OOC: Cancer Sucks; What Fran Means
Angela:
My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was in high school. And it sucked. It was at stage 1, but even that scared the shit out of me, with biopsies and radiation and her right breast constantly hurting, misshapen and colored with the blue dye injected in it for imaging purposes. We called it Frankenboob, often shortened to Frankie or Frank when we were joking around. Like "Can I hug you?" "Sure, be careful for Frankie."
She's been cancer-free (as of her last mammogram) for almost five years. Her mother wasn't been so fortunate.
We called her Pookie, and she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in 2010, and by March 2011, we were saying our final goodbyes. I was leaving Illinois to fly to my duty station in Sicily on the 28th, and that day I called my grandmother three times. She wasn't able to speak on the phone any of them. We thought three was enough, because...it's three tries.
She died while I was en route to Italy.
Tonight was Relay for Life on my base, and during the Luminaria ceremony, I cried my eyes out. For my grandmother, because I hadn't, before.
So, here, let me explain why I'm writing this all in Fran's journal.
Fran
Yes, I'm sure someone looked at the name Francine a second time when they saw what we called my mother's right breast. Frankie. And I'm sure at least one person knows what Fran's mother died of. Breast cancer.
But there's so much more to Fran's connection than this.
Fran's anorexia comes from a personal mythology she has: if I get fat, I will grow breasts and get breast cancer. Yes, that's the true underlying reason she's kept herself so rail-thin. To avoid breast cancer, because having breasts will lead to the disease in her head.
Fran's stutter comes from her alcoholic father telling her to shut up every time she opened her mouth in the apartment, after her mother's death. Eventually, she grew afraid to speak, and no one's ever bothered to pay to send her to speech therapy, nor even really suggested the idea to her.
And Siobhan and Phanuel saw her reaction to the hospital today--it reminds her of the time of her mother dying. I don't think that needs much more detail.
If someone with a time machine wanted to change Fran's character on a fundamental level, the first suggestion I'd have would be to cure Dawn Michaels Kirby's breast cancer. But I'm not sure I'd even be able to write her at that point. The character wouldn't be Francine.
Anyway, thanks for indulging my rambling...I'll be around for a bit if anyone wants to talk.
My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was in high school. And it sucked. It was at stage 1, but even that scared the shit out of me, with biopsies and radiation and her right breast constantly hurting, misshapen and colored with the blue dye injected in it for imaging purposes. We called it Frankenboob, often shortened to Frankie or Frank when we were joking around. Like "Can I hug you?" "Sure, be careful for Frankie."
She's been cancer-free (as of her last mammogram) for almost five years. Her mother wasn't been so fortunate.
We called her Pookie, and she was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in 2010, and by March 2011, we were saying our final goodbyes. I was leaving Illinois to fly to my duty station in Sicily on the 28th, and that day I called my grandmother three times. She wasn't able to speak on the phone any of them. We thought three was enough, because...it's three tries.
She died while I was en route to Italy.
Tonight was Relay for Life on my base, and during the Luminaria ceremony, I cried my eyes out. For my grandmother, because I hadn't, before.
So, here, let me explain why I'm writing this all in Fran's journal.
Fran
Yes, I'm sure someone looked at the name Francine a second time when they saw what we called my mother's right breast. Frankie. And I'm sure at least one person knows what Fran's mother died of. Breast cancer.
But there's so much more to Fran's connection than this.
Fran's anorexia comes from a personal mythology she has: if I get fat, I will grow breasts and get breast cancer. Yes, that's the true underlying reason she's kept herself so rail-thin. To avoid breast cancer, because having breasts will lead to the disease in her head.
Fran's stutter comes from her alcoholic father telling her to shut up every time she opened her mouth in the apartment, after her mother's death. Eventually, she grew afraid to speak, and no one's ever bothered to pay to send her to speech therapy, nor even really suggested the idea to her.
And Siobhan and Phanuel saw her reaction to the hospital today--it reminds her of the time of her mother dying. I don't think that needs much more detail.
If someone with a time machine wanted to change Fran's character on a fundamental level, the first suggestion I'd have would be to cure Dawn Michaels Kirby's breast cancer. But I'm not sure I'd even be able to write her at that point. The character wouldn't be Francine.
Anyway, thanks for indulging my rambling...I'll be around for a bit if anyone wants to talk.