Reading Material

I thought I'd share a little insight into what I'm filling my head with these days in between all the running around from Hospital to Hospital.
* I had my pre-admission testing stuff today. Blood work, EKG, Chest x-rays...I have this plastic pink wrist band on my left wrist certifying that I was at St. Claires today. With this wrist band I get to walk right in next Tuesday and head right to Same Day Surgery. Whoo Hoo!

I'm currently reading:
"It's Not About the Bike/My Journey Back to Life." -Lance Armstrong
"Every Second Counts" -Lance Armstrong

I've shifted to the back burner: (previously started)
"Through Painted Deserts" -Donald Miller
"The Shipping News" -E. Annie Proulx

Next up: "BONE": The Complete Cartoon Epic in One Volume. -Jeff Smith (1332 pages)

This one will come in handy on Jan 1st when I have to drink 10 oz of Magnesium Citrate. (prior to surgery I have to "prep the bowel" as it were) so...I'll be a little busy that day, as you can probably imagine. But seriously I don't plan on renting the TV while in the hospital for the 2.5 days I'll be there- I plan on reading, if I can help it. (sleeping would be nice too...but we all know that doesn't happen to often in hospitals.)

I'll bring the Lance Armstrong book (which I figured was required reading once the word Cancer came up. Dawn bought it for me the day after the news came back on my ultra sound in November, that's when we heard "cancerous activity" for the first time.) and I'll bring BONE just to break up the monotony. And a notebook so I can write in between. We'll see how I feel.

Here's Jeff Smith's site: www.boneville.com

Some other sites/blogs I'm looking at these days:

Lance Armstrong: www.livestrong.org

Read about this 12 year old girl in Saturday's StarLedger who just lost her battle with a pediatric cancer: www.caringbridge.org/visit/laurastiles

This kid is fighting a Tumor on her Brain Stem: http://saharaaldridge.blogspot.com

Donald Miller: www.burnsidewriterscollective.com and www.donaldmillerwords.com

Savage Chickens: www.savagechickens.com (worth a look. It's chicken cartoons drawn on Post-It notes. How can you go wrong? ) -I find it funny.

Aside from a slightly annoying cough and a slight pain in my chest these last two days I'm feeling fine. The mass of lymph nodes in my chest seems to be interfering with my lungs enough to cause me to get winded quicker than I usually might doing the same regular physical activity. I'm not having any problems breathing. In fact the Pre Admin Nurse today said my blood oxygen level was good today.

I just want to get the kidney out and heal up and start chemo ASAP and get to the end of June, do the radiation thing and get back to some kind of normal. A kind of normal where my kids won't have to hear the words: Daddy and Doctor in the same breath so often. As much as I want to believe my 3 year old isn't aware, he unfortunately is. So much so, that when he knows I am headed out for work he asks me if I'm going to the Dr's first.

I realize that for at least the the next 5 years, my life will always involve Dr's and hospitals and CAT scans and whatever "big hospital words" the kids have been indirectly exposed to since November 4th, I just hope the version of normal we return to is a smooth one.