One Year, How I Got Here -and- Blog Stong's First Birthday

After writing that last post, I realized that it's been exactly one year since starting treatment.

One year ago today, right about this time, I was lying in bed wondering what the day, and the next year would bring.

One year ago today, my parents drove me to the hospital as I stared out the window, wondering if I would ever walk the streets of Madison again.

One year ago today, I was spending a night in the hospital for the first time in my life, frightened, and had no idea what to anticipate.

One year ago today, if I'm honest, I thought it unlikely that I'd be around to type this blog post one year later.

One year ago today, while sitting in a hospital bed, I wrote out what became the first post on this blog.

I like working at my desk better...

In the last year, there have been some rough patches when I thought I'd never make it through. There have been many.

But each and every one of these rough patches has been met by emails, cards, comments, and simple words of encouragement that have carried me through.

In short, you have all gotten me here today, and I'll never be able to thank you enough.

The picture above was drawn and written by my Best Bud Jacques, the son of my friend and former co-worker Shane. It hangs above my desk at my home office and I look at it every day. It is only one example of the thousands of mementos and messages that I keep that have helped me cross the treacherous seas of treatment over the last year.

I had originally planned on doing a long list of shout outs including everything that has helped carry me through then realized that there have been so many that I could never list them all and that to try and miss some would be an injustice.

The truth is that each and every person reading this post deserves my great thanks.

Thank you all for getting me here today. I appreciate all of the little things that you've done (including reading this blog) more than words can express.

Sam

On Yammering On and On -and- How Blogging's My New Drinking

According to more emails and comments than I can keep track of, I seem to be making an awfully high number of women cry lately. As I said on the phone this evening, I just hope these are good tears and not bad ones.

Anyway, I thought it might be time to make people laugh a little as well, so the picture on the right is me (a few years back...) I include it as I'm currently getting "ready to dive back into chemo."

The last two weeks we’ve had a break from chemo resulting from low counts, and as a result, this last week I’m beginning to feel more myself than in more than a year and a half -- and it feels great.

For the first time in about as long as I can remember, I’m actually sleeping 6-9 hours a night, I’m energetic and can actually focus (a little – which is as much as I’ve ever been able to), I’m getting more work done than ever, and I’m actually useful around the house.

My weight is back within my normal 130-135 range for the first time since before I started chemo almost a year ago. Although I must admit that it’s a much softer 130, and that the weight has shifted from muscle to my cheeks and chin (Thank you, corticosteroids…)

I’ve been seeing all kinds of old friends and catching up, hosting movie nights, having people over for meals, and doing my best to get others inebriated.

Having this little break and getting a window to get back to my old ways feels awesome.

Even old dormant problems like tooth sensitivity and random bleeding from one spot in my mouth (no one’s ever been able to figure that one out…), that all disappeared when we started chemo, are now coming back. It’s strange to greet these problems like I would old friends – every time they pop back up I feel like saying “Oh, that’s right, I forgot about you. Where have you been hiding for the last year you sneaky little devil?”

While seeing and catching up with a lot of friends has been great, one concern about it is that I seem to have become a manic talker; I go on and on and on literally for hours with crazy-long story after story. Additionally, I’m writing absurdly long emails, updating my blog at a tornadic pace (Usually I shoot for once a week), and all of this is all on top of writing all day long for work.

And, all of this without any steroids in my system…

I was beginning to get very worried as I’ve always prided myself on being a good listener, and then I realized that, as I have explained in previous posts, I was born a story-teller and have always lived my life alternating between being around friends and telling stories and out in pursuit of adventure to ensure that I always have some new material.

Although I try my best to be a good listener, lately I often talk far too much to let my friends get many words in edgewise…

The very nature of treatment for Leukemia has prevented me from seeing many people often as I often completely lack both energy and immunity. The result is that I’ve had the craziest adventure of my life over the last year, and I have hardly seen any of my friends or family to tell them about it.

As a result, I have more material than I ever have, and I have thus become a temporary manic talker.

On top of all of this, I’m an intensely social individual who is often quarantined at home – working all day at home where I lack a whole lot of interaction doesn’t help a whole lot…

Thus, while at first concerned, I now have hope that I will have eventually caught up with everyone and I can stop yammering on and on. For the time being, I must apologize to the many, many people whose ear I’ve talked off over the last couple of weeks.

On the note of storytelling, I recently realized that blogging is my new drinking.

