To Begin

Unless we've run into you in the neighborhood recently, you may not know that Jessie had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

It's a fairly rare form of breast cancer -- metaplastic -- which makes it slightly less receptive to common chemotherapy drugs. That's the bad news.

The good news is that various body and bone scans have shown no further spread, and we have excellent doctors, so we're very optimistic.

Jessie is currently scheduled for surgery on November 13 at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and that will be followed a month later by chemotherapy and then radiation. So we have a fun few months ahead.

I'm putting together this blog just to have a place where I can update people on what's going on without overburdening my already overburdened email account (and brain).  It seemed easier than using one of those pre-packaged sick-people websites.

There is also a way to leave comments on this, so feel free. Just remember they will be public.

And even though I'm using this blog so that I don't have to deal with sending a million email updates, with inevitable bad or changed addresses and getting a million email responses, feel free to email me (HERE) if you have any comments or questions you don't want to put in the public comments. I promise to pass them on to Jessie, but just realize that it may take a while for her or me to respond, depending on what's going on.

Meals

Those of you lucky enough to be living in the Peoples Republic of Takoma Park may get an invitation to contribute meals for a couple of weeks after the surgery. (Thanks Marlana Valdez for putting that together and coordinating!)

Needless to say, if you've got other things going on and you can't participate, no problem. We'll hit you up again at some point if necessary.

For those of you not living here, feel free to send cookies, beef jerky, fruit cake or whatever if you're inspired. I promise to give most (or at least many) of them to Jessie.

Subscribe By Email

There's an option where you'll get a notification whenever an update is posted.  This is optional. If you just want to check in here on your own when you're in the mood, don't sign up. (Happily, the link is easy to remember: jessieblackburn.com.)  If you want to get notified when there's an update, do sign up. For the perennially undecided, you can always change your mind later.

Finally, I've inevitably forgotten to notify some important people, or I don't have a current email address.  Apologies.

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P.S. Comments:

Some of you may have noticed that comments don't work. For some reason, Google apparently uses some kind of 3rd Party comment app that doesn't work if you block 3rd Party cookies. (Don't ask.)

To unblock 3rd Party Cookies,follow the instructions below. Then it works. Someone else can tell us what the implications of unblocking 3rd Party Cookies is. But it works. (Meanwhile, I'll look for another commenting solution in case unblocking 3rd party cookies leads to a zombie apocalypse.)

1. On your computer, open Chrome.
2. At the top right, click More   Settings.
3. At the bottom, click Advanced.
4. Under "Privacy and security," click Site settings  Cookies.
5. Deselect "Block third-party cookies"
6. All of your problems are solved.