Index

Published at: 10:09 pm - Tuesday, September 14, 2010
  • “A Piece of Crap” — How I Met Tom & Ray Magliozzi
  • “My Heart is Not Any Age:” Random Thoughts on Growing Older
  • “This Might Hurt A Little” — Procedural Pain
  • A Carton of Eggs: Remembering Auschwitz
  • A Different Butterfly — 15 Random Roads I Might Have Taken
  • A Fine Mess: Finding & Keeping House
  • A Friend in the Storm: A Review of Nancy Stordahl’s Cancer Memoir
  • A Heart Full of Rachel
  • A Little Bit of Normal
  • A Little More To Cry About
  • A Lump By Any Other Name
  • A Model Survivor
  • A Time For Grieving & Remembrance
  • A Woman of a Certain Age
  • Adapting — Practical Stuff for Hands & Arms
  • All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe
  • All I Need To Know I Learned From Chloe
  • All This & Fifty Cents A Mile
  • Almost Normal
  • Am I Blue?
  • Ambassador Nancy Flips Us the Bird
  • Another Stalker
  • Archery, Anyone??
  • Archives — My Deathless Prose
  • Arm and Shoulder Pain After Breast Cancer
  • Artistic Jeans
  • Attack of the Pinktober Sharks
  • Awareness Fatigue
  • Awareness Is Personal
  • Back Talk 101
  • Back Talk 201
  • Badges
  • Bare Bones & Hormones — Part I
  • Bare Bones & Hormones — Part II
  • Believe Me, Believe Me…
  • Better Late Than Never
  • Betty Ford & The Status Of Mammography
  • Blind-Sided: Cancer 101 & Informed Consent
  • Blogging In Russian
  • Blood & Organ Donation After Cancer
  • Boobs-R-Us?
  • Book Review: ‘Breasts — A Natural and Unnatural History’
  • Books
  • Breast Cancer Awareness: A Casual Conversation About Mammograms
  • Breast Cancer Awareness? Let’s Get Real
  • Breast Recon Update: Lipotransfer, Opportunism & BRA Day
  • Broke: The Cost of Breast Cancer
  • Buckets & Buckets
  • Bye-Bye, Pinktober: A Futuristic Send-Off
  • Caffeine & Research
  • Call Me Georgette
  • Calling the Shots — A Book Review
  • Can I Get a Roadmap? Cancer Survivorship Care Plans Do Exist
  • Cancer Brain Drain: My Life Is Still A Mess
  • Cancer Happens
  • Cancer Is Really Crappy
  • Cancer Resource Links
  • Celebrate Women's History Month
  • Checking My Mood Ring
  • Choosing A New Doctor
  • Click And Be Powerful
  • Close To Home
  • Cognitive Dysfunction & Cancer Treatment: Old News
  • Comfort and Joy
  • Coming Up For Air
  • Compliance Or Manipulation?
  • Could Have Told You That
  • Customer Service.
  • Cyberhood
  • Daring To Be Powerful
  • Day Job
  • Déjà Vu All Over Again
  • DCIS: What’s in a name?
  • Dear NED*, Please Be My Valentine
  • Declaring an Asshattery-Free Zone
  • Deep Down
  • Depression and Cancer: An Insider’s View
  • Discovering Gratitude
  • DIY at Chez Amazon
  • Dodging Those Cancer Bullets
  • Double, Double, Toil & Trouble: It’s Okay to Ignore Pinktober
  • Dudes Telling Us What To Do With Our Body Parts
  • Elegy to Rachel
  • Emoticons For Survivors
  • Emoticons For Survivors
  • ER: It Was More Fun On TV
  • Excuse Me
  • Exercise After Cancer When You Don’t Feel Like It
  • Exit Strategy
  • Fashion Statement
  • Fatigue Redux: Not Really Rosie…Yet
  • Fatigue: Lessons For Your Doctor
  • Fear Of Buttons
  • Feel Your Boobies For Valentine's Day
