They are just words, right?

I am online alot.  Some would say I am a social media junkie.  It is the wave of the future.  During these times online I read blogs, articles, facebook posts, tweets about cancer.  I am an advocate and I try to keep up on the latest news and goings on to keep readers of my blog and my facebook pages informed.  Something I started doing a while ago.  Anytime I found an interesting article or news piece I would post it, figuring it may be of interest to someone, especially since most people don't pour over medical info like I do.

I read other survivors blogs, not just breast cancer survivors, but other cancer survivors too.  Different cancer, same battle as I like to think.  We are all in the same fight.

Words.  They help, they heal.  They convey feelings.   In a prior post I blogged about my feelings of "cured" vs "cancer free."

Another word that just drives me crazy when it comes to people describing their battle is suffer (for the Vic McCarty show we actually had an author who had that in the title of his book!)

I believe in a positive mindset.  The way you look at something can change your outlook, your perception of how it is going.  When I began to talk about cancer on the radio and people asked me if I suffer from cancer I would angrily say no (I am not a cancer victim either, but that is an older blog that I wrote some time ago)  I am a fighter, I am a survivor, I am not a sufferer.  Yes cancer has attacked my body, attacked my mind, depression is something I never thought I would have and yes it has even attacked my spirit.  But through all of that I can honestly say I didn't suffer.  I prevailed.  I triumphed.  Its all in the way you look at things.  Some days I would get so tired I could barely make it through a 3 hour workday.  Some days I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, was disgusted at the lack of hair I had from the chemo making it fall out.  The radiation machine freaked me out so much I had to crank up music on the ipod so I wouldn't hear the noise of the machine or the sound of my breathing, thinking am I breathing too hard that this will radiate my lungs (one of the side effects they tell you you may have.)
Through all of that I still don't say I suffered.

I believe in positive thinking.

I fought.

I battled.

I didn't suffer

I am  a  Warrior. 



Mel is the producer/co-host of The Vic McCarty Show.  Listen Live Monday~Friday 10am-noon eastern time on wmktthetalkstation.com also available as a  podcast.

Check out my podcast The Cancer Warrior on Empoweradio.com.  Also available on itunes.

The importance of vigilance

Kari's survivor story

Thanks to Dana Farber Cancer Institute for allowing me to repost

Bio of the host of video:
Dr. Kenneth Miller, medical director of Dana-Farber's Lance Armstrong Foundation Adult Cancer Survivorship Program knows that the end of cancer treatment is not the end of the cancer experience. As an oncologist, and a husband of a two-time cancer survivor, Dr. Miller knows that survivors need to find a new balance in life, one that recognizes where they’ve been medically, and where they’re going for a healthy future. The Living Well Beyond Cancer video series available for viewing online at www.dana-farber.org/livingwellbeyondcancer features Miller interviewing experts from the fields of oncology, psychology, nutrition, and more, outlining many of the issues survivors typically face, from fear of recurrence to long-term health concerns to creating a wellness plan.

Your money or your life???

Imagine this scenario: a robber comes up to you and says "your money or your life??" Which would you choose? Of course you would give the robber your wallet and hope that he will go away. Now imagine this: robber says your money or your life, and says to you, if you keep your money I will kill you at some point in time, but not right now, you wont know where and wont know when.

What would you do?

This kind of situation happened to a friend of mine. My friend went to the doctor a few years ago and through a scan they found a spot on one of his organs. He was told that he needed to watch it, go in for follow ups and scans every few months. But he didn't. He didn't have health insurance. So he didn't follow up, and now he's gone. He was well loved by friends and family,his funeral was filled with to capacity, standing room only. All those people, loved my friend and miss him dearly, as do I.

We could have had a fundraiser for him if we had known.

Now its too late.

Not having money is not an excuse.
Not having health insurance is not an excuse.
Hospitals and doctors will treat you, I think it is the law.
I have said it before I would rather be broke than dead.

Now I ask you the question again:

YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE???

Mel is the producer of The Vic McCarty Show. Listen Live Monday-Friday 10am-noon eastern standard time on www.wmktthetalkstation.com

I am Ripley

This blog was originally posted on stupidcancer.com

I am a fan of movies, tv, sports and popular culture. My head is filled with useless information that would only be good if we were playing trivial pursuit (Do people still play that anymore?). I suppose you are wondering what the reference in my title means. I have been thinking about how you are never cured from cancer because, well, there is no cure. So I am like Ripley, the main character in the movie Alien. I have fought the beast and won, but is it over? Is cancer really gone from my body? Is it eradicated like the Alien at the end of the movie, blown out into deep space? Are there other Aliens out there somewhere… lurking ready to strike when least expected?

