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No Name
Feb 11, 2012, 5:25:11 PM2/11/12
to
Posted here without his knowledge or permission...
Storm Surge
“There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood,
you’re liable to fucking drown.”
—Richard Fariña, BEEN DOWN SO LONG IT LOOKS LIKE UP TO ME
I literally cannot express (let alone repay), and will never get over,
the tremendous amount of love and kindness and support I received from
you all, during and after my Jeanne’s heroic battle-to-a-draw with
cancer. Over 6,000 of you sent me letters of condolence and
consolation; nearly 1,000 of you sent gifts of one sort or another, an
uncountable number took part in the eBay charity auctions that Jan
Schroeder ran for us, and God alone knows how many of you prayed for
us.
I deeply regret to report that I could use some of that love and
kindness once again.
Nobody was more supportive to me during and after Jeanne’s illness
than our only child Terri Luanna and her handsome Brazilian husband
Heron da Silva and their now-2-year-old daughter Marisa Alegria; all
three were present when she died, and all three spent the next year
helping to put me back together again, before moving to Ohio so Heron
could work as an electrical engineer for Honda. All three of them are
tied for first place on my Favourite People list.
So on November 20 I flew to Ohio to spend the holidays with them.
Literally the next morning, I awoke to the appalling news that Terri
had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Stage IV metastatic.
If you’ve gotten an odd or nonexistent reply to an email, letter,
package or phone message in the last few months, this is why. If
you’ve been wondering why there hasn’t been a new podcast in a while,
this is why. If you’ve been wondering how the writing is going, this
is how. I seem to be having trouble concentrating on anything. My
brain is turning to fudge. I’ve been working on this announcement for
over a week, even though I know putting it off won’t help anything.
Cancer took my mother, both my aunts, and my wife, and now it’s
gunning for our only child.
How bad is Stage IV breast cancer? Well, the best 5-year-survival
rate statistic I found online is currently about 40%.
Actually, that’s good news. As recently as five years ago, that
figure was more like 10%. Obviously, I would rather it was closer to
110%: but a fourfold improvement in five years ain’t bad. As I told
Terri, if they can just maintain that rate of progress, in another
five years they’ll be curing people of breast cancer who don’t even
have it.
Terri Luanna is now in the midst of aggressive chemotherapy, which
will be followed by surgery, and radiation, and then perhaps some more
chemo. Her oncologist is being backstopped, and concurred with, by her
Second Opinion source, Sloan-Kettering in NYC. She’s too exhausted
from endless tests, scans and counseling, and too heavily ravaged by
side effects, to ride herd on a 2-year-old, so when I returned to
Canada in mid-January, I was replaced as full-time babysitter by an
ongoing rotation of girlfriends and aunts; I’ll be going back for a
second tour in March or April.
I am not even going to attempt to describe my own feelings about all
this. As Jeanne would have said—did say, in the same situation—words
just can’t touch it. I’m hanging in there.
Terri and Heron, for their part, are both very good at staying strong
and positive. They have to be. They live with a telepathic two year
old—who was in the room when her grandmother died, and knows what the
word ‘cancer’ can mean.
All three of them can use your help.
For a start, check out Terri’s extremely well-written new blog
<http://gracefulwomanwarrior.com/>, and send an encouraging comment.
That won’t be hard duty. Obviously I’m biased, but trust me on this:
my daughter gives damn good blog. She writes with eloquence, grace,
honesty and great courage. She’s already had more than 10,000 hits,
and hundreds of comments, and I know she draws strength from them on a
daily basis. There’s also a crosslink to her new gracefulwomanwarrior
Facebook page
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gracefulwomanwarrior/247095598695612>.
But more tangible support is more than welcome.
Heron works for Honda, a good employer, so their medical insurance is
decent, by American standards. But he began working for them less than
a year ago, so it hasn’t fully kicked in yet, has a steep deductible.
And take my word for it, even the best medical insurance (such as
Jeanne enjoyed) leaves a ton of expensive stuff uncovered—endless
things that add up fast, at a time when there’s already more than
enough to fret about.
