Emily Update - 4.20.18
All,
It’s been forever; I won’t even try to justify it. There will be more information about how this communication challenge has been remedied below.
So, a lot has happened since we last checked in. Emily and I moved to Inverness, CA. Inverness is a small town next to Point Reyes Station in West Marin. We are renting a little house that is surrounded by trees and nature. We have calla lilies growing down the driveway and a wisteria growing over the front of the house. Toby can bark as often and with as much vigor as he pleases without disturbing anyone other than us.
This is my first time in my life I have lived anywhere other than a big city. Plusses – low crime, (though not no crime as raccoons have broken into our garbage can at least three times so far), nature, close to the beach, deer, good in case of civil unrest.
Minuses- pretty isolated, possible The Shining situation, no mail delivery, (we have to get our mail at the post office) the New York Times home delivery service won’t deliver to our actual home. (Odd that the paper of record interprets the word home so loosely. It makes me wonder about a lot of stuff.)
Now that we live in the country we are living a quiet life which necessitates that we tell each other about every little thought or idea we have or thing we read as well as keep a running commentary about the dog, what he is doing, what he may be thinking, and how cute he is. I know what you’re thinking and this is NOT a scene from Grey Gardens, mostly because I haven’t perfected my flag dance yet. Please find some proof of us having a not-crazy conversation below.
Sample mid-day conversation
Me: How do scientists say the world will end?
Emmy: The world or the universe?
Me: (annoyed) Whatever, the universe.
Emmy: Well, there is more than one theory. I think the most popular one is the universe keeps expanding and cooling and losing energy in the process until there is no energy left. People call this The Big Freeze or Heat Death. So, Frost was right “Fire and Ice”
Me: Oh. I was thinking it was T.S. Eliot, “Not with a bang but a whimper.”
So, clearly we are intellectually incompatible need to expand our circle in order to find more like-minded comrades. To this end, we have launched a new website https://www.emilysuniverse.com. The site will include health updates, information about “Emily @ The Edge of Chaos”, Emily’s new blog, links to Emmy’s social media, and other share worthy items. The most exciting news is, you can sign up for updates!
Also, Emily spoke at TED2018 during the “Hilarity Insanity” Session. (Which I thought was a little on the nose, but what do I know?) Her talk will be released later this week and I’ll send it out then, but that is totally something one would also be able to find on https://www.emilysuniverse.com.
Abby
One final thing, a note on “prognosis.” People ask me about this a lot. Here’s the thing, all these rates are based on percentages, which are based on statistics about other people who received the same diagnosis and what happened to them. There are so many factors beyond those crude measures. There is no way to really determine what will happen with an individual person. That being said, Emily will die. (Newsflash! We all will! And none of us know exactly when.) Other people who received her diagnosis (stage IX non-small cell lung cancer) have a median life expectancy of 8 months at the time of diagnosis and a 5-year survival rate of 1%. Emily received her diagnosis 2 years ago and is still asymptomatic. So, you do the math. (Seriously, we don’t do math. Our services have to stop somewhere!)
Abby