Bleak House divorce

I got a call from my lawyer yesterday. It looks as if, after more than two years of mental agony and bleeding money in an attempt to settle this mess, my husband is either going to withdraw his lawsuit, or insist on going to trial. My lawyer has billed me more than 55K since this all began when he filed two years ago. My husband has spent at least 30. We don't own anything except debt, and my husband's degree, the value of which is half mine under New York State law.

covert ops

I had an oophorectomy on Tuesday. My doctors tell me this is prophylactic on two fronts: it removes a likely attack site (my ovaries) for roving cancer cells, and stops me from producing estrogen and progesterone, which feed the cancer. I didn't tell my mother. She doesn't know I have breast cancer.

I have now had seven surgeries. My mother knows about two of them, the back surgeries, and only because I couldn't hide the fact that I was in the hospital for almost four weeks, and had to wear a back brace for six months. I told her part of the truth about what was wrong with my back--broken disks. I just didn't tell her that it was a metastatic tumor that caused the damage.

I feel great! I'm very tough, physically. It's the psychic pain that gives me trouble.