My Blog is Just Gross

I admit to indulging every gross thought I have on this but it must be understood that I am not like this in "everyday life". This is my purge. That said......my phantom gall bladder has come back to haunt me. Last night at 2:30 am, POW! I sat up and had the EXACT same pain as my gall stone episode. But I don't have a gall bladder anymore. Is it like the ghost of Christmas past, warning me of the cheeses I should avoid and what my life would be like as a pate and triple creme Brie lover? Beats me. All I ate yesterday was cereal-Kashi if you must know, and later I had some hummus with RyKrisp. Seriously, must I become a Breatharian?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inedia

The whole Breatharian thing was a big joke for us in college, as a friend of mine interviewed a local who claimed membership and SWEARS he stole a breath mint on he way out of the restaurant. Plus, I like food.

Daily Breast Cancer rant:

Attended my Breast Cancer Task Force meeting where a chart was shown that stated the Susan G Komen For The Cure gives a whopping 5% of their annual take to actual research. So for all those women who think that the completely dork-ass pink ribbon is going to change anything.......think again. I find it offensive and almost criminal that they portray themselves as trying to find a Cure.

Perhaps they are responsible for the elevation of bile that is causing my attacks..........

What is Buddhism's Second Lesson?

In Mid September, I attended the memorial of a an amazing young woman named Ann Seeber who died of breast cancer. She taught the "challenged kids" in the Denver Public School system. She was an avid outdoor lover, always active biking, skiing, hiking and enjoying the beauty of Colorado. She had traveled extensively and had a serious passion for trekking in New Zealand. She was raised by somewhat Bohemian parents who live off the grid in Mexico part of the year. She had this amazing ability of being able to detect what was the unusual interesting quality in anyone she met, and made you feel as if she really "got" you and appreciated you. She fully embraced life and there is a vacuum of energy left behind. She was 36 years old.


I wrote before about my friend and co-worker that passed away from cancer.

Here is the lovely column written about her by my favorite local writer:


The performers at the Crystal Palace used to sing a haunting death song. Of all of us in the audience, so many would die of heart attacks, so many would be felled by cancer, another number would be killed in accidents, a few would be murdered, on and on until none in the room were left.

That's how we're feeling in our small advertising department of The Aspen Times, with two of us taken within the space of a year: Andre Bonhote of AIDS/ pneumonia and Christine Maggi, on Thursday, of cancer.

Andre already had left the Times to seek new vistas as a hotelier in Scottsdale, Ariz., got sick suddenly and perished, but Christine started dying right before our eyes last fall.

She was having a hard time swallowing, she said as she grew thinner and thinner. "Go to your doctor," we begged her, but she was seeing a homeopath who told her she had "parasites," even told her the exact date in the late '90s that the parasites entered her body, and treated her with potions to kill the intruders.

Christine was always into soothsayers, had a box of fortune-telling pebbles on her desk, threw the I-Ching pennies to foretell her future. I don't know if she would have survived if she had had the endoscopy earlier, which diagnosed advanced esophageal cancer, but the prognostications of those in whom she put her faith were dead wrong.

In February, she moved to her brother's house in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., while being treated at Sloan-Kettering, and soon after that we had to tell her that her dear buddy Andre had died. Christine herself went into the hell of chemo and complications as the cancer marched relentlessly through her body.

Friends and family members stayed in touch with the latest heartbreaking reports. Stomach, ovaries, pneumonia, water retention, hospice.

"I'm trying to check out," she told her sister, "but it just isn't happening."

A few days before she died, her brother Jerry e-mailed, "The other day, I was talking to her and she clenched her teeth, made a fist and it looked like she wanted to punch the bed. She dropped her fist and whispered to me, 'Every time I wake up, I'm still here.'"

Christ, she was only 38.

