No. This isn't an article about sympathy and pandering for hand holding. We in the family know how to support each other through anything when it comes to Patricia. It is getting everyone to cope that is the issue.
In 1957 an infant daugther was born to Thomas and Grace Zambo of Olyphant, Pennsylvania. She would be the second child of four. The third would be lost to miscarriage. All the children were daughters in a Middle Class household where 'status' was valued by their mother and love was valued by their father. Due to those extremes a war was waged in the heart of their children to please their father with their mother as the gatekeeper to his approval. He knew little of this horrible game until far to late to save his second child from her fate.
Patricia knew how to get attention. From the time she was born she was a handful. There was no feeding her commercial formulas and in 1957 it wasn't fashionable to breastfeed. As a consequence she was prepared small formulation with farina, strained to perfection and fed from a bottle that had seen sixty nipples percisely developed to find the one 'correct' size hole that would allow her father's household to return to 'normal' with a child that was not in distress eveytime she ate. Pat would grow up with the rest of her piers and siblings fairly normally achieving better than average grades in school with conditions set for an adolescent to perform to better than above average standards calling her successful on all fronts of accomplishments.
That desire to please lead her to being a member of the Manville High School Drill Team. Perhaps some might remember Manville, New Jersey. It was the home base for Johns Manville, the Asbestos Capital of the World. As a matter of fact the last time I was in their public library a rock sits underglass stating "Manville , The Asbestos Capital of the World." Amazing. A material as deadly as that valued to that extreme. I wonder if Saudi Arabia puts containers of crude under glass in their public libraries.
[Off subject for a second, is anyone contemplating the public's safety when the Greenland Ice cracks and slides in the Atlantic? Or is that going to be a complete surprise as well so that Mr. Joshua B. Bolten, Bush's new Chief can then send FEMA to the entire Atlantic Seaboard to declare it a disaster area and find the hero status in all that occurs of a president completely negligent of the dangers of Global Warming. Do I then simply say "I told you so, again." from 500 miles inland? The carpets in the Oval Office must be lumpy and getting lumpier by the minute for all the pertinent issues needing attention that is currently swept under them.]
Back to Patricia.....
Patricia would have many boyfriends much to her mother's delight and father's frustration. She would pursue tennis as an athlete while her older sister found horsemanship more interesting and her macho younger sister would see baseball's pitching and catching more to her liking.
Patricia would go to college. No surprise there. The institution 'of choice' for Patricia was "Rider University" with a Bachelor of Degree in Business. The university has it's substantial music programs in Princeton Proper. Needless to say Patricia was liked among her piers and she thought well of herself. She would go on to graduate in a timely fashion and was hired into the Somerset County, Office of the Aging as their accountant and all around great person. The office did not have an overwhelming budget and Pat liked the 'idea' that martyrdom would lead to bigger and better things and surely it did. After two years of employ she would be hired by AT&T and in a short period of time advance into their International Division working out of Morristown, New Jersey. She did very well for herself. Her salary there was substantial for a young woman.
While, working as a martyr at The Office of the Aging she took up a part time second job as a hostess at the Holiday Inn on Route 22 highway. At that time it was the third most deadly highway in the country. Odd, isn't it, that residents of an area keep up with 'Top Ten of this" or "Worst Top Ten of that." Avoidance of disaster was an occupation in Somerset County, New Jersey. She was working one evening when a young man approached her and asked her on a date. She said, "No." He returned a second night and asked again. She politely said, "No, it is policy we don't date customers." He returned a third night with the Manager and asked her if she would go on a date with him. The Manager stated there would be no ill effects if she said yes, but, that was not a requirement to keep her job either. She said, "Yes." That young man, in time, would become her spouse.
