Rose's Cantina

Embed from Getty Images On a dark and crisp morning, last November, too early even for the murder of crows that normally hovers over the Ottawa Hospital, my friend Jennette and I joined a steady stream of haggard looking souls padding into the Ottawa Cancer Centre. Some people looked frightened, others simply dazed, and few looked bloody famished. My soul cried out for coffee, but it seemed rude to slurp a Starbucks in front of the unfortunates who had been fasting for hours. So I just doodled on my iPad and watched the sleepy bunch try to amuse themselves. There we sat, the friends and relatives of the cancer gang, clutching on to our loved ones or trying to be chill, reading Smart Phones, flipping through old magazines, or watching the CBC News with no sound. This was a shitty place to cool your heels. We all have that memory of our first surgery. Mine was tonsils, pretty pedestrian stuff. But on that morning, my six-year-old memory muscle...

This is my ear. Have a gander at it. It won't look like this for long. A surgeon is going to take a hunk out of it to get rid of an aggressive cancerous lump that's been growing there for years. I didn't notice it because I didn't know what basel carcinoma was. I just thought I had dermatitis. That's what the doctor said I had, too. Bad, bad doctor. Give me your medical licence. Hand it over, right now. I don't have dermatitis, or a bed sore. I have full blown cancerama. The good news is that there's an innovative technique being used here in Ottawa, called the Mohs Technique, which involves shaving and cutting off the cancer while a pathologist sits by and monitors the procedure. When the pathologist rules the cancer is gone, the surgeon stops. Holy shit! That is so cool. I'm still going to be missing part of my ear, which is not at all cool, but I'm okay with that. I could simply adopt a new hair style, join the Red Hats, or find s...

Don't try this at home. Rely on a medical professional to burn you. When I texted my husband yesterday to tell him I have skin cancer, he immediately wanted to come home from work. I told him to never mind, that I was a-ok, and I was. I've spent the last many months sitting around the Ottawa Cancer Clinic, and I got myself a crash course in all things cancer. I sat for many hours with my friend Jennette in the company of oncologists and surgeons. I took her for her oral cancer appointments, and I watched her go through a living hell and come out the other side. I have been asked by many reading this blog how she is, and she's fine. She rejected the doctor's recommendation that she undergo radiation "just in case". Since it required the pulling of all her teeth, she decided she'd take her chances, which were about 40 percent that the cancer would return. Jennette is very brave. I'm not sure I would have had the guts to tell the radiology on...

One kilo, maybe two. Maybe one kilo on one side, two on the other. Two-thirds. The calculations are swimming in my addled brain. Even then I'll probably end up as a DD cup. Hot damn! That's the assessment of my plastic surgeon whom I met today, the very nice and spirited Dr. Rockwell, a renowned plastic surgeon at the Ottawa Hospital. They say she has fairy hands. The breasts that once nursed my children, and were the fantasy of news deskers everywhere, have thinned my skin and stretched beyond any recognition, like an over-used Slinky. About five pounds --that's what she needs to take off. But when it's over, in two short hours, I have the promise of becoming a normal person again instead of a self-loathing woman with Old Stripper Boobs. Sure, I'll have the scars to show for it, an accordion scar under the breasts, and ones around the nipples and straight down the middle. For a few weeks, I'll look like I did, in fact, fall off the turni...

Embed from Getty Images Last week, I received a frantic call from Jennette. "The radiologist called," she said. "He wants me to come back in." Just a week before, Jennette had received a clean bill of health, a thumbs up from both her surgeon and the radiation oncologist who both assured her that radiation wasn't required as a safety net against the return of her oral cancer which had already robbed her of part of her jaw and most of her bottom teeth. I couldn't believe it. First they give us hope, then they take it away. We returned to the Ottawa Hospital for a meeting with the radiologist who looked very sombre, almost grim. "I know I told you that you wouldn't need radiation," he began. "We had a meeting with your surgeon and the pathologist, looked over your charts at our meeting... "And something just didn't sit well with me." The cancer was too close to edge, is a simple way to say it. The surgeon c...

