I have been at this hobby since the past year, but interested in ancestry since I was a child. In the last week I learned that I'm probably going to die of brain cancer, within weeks or months or a few years at best.

(My mother is expecting a miracle. While it's always possible, I don't believe there is anything special about me to warrant that. Awful stuff happens to good people, and good stuff happens to bad people, and that is just life. A miracle cure would simply be random occurrence.)

I don't have any children, so my father's name, Toddy, will not carry-on, through me. (I have always been partial to my last name, and would have given it to my children.) John Toddy born in Arkansas about 1854 seems to have been a rather elusive character anyway, so who knows what his name really was.

I feel like findagrave has given me a venue to make small differences in others' search for their roots, ancestors, who they are, etc., and it is in some small way how I will have made a mark on the world. I intend to write my own memorial before I become a fallen graver.

Melissa Toddy, 5/26/2016

UPDATE
Final results are still outstanding, but preliminary pathology indicates it may have been a benign tumor, completely resected. One day at a time.

UPDATE #2
Well, now 2 major cancer centers are both recommending agressive treatment bc it actually may be the most malignant type of tumor. Here comes 6 weeks of brain radiation.

UPDATE #3 = 4/19/18
Now after 2 rounds of radiation and what have you, I am feeling good...well, NOT GOOD, but we've traveled the world.... And I am ready to expire...LOL. Glioblastoma...unmethylated....

Update #4 June 7 2018
Well it looks like I'll be staying around for another two months at least.... I had an MRI today and it looks stable. Onto the next MRI in 8 weeks.

I have been at this hobby since the past year, but interested in ancestry since I was a child. In the last week I learned that I'm probably going to die of brain cancer, within weeks or months or a few years at best.

(My mother is expecting a miracle. While it's always possible, I don't believe there is anything special about me to warrant that. Awful stuff happens to good people, and good stuff happens to bad people, and that is just life. A miracle cure would simply be random occurrence.)

I don't have any children, so my father's name, Toddy, will not carry-on, through me. (I have always been partial to my last name, and would have given it to my children.) John Toddy born in Arkansas about 1854 seems to have been a rather elusive character anyway, so who knows what his name really was.

I feel like findagrave has given me a venue to make small differences in others' search for their roots, ancestors, who they are, etc., and it is in some small way how I will have made a mark on the world. I intend to write my own memorial before I become a fallen graver.

Melissa Toddy, 5/26/2016

UPDATE
Final results are still outstanding, but preliminary pathology indicates it may have been a benign tumor, completely resected. One day at a time.

UPDATE #2
Well, now 2 major cancer centers are both recommending agressive treatment bc it actually may be the most malignant type of tumor. Here comes 6 weeks of brain radiation.

UPDATE #3 = 4/19/18
Now after 2 rounds of radiation and what have you, I am feeling good...well, NOT GOOD, but we've traveled the world.... And I am ready to expire...LOL. Glioblastoma...unmethylated....

Update #4 June 7 2018
Well it looks like I'll be staying around for another two months at least.... I had an MRI today and it looks stable. Onto the next MRI in 8 weeks.