Archive for April, 2006
then and now
April 13, 2006
Me when I was 6, Summer after my surgery and beginning of my treatment. I look great for a “cancer kid!”
And then Me today with my Widget
Book Meme
April 13, 2006Got this from Cloudscome
Instructions: Bold the ones you’ve read. Italicize the ones you’ve been wanting/might like to read. ??Place question marks by any titles/authors you’ve never heard of. *Use an asterisk if you’ve read something else by the same author.
Allcott, Louisa May–Little Women
Allende, Isabel–The House of Spirits
Angelou, Maya–I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Atwood, Margaret–Cat’s Eye
Austen, Jane–Emma
??Bambara, Toni Cade–Salt Eaters??
??Barnes, Djuna–Nightwood??
de Beauvoir, Simone–The Second Sex
*Blume, Judy–Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret
Burnett, Frances–The Secret Garden
Bronte, Charlotte–Jane Eyre
Bronte, Emily–Wuthering Heights
Buck, Pearl S.–The Good Earth
Byatt, A.S.–Possession
*Cather, Willa–My Antonia
Chopin, Kate–The Awakening
*Christie, Agatha–Murder on the Orient Express
??Cisneros, Sandra–The House on Mango Street??
Clinton, Hillary Rodham–Living History
??Cooper, Anna Julia–A Voice From the South??
??Danticat, Edwidge–Breath, Eyes, Memory??
??Davis, Angela–Women, Culture, and Politics??
??Desai, Anita–Clear Light of Day??
Dickinson, Emily–Collected Poems
Duncan, Lois–I Know What You Did Last Summer
DuMaurier, Daphne–Rebecca
Eliot, Geroge–Middlemarch
??Emecheta, Buchi–Second Class Citizen??
??Erdrich, Louise–Tracks??
Esquivel, Laura–Like Water for Chocolate
Flagg, Fannie–Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Friedan, Betty–The Feminine Mystique
Frank, Anne–Diary of a Young Girl
??Gilman, Charlotte Perkins–The Yellow Wallpaper??
??Gordimer, Nadine–July’s People??
*Grafton, Sue–S is for Silence
??Hamilton, Edith–Mythology??
Highsmith, Patricia–The Talented Mr. Ripley
??hooks, bell–Bone Black??
??Hurston, Zora Neale–Dust Tracks on the Road??
??Jacobs, Harriet–Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl??
??Jackson, Helen Hunt–Ramona??
??Jackson, Shirley–The Haunting of Hill House??
??Jong, Erica–Fear of Flying??
Keene, Carolyn–The Nancy Drew Mysteries (any of them)
Kidd, Sue Monk–The Secret Life of Bees
??Kincaid, Jamaica–Lucy??
Kingsolver, Barbara–The Poisonwood Bible
??Kingston, Maxine Hong–The Woman Warrior??
??Larsen, Nella–Passing??
L’Engle, Madeleine–A Wrinkle in Time
*Le Guin, Ursula K.–The Left Hand of Darkness
Lee, Harper–To Kill a Mockingbird
??Lessing, Doris–The Golden Notebook??
??Lively, Penelope–Moon Tiger??
??Lorde, Audre–The Cancer Journals??
Martin, Ann M.–The Babysitters Club Series (any of them)
??McCullers, Carson–The Member of the Wedding??
??McMillan, Terry–Disappearing Acts??
??Markandaya, Kamala–Nectar in a Sieve??
??Marshall, Paule–Brown Girl, Brownstones??
Mitchell, Margaret–Gone with the Wind
*Montgomery, Lucy–Anne of Green Gables
??Morgan, Joan–When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost??
Morrison, Toni–Song of Solomon
??Murasaki, Lady Shikibu–The Tale of Genji??
??Munro, Alice–Lives of Girls and Women??
??Murdoch, Iris–Severed Head??
??Naylor, Gloria–Mama Day??
??Niffenegger, Audrey–The Time Traveller’s Wife??
Oates, Joyce Carol–We Were the Mulvaneys
??O’Connor, Flannery–A Good Man is Hard to Find??
??Piercy, Marge–Woman on the Edge of Time??
Picoult, Jodi–My Sister’s Keeper
Plath, Sylvia–The Bell Jar
??Porter, Katharine Anne–Ship of Fools??
Proulx, E. Annie–The Shipping News
Rand, Ayn–The Fountainhead
??Ray, Rachel–365: No Repeats??
