About Alex - IMPORTANT

[Lance D. Allen]

I am posting at the request of Alexander Cherry.

Some of you may know that he was headed to Spain for the summer, for a foreign education program. Unfortunately, his trip was cut short. While there, he began having seizures, and it turns out that he has a tumor in his brain.

He is currently in Los Angeles, CA at the hospital. I spoke with him yesterday (Saturday, June 16th) and will be trying to call him later on this evening. As I understand it, he will be going into surgery tomorrow (Monday, June 18th) and as with all brain surgery, there is some risk of damage. However, to use his words as closely as I can, if you're going to have a brain tumor, where his is located is the best possible place.

Keep this in mind if you ever consider having one.

He says that the thing that upsets him most is that his trip was cut short... but that's Alex for you.

[Lxndr]

I've managed to get internet access temporarily.  Here's my little form letter.  Thank you, Lance, for posting this already:

Some of you already know some of this, but I'm going to take it from the top.  I went to Spain this summer, through the study abroad program of Arizona State University.  I was supposed to be there from June 1 to July 22nd, gathering 8 credits in Spanish 201 and Spanish 202.  Unfortunately, things did not go as planned.  The first weekend there (June 8th or so), I took a weekend pleasure-trip to Morocco with 31 classmates (and 2 teachers) and, my final night there, had a few convulsions (or seizures, or whatever you want to call them).  By June 13th I was arriving in LAX, to be remanded into the custody of my family, who took me to the emergency room at UCI.

Turns out I have a mass in my head.  Well, technically I have quite a few of them (like a skull, a brain, etc.) but this particular mass isn't supposed to be there.  It's a tumor in my right frontal lobe, putting pressure on my brain.  Probably it's been there for years.  As you might expect, this is bad.  On Monday, June 18th, I will be undergoing a 12 hour (or so) surgery to have it taken out.  After that comes recovery and rehabilitation, and who knows how long that will take.

Well-wishes and other words can be sent to me at lxndr@asu.edu, or to my family at justincaselaw@aol.com.  Internet access at the hospital leaves much to be desired - my being able to get online to send this myself is basically a fluke that will probably not be repeated, so if you want your words to get to me quicker, go the family route (but remember, my mother will read all those, so try to be clean!).  Otherwise I'll likely not be responding to anything until after I'm released, as I won't be able to return to this terminal, but I will be able to read the ones sent to the aol account pretty quickly.

Specifically, I am in the neurological wing of the UCI medical Center, in Orange, California if you want to try to reach me (probably after Tuesday, since most of Tuesday will likely be spent sedated).  There's a phone by my bed and everything.

Today is the last day of my life.  But please, don't think I mean that morbidly. After all, Tuesday will be the first day of the rest of my life.

If you read down this far, thank you.