The Jinx

I just turned 63 years old.

I have had cancer three times in my life.

This is the first time I’ve tried to write about it.

Reasons I haven’t done this before:

Who would care? It’s not like I’m the first person to have cancer.

It’s actually pretty boring to talk about. There’s not many ways to tell the cancer story and make it entertaining. I mean, I make a lot of jokes about some of the things I’ve been through, and there have been some truly ridiculous moments on this journey, but 1) they’re only funny if you didn’t die and 2) lots of people know people who’ve died, and they don’t find it very amusing. Oh, and 3) one thing I’ve learned is that what I think is funny about my body trying to kill me, is often NOT what others find funny. (My wordplay about boobectomies do not always land, for example.)

It isn’t a new story. I don’t have any epiphanies to share. I don’t know that I learned anything (and after three bouts, I’d guess that if I was going to learn something, I’d have done so). The big lessons for me seem quite selfish: 1) If you want to be alive, it’s better than being dead and 2) don’t do stuff you don’t want to do; life could be over tomorrow.

See, no epiphanies.

But.

Now that I’m getting old, I somehow feel like I want to at least put on paper (not that THAT’s a thing anymore), what this whole experience has done to (for?) me. I mean, I am still alive, and that must give me some license to be self-indulgent and think that someone out there might find this…interesting? Who knows. Since this is online, you now have the great option of simply clicking away to something better—there must be a cat video on Tik Tok that needs watching.

The cancer cells in my body first launched their attack when I was 35. I’d just been admitted to a Master’s program in English, and was thinking that, slow starter that I am, I was finally getting my life in order. That was my first lesson in the jinx. Don’t trust life to go the way you want it to, and don’t trust good fortune. Sorry, that’s a bit nihilistic, and despite my statement above where I said I didn’t really learn anything, I’ve definitely learned THAT.

Hodgkins Lymphoma. My first oncologist (whee, that’s fun to say, because there’s been others), said, “If you’re going to get cancer, this is the one to get.” How do you take that sentence in, as you’re sitting across from him right after he’s just told you about the crazy shit the chemo will, and might, do to you? It was hard to feel lucky in that moment.

I lived with my parents for 8 months, because they lived close to where I was getting treatments, and because I fucking needed them. I will not bore you with the details, mostly because I don’t remember them that well, but here are a few clips:

Telling my mother to stop staring at me because “I’m not going to die in the next 5 minutes,” and then listening to her cry in the other room. Cancer makes you mean.

Being alone for a weekend, after assuring my parents that I was feeling fine, but so anemic and weak that I could only just get myself off the couch to use the bathroom. Being sure I was actually dying and that I was doing it alone.

Crying on the table as the radiology techs first drew on my bare chest, and then tattooed registration marks so they’d know where to aim the radiation. Those men (and at that time, almost all the techs were men) needed some training on how a woman feels when lying topless on a metal table while being discussed and ignored.

Finishing chemo and radiation, and being told, okay, you’re done, see ya later. And feeling abandoned because…suddenly you’re being told it’s over, but even the ones saying it don’t really believe it, but you didn’t die, so now you have to go back to your life and pretend like it’s all good. And it is. But you don’t trust it. Not anymore. It’s the jinx, waiting in the shadows.

I’d deferred starting the MA, but got back to it, and did the living stuff. A few scary moments here and there, but clear medical reports.

At 43, I got a promotion. Bought my first house. I really should have known better. This time, breast cancer. Big ole lump in the boob. Lots of lymph nodes involved, so back to chemo and radiation. (Quick science aside: apparently this happened to women who’d had the kind of radiation I’d had for the Hodgkins, but I’m not sure how accurate that is.)

This time, though, I stayed where I was, got treatment at the local cancer center. Kept working, soldiered through. I wore my bandanas and scarves into the classroom and told my students it was no big deal. Looked like shit but my friends pretended I looked fine.

Was still mean: told my mother she wouldn’t see me until I was done with treatment. I told myself I was sparing her having to see me look sick, but come on…I just didn’t want to see her trying to pretend that it was going to be okay. Because I surely didn’t believe that. Any time I’d heard that someone had cancer a second time, it was time for the goodbye tour.

But. I made it through and once again was told to get on with it. So I did. And this time, it almost lasted 20 years.

But this time I was ready for the jinx, for the other shoe, for fate or whatever. I had announced that I was going to retire, and from that moment, I waited. It only took a few months. Bad mammo in September, both boobs off in December.

Slightly weird side note: I was actually pretty happy that it was breast cancer again. At least I knew what this one was about, and knew that, at 62 at the time, I wasn’t going to go through treatments again. So, off with the boobs. Cancer out.

And here I am, again. Getting on with it.

A Rant

Val Pexton
Nov 9, 2024
5 min read

I Feel the Need….

