I've been living with cancer for a long time and one thing I can categorically state is I HATE PINK RIBBONS! I hate the "rah rah beat cancer" culture that has been spawned by well meaning individuals garnering support for cancer research. It invades my life and somehow I feel there must be a big L on my forehead for not being able to get into the spirit of things. 

Don't get me wrong, I have done my share of pink ribbon events  but I increasingly experience the ribbons as accusing me of moral weakness for not beating the cancer.  A large number of invisible women are living with metastatic cancer. We are invisible because who wants to say in this culture that we didn't beat the cancer. We also have mixed feelings about people knowing we still have this disease because who needs to have people look at you with sympathetic eyes that really mean "we are so sorry that you are going to die." I mean - who needs THAT. The truth is that now it is possible to live with cancer for a long time.

Life with cancer can be good. I mean REALLY good. It is full of all sorts of funny and odd moments. It is full of a new realization of what life can be and, if you are lucky and can be honest with your friends and partners, it can be a time of deep intimacy. It is also full of moments of mind numbing fear about the future, but in time I have come to an accommodation with this part of the experience.

 So that is what I want this blog to be about, the quirky, funny, life affirming moments of life with cancer. Cancer is truly a paradoxical experience. I want it to be about encouraging other women living with metastatic breast cancer to know they are not alone and to continue to live their lives to the fullest.

I have kept a cancer journal since I was first diagnosed 6 years ago. There may be days when I post an excerpt that strikes my fancy. There may be days when I don't post at all, or days like today when I am full of new ideas to share.

I call my tumors my roaches. They are like the roaches I used to have in my apartment: one day you treat for them and they disappear, a little later someone else treats for them and they skitter on back only to skitter away again.  It's like that. For now, my roaches and I are just hanging out. They are kind of quiet and life is very good. 

'Til next time,

Landis