I knew I’d have to write about this experience, but I didn’t know quite how to do it. I didn’t think a collection of my blog entries would work and I certainly am in no position to write a guide. I haven’t done chemo, nor have I had a mastectomy, so I can’t cover all the breast cancer bases. But I can write about the ways a person can use to cope with the many aspects of this experience, including the assaults on one’s sense of humor.

So I’ve begun, with an introduction and an outline, alphabetical of course. I’ll have to provide a time-line the way big fat novels sometimes provide a list of characters or a family tree so the reader can sort her way through the time warps.

Yesterday I took out as many books about breast cancer as I could find at my local libraries–the recent ones that looked readable. I found only one that was accessible to a person whose mind, body, and soul have been paralyzed by a recent breast cancer diagnosis, and I’ll write about that one tomorrow.

Right now, it’s time for me to hop in the car and go get my 31st radiation treatment. After a bad few days last week, I’m doing fine this week, oddly enough, since I’d been warned to brace myself for worse. Try as I might to predict, or get someone else to predict, how I’ll feel tomorrow, nothing ever quite works. Everyone really is different.