  • Feeling ’bout Half Past Dead
  • Fifty Shades of Pink — and Still No Cure
  • Fighting the Pink Peril — Post Archive
  • Finding — And Catching — Your Breath
  • Five Years Later: Zigzagging Toward Acceptance
  • Fortune Teller Claims Psychic Powers Superior to Mammography
  • Foxy Revisited — Perspective
  • Foxy’s Tale
  • Foxy’s Tale – Chapter Two
  • Frankly, My Dear, I Don’t Give A Damn
  • Geek Dad
  • Getting Paid to Care: The Cost of Providing Healthcare
  • Getting The News
  • Girls Behaving Badly
  • Giving Thanks
  • Global Crabby-ness
  • Glowing In The Dark — Radiation
  • Got Pink?
  • GPS For Survivors
  • Grief and Moonshots
  • Grumblers for the Cure
  • Happy Blogoversary To Me…
  • Happy Dance
  • Happy New Year & Welcome!
  • Have A Beautiful & Joyful Holiday
  • Help & Helplessness
  • Help A Sistah
  • History & Irony
  • Hormones + Breast Cancer = ‘Spin’?
  • Housekeeping
  • How to Be a Calculating Woman
  • How to Exploit Breast Cancer, One Blogger at a Time
  • Hubris For The Cure
  • I Wanna Be The One To Walk In The Sun
  • I'm Feeling The Love
  • I've Fallen & I Can't Get Up
  • I’m Still Here: My Year in Review
  • I’m Too Young to Be This Age
  • In The Picture
  • Index
  • Inner Resources
  • Irene ‘Not So Bad’? Then Let’s Be Grateful
  • Is It Always Cancer’s Fault?
  • Is There A Cure For Hypocrisy?
  • It Could Be Worse
  • It's Not A Month. It's Our Lives.
  • It’s Not A Hobby
  • It’s Only Temporary
  • It’s Personal, and One Day Is Not Enough
  • Jody Schoger — Her Words & Her Example
  • Jumbo Photoshop
  • Jumping To Conclusions
  • Just Call Me MA’AM
  • Just Shoot Me…
  • Knowledge Is Power…Gathering It, That Is
  • Ko-Mart.Org
  • Komen & Kohl’s Klueless Kampaign
  • Komen Gets Hung Up Over Choice
  • Komen: Just the Tip of the Pink Iceberg
  • Lay Back, Enjoy The Show…
  • Let’s Not Play Games
  • Life: A Work in Progress
  • Losing It…And Trying To Get It Back
  • Lost and Found
  • Mammography and Mortality Study: What Does It All Really Mean?
  • Math Lessons — The Human Cost of Cancer
  • Metaphor
  • Metastatic Breast Cancer
  • Metastatic Breast Cancer: Helping Us Help You
  • Missing At Birth
  • More Shameless Self-Promotion
  • Music To My Ears — Stayin’ Alive
  • My Awareness Wish List
  • My Cup Runneth Over
  • My October
  • My Other Life
  • My Spring Break
  • NBCC Conference Notes: Early Detection Is Neither
  • NBCC Conference Notes: Hard Data
  • NBCC: A Bunch of Troublemakers
  • Negative Is The New Positive
  • New Beginnings
  • New Year, New Blog, New Cold…
  • Nineteen Seventy-Three: A Memory
  • Not All Better — A Survivorship Toolbox
  • Not As Deep Down: Crabby Is The New Sane
  • Not The Cruelest Month
  • Nurse Navigators for Cancer Patients: Do They Help?
  • Off My Chest
  • Oh, NO!! It’s Pinktoberfest!
  • Oh, That Crazy, Sexy Breast Cancer
  • Once Burned, Twice Shy
  • One Woman At A Time
  • One Year Later: Remembering Susan & Rachel
  • Our Bodies, Our Future
  • Our Friend, Vitamin D
  • Overwhelmed in Oz: How ‘Healthy’ Is Social Media?
  • Papa, They Took My Kodachrome Away!
  • Paws and Purrs: How to Be Loved by a Cat
  • Paying It Forward
  • Picture This
