Category: Breast Cancer

What am I? Who am I?

1/30/2018

What am I? Who am I? When I sit in that chair at that time?

Really for me it is “What was I” since it has been almost 18 years. I think it is sort of like a secret club, if you have been there you know what I mean. We never forget. What was I? And for those in that chair at this moment, what are you? Who are you?

I let this question go by for a long time, in part because it was convenient and in part because I didn’t know better. I do know better now. The question has an emerging urgency in me as I engage the world of love and loss through activities that surround The Actual Dance.

If you are reading this Blog, you probably know the context.   The play I wrote and perform now for five years about having been with Susan – now my wife of 51 ½ years – as her breast cancer was supposed to kill her.   The play, The Actual Dance, is the voice of the person in that yet to be named role as they prepare for the loss of the person they love most in the world.

The Actual Dance addresses the question: How do you do that? The line in the show most illustrative of this role comes when the character stares out into space and almost sobs: “I can’t imagine that I can do what I know I have to do.”

Who is that person? When your love is so deep that your soul and that of the one you love are intertwined, each an equal half of the other.   Who is that person that is going to be spiritually split in two when one-half of who they are disappears?

Society has lots of different words or adjectives. Caregiver is a term and role that is often used to describe that person.   Or it might be the relational name: husband, wife, parent, child, friend.   Yet none of those work.

We all have multiple roles in life, often played at the same time. We relate to the world in multifaceted ways. So yes, I can be a caregiver and a husband to my sick wife.   But that isn’t the person I am when my heart is breaking, when that “half of me” that is also her leaves this earthly dimension or plane.

Yes, I will have her or him in my heart as a memory, but it is not the same thing. Life is not a lingering feeling nor a remembered first date. Life “exists in a tangible form” and it will exist in this world as we know it only so long as the person “lives.” It exists and goes somewhere else or nowhere else depending on your theology and faith; but it does not stay here.

When the other half of our whole leaves us we become broken. I have written a fair amount the process of becoming whole again.   Today my question is, “what am I as I could through the process of breaking in half.” What am I as my soul or heart is breaking?

So maybe someone who is reading this can help. What is the word for that person. Who was I when the “doctor’s fingers slid along the lips of the incision point” on Susan’s bare chest post double-mastectomy, “and he suddenly stops” and announces a post-surgery lump that he and all the other doctors think is a marker of a rampant spread of the breast cancer?

Give me a name please? Give me a word? Who are we then? What are we then?

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BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH BLOG: DAY 12 -- For Men

10/12/2017

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The Actual Dance as a play presents the events of the year 2000 from my point of view as the spouse of the woman going through breast cancer. Now, seventeen years later, it is apparent that I did not fully understand how deeply the experience impacted me. It took me 12 years to write the story, so to speak, and the last nearly 5 years I have been telling it through performances of the play. Every October I blog daily to help in raising awareness and to share elements of the story that I hope are of value to those who read these blogs.

Day 12: “I can’t explain or maybe better said I cannot justify why, but I cannot leave Susan alone. My job is to be here with her in this room. My cot sits near the floor on the right side as you face the bed. In the opposite corner on the same side of the room I set up the table and a chair as a desk for my computer so I could work and be (in the room) at the same time.”   The Actual Dance

There is no training for this journey for most people and especially for men. “How do I do this?” Be with a wife or mother or child as they undergo treatment for a life-threatening disease. In Susan’s case of advanced breast cancer I didn’t even think to look for a how-to manual. I just did "it." For a good part of the journey I served in the role of what I call a traditional caregiver, especially during the early medical procedures. A “laugh line” in the play is “Hell I did not even change the kids diapers and now I am helping Susan vomit.”

The Actual Dance is a play about many things. It is a love story about two people just out of their teens who get married. And it is about breast cancer. And it is a male caregiver’s story. A caregiver’s story that uses theater to demonstrate that when confronted with the unthinkable in our lives we can do the unimaginable.

Stat of the Day: 40% of family caregivers are men, meaning there are about 16 million men family caregivers according to AARP.

Task of the Day: Just-In-Case-List.   Now this isn’t a will or an evacuation plan for a hurricane or a fire. It is a check list for if someone you love and live with is diagnosed with cancer. Who to call? What are the policies at your work? Insurance? A lot of that can be done early. Just stop right now and start a just-in-case list. Here are some resources and ideas. Book Blog

Resource of the Day: Check out Men Against Breast Cancer. A handy Breast Cancer Action Plan and Caregiver’s Guide for Men, which is free to download.

The Actual Dance: Performances.   Donate.

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BREAST CANCER AWARENESS BLOG: DAY 10 -- MUSIC HEALS

10/10/2017

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The Actual Dance as a play presents the events of the year 2000 from my point of view as the spouse of the woman going through breast cancer. Now, seventeen years later, it is apparent that I did not fully understand how deeply the experience impacted me. It took me 12 years to write the story, so to speak, and the last nearly 5 years I have been telling it through performances of the play. Every October I blog daily to help in raising awareness and to share elements of the story that I hope are of value to those who read these blogs.

Day 10: Music Heals “It is the tradition in our Reform Jewish synagogue for the Rabbi to read out loud at Kabbalat Shabbat, Friday night services, the names of congregants who are ill. The congregation then chants a prayer asking God for the healing of body and soul of those who are in need of such healing.” The Actual Dance

There are rituals in the Jewish community to support people who are ill and their families. The one I love most is the chanting of the Misheberach at our Friday night services. Even though Susan and I always attended Friday night services, we never had one of our names read on the list until Susan’s breast cancer. Hearing Susan’s name read out loud for the first time was an emotional experience for me. It reminded me of how fragile life is and made me wonder what it might be like sitting in that same seat alone, without her. Yet it was comforting to know that everyone around us was on our side asking God for the healing of Susan’s body and spirit.

The Misheberach tune we like to chant is the one written by the late Debbie Friedman. You can hear her sing it here.

Stat of the Day: The New York Times Seems to be “on it” -- The most current Breast Cancer Statistics were published on Friday here. Of note for me is that there will be about 250,000 NEW cases of Invasive breast cancer diagnosed this year!

Task of the Day: Listen to music. Music can calm the mind and open the heart. By itself and especially in quiet places it can transform your heart and brings peace even in the most troubled times. Check out some of my favorites: Snatam Kaur Shastro’s Shamans Healing Loreena Mckennitt

Resource of the Day: Check out this create resource Healing Harmonies: Music as Medicine for Seniors and Caregivers. Not only good tips but a nice list of “13 Theme Songs for Caregivers.”

The Actual Dance: Performances. Donate.

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Dancing Alone

5/19/2017

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                After a performance of The Actual Dance not so long ago during the discussion with the audience someone asked me if I felt lonely during the time I was caring for Susan, my wife, and I thought she was not going to survive her breast cancer.

               It had not occurred to me that I was feeling “lonely.” Yet, as is often the case, even after nearly 150 performances of a play that I wrote, I learned something new. Of course, I was lonely. I was there being strong with Susan as she might die, having these incredible mental trips to another place and time in the Universe, which I call “The Ballroom.” No one else knew. Just me. It was where I would “go” because I could not handle the “real world.” The world of holding Susan’s hand as she would take her last breath.
Susan, on the other hand, developed a different mental posture. A fierce determination to survive and a welcome, when should could, to anyone who shared that belief in and with her.

               We, Susan and I, are now enjoying telling the story of our different approaches following performances of The Actual Dance.   There is even a short video produced by some students at American University a few years ago where Susan and I articulate our different approaches to that existential moment. It is called “Our Story.” You can watch it here.

               Thanks to that question to me after the show, I now understand that the ritual of caring for someone you love through their end of life can be among the most “lonely” moments of our lives.   I could not share with anyone my deepest fears and the terror of having to “be there” for Susan when it came time. The most frequently repeated idea in the show, I now realize, is a variation of: “I can’t imagine I can do what I know I have to do.”

               So often an obituary is written something like: “She passed away quietly surrounded by her loving family.”   It sounds warm, comforting and together for a sad but gracious transition. Yet, my experience in preparing for that moment was stark fear. It didn’t matter who else was in the room with Susan and me when things were going bad, I was alone in the Ballroom experiencing a phantom orchestra warming up for what would be the waltz Susan and my soul would dance until she slipped away.   Talk about lonely!

               At the moment, I am aching because I know a friend is engaged in this existential ritual with his wife. In the play, I refer to these moments as people “watching” from either the darken walls of the ballroom staring into the brilliantly lit dance floor, or perhaps from a gallery above the dance floor as someone else is going through the ritual of end-of-life with their loved one.

             What I am discovering now too is the pain of not being able to help in any real way.   I desperately want to sit and hold his hand and talk with him and hug him and to let him know he is not alone.   I don’t think that is possible. It would not have been possible for me to have allowed someone else, even my children, on the dance floor with me and Susan. They could be in the “gallery” but only I could be on the dance floor with Susan.

