What every oncologist needs to tell their patients up front.

So, if you still pop in now and again, I am alive and kicking and finishing up the last cancer treatment next week. I have hair. Head hair and mustache hair. I'm almost back to work full time. If ya had to throw a dart at the dartboard of breast cancers, this is the one ya want. Because it's fucking curable. Which isn't to say the cure was a clambake, and the residual effects just suck, but here I am and glad to be talkin' to ya'll again.

Now, since I'll see my oncologist next week, I have prepared a few thoughts on what she should say to all of her new patients.

But first a definition:
From the Urban Dictionary: WEIRD SHIT
"Beyond just a strange situation. This is where you scratch your head and get the fuck out of there. Weird shit is something that occurs that can't be fully understood why and how it happened. It should be left alone in most cases.
You do NOT want to be around weird shit when it happens. If you want to take a look at some weird shit, then do it from a large distance away from the weird shit."

And this great quote from my BFF Mary Robin: "'I'm so sorry.' When your new doctor introduces himself, then sits down next to you and holds your hands, you know you are screwed in way that will prove awesomely legendary."

And then comes the diagnosis. And your head spins around on its stem. And then the MD should say: "SHOULD YOU WISH TO SEEK TREATMENT, we have a really good program here". The WISH TO SEEK part I think is really essential. Because, without it, you really aren't really giving total informed consent to any procedure or treatment. You'll be essentially doing what you're told, and take the surreal assembly line trip through the different stages of treatment.

"So look, I don't want to freak you out, but it's about to get weird in here. I can't say exactly when it's gonna get weird. But trust me, it's gonna get weird. And not just Leonard Nimoy singing about Hobbits weird,(although depends on your meds...), but like, 'Hey, check out these body parts falling off type of weird'."

"And I can't tell you when this weird shit will end, but it will."

But after that, there's no goin' back. Don't listen to that bs people feed you about the "new normal" this shit ain't normal. Reality is different -- there will be weird shit spikes, but for the most part it'll be normal weird. Human weird. Your everyday kinda weird, once in a while, as usual.

So there's that. Good luck.