I used to go out late at night to bars with friends and spend hours exchanging stories. It wasn’t so much the drinking that I ever enjoyed (Okay, maybe a little), but rather it was the opportunity to sit for hours in an inviting and warm place in the company of good friends, that pulled me out into the night.

In this high-paced world, it’s difficult to slow down and focus on nothing but enjoying the company and conversation of others. A Pub or Tavern late at night with a few drinks is one of the few places I have found where this is possible.

That, or a campfire.

I recently had the realization that I tend to blog late at night and do so to share stories with my friends and family – just like drinking. I then always enjoy hearing their (your) stories in emails and comments. It’s a late-night exchange that fulfills most of the things that drinking used to – I just wish I could talk to you all face to face (and maybe have a whiskey or two…)

All right, tomorrow I’m back for counts and maybe starting the second half of round six.

Ahead we have 28 days of rough chemo once we start, then a break to let my counts recover, then a bone marrow biopsy to see if there’s any cancer left (This will be a really stressful week for me of the test followed by waiting for the results.)

As always, any good vibes you can spare would be very much appreciated.

Then, if all is clear, we’re looking at three years of “maintenance,” which is a fancy and friendly word for low-dose chemo. After a year of going to the clinic twice a week, going once a month seems absolutely unfathomable.

I’ve had a great break and this next round is going to be really, really rough, but with a finish line in sight I’m also ready for the final sprint. To use one of my old mantras:

Bring It On.

Sam

On a Legend -- A Poem about Grandpa "Dewey"

"Hamburger Gravy"

I

At the market after work

I buy a package of ground beef

And some Yukon gold potatoes.

On the Gas Stove

I brown the hamburger,

Seasoning liberally with salt and pepper

Then add boiling water from the potato pan.

“The secret is to use the potato water,”

I turn to her and say.

“I know,” She says

“You tell me every time.”

After adding boullioun for flavor

And flour to thicken,

I smile as

The smell of the potatoes boiling

Along side the simmering gravy

Conjures strong and

Inescapable memories:

II

I’d wait impatiently on the pier,

Fishing rod in hand

For the infamous whistle

Of the old blue and tan Ford pick-up

Headed down South Rifle Road

At a break-neck pace.

The pitch caused by an undiagnosed air leak

was too high for the old man to hear.

It was not, however, too high for the neighbors to hear

And soon the truck became known in the neighborhood

As “Old Whistler”

You could hear her approaching for miles

Like the sound of a pre-pubescent freight train.

As the noise grew louder

The boy on the pier grew increasingly anxious.

The day had been spent waiting for this moment,

Waiting to go fishing,

Waiting to head out on the water with him.

He’d walk down the concrete stairs

And I’d see his dark, leathered, skin

And thick head of bright silver hair

Disappear into the brown shed next to the lake

To get the Styrofoam “Minnie bucket”

From the shelf next to the large fake deer.

He’d kneel down on the pier

Pulling the frayed yellow rope

Of the mildewed yellow minnow cage,

Meticulously tossing out the dead minnows

And carefully scooping live ones into

The blue-rope-handled Styrofoam bucket.

After several scoops he would look thoughtfully into the water

And say “That ought to be enough, don’t you think?”

Then pause and add one more scoop.

Fishermen are always a hopeful lot.

We would head out to Sam’s Point for bluegill,

Radke Bay for walleye and northern pike,

Bible Camp Bay in pursuit of large musky or little bass,

Sometimes it was Tony’s bay for panfish and crappie.

It didn’t matter.

I learned from a young age,

He had taught me,

“Being out here is the mashed potatoes,

Catching fish is just some gravy on those potatoes.”

Only someone who was born before the depression,

Someone whose deep, deep past holds memory of rationing

and the second world war, would ever use such a phrase.

Sometimes I’d get skittish at the sight of

Storm clouds and thunder approaching over

The dark pine forests of the Northern Wisconsin lake.

As it would begin getting

“Darker than the inside of a black cat,”

He would reassure me that everything would be all right.

“What will be, will be,” he would say.

“The good lord will take us when the good lord wants to take us.”

After fishing for hours, we would head back home,

Where Grandma had already peeled the potatoes.

I would watch carefully as he added ground beef

To an electric fry pan, browning it evenly then adding

Boiling water from the potato pan.

“The secret is to use potato water,” he would say.

He would add two cubes of beef bouillon

And finally some flour to thicken.

Hungry from a long day's fishing,

We would binge on this delicious

“Hamburger gravy” served over potatoes.

Grandma always cooked a vegetable as well,

But these were rarely touched by either him or me.

