In joy.

Great night tonight. Mattie's in from Cali and he, my mom and I spent the night talking and eating outside on this very cool, very fall night. We started with coffee and tea on the back deck and then moved on to warm bowls of Dan's famous creamy chicken and rice soup. (Good batch, bud!) After that we headed down to the river and had hot chocolate while watching fish jump for bugs as the sun set. We didn't walk back up the yard until after dark and then the three of sat eating chocolate heath bar cake (yeah, the cake) and chatting some more.

I know I'm a slacker in these parts, but it's felt good to just step back for a minute. Gig is doing really well this week. Despite throwing up every day (which she says she doesn't really mind as she's "good with throwing up...") she's logged some time fishing at the beach with her grandson, visiting with friends and family and even gardening out in the yard.

Big decisions coming up---to chemo or not to chemo---but for now she's just enjoying the minutes. And we're all enjoying her enjoying them.

And nobody enjoys like Gig...

Hurricane season

eh...

It's storming out. My parents are watching a movie in one room and I'm in another typing and listening to an all 90's music station. Were the music not coming from the TV, I'd swear I was in eighth grade again. ("The Humpy Dance" just followed Whitney's "I'm Your Baby Tonight"---both from '90---and there's a dance party goin' down in my heart right now.)

When I originally decided on hurricaning it in these parts, we weren't sure if my mom was going to be out of the hospital and Dan was going to drive down from NH today to hunker down with me. Turns out she's home, of course, but Dan has a pretty bad chest cold and with my mom's immune system jeopardized by the chemo, we all thought it best that he stay put. (At this point she's considered to be "nadiring" which means her white blood cell count is on its way down. The idea is that it drops to its lowest point about 10 days after treatment and then starts to build back up, hopefully reaching a healthy level before the next chemo treatment.) By the time we got it all settled, it was too late for me to drive back up, so hopefully we both live to see each other after Earl---the hurricane that wasn't---romps through. (I didn't want anyone to get hurt or for anyone to lose their home or even for anyone to lose power, which is just so annoying, but I really wanted to be walloped by this hurricane. I just really wanted it to finally happen.) So, although I had a great "hurricane party" with a couple of sisters, mom and nephew today, I feel a bit like a kid without a license right now hanging alone at my parents' house on a rainy Friday night.

(Oh God, Wilson Phillips "Hold On"---thank you modern-day cable!)

So, I really loved hearing what some of you had to say in regard to my question of whether or not you would tell anyone if a doctor told you that you had three months to live. (If you didn't comment, feel free to chime in.) I hope those of you who responded don’t mind, but I’m going to repost your notes here rather than responding in the comments section.

Matthew said...
I would sing it from the mountain tops!!! And ask everyone to come dance with me. That is exactly what I would want to do. DANCE.

Allison said...
This news sucks but I have faith! PS---I would want people to know as well!

Mart said...
Yes, I think I would tell (I hope). Telling heals.

BFYNM (and just to clarify BFYNM is a friend of my sister Bec's whom I've never met, though between the blog and our Facebook encounters, we've decided we're soul sisters. That's where Best Friend You Never Met comes from. I hope I didn't betray our friendship by telling.) said...
I would tell every person I have ever loved. I am a control freak, so being able to say what I need to say is critical for me. I recently worked for a woman who was diagnosed w/ terminal lung cancer. She told NO ONE. Even while she was going thru chemo (w/hair loss) she paid astronomical amounts of money for wigs so people wouldn't know. She felt the cancer made her weak. I completely disagreed with the way she handled it, but I respected her choice. It was disturbing to have to explain to people after she was gone what happened & how long she battled in silence. She confided in me, her two children, her sister and select few friends but not nearly the amount of people that loved her. No one got to tell her what she meant to them. No one got to say goodbye. She regretted the choice at the very end and I think some of her friends were deeply hurt.

So, each of these responses really had me thinking.

(I did NOT know Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch were behind "Wildside" mania! My beloved Mark Whalberg! I would doot da doot him in a hot minute. I know these asides are totally inappropriate but I can't help it...my brain is picking up two frequencies right now. It's seriously like hearing two radio stations overlapping...)

