INTRODUCTION
Etymology of the word

The art is long, life is short, opportunity fleeting, experiment dangerous,  judgment difficult. - Hippocrates

Cancer is as old as human history. The word cancer, as defined in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, has more than a couple of distinctly different meanings that expand from the stars above to much more earthly definitions. How is it that one word can describe two completely different worlds? How do the Cancer of the stars and cancer of the human body relate?

Stars continuously surround us. Humans are made of the stuff of stars, so it is no wonder that since the beginning of time we have looked to them. As American astronomer and astrophysicist, Carl Sagan infamously stated, “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars.”

The human body is made up of an abundance of crucial elements proven to be the same as the stars of the Milky Way, but some of these stars are considered to be more special to us than others. Since ancient times wonder and mystery have been associated with these stars and these majestic celestial bodies were given often grandiose, spiritual meanings.

Our modern constellation system was established by the ancient Sumerians, and later by the ancient Greeks, with the oldest written description of the constellations coming from a poem written about 270 B.C. by the Greek poet Aratus, called Phaenomena.  Because Earth orbits in a flat plane around the sun, for thousands of years we have seen the sun against the same stars again and again, year after year at the same time. At these regular intervals are the constellations of the Zodiac - the twelve constellations that mark out the path in which the sun appears to travel over the course of one calendar year.

The zodiac is derived from the Greek word meaning "circle of animals," because most of these twelve constellations are represented by them. It is believed to have first developed in ancient Egypt and later adopted by the Babylonians. Babylonian astronomers divided the ecliptic into twelve signs indicative of the 12 lunar cycles that it takes for the sun to return to its original position.

The zodiacal constellation, Cancer, is most popularly explained in Greek mythology with association to Karcinos, (the Greek word for crab or crayfish) in one of the Twelve Labors of Hercules. During one of Hercules’ battles with Hydra, Hera sent Karcinos to distract Hercules. Hercules kicked the crab with a force so powerful he was thrust into the heavens. It is said that for Karcinos’ efforts, Hera marked an eternal place for him in the night sky.  

The more earthly definition and origin of the word cancer, also relates to karkinos and is credited to the Greek physician Hippocrates (460-370 BC), considered to be the “Father of Medicine.” Hippocrates used the term karkinos (carcinos) to describe any non-healing swelling or ulcerous formations. More than likely applied to the disease due to the tumors swollen veins and finger-like protrusions resembling that of the shape of a crab. Typical to Greek practice of the time, Hippocrates only observed outwardly visible tumors leading some to theorize that due to the hard nature of malignant tumors, it may have reminded him of the crustacean’s hard exoskeleton.

About 47AD, the Greco-Roman encyclopaedist, Aulus Cornelius Celsus (28AD-50 BC), wrote a noteable encyclopedia of medicine translating the Greek term into cancer, the Latin word for crab. Interestingly enough, Celsus was not a physician, but simply a Greek educated Roman aristocrat with a general education for the time, but a very strong interest in medicine. Nonetheless, he is accredited to giving one of the biggest plagues to modern society the name by which the Western world refers to it today.

Though Hippocrates and Celsus are given credit to the origin of the word, they were not the first known authors to write about the subject. Human beings, animals and plants have had cancer throughout recorded history, so it should come as no surprise that humans have been writing about cancer since the dawn of civilization. While reference to cancer is sparse with regard to archaeological records, the remains of a Siberian man dating from the Early Bronze Age roughly 4,500 years ago is conclusively regarded as one of the oldest, if not the oldest, absolute cases of human cancer thus recorded. However, the earliest description of the illness comes from Ancient Egypt and dates back to 1600BC as found in the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, named after the dealer who bought the manuscript in 1862.

In these ancient times, Astronomy and Astrology were treated together as sister sciences. In modern times the science of astronomy has concluded that astrology, though based in astronomical principles is considered valueless to modern science and having no scientific validity. In the 17^th century, astrology the once considered scholarly tradition that helped in driving the development of astronomy was irrefutably renounced.

Still today, humans have been drawn to what some consider a pseudoscience, and others consider a form of divination that connects constellations to human behavior. Perhaps in sheer fascination, or as a means of analyzing or better understanding their own personalities by knowing where the stars were in the sky at the very time and place that they entered the natural world.

