The Secret Lives of Cancer Survivors

I just came across this Article on Breast Cancer and the impact on womens’ sense of sexual wellness. The article uses phrases like “sexual problems” and I couldn’t help feeling like the author is about 24 years old, single and has no difficulty finding a date. Judging from her FaceBook profile, I’d say I was pretty darned close. Marissa, if you happen to see this, the 45 year old you will look back on this article and scold the twenty-something you for letting your youthful sense of immortality sneak in to this article. You wrote it like you’re talking about your grandmother. Then again, maybe you were… I should grant you that room for grace, as I don’t know you.

Nonetheless, the articles on this study show a number of things:

1. 7 of 10 breast cancer survivors see a negative change in their sex lives after the cancer.
2. Changed body image means that most cancer survivors feel less appealing. (Surveys of the survivors’ partners did not corroborate this, however).
3. The post cancer drugs (Tamoxifen seems to be one among them) are huge contributors to the loss of sexual interest.
4. Chemotherapy made the sexuality issue worse at a uniform rate across all patients, regardless of surgery type, etc.
5. Treating reduced sexual desire is done through counseling.

About 200,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in America, and more successful treatments are creating more survivors. In the United States, there are 2.4 million breast cancer survivors, many of whom will be facing the side effects.

I’ll spare you the specific details, but it’s safe to say that this cancer survivor partnership has experienced what this study is talking about.It’s very real.

Here’s the big “however'” thought, though…

Just being aware of what this study contains, C has become much more aware that she’s not alone in this battle. She has a list of things she “hates” about herself post-cancer. Many of them can be tied back to the issues on this study – body image concerns, physical changes, wanting to go back to who she used to be and being unable to reconnect with that person…

Knowing that she’s not alone, and that other members of the sisterhood are doing the same thing? It doesn’t make it better, but it does make it no longer about her specifically.

Separate from the Australian study mentioned above, here’s another resource from oncolink.com discussing how women react to their sexuality after cancer

This is NOT a Joke

On April 1, 2005, my lovely wife was diagnosed with stage 2 Breast Cancer. The rest of the year was devoted to two surgeries, six months of chemotherapy and eight weeks of radiation treatments.

Today represents the five year anniversary of that eventful diagnosis.

It also represents the five year anniversary that makes for an official Cancer Survivor.

I kid you not.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness

 

I just snipped this email from my personal in box… Delighted to post it here. I’d read it to you myself, but there’s something in my eye…

 

From:     C 
To:       N
Date:     Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 4:43 PM
Subject:  News from Dr. Chxx
=============

Nojo,

Ce – le -- brate good times,come on!!!

Clean bill of health from Dr. McCoy…ok Dr. Chxx, but the same emotion reigns.

Complete pathology came back today:  …no cancer…no pre-cancer…no medical jargon that I can’t understand…no need for second opinion……. unequivocally…. totally clean… and normal.

O.K. to cry now!

C

C updated

At the five day mark since C came home from her surgery. How's she doing? Pretty darned well, all things considered. She's getting around pretty well. The pain meds work well enough that she starts to think that she doesn't need them any more, so she stops taking them. Which means that suddenly she REALLY needs them and gets VERY grumpy until they catch up with her again....at which point the cycle begins again <GRIN!>

Sam the cat has quietly and expertly inserted himself into our lives. Sam has selected C as his preferred person, followed next by M. In other words, he definitely likes the girls. Which is just fine with Shadow, because she has always preferred the boys. Both cats get along with the other just fine so far. Sam hangs out on C's side of the bed. When C gets up, Sam follows her to her new location, then hangs out with her there. He's quiet, has yet to misbehave, uses his litter box inviolably, and hunts spiders. What is there NOT to like so far?

C has also shared that she's starting to notice a reduction in her joint pain, and other chronic issues that were side-effects of the Tamoxifen drug. As she migrates away from Tamoxifen, she should see a general loss of weight, and better joint health overall.

C does seem to run out of gas by about dinner time, though. It's a little bit like 'back in the day' when chemo would cause her to literally shut off without warning. She does that now, too.

We're making some progress each day on settling the house in. It dawned on me that the last time we lived here, we slowly evolved the house into a fully functional space over the span of about four years. This time? We're doing everything we did then, plus a bunch of setup stuff that we never got around to before - like cupboard pullouts to make it easier for C to reach things on the very bottom shelf. The result? I'm doing in one day now the equivalent of about six months slow evolution the first time.