III

Years later, I am many inches taller

But every year as fishing season begins

I still often feel the anticipation of the young

Boy standing impatiently on the pier

Waiting for Old Whistler to come

Barreling down South Rifle Road.

The house is the same, only now with a

Large garage in the driveway

And a Green Jeep has long since

Replaced Old Whistler,

Undoubtedly an exchange greatly appreciated

By his neighbors.

Now he waits anxiously

For my silver Suburu Pick-up

To come barreling down

South Rifle Road,

A trip I find the time to make

Far too infrequently.

After a brief hello to Grandma

We quickly head to the pier where

He retrieves the Minnie bucket

Scoops four or five scoops,

Looks thoughtfully in the water and says

“That ought to be enough...”

Before pausing and

Adding one final scoop

“For good measure.”

We head out to the same bays

Pursuing the offspring of the same fish

That we chased years ago.

Our hats facing backwards

The 25-horsepower Evenrude pushes

The same 16-foot aluminum boat

With all of its might.

He shares stories from the past

And we reminisce about all of the good times

On the water and in the woods.

All the big ones caught,

And the much bigger ones lost.

About the time the loon swam under the boat

Chasing my bright silver doctor spoon,

Or when the musky nailed the side of the boat

After hitting the pink “hell-raiser” bait that he

Had bought at my request with a promise that

“You’ll never catch a thing on that bait.”

After fishing for hours,

We head back home where grandma

Has already peeled the potatoes,

And we chat as he prepares the traditional

Post-fishing-trip hamburger gravy.

“The secret is to use the potato water,”

He always says.

###

A Super-freaky Radiation Vacation and Some Blood on Friday the 13th

In the words of the great Rick James, the picture adjacent is "super-freaky." How appropriate for Friday the thirteenth...That's me getting my brain nuked this week during my "Radiation Vacation."

I decided to call it such as the very thought of cranial radiation scared the living daylights out of me and I was planning on taking a week's vacation from work, fully anticipating being in rough shape. The phrase "radiation vacation" was thus simultaneously ironic and literal, and I felt that this made the term a rather nice little literary gem.

My counts, however, weren't quite high enough to start the nasty chemo, the steroid withdrawal has entirely passed, undergoing radiation is far less scary than I thought (and it looks), and I have yet to experience any serious side effects from the radiation.

So, it really did feel like a radiation vacation, as I feel more myself than I have in a year and a half. I've seen friends I haven't seen in a long time, had some over for brunch, hosted a movie night, met other old friends for coffee -- it's been a good week.

"Radiation vacation," however, still manages to maintain its irony as this week instead of taking vacation I've had one of the busiest weeks I've ever had at work. I haven't sat down to count my hours yet, but when I do, it will be scary. It was good timing to have so many media opportunities when I feel so well and been a great deal of fun.

For the last eight mornings I've received low doses of cranial radiation (radiation to the brain). The hope is that this helps reduce the risk of A.L.L. relapsing in the central nervous system, yet there's very little empirical data to prove that it does, as this has been the standard of care for so long that there is little to compare it to.

In the last couple of years, a couple of treatment plans have cut out radiation as they are trying to figure out whether it's really necessary (this radiation can have some nasty effects on children, as their brains have yet to fully developed). After many discussions with doctors and much thought, I decided that because the risk of debilitating side effects is very low for adults and the increased risk of relapse is entirely unknown, that refusing the radiation treatment was simply too risky.

Each morning, I'd go in, lie down on a table, and the technicians would affix a mask that was molded to fit my head onto the table in order to keep my head still. They would then exit the room and turn on the machine to nuke my brain. This would take about a minute. They would then come back in, line things up on the other side and move the machine to the other side of my head, and then turn the machine back on to nuke the other side of my brain.

When the radiation would go off I would see a bright whitish-blue light. The very strange thing is I could see this light with my eyes closed, but not with them open -- precisely the opposite of every other experience I've ever had with sight.

I also would smell something burning when the radiation was active (let's hope that wasn't my brain)... One of the radiologist told me that many kids experience this, but few adults.

While this all sounds and looks rather unpleasant, it was far from it. In a strange way I'm rather going to miss it. The technicians were friendly and I enjoyed seeing and chatting with them every morning. The room was comfortably lit, mask tolerable, and they had an Ipod dock where I could play the excellent "Radiation Vacation Playlist" I had thrown together.