Mattie would "DANCE!" He would use his last months to enjoy and celebrate life. This is, of course, assuming he was healthy enough in mind and body to do so. Or maybe he would seek out the gift no matter what. (Knowing Mattie, he would find it.) Before all this, I think I would have answered similarly. Maybe after all this, I will. All I know is that prior to experiencing this kind of illness in such an intimate way I would have had a "Live it up!" gut reaction, but right now, as much as I am savoring every minute with my mom, nobody in my family feels like dancing. (Though, today we all watched a movie together after a big lunch so maybe that's a version of dancing.) It got me thinking about how it takes a three-month deadline (oh god, no fucking pun intended) to allow us the perspective/permission to DANCE! in that capital letters, exclamation point kind of way. Even as I sit inside this, learning as I am about the preciousness of life, I find myself sweating the small stuff and feeling like I should be working harder. What the eff is that about?

Allie would want people to know too, but I thought the interesting part of her response was that she still has faith. First of all, Al, thanks. We all still have faith, too. But the layer of it that I found interesting was the doubt implied by this faith; the questioning of whether or not you would even believe a doctor who said such a thing or would have "faith" in your maker or yourself or science to disprove such a prediction. When I posed this question to my sister Cherie today she said she probably wouldn't tell because she wouldn't buy it. She's a firm believer in the power of the mind and thus believes that focusing on life versus death would bring more life. And while it may be easy to raise an eyebrow at this kind of thinking, I've read plenty of stories of people who were given months and took years for themselves, in part because they never accept their prognoses. Faith or the Law of Attraction, I get their point. (And, Allie, Boys II Men are on right not and I CANNOT listen to these guys without thinking of you. Do I remember their poster on your wall?)

Mart wrote that "telling heals" and, God, do I believe that (and am grateful to her for saying so because that's why I'm still showing up here during this whole thing). Telling heals. Truth heals. These are words by which I try to live and write. This is the idea of accepting what is. I felt a strong sense of shame after posting the update the other day; like it was something I should have kept private, barely admitting it to myself, much less anyone else. But it is THE TRUTH. I could have buffered it (and have on this blog before, I must admit) and said simply that things had taken a hard turn but GiG is still smiling (which she still, somehow, is). I could have left out the part about the prognosis (and I really battled with myself about whether I should have) but it was a fact that seemed integral to the story. And, much more important than "the story," it is something that I know my mom's loved ones would want to know and which she wants them to know. And why? Why should such a sad reality (and, believe me, I am not convinced the prognosis is reality though the conversation with the doctor was) be passed on? Well, I can't totally know that yet. I don't know how this telling will heal. I don't know what experiences or conversations my mom will or will not have or even why she was okay with people knowing, other than it is the truth of what went down this week. But I do know that I've witnessed my mom brave fronting her way through conversations to protect her friends and family and that it's been a great relief when she has finally been able to express her true feelings, fear and all. She and I have had some very honest conversations during these past six months and when I am not hating this all so entirely, I am aware that I have enjoyed some of the richest moments of our relationship in this time. Telling heals.

(Um, Free Fallin' is on which I so appreciate, but it's from 1989 so I'm not really sure I'm okay with the theme straying.)

This also speaks to what BFINM meant was getting at with her story, which absolutely floored me. That must have been an incredibly thought-provoking thing to witness. Whenever I've seen it depicted on television (anyone into the Big C, yet?), people not telling, I've always thought it wasn't accurate. Nobody could really do that, I thought. And then to hear that this woman really didn't tell anyone other than immediate family (and what was it like for them?)...I can't imagine it. I understand the inclination towards privacy and even the intense discomfort some feel about receiving sympathy from others (best case scenario...worse case scenario is the stupid shit people say) but I guess I just feel like all hangups would get hung up when placed against the backdrop of limited time on earth. I would just want to connect as honestly as I could with those I love at that point, and that would involve telling. (And, of course, blogging about the entire thing which is actually the first thought I had on how I'd handle it. It would be three months of writing, reading, seeing movies and coffee dates with everyone I love. I think I may have just discovered my life's ambition.)

(Oh, jeez, "Janie's Got A Gun"---a song I friggin' love and had a joke about in my standup act all those years ago; something about Delilah playing it for one of her heartsick callers---but which is also from '89. WTF?)

I was really blown away by that story and then was further rocked when I got a call from Dan the other day, which started with him saying simply, "I wouldn't."

“Wouldn’t what?”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone if I knew I had only three months to live.”

“You wouldn’t?”

He went on to explain that his inclination would be to go off somewhere alone to whither (I think he even said whither) as he wouldn’t want to hurt anyone.

“You don’t think it would hurt more for people to lose you so suddenly and to learn that you didn’t tell them that you knew it was coming? For them to not get the chance to tell you what you mean to them?”

