Near-perfect way to begin the week - proceed to care and honor this body that's been a good part of you and continues the good fight.

And as Diane on Cheers would have said in this instance: For all women and men on this blog, "May I say 'WHEW'!"

Thank goodness for anamalousness!

A virtual gentle hug and time to sit you and listen to your stories

I just let out a breath that I didn't realize I was holding until I got to the end of your post. “Whew,” indeed! Long may you be an anomaly!!! So glad to “hear” your “voice” again this Monday morning, Ronni.

Dear Ms. Anomaly, like Peggy, I've had you in my thoughts and prayers, and am feeling so very happy that you are as you are.

Meantime, I wish you many, many moments of joy. I'm just so happy for you, and all your readers, and myself!

With love to you, Salinda

Cheers for some good news anyway. New reader here and I am so glad I found your blog. Your honesty is refreshing. Stay safe and strong!

Ahh, the joy of your return to your column — not that you didn’t deserve the time off to focus on your health and well-being! If sharing is healing, then you’ve mastered it with grace and generosity.

Amen to Patty - didn't realize I was holding that breath til I let it go. It is, indeed, a superb way to begin a week that is sure to rake us all over the coals with terrible news from all over - to have our own dear Ronni back with good tidings.

But, of course, you were an anomaly long before cancer. Where else in cyberspace to read such caring, thoughtful considerations of matters large and small.

Now more than ever, we need eachother and TGB
Love, Ann

Anomaly You

Thrilling TGB shipmates

Sails billow again!

I am also happy to read your post this morning and to learn your lump was "harmless". As someone else wrote here this is a time of great anxiety even though I limit the news.

I am taking this time of isolation to go more than 50 years of my photos collection. Looking at them and separating out ones to keep and ones to send to each
of my 3 children has caused me to relive old times and now I'm dreaming about my sisters in the photos and me trying to keep 6' of distance between everyone around me.

It would be interesting to read what you and your TGB followers are doing with this self-isolating time at home...I am a procrastinator but, if not now, when? Have you done any of that cleaning up, weeding out, getting rid of, etc. ?

I have been a lurker for years and enjoyed the good times and cheered for you as you proceed through these challenges delivered to you. I only want to say I am pulling for you and rarely confess love to someone I only know from the net but I've grown to love and admire you for your courage and your transparency. You're facing each day with courage and even joy. Life is still wonderful and worth fighting for. That's you lesson to us.

Right now I think "not bad" is pretty good, and I'm very glad. I am another who has been holding her breath for a week. I'm also happy to see your appetite is coming back, your pain is manageable, and the "growth" was Bartholin's cyst and not something worse.

You and TGB are important to me. Even though I haven't time to comment often, I never miss a post. Cheers to you and all good wishes.

I am glad the news was so much better than you had feared. Reality is often better than my worries, I find--which doesn't stop me from worrying way too much.

I read an essay this morning that somehow seems to speak to the moment. It's by a man named Brian Doyle, who I knew a little. He was the editor of the University of Portland's magazine and a very talented writer--able to be inspirational without being saccharine. He died at age 60 of brain cancer, and I've been reading his last essay collection, called "One Long River of Song," which I recommend highly. Here is the ending of the essay I referred to above:

I think, if we are lucky, if we read the book of pain and loss with humility, we realize that we are all broken and small and brief, that none among us is ultimately more valuable or rich or famous or beautiful than another; and then, perhaps, we begin to understand something deep and true about humility.

This is what I know: that the small is huge, that the tiny is vast, that pain is part and parcel of the gift of joy, and that this is love, and then there is everything else. You either walk toward love or away from it with every breath you draw. Humility is the road to love. Humility, maybe, is love. That could be. I wouldn't know; I'm a muddle and a conundrum shuffling slowly along the road, gaping in wonder, trying to just see and say what is, trying to leave shreds and shards of ego along the road like wisps of litter and chaff.

Anomaly is a good word, long may you have the label.

