619 days, 23 hours, 55 minutes, 21,7 seconds

Another picture, this from today's news. It's a hair dress that model's' wearing. A Croatian company has made it from 165 feet of blonde human hair. She modeled the dress at a fashion show in Zagreb, stunning crowds when she appeared on the catwalk.

But she's a long way from Croatia.

It reminds her of those medieval Catholic penitents going about in their hair shirts. For God's glory, Praised-be-His-Name. Blessed be He who created me according to His will.

She's thinking of getting in touch with a Buddhist shrink. Someone a balding friend knows.

621 days, 0 hours, 13 minutes, 36 seconds

Meet Hairy, the hot pink headache ball. Squishy, cooling sometimes, fun to pillow her head and let it roll out from under her. Now meet Hairy's flowers, a gift that same day, losing shape and color now. If she ever enters another contest on migraine art, she thinks to use this picture. The drooping, heavy head. The funny Hairy the Headache ball. Two gifts the same day from her Yoga teacher. It was, of course, when they just assumed the Botox wasn't working. Or the sinus infection. She bends down and picks a small pink rubber strip off her grandmother's soothing rug. Hairy's going to lose all his hair, she says.

620 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes, 10.9 seconds

This is so good you could die, he says, waxing poetic over a Blimpie this time, probably from a rat-infested back room. She tells him that's not a good comparison right now. He says he realized that as he was saying it.

620 days, 11 hours, 56 minutes, 53 seconds

Walking into the neurologist's office yesterday, she detected a faint sweet smell, as of flowers or air freshener (she didn't see any flowers). And she almost said how this often triggered headaches, and how surprised she was to find it there. But by that time she was seated in the low recliner and the doctor had started talking.

620 days, 12 hours, 48 minutes, 20.2 seconds

1995. A formerly close friend, living in Wyoming, developed cancer that quickly spread throughout his body. He left his wife. As he put it, he'd been caring for her (she had MS) for years, not out of love but out of duty. And before that, his marriage at a standstill, he couldn't bear being away from his children. He always thought at some later point there'd be time for himself. But the cancer pushed that point. Another two or three years, they said. He lasted more like eight years. He married his lover, spent their honeymoon at the Casper Hospital. But what sticks out most in her mind is an email he wrote about his mother coming to visit, and how distraught she was at the prospect that her son would die before she did.

620 days, 12 hours, 49 minutes, 43 seconds

At this moment she'd sell her soul for Bush's brain.

620 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes, 21.5 seconds

She takes her wedding ring off before going to bed. She puts her ring back on.

620 days, 23 hours, 11 minutes, 6.7 seconds

First it was: will this computer last until there's a new president? Then it was: will either or both of their fathers die while she's writing this blog? At the moment none of that matters.

620 days, 23 hours, 54 minutes, 32 seconds

Yesterday's news: Misdiagnosed man seeks compensation. John Brandrick, 62, was told two years ago that he had terminal pancreatic cancer. He decided to spend his remaining time in style, quitting his job and spending his savings on hotels, restaurants and holidays. A year later doctors reversed their diagnosis. He was suffering from pancreatitis, a non-fatal ailment. Meanwhile he'd spent everything.

621 days, 0 hours, 3 minutes, 6 seconds

The question is who to tell, who not to tell. And who the hell reads this blog. Because the political IS personal, she said at the start. She just had no idea how personal it might become less than six months later. Her husband insists she owes him another twenty years. Her husband buys her dinner. Her husband asks if she can see any reason why she's gotten cancer three times now, and she gives the answer she gave before: all those chemicals in the back of her father's trucks, then her father's car. Sure, he was exposed to them much more than she was, but she was an infant, they were in her system before she had defenses. And this time he doesn't contradict her. Try not to blame your father, he says instead.

621 days, 0 hours, 13 minutes, 36 seconds

Lesions. Metastatic. Cancer. Two lesions, both small, one swollen. It's taken her ten hours to write these words. But writing doesn't make it true. It's early yet. More doctors. More tests. Her neurologist's out of the country until Monday, this was his assistant who got the report, a woman who's worked with brain cancer patients. A very young, warm doctor, but she might have come to this through what she knows already. She starts a steroid to lessen the headaches, and maybe shrink the swelling. She goes back on Glucophage to counteract the steroid. Chances are the Botox wasn't enough this time, lesions this small shouldn't have caused this sort of pain. So, once again, she lucked out. But the headache's still there. And even the newest Tylenol's sugar-coated.

621 days, 23 hours, 15 minutes, 29 seconds

I might have a brain tumor, you know, she says, home from her MRI, as he crawls into bed behind her. No, he says, you'd need to have a brain. How did he know? Tonight she rediscovered the "Give Bush a Brain" game. One time she managed to drop in seven brains, but most games only two or three. Even Dubyah wouldn't have any trouble matching that score, the final screen taunts. Bully! Still, it was fun for awhile.