               The opening lines of the play: “There is dance. A dance that one day each and every one of us will dance.”    What I have learned is that no matter who or how many people are “crunched around the darkened walls of the Ballroom” sharing their love and watching this existential moment: We – the one’s whose essence have become intertwined with the one we love – will always dance with them alone. It will be the ultimate consummation of our love.

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EXISTENTIAL DECISION MAKING: Watchful Waiting and Abortions

5/1/2017

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               Have you ever had to make a decision, the result of which would change -- or end -- your or someone else’s life forever? If so, I suspect you remember almost every Nanosecond of that process. I do. I have come to refer to these moments as “Existential Decision Making.”

               It has come to my mind in two different, bright moments the past few days. Each moment raised a different yet equally compelling urgency to the importance of lifting up the searing, aching and often unbearable personal moments into broader contexts.

               First, was the article in The Washington Post on April 30th on the issue of “watchful waiting” for women with “stage zero”, “ductal carcinoma in situ” breast cancer. The article explored the question of finding out if women should consider a formal “watchful waiting” of the cancer before taking any specific medical action.   Similar research is going on for men with respect to prostate cancer, which is explored here by the American Cancer Society.

              So, you have ‘cancer’.   How about we just watch it and wait and if it starts to spread or get worse then we will do something?   Weigh the impact of aggressive medical treatment, loss of breasts or the prostate, against the possibility that the cancer won’t be the thing that kills you. The Post article is about a large scale clinical trial that is going to test out comes and results from woman who opt for watchful waiting and those who opt for immediate treatment.   My question, though, is how do you – the woman and the woman’s family -- decide? To me it is an “existential question.”   Your answer to that question may well determine when you die.

               Second, I attended a presentation by a young post-grad student about her final thesis. In her voice I could hear the strength of her outrage and the quiet energy of her cause: Men (legislators) making decisions over women’s bodies is not just wrong, but I have articulated in my thesis the moral basis for why it is wrong. No one should tell you, a person (though in this context a woman), what you can do with your own body. And in particular men telling women. I internalized this presentation though differently than I think the student expected. You see in our family we had a situation in which a late term abortion was deemed medically appropriate and was carried out. As it turns out, within a year the Commonwealth of Virginia legislature passed legislation that had it not been vetoed would have made that procedure illegal. Yet we had witnessed the “existential decision making process” on making the choice and how it had people doing things – being in a position – that they didn’t want to be and making irrevocable decisions that one could never know were “right.”

              "Existential decision making”    While each case is different and could be discussed at great length, the common thread to me is the depth of challenge. As it happens, I have been “touched” to some degree by each situation. There is rarely, if ever, any training or preparation for these moments. In good times there are resources, like the Chaplains in hospitals, the Hospice Care professionals, and pastors and Rabbis or other religious figures. There are emerging public forums for discussing these questions in a movement called “Death Cafes” These are public, self-organized conversations about “existential” matters.

               One of my goals in presenting The Actual Dance is to lift up the idea that there is a place for sharing this process and that by doing so it is possible to help people find a place of wholeness again.   It is the experience of my own journey with Susan and having heard hundreds of people share their stories at our post-performances dialogues that open sharing of these “existential decision making” experiences can be positive and transformative.

               I also believe that academia, science and the medical profession need to reconsider the role of these moments in both analysis and recommendations.   There are many things we do not understand well or at all. “Existence” is one of them.   Why is it some people are miraculous survivors against all odds. (Is it just a matter statistics?) Why is it in senior communities that the “other spouse” dies shortly after the loss of their partner? What role does the mind and heart play in figuring out “the right thing to do” in the face of the more “scientific” and “data driven” recommendation.   How do we account for that?

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Unexpected Moments in the Cancer Journey: The New Car Moment

3/4/2017

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I never cease to be surprised by the surprises in my experience of Susan’s breast cancer journey. Those who have seen The Actual Dance, the play I have written and now perform about that experience know the ending. She survives and I keep listening for it to return.

“Even today 17 years later, I listen. I listen with my heart where my love sits for the ever so slight change in the universe that indicate a new and different orchestra has been called to form. . . . Is that them playing?”

It is true for me and I think many of the caregivers of cancer survivors that we are never really convinced that the journey is over. I still wonder if any ache or pain Susan may have at the moment isn’t really a return or metastasis of her breast cancer. While the intensity of my fear wanes slightly over time the expectation of the unexpected never goes away. So I should not have been surprised.