Every human being born on our planet will not be born under the sign of Cancer; only those born between June 20th and July 22^nd will be designated crabs. However, just as we are made of the stuff of stars, every person on Earth has microscopic cancer cells living inside of them.

In the mid-1970s, American microbiologists John Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus’ testing of Todaro and Heubner’s “oncogene theory,” fundamentally changed the way that cancer is viewed today. They were able to prove that “healthy body cells contain dormant viral oncogenes that, when triggered, cause cancer.”

In David Servan-Schreiber’s book Anti-Cancer: A New Way of Life, he states:

“Cancer lies dormant in all of us. As in all living organisms, our bodies are making defective cells all of the time. Our bodies are also equipped with a number of mechanisms that detect and keep such cells in check. In the West, one in four people will die from cancer, but three of the four will not. Their defense mechanisms will hold out and they will die of other causes.”

Cancer Researcher, President and Medical Director of the Angiogenesis Foundation, Dr. William Li describes these two very important defenses to be “our immune system as well as our body’s natural ability to resist blood vessels from growing into and feeding cancer.” But as Dr. Servan-Schreiber suggests, for one out of four of us, one or both of these two internal defenses’ will ultimately fail.

Cancer is not one, but numerous diseases. All of which are identified with the word due to the fact that they all share one fundamental feature: the uncontrolled growth and division of a single cell. A recent scientific study estimates that the human body is made up of approximately 37.2 trillion cells that are continuously dividing to keep us healthy. Normal cells in the body follow an orderly path of growth, division, and death. When the body’s normal control mechanism stops working, cancer is born. Old cells do not die and instead continue to grow uncontrollably forming new abnormal cells with the same damaged DNA as the first. These mutated cells grow too fast, multiply too often, spread and invade other tissues; something that normal cells do not. These extra cells that the body does not need typically go on to form a mass of tissue – a tumor. It only takes one out of trillions of cells in our bodies to mutate for cancer to take form. If or when it does, it is rare to know exactly what causes any one person’s cancer. People can inherit abnormal or faulty DNA, but most often DNA damage is caused by mistakes that happen while the normal cell is reproducing or by something in our environment. 

Nevertheless, at some point in my life that will forever be undeterminable, one of my internal defense mechanisms failed and with reference to statics, I became the one out of the four. The way I continue to look at it is that I was born into a family of four daughters. One of us was bound to develop cancer and I am grateful that the dreaded "c-word" beset itself in me and not in them for I was the one most equipped to fight in the battle.

Cancer is as old as human history, a history spanning over 4,000 years. Just as humans have been writing about cancer since man could draw, this journal is the written history of my cancer and is a story of optimism. The story of a Louisiana crab waging a battle on what Siddhartha Mukherjee calls the “Emperor of All Maladies;” a battle in which countless humans have fought since the beginning of time as we as humans know it.

I have attempted to shine a light on the days, weeks and years of my personal journey as a Cancer with cancer in the hopes that those who choose to read this: whether it be friends who would like to have a better understanding of the obstacles I have faced or answers to questions that they have been afraid to ask - or - those who like myself have found themselves afflicted with this most unfortunate of circumstance within the human condition, be able to find a story in which they can in some way relate. Something with which I found to be one of the biggest struggles. When I was diagnosed with stage IV brain cancer at twenty-eight, I entered into a realm of the un-relatable, which at times was more frustrating than the cancer and it's treatments themselves. And I ask only for myself, with regard to the macrocosmic picture and that unanswered age old question: isn’t that just one, if not the fundamental reason(s) that we we are all here ... to relate?

My hope is that those of you, who find yourselves here plagued by brain cancer or any other kind of illness, be able to draw from this journal the inspiration to educate yourself. Though at times it will bring you to tears or to your knees in absolute fear read about your illness. Read your personal medical reports. Ask your doctors questions. Take notes, question, and research everything they tell you. With this, become an advocate for yourself. For you are the only person that really knows you. Even the greatest minds in medical research will never be able to understand the whole that is you.

Most important of all, I would like to stress the importance of positivity. For the way we think about this battlefield of life, can either expand or reduce the control we have over it. Our thoughts, absolutely, have the power to impact what ensues. 

Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote in a personal correspondence in 1839,

“To study the meaning of man and of life – I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: If you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I occupy myself with this mystery because I want to be a man.”