And she was so healthy, so strong, beautiful and robust ("Thunder thighs," she would say, disgusted). She took long hikes in the mountains and rode her bike to the Times for the past nine years in all weather, always running a little late, arriving rushed and rosy-cheeked with her long, dark curly hair still damp from her morning shampoo.

Often on the verge of debt, she'd give you her last dime if you needed it. When I got out of the hospital with lung problems, she gave me her expensive treadmill, brushing off any idea of payment saying she never used it. She loved giving, to the point where we had to be careful not to even hint at needing anything.

Christine was a gentle lady with a soft voice and a sweet smile, but she was tough and she was stubborn. She'd ask advice from anyone but, after a lot of deliberation, take it from none, hoeing her own row.

I miss her laugh. She had a laugh like silver bells.

It seems impossible that she is gone.

Su Lum is a longtime local who knows that life (and death) isn't fair. Her column appears Wednesdays in The Aspen Times.


Her memorial is this weekend and we are climbing a local mountain and then having a giant spaghetti dinner all together.


So here is the deal: I get it......life is suffering. It is Buddhism's first truth. I promise I get it, I am ready for lesson #2.



Ann is the gal at the LIVESTRONG celebration and Christine is one with the lovely long brown hair.

Unmitigated Gall

I am quite out spoken on certain issues and speak my mind freely-maybe too freely on occasion-but after tomorrow I will no longer have the gall that I have enjoyed.
I went to the Dr. and the surgeon today who agreed that the gall bladder is being evicted. The date they gave me was October 4th. I hate waiting and especially for something I just want to get over. The surgeon then mentioned that there was a cancellation earlier......tomorrow. Like a gal who can't take her hair cut one more day and must get into the salon...I am losing my gall bladder tomorrow. No time to stew, no time to type up an Ebay description and see what I could get for it, just show up and wave it bye bye. I have had more than my share of surgeries in the past few years and am not worried in the slightest. I am, however, hoping it weighs 10 pounds.

October is marketing Mecca

Warnng: Cancer rant

It's just around the corner, that month where every object turns pink and "a portion goes for breast cancer research". Oh, really? What portion? What Organization? What does that organization represent and what are their policies? What pieces of legislation do they support? How much of the money goes to overhead for that organization? Does that organization support equal access to quality health care for all? OR does the money go to Susan G Komen? Nancy Brinker (founder of Susan G Komen) is a Republican who was given the ambassadorship to Hungary after tossing baby Bush some Texas cash. Her hubby owns Chili's and other Brinker's establishments. (Can you say sub-par meat?) Komen takes money from corporate sponsors who are responsible for polluting the environment which causes cancer. Komen says they are for "The Cure" but they do not support environmental research. By environmental research, I mean ANYTHING that is not genetic. And 85% of breast cancers diagnosed are NOT genetic-they ARE environmental.

Wrapping it in a pink ribbon does not change the truth.

Race for the Cure, my ass.

Square Peg

Two and a half years ago, I was deep in the middle of treatment. I had lost my hair for the second time in a year, had gained 25 pounds (talk about adding insult to an injury!) , felt weak, and just GROSS frankly. I decided it was time to do something, anything to take back what was mine. I lived for many years in a great mountain town, working for the newspaper, and working with a great bunch of misfits, freaks, and geniuses. Every year there is a Race For the Cure in the little town and I went up to participate along with my best friend, her little girl and about 10 friends who still live there. The day before the Race, I walked around town visiting some old friends and went to pick up my race shirt and numbers. I picked up the shirt and my heart just SANK. It was the ugliest, most depressing Tshirt I have ever seen. Like cancer is not bad enough, I am going to have to wear this piece of crap. It was super ugly pink and had these creepy funereal doves with the saying "on the wings of a dove..." or some such dreck. I was talking to a local gal who is also a Survivor (and whose husband cheated on her while she went through treatment-can you BELEIVE that?! ) and she agreed they were UGLY. She wanted to wear one that said "f*ck cancer and f*ck Scott too". I really wished we could have had some made but the organizers would probably not dig it.

