Part 25. The Return of Cancer: What’s Old Is New Again: Serenity Now!

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Written Monday, 12/20/22 To be continued As many of you readers who have been following my blog series “Blogging for Breast Cancer,” know, I am a breast cancer survivor, I had a mastectomy in 2004; each year I tell my story, I raise money, I try my best to help others. So in 2021, years after 2004, things I have never heard of began to erupt: I had the removal of a papilloma (a benign growth that has the tendency to change) as well as the removal of a LCIS (lobular carcinoma in situ which “isn’t really carcinoma.”) I was … Continue reading →

286→Husband Journey: I Wish I Had a River

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The Levin Farm; Cambridge, New York 1972 oil on canvas Art for a typical holiday card was usually a winter photograph taken by one of us. This painting served well as our annual winter scene one year ~ The muse gets lost in the shuffle of life. It took a friend’s email to jolt me awake. Thank you, Phyllis. I wrote back: Merry Christmas to you and yours. Every year, Robert would toil over putting together a printed tome and winter photo to wish an incredibly long list of people the best for the holidays. It was his annual tradition … Continue reading →

285→Husband Journey: Time Passages

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  November 18, 2022   Robert looks at the ipad.  I say, “can you see? One eye is closed.” He opens it. Years ago he was seeing double; perhaps that was a sign of things to come. We had a special prescription made to correct that. A prism was embedded into his lenses. I have no idea where those glasses are: in one of the many places he was in over the last couple of years: the hospital, the nursing home, the hospital again, triaged in the Bronx with Covid, back to the nursing home. In one of the many … Continue reading →

284→Husband Journey: Wedding Retrospective

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How do you attend your son’s wedding without your partner of almost fifty years? You just do. You kind of depersonalize. You step out of your body, disconnect and swallow the lump in your throat. You’ve rehearsed the event in your mind as best as you could with your imagination as your guide. You observe. It is bittersweet to see a child reach this point but you try to focus on the positive. You smile, you dance, you focus on not falling, you mingle, you try to enjoy the fabulous food. A few nice details: The sun emerged a couple … Continue reading →

283→Husband Journey: More Dreams to Remember

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What? I haven’t written about Robert in so long? Since August? I was flitting with butterflies, I was picking tomatoes, I was  enjoying my flowers, I was fundraising for breast cancer. I have shaken off any guilt and stayed put. I haven’t seen Robert in person for, well, months. And, I have been putting off writing about him. I have, in fact, been trying to take a break and relieve myself of stress. But I do communicate with Robert via Facetime when someone in the recreation department can come in and set it up. Two springs ago, they would wheel … Continue reading →

📌❋Index to Blogging For Breast Cancer, updated 2022, 2023, 2024❋

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Blogging For Breast Cancer On October 1, 2004 I had a right mastectomy. The series was originally published in 2007, and has since been expanded; it seems to grow each year. It appeared on several blogging platforms and I have retained the original comments from people who visited from all over the world. Looking back at the original blogs gives me strength. I link to it annually to fundraise and inspire. The series is called Blogging for Breast Cancer. Cancers of the breast vary as do their treatments, from person to person. Sometimes we are faced with hard choices.  But … Continue reading →

24. The Nipplemania Newsletter, 2022 Edition (Blogging for Breast Cancer): Sneaky

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  It’s October. For years I have been fundraising for the American Cancer Society. It’s all about breast cancer and awareness. Each year I post links to my story. Lately it feels like the main core of the story is in the past and that the story has been evolving. Let me just fill you in.   In February, I had a followup to the lumpectomy and removal of a papilloma which was diagnosed in Spring of 2021 and surgically removed in August. Everything was fine. On to six months later, in August: am MRI revealed something “suspicious.” Then a … Continue reading →

Goodbye to Norm Sherman

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    The Principal of P.S. 201, Norm Sherman, has passed away. And the strange thing is, I was thinking about him around the time it happened. I worked at P.S. 201 from 1987 until my retirement in 2004. I was blessed to have Norm as the Principal for a part of those years. When others assumed the role, it was never the same; his retirement left a huge void in the school, no one could fill his shoes. As a member of The School Based Support Team during that time, we would have a weekly meeting with Norm who … Continue reading →

