Prelude

“Every writer is a frustrated actor who practices his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull.” — Ben Hecht

Writers draw from their life experiences to craft stories. It’s not that writers lead more exciting or interesting lives than everyone else, it’s just that they see them as chapters unfolding right before their eyes.

Everything has the potential to become a story. Except lunch – nobody cares what I had for lunch. Honestly.

Well, I’m about to start a story that’s been taking shape and still in the process of being written. And as it continues, I will pass it along here.

The topic is a health issue – read the tags and you’ll figure it out – that the family has been dealing with since early July, when Ann first complained of stomach pain. Since then, our lives have been riddled with disappointment, shock, anger, and even some happiness and good times.

I’m doing this, with Ann’s blessing, for a few reasons.

As therapy. It’s a way to get things off of my chest because frankly, I was and probably still am taking this much harder than the family (remember: empath). You’ll get a better idea when the time comes and you mustn’t be easily offended by blasphemy. It will be raw, real, and emotional. Understand this.

To inform. Hopefully, anyone with the same diagnosis who might read this will do so and feel better about their own situation. It will also draw on the importance of overall health screenings and physicals since this would have never been discovered had Ann not been suffering from stomach pain. And that alone is pretty scary.

It may take a few days between posts because I now have to sit and scribble down, from memory, notes about everything that’s taken place since July 4th. That’s almost two months of pulling stuff from my brain and remembering details but I’m pretty sure it can be done.

If you’re used to the silliness my blog usually entails, this will be a far cry from my typical content but it’s something that needs to be done.

And it will all begin with the next post.

Thanks for reading.