But wait, there's more!

Today is Angela Carter's birthday, and I love her with all my readerly, writerly heart.

I wrote about her also for Hilobrow.

Please to "Like" if you are so inclined.

Lab results are in: it was benign.

Whew!

I actually have something good to say about an AZ legislature member. [link]

Like Sumi. My thingie was not cancer. I hereby release the not-cancer ~ma back to the next person who needs it.

My interview with Seanan McGuire, a.k.a. Mira Grant, she of the Newsflesh, October Daye and InCryptid series, is out.

Feel free to pass it on — she's nominated for 4 (FOUR!) Hugos this year.

[link]

I'm participating in a local Relay for Life a week from Friday. I'm on a team named after my co-worker's wife, who died of lung cancer right around the same time my brother died of a brain tumor last year, and they were about the same age. I'm dedicating my participation to him, and to all my friends currently battling cancer, which are too many, and include my Buffista friends and their loved ones wholeheartedly. I can't say, "Fuck cancer" on the fundraising page, but that's what I mean.

Sorry for the short notice, but please consider donating, if you can. [link]

I’m here to ask for health~ma again… Today (Thursday, that is) I’m once again meeting with the staff at the Transplant Unit. I’m currently provisionally on the Wait List for a Kidney Transplant. (I spent a day at the Transplant Unit at the end of March meeting all the staff -- surgeons, nephrologist, nurses, social worker, coordinators, and so on. They had told me I would be there 3 to 4 hours, and it turned out to be an 8 hour day, capped by a trip to the lab where they sucked out 13 tubes of blood.) After meeting me and getting the lab reports and medical records from my various doctors they met with their board and presented my case, and the board agreed that I'd be a good candidate. Now I have to go back for more lab work, x-rays, and a cardiac workup, and then I will be put on the List officially.

So if you’ve got any spare good thoughts to send winging my way this afternoon, I’d appreciate it.

So I had my second day at the hospital, had more blood drawn, and a chest x-ray, and a TB test done and so on and so forth, and met with the cardiac specialist. He looked at my mom, who had gone along for moral support and asked “does she always look like that?” (gee thanks! yes, I had been up all night with a stomach bug, but way to go with the bedside manner, doc). Anyway, he found a previously undetected heart murmur, and so next month I have to go back for a Echocardiogram and a Nuclear Stress Test. Then, assuming I pass those with acceptable scores, I’ll be placed on the official Transplant List.

So I hereby release any health~ma still residing with me out into the universe until the next person needs it.

Kittenish passed away this morning. I've been out of town for three weeks but when she took a downturn, I got the first flight I could and she held on until I got there. I held her and she died in my arms. She was seventeen and a half and it wasn't enough time.

I'd been out of town because my dad has some serious health issues. He's been diagnosed with CNS (central nervous system) lymphoma and meets with the oncologist tomorrow. We're hoping he's strong enough to treat the cancer.

It hasn't been the best month. Or two. And I've not kept up here or anywhere.