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.

Imaginary Cowboy culture

Val Pexton
May 10, 2024
3 min read

September 18, 2022

Today's post is about something that makes me crazy about Wyoming. Now, I'm pretty sure every culture, community, state, or nation, has a narrative about itself that gets perpetuated. We all want to believe some story about ourselves that make us special, or interesting, or important. Human nature, right?

When is it delusional, though? When does the story become bigger than the reality, or worse, when does the story become destructive to the people who believe it?

I grew up on a small cattle ranch, so technically, we were cowboys. I have to say, though, that's not how we identified ourselves. We identified as ranchers. For my family, and a lot of other ranching families, 'rancher' is not the same as 'cowboy.' The men, and some of the women, that I knew did not wear cowboy hats or spurs, or even boots. They wore John Deere caps and work shoes. We had horses when I was young, and my mother could ride like a pro, but my memory is that my father didn't really like horses, and as soon as he could, we started using motorcyles on the ranch. The most 'cowboy' activity my bunch ever did was to go to the rodeo once a year at the State Fair, and I'm pretty sure that had more to do with socializing with friends than participating in the 'cowboy culture.' Cowboys were on the silver screen and in the rodeo arena, at least for me.

I tell you all of this, because the narrative of Wyoming has become one of the 'noble cowboy.' The new motto of the university, where I work btw, is "The World Needs More Cowboys," and a few years ago, our legislature tried to pass some kind of law pushing the "Cowboy Code,"which apparently is about independence and hard work. To be honest, I'm not sure anyone could ever really define what was meant by this, but it was supposed to express what it means to be from Wyoming. As with most Wyoming messaging, the subtext was this: Everyone outside the state is suspect; we don't want any help/interference from outsiders; change is frightening and should not be tolerated; anyone who disagrees is not a true Wyomingite. I could add to this, but you get the idea. This is one of my complaints: the narrative has very little to do with how people actually live here. There isn't some code that ranchers, or farmers, or oil rig workers, or coal miners...or anyone...has ever ascribed to here. But, who cares, right? It's just advertising, just the usual propaganda people create for themselves.

But. I don't think that it is innocuous, or meaningless.

I think this is the kind of messaging that furthers the "us v them' attitude that hurts people. We see this happening on the national level at the moment. One group is constantly being pitted against another. You are either "with us" or "against us." Of course, there are bigger issues at play than the stupid stories we tell about ourselves; Race and poverty, religion and politics, all kinds of big picture issues are creating these divisions, which we know lead to violence and destruction of different kinds. My point here is about little old Wyoming, and about the the need by so many here to perpetuate the message that there is some kind of old fashioned cowboy culture that once made this a great place, and that if we could just ignore all the complicated 'stuff' of the modern world, and return to that cowboy culture, wouldn't everything just be grand? As with most nostalgic delusions, the reality is that there was never a time when Wyoming was perfect (because no time or place is perfect); and that what the folks who are trying to force this delusion into laws (the gun-toting, pseudo-Christian, fake pro-lifer, racist, homophobic, misogynistic Trumpers who are in charge at the moment), what they want is for anyone who isn't just like them to shut up, to go away, and to leave them to their pretenses. They don't care about making this state great, or about improving the quality of life for its citizens: they only care about hanging on to the power they've managed to secure for themselves.

End of today's rant. More later.

The Magpie

Imaginary Cowboy culture

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