And, when they'd move the radiation machine I could see myself in the glass and I looked back at myself looking like Freddy Kruger and couldn't help but laugh each morning. As I said in the previous post, sometimes laughter really is the best medicine.

My only concern is that there is usually a time lapse between radiation and it's side effects, when people experience them -- here's to hoping I'm not brain-dead and drooling at my desk in two weeks...

I've been making a lot of such jokes lately, which are nearly always met by rather good laughter followed by "We really shouldn't laugh at that."

My philosophy is "what is there to do but laugh?" -- I'm just so glad I can still laugh at this after a year of it.

In other news, I awoke this morning with a nasty headache and heart palpitations and knew I was getting a little low on blood. Wanting to ensure I didn't beat the clinic record for lowest counts ever seen (held by none-other than yours truly), I went to hematology after radiation to have labs drawn to check my counts before the weekend to see if I needed a transfusion.

Having meetings scheduled all day, I asked my very nice and patient study coordinator to email me the counts and have someone call me if I needed some blood, then left to hurry home to check email, scarf down some food, shower, dress and get to the office as fast as I could. They called back and said I needed to turn around to get blood before I even got home...

After a bit of a conversation with one of the nurses, we finally figured out that I could get blood in the infusion center at 5:00 this evening so I wouldn't have to reschedule all of my meetings and could get some work done... I ran around like crazy all day and it was a great and productive day, then went to the clinic at 5:00 where it felt so, so good to be able to sit for more than a few moments without thinking about where I had to be next.

Looking over today and the last week, it's amazing how much energy I have with only half the blood of a normal person. It really demonstrates to me just how much the chemo drugs wear me down. I'm a little concerned what should happen if they ever get my red blood back to normal. I'll certainly be hyperactive (already am) and Katie will certainly have her hands full trying to keep up with me.

Because we went in at 5:00, they had everything ready and transfusing the two pints of blood took a total of about two hours, wildly contrasting the average 4-5 hours we spend at the clinic for a transfusion. I feel as though after a year of this, I'm really starting to figure the clinic out.

Katie joined me after work and she picked up a couple of pizza's from the very near and very good Lombardino's. As the blood dripped, we ate some pie and watched "Arrested Development" on my laptop, then she chatted with her sister as I wrote the first half of this blog post (I'm a little benedryled-out, so I apologize if it's less entertaining than usual.)

It's strange to say, but very similar to radiation, getting blood really made for an enjoyable evening.

When radiation and blood transfusions are fun -- well, I guess that really is frighteningly freaky Friday the Thirteenth...

Wishing you all well,

Sam

SHOUT OUTS! -- it's been too long, and many deserving of SOs will be missed...

SO to Brandon, Sarah, Steve, and the whole radiology crew: You guys managed to make radiation fun... Now, that's frightening...
SO to Ryan Schweitzer and crew: I hope you realize how great you're doing. I'm impressed. I was in far, far worse shape at the same point.
SO to the whole Clean Wisconsin crew: It was great making it back to the office to see all of you. "Thai Take Out and Tie-Tying" will take place, and it will be awesome.
SO to Dederich, Abby, Cavan, and Julie: It was great getting to see all of you this week.
SO to Mediocre Tim: Why can't we connect on the phones? I think the universe is plotting against us...
SO to Vitse for making me laugh: "I thought you were kidding. I thought that was a joke. I even wrote it down in my diary - [Vitse] had a very funny joke today. I laughed about it later that night."
SO to Ezra for Illiciting Elated Laughter in Excellent Emails Employing Exaustive Amounts of Awe-inspiring And Awesome Alliteration.
SO to Schryver for his first comment to me back in the office. I can't remember precisely what the phrase was, but I remember the general sentiment as well as the gesture and it was priceless.
SO to Melissa for being in the Wall Street Journal (maybe twice???) and for her marrow post comment.
SO to Scott: I think your my most diligent blog reader and I look forward to making it up to Rhine-town to meet up with you.
SO to Mitchell Mode: Do they have an "over 60" age category in the Birke??? (How can I not give you a hard time on this one?) Belated Congrats on turning 60; I just hope I get there and am in as good of shape as you.
SO to Dennis: Here's to being psychotically connected...
SO to Stuart, Vanessa, Dick, and all of my fellow fighters who blog.

SOs to be continued...

And finally, a picture of my brain:

7 Years and A Demonstration of How Laughter Really is the Best Medicine

Katie and I have been dating for seven years today. She doesn't know it, but I actually have enough white blood cells to take her out for a nice dinner and I'm really excited about surprising her.

I asked Dawn, my nurse, on a visit yesterday if I had enough immunity to go back to the office (where we've had a documented case of the piggy flu) she said no. I asked her if I could take Katie out to eat tonight and she said "You take that girl out for a nice dinner!"

It also provides the perfect opportunity to relay one of my favorite stories from my early chemo days. Around Thanksgiving last year (wow, almost a full year ago now), I was in a rough place. Recently diagnosed, trying to figure out how to live with chemo, and fresh out of the hospital where the nurses had told Katie and I that I couldn't go outside and I had to be treated like a newborn baby (completely the wrong thing to say to a new chemo patient...). I became paranoid, OCD, and agoraphobic to a spectacular degree. I'd go weeks without leaving my small 6oo foot apartment and not seeing more than two people. All of this, and I was wired on High Doses of corticosteroid, strung out sleeping a few hours a night.

Right around Thanksgiving, my family convinced me to come over to my sister's for dinner -- she only lived a block away but even that is quite a step for someone who fits most of the descriptions contained within the DSM Manuel. Picture Bill Murray in "What About Bob," and that was basically me, only I wouldn't leave the apartment.

Anyway, while eating dinner, I looked over and saw the picture above in a glass case on my sister's windowsill. The photo was taken at a dance early in high school before Katie and I were dating but there was a bit of a courtship going on. I had brought another girl, Emily, to the dance and my date and Katie both Dark Brown-Haired and striking show up in the same red dress.

At the end of the night I asked Emily if it was all right if I danced with Katie, she said of course and after my first ever dance with Katie I whispered in her ear that she looked beautiful, and the rest is history.

Now, those of you who are really paying attention will notice a rather striking inconsistency in my story. I mention the beautiful red dress that Katie was wearing that night, yet in the photo above it looks as though Katie is wearing a velveteen tie-dyed hippy dress.

This is what caught my eye as I ate dinner at my sister's house that night. I looked over and thought, "What the? Somethings not right with that picture."

I walked over, picked it up and looked at it. Condensation from the window had dripped on it in such a perfect way as to make it appear that Katie was wearing one of the most ridiculous looking dresses I've ever seen.

I began to laugh which I hadn't done in a long, long time. Then, I noticed that not only does it look like she's wearing a crazy hippy dress, but also because her arm is around my back and the condensation has made a new hippy dress arm of it's own -- it looks as though she's reaching straight down my pants. And all of this is compounded by the fact that I'm wearing suspenders, and we both have huge grins on our faces.

I laughed so hard I cried and then thought I was going to die. Honestly, I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life. I started to get chest pain I was laughing so hard. It felt so good to laugh after being stressed out for so long, and that night I felt really, really well for the first time since I had started chemo.

On one final tangential note, even though Emily was just a good friend, I was terrified to ask her to that dance. It was getting close to the date and all of my friends said "you've got to do this today," and we all went out for Chinese food. Not finding the opportunity (read "cohones") to ask her during the meal we were going around the table reading fortune cookies just before leaving.

"What's your's say, Sam?" someone asked.
"Mine's a question." I replyed.
"What?" Someone asked.
"Emily, will you go to the dance with me?" I uttered in a timid mumble.

Yeah, real smooth, young Sam Weis, real smooth... I like to think I'm a little smoother today.

I'm not.

Luckily, I don't need to be.

I love you, Katie.

Sam

And for all your viewing pleasure a newer photo of us (tonight) -- I don't have as good of a fop of hair, but I've got some awesome chipmunk cheeks from steroids and I like to think I'm dressed a little better. Katie is certainly dressed better than her hippy dress and at least this time has the restraint to keep her hands out of my pants.

On a Single Orbit Around the Sun

To say that I had a lot on my mind exactly one year ago tonight, would be to use understatement to a degree that I cannot even begin to explain.

The last time this world occupied the same position in orbit around the sun as it does on this eve, I sat in the small living room of my one bedroom "Treehouse" apartment on Dewey Court watching the election results come in.

As it became more and more evident that Barack Obama was about to become the first African-American President of the United States, as he walked out into Millennium Park with his young and beautiful family to a crowd of hopeful Americans representing every race, creed, ethnicity, sexuality, and economic status, tears rolled down my face.

They rolled down my face as I, for the first time in my life, felt truly inspired by a leader. I have been inspired by leaders of the past, but never during my lifetime had one person given me so much hope for our world, for the ability to bring people together instead of spreading them apart, and never before had I had so much hope for our future.