Curtains have been going up in the bedrooms. M's room is really cool now that it's finished. R's room is developing a great sense of personal character as well. There are still a few scattered boxes on the landing and in the master bedroom, but they're steadily disappearing.

We planned out the curtains for the main level today. Tomorrow, the rods and drapes will go up. C is apparently planning to prepare pictures/paintings for hanging on the wall tomorrow as well. Once the drapes are done, and the paintings are on the walls, the place will be nearly complete.

Of course, there's still the office and the garage to tackle. The Office has served as our staging room. It's a pile of boxes right now. We'll get to it last, but it'll be worth the wait.

C is Home

Those who see my facebook posts are more up-to-date than blog readers. Because the blog’s mission is to only share good news, I held off on posting to on C’s surgery. My caution, in hindsight, was unwarranted.

C’s surgery went amazingly well. The surgeons started early; they needed less time than planned. So she ended up in recovery a full two hours earlier than expected.

C’s time in recovery was minimal and smooth. C has had previous experiences with difficult recoveries coming out of anesthesia; all I can say at this time is that the docs have C completely dialed in. They put her under smoothly, they bring her out with comfort and grace.

The surgeon reported to me that the tissues they removed looked to be healthy and cancer-free. Now, normally you don’t want to hear that the surgeon took out healthy tissue – you want to hear that they’ve LEFT the healthy tissue and taken out obviously diseased, problematic tissue. Point taken. This is a little different.

C’s procedure about six weeks ago removed a polyp that turned out to be pre-cancerous. The doc’s recommendation was to remove the now-unnecessary organ where the polyp was located* as soon as possible, so as to 1) ensure there wasn’t more cancer in there, and 2) to generally simplify C’s post-cancer life.

Given the whole picture, the removal of generally healthy stuff is good news.

C moved from recovery to a room at about 6pm; so an overnight stay was the expectation. C stayed over, and came home about 5pm the following day – yesterday.

She’s getting around effectively, though gingerly. She’s not tackling stairs. And, if she gets a little behind on her pain meds, she definitely gets told by her body why she’s supposed to take the pain meds. She’s loopier than normal; it’s a little frustrating but also incredibly endearing…

Beyond that, everything’s fine. Like I said, she’s not taking the stairs, so she slept on the couch last night. I’m thinking she’ll be making her way upstairs by tomorrow night.

 

* see how I dance to avoid naming body parts? Astute readers can connect the dots adequately.

19 Days…

…until C’s surgery. November 1oth. The family is in-transit in a major way. It’s unabashedly chaotic and minimalist. But it has direction.

We’ve been “camping” at Dragonfly most of this week. C and I are sleeping on a queen air bed on the floor. R is sleeping on a trundle bed in the family room. M could sleep on one of the two other beds downstairs, but instead she chooses to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor of her room so as to be surrounded by the mural she and her Mom have been painting. For furnishings, we have:

• a kitchen table,
• two living room chairs,
• a family room hide-a-bed sofa,
• a fully furnished student room, and
• an air bed in the master bedroom.

We’re eating off paper plates. We have a couple towels and soap, but no shampoo!  We have yet to ferry dishwasher detergent over from the other house. Rather than an ordeal, we’re choosing to make this into an adventure.

The furniture starts moving this weekend. The required interior wall painting has been accomplished. The POD went away this morning. Replacement appliances arrived at 9am today. We have laundry services! Replacement carpet gets installed either today or tomorrow. The stove gets delivered on Saturday, separate from the movers.

Our exchange student moves in TOMORROW. We’ll start bringing clothes-and-such over as soon as tomorrow, working ahead of the movers where ever possible.

The biggest wrinkles remaining?  Getting the DLP TV, which needs repair, in for service before Sunday; breaking down the remaining unpacked items at Stark and getting them staged for the movers to put on the truck Sunday morning.

All of this with an eye on the hard-and-fast deadline of EOD Nov 9. What isn’t done by then, will proceed much more slowly afterward. Because that’s when things forcibly slow down for C’s surgery.

