Cancer: A Way of Life

Katy Dickinson, at Berkeley School of Theology, 21 Feb 2023

After a lot of thought, I have decided to write about having breast cancer. Mine has been a relatively minor case (“Level Zero” or “Stage Zero” in a measurement system where the higher the number, the more advanced the cancer). I have not wanted to talk about it because I did not want any more fuss than needed. However, now that I have finished surgery and radiation, it feels like not talking about it makes it scarier and more important. I know so many who have died from cancer, and others who are bravely seeking healing with much more advanced cases. My father, Wade Dickinson, had cancer five times. I am deeply grateful for my “Level Zero” circumstances and for the support of my beloved husband John and family and friends during this challenging experience. I feel blessed to to be surrounded by a caring and loving community who have generously advised, commiserated, and celebrated with me during this long process. I am also blessed to have good health insurance for this expensive treatment. The estimated cost for the surgery alone was $112,124.

The kind of cancer I had is called DCIS – or Ductal carcinoma in situ, sometimes described as pre-cancerous or a non-invasive cancerous lesion. The DCIS was in only one breast. The first sign of trouble turned up in a routine mammogram a year ago. There were discussions and rounds of diagnostic tests by the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center. All of that ended up with my having a Lumpectomy in early January 2023, followed by ten radiation treatments.

Something that surprised me about this process was that unlike every other medical experience I have had, cancer seems more of a lifestyle than a disease. During my treatment, there seemed an unstated assumption that cancer was all there was to my life. For example, nurses would repeatedly schedule appointments without consulting me, assuming that I would be available whenever they had an opening. When I said I had a graduate school class to attend, or was teaching a class, or going to work, they were surprised. This seems to be an indication either that most people have worse cases than mine, or maybe they have less to do. Similarly, there was pressure for me to get tattoos (three small blue dots in several places on my torso) to make radiation alignment easier. I pushed back because I have sensitive skin and have no idea how it would respond to tattoo ink, and it seemed inappropriate to make permanent marks on my body for a two week treatment. Again, the nurses were surprised. On 15 March 2023, when I graduated at the end of my radiation treatments, I got to ring a brass bell and the nurses and technicians gave me a diploma and ovation – and a “mybluedots” pin even though I had them mark my torso with ink and tape rather than getting tattoos.

I am still tired and in a little pain from the radiation treatments, and am waiting for radiation burn to appear at the treatment area. I will start taking Tamoxifen (selective estrogen receptor modulator) in a few weeks. I will also continue to check in with the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center nurses and doctors, probably for the rest of my life.

Katy and John Before Surgery, 4 Jan 2023

Katy in radiation, 7 March 2023

Katy – Radiation graduation, 15 March 2023

Images Copyright (c) 2023 Katy Dickinson. If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right on Katysblog home).

Last Day of Beatles Year

The lyrics of “When I’m Sixty-Four” by Paul McCartney of The Beatles start, “When I get older losing my hair, Many years from now, Will you still be sending me a Valentine, Birthday greetings bottle of wine. If I’d been out till quarter to three, Would you lock the door? Will you still need me, will you still feed me When I’m sixty-four?” Tonight, I end my Beatles Year!

I start my new half-decade tomorrow. Such a delightful adventure!

Katy Dickinson 1957

Katy Dickinson 1961

Katy Dickinson 1967

Wade, Eleanor, Mark, Peter, Katy Dickinson, Bachelor of Arts Commencement, University of California at Berkeley, 1979

Katy Dickinson 1980

Wade, Eleanor, Katy Dickinson with baby Jessica 1989

Jessica and Paul, Nut Tree Railroad, 1995

Katy Dickinson, John Plocher, Wedding 2000

Jessica and Matthew wedding 2011

Jessica and Katy, Beirut, Lebanon, 2013

Katy Dickinson, John Plocher, Lalibela, Ethiopia 2014

Katy and Jessica, Sierra Leone 2019

Katy and Jessica, Horseshoe Bend, Arizona 2019

Paul D Goodman and Katy Dickinson, Cielo Lodge, Golfito, Costa Rica, August 2021

Graduate Theological Union, Master of Theology Commencement, 7 May 2022

John Plocher, Katy Dickinson, Loon Lake, Wisconsin June 2022

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right on Katysblog home). Images Copyright 1957-2022 by Katy Dickinson.

Short Family Visit with Headhunter’s Bowl

Transferring 2021 Christmas presents, 1 May 2022

My brother Peter Dickinson visited briefly this afternoon. We enjoyed lunch with friends and family and transferred 2021 Christmas presents that have been waiting for the opportunity. Pete and I also made our every-ten-year swap of the Headhunter‘s Bowl our mother gave us. I think every family has its odd traditions and this is one of ours.

When Pete and I were little kids, our mother (Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson) bought special Christmas present for our father (Wade Dickinson). We were so curious that she said if we could guess what it was without unwrapping the package, we could have it. Because it was such an odd thing, she was sure we could not guess and gave us unlimited questions. Eventually, we did guess that it was a very old wooden headhunter‘s serving bowl from the Solomon Islands. (I remember we had to get out a global atlas and narrow down the location by global quadrants and then ask many questions about what the Solomon Islands were historically famous for.) Ever since we were old enough to have our own homes, Pete and I have been trading our strange bowl back and forth. It is now Pete’s turn to play host.

