Firsts

Having quashed the anxiety of jettisoning three important work meetings/appearances for this, I can -- almost happily -- report that MD Anderson has providing me a very compact schedule next week.  I show up early Wednesday afternoon, which means I can fly at oh-dark thirty that morning and not go Tuesday night.  I then have 4 tests (blood, chest Xray, CT & MRI), each with its own foreplay that go from early afternoon until 11 pm.  Bill will fly in late that night, so he 'll get Ben off to school and even see him after.  Thursday am we'll see, together (always better to have two sets of ears than one) the oncologist and also a surgeon -- which obviously foreshadows what they think is going to happen.  Then we'll fly home.  If i'm not totally freaked out I'll be able to swing by Paul Frohardt's retirement party from the Water Quality Control Commission before going home.  But, probably not that even AND Ladies Night (they'll understand -- they always do, that's why they are the Ladies).  Then we'll unpack and pack for the happier event of our niece's big event -- 30th birthday AND wedding over Labor Day weekend in Kiawah South Carolina, by way of Cleveland to pick up my mom.

Meanwhile, we said a "shehecheyanu," the Jewish prayer to celebrate firsts, at Shabbat tonight, because this was our first Shabbat family dinner ever with a HIGH SCHOOLER.  Who is very excited about high school.  He said the adrenaline is pulsing.  His favorite classes are Tech Lab (an elective so no surprise there, but the teacher is eating up what Ben's done with drones and programming because the robotics team is currently all seniors and Ben may be the next generation) and Geometry (thank goodness he finished Algebra this summer!  He concedes -- with great pain -- that I was right, he loves it).

One more thing.  Some of you have asked how the growth on my arm could have been mis-daignosed for so many years.  My understanding of what happened is that it was not.  The growth was a venous malformation.  But, sometime recently -- maybe a year, maybe two, or maybe a couple months -- it transformed into a malignancy.  Just like all the other cancer patients who one day have healthy breasts, prostrates or blood, and then all of a sudden don't.

Finally I had a good laugh this evening. I got home and scooped up the mail.  It included a patient satisfaction survey from UCH.  Too rich to say anything.  Happy weekend!