At work I had a sweet little lady come in, 50 years old, and walking into her room I knew she was not going to make it to 51. She was flourescent yellow. Painless. Abdominal distension,discomfort, decreased appetite, weakness...a grim litany of maladies that could only signify cancer. I sent the labs and ordered the ultrasound and CAT scan, but really this was a stalling maneuver to buy myself time to rally myself for the "You have cancer" conversation. When the CT was done I wet read it and her liver was enormous and riddled with golfball size mets. I went to her bedside and broached the subject directly, but gently. You never know how this is going to go, telling a stranger she has this dread disease, this monster living within her. In the non-privacy of a bed curtained off in the the ED no less. Typical for cancer patients she was sweet and stoic and took it with grace and tremedous courage. I hope she gets a good doc. The Biscuit and I have hit a bump en route to the wedding. Two bumps--the gift registry and the total wedding cost. For the registry we have different tastes--my distaste at spending money on fashion presents something of a chasm between what I enjopy buying (even by proxy) and what the Biscuit might. I am happy to pay for quality, but fashion and name-brand cachet have no appeal for me. And as for the wedding we have butted up against our $15,000 budget. Wedding for 150 for $15,000--that seemed pretty reasonable in the halcyon days of being newly engaged. Alas, we are 13,800 in and we have no photographer and no wedding dress. Both, I have to admit, seem like a good idea at a wedding. The Biscuit's solution is (get this!) for her to work as a waitress for twenty nights through the holidays to make the money to buy a $3,000 wedding dress. To hell with the money--we are miles apart philosophically on this one! U-561