Sometimes I just really hate my family. Over the last three and a half years, they've developed a wonderful non-communication policy with regards to dealing with the northern division of the M-D family circle, and it stinks. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that whenever something bad happens, I tend to find out after the fact--sometimes greatly so. For example, my grandfather fell down the stairs at his house about a month ago, and I only found out last week. I found out that my great-uncle Lloyd was having chemo about three months after he started. And one time? My cat died, and they didn't tell me for three months. Not that I'm bitter.

This is not usually out of any real desire to "protect" me from the bad news. What I am generally told is that I simply don't call home enough. This is ridiculous--I usually call home about four times a week, sometimes more, and I was unaware of the fact that my family is incapable of picking up a phone and calling me.

The reason why this is a big deal to me right now is because I was talking to my dad tonight and he mentioned that he had an operation last week to remove some polyps from his bum ("the doctor boldly went where no man had gone before!") and that they are being biopsied and they should have the results sometime this week.

Funny how I feel like that's the kind of information that maybe you should share with people...you know, especially the people who are your daughter. I know it's potentially not a big deal. Polyps don't necessarily mean anything at all, and the odds are that they will be benign. Even if they're not, they should have caught this early enough that it won't get bad. He's survived skin cancer already.

It's just that the last member of my family who was "having some tests done" was dead from colon cancer within two weeks. And logically I know the odds are against this, that my uncle Bob wasn't a blood relative at all, but I'm still scared.

And now I have to write another thousand words on missionary work in Zimbabwe. grrreat.

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