That's a provocative title, eh?

We had a pancake breakfast at the elementary school this morning. It's our third annual one, and in the recent tradition was really popular and successful. But I came away with a really bad taste in my mouth, and it wasn't from the food. Lately, I've been getting really depressed when I'm at the school, which annoys the shit out of me.

This is my second year of being co-president of the PTA, and I've gotten used to being recognized, being social, and trying to make new families feel welcome. I was extremely vocal about a few issues that were important to me, such as school bussing, building our new library, good communications, and when they wanted to change the day schedule so that school would start and end an hour earlier every day.

From 2007-09, I worked really hard to help raise $116,000 so we could furnish our new library with ergonomic, environmentally responsible, attractive furniture. And for the three years before I was a president, I did the PTA newsletter single-handedly. I've cooked pans of sausages for breakfasts, freezable meals for families who were grieving or had a sick parent, and desserts for potlucks. I've re-covered miles of bulletin boards, reframed pictures, stuffed thousands of envelopes, and cleaned up after countless events.

And yet.... there are some very snotty women who really clearly don't like me. Maybe because I'm fat, or don't always wear makeup, or have showed up at school in a baseball hat and workout pants. They don't like that the principal talks to me as a friend (uh, we went to high school together), or don't like when I make "executive" decisions such as whether or not to show a movie in the auditorium. Maybe they don't like one of my kids. Or that I'm not wealthy. Or that I have a loud voice and make announcements. Maybe they don't like that I was asked to DJ school events or be the auctioneer for the live auctions.

Sometimes I know why they don't like me -- an email is misread, or their "suggestion" (nee command) is not used. They don't like that I "got" to be president and they didn't.

And sometimes, I don't know why they don't like me. And I can only assume it's some typically junior-high bullshit about how I don't fit in. I'm not invited to game nights with semi-famous locals. We don't host fancy dinner parties. In fact, I often try to throw parties and sometimes they're really poorly attended.

And sometimes, I don't care. "Fuck them and their pilates-taking, Lexus-driving, skinny-assed rich selves," I think. "I don't need this shit. Let them try to be this uber-volunteer with three kids, a crazy full-time job, and very little money in a messy, tiny rental house and no vacations and no season tickets and no fancy clothes. Fuck them all."

And sometimes, I'm really hurt and upset. I want people to like me and don't want to feel like they're making snarky comments behind my back (and not too far behind it, either). And I'm pissed because I like volunteering and I want to enjoy it, but it's hard to when you feel like people are bitchy and hate you.

And I shouldn't care. Because at least one of the women who is clearly bitchy to me isn't someone I'd want to hang out with anyway. But seriously? Have I not given enough of myself willingly and joyfully to be exempted from the Gossip Girls bullshit?

Yes, I know. I suck. I really do. I haven't been able to write for a variety of reasons. Here now, a top-whatever list of excuses:

1. I'm really fucking busy. But not fucking.
2. My job is insane.
3. I have three kids.
4. I started Tweeting.
5. And Facebooking, if we can say something so unliterary.
6. Did I mention the three kids, the full-time job? Add the volunteering to that. Ran a libarary fundraising effort for 14 months ($116k, whoo!) and am co-president of the PTA.
7. I'm so fucking tired.

Okay, that's enough. Let's catch up.

Sum of 2008:
January - April: Husband almost dies.
April-May: We move (across the street into a rental house).
Summer of 2008: DH continues to be relatively unwell. We discover I have a rare kind of tumor in my thumb.
August: Tumor is removed via surgery. We find out two weeks later that it was, thankfully, benign.
Fall: Recovery of extremely dominant and relatively useless right hand continues while workplace is in chaos.
Winter: Eldest son has increasing behavior issues. Middle son has continuing body movement issues. Youngest son refuses to give up diapers.
Spring of 2009: We all catch varying cases of the flu, luckily before swine flu comes into vogue. Issues with sons continue. Eldest son is referred to a kick-ass therapist who is located 45 solid minutes away (without traffic).
Summer of 2009: What fucking summer? I try to set up a communal childcare summer camp replacement, which is met with great enthusiasm until I try to get people to sign up. Eldest son begins pharmaceutical treatment for his twin diagnoses of ADHD and depression, with nonhilarious results.

Which brings us to now, the fall of 2009. Here's another bullet-pointed list of shit that's going on:

• Hey, I'm sick again! There's a shocker. Luckily, I seem to have dodged the swine bullet and just have the flu. So that's good.
• Jacob is taking two medications daily, with varying success. Some days are better than others. We're not terribly thrilled with his MD, but his psychotherapist is great. He's working through anger management workbooks with her, and she totally gets him. I just wish she'd move closer to us.
• Danny is attending two separate occupational therapy sessions a week outside of what he gets at school. This involves us getting him to pediatric rehab (20 minutes away) for a 7 am session on Friday mornings, followed by picking him up at school at 3:15 pm the same day to go to aquatic occupational therapy. He is doing incredibly well in water OT but not so well on land.
• Benjy has successfully used the toilet but refuses to do so on a regular basis. He is attending a local preschool three afternoons a week and loves it. They are patient and accepting about his stubbornness.
• DH continues to have bizarre symptoms on and off.
• Work continues to be insane. Politics of all kinds abound, nobody knows who they can trust, and big changes are constantly afoot. Oh, and we're being kicked out of our space by our landlord (after being there 35 years). Because this economy is a great time to build out very complicated facilities.
• I am still co-president of the PTA, and rapidly becoming tired of dealing with the bullshit pressure put on me by people who don't have to work outside the home, even after their children are in school full time.
• Money still sucks.

And finally, I just discovered that this weird lump on my upper arm might be sarcoma. Google it -- I'll wait here.

Yep. Cancer, the big C, ickiness. And all because I'm stupid. See, here's the thing... I've felt pain in my left hand and wrist for some time, more at night than anything, and increasing as time goes on. I thought it was carpal tunnel. And I remember seeing this odd lump on the inside of my left arm in the mirror after showering.... and (wait, you'll love this) I thought it was MUSCLE DEFINITION. And not because I've been busy doing push-ups and shit. I'm still in bad shape.

But there I was yesterday, lying in bed feeling fluey, and I said to DH "Hey, feel my muscle." And he felt around my upper arm, and then he said, with an odd look on his face: "That's not muscle." And told me to get it checked out.

So I called the doctor, thinking, hey -- I've got a fever and a lump in my arm, with increasing pain... maybe there's a blood clot or minor infection that needs a heavy dose of antibiotics and everything will go away. I tell the doctor's nurse that I've got this lump in my upper arm, she puts me on hold, and says the doctor wants me to come in first thing in the morning.

So yesterday, I tootled off to Northbrook to see my primary care physician. I really like Dr. B, even if I only see her maybe every other year -- the practice has an office much closer to my house, where i go for strep tests and last-minute things. But Dr. B. is only in Northbrook, only three days a week. And I didn't realize it had been two years since I'd seen her, but I guess it has. And I check in, and the nurse takes my vitals. I've got a slight fever, but otherwise nothing weird.

And then Dr. B comes in. She checks out my throat, my ears, my lungs, etc. No sign of infection. So I show her the arm.

And she looks puzzled.

"I.... don't really know what that is," she says. "It's got, well, texture to it. And it doesn't have the symptoms of a blood clot." And when she feels around, I get sort of an electric shock of pain, to which she apologizes profusely. And I'm embarrassed because I've had all this muscle soreness but I'm clearly too stupid to note that the bizarre misshapenness of my bicep is just wrong. So she has me make a muscle with each arm.

Right arm has a clear line where the bicep is, below which is my attractively untoned flesh.

Left arm has a large lump sticking out in the direction of my body where the other arm had a line.

"So....," says Dr. B. "I"d like you to have this evaluated by an orthopedic surgeon. And it should be right away; next week if not today."

"Because it's probably nothing," I say.....

"Right, it might be a lipoma, just a lump of tissue," she says. "But it might be a sarcoma, and I don't like that texture."

She tries to get me to see this doctor she likes at Illinois Bone & Joint, but their computer systems are down so they can't make appointments. I leave in a daze, emailing DH and getting halfway home before stopping in a parking lot. I called my hand surgeon's office for a referral, and they had someone in their office who "actually" did "do the whole arm." He will see me first thing Tuesday morning.

I've already been prepped by Dr. B that I'm in for x-rays and probably a biopsy. That most likely, the lump (whatever it is) will have to be surgically excised. And while the recovery from my hand surgery was painful, it was because of where the tumor was located (in the nail bed of my right thumb). So I'm not really scared of the surgery itself. In fact, I'd noted to Dr. B., that if they took gunk out of my arm, I could medically ask for liposuction, because my arms would have to be even, right?

"That would be nice," laughed Dr. B.

"NO, I'm SERIOUS," I said. And I repeated my demand when I talked to DH, who called me when he got my email. Because, G-ddamn it, if I'm going to have surgery I'd better damn well come out of it looking better than when I started. And at the very least, I could come out of it looking svelte in short-sleeved and sleeveless tops.

"You okay?" he asked. And I admitted that I really wasn't. I was truly shaken up. It hit me in the car, and I got dizzy. Because the thing I have to wonder is, how many close calls do you get before one of the "might-be but probably-isn't" things actually is? I know at least five people in my circle of friends, colleagues and acquaintances who have been treated for some type of cancer within the last six to eight months. Why shouldn't it be me?

And it might not be. And it might be, but be easily treated with just surgery, which is inconvenient but plenty safe, and it's my left arm. Or it might be, and I might have to go through a lot of nasty treatments, which supposedly work very well for sarcomas. So it could be a really rough year, but I'd come out of it okay, albeit with a closet full of wigs and scarves. Or it might be (and this is really unlikely) bad enough to require amputation of my arm, since sometimes that's all they can do to keep the cancer from spreading. Which would suck, especially since you still have to go through radiation and chemo even if they amputate.

But we're going to pretend for the next three days that we don't know anything about anything, and that I still think I have carpel tunnel syndrome and a case of the flu. I'm going to drink tea and hot cocoa, read "Alice in Wonderland" because DH is reading it to the boys and I don't  remember it much, and try to get a backlog of work done if I can.