Last night I found out that a friend's husband had just been laid off. This wasn't from a company that laid of a percentage of it's work force, this was from a company that recruited him heavily from his other job a few years ago. They have two daughters, a mortgage, credit card debt, car payments: the American "dream" and they are scared. I know that my friend's husband wouldn't be complaining about the weekend coming to an end if he could just have gotten up this morning and went to work and the layoff was just a bad dream.
Another friend, @maggiemoo , is in the hospital with her two year old daughter in isolation. Maggie has been fighting a very rare blood disease for most of her life. The hospital is a common place for this young family. What they wouldn't give to have a day without worry...a day to be a normal family of 5 getting the kids ready for school, grocery shopping, homework, trips to the park. Instead this family is watching blood counts and planning a trip to Tufts in Boston for their daughter to have an MRI before starting an intensive treatment for her blood disorder.
So in the whole picture of things, I am really pretty fortunate. I have this thing on my forehead that doesn't look like much; but upon closer examination it is. Here is the "dermoscopic" photo Dr. Prokop took of my latest basal cell occurrence. The close up shows the little capillaries that have developed within it-the big tell tale sign they look for. Without a close up, it doesn't look like much. But in reality, it is something quite significant. Thank goodness for the diagnostic tools we have access to now that weren't around years ago, or this could have spread far beyond what it is now.
Today, at the Bangor Daily News, where I work, we were all given a reminder as to what is indeed most important. A bomb threat had been called in and we had to evacuate the building. In an unusual turn of events, I was actually told about the bomb threat by the publisher himself. I then notified my department and everyone at the paper gathered outside while the police and the bomb sniffing dogs did their job. When we were all given the thumbs up that it was safe to re-enter the building, everyone sighed a sigh of relief. Not only did we have our jobs, there had not been a bomb and nobody got hurt.
The happenings mentioned here remind me of how fortunate I really am. Yes, I'm going through a bit of a scary time but I have my job, my kids have their health, and fortunately the bomb scare was just a hoax. No matter how bad things seem, if you listen to what's going on around you, you realize how much worse things could be. Everyone that has a job needs to be happy they have someplace to go on Monday that will lead to a paycheck on payday. Parents need to be grateful that their healthy kids are eating them out of house and home. And those trying to "look healthy" by tanning need to look closely at what the damage it will do to their skin. Please, don't forget to use your sunscreen tomorrow.
Your blog is inspiring, Congratulations! I was diagnosed almost a year ago with BCC on the tip of the nose. As you I looked everywhere for pictures, one thing for sure that I learned, all cases are different. As you mentioned, we are really fortunate, specially with this type of cancer that you can detect and track almost immediately. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteJulia