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The Beatles' "With a Little Help from my Friends" and cancer coping

11/22/2017

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So it is official.  I need three more additional chemotherapy treatments.  I dread it, but I welcome it.   It is something I have to move through to get to the other side.  I will be on chemo during Christmas, and that is not so fun, but once done I get a few weeks to recover before the heavy surgery in mid-to-late January.

Recently, I gave a talk to the medical receptionist course at Nova Scotia Community College.   I drew a timeline across the two blackboards, and together we put an “R” on the line when we came to a place when appropriate medical reception would have turned things around for me.  We identified over 14 such places.  And that was just The Cancer Olympics story, not the awful events surrounding this recurrence, which was also replete with such error.  The students were very engaged.  One put up her hand to say that this class was the most important of any they had – that it shocked them into realizing the great privilege and also the great responsibility associated with their future work.   They gave me a standing ovation, as well as their famous Nosh cookies!

Many have asked why I have not put out a Beatles song on this blog yet.  I am a  fanatic Beatlemaniac.   There are so many Beatles songs that lend themselves to my situation:  “Blackbird,” “Hey Jude,” “Let it Be,” “The Long and Winding Road.”  Paul McCartney still gets letters daily from people who say these songs saved their lives.   But today, I want to choose another famous and charming Beatles song that truly underlines my reality…

“With a little help from my friends,” is a song from what many consider the greatest album of all time, 1967’s Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band.   There are many stories surrounding the creation of this song.  Composed for Ringo, whose limited singing range made for songs that everyone can sing along to, John and Paul spent an afternoon together banging away at a piano for dreamlike hours.  Something of their own camaraderie infuses this loving song.  Touchingly rendered by Ringo, it is a tender and inclusive song, at once communal and personal. 

But for me, this song goes out to all of you who have helped me and supported me:  those who brought food; those who sent cards;  those who called, emailed, and messaged me; those who tended my garden; those who took me on outings; those who visited;  those who offered to put me up at their houses; those who sent me songs; those who read The Cancer Olympics (especially those who wrote Amazon reviews!); those who bought me headscarves and other gifts; those who mowed my lawn; those helped with chores; those who carry my school caseload; those who took on my abandoned patients; and, those who sent encouragement via social media.  So many uncountable acts of kindness and community.   I truly love you all:  I could not “get by” without you. 

What would you think if I sang out of tune?
Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
And I'll try not to sing out of key

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm gonna try with a little help from my friends

What do I do when my love is away?
Does it worry you to be alone?
How do I feel by the end of the day?
Are you sad because you're on your own?

No I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm get high with a little help from my friends
Mm gonna try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody?
I need somebody to love
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love

Would you believe in a love at first sight?
Yes I'm certain that it happens all the time
What do you see when you turn out the light?
I can't tell you but I know it's mine

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm get high with a little help from my friends
Oh I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody?
I just need someone to love
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm gonna try with a little help from my friends
Oh I get high with a little help from my friends
Yes I get by with a little help from my friends
With a little help from my friends

 
 

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Gordon Lightfoot's "If you could read my mind," and cancer scan results

11/2/2017

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After five infusions of chemotherapy, my MRI results are back, but the implications are not yet clear.   The scan showed that the pelvic mass has reduced in volume by 80%; however, the right ureter is still entangled in it.  So although I have responded well to the chemo protocol, it is not enough.  I anticipate they will order more chemo cycles.  I will know more after consulting with the oncologist and the surgeon next week.

The side effects of chemo continue to daunt me.  It seems that as soon as one improves, another takes its place.  You know when you have a bad flu, and it hurts to touch your skin?  It is like that.  I cannot get warm.  The mouth sores and my broken foot just add another level of misery, effort, and frustration to each day.

Despite everything, we pulled off Halloween!  In view of my peg-leg, we adopted a pirate theme.   We scared the teenagers with our scabbards.  When a little kid came to the door dressed as a sweet princess, we would shout, “We pirates be afraid of princesses!” and then scream in terror, which often made the princess dissolve in helpless giggles.  We entertained at least 100 kids with our antics.

Next week, I will be in Halifax at a Canadian Cancer Action Network event aimed at addressing barriers to cancer screening in the Maritime provinces.  So even while desperately sick, I am still slogging away at improving healthcare.

My horrible diagnostic story is profiled in the October 2017 issue of Reader’s Digest!  It is in a piece on speaking up to doctors: the link is here.

Each post, I share the lyrics of a famous popular song, to illustrate the emotions of this journey.  Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting song "If You Could Read My Mind" is from his 1971 Album with the same title. It reached Number One on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart. His voice, so beautifully mellifluous, captures the anguish of his divorce that inspired these lyrics.  To me, this song is about estrangement and loss, and incomprehension of another’s indifference.  Today, I send this song out to Doctor Number Two in my Cancer Olympics story.  She had been my family doctor for 14 years at the time of her negligence in my diagnostic horror-show pathway.  I think of her with great sadness.  I knew her: I thought she knew me.  Does she ever reflect on those events?  On what they did to my life?  Sadly, I will never know.
 
If you could read my mind love, 
what a tale my thoughts could tell 
Just like an old time movie 

'Bout a ghost from a wishing well 
 In a castle dark or a fortress strong 
With chains upon my feet

you know that ghost is me 
And I will never be set free 
As long as I'm a ghost that you can't see

If I could read your mind love,
what a tale your thoughts could tell 
Just like a paperback novel,

the kind the drugstores sell 
When you reach the part where the heartaches come 
The hero would be me

But heroes often fail 
And you won't read that book again because the ending's just too hard to take

 
I'd walk away like a movie star 
Who gets burned in a three way script,

enter Number Two 
A movie queen to play the scene 
Of bringing all the good things out in me 
But for now love, let's be real 

 
I never thought I could feel this way 
and I've got to say that I just don't get it 
I don't know where we went wrong but the feeling's gone 
And I just can't get it back

If you could read my mind love, what a tale my thoughts could tell 
Just like an old time movie,

'bout a ghost from a wishing well 
In a castle dark or a fortress strong

with chains upon my feet 
But stories always end 

And if you read between the lines
you'll know that I'm just trying to understand 
The feelings that you lack 
​

I never thought I could feel this way
and I've got to say that I just don't get it 
I don't know where we went wrong

but the feeling's gone and I just can't get it back.

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