There's a terrificly important article in today's New York Times by Jane Gross about the after-effects of chemotherapy, some of which cause otherwise high-achieving women who once juggled ten things at once in their brains and during their day into relying on their electronic organizers for crib-notes. I can attest to that. After thirteen and a half years of relatively mild chemo treatment for breast cancer, I am nowhere without making notes about where I parked my car or who's on my call list. Ask my Hebrew teacher about my vocabulary retention--I was better at it when I studied first year Hebrew in Hebrew School at age 10 than I am today....

The important points of this article are several fold. First and most important: cancer doctors do save lives and there are many more women living today as breast cancer survivors than before. But that means that the after-effects of treatment need to be given as much attention as the treatments themselves and that is not yet the case. No one told me when I decided to do chemo that this type of memory slippage, among other symptoms, could be a side effect. Would it have influenced my decision? probably not, but still, it's good to know so that you don't think you're losing your mind when in fact you are losing your keys ....and your car...

Second, there is an interesting section of the article buried in the jump page for those who still read their Sunday newspaper the old fashioned way-- off-line--and that's how this impacts on women who don't have the resources to be aggressive either financially, intellectually or otherwise in tackling their treatment.

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