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Breast Cancer and Barack Obama

I

woke Friday morning having had some of the  best sleep I’ve had in

ages. I don’t sleep particularly well so I appreciate it more than

most.  I half expected to find halls blocked off but I went down and

grabbed some food at the lovely breakfast buffet that Network of

Strength put on.  I love a buffet where you can get fresh fruit, yogurt

and BACON.

I took a seat at a random table and started eating my breakfast when

In noticed a stack of papers just to  my left. There was no one else at

the table at this point so I took and what was it but the directions

for the room layouts throughout the hotel for the day.  So I was able

to flip through these and find which room was being used for the

economic conference, which for the first press conference that Obama

would be holding as President elect.  I jotted a little information

down and then turned it in to hotel management.  I know, I should have

posted it on eBay but what are you gonna do.

The conference had given us all nametags, the kind with an elastic

you wear around your neck that holds a little plastic card holdern.  So

I turned my nametag around, slipped one of the cards that I printed for

my blog in and walked down to the room the press conference was to be

held in.  There was a lovely young women working for the President

elect (I’m so used to saying the candidate, I have to keep changing the

word).

I explained that I was in town for a totally different event and did

not have press credentials. “Come back at 11:30 and you can sign in to

the waiting list”. Wow!  Really !?!

I went to one of the Breakout Sessions about reclaiming sexuality after cancer. I was a little hesitant as the presenter was Michael Krychman, M.D. C.M.. 

In other words, a man, and one who has likely neither had breast cancer

nor been thrown into menopause.  Much to my surprise he was fantastic

and the only negative was that the session was not nearly long enough

for him to cover the subject in the detail that many of us would have

appreciated.  There was a bombshell, for me at least.  At one point in

the presentation Dr. Krychman (paraphrasing) asked if we were waiting

for things to get back to normal and then informed us to stop!  Things

will never be the same and you can never have the normal you’re looking

for again.

I burst into tears.  I’m not sure why, it could have been any number

of reasons but looking back on it I think that it was probably that

believe it or not no one had said it before. I knew it was true, I’d

said it myself, but no one else had never said the words. It didn’t