Cancer is like the Alien from the movie. It is big and scary and you don’t really know how you are going to deal with a big ugly monster like that until you stare it in the face. Do you run and hide and hope that it wont get you? Or do you stand and fight and kick its ass?.

I chose the latter.

I am Ripley.

Don't take it for granted

One of the things I love to do is ride my bike. I haven't ridden it since before my diagnosis. I finally got it off of the deck today and put it in my car and went down to the bike path, I try not to ride in traffic, I just don't trust the drivers nowdays, texting, cellphones, ipods, there are a lot of distractions, so I just enjoy the path.

The picture above is like the one that I have, it is a Kona Smoke, a commuter bike I bought used 2 summers before my diagnosis, from winnings from the local casino, I don't usually go to the casino, but my friends were in town and they wanted to see it so I went. Casinos are ok, mostly if they are in Vegas, and if they would be smoke free they would be better.

Most people enjoy a good wine or beer to give them a good buzz. I enjoy exercise. There is nothing like being on a bike on a nice summer day to clear your head and relax you, even if, like today, my legs burn from exercising yesterday and it was very windy, and I couldn't go as far as I usually bike but I went a decent distance considering I haven't been on the bike since 2007, before my diagnosis.

I am looking forward to this summer more than other summers. I have my energy back, for the most part. I have a wonderful man who loves me, and we have plans to do things around here, which we couldn't do the past two years just because of my illness, nothing exciting, trips around town, miniature golf, the local ice cream maker has kitchen and tasting tours(not too many of those, then I will definitely need to be on the bike more) but Doug and I keep saying that we need to do this and that and go here and there. This summer we will. After everything I have been through, after everything we have been through together, why wait. Life is too short to wait for the good stuff.

Listen to Mel on The Vic McCarty show10am-Noon weekdays Monday-Friday eastern standard time on Wmktthetalkstation.com

This is my first published article from 2008

THE ULTIMATE FACE OFF
Reprinted by permission from the Grand Traverse Womans Magazine Oct 08 issue

I have always had a wicked sense of humor. I get that from my dad. On Sept 18, 2007, when I was told, "It's cancer," I didn't know how my sense of humor and my favorite game, hockey, would get me through perhaps the greatest challenge of my life. Immediately I saw the irony in my breast cancer. I had just participated in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life a couple of months before and now I was a cancer survivor. My primary care physician broke the news and, since I had basically just met her, it was dubious at best. I remember she told me and then her voice sounded like the adults in the Peanuts cartoon. After that she made an appointment for me to see a surgeon, Dr. Brown. I immediately pictured Doc Brown from Back to the Future. If he starts talking flux capacitors and screams 1.21 jigawatts I am so out of there, I thought. Fortunately he is nothing like that. We discussed my options and decided I would get a lumpectomy. "You could get a mastectomy so you can be sure the cancer doesn't go into the other breast" he said. Well I am all for preventative medicine but let's not get carried away. To quote one of my favorite TV shows, Seinfeld: "They are real and they are spectacular." I decided to keep both of them. Dr. Brown did two surgeries, one to remove the lump and one for the port. He told me the surgery would only take about a half hour. I got to the hospital around 10 a.m. Surgery was scheduled for around noon. I couldn't have anything to eat or to drink after midnight. I was waiting in a private room, watching the video about my port. The time ticked by and soon it was 2 o'clock and I was still waiting. I happened to spy the doc walking by my room and yelled out, "So what did you do, forget about me?" He had some kind of cardiac emergency to take care of and told me I was next in line. He said "You must be pretty hungry, huh?" I was and said, "Yeah you owe me a pizza." He said OK. As I was being wheeled into the OR the surgical nurse said, "OK now the doctor will be right in. He is just ordering your pizza." "Haha," I thought, "Funny joke to play on someone who is just about to be put under." Sure enough when I woke up from surgery a Jet's pizza was waiting for me. Having cancer is not easy, and telling people is just as difficult. Some people I could tell right away, while others would have to wait. It is exhausting enough just having the disease, let alone rewinding and replaying the story for my friends and family. So how do you tell people? "Hey!! Haven't seen you in a while, how ya doin'? I have cancer. How are the kids?" I never thought I wouldn't be OK, even after I lost weight. People who didn't know that I had cancer said, "Wow, you look great!!" "Yeah," I said. "That cancer is the best diet ever!" Even after my first chemo treatment made me so dizzy and nauseous for three hours, I still knew I was going to be OK. No wonder I don't drink. Chemo gave me the worst hangover I ever had. Even after I had my stylist shave my head because the chemo was making my hair fall out I had to laugh. My mom wanted a current picture of me and, as it turned out, I got my head shaved on her birthday. Happy Birthday Mom!! My hair is growing back, and she is still waiting for that picture. I really didn't have the side-effects that many people do, with the exception of the first chemo hangover bedspins. I am convinced that working out to get ready to hit the ice really helped me battle this disease. All this was going on around the beginning of hockey season, something I look forward to. I am the captain of the Petoskey women's hockey team and I always work out my hardest to get ready for that, and, because of my job at WMKT, I was able to go to the Red Wings Training Camp. I was diagnosed on the last day of training camp. The Wings save their best game for the last day. Unfortunately I did not make it to that game. Since I am a huge hockey fan, it really meant something special to me when the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. The Wings will hoist the Stanley Cup banner on Oct. 9. One year to the day of my lumpectomy surgery.

