As part of the Stand Up to Cancer initiative, my public service announcement with the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance will be airing all week. I’ll be on somewhere in between Lance Armstrong and Vogue editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley.

What’s more is that the timing couldn’t be better. September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. And it looks like I’ve got a lot to keep me busy. L’Oreal is hosting several events that I’ll be attending, including an awareness breakfast. Last year, I met and interviewed Kerry Washington. I’m hoping someone equally fabulous shows up this year.

And once again, my sister Toni and I are holding our second annual Sisters Slaying Cancer fundraiser on Sunday, Sept. 26. We’re hosting a spa and salon day at the Alexander Myles Salon & Spa in Wilmington, DE, and donating all of the money to cancer research. Last year’s event was such a success that we had to extend the hours this year just to accommodate everyone. That’s what I’m talking about!

There’s plenty to celebrate this month. My September is filled with eating, spa days, and celebrity interviews — all in the name of fighting cancer. Not bad. Oh, and my national television debut. Holla if you catch me. I’m the one wearing teal.

the digital scale at MSKCC, the source of my latest torment, looks just like this.

For the last year, the scale on the sixth floor of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City has done nothing but torment me.

Three times a month, I have to get weighed in, and it racks my nerves each time. You’d think that being slim would be the last thing I’d be concerned about, but, alas, body image haunts cancer patients and civilians alike.

It all started when I set out on a mission to gain weight after losing 25 pounds post-surgery. I was looking sickly and thin, and decided for the first — and probably last — time in my life that I should eat whatever I wanted: bread, pasta, chocolate, or as I now refer to them, the axis of evil. Not such a smart idea looking back.

At first, it was all good. I put on a pound or two, then three or four. It didn’t take long before I was looking like my old self and fitting back into my clothes. Then before I knew it, I was 10 pounds heavier than I was pre-cancer, bursting out of my clothes but determined to squeeze into them anyway. My mom says it’s the steroids I have to take while on chemo. God bless her. I’m thinking it might be those chocolate cupcakes, but I’m more than happy to blame cancer.

Clearly, though, my quest to put on the pounds backfired. Before my diagnosis, I wasn’t far from my ideal weight, about five or so pounds. But now, it’s getting out of control. I’m the heaviest I’ve been. And while my doctors aren’t trippin because I’m in the same range as before, things done changed.

It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to watch it all happen. But my regular weigh-ins, and the staff who document them like a plot graph, mean I get an accurate digital measure of my portly expansion thrice monthly. It’s my version of torture.

You see, I never owned a scale, nor did I make it a habit of getting on one. Ever. My theory about scales is simple: They’re self-inflicted punishment, and I’m good on that.

It’s one thing to be in denial. It’s another to face the ever-increasing number that — even in kilograms — can’t disguise the obvious. And while I’m fully aware that I need to keep in all in perspective and stay focused on the larger goal of whipping cancer that doesn’t stop the wave of dread from rolling through every Tuesday. In fact, I’m scheduled to meet my nemesis in about 20 minutes or so, and I feel like a pugilist hoping to make weight before a fight.

What I’m really wondering, though, is how I can lose 20 pounds by the end of the week, which is the same dilemma I had last week. I’m pretty sure it involves cutting back on the cupcakes, but isn’t life too short to give up chocolate even for a moment?

Maybe I’ll use that scale as my motivation. I figure if I stay focused on beating it, I might just come out triumphant. And when I do, I’m baking cupcakes to celebrate.

I talked for 45 minutes, about nothing particularly exciting — cancer, relationships — before the therapist handed me a pamphlet about sexual health and sent me on my way. (Just FYI, there’s a difference between lubricants and moisturizers.)

my brain -- not on therapy

Maybe I’m a psychotherapy misfit or maybe I just don’t have serious enough problems, but I found myself kind of bored throughout the entire session. It could be that therapy just isn’t for me, because while I was chatting away, I couldn’t help but feel like there was some tortured soul out there who could put the doctor’s time to better use. 

And vice versa.

Homegirl feigned interest in my relatively-issue-free life probably because she was getting paid to, but then with 15 minutes left on the clock, she started wrapping me up. She took a phone call from her receptionist about the next appointment, started rifling through papers — all clues that I needed to get my things and go. I scheduled another appointment when she asked only because it felt awkward not to. But I doubt I’ll be going back.

It’s a shame, too, because I feel like I’m missing out on some serious bragging rights. I really want to be one of those people who drop phrases like “my shrink said” in random conversations. Can you say instant respect? No doubt people would come to the conclusion that I’m either really smart or at the very least interesting enough to warrant psychoanalyzing.   

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe in the power of therapy. I was seriously open to the idea of some stranger probing my mind until I said something deeply personal that might reveal some latent self-loathing. But, as my good friend and editor Natalie Moore always says, my plan was foiled.

Add to my disappointment that the aforementioned disengaged therapist didn’t even have a dope office. Nothing in her space said “psycho” or “therapy.” No comfy couch, no relaxing artwork. I sat in a desk chair while she sat at her computer. 

I told a handful of people about my therapy outing (of course, most of them have shrinks they love and have been seeing for years), and they all said the same thing: Finding the right therapist is like finding the right relationship.

Uhm, that sounds like a lot of work on my part, and I don’t think I’m ready to make that kind of commitment right now. Plus, as you may remember from earlier posts or perhaps this entire blog, cancer is taking up a lot of my time these days.

I think I’m in need of some sort of side-piece shrink. You know, somebody I can see quickly in between working and bar-hopping. Then maybe we can talk about taking it to the next level. 

After all my excitement, though, I’m still shrink-less. And waiting for the right one.