With this diagnosis of cancer, Dostoyevsky’s letter takes on a new meaning for me. I have found faith in myself. The veil has been lifted, for the gift of cancer has opened my eyes and given me perspective. Like my cancer and the constellations of the celestial sphere, it has always been there, but the time had not been right for it to come to light. I now know that life is a marvelous gift to which we are given only a fleeting glimpse. Life is indeed short and despite the fact that I will continue to stare my own mortality in the face, I know now more than ever that I too “want to be a (hu)man” and even more importantly that I want to live.

This journal relies in part on the books, medical journals, studies, articles, archives, websites and encyclopedias that I have read in an effort to better understand and educate myself about this biological paradigm that even after 4000 years experts of the subject still do not fully understand.

This journal is in no way a scholarly article and should not be taken for one. It is, however, based in fact, based on research, as well as personal experiences and personal opinion. Like our ancestors of the great civilizations of antiquity, I recognize that Astrology is not for everyone and has no merit scientifically. And although, I consider myself to forever be a student and great admirer of astronomy, mathematics, science, and nature; astrology has always resonated with me. With that being said, the Cancer that I am is well represented within.

This is the journal of a Cancerian woman that feels undoubtedly connected to the collective consciousness of the universe on Earth, and conjointly a cancer patient that feels that spiritual connection while fighting to live in the highly scientific, and skeptical medical world.   

I realize that the last bit may be lost on some. At times I am sure that I may perplex, confuse, or even offend some of you, and to those that my writings morally or otherwise offends, please know that this is not my intention. Sometimes I will use real names, and though I would like to share the name of the hospital, as well as the both marvelous and not so marvelous doctors, nurses, fellows, technicians, coordinators, and hospital staff that I have had the fortune and even misfortune of meeting, I have either changed their names or left it out completely as to avoid any legal repercussions.

© Erin F. Buckley 2017

Chapter Three

III

Every Now and Then I Fall Apart

Suggested listening “Cry Baby” by Janis Joplin

Three months have passed and there is still no sign of the needles and pins. Subsequently, I begin experiencing a pain in my neck that is excruciating. The harsh, sharp pain comes on at breakneck speed, feeling as though a flathead screwdriver is being stabbed and twisted into the muscle connecting the left side of my neck to my left shoulder.

I try stretching and rolling both my shoulder and my neck as past gym teachers and coaches had instructed in my school years with intention to alleviate the pain, but my efforts only seem to worsen this growing problem. Was this in fact a pinched nerve as I had read and my doctor suspected? The pain continues to progress for close to a month; and when I can at no point get comfortable for a little over a week, I make the decision to see a chiropractor for the first time.

I can understand how people become addicted to this kind of practice; it is intoxicating. After walking through the front doors, I sign the sign-in sheet and the woman behind the reception desk immediately ushers me into a long rectangular room filled with cushion-covered tables. I deduce that she is the nurse of the man I am here to see. She instructs me to lie down on the cushioned table of my choice before laying a half-circle cushion under my neck and an angled cushion under my knees. She hands me a remote control and shows me how to adjust the motorized massage rollers speed and intensity. I settle onto a gentle, deep kneading clockwise roll that travels laterally down my entire body. For the first several consecutive minutes within the past month, I am able to relax and almost completely ignore the pain in my neck. This is one hell of a doctor’s waiting room.

After twenty to thirty minutes, the nurse returns to escort me to a smaller room with a chiropractic table in it; something that I have only seen in films like, Jacob’s Ladder. The doctor of sorts enters the room; though tall and thin, it is obvious, even under his lab coat, that he is a very psychically fit man. After we shake hands he has a seat in his desk chair and asks that I describe my pain. After explaining the pain in my neck that has been lingering for a month’s time, I relay to him my concern that it could be a pinched nerve. I suppose I am taking too much of his time as I can barely finish my sentence when he very abruptly dismisses me saying that it could just be the way that I hold my body and have for the duration of my life. 

After our exceptionally brief meet and greet, feeling self-conscious about my what I thought and have been told all of my life to be good posture, he has me lie down face first on the table where he cradles my head gently with his bare hands before cracking my neck twice. It is just as satisfying as opening up a champagne bottle, and the sound alone is worth the co-pay. I stand upright, cross my arms across my chest where he cracks my upper and lower back against a convex cushion he props up on the wall before sending me on my way.

