Update - Stepson's Leukemia

[Lady Maven]

He has now had his final treatments and the port in his chest taken out. For those who are unfamiliar with the port it is embedded under the skin and every time they did a treatment it was sliced open. He has a scar there and I told him he should have the leukemia ribbon tattooed around it.

He is in remission (his counts were up over 3k!!!) but will not be considered "cured" for another 5 years. Just in time for his 21rst b-day.

Because of some issues at home beginning of January he will move in with me permenantly. Kid is my little buddy and one of the highlights of my life, so I am really looking forward to it. Be nice to be the person in the house that can say "Beer and popcorn for dinner? Why the hell not"

This is the latest photo of him. He was 13 when diagnosed and just turned 16 October 28th.

[Grunt]

Congrats
It is good to hear good news medically for a change

[owly]

he looks like a old friend of mine when i was a kid, i'm glad they caught and treated the leukemia.......

[Jezebel]

Maven,

Excellent news! He's a fine look boy, too.

[Super_Sturm]

[owly]

[Nether]

Nice news, tell the hippy to cut his hair.

[owly]

There's nothing wrong with hippy hair

[Nether]

yes there is

[Lady Maven]

He always has something new with his hair. A mohawk, a new color (his hair color is actually black like his father's).

This new length is because his girlfriend told him she liked long hair. No WAY am I getting involved in THAT! I already had to go to bat for him against his mother and stepfather because his girlfriend is black. If hismother objects to his hair let HER make him cut it!

I can NOT believe some people still care about skin color! How ignorant can you get? Me? I WISH I was black, or brown, or ANYTHING but fishbelly white. Tanning is too dangerous and self tanners, well, I giess I AM prejudiced against orange people.

[Silverwolfe]

I personally love my reddish brown hue when I get alot of sun. It makes me look even more exotic. Easier to pick up the ladies..... ) God im vain.

Good lookin kid Maven. Glad hes in Remission, and will pray to the spirits that the disease never returns.

[Jezebel]

I'm a redhead, so I'm biased. But that boy looks good as a redhead.

I will never understand the need for bigotry - whether it's gender, race, creed, or otherwise.
My friends come from a wide variety of all of the above.

[Lady Maven]

Yeah... I guess I have friends from across the board. never really thought about it. I know all of my friends aren't white, but some could be middle eastern, mexican or any other tannish race. I never pay attention, hell they all eat food too spicy for my ulcers. After all I am not a "tan" hag, lol.

[owly]

There's nothing wrong with dating black

i woulda never guess that my girlfriend would become my girlfriend.......

Atho we never see each other we have a bond, it's even worse now that i go to rehab all day......

i guess i get it from going to school in hawaii everyone around me was brown, i would see another white kid walking down the hall amist a hundred brown people, we would stand on r tippy toes and wave at each other lol......

altho i quit school young i went for a little while

[Lady Maven]

Date them? NO, why? because black guys wouldn't give me the time of day until I got fat, NOW they show interest. Even if I was single I wouldn't. You must be able to love me in all of my incarnations, and if you can't love me rail thin you can't love me when I finally have an ass either.

Maybe some black guys would have liked me thin, but none of the ones I ever hit on did, so now I am old and bitter about it.

[Nether]

Never really considered myself a racist, I mean I don't look at a minority and have instant hate. I usually allow people to prove themselves worthless before I make the assumption, but I was raised where it was frowned upon to be romaticlly invovled with someone of a different race and to this day don't approve. Not saying its some great sin or anything but I would never do it and to be honest I would have a problem with my son or daughter doing it. Don't really know why, i've not got any expierences that have jaded my view on the subject or anything its just how I feel.

Does that make me a bad person?

[Lady Maven]

I don't know... I mean that is kind of a grey area for me. We all have our preferences when it comes to what we find attractive. If you are making that decision for yourself, no it does not make you a bad person, it may mean you cut yourself off to some really awesome relationships, but if you ar good with that it is no one else's business. BUT I don't think it would be fair to make that choice for a child.

Now, see I grew up in a pretty fundamentalist Christian atmosphere. Biracial marriage was NOT ok. Of course they got to pick and choose what biracial group was not ok. Blacks, no. Mexicans... maybe, depends on if they were field hands or not. Chiinese or Japanese yes, Vietnamese Korean NOT OK!! Being gay was NOT ok (as part of my art instruction I drew nude females, pretty standard but it was NOT ok with my family, my mother is still sure I am gay, even though if I was I would have NO problems with admitting it and being happy with it, she still thinks I am in the closet). Still, I do not let that cloud my adult relationships. I happily identify myself as a hag (a woman whose primary friendships and emotional attachments are to gay men) and my sons knew that if they happened to be homosexual it was perfectly ok with me. In fact my step son is pretty sure I WANT him to be gay so he will want to go shoe shopping with me (so many things wrong with that even aside from his juvenile stereotyping starting with I need NO ONE to shoe shop with me!!). I raised my kids to understand that in this day and age love is hard enough to come by without stressing over something as stupid as the gender of the person you are in love with. I wanted them to have a wider range of what is acceptable than what I had growing up.

[Immigrant]

seen some really, stunningly beautiful black women in my travels and had no issue having dinner, among other things, and don't get me started on asians... however, I still personally find myself attracted to blondes with long legs and come hither blue eyes.. does that make me a bad person too?

there's nothing wrong with preferring people that look like you, or sound like you (keeping things going/loving yourself and your people too)... whatever works

but we're all related though so who cares when you get down to it... even the Bible says so if I remember right.. whatever makes a person happy and so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else its not really any of our business what someone does behind closed doors, no?

[Gerien]

Boy did this thread take a weird turn.

[Nether]

yeah i guess thats my fault