God hates ... oh wait, apparently everyone

Friends, this being half of one of those kinds of blogs, I'm going to a post a note on Elizabeth Edwards. Particularly in the wake of messed up news stories about how those nut-jobs at Westboro Baptist Church are going to protest her funeral. Honestly, what the what, people? What is "Thank God for Breast Cancer" even mean?? Well, apparently their God, who hates fags, dead soldiers and "the World" (he does, it says so at www.godhatestheworld.com) now hates Elizabeth Edwards for dying. Well, God, I'm sorry to stand up to you like this, but I have a feeling you'll understand.

I didn't know her personally, but the more I read the more I see how similar our experience is --- I mean, apart from the parrot-tongued cheating husband, having and losing kids, and time on the podium at the Democratic Convention. She's not so much someone I'd drink with in a bar, but if she was at a party and we ended up sitting together in the kitchen with a bottle of wine, I think we'd have a lively conversation.

Her first diagnosis was 2004. She wasn't high risk and just came across the lump in the shower because it was "so friggin' large." She had chemo to shrink it and then a lumpectomy along with radiation and, as everyone gets, a bottle of aromatase inhibitors. She was "done" in 2005. In 2008 an MRI showed it in her bones. I found my own lump (not self-examining, just because it was there) and I'm also not high risk. I was originally was scheduled for chemo and a lumpectomy, but then that PET scan gave away the bone lesions and I skipped a few years on Elizabeth's time-line. But she had 6 years total, albeit only 2 officially at Stage IV, but I can work with that ... kinda. Everyone is different.

Cancer doesn't care who you are, what you do for a living, what tragedies or triumphs you've had in your life. It's just going to do its thing. It's always going to be there in some form, even if it means you just think about it every day. You just have to keep going and get as much done as possible .... erm, with the exception of Christmas cards, which I'm just not getting around to doing. You may all receive them in January. I'm just sayin'.

Yeah, so that Westboro Baptist Church thing is very sad. They're sheep led by fire and historically that ends up with a lot of burning. But like a kid playing baseball in Little League dreaming of being Nolan Ryan, these crazy religious guys all want to be Jesus whose death changes the world. Fred Phelps, something tells me your monster will eat itself someday and everything you've looked forward to, your martyrdom and infamy, will pass out of history without changing a damn thing (unless you count those who go through your town to gawk at your idiocy and those who pass it by altogether to avoid contamination).

For an interesting story on Elizabeth Edwards (where I learned the most) click here.

"So I try to be strong, but not too strong. ... You're walking a really difficult line, and I don't think I always do it right. But I'm trying to get it right over time."