A Hard Easter:

After a sunny Easter morning at Dad’s house, I arrived back home to find my house full of friends and family at 3pm.  In the time it took me to walk upstairs and come back down, my grandpa’s heart had stopped beating and my cousin (who is a nurse) had started it up again.  The paramedics were called and I spent the rest of the day beside the uncomfortable cot thingy they had grandpa on until they could find a bed for him in the hospital. Tomorrow he may or may not have more surgery…

Scared:

At the end of last week the family doctor was removing a suspect skin cancer  mole from my mothers stomach, and when the lab results came back we found it was malignant (meaning the bad cancer).   A surgery was set up for yesterday afternoon to try to get the rest of it out. We hope they succeeded, but there will not know for sure for 3 to 5 years if she is actually in the clear.  During that time she is going to have to make regular doctors visits and lab tests and watch for any signs of abnormality in her body.

As a result it has gotten me thinking even more than I already do about sun protection.  My father also already has basal cell cancer growths on his forhead and the back of his hands that have to be removed every six months and my sister has already had to have a few things removed from her body.  They all have spent more time in the sun then I normally do, but my genes are doing me no favors when it comes to the likelihood that I too will be dealling with something similar in the future.

It scares me slightly, but hopefully I have been scared early enough that I can protect myself as best I can.  Felicia has already suggested buying stock in Coppertone to aid her efforts in keeping me healthly.  She already carries a small bottle of sunblock in her purse with us all the time to protect me, what a good future-wife.

Late B-Day Party:

Madalyn’s birthday was last week, but since her party fell into the same time period as her Dad’s 35th, and the family moving into a new house, she got a combined party that celebrated two birthdays, a house warming and a chili cook off to keep everyone warm.  I mean, you have to hand it to my sister, if you want your “House Warmed”, what better way then have a dozen pots of chili simmering in the backyard.

I was there early before all the hordes of small children arrived, and asked if Madalyn wanted to pose for me, which of course she said yes to after I told her I would shoot pictures of her jumping off the couch.  I shot a 40 or 50 pictures and the ones that stood out to me ended up having a very superhero/comic book feel. Could just be my inner nerd sensibilities.