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Ahhh, Monday. Things have calmed down here, so now I'm letting you all in on the new and exciting adventures of my life. I actually did some work this morning, but when you get in at 7:30am, the day kinda drags a little (should have left later, since I knew traffic would be lighter because of the holiday - I just didn't anticipate NO traffic). Oh well - I get to start making up the time for the days that I need to take off. Yippee.
So...I went to NYC for the first time ever this weekend. I met Mike and Melissa there on both Saturday and Sunday and did LOTS of walking. On Saturday, I saw Central Park, The Met, FAO Schwartz, this restaurant called the Jekyll and Hyde Club. Also got a look at the Guggenheim, the New York Public Library, got to ride in a NYC cab, and of course Grand Central Station. On Sunday, we went to the top of the Empire State Building (Sears Tower is better - had to get that out there), saw Chinatown and Little Italy, ate at a McDonald's in Penn Station (Sarah told me today that there's a Krispy Kreme stand there - I'm so upset I missed that!), and got to ride the Subway. I took lots of pictures. It was pretty cool to finally get a taste of NYC and the weather was great for walking around a city - nice and crisp. I may perhaps have to go there by myself one weekend before it gets too cold, now that I'm not as freaked out about it. I can also cross it off my list of "Things I Really Should Have Done By Now and Must Do Before Graduation." Items still on the list (that I can think of off hand) are Visit Boston and Learn to Ski.
I've decided to start being a bit more optimistic, because I really hate being depressed - it just makes me even more depressed, and I hate getting into that kind of vicious cycle. Besides, I have way too many things I have to worry about - there's no need to add to the list. Anyone remember how happy I was over the summer? I want to get back to that point. So, here's Liz's list of Things To Be Happy About:
- I get my car back next week.
- Visiting my friends is twice as much fun because I don't get to on a daily basis anymore.
- I've spent the past 3 weekends with Cornell people and will do the same this coming weekend.
- When I do go out and have fun, I don't have a little voice inside my head either telling me that I should be doing work or reminding me how much work I have to do.
- Only a little over 3 months until I'm back in Ithaca for good!
- Almost everyone I know (though I stress ALMOST) is healthy and well.
So, how did I do? I hope you're all going, wow, Liz is so lucky that she has so many things to be thankful about (and it's not even Thanksgiving!).
Okay, now I do have to talk about some not so good things, just because I've found that keeping these things inside is much more painful than having everyone know, so here goes. As some of you know, my aunt Chris (who has been there for me my entire life) has breast cancer. Not good. The news keeps getting worse and worse, too, which is not good either, considering about 2 months ago, no one had any idea about any of this. She goes in for surgery on the 16th, and that following weekend I'm going to drive to Buffalo so that I can be with her, and my grandmother, uncle and cousin will be there too, so it will be a good family reunion. Now, I'm very worried about her, but I've been worrying about her for the past two months. Apparently she has a not-so-common form (invasive lovular or something like that), too, which is not good news. After the surgery and chemo, though, she's going in for some genetic testing to see if these genes are disformed in her (BRCA 1 and BRCA 2, something like that). If they are, it highly increases the likelihood of my grandmother, mother and aunt and uncles having deformed genes as well. And if that's the case, that means that the likelihood of them being deformed in me would be increased as well. This would mean that my body would not be as able to fight off breast cancer and ovarian cancer as a "normal" person (I put that in quotes because I suppose that it doesn't necessarily make me abnormal). And since the list of people who have had cancer in my family keeps getting longer (I'm just finding out about it, not more people are getting diagnosed) - my aunt (breast cancer), my grandfather (lung cancer), my great-grandmother (ovarian cancer), two great-aunts (ovarian cancer and I'm not sure what the other was) - it's pretty scary. My aunt just started her fight, but none of the others survived theirs. My aunt asked me if I want to know the results of the test, as I apparently have a choice. I told her that I do. My theory on this is that my aunt will know and my cousin will know and other people will as well, for their health, but for mine as well. I couldn't bear the possibility of other people knowing that I'm vulnerable to something with me completely unaware (you should all know that I absolutely hate being out of the loop). But can you imagine? At 20 (possibly 21, I don't know when these tests will be done) I'll be getting some inkling of whether I'm genetically prone to these horrible cancers. I hope you'll all be there to help me feel less paranoid.
- Lizzardie, at 12:36 PM
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