It’s never good when the hotel you are staying at makes it onto FARK.  A few hours before I arrived at the Montage, a self described 6 star hotel, there was an incident between a “crazy naked lady”, her boyfriend, and the cops.  Gunfire was exchanged and the couple was killed.

Awesome.  By the time I got here, all evidence was removed.  I didn’t even find out until this morning when my coworkers started emailing me.  Just goes to show that you can’t escape crazy, even if you’re rich.

I’m in Laguna Beach California staying at the Montage.  I’m here for a week to do some work for them and one of their sister resorts, Aliso Creek Inn.  I’m staying in one of the nicest hotel rooms I’ve ever been in, and it’s the lowest room on the totem pole here.  I wish I had a camera on me so you could see it.  It’s very nice.  The bathroom is out of this world.  I’m looking forward to soaking in the huge tub to relieve my stress of flying.

This link via FARK shows that there are innovations being done to make the colonoscopy obsolete.  I’m very glad to know this.  Now that mom is a colon cancer patient, that means that I am at risk.  Therefore I’ll have to start screening myself earlier than most.  The normal age to start getting regular colonoscopies is 50 years old.  Under the current system, I’ll have to start at 40.

Hopefully by then I’ll be able to swallow a pill sized camera and only worry about the colonoscopy if they find something.  Anyway, check out the link.  It’s very interesting.

Mom got the results of her tests back from the oncologist.  Here’s the situation:  She is going to have radiation therapy with a 6 week chemo course.  The doctor says she’s got a 75 percent chance of total recovery without surgery.  Plus, the cancer has not spread anywhere else that we know of.

The good is that she’s got a good chance at total recovery with only a minimal 6 weeks of discomfort.  The bad is that she has to have chemo which is going to suck ass.

We may have dodged a big bullet here.

I’ve been pretty lax with posting lately.  I’ve got a good reason.  My mom was diagnosed with  colon/rectal cancer early last week.

She’s in Birmingham for further tests right now.  So far, it looks like she caught it early and it’s going to be treatable with focused radiation therapy (not chemo) and no surgery.  That’s still a very early diagnosis.  She is meeting with the oncologist tomorrow for a full report, and I’ll post the results.

Needless to say this has been stressful for her, and also for all of us.  Nothing like facing your own mortality to really shake you up.  Bottom line:  go to the doctor on a regular basis and do what they tell you.  Get checked out.  Colon cancer is incredibly treatable if it’s caught early enough, and the only way to do that is by getting colonoscopies on a regular basis.  Not the most pleasant of procedures but it sure beats having your colon removed and wasting away to nothing.

Anyway, I thought I should let everyone know about this.  Mom is taking a leave of absence from her part time job at Lowe’s.  I hope to hell it is a permanent leave, since I hate that she works at that place.  After she told them she had cancer, they fucking called her up the next day trying to get her to come in to work because too many people called in sick.  Fuck that shit.

I’m not too sure how many people in my family know about this yet.  They may be trying to keep my grandmother from finding out, so don’t blow mom’s cover if you are reading this.

That’s all the news I have right now.  More to come.

I’ve started to play disc golf with Steve on the weekends.  It’s a lot of fun and surprisingly difficult.  Just because you can throw a frisbee or play ultimate, don’t think you can step up and rip off 350 yard drives.  For one thing, the discs are different.  Smaller, more dense, and more difficult to throw accurately.  What I’m trying to say is that I suck.  But it’s fun!

Here’s a link to Athens Disc Golf Club.  I may check this out.

There’s a new Thai restaurant down the street from our office that we’ve been going to.  It’s called the Spicy Basil.  The AJC did a review of it in this week’s sunday edition.  It’s a kick ass restaurant, even though Meghan hates it when I eat curry.