Behold! I Bring You Tidings of Great Joy...

On Thursday, December 20th I am seeing my oncologist, Scott Lunin. Prior to our meeting Scott asked that I have another chest x-ray, so that he can get some sense about how I have responded to treatment. I spent two hours this morning waiting to get x-rayed at Harbor Imaging. When the x-rays were finally completed, I asked the technician if I could have a sneak peek and she complied... I don't know yet what Scott will say, but I thought that today's x-ray looked very encouraging in terms of showing shrinkage. The tumor did not look as big to me. We will have a more definitive answer when I see Scott on Thursday and ultimately when I get my next cat-scan in January.

I feel pretty good but I continue to have trouble eating. I should clarify and say that it does not stop me from eating....but it does slow me down a lot. Things that are acidic are more painful and difficult to eat. For example, grapefruit slices or orange slices I find hard to eat. Milk or soft cereal in milk hardly bothers me at all. I don't care how much it hurts, there are some things I will eat if you put it in front of me. One of these is macaroni and meatballs. The other is Indian food. (Over the weekend we ate at India Palace in Ft Myers and I agonized through a dinner of raita, lamb korma and nan. ) If I die and come back, I hope I come back either as an Italian or Indian. I certainly understand why Christopher Columbus risked his neck over Indian food.

I finally finished my annual Christmas letter and will be sending it out to all of you tomorrow. Hopefully you will have it by Christmas! If not, I will publish it on this blog on Christmas day.

My cousin Mike Donovan and his wife Elke sent us a card and letter updating us on their hectic lives. It is hard to keep up with Mike. His Army career keeps him moving from once place to another. They just moved back from Germany and are now living in Colorado Springs. One of these days we will have to go out to visit them (and get in some skiing...hint hint!. )

Speaking of cold weather....Jessie made it home from college on Friday.and brought the Talahassee winter weather with her. Mom is arriving here tomorrow expecting warm Florida sunshine. I had to call her tonight to warn her to pack some heavy underwear. It has been unusually cold (overnight low of 41). It should warm up during the week and get back to sunshine and temperature in the low 80's by week's end.

Thankfully the week before Christmas is a rather slow week; not a whole lot of appointments are on the schedule. I have two tomorrow and a Rotary Board meeting tomorrow night. (Yoko and Jessie are picking Mom up at the airport at 1 PM.) Wednesday I have Rotary in the morning, a St Vincent de Paul Board meeting at 5 PM and a Christmas party in the evening to attend. June arrives from Hawaii on Friday morning; Paula gets in on Saturday.

I am looking forward to spending some quality time with my family this Christmas and enjoying this special time of year as never before. I hope you'll do the same.