It began with a three-hour car drive followed by a leisurely couple of hours hanging out in Washington National Airport listening to the news. Farrah was dead; Michael was working hard to catch up. Iran might as well not have existed.

A short flight north left us sitting at another airport for a bit while the crew waited for a plane to arrive. It would seem that the rate-limiting step in getting a flight off the ground is to have a aircraft. Not to worry, only 90 minutes late and we were en route to Amsterdam. The fellow in the seat ahead of me bore more than a faint resemblance to the southern end of a northbound horse but once I was asleep that didn’t seem to bother me much.

Neither did Iggy’s snoring. He wanted to sleep on the plane and so I’d given him a little pharmacological support. It worked. Well. So well, in fact, that he didn’t take me up on the offer to trade him seats half way through the flight. Both flights Iggy sat in the middle seat and both flights he had ~ahem~ large men in the aisle seat next to him. Not only is he a trooper, he’s a gentleman.

In Amsterdam I was stunned by the airport security. Seriously, I allowed an hour to get through security at National and we waltzed on through. I had similar expectations for Amsterdam – customs and immigration questions, having to look through the bag – and we walked on through. The things that could have been in my bag! But no one looked. The pity is the worst thing we were smuggling was a bag of peanut M&Ms. More on those later.

From the airport in Amsterdam to Leiden city center is 10 minutes by train. We stood, which was a good thing because despite sleeping on the plane I’m not sure I could have stayed awake. It was a pleasant enough trip ending at the city center. Iggy and I had no idea where our hotel was at so I set off in search of a taxi. Of course, I did this out of nature – strange city, don’t know where I’m at, have luggage, need to get somewhere AND learn a bit of the layout – OH! It must be time to find a cab! Iggy followed but didn’t realize what I was up to until I was talking to the driver already. Right about then I realized that we were tired, hungry, and most of all, cranky.

So what is the first thing that a Pagan Queen does when visiting Holland for the very first time? Anyone?

Yup. Eats M&Ms and takes a nap.

After all, we have two weeks and it’s important to pace yourself.

I never noticed how often I fiddle with my ring until it is no longer on my finger. This afternoon I went to the jeweler today and ended up leaving my ring there to have the prongs fixed because the main stone was starting to get a little loose. Now, I'm finding that my ring finger feels naked, my hands don't look like my hands anymore. There's something missing.

This ring has been on my finger since I was 16 years old. It was my great-grandmother's diamond ring and was given to me by my maternal grandmother for my birthday that year. It's taken vacations from my hand before, but always short ones and it has always been missed. It is somehow my tie to the history of me, my family, and some distant past. And without it I feel vaguely ungrounded.

Now anyone who knows me well at all knows that my family history reads a bit like a Psychiatry textbook. At least a Psychiatry textbook where Substance Abuse and Pedophiles get more air time than your everyday run-of-the-mill neurosis. Heck, at this point in my life, neurosis doesn't even blip on my radar. With the possible exception of a particular Drama Princess. Then again, when I think about it I have to wonder if she doesn't actually have a summer sand castle in the Cluster B sandbox. Or at least visits there often enough to have a bad case of fleas. I think I just hijacked my own blog post.

Digression aside, if that's the kind of family and history I have then why would leaving it behind at the jewelry store be so disturbing to me? Besides, it's a thing. A material artifact of my life. So not only am I strangely nostalgic for a dysfunctional past but I'm placing value on something that that can be measured and quantified.

This is the thought that has been nagging at me every time I go to straighten out the ring that isn't there. Everything I've done, everything that has been done to me, is part of who I am today. As much as I would never wish any of these things on anyone, I can't wish them away from myself. Each and every one of these events, each and every one of these people have carved some part of me and shaped me into who I am.

And I've said that before. But why should a ring hold such significance?

My great-grandmother had a diamond ring. She didn't get it when she got married - she and my great-grandfather were young and poor and a diamond was a luxury. She had a plain gold wedding band with no stone in it. But she always wanted a diamond. It took decades for her to get it - if memory serves, my grandmother was married and had her diamond ring before her mother did. But great-grandma finally got what she wanted for all those long years. She got the symbol of love that she desired.

