www.cancermonster.net

I woke up on the hick side of my family tree this morning. Ah Doown’t quite know a’wheer it’a came from . . . the characters in my current book are English and Irish. Either I was a’dreamin about some’un named Billy-Bob or some’un in the park is a red-neck and I picked it up. I have such a bad time with picking someone else’s accent up. I didn’t realize that I was letting my southern drawl out until Dan called me on it.

“Hey dare Darlin’, looks a’like ah went ahead and did it after all. Ya said you’d never a’do it, but ah made ya my Queen! You are ma Queen of the double wide trailer!”

“Ah day’am. So ya di’ad. This‘un ain‘t evn a dubba wide!”

My father’s family is Hungarian, but ma Momma’s family came from West Virginia. They were real “hill-billies.” Although I was born in Ohio, I spent my formative years in Florida. Florida is populated by a diverse group of people. Spanish extended families, and transplanted retirees from northern states. Beach bums and red-necks. Most of the good-ol’-boys live in central Florida (I still have kin in central Florida) but the red-necks filtered into the southwest coast where I grew up. One of my brothers is a red-neck, though he has been city-fied pretty good. The other brother still lives on the island where we lived when I was a teenager. He kinda talks “beach” even now at 46. My oldest sister escaped our southern heritage since she was an adult already when we moved to the south. She doesn’t have an accent, yet she listens to country music. She cringes when a relative calls her by her hill-billy name (you know, when you get your first and middle name called in one breath. I won’t tell you what her hill-billy name is for fear she will a’disown me fer it.) My other sister . . . has no accent at all come to think of it. Neither does my mother who gave us the dern country genes!

My own accent changes with my surroundings. When I am with Spanish speaking friends Mi nombre es Ta’ressa. When I was studying and teaching TaeKwon Do, people actually asked me if I was Korean. “Do I look Korean?” I spent some time on an Native American Reservation and offended a bunch of Seminoles who thought I was trying to be more native than I had a right to be. (I can’t do that accent anymore. I just can’t hear it in my head now. Strange.)

Even reading books with strong dialects woven into the story line will get me. I was into Middle Ages novels full of Kings and Queens, Knights and Wenches, and for months on end I was speaking five hundred year old Queen’s English. Dan made me swear I would change eras or he was going to stop talking to me all together.

Last year, I was involved in a Diana Gabaldon Outlander online group and I could’na help but speak wit da brrrouge of the heather covered hill people of Scotland, ya ken.

English or Pakistani. Boston to New York to Alabama I pick it up.

The west coast now, these people have no accent. Unless you count “coffee” as dialect. I just can’t wrap my brain around that one yet. “Just give me a dern cup of coffee . . . Regular old coffee. Anything with Juan Valdez on the label will do.” I get a lot of blank stares from the Baristas for ordering plain coffee. They don’t know how to make plain coffee. And why is there a special title for coffee clerks anyway? The grocery check out girls or the poor blokes at McDonald’s don’t get a fancy title. (Well, some times I do call them a name, but I wouldn’t call it a title. Hehe)

But I digress.

It’s a rainy, hazy day today. It actually feels good. It’s been quite dry and warm lately. Yesterday’s temperature was a perfect 72. It might be 50 this morning. July 15 and I have a jacket on. That’s Oregon.

After breakfast, Dan stood up too fast and got dizzy. He’s under so much stress. Men want to control things. They need to be able to fix what is broken and pay someone else to do it when they can’t fix it themselves. He can’t do any of that thanks to this Monster inside me. And all we really know is that within a week, our whole lives will change. Whether they are able to save my leg or not, I’m going to have a long road to recovery. I will recover. And I have promised myself and Dan that I will never be helpless no matter what happens tomorrow. Easy to say now. Here I am -I’m not sick. I’m sore from the surgery sure. But I am not sick. Within the week, I could be sick. I could be crippled. I could have only one leg. It’s almost too much to imagine. It’s someone else’s bad dream. It’s a episode for Discovery Health Channel that you watch on Sunday afternoon because there is nothing else on. This isn’t really happening to US.

But it is.

See, this is why I have been rambling on about so many weird subjects. I am trying to fill my mind with anything other than what is ahead. Yes, I know I am breaking my tomorrow rule. But my tomorrow is scary. Please forgive me if I, instead look to next month for a few days.

It’s night now. After “quiet time” in the park. I am beat. This afternoon while Dan went off to the laundro-mat with the kids, I was told to go be alone somewhere and relax. I headed to the bookstore. Some would have gone to the casino -and in fact my dear hubby told me to do just that. He said I could drop a few bucks in the machine and chill. I instead dropped my money in the hands of the bookstore clerk. Much better odds. I want to make sure I had enough Foster books to get me through the next few weeks. I found a great used book store in Lincoln. From the outside, one would never believe what is inside. The rooms of books go on and on. When you think you have reached the last space, there lies another room ahead. They have a great Sci-fi collection. (Meaning they always have a good selection of Fosters.) I love this store. Today I realized there isn’t enough room between the isles and piles of books for a wheelchair. Foot. Story of my life. No pun intended. I went to another book store and had to use a ladder to reach the top shelves. No more ladders for a while either. The other night, I told Dan we should go dancing. “We haven’t been in a long time.” We’ll have to figure out a new way to dance.

There has been pain in my leg for the last few days. My calf is tingly and the back of my knee hurts. Every so often lightning shoots through my thigh. At first I thought it might be Fibromyalgia pain, but its consistency tells me otherwise. Fibro pain comes and goes. It moves from one spot to another with no pattern. This is different. It is possible that the fluid built up in the cavity left by the removal of the large tumor is pressing on nerves. But I don’t think so. My sister tells me to call “the doctor” but I don’t know who to call at the moment. Dr K? He is in Portland during the week. The oncologist that I saw only once? Or the Sarcoma team at OHSU that I haven’t even seen yet? Can it wait until Wednesday? And will they aspirate the area for me when I do get there? This waiting is getting to me- literally.

Maybe tomorrow I can take it easy and the swelling will go down. But tomorrow I need to take the kids to the library. Life continues irregardless of Monster fights. First, I am a mother. Then I will be a patient. Tomorrow.