Note: The San Francisco store where my mother bought the bowl said it was from the Solomon Islands. Its design looks similar to the Kava bowl of Samoa or Fiji.

Friends and family lunch, 1 May 2022

Dickinson family 1 May 2022

Transferring Solomon Islands Headhunter’s bowl, 1 May 2022

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Nuclear Power Plant, Craters of the Moon, Burney Falls

On Thursday and Friday last week on the final leg of our great road trip, Jessica and I toured the Experimental Breeder Reactor I (EBR-I) near Arco, Idaho, Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, and Burney Falls. My father, Wade Dickinson, was a nuclear physicist who researched large power reactors at the time EBR-I was active so he may have visited the site. While at Craters of the Moon, we walked the Devil’s Orchard Trail, climbed the Inferno cinder cone, and explored the Boy Scout and Beauty ice caves. (We did not see any bats.) Jessica had not seen McArthur–Burney Falls Memorial State Park before. With 100 million gallons of water daily falling 129 feet, the falls are impressive! On the last day, we kept getting stuck behind big trucks carrying stacked bales of alfalfa so we drove through a shower of grass much of the way home.

Photographs Copyright 2019 by Katy Dickinson- with thanks to Jessica Dickinson Goodman.

Postcast Interview

I very much enjoyed being interviewed by Akshay Birla for his “Life of the Mind” podcast last month. He just published the interview as “Episode 19 | Katy Dickinson on Technology, Mentoring, and Religion”.

Katy Dickinson has been around the tech-block. Hired by Eric Schmidt at Sun Microsystems, she literally wrote the book on the software development lifecycle that Sun used for release of almost 10,000 releases. She is a technologist, entrepreneur, mentor, and writer.

In our conversation Katy talks about her work as a technologist on creating processes:
A process has to not assume that you have world-class people working on it. A process assumes that that not everybody — while they are good-intentioned and competent — [is] perfect. You have to have a system that allows for lack of perfection but can work if you have the best that there is.

and the futility of only having excellent coders:
A good coder is a wonderful thing to have but you have to create something that the customer wants and feels comfortable with. Good coding and user experience are sometimes at odds.

But we spend the most of our conversation talking about mentoring programs that deliver high return-on-investment, and the intersection of religion and technology.

On the importance of example and networking provided by the Grace Hopper Celebration:
While they may be the only women in the room – which has certainly been my experience in 30+ years in the Silicon Valley – there are a lot of rooms.

Listening to your own recorded voice is always surprising – it sounds so different from the inside!

Happy New Year!

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Benefits of Dementia

On this, my daughter Jessica‘s birthday, I want to honor and thank her for her creativity, love, and generous heart. It is such a pleasure that she and Matthew live here in San Jose, not only because I love and want to spend time with them but also because Jessica has made time each week for my mother Eleanor (her grandmother), to help her get all that she can out of life, despite her dementia and other health challenges.

In a recent conversation, Jessica told me she keeps a mental list of what is good about dementia. After a pause during which I reoriented my thinking about this degrading and frustrating disease, I remembered that in 2008 I made a similar list of some of the benefits of having a disabled child.   Here is Jessica’s list, plus some additions:

Benefits of Dementia

1. Good Surprises: Jessica told me about man with dementia who would order socks or books or other needed items for postal delivery. By the time the packages arrived, he had forgotten he himself had ordered them. He was sure he had a loving friend sending him surprises that were just what he wanted.
2. Making a Statement, Again: When my mother saw Jessica in a politically provocative tshirt, she was delighted. Later that afternoon, Eleanor noticed the shirt for the first time, and was delighted again.
3. Keeping Contact: When my father Wade died in 2011 at the age of 85, Eleanor lost her greatest fan. They had been married for 59 years, fighting and arguing all the way. Eleanor’s dementia has softened that loss. Sometimes she speaks of Wade as if he is in the next room.

What would you add to this list of the benefits of dementia?

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Images Copyright 2016 by Katy Dickinson

Republican Elephant Killed in Accident (1956)

I grew up knowing about Dolly, the baby elephant my parents took care of during the August 1956 Republican National Convention. I was sad today to learn the end of her story. I have been looking through a family treasure box recently and came across a folder of newspaper clippings from 1956. Some I had seen before – of my parents dressed in Indian finery escorting Dolly, an eight month old elephant from the Louis Goebel Wild Animal Farm in Southern California. There were cheerful news stories from New York, Chicago, Pacific Palasades, my mother’s hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, as well as from the San Francisco Bay Area. Dolly as the symbol of the Young Republicans, went to all of the convention social events and even greeted President Eisenhower (who was successfully re-elected several months later). She was usually pictured wearing her big “Elephant License 1” from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).

It was a shock to come upon two final news stories about how Dolly was killed in a traffic accident when the truck taking her home from San Francisco overturned. She died near Watsonville, California, in need of a blood transfusion and far from any elephant who could give it to her.

Four years later, by the 1960 presidential election, my mother had become a Democrat, firmly opposed to my father’s continued support of the Republican party. 1960 was the first election I remember: my 3-year-old self was so delighted that my candidate, John F. Kennedy, won.  I wonder if Dolly’s death had anything to do with my mother’s shift in politics?