Something

Saturday Snippets

I haven’t written a “snippet” in so long you probably forgot about them, but I’ve been planning this one all week. It was going to be about make-up. Today I changed my mind. It’s going to be about cancer. ‘Cause . . . you know. Make-up. Cancer. Interchangeable.

Okay, maybe not.

My What’s a Jenn Story? page frankly tells you that once I had breast cancer. In 2008, to be exact. What it doesn’t tell you is that, while I was able to avoid (refuse) chemo, I agreed to take a hormone suppressant called Tamoxifen for five years. If you do the math (but don’t worry–you don’t have to–I don’t like math, either) you can guess that I’m almost done. During my five years, however, studies have shown that women taking Tamoxifen have even more benefits if they take it for 10 years! Woohoo!

Here it comes, to save the day?

What previous studies (and people’s lives, doubtless) have also shown, though, is that sometimes? Tamoxifen causes other kinds of cancer. Uterine, specifically.

No. I don’t have uterine cancer. At least, I am choosing to believe that at this moment, I don’t have uterine cancer. Or any other kind of cancer. But I am having side effects. I’ve had them before. The most debilitating ones were migraines, which we talked about last year, and which went away for a while, though they’ve come back. But they’re still not as bad as they were, and therefore, they are not what’s concerning me right now. What’s concerning me right now is “Aunt Flo”–also known here as “the monthly visitor”–who arrived two weeks early, has been visiting for two weeks now and doesn’t look anything like she usually does. (Please don’t make me spell out what I’m actually saying here. This is bad enough.) She’s freaking me out.

A while back I observed that “everybody’s going through something,” and offered to pray for you if you are. Now I’m asking you, if you’re a praying kind of person, to please pray for me. I’m not sure for what, exactly. Maybe that I just not be worried. I’m not really afraid of cancer–or of dying–but I still don’t want to have it, and I love my life and my husband and guess I just want to stick around a while.