Garden and updates

Hurrah!! The Garden is in. We started building it a month ago at the Minga work party. There was not enough time or materials then to finish the project but not to worry. A couple of people, specifically Patrick and Jim would not quit. Both guys came back on multiple occasions to finish the fence, deliver soil and hang the gate. Annette, Pats wife, also made a fantastic snake sculpture that guards the gate. It is so great to be the recipient of such hard work and dedication.

A couple of years ago Jim said something to me that has stuck in my mind; "One way to find out who your real friends are is to call them at four in the morning. " Nothing about having cancer is convenient, on the contrary it is a giant inconvenience. But folks like Patrick and Jim don't seem to mind. They jump up and help. So many people have jumped up and helped it is amazing.

I was speaking with Aunt Judy yesterday. She had read a study that was done on people recovering from serious illness. The study found that the single largest factor contributing to recovery is a solid family and community support group. I know gratitude is one of my big themes here in this blog but I want to look at it from another direction for a minute.

Think of all of the young men that are returning home from service in the middle east right now. Many of them with life changing injuries. Many of these guys went into the military because their resources were limited in the first place. The burden that these poor guys put on their families is huge. I have also seen in the news that the support that our government is supplying for these guys is lacking. It is a real shame that those guys should want for anything. I don't mean to get all political here. I am trying to show how lucky I feel. Lucky to live in such a great community, lucky that I have in my my life I have reached out to so many folks and made such great friends. So many four-in- the-morning-friends. So thanks Jim Patrick and Annette and so many others that are helping us out.

Other News:

We have been working on getting our ducks in a row for the Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT). Really it is mostly the chickenhawk doing that. We don't know when the BMT will be. It is dependent on when and how well my current oral chemotherapy is working. Once that oral chemo's results start to plateau, then I will go shift over to the BMT. We are hoping that is going to be solidly in the middle of the summer so that it has a minimal impact on the kids and school. But, as I said earlier, there is nothing convenient about cancer.

Yesterday, when I was getting out of bed I could tell that the C/H was really upset about something. I started probing right away. She quickly shared that she had read in our health insurance contract that our policy on pays for 100 days worth of outpatient medication! That is a big deal. The actual cost of the meds that I am taking is in the many thousands of dollars per month range. If we have to cover the cost of the meds on our own after 100 days we are screwed! We both got morose and resigned at the same time. I was thinking about which bikes I would sell first and which retirement account I would drain.

Then the C/H spent an hour working through voice mail hell and called the member services people to get clarification... "Oh no," the voice on the other end said, "you've got it all wrong. You only get 100 days worth of meds at a time once you run out of those, you can re-up for another 100 days." We got all worked up for no reason. That is the nature of the beast. We are on the edge so much of the time. It doesn't take much to push us over the top.

So my question to you; when have you gone over the top about something that ended up being no big deal?