Talk about your troubles

[just1paul]

Your second mom has thoughts and prayers from Milwaukee here. Gabriel.
PS I always also pick up Mona and Joey for a little hug and ear skritch at these times too, seems to help.

[Gutmutter]

Thanks Ms.CWebb. I love your avatar. Post-op today. Hope to get good news on a chemo schedule. (Ha! what an oxymoron THAT is!).

[just1paul]

Thanks Ms.CWebb. I love your avatar. Post-op today. Hope to get good news on a chemo schedule. (Ha! what an oxymoron THAT is!).

As someone I once knew used to say: Keep smiling and everyone else will wonder what you're up to. Thinking of you Gutmutter.

[DoeBoy]

I, like Ms. CWebb, am late in my reply. Gutmutter, you are in my thoughts and prayers... and remember, the best is yet to come.

[Gutmutter]

Big ol' black hole/bottomless pit of pathetic woe ahead. I'd turn back if I were you. Went to my post op today and found out I'm to have more surgery TOMORROW! The cancer they took out last week had a clean margin, but not enough of a margin. Imagine a hard-boiled egg and the yolk is the cancer. They want it right in the center with lots of clean white around it. You know how sometimes you shell a hard-boiled egg and the yolk is right up against the edge? That's what they took out. So just a 45-minute in and out the same incision and take out a little more to be safe. Better safe than sorry right? By the way, the egg analogy is mine, not the Dr.'s. Of course chemo is set back again. I'll barely be starting before school instead of finishing up. I guess I'd better come clean to the principal. What does everyone think about how I should deal with my students? Be up front so they will understand when I'm out a lot and looking green with a bad wig when I'm there? By coincidence, my Raquel Welch wig came today... very blonde highlights on reddish brown (not a god-given color to be seen) and 90-11 layers. I tried it on and it is excessively cute. Cute is not a look I've pulled off in many a decade. sigh. So now I have my aunt's light brown wig, a dark brown one, Raquel, blonde dreadlocks, my daughter's purple bob, and Unklescott's favorite - Marge Simpson blue beehive. I'm just a dinosaur stuck in a tar pit here.

[Lucy]

Oh, poor Gut. Yes, better safe than sorry. I'd say come clean to the principal and the kids -- far better that they know why you're out, than that they don't know so start spreading rumors that you're on drugs or something.
If you don't know how to break it to them, go in the first day in the purple bob or the blue beehive. Good luck!

[Marleybone]

Aw geez Gut, I'm sorry you have to do this yet again. You will be in my thoughts and prayers tomorrow and let's hope this is the last time.

[Miss Filangi]

Good luck tomorrow, Gutmutter. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

[Gutmutter]

Thanks Marley. Lucy - I like the way you think. Once I have broken the ice about it (if that's what I decide to do) I can do wigs, scarves, hats, or whatever feels comfortable that day.

[Mariner]

Ah gutmutter, that flat out sucks. As for telling the kids, does your school or at least the school district have a psychologist? If so, I'd ask them how to handle it. They are probably going to think it's pretty cool when you show up in your dreadlocks or the Marge Simpson wig. I hope the principal isn't a pain in the ass when you tell him. Years ago when I was a baby lawyer and worked at a big law firm, I did a lot of work for a female senior associate who was really cool. She'd been a high school math teacher for 20 years before going to law school. Anyway, she was up for partner when she discovered she had breast cancer. It will tell you what working for a big firm can be like that she didn't tell the (all male) partners because she was afraid they would hold it against her. In fact, she only told me because I caught her at a vulnerable moment when I went to ask her a question about a project. She swore me to secrecy. In the end, she made partner and recovered fully. Hang in there.