Here Comes Monday

We had a relaxing, sports-filled weekend. Saturday left us feeling a little down after Penn State lost to Iowa and the Phillies lost to the Brewers. But Sunday picked up a little with the Eagles and Phillies both winning.

With Monday upon us it's time to get off the recliner and turn off the TV and take care of business.

It may sound trite, but we recently got a new newspaper delivery person, and it's just not working out.

It's really sad, and I guess just a symbol of what our world has become, but if the newspaper is not put between our screen door and our front door it will be stolen. Our former newspaper delivery person kindly agreed to do this. Today I'll have to make some calls to see if our new delivery person will agree as well.

Plus our new delivery person delivers half of the Sunday paper on Saturday, and half on Sunday. Since we only receive the Sunday paper and aren't used to looking for a paper on Saturdays, the half of the paper delivered on Saturday is always in peril. This weekend the half delivered on Saturday was soaking wet from being in the rain.

OK. Maybe it is small stuff. But is phone calls on my agenda for this morning.

Much more important will be phone calls I will have to make to the cancer center today. I will need to raise several questions to the doctors to assure treatment plans and the need for treatment are all on target and sensible.

The growth in my spine was noted on a scan in July as well as on last week's scan. But is it larger? Smaller? Has the chemo affected it positively? Or not at all? These are important questions that no one has looked at.

If we're going to treat it - how will we treat it? The cancer center does have a new radiation machine called "tomotherapy." It is supposed to be like the Gamma Knife for the rest of the body, one day of high dose radiation targeted precisely to the diseased area with minimal effect to adjacent healthy cells.

Also, just out of curiousity, if treatment is needed I'd kind of like to know how much this might burn out my throat and effect my eating.

Work continues on the book I'm trying to pull together. The biggest challenge continues to be finding an agent or a publisher who can make this more than a bunch of paper in a folder in my office.

My first effort is just a collection of stories from my unique perspective, looking at common things in uncommon ways. If I ever get that book rolling I would like to take a look at a second book about my experiences with cancer. We'll see.