All right. Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right... and who is dead.

The hardest part of this whole thing right now is that I am not sick.  I’m not.  As far as we know I don’t have cancer or any other disease.  I may have a slight case of “know-it-all-itis” or an overabundance of fat cells in my brain but the last time I checked neither of them were fatal.  That’s what makes this so hard.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with my stomach and yet they want to cut it out.  Ok, so it takes up a little more space today than it did when I was younger, but it also has way better stories to tell than the 20 year old version did.  

When this gene mutation was found in Melanie, she was already kicking the hell out of breast cancer.   It was the type of breast cancer that sent off the alarms and lead to the discovery of the mutation, so that makes her story different.   She spent so much time and energy doing everything she could to eliminate the cancer, and then the CDH-1 mutation was found and it put everything at risk.  So her decision was different.  Her story is an amazing story of strength and if you haven’t read about it on her CaringBridge site, you should. It will explain why she is such a special young lady.  I will add a link to it here.

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/melanieking2

Why is this important to know?  Again, I am not sick.   If I was the story would be written differently.  For instance, in June of 2010 I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and needed surgery to have it removed.  I was sick and new something was wrong.  I was popping Motrin like they were skittles and couldn’t keep ahead of what I thought was a just a bad sinus infection.   So when the tumor was found, the surgery was scheduled and it was removed.  We Just fixed it.  In this case right now there is nothing to fix.  I feel great.  There is just this time bomb in me that may or may not go off.  I will feel great up and to when this bomb goes off.  The issues is that when this gene mutation acts up and if it turns into cancer, you don’t get a chance to fight. 

Both Melanie and I have stated that our situations were different, and I wanted to try to explain why.

Set 'em up, I'll take a drink with you

Pull up a chair, I think I'll stay

Set 'em up, cos I'm going nowhere

There's too much I need to remember, too much I need to say

(All of my life   Phil Collins)