"Did they git it awl?"

I just finished our home school for today. One of the greatest things I think about home schooling is that you can do it when the mood strikes... or in my case when Mom wakes up from the Benadryl she got in her cancer infusion. I'm so happy my son is beginning to read again. At the age of 3 he was reading at a beginning 1st grade level, but felt severely abnormal because the other kids could not, so after a poor school experience, he stopped reading and pretended he couldn't. I knew he was. I would see him do it and holy crap he zips around the internet like a whiz... finally now, at age 5 ½, he isn't pretending anymore and has picked up where he left off and progressing quickly. He is now entertaining himself with a video... I don't know how long that will last so this may be a short update.

Since I have been off chemo for many weeks now I have started to venture out into the community a little more. And I'm finding it hard to explain. I know people are trying to be nice, and trying to make themselves feel better... but man, I am so tired of the question "Did they git it awl?" or the sometimes more positively expressed, "they got it all and everything’s fine right?" I don't know what to say. I know people are used to that idea that you get surgery and they "git it all" and then you get chemo just in case "they didn't git it awl" and then radiation "fer certain." I try to explain, "Well... um... we killed it all... I have a dead tumor in my breast." This of course, results in a slow blink of the eyes followed by a glance at my breast as if they can see it... that's kinda funny.

That gets follow up with "are they going to take it out?" and I say "no." "It's fine to have a dead tumor in your body, no big deal." I've been asked if it will come back to life..."no, once a cell is dead, it's dead." That kind of thing only happens in the bible. I don't say that bible thing; but ohhhh I want to say it. Then I get "so you aren't having radiation or surgery or anything?" Nope. But then I am having that lung thing done, and I have to continue the fight to make sure I never get it back, but… oh hell... at that point I just don't want to explain anymore.

I know part of it is that people want some reassurance that, even though they don't think this could ever happen to them, if it did; it's fixable. And hearing that from me takes some of that fear away and reassures them. Yeah, I get that... cancer is freakin' scary. It's made my most horrible nightmares very real.

And to be honest there are days I don't quite understand it either. I have had this conversation in many places, the bank, the store, here and there. It's very hard to have it in front of my son. So I have decided just to say, "Yes. They got it aaaawwwllll." And in my mind I know that we killed it all. And when they say, "you don't have to have surgery or radiation?" I'm saying "no, I'm a miracle of modern medicine."

I often describe, with much affection, one of my older sisters this way when people would ask why we didn't look alike. I would say "she's a miracle of modern medicine." It would take a minute and then they would laugh as they realized the secret to her physical perfection... so touche'. Now we are both modern medical miracles!

My son is over his video now. He just brought me a book he is studying on volcanoes and we read how a volcano will have it's most violet eruptions right before and during a full moon. I don't know who is more fascinated with this fact... me or him?