Cancer Selfies

What to get for a person with cancer

Hank Green is also dealing with cancer, and exactly as you'd expect, has been vlogging his experiences. I love this video, I learned a lot from it. If you know someone with cancer, consider taking ten minutes out of your day to watch it. It's fantastic.

From the comments

James Petrosky: I got a lot of soup in tupperwear at the start. It was very kind. But I don't like soup, and couldn't eat some of it because it had apple sauce in it and I had a bad chemo-applesauce adventure. And the added dishes were not much, but more than I wanted to deal with.

Early on, after I'd had a month to process but was just starting to tell people, there were a few coworkers (no one who can read this, won't ask, I won't tell) who it felt like I had to do the work of emotionally comforting over my diagnosis with a ter… See more

Being told "ask if you need anything", unless you're my family or partner, is just asking me to become a manager for my own care. I already use all my management capacity between the four doctors I regularly see, home care visits, pharmacy trips, blood… See more

It's a shame it took a full course of treatment to get to this point. In a better world, I'd be done treatment right now, maybe to need it again in a year or so. But that's the way of things.

All this being said, if you've done anything for me - even as simple as animal photos when I've asked, thank you. I couldn't have made it here, with my mental health largely intact, without you

Jealous of Hank Green, but not for the reason you'd think

Is it weird that I'm kind of jealous that Hank Green gets to try radiation treatment for his cancer and I won't get to? (yes I got to do surgery and he probably won't but shhhh)

(I'm mostly joking but it's an experience I won't have (and probably don't want) and could have had if mine was caught at an earlier stage)

(this video isn't essential viewing, just a jumping off point for a weird emotion I had)

From the comments

James Petrosky: He also did so many fewer cycles than me, but his chemo sounds a lot harsher. It's curative, though, so patient comfort is less of a concern than with a palliative treatment like mine. It took ten cycles for me to have similar side effects to what he had after two.