Meryl's Notes Blog

The review of NetObjects Fusion MX is targeted towards non-techies and non-desigers. Hardcore Web coders and designers will hate this software because it spits out non-standards compliant code. We wouldn’t want to wish anyone out of business, but NetObjects has been struggling and was going out of business although you wouldn’t know it from its Web site. The software is probably going to be sold cheap and non-Web savvy small business owners will want the software so they can get their business online without a consultant.

Nashville Gold, general fiction by Dekker Malone. Good for a quick and fun read.

Pink Lady has another game out. This time, Barbie saves the animals. Oh boy!

October - National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

OK, let me start off by saying those of you who got here by searching for nudity aren’t gonna find any here. This is an important topic and Dori prompted me to do an entry along with the fact it is National Cancer Breast Awareness Month. It’s also Disability (and Deaf) Awareness Month and I am sure a few others. I hope she doesn’t mind my linking to her health report, but this is a real story and it can happen to anyone. It happened to my mom.

A month after I moved to Washington, DC from Fort Worth and extremely home sick, Mom came to visit me and brought news with her. News I thought I’d never hear. She had a tiny lump that was malignant and was having a lumpectomy after returning back to Texas. It didn’t seem real especially since her parents lived past their 80s without cancer and their parents died of other causes. Plus, I was never home with her to see her through the surgery and radiation. 12 years later, she remains cancer-free. But also 12 years later, I know scores of people who have had lumpectomies, mastectomies, and one wonderful former professor from American University who died in her 40s. In fact, one of my cousins just had a mastectomy last week.

Check yourself. I do have one pet peeve about this… what about women with lumpy breasts? It’s impossible to know the difference!

Get yearly mammograms if you’re over 35. I haven’t reached 35, yet, but I am going to ask my doctor for one because of my mom’s history… and now my sister. She doesn’t have breast cancer. She has liver cancer. We found out last January. She is undergoing chemo and has had one report of the cancer shrinking. Last report - no change. She is feeling OK. I just wish she could get a good job to keep her mind occupied. She was laid off not long after she began treatments.

Ironically - my dad’s side of the family has a lousy medical history, but none of it cancer.

Take care of yourself. We want you here for as long as humanly possible.