He was and is a great man. He is accomplished and the two together could do anything they darn well pleased in the world by simply writing a check. Their combined salaries bought a gorgeous home away from the maddening crowd on "Jenny Jump Mountain" not far from Hope, New Jersey with a more than sufficient public school not far from their front door. It was hard to tell what the neighbors were doing as the trees were so thick on their property that sunlight was an infrequent visitor. They didn't have a 'deck' so much as an attic study with a sun-roof window. The trees were so thick there was concern nearly immediately for the house regarding infestation of any type of home devouring insect larvae and to that end a silvaculturist was called. The Professional of the moment stated he would mark whatever trees he felt he needed to cut down and call the next Professional of the Moment to cut them down.
Indeed.
There was to be about thirty trees cut down. Mr. Wonderful, and he was, stayed home from work to oversee the operation and after the eight tree was felled he could not stand the sound of the buzz saws any longer and cancelled the rest of the cutting as he stated, "The sunlight on the house seemed to be to his liking." The rest of the cutting was stopped, the sacrificial lambs carted away, landscaping took their place and contemplation as to the destruction was made short work of that day when his bride arrived home. He cancelled his week of home cartaking and returned to his work the next day. He was right. The house never needed that much sun on it.
That in defines Mrs. Wonderful's life. She was destined for happiness even if no happiness was to be found. They were great with each other and there was no 'status quo' ideologies or 'mind think' or genderization of roles in the family. They were a couple ready to take on the world but little did they know the world they were taking on would be microscopic and threatening in a far different way than anyone could anticipate and especially at such an early age in life.
After a few years of marriage, Patricia's spouse would seek employment elsewhere. He literally could write his own ticket. After leaving a job in New Jersey to work in Canton, Ohio, we would come to realize the contracts in New Jersey would follow him. Affectionately the families would call them the "Mr. Wonderful Contracts" because they were government issued and required his talent. Naturally, any subsequent job he worked would be along the same lines and the companies that would come to hire him 'anticipated' the work he previously did would accompany him. It did. Mr. Wonderful had his life mapped out before him. It was quite a revelation.
He and Patricia would be treated royally with a residence in a hotel for a month until they found a 'place to live.' Rather than buying a house they decided to build their own on a plush 17 acre estate. No sunlight issues, of course. So, in anticipation of working with 'the architect' next they rented a very modest two bedroom apartment. No children yet. It wasn't time after all, they didn't even have a home to bring them into with their own room. Yes, they were Roman Catholic and still are and attend church weekly. Patricia was not returning to AT&T International as there was no office for her to transfer into and she would take her time finding a place and a venue for her talents outside the home. No genderinzing rolls here, of course.
There would be three months of residency in Ohio before Patricia would be troubled by blurred vision. As a rule, both she and I would seek optomologists rather than optomitrists to perscribe eyesight needs. It seemed to work better for us that way. I am not sure why, except an MD was more successful at providing a perscription to eyeglasses or contacts that didn't need replacing except once a year. That isn't true of others, but, it was of us. So, while everyone was getting great bargains we were getting great eyecare to fill our needs.
Patricia made an appointment for an optomologist locally to have her persciption updated. He stated there was bilateral infammation of her optic nerves and before he could provide any changes to her perscription she needed to be seen by a neurologist. She went to a neurologist and he did a CAT Scan. CT Scans were state of the art at the time. MRIs would be available about a year or so later. This was 1985.
The scan revealed a tumor just above the Pineal Gland and a biopsy was needed. In humans, the Pineal Gland secretes high amounts Melatonin in children. It shrinks at puberty. There is little information outside of Wikipedia regarding this gland. It is little understood which speaks to the lack of focus in understanding childhood metabolism. There is a lot of 'mysticism' surrounding this gland actually. At any rate, it appears to me that this gland is a hormonal support to children until they enter puberty and it ceases to function as the secondary sexual development of an individual begins. It is my feeling that perhaps something went array during that point in time when it began to lay dormant that this slow growing astrocytoma in a female started. This tumor is normally found at age 11 or so in males. It seems linked to testosterone and we all know that women have lower levels of testosterone which would explain the slow growth of this tumor.
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