He saw my point but was still unsure. He told me he had thought before about how if anything like this ever happened, he would do something that would make me so angry at him that it would end our relationship and I'd be a safe distance from the heartache of losing him.

“Oh, you’re one of those...” I said, adding that, while I understand the push-people-away-for-their-own-good mentality, if he ever did that to me I would hate him forever...or at least be eternally broken.

It’s a discussion he and I will have to go back to but I’m still pretty shaken about this being his first instinct. (And am also sort of wondering if he’s going to have an affair someday and then say he’s dying in an effort to get away with it...Answering like he did to that question, nothing could surprise me now; there is a part of that man that is still a stranger.)

(Okay "Ice Ice Baby" just warranted a volume increase. 1990. I was 9 and learned every word of this song because all the kids were talking about it. By the time I learned 'em, everyone hated Vanilla Ice. I have no regrets and can give a concert-quality performance whenever the song comes on. Word to your mother.) (It took 'til about eighth grade to finally realize that I would always be behind the curve when it came to music and just binged on Broadway forevermore.) (This was after my "Smells Like Teen Spirit"---now playing; 1991 though I was a post-Kurt fan like all the other 14-year-olds---headbanging phase.)

We returned to the conversation for a bit today and he said, "I actually feel differently after reading all those [your] responses...It could be a happy thing."

"I know you don't want to hurt anyone, but people would want to celebrate you."

Blowing his nose and mustering his best I-have-a-cold wimper, he said, "You should be celebrating me now because I'm not sure I'm gonna make it."

He kids but, of course, we should be celebrating each other more. (He should definitely celebrate me more.) It's an interesting idea to think about anyway. (A great conversation starter during dinner parties with the Mr. and Mrs. Lame-ass from next door.)

While I obviously know my mom's answer to the question of if she'd tell, I haven't yet asked her what she'd do with those three months. Hypotheticals are fun...not so when there's a risk of reality.

I hope that I don't seem like I'm being callous. I am utterly aware of the seriousness and emotional hell of all of it, I just think this is how I cope. I intellectualize the hell out of stuff, or so I was recently told.

There's just too much to feel, I guess. And now I realize that this is another question entirely. While we can all imagine what it is that we'd do if told we only had three months to live, it's another thing entirely to think about what it is we would feel.

Maybe that's the real question I should be asking my mom.

She's not there anymore!

I'm telling you: Best. Nurses Ever. (Though the action in this shot is somewhat staged.)

It's not so much a roller coaster right now as it is a Freefall (to speak Rocky Point, the amusement park of my youth), followed by the haunted mansion with its moments of levity and an understanding that at any moment something will be popping up to scare the shit out of you.

That's the state of things right now. Yesterday morning I was shifting gears from deciding to stay put in NH for a few days to bombing down to the hospital because a gut-check told me it was the right thing to do. When I got there my mom looked very sick and very tired. Today, her pain finally managed and after the first good night's sleep of the week, she looks and seems much, much better. She is back home tonight; a moment of levity.

I wanted to be sure I posted this as soon as I could because I think yesterday's post may have caused some panic among my mom's loved ones (and understandably so). Five days ago when we heard the news that you all just got yesterday, I was panicked. She was panicked. (Yesterday morning, we were all still panicked.) But today, GiG is looking better and is certainly on an upswing. As my dad said, "Today doesn't look like a good day for dying." (You have to laugh or you’ll lose it.)

It doesn't erase what the oncologist said, it doesn't change the fact that my mom has cancer, but hearing her voice getting stronger today, seeing her color return, watching her get relief from pain, changes the way it all feels. Today, she doesn't look like she's dying, she looks like GiG. As my dad wrote this morning when I asked how she seemed, "Like mom---happy, upbeat." I just wanted all of you who have written to know how well she’s doing today. If you didn’t know she has cancer, you really wouldn’t know she has cancer.

Comedy arrived as we readied to leave the hospital this afternoon. They asked us if we would be interested in taking some pictures with some of the nurses (the best nurses on the planet) for a future brochure/mailer they are putting together about the hospital’s oncology program.

“Will there be a fan?” I asked, freshening up my lipstick.

