I set out from the UK with seventy copies of Excisions and forty copies of Breastless distributed between my checked case and my carry-on. Arriving in Boston, it was suggested that I was a geologist/rock-collector. En route from Boston to Montreal this was modified. ‘This is heavy!’ exclaimed the kind and very strong young woman who somehow…
Category: Medical Humanities
Reading at the Yawkey Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, 4th October 2012
The brand new Yawkey Center of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is impressive. The architects consulted with staff, visitors and patients to create an ‘environment designed from the ground up to foster healing and maximize patient safety and comfort’. There is really wonderful art (350 pieces – some especially commissioned, some on loan from the Museum of…
Flying west
Yesterday evening I crossed the Atlantic, into the setting sun. Seven hours of dusk. I have come to Boston to talk and read poems at the Blum Resource Center of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on Thursday 4 October. This is such a privilege. Here is something about the Dana-Farber: Dana-Farber employs more than 3,680 people….
More goodbyes
Until my risk-reducing surgery in December 2006, I was screened twice a year. That was a lot of mammograms, scans and breast appointments, over the years! When I was finally discharged, six weeks after my operation, it was quite something. 27 January, 2007 The surgeon looked visibly relieved to see me so well and ‘happy’…
The compulsion to write
During the days and weeks after surgery, the only thing I wrote, apart from emails and short notes and shopping lists, was my journal. That writing kept me going, it was a necessary link with my old self, and a way to watch myself become my new self. 2 January, 2007 All I really want…
The other side
I’ve never been a particularly good sleeper, but during the weeks immediately following my surgery, sleep was a very precious commodity indeed. So was patience! 21 Dec, 2006 Ten days exactly since the operation, since coming round in the recovery room, the white walls gradually swimming into focus, my ears stuffed with pain relief, a…
Final preparations
Tonight I launch my pamphlet Breastless (Pighog Press) – a selection of eleven of the Self-portrait without Breasts poems alongside some of Laura Stevens’ photos, together with an article by Gareth Evans on the science of hereditary breast cancer. Five years ago I was in the last few weeks of preparing for surgery. 24 Nov,…
Decision
The truest decisions are discovered, not made. They form when you’re looking the other way. You simply need to recognise them. It was a very good friend who helped me realise that I had already formed my decision to go ahead with the surgery, but that I just couldn’t speak it. Now the other decisions would…
Holding my breath
I’m doing a lot of breathing exercises and voice work at the moment, in preparation for various readings and performances – the launch of Excisions tomorrow September 16th, then the first performance-with-photos of Self-portrait without Breasts on October 4th. All through autumn 2006, the weeks of decisions and waiting, I had to remember to breathe…
Fear
The modern word ‘fear’ is descended from the Old Saxon word ‘var’, meaning ambush. I found I was strung out between different fears, feeling ambushed time after time: chronic fear of developing breast cancer, fear of the effects of that on my family, fear of taking preventive action, fear of making the ‘wrong’ decision, gut-wrenching…
Clare Best 