i've been holding back on this news. i'm not sure why. it's great great news, i know. i'm enormously grateful. the part of george that is gone is the part that had invaded my sinuses. breathing is often taken for granted, but, shit, turns out it becomes more and more important the harder and harder it is to take a breath. who knew?

and the laser guy is hopeful that they can move farther up with the scope or whatever it's called and get out the parts of george that all wrapped around my pituitary gland and other stuff that's very important to my biochemistry being "normal". god, i wouldn't recognize normal now if it swooped in and walked my poor deprived dogs for me.

so this is all fabulous news and i should be thrilled and joyful and all that good stuff. but god is a giveth and taketh kind of guy so i found out the end of last week that my favorite regular radiation pal had died. i went to visit everyone to share my good news and because i missed them so much, and that is when i found out. her name was ginny, a name that i adore because it was the name of the friend i had when i was 5. the magical friend that later kept turning up at the major places in my life.

when i got to hahvahd all those years later, there was ginny! she only stayed a year, being a lovely hard to pin down hippie type. a decade later when i went to get my MBA at uc berkeley, i was delighted to find ginny again. she was much hipper and cooler than i was and quickly fell in with the hip and cool creative types and left me behind. but she was like a touchstone for me, a sign that everything might turn out okay.

and then my first ginny died. she'd had several abortions so when her baby was born with a heart problem, she blamed herself. six months later she developed colon cancer. she went very quickly. it was awful for everyone who knew her. she'd married the perfect man for her. she'd found the perfect job heading the mail-order (what would become the online sales area) department of Banana Republic. she had the charmed life she'd always sought and deserved. but she died. and a few months after that, her baby had heart surgery and was completely okay. my first ginny from age 5 broke my heart into all kinds of pieces.

and now there is this ginny. i just can't get my mind around it. around the idea that she's really gone. she was the one who laughed the most at my jokes and who seemed to appreciate my puppies as much as i do. well, the nurses were and are huge fans of cocoa and ella mae's, but i'm talking about the other patients. i don't even know much about my second ginny's life. we all, waiting for radiation, and then commiserating afterwards, we shared snippets of our lives. stories of our kids and grandkids and bits about the work we did or no longer did, but mostly we talked about our health and our hopes and a little bit about our fears. i rarely feel popular anymore, but, as i often seem to be in dire medical settings, i felt welcomed and valued there.

maybe my first ginny was hovering over us and controlling the whole thing, but i felt immediately at home with this ginny. she had a wonderful sense of humor, but, unlike me, she was also an excellent audience. it's wonderful how, when a few people are riffing in a humorous way, others, who may have been in the depths of despair that day, are able to chime in and feel lighter too. this is what i live for, being able to make people laugh and smile and to lighten another person's load a bit that day.

i can't write any more about this right now. i'm too overwhelmed with how sad i am. what the hell is god up to anyway??? i mean, geez louise, i lost my husband, i lost my 13 year old beloved yellow Lab a year later, to brain cancer of all things. then i lost the use of some of my brain. my best friend died xmas a year ago. i finally get the first really great news i've gotten in several years and now i lose my second ginny!!! i'm that seven year old now, stamping her small feet and shouting, it's not fair. it's not fair.

well, it's really not fair. and i can't stand it that while i was getting george lasered out of my freaking sinuses, my second wonderful ginny was dying and then she was dead. how am i supposed to celebrate this good news when my heart hurts so damn much and i need to get my puppies outside and i never cry but now i can't stop. why does god hate me so damn much??? i'm not asking for any real answers. i just need to ask the questions now, to get them out and away from me a little.

if this means anything at all or would mean anything to anyone you know, please pass it on. i know i'm not popular on here, but there have to be a whole lot of people whom the popular people know who have experienced a recent loss. please pass this on for both my ginnies. please.

not edited. rate me if you want. or rate my two ginnies.