of breast cancer that we are dying from marketing and fear. That makes us real boobs.

Pink Ribbons vs Reality

Oh it’s pink frenzy time again. Breast cancer awareness as corporate communication. You just know that half of the companies with pink ribbon promotions don’t give employees leave time to get mammograms or provide adequate family leave time for a caregiver to help someone with cancer. It’s a sales promotion with pretty pink pretend ad copy.

Wouldn’t a real commitment to breast cancer awareness be something like giving all women in a company two extra hours “Pink” leave each year to get a check-up or take any measures for her health. That I could almost swallow.

But the real service to women would be to tell them where the real risks hide rather than scare and distract them with pink shoes, and pink shirts and pink cupcakes.

Heart and lung. CPR. Cardio Pulmonary Reality.