So when I wear that ring, I'm not holding on to the history of my family and their dysfunction. I'm holding onto decades of holding out for something better. I'm looking down at a symbol of love that one very strong woman knew that she deserved and waited the better part of a lifetime to have. That ring is my medal of honor for making it through the rough times and it is my promise of better things to come.

Thing 1 went to summer camp today. She's there for two weeks. Two full weeks. There are not words for how excited she's been about this - her chat status has been about waiting for camp since April. She couldn't wait to get there, once there she couldn't wait to get set up in her bunk and bound off to meet folks.

I did my best to fade quietly away. I didn't cling.....much. And I only teared up twice. The first time was on the drive down there. I realized, in a mad panic, that she'd done nearly all her packing herself. What if she'd forgotten something? What if she didn't have her name on everything? What if something got lost? What if.....

All I could do was to take a nice deep breath and tell her that I needed 3 minutes alone with her before I left the camp. She's still young enough to be compliant, and agreed to let me have the time. But separating her from the herd was difficult - I had to follow her to the bathroom to have a private word with her.

I told her that this was hard on me because I was letting her go - packing without me, going off without me for two weeks, all on her own. I explained that while I was concerned about all the dozens of little things that could happen, the bottom line was that WF and I have raised her to be an independent problem solver. I told her that I was sure she'd forgotten something or would lose something, but that I was equally confident that she'd keep her head and find a solution. Looking into the blue-green eyes of my eldest child, I told her how proud I was of her and how confident I was that she'd be fine. And I confessed that those feelings didn't mean that I'd miss her any less.

Then, on the heels of boosting the ego of my tween, I did something that is nearly unforgivable. I hugged her. In public. And held on a second or two longer than I needed to.

But she's a problem solver. She'll figure out how to do damage control on her reputation. And I'll figure out how not to cry.

The results are in. CIN I - Mild Dysplasia - with clear margins. Save yourself the Google search. That means that the cells were pre-cancerous and that they got them all out.

YEAH!!

My eyes are so dry. Sure, the pollen count has been high and I could blame allergies if I'd like. But I have another explanation.

I've had my eyes pried open and looking up at all the balls I'm trying to keep in the air - terrified of blinking for fear of dropping something. Now, I'm pretty fair at multitasking if I do say so myself, but I'm feeling a bit stretched. Maybe I'm getting old and tired. But I have this feeling of dread that if one more person adds one more thing to the mix I'm going to lose my grip on everything. So I'm keeping my eyes glued on all the bits up in the air and trying to keep them all moving.

But just for a moment, just here and now, I'd like to play a little pretend game. Let's pretend that I just walked away. *POOF* What's the worst thing that would happen? A lot of folks would be pretty upset. A lot of things wouldn't get done. But all the critical ones would get done eventually and people are upset now so that part is a wash.

So if that's the case, then perhaps it's time for me to start looking at exactly what is up in the air right now. Because from where I'm standing it is beginning to feel like some of these things could be dropped - by me - and left for someone else to pick up the pieces.

Maybe, just maybe, this is why both ACOA and CoDA have been mentioned to me in the last two weeks in different settings? A little subliminal advertising from the Goddess?

Page 2

Just in case you thought the fact had escaped my notice, what with all the balls in the air, I am aware of the fact that it has been three months since the last entry. It has also been pointed out to me that an update on the health issues mentioned last time might be in order. So, running through the body systems in question:

Boob: The surgeon wasn't impressed by what he saw on the ultrasound and wanted to see me again in July for a repeat ultrasound. Basically, he thought it looked benign and that was good enough for me.

Butt: I slept through the garden hose and the biopsy was negative. We've modified my diet and that seems to have solved things. I've done the appropriate controls and added back in the removed items one at a time to confirm that, yes, my body does in fact HATE certain things that badly.

Girlie Bits: I know. Not part of the original post. The Pap came back abnormal. Colposcopy showed an area too large to take a little biopsy of so I went in for a LEEP last week. At this point I'm waiting impatiently for the pathology report. I was told 7-10 days and it has now been 10. OK, I counted calendar days, they may have meant something else. But I'M NOT PATIENT! I'll post something when I have the results. My guess it will be after the point where I am allowed to lift 15# again (Thursday) but before I'm allowed to go swimming (a month). Argh.

