Molly Ivins on breast cancer

LizinKS · September 2011

I recently discovered a 1999 Time magazine article by the late syndicated newspaper columnist Molly Ivins, much loved by fellow journalists and her readers for her humor and sharp observations. I am attaching the URL address for the article below. You may copy and paste it into the URL space at the top of your browser page - or just type in Molly Ivins, breast cancer, and Time magazine into the search window and it should appear:.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,201917,00.html

Molly wrote this column following her initial surgery and treatment for inflammatory breast cancer. Sadly, she lost her battle after eight years,on Jan. 31, 2007, following treatment for her third recurrence in 2006. While some of Molly's bad health habits -continuing smoking and drinking to excess until two years before she passed - may have aggravated the situation, I think her observations about her experiences ring true for all breast cancer patients - including encountering unsolicited advice, feeling you've "failed" if you have bad reactions to treatment or your attitude is sometimes less than positive. I hope this resonates with others on the discussion board as it did for me.

scuttlers · September 2011

I want to read the rest of her story/writings! Wonder if she had a blog or ongoing musings? Thanks for the link!

LizinKS · September 2011

I'm so glad you enjoyed the article. No, she didn't have a cancer blog. She managed to keep up with her newspaper column, which was generally, though not always, political in subject matter, until the third occurence, when she did columns irregularly. She was nominated several times for the Pulitzer Prize for her writing.Google her and you'll find a zillion links to her columns and lots of her quotable bits.. Also, she's got multiple videos posted by her legion of followers on Youtube. Many of her columns were compiled into at least six books, which you might even find at your local library. I know they are at our local library in northeastern KS. Also,there is a 2009 biography by two men who worked with her and knew her well. It's titled "Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life." The authors include her cancer fight in this bio. Molly was all too human, but that just made her more appealing. Whether a reader was conservative or a "dripping-fanged liberal," as she described herself, Molly always made you laugh. I love your comment about being alive was your favorite side effect! I feel the same way and so did Molly.

Anonymous · September 2011

Thanks for the link. I love the article & will find more of her writing elswhere.

LizinKS · September 2011

Dear Jac53 and scuttlers, I am so glad you enjoyed the article. Molly expressed herself so perfectly in all her writing. Nobel Prize-winner, economist Paul Krugman wrote a column shortly after her death, in which he wrote that even though Molly didn't have inside sources, she was more often correct in her observations than those who did have access to such sources. By the way, two female newspaper journalists loved Molly's writing so much that they wrote a play about a year ago, using some of Molly's writing - Red Hot Patriot. Actress Kathleen Turner starred in a Pittsburgh production of it. There's a 90-second excerpt from the play on Youtube. Just use Molly Ivins and Kathleen Turner in the Youtube search space, and it should pop up. Her observations on Americans in a July 4th column in this clip are priceless.

karen333 · September 2011

Dear lizinKS. just spent quite an enjoyable time with Molly Ivins in reading her column and watching her on U Tube, had never heard of her before. She was an intelligent, shoot from the hip speaker. Thank you for posting the link, breast cancer still takes so many fine women too early in their life. Karen

pomegranate · September 2011

My husband and I had the privilege of hearing her speak here in Santa Cruz and the Civic Auditorium to a packed house! She was irreverent and delightful. It was sometime in 2006. I could have sat there for another number of hours and listen to her. This Nation lost a great woman able to give us a clear picture of our cloudy politics!

Thanks for sharing with us.

treeskier · September 2011

Thank you so much. I read her columns for years but had forgotten she died of bc, since at that point I thought I was in one of the "other kind" of people... the ones who don't have cancer.

Annie62 · September 2011

I always loved Molly (vans - her writing an her politics. However, I'd to know what smoking and drinkint to excess means......

LizinKS · September 2011

Dear Annie62, From what I read in a recent biography of her, "Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life," Molly, like her good friend, the late Gov. Ann Richards, was an alchoholic and when she saw that it was affecting her life and work, she dried out several times and finally succeeded in stopping drinking the last two years of her life. She was raised in an affluent Houston home, but had a very demanding, arch-conservative father, an oil company executive, whom she rebelled against most of her life. I know Molly in her private life suffered bouts of depression, despite her jovial public persona, though I don't think she was treated medically for it. (Her dad also could have been depressed. He committed suicide toward the end of his life). She started drinking when she was reporting on the Texas legislature as the "lege" members met at a local Austin bar after a legislative session and that was were she picked up the inside info for her stories. At six feet tall, she could drink with the best of them, even drink some of them under the table. She was also a multi-pack per day chain smoker for most of her life.Still, whether or not her "bad habits" contributed to her getting inflammatory breast cancer, which is rare but very aggressive, she really fought hard and bravely to stay alive because she loved her life. My comments were not meant to be a criticism of her character. That was Molly. Like you, I loved Molly dearly and still miss her. Wouldn't she be having fun at the current political scene? By reading this bio, I also learned that even though she loved to play the role of a hardcore native Texan, she was actually born in Monterey,CA, and her parents were from the Midwest.

LizinKS · September 2011

Dear Treeskier, Like you, her death came before I was diagnosed in May 2008. Hers was an inflammatory breast cancer, very rare and very aggressive. I got the feeling reading another column of hers about her cancer, that she had not kept up with regular mammograms. She quoted a friend who told her how terrible it was to sit waiting for a diagnosis, knowing that she should have gotten a mammogram much sooner. Thus Molly wrote, "Get. The. Damn. Mammogram."

Though I had a different kind of cancer than Molly, I now understand enough of my pathology report to know I would have had been in serious trouble, had I skipped one or more of my annual mammogram. I saw one of the radiologists at our local hospital's breast cancer, and actually got to tell him thank you for finding my IDC. He smiled.

LizinKS · September 2011

Dear Pomegranate, We, too lived in the Bay Area until 2003, so we missed Molly's trip there in 2006. In our present location, a college town, Molly was honored by the school of journalism in 2002, so we missed her here,too. But she certainly hasn't been forgotten. A couple of weeks ago, I heard Jack Cafferty refer to Gov. Rick Perry as Gov. Goodhair, Molly's nickname. As always, she was right. He really does have good hair, always perfectly coiffed.

Molly Ivins on breast cancer

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