Margit’s Note: The C Word

By Margit Detweiler

Hey you, it’s been a while. I’m back and back with a bang. You can see why here.

Spoiler alert, though, this week is all about the C Word. That word we hate to hear, to utter: Cancer.

It’s a big, spreading, ugly black mass of a concept, and something we know very little about — until we have to know something about it. And then we Google. A lot.

As we get older, we know more and more people who have it — our friends and loved ones, our freaking musical heroes. We harangue our doctors to check out every inch of our bodies (justifiably, I might add), we have elective surgery to prevent any possible sightings.

Something I’ve learned in the last month: Cancer is a big thing, but it’s also just a thing.

I used to look at people who’d experienced cancer from a distance. If I’d met them at the same time that I learned they had cancer, it was the cancer that overshadowed them, walked into the room first. But while it changes so many aspects of your life in a crushing instant, it’s not the wholeness of a person.

On another note: I want to thank our recent guest editors — Rachel Sklar, Stacy Morrison, Ann Shoket — who’ve filled in for me over the last few months and the likely more that will fill in from time to time in the future. And I’d especially like to thank Adrianna Dufay, Karen Gerwin and the TueNight crew who have worked tirelessly to keep the lights on. Friends and good colleagues are everything y’all. Everything.

And this week:

• I introduce you to my little friend with a new column called Ovarian Rhapsody
• Ashley Silverman gets radioactive
• Amy Barr ponders the randomness of cancer
• Kelly Wickham holds a meeting with her organs
• Tricia Mackey elects to remove
• Kathleen Warner’s husband had cancer – but it was she who changed
• And Anastasia Liapis reminds us why we should still get that mammogram

And, oh yeah — fuck cancer.

Love,

Margit

p.s. We will be off next week but back on February 2 with more TueNight deliciousness.

(Photo illustration: Helen Jane Hearn/TueNight)

Originally Published January 19, 2016. Updated April 4, 2021.