Gilda and Cancer

 

Holy Fools Day

Today, April 1, I honor one of the saints of laughter – Gilda Radner, who looked for humor in the midst of her cancer, and found it. She bore witness to the power of comedy, and is one of my Holy Fools.

You probably remember Gilda from Saturday Night Live. She died of ovarian cancer in 1989 at age 42, and her husband Gene Wilder was devastated. A speaker from Gilda’s Club in Chicago met with my cancer support group and talked about how they are helping people navigate through their cancer. The Club was created to continue the hope and support that Gilda found in The Wellness Community in Santa Monica as she went through treatments. Her book It’s Always Something records her journey though surgery and chemotherapy, and it was published shortly before her death.

Chautauqua Interview

 

Some good news, which all of us desperately need. The interview on writing that I did with the Chautauqua Literary Journal went up on their website, along with three of the essays that I’ve published with them over the years. It’s a new series the journal is starting called Look Back. Links to the three essays appear at the end of the interview.

 https://chautauquajournal.wixsite.com/website/post/looking-back-with-mark-liebenow

Famous Prostate Men

 

Every cancer is traumatic, but when you get prostate or breast cancer, it really messes with your self-esteem.

Men get prostate cancer as frequently as women get breast cancer, yet I’m personally aware of only two men who’ve been treated for prostate cancer, while I know a bunch of women who’ve had breast cancer. I think the reason is that women share their struggles more often.

The Cancer Poetry of Katie Farris

 Katie Farris, Standing in the Forest of Being Alive, Alice James Books, 2023

Katie Farris showed up on my doorstep the other day, with poetry she’d written about her experiences with Stage 3 breast cancer. It’s about time, I thought. Elizabeth Boleman-Herring put up a post about Farris and her book. It intrigued me enough to order a copy.

I was thankful because I’ve been dealing with Stage 3b prostate cancer that expanded locally for over two years, and my emotions and struggles have been all over the place. It’s a reciprocal cancer – 1 in 8 American women get breast cancer while 1 in 8 American men get prostate cancer.

Ringing the Bell

 There’s a tradition with cancer that you ring a large brass bell when the doctors say you are cured. It’s a tradition that is thought to have begun in 1996. A great deal of meaning is in this moment because it signals that you can return to your life. It’s also a moment of intense gratitude for the nurses and doctors who have cared for you and worked hard to free you of cancer.

Finding Out You Have Cancer

 

The tests and scans.

The difficulty in treating cancer is in determining where it is, how much there is, and what kind of cancer cell is causing a ruckus. 

Finding out if you have cancer is the first step, and the sooner you figure this out, the better your outcome will be. So, if your primary doctor suggests you get cancer screening for some part your body, take them up on it. I had no symptoms of prostate cancer, but my annual PSA test with my primary revealed a problem. 

Switching Out a Knee

Having a knee replaced is not fun, but the compassion of the nurses and therapists make the transition to becoming a biomechanical being tolerable. My short essay in Pulse, the medical journal from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

https://pulsevoices.org/stories/the-wonder-of-knees/

Loving Horror but Hating Death

I’m delighted to have an essay published today in Paper Dragon out of Drexel University. “Poking Death’s Boundary” explores our fascination with horror movies, cemeteries, walking with grief, and dancing with death like a distant cousin. 

https://drexelpaperdragon.com/poking-deaths-boundary/

(The artwork above is by Martha Liebenow.)

Respect and Responsibility

Nurturing Compassion for All Creation

When someone or something we love dies, we grieve.

Right now, half of the country is angry and the other half seems to be gloating.

(Much of this post is something I first published on October 6, 2017.)

In Lauret Savoy’s essay, “The Future of Environmental Essay,” published by Terrain Magazine, she says there are two words we need to remember when we interact with other people, other cultures, and the land: respect and responsibility.

Living with Prostate Cancer

 

I’m nearing the two-year mark of dealing with aggressive prostate cancer, and I’ve been writing about the journey to keep my sanity. The essays that have come from this are beginning to be sent out to journals. 

Both internal and external beam radiation procedures were completed last fall, but leuprolide, the androgen-deprivation drug, is still having its way with me. I think its side effects are beginning to fade a tad because my hot flashes aren’t as frequent and they aren’t as intense. The hair on my legs is still gone, as well as what I lost off my head. What muscle I have left still has no definition, and even though I exercise twice a day, I don’t see any changes there. 

Because I lost strength, flexibility, and balance, I’ve begun going to yoga and Pilates classes to get them back. Most of the classes are what they call “hot,” which means that they heat up the room into the mid-90s. The idea is to sweat out all the toxins in your body. After going to classes every other day for the last two weeks, I have yet to make it through a class without needed to rest in the middle and catch my breath.

Dealing with cancer is not for the faint of heart, not that you have a choice. But I’ve experienced the grace of fellowship among cancer patients and the great compassion of the nurses and doctors.

More on all of this later.