Luvyabye!

Finally got back into my study at the Eastland today for the first time since the weekend before I moved here to 75 State, when My Favorite Wife and Numba One Son managed to accomplish what was (for me, at least) potentially the most emotionally demanding aspect of this entire experience, which was helping me sort through and store many of my books and personal papers, which needed to be moved out of the way so that I might eventually become to move into that space later this summer. I can't BEGIN to tell you how stressful that was for me...for everyone, really...especially given the common emotional dynamic that one man's treasures are often his ex-wife's garbage/garage sale...but somehow we managed to work it out (despite Jacob's undisguised disgust with my over-the-top packratishness, and what I was sure at one point was going to be an outright mutiny); but now, two weeks later, I can really appreciate how hard they worked to make me happy, and how happy I am with the result. The place looks great! I can hardly wait to be independent enough to get there more regularly on my own, and and get back to work surrounded by all my books and papers. Peter Raible used to tell me that no one ever went to their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time at the office. But I may be the exception that proves the rule.

This was kind of a busy day for me medically as well. Daughter Stephenie is here in town en route to her 10 year Mount Holyoke College reunion, so she got stuck carting me around to various errands and appointments today like a soccer mom -- medical supply store, my study, Chemo appointment and a pharmacy run -- once again we've tweaked my narcotics in order to try to get better pain control for this "thing" with my back, and are starting to talk again about some additional treatments that might restore a little more structure and stability to the bone which has been eaten away by the tumor. Moreover, because I'm such a "tough stick," it looks like they are going to try to fit me for a port in my chest where I can receive the IVs more comfortably and conveniently; and they've also ordered me an actual hospital bed again to see if maybe I can sleep for longer than two or three hours at a time at night. Of course, on that front there's also the whole issue of my (currently) untreated sleep apnea, and getting back in to see the Pulmonologist about that again. Good new is that today's Chemo was the light one, and next week I get a week off from treatment altogether. Then we're on to the second cycle...and the third, and the fourth....

Whew! Anyway, I also had a very nice smile today listening to my daughter talking on her cell phone, and overhearing the familiar "luvyabye" at the end of the call. God knows how this became our little family sign-off; it's so familiar to us all it sometimes seems to me that we hardly hear it, but it was very strange to hear it out loud rather than over the phone myself; and when I mentioned it to Steph she remarked about how many of her friends think it's kind of cool how routinely our family tells one another that we love them and are proud of them...it may SEEM routine to us, almost hardly worth mentioning, and yet in families where it never gets mentioned at all....well, I guess it seems very different indeed. Anyway, just something I've been thinking about while sitting with a needle in my arm reading in Sports Illustrated about the Greatest Football Game Ever Played, the 1958 NFL championship game between the Colts and the Giants. My earliest childhood memory, actually; although mostly what I remember was how excited my father and grandfather were.....

Luvyabye!