Friday, May 21

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Finding ovarian cancer early means a survival rate of 60-90%, except that we don't know how to find it early…yet.

My mom participated in some early research that didn't contribute to her survival, but hopefully moved us closer to an effective screening tool and more survivors. The news in this article is just a blip on today’s newsfeed, but this is huge, my friends, huge.

Survival rates at the current late-stage detection are less than 30%. And for everyone that loved my mom, that percent equals a whole person. Every year, it equals 15,000 whole people; 10,000 of those people could still be here if their cancer had been detected earlier.

The bulk of this research, and its continuation, is being federally funded. If you wonder what our federal government is doing for us... well, they are doing stuff like this. Making sure we have more mommies, grandmas and crazy aunts.

Tuesday, May 11

Love your Neighbor

In case you haven't heard, we had a flood.
























If you weren't here it's a challenge to explain what it was like. Friends and family from all over have asked me to describe it and it's hard to explain.

I have one snapshot: Sitting in my dry, relatively unaffected house, on the sunshiny day after the rains, I am watching continuous flood coverage on the the news. While providing an aerial view of Bellevue homes affected, the helicopter finds two horses standing in what used to be a field, now a lake. They are up to their neck in water and surrounded for as far as you can see by water. They keep returning to this shot and the newscasters are silent. What do you say?
Thirty minutes later. Finally, boats come. You can't talk to horses. encourage them to follow you, or hang on. Boats scare them. This doesn't look good. I have to leave the room, I can't take it. When I come back, they have somehow gotten the horses to cooperate and they are on higher ground. I breathe a sigh of relief.
And then I realize, so many helpless animals were trapped and didn't get saved. So many people, who sat huddled Saturday night, not knowing if anyone would come.

I am overwhelmed, helpless, and heartbroken. It's how a lot of us who didn't lose anything felt. It's why you see so many acts of kindness. The only thing you can do with that knot in your gut and that lump in your throat is to offer your help. We are trying to save ourselves. Let us help.

A lot of folks have said it better than I could, with words and pictures alike.

Video

the rain, and more rain
then, after the flood I love the guy in his "Jesus, that's my final answer" t-shirt.
The Opryland Hotel, now.

Pics
Channel 4's photo albums on the flood

Blogs
my friend Kidd
the widely distributed We Are Nashville from Section 303

If you live somewhere else and you want to help. Here's a few ways you can do that:

Give to the Red Cross, I have had my doubts about them in the past, but they have been amazing.

Hands On Nashville, has single-handedly organized almost all the volunteers in Nashville, in coordination with the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management. Giving them money means that they can invest in the infrastructure and systems to coordinate and organize. That has made a huge difference in our response efforts.

For a comprehensive list, go here.