Turns out when they asked the nurses which of the floor’s patients they should do the photo shoot with, all the nurses said, “Jeanne” (my mom’s real name), without hesitation. After three hospitalizations, my mom has built a relationship with every one of these women (and Eric the lone male RN whom we adore) and the photographer was shocked to see that there was such a warm rapport amongst us all that he need not conjure it as he had expected to for the photo. If we end up in any brochures, you can bet I’ll post it here. The whole thing was a friggin’ riot and the fact that my mom is so loved by the staff is just so representative of who she is; she loves and is loved back wherever she goes.



Here's the first shot we took with Patty, Nancy and Juliette (whose permission I didn't get to publish these photos...or their names...and am hoping is okay...and legally sound).



Had to include this one too because who's holding whose hand now? Huh? Huh? But in Juliette's defense (my girl crush is massive in this case as well), the photographer instructed us to do some hand-holding, which explains why my mom is getting in on the action. You'll be happy to know that I played it cool and acknowledged the awkwardness of it as soon as the photographer said it. Also, because I was a "bottom," the let-go (which is, of course, where catastrophe lurks) was not up to me, which is I think what saved me from another pinky situation.

Though we really will miss those guys, it's always good when she leaves. She belongs in her home, no matter the storm heading in.

It's bizarre how different it can all feel from day to day. I was watching the weather report with my sister Cherie tonight and we were saying how strange it is to see that tomorrow is supposed to bring the kind of chaos that warrants coverage on every news channel and preparation by the masses...followed by days and days of calm and sun. That’s how today feels with my mom seeming so much better. The storm that came with the words “three to four months” has settled into brightness...it’s never as bad as they say it will be, right?

An overdue update

Oh, this is a hard one to write. I probably wouldn’t even do it if I didn’t feel like I need to correct an erroneous earlier entry. It wasn’t my error---or, I suppose, anyone’s really--- but we’ll get to that. The point is that I have bad news and last time an unfavorable turn occurred ---when we learned that the cancer had spread to my mom’s right adrenal gland (that’s lung metastases to both adrenal glands for those keeping count; when she was diagnosed it was just in the left lung and left adrenal)---I didn’t write about it here. I skipped over the details of the day one of the early CAT Scans showed that not only were the chemo treatments not working but things were getting worse and surgery---the “cure” for lung cancer if there is such a thing---was no longer an option.

It’s much easier to write that GiG is persevering (which she is as best she can) without having to describe the changing reality. I mean, we’re all persevering to some extent aren’t we? Isn’t that what we do? So I could write that she is trying to keep a positive attitude and we’re all hoping for the best or some other from the list of bullshit platitudes (that, from what I can tell, are for the benefit of the recipient versus the person struggling with illness) and leave it at that. It’s the truth. It’s a version of the truth. (It’s probably the version my mom would give you were you to get her on the phone.) But while it might feel good to tell myself that version here, I don’t think I’d be doing myself---or anyone reading this who’s hoping to learn a thing about one person's genuine experience of cancer---any favors. My sense is that versions of truth---that is, half-truths that promote untruths---in such scenarios, only cause further confusion and potential pain.

Enough with the preamble: Despite what I reported about the PET Scan showing no trace of a spread, a CAT Scan done afterwards, contradicts this completely. More masses have been seen at the base of my mom’s lungs, the tumor on her right adrenal which was thought to have disappeared is still there, the left adrenal tumor which was said to have shrunk actually grew larger and there appears to be a spread to her renal artery and nearby paraaortic lymph nodes. (For those who, like me, forgot some of eighth grade biology, the aorta extends from the heart through the torso, so it is the lymph nodes near the aorta but close to the kidneys---renal (equals kidney) arteries extend from the aorta---that are affected; I had to study some anatomy charts to get it.)

Worse still, when this news was delivered Saturday morning it was accompanied by a warning that if she did not start chemotherapy immediately, she would have only three to four months to live. (I was not there when the doctor said this though my dad reported it that morning. I texted my mom after I heard to tell her I would be leaving shortly for the hospital and she, not yet knowing that this news had reached me, told me not to rush in and to instead enjoy the sunny day...)

I should also note that in response to this last piece of info, my mom’s expressed sentiment was that nobody can know how long she has as God is not amongst the professionals discussing her prognosis. She actually laughed that anyone would try; a display of my mom’s signature (and remarkably astute) perspective on life even at its darkest. Her laughter in this moment was a great comfort to me as I sat at the foot of her hospital bed (expecting to be the one to comfort her though not having the faintest idea of how to do it).

She took the chemo Saturday night in her hospital room and slept through most of it while Dan and I watched a movie on my computer in the corner under some extra blankets that the nurses (the wonderful, wonderful nurses) brought in for my oft-freezing sisters and father who have been in and out all week. The pain that brought her into the hospital is getting worse and they have not yet been able to figure out where it’s coming from. She’s also been throwing up daily.

