http://abcnews.go.com/Health/OnCallPlus/Story?id=3722447&page=1

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Sent from an agnostic abacus

2014 C250 21,XXX my new DD ** 2013 GLK 350 18,000 Wife's new DD**

- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

I was never a Funky Winkerbean reader, nor really any other comic for that matter other than Dilbert, but I had been following it over the past few months.

I lost my MIL (she and my wife were very close and our older 2 kids adored her-it only took 1 1/2 yrs. from daignosis to her death) a few years ago to breast cancer at the age of 53, a good friend of ours in now in remission after a long battle (she's 41) and one of our long-term employees is fighting it right now (advanced stage but responding well to treatment-she's 42) so it really hits home.

In my MIL's case, she just felt something that didn't feel "right". It was too small for the mammogram to pickup but she insisted that something wasn't right. In the month it took from getting the mammogram to getting a biopsy which she insisted on despite seeing nothing in the scans it had grown to about golf ball sized. It never responded to any of the treatments, which really wiped her out and she just decided she couldn't take anymore. By that stage it had gotten into her liver and bones (which is a very bad sign). I can't stress enough to the ladies or their loved ones, if something doesn't "feel" right insist on further examination. Don't assume that because a scan didn't pick it up that there's not something there. If you've/they've got family history get the prescreening done.

I'll never forget the day we took her to hospice after she didn't gain consciousness that fateful morning. All the family members came to say their last goodbyes, the whole time my wife was by her side. She and I had gone to make a quick restroom break and grab a soda and that's when she passed. Apparently that happens a lot with close family members, where the dying person for whatever reason dies just after the other person leaves the room. I will never forget the vision of her final days and how fast she deteriorated. She was such a vibrant, active person before. 100% Sicilian, outstanding cook who would never let anyone get even a slight hunger pang before putting some homemade dish in front of them, a housecleaning dynamo and a special ed teacher's aid (pretty ironic given my middle son's Ds).

As a result we've (but especially my wife) become active with the CT Breast Health Initiative which does a big race fundraiser every year, not unlike the Susan B. Komen races but more on a local level.

It's really scary stuff and there's not a day that goes by without my wife thinking of it.

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1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)

Even if there is no history.....GET THE EXAM. Do the monthly exam....I am seeing women in their 20's who have breast cancer.....

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"It's normal for these things to empty your wallet and break your heart in the process."
2012 SLK 350
1987 420 SEL

How Did We Miss the "Breastival?"

That's only a couple of miles from here. I can't believe I missed it! Damn!

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" We have nothing to fear but the main stream media itself . . . ."- Adapted from Franklin D Roosevelt for the 21st century

OBK #55

1998 Lincoln Continental - Sold
Max 1984 300TD 285,000 miles - Sold
The Dee8gonator 1987 560SEC 196,000 miles - Sold
Orgasmatron - 2006 CLS500 90,000 miles
2002 C320 Wagon 122,000 miles
2016 AMG GTS 12,000 miles

My sympathies. I know how you feel as something simillar happend with my mother.

- Peter.

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2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

Aw, cr@p, this ain't easy.
In 1974 P & G (headquartered here in Cincinnati) sponsered a program testing out the new mamogram system. Mom's family had a bit of cancer here and there. She was a fairly large breasted woman so manual detection was not completely effective. She decided to be part of the trial program. It found something so small the doctor could not even find it manually. She went in for surgery (at age 41). Wound up with a radical mastectomy of the left breast and quite a bit of the surrounding muscle and of course lymph nodes. Really could never raise her left arm above shoulder height after that. Follow up with radiation (which fried a cardiac artery and gave her a heart attack much later).
A neighbor woman, friend of Mom's, also went and was similarly diagnosed. Neighbors' daughter and I were friends. Neighbor had a partial (basically a big lumpectomy). Neighbor died a few years later. Mom past away of a stroke this summer, 33 years after her surgery. In 1974, the survival rate for breast cancer was pretty much in single digits. When Mom told all of us kids (7, youngest 9 at the time), I pretty much figured the odds were we were gonna lose her. The testing gave me 33 free years with her.
She died June 8th, 103 days after the big stroke, with her whole family around her. She was living with my sister the nurse for her last two weeks.