This is not going to be a very well thought through or organized, or researched, post. I’m not feeling thoughtful, organized, or capable of research right now.

Did I think (against my best hopes) that Trump was going to win this election? Yep. I so wanted that to not be the case, but if we are going to be honest with ourselves, come on, we knew. I’m heartbroken, scared shitless, angry as hell, all the things I felt in 2016, but more intensely, because we all know now what we didn’t know then about him and his followers.

Here’s what we should also admit: we knew that this wasn’t as much about Trump, or his base, as it is about the state of this country and this world at the moment. So many people, in so many places around the world are living in strife, in poverty, in the middle of war; so many corrupt governments are doubling down on nationalist (and yes, even straight up fascist) policies; so many ultra rich (mostly men, but also their female conspirators) have bought their way into governments…It goes on and on, and I know you all know it.

I am not smart enough to pinpoint where things went wrong, or how to fix it, but I’ve been around long enough to know that we aren’t going about it the right way at the moment. As I said at the start, I’m not going to try to be very organized today, but I need to get my thoughts out into the world:

· On the Democratic Party: When will the party get itself organized? Okay, so I’ve been asking that question for most of my voting life, and part of the answer is also why I’m a Dem. It’s a diverse party, trying to represent a LOT of voices; it’s generally well intentioned, wanting to actually do good things for the citizens; it’s a party of (mostly) critical thinkers who try to understand and explain things. This means it’s not monolithic in its goals, or even it’s strategies most of the time.

I would also argue that this has created a static structure that reacts rather than plans, that goes for the safe and known rather than risking change or new ideas. Biden was a reaction; there was enough bad feeling about Trump at the end of his first term (oh how it galls me to have to use that word, ‘first’) that the party reacted with a safe bet—the known entity that could scrape out a win. I was happy enough to vote for Biden, because we had to get Trump out, and the party hadn’t given me a choice. But in the 3-½ years of Biden’s presidency, where was the planning for going forward? Could the Dems really do no better than prop up a clearly struggling old man until he humiliated himself on the debate stage, with so few days left until the election, that even a decent candidate (which I think Harris was/is) couldn’t possible rally enough votes to beat Trump? I know that I wasn’t the only person asking at least a year ago, why the party wasn’t getting Harris prepped for her run? Or, if they were so unsure about her, why not someone else? This love of Joe Biden lost us the election, in my opinion. Or, it was one of the reasons, at any rate.

· On the state of this country: Again, I don’t claim to be well-informed enough to make a grand diagnosis here, but I do live in one of the reddest, most Trumpiest state in the union, and I can tell you something about my people and why I think they so readily support his rhetoric. It’s not because they are, as a whole, horrible people who want to rule the world with an iron fist. Some do, don’t get me wrong, and racism in this incredibly pale state is strong right now, as is a bias against women, trans and gay people, all the low-hanging fruit in the world of hatred. That all exists here. But what also exists is poverty, a lack of good jobs, a crumbling health care system, and a state government that has been ruled by the same mindset for too long. That’s my list; I am sure that more informed political analysts could add to it. When this is the situation, when so many people are just struggling to get through the month on a paycheck that won’t support any emergencies, it is hard to think about high flown ideals like equal rights and humanitarianism; it’s hard to hear someone tell you that you should want to pay more taxes for a new town swimming pool or even for better social services; you are trying to keep your family in one piece. Sharing and Caring are luxuries.

Of course there are the corporations, and ultra rich, and the corrupt, the racists and misogynists, the transphobes and homophobes…all of whom will always support fascists for their own horrible reasons. I’m not interested in them right now, actually—they are easy to figure out, and the truth is, they aren’t educatable. They aren’t going to change.

I’m interested in regular folks who feel like their country is cheating them, ignoring them, misunderstanding them, even if this all comes from fake news, or bad/wrong information. They feel it. And when someone comes along, even if they’re horrible and a crook and a rapist, and a cheat, when someone comes along and says, “I can make you feel better about yourself; even better, I can make you feel powerful,” why be surprised that they go for that message? Why be surprised when the message of the Democrats doesn’t penetrate? I agree that most of the folks who are rabidly (or even passively) pro-Trump will never actually profit from his presidency, that they are “shooting themselves in the foot” by voting for him, that they will, like the rest of us non-billionaires, suffer through another time of strife and bad economy. But for those who aren’t just wacko, racists who have been waiting for a chance to be violent and horrible, I think this is their version of hoping for something better (like buying a lottery ticket).

Before I get accused of sticking up for Trump voters, I’m not. I’m angry with them; I think they are taking the easy path of being a follower when times are tough; I think they aren’t thinking clearly or intelligently—all of that. But…in my lifetime, my party has found ways to reach those folks. They can be reached. But if all the party does is keep trying the same old strategy, it’s going to keep losing to the simpletons who preach power and hatred.

There, I did say this was going to be a rant.

The Magpie

A Rant

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