Unveiling Today...and GOOD news from a friend

I'm off to Kingsport this morning for a dressing change and an initial viewing of the new nips. This should be interesting, in a disinterested, distracted way, of course. I'm still having a hard time associating all of this with me.

Bill says that he is concerned about my apathetic attitude toward all these cosmetic improvements. He can't understand why I'm not the least bit excited about what he sees as one more step toward normalcy. I come from another perspective, I think. From inside here, nothing about this is normal, no matter how many visual improvements are piled on. I can understand that he really wants to move on, get away from the events and fears of last year, and get on with the adjustment to what it will be like from now on. I am skeptical, even cynical. Part of me agrees with the notion that scars will eventually fade, and terror-memory will be replaced and supplanted each year that I get further away from it. But right now, I am still too freshly horrified by what was done to me, what was necessary, and what was sacrificed.

For me, it's like dressing up a badger and putting it in a baby buggy (not that anyone would ever do such a thing)! You can put the evil creature in a frilly dress and wheel it around the neighborhood, but it's still a badger, and it will bite you if you give it a chance. I need more time. And a better analogy, probably.

Last night brought truly great news from friend Rob, who is at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda. His scans yesterday confirmed that the two Interleukin-2 treatments he suffered through over the past two months are working--his tumors are shrinking--and even more importantly, his brain MRI was clear. Big sigh of relief all around. Thank you for your good wishes and fervent prayers for him and his family. He also met a patient there who has had Stage IV malignant melanoma for 21 years, and is still going strong. It gave him hope that he might well have many more years in his future. That is my wish too.

This insidious disease. I just shake my head at the capricious nature of the beast, and the rapacious appetite it seems to have. I just wish someone, somewhere, was working on causality and prevention with the same diligence currently applied to treatment.