This Friday, however, the unexpected moment was different and of course totally unexpected. My mind wasn’t on Susan’s bout with advanced breast cancer in 2000/2001; rather on the fact that we needed to get a new car. The 16 year old Toyota 4Runner itself had been diagnosed with its own terminal illness. The mount parts beneath the engine were so eroded that any strong bump in the road could result in the engine falling out. We needed a new car, and yesterday was that day.

Susan and the old Toyota 4Runner as it is Traded In for a new care

As we are driving into the dealer to drop off the old and pick up the new my mind is flooded with the memory – as if it were yesterday – of driving the then brand new 4Runner into our garage. As we are stepping out for the first time, I look at Susan and I look at this brand-new shiny SUV (basically a truck) and wonder: “Is this Susan’s last car? Who will survive longer, Susan or the car?”

Of course I don’t say that to her. And so yesterday, as we drove into the dealer, I remembered that moment. And my eyes for the briefest of moments teared up as I realized that I didn’t expect things to turn out this way.

I don’t know if anyone will ever be as happy as I was (and am) that the car needs to be replaced.

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Black & White

2/24/2017

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When I Took On a Role Originated for a White Man
By Chuk Obasi

Chuk Obasi

Last year, I began playing the role of Sam Simon in the one-man (and two musician) play The Actual Dance, a story of a married couple’s navigation of the wife's breast cancer diagnosis, told through the husband’s perspective. The anxiety and anticipation of potentially losing her is compared to waiting in a ballroom to have “one last dance” with her, to be witnessed by all of the couple’s friends and family. It was an interesting choice to have me take on the character of Sam, because the actual Sam Simon, who originated the role and continues to play it, is different from me in several ways. He’s Jewish, I’m Catholic. He’s at least twice my age. He’s from El Paso, Texas, I’m from The Bronx, New York. He’s white, I’m black.

Sam Simon

An inevitable question that came up when I first approached this role - would it feel authentic?

Well, ever since I began playing Sam, I’ve wondered from time to time how the story would be different if I had lived a similar experience with my wife and written about it. Of course, it would be a different story because I'm a different person. But I sometimes wonder how it would be different in regard to my race - being a black man. Would there be differences stemming from “the Black American experience?” What would I need to add to the script---a love story--that has to do with me being black? I reflect on my own marriage to answer this question and find that in comparing experiences in Sam's story to similar experiences in mine, my race might in fact become a significant part of my dramatized “dance.”

Like if I were writing about my (sort of) first date with my wife. I'd want to mention that we met up at a dance club where I was frequently and at times overtly racially profiled, but went to anyway because I was used to it and still had fun. I'd want to reference a key part of this first date; when a bouncer approached us to make sure I wasn't an unsolicited stranger harassing my future wife, who is white.

Or if I were referencing our families’ initial reactions once we made our relationship “family official.” I wouldn’t need to go deep into that, but I would want to write about the acknowledgement of relatively uncharted territory we were entering with our difference in age, religion, economic standing, and yes, race. These differences were lost on nobody in our families, whether they spoke about it out loud or not.

Or if I were writing about my bi-racial kids and my fears concerning the scenario of them growing up without one of their parents. Among my anxieties would be the worry of them losing representation of half of their racial identity in the household. This would be very important to my story because my sons are in fact very aware of their physical attributes compared to those around them and already keen on exploring these differences. There's already an awareness of implicit value that society places on skin complexions, particularly noticed by my older son, who is six years old. My wife and I are the key figures in guiding their exploration of how they will ultimately value themselves as fully aware beings. I would want to write about my anxiety relating to their possible development without a parent, including this aspect of it.

And the music would be different. This wouldn't necessarily pertain to my Blackness, but it might be perceived that way. Jenny and I love all kinds of music, and we don't have “a song” in the way that Sam and Susan’s song is “Unchained Melody.” But if we did have a song, or if I had to choose one for my script, there's a good chance it would be an R&B song. There's a good chance it would be John Legend - we love him. Yeah, I think we’d dance a slow dance to John Legend in our “ballroom.” Again, this wouldn't speak solely to the Black American experience, but it would just happen to be the music of a black musician rooted in a black-dominated music genre. Nobody in any audience would be surprised by my taste in music.

Does this mean that my portrayal of Sam Simon is inauthentic, being that I'm telling his story as he lived it (for the most part)? Absolutely not. I say this for two reasons: 1) Nothing in Sam’s story as I tell it is exclusive to the white American experience, and in fact people of all races, cultures and nationalities actually could identify with Sam, and 2) It is not necessary to identify with every nuance of someone's story anyhow. Love, fear, confusion, hope, support and strength are universal dances. Not to mention cancer affects us all, directly or indirectly. I’m able to channel this when I embody Sam, and I think audiences see that.

