Some Dark Humor RE: metastatic BC

Helen1

Many women with BC Mets are tired of the "Sickly Pink Month" and the uplifting BC Messages. For those from the dark side...............

Doctors have begun to use a short, simple 5-part questionnaire to
determine if women with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) are at risk for
depression. Please circle only one answer choice for each item, A-E...

A. My general mood today is:
1. Ecstatic because I know Jesus has a plan for me, although He has yet
   to share even a hint of it with me.
2. Happy and who wouldn't be after taking one Marinol, two Oxycodones,
   four Ativans, and three Xanaxes washed down with a Bloody Mary all
   before noon.
3. Paranoid. It is a known fact that there is a cure for MBC but my
   oncologist, who, by the way, lives on waterfront property and drives
   a Mercedes, is being paid off by the big pharmaceutical companies to
   keep a lid on it.
4. Really pissed off. The day Suzanne Sommers finally has a recurrence
   will not come soon enough for me.

B. Most Days I feel:
1. Jesus spent three hours nailed to a cross and tortured alive; only He
   can possibly know how I suffer.
2. It's always a good day when I don't toss my cookies first thing in
   the morning.
3. Like I'm a convict sitting in an airless, windowless cell on Death
   Row with no possibility of a pardon, forget about parole.
4. If this is my "new normal," then I need to have new neural pathways
   installed in my brain.

C. When I have time to myself, and my mind wanders, my thoughts are:
1. Positive. A whopping 1-2% of MBC patients are actually cured!!!!!
   Only a few -- 98% -- die.
2. Negative. The glass is not only empty, it is full of cracks and as
   soon as I drink out of it, I will bleed to death.
3. I think about all the sex I've been missing since I started
   treatment.
4. Relatives always say their MBC loved one "died without pain." How the
   hell do THEY know she died without pain??????
5. I wonder if I can get up the energy to shower this week.

D. I would best describe myself as:
1. A shadow of a shadow of my former self.
2. Out of gas in the breakdown lane of life.
3. Still vertical and above room temperature, baby!

E. After being diagnosed as NED for 12 months, your latest CT scan shows
   major soft tissue progression in your liver, lungs, and brain; and
   you are out of chemo options, plus you are ineligible for any
   clinical trials. This would make you feel:
1. Just one step closer to God (there has GOT to be a better life than
   this one...)
2. The hospice number now ranks at the top of my family's refrigerator
   alongside the pizza and burrito-ville delivery numbers.
3. I'm off to Brazil to have John of God run a scalpel up my nose and
   cure me, or maybe Mexico for the coffee enema, essiac tea and fresh-
   squeezed carrot juice cure. That ought to show my greedy Western
   capitalist doctors that I'm onto them.
4. I WILL live long enough to meet my life's goal, which is to see my
   grandchild: a) graduate from anywhere or b) finally move out of my
   house so I can have some peace or c) be released from rehab.
5. I hate these forms and I hate this office. I hate the radiologist
   who wrote the report (is he blind or what?) and I wish I were
   dead already.

...Thank you. Your completed questionnaire will be placed in your
oncologist's circular file. Have a nice day

Helen