Hey Everybody

Thank you all so much for the wonderful emails and calls and comments over the past couple weeks. Every bit of it has helped tremendously, it's proved beyond the tiniest doubt that you all are there for me when I need you the most, and I am more than thankful for every one of you.

I don't really have any more news than I did before about my sister. The surgeon wants her to have an MRI Monday, but she's terribly claustrophobic. She's trying to find a facility that has an open MRI; so far, there's only one. They gave her a sedative pill she can take before the procedure, but even the thought of being in that tube paralyzes her with a fear stronger than that of the disease.

Once she has the MRI, they'd wait 7-10 days before performing surgery. They don't know if she'll have to have radiation or chemo, if either, after the surgery. That'll be determined afterwards. She's pretty sure she'll have a mastectomy because she says she doesn't think she could go through this again. Can't blame her. You know, she's the same age my mother was when she had hers. Bitter irony, eh?

What scares me now, too, is what I wrote about in the poem. Three out of five original family members have had cancer. What kind of odds are these? Shitty ones, that's what kind. Not only am I worrying about my sister and how she'll respond, but I'm also worrying about myself, and am I going to end up in the same shape? My dad had leukemia, then the breast cancer in my mom and now my sister. And I know my own health isn't great. I used to say jokingly that it was a 'done deal' that I'd end up with it in some form eventually. But the joke's over. I'm petrified of my chances now.

All I can do about it all is pray, you know? And see my doctor when I'm supposed to go. Which I do. Both of those.

But it's always in the back of my mind.