I managed to get a local guy to airbrush a tshirt for me that says CANCER SUCKS and on the back it says cckma- which he said means either "cancer can't kick my ass" or "cancer can kiss my ass" . Either one was fine with me.
The morning of the race was beatiful and all my gals showed up in fine form. The majority of those I passed high fived me on the Tshirt. It's true, cancer does suck.

It was a 5k which is nothing unless you have had 12 rounds of chemo. The after-ceremony was bizarre and I felt like I was being initiated into a cult. They had all the survivors stand on a stage in front of everyone and wave these pink roses. All the Survivors knew the words to some song they were singing and started swaying. For anyone who knows me-this is my idea of a nightmare. I was laughing /crying. My friends were split-"Is she overwhelmed by the emotion?" My best friend was laughing hysterically and told them " No- she is freaking out, someone go get her" This may seem crass but I think it is just as crass to dress up the leading cancer killer of women in pink and act like it is a creepy sorority.

I went back to my place and slept for 10 hours.


The reason I am dredging all this back up is that my friend , # 761 in the pic, is on her last journey from this world right now. She was diagnosed with esophageal cancer last February and is 35 years old. Cancer is a horrible disease.

Friday night at the ER

I have been trying to take a vacation from cancer and see how it fares........apparantly this is a foolish notion as I lost a very good friend and another girl who was a cancer acquaintance-both young and it is still too painful to talk about. So instead, I will tell the tale of the 80 year old woman who has possessed me and is giving me all her creepy old lady diseases. I should have known sooner, I had pleurisy at the age of 10 when I got home from 2 weeks at freezing wet camp. Then I had gastroenteritis at 20! I mean, who even knows what these conditions ARE at that age?

Friday night, I am hunkered down, watching On Demand at my house sitting gig. My upper back starts aching as does my upper abdomen. I swam fairly hard that day so I thought maybe I tweaked my back and took a hot bath but it still was hurting and felt worse. I was having this dilemma of "Does this really hurt or am I being a wuss? Is it getting worse or am I imagining it? Should I go to the Dr or just try and go to sleep?" I could not get comfortable and decided to stretch out my back which did NOT help. I soon began thinking I should just go to the ER because I could sleep if I couldn't lie down. I made a couple calls and couldn't get any family or friends on the phone so I drove myself. It started REALLY hurting and I ended up going through red lights like a mad woman. I get to the ER, they get me right in, thankfully. Getting an IV in was a nightmare, as usual, but the pain medication helped for a while. I had lidocaine-GROSS beyond imagination, x rays, a CT scan, and they couldn't find anything. Around noon the next day, they gave me a sonogram and decided I have gallstones. Gallstones?! I am officially 80 years old. I am in a holding pattern until next week to see if the gall bladder goes. Whatever.

The good news is: It is NOT cancer!!!!!! I was so happy to have those scans to let me know that NO, cancer is NOT everywhere in my liver. And after a little investigation, I have learned that there is actually a market for human gallstones somewhere in Asia and I am not above an Ebay auction. The mind reels with the possibilities.

Ignoring Cancer Doesn't Really Work

After avoiding the subject of cancer for a good month or so, I was hoping to really not think about it but sadly, it is impossible. I attended the funeral of a young, sweet, amazing, 34 year old mother of two this week who was diagnosed with breast cancer 2 years ago. She was a marathon runner, a nurse, a wife, a sister, a daughter and she lost her battle.

I got so angry at the priest saying "This should be a day of celebration-she has gone to be with her Holy Father" , Yeah-he's pushing 65 and has no kids. I promise you her kids are not celebrating, you insensitive ass. He had never met her yet felt he could say these things. Ugh.

I attended the funeral with a few other young survivors, a couple who are Stage IV and it shook them to their core, I am sure.


I am glad you are out of pain, Christina and I hope your wonderful spirit lives on in your children.

Cancer sucks.