I use hockey as an analogy to fighting cancer. If you are on the ice and someone knocks you down, you don't stay down. You get up and keep skating. That is what I will do. I will keep skating.

Red Wings Training camp photo copyright 2007 by Melinda Majoros taken during the 2007 training camp, that's right, a few days before my diagnosis.

Mel is the producer of The Vic McCarty show. Listen live Monday-Friday 10am-Noon eastern time on wmktthetalkstation.com.

Mel also produces The Maria Shaw show on Empoweradio.com. Listen Live Monday-Friday Noon-3pm.

The Luck of the Draw

I moved to Michigan from California about six years ago. I worked in the television industry and left a pretty good career to be with my then boyfriend, now fiance, who was in an accident and moved back with his parents to recouperate. I stayed in CA for a year, working on a couple of shows that didn't last and decided that, since the television industry isn't very stable, that I wanted to move to Michigan to be with my boyfriend Doug. I thought, after I moved here in the middle of one long winter, that it would be a decision I would later regret, but looking back I was pretty lucky.

Lucky, you are thinking, you moved away from a lucrative career in television to move to a small town in Michigan, that most people have never heard of, much less pronounce, then you got cancer, how the hell is that lucky? Well let me tell you why I think I am lucky.

First of all I believe that I recieved the best care possible. The planets truly aligned for me healthwise when I moved here. I started working out more at a gym and got a trainer Scott Conti. Scott is one of the people I think is responsible for helping save my life, although he will disagree with me. I work out like a fiend, to get ready for hockey season, mostly my legs but one particular day I wanted to focus on my arms, to get them toned. We did a good workout then a couple of days later I noticed a lump in my breast, it may have been a coincidence, but I don't think so. Secondly Scott recommended my primary care physician, I didn't have a doc since I moved here and I was going to go to one to get the yearly womans exam before I found the lump. I called my new Dr., Dr. Swenor, and scheduled an appointment. While all this was going on I was in the process of getting individual health insurance. They had turned me down because I had vision insurance through their company, and I had to tell them, no its vision, its not major health insurance. They looked into it and 2 days before I saw and met the doctor my insurance card came in the mail. Could this be luck or divine intervention? I say a little bit of both. So here I am at the Dr. Swenor's office, not really thinking I have cancer, I never really thought it would be that, meeting her for the first time and we exchange pleasantries and I show her my lump. I was scheduled for a biopsy the same day. The results would come a few days later. I called her office and the nurse answered the phone, no results yet. Ok I thought, I was on my way from one job to another and 2 minutes later my doctor called and asked how soon could I get there to discuss the results. Fuck, I thought, it's cancer. I know I have written about this part many many times but it is such an important part of being a patient, knowing that the doc never calls you into the office to see how you are doing, just to give you the bad news. I remember walking into the office, but not actually the drive there, I guess I was on mental cruise control. After a few minutes of her wanting me to call my boyfriend I asked her to just tell me, although I am pretty sure I cursed at her doing so and she said "it's cancer." If you have been reading my blogs up til now you know the rest of this part of the story.