I’m proud of how my family is  learning to put prioritization into practice  though this process. When something comes up – some idea or issue or “need” for improvement – my family is starting to say things like “is this a need or a want? Does this require completion before surgery, or can it wait?” If not a move related requirement, it moves down the list. Everyone is increasingly comfortable with the idea that things go on the list based ont the balance of due-by and  importance, that sometimes order of completion does not always reflect overall importance or value of the issue. The historical dynamic of the family has been to use an interrupt stack (you know what I mean here -- where the newest idea moves to the FRONT of the list, only to be pushed back by the NEXT new idea). The dynamic is  morphing into a prioritized list that identifies needs, wants, nice-to-haves, and must-be-done-by dates.

Of course, there needs to be room for some want fulfillment as well. C just informed me that she’s purchased a student-grade harp. It’s smallish, and not the highest quality, but she can use it to discover if she loves playing the harp in reality as much as she’s in love with the idea of playing the harp. If not, we can resell the harp. Simple as that.

In C’s case, if having a harp puts her more at-ease going in to the surgery, then it’s a good thing. Her mental well-being is crucial. That she bought the harp tells me that she’s got her gaze firmly fixed on the distant horizon of the far-reaching future. Even with a cancer surgery looming in 19 days. This is a good thing. Back in 2006, as she was coming out of chemo and radiation, her view into the future only spanned days. A couple years later, her view had widened to span 2-5 years at most. And now? She’s planning to learn the harp during her convalescence.

I think I like this change in attitude. She’s planning for life after. With 19 days until the surgery, her eye is fixed squarely on what comes after.

Neko – Here It Is

The Japanese word for ‘cat’ is ‘neko’. In our house it’s Neko – a proper noun. That’s because Neko is the name of our 15 year old male Persian cat. Neko is not in a good way of late.

His health has always been just a little fragile. He’s battled kidney and urinary issues most of his life. In the last year or so, his jet black coat has turned gray. Concurrently, He started spending nearly all his time sleeping. About six months ago, he also started acting extremely anxious. A little anti-depressant medication helped him calm down. Behind the anxiety, said the vet, was a polyp in his throat. Over the last eight weeks or so, we’ve been working with the vet to try to manage this fast-growing throat polyp which increasingly blocks Neko’s esophagus. He’s barely eating – he can’t smell (cats won’t eat what they can’t smell) and he has obvious trouble swallowing. His breathing is labored. Clearly this thing is taking up much of the available space around it.

The vet said surgery to remove the polyp is ‘multiple thousands of dollars’. So, instead, we’ve been using some steroid drugs to try slowing the polyp’s growth. As of this morning, however, Neko can no longer purr or meow. There is a noticeable bump on the side of Neko’s neck, near his larynx.  I would guess that the steroids are not achieving the desired result, that the polyp is not been slowed at all by the medications.

The last time we took Neko to the vet, she agreed to throw everything at this to see if we can make any improvement. If this didn’t work, the vet warned us, our choices were surgery, euthanasia or allowing the polyp to cause natural asphyxiation.

Like I said, today, Neko cannot meow. C just called me from the vet. Neko’s polyp is, in fact, a cancer tumor that started in his nasal passages and broke through into the palate. The tumor’s consumed the bone in the top of his mouth. It’s filling his throat. Given that the tumor started in his sinuses, it’s impossible to diagnose until it breaks through into the throat or palate. By that time, it’s really just too late. The vet says he’s got two or three days, give-or-take, before he asphyxiates naturally. State-of-the-art chemo might buy him eight weeks, at great expense to us.

   ***

There was a day, back in early 1995, when C – then the woman I was dating – asked me to stop by a pet store in Raleigh Hills (next to the Fred Meyer store, now a Starbucks, but what isn’t these days?) to give my take on a black Persian kitten in the store. C already had a cat, she was thinking about adding a kitten to her life in her one-bedroom apartment.

I did as she asked. That Persian kitten seemed so aloof, so disconnected. I held him, petted him, put him back, and told C that I’d pass if it were me.

Well, it wasn’t me. She bought him anyway and named him Neko. He promptly started terrorizing the place, complicating life greatly.

Once, when he was about six months old, he strayed too close to a candle flame with his bushy tail and lit himself on fire. It must have been like like watching Shere Khan at the end of  The Jungle Book… I wasn’t there at the time, but I was on the other end of the phone when it happened. The commotion was on par with Fibber McGee’s Closet.

Whenever I was around,  however, Neko would curl up on me. Not with me, on me. He slept next to my head. He tried to sleep on my face. He licked my hair, giving me a bath. He purred directly into my ear. At 3 in the morning. “Damn tormentor of a  cat!” I’d say. “He loves you” C would counter. We were in disagreement, but we were both right.

