cancer bird(DNA)mad error in translation the messenger RNA misinterpreting the message failing its only function rewrite replicate the strands, split the old helices to make new neither live nor memorex i spent eight years watching my father and then my mother take their turns being lost in the translation i was one of those who carried their shadows in a box and said goodbye with a flower and a handful of soil tick tock tick tock the hereditary defect nearly certain lately i can feel something funny twitching inside me and some days i wake up nauseous maybe it's the stress but some days i have to wonder wonder if that timebomb isn't ticking in my cells. or maybe it's already gone off 010406 ... dB "If you maintain this lyfestyle, you won't reach thirty." Those were the words a few years ago. Already symptoms are setting in. Of course I had known that I would die young ever since I was three. But now. Looking at it from the eyes of a 20 year old, those words seem more real. Let's face it, I'm going to die. But how can that be, have I even lived at all? I was going through the history file on my HD a couple of hours ago. I came accross a Blather page called "tell me about the good old days". I saw your posts. You are like me. Finally, after all these years of searching, people like me. I discovered a few months ago that I had a family. It was like finally realising that I was not alone. That there was some other traces of my genetic meterial around. After seeing the tape that my dad had shipped from England, it was a grave dissapointment. My cousins are everything I despise about music. Heavy metall freaks playing Metallica covers. Crap. At that point I realised that I didn't really have a family. So what else is there? What else is there? I'm going to die and all I leave are the words on this board. Damn. 010407 ... unhinged he's dying of it. he already did. my mom had some on her nose. my grandma got paranoid and just in time. she didn't need a masectomy. 010520 ... cazzi my grandpa died of it, and now my grandma is slowly wasting away. my auntie had breast cancer, and seeing as it's hereditary, it's gonna get to my parents, then it's gonna get me. i'm just praying that by the time it gets to me or my parents they will have found a cure. 010521 ... silentbob Marv Kollasch this morning he was 69 010522 ... nocturnal cancer will kill me, I'm sure of it. unless I get shot or something. I've narrowed it down to the three most likely candidates: 1) skin (pale skin, hate sunscreen, blister every year) 2) lung (smoked for about 2 maybe 3 years straight, now after 8 months without a single drag, I'm back to the awful things) 3) liver (I drink a lot, been doin it since I was 10 and I'll be doin it for many years to come) knowing this, you'd think I'd cut back on some of my bad habits, seeing as how they're all due to choices I intentionally make. I'll never learn until it kills me. I am an idiot. 010522 ... carcinogenic bird same here 010522 ... nocturnal kinda sucks knowing you're killing yourself, doesn't it? 010522 ... unhinged i saw a guy without a trachea at work the other day...he just had some gauze taped over the hole and when he talked it was all watery and raspy. i overheard his wife saying to another old lady like they are wont to do that he hadn't talked for 11 months. that scared me. made me almost want to quit smoking. almost... 010523 ... Dafremen These folx are some of the most CONSERVATIVE folx I know and yet they can be so creative and imaginative too. They would rather stick with what they KNOW works than try something new that MIGHT work. They are the hardest working folx you'll ever meet and they ALWAYS have to be doing something. More often than not they tend to overwork themselves. The women tend to be moody and emotional, the men less emotional and more inclined to optimism than the women. In fact the men and women are more dissimilar than any other sun sign. The women tend to change their hair styles more often than most folx (close to monthly...and you can BET they are thinking about it almost every day)and they are CONSTANTLY rearranging the furniture, like once every couple of days at LEAST. They are really good with plants, although some of them haven't discovered this gift yet. Any plant they set to caring for inevitably will do well once they discover their empathy for plant life. Cancer people are imaginative, funny, warm-hearted people who are often misunderstood because of their emotional natures. They should learn to control their imaginations and their emotions whenever making important decisions. They are excellent judges of character and often form their likes and dislikes on the first impression. They are rarely mistaken. Like the crab, these people can be HARD on the outside, but are invariably sweet and soft on the inside. Once coaxed out of this shell, they are quick to retreat back into it at the slightest hint of insult or treachery, even a completely imagined one. In fact any criticism, even well meant advice is almost invariably taken in the worst possibly light and as a result these people are easily offended. Once they start on a task, if they imagine that anyone is viewing the project negatively, they will usually abandon it. These women change their minds ALOT. In fact USUALLY. They will tell you about the greatest idea in the world, start to work on making that idea happen and then, before you know it, they've changed their minds. My wife and daughter are both Cancers. They are IDENTICAL in every way. It's scary. MY grandpa is a Cancer too. MY favorite person in the world. HE coincidentally has had skin cancer since he was in his mid twenties. He's 82 now. - - 010524 ... dB Was it not yourself who said once that we only have truth and flattery? Well, reading the last paragraph, one can accept that you have a perfectly justified bias. 010524 ... unhinged my grandpa had prostate cancer for almost ten years before he died. but when he died he ended up with a tumor the size of a baseball in his lung and bone cancer everywhere..even in his skull. he was a walking genetic mistake. the birthday cake doesn't disappear anywhere near as fast anymore. 