Brochure Junkie

A vaginal dilator. The American Cancer Society's booklet on sex and women with cancer spends 3 whole whole single-spaced typed pages on how to use it. "A vaginal dilator is a rod or tube, most often made of plastic or rubber..." (p. 43) Is this covered by insurance?? I think I've seen one of these before and it wasn't at the house of someone who'd had cancer! Apparently some women who use Tamoxifen end up needing to use it to treat the side effect of 'reduced vaginal size'.

Honey, I gave vaginal birth to 10 and 11 lb babies. I say BRING ON THE TAMOXIFEN!!

Cool booklet. It covers all kinds of cancer. Did you know you can get cancer of the vulva? (Get out your mirrors girls, this adds a whole new dimension to the monthly self-exam!)

Anyway, I found the sex brochure while I was looking for brochures on how to support your kids when you have cancer.

Those I've found seriously lacking. The storybooks for kids with a parent with cancer are underwhelming as well. The lesson for parents is "Don't hide this from your kids." and the lesson for kids is "It's not your fault and it's OK to feel whatever you're feeling -- just talk to your parents about it."

It's important, but I already knew that stuff.

There's this huge egg-shell dance around the cancer patient. It's understandable -- most of us are sustaining a tenuous equilibrium between undetonated emotional bomb and expressive explosion. No one wants to trip that wire.

The common message from everyone is to be forgiving of yourself. It's OK to be anything you want -- tired, grumpy, manic, active, sad -- and do what you need to do -- vent, exercise, sleep, cry, hide, watch movies...

And that's good advice.

I shared with a colleague at work that the thing I'm most afraid of is the mood swings coming with chemo fatique and the sudden onset of menopause. I told him I was sure I would go off on people.

He told me that was OK. I know he meant that he, and other adults in my life, would be patient and forgiving.

But the thing is, I'm not worried about going off on adults -- frankly, because I've got really great, forgiving, smart, funny people around me who will keep me in perspective.

I'm worried about going off on my kids.

That's not OK.

The sex brochure just gets right at it. You've got it all, complete with diagrams of your sexual organs and new positions to try with your partner. It's absolutely heterocentric in it's examples and pictures, but all kinds of sex are addressed with equal emphasis and detail. It's not shy.

I think what I'm looking for is a booklet on parenting that gets right at it like that.

"During chemo treatment, you might be fucking mean to your kids."

I ordered the kid's book Tickles Tabitha's Cancer-tankerous Mommy

Tabitha's mother is NOT cancer-tankerous. Tabitha's mother is a friggin SAINT. Tabitha's FATHER should have some sense knocked into him.

The story has Tabitha's mother, who is going through chemo, trying to get dinner ready, take care of two young children and manage phone calls and other interruptions. She's getting grumpy and making mad faces at her Tabitha's father -- who is sitting on his butt in front of the TV, asking Tabitha's mother to bring him a beer or something. I think he actually says something patronizing to her like "Oh, is somebody GRUMPY tonight?"

You don't need cancer to want to verbally rip that man a new asshole.

It's the whole noble cancer patient myth that gets in the way.

Why isn't there a book that says "Your mom might say something really mean and hurtful to you because she's tired, overwhelmed and sick. She doesn't mean it. She's probably really sad she said it. Here's what you can do...."

So today I made sure Delphine and I had some time alone. We were walking together to the fair at the local park. Together, we're trying to figure out what the book might look like.