mda abc support group today was pretty difficult. but before i get into that. i figure now’s as good a time as any to get these r’s and n’s out the way…
remission. so like most of the english language, remission is a tricky word. most people don’t really understand what it means as it relates to cancer so here is my attempt to break it all down. let’s keep in mind none of this shit is in stone. this is science and every day, what we think we know changes. plus, i’m just a patient. i am not a doctor, nor a scientist. and i won’t pretend to be the sharpest pencil in the box. everything you are about to read is the way i understand the shit. hell, that should go without saying but i feel the need to spell that out.
back to remission. most folk think, for cancer, it’s the holy grail. but it isn’t, it is close though. the holy grail is really cure. or “oops, we read that shit wrong–you don’t have cancer–james dropped a jelly bean on the xray.” but yeah after james’ boo-boo and cure, remission is the goal.
definitions. cure means the cancer is gone, and that shit ain’t coming back. treatment was successful and your ass is cancer-free. remission, on the other hand, isn’t that cut and dry. remission essentially means the signs and symptoms of the cancer are reduced. further, you can be partially in remission or in complete remission. complete remission means all signs and symptoms of the cancer are gone. some even say you reach cure status if you were diagnosed with an early stage and in complete remission for 5 years. what most people don’t know is that some cancer cells can stay in your body long after treatment ended. this is how you get re-occurances. that’s why it’s so important to keep monitoring your body, even when in remission.
lets get these n words out of the way, shall we? they are probably words you’re not accustomed to hearing so i’m just gonna lie them on the table: ned and nead.
bet those weren’t the n words that came to mind. ha, gotcha.
ned stands for no evidence of disease. and, nead is no evidence of active disease. both of these acronyms can be used interchangeably with each other, and/or remission. the only real difference for all intents and purposes that i have found is that the word remission is generally used in early stage cancers. the n words are mostly used for us fours.
wait. i should stop right here and make sure that we are all on the same page — all of these words are good words. great ones even. these are the n words we don’t mind anybody saying. yup. i did it again. i went there. couldn’t help it.
my best guess as to why fours get n words more is that it really better sets expectations. no evidence of something, doesn’t mean that shit ain’t present. it means we can’t see it. no evidence of active disease is even more descriptive. i mean its basically saying, we can’t see the shit moving now, but i can tell the fucker was here and, i know he’s gonna pop up again.
that’s why most of us mbc’s metastatic breast cancer with nead will be in some form of treatment for the rest of our lives. and although hopefully that time will be long, this is also why you won’t hear me use the r word. i’m not sure i’ll say the n word very much either.
nuance. it gets lost on a lot of people. — and that’s the real reason for this post. imho, early stage cancers go into remission. there’s a chance they won’t have to deal with this shit again. us fours. well r words confuse people into thinking we’re cured. and n words, though they better describe it, they still don’t do it to my liking. we are no longer running the race to a cure. we are running a marathon til the end.
basically, we are just varying degrees of fucked.
and that ends my ted talk.
but not my post…let’s talk group.
today, instead of the normal support group zoom, we watched a movie. more specifically a documentary where “…a woman shares her experience from her terminal diagnosis to her final days, revealing simple and impactful opportunities for providers to add compassion and empathy to their practice”.
listen to me. it was a good one. but it was heavy as shit. but also excellent. i wish i could link you to it, but it’s apparently under lock and key. you have to pay, and from my quick googles, that seems to only be an option for internal use at for, and not-for, profit organizations at the present time. highly recommend it if you can find it…if you do, burn me a copy. i would very much like to watch it again.
fin.
FCKuCANCER. 
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