What's next?

2008 can officially go eff itself. My cousin, who is one of my best friends, just called to tell me that her husband has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

This would be a traumatic experience for anyone, but my cousin lost her mother to cancer five years ago. My aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. She had a double mastectomy and chemo and was declared cancer free. Seven years after that, she found out that the cancer had returned in her spine. She went through treatment for four years. Bone cancer is not something that you can cure, but they would treat it to keep it from spreading to her organs. It eventually spread to her liver and brain, and she passed away in 2003. Most people do not live as long as she did with bone cancer. It was in virtually every bone in her body. Walking was painful. She couldn't bend over to pick something up off the floor. One day she was having blood drawn and the nurse turned her arm over and broke it. My point is that she truly suffered. When she couldn't teach anymore (incredibly, she taught up to five months before her death), my cousin quit her job to stay home and take care of her during the day. My point in sharing all this is just that this is really a sucker punch for her. She knows that this isn't the same as her mom's cancer, but it is still terrifying.

They will be getting a second opinion. Please pray that comes back negative. And pray for strength for their entire family. They have three boys aged 3.5 and younger. Please pray that Niki gets the help she needs from family and friends. She lives in Atlanta, and I obviously don't have the means to get down there. It kills me to be so far away and not be able to help her.

And seriously, two more weeks of 2008 is two weeks too long.