October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The Actual Dance is, among many different things, about breast cancer. It is also about love. It is also about relationships. It is also about spirituality and what life really is. It is about a lot of things.
In October in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness I will post a daily blog with a reflection about breast cancer. The reflections will stem from something in the play. (All quoted lines are text from the play.)
Day 7: A good part of the show is devoted to the process of getting news, usually bad news for us. “The Doctors words. They are strange. A new vocabulary that I don’t understand immediately though their import is clear to me.” is what I say in the show about the moment in the surgeon’s office as he explains just how bad the news really is. I was asked once after a performance if I am normally a “fretter.” An appropriate question I suppose because I reveal my instant sense that the process is going to end in Susan’s demise. At each step I became more and more certain that things are going to turn out badly, while Susan is stoic and determined otherwise. Perhaps I was too “Aware”, aware of the fact that Susan’s mother had died from breast cancer at the age of 56. Susan was 54 at the time of her diagnosis. I was driven not just by a natural inclination to worry, but by an acute awareness of history.
Stat of the Day: Today 93% of women diagnosed with breast cancer survive 5 years or more! The statistic for those whose cancer is chemically more resistant to treatment often called “triple negative” is 72%.
Task of the Day: Check out your family history. It is critical to be able to tall a doctor if someone in your family has also had breast cancer. Be Aware of family medical history. Create a book or log in a place where you know you can find it. Or create a computer file and save it “the cloud.”
Resource of the Day: Check out AARP’s health resources including their own “Health Vault” for a personal medical record.
In October in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness I will post a daily blog with a reflection about breast cancer. The reflections will stem from something in the play. (All quoted lines are text from the play.)
Day 7: A good part of the show is devoted to the process of getting news, usually bad news for us. “The Doctors words. They are strange. A new vocabulary that I don’t understand immediately though their import is clear to me.” is what I say in the show about the moment in the surgeon’s office as he explains just how bad the news really is. I was asked once after a performance if I am normally a “fretter.” An appropriate question I suppose because I reveal my instant sense that the process is going to end in Susan’s demise. At each step I became more and more certain that things are going to turn out badly, while Susan is stoic and determined otherwise. Perhaps I was too “Aware”, aware of the fact that Susan’s mother had died from breast cancer at the age of 56. Susan was 54 at the time of her diagnosis. I was driven not just by a natural inclination to worry, but by an acute awareness of history.
Stat of the Day: Today 93% of women diagnosed with breast cancer survive 5 years or more! The statistic for those whose cancer is chemically more resistant to treatment often called “triple negative” is 72%.
Task of the Day: Check out your family history. It is critical to be able to tall a doctor if someone in your family has also had breast cancer. Be Aware of family medical history. Create a book or log in a place where you know you can find it. Or create a computer file and save it “the cloud.”
Resource of the Day: Check out AARP’s health resources including their own “Health Vault” for a personal medical record.
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