I'm not going to whine. At least that's what I keep telling myself and what I'm going to tell y'all now. I am NOT going to whine.

I'm just going to ponder for a spell the trials and tribulations of getting older, the joy of statistics and the agony of medical non-compliance. What do those topics all have in common? Me.

A little over two years ago I turned 40. Several things happened then - I had a party, the warranty ran out on the core body systems, and generally my health went to hell. The funny thing is that I was looking forward to 40 so I can't even blame this on the placebo effect. My "problem" birthdays have always been the "9's". Something about the anticipation of the next decade is worse than the actual change. Thirty-nine wasn't much different so I was kinda grooving on the idea of turning forty. I hear it's the new twenty.

Shortly after the clock struck 4-0, I was diagnosed with IIH. Well, not shortly. It took nearly six months to get to the diagnosis but the first MRI was right after 40. I had a total of four MRI scans that year - all brain. Seriously, they need a punch card for that because I should have gotten a discount on the fifth (taken at the ripe old age of 41).

But I digress. 

IIH won't kill me, in fact the worst things it can do are to take my vision (30% chance) or give me pain that doesn't respond well to pain killers (already there). I can live with that, and I do. I see my Neurologist regularly and she tweeks my meds. Sometimes we have to have difficult conversations about side effects that I just cannot live with but generally it's not bad. For this little issue, I take a total of 10 pills a day. Which brings us to the topic of medical non-compliance.

As a physician one of the more frustrating issues is patients who just will not take their med or follow a plan to help themselves. In this post-40 world I find myself embedded in that camp - playing the role of the patient who is just sick and tired of being sick and tired and taking over 10 pills a day. I find myself wondering what would happen if I just went on strike and quit. Stopped taking everything. Don't worry, I know better. The part of me that lived through the last spinal tap off meds is still sitting over in the corner rocking back and forth having flashbacks of wanting to jump under a bus because the pain was so bad. So I won't do it but from here, I can sure see how people could end up not taking their medications as prescribed.

At this point, if you're still here, you're wondering why I'm whining about an issue that's been going on for two years. The simple answer is that I'm not whining, I'm settng a backdrop. A backdrop for my more recent adventures in Health Hell.

Not taking my meds means living in really bad pain. Taking my meds means my gut is in a perpetual state of angry. So any "complaint" related to my gut for the last 18 months has been blamed on my medications. That worked fine for quite a while until the complaint involved actual blood loss. At that point it became harder to blame it on meds. Nope. Time to bypass my Neurologist and go back to my Primary Doc and come up with a plan.

This did not thrill me. I know enough about medicine to know that a plan under these circumstances would involve a Gastroenterologist and a hose. And I was right. What I neglected to think about is that my Primary Doc is a damn good doc. So going to chat with her about this one issue wasn't going to work in March when I was due for a Pap in January. Nope. She wasn't going to let me off the hook that easily.

Paps don't bother me. Maybe it's because I've done them (10 years at a free clinic and I can say I lost count) or maybe it's because I just refuse to let them. What does bother me is when Doc quits joking and gets serious. Particularly when she's feeling up my boobs. And telling me there's a lump.

So at this point, I've seen the GI doc and have a date scheduled with a hose (in about 3 weeks) and I've had both my mammogram and my ultrasound which confirm a 6mm lump that needs to be biopsied. And I still know too much. I know that my gut is likely giving me grief from a mild case of colitis that will be diagnosed with biopsy taken through the hose and treated with.......more pills! And I know that the chance of this lump containing cancer is only about 2% so taking some of it out is really more for my mental health than my physical health. And I know that statistics don't mean jack for any individual. And that my mental health needs to know. And that I'm sick of finding things wrong. And that stopping all my meds and pretending none of this ever happened may not be the answer, but right now it's sure tempting.

