10.18.2006: We are deeply saddened that Miriam Engelberg has lost her battle with breast cancer.Our favorite cartoonist, Miriam Engelberg, who blogs Cancer Made Me A Shallower Person, and publishes the weekly Cartoon of the Week, titles her latest post Bad News. The lack of balance she has been experiencing has been confirmed to be due to a brain tumor, and she will be entering hospice home care.
Miriam Engelberg was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 43 and decided to chronicle her breast cancer journey in a series of comic strips that have now been collected in the book, Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person: A Memoir in Comics. Engelberg, mother of a then four-year-old, used cartooning as a way to cope with the shock of diagnosis, surgery, chemotherapy, support groups, and a second cancer diagnosis.
She has made arrangements with her web designer to see that her cartoons still appear each week. Engelberg warns they might be in black and white. Normally she colors them in on her computer. Here is her latest cartoon.
Cancer just sucks.
1. I was also diagnosed with a large bcmets tumor in my cerebellum (balance & coordination center) in March, 2005. I am ready to enlist Hospice care when I am no longer receiving treatment for metastatic disease, but I'm not there yet.
The initially diagnosed tumor was too large for stereotactic (CyberKnife, GammaKnife) radiation to zap, but only the one was found, so WBR (whole brain radiation), with its myriad risks, was not suggested. The tumor was surgically removed (craniotomy), and CyberKnife radiation followed to "clean up the margins". A nine-month staph aureus infection at the surgical incision site, ensued, and I was on heavy-dose antibiotics over the summer, which seemed to manage to keep the infection from spreading further. In November 2005, a second craniotomy, to remove the now-dead bone plug and the titanium plate that had been installed to join the bone plug removed in surgery with my skull (without my knowledge or informed consent before or for months after surgery) was done, and by January 06, the wound was clear of infection and healed. I still have some mild and infrequent residual dizziness. Three additional, tiny brain mets were later found on routine follow up brain MRIs, and were zapped. I travelled to Ireland in June, am driving up the NW coast in September, and have no intention of stopping treatment any time soon - in fact, I'm applying for the Tykerb (multi-kinase inhibitor that attacks HER proteins from inside a group of cancerous cells) expanded access program "as we speak".
I don't know Miriam or how large/ numerous her brain mets are, and think everyone is entitled to say "no more" when they've reached their threshold for wanting more treatment. On the other hand, I get my treatment at Stanford, nearby, and my oncologist knows I won't sacrifice much in terms of quality of life (QOL) in order to possibly buy a bit more quantity. So, while I'm ready to take the route Miriam has chosen, when there isn't any further treatment that seems to offer me a good chance at keeping good QOL while extending it a bit longer, that time hasn't come for me yet...
Posted at 12:41AM on Aug 19th 2006 by Sandy Greenberg