At this point I had to tell my employer, at the time I was a server at a major ski/golf resort in the area, I was scared to tell them, not that they would fire me, but holy fuck!!!! I was just diagnosed with cancer and telling the story over and over again can be completely overwhelming in the beginning, especially to your employer, you never want to cry at work, and I didn't want to cry in front of her. I told her the story and my doc wrote a note getting me out of work, the biopsy made it entirely too painful to lift any trays or even help clear tables as a hostess, (yes I am right handed and the lump was in my right breast.)

I can't recall if I met with oncology or the surgeon first, but I liked both of my doctors from the start. Dr. Smith, my oncologist was a no nonsense older doctor, whose son plays hockey. Sweet, something I can relate to him with. I love sports, so anytime I can talk sports with someone, especially hockey I am totally in my element.

The three of us, Doug, Dr. Smith and I discussed the course of action to be taken. Surgery, Chemo, Radiation, Herceptin. It would last a year. Ok, my main thought going through my head, not that I had cancer, which was caught pretty early, was that I couldn't play hockey for 2 years, one track minded weekend warrior athlete in me. It was standard protocol that I was to be put on Surgery, 4 rounds of adriamycin/cytoxan, 12 rounds of taxol with herceptin concurrently then herceptin for the rest of the year (52 rounds in all of herceptin, but they do it every three weeks after you are done with taxol, so you don't go completely nuts going to the hospital every single week.) 16 rounds of radiation, then done. Overwhelming to say the least.

When I met my surgeon I knew I would like him from the start, even though he is an Ohio State fan. Too much free time for me is a dangerous thing as I looked him up on the internet and saw his qualifications and read up on him. We discussed mastectomy or lumpectomy, I chose lumpectomy, because the lump was high enough that most of the breast could be saved and if no lymphnodes were involved we wouldn't have to worry about cutting it off, which would be hard to handle, just finding out you have cancer is hard, then them telling you you have to have something completely cut off from you? I am glad I didn't have to go through that. I told him I was a University of Michigan fan and we were joking about sports, at which point my boyfriend pipes up I don't care anything about sports, probably thinking my love for the maize and blue would taint the doc's professionalism in the operating room when he is cutting me open? I really don't think he thought that, but he was just as freaked out as I was.

So are you still wondering how I am lucky? Well let me tell you. If I was still living in California I probably wouldn't be able to work, tv production hours are long 12 hour days mostly and my fatigue level was pretty high. I don't think I would get to know the doctors that I have as well as I do if I was being treated out in CA, now I am not saying it isn't possible, but this is my journey and my opinion. I see my docs, and nurses around town and we talk, I don't think that would happen if I still lived in the san fernando valley.
If you had told me I would be on the radio championing causes and being a producer/co-host a few years ago I would have told you you were crazy. I would have never thought I would be on the radio, being able to speak about my causes, relay for life, and pretty much other cancer related events that go on in the area, whether it is a spaghetti dinner for someone needed help with medical bills or just relaying information on an upcoming event in the area like Bike 4 Breast Cancer or Tri 4 fun. I never thought that I would be one to be on the radio, I hate the sound of my own voice, I never really liked talking in front of people, although I am overcoming my fear of public speaking. I wouldn't have found my voice, on the radio and in this blog.

Most importantly cancer has given me something that most people don't get, a second chance, at many things. I don't take people or things for granted anymore. Looking back I think I was so consumed by my career in television that I took Doug for granted. Little things don't bother me as much anymore, when you are faced with adversity like I have been you have to laugh, like when your car has a fight with a carport an loses, yes that was my fault and $200.00 later I am still laughing about it, and yes its expensive, but in the grand scheme of things, so what?

I am truly grateful and truly lucky for all the Doctors, Nurses and Medical personel that have come into my life. Everyone I have met has made a positive contribution to my medical care, even if it was just a smile or a hello on a day that was difficult to get through.

So yes I am lucky to be living where I am living, having the doctors, friends and jobs that I have and the life that I have.

My friend is going to Vegas in a couple of days, a place where, when I lived in California I would go to twice a year. Maybe I should have her put a couple of quarters in a slot machine for me.

Listen to me on The Vic McCarty Show weekdays 10am-noon on wmktthetalkstation.com, & read my blog posts on imtooyoungforthis.blogspot.com.