Always one to make it more complex than it needed to be, not even getting Neko neutered would be straightforward. The vet could only find one testicle. The vet said that having only one wasn’t that uncommon. “Take him home and see if he’s still got one up inside somewhere” he said. So we did. Everything was fine… for a while.

A couple months later, when C and I combined our lives and everyone lived together full-time, Neko responded to his new family by marking his chosen belongings. I remember once when we’d folded the laundry but stacked it neatly on the floor under the window just before going to bed. The next morning I awoke to the smell of cat spray in our bedroom. Mad, I climbed out of bed an went in search of the source. The source was the freshly-folded laundry. Even more angry, I started sniff-sorting the laundry into ‘smelly’ and ‘clean’. It didn’t take long to realize that the ONLY clothing in the ‘smelly’ pile was MY clothing. That little so-and-so had surgically marked only my clothes.

That same week, he sprayed the inside all  my dress shoes. “Damn tormentor of a cat!” I’d sneer, after threatening to go after his remaining testicle myself, with a spoon in place of a scalpel. “He loves you” C would counter, unphased by my threats.

Ultimately, we took him back to the  vet, who went back in and found the second testicle way up inside. None too soon in my opinion.

The foundation of the relationship was now set: Neko and I were to have a love-hate relationship based on an unconditional respect and affection  for each other while still somehow having an ongoing battle of opposing wills. In many cases, the activity that looked like hatred was, in fact, motivated by love. Oh, that was so hard to see for so long.

Take Neko’s one hunting conquest, for example. Neko never was much of a hunter. In fact, the only prey he ever caught was Max, my pet cockatiel, who was about 13 years old at the time. Max was out of his cage – as he’d lived for all his life with me – when Neko cornered him. In the dark. Neko didn’t even kill Max, just wounded him mortally, leaving Max to die of trauma hours later. I was mad. That cat was so afraid of the real world outdoors that he hid in the woodpile and resorted to  hunting a family member. The outrage! In my eyes, he was a yellow-bellied worm of a cat. It took me months to overcome the urge to kick him every time I saw him.

And yet, I could never completely disown him. We still had a bond. Couldn’t break it.

He avoided the children when they were very little – too fast and unpredictable for him. I’m pleased to report that, as R got older, larger, and moved more carefully around Neko, Neko started sleeping on R’s bed with him. The two became close in the past year or so. M is a bit younger, Neko has started being a little interactive with M.  

   ***

In August, we had to put down Aki. That day, Neko started insisting on sleeping with me instead of R. I don’t know why for sure, but I can guess. I’d go to bed and Neko would appear from out of nowhere, demanding to sleep on TOP of me, purring constantly.

See what I mean? Irritatingly loving. He affected my sleep greatly. Damn tormentor of a cat, once again. Except we’re both 15 years older, and both a bit wiser.  Now? I’m not so much angry as I’m quizzical.  Did he need me as he mourned Aki, or did he think I  needed him? I greeted his efforts with love an acceptance. We found compromises so that we both got what we wanted. After a while, he learned to curl up in the crook of my knee as I slept on my side. That, it turned out, satisfied us both. He continued to sleep with me until he couldn’t make the jump to the bed any longer- until the polyp (nee tumor) had sapped enough strength to make the leap impossible.  Once he couldn’t get on the bed, he turned to sleeping on the floor of the bathroom – something he’s never done before. I tried carrying him to bed with me. He’d opt to hop off and return to the bathroom floor. It’s becoming clear to me that Neko is waiting for something.  I believe, knows full well what’s coming.

Just as we did last August, the family once again stands nose-to-nose with the prospect of  moving on without one of the animal members of the family.

C is scheduling an at-home euthanasia for Neko tomorrow. Afterward, I’ll make t

he trip out to Banks; Neko can go with Aki once again, prowling the farm together in the afterlife, as they did their mortal life. Bounding around together, free of their bodies that simultaneously were fighting cancer together.

   ***

We chose to experience this day back in 1995, when C brought Neko  home to her one bedroom apartment. We didn’t know then how it would play out. Naively, at that time, I don’t think either of us really cared about the end-game of life (have kids, face cancer. You start paying real attention to the end-game). Whether you think about it or not,  that time inevitably comes. And here it is.

You know what? for all the torment and complexity he brought to living, he’s bringing the most amazing wisdom, grace and peace to this particular process.