I have a new mantra with Thing 2: "Shut up and go to law school." Seriously. We went out today for a girls' day out and I just stood back and watched. My favorite came at the end of the day. All I could do was to watch the floor and try not to laugh as Thing 2 had this conversation with her unsuspecting victim:

UV: Are you in school?
T2: Technically no because it's Saturday.
UV: Technically you are because you're still enrolled.
T2: I guess that's right. Actually I go to TinySchool.
UV: What is your favorite class?
T2: I can only tell you what my favorite has been so far. They have lots better classes as you get older so I think it will change.

Small talk really is an art form. Do you think it can be taught or should I just give up now?

WF and Thing 1 get back from their trip this weekend. That means that my two-week block with Thing 2 is coming to an end. We're having a really fantastic time but I have to confess that I'm looking forward to WF having the girls for a little while so that I can get caught up a bit at work. I've fallen into this routine of working late when WF has the girls and not doing that for two weeks has taken a toll on my to do list.

Which brings me to today's topic.

WF won't always be around to take the girls half the time. I guess in some ways I've known that for a while. Five years sounds about right - that's how long it's been since he was diagnosed and the prognosis then was 5-8 years. It wasn't exactly higher math to figure out that his cancer meant that the girls most likely wouldn't have him there for their high school graduation. Still, four years of the subject being off limits gave me ample opportunity to build up a buffer of denial. Soft, fluffy, comfie denial. I can see why it's so popular.

Three months ago WF told me that his cancer was back - had been back for 18 months in fact - and was gaining momentum. It had found a way around every treatment they'd thrown at it so far and they were down to the last two options. Not only was the prognosis bad enough that he needed to tell the girls, he needed to tell me. I'm not sure which he thought was worse.

Needless to say, the girls are processing each in their own way. I can see if even when he can't - even when they can't. Thing 1 throws me subtle messages here and there that let me know she's got some part of her psyche devoted to the concept. Thing 2 is doing her best to take over the nest of denial that I build. She likes it there but comes screaming out of it once in a while and hits me from left field with something so seemingly innocent that I could almost forget to ask her why she was thinking about that. Almost.

All of this is very predictable. And y'all know how much I like to be predictable. But what is the expected way to react? In the end it doesn't matter because I'm just a bundle of mixed emotions anyway - all over the map in a million places at once. It's not that I don't know how to feel, it's that I don't know how not to feel. I'm not sure what part of this I'm supposed to filter out.

I won't have to coparent with him. That's a blessing, right? I mean, coparenting is so hard that it keeps lawyers, counselors and mediators in business by the score. And I'm going to be one of the "lucky" moms who won't ever have to worry about Dad saying yes behind my back. Or blasting me for saying yes. Or, or, or. At least that's what I heard this week from someone who was thinking without speaking. It's a "Blessing" to be the only living parent. And I'll be blessed to not have to coparent with WF.

But that also means that I won't have him to co-parent with. Not only will I have to figure everything out by myself but I'll be figuring it out for a couple of girls in pain. Pain from losing their father and reacting to that in ways that will make them different from the girls that I parent now. They will, at whatever tender age this happens, have lived through something that many of my peers have not. And I'll be there to watch them suffer.

I'll have to parent differently just by virtue of solo parenting. Years of dealing with WF has allowed us to settle into our respective roles. We have a "dance" if you will. He heads toward one extreme, I pull back toward the other. We each fight for our side and then compromise in the middle. It works. But it won't work with just me pulling to one extreme. I'm going to have to find middle on my own, without WF pulling me in that direction. And I'll have to find that middle through a cloud of any guilt that I have. Guilt I will forever carry for the ill thoughts I had toward him during all the darkest days of the divorce. Guilt for any time that I failed to protect my children from pain. Guilt for any benefit I gain by WF not being there for them.

And just to round out the mix of emotion, let me really cloud things. I have known WF for 21 years now. In that time I have been his student, colleague, girlfriend, wife, enemy combatant and coparent. Throughout most of that time I have been his friend. I don't hate him (see: student, enemy combatant) nor do I love him (see: girlfriend, wife). In many ways, what is in my children's best interest is also what is in his. And of course, the fundamental truth of coparenting is that the better we get along the easier it is - our little "dance" from the last paragraph could easily look more like a duel if we didn't. So the question I find myself wondering about is: If we didn't have children together, would I miss him?

