I have a favor to ask all you lovely readers:

This is a hard request to make, but I have to make it now:

Please don't send me any information about the type of cancer I've got.

TM, I send thanks to you for the links you provided, and I'm not singling you out by any means; I've gotten more information than I knew existed about PLGA. I'm not mad, I'm just overwhelmed.

Right now there is not a damned thing I can do with more information. I realize that this cancer tends to metastasize in rare cases, and that things can really suck when it does. I understand that it sometimes comes back years after treatment. I know that a minority of patients die from it (though I don't intend in the least to be in that minority). All these things are things that the current research re- and re- and re-iterates. This is stuff I knew going in.

And I just. simply. cannot. handle it. Not now. Not when I've got two days before I see the oral surgeon, and then an unknown number of days before I see an oncologist and a head-and-neck surgeon, and not when the future is wide open with a number of possibilities, some of which are only marginally less horrible than others to contemplate.

I can handle being frightened. What I can't handle is sheer, cold terror, and that's what links and papers and abstracts do to me. Even knowing they're out there makes me more upset.

The strangest thing about this whole situation is that it still feels like it's happening to somebody else, even though the first coherent thought in my head this morning was, "I have cancer." I would like to preserve that somebody-else feeling for as long as I can, even if it's only for a couple of days.

Every cancer is as individual as the person it attacks. Remember that if you read about PLGA and get freaked out. Remember that I've always done weird stuff, and that this is no exception. Focus on the positive things that can come out of this, please, for my sake. Send all the good thoughts and prayers and wishes and hip-shakes you can muster, but please, don't send me any more links to the same Institute of Rare Diseases paper.

I am frightened. I feel very alone, notwithstanding the dozens of messages and emails and comments I've gotten in the last sixteen hours. I am scared for my life, and scared for my family, and scared for my friends. I would honestly like nothing better than to wake up and have this all have been the worst dream ever.

Please: this blog is a place where I can come and maybe not be so frightened for a little bit. I'd like it to stay a safe place, and I need your help to do that.

Thank you.