Neko, you’ve grown. You’ve challenged me to grow, too. I’d like to think that I have indeed grown through your torment. You’ve taught me about unconditional love; about the irritation that goes along with loving living beings. Thank you for the caring, love and presence you’ve been. It has been a gift. 

Armed With: Final Update

Thanks go to our friend, MC, who held C’s hand at the doctor’s today. The biopsy was ‘normal.’ There definitely isn’t any cancer. There may even be no polyps. The doc will do a scope procedure to make 100% sure.

Prayer was Soooo appreciated. Thanks to all who helped with prayers.

We dread these close calls, these near-misses, these trips to defcon 1 followed by an unceremonious stand-down. It sucks. And the thought of ignoring these things only to lose my wife to cancer sucks infinitely more.

UPDATE: Armed With…

C’s doctor called her today with news. That  the doctor called was a complete surprise, as we’re not through the two-week wait on biopsy results.

We’re not all done yet, but the news has certainly changed to something else. Here’s what we now know:

• C’s body is doing everything it can to get around the Estrogen blocker drugs and stave off menopause. That’s the root cause for the initial symptoms.
• There’s still something irregular, but it may not be polyps after all. If it IS polyps, then the docs found them accidentally. I say ‘accidentally’ because the initial symptom – bleeding – has turned out to be a red herring.
• The odds that we’re looking at something malignant has just dropped significantly.

C gave me this news as I arrived home this evening. Now, four hours later, I’m thinking more clearly than I have in days. I wonder why that … oh, I know why. I seem able to breathe once again.

Armed With…..

It has taken me most of this week to get unemotional enough to write this entry.

C is working quite closely with her oncologist right now, and not really in a good way. Now, I don’t want to be alarmist; I want to convey my upbeat attitude about this, but… four years after C completed breast cancer treatment, the docs are having another look. And *not* at the original site.

Now, according to the docs involved, odds are very high that we’re just talking about ‘polyps’ – just like those you hear about on the news as  elder politicians are released from Bethesda Naval Hospital after having a routine outpatient procedure to remove them. Happens  all the time. Polyps are benign and generally routine. Polyps also have an increased likelihood of occurring when you take the specific post-cancer meds that C happens to take. So, really, polyps should come as no surprise.

But… and this is where I don’t want to get alarmist – there is a small but real risk that it’s not polyps, that it’s a malignant tumor. Benign polyps are a statistical shoo-in for someone without a history of cancer; For C, though…odds of a metastatic tumor are somewhat higher. Afterall, she’s defied the odds before, and her cancer had made it into the lymphatic system back in 2005. It’s like the cold war; we’re on constant low-level alert. Then, any time any thing that ‘could be cancer’ comes up, we all go DEFCON 1 and get edgy about everything. Can’t help it – cancer cells are the enemy and they just might be rattling their sabres at us.

If, God forbid, it is malignant, then the treatment is some pretty aggressive surgical removal. Again, relatively routine abdominal surgery, but somewhat more drastic in nature. No chemo, no radiation. Just surgery, and a 98% survivability.

We’ll know the biopsy results in a bit more than one week.

So, C will likely undergo a procedure in September. Chances are, it’ll be one of those routine outpatient procedures. But… but… but…..

Many Baha’is will know this prayer. One key sentence (in italics) makes up a Baha’i song that has been used quite a bit in the Oregon community (and I suspect much more widely than just Oregon)

All praise be to Thee, O my God, for the things Thou didst ordain for me through Thy decree and by the power of Thy sovereignty. I beseech Thee that Thou wilt fortify both myself and them that love me in our love for Thee, and wilt keep us firm in Thy Cause. I swear by Thy might! O my God! Thy servant's shame is to be shut out as by a veil from Thee, and his glory is to know Thee. Armed with the power of Thy name nothing can ever hurt me, and with Thy love in my heart all the world's afflictions can in no wise alarm me.

Send down, therefore, O my Lord, upon me and upon my loved ones that which will protect us from the mischief of those that have repudiated Thy truth and disbelieved in Thy signs.

    (Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah, p. 207)

My children – unbidden by others – have been singing this prayer at all sorts of times throughout the day. They understand the uncertainty; they’re pouring into the family’s pool of energy with prayer, song, and their full, abundant hearts. For that, I am deeply grateful.

