Papillary Carcenoma

Papillary Carcenoma is a cancer of the thyroid. It is the most common thyroid cancer, and is 3 times more likely to occur in women then in men. It is very treatable via surgery and radioactive iodine treatment, and has a very high survival rate.

It also is, apparently, what my wife has growing in her neck. Well, we can't say for sure, but the doctor says it's the most likely scenario. As a result, she'll need her thyroid removed. This means she'll need to be on thyroxin for the rest of her life, and there's a small possibility the surgery could damage her voice.

While of all cancers she could possibly get, this is probably the "best" one to have in terms of treatment and survivability, we obviously would have much preferred that she didn't have cancer at all.

So those who know us and who pray, just some prayer that this will be easy, uncomplicated and quickly resolved would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: Rachel wanted me to add an extra prayer point - The follow-up treatment for thyroid cancer is radioactive iodine. It's a very effective treatment, but it will require her to stop breastfeeding Campbell, and will mean she'll need to be isolated for a while, and then not have close contact with our boys for a while more due to the radiation. It will be very hard for all of us. Some prayer that this treatment will not be required would be awesome.

Ways I've Made Money Online

This looks like spam, I know. But I've tried several different schemes over the last I-Don't-Know-How-Many years, and I've found two of them that work. Both of them are getting paid for targeted advertising. They're by no means quick money, but considering they take about 3 minutes out of your day each day, and then eventually give you real cash, that's not such a bad deal. Here they are:

PureProfile: You fill out a profile, then go to the site each day to read messages. You can setup notificiation preferences if you want to email you when there's stuff to read.

EmailCash: This has been the most lucrative for me thus far. They email you, and you click on the link in the email to indicate you've read it. You get 5 points. 1 point = 1 cent. You can get a cheque at $30 or $100, and I've had several $30 cheques and am now well on my way to a $100 one. Just for reading emails. Not bad really.

Now my wife, on the other hand, came to me quite a while ago now and asked for some money (I think it was $65 from memory) to sign up with a crowd who would hand your name around to market research companies. She has made hundreds of dollars out of it, for very little effort.

Just thought some of you might be interested. Just btw, the links above give me bonuses if you sign up using them. ;)

SMH: Piracy not raiding CD sales

The enforcement arm of the Australian music industry has dismissed damaging overseas research that found illegal music sharing actually increased CD sales.

The study, conducted by two researchers at the University of London for the Canadian Government, found people downloaded songs illegally because they wanted to hear them before buying or because they were not available in stores.

Hasn't this been said before? Check the link for the story, and from there you can jump to the research. I love it that the music industry just dismisses the research because they don't like it.

The sooner we see some reform to copyright laws the better. If one of the major parties got up and started talking proactively about that, they'd certainly get my vote.