The Oreos Didn’t Fix Anything

The Oreos Didn’t Fix Anything

May 20, 2025 | Brain Tumor, Cancer, Chronic Illness, Personal

Sometimes I feel sorry for myself and eat Oreos. Today is one of those days. Relative to recent feelings of accomplishment, today sucks. I know that comparison is the proverbial thief of joy, but that doesn’t mean my brain can stop comparing.

I want every day to be a little better than the one before, but that’s not how it works. And the recent weather changes, what with the storms and tornadoes and all, have landed me in the land of elevated pain levels. Which makes me not want to move. Which depresses me.

Shoves Oreo in mouth.

Part of my problem is that I’m fundraising again. I don’t have words to describe how exhausting and demoralizing it is to need money to live while asshat billionaires have asshat far-from-billionaires convinced I’m the useless eater.

At times like this my mind goes back to the insurance company peon who said I didn’t deserve health insurance (and therefore healthcare). I know it’s bullshit—that she’s the reprehensible one—but that doesn’t mean that I’m unaffected. And that doesn’t mean there aren’t days when the bastards get me down.

I hope one day the brain tumor cells I donated to science save someone she loves. Partly because everyone deserves a life free of cancer, but mostly for spite. Because fuck her for living rent free in my head. The astrocytoma takes up enough space.

Eats another Oreo.

Another thing: some days I feel like an untouchable. Though I have plenty of evidence to the contrary, being 8 years out from diagnosis leaves the brain to wonder why I’m not dead yet. And if I wonder that, what must everyone else be wondering? Of course I don’t know, but my brain is very good at imagining people are tired of me existing.

Maybe it’s survivor’s guilt. If so, it’s more self-centered than I thought.

Maybe this Oreo will help.

The forecast says the barometric pressure should stabilize soon, so I hope my complex migraine will fuck off with the storms. It makes me crave sugar, and I feel like everything inside my skin is three sizes too big. I feel like the undersides of the skin of my left side have suffered rug-burn.

It’ll subside, along with the tongue swelling caused by black pepper and the oversensitivity to light and fragrance when the inflammation recedes. But until then, I’ll just have another Oreo.

Without a Diagnosis

Without a Diagnosis

Jun 18, 2024 | Brain Tumor, Cancer, Personal

Thursday is my next doctor’s appointment. The one at the rheumatologist. And let me tell you, I am desperate for someone to figure out what this is. Without a diagnosis, I’m throwing all the proverbial wet noodles at all the walls to see what sticks. So far, each has made its sloppy, sliding descent into a slimy pile on the floor.

After three days of distention and extremely painful gutflation™, my bout with constipation ended in a most undignified manner. I’d try to make you (and me) chuckle with the details, but I don’t have it in me. Literally and figuratively.

It’s hard not to feel sorry for myself. Not because I enjoy being all “woe is me” but because I don’t know how to help myself deal with this illusive mystery illness. Being pitiful is less of a struggle, and sometimes I choose the path of least resistance.

Oncology assures me the brain tumor hasn’t grown and that I don’t seem to have another form of cancer. So I try different things to ease my symptoms—dietary changes, supplements, exercises—and when they inevitably fail, I blame myself for doing something wrong.

It’s bullshit, but it’s internalized bullshit.

“I feel like I’m always doing something wrong,” I say exasperatedly pouting.

“It’s not your fault,” Dan reminds me. And honestly, third-party exoneration of blame is the only thing making me feel the slightest bit better these days. Eating healthier to be healthier is a total sham. Nothing I try helps for long. I’m always back to abject horror in 36 to 48 hours.

I was in this same place mentally before the MRI found the tumor. When I did the rounds with the rheumatologist, the neurologist, and the gastroenterologist. Two out of three for sure didn’t believe me, and I don’t know about the third. Either he believed me or he was so kind his unbelief was undetectable.

It’s dark and lonely here, today. I’m desperate for steroids, though I don’t have any reason to believe they’ll help for more than a few hours either. All I have in this moment—without a diagnosis—is hope, and there isn’t a lot of it.

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