Breast Cancer (not)

I don't remember what year this was, but it was before evil EJ passed away.

There are two parts to this. The first was another "phone game". Hubbie and I had been out somewhere. I don't remember where. The phone was ringing off the hook when we got home.

It was Evil EJ, the Father in Law. Hubbie got off the phone. First he said "Mama has cancer." Then he accused me of already knowing about it and not telling him.

Several days later -- maybe a couple weeks, Sister in Law calls the house. Hubbie was gone somewhere -- out of town maybe, I don't remember. She called to tell that Evil JB's surgery was over. The place was "very tiny" and not cancer.


The rest of her life, she claimed that she "has breast cancer." She didn't even say she was a breast cancer survivor.

She bought candles in honor of herself in Relay for Life. Wore pink breast cancer shirts. Things like that.

It made me angry. Even more when seeing my next door neighbor get a mastectomy and go through chemo and radiation and be sick as a dog and lose her hair. Even more than that when a good friend of mine's wife died from breast cancer AFTER having a mastectomy because they didn't get it all (partially due to malpractice). And later when the women's Olympic basketball coach Kay Yow died from breast cancer, after she had kept her career going until the last possible minute, being put in the hospital for her final hospitalization after a road trip with her team.

Evil JB had no idea what suffering was. She dishonored those people and all other people who have had this disease. The only bright spot from this was that perhaps she got a few donations for causes made in her name.

Note: Having had a questionable mammogram result checked out myself and biopsied negative, I know the emotion and discomfort associated. Some worry, some discomfort, followed by relief. I have not had reason to share it with many people, it was almost a non-event. Many women have experienced the same thing.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

The scene -- at Sister-in-law's house, after GMIL had died.

Present: Me, Hubbie, Sister-in-law, and Sister-in-law's six year old granddaughter.

Sister in law and others were discussing whether or not MIL's house is haunted (didn't I tell you). MIL claimed that there was a light that would come on all by itself. Sister in law said it was probably a touch lamp and triggered by a bug or something.

Six year old said "Yea, probably a bug. Grammy had LOTS of bugs."

Please Drive me to School

I was with hubbie this morning and we were trading stories about the old "I used to have to walk to school bothways uphill barefoot in the snow". We were talking with a lady our age about how we did remember walking to school very young and how that wouldn't be done now.

DH told his version of it. I've been with him for 24 years and never heard this story before. He said that his Mother used to send him to the neighbor's houses to ask for a ride to school because his mother did not have gas or money to buy any.