  • Pink. It's Complicated.
  • Pinksploitation
  • Pinktober Update: Komen Embarrasses Self in Hotel Lounge
  • Portrait of the Amazon — Sort Of
  • Prevention, Personal Fans & Party-Planning
  • Private Parts: Breast Recon Without Surgery
  • Public Trauma, Private Grief
  • Rachel and Susan: Their Words Live On
  • Rachel’s Memorial Service
  • Radiation, The Aftermath That Never Ends
  • Remembering Carolyn
  • Remembering Shelli
  • Resolve: Words Optional
  • Rowing Back to Life
  • Screening Mammograms: Giving Them Too Much Credit?
  • Semantics: How To Take Your Lumps.
  • Shameless Self-Promotion
  • Shock & Awe
  • Shock & Awe — Who, Me?
  • Shouldn’t I Get Some Royalties Here?
  • Shoveling For Survivors
  • Side Effects
  • Sleeping With The Light On
  • So Far, So Good
  • So Long, 2009!
  • So What? I’m Still A Rock Star…
  • Sometimes You Need A Good Cry
  • Staking My Claims
  • Standing In The Light
  • Staying Negative
  • Staying Safe: Medical Alerts & Emergency Alerts
  • Steady On…
  • Stop Pinking!
  • Stuff You Don’t Need: Medical Equipment Fraud
  • Suing For The Cure?
  • Sunscreen — For Your Car
  • Surviving Pinktober
  • Take My Boob…Please
  • Taking Back My Life
  • Taking Your Lumps, Part 2
  • Tamoxifen Efficacy Revisited: Behind The Hype
  • Telling
  • The ‘F’ Word
  • The Amazon’s Remix
  • The Art Of Survivorship
  • The Artful Breast
  • The Big Squish
  • The Boob Caper Begins
  • The Cure For Pink
  • The Father Of Color Photography
  • The Gap Between Real World Healthcare & Social Media
  • The Gift That Keeps On Giving
  • The Godmother of Chick Rock
  • The Graphic Amazon Goes Retail
  • The Great Christmas Cookie Caper
  • The Last Goodbye
  • The Light is Everything
  • The Misogyny and Deplorables* of Pinktober
  • The Numbers Game
  • The Pet Whisperer
  • The Pink Elephant
  • The Pinktober Curse: Wake Me Up When It’s Over
  • The Scar Marker
  • The Survivors Club
  • The Thing To Do
  • The True Gift
  • The Unpink Post
  • The Weather of Loss
  • There May Be Whining…
  • There's A Little Black Horsie On My Couch.
  • These Heels Are Made For Walking
  • Things Fall Apart: Musings from Limbo
  • This Adulthood Stuff Is Not All It's Cracked Up To Be.
  • Time and Loss
  • Trivial Pursuits
  • Turn and Face the Strange: Coping in the New Year
  • Two Words — Breast Cancer
  • Under Construction: An Alternate View
  • Uneasy Pink: Miss Pink Elegance
  • Unsettled Weather
  • Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop
  • Water, Water Everywhere…
  • We All Need More Cuddling
  • What Goes Around Comes Around
  • What I'd Be Doing If I Were Going To Art School Now
  • What’s In A Name
  • What’s Up, Doc: When Doctors Don’t Listen
  • What’s Wrong With Pink?
  • What’s Wrong With Pink? Plenty.
  • When Her Robe Is Unfurled, She Will Show You The World
  • Who Are You & Why Are You Billing Me?
  • Whose Life Is It Anyway?
  • Why Am I So Tired? A Primer on Breast Cancer and Fatigue
  • Why I’m Not Liv Tyler’s Mother
  • Will Barbie Have Hot Flashes Now?
  • Willpower versus Fatigue: Not a Fair Fight
  • WordPressed
  • Yes, We Did. Yes, We Will. Yes, We Can…
  • You’re Making Me Crazy

