Cancer Rebels Rule!

Good afternoon readers!  Well you may have noticed that I've been MIA for the last week or so.  The truth is my new chemotherapy regimen left me feeling like I was run-over by a pink cement truck and then backed over by a pink tractor just for good measure. 

It seems my white blood cell counts dropped precariously low which explains why I felt like pink roadkill this last couple of weeks.  As a result, I didn't get chemo this week which I thought was going to mean good news for my worn-out self, but then DrWW had to go and give me the white blood cell booster shoot.  "Oh don't worry there shouldn't be any side-effects; just a bit of bone ache and maybe some muscle weariness".  Really?  Well turns out I had quite a "rare-what's-new" reaction to the booster, and I spent a couple of days writhing in agony with the worst back pain I have ever encountered in my life.  Finally in the wee hours of Friday morning I remembered the little bottle of street valuable painkillers that I had stashed away in the back of the medicine cabinet walk-in closet, and was finally able to put an end to the misery.

After that very long-winded introduction I'm pleased to say that I'm almost feeling human again.  Another week off from chemo, and then we'll do it all over again.  I really can't wait !

So today I thought I would ease myself back into the blogosphere with a quick little post.

Yesterday Chemobabe and I happened to find ourselves on Twitter at the same time.  And by serendipity we also found ourselves in the same snarky frame of mind.  We started to amuse ourselves by Direct Messaging our favorite cancer rebel fantasies.  Unable to contain the hilarity to just ourselves we decided it would be a grand idea to see if we could get the topic to trend on Twitter.  To the Twitter Luddites amongst you, let's just say that if you can get a topic to trend on Twitter, this means you earn huge street cred with all the other Twitter nerds that you virtually hang out with. 

So we created a Twitter stream called #cancerrebel and asked people to tweet in their cancer rebel fantasies.

Here were some of my favorites (okay some of them were mine):

• Bring a bottle of jack with you to your infusion. tell the nurses it helps you "take the edge off

•  Whenever you use the word 'cancer' swear ... a lot

•  When you go to chemo make the nurse chase you around the room before they can hook you up. Sing na na na na!!!  

• Call up your insurance company and ask to go through every benefits statement line by line, then at end say " oh never mind"

• Next time someone asks if you are "all better now," look them dead in the eye and say, "no. it was cancer, not the flu." 

• Be a page three mastectomy model, no-one would be expecting that when they opened the newspaper

•  When they phone you, put your doctor's office on hold with cloying music and cheesy voiceovers.

•  Next time someone says "you look great" smile sweetly and say "thanks cancer has done wonders for my life"

•  Explain to your friends that your "medical marijuana" is important for your ongoing recovery.

•  Mine is emptying all the pink ribbon donation boxes at grocery checkouts & saying thanks, you shouldn't have.  

•  Telling the nurse to go find her own vein after trying for the third time to find a good one 

• When someone asks if there's anything they can do for you, put them to work cleaning out your gutters. 

Now this is the kind of cathartic cancer therapy I need !

So what's your cancer rebel fantasy?