Among My Souvenirs

Once again, I fear you’ve likely lost track of where I last left off. My Peru hiatus threw a kink into my blog writing, as did the surgery on my eyeballs (which went well by the way, and I can now drive without glasses). We last left off with Mike and I being picked up at LAX by friends (with marijuana buds in hand) and then delivered to the Tiverton House, a hotel for UCLA Medical Center patients right next to the UCLA campus in Westwood, Los Angeles. We had been given the “palliative care” recommendation from Dr. Thompson in Seattle only to be connected with the melanoma research badass, Dr. Antoni Ribas, at UCLA the same day. So here we were, the morning of our appointment with Dr. Ribas on 7/8/2011. We prayed together in our hotel room then forced down some of the continental breakfast. Mike was very nervous. I reminded him that nothing anyone tells us could change the fact that he’s in God’s hands. Whether I really believed that or not, I’m not sure. We walked across the s...

Writing is something I’m passionate about, but writing a blog is something I’ve avoided like the plague. So many people have encouraged me to create what you’ve stumbled upon today, but I made excuses not to do it. It’s narcissistic to think anyone would want to read about my life or what I have to say. Who has time to sit around reading about other peoples’ lives, anyway? I sure as hell don’t. It’s terrifying to feel exposed and have something so personal become public. I thought the idea of writing a blog in past tense was stupid. I said, “It’s too late, I should have started a blog a year or two ago.” And it’s true; I should have. But I can’t change the past, and I need to take advantage of the present before it, too, becomes the past. Someone told me, “A blog can be anything you make it.” So I’m going to make it something. I am a widow and not yet 30 years old. How my “fate” or ...