That’s why the new website
<http://www.gracefulwomanwarrior.org/index.html> associated with
Terri’s blog (created for her by a committee of friends and relatives
that includes Jeanne’s 4 sisters Laurie O’Neil, Mary Rodericks, Dori
Legge and Kathleen Rubbicco) also features a pair of links labeled
Contact and Donate <http://www.gracefulwomanwarrior.org/contact.html>
and Benefit Fundraiser
<http://www.gracefulwomanwarrior.org/fundraiser.html>.
The first one lets you donate whatever you can by card, Paypal or
check-by-mail. And that same page also offers you the same three
convenient ways to buy tickets to the Benefit Fundraiser concert which
will be held at the Country Club of New Bedford, MA on March 2. It
will feature McCarthy & Leggé, whose truly amazing music will be
familiar to my podcast audience (Dori Leggé is the youngest of Terri’s
aunts), plus special guests, and there’ll be an auction.
Also, dear Jan Schroeder, who organized all those eBay auctions for
Jeanne and me, has just volunteered to gear up again for Terri—thank
you, Jan! What she’ll be auctioning and when is still being worked
out, so watch Terri’s website for news on that score. If you’d like
to donate something to be auctioned (it needn’t necessarily have
anything to do with science fiction), please contact me at my website
address, spid...@shaw.ca and I’ll forward your message to Jan.
If you’d like to help but are currently tap city, de-gigged, spent,
bent & unsent, suffering from pavement rash—that’s cool, cousin: I am
quite familiar with that condition. Even just a Facebook ‘like’ or a
short blog comment can mean more than you know. Prayers are
especially welcome, if you pray, or even just good wishes. And if you
should ever get an opportunity to help advance breast cancer research
with your vote or your voice, that’d be appreciated too.
One final request: this time round, I’d rather you didn’t send me
supportive mail. I deeply appreciate the impulse—but every email I
read, even if it’s short and I don’t respond at all, is at least a
sentence of fiction I didn’t write that day. I just can’t afford
kindness at those rates, right now. The best thing I can do for
Terri, and for myself, and for all of you who have already been so
kind and patient, is to finish and deliver ORPHAN STARS, the novel
I’ve owed for a long time now.
God knows it won’t be possible to read anything, much less write,
during those intervals when I’m on Grandpa duty in Ohio! At two and a
half, Marisa is not an unreasonably demanding mistress: tireless
devotion, unwavering attention and prompt service every moment she’s
awake are quite enough to suit her. So far, at least. But anything I
read in Ohio, I’ll probably be reading aloud to her.
Best job I’ve ever had!
Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoy my graceful woman warrior’s
blog. She explains that name on her website’s home page
<http://www.gracefulwomanwarrior.org/index.html>, by the way. And as
you’ll see, Jeanne named her well.
—Spider
Storm Surge
“There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood,
you’re liable to fucking drown.”
—Richard Fariña, BEEN DOWN SO LONG IT LOOKS LIKE UP TO ME
I literally cannot express (let alone repay), and will never get over,
the tremendous amount of love and kindness and support I received from
you all, during and after my Jeanne’s heroic battle-to-a-draw with
cancer. Over 6,000 of you sent me letters of condolence and
consolation; nearly 1,000 of you sent gifts of one sort or another, an
uncountable number took part in the eBay charity auctions that Jan
Schroeder ran for us, and God alone knows how many of you prayed for
us.
I deeply regret to report that I could use some of that love and
kindness once again.
Nobody was more supportive to me during and after Jeanne’s illness
than our only child Terri Luanna and her handsome Brazilian husband
Heron da Silva and their now-2-year-old daughter Marisa Alegria; all
three were present when she died, and all three spent the next year
helping to put me back together again, before moving to Ohio so Heron
could work as an electrical engineer for Honda. All three of them are
tied for first place on my Favourite People list.
So on November 20 I flew to Ohio to spend the holidays with them.
Literally the next morning, I awoke to the appalling news that Terri
had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Stage IV metastatic.