13 Responses to “You’re Making Me Crazy”

  1. Jody Schoger, on January 31st, 2012 at 4:59 pm Said:

    This is an excruciatingly difficult read of a life that was difficult before breast cancer and still is. We can only wish that NAMI had advocated for her — or someone along this horrible chain of events – – before her mental suffering became so clear. It is almost impossible to say where, since she was seen by so many different people, the entire trajectory could have been interrupted.

    Those who are underserved, those with mental illness, become used to being victims. I believe the term is called ‘learned helplessness.’ And no one saw it.

    She was invisible to them.

    Thanks for a powerful post,
    jms

  2. Nancy's Point, on January 31st, 2012 at 5:00 pm Said:

    This is very powerful. Thank you for telling this woman’s story. Thank you for speaking out about an inadequate health care system. Thank you for asking the tough questions. Thank you for caring, not enough people do.

  3. Gabby Mottershead, on January 31st, 2012 at 5:16 pm Said:

    A very moving story, thanks for sharing. It is so sad what can happen to people, we need to share stories like this.

    (Can I just add that in the UK a johnny is a condom!) this confused me a little (I have chemobrain, it doesn’t take much)

  4. Wendy, on January 31st, 2012 at 6:38 pm Said:

    This is such a horrifying thing to happen to anyone. It’s outrageous that health care professionals can treat another human being who is so obviously in need of CARE with such callous disregard.

  5. Nicole, on January 31st, 2012 at 6:42 pm Said:

    Speechless. Still processing. Grateful for your caring, your understanding, your advocacy, for your amazing rendering of this story, and for telling it on behalf of the person who could not. Much love. <3

  6. Myrna, on January 31st, 2012 at 7:11 pm Said:

    I was not at all shocked by the treatment this poor woman received.. I was recently at the hospital ER with my son who had just had open heart surgery the week before and was experiencing pain, headaches, nosebleeds and coughing up blood. the staff were quite abrupt.. one even saying he should have gone to the hospital where he had the surgery ( out of town) and another saying the wait whould be several hours. needless to say once he got into triage things were moved along quite quickly and he is okay.
    I undenderstand that our medical system is overwhelmed ( I live in canada) and it is almost impossible to get a new family doctor but the way these ‘professionals’ treat their patients is not acceptable,

  7. Kerry Lamb, on January 31st, 2012 at 7:28 pm Said:

    Sickening, heartwrenching, sobering.
    It doesn’t just happen in the US. Health care all over is in complete crisis.
    A woman I know, a sole parent (in Australia) has three daughters: one is autistic, one is bipolar and one is a very sick alcoholic. The autistic daughter had a physical altercation with her mother and the mother fell and smashed the ball of her hip-joint clean off her thigh bone. She spent 3 days on a trolley, on morphine waiting for surgery because of theatre closures.
    What the hell is going on in our ‘civilized’ countries?
    Mastectomy, which also has the bonus health event of PTS attached to it, is a horror in itself without all the rest of it.
    This breaks my heart.

  8. Kathi, on January 31st, 2012 at 9:10 pm Said:

    Thank you, everyone. It exhausted me just to tell this story. Never mind living it.

    It is ironic that today is the same day that Komen announced it will stop funding Planned Parenthood, which helps so many poor and underinsured women with mammograms & other health care services. Nancy Brinker has long found many of her cronies among the rich right, who object to a woman’s right to choose, and who we know also object to the poor having access to healthcare. Big surprise. Not.

    I could write another whole post about my own responses to the story in this one. I probably will write yet another post about Komen.

  9. Deanna Attai, on January 31st, 2012 at 10:58 pm Said:

    All I can say is wow…reading this over and over, more horrified with each read. So very many areas in our medical system that need to be improved. Thank you for this incredibly powerful post.

  10. Kathi, on January 31st, 2012 at 11:27 pm Said:

    It was a tragedy of errors and omissions and even callousness, Deanna. A wretched mix to contemplate. It gives me pause, as someone who works in healthcare, and makes me want to redouble my efforts to ask the right questions of my patients and listen long and hard. It’s so easy to jump to the wrong conclusion, before you have the whole story, and thus give inadequate advice.

  11. Beth L. Gainer, on February 1st, 2012 at 7:47 am Said:

    Oh Kathi,

    This is truly a heart wrenching post that had me in tears. Not only does the woman have to lose her breasts and deal with breast cancer, but she has to deal with a heartless medical system. I’m so saddened for this woman. Nobody should have to go through the indignities she went through.

    Frankly, though, I’m not surprised. Health care is a misnomer for far too many people. Thank you for this powerful post.

  12. AnneMarie, on February 1st, 2012 at 10:12 pm Said:

    Heath care is an oxymoron. My fists were clenched as I read every word. And then, I chill ran right down my spine with your final sentence:

    “It started with breast cancer.”

    And again, I say… to think… WE GOT THE GOOD CANCER….. ugh….

  13. Praelior, on February 2nd, 2012 at 1:54 pm Said:

    Thank you for sharing this story. Though it was very difficult to read, I feel privileged to bear witness to the experience.

    Hugs!

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