The visit leaves me high on endorphins for a few good hours, but the pain would soon return. I make a couple of weekly return visits per his advice, but discontinue my meetings with him when the monumental migraines begin.

This is my second clue that something very serious is at work. Never in my lifetime have I experienced headaches except for occasional sinus headaches that mercilessly appear once or twice a year when Louisiana's Live Oak trees shed their pollen ridden catkins. Nonetheless, every morning like clockwork, I wake up with debilitating migraines that leave it nearly impossible for me to think straight. Between the pain in my neck and the relentless migraines, I cannot stand to be in pain for a minute longer when I desperately schedule an emergency appointment at Dr. Braedt's office. 

When we meet later that afternoon, thankfully he does not reprimand me for not having the MRI performed, but reiterates and encourages that I do. He hears my plea for mercy and in the meantime prescribes a bultabital, acetaminophen, and caffeine oral for relief. 

I stumble and fumble for a couple of days and can barely get through the nine-hour workday. My brain is not working properly and the migraines are now almost at a constant. One evening, my sister Ellen and I are shopping at her favorite pseudo-department store, when she becomes concerned about the way I am acting while on this cumbersome barbiturate. I can only imagine what a sight I must have been to the fellow patrons, as I egregiously rove around the houseware section of fucking Marshalls on psychoactive drugs. Ellen pulls me behind one of the mirrored columns of the big box store and insists that I take only half a pill instead of the full dose as my doctor has prescribed, coyly alluding to the fact that I am acting like a junkie. I agreeably accept her advice.

Sunday, April 22nd, 2012

It is a sunny Sunday in April and my extended family is having a crab boil at their fishing camp on Lake Catherine; a fishing, boating and crabbing hotspot on the eastern edge of New Orleans. My mother and my two twin sisters make the quiet scenic drive down Chef Menteur Pass, as we had done so many times in the past while on our way the Tally Ho Club, the hunting and fishing club my father belonged to known to be the oldest in the US.

I feel dreadful, with a migraine that hasn’t fully subsided for a few days now and the sun pouring through the back window of my sister’s Nissan Sentra is by no means helping. But, it is a beautiful Southern spring day and there is no way I am going to miss out on an opportunity to eat my favorite food caught right off of the pier that my four uncles built by hand.

While riding down the pass alongside the marshy banks, my mother and two sisters are having a conversation about planning a vacation in the Florida panhandle, which progresses into a conversation about “beach bodies” and bathing suits, which ultimately turns into a conversation about weight; an inane and frequent conversation in a family solely consisting of five women. My aching head lying on the headrest of the back seat and more than bored by their conversation I make some silly remark for a little comic relief that is returned with the usual, “I guess it must be nice that you don’t ever have to worry about your weight, Erin.” In keeping with the norm, to be funny and dramatic, my clever response is, “Yeah, well I probably have a brain tumor.” We all share a laugh as we exit her vehicle.

I don’t see my only living family, my mothers five first cousins and their children, nearly enough. I see my Uncle Mike most often since he runs Port of Call in the French Quarter, which my mom, sisters and I frequent for tequila laden, “Red Turtles” and arguably the best burger in New Orleans. Uncle Mike was one of my late father’s fishing buddies, and ever since my father’s untimely death in 2010, he very notably brings my mother fresh redfish, speckled trout and red snapper when he goes fishing out on the Gulf. Upon seeing me for the first time in several months, Uncle Mike asks how I am doing, not in the way of just being polite but with an air of concern. I must look as terrible as I feel. I tell him and some of the cousins around me about my newly acquired headaches and the heavy drugs that I am on, over the sound of a boil pot and a can of Barqs root beer (no bottles are allowed at the camp).    

My twin sisters and I are returning from lying beneath the rainbow colored umbrella at the end of the pier, where I notice my mother glaring at me as I walk up to the wooden picnic tables, blinded by the afternoon sun. She calmly insists that I sit down next to her. Grabbing my arm discretely she pulls me in close and says under her breath so that no one around us can hear, "I do not care how much it costs, you need to schedule an MRI tomorrow. I will pay for it." 