If you’ve gotten an odd or nonexistent reply to an email, letter,
package or phone message in the last few months, this is why. If
you’ve been wondering why there hasn’t been a new podcast in a while,
this is why. If you’ve been wondering how the writing is going, this
is how. I seem to be having trouble concentrating on anything. My
brain is turning to fudge. I’ve been working on this announcement for
over a week, even though I know putting it off won’t help anything.
Cancer took my mother, both my aunts, and my wife, and now it’s
gunning for our only child.
How bad is Stage IV breast cancer? Well, the best 5-year-survival
rate statistic I found online is currently about 40%.
Actually, that’s good news. As recently as five years ago, that
figure was more like 10%. Obviously, I would rather it was closer to
110%: but a fourfold improvement in five years ain’t bad. As I told
Terri, if they can just maintain that rate of progress, in another
five years they’ll be curing people of breast cancer who don’t even
have it.
Terri Luanna is now in the midst of aggressive chemotherapy, which
will be followed by surgery, and radiation, and then perhaps some more
chemo. Her oncologist is being backstopped, and concurred with, by her
Second Opinion source, Sloan-Kettering in NYC. She’s too exhausted
from endless tests, scans and counseling, and too heavily ravaged by
side effects, to ride herd on a 2-year-old, so when I returned to
Canada in mid-January, I was replaced as full-time babysitter by an
ongoing rotation of girlfriends and aunts; I’ll be going back for a
second tour in March or April.
I am not even going to attempt to describe my own feelings about all
this. As Jeanne would have said—did say, in the same situation—words
just can’t touch it. I’m hanging in there.
Terri and Heron, for their part, are both very good at staying strong
and positive. They have to be. They live with a telepathic two year
old—who was in the room when her grandmother died, and knows what the
word ‘cancer’ can mean.
All three of them can use your help.
For a start, check out Terri’s extremely well-written new blog
<http://gracefulwomanwarrior.com/>, and send an encouraging comment.
That won’t be hard duty. Obviously I’m biased, but trust me on this:
my daughter gives damn good blog. She writes with eloquence, grace,
honesty and great courage. She’s already had more than 10,000 hits,
and hundreds of comments, and I know she draws strength from them on a
daily basis. There’s also a crosslink to her new gracefulwomanwarrior
Facebook page
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gracefulwomanwarrior/247095598695612>.
But more tangible support is more than welcome.
Heron works for Honda, a good employer, so their medical insurance is
decent, by American standards. But he began working for them less than
a year ago, so it hasn’t fully kicked in yet, has a steep deductible.
And take my word for it, even the best medical insurance (such as
Jeanne enjoyed) leaves a ton of expensive stuff uncovered—endless
things that add up fast, at a time when there’s already more than
enough to fret about.
That’s why the new website
<http://www.gracefulwomanwarrior.org/index.html> associated with
Terri’s blog (created for her by a committee of friends and relatives
that includes Jeanne’s 4 sisters Laurie O’Neil, Mary Rodericks, Dori
Legge and Kathleen Rubbicco) also features a pair of links labeled
Contact and Donate <http://www.gracefulwomanwarrior.org/contact.html>
and Benefit Fundraiser
<http://www.gracefulwomanwarrior.org/fundraiser.html>.
The first one lets you donate whatever you can by card, Paypal or
check-by-mail. And that same page also offers you the same three
convenient ways to buy tickets to the Benefit Fundraiser concert which
will be held at the Country Club of New Bedford, MA on March 2. It
will feature McCarthy & Leggé, whose truly amazing music will be
familiar to my podcast audience (Dori Leggé is the youngest of Terri’s
aunts), plus special guests, and there’ll be an auction.
Also, dear Jan Schroeder, who organized all those eBay auctions for
Jeanne and me, has just volunteered to gear up again for Terri—thank
you, Jan! What she’ll be auctioning and when is still being worked
out, so watch Terri’s website for news on that score. If you’d like
to donate something to be auctioned (it needn’t necessarily have
anything to do with science fiction), please contact me at my website
address, spid...@shaw.ca and I’ll forward your message to Jan.
