Thirty more steps sideways

Friday, August 18th, 2017
Baltimore, Maryland

Health update

Well, the good news is that the ultrasound of my liver was normal. The other news is that my oncologist is still searching for the source of that belly fluid and still thinks that the liver is the best candidate as to the culprit. If you'll recall, the trick with the transplant process is that you need to be sick enough to need it but healthy enough to survive it. He wants to ensure a healthy liver. To that end, he has scheduled an MRI of my liver for next Friday (the MRI being the best diagnostic tool for the liver).

The upshot from all of this is that any transplant has been officially postponed for a month. I find this news disheartening as it follows so closely on our very good "disease-free" pronouncement from yesterday. The patient burden in this entire process is both mental and physical, of which the mental challenge is the greater (there are drugs to help mitigate the physical). The doctors put a timetable in your head and then you apportion your mental energy equally across the required number of days. If that timetable is delayed, your first instinct is to wonder: "Well shoot, where will I get the additional strength of mind?" The wheels required to summon have started to spin in my head.

YouTube

Alison and I have become devotees of Seth Meyers, of SNL fame and current host of Late Night on NBC. In particular, we avidly follow his A Closer Look series, a Weekend Update-style comedic look at the political news of the day. Here are the last few:

If you don't get a few hearty laughs from these, you might be deranged.

Pictures

​Here are some photos that we've either taken or collected in the last week. ​​​

Tidbit

The tidbit remains on hiatus. The wheels are currently spinning in other directions. Until then, here is another hedgehog picture to hold you over.

Click to enlarge