My co-worker that I have spoken of before was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and we all felt pretty hopeless. She was 97 pounds with a collapsed lung, etc. She is doing MUCH better. Her tumor markers are way the heck down, her tumors shrunk, has gained weight. She finally got the chest tube out and drove in to the office to help me out when I was so overwhelmed recently. She took a very mild oral chemo because her overall condition was so poor, but it has worked very well. There is such a huge variation in results in humans.

All Stage IV means is that the cancer has spread beyond the original organ.

Thank you, medical dramas are not the best source of information, but that's the stuff that sticks.

Yes, my profile addy is good. We've got a big book that describes the drugs and what will react badly with them, but I haven't looked at it yet.

He's been complaining about his teeth, but I think we're out of time on dentistry.

I don't have anything to add to the cancer discssion except that I"m grateful from a distance for tribes and support networks, wherever they may be found.

WRT bullying....my workplace bullying policy specifically lists excluding someone from a social event as an instance of bullying behaviour. Of course that's for adults....but I know that in my adolelscence no one was every mean or rude to my face. I was never physically injured/shoved in a locker/taunted or ridiculed to my face. But I was consistently excluded by the girls i considered my friends. To this day I will not throw a party. The last party i threw was for my 16th birthday....and no one showed up. No one. Not a single person. Granted, it was supposed to be small, I only invited 8 girls and one said she couldn't make it since she was babysitting. Everyone else (who I personally invited, F2F) said they would be there....then didn't show. One girl (Suzi) did show up, very apologetic, after I called her. I think it's noteworthy that she was new to town, had only been in what i thought was my group of friends from high school on. The girls who I had been friends with since early childhood? None of them showed up. None of them answered the phone when I called. None *ever* apologized. Two did answer the phone when Suzi called, and she spoke to them, and wouldn't tell me what they said. But she did walked around my neighborhood all night with me while I sobbed. Praise be I moved that summer (my birthday is also in July, so I didn't have to go to school with any of them after that failed party.) and at my new school met people who thought I was fantastic and taught me what it's like to be included and liked. There is an argument that very young children don't intent to bully by exclusion, but it sure as hell was painful for scarring for me (in middle school and high school, I was quite popular in elementary school when it was still ok for a girl to have friends who were boys.)

Then somehow in college I turned into one of those mean girls. It was accidental, our sophomore year there was a new transfer to the Uni who immediately started flirting with the guy I was dating. I, of course, didn't like her. My 3 closest female friends (President, VP, and Secretary of the theatre group) rallied around me in the way young women do when young romantic relationships are threatened. The theatre department was small enough that being excluded by 4 girls was devestating for her, and eventually she petitioned one to take mercy on her and include her. By then neither of us were dating the guy and I felt terrible for making her feel bad. Boones and Velveeta nights were had. Of course she then went on to date every guy at the Uni I was interested in....but that's a diffferent story about my inability to speak up and express my desires in a timely manner.

We are meeting with Emeline's principal next Wednesday. The bus has been drama-free for the past couple of days, and - not that this is related - Emeline's playing softball with her best friend. I foresee some sort of coaching on my part.

She said, "Look at me," he did, and she took off her hair, as he put it. And she said, "Let's talk."

Ya know, sometimes I think, Guardian Angels walk amongst us, and reveal themselves in unusual ways at just the right time.

She refused to give her name, saying names weren't necessary.

I'm with omnis...that lady is an angel.

I'm so glad she was there for him.

and the worst-case scenario thing - I do it a lot. and I have as long as I can remember. For me it lets me feel like there is a plan or 6 in place, so I can deal with what is happening.

I wasn't bullied, but a number of my friends were. I know why - sort of. but it didn't make sense. They didn't fit in the average mode, but I just didn't really see why that mattered

Connie, insent.

erin,

But I was consistently excluded by the girls i considered my friends. To this day I will not throw a party.

You know, reading all of that is kind of a catharsis for me. I was excluded when I was a kid. I was much younger tho (age 7). I got invited to a couple of small get togethers and then when I'd arrive at the house, my "friends" already had left without me. My mother was convinced, living in a White neighborhood, that there was a racial exclusionary aspect to it. Which I suppose could have been true. Regardless, it made me feel like shit.

I also had bullshit happen to me when I was in jr high school. One friend of mine put me on hold when I called to talk to her to answer the door. It was a friend of hers who did not like me at all. I could hear her friend over the phone talking shit about me - and I know she did so because she knew I was on hold. She proceeded to keep me on hold for a longass time. I'm not sure if I hung up or if I was just curious how long she'd keep me on the phone, but I never spoke to her again. My "friend" didn't defend me and didn't care I was on hold. So I would rather have no friends that that piece of crap of a friend.

HS was better (generally) until senior year when my friends had a fucking freak out over affirmative action and then I wanted to burn the world down again.

I really have not had a lot of close friends ever since. I've been wary and expect that friends will let me down in some fundamental way. I had a really good time in college for the most part and good experiences in grad school, but when you've been let down like that, it is kind of hard to be as open as others might be.