Earlier this month, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter said: “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards” at a Political Action Conference. After getting over my revulsion at the filth that spews from this woman’s mouth, my next thought was, isn’t that…libel? Slander? Isn’t there some law that says you can’t say things like that?

I couldn’t remember the exact definitions of either of those words, so I looked at an online Law Dictionary. It turns out that libel and slander are both considered defamation, and they must be a message that “decrease respect, regard, or confidence; or induce disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelings against an individual or entity.”

Based on that definition, I say John Edwards would have a case for Defamation against Ann Coulter. There are four elements that would have to be proven: “that the defendant conveyed a defamatory message; that the material was published, meaning that it was conveyed to someone other than the plaintiff; that the plaintiff could be identified as the person referred to in the defamatory material; and that the plaintiff suffered some injury to (her) reputation as a result of the communication.” Now of course, I don’t know that John Edwards suffered any kind of injury to his reputation, hopefully everyone already knows that Ann Coulter is homophobic and intolerant, and is ignoring her like they should be.

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I had my ultrasound today. The “abnormality” in my right breast? A LYMPH NODE. What is a lymph node, you ask?

“small bean-sized organs made up mostly of densely packed LYMPHOCYTES, LYMPH FLUID and connective tissue” source: www.gmhc.org

Everyone has lymph nodes, sometimes also called lymph glands, and what they do is remove bacteria and foreign particles from the body. There is a cluster of them in each armpit. Apparently one of mine broke off from the right armpit and floated down towards my breast, and that’s what the mammogram picked up.

I’m FINE!!! And I would like to send a big shout-out to my American Idol Open Thread betch Sweetney, who responded to my telling everyone about the mammo situation by posting this comment to me:

“elizabeth: i’m sure you’ll be fine. you’ll be fine. i say you’ll be fine. SO YOU’LL BE FINE.

DAMMIT.”

And that, my friends, is the power of Sweetney. Accept no substitutes.

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With all the news reports, stories from “sources”, and photos published in magazines, newspapers and on blogs about Britney Spears going to drug rehab, this seems like it would be a good time for our country to start talking a lot more openly about drugs. I was a teenager once, a long, LONG time ago, and I will admit, I took drugs. I smoked pot, a LOT of pot, I dropped acid a few times, and once I took mushrooms which were gross and not all that effective.

I think I was lucky to have been a teen when I was. We did not have ecstasy, or crystal meth. I remembering hearing about cocaine, it was something rich young adults did at clubs. Heroin was just a word I occasionally saw in the newspaper. I never knew anyone, anyone at all, who needed to go to rehab. Ever.

Now, there are places like Echo Treatment Center in Malibu, designed specifically for teen drug rehab. The staff at Echo Malibu has specific experience with helping young people overcome drug and alcohol addiction, and they also help these young people catch up on their education by providing individualized education programs. Many of the teen participants return to their schools having caught up to or even surpassed their grade level, because they get a chance to learn in a safe, sober environment. The staff includes teachers of poetry, music, and therapeutic writing.

The facility itself is a beautiful three story house located a block from the beach. Each room has a private balcony and views of the Santa Monica mountain range. The grounds have areas for outdoor recreation and a private walking path.

Quite frankly, I’m a little scared about what my boys will face as far as drugs go when they are teenagers. If you ask them now what they would do if someone offered them drugs, of course they say they would refuse them. But they haven’t experienced real peer pressure yet, either. All my husband and I can do is arm them with information and self-respect, and pray that they make the right kinds of friends and the right kinds of choices.

My heart goes out to the families of kids who go to places like Echo Malibu. I can’t even imagine the choices they are making, what they have already been through. I even feel a little sorry for Britney Spears, who has to go through all of her emotional and physical turmoil on the cover of Star magazine every week. I hope she accepts the help she is being offered and works her butt off to overcome her addiction. If not for herself, at least for her children.

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Thank you so much everyone who commented on my “House Cleaning” post. Your kind words, thoughts, prayers, wishes, it all means SO MUCH to me! And you know, if you can’t talk to the Internet about your breasts, who can you talk to?

I promised updates, and I don’t have much, but I did talk to the nurse at my Doctor’s office today, the nurse whose job it is to look at mammograms and call patients. Turns out she called twice on Friday, only I can’t even remember where I WAS on Friday, and I never, ever remember to check the voice mail. Anyway, the deal is this: what is showing up on the mammogram looks like a nodule, a cyst, or a calcium deposit. IT IS NOT SOMETHING MALIGNANT THAT I NEED TO BE SUPER-CONCERNED ABOUT. The nurse assured me that they would have tried a lot harder to get a hold of me in person if it was something more serious.

So. While I still remain only cautiously optimistic, I am going to take the nurse at her word and assume that I do not have any kind of tumor. I have the ultrasound tomorrow morning, and should know the results by Friday at the latest. This is the first real medical scare I have ever had, well, besides the whole “your blood pressure is so high that we are delivering your baby three weeks early starting tomorrow” thing. It’s hard to know what frame of mind to be in. It would be very, very easy for me to go to a dark, scary place in my mind and stay there. Doom and gloom is a much more familiar state of mind than I would like.

But for now, I am carrying on assuming that whatever “it” is on the mammogram, it is treatable and I will be fine. Please continue to send your positive, “healthy boob” vibes my way though, I really do appreciate those!

One last thing-in one of those weird coincidences that seem to spring up around BlogLand every once in a while, I decided to run through my Bloglines feeds today just to see what was new, and first on my list is Amalah. She dyed her hair pink for the SXSW festival, and she’s keeping it that way because, in her words,

“I am keeping it pink until this team is fully funded for the D.C. Avon Walk for Breast Cancer on May 5th and 6th. Gulp.”

BREAST CANCER. And who is on the team she linked? Dirka, a/k/a Deidra,, one of my regular readers! Well, let me tell you, I saw the SIGNS, okay, KARMA? I get it. I will be donating the proceeds from my next three sponsored posts to Deidra’s Avon Walk for Breast Cancer team. So, over the next two days, I’ll be taking the maximum three sponsor opportunities a day, to maximize my chances that at least three of the six posts will be approved. I would like to encourage all of you to contribute any amount you can to Deidra’s team. Do it for everyone you know who has breasts.

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I’ve stopped cleaning my house, because 1. I HATE cleaning the house and 2. it just gets messy again anyway and 3. it takes away from my precious “me” time a/k/a my blogging time. I have told my husband that I have to go on as if nothing is wrong, because as far as I know, nothing is. I’ll have the ultrasound tomorrow, and then hopefully I’ll at least know something.

In the meantime, I’ve taken a writing opportunity from PayPerPost that is about a topic that makes me VERY HAPPY these days-how much money I am making with PayPerPost, and what I plan to spend it on.
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