After stimulating my bone marrow for 4 days and then collecting stem cells for two days, tonight we reached 10 million stem cells, enough for two transplants. I was then discharged and we are back at our home-away-from-home, home. Denise had a visit with her dentist in Anacortes for a broken tooth and a follow…

I just finished day two of bone marrow stimulation, to produce more stem cells, with filgrastim injections. The first 30 hours went very smoothly, however, the past 5 hours has been a little rough with bone pain and chills. But, it seems to be getting better. I have one more day of this, then testing…

The two-week pre-transplant work up is complete. It appears, that except for my bone marrow and kidneys, I am very healthy. This means that I’ve been cleared for the stem-cell transplant. This is a big deal with great complexity. Tomorrow morning I will be admitted to the University of Washington Medical Center. I will have…

I will start with a statement that many will take objection to. The spouse, parent, child, or significant-other of an ill person has no obligation to take care of that person. Yes, there are some societal expectations, but no, true obligations. I say this with confidence because I’ve witnessed several times where the significant-other person…

I have described some of the extremes in the social views of the stoic and hedonist. I will now look at these extremes from the individual perspectives and then try to arrive at the healthiest approach to suffering. The individual hedonist, if taken to the extreme, would find him or herself with uncontrollable sobbing at…

I know that my previous post on this was very long. This place is where I think “out loud” and can ramble at times, thus the name. I do think I have now set the groundwork for this thought and can bring it to a conclusion, at least the conclusion that I think captures it…

This is day 8 of a 100 day of my autologous stem-cell transplant. We have completed several batches of blood tests to make sure I’m healthy enough to endure this procedure and to get good markers for the boundaries of my cancer. I have just a few more tests left, echo-cardiogram, bone scan, and full…

Part I – Stoic and Hedonistic Cultural Approaches to Suffering A number of years ago I ran into and old friend at a grocery store. He has been an associate pastor of a big—let me say—culturally Scandinavian church. I knew him well during his tenure as pastor, and I knew it had been a rough…

I am a data-driven person, as is my doctor. I’m glad she is because statistics don’t lie . . .  ever. With that said, I have a growing conviction that hope makes a difference in outcome. You may say, “Duh.” But scientifically, it is not so clear, mostly because there hasn’t been a lot of…

I will not do a play by play account of what is going on. As soon as I have more information, I will do a detailed posting here as this is where my family, including my kids, get their information. I will just say that things are going well. Denise and I are mentally exhausted…