On Nature, Loss, and Signs

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Butterfly art ©S.Kalish 9/22 On the day that my friend/colleague/school principal passed, I had a dream. In fact it was early in the day, a day dream. This has happened to me many times. I was, in my thoughts, in a meeting with my team and the principal. A typical meeting, our group would meet for the purpose of helping children. And in that daydream I wondered. I thought that the other members of this team have been gone for many years. Sylvia. Jerry. I thought about the principal and what a wonderful man he was. Later in the day … Continue reading →

282→Husband Journey: Dreams to Remember

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August has been speeding up and despite my protests, much of it is gone, pushing me to Fall. I keep busy. I distract myself. There is plenty to think about and plenty I do not want to face. I am having a biopsy under MRI this week for something suspicious that appeared on a recent MRI. The MRI is the new annual protocol for breast cancer people. Like I said, I don’t want to think about that for now, so, let me report on my last Facetime visit with Robert. By the time you read this I will have had … Continue reading →

281→Husband Journey: It’s Automatic

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Over the last few weeks I have been speaking to Robert via FaceTime calls. It takes the stress off of me: I don’t have to sit in a hot car and take a Covid test before entering the nursing home, and, in addition, I have a houseful of stuff with which to stimulate his brain. I am finding that since the stents were inserted to open clogged arteries, he seems to be more alert. When I get a Facetime call from the nursing home, I greet Robert, wait for the din around him to die down and begin, or try … Continue reading →

280→Husband Journey: A Garden of Memories

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Photos of the garden. I take Robert on FaceTime “trips.”   I’ve been lax and lazy. I took no notes on several interactions with Robert. I don’t recall all the things he said. Maybe just the affiliated mood. I am contacted more regularly for a Facetime call and I am finding it very helpful: I can walk around the house and pull out props to stimulate his memory. I “take” him to the garden, have him greet the tomatoes, let him silently marvel at the flowers and at how tall the Krauter Vesuvius Plum Tree has gotten. I go out. … Continue reading →

Nostalgia: The Automat

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New York City / Philadelphia history. Recently, a documentary was made called, The Automat, which was available in several movie theaters scattered here and there as well as various organizations having private showings online which were not easy for everyone to access. You can now, whether you are an Amazon Prime member or not, access the movie and rent or buy it. It is well worth the few dollars. “A charming, fascinating look at one of the first and most unique restaurant chains in America with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Colin Powell.” Link to Amazon Prime … Continue reading →

19. Life Is A Journey But This Is A Trip: The Migraine Morph

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From the “I Tried Everything ” department, my last medications for a number of years, were  self-administered injections of aimovig, then Emgality with a co-pay of almost $160/month. They stopped working. The incidents of episodes was creeping back up toward chronic. It was time for a change. I had my first infusion which requires me to go every three months. When I arrived home after the first infusion, I got an ocular migraine. I told myself the medicine needed time to circulate and to give it a chance. That was last Tuesday. It is over a week later and I … Continue reading →

279→Husband Journey: Playing Ketchup

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So my friends, it’s catch-up time. We are back to Robert and a few of his noted responses during visits. When we communicate I prompt and prompt for a response but there are times when words just come to him and I am pleasantly surprised … I haven’t taken as many notes as I would have liked during in-person and FaceTime calls, but I will say that sometimes my babbling and prompting seem to work. To wit: when I mentioned that our brother-in-law had been ill there was initially no reaction, but if I said, “what would you like to … Continue reading →

Part 4. Greetings, Salutations, and Food: All Mocked-Up. (2)

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The final dozen of mock-ups follow. I have seen lines of copy that is like mine, with similar ideas, appear on the shelves years after mine were printed. There’s no way to prove I came up with the ideas first, that’s how it is with trademarks and copyrights. I’ve thought of contacting a card company or two, (at the time I vowed not to deal with Hallmark which had a monopoly in the industry) to explore the possibility of producing a card line. There are other, smaller companies that are worth supporting. I’ll see.             … Continue reading →

Part 3. Greetings, Salutations, and Food: The Process All Mocked-Up (1)

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    In addition to finding the published greeting cards, I also found the things that led up to them: the stack that we chose not to print, my mock ups, the ink drawings (had to use special ink) the camera-ready acetate overlays, on and on. I remember standing in a print shop waiting for a xeroxing job. There was a girl behind the counter grinning, high, over-dramatically singing “That’s What Friends Are For.” It was 1986. There I was on the other side of the counter, thinking that I was creating a line of greeting cards. Was I nuts? … Continue reading →