Well, here we are on the last day of the year. Time to reflect. Even with it's challenges 2010 has been a good one. (Actually, any year you are alive at it's very end is GOOD.) This last week (actually 9 days) Lynda and I spent with all our family in New Mexico. What a wonderful time. Next year I will ski.
Had some sombering news today. My friend, Jim W has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer, also. I would ask you all to add him to your prayer list.
The last few weeks have brought good news. As you all know I've finished my second series of chemo and had a Cat Scan on Dec. 20. Results are in. "Significantly Reduced." Great words to hear now I've got to get to eating and get this feeding tube out! Have not talked with my chemo Doc yet to know what his plan is in "getting after" the rest.
Was a bit aprohensive in being in NM for 10 days and being away from all my support base, but all went extremly well. Again, I just don't have enough faith sometimes.
Had a "funny" thing happen today. (Background: One flushes his feeding tube both before and after! Timely.) I woke up this AM when my pump finished it's work getting the "feeding tube food" into my body. (Let me correct that last statement. I can't hear the "warning buzzer. Too high a frequency for me, but Lynda hears it and lets me know.) Well, when the buzzer went off and Lynda woke me I turned off the pump and went back to sleep. What one should do in that case is to get up, flush out the pump and then go back to sleep. Guess what, my tube clogged up. Bummer! Try as I might I could not get it "open." Usually that means a trip to the doctor, if he's in, or a trip to the emergency room. And, as luck would have it, the stitch that holds the tubing into my stomach also broke. What a mess! And, then I sneezed. Boom, the tube shot out of it's little hole in my gut!" Hmmm", I said. "Do you think I can clean this tube out now?" "Especially since it New Year's Eve weekend? Well, to make a long story longer, I did clean out my tube, inserted it back in my stomach and tapped it in very securely and now I'm good until the Doc's back in the office Monday. Would I recommend this? Nope, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do!
Please, keep up the prayers and I love you all!

What cancer and sickness cannot do......

It cannot cripple LOVE,

It cannot shatter HOPE,

It cannot corrode FAITH

It cannot destroy PEACE

It cannot kill FRIENDSHIP

It cannot suppress MEMORIES

It cannot silence COURAGE

It cannot invade THE SOUL

It cannot conquer THE SPIRIT

It cannot steal ETERNAL LIFE

from the Senior Times, Montreal

I was swinging very low until I read this in my doctor's office. I needed it!
All has been going well it's just that I had not looking at the glass being 3/4 full. I was bound up in the 1/4 empty (so I was thinking) but after reading the above 10 times, life is good!