My Multifocal Life
Is Waiting Also Living?
We wait in our chairs to hear our name called. Some in wheel chairs, Others with carers, canes, oxygen tanks, or neck braces. Soon my
December 10, 2015
My Multifocal Life
Chemo Brain
Most define it as a decrease in mental “sharpness”—being unable to remember certain things and having trouble finishing tasks or learning new skills. When it
October 12, 2015
My Multifocal Life
Infusion for Two
Last week my friend Aiobheann Sweeney and I discovered we were having an infusion (a k a chemo) the same day in the same cancer
May 15, 2014
My Multifocal Life
The Compliment
When friends learn you are in treatment for cancer, naturally they prefer not to believe it. They want to cheer you up. “But you look
May 30, 2013
My Multifocal Life
How Are You?
Bobby Baker’s spectacular Diary Drawings focus on her struggles with mental illness, notably borderline personality disorders. Here, the split experienced in her mind is figured
September 20, 2012
My Multifocal Life
To Tell. Not to Tell
It’s hard to tell people that you have cancer. No one knows what to say and those who care feel sad or scared. But not
July 24, 2012
My Multifocal Life
BC: Before Cancer
In the first flush of diagnosis and treatment–the so-called infusions–I made several drawings about feeling the world had been turned upside down, with me in
July 20, 2012
My Multifocal Life
Did You Smoke?
When people learn I have lung cancer, I’m invariably asked whether I smoked. I usually confess and say yes, I perfected the art of smoking
July 18, 2012
Welcome. Some musings on my current preoccupations with the worlds of illness and the worlds of books, the vicissitudes of living with cancer and the need now, in my eighties, to imagine what new writing might be.