Alright, so it's not that late. But I'm really sleepy anyway... I didn't get much sleep last night; no, I wasn't out partying. I decided that I really needed to grow a spine and apologize to someone that I've been meaning to apologize to for a long time. I won't go into details unless someone REALLY wants to know about my private life, but suffice to say that I've been carrying a weight on my chest for a few years and really needed to explain things to someone that's only shown me kindness and respect. Sometimes you don't realize how much you hurt someone until the same is done to you.. That's something valuable I've learned from experiencing painful situations - they might hurt, and I might cry and moan, but in the end I realize that no matter how horrible the situation might be, there is still a lesson to be learned. Every situation we live through, every moment we take a breath is a decision we make to push onward and to live our lives with as much happiness as we can find. Sometimes it seems impossible, and yet we still push onward. I call that Optimism. So , if you are as downtrodden as I have been in the past few weeks, take heart.. this too shall pass , as the Good Book says. I think the Good Book says that.. a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. My momma told me that one.

Ok, moving along. I read a story about a kid that unfortunately had to have a foot amputated due to a severe infection. His parents are being held liable for not attending to their child sooner. My first reaction was one of horror. Where were the parents when the child was suffering? Why didn't they do anything sooner? The story was quick to point out that if the child had received *proper* medical intervention early on, something so drastic as an amputation could have been avoided.

Alright. So why don't we look at this from an objective point of view? The news is always quick to the point out the negative facts.. Reading the story, one can easily paint the parents to be complete monsters who don't care about children and in fact *wanted* to have a one-footed child! Ok , that was callous, but we must remember that the reason we love our country so much is because of the fundamental ideals that push democracy forward. One of those cornerstones is the right to be innocent until proven otherwise. I feel for the child. It's a horrible situation to be in. However, the story did not say anything about what the parents might have tried to do. Maybe they took the child to a doctor. Maybe they took him to three doctors and all three of them said "oh, it's just an infection. It will go away." To put matters in perspective, my father had a malignant tumor growing in a lymph node on his neck. This was a baseball size growth extending out of his neck. It was extremely obvious to everyone giving him even a passing glance. My father went through two hip surgerys and dental surgery with this tumor being completely visible to all the doctors and surgeons on staff. Every one of them ruled out cancer and said it was a reaction to the anasthetic drugs he was receiving during the procedures. "It's a common reaction." They assured him. So he let it go for awhile. Until it got bigger. Upon doing a biopsy of his growth, it was discovered that my dad had stage 4 non-hodgkin's lymphoma. Stage 4 is the last stage, the stage where death is imminent. I dont't believe in luck, but I'll just say that someone upstairs was looking out for my dad because he was able to *barely* get into an experimental trial of a drug called Rituxen. This treatment, along with a battery of other drugs commonly used to combat his disease, successfully put him into remission. The man didn't even stop working during his chemotherapy. I call that courageous.

The moral of that story? Doctors aren't always right, and the path to the truth is NOT paved with good intentions. It's paved with facts. That doesn't make much sense now that I wrote it.

Good night Victoria. I'll see you real soon.