Say it like you mean it.

You've all seen my bracelet. You know with what pride and commitment I wear it. I love it when someone takes hold of my wrist to admire what they suppose is just a silver bangle and then I tell them to take a closer look. Usually it takes them a few moments as they first squint, then blink, then look at me as if to say does it say what I think it says? Yes, it does.

Fuck cancer.

And this morning, I have yet another person to wear it for. I silently touch the cool metal and say her name in my heart. An ocean away she is having a mastectomy today to remove her left breast and, may it please the universe, every trace of malignancy. Please.

The list of names of family members and friends who have or had cancer keeps growing. Some have remarkable success stories to revel in, but they are too few. And so, I donate in their cherished memories to The Canadian Cancer Society, I participate and fundraise for the CIBC Run for the Cure, I support Movember to raise awareness of prostate cancer, and have my mammogram and check ups faithfully. 

There's a public service announcement airing on TV from a website called www.getscreenednovascotia.ca with a little mocking voice emanating from a tiny, moving dot on the screen saying You can't find me in that sing-songy way that kids sometimes do. This is in an effort to get Nova Scotians to get screened regularly for cancers in the breast, colon, and cervix for which early detection most often means survival. But how many actually do?

So many forms of cancer are just too silent, so that by the time the person is symptomatic and goes to see a doctor, the tumours are already well-established and there are often metastases elsewhere. Ovarian cancer is just such a ‘silent killer’; it took my beloved mother in her sixty-eighth year. And it was only a blood test that showed a slight rise in his PSA level that gave my brother the impetus to get biopsied. Mark had surgery in October just before his fifty-fifth birthday and is, mercifully, cancer-free today.

In 1988, Julie lost her mother at age 54 to bone cancer that had spread from her breast. Her father lived with prostate cancer for over twenty years although he died from other causes. She has shaved her head and held fundraising events at her workplace for the Run for the Cure for several years. 

Cancer makes me so angry. It spares no one. Age doesn’t matter. Babies and children get sick and are put through excruciating treatments in hopes of gaining more years in which to live healthy lives. How do pediatric oncologists do it? I wonder.

Meanwhile, I wear my bracelet every single day. FUCK CANCER.

And I say out loud so many names: Alice. Anne. Louise. Yvonne. Garnie. Lois. Marj. Paul. Marie. Isaac. Amanda. Elias. Kate. Dale. Marion. Sharon. Mark. Kimberley. Ivan. Alexander. Mrs. O’Brien. Millie. Laura. Gwen. Dorothy. Ben. Ena. Jane. . . . and Mary Lynn.

Fuck cancer.

Never fails, does it?

It's Friday, a weekend, or better yet, a holiday. It's as if my immune system says, no way she can get in to see her family doctor now, and emerg will be a nightmare. No triage nurse in his right mind will let her be seen before Massive Head Wound Harry who got beaten over the head with a beer bottle outside The Stone Room Lounge in broad daylight. Better yet, I'm in Halifax at my son's apartment this time.


It's a stealth attack every time. There's no sense of impending doom, mild scratch or tickle. I awake, blink my eyes a few times, and try to swallow. Operative word: try. I cannot produce the necessary motion without a groan and not only does this hurt, it feels like there is no opening in my throat anymore. It's as if the pharyngeal tissues were two loaves of bread dough that have risen and overflowed the pans and now touch! This is not good.


I say to Quin in his sleeping bag in the living room (he always does the gentlemanly thing and gives me his room), "My throat is so swollen." 
"Take a drink, Mom," he says. "Have an Advil, too."


Water helps things a tiny bit and at least encourages the saliva to start up and assist. I'm not dying or anything remotely like that, yet my first thought is to immediately default in my brain past tonsillitis (yes, I still have them at 57), past pharyngitis, laryngitis and other -itises, directly to strep throat. I've only been treated once in my entire life for strep throat, but I could swear, this is exactly how I felt with it.

But it's Friday. I'm driving back to the valley now. How am I going to get it looked at, or get a swab done to be cultured on a weekend?
Feeling defeated before I even try, I drink my Venti Starbucks as I drive and realize that I also have a runny nose, headache and sensitive eyes. Good thing I have sunglasses as the sun on all the snow along the 101 hurts to look at.


I am a terrible patient. I self-diagnose and believe the voice in my head that insists that I must have a streptococcal infection. Then I remember that I might have a refill left from the erythromycin I was prescribed last spring for a sinus infection. I pull into the driveway and am phoning the pharmacy in minutes.

"Yes, Cate; there are two refills on that. Fill it? Great. When will you want to pick it up?"


I go upstairs with some herbal tea and lie down on the bed, two Springer spaniels' soft brown eyes regarding me with sympathy. I'm just nodding off when my brother Mark calls, and I explain my state.


"Don't start that stuff, you don't know what you've got!" 
I love this man, and he is a vet, but I swear I can feel those little strep bacteria multiplying. "Don't self-medicate."


My friend Todd calls later. 
"Call your doctor."
He's American. I explain that at four-thirty on a Friday afternoon, my doctor's office isn't even taking calls. And that I really don't feel sick enough to go sit at outpatients with all the really sick people.


By this time, Julie is home with the meds which I leave in their bag on the counter. I pick at my dinner. She watches me and says, "I don't think you should take anything until you get your throat looked at and swabbed."


So now it's Saturday and I feel like hell, although writing this has kept my mind off how sore my muscles are. And the erythromycin? No, I didn't take it. Probably wouldn't be smart.


I'll make do with ibuprofen, soup and tea. Argh.

Clothes don't make the (wo)man . . .

I opened my eyes following a little power snooze during Dr. Oz today and was startled into laughter by my own attire. Yes, I laughed out loud. Bear in mind that this show airs between one and two on weekday afternoons and that most civilized folk are fully dressed at this hour in clothing they wouldn’t mind being seen in by all and sundry. Now understand that I am a happily retired woman over 55 whose spouse is at work and who occasionally chooses to remain in comfy clothes until Julie returns at 5:45 p.m.

What if someone comes to the door you ask? I hide. Yes, hide. I keep all the doors locked anyway. I pretend not to be here. The dogs will bark obligingly, but I will not come to the door.

Comfy clothes sometimes means not very many clothes. (Fake blush.) Hey! It’s my home, my fortress, my domain. On major cleaning days it makes little sense for me to get up, get dressed, get myself and clothes all dirty, then shower and change. So I do housework in my nightgown. Or less.

Okay, okay. Mostly I do this on the second floor only where there are no windows without shades or curtains. Relax. The cats and dogs don’t care, so why should you? For the first floor tasks, I will don a t-shirt and yoga pants. And sometimes I’ll even coordinate them if I know the UPS man is coming or I’ve called for someone to come fix the front door lever assembly.

Many days, however, when no such interruptions are expected, I grab what’s closest with little or no regard for anything except its warmth and coverage value. And that’s what cracked me up when I opened my eyes from my little nap earlier. I was wearing my grey t-shirt with the screen-printed aqua, red, lime green, coral, black and yellow Travel Tarts in Mexico logo; a pair of fuzzy fleece pj pants in a lovely pea-green and black check with little dogs all over, and my eggplant-hued slippers. As if that were not a sufficiently rude assault on the eyes, I was wrapped in my silky faux-leopard throw. I looked like Frenchy’s had mated with Animal Kingdom.

People who know me well don’t drop by unannounced. They know better. You can try it, but I won’t answer. I’ll be upstairs laughing at my get-up.