Sarah turned seventeen on November 4th. I sincerely do not know how that happened. Time travel? Yes – time travel and/or the bending of the space-time continuum in a VERY scientific yet devious way. We didn’t notice until it was too late.

One of her birthday gifts was a brown, fuzzy scarf (the stretchy kind that you can make into a hood or a tube top or a Superman cape – does anyone actually do those things with it?) My Father looked at it and said, “Is that a new wig?” We found this most amusing. In the first place, Sarah doesn’t wear a wig. She has some hair pieces (braids and falls) that she can stick under a hat for fun, but she mostly sticks to do-rags and hats (the Guinness Book should probably take a look at her collection of head coverings – she’s well on her way to a record). Besides, take a look at the scarf as a “wig”:
Very 'Doctor Zhivago,' don't you think?

Speaking of Ms. Sarah – I believe we are required to call her that now – she is a young lady and WELL past marriageable age – in this state, anyway (don’t get me started) – she is doing well. She is responding very positively to her chemotherapy; recent scans showed that many of the tumors in her neck and chest had decreased in size. All in all, the doctors are very pleased with the progress of her treatment.

Her high school paper wrote an article on her recently, Cancer Hits Home (no online link, sorry), perhaps incited by the fact that she is the only one at the school who can wear a hat – basically the whole notoriety of being bald, I think, but it was very well done. One of my favorite things that she said was:

When I go to Primary Children’s they make everything really fun. They have everything there. If you’re gonna get cancer, that’s the place to go.

I personally think Primary Children’s Medical Center should consider that as a possible slogan for their oncology department.

Sarah also said:

Life’s life. Life’s fun.

That’s a rather decent mantra, I must say: life’s life – life’s fun.