jueves, diciembre 21, 2006

Reading Alicia's Story

A few weeks ago, L* and I discovered Alicia's Story, which is a column in the SF Chronicle about staff member Alicia Parlette discovering she has a rare (and incurable) cancer. Now this column started running over a year ago, but it was new to us, and we were both sitting on the sofa with our laptops, occasionally saying "what chapter are you on"?

Alicia goes to a lot of the same places we've been to--quite literally.
The elevator at the MMU:



The infusion center. (Note that she was not getting a chemotherapy infusion, and thus she and her friend look better and happier than anyone we have ever seen there).



She even worked with one of the same chemotherapy nurses:



We were glued to our laptops as if we were watching "Los Ricos Tambien Lloran."

When Alicia got a dog, that got us going all over again in our desire for a doggie. Which we're not getting at this time in our lives.

She also shared one experience with a researcher at MD Anderson, which again, reminds you of the distance between the doctors' and the the patients' perspectives


She spent the rest of the time talking about how more research could be done, but sarcoma centers didn't have the money. "Sarcoma isn't popular like breast cancer," she said. "Every time corporations want to give back, they raise money for breast cancer."

I understood why that was frustrating, and part of me was frustrated. But I was also struck by how angry she was because she didn't have money for research, while I was angry because I might die.

No hay comentarios.: