Good morning!

Yesterday I went for some tests to find exactly where that tumor is...I think that’s stupid. Last year, they never, ever saw the tumor on my parathyroid gland, they knew it had to be there from the blood tests so they just went in and found it. Now, they've seen the new tumor on ONE scan...they just wanted a “better look at it” before they went in to get it. That makes no sense at all to me.

But...there isn’t much I can do other than to listen to them and go through all of these tests again. I have all of the pictures from the scan they did yesterday. I just can’t figure out what they mean. Oh! By the way, I went in for that MRI and I did just fine. The technician was so very sweet...he did everything that he could do to make me more comfortable. Actually, he went a bit too far, I think I would have fallen asleep from the sedatives had he just left me there. But, I can’t complain too much, he was just being very considerate and unfortunately, there aren’t usually that many nice people around when I am acting as a patient.

That young man was so kind and decent. I remember thinking that he must have a wonderful family around him. When I see mean and nasty people, I think, “They must have a miserable family.”

It’s amazing how you can see basic things like consideration for others in very young children. Or, you can see a lack of it. I can look at a two year old and tell if that kid is going to grow up self centered or with concern for other people.

Do you know how some kids will come and hug you if you fake cry? Well, I’ve watched more than a few kids grow up and I’ve noticed that you can predict quite a bit about how they will turn out by the way they respond to that one silly thing. Kids who don’t care usually grow up to be willful twits. I never saw a kid who didn’t respond sweetly to fake crying until my kids had already grown up so I’m not sure what a parent does, or doesn’t do, to raise a sweet kid as opposed to one who couldn’t care less about other people.

I’ve never done any scientific studies or anything, but it’s something that I’ve noticed. I’d love to know how such anti-social freaks like Manson responded to fake crying when they were children. I think I’ve mentioned that I enjoy reading true crime novels and I’ve read a lot about anti-social behaviors and some childhood symptoms that should have been addressed....like killing small animals and picking on people who are weaker, but they went unchecked until that behavior became so destructive that people were murdered. If one of my kids seemed to garner any pleasure at all in destructive behavior of any type, especially that which harmed others, I would have taken them immediately for treatment if I didn’t know what to do myself.

I wanted my children to grow up to be decent people and I ALMOST feel sorry for people who didn’t have such parents. They spend all of their time being destructive and what could they possibly gain from that? Some twisted sense of satisfaction?

A person who finds that type of feeling to be acceptable must feel pretty damn low most of the time. It's a very sad, pathetic person who would find destruction pleasurable...To live a life where such behavior and the feelings that it invokes are considered a step UP...must truly be the epitomy of misery.

I’ve worked with dying patients for most of my career and I couldn’t begin to count how many people I’ve watched die. There is one thing that they all have in common, rich or poor, black or white, man or woman, king or bum...all we have in the end are the people around us.

I’ve never seen a dying person ask to hold their jewelry and I’ve never seen one who looked at their checkbook and smiled. One hundred percent of the time...people ask for other people. Even if it’s just the nurse that they will allow in the room, nobody wants to die alone. Sadly, I’ve seen many people die with no one other than medical professionals surrounding them. I’ve had patients whose emergency contact was a local DFACS agency. When they needed shoes or a coat, we had to call some over-worked social worker who may or may not have brought the needed item within a month. When I see these things, I feel very badly for the patients, but I have to wonder what happened in their lives that led them to be so very alone.

For some reason, there are an inordinate number of cemeteries around this neighborhood. As a result, I see more than a few funerals as I’m driving in the area. Most funerals have at least 20 or 30 people at them, some many more and others have less.

If I heard that a person I knew had died, chances are that I would go to their funeral. But, if they were pretty much a nasty person who never really cared about other people...I probably wouldn’t go to too much trouble.

It’s very nice to cultivate friends and a reputation as a decent human being. Those two things are all you have in the end. When all is said and done, we ARE the sum of our actions.

Well, I think I should go run some errands, it looks like it may rain today. That would be nice for that fire down the street, that CVS store is burning very close to me. Oh, I just heard that there were 3 other fires...is someone going around burning down Marietta? Well, maybe I’ll just drive west.

See ya!

Meg