an Update....Just Because...

I haven't written anything lately, and I know how antsy I get when the kids don't update their blogs. Makes me feel like I'm out of touch, and people have been so nice that no one should feel that way.

Here goes...

The challenge with my larynx continues. Each morning, a little more resonance returns. I'm intelligible on the phone at present, so that's a relief at work. It has been a month, now, and two weeks since the procedure that was supposed to bring me back to the land of the vocal. I continue to improve, thankfully, and do what I can to communicate. It is a very interesting view on how much I actually talk in "real life" and how I tend to manage conversations, either with stories or questions.

On the chemotherapy side, I'm at the end of a month's "holiday." I have some work travel this week, and then head back to the Opium Den for a new cocktail on Monday, 4/7. It should really just be a two-day effort with day one in the Den and infusing, and day two recuperating. It may turn out that I feel fine on day two, and need to recuperate on day three...but the pump over a 48 hour period is now history. The plan is to do six of this type of session, take a CT in the middle somewhere and after six, and get a grip on what the new cocktail is doing to the lesions. Then, we make plans based on those results when we have them.

Oddly enough, for a planner like me, I've learned to live with the "making plans based on the future results" pretty well. I know that doing anything else, like planning before the results are in, is a waste.

Had a delightful weekend with Family and Friends in Lompoc this week. It was the Third Annual Braves Alumni Golf Classic, the Fubarians have had a team in each of the three. I have no idea how anyone improved on our -8 tally, in the scramble. The wind was its lovely Lompoc self, 30 mph with higher gusts. There were still teams that scored better, but I think some creative accounting may have been involved. The band of brothers that attended could not have been more supportive or fun, and then we fit in all the family for the weekend, too. Carrie and Steve run a great "family B&B," we can't wait for them to add the entertainment center upstairs.

As I end, I always think there ought to be something profound to say. People ask if I view life differently, and the answer is "not terribly." I'd already gotten pretty good at just loving every event in life, and people know I get teary for no reason at all. I still love every minute, and can cry just by passing a picture of Carrie Ellen and me as little children. Saying goodbye to people, whether parents, my kids, or golf buddies---has never been easy, and isn't now. They are all so nice, I just bask in their goodness. None of it is profound, poetic, or life-changing....we'll just have to leave it at that!