Yes, my mom is persevering, but I can’t pretend things aren’t at their hardest right now.

As you can imagine, were there not loving that needed doing, there would be paralysis.

But I’m not talking emotion now. I just felt like I needed to deliver the facts since the state of things has shifted so much since I last wrote.

Oh, there is one emotion I’ll give voice to: Anger. One might think that double-checking---that is performing the requisite tests needed for utter clarity---would be in order before telling a person definitively (fuck, excitedly) that her cancer has not spread. One just might think that.

Apparently (and I am still pretty whipped with confusion), the PET scan measures tumor activity while CAT scans show images. Oh, and there’s something called a carcinoembryonic antigen level which has decreased, a supposed indicator of the effectiveness of the treatment and a decrease of the cancer’s virulence. To translate, the cancer is diminishing in power and thus less likely to spread...and also spreading.

There’s no sense to be made of things yet and my feeling is that there won’t be. I know my cynicism is a mask for emotional ranges and depths I don’t yet feeling like traveling, but I’m sticking to it (even though my mom has warned me my whole life against choosing cynicism as a go-to perch from which to view the world).

I came back to NH on Monday night to attend some appointments but I’m readying to head back down now. (Would you believe in the midst of all this I had to have a small chunk of my shin removed---stitches and all---because a biopsied freckle came back “severely atypical”? All is well and I am grateful to my dermatologist for the catch...hopefully I’ll get to post some pictures.)

This morning I had a teeth cleaning at the dentist’s office, an appointment I thought about canceling but figured would be best to just get done. The hygienist and I got to talking (no hacky dental joke here, we actually somehow had a conversation) and when I mumbled, in response to her question about what I’ve been writing lately, that “my mom is sick...cancer,” she stopped what she was doing, looked in my eyes and said simply, “I get it.” She lost her mother and an aunt who had become like a mother to her, both to cancer. Indeed, she got it. She told me a little about these women, her story was in some ways a very positive one, and there we were, two people having a genuine connection though it probably looked to anyone else like just another round of idle chatter at the dentist’s office.

As I headed out the door, she said, "I'm going to give you a hug," and did (and I was positively grateful). “If you ever want to talk, you can always call. I know you don’t know me well but I’m here. Really.”

Getting in the car, I couldn’t help but think that God had arranged that little rendezvous. (Did I mention she comes from a family of four girls?) I know God’s been making Her way into the conversation a lot lately---believe me, it surprises me to be talking spirit so publicly---but it felt to me like it had been prearranged; a Divine shove towards connection that I so needed.

I suppose I’m not as cynical as I like to think. And who do I have to thank for that?

(Will try my best to keep you posted.)

Lordy Lord

Well, GiG knew alright. I am writing from yet another hospital room. I set my alarm for 6am this morning so I would have plenty of time to prep for a full day back at chemo, and when I went downstairs my mom was sitting straight up on the couch, having been awake for hours with severe pain (and later vomiting). Fifteen minutes later my dad, mom and I were sitting around the kitchen table discussing how she could possibly endure chemo and the hell that would come just from that on top of the pain she was already enduring (and enduring on top of two separate pain meds at that). The last two times my mom wavered about doing chemo, the last two times she had a sense that something was going wrong, indeed something was (first the pulmonary embolism and then the pneumonitis), so my only advice to her to trust was to trust her instincts. (“This is your body, not some work project that needs completing,” I said). When she called the oncology office to say that she wouldn’t be coming, they told her to go to the hospital (which is connected to the cancer center) to be admitted so they could work full-time to alleviate and track down the pain. She’s down getting a CAT scan now with the hope of figuring out what’s going on (and the even bigger hope that it is nothing terribly serious).

So, that’s where we are now; a real-life House episode.

When my mom got the positive PET scan results the other day, most of her loved ones were overjoyed. The fact that this news was delivered while she was in the ER, tempered my reaction as well as my father’s. Regardless of what a test says, if you feel bad, you feel bad so (as my gut told me from the start) until this pain passes, I can’t join in the celebration.

Shortly after we got my mom into her hospital room, IV in place, she recounted a story of how years ago when she injured her knee and was given Dilaudid---the med she is on now---for pain before having it popped it back into place, she had joked, “I want this if I ever get cancer.”

Funny stuff.

There are laughs to be had though.

