The Unkindest Cut

[boston bean]

‘Memoir of a Debulked Woman,’ by Susan Gubar

By ELSA DIXLER

Published: May 4, 2012

When she learned she had advanced ovarian cancer, the feminist scholar Susan Gubar felt a “sense of liberation” that was almost euphoric. Caring for her elderly, increasingly demented mother had given Gubar a good look at the realities of old age, while her father’s suicide years earlier had deeply injured their family. Here, she thought, was a path between a life cut short and one painfully prolonged — a death (for late-stage ovarian cancer is almost invariably fatal) in her 60s, when her daughters were grown and she was happy in her second marriage and her work.

Maybe it was shock; in any case, the elation didn’t last. In its place came Gubar’s fierce determination to face the truth of what was happening and to live by the values that had shaped her life. (Gubar is best known for “The Madwoman in the Attic,” a pioneering work of feminist literary criticism, which she wrote with Sandra M. Gilbert. They also edited “The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women.”) “Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer” is her attempt to share and make sense of her experience — at once a memoir, a review of sobering medical facts, a compilation of cancer reminiscences and of descriptions of illness in literature and art — delivered in a voice that is intelligent, feminist and devastatingly honest.

Ovarian cancer has been called “breast cancer’s poor neglected cousin.” It lacks the public presence created by armies of activists and shelves of upbeat narratives, and for a terrible reason: mortality rates are so high. According to a 2009 report, most patients whose disease is discovered at Stage 3 or 4 “relapse after treatment and die.” Survival rates, unlike those for many other cancers, have barely improved since the 1970s. And unlike the symptoms of breast cancer, for which early detection is possible, those of ovarian cancer — bloating, fatigue, a feeling of satiety, indigestion, constipation — are difficult to distinguish from “the general noise of the midlife or aging body,” as Gubar puts it. Like Gilda Radner, Ann Dunham (Barack Obama’s mother) and many other women with ovarian cancer, Gubar initially ignored early warning signs, then heard them dismissed by doctors, until it was too late. Finally, her concern took her to a Bloomington, Ind., hospital for tests in November 2008.

The standard treatment for advanced ovarian cancer, which gave Gubar her title, is debulking, an attempt to remove as much cancerous tissue, including organs to which malignancy may have spread, as possible. In an operation that can last six to eight hours, the body is sliced open from navel to pubic bone: “Think of debulking as evisceration or vivisection or disemboweling, but performed on a live human being,” Gubar explains. In her case, the debulking was “suboptimal,” which means that visible lesions remained, increasing the chances of recurrence. Some 50 to 70 percent of debulkings are suboptimal. Although the operation extends life, it rarely cures, and it carries a high risk of complications, as Gubar discovered.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/books/review/memoir-of-a-debulked-woman-by-susan-gubar.html

[seabeyond]

1. personally, very interesting.

"Failing that, I wish for the death she wishes for herself: “that someone would find a way to administer a wee overdose while a slow movement of one of Beethoven’s late quartets is sounding in my ears.”"

i have like four areas i have issue with the breast cancer awareness month. they seemed to manifest at the same time. creating a strong reaction in me how wrong it is. which is ultimately so sad and disgusting for an illness to become political.

i started seeing the i love boobies being given to our boys so they could play the ultimate sexist conditioning game at such a young age, thru an illness that killed. and other offensive sexist ads to get a buck, selling out women as a whole and certainly in the most offensive manner, women that had their breasts removed. how valuable those boobs are, compared to life itself. what an insult that must be.

at the same time, i was thinking about other cancers that did not have the cash, research, notoriety that boobs had. mens prostate cancer, ovarian cancer. that really pissed me off on a fairness scale.

i saw how the org that were suppose to help the women, werent really helping the women but making money off an illness that causes death.

this last year, the corporate profit put it to a point of true disgust. i approach the pink oct with anger now. i want it to go away.

this was an interesting read on this woman and her experience.

[MuseRider]

2. I had not seen the

I Love Boobies slogan. That IS disgusting. For a person who might accept that their value in this society is first and foremost her fuckability that would really add insult to the injury of having a mastectomy to save her life. Even one who knows better would be stung just by the sheer insult. So is the message that we want our boobies because we love to mess with them or is it really we want you to keep your health therefore give money to research to protect your boobies? I think it was most likely meant in a good way but poorly thought out and most likely used in the wrong way by many.

I too hate pink month. It has gotten so out of hand. My horse feed came in pink bags, horse feed. Batteries, you name it came in pink. Nobody cares, except maybe the quiverful people, if you have your ovaries or ovarian cancer, but boobies? Can't have women without them.
I donate as I believe we must, but this is disgusting to me.

Sorry, this is an excellent read but I just had to respond to that right now because it really pissed me off.