If you’d like to help but are currently tap city, de-gigged, spent,
bent & unsent, suffering from pavement rash—that’s cool, cousin: I am
quite familiar with that condition. Even just a Facebook ‘like’ or a
short blog comment can mean more than you know. Prayers are
especially welcome, if you pray, or even just good wishes. And if you
should ever get an opportunity to help advance breast cancer research
with your vote or your voice, that’d be appreciated too.
One final request: this time round, I’d rather you didn’t send me
supportive mail. I deeply appreciate the impulse—but every email I
read, even if it’s short and I don’t respond at all, is at least a
sentence of fiction I didn’t write that day. I just can’t afford
kindness at those rates, right now. The best thing I can do for
Terri, and for myself, and for all of you who have already been so
kind and patient, is to finish and deliver ORPHAN STARS, the novel
I’ve owed for a long time now.
God knows it won’t be possible to read anything, much less write,
during those intervals when I’m on Grandpa duty in Ohio! At two and a
half, Marisa is not an unreasonably demanding mistress: tireless
devotion, unwavering attention and prompt service every moment she’s
awake are quite enough to suit her. So far, at least. But anything I
read in Ohio, I’ll probably be reading aloud to her.
Best job I’ve ever had!
Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoy my graceful woman warrior’s
blog. She explains that name on her website’s home page
<http://www.gracefulwomanwarrior.org/index.html>, by the way. And as
you’ll see, Jeanne named her well.
—Spider
alie...@gmail.com
Feb 12, 2012, 12:42:40 AM2/12/12
to
On Feb 11, 2:25 pm, No Name <No_N...@noname.com> wrote:
> Posted here without his knowledge or permission...
(snip)
> Posted here without his knowledge or permission...
> So on November 20... I awoke to the appalling news that [daughter] Terri
> had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Stage IV metastatic.
(snap)
> —Spider
Well, fuck.
When will some oncologist trip over a way to defuse inherited health
bombs?
Mark L. Fergerson
Andrew Plotkin
Feb 12, 2012, 1:49:41 AM2/12/12
to
Here, nu...@bid.nes <alie...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Feb 11, 2:25 pm, No Name <No_N...@noname.com> wrote:
> > Posted here without his knowledge or permission...
>
> (snip)
>
> > So on November 20... I awoke to the appalling news that [daughter] Terri
> > had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Stage IV metastatic.
>
> (snap)
>
> > ?Spider
> On Feb 11, 2:25 pm, No Name <No_N...@noname.com> wrote:
> > Posted here without his knowledge or permission...
>
> (snip)
>
> > So on November 20... I awoke to the appalling news that [daughter] Terri
> > had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Stage IV metastatic.
>
> (snap)
>
>
> Well, fuck.
Concur.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
DEWLine
Feb 12, 2012, 3:43:23 PM2/12/12
to
Bloody. Hell.
Could the Universe PLEASE cut this man's family a break right now?
----
Dwight Williams, writer, artist and whatever else he needs be
http://web.ncf.ca/ad696/
Could the Universe PLEASE cut this man's family a break right now?
----
Dwight Williams, writer, artist and whatever else he needs be
http://web.ncf.ca/ad696/
Lynn McGuire
Feb 12, 2012, 6:44:57 PM2/12/12
to
cold. When those two solutions meet, we will get
zombies. _Feed_
http://www.amazon.com/Feed-Newsflesh-Book-Mira-Grant/dp/0316081051/
Be careful what you wish for, the solution is not
always good.
Lynn
Paul Ciszek
Feb 14, 2012, 9:56:46 AM2/14/12
to
In article <c3011d4e-fefe-436e...@q8g2000pbb.googlegroups.com>,
nu...@bid.nes <alie...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> When will some oncologist trip over a way to defuse inherited health
>bombs?
1) Locate someone with no genetic "issues", so far as we can tell.
>
> When will some oncologist trip over a way to defuse inherited health
>bombs?
2) Grow clones of this person.
3) Remove the brains of the clones and transplant other people's brains in.
Note: Will not work for inherited brain disorders.
--
"Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS
crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in
TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in
bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither."
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