I appreciate this experience of human commonality. Sam’s dance is a common journey, and as it allows me to identify the unique nature of what my own version would be, thus allowing me to say that there is such thing as the Black American experience, it simultaneously reaches my heart in a way that allows me to also say that there is such thing as the Human experience.

I will play Sam next on April 7 in Montclair, NJ. I invite you to experience for yourself.

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An I-Team Would have Helped

1/30/2017

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Over 16 years ago Susan, my wife, now of 50.5 (whose counting) years went through treatments for advanced breast cancer. As test results came in and treatments varied the doctors became more and more somber. It became clear to me that their expectations for her survival were modest at best, especially when they urged Susan and me to travel cross country to the Democratic National Convention even in the middle of her chemo therapy. The unspoken message, “we don’t expect her to be around for the next.”

Ultimately, I ended up writing a play about my experience – what it is like to be with someone you love as they experience advanced cancer. The Actual Dance is how I describe this ultimate ritual, one that we will all one day experience.

The details of that journey as described in the play and as they actually happened are about the extraordinarily difficult decisions we had to make.   What doctors to pick, where to go for medical treatment, and how to decide.

“These are not easy questions.” Is the line in the play. To put it mildly. Or, “I have a question. How do you pick a cancer doctor?”   My instinct was to rush to a leading cancer center somewhere: Mayo Clinic or Memorial Sloan Kettering, or MD Anderson.   Susan, on the other hand, wanted to go with a highly recommended local doctor.

As it turns out, I made the decision not to argue and to let Susan – the patient – “decide.”   I tend to be proud of that fact. “Susan’s choice!” I exclaim in the show.    Yet, in one of the famous post-show discussions, it became apparent that had Susan not survived, I would have second guessed myself for ever.   Why didn’t we find the better treatment? Was there a trial or an experimental drug somewhere else in the world that would have saved her?   And how would I possibly find that out?

It was overwhelming.   In fact, and in retrospect my decision was a bit of a copout that worked out okay after the fact.

Over this past week-end I was privileged to perform The Actual Dance in Boca Raton, Florida before an audience of medical professionals, patients and founders of “ICare,” a non-profit dedicated to helping cancer patients and their families navigate cancer diagnosis and treatments and to find the best medical treatment in the world.   It is an incredibly good idea that helps find the best possible treatment for the patient and supporting the entire family. And this is done through an innovative system of sharing the patient’s cancer tissue with researchers around the world for analysis and recommendations.

The meaning I derived from this – the impact on our journey—is that having an iTeam enables us to make decisions with the support of a group of experts who are working with us directly, in effect a private group of experts to support and guide us through the most difficult decisions of our life-times. Our story might have turned out very differently had her treatments not worked out so well, and I still hold my breath; or if we both had been so strong willed we ended up battling each other because we didn’t know what to do and our marriage damaged (or ended).

I am deeply appreciative of the opportunity to have performed The Actual Dance for this audience and was humbled by the deep appreciation for the show by audience.   Cancer is Cancer and even with iTeams the fears and struggles of the entire family are universal. The Actual Dance gives voice to those and to the hope for the triumph of hope and love – no matter how it ends.

Click here to watch a video that describes iTeams and how they work.

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What I Need to Know

1/13/2017

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The Actual Dance is a love story.   It is about the discovery of what love really means.   It starts in the middle – in our 33rd year of marriage.   The real beginning is when “I first notice Susan. We had not met yet.” It was when we were 16 years old.

Meeting someone and eyeballing them in that “16 year old boy sort of way,” getting married and staying that way for 33 years was both the hard part and the easy part. Anyone who has been married a very long time knows that the path is not always downhill. It is often uphill and around blind curves. By 33 though it is pretty much an integral way of life.

So when in our 33rd year of marriage Susan was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer that spread to her lymph nodes, I was confronted with the prospect of losing her.   What I needed to know, then, was “how am I going to do this?”

I turned first to the Rabbi of our Temple.   This encounter is a seminal moment in my existential “dance” and is a featured scene in The Actual Dance. It was a meeting destined to go wrong. Not a carefully planned counseling session set up through the office manager; but instead I show up at the Temple on a Tuesday night at 9:30 because it is “committee night” and I expect the Rabbi to be there. As it turns out, I run into the Rabbi in the hallway – “Oh, Hi Sam?” An unspoken, “what are you doing here?”