622 days, 13 hours, 6 minutes, 2.4 seconds

She tries out the Day of Death clock for her father. Born September 7, 1916. Neither optimistic or pessimistic: Normal. Body mass index below normal. Never smoked. His time has already expired. He should have died Tuesday, June 19, 1990. Less than three months after they married. When her mother was still alive. When his mind was still sharp. She could go through a hundred Whens. They mean nothing.

622 days, 13 hours, 28 minutes, 32 seconds

A red letter day. Not only one intelligent person at Duane Reade, but three: the clerk who didn't try to argue, just passed it over to the pharmacist; the first pharmacist who saw sixty pills wouldn't fit in that small bottle but turned it over to her supervisor; the supervisor who didn't ask any questions, just gave her another thirty pills. And here she'd brought her husband along to defend her. He's sorry now he yelled at the repairman. Mostly, he says, it was a language problem.

622 days, 14 hours, 19 minutes, 58 seconds

There's nothing wrong. Except the refrigerator repairman comes at 8:45, not at 10:00, and her husband (the one who wanted him) is out getting breakfast while she sleeps. There's nothing wrong. Except that she's had a horrendous night: every time her eyes were almost completely shut she went through a slight panic attack, then the top of her head started hurting, then when she finally slept she had a nightmare. There's nothing wrong. The repairman moves the refrigerator out, turns it off, hears the sound. Nothing's wrong with it. She's back in bed by this time, unable to get back to sleep. When her husband challenges he says it's the water pipe that dropped down and is hitting against the coils. It's not his job to fix the water pipe. And there's nothing wrong. Nothing $100 won't fix. And he has to call the super to adjust the pipe or hose or whatever. Another $20, or $40, or $50. Which he should have done in the first place. There's nothing wrong except her blood's high (to be expected now that she's off the medication). She has to go downstairs and argue with the drugstore. Despite what some stupid clerk said last night, she knows it's been only two weeks, that the insurance won't process the refill yet. That bottle those pills came in won't even hold sixty pills, she knows they only gave her thirty. But try to prove that? There's nothing wrong. Her MRI's this afternoon, she has the workshop tonight, there's nothing to let go.

623 days, 10 hours, 38 minutes, 22 seconds

Well, they came and got me out of Texas, and I can tell you it's a privilege to be back, Roger Clemens said as the 45 year-old pitcher announced he would rejoin the Yankees, even agreeing to start off in the minor leagues. And 52,533 fans at the stadium got to their feet and went wild. Which proves New Yorkers actually welcome men from Texas. So long as they're winners. So long as they understand teamwork.

623 days, 11 hours, 20 minutes, 33 seconds

And yesterday he showed her all the books in the den, thinking maybe there were some she'd want. Books on finance and butterflies. He knew she liked to read. And she said, perhaps too quickly, that she'd take them to a used book store. Strand, probably. She didn't think to ask where his old Readers Digest condensed novels were. She'd read some of those. She thought for a moment of the old Time/Life photography books he had, still on those shelves, then realized they'd be of little use in this digital age. She'd given him most of those. Bought for half price or less, at Strand.

They'd been together in Middlebury, Vermont, about ten years ago, when his camera stopped working. He and his lady friend, she and her husband. For his birthday a month or so later they gave him a new digital camera – a Sony that stored pictures right on disk, so he wouldn't have to learn the quirks of transferring photos. As she showed him how to use it, she thought perhaps this was something else they might share. But they took entirely different sorts of photos. And he could never remember how to turn it on, how to snap a photo. And it pained her to see this intelligent man who suddenly coudn't keep things straight, couldn't manage even the things that, for her, were child's play.

623 days, 22 hours, 2 minutes, 3.4 seconds

Sitting on her father's sofa this afternoon, the computer on so she could take notes as he led her from room to room, seeing all he wanted her to see, she paused and copied the blog entries from a few hours earlier. He was on the phone. He hung up. She put the computer into standby. He got another call. She had just a few words left to type, and finished. She tore the pages out of her notebook, started to throw them in the trash, then shoved them in her pocket on the off chance he'd try to decipher her handwriting. What was is she afraid of? That he'd lecture her once again on how awful Bush is? That there'd be a connection between father and daughter surpassing following the Phillies together 43 years ago? That he'd be worried she'd be jailed for writing this? She could have at least shown him the Backwards Bush countdown clock.

623 days, 22 hours, 9 minutes, 5 seconds

He doesn't see any point in living this way, he says. Her husband would rattle off all the good times he's had in the past year, all the people who care about him. But she admits to feeling the same way. Once her mind goes, once she can no longer think and write, she wants out. She might have spent this past month with the worst headaches in over two years, felt the absolute terror of going back there, but she'd forgotten how good she is at writing through the pain, almost writing with more power because of it.

623 days, 22 hours, 12 minutes, 15.9 seconds

Her father admits he's feeling fairly well of late, physically, though he can't walk and slips a nitroglycerin pill under his tongue while they're talking – the first in months, he says. She doesn't know how he remembers. Over dinner he tells the story of going to Link Trainer school ten times within five minutes, backing up a sentence or two, so that it seems he'll never finish. And he knows it. He says he's near the end.