Maybe it's the tryptophan
Maybe it's the '04 Merlot
Maybe it's the peyote
just kidding ma
Maybe it's the acoustic neuroma

Today I am most thankful that I am getting older. I REALLY love being older. The things I know and realize. The perspective I am at. It is a natural high. It's so awesome.

I see beauty and possibility and hope. I can see nothing but blue skies!

O useless beauty!

The song in my pores that I feel at the thought of the future.

I feel so FREE. A brain tumor has set me free. Free of expectations, free of worry. What the fuck does anything matter at all anyore??

I talk too loud. I eat too much. I don't get to work on time. I leave from work early. I run red lights. I oversleep, I stay up too late. I miss payments. I obsess about money. I creative finance. I plan for big expensive things in the future.

I dream. I believe. I imagine. I realize that really anything is possible.

And I am NOT afraid anymore.

When you stop expecting that you are allowed to expect things -- you can expect EVERY THING.

You can expect miracles.

It is what it is.

hlee

Am-I-Dumb.com - Intelligence Test

You have to skip through 300 ads to find out, but in case you're bored...

Like me.

Yeah, I discovered You Tube.


Does it show? Actually trolled this from Ms. Mac's blog. I feel really inspired though...




Actually, note how skinny the guy is. (His name is Mika and I guess he is big in Europe.) I once knew a guy who told me that skinny guys like thick chicks because, well, it doesn't hurt to bump uglies with them. I guess you get too bony people together and it gets dangerous.

I will never have to worry about that.

Well, at least I wrote another page... But then I found the internet again...

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/page?id=3623346

In case you didn't want to be bothered figuring out who your candidate of choice was for 2008.

What I was doing when I was supposed to be writing a paper...

Every single time I read the the Rabbit blog I get inspired. It's not the first time it's driven me to write.

It's her advice. She just gives such blunt advice and I just love her for it. Just like Carolyn Hax (you can find her at the Washington Post's website, but you have to register so I didn't include the link) -- but more brutal because Carolyn has to be fit for the paper.

Rabbit gives me hope that maybe wisdom could be communicable and makes me want to keep trying. I don't think it really is, but I can hope.

See, Rabbit is, like me, in her 30's. In your 30's, you just have an entirely different world view of your previous life. You finally understand the true value of experience, and finally have the haunting realization that no one gives a shit about your experience because they think they are different from you and think they will never, ever make the same mistakes you made.

Being in my 30's also actually makes me look forward to getting older. I think that if I have learned this much so far, then how much more do I have to learn and gain and grow? HOW exciting! How boring to be young. Sure, you can button your too tight jeans without lying down and you don't have that wrinkle between your eyes, but you are dumber than dirt. No matter how smart you are -- dumb.

And I realize that there will come a point that I will look back on where I am now and think the same thing, and I think that's pretty cool.

I also think that it is way too bad that you can't communicate this to people who are younger in a way that will make them care.

You really are going to wish you had voted and not had ice cream for dinner so often and didn't skip going to the gym and never took up smoking and didn't sleep with quite so many random guys and finished college and followed up on that great idea you were too scared to invest in and taken that great cross country car trip with your girlfriends.

You are going to realize that what they say about regretting the things you DIDN'T do is really true.

You are going to realize that it's important to build a life that is about being true to you. And this life cannot be built on the backs of friends and family who tried to support you. It's important to try to be kind, but not so kind that you let your best friend buy that dress that you know makes her look like a cow.

There can be too much kindness.

And some things really are just things. You can let them go -- you can release them. When you lose something that truly matters, you completely understand the value of letting go.

Live from the Mountaintop --

Heather

Oh my this is quite lovely...

Where the farg have I been...?



Dear You,



I didn't want to tell you. I knew you wouldn't take it well. You would get all dramatic and think bad things and I just didn't want to deal.



I mean, I had my own stuff going on.



The shortest version of my somewhat long tale is that technically I have a tumor in my brain.



No, I'm not making that up.



I told you you would get upset.



The longer version is... My mother has a disease known as Neurofibromatosis 2 (aka NF2). She has had this for quite some time and dealt with all of its fun-filled action without knowing that this was the word for it. She had her own brain tumors back in the 70's/80's and their subsequent removal left her with no hearing, facial paralysis, poor speech, vision and decidedly crappy balance issues. When we found out that the condition was genetic, she also learned that the way to screen for it was through annual hearing exams.

And the nagging began.

I had my first hearing test in 2004. Everything was fine and the doctor said that I could probably get by with a bi-annual screening. When I visited again in 2006, there were some concerns and he decided that annual was better. Good thing because this year's exam showed a slight dip in my hearing. Very slight. Something one could obtain after being to one too many rock concerts and something that would not have been of major concern if not for the genetic predisposition to NF2. He ordered an MRI and I went for that shortly after.

I gotta tell you, I'm pretty naive. It really did not occur to me that I would have these tumors. The idea just didn't even enter my head as a possibility. I don't know why. I have had other tumors, I have always known this was a possibility. But, there you go. So, when I went to the doctor and he gave me the results, I was stunned. Speechless. I tried to ask questions, but I was really just too confused to pursue them. So stunned was I that when he first told me, I didn't even realize that he was saying they were bilateral -- I thought there was only one. It was just inconceivable to me. Which, as we learned from the Princess Bride, "you keep using this word -- I do not think it means what you think it does."

Anyways. I called Scott on the way home from the results. I didn't mean to tell him over the phone but I was just so upset. He came home immediately and we decided that the best, most practical immediate response was to get as fucked up as we could.

And we did. It was lovely. We had a maudlin experience discussing how I wanted my funeral to be, lamenting not purchasing long term care insurance, and many other lovely details. (By the way, I do not want to be buried but I do want a marching band playing When the Saints Come Marching in at my funeral. Take care of this, you.)

Yadda, yadda, yadda -- I've been to several specialists and even had an appointment with Scott's aunt who is a hypnotherapist. I have decided to pursue a course of treatment on the larger of the two tumors that is called gamma knife. Basically, I have a helmet screwed into my head, another MRI is done to get the exact location of the tumor and gamma radiation will be directed at the tumor to prevent growth and encourage retardation. Of the tumor, not me. The smaller of the tumors, we will watch and see what happens. If there is no growth pattern, then that will be the action for time to come. If not, then I intend to pursue gamma again if it is successful on the larger tumor.

There are risks with all courses of treatment, but gamma radiation only bears the risk of not wanting me to be angry. You won't like me when I'm angry -- I get green and my clothes rip off...

Just kidding. Scott hopes.

Anyways, so that is what I wanted to tell you. I know that you will take it hard. It's a hard thing to take. I get that. But you don't have to be overly nice or whatever, I just have a brain tumor.

You probably think that explains a lot anyways. :)

Let me know if you have any questions -- just comment here.

love,

Me