This past summer SheWired contributor and our friend Tatum de Roeck was diagnosed with breast cancer. The co-host of Cherry Bomb and of her own interview style show on SheWired T-Time with Tatum began blogging about her experience shortly after her diagnosis. Via her writing, she shares the intimate details of taking breast cancer one step at a time in a blog that is incredibly emotional and moving but always infused with Tatum's lightning-quick wit and her ability to remain positive.
Tatum has graciously agreed to share her story with readers as we embark on October, Breast Cancer Awareness month. We will be posting her blogs on SheWired throughout the month.
11 Quick Thoughts– written September 21, 2011
Just some thoughts
1. There are days where I am empowered by how positively I look at my baldness. At times I can see that my beauty is inside and not in my follicles etc.
2. There are days when I catch sight of myself in unsuspecting reflections and I think I look like the hunchback of Notre Dame. The words ‘I look like a beastly monster’ spring into my mind before I can do anything to stop them. I know there are things wrong with this picture, firstly the hunchback wasn’t bald, secondly I don’t have a hunched back and thirdly he wasn’t a monster, he was human. I have never actually seen a movie or read a book about him so I have no idea why he is my bald frame of reference.
3. Although my head is mostly bald I still have to shave my legs. It is less often than normal but still, it’s just unfair.
4. I feel a pressure to ‘do something’ with my cancer. I am expecting someone to ask “I know you had cancer but what did you do?” I feel like I need to have written a novel, become a Zen master or at least started a charity before this is done. I am a little overwhelmed by the prospect.
5. Chemo is just crazy sexy - what with the bald head, then menopause, then forgetfulness, oh and the itching, plus the oh oh oh so hot flashes with accompanying night sweats, but the pièce de résistance is a lovely lack of bladder control. Who knew that control down there was related to hormones, well maybe lots of people knew - me, I was blissfully unaware.
6. There is a fine line between looking kind of hip alternative in a headscarf and looking like a fishwife. The fine line is a slip of about 2 mm. A fashionable 1920′s inspired headscarf tied on the side is always dangerously close just making me look like a pirate. The descent to peasant can happen at anytime.
7. It is impossible to wear a wig on 100-degree days with accompanying aforementioned hot flushes.
8. There are days I hate headscarves.
9. On days I wanted to tune out the world in which cancer exists I incessantly watched HGTV and Food Network. To my dismay those networks are not safe from cancer either! It is constantly mentioned by a person talking about who in their family has passed away, and how they are working on a charity in their honour etc. I could have been watching Lifetime all along but then I would never have learned the useful skill of how to stage a home.
10. I overdosed on too much television. I am now going cold turkey. It has been about 36 hours of complete TV withdrawal. I feel good about being TV sober but I know the lure of the finale of the Great Food Truck Race is a temptation that I need to get ready for. Might need a support group.
11. I am craving camping. My theory about this is that my body is so hard at work on healing that any additional stimulus of noisy cars, TV, texts, bills is causing me to become unnecessarily overwhelmed. I feel so sensitive. Late at night I think I feel waves of radiation from my phone and Wi-Fi. I craved camping last night, so much so that I had to talk myself out sleeping in the yard. Inside, I turned off all the electrical things in my room and read by candlelight. I discovered that without the TV on, it’s almost like camping in the house.
I am sure there are more thoughts to come but for right now I am off to sleep.
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