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Thursday, March 03, 2005

Oh, shit.
Posted by Jill | 5:11 PM

I've always been blessed with excellent health; something I took for granted until this year, the year in which I'll officially pass the half-century mark (yikes).

I spent this morning wrapped in a white terrycloth robe, in a room full of other anxious women in identical terrycloth robes, in that ritual of middle-aged femaledom known as "We need to take some more films."

Because of a shortage of radiologists, the excellent facility where I go annually for what I call the "Boobie Smash" often can't have mammography films read the same day, so instead they give you an ominous-sounding phone call a few days later telling you that you have to come back so they can smash you into a pancake yet again.

If you're lucky, you walk out of there bruised and battered, but with a nice sheet of paper that says you should come back in a year for your next scheduled screening. If you're not so lucky, the prescription they require that must include "ultrasound and FNA [fine needle aspiration] if necessary" kicks in.

I was lucky today.

I'm not much of one to follow the lives of celebrities. I do the whole clothes/dish thing three times a year (Golden Globes, Independent Spirit Awards, and Oscars), but other than that, I couldn't care less about how celebrities live.

But the news that Scott Hamilton, figure skater extraordinaire and all-around good guy, is now battling craniopharyngioma, a slow-growing, benign, non-cancerous brain tumor in the region of the pituitary gland, after beating testicular cancer seven years ago and returning to skating that same year, kinda knocked me flat today.

I used to follow figure skating avidly, until the Kerrigan/Harding incident turned it into a circus. I watched in 1984 as this skinny little kid beat out David Santee, a skater whose style I preferred, for the Olympic gold medal. In the early 1990's, I did some marketing, desktop publishing and database work for Ice Theatre of New York, and from all accounts, the "nice guy" demeanor we saw from this guy on TV is the real thing.

As far as I'm concerned, Hamilton may be the most influential man in skating history, Dick Button notwithstanding. From creating the "Stars on Ice" shows that showcased individual talent not encased in a Disney costume to being an advocate for cancer research through efforts such as the Scott Hamilton CARES Initiative, this elfin, prematurely balding man with his ever-present humor, unbelievable footwork, and gleefully corny choreography, is impossible for even a cynic like me to dislike. This isn't just a great skater, this is an amazing human being, and if he's reading this, I hope he knows that I, along with everyone who's followed his career, am hoping for his full recovery.
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