cells- the good, the bad, the whatever

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Pages from
Butterfly Kisses and Wishes on Wings: When someone you love has cancer... a helpful, hopeful book for kids 

What I understand now is that our body is always making bad or cells that have gone awry.  But most of us can fight it off.  Cancer is when our body is not able to fight them off- an immune deficiency. Never really thought of it that way.

In any event, I am in a good place mentally, and when I look at these two illustrations I am reminded of the warm summer day when I had Griffin at age 5 jump up so I could do this drawing on our patio, and Nate at age 3 modeled for the illustration on the right with his microscope.  

They were little then, 5 and 3 respectively.   Cutie pies. Still are, just as feisty, and just as cute.

My butterflies...

Never an Easy Conversation

Pages from
Butterfly Kisses and Wishes on Wings: When someone you love has cancer... a hopeful, helpful book for kids

This second time, I was not so delicate.

The phone rang, I heard the news - all three sites from my axilla (armpit) were malignant.  I may have blurted the news right out to Griffin, who is now 13 (he was 5) the first time.  He immediately went and told Nate who is now 11.  His eyes, immediately, began to well up.

I'd like to think I handled it more gently in the moments following. It's never an easy conversation, even with a prior history and all the work I have done with my cousin Ellen.  But we continue to work through it - Together.

That was just about 2 months ago.  Finally, I have a plan.