STICKING WITH LOVE

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Housekeeping today.  Fair warning, there's a chance this will be up for a few days.  For starters, this is important.  Very important.

I'm happy to see a number of my blog buddies have similar posts on their blogs and was happier still to see the twitterville in a twit about this too.  Click the links.  Join.  Want a different perspective?  Glance at the titles under some of the blogs.  You will quickly find the words of some really smart (and serious) people.





Re: housekeeping.  That would be me.  With a mounting mess of paperwork ONCE AGAIN and for every piece I remove, ten more get added to the pile.  Shit like this:

• I finally have cell service IN MY HOME.  Five bars cell service.  This required hours on the phone with AT&T, a trip to the store to have a fight with the employees who would not sell me a piece of equipment I was told I had to buy at the store.  Why?  I'm not "authorized" on the cell account.  Three men standing in front of a hormone deprived female with a razor sharp tongue being taunted listening to these guys explain the need to "protect my husband's privacy" ......  They used the wrong buzz words.  For me, that was code for "keeping his secrets" and the inner bitch emerged.  Do NOT rile up the hormone starved bitch with the Italian temper who is on a mission and frankly, less concerned with the freakin' secrets than I am about having to walk around the block to see if I have any messages on my phone.  Another episode in the store, finally leave with the equipment, my credit card and THEY have my license.  Hours wasted over  two separate days and now I have to kill MORE time going back to the store to retrieve my license.  
• A few penalty letters.  Those IRS letters were the better part of my day last week, but yesterday?  Not so much. Must attend to that 2.mor.O.
• The compliance notice about jury duty.  Either I show up within the next fifteen days or I'm getting arrested or something.  The problem?  I messed up the whole jury duty thing because I FORGOT.  Chemobrain, cancer, any of this matter to anyone?  The second time, I remembered but then, I also had a doctor appointment with one of the seven damn doctors I see at MSK on a regular basis.  They know this (the jury duty people) but I'm now in contempt of court or something.  Kill another day in the courthouse.  If I can't follow a story line on television, how the hell am I expected to sit on a jury and actually PAY ATTENTION?  I suppose that would be beneficial to one side or the other so I further suppose I would be an ideal juror for someone?
• Then, we have that identity theft thing.  Besides someone showing up in a store with MY license which was the topic of a recent blogpost wherein I advised this person if they wanted my identity they could have it.  ALL of it. Now, someone ELSE is using a different credit card and showing up at a store in Texas.  The detective called me yesterday.  This is some sort of big deal thing which will soon involve the FBI.  Back to the police station to file a NEW report so they can stop this woman from picking up merchandise to ship to Africa.  Some random man who sent this woman lots of flowers and chocolates, fell for his shit hook, line and sinker.  He can't get to the store to get his stuff so could she pick it up and use his Fedex account to send said stuff to Africa.  The power of flowers and chocolates.  Lesson learned by the detective.  When courting a woman, it's all about the flowers and the chocolates.
• Other random stuff I can't really get into but it's creating a significant amount of additional paperwork to my already short-circuiting, overloaded chemobrain. 
• Notes all over the place... keep laughing, AM.  Just keep laughing.  You didn't cause it, you can't  make it disappear so Just Do It.  I'm the Nike woman.
• Oh... and if you are a Facebook person..... don't.. just do NOT put a "heart" in your status for breast cancer awareness.  HOW the hell does that raise awareness?  Exactly.  It doesn't.  So if you feel the need to do something... join HOW and THEN put the thing in your status... along the lines of  I "heart" HOW.  Now THAT would be a good meme. 

Balancing out this stuff, I have the other side, the really great side.  I want to thank two very special people.  In no particular order as they are both equally special....

Jessica Watson who writes for sheknows.com included this blog in a piece she wrote about Beating Breast Cancer through Blogging.  I am blown away and don't know how to begin to say thank you.  I'm honored and flattered and humbled.  Her piece was posted on 10/1 at 9:19.  Here she goes with the quirky stuff....  My last surgery was two years ago.  On 10/1. My "big surgery" was on 9/19 in 2006.  Yes, I'm quirky.  With a temper.  In other words, tread lightly before poking fun.

And then my friend, Jayson whose wife is a breast cancer patient and is just finishing up her reconstruction.  He wrote a blog and his love and concern and devotion for his wife is palpable in his every word.  He connected with some of the blog/twitter gang to seek some insight so he could better support his wife.  His words touched me and I don't know how to say thank you to YOU, Jayson.  Truly.  I am touched.  I find myself thinking, "How sweet is that?" and now I understand how you felt the day your wife was in surgery and you were trying to occupy your time while she was in the operating room.  It's the little things.  Except this, to me, wasn't a little thing.  It's a really big deal and I'm so very grateful for your kind words.