Living With Cancer: Dancing With N.East.D.

By Susan Gubar
The band N.East.D. was joined by supporters on the stage of The Globe Theater in Washington on Nov. two. Forrest MacCormack

The vocalist begins her song with people shocked by a diagnosis they cannot accept, women not even so set up to admit they have cancer.

Starts with denial, there must be some mistake;
Cheque the proper name, check the lab, double-cheque the date.

While electric guitars and percussion join in, the lyrics of the song, "Tertiary-Person Reality," become on to describe turbulent anger, tension and fright that can only be eased by acceptance.


Mensurate success one twenty-four hour period at a fourth dimension
Together we'll get to a better place
If you place your hand in mine.

The symbol of women with cervical, endometrial, ovarian, peritoneal, tubal, vaginal, and vulvar cancers— a teal ribbon—oftentimes goes unrecognized, but these patients practice have their ain rock band. Through the driving rhythms of folk-rock, the band members of N.East.D. accompany a refrain made especially meaningful past the fact that they are all surgeons who treat patients with gynecological cancers. The group started as a embrace band to entertain doctors at a 2008 meeting of the Society of Gynecological Oncologists. Since then they have taken on a mission "to break through the silence of women's gynecological cancer." In the process, they take produced two albums to raise awareness and coin for research.

The band's proper name strikes a special chord with anyone who has had cancer. The acronym, North.E.D., stands for that rapturous moment when patients are told that there is "no evidence of affliction."

The band's debut year, 2008, happens to be the year I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and I detect myself learning from N.E.D.'s Web site nigh the umbrella term — "gynecologic cancers" — inside which my illness resides. The American Cancer Society estimates that about 83,000 women are diagnosed each twelvemonth with cancers "below the belt," and approximately 28,000 die from them. All the same with the notable exception of the brilliant comedienne Gilda Radner, who had ovarian cancer, no glory has emerged to correspond the plight of these patients.

That fact may illustrate how stigmatized these diseases remain. Do women with gynecological cancers notwithstanding find information technology difficult to overcome modesty about hard-to-talk over body parts, even in this current age when such body parts seem weirdly chatty? Nonetheless Eve Ensler'due south historic "Vagina Monologues" and Naomi Wolf's narcissistic "Vagina," I suspect that quite a few women do non want to publicize their human relationship with their genitals — especially when sexual and reproductive organs are imperiled by illness. Who can blame them and more power to them, I think.

After all, the title of the vocal "Third-Person Reality" suggests that people with cancer often feel then traumatized that they lose the power to experience or express their sense of themselves. Alas, they may have morphed from first-person individuals into third-person patients, waiting interminably for this test or undergoing that procedure or paying for some other script for yet another drug — fifty-fifty if, every bit in my lucky case, a caring oncologist offers a helping hand.

There are and have been prominent women whose recognition could call attention to gynecological cancers. Think of the honor-winning actress Carol Channing or Miss America of 1945, Bess Myerson. Other exceptional people were swirled into the swing and sway of N.East.D. for only a round or ii. The British biophysicist Rosalind Franklin lived long plenty to illuminate the molecular construction of Deoxyribonucleic acid, but her death made her ineligible for the Nobel Prize accorded Watson and Crick (who barely acknowledged her contribution). President Obama'south female parent, Ann Dunham, raised two remarkable children while completing a Ph.D. in anthropology and helping to establish micro-industries in Indonesia before she was misdiagnosed with one gynecological disease and died of another. That Dr. Franklin was 37 years erstwhile and Ms. Dunham 52 reminds usa that such cancers do not single out anile women.

A few weeks ago I received a center-breaking email from a female parent whose girl, Taylor Steele, died of ovarian cancer at 17. The Spider web site of the nonprofit foundation Strong every bit Steele informs me that Taylor Steele loved to trip the light fantastic toe, merely she did not go much time with N.E.D. later she was diagnosed at 12.

And so there are people like me who are diagnosed later in life merely can't make full out an N.E.D. trip the light fantastic card considering, unfortunately, we still take E.D. (evidence of disease). That said, I am here to add together that it is possible, if only intermittently, to hum forth with E.D., which has its own sometimes somber but sometimes revitalizing rhythms.

The medico-musicians of N.E.D named their second CD "Vi Degrees" for their six medical degrees, but besides for the six degrees of separation between patients with gynecological diseases and anybody else. The championship reminds me that every half dozen minutes an American daughter or woman discovers that she has a gynecological cancer. Allow the states hope that future research volition develop new detection tools and improved treatments, giving each one a longer time to twist and shout with N.Eastward.D.

Susan Gubar is a distinguished emerita professor of English at Indiana University and the writer of "Memoir of a Debulked Woman," which explores her experience with ovarian cancer.