Fall...Not Springtime?

Gee, the fall comes with USC lazily wandering through its Pac 10 schedule. The Ducks squeaking out victories. Blazer camp with all its worries. THANK goodness for baseball!

Why is it that spring is accompanied by cherry blossoms on the mall, April in Paris, and Opening Day?

We're heading into the dark days of Autumn. Soon, we'll be driving to work in the dark and heading home in the dark. I get a week's vacation coming up, so that I can prepare myself for the dark days...and take care of this current lesion.

It dawned on me, even though it isn't spring, that so many nice people are worried about every new lesion, each new challenge. That is so nice of you. But please, each of you, don't worry. I think of them as horses in the corral. If we find the horses OUT of the corral, perhaps I'll begin to worry. This one, and the past we knocked off last spring, have been confined to my liver and manageable through any number of medical interventions. They are just the next step. We keep them corralled, we get them out and ride them, we put them away.

Tumors. Lesions. "Dark spots." Horses in the corral. They all mean the same thing to me, and though they are serious if left untended, it has never been my style to leave animals untended. We even care so much about the deer in my neighborhood that we transport my apples across the street to the nice lady, they don't cross the danger of 'A' Street. We're taking care of these horses in the corral in much the same way.

A change, but not scary. We know the sun will lighten our lives in Portland, come springtime, and we know that the horses will be handled in the corral this fall.