Tears rolled down my face as I felt the presence of my late liberal Grandmother, and wished so much she could share this moment with me, as I remembered one of the last times I had stopped to visit with her.

My paternal grandparent's house is in Steven's Point (my Grandfather still lives there), and in college I would frequently stop by unannounced as I traveled between Madison and the Northwoods to enjoy Grandma's delicious recipes (she always made you eat -- and way too much) and have feisty and enjoyable debates for hours about where our country and government goes wrong. (Pictured is Grandma and I on a good day gone by at their house in Point)

On these visits, I would often stay well into the darkness of night, my grandparents and I debating religion, gay rights, health care, welfare, poverty, education, war, injustice, and any other world problem we could come up with, all while enjoying a vast array of buttery and chocolaty snacks Grandma had always prepared from scratch in anticipation of such unexpected visits.

I would stay so late, in fact, that I'd often arrive back in Madison in the wee hours of the morning, slapping myself in the face just to keep myself from falling asleep behind the wheel. It was worth it, however, as few memories shine as brightly and warmly as late night debates and snacks at the Weis grandparent's house.

Tears rolled down my face one year ago tonight as I remembered the last time I had seen her on such a stop. Growing weaker from a long fight with cancer, she was feisty as always, but could see and talked openly that an end was coming near.

We ate her delicious cookies. It was summer and the election was coming, and per usual she didn't want to talk about anything but politics. All her life she had been a staunch liberal and she hadn't seen her candidates win nearly enough. She realized she was waning, and she was all right with that because she had lived a great life, but her last remaining hope was that she could just hold on long enough to win one more time -- to see an intelligent, liberal, African-American become the President of the United States.

She didn't quite make it to see her dream become a reality, and as I watched Obama and his family walk out on the stage at millennium park, chills rolled down my spine and tears down my face as I felt the spirit of her presence, her utter happiness, with the night's events.

If we each have a unique heaven or blissful afterlife, I like to think Grandma's is in that diverse and tearful crowd on the shores of Lake Michigan one year ago tonight.

Tears also rolled down my face for another reason that night.

Tylenol and all, I could not alleviate a sharp pain in the back of my hip caused from the previous days bone marrow biopsy.

For two months, doctors had wondered why my blood counts were off, and only the day before took the "precautionary measure" of a bone marrow biopsy to make sure "it's just a virus and not something more serious like cancer."

As I sat emotional and in pain watching Obama's speech, I knew that the future had diverged from the passed, that nothing would ever be the same. I could not help but recognize that the results of the election would change our country and our world.

I also knew from the incessant pain in my back that within 48 hours I would receive a phone call that could change my world forever.

Simultaneously, I held so much hope for the future of our country and so much fear for what my personal future might bring.

I now new we would have an inspirational young leader who held the potential to make the world a better, more tolerant and inviting place.

I would need to wait two days to find out what my life would like in this new world. Was I about to continue on as planned, living a great life, working my dream job, and all with a new exciting political establishment, or was I about to engage in the fight for my life.

I couldn't have imagined that night as I tried to focus my mind, that I'd be sitting at my computer one year later, as happy as I have been in my life (if a bit worn down), reflecting on the unknowns of a night I now know has been followed by a scary phone call, a year of chemo, a year of fear and of happiness, of love and laughter, a year of breaking down and of getting back up, of pain and suffering, of euphoria and ecstasy, of sadness and delight.

There simply aren't enough words to describe the emotions, events, and experiences I've had over the earth's most recent passage around the sun.

And as I watched Air Force One land in Madison today on TV I could not help but find it eerily fitting that Obama was in town on this strange anniversary.

I also found it fitting that while digging through my office this week I found a note card for the recipe for Grandma's chocolate chip cookies that I wrote down one of the last times I visited with her in Point.

As I enter what I can only hope is to be the final stretch of rough treatment that kicks this cancer's ass for good (tomorrow we start radiation plus if my counts are high enough we will start all of the worst chemo drugs -- the ones that put me in the hospital last time), I plan on baking some of Grandma's cookies both in her honor and to give me comfort as we navigate what I hope to be the final stretch of the rough seas of treatment that precede the calmer seas of maintenance.

Good vibes would be very much appreciated as we once again enter these darker waters.

Just as when I made the passage from Isle Royale, tonight I am nervous as I stare out over the roughest seas that lie just outside the breakwater, but I can now see the safety of Copper Harbor, and I am beginning to get very, very excited about what the next passage of the earth around the sun might bring.

-Sam