Today I experienced the first of two "simulations"--position and marking for future radiation--followed by a CT--Cat--scan. I dreaded the first but not the second, and as often happens, I had my anxieties reversed.

This novel about breast cancer, friendship between women, and the seaside at Glouchester, Massachusetts, reads well but does not ring true for me on all those levels.

I use Dr. Martin's liquid watercolors, trailing colors from the small dropper in each bottle, to express my feelings about my current medical challenge.

This is not to say that most medical professionals aren't competent. I believe that most of them are, most of the time. It's to say that in my short experience, I have had to be alert. One expects competence levels of B, even C, in ordinary life, but "mostly" doesn't cut it in the hospital or medical laboratories.

I thought I'd faced my cancer situation pretty well. Now, truly shaken by the realization that my diagnosis is more serious than I had thought, I'm no longer able to hold on to the small threads of denial I found so comforting, and freeing.

I was just thinking I was home free, with negative lymph nodes, and, thinking this meant I had noninvasive breast cancer, had decided against radiation, when I discovered a serious misunderstanding.

I got off easy with my early-stage breast cancer, but nevertheless, much in my life seems to have changed. Lately I've become conscious of a new loss: my illusion of perpetual health.

On October first of 2004, as I was massaging a sore muscle from weight-lifting, I had that moment that every woman dreads: I found a lump. From there began a series of visits to doctors, laboratories, X-ray departments, operating rooms, radiation center, and other challenges that amazed me with how alert I had to remain.