Monday, April 23^rd, 2012

Just as my mother had insisted, I apprehensively make the call to Advanced Imaging first thing on Monday morning. This time, I reach a young woman with a voice like a baby, who puts me on the schedule for the very next morning at 9:30am.

Tuesday, April 24^th, 2012

On Tuesday, April 24th I return to the diagnostic imaging facility that I walked out of once before. Naturally for me, I am met with the same sour woman from my prior appointment. With a smile on my face, I calmly try to arrange for billing to be sent in the mail. With no surprise, the resident front desk growler has an issue with this. I am not asking for a mountain to be moved, just a printed bill and a stamp; but again I am met with much resistance as she continues to growl in my direction. I relay to her that my mother would like to pay for me to have the test done, and she would like the bill to be mailed to her. She gets to use her power against me once more stating that I will need to pay a deposit of $240 if I want to be billed for the test. I hand over a check that she accepts with a scowl on her face. I give her my mother’s billing information before taking a seat in the waiting room.

Shortly thereafter, a short, fit man in scrubs of questionable ethnicity greets me. He leads me into a room where I am faced with the largest piece of medical machinery I have ever laid eyes on. The machine is expelling a bizarre chirping sound that sounds as though it is breathing.

The man in scrubs introduces himself as Jimmy, the technician that will be performing my scan. After he has me change into scrubs in a curtained corner of the room, he instructs me to sit on top of the long table that juts out the circular center of the machine. While circling the perimeter of the room and grabbing everything that he needs, he asks if I would like to listen to music during the test. He explains that the headphones will not only help block the sound, but will also help in keeping my head stable within the machines facial apparatus.

When he returns to my side, he has a seat and wraps a long elastic band around my left arm. Aggravated by my interaction with the woman up front and made anxious by the foreign sounds coming from the machine, I begin to reconsider whether or not to go through with the scan when I learn that I am about to have a needle go into my arm.

My pediatrician was my primary care doctor even into high school. I am sure that he has had hundreds of patients over the years, but every time he saw me he brought up the story when I was fifteen and he diagnosed the dysfunctional Eustachian tube in my right ear. He could always remember me because my response was, “Do you think I can use that as a band name?” Evidently it really tickled him.

When it was time to get a meningitis shot required in order to attend college, he was the doctor I went to have it done. He really enjoyed poking fun at me, a seventeen-year-old “adult” brought to tears by the thought of a needle. Laughing with his eyes, he asked if I had heard the toddler in the next room crying. I replied that I had not. “Exactly my point,” he says. “I just gave a three year old a shot, Erin, you need to pull yourself together.”

Recalling memories of this three year old, I take a deep breath while he inserts the first IV that I can consciously recall into my arm. I put the headphones on and lie down, having to scoot up so that my head is on what I suppose is a headrest (though I would hardly refer to this as a place to “rest” your head). He places foam vinyl covered batting and small rolled white towels over and around the headphones, before placing a white helmet-like mask over my face. He covers me in thin, warm white medical blankets and reiterates how important it is to keep my head as still as possible during the scan. The lights dim, the music comes on and the table begins moving backwards into the center of the circle.

I can barely hear the sounds of the machine with the classic soft rock jams of Magic 101.9 blaring through the headphones throughout this extra-terrestrial experience. I begin to dose off when the test stops suddenly. I grow slightly concerned seeing as the technician has told me that the scan would take around thirty minutes to complete, and I know that I have not been in the machine for nearly that long. Several minutes pass where absolutely nothing happens. Strapped down with the inability to move inside of this tunnel of modern medicine, it may as well have been an eternity. I have never known claustrophobia or the feeling associated with it, but this test certainly gave me my first genuine glimpse into the disorder.

As I lie silently thinking to myself that this must be a feeling similar to being wrapped in a straightjacket, the table begins to move outwards. Through the small oval mirror on the inside of the mask I see a tall man in a white lab coat appear from what I now can tell is a two-way mirrored glass wall just across the foot of the machine. The man circles behind the machine where the small mirror will no longer allow me to see; though I cannot see him, I can feel his presence beside me. He does not introduce himself; he frankly states that he is going to administer contrast in order to complete the test.

I had held onto my doctor’s referral for quite a while now, and had skimmed it over more than a dozen times. I know that Dr. Braedt referred me for an MRI of the head without contrast, but I am not in any position to argue. I feel a warm tingling rush into the vein of my left arm as a strong chemical aroma fills my mouth and nose. The table begins retracting backwards into place before I can see the tall man slipping behind the mirrored glass wall again.

