May 2, 2009 Normalcy

For those that read this on a regular basis, you have probably noticed that I haven’t written anything in the last week. Please do not read anything into that. The real reason that I had nothing to say is because my life seems to have gotten a little boring, which in my case isn’t bad.

In the last week, I have had just one doctor visit, one blood test and absolutely nothing else. No chemotherapy, no radiation, no trips to the emergency room, no nothing. I have learned to like boring.

Over the last few weeks, I have noticed some soreness in my back that had pretty much gone away after a month of chemotherapy (different spot than before) . My guess is that it is nothing to worry about, but you never know. It could be cancer related or kidney related or it could just be that I’m old. I’m voting for the latter. I’ll know more on Tuesday when I see Dr. Obenchain. One of the nice things about being old is that you can blame a lot of things on it. For once, being old has value.

Speaking of being old, I think I am going to start collecting my pension from Abbott. I was always going to hold off on that until I really, really retired, but one of the options is to have Julia continue to receive it after I meet my maker. It reduces the monthly payout some, but she’s going to live another 50 years or so, so I think we’ll get the value out of it. Of course, by 2059, she may only be able to get a cup of coffee with it, but it is still a cup of coffee that she wouldn’t have gotten without it.

Hard to believe, but I go into the hospital one month from today, June 2. I’ve already put in my request for an HD TV and Direct TV, but that seems to have fallen on deaf ears. They do have WiFi so I will be locked into the internet when I’m not bent over a trash can puking my guts out. (In anticipation of that blessed event, I have been eating us out of house and home, putting back on all the weight that I lost.) This whole process has gone so quickly, it is amazing. It was just over three months ago when this little journey started, seems like three years in some ways.

I’m just hoping for the day I can use the “R” word , remission. I know it won’t last forever, but it will be nice to go to sleep at night knowing that there isn’t some disease inside me plotting to take over the kingdom. You guys will be the first to know. My guess is that I will call some kind of a news conference. I’ll probably do it like the high school athletes that are announcing which school they will be attending on scholarship. They have different schools’ hats on a table and then put on the hat of the school they will be attending. I’ll just use a happy face and a frowning face. What do you think?