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…

I don’t mean to dash your hopes, but I am not writing this because I have received some good news to report. I guess you can say that getting into the stem cell transplant program (so far as the verdict is not completely out yet) is good news. Otherwise, my life expectancy would be half…

Stem Cell Transplant Tomorrow I enter the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance’s autologous (meaning, using my own stem cells) transplantation program. It is one of the first in the world and highly regarded. I will give a tentative schedule. This week, I will start my work up, including exams, labs, bone marrow biopsy, MRIs and bone…

In case you don’t know, I am . . . or maybe “was” is the better term, a medical care provider before all this shit happened. I am part of the “system.” Now, I am part of the system as a patient and the view is very different than what I had expected. I had…