I guess it’s time to clear the cobwebs from this blog (and, not so coincidentally, my mind) and do something . . . . like maybe use it.
Thank you all for your kind words. I don’t know that my writing is all that great nor my thoughts all that profound (although in my defense, is it possible to have profound thoughts about a missing cell phone?). Notice, however, that I am gratefully accepting all compliments sent my way. I have no intention of giving any of them back. I’m going to use them all in my autobiography “Why Do I Need A Phone When There Is Always Ringing In My Ears?”
The latest tempest in a teapot event here in Houston (tropical storms excluded) is that those graduation pics from my radiation treatment have turned up missing. Tracy said she didn’t do anything out of the ordinary after she took the pictures, but there it is.
And there it isn’t. My own personal theory is that the powers of Fernando Lamas are at work here and there are no bad, human-being-as-a-raisin pictures allowed. Some might say that I am looking too far from fabulous. But they will not have the pictures to prove it.
I have an appointment to see my transplant doc on Friday. Based on tests I’m having done on Thursday, Dr. Donato will decide how soon I enter the hospital. It’s possible I could enter as early as Aug. 5, which also happens to be my 55th birthday. Let the rebirth analogies run rampant.
FYI, all three of my doctors (Dr. Ha – radiation, Dr. Donato – transplant and Dr. Duvic – oncology/dermatology) have commented about how well I have come through radiation treatment. I have to admit that two weeks after my last radiation treatment, I am feeling pretty good. The bottoms of my feet and my armpits, both of which received spot radiation treatments, are still tender/painful, but they are improving daily. Also, I am no longer using a wheelchair. No one is more pleased than Tracy about that.
For those of you who may have missed it, my cousin Wendy wrote what I think is a really great poem about all of this. I’m going to try and move it to the comment section of this post so that everyone can more easily find it. Wendy has had several pieces published over the past few years and will be entering Northwestern U. this fall(?) to begin work on her doctorate.
Thanks to all who continue to write and offer their well wishes.
Rick
7/28/05
1.
Wendy Roberts
July 21, 2005 | 3:36 pm | Edit This
Another Last Post
The blog his son set up for him
Updates at 4:05 am.
Another Last Post
Full of R2D2 radiation machines
And goggles to protect his eyes
Swirl somewhere in electrical transfers.
If I don’t read it,
It doesn’t matter.
Who’s up at such hours?
I read the New York Times
Last updated at 2:10 am.
New York will implement
Commuter bag searches to
Protect us from terror.
At night on a glowing screen,
The looming abstract T word
Seems comically innocuous to policy.
T’s and Chemo machines transmitting
Twirled onto two open pages
They pose like Egyptians at rest.
Some live, some die
And I do not eat my late night snack
With enjoyment at your expense
But simply with enjoyment.
If I seem cold, how could it be otherwise?
The world set up so that a loved one
Can suffer miles away,
Or a stranger blow up on a train
While ice cream melts in my bowl.
And perhaps, while you miraculously
Fly home well, the one on the bed
Next to you will be lowered into the ground.
I return to your blog and post this poem,
Desiring that not in spite of, but because of, its honesty,
You will find it full of hope.
We won’t ask for healing,
As if we were the exceptional few
That deserve a different destiny,
But for strength—
Granted the moment whispered.
Wendy’s poem is better read under the post Another Last Post. My intention to make it easier to find probably wasn’t the best move I’ve made all night,.
Rick