??Rhys, Jean–Wide Sargasso Sea??
??Robinson, Marilynne–Housekeeping??
Rocha, Sharon–For Laci
Sebold, Alice–The Lovely Bones
Shelley, Mary–Frankenstein
Smith, Betty–A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
??Smith, Zadie–White Teeth??
??Spark, Muriel–The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie??
Spyri, Johanna–Heidi
??Strout, Elizabeth–Amy and Isabelle??
*Steel, Danielle–The House
Tan, Amy–The Joy Luck Club
??Tannen, Deborah–You’re Wearing That??
??Ulrich, Laurel–A Midwife’s Tale??
??Urquhart, Jane–Away??
Walker, Alice–The Temple of My Familiar
Welty, Eudora–One Writer’s Beginnings
Wharton, Edith–Age of Innocence
Wilder, Laura Ingalls–Little House in the Big Woods
??Wollstonecraft, Mary–A Vindication of the Rights of Women??
Woolf, Virginia–A Room of One’s Own
Clarification
April 10, 2006I am angry at God because I feel like He of all things can handle my anger. I’m not sure what else to do with it. There is no one, no thing, no root cause to blame for me having cancer or other children having cancer. God is not to blame nor did He let it happen, but it does exists.
I have all this anger and emotion inside that keeps breaking through the “I’m fine” surface I’ve created.
Anger
April 10, 2006I’ve discovered I’m still angry with God. Not for the failed adoption or even the failed IVF cycles. But for what “caused” me to have to go through these things in the first place. For the fact that childhood cancer exists. It just doesn’t make any sense- somehow, I can comprehend adult cancer but not children, especially babies born with cancer.
I am part of list serv, primarily for families of children who are currently going through the agony of Wilms’ Tumor. In a way, I feel a sense of obligation to let them know it can be okay, it will be okay in the long run. Here I am 23 years later and really, I am healthy. But I feel so many emotions, when I read the “daily digest”. Especially, when someone new posts or when someone posts that a child died (as two have recently). Maybe I shouldn’t read them, but I feel drawn and somehow and intense need to know what is happening to them-same thing with the web pages some of the families creat. I often find myself in tears reading about the day-to-day struggles of living with childhood cancer because it triggers these intensely, deeply hidden emotions.
The other day I found myself having a new emotion, jealousy (yeah, I know how odd does that sound?) along with my other emotions after reading the story of an adult Wilms’ survivor, who went through more intense treatment than I did and yet went on to have healthy pregnancies, not even fertility assisted. This was the third story recently where the doctors were wrong on the fertility angle. Not that I want a bio child in replacement of Widget- she is the light of my life, but still it feels like I am being taunted or tortured when I hear of women who were “lucky” in the fertility aspect after similar treatment.
I am not so bothered by women/girls who had treatment after me because protocols have changed and it is not surprising that their fertility has been better preserved. Actually I am happy that they won’t have to go through the extra grief of infertility as they deal with the late effects and psychological effects of being a childhood cancer survivor.
All of this from reading a posting yesterday and then looking at the website of a young girl who died this last week, quite suddenly from Wilms’. Something about her just reminded me of myself at that age.
Church membership
April 9, 2006I got a call a few days ago from the church we have been attending wanting to know if we were ready to become members. We tried the church for the first time the end of July last year and have gone pretty regularly since then. I have taken the intro class, but T has not and we have both taken the Alpha class.
There are many things I really enjoy about the church, particularly the fact that the sermons are nearly always interesting and I actually get something from them. It isn’t a standoffish church and we have met some great people. They have great children’s programs, something that is important to me considering we now have Widget. Plus, I know T likes the service and that is very important to me.
But I’m not sure I’m ready to take the membership plunge. At first, I thought I was but as I think about it, I’m feeling very reluctant, primarily because I really miss the liturgical church atmosphere. I noticed it especially today, because it is Palm Sunday. Nothing, no mention of it or the story behind it. More than anything, I feel a sense of loss because they choose not to celebrate these traditions.
So maybe it isn’t the right church after all. I feel fairly confident the church we used attend isn’t it either, mostly because I think it is time for a new pastor- not that I don’t like John, just his sermons are a bit repetitive and I could recite the key phrases. We tried the Episcopal church (my childhood denomination) for awhile but felt the sameness of the service every week wasn’t it for us. Of course, both of us were still in the non-committed Christian stage, so it could feel different now.
Blah more indecision…
