She never *did* like liver.

I try very hard to bring you the funny, my friends.
Today's post is not the funny.  It is far from the funny, and I invite you to skip it. I suspect it will be weighing heavily on my mind for quite some time.  I will try not to beat you over the head with this subject in the future unless it can somehow *be* funny.


Let's say you work in a hospital, and you cross paths with a doctor in the hallway.  For no real reason, you decide to ask, "Hey doc, I've got this lumpy area here on my righthand side.  Does it look like anything to you?  Or is it nothing?"
And after a cursory fondle of your abdomen, he replies, "I think we should take a look at that."

The good news is, because you are a valued and cherished member of the hospital staff, you get every test in the book, and you get your results pronto.

The bad news is, it's cancer.  And it's stage 5.

The worse news is, while it's not liver cancer, it's some rogue cancer that has migrated from somewhere else to settle in your liver.  You see, you have some other kind of cancer... but guess what?  You don't have any symptoms to indicate where that other cancer might be.

And you're my sister.

But again, because you are a valued and cherished member of the hospital staff, you're getting attention from people who know you and care personally about you.

***

Oh, yes.  Because she is family, her phone call to me started with, "So, has anyone in the family talked to you recently?"
Crap.  "No one called to tell me anyone has been in the hospital."
"Oh.  Well, I've been in the hospital."
"You work in a hospital."
"Well, yeah..."
"Are you calling me with bad news?"
"It's... news..."

***

I'm thinking of referring to her from now on as The Lily-Livered Sister and The Disease To Be Named Later.
(See how the humor works in there?)

***

There's no prognosis at this time. There's no treatment in motion. They need to know what all they're dealing with first.
For what it's worth, my sister says she'd prefer chemo to surgery. And since she works in surgery, that's really saying something.

***

I immediately pawed through my baskets of yarn looking for something special to crochet.  I'm thinking a hat for her in case she loses her hair. Nice yarn. Pretty yarn.
I have piles of baby yarn.  It's cute and all, but not for an adult woman.
I have piles of afghan yarn.  But, no.  It's all too thick.

Suddenly, I was in a panic to finish the Broncos hat I'm making for Richmond's dad and the two hats I started for the lady at work who'd just had emergency brain surgery.  I had to finish these hats.  I had to make a hat for my sister right away!
I was in the middle of planning a trip to the "fancy" yarn shop north of town when a quiet voice in my head told me, "You have time.  She hasn't had chemo yet.  She hasn't lost her hair yet.  And, honey?  Making a hat won't cure her cancer."
And I got really sad.

***
 Incidentally, when I told Richmond about my sister, she immediately volunteered to be tested to see if she's a donor match.
"You've never met my sister, and you're offering her part of your liver?"
"Of course."
"Huh.  And I was gonna give her a hat."

***

What I want you, dear reader, to take away from this is that my sister didn't feel sick at all.  Didn't look sick, didn't act sick.  No one said, "Hey, you're looking a little yellow.  What's up?"  She wasn't even thinking about making an appointment with a doctor to have this lumpy thing looked at even though she could feel it at night when she rolled over on it.
She just happened to mention it in passing.
Dunno about you, but I don't pass a doctor in the hallway everyday to just mention stuff to.

If something is bothering you, please see a doctor about it.
Please. 
Right away.

Your phone is right there...  it's right there.

If you wait, well, what kind of co-workers have your back?