Armed with the power of Thy name nothing can ever hurt me…

Regardless of the imperfections of their parents, these two young people are emerging as wonderful, caring and world-changing individuals. I’m proud of them for the loving courage they’re bringing to this.

and with Thy love in my heart all the world's afflictions can in no wise alarm me.

Mixed Bag of News

So, here's a weekend update with a mixed bag of newsy tidbits.

• C had a series of MRIs at the end of December. Two of the three came back negative, which is positive. What I mean is, the MRIs so far don't show any new cancer tumors.
• The MRIs did give a detailed accounting of how much arthritis C is working through, and precisely where. The docs will be turning their attention from teasing out any metastatic tumors to managing arthritis. It's a much more mundane - and reassuring situation, arthritis.
  
• People are calling to see the Stark Street house. That's great!
• M recorded her own composition at music class this last week. I'll post
  it separately. C listened to it with M and the music teacher last
  night. C mentioned that she was impressed with the quality (as a
  partial and proud mom should). The teacher responded that he was rather
  impressed too, that normally compositions don't turn out as nicely as
  this one did.
• I met an old friend after work last week. I'm guessing she'd rather go unidentified in the blog, but we were close through college and for a number of years afterward. It seems that a little time with her was good for my soul, somehow. To speak of our conversation and say "I needed it" isn't accurate. To say "I wanted it" also isn't quite right. I was certainly looking forward to our meeting, and enjoyed seeing her, and I came away a better person for having spent some time together. I'm grateful for that.
  
• R gave a speech to his fifth grade class earlier in the week. It went quite well, i was told.
• We're back to the kind of weather one would expect from January in Portland. Temps int he 40's, grey dull skies, a bit of rain. The monotony is welcome now that we can hold up three weeks of Minnesota-style winter for comparison.
  
• Weather service announced this week that we're in a La Nina year. Again. We had one of those last year, too. La Nina explains why we had snow in Portland in April. We might not be done with the unpredictable cold snaps yet this winter. I'll keep the tire chains within reach.
• C is sick today. Flu sick. Poor thing. It came on suddenly. She started her day fine, but was green and nauseous within the hour. She got through her obligations, vomited a couple times throughout the day, and went to bed when we got back home at 2:30 or so. A couple hours later, she's still sleeping. I really don't expect to hear from her again until morning.
• M returned to ballet classes today. For her, that was a signal of the return to normalcy. I think she was glad to be back. For the rest of the afternoon, I noticed her quietly doing ballet footwork whenever she was being patient for something or someone. Yeah. She's glad to be back.
• We only finished our 2007 taxes six weeks ago, but we're nearly ready to start submitting our paperwork for our 2008 taxes. We haven't been on a proper tax schedule since the cancer diagnosis in 2005. To enter 2009 ready to start filing our return as soon as Jan 31, is a great feeling.
  
• I took down the holiday lights this afternoon. It's good to have that done.
• I have a handful of small household projects to work on over the weekend. Little things like installing vinyl floor moldings along the laundry area to give a finished look there. Minor, really. I like that. We'll do enough big work once moving time comes around.In the meantime, I'm trying to 'rest' whenever and however I can.
  

I don't seem to have much to say that's philosophical or profound at the moment. I'm grateful for many things, and am hopeful, given these crazy, unexpected times. There are many other good things going on that are outside the scope of this blog. Should only a portion of them come to pass, I will feel unusually blessed in these times.

Please Say Some Prayers

C's oncologist has called her in for the dreaded 'further tests.' Seems there's some funny-looking stuff on the ultrasound around her original cancer site. Its in amongst the suture scars, where its hard to distinguish. So, C does a short-notice MRI tomorrow. C's Oncologist doesn't mess around with stuff like this.

Statistically speaking, this will be a non-event. But then again, the 'further tests' in 2005 should have been non-events, statistically speaking, too. They weren't, of course. They were defy-the-odds life-changers, those.

We don't want any more of those life-changers. We've had enough of those. Come to think of it, we've had more than our share of could-have-been-a-life-changer moments lately.  The two car-totaling, not-my-fault, non-injury accidents I had in 2008 come immediately to mind.

While we're all at it, saying prayers for C, let's say some prayers for S, too.

S isn't a direct member of our family, but she is one of C's cancer sisters. In S's case, its a brain tumor that seems to have come back. S is something like 22 years old. It's just not fair. Let's say some prayers for S and C together, that they may benefit from healing and protecting energies.