010524 ... Dafremen No you said truth and something else. Then I added flattery. It seemed appropriate at the time. Sides, he's my grandpa...he was in WWII. Don't make the man break his 82 year old foot off in your ass! 010525 ... h. miller "In the dusky corners of cafes are men and women with hands locked, their loins slather-flecked; nearby stands the garcon with his apron full of sous, waiting patiently for the entr'acte in order to fall upon his wife and gouge her. Even as the world falls apart the Paris that belongs to Matisse shudders with bright, gasping orgasms, the air itself is steady with a stagnant sperm, the trees tangled like hair. On its wobbly axle the wheel rolls steadily downhill; there are no brakes, no ball-bearings, no balloon tires. The wheel is falling apart, but the revolution is intact..." 010525 ... KnockDownDragOut I'm one. July child, born on a steaming gold summer night. Ruled by the moon. Water sign. I adore the ocean. Creative, fickle, mood-swingy, introverted. Perfect. Like having a place to call home. Right now, home is wherever I'm not. 010623 ... Miffey passionate about every emotion: Loyalty, love, hatred, lust. Love of nature, and God, and how it shows itself on earth. Creative, expressive, experimentative. I am a cancer, but just barely. Another day and I'd have been a Leo. The lion rears its head on occasion in me. 020308 ... jinx I watched my grandma die because of it. Literally, I saw her take her last breath, release her last breath, and watched her body carried out of the house on the stretcher to the funeral home. I watched my grandpa cry. I watched my uncles, cousins, mother, sister, and so many others cry. We all watched the casket lowered into the gound. We all stood shivering outside in the wind, in the cemetary, in the cold, and watched. 020308 ... silentbob she asked if i was libra, i told her i was scorpio. I asked if she was Leo, she told me she was cancer. 020308 ... little wonder when i asked where she'd been she said the hospital. she always tells me not to worry about her. she never asks for sympathy from anyone, she never wants people to feel sorry for her. she's so strong but so weak. she is so young and so far away. i want to give her a big hug, and be there for her, but i can't. i don't even know if she's alive anymore. it's been months since we've talked. i was told her dad died, in the world trade center. i cried. she doesn't need this right now. she doesn't need to hurt anymore. she's always so happy, so full of life...more than i've ever been. i remember coming back and she wasn't there "she's getting blood" he said. it was so normal for her. i hope she gets better. i don't want her to die. not yet, not now. 020308 ... little wonder just found out [she's still alive] 020311 ... lake of the west awww cmon take another puff it'll never happen to you 020508 ... peyton six weeks from diagnosis to death when the cells are traitors 020905 ... jinx You are mine, and you've spread. Please, kill me now so my entire body may be consumed by you, and then it would be impossible for you to let me go. I am yours. 030102 ... raze it started in his lungs. they cut out what they could. now they tell him it's behind his heart. cardiac sarcoma. the meds they want to give him might kill him. if cancer had hands, all he'd have to do is shake one and the disease would fuck right off forever. that's the kind of grip strength he's got. radiation and chemotherapy didn't do a thing to slow him down. maybe he can beat it. 240913 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I don't have this, but I found out on Monday that my mother does. That's the bad news. The good news is that it's slow-moving and localized (ductile carcinoma in one breast). The treatment plan is targeted surgery, not a whole mastectomy, and radiation afterwards. On the whole, it's not likely to be life-threatening; plus, if they take it out early, it's less likely to recur. And because life is a blob of contradictions, it might not have been caught this early if she hadn't had other health problems that put her on the "vulnerable" list and gotten her a GP (depression + insomnia ten years ago, pre-diabetes more recently). But she had to wait for the hospital who did the test to get back to her because her regular doctor is on vacation. Not that she shouldn't have a vacation, just that the timing caused a delay that made things more nerve-wracking. And then the call to schedule surgery will only come in the next three weeks. So we wait. ... When I was a kid, maybe between seven and nine, I noticed that people seemed almost embarrassed to talk about cancer. Why are bad things embarrassing, I wondered? Maybe because we want them to keep away. Avoidance of the words, as if we can dodge disasters or, here, a class of diseases, by not speaking their names. In cancer's case, maybe we don't want to spread it around the way cancer makes the wrong cells multiply. No, that's too poetic-licensey. It's the keep-away thing. And maybe a smattering of not wanting to demand attention - fear that other people will see you as fishing for sympathy. ... Back to now. I'm disappointed by how much this punch from bad fortune (even if it's lucky for what it is) is slowing me down. I think, "This shouldn't be an excuse for me not doing things!" But it seems to have that effect, excusable or not. And I worry that I'm barely able to hold it together in ordinary times. How will I help my family with/in/within these non-ordinary ones? ...So far the small and practical: making vegetable soups and salads that are tasty. Not that Mom can't do this, but the concern is to encourage her to eat healthy things when she might not have inclination or motivation to do so. That's it. Inclination and motivation! I mean, those things are down with me too. That showed itself this week: I diverted too much time to puzzles or videos about inconsequential things instead of getting my proofreading chapter done or planning for the bigger craft fair or applying to jobs for next year or reminding people about donating to my fund for Leena... Zoom out to the general: one of the things noticed so far about ADHD is that dopamine release doesn't work as smoothly as "normal," so it IS normal that stress will cause a worsening of executive function. Oh yeah, and guess who has anxiety too? Nice combo to steal one's sleep. But I'm already sleeping better than at the beginning of the week. KEEP CALM AND CARRY SOUP. That's what the T-shirts say, right? Even if worry turns my autumnal sluggishness glacial. ...Which reminds me, I like the sound of "glacial pace." Just not the feeling of having it. Well, let's just be glad the cancer decided to be slow, too. 261023 ... e_o_i Speaking of proofreading: "hospital that," not "hospital who." Unless the hospital is secretly a person. 261023 what's it to you? who go blather from