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Time

I have been reading through the blog entries for John's caringbridge site and am marveling that it was only a year ago we were on that awful cancer journey. In a way it seems like so much longer - especially when I look at the Patient Patient and see just how wonderfully handsome and healthy he looks!

John still has periodic visits with the docs in A2 and prior to each we are both a little nervous that the docs might find something. He calls after each visit and we breathe a sigh of relief when the docs declare that all is clear! We know patients that went through treatment at the same time haven't received the same news; our concerns are grounded in reality and our sense of relief immense.

In the past year, we have heard of far too many people that have received a diagnosis of cancer - prostrate, breast, throat, etc. While the type of cancer may be very different, the family's reaction and the ultimate course of treatment may vary greatly. The family and loved ones go through an initial period of shock and then a gambit of emotions after. The treatment can range from surgery followed by radiation and/or chemo or just the toxic cocktails.

Here's why I'm blogging about this tonight - as many of you know, I'm a writer that has had varying degrees of commitment! But I am committed to my new project - I am finally, at last, writing a book. I know, you'll believe it when you read it!! It will is in the format of a blog similar to the caringbridge.org blogs and will be a look at a family going through cancer. Since it will be written by me and in my voice it will have humorous insights about and reactions to the cancer journey. One journey that unfortunately far too many of us have had to take.

It can, perhaps, be looked at as my loving tribute to the patient Patient. Or a tribute to my two sisters that have endured breast cancer treatments. Or to the many other friends and family that have also been on this journey. In any case, it will be a tribute to cancer survivors and equally important, their families and loved ones that joined them on the journey.

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It's not a popularity contest, but ...

When an ass is so much more

  Body image. Body positivity.  Or about coming to an appreciation for a previously much maligned back end.  In junior high (that's middle school for all of you non boomers), I was given the nickname "big butt Bowen". It was a nickname that stung because I did indeed have a large ass. I tried to mask it, a difficult endeavor since the current fashion (and remember this is junior high when fitting in was paramount) was wearing hip hugger jeans with midriff tops and my disguise of choice were peasant blouses or dresses. That style choice earned an additional nickname, Mama Cass. For those of you that don't know who Mama Cass was, she was part of the Mamas and Papas and known for her beautiful voice but also for her large body.  All about Mama Cass I was cruelly nicknamed at a time when nicknames can really mess with a girl's psyche. And I spent a lifetime as that girl with the messed up psyche. I'm sure there are more than one of you out there that can relate. B

Peter Pan no more

                          It's time. Peter Pan had to grow up.  For nearly 18 months of his life, Matthew dressed in this costume. In this picture it's new, just out of the box. He picked the costume out of a catalog and when it arrived, two weeks prior to Halloween, he asked daily if today was the day he could finally wear his Peter Pan costume. He didn't like the hat and only wore it on Halloween, but the rest of the costume he wore daily! You read that correctly - DAILY. He wore it to Meijer (for those of you unfamiliar with Meijer, it's a cleaner, friendlier, more 'upscale' version of WalMart), to church, to play dates and preschool ... Heck, he was three and adorable and it worked for him!  (Yes you read that correctly, he even wore it to church on one or two occasions when it seemed arguing with a three year old about not wearing a costume to church was not a battle worth waging. He once mentioned the priests wore dresses . . . I don't think Joh

Cabin fever made me do it!

Like nearly ever person in West Michigan, I have a serious case of cabin fever.  I won't waste your time however, complaining about the two-hundred feet of snow that's fallen in the last two hours. I won't share about the twenty or thirty times I've had to shovel my walk today as gusts blew it right back in my face. And I certainly will not lament about the temperatures that hover around negative double digits making your nostrils freeze together within moments of stepping outside. To bore you with tales of how we have to shovel areas in our yard so that our large dog and can do his 'duty' because the snow is deeper than he is tall and dogs for whatever reason cannot poop in the same place twice, is not what I will share. You will not hear about how when I open the slider to let aforementioned dog outside, gusts of wind blow drifts of snow inside and require a shovel to once again close the door.  Nor will I share how some roads around here are drifted shut be