My Sick Story

I started writing my story of getting diagnosed with brain cancer while I was out on leave of absence. The first chapters ended after radiation therapy because chemo was yet to start. I joked about it being my midlife crisis, which involved getting myself a new husband (significant upgrade from last one), shopping at Cartier, and dramatic appearance changes with a half million dollar sticker price. Many of you have read the first three chapters and not surprisingly, you gave me very generous and positive reviews because you're my friends and nice people. I also did not specifically ask for feedback on the writing. Unless you're obnoxious, you are not going to tell me how terrible the writing is. I don't think my writing is terrible but I also don't think it is very good. So I very specifically asked Thomas Dooley, the very kind and talented poet-in-residence at the Overlook Medical Center, to give me advice in making improvements in this story. Thomas is a pro and his advice is simple but spot on: to think about what you want your readers to take away from reading your story. It was a lot of material stitched together in these pages but there is no clear message behind the jokes and grievances.

With Thomas' advice in mind, I started writing the Chemo chapter differently and revised some of the earlier chapters. However, you do not have to read those again if you already read them the last time; only the chemo one is new. For those of you getting this the first time, you now have the full story. This is my way of doing a group update without being on Facebook. I, of course, would like to hear from you after you read it in terms of the quality of the story writing -- if you don't mind sharing with me. There is no plan to pitch this to Huffpost or Moth Radio Hour (too long for them anyway). It will just be something on our family site to be added to the digital ocean that will flow with the time long after we're all gone.

• Presurgery
• Brain Surgery
• Radiation Therapy
• Chemotherapy