Lately I’ve been talking to the offending body part. “What’s the matter with you? Why are you turning on me? What have I done to you?”

I’m curious whether others who receive a diagnosis of serious illness talk to the affected organs or limbs. At least I can see mine. I can’t imagine directing questions to a pancreas or spleen. Where would you even look?

Doesn’t matter. I’m not getting any answers.

They say the first thing a woman does when she’s diagnosed with breast cancer is to question how she might have gotten it. Which of life’s choices could’ve led to it--garden pesticides, household cleaners, birth control pills, children/no children, hormone replacement therapy/or no HRT, alcohol, smoking or second-hand smoke, our drinking water?

Some years ago a survey was done in Marin County, Calif. because the county’s incidence of breast cancer is so high. I had to laugh at some of the theories that surfaced afterward. One of them postulated that the women of Marin drink more alcohol and are more apt to subscribe to HRT. Well, a liver dysfunction has prevented me from drinking alcohol these past twenty years, and I never had hormone treatments. Let’s broaden this research.

On November 18, 2009 there is a community forum to do just that. It will look at the connection between breast cancer and the environment. I hope I am strong enough to go. The forum will be held from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Cavallo Point Lodge in Sausalito. The keynote speaker is Dr. Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program. The event is free, but they want people to register at http://www.zerobreastcancer.org/. (The site also gives seven ways to reduce the risk of getting breast cancer.)

Maybe I will see you there.