The Important Stuff

"It's a blessing, really.  Stuff like this helps you focus on what's important.  My husband takes 26 kinds of medicine every day because of his kidney transplant and we just put it out of our minds and concentrate on all of life's good things."  So said one of the many wonderful medical assistants my wife and I see daily here in Seattle as she gets poked, prodded, zapped with chemotherapy and multiple other  body insults as she prepares to receive a stem cell transplant.  We are at war with lymphoma and don't plan to lose.  Beth, the aforementioned medical assistant,  sees people just like us all day every day and knows what she's talking about.  There are heroes all around us.  Ordinary people who have been handed this dark passenger called cancer and deal daily with its reality while working to dispatch it as quickly as possible. 

Linda is now a participant in a study involving the injection of radioactive isotopes into her marrow prior to the scheduled stem cell transplant.  She willingly volunteered for this protocol in order to to give something back to the dedicated researchers at the University of Washington and the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.  Every day she is in their care it is impossible not to be thankful for all who have gone before to make possible the the multiple treatments that will soon have Linda back home and ready to enjoy many more years of life.

The latest estimate for a return home and a very careful year of recovery because of her now compromised immune system has us back on the shores of Lake Coeur d' Alene shortly after the first of the new year.   Sure, we'll miss the holidays this year but it's a more than fair exchange for the reasonable expectation of many more Thanksgivings and Christmases with family and friends.  We're lucky to be at such a remarkable facility and are thankful for our two daughters and their husbands who have  willingly lent them to us for extremely helpful visits.  It has more than made up for the years when they were obnoxious teenagers. (Just kidding girls.)

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning how to dance in the rain."

Grandson Dan-"Inspector Gadget"- ready for Halloween