A whole year has passed since my angel was here. Sometimes it feels like forever ago, other times like just yesterday. Actively love those whom you love while they're around to be loved - none of us is guaranteed a tomorrow.

Not bragging, more just astounded - I'm severely tempted to be petty and slap induhviduals who've crapped in my Journal, but I'm going to avoid that since the ones who'd be affected were the ones brave enough to at least log in...

Reciprocation: I've been befriended by Captain Splendid!

See that little group over there? 15 Mod Points, all mine. You've been nice to me, come help me spend them...

Need a solid, reasonably priced all-in-one (scanner, copier, fax, printer) - my HP 6110 is finally biting the big non-functional, and is sentenced to an "Office Space" fare-thee-fucked. All recommendations gratefully appreciated.

Reciprocation - although I find myself wondering what I might've done to warrant the attention much less friendship of such a vaunted low UID...

Kinda stumbling along, trying to celebrate the small successes... Weird, sometimes it feels like she's just out for an extended weekend - other times, missing her leaves no room to feel anything else. Enjoy your loved ones while they're here...

From the "Advocates for Self-Government" Group:
""The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."
Herbert Spencer 1820-1903

On the one hand, well, D'UH!, but on the other - WAKE UP!!!

Irony, face the future: Absolutely zero government influence/regulation applies to conceiving a child - one only needs certain organs functional and certain conditions extant within them - Attempt to assist with rearing a child when one isn't part of the conception team, and, all-of-a-sudden, WHOOSH! Governmental paperwork adding up to at least an acre of former rainforest, red-tape, not less than 4 different sets of bureaucrats - they *claim* it's all "for the best interest of the child" - that being the case, why do so many severe child abuse and death by abuse cases come out of the foster system? I'm qualified to raise kids - one son and two step-sons, all productive members of society, my input did not turn them into sociopathic felons, so: I'm imagining somewhere within that foster parent system, there is a child who wants nothing more than to know they're worth the effort to get past all that and help them negotiate the remainder of their childhood safely.

She's gone. Peacefully, in her sleep, she left. She's beyond all pain and suffering, regardless of exactly what state of existence her energy might find itself in.

My angel is still in hospital, still in holding pattern - done with radiation, she can have no more - lymphedema in both legs, sitting up on the edge of the bed is the major accomplishment of the day, standing, let alone walking, COMPLETELY out of the picture for the immediate future - kidney and liver numbers not getting worse, not getting better, transfusions every couple of days - she is so much braver than I imagine myself to be - were I faced with all of this, I'd be heading for the exit...
More as it develops.

Mr. Brown has written a worthy successor to "The Da Vinci Code" and "Angels & Demons": Once again, Professor Langdon is the only one who can save the world from those who've manipulated symbols, this time heavily involving the Masons and the Institute for Noetic Science - the scary parts revolve around the idea that, although improbable, these events do not feel entirely impossible - the twists and turns pull the reader right along, and the research leaves the reader several leads to follow up on.
(Side note: The Masons and Sir Isaac Newton both consider(ed) 33 a most significant number - read the book to learn more about their reasons)
9.5 out of 10, mostly due to feeling rushed past some interesting stuff in the interest of book length and/or pacing issues - I read the thing in a single night.

Wife is in hospital, where she's been most of the previous month: what they thought was a micro-bleed deep in her leg was/is a mass - there are others, 2 on her liver, one in a private place, others...
Can't do more chemo (they had planned 1 per week, started last Thursday) until liver function evens out - Kermit's song notwithstanding, if you contract jaundice, some of you turns green.
She's getting the leg mass radiated daily weekdays, still weaker than a newborn kitten...
ON THE PLUS SIDE: her mind is MUCH clearer, they seem to have resolved the blood calcium/electrolytes/bladder infection/medication issues that made her somewhat paranoid and extremely disoriented - mentally, she's ~85%
When you feel like you're hitting the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on...

After 2 weeks between hospital and skilled nursing facility, she's coming home tomorrow - new rails and seat for her tub, walker and wheelchair, the dread blue parking placard, right leg twice the size and 1/4 - 1/10 the strength of the left and on enough morphine and oxycodone to keep me comatose, but:

She's coming home tomorrow.

Hell, later today as of now.

Once she's home, we'll both sleep better (translated - I'll be able to sleep instead of just pass out for 4-5 hours per night), hopefully the leg will improve faster here at home and she'll be able to get up and out and back into her (and our) regularly-scheduled life.

Update, doing my best not to rant or whine, just the facts and a couple opinions.

          She's had unilateral lymphoedema in her rt. leg for a couple months - started with a swollen foot, now it's reached her thigh, it changed her gait about 2 months ago, which brought pain to the knee (patello-femoral pain syndrome - long term meaning "knee ouch"), pain which has since worsened to the point that it's multiple percocet by day, morphine (still oral, yay for small favors) at night.

          She recently had her bilateral j-stents replaced, her kidneys came back into normal range, then they gave her an IV-contrast CT scan - bring out the buckets, her system HATES that contrast. We got the preliminary results by phone yesterday: "irregularities" in her pelvis, liver and chest - all lymph nodes scanned are enlarged.

          If it weren't for the knee, she'd be *feeling* okay - no gross symptoms yet.

          She's been fighting this crap off and on (mostly on) for 6 and a half years.

          Her oncologist has her on a trial of Faslodex (fulvestrant), hoping to see her OCA count come down and everything else shrink back to healthy.

          If I can bring any good at all out of this it's the following:

          Ladies, demand that your Dr. add the OCA-125 test to your blood tests at exam time - it's how we discovered her disease so early - men, do the same on behalf of the ladies you care about.

          Cancer *can* be fought - make sure any health-care providers are on the same page as far as attitude, or change them until the ones you have are (we went through 3, all *very* intelligent clinicians/ all more interested in statistics than bedside manner).

          Nobody guarantees us more than today. We joke about
          "What would you do if an earth-killing meteor was detected, and you only had x minutes?"
          "Probably try for one last bout of wild-monkey love - of course, my luck, the meteor would skip off the atmosphere, and I'd go to jail for lewd public behavior..."

Some of us, when we say "for better or for worse", truly mean it.

Tomorrow marks the 14th anniversary of our wedding.