I clamor into the Rabbi’s office exclaiming I need to talk and the Rabbi is packing up to go home.   I write this back-story to explain the “disconnect.” I tell the Rabbi “I need to talk about Susan.” And in the moment the Rabbi expresses empathy: “Oh, you are sad that Susan won’t see the grandkids grow up.”

Sounds horribly wrong, right? Well 13 years after the fact that is how I have been treating that incident. Thanks however to the distance and perspective offered by the performance of The Actual Dance by Chuk Obasi, I can see that what happened in that room is arguably much different than I remember it.   I respond in the play with internal anger: “NO NO IT IS NONE OF THAT, I scream silently.” Is the line. Then I say: “What I need to know is how am I going to do this. How am I going to dance the last dance with Susan?”

Two points. First, this IS the question that every lover, spouse, caregiver has when faced with being with the person they love most in the world as they take their last breath. Second, it isn’t obvious.   It is the question in retrospect, but not in the moment.   I now realize that back in the year 2000 as this was happening I did NOT really know what I needed. Empathy might have been in. Just an ear to listen; or maybe a shoulder to cry on.

The truth is I didn’t know what I needed to know until I needed to know it.   This “aha moment” is a reminder of how deeply personal the ritual of this “dance” is and that the unfolding of it in real-time for anyone is confusing.   My portrayal of the Rabbi scene in the show is in some ways deeply unfair to the Rabbi. I perform it as if the Rabbi made a stupid mistake; instead of the gift of simply being there for me and allowing me to find out “What I need to know.”

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BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH -- DAY 1 SAY A NAME

10/1/2016

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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The Actual Dance is about many things. Its source or core rests in breast cancer.

In October in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month I will post a daily blog with a reflection about breast cancer. The reflections will stem from something in the play.

Day 1: “I did not have breast cancer. I do know that. But I seem to be the only person who knows how this story is going to end.” The Actual Dance

My relationship to breast cancer is based on the impact that breast cancer has had on our family – our referring to Susan and me.   Susan’s mother, Bertha Kalmans, and my mother, Frieda Alfman Simon, both died from metastatic breast cancer. My sister Marion Simon Garmel is a survivor. Susan’s sister-in-law Roz Kalmans is a survivor.

The Actual Dance tells a story of MY journey in response to Susan’s diagnosis of stage 3 breast cancer in 2000.   Given our family history you now have of my mother and Susan’s mother, what do you think my reaction was to Susan's diagnosis? If you have seen the show you know.

Stats of the Day: According to breastcancer.org 246,660 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in women in the US, along with 61,000 new cases of non-invasive (in situ) breast cancer. About 2,600 new cases of invasive in men in 2016.

Task of the Day:   SAY A NAME OUT LOUD.   Take a moment to think about breast cancer. Who in your family has it or had it? If no one, who do you know who has it or had it? Now SAY THERE NAME OUT LOUD. Here I go:   Susan (not my Susan) & Barbara.

Resource of the Day: Cancer Support Community In July 2009, The Wellness Community and Gilda’s Club Worldwide joined forces to become the Cancer Support Community. By helping to complete the cancer care plan, CSC optimizes patient care by providing essential, but often overlooked, services including support groups, counseling, education and healthy lifestyle programs. Today, CSC provides the highest quality emotional and social support through a network of more than 50 local affiliates, 100 satellite locations and online. Find a local Cancer Support Community affiliate here.

The Actual Dance: Performances.   Donate.

You can follow these daily blog posts here.

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<<Previous

What am I? Who am I?

BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH BLOG: DAY 12 -- For Men

BREAST CANCER AWARENESS BLOG: DAY 10 -- MUSIC HEALS

Dancing Alone

EXISTENTIAL DECISION MAKING: Watchful Waiting and Abortions

Unexpected Moments in the Cancer Journey: The New Car Moment

Black & White

An I-Team Would have Helped

What I Need to Know

BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH -- DAY 1 SAY A NAME

Sam Simon

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Sam Simon

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FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE ACTUAL DANCEContact Samuel A. Simon for information and media inquiries:info@theactualdance.com • 202-329-1851 (mobile)www.TheActualDance.com

Get Updates about Sam's New Book - Being Released Shortly! Sign Up Here

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE ACTUAL DANCE
Contact Samuel A. Simon for information and media inquiries:
info@theactualdance.com • 202-329-1851 (mobile)
www.TheActualDance.com