All right, all right, my teeth aren't like totally black. I admit that last post was a little on the melodramatic, "Why Me, Lord" side. We all know that the likelier question is "Why not me?" It's not as if we're talking about a prize, either blue ribbon or booby, that somebody wins. Or one of those lottery type things so popular with the young adult set these days, where if they pull your name out of a bingo hopper, you get to spend the next two months of your life training in parkour before being let loose in a jungle full of people that hate you with nothing but a can of sardines and a sewing kit. You know,cancer, shit like that,  you just get 'em. Or you don't. And you get well. Or you don't. But I aim to have some influence over that last thing.

    Bruno has Type 1 diabetes, insulin dependent. He was 38 years old when it arrived in his life, just to mess with an otherwise very nice existence. I should know, I've met his first wife. Seen some photos. It didn't suck.

      His doctor told him that there were eight variables that had to line up just so in order for the result to be Type 1 diabetes at age 38. A little shift to the right, a rearrangement of a molecule to the left, and he wouldn't have to know how to spell insulin. Same with me. It just is.

    Although I will say that any insurance company would  look at my family history and think "Wheeeee!" as they brought out the big red rubber "Denied" stamp. I'm just sayin'. Not the first case of cancer in my family.

      One of the things that has worn me down, chile', is that I haven't been allowed to talk since the surgery. Do you realize what that means? Exactly! It means Bruno can say whatever he wants to me with no fear of one of my razor sharp comebacks shredding his pathetically ill constructed logic to ribbons, as is usually the case around here.

          Oh, take the talking out of a relationship,my dears, and what you have left is very interesting indeed. What you have is "tone", which has nearly deafened me on more than one occasion this past month. I will say this however. Wordless it may be, but I'm pretty sure that there have been times when Bruno and I have managed to have fights. Yes! He has argued with pitiful,blue-eyed, hollow-cheeked, lace hankie-and-smelling salts wielding me! As if I could somehow, in my present condition, be annoying. It beggars the imagination.

( This seems like a good moment to share that I overheard one of the nurses say, in Spanish she didn't think I could understand, "Boy, it's a good thing she was so fat to start with!" I mean, in my imagination I have ringlets and wear beribboned bedjackets, but that's not what Bruno is looking at )

   Well. It turns out you can fight without talking. It also turns out that having cancer, before, during, or after, doesn't make you absolutely right absolutely all of the time. Although it should. It seems like that ought to be the very least I get out of this, the right to be always right. However, it seems that the longer this goes on, the less likely my husband is to instantly do my silent bidding, which I write on a white board. But when I have to explain why? When it's not immediate, unquestioning, but requires an explanation? The whiteboard is not that satisfactory.

 It is impossible to argue using a whiteboard! He says whatever he wants to say, and then by the time I have written my scathing reply, or my ironclad arguments as to why he should do whatever it is I'm after,  as often as not he has drifted out of the room, wondering what to have for dinner.

   Today, we go to see the surgeons in Guadalajara, and I am hoping that the embargo on my talking will be lifted. Oh the river of words I have stored up for him!

Mostly, they are "Thank you."