Sauron Speaks

Hello everyone!  This is Steven, back reporting after a brief working bender.

Sorry for the lack of posts, as dad mentioned, I came home for a few days to take care of biz-niss.  While crossing the midtown tunnel into Manhattan felt like entering the gates of the Magic Kingdom as a 6-year-old, I'm so ready to be back with See-Dubya (CW).

He is checking back into "love ya" Lakeview Regional tomorrow and doing 2 days of consolidation chemotherapy.  I say "love ya," because a nurse in his doctor's unit keeps telling dad that she "loves" him.  We both think this is quite interesting, and her whole team is now nick-named "love ya."  He's going into this next round of consolidation chemotherapy after what feels like an incredibly long half-time recovery, and ready to kick some cancer tail!  I even nearly poured an ice chest of gatorade all over him, the olympics were really getting to my fighting attitude.  He stays in the hospital probably 2-3 weeks, only because when they bring his marrow back down to nothing, no blood cells will be created.  So he will likely need a few more blood transfusions, but "Love Ya" said that she reserved the cloud-room for us, we'll see if she pulled through tomorrow, I have faith!

Dad thankfully didn't have to get his central line replaced, as of course Mr. Fixit actually showed the surgeon how he thought it could be repaired (it was uber-clotted).  Of course, dad fixed it.  Louisiana doctors need to take a Carl Wood 101 class!

The eye of Sauron (me, being the ever-watching and critical eye that I am), will be back tomorrow, so I won't let anyone get away with 99% or less effort, so rest assured.  But the real effort is coming from The Man himself, and our wonderful family and friends that keep dad in their hearts.  It is so wonderful that frequent and infrequent friends have been so attentive and supportive to the situation.  Dad keeps saying "I'm SO lucky," throughout this whole process, and while that may strike you as odd given he has a rare form of leukemia, the outpouring of support, best wishes, loving thoughts, a close family, and a little wine has made it really the best anyone can ask for.  All of us that wake up in the morning are so lucky, we have another day to maximize.  Dad will have thousands more, we are quite sure, and they will be turbo-charged from now on.

A few weeks ago, we watched Iron Lady in the hotel room, which we all loved.  Meryl Streep, playing the role of the great Margaret Thatcher quoted Lao Tzu in a parituclarly powerful moment, and how true it is:

“Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habit.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”