The answer, unlike anything else in this situation, is simple. We have children together, so the point is moot. I will miss him because we have children together. The children are the only Blessings in this situation. Anyone who says otherwise needs to take a closer look at my girls and tell me how Blessed they would be to tell the Witchlets that their father is dead.

Thing 1 is in France with WF right now on a ski trip. Sounds great, right? It must be great to be her! I wish my family had taken me skiing in France when I was a kid. If he wants to adopt another kid, just let me know. Must be nice.

Trust me, we've heard it all. Recently.

The trouble with hearing it all is that Thing 1 and I both know the truth about this trip. We both know this trip isn't about her or even her getting to spend time with her father. WF has admitted to me that this trip is about him and his desire to ski Europe before he dies. And Thing 1 has told me that she knows that. She knows that it's about him and she knows that he's dying. Fairly acutely aware of both of those little tidbits.

So when total strangers in the optical shop start telling my daughter how lucky she is that he father is taking her skiing in France and going on and on and on about how they wish they got to do such things life gets interesting: Thing 1 shuts down. She pulls in and tunes everyone out - I can see her eyes glass over as she just quits hearing the words. The natural reaction to that is people looking to me for some explanation. Clearly there is something wrong with my child and these total strangers have a right to know what it is. Specifically, they want to know if she is really so spoiled that she thinks that little of a trip to Europe. So they ask me as directly as they can: "Do you travel abroad often?"

What's a witch to say? There are so many ways I can sell my child out that it becomes difficult to choose just one. Should I go with: "Yes. We go to Europe at least once a year." and let her sound spoiled or do I go with the more direct: "Not really. She's just tuning you out because her father is dying and she doesn't like to think about their last 'world tour'." That one would make her cry but would be perversely gratifying.

So what did I do?

Yup. You guessed it.

Mumbled something vaguely like the first option.

We finished ordering her new glasses and left in silence. Outside, I apologized to her for my contribution to her genetics - the vision, the introversion, the overly sensitive nature, the works. Basically I told her it sucked being a clone. She hugged me and said "It has it's benefits." I guess that means I didn't totally mess this one up.

Don't worry. There's still time.

Every once in a while (ok, about six times an hour) something strikes me as funny for no good reason. This not only got me but got me enough to want to share.

Breast Cancer is serious business and I support research in all of it's forms. I just have to question why the NIH or NCI isn't directing the Congressionally appropriated research funds. What is the DoD doing with their hand in this? Do I really need them to defend my boobies?

According to the National Breast Cancer Coalition I do. They say:

Without a doubt, the DOD BCRP has funded important breast cancer research that simply would not have been funded elsewhere. The most significant example so far has been the research that led to the understanding of the gene, HER2/neu, which is involved in the progression of some breast cancers. This research ultimately led to the development of the drug Herceptin®, a drug that has been shown to extend the lives of women with HER2/neu-positive breast cancer.

NBCCF has been the driving force behind the DOD BCRP since its inception. NBCCF's role in the DOD BCRP represents an unprecedented working relationship between advocates and researchers. This program has been recognized around the world as an important new research model with many innovative features. In its 1997 review of the DOD BCRP, the Institute of Medicine commended the program and stated, "The program fills a unique niche among public and private funding sources for cancer research. It is not duplicative of other programs and is a promising vehicle for forging new ideas and scientific breakthroughs in the nation's fight against breast cancer." Grassroots advocates lobby yearly to assure reallocation of funds to continue the work of the DOD BCRP.

Again, I'm confused. Why would this research have not been funded elsewhere? Are other government agencies really that nonchalant about genetic markers for cancer? Since when does the NCI not take an interest in the development of new cancer therapies?

Call me skeptical, and I am, but I think that the "fight" against breast cancer doesn't need to be fought by the people who brought us Abu Ghraib. I don't mean that we should turn down research funding, just that I question the logic of who we leave holding the purse strings. I mean, my itty bitty titties would feel safer if the research funding wasn't being allocated by the same folks who brought us Tailhook. 

Biased? You bet. But their my boobies and I'm picky about who defends them.