Carole King and All That

♫♫We felt the earth move under our♫♫...uh...okay so we were laying down!  It was 5:05 AM after all.  We thought the cat was jumping up on the bed, and off, and on....--what?  She's a big cat!!!  Only the door was closed.  No cat.  We were having an earthquake --  Confirmed later -- as a 3.6 shaker -- it's not our first, we had a series of them around 20 years ago.  So much so the State put a seismograph not too far from our home, but has since removed it. Still disconcerting; still unusual for the DC/Baltimore area. 

Speaking of which, in the middle of this brutally hot summer, our heat pump has died.  As a new unit, it's had three new compressors -- count them 1-2-3!!!  I believe we've got the famous model, the Trane Lemon.  They say it needs yet another new valve that they can't put in until Monday, but frankly, we've had it.  We want a new heat pump!  The company that installed it at least has loaned us a window unit that we've put in the bedroom and we have a unit the girls used in college in our kitchen.  In the words of Rosanna Rosannadanna, "It's always something."

I'll Say it Again....

This post is of particular importance to me and so here it is, yet again.  Blessings, Kathy

Sunday, April 5, 2009

The Club and In Memory of Gilda

I read for lots of different reasons. Sometimes I want to learn, sometimes I want to be entertained, and sometimes I just want to escape! Having read some pretty commanding stuff lately, I chose to read The Friday Night Knitting Club (2007) by Kate Jacobs. I thought this would be a combination "chick lit"/learn something/appreciate women's issues kind of read. And for the most part it was. Until I got about half way through the book when I realized I didn't know that much about the main character -- enough to like her or want to know her. There seems a huge disconnect about the way she sees herself and the way others view her -- repeatedly; annoyingly. Granted, this is often part of the human condition: a universal theme. But there is more.

An author walks a treacherous road in character development. She can't divulge too much about her characters, but must take care to 'hint' to her readers along the way, otherwise occurrences fly out of left field -- literally and figuratively jolting her readers. Great literature contains surprises, but they still have to make sense -- some modicum of information given that allows the feasibility of the events to take place. For those of you considering reading this book STOP HERE. I'm about to give away the ending.

In The Friday Night Knitting Club the main character goes to her gynecologist after a long lapse in visits, where she learns she has an ovarian tumor that 'looks malignant.' Only after the diagnosis and radical hysterectomy does the character mention that she felt occasional bloating. In her defense, Jacobs does briefly mention that ovarian cancer is a 'silent killer' -- that by the time symptoms are noticed, it's often too late. This is accurate medicine, but it's not appropriate plot or character development. After her course of chemo, Georgia Walker, doubles over in pain and dies in the hospital a few days later.

There is a big reason why this upset me so. First, I've taught and read enough literature that I recognize good plot and character development when I read it. And probably more importantly, on May 29th of this year, I celebrate my sixth anniversary of wellness. It was on this day in 2003, that I was shocked to discover I had ovarian cancer. The tumor had been growing for quite some time and I had 'quiet symptoms' but symptoms nevertheless. Scheduled for what we expected was the removal of four small cysts on my left ovary (about an hour's procedure via a laparoscopy), I would be released from the hospital the next morning. (I had been pre-warned, however, that if the cysts were at all suspicious, the means by which they would be removed would change). After about seven hours of surgery, being cut from above the navel to the symphisis pubis, and a radical bi-lateral hysterectomy and appendectomy, I awoke groggy and in pain to the truth.

When a psychologist came to see me the next morning and asked what I knew about ovarian cancer, all I could think about was Gilda Radner and her valiant struggle with ovarian cancer and so replied, "Everyone I've ever known who has had ovarian cancer is dead." She told me that ten years prior this was very true, but there are many more survivors now. She was right. More and more women survive this 'silent killer' every year. Knowing this Kate Jacobs does every one of us who have survived ovarian cancer a great dis-service.