Mifflintown, Pennsylvania 17059

My hometown is small--really small--especially people-wise. Which means that if there's any gossip, it travels faster than the speed of light, across county lines, state lines, even across the country and across the U.S.-Canadian border to here. It also means that gossip is sometimes, usually, mostly, maybe, probably, kinda connected to someone I'm directly related to or someone that I might have been related to somewhere down the line a hundred or so years ago. I think more people live along my one block in Vancouver than in all of Mifflintown. I think there are more churches than schools, and that the church to people ratio is about 1:9. This post is for Mifflintown.

I gather that my name has been passed among churches because I've been getting a lot of cards from people's whose names I don't recognize, but I do recognize their surnames. I also got some cards from people from my high school class. All this is really awesome. It's funny when people write, "I know you aren't religious, but I'm praying for you anyway. . ." I totally appreciate that and am grateful because while it is true that I don't ascribe to any religion, I am a spiritual person and believe in the spirit of life and some sort of afterlife that exists for spirits, so I do feel the positive vibes that people are wonderful enough to give out generously, even if they don't know me at all!

As for my hair, mine is almost all gone. I still have little splotches here and there that annoy the fuck out of me, but I'll just let them be for now. The tugging and rubbing on my head is getting old, and I have better things to do. Today, I'm getting a CT scan on my leg where I have a stress fracture. I'm surprised that I'm getting this scan because I think they pretty much ruled that it's a stress fracture in my leg, but I guess they want to make triple-sure, which is a weird thing for Canadians, who don't believe in unnecessary, or excessive, testing (it costs money). But hey, if they wanna scan my leg, great!

I've been wanting to eat like crazy. I guess with this chemo, at first I want to puke my brains out, and now, the steroids are kicking in or something, cuz I'm never full. But I'm trying to keep the eating normal and not gain a crapload of weight. So far, so good.

On Monday, Dude and I went to a free fireside chat session at Inspire Health, which is an integrated healthcare organization for cancer patients, which just means that their doctors and staff help you find ways to cope with the side effects of cancer treatments and optimize health and wellbeing during these times. After the fee for their two-day seminar and membership fee, access to their doctors and programs are free, but they also have a naturopath and acupuncturist if you want to take advantage of that, for a fee. I feel super fortunate that we live in a place where such a thing exists!

So yeah, thanks for reading the blog, you in Mifflintown, Vancouver, Pittsburgh, Germany, California, Seattle, New York, Madison, China, Florida, and wherever the hell you are!

Rock on.

Going Home, or not

Last night, I spent a couple hours scanning and touching up pictures of my brother-in-law for a video montage at his memorial service. DH is picking out the music because he and his brother are, like, a decade or more older than me, and I don't know what old people used to listen to (joking!). Anyway, ever since his brother passed away two weeks ago (holy shit--has it only been two weeks?), all the family, especially his wife, have been focused on the arrangements, thinking about what he would have liked. Got me thinking about my own death, which folks, I hate to break it to you, is going to happen--just hopefully not for another 40 years or so.

Okay, so I don't plan on dying any time soon, but here it is--NO WAY, NAH-UH, NEVER IN A MILLION LIFETIMES do I want to be buried in my hometown, Mifflintown, PA. I say that now, in front of whoever the hell is reading this--as my absolutely, positively last word on the matter. Sure, it's where I grew up, and it's pretty, and it's peaceful, and all my white family lives and dies there, but growing up there I felt so trapped in such a small town, I couldn't wait to hightail it out of there. I mean no disrespect to my family whatsoever, but they know it's not the place for me. And I want to be cremated (I am, after all, a fire sign and a wood rabbit, so back to ashes for me). As for my ashes, what to do with them, I haven't thought about that all that much yet.

Word travels fast in my small town. And my extended family takes up a big piece of the population pie there. I think by now, the whole town knows I have cancer, and my name has been uttered and shouted in prayer circles and placed into Bibles. Which is cool because shit, I need all the help I can get, even though I myself don't subscribe to any religion. If people say they are praying for me, I'll take it.

On a completely different note, DH is having second thoughts about this trial. One of the main areas of concern with this trial is that because they want tissue samples from the tumour area to see if chemo combo is causing any shrinkage, I have to do chemo first. He really wants us to consider the normal way of going about things, which is to do surgery first. So he read up on it last night, we'll call the trial nurse with our questions, and think about it some more. I want to make sure we're confident about what we're doing, cuz this ain't like buying a car or something, where we might not be satisfied with a term here or there. He's the hunter and gatherer--of information. Me? I have a boob that's hella angry with me.