Jennifer Goodman Linn You Fearless

Monthly Archives: March 2010

03.28.2010 Posted 3:55 pm

Second Time Around – In-Patient Chemo Begins

I had a really good hospital stay. I know that sounds odd but I really can’t complain. I had:
• A nice new room with a really sweet, considerate roommate (if you can’t get a single room, this is the next best thing)
• Great nurses who were young and fun and very caring
• A relaxing foot massage on day $3 of my treatment
• A wonderful stream of visitors who kept me entertained and preoccupied
• Good food (aka I had visitors bring me all of my meals so I didn’t have to eat hospital food)
More importantly, I didn’t have:
• Bad side effects from the chemo (I had very little nausea or night sweats)
• A lot of distractions at night (I managed to sleep OK despite the crazy steroids I was on)
There was definitely a sense of déjà vu being in the hospital 4.5 years later for a similar treatment.
The highlight of the 3-day stay was that I had an allergic reaction to one of the new chemo drugs I was being given. …

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03.25.2010 Posted 7:46 pm

With Cancer, Let’s Face It: Words Are Inadequate

I am home from the hospital after my first 3 day stint. I will post a full recap in the next few days. In the meantime, I wanted to post this insightful article from a NY Times journalist who often writes about his personal experience with cancer. I am not sure if I agree with his tone and POV throughout the entire article but I do agree with him that rather than a battle, cancer feels a bit like a part of life that must be accepted if you are a chronic relapser. Enjoy!
March 15, 2010, 4:47 PM
By DANA JENNINGS
We’re all familiar with sentences like this one: Mr. Smith died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. We think we know what it means, but we read it and hear it so often that it carries little weight, bears no meaning. It’s one of the clichés of cancer.
It is easy shorthand. But it says more about the writer or speaker than it does about the deceased. We like to say …

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03.24.2010 Posted 7:44 am

Is it In Me?

We received the results of my scan last week and the data was mixed. The tumor has partially responded to the chemo I have been on for the last 6 weeks. The doctors have seen some progress but not as much as they had hoped. So, both Dr. Maki and Dr. Singer are adjusting their course of action. The good news is that they have another protocol that they believe will work better. It is similar to the regimen I was on when I started my first course of chemo 4+ years ago. This treatment requires me to be in the hospital for 3 days at a time every 3 weeks. I had the option of trying to receive the treatment from the out-patient clinic but we decided since the protocol lasts about 9 hours a day, the back and forth travel would actually be more tiring than Just “sucking it up” and staying at Spa Memorial for a few days at a time. As many of you know, by …

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03.17.2010 Posted 11:04 am

I am so sorry I have been out of touch

I truly apologize for not writing in over a month! BELIEVE ME, it is not because I don’t have a lot to say. I have actually been writing down all of the topics I have wanted to write about so there is a lot of new content coming shortly.
My blog is transitioning over to a new back-end system (terrifying as I am not an IT person) and I need to figure this out before i post anything more because I don’t want to lose the new entries.
Within the next week, I promise you will get a lot more updates…Cycle for Survival 2010 pictures, details about my latest journey with battle #5 etc. Definitely a “must read” 🙂
In the meantime, I am attaching a link to an amazingly informative and inspiring article that Self Magazine wrote about rare cancers in their March issue (on newsstands now…Hayden Panatierre is on the cover). The article showcases how the dollars raised by Cycle for Survival are making huge strides in rare …

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