Chance took me on a path which could not have been predicted. It was the mid 1990′s and my recovery beyond healing surgically, started with a book in B & N which stood out because it was pink: Recovery from Cancer, Elaine Nussbaum. “The remarkable story of one woman’s struggle with cancer & what she did to beat the odds.”

It was just another book until it turned out the author lived in the town next to me and she was holding macrobiotic cooking classes in a temple 3 miles from my house. I went and met her – all peppy and healthy after reading how terrrible was her suffering and likely it seemed that she would die. There were about 10 students in attendance, Elaine and two other women who had been trained in the macrobiotic diet prep. After a month or 2, we’d taken all the classes.
Securing organic foods was much harder back then, and the prep was always from scratch. With no family nearby I did not even try to follow that diet (Elaine mentioned it would be impossible for me to achieve) but the experience still had its pluses. I soon moved to another state and did not keep in touch. I choose to remember Elaine as she was then.

Heck! That’s how I remember myself as well…..

I like your metaphor of a pound of onions hanging from one’s neck.

Conclusion: double mastectomy, once recovered from, would be much more comfortable IMO. (Trying to find some lemonade for you. Best wishes for normal recovery.)

(CNN) — The press has turned on President Obama with a vengeance.

Suddenly, the White House briefing room is filled with confrontational questions. Suddenly, the news pages are ablaze with scandal, and the commentators — even some of the president’s usual defenders — are bemoaning his shortcomings. Suddenly, Obama isn’t getting the benefit of the doubt.

According to Obama’s longtime detractors, the denizens of the fourth estate are finally climbing out of a tank in which they have been immersed since roughly 2007. But the reality is a bit more nuanced than that.

There are a number of unsavory allegations swirling around Washington, but do not underestimate the importance of the Justice Department seizing two months of Associated Press phone records without so much as a heads-up. This not only seems like a case of prosecutorial overreach, even in a case involving national security, it strikes at the heart of what journalists do — and has fostered feelings of betrayal. Does the administration not understand the chilling effect on reporters and their sources, they wonder, or simply not care?

It’s easy to say that news organizations recoiled from Obama only when their own special interests were threatened, and maybe there’s some truth to that. But the media also have a deep, abiding love for scandal, and beyond the AP phone records story, the administration is lately providing that scandal in spades.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/17/opinion/kurtz-obama-ap-scandal/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

As far as Angelina Jolie – I don’t think she is a quack. I think it took a great deal of courage on her part to undergo such radical surgery. I don’t know what I would do in the same situation.

When I saw the above article, it gave a different point of view from most, so I thought I would post it for others to read and think about.

I do have to add something though. I heard that Angelina is now going to have her ovaries removed. I have to wonder just how far is too far. Should a person whose family has a history of heart disease, have a heart transplant before he/she even has an attack?

I ask that because my cousin recently died from a heart attack. She was only 55, but lived longer than her mother, two aunts, grandmother and great grandmother who all died of heart attacks.

As you can see – these preventative measures lead to questions that often have no answers.