When you tell people you're getting a breast reduction, you get all sorts of advice. Women, literally, crawl out of the woodwork to tell you they've had one, their aunty had one, or their best friend had one after high school. To a person, I've never heard "I hate the way they look" after surgery. Before was always worse. I mean, it's understandable. You've got to really hate your boobs to endure four hours of surgery. And you have to have faith that the surgeon who accepts your case doesn't disappoint. You don't want to wake up expecting you'll look like Charleze Theron, and you end up looking like Granny Clampett. It takes a lot of guts to get a breast reduction; it's not for sissies. And no chicken to my knowledge has ever said, "take the leg, leave the breast." I don't know why I said that, it just seemed funny to me. There is a lot of soul searching that goes into the process but when you finally commit, y...

Embed from Getty Images Yesterday was a banner day for me. I finally got my consult with the plastic surgeon which will take place on March 14 at 1 p.m. Nice. That's the good news. The bad news was a follow-up phone call to the family doctor. "The surgeon will not operate on anyone who has smoked in the last year," said the assistant. No worries, I have been smoke free for 59 years. "And she will not operate on anyone with a BMI (Body Mass Index) of over 30." This got my back up. BMI is a great way to determine how much weight a person has to lose, but it doesn't take into account the fact that I'm wearing two bowling balls on my chest. In my opinion, that's equivalent to putting the fix in, throwing the game, handicapping the round. I began to protest, but realized it was useless. Even without the 10 poundage on my chest, my BMI is still about 33, meaning I have to lose 35 or 40 pounds. Yes, Virginia, I am obese, a fat ass, a...

One thing I won't miss, after my breast reduction, is visiting the big girl store to purchase bras that cost more than a bottle of George Clooney premium tequila. I go to places called Addition Elle, and Pennington's, where they also sell tents advertised as dresses. These stores are chock-a-block full of friendly fitters who proudly show off their own girls in cheap looking jersey material. Jersey is usually what they sell skinny girls who buy at Old Navy and H&M. Jersey is sold at the big girl's store for what you would pay for silk anywhere else. I suppose it's because of the yardage needed to cover a larger frame. I'm not using the word "fat" here because fat is a term that is offensive. I am certainly not fat, but I am big boobed at a size 42 H which is the retail term for Huge. I cannot buy tops anywhere else but the Huge Girl's Store because they don't fit around my boobs. Sometimes, I can get shirts at Value Village but tho...

Today I learned that I will finally have breast reduction surgery. I am both terrified and elated. No more blisters from the underwire. No more side boob sticking out as I try in vain to stuff my size 44H boobs into a 42DDD. No more shopping at Ottawa Tent and Awning for a bra that costs more than a bottle of George Clooney tequila. Today, I start an occasional series on my journey through my surgery, and the reasons why. I want people to know that breast reduction surgery is not just cosmetic surgery. It is life and soul saving surgery that no woman to my knowledge has ever regretted -- except Kanye West's mom, but she shouldn't have also booked three other procedures to save time. This is serious business, four hours on the operating table; it's not for narcissists and it's not for sissies. Here is the first post I ever wrote, back in 2014, around the time of the Jian Ghomeshi sexual harassment debacle at CBC It's about how my big boobs played a huge ...

View image | gettyimages.com Yesterday, I asked you all to pray for my friend who was having oral cancer surgery at the Ottawa Hospital. Your prayer must have worked because today she's sitting up in a cushy private room, with all her toys around her: the cell phone, a television delivered immediately to her room, and her iPad. You might say, "Wow, she looks excellent considering she had an eight hour operation which involved resecting her tiny mouse mouth. It's like they did nothing at all to her!" If you were thinking that, you would be half right. You see, she didn't have the surgery after all. That's because minutes before the surgeons were able to get  their mitts into her mouth, she fell. Fainted in the bathroom. Hit her head. I was expecting to hold her hand, look into her eyes, tell her everything was going to be cool, and then retreat to Starbucks for a bun and a cup of cappuccino. Instead, I was rushed to her bedside, as her ...

View image | gettyimages.com The cartoonist Ben Wicks and I worked together for several years on books about a bunch of strange topics: literacy, harassment in the workplace...and mutual funds. When putting together the harassment book, I asked Ben if there was any topic -- death, taxes, war -- that he couldn't take, turn on its ear, and make fun of. He thought for a moment, and then he said, "Cancer, I don't think I could make fun of cancer." A few minutes later, he handed me a bar napkin with a cartoon scribbled on it. It was a man on a bed looking up at the Grim Reaper. The caption read, "Can I get a second opinion?" There is not funny about cancer, but then, everything is funny about cancer. We have to view cancer with a twinkle in our eye, and a spring in our step. Without humor, how would we ever get through cancer? I've realized this over the last few months, as I've shepherded a dear friend through the over-bright hall...