Glad the lump wasn't at all what was happening in your worst fears. Boy we hate lumps of all kinds. I translate any I have had into death and destruction and loss of brain and movement. Plus incessant pain sprinkled over the top.

It is so good to have you writing again.

May anomaly reign.

XO
WWW

What a relief, a cyst. Sending up virtual balloons for that. Sending hugs to you. It's tricky living alone in these days even if one were healthy. Thank you for being an anomaly, our anomaly. Love you.

As always, it was good to read your post. It is a learning experience every time, and I thank you for your willingness to share so much. You are a wonderful guide on how to travel the path. I share the feelings of other posters--we all come from different places and experiences, but we still have much in common. Carry on!

Keep on anomilizing for as long as you can. Thanks for the “not bad” news you shared today. Hoping your “good” days still exceed your “bad” ones or at least give you more than one good day in a row to help you feel productive. It’s great to learn we’ll still be reading and hearing you. Prayers answered once again.

Naps are good. Resting is good. Breathing is good.

Wonderful to have you back, dear Ronni!

Great news, Ronni -- I can only imagine the relief it brought you, since I know how much it brought me. Wear that "anomalous" badge with pride, and keep on keeping on!

MBarstow -- nice haiku

Bruce -- I suspect poor Mother Earth experienced a tipping point some time ago and has been dealing with her own strains and stresses ever since. At least this closing down time may have provided a bit of a reprieve from as many abuses as are normally heaped on her each day.

Joan -- I've been trying to do some of that cleaning and weeding out, but I've become rather addicted to travel and food shows since being on lock-down and they've been much more comforting than going through "stuff" would have been. And now we've gotten a break in weather and my fancy has turned to yard work and preparing for the return of the migratory birds. However, we've just had another month of lock-down added here in Illinois, so there is still hope that I may get to the "stuff" before going back out into the larger world.

You go, girl!

Can you hear your cheering squad that is scattered around the world?

The guess here was that you'd acquired a Bartholin cyst -- we've been there with one of those -- not me, Erudite Partner. Having seen a draining, I think you should be happy you can go with the antibiotics!

But Anomaly -- how wonderful! Cheers from NorCal.

Ronni, so happy to look forward to being with you longer than you earlier might have predicted! But WHO can predict, really?

Dave and I plan to escape the AZ heat by driving to the Oregon coast for the summer. We will be there for three months holing up like we are here with a lovely huge garden and a deserted beach nearby Langlois. Looking forward to rain and temps averaging 75!

Just finished serving as a Plaintiff in a lawsuit to remove an anti-public education kook from our local ballot.
Public schools teach kids to become liberals, says he. (Guess he means a “liberal arts education?” Tee hee) Hope our team of teachers win, we will know in a day or two.

I am crying tears of gratitude for having you back today and also at the heartfelt expressions from your devoted followers. More words could not express the relief and joy I feel.

To quote Little Richard, "Good golly, Miss Anomaly, sure like to ball....." And thank you Caspar Bartholin the Younger!

I've wondered how you were doing this past week, and am so glad to hear that things are not as dire as you had feared! Congratulations!

You know, Ronni, anxiety is inescapable in life, but most especially when, basically, you have death sitting on your shoulder. How could you not be terrified at times? It's like the old Simon and Garfunckle song, "Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk to you again". You are doing as well with your illness as I imagine anyone could.

So here comes another spring and summer. Eat local strawberries with whipped cream, make homemade lemonade, and find fresh sweet corn in August. We are small, we are faulty, but enjoying all the good things of life are our best way of honoring it. Bless you.

For whatever its worth, my Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer and refused treatment other than strong cough medicine. A few years later, I had him to the MD on Weds., and he died that Friday from a stroke or heart attack. When I took my Mom to the MD a few weeks later, the MD told me: that if Dad had followed MD's recommendation for intervention, they would have been patting themselves on the back as his last X-Ray showed that the tumor had decreased -- with no medical intervention. It seems that the cancer may have been a slow-growing cancer (??) plus growing more slowly since Dad was 78 or 79. Yeah, but why did it get smaller? Now, there is an interesting anomaly.