Oct. 26, 2006 Update and more stuff....

Medical News….Updates on my condition…..
I had a routine doctors visit on today nothing major came of it and I only got stuck with the needle once today so that was good. There is some concern over some of my lab results so some medications will be adjusted and more test run in the coming weeks to see what is causing the lab results to vary. I have a CT scan scheduled for next month, eyerthing else is pretty much the same. I leave my apartment everyday with a bag packed waiting for the call (I have never been in the military so I can’t make a statement about being the first to go and last to know but, I am a father so I can make the connection here to always having to have the maternity bag packed and ready minus the good snacks that were hidden from the wife the guys know what I mean).



Random thoughts and Jerroldisms
Longest living heart and double lung transplant patient
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/nation/15806296.htm

United Network for Organ Sharing
http://www.unos.org/

Article about CT scans and Lung Cancer
http://www.cancerpage.com/news/article.asp?id=10214

I make a lot of references to sports because to me sports in many ways parallels life. Some use blogs as a gripe session to say things they would otherwise be to afraid to say in person. If you know me, you know I am not afraid to say much of anything, I still rarely hold my tongue I am now just mature about some of the content and responses that fly out of my mouth.

I with so much down time in the evenings I have too much free time to think and too much time to spend reading books of all kinds. I have even begun to form Jerroldisms and the meaning of life according to Jerrold ….

I think in life we have to great vices fear and failure. There are many different vehicles we can use to mask those root vices but in the end all roads lead back to fear and failure. These two root vices are not something we are however born with they are more or less learned responses. For example take a young child learning to walk they don’t learn fear or failure until they get a reaction from their parents. I feel that I have over the last several months conquered my fear (of death) as everyone must go sometime no one lives forever. It is in knowing that I will one day die (as an old man) that I am able to live without fear and try to take advantage of every moment I have. Failure is not in my vocabulary athletes don’t fail we might not have as many points as the other guy at the end of the game but we don’t fail.

Life is like baseball and this temporary illness is no exception, it is temporary. Cancer to me is a curve ball the pitcher has served up but, little does he know that I could always hit the curve.

I think I am going to stay the course in dealing with this cancer, I am stubborn so all I know is to fight.

Two books that are good reads if you get a chance to read them are
Coach
by Michael Lewis

Shackelton’s Way Leadership Lessons from the Great Antartic Explorer
By Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell