May the Force Be with You

OK, one more post, because I promised a Star Wars–themed post. So without further ado, the story of Han and Chewie.

When Vic was first diagnosed, I spent a lot of time on the Internet. There are a lot of bad things on the Internet, and I'm not just talking about that site with bad family pictures from the 70s. I'm talking about the amount of information you can find out about a disease without really knowing what's what. So one of the stats I read about tongue cancer was that the average five-year survival rate is 56 percent. This does not sound good to me. Yes, of course I found a statistic that said if you catch it early and it hasn't spread, the average survival rate is more like 80 percent, but I focused on the 56 percent. I was in the worst-case-scenario/glass-half-empty phase.

But then then this exchange popped into my head:

C-3PO: Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1.
Han Solo: Never tell me the odds.

And I said "Ooh! You can be Han Solo! But not, you know, the Han Solo encased in carbonite. The Han Solo that successfully navigates the asteroid field!"

Of course, then I realized that I was C-3PO. And I didn't want to be C-3PO. That guy's a tool. So I said, "Ooh! And I can be Chewbacca!" And we laughed about this, turned off the lights and went to sleep.

The next day, I told my boss, GerRee Anderson, about (whisper) the cancer (end whisper), and among a thousand other things, I told her the Han/Chewie story.

Now most people would have just filed that away—or more likely forgotten about it. But not GerRee. No, GerRee goes out and finds Star Wars action figures so that we would always have The Force with us.

So now we have the healing energy of the NotChemo quilt coupled with the fighting power of The Force—and once again I say "Take that, cancer!"

Thank you GerRee, thank you Cara, and thanks to all of you who are continuing to support us in so many amazing and wonderful ways. We are stronger because of you!