The rain and thunderheads up there, With lightning they come, fast as a mare. I love to watch all the life that they keep, The wolf, the fox, the hawk, and wild sheep. Filling it's crannies, streams can be found, In their tossing and turning, they're thrown to the ground. So please, oh, please, come and see This mountain paradise along with me. Lauren Isaacson - 7th Grade - 1975 PAGE 38 Chapter 9 Discovery of Tumor "There is always too much time before an unpleasant event; too much, yet not near enough." CHAPTER NINE Discovery of Tumor By the end of seventh grade, Jr. High no longer seemed an immense edifice, and my confidence, as well as my acquaintances, grew. Each day, before or after lunch, depending on one's lunch schedule, we would assemble in our respective "homerooms"; here we could talk among ourselves if we did not become noisome or in any way obnoxious. I made two acquaintances in the room, and between the three of us, idle chatter abounded. One day I remember above all others. I was involved in conversation with the two girls when I looked down at my stomach and noticed that it was definitely lop-sided in appearance. I called their attention to it so that they also could share in the humor of my distortion. We all laughed in simultaneous bursts of wonder at the spectacle, then moved on casually to other things. I figured that my stomach was bloated from gas. "No big deal." However, for the next several weeks, I maintained a vigil on my stomach, and to my perplexity, the odd "lop-sidedness" persisted. Eventually I decided that I should divulge the discovery to my parents. It was summer vacation, and school would be in the past for three beautiful months. The annual family trip was only weeks away, and I could barely wait. When Mom said that I would have to go to the doctor, I felt an eerie certainty that something was drastically amiss, and therefore requested that we first go on our trip to Colorado; I knew that if my sensation was correct, I would never be able to see the mountains...at least not that year. The trip, I felt, could not be postponed.