The last ten or so minutes of the MRI are extremely jarring, as the table begins jolting and shaking me incessantly for sequences lasting several minutes at a time. During the shakiest part of this ride arrives a welcome surprise as Bonnie Tyler's near six-minute epic eighties ballad "Total Eclipse of the Heart" comes through the headphone speakers, and before I know it the test is over.

The young gentleman in scrubs who administered the test returns to assist me in getting off of the table. His entire demeanor has changed within the hour-long exam to seemingly over-concerned. With a look of grief plastered across his round face, he asks me while I sit up if “I felt okay?" I arrogantly reply that I am fine before trying to jump off of the table. As much as I have enjoyed being jolted, shaken, and assaulted with soft rock for a little under an hour, I am ready to leave. While wrapping my arm in bandage tape after taking the IV out, he further instructs that once I change out of the scrubs that I return to the waiting area. He will meet me there shortly with something that I will need to take with me. It all feels very strange, but I don’t pay much attention to it and take a seat just outside of the door I entered in from.

He returns to the waiting room ten minutes later with a gold disk that says “Erin Buckley 04/24/12” in black permanent marker. He insists that I bring it to the doctor that made the request for the test when I have time today. Be it that I have taken the morning off of work to accommodate the scan and certainly not rushing to get there, I decide to make the trip across town to drop off the disk at Dr. Braedt's office.

I illegally park on one of Napoleon Avenues side streets legally too close to the corner as I just plan to run in. I step off of the elevator on the fourth floor, walk up to the front desk and hand the disk to one of Dr. Braedt’s receptionists. I tell her that I just had an MRI and am dropping off the disc from the imaging center for Dr. Braedt to review and bid them both farewell. As I turn to walk out, she stops me. “Ms. Buckley, please take a seat in the waiting room. The doctor will see you as soon as he can.” I hastily respond that I do not have an appointment and that I have just stopped in to drop off the disk, where she informs me that Dr. Braedt is expecting me, and again, that “I should take a seat.”  

As I walk the short distance from the front desk to the waiting room, it finally dawns on me that something is amiss. I sit anxiously at the edge of my chair for over an hour before his nurse moves me into a room that is obviously not a patient examination room. After another grueling hour of nervous stewing in a room filled with metal shelving and boxes of medical supplies, the nurse returns showing me into an examination room; saying that the doctor will be with me soon. 

I have a seat in the navy blue leather club chair placed in the corner, in front of the window wall overlooking General Pershing Street. I had seen Dr. Braedt a little more than one week before, but when I see his face this time he looks to be ill. His eyes filled with despair, his voice cracks upon delivering the news. My heart quickly sinks into the pit of my stomach, but somehow I manage to maintain my composure. It may seem strange, but the news initially doesn't come as much of a shock to me as one would expect. Intrinsically I knew something was very wrong, and perhaps all of the waiting had better prepared me for the discovery. It wasn't until I called my mother that I fell apart. Saying aloud,

"I have a brain tumor,"

for the first time was nothing short of surreal. I didn't want to claim it. I didn't want it to be true. My mother had obviously prepared herself for the worst. She knew in her heart that something was seriously wrong.

She remained calm for the both of us saying, "It's going to be okay, baby. Ask Dr. Braedt, what do we need to do now?" I put the phone on speaker on the edge of his desk so that she can ask her share of questions." I may have physically been seated in the office while my mother interrogates the doctor, but I have left my body and am somewhere else. 

When I stand up to leave his office, Dr. Braedt hands me a prescription for dexamethasone, a corticosteroid to suppress inflammation and any swelling related to the tumor, as well as a post-it note with a couple of hand-written phone numbers.

I walk down the hall, enter the elevator, exit the building, and walk to my Jeep. During the drive home alone I go into emotional shock. I can hardly recollect the eight-mile drive from Napoleon Avenue to my mother’s house in West Lakeshore. My mind balancing between all out emotional hysteria and that of a zombie, rendered will-less by a supernatural force. Hysterical zombie or not, I can recall having one of the most heart-wrenching sobs of my life on that drive. Life as I know it, is changed forevermore.