(Title image: Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash)
Well, I tried a thing…
In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I decided to try an “Ask Me Anything” stream on a streaming platform called Twitch.
Twitch is primarily a game streaming platform although there are also art streams, animal streams, science streams and a variety of other worthwhile (and some not-so-worthwhile) streams.
I’ve streamed video games there before—because after cancer, playing horror games in virtual reality is not as scary—so I was familiar with the workings. Additionally, with progressively more younger women getting diagnosed with breast cancer, I felt that it was appropriate to reach out to a younger community.
I wanted to give people a chance to ask questions about the breast cancer experience that they might not feel comfortable asking someone they know who has the disease. This was based on my own experience decades ago; a fellow student was diagnosed, and suddenly I wasn’t sure how to talk to her. I didn’t want to say the “wrong” thing, afraid that I might upset her or otherwise “remind” her about her cancer, as if she had forgotten.
All this was, of course, ridiculous, because she herself was very open about the disease and talked about it to us freely. She’d let us know how it was going, sometimes came to class wearing only a hat on her bald head, never showing any indication that speaking about cancer made her uncomfortable.
The issue wasn’t my friend, it was me, and I honestly didn’t give her as much support as I could have. I probably looked like I was pulling away but the reality was that I just didn’t know how to speak to her for fear of hurting her.
(Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash)
There were questions that I could have engaged her with like, “how sick do you get from chemotherapy”, “what does your treatment plan look like”, “what type of breast cancer do you have”, “what are you looking forward to most when you’re done?”
Additionally, I wondered about things like, “what is the survival rate for your cancer”, that I would have never asked her for fear of really being inappropriate. But I was still curious (keep in mind, this was prior to widespread usage of the World Wide Web/Internet, so I couldn’t google the info).
All of those questions are the ones that I wanted to be available to answer on my stream. If you’ve been reading my blog posts, you probably know a lot about my own situation. I’m not shy about sharing.
But a person with a co-worker who was recently diagnosed, like my younger self, might not want to ask them.
So, I gave the Q&A session a try…to a whopping zero viewers. And that was okay because I wasn’t sure how it would go. I talked almost non-stop about what my breast cancer experience was like. It was cathartic to be sure and I was surprised that I was able to speak for as long as I did. Eventually, my throat started to hurt (water? I’m supposed to drink water?) and I called it a day.
It was also a touch out of my comfort zone. I feel like I need to do something useful with my life and I’m running out of time. This stream is one way to shake myself up at the age of 58 and get used to taking risks again. Ouch.
Just for kicks, I’ll be posting the unedited video that I created from the Q&A session although I admit, it took a bit for me to get going so it’s very stream-of-consciousness. I’m still in the process of uploading it, but will post it once that’s all done.
I’m tentatively planning to do this again next Saturday morning at ~9am PDT, assuming my voice recovers by then. If you’re interested it taking a look, you will be able to access the stream here: https://www.twitch.tv/franticshanti.
Frantic Shanti 