American Optimism and Breast Cancer Commercials

I can't imagine more of a fun challenge than metastatic breast cancer--going by the various American commercials advertising Ibrance, the stuff that's keeping me alive (oh, with the shot of Fulvestrant in each buttock every month, the needle as long as a chopstick). I should be grateful, and I am--all this is much nicer than the chemo infusions I had before, which made me sleepy and nonfunctional and are allegedly chemically cousin to mustard gas. But the idea that cancer is merely pesky, that you can forget all about it--ahh, the commercials make that seem possible: "Alice calls it her new normal . . . because a lot has changed--but a lot hasn't." Or this line: "Metastatic breast cancer never quits . . . so neither do I!" Go, prizefighter! The voice-over tells you the stuff is great at "delaying disease progression" but no one can tell you how many golden drops of life that delay contains. Eight ounces? Just a teaspoon? How about the Atlantic ocean? I'm reminded of Thor getting tricked into saying he could finish off a whole drinking horn . . . only to discover that it was attached to the sea. I want that ocean--the ocean of life. The days when I never thought in terms of limited time, but in terms of forevers. I assumed a great deal. I assumed I'd live to see my children married, to become a grandma, to write a few more books, to get some second honeymoons with my husband. But what if the Ibrance only works for another few months? Then there's the Verzenio! (Originally I had a video in here, but it's impossible to load). What you see: a beautiful young woman saying "Metastatic breast cancer is relentless. But so am I!" Then she's helping her little ballerina daughter twirl and running about in a state of frantic maternal, housewifely bliss. We're in a time warp approximating 1955, socially, but that medicine is really good; I'm taking it's cousin and I feel fine, apart from my Brillo queen hair, which of course the lady in the commercial doesn't have.

Yeah, cancer's tough, but so am I! Okay, got the message. You can look young and gorgeous even though all these meds are for postmenopausal women. Meanwhile, enjoy forgetting all about cancer. If I forget something that big, it's likelier a sign of brain rot, one of the side effects listed on the back of the package. The drug companies don't use that term, but when your estrogen's chemically compelled to dry up the first thing to go is memory. Am I complaining that big Pharma is really inventing big ways to prolong my life? Of course not. I'm inclined to find perkiness suspect, is all. I'd go for a commercial with dark humor or wit. I'd go for anything that doesn't call cancer "a journey." I'd go for something other than battle imagery, with the women as the lone fighter against the big bad monster. The underdog kicking the giant "to the curb." That American underdog stuff is old. I want something new: in the meds department it should be sweet, chewable, painless and entirely lacking in side effects. In the cure department it should be, well, complete.