 After a year of breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, I now think of my right breast like one of those tiny dogs that can be carried in a purse. Of course, my breast goes everywhere with me. I am not sure if this part of me has legs or if it is just a cute bobbing head with a cold nose, but like any privileged, spoiled pet, my breast eats up a lot of my time, and I’m always whipping it out to show someone. Together, my breast and I have had more views than Lassie, and we’re not even on TikTok. I’ve named my pet Lymphedema. I am certain that must be the name of a Roman Goddess, one that comes alphabetically after Febris, the Goddess of Fever, and before Minerva, the goddess of pretty much everything else including wisdom, medicine, commerce, handicrafts, poetry, the arts and war, a woman for all seasons and all reasons. Lymphedema is in good company. I am afraid my Lymphedema became full of herself not because of her namesake but due to the frequent picture taking. There was the mammogram, the ultrasound the ultrasound-guided biopsy, the ultrasound to insert the clips prior to surgery, the MRI, another MRI, a CAT scan, imaging during radiation treatments, another mammogram, another ultrasound, and then still photos when she developed redness, thickening skin and a spreading rash. And during various photo ops, attentive techs always asked what music I would like them to play. While I would have preferred a relaxing James Taylor song list, for Lymphedema’s sake, I always requested How Much is that Doggy in the Window. A lot of poking and petting went along with the many photo opportunities. There were the doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, mammogram techs, ultrasound techs, radiation techs, oncologists, students, and even a visiting scholar! The scholar pretty much stared into his cell phone the entire visit. I am not sure if in his role as scholar he was taking notes, photographing my breast, or watching TikTok videos. Lymphedema is convinced he was texting his Albanian colleagues about the rare and beautiful Lymphedema. Whatever he was doing, his presence seemed to unsettle the usually confident and friendly young, male radiologist. Rather than touch Lymphedema during the exam, he asked, “Can you just hold it up?” I think the awkwardness of the situation may have offended Lymphedema. But in prouder moments, Lymphedema and I mastered important poses including the classic shoulders-back, elbows-bent, arms at side and hold it while the judges look for bumps, puckers, rashes, and burns. While that was easily mastered, I recently learned that I now have to exercise Lymphedema. Turns out that just carrying her around and popping her out for show-and-tell was not enough. She now demands a daily walk! And then I have to grab her in a football hold and spin her in circles both clockwise and counterclockwise. Through this long year, Lymphedema has become socialized and obedient learning the commands for each important event. Her appearance is improving along with her attitude. We are getting up to date on our vaccines for the coming year, and I am becoming a better handler so that I can highlight Lymphedema’s best structure—this is known as the stack, and we are stacked! Although I am not sure if Lymphedema will ever enjoy the hands-on examination or being looked over by the judges, this year of obedience training has deepened our bond and improved our communication. Lymphedema is now much better behaved and has not barked at me or anyone else all year. I think we may be off to Westminster for the annual Dog Show. As a team, Lymphedema and I may not be much in class but we are best in show. Together, we have come through like champions. Now, beam me up, Scotty. I need a new sport.
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 “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Arthur Fletcher, United Negro College Fund “In my head I was thinking.” The speaker loses me right there. His brain may be a luxury liner, and he may be about to tell me the secrets to world peace, climate change reversal, and how to grow thicker, more luxurious hair, but my thoughts dive overboard. I replay his words while awaiting underwater rescue: “In my HEAD I was thinking.” “In my head I was THINKING.” I want to interrupt the speaker and ask, “Where else would you be thinking?” But my son’s insistent voice tugs on my mind in the same urgent way that he pulls on my arm in a department store when I am about to confront a shoplifter: “Mom, it doesn’t work that way anymore.” Oh! And uh-oh! Another reminder that I am either touched or out of touch, drowning in a sea of changes. The most fundamental truths no longer hold water: now we must qualify where our thoughts come from. No expert, but ever curious about why people do what they do and say what they say, I take a deeper dive. What better arena to find people talking than in politics? I listen. I try to grasp the thoughts behind the words. I try different news sources, and then I ask myself: Did that really come out of the head of a person educated at Penn? Yale? Harvard? Stanford? Pretty pricey educations. And in my head I think I have found the reason to forgive student loans. Just to be sure it’s not just me struggling with the question of where thought comes from I turn to a friend about one of her recent experiences. Needing assistance in a store, my friend approached the customer service desk where another woman was already waiting for help. No one came to staff the desk. After waiting a bit, the women approached an employee stationed in the self-checkout area to assist customers who, shockingly, were having problems with self-checkout. On the surface, it seemed like the customer service representative and the two women shared the same language, but this customer request for a manager or someone to assist them just did not seem to compute in the young employee’s head. Finally, he pulled a response from the same pocket where he keeps his much smarter phone: “There’s no one here that can help you.” End of discussion. Problem unsolved. My friend, a very bright woman who carries a big engine in her own head, persisted, “Well, who would you call if the store caught on fire?” That seemed to get the lights flickering in the young man’s eyes: “Oh! That would be Tom?” “Well, could you call Tom?” Tom never appeared but the two women with the thinking heads solved their own problems. Back at home, I watch a neighbor walk down our shared hallway, dripping and dropping food onto the carpet as he goes. Not unnoticeable, and yet he keeps walking. Keeps dropping. Keeps spilling. And steps in it! Days pass. No attempt is made to clean up the mess. His smart phone is on and updated, but his beautiful head is on lockdown. At work people appear to be busy on their computers. They receive a constant stream of music and podcasts from their earbuds. As their minds process all of that sensory stimulation, I wonder: where do they think? And when? I would ask them, but they can’t hear me. Wonderful people I’ve known for a lifetime are suddenly up in arms about a variety of conspiracy theories. Salacious, crazy ideas picked ripe from the internet and social media are turning their good minds into debris fields. No thought or fact checking required. All of their mental input is handpicked and arranged by AI the new thought generator. I contemplate the notion of “artificial” intelligence. Is that an oxymoron? Or a bad substitute like ill-fitting dentures? Whatever AI is, it bears a shocking resemblance to the artificial additives that enhance the color, flavor, shelf-life, and addictive qualities of processed food. All of the flavor but none of the calories. And none of the nutrition. Seems to me the food giants do their thinking in their wallets. Never mind that artificial ingredients have led to an obesity epidemic that is the leading cause of death in America. Perhaps they learned this approach from the tobacco industry whose product is known to kill one out of every two of its best customers. And so, in my head, I ponder: What does this new artificial substitute for thought mean for our minds? After tobacco, it was food. Now it is technology. We are already experiencing AI poisoning. Maybe we will eventually kill each other. And like the tobacco and food companies before them, big tech owners will stand back and claim it was all “freedom” regardless of their industry’s psychological manipulation. But, by then, the big tech guys will own all the real estate on Mars and the only rockets to get there. Don’t you love freedom? The life of the mind is under siege. The future of thought is not looking good. What is to become of that vault of jewels that makes us human, the many faceted gems of thought, wonder, creativity, and empathy polished by time, experience, education, flexibility, maturity, and relationships? What happens when our heads are as junk-clogged as our arteries? A poor swimmer in these uncharted waters I doggy paddle to stay afloat. I conclude that psychologically manipulated information--no matter the volume--is not thought any more than Cheetos are nutrition. To the in-my-head-I-was-thinking-guy—I owe you an apology. And some credit for trying. |
AuthorLilli-ann Buffin Archives
December 2024
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