In January of 2008 my mom had a teeny tiny breast cancer that was whooshed away so quickly that we all sighed sighs of relief.

When you have any kind of breast cancer you are given a lot of things. You are given statistics about how likely it is for you to get it again. You are given more frequent mammograms. In my mom's case, she was given very good odds: four out of one hundred women would get breast cancer again.

She had an irregularity on her mammogram in June and that irregularity did not go away in October, so they decided that in November, today actually, they would go in and do a lumpectomy to take the irregularity out. So that's what she's doing right now: lying on a table being operated on. After everything she's been through, still, this!

For her, the hardest thing about it has been facing it without my dad. His reaction was always determined and it gave my mom so much strength to have that support.

I am sharing this here, this personal tidbit, this slice of REAL so that you can send your positive thoughts and wishes down down down to Roseburg and to the table she's lying on and to the body I want her to live in for a long long time.