[Gatesedge] OT - Breast Cancer Happiness

[snorri at houston.rr.com]

Greetings my friends and family:

This is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the United States.  There's all kinds of places you can go for information, and if you go five minutes in most any mall this month, you'll find some fundraiser reminding you about it, so I'm not going to bore you with all that stuff.  What I am going to do, is tell you why it's such an important topic to my heart.

Once, my mother had a lump in her breast.  It hurt her, and it didn't show on a mammogram - two things that are asymptomatic for cancerous masses.  So her doctor told her with the wisdom of 20 years, "If it's hurting you, let's just get it out."  So a simple lumpectomy was scheduled and performed, the mass was physically inspected by the surgeon and was pronounced benign before being sent to pathology per hospital procedure, and Mom was prepped to be closed.  All was smiles in the operating room.  Then the phone rang.  It was pathology for the surgeon.  The tumor was malignant.

My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Her situation was probably one of the best of all possible worlds, receiving a positive diagnosis once the cancer had already been removed.  She went through a relatively mild course of radiation therapy and no chemotherapy.  So many other women (and men) are not so lucky.  The point is, if you are of an age where your doctor is suggesting you be screened for breast cancer, please, for the sake of yourself, your loved ones and your friends, get checked.  Catching it early means a much higher survival rate, bottom line.  And people do survive, like my mother.

Her diagnosis was made on October 14, 1994.  Today is her 10 year survival anniversary.  She plays in the SCA when she comes to Ansteorra, and many of you know her.  She goes by Aldis Brunisdottir, but she answers to "Denny" or "Mom" too.  She lives alone in North Carolina, and so I'd really like to ask your help in making this a special day for her.  I don't want to flood the list with congratulations and such, even though she'd read them, but I would like to ask that if you're so inclined, please send her a note at dhall1929 at bellsouth.net and tell her you're thinking about her today.  (If you know others who aren't on this list that know her, feel free to send this on; if anyone can get this to Countess Allyson, I'd be especially grateful.)

And yes, Mom, I know you're going to find out I'm plotting against you, and I don't care.  I love you and I'm very, very glad to have had the last ten years to spend with you.


Yeah, yeah, it's mushy, so sue me,
Snorri (Steven)