I see I need to make this explicit.

We went through this sixteen months ago, in case anyone's forgotten.

I am now in a fight for my literal life. I do not need added stressors. I said, very unequivocally, that advice was neither sought nor wanted. My doctors are handling that, in conjunction with Wings and me. I know what I'm eligible for and what I'm not, and it pretty much all falls into the "not" category. I'm already paying the cash-only poor-person rates. We live in a backwater that's been under the thumb of a Republican governor for eight years with a significant conservaDem presence, so exactly how good do you think my options are?

Here's a hint: They're shit. They always were, and they still are. 

Some of y'all will think I'm ungrateful. But ask yourselves this: How stupid, exactly, do you think I am? I'm not a child. I have two degrees. I have cared for three elders through all kinds of catastrophic and systemic diseases and events, and I was very often the person to identify what they needed. I have been the person, every step of the way, who has asked the questions needed and demanded the info needed to get myself, at long belated last, to this point where there's a chance for me to come out the side of this. I know more about my health, my body, and my current situation than you do, unquestionably. I know what is doable for Wings and me on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. And yet folks always think they somehow know more about what I should be doing than I do?

NOPE.

Stop this. If you feel compelled to say something like that to me, think again and bite your tongue. Because I went through a whole hell of a lot of frankly rude and invasive "advice" from a lot of white women sixteen months ago. I was afraid of dying then, afraid to get my blood pressure up, afraid to respond.

I'm not afraid anymore.

And I will absolutely call quits to "friendships" that are this kind of racist, patronizing bullshit. If you can't express sympathy or good wishes to a cancer patient without dispensing unsought "advice," then you've made it about you. I am not in need of a savior.

I need to survive, and I'm done centering everyone else.

Also, you know HIPAA's a thing, right? So we're not going to have a repeat of white women calling the hospital I'm in, or of texting and calling and demanding info while I'm under the bloody knife, FFS. Because some of ya'll did that. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to provide info when I'm in the OR, which is where people knew I would be heading at a moment's notice, and yet, this was a thing. It's incredibly invasive, and and it's not acceptable, and you pull that shit this time, we're done.

I am under tremendous stress. I refuse to accept these stresses that are not mine to carry.