Corinne doesn’t have any cancer buddies. Linda did. She met them on the America Online breast cancer discussion boards. Linda and her buddies all longed after the same elusive heartthrob. They shared an almost romantic quest for NED.

NED is not a guy, rather a pronouncement: “No Evidence of Disease.” Each time one of Linda’s buddies reported that her scans were clean, that they showed “No Evidence of Disease,” the whole group celebrated with her. They all congratulated Linda when, before Christmas, after nine months of treatment, she finally embraced NED.

Then, after the fist of the year, Linda’s cancer was back. Here is some of what Linda wrote to her buddies.

Subject: So long, NED; it was nice to know you....
Did I ever mention my belief that possibly Mickey Rourke plays the role of NED? Desirable, exciting, attractive and, too often, pretty darned unpredictable and scary? (Can we just send the boy back to 9 1/2 Weeks and give the NED role to somebody else???)

Within a week after returning to work, I was having some balance problems. I called my doc's office and he scheduled a head scan. Probably nothing, but let's check it out.... When I left the scan, I felt crummy. Just one of those looming disaster feelings. I asked my doc's office to please call me at home if they heard anything. Twenty minutes later he called, sounding absolutely devastated. Not good, he said. Brain tumors, he said. He told me to go immediately to the hospital, check in, and start decadron to shrink the swelling in my brain.

I guess I'm dealing with this better than the first time around last year. Not to say that I'm dealing superbly -- ha! I can cry with the best of 'em! I'm scared. I keep remembering the two-bit traveling carnival that used to pass though our town frequently. They had a tiny midway, and the game I remember most was the weasel game. A big piece of plywood, with round holes cut in it. The patron gets a nice big mallet. The plywood is horizontal, and a stuffed weasel-like thing pops up in a hole. You bash it with the mallet. It pops up in another hole. Bash it again. And the popping and bashing keep going, until your money/time runs out.

It feels like I already bashed the weasel last year, and the damned thing has popped up again in another hole! And I'm scared that when I bash it this time, there may be another weasel appearance later. And that this whole thing is going to turn into the weasel game, popping followed by bashing followed by popping, until my money/time run out.

I've always planned to be immortal. I'm only (nice word, huh?) 52. I do not like that maybe I have to think in terms of years instead of decades. I don't like weasels, and I never did! Nasty little things, they are.

Be well, and bash me a weasel or two!

Linda