Wow. A week.

I can't believe a week has past. A week has past in a fog of pain and narcotics -- no getting it back, and not much there I'd care to relive.

Jane is here with me today. She'll be taking me to my first radiation appointment at 2:00 PM. I don't know what my radiation schedule will be on subsequent days, or for how many days I'll be attending. I am anxious to return to work, but don't want to return until I have more mobility in my arm and am also a bit more on top of my feelings.

The weekend was stressful. My perceptions of things were off ... muddled by the Decadron and Dilaudid. I couldn't feel the warmth of peoples' love, even Eric's love. That's like being chilly in the rays of a blazing, equatorial, sun. That's no way to live.

Melissa Etheridge dances on the cover of my newpaper's tv guide this week -- with her short & sassy haircut and guitar in hand. The caption reads: She's got the cure

I wonder what it's like for women who remain cancer-free when they are 10 years, 20 years, 30 years out from their original diagnosis. They are the minority. I wanted to be among them.

I wonder if 20 years later, they begin to feel that somehow they did something to deserve to live? Not that they would think that anyone else deserved to die... but that somehow, they had a positive outlook or way of living, or made some choices that led them "beat the odds?"

I want them to just feel grateful.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with a message of hope. Living with hope and light is just plain easier. It would be nice, though, if someone would stand up and say that early prevention is not a cure. That there is no cure.

If -- IF -- I'm alive a year and a half from now, I will be added to the five year survival statistic. The bc celebrity du jour will point at that statistic and do a little Think Pink dance and talk about Racing for a Cure and Strides against Cancer. More women will don thier pink socks and beribboned hats, and their denial... and I will be one more woman dying from a disease that, apparently, Mellissa Etheridge has already cured...