Comments on: Citizen of the Month Wants a Cure

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 15:22:48 +0000

Found your site through random breast cancer searches in google, etc… and wanted to say that this was a great entry. I hope things are still going great! My wife is, in October, going to be a 1yr survivor. She will have a mastc and reconstruction soon, too. God bless every single woman, especially the ones stronger than us men, to go through something like this!!

By: Ashlee Bettencourt

Ashlee Bettencourt — Fri, 18 May 2007 18:31:30 +0000

YOU ROCK SOPHIA!! Seriously girlie… CONGRADULATIONS!

Oh and I agree with the second commenter! Kicking in the shins repeatedly would suvice (if that’s the spelling!)

PEACE!

By: Citizen of the Month » Net Neutrality - Phooey!

Citizen of the Month » Net Neutrality - Phooey! — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:39:51 +0000

[...] A Year Ago on Citizen of the Month: Citizen of the Month Wants a Cure [...]

By: Rosanne

Rosanne — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 23:22:03 +0000

Outstanding comments from so many people.

I had a double mastectomy 6 years ago, but 12 and a half years ago I had two stem cell transplants to stop multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer of the bone marrow.

My book, “Cancer Etiquette: What to Say, What to Do When Someone You Know or Love Has Cancer” is published by Lion Books. The book is my way of making suggestions that may help all of us better deal with the complex issues of trying to communicate about cancer. What we say and what we do counts.

Rosanne

By: Citizen of the Month » One Month of Waiting

Citizen of the Month » One Month of Waiting — Wed, 10 May 2006 06:32:05 +0000

[...] During the last month, I haven’t been very good at commenting on blogs, answering emails, or returning calls. After I wrote a post about accompanying Sophia to her mammogram, nothing was found on the mammogram or the ultra-sound. We were ecstatic. However, she also had an MRI done. Sophia’s surgeon called with some bad news: they saw “something” in her right breast on the MRI. This was especially scary because a year and a half ago, the same doctor removed a cancer tumor from her left breast. This could signify something more serious. Sophia and I both freaked out. [...]

By: Georgew

Georgew — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 02:38:30 +0000

My wife died from a rare cancer that was incurable at the time and probably still is. (Leiomyosarcoma) Whenever the worry, pain, treatments did not stop her, she would be just as vivacious as the day I met her and the following years. Amazingly, she was even beautiful after having delayed cutting off her the long hair that was her pride and joy. After she died I found a paycheck receipt. With all the torture she was undergoing form multiple operations, chemo, radiation and experimental drugs; she managed to work for a few days more only two weeks prior to her last day on earth. Incurable? She never gave up and I guess I didn’t either as I realized later that I told her she did not have to keep her Federal employee life insurance in place for me. Were we both in denial?

These women are something! They seem to be attacked by cancer at the very heart of their femininity. She on her uterus, others on the breasts; what is it with this, GOD! Now I have it from the prostate and threatening to go out into the rest of the body just like all the rest of this stuff. It is like we are rotting away, one cell at a time after serving to procreate. Not right, not good, and not fair at all.

By: Real Cancer, Real Lives #4

Real Cancer, Real Lives #4 — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 17:02:14 +0000

[...] Neil Kramer is a writer and web producer and he is Sophia’s caregiver; on his post “Citizen of the Month Wants a Cure” he writes about a lot of things of Sofia’s experience with breast cancer [...]

By: YogaChickie

YogaChickie — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 02:42:52 +0000

Neil….wow….great post…I had no idea that your wife was a breast cancer survivor. Or if I did, it somehow slipped my mind over the course of the past couple of weeks. Is that how you ended up finding my blog?

Lauren

By: Sophia

Sophia — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 02:09:50 +0000

Even though I never met any of you, I feel as if I know
so many of you through reading your comments on Neil’s blog (and taking peeks at your own blogs.) What a great community of people!
I’m really overwhelmed and very touched by all your good wishes and warmth. Thank you.

By: Michael Blowhard

Michael Blowhard — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 22:44:34 +0000

Many congrats to Sophia! Getting through that first-year-after-the-bad-news is a big deal!

My contribution to your list of unfortunate responses isn’t a funny/appalling line someone said, but a way certain kinds of people react. I was operated on for cancer about four and a half years ago. Some friends came through magnficently, including some I hadn’t known were such good friends. Some friends I’d thought I was close to just evaporated. (Understandable, cancer’s scray, all is forgiven.) There’s one kind of person I bumped into, though … They really didn’t like it that I had cancer. I finally figured out why. It’s because I got the cancer for no good reason. I always lived healthily. Exercised, didn’t smoke, didn’t get fat, watched the diet, etc. I’d done nothing wrong, so to speak, yet I got cancer anyway. And a certain number of people just seem to get freaked out by that. I guess they need to believe that if they eat well, take walks, avoid cigarettes, etc, they’ll live ’till 95 — that they’re guaranteed to live ’till 95. So somoene who does everything right yet still gets cancer really rocks the conceptual basis of their world. Funny.

All the best to both of you, and much sympathy (and admiration) on surviving such a tough year. And may it be the last tough year for a long, long time.