Buckets & Buckets

Block Island Stone Wall by Kathi Kolb Early on in the publication of this blog, one of my friends described its overarching tone as ‘bittersweet.’ Regular readers may have noticed that I seem to be employing that tone quite a lot lately as I’ve been reviewing this past year since the Big Stalker came along. […]

Posted in: Art & Music, Attitude, Cognitive Dysfunction & Depression, Fatigue, Life & Mortality, Nitty Gritty, Survivorship by Kathi 6 Comments adulthood, Art & Music, blog, choices, fatigue, Fun, mortality, optimism, websites, women

When Her Robe Is Unfurled, She Will Show You The World

Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclo-pidia. Oh Lydia The Queen of Tattoo. On her back is The Battle of Waterloo. Beside it, The Wreck of the Hesperus too. And proudly above waves the red, white, & blue. You can learn a lot from Lydia! from the song “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady,”Music by Harold Arlen and Lyrics […]

Posted in: Art & Music, Attitude, Life & Mortality, Nitty Gritty, Play, Radiation, Survivorship by Kathi No Comments Art & Music, celebration, fashion, Fun, radiation, tattoos, websites

The Scar Marker

There’s something about anniversaries — births, deaths, weddings, partings. Milestones of joy and of grief. Whether you avoid or embrace them, they mark you like scars, like a permanent alteration in your DNA. And they keep marking you as they cycle around each year, reinterpreting and refining your memory of the original event, sometimes without […]

Posted in: Fatigue, Health & Healthcare, Life & Mortality, Nitty Gritty, Survivorship by Kathi 2 Comments anniversaries, breast cancer, breast surgery, healthcare, mammography, vulnerability, women

The ‘F’ Word

No, not that word. ‘F’ as in fatigue. I’m so tired of talking about fatigue, not to mention living with it, that I’m going to try to act like the journalist I used to be and write something useful about it. Forty years ago on this date, I was fifteen, about as old as the […]

Posted in: Chemotherapy-IV & Oral, Cognitive Dysfunction & Depression, Fatigue, Health & Healthcare, Making A Difference, Nitty Gritty, Radiation, Research, Survivorship by Kathi 14 Comments breast cancer, breast surgery, chemotherapy, fatigue, healthcare, history, medication, radiation, side effects, survivorship, women