Dr. Elaine Schattner's notes on becoming educated as a patient
Dr. Elaine Schattner's notes on becoming educated as a patient
© Elaine Schattner, 2009, 2022 By : Template Sell.
Last night Showtime aired the second season’s finale of the Big C. As usual, there was no detail whatsoever about Cathy’s advanced melanoma or treatment. I didn’t think the show could get worse, in the reality-of-having-cancer sense, but it did. Cathy, who still looks great and complains of no physical problems, determinately runs, walks and […]
Watching the Big C feels like a chore lately. It reminds me of the feeling I used to get when I had to see and examine a patient in the hospital, under my care for some administrative non-reason, who didn’t need to be in the hospital IMO, and whose hospital presence took time my time […]
I almost liked the latest installment of the Big C. Cathy swims, for starters. I could relate. She’s wearing goggles, no less. That’s universal “code” for seriousness about swimming, or acting. She swims well and pretty fast. Within seconds she befriends the competitive girl-swimmer in the next lane and, wouldn’t you know it, the girl’s team needs […]
In this week’s episode, Boo!, Cathy wakes up in the morning eager and ready to start treatment on a clinical trial. The day doesn’t go well – the local treatment center doesn’t have needed information about her insurance, which can’t be tracked down on time, her 15 year old son gets in trouble at school, […]
Last night the Big C returned, not surprisingly with an opening dream sequence. Laura Linney, portraying Cathy Jamison in the Showtime series, is running. The scene turns out to be a nightmare, and she awakens with a headache and her husband by her side. OK so far. Within a few minutes, Cathy’s young oncologist informs […]
(Hopefully a second opinion) When I last wrote on The Big C, a Showtime series in which the actress Laura Linney portrays a woman in her forties with advanced melanoma, I considered some of the options she might choose when the series resumes next Monday night. At the end of Season 1, she elected to […]
I’ve been toying with the idea of messing with a cable TV show’s plotline. At the first season’s end of The Big C, the story’s protagonist decides to accept a harsh and usually ineffective treatment for her advanced melanoma: interleukin-2 (IL-2). Cathy, played by the actress Laura Linney, understands the goal is not for a […]
“I don’t want to get sicker trying to get better and then just end up dying anyway” – Cathy, the 42 year old protagonist, with advanced melanoma, on the Big C.
Spoiler alert: Don’t read this post if you don’t want to know what happens to Cathy in the Big C…After months of unusual and comfort zone-breaking behavior, Cathy
Last night I stayed up late to see the season finale of the Big C. For the first time in watching this series about a 42 year old woman with advanced melanoma, in a near-final scene involving the protagonist Cathy’s teenage son, I cried.
The storyline is moving, finally, in a real and not necessarily happy direction.
The Big C’s plot includes at least two “atypical” and potentially complex features. First, Cathy chooses not to take chemotherapy or other treatment. This intrigues me, and may be the show’s most essential component – that she doesn’t just follow her doctor’s advice. Second, she doesn’t go ahead and inform her husband, brother or son about the condition, at least not so far…
