(no subject)

My foster sister, who is the same age as me, found out last year that she had breast cancer. She underwent chemotherapy (not radiation) in order to shrink the tumor, before having it removed by surgery. A while after all that was over, she was diagnosed with diabetes. My mom's friend told her that this was common, that people who were treated for cancer often ended up getting diabetes. I did a websearch at the time, but did not find any documented links between cancer treatment and diabetes. It does seem curious though. My foster sister and my mom's friend are black; I wonder if perhaps black people are more susceptible to this, and if there just hasn't been much research on it.

Yesterday, my foster sister also told me she has been having tooth problems since the chemotherapy. She was told that some of the medicine they gave her as part of the treatment, also depleted the calcium from her jaw/teeth. So now her teeth are no longer connected to her jaw, just in her gum (*eek*). That is how she explained it anyway. And that in order to fix it, they would have to extract her teeth, clean out the jaw, insert pins to hold the teeth in place, and put back in the teeth (*double eek*). Which would cost a lot of money for her, even at the very discounted rates she gets.

I used to feel ambivalent about breast cancer, thinking that if I got it, it wouldn't be a totally bad thing, as then I could at least get my breasts removed. I think I would refuse chemotherapy and radiation.... but if it came down to it, would I choose to really refuse the treatment other than surgery, knowing that I might die otherwise? Now I find out that not only do you have to suffer the treatment, but you may end up with all these other problems due to the treatment.

(no subject)

I had a dream about one of the people on my LJ friends-list (tlttlotd) last night. They were showing off bionic/cybernetic body modifications which they had. There were a whole bunch of these mods, but I only remember an extra pair of arms, and metal hands protuding from the inside of both knees, each grasping a bundle of crossbow-bolts/arrows.

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I got to see photos taken of me earlier this year. I looked really cute in them. I like the way my hair was then, very short on the bottom and not too long on the top, and no hair pins. The vest I had on looked good too, and I looked so slim and dapper, leaning against the counter with my hands in my pants-pockets. In most of the photos I even had a cute look on my face, which was surprising since I don't normally photograph that well.

Before that, I had already decided to end my experiment with growing out my hair. On Xmas Eve morning, my hair was being quite annoying as usual - it doesn't matter how long it gets, it still manages to curl up and tickle my nose - and I had come to the conclusion that I did not like the way I looked with my hair like that, and that I likely wouldn't like it much better even with it longer. So I cut the front hair into bangs again. Now I don't need to use pins anymore - freedom! (man, those hair-pins were torturous.) I had decided to cut more than that, but that this would do as a temporary measure.

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I glanced at the glowing Christmas tree and burst into tears, before. This is the first year I've had a Christmas tree on my own, in my own house (although it is really Forestfen's tree, and our accumulated ornaments on it). And it seems odd, somehow. I put it up all on my own, alone. And now it is standing there, alone with me in this house. The lights are glowing pretty.