Found out I am a lemon. Been trying hard to make lemonade.

But like someone told me recently, if life wants you to make lemonade, first it's got to give you a lot of sugar and water, too.  Well, that's what I've been looking for.

I found out that I am positive for a mutation of a tumor suppressor gene called BRCA1.  This means that I am  a sitting duck for cancer, since my body cannot adequately create the proteins that would instruct these cancer cells to die.  The lucky female recipients of this gene have, by accepted estimates, 87% chance of getting breast cancer and 44% chance of ovarian cancer, as well as smaller statistics on a couple of other cancers.

So what wonderful advances has modern medicine made to save our lives, you ask?  Just this:  Cut off all the body parts in question.  Then you probably won't get cancer there!  The more I've read about it, the more horrific and barbaric it seems.  Women with this gene are recommended to get prophylactic bilateral mastectomies and oophorectomies before age 40, preferably by 35 (or at least 10 years before the earliest onset of cancer in the family, if your relatives are getting it younger).  Well hello, 35.  And goodbye, intact physiology.  (Of course, the butchery is less scary than the alternative.)

So, where am I with this?  Well, here I am, writing a bitter and angry post about it.  But at least I'm writing something.  Dan picked up blogging for me at his new blog, here.   I'm just trying to get over the horrendous news and make a plan about what to do next. 

In conclusion, at some point hopefully this blog will return to its regularly scheduled programming of the antics of my kids. They are my sugar and water.  Also, I will probably eventually join the BRCA blogging community and create a separate site specific to the unfortunate journey I'm beginning now.  So, here I go ... 

Happy Birthday, Nathan!

Today is Nathan's 1st birthday!  We're getting ready for the party this weekend.

And here are Gabe and Joe playing on the new asphalt driveway.  It was poured today.

Max is starting to enjoy playing with his big brother more ...

... although Gabe can still sometimes be very annoying!

Today we went to the dollar store and Gabe picked out this silly statue, called the Increda-Bull Bulk.  He said, "Grandma, the Bulk is stronger than the Hulk.  You know why?  Cuz he's a dang bull!"

Here's Daddy and Max in his outdoor pool ...

Max likes playing with these little toys that make noises and play music.  He sometimes dances to the music, but it's hard for me to catch it on camera!  Here's one sort-of success:

Gross-out.

I am on a two-day campaign to lose my audience.  Yesterday I posted my morbid and depressing fears to make you cry.  

Today I'll do my best to make you vomit.  

(Tomorrow I will try to rediscover my tact.)  

Here is the corn stew I made today.  (Actually, it was very yummy, and not part of the gross-out at all.)

Max's diaper fell off when he was crawling around today.  Unencumbered, he saw fit to pee on the floor.  I went to clean the mess, and then ...

He decided to poop on the floor too!  (No, don't look for it here ... I wouldn't do that!)

And when I whisked him away to the bathroom, guess who came along?

Can you guess what happened next?  I didn't believe it when Gabe told me, but when I came back, Max's little mess was gone.  Grandma didn't clean it up.  And Gabe sure as heck didn't clean it up.

There was only one other potential cleaner-upper in the house to thank for this job.  

And he spent the rest of the day outside.