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If it’s not one thing, it’s another
Last summer, when I was diagnosed with lung cancer, I promised to keep you, thoughtful reader, updated on my journey. In that regard, it’s all good. The tumor on the upper part of my right lung was 10 mm in size when first detected, grew to 14 mm before treatment began, and has now shrunk…
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Labor of Love
I have a saying: “there’s lots of people I don’t want to be.” That’s particularly true when I look around at some of my fellow retirees, who seem to have “stopped.” Stopped caring – yes, but also stopped growing and stopped changing. Change is life and life is change. You know what doesn’t change? Something…
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Carded by Google
After writing the other day about how I’m getting older, it would seem I had it all wrong. I’m Benjamin Button-ing before my very eyes! It started innocently enough. Google frightens me. That said, I do use it, first and foremost as a search tool that dramatically speeds up my research into the various things…
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Golden Years
In a few months, I will turn 60. 60 !! It is already weighing on me. I breezed through the other life milestones without giving their significance much thought because my mind was elsewhere. At 40 I was too busy having the mid-life crisis that landed me in a wheelchair to have a proper mid-life…
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A plug for Matt
Modern life is nothing less than amazing. Take a look around the room you’re sat in right now. You are surrounded by more technology than accompanied Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon! I think that is remarkable. But one thing that is undeniable is these wonderous things which make our lives…
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I did it!
I completed radiation treatment (radiotherapy) for lung cancer (adenocarcinoma) last Monday. This is treatment room A (above) in the radiation oncology department (called Bighorn) at the Lucy Curci Cancer Center in Rancho Mirage, California. I underwent a two-week course of Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy, or SBRT, delivered daily with one day off to rest between doses. …
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Let’s just skip this month in the future
I am not one given over to superstition. I do not believe in karma – there is no mechanism beyond mere wishful thinking to mete out the rewards and punishments based on the rights and wrongs; moreover, whether something is “right” and deserving of a reward or “wrong” and deserving of a punishment is a…
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We have a plan
Yesterday marked one month since my cancer diagnosis. In that time, I have had multiple consultations with doctors, quite a few tests, and I have been reading everything I can find on cancer and its treatment. When I was diagnosed with PML, I took quite a different approach; PML is a rare disease, so there…
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How I spent my summer, so far
When I was diagnosed with PML my first question was “what is PML?” And by that I mean beyond what the initialism stands for (Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy). I’d never heard of it; most people haven’t, although I do hear it more and more these days in those laundry lists of potential side effects that get…
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Today is my annHIVersary
To tell you this story, I first must introduce you to Paul and Martin. For much of the 90s, Paul was my wingman. Along with Martin, we were the “three amigos” of the LA gay scene. The three of us met in the seminary as undergraduates when we were all Conventual Franciscans studying philosophy. Paul…
Your mileage may vary.