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CR: Others will not be "bothered". They will be happy to help, just like you enjoyed helping them. This was a lesson God taught me three years ago. I hated to ask for help, I was the helper, always independent. Then I had a brain tumor, and brain surgery. I was totally helpless. And people came out of the woodwork to help. It made them feel good to be able to help. When you refuse help, you deny them the opportunity to do something that makes them feel good. Really. So don't be stubborn. Ask for help. If I lived close to you, I would be happy to help. Actually, I don't even know where Ethel is, lol. I was thinking you are on the other side of the mountains, but now I will have to go look.
Okay, there seems to be an Ethel in Lewis County and one in Benton County. Which one are you in? Lewis County is fairly close, but Benton is many hours away. Where are ya, Rustler?
BTW, loved that pic this morning! Looks like you were having a ball!
Brain cancer, brrrrr... I feel as if it's the new plague, although I know it's mostly that there are new methods of detection and treatment and it's more often diagnosed "early" than it used to be. We lost my cousin's beautiful strawberry-blonde stepdaughter to dendritic glioblastoma three years ago, seven years after her original diagnosis; I got home from her memorial service to an email announcing that my closest Olympia female friend had the same diagnosis. She has had surgery and a bioengineered treatment newly approved for clinical trials since her diagnosis, and is doing very well indeed.
I had a questionable mammogram once, but it turned out to be an artefact of the machine: scary darned week before I could get rescanned, especially since my mother and sister were both in bad health (Mom had a TIA right after my sister miscarried: bad couple of weeks all around) and I was without close-by support. Both of Dad's sisters have had BC, both of the encapsulated kind, both older than 75; one of my mom's sisters and one of her daughters, the eldest of my multiple cousins has had agressive BC, or rather melanoma of the breast tissue. but none other of the twenty female cousins on that side; liver cancer related to ag chemical exposure and primary idiopathic bone cancer, yes, one case each in the 38 cousins of both sexes. None of the female cousins on Dad's side are over sixty (my cousin and I will reach that age next spring) but all of us are over forty and getting regular mammograms.
Outside of the merely biological family, though, we've had the average impact from breast cancer, from one of mom's sister-in-law who has two surgeries and a couple additional rounds of radiation in the late 70s and then lived to be ninety, smoking like a chimney all along, to my sister's MIL who had the most modern treatment in the 'oughts and died within four years of initial diagnosis. We wait for the next call, as always, as everyone, it hits us all.
Nobody lives forever, all we can do is be helpful and kind and take joy from each other as it is given. Trouble inevitably comes: no need to make it out of small offenses.
We, too, have been hit lately. The same week we found out about me, DH's aunt was diagnosed with leukemia. A lady that we go to church with had her sister diagnosed with it the week before that. Another lady we know well was diagnosed 4 mths ago. They all have the kind you die with rather than die from but still... it sure seems rampant.
I don't feel worthy to be counted with those who have had to fight. I don't feel like I'm fighting. Maybe when we get to the radiation point it will seem different but right now I feel normal.