The OCD Diaries

February 21, 2014

Cancer: Faces of Bravery, Faces of Fear

The photos tell the tale clearly. Beth Whaanga, mother of four, has been through hell. She has the scars to prove it. And when she decided to show the world, people on Facebook unfriended her.

Mood music:

Whaanga has been in a long and brutal battle against cancer. Multiple surgeries have left her body mangled, though when fully clothed, the scars are hidden. She chose to reveal those scars in a photo series called “Under the Red Dress.” According to The Huffington Post, she lost 103 Facebook friends over it.

“When Beth posted these images on Facebook, 103 of them UNFRIENDED her immediately,” columnist Rebecca Sparrow wrote. “Some felt the images were inappropriate or even pornographic.”

Some say the people who did so are jerks, uptight prudes who prefer that life’s unfair twists remain hidden from view.

I prefer to think that they just acted on fear. They see the danger to their own lives and those of their loved ones in the photos. The first thing most people do in the face of fear is turn and run away. We’ve all done that. I certainly have. The hope is that over time we learn to turn back and face the fear. In time, I think at least some of them will.

What Whaanga did was brave and beautiful. She shows us that despite the damage she suffered, life goes on. She continues to live and love.

I know too many people with cancer. Some are distant friends, some are in my immediate family. They’ve shown bravery in the face of cancer in their own ways, but I hope Whaanga’s photos offer them additional inspiration and hope.

red dress

February 19, 2014

Cancer Can’t Stop the Almighty Cashdollar

A friend and colleague announced via Facebook and Twitter that he has thyroid cancer.

Larry Cashdollar — an Akamai security researcher I like to call “The Almighty Cashdollar” — was tested a few weeks ago, and I know he’s been worried. Now, at least, he knows what he’s up against.

Mood music:

He wrote:

I have thyroid #cancer. I’ve been waiting for the last week for my biopsy results and the doctor called today.

— Larry W. Cashdollar (@_larry0) February 17, 2014

But he’s going to prevail. Here’s why.

As cancers go, the thyroid variety is among the most easily beaten. I know quite a few people who had it and, since surgery, have been cancer free.
Larry is tough. I’ve seen it in his workmanship. This is a guy who continued trying to do security research while lying in a hospital bed with pneumonia.
He has a good sense of humor. One of the first conversations I had with him was at dinner during last summer’s Black Hat hacker conference. We had a lot of laughs that night, and humor is the greatest weapon we have in a world gone mad.
He’s prevailed against the tough stuff before. Did I mention he tried to keep working from a hospital bed once? The dude is crazy, and you can’t beat crazy.
He has a lot of people pulling for him at home and work.

Now that you have an answer, I know you’re going to overcome this in short order, my friend.

I look forward to writing about your security research again. I doubt I’ll be waiting long.

Larry Cashdollar

January 28, 2013

Cancer’s Silver Lining

These days it’s sobering for me to think of all the cancer patients I know personally. I’ve written about my aunt and one of my hometown friends. I’ve known others, as well. I’ve never had cancer, but it’s become a source of anxiety in my life.

Mood music:

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Along with knowing many who battle it, I’m at a higher risk of developing colon cancer one of these days, thanks to nearly a lifetime of Crohn’s Disease. I have to get a colonoscopy every couple of years to keep an eye on things, which gives me confidence that if it ever arrives, we’ll catch it early. But it’s given me a somewhat fatalistic outlook: I assume it’s coming eventually.

NPR recommends asking these two questions of your doctor before having your colonoscopy.

That said, I’ve seen a silver lining around this disease. Simply put, it tends to bring out the best in those who suffer from it.

I never hear the people I know with cancer grousing about it. There’s no “woe is me” going on. No bitterness. Just gratitude. They seem to appreciate what they have a lot more and spread that gratefulness around. I have no doubt they still experience plenty of anxiety and awful feelings out of public view. But that’s what makes their public face so inspiring. They can still show us how to be strong, even though they are exhausted and in a hundred kinds of pain.

I’m thinking about this because my Haverhill friend announced on Facebook that she’s decided to get hospice care. Renee Pelletier Costa often posts her messages from bed, because all the chemo and radiation saps her energy. But everything she posts is about how lucky she is and how much support and love she has.

Her battle is getting tougher, and she has decided on hospice care not because she sees the end in sight, but because the services offered will allow her to cast aside the chemo treatments and focus on healthier daily living. She wants to be able to do more for her family and get more quality from the time she spends with them, and this is how she can do that.

“I have no plans of dying anytime soon,” she wrote on Facebook. “Only God knows.”

Indeed, it’s not about dying. It’s about living. It’s more useful to focus on the latter, because when you get down to it, none of us really knows how much time we have.

Thanks for the lesson, Renee.

Livestrong Tatoo

July 12, 2012

A Tale of Two C-Words

I’ve always hated the C-word. I’m from Revere, Mass., and I can cuss with the best of ’em. But that word has always crossed a line for me. I don’t even like it when someone throws it out there with the “see you next Tuesday” innuendo. I also hate the other C-word: cancer. This is a post about both.

Mood music:
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The latter C-word is the one everyone fears. I’ve known many cancer patients, especially those with breast cancer. I know a lot of women who beat it. I know people who are battling it right now, including a family member. And I’ve known women who put up a good fight but lost in the end.

I have a ton of respect for people who talk openly about their diseases. There’s my friend Penny Richards, who wrote a book about her experience called My Breast Cancer Sally. There’s my father-in-law’s mom, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease today but beat uterine cancer decades ago. There’s an aunt who’s going through chemo right now.

And there’s Xeni Jardin, founding partner and co-editor of the award-winning blog Boing Boing. Jardin has been chronicling her cancer fight daily on as @xeni, and I’ve come to admire her for it.

Lately, some jackasses have been calling her names on Twitter, including that other C-word. It seems they don’t want to hear about every nasty detail of her breast cancer battle. Yesterday she called a few of them out, posting this:

Jardin Tweets

I don’t know what makes people like this spout off the way they do. Maybe they’re lonely, depressed and plagued by a variety of insecurities. Everyone has a story of pain that shapes the people they become.

Some tell their story with grace, unflinchingly sharing every embarrassing detail so that a few people might be educated in case they have to go through the same thing someday. That’s what my friend Penny did, and that’s what Jardin is doing now.

My aunt uses a lot of humor to share her experience on Facebook. She’s always been tough and strong, with a biting sense of humor. That’s what’s going to get her through this. And by sharing some of it online, a few people might learn something.

There’s courage in the face of adversity, as these women demonstrate. And then there are those assclowns who stare at adversity, get scared and try to make themselves feel better by tweeting obscenities at people who don’t deserve it.

In high school, I was bullied, and in turn, to make myself feel better, I bullied kids who were weaker than me. I’m still ashamed about that and have made amends with some of them. Experiencing bullying as the victim and abuser has given me a decent ability to spot weaklings. People who use Twitter to tear into other people are pretty fucking weak. I hope these guys see the light and become better people later on.

For now, I’ll just leave them with this message from Jardin:

Jardin's answer

Stay classy, folks.