The hospital she’s in is a Catholic one so a Chaplain just came in (or a Sister...I’m not sure how this ranking system goes; I think she might be the equivalent of a lieutenant to Jesus) to offer my mom prayer and ask her if she wanted a priest to come tomorrow for “the anointing of the sick” (to which---to her cynical daughter’s shock and awe---she said yes. You can take the girl out of Bethlehem...) When the Chaplain left, but with the quiet solemnity of her presence still in the room, my dad said, “And I’m going to sacrifice a goat for you.”

Maybe you had to be there, but there’s nothing like a little sacrilege to lighten the mood. I was grateful he said something because for a second I thought I was in a different family than the religiously ambiguous, if not dubious, one than I was born into. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t go looking a gift-nun in the mouth. Plus, raised Catholic as she was, I think my mom still feels the connection to these roots. Prayer is prayer. I kid, but it’s a nice thing they do here.

So, that’s the story. I know some of you check in here just for her status (and, shockingly, not to hear about my hair) so I’ll give you the facts when I can, provided we get ‘em.

For now, Peace Be With You.

Goodnight Moon

My mom called me into the family room tonight to look at the big fat orange moon over the river. She noticed moons long before she had cancer. She always notices.

Chemo first thing tomorrow. Hopefully she always knows, too.

Goodnight stars,

Goodnight air,

Goodnight noises everywhere.

It's 8:37 and I'm calling it a night!

This doesn't even look good but I'm stumped for a header pic so there it is...I'm tired!

So, how's this, when I can, I'll try to make a real effort to do some serial blogging to make up for my sometimes extended absences? Maybe even twice a day (though I couldn't keep that promise to Dan, either).

This'll be a quickie (insert extension of sex joke here) but because I'm in such a good mood I wanted to get something down (and another here).

First of all, I love that it was a rainy day. I'm not only happy when it rains, but I am pretty much always happy when it rains. (Sort of like how all poodles are dogs but not all dogs are poodles. Does that analogy really fit here? I just try to work that the little token of logic in wherever I can because it blew my eighth grade brain when I heard it.) Rainy days are like forced meditation. They come with a certain calm amid the chaos that I dig and I don't have to chastise myself for not being outside on a beautiful day when I'm pretty much over the sun at this point anyway. I'm totally okay with the fall preview that has been these past few days, though mildly concerned that it will get to 85 degrees overnight. (I don't have any dog analogy for that but it's just plain effed.) As I write I'm watching the wind toss the dark silhouettes of trees around against a barely lit night sky and loving the drama of it. The tree outside my window (my tree outside my window where I write first thing in the morning in the winter months when the floor heater is on underneath my feet) has its late-August scatter of orange leaves, changing before the rest as it does and letting me know that fall is up ahead; nature's flash of high beams. Bring it, I say.

I cooked dinner tonight for the first time in forever. Something about the coolness and a darker sky makes me more eager to head to the kitchen and a hot oven. Nothing crazy, this dinner: GiG's meatloaf (2lbs ground beef, one cup grated Parmesan, one cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs, two eggs, a grated onion and a few fresh shavings of carrot on top to keep the meat moist cooked for about an hour at 425 degrees) that I made with grass-fed beef (and shallots versus a white or yellow onion), broccoli and some local corn. I was going to ask Dan to get a bottle of wine on the way home but my body is still pretty screwed up from yesterday and doesn't need further tampering.

During dinner I said that I wanted to take a bath afterwards (to prepare for an early to bed kind of night) but the fact that the tub is clogged---you know that gnarly residue that circles the tub when the water remains ankle high for the duration of your shower---dissuaded me. Dan, hero that he is, is in there now looking for Nessie and trying to clear things out.

A few minutes ago, he shouted out to me, "I got something! It's just a small one though, I think have to throw it back."



This looks way bigger than it did it real life...like, WAY bigger. Must be something about the angle...

I know it looks disgusting and I'm sorry that I feel so compelled to share it with you. It's a public service I'm providing, really; when was the last time you snaked your drain (insert blah, blah, blah)?

Dan thinks the Tub Monster was just a fluke (ha!), never to be witnessed again.

"I was just a kid then...I got lucky," he said.

I'm getting pretty skeeved out about the state of things in there so let's hope he gets lucky again soon.

(And scene.)

(Driving tomorrow: To chemo (Fri) and beyond! This is my way of telling you I may not be calling these next few days but I'll do the best I can. It's not you, it's me.)