#85183166 / gettyimages.com Right now, your BMI is 35, said Dr. Ben. After the breast reduction, you'll be 30.1. So, I'm not obese? No, you're just overweight . I stood in front of Scott the other day, in my underwear, and showed him my rapidly shrinking middle. He couldn't believe it. I had to show him in my underwear because, to the outside world, I don't look a hell of a lot different. And that's because of my boobs, cup size G. They are all you can see when I'm coming at you. They hide the middle, giving off so much shade that it really doesn't matter what the rest of me looks like. Nothing can live under there. To repeat a hurtful joke once told to me, I haven't seen my feet in years. And so it was, at my last physical, I asked Dr. Ben to book me a breast reduction, something I've been fighting for years. I always thought that breast reductions were selfish things in a world when women were losing their lobes to canc...

Dear Gallbladder: I've been thinking a lot about you over the last week whilst you were relentlessly stabbing me in the back. I'm disappointed in you. We've been through so much together; now is not the time to break up. Of course, we might not have any choice. The doctor may issue a restraining order meaning that you and I will inevitably part ways. I will be alone and you will be in a glass jar someplace mothering all those baby crystals for time in memorial. If this is the case, and we will know soon, I will accept my part in all of this. The drinking, the 2 a.m. smoked meat at Nate's, the T-bones on the barbecue. We've had some good times, haven't we? I was the life of the party and you, well, you were the organ beneath my ribs. I see now how selfish I've been. Putting my face in that pile of ribs was awesome, but I understand now what a sacrifice you made. Mixing up bile, spewing out stones, and I never even knew. You suffered in silenc...

We changed veterinarians after the last one put down Hannah, our golden retriever, for cancer (legitimate) then killed my pug Ming. When I say "killed," I mean one of the colleagues of our chief vet guilted us into getting dental surgery for Ming even though the chief had told us months before she wouldn't survive it. She didn't and died on the table. It was horrific. As a result, Gordie, who was also undergoing dental, became an only pug and we were out three grand. Another time, the chief vet nearly killed Gordie when she was operating on him for crystals in his bladder. She sewed him up wrong and had to pay another vet to re-operate on him. That should have been our first clue that we didn't hire the Vet of the Century. In response to killing Ming, Dr. Kevorkian told us how very sorry she was, then sent a donation to the Ottawa Humane Society on our behalf, then sent us a grief card. I'm always amazed at these "random acts of kindness...

I have a phobia about business cards. Every time, I get business cards, something terrible happens. I get sacked. Or my business folds. So I started refusing to use them. I also don't go on vacation. Again, whenever I do, something terrible happens. I once worked for a political party and decided to take a much needed vacay to Jamaica (jus cool!). When I came back, I noticed I'd been turned down for a VISA card. The next day, I found out why. There was a new sheriff in town who handed me my walking stick. Another time, I went on vacation with my husband and over dinner, he told me he was cheating on me with an old girlfriend. A few months later, he took me to England and left me in the airport to fly to Bermuda into the waiting arms of the woman I now refer to as the White Witch of Bermuda. My step-son called it Rose's Goodbye Tour. Hah. So I don't travel anymore. Don't get me wrong, I trust this husband. But I'm afraid he might be eaten by sharks or k...

My friend Doris called me on Monday. She was in tears because her eighty-six-year-old dad was going into the hospital for emergency surgery to repair an aneurysm in his heart. The doctor told him his chances of survival were about twenty-five percent. Twenty-five percent. Wow, I thought, those are some pretty terrible odds. Those odds didn't include the possibility he would wake up with brain damage or paralysis or something equally awful. I wondered what was the point? When you're eighty-six, is it worth getting the procedure at all? Then I thought, snap out of it you selfish little elder-bigot . Just because a person is old doesn't mean they can't be as resilient as the rest of us. Of course, Ted's going through with it. He's as strong as men half his age. Or at least he was until recently. As it stands now, he can barely do anything without become completely fatigued. If this doesn't work, well, I guess from his standpoint, he thinks h...