Good news [Lonewolf Ed] - Page 127

I thought I'd start a new thread for updates on my cancer treatments and whatever else is going on, since the bad news thread title is misleading now.

My last treatment went better than the previous two and my chest wound is still closed up, which is a good thing. My arm is getting slightly stronger and I hope to resume lifting dumbbells next week. I need to build up my strength again, because I am going back to Denmark in May and I am extremely pumped about that! I'd like to be able to schlepp my own checked bag and not have someone else lifting it for me.

It's going to be a fabulous trip, 6 weeks and a couple of days for me. My brother is going along as well as my friends Chipp and Rod. Chipp is staying close to 3 weeks and has not gone with me over there since 2006 so he is also very pumped to be going. It will be Rod's first trip and he will be there for 2 weeks. I will get to be a tour guide. Also, I am throwing a party in my favorite pub of all, the wonderful, ever-magnificent Irish House in Aalborg on May 7th. The owner and I are friends and he will give me a little discount. We'll have Irish stew and brews in the cellar and I hope to have around 25 family and friends there. I might bill it as the "Fu** Cancer Party." A few months back, I was not sure I'd ever be able to go over to Denmark again or if I'd even be alive, but the cancer hasn't gotten me yet. I'm doing a number on it, instead.

Some other cool things I plan to do when I am back in my ancestral lands include a wine tasting in a castle, touring another castle and the northernmost manor home in the country, and visiting Skagen, the top of Denmark, where you can stand on a little patch of beach and have one foot in one sea and one in another. They also have a brewpub up there I am wanting to check out. I will start and end my trip in Aalborg and spend 5 weeks in an apartment I rent that is very close to the beach. I can hardly wait for May 4th to roll around!
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Originally Posted by go bo:
Happy New Year ED!!!! :-) :-) :-)

as bad as we may feel sometimes, being alive still beats the alternative...

~~your and idiot~~, er you are an inspiration to the rest of us and i for one am damned proud of you!! :-)

and i'll be drinking, er thinking of you for the rest of the night and celebrating another Christmas/New Year on this earth for both of us!!

best wishes, ed...

Thanks for the chuckles! Please do have a brew for me. I had to take a couple of hydrocodones so I skipped a brew to bring in 2017. I also skipped a 2016 review since the last half it if would have sounded too depressing. My thoughts usually turn to the year that was as midnight of any New Years Eve approaches but not so much this time. I thought more about 2017 and what this year could mean for me.

As I have stated, if the doctors are right, I won't see another Thanksgiving or Christmas, as I was given three years to live if I was lucky. Three years since hearing that comes on August 11. If I make it past that into the holiday season, then I can think of it as a victory over my prognosis, though not necessarily a sign that I will beat terminal cancer. It will be more like uncharted, new territory. I am not sure how I will look at things then. Maybe I will just live day to day, maybe I will not make any plans more than 2 or 3 weeks ahead of any given day. I just won't know before that time comes, if it does.

What I would like is to go to Denmark for Christmas. I was there once when I was 10 I think, in late November and early December for my aunt and uncle's 25th anniversary. What a treasure of memories I have of a different culture and how they celebrated ALL day. We gathered outside the farmhouse at 4:30 am and sang songs until they came outside and had to invite us all in for breakfast. I ate, then retreated to the room where all the coats were laid and dove in, falling asleep in moments. Later, we all went into town and stayed in a large restaurant dining hall for not one, but two meals and the dancing and drinking went on way past midnight. I was exhausted and rather bored by the end. I mean, as a kid, no wine or beer for me and watching the adults acting stupid the more they drank got monotonous. I slept late that next day. I appreciated the time spent there more and more after it was over.

Anyhow, spending Christmas there would be a dream come true. There are even special beers brewed at Christmas that I would enjoy, as many have (gasp!) black licorice in the mix. I loooooooove black licorice, except cheap stuff like Twizzlers. The big meals they make are another draw and pretty much a sure thing when it comes to snow. Those of us in and around KC have been cheated out of white Christmases for a few years now. It will be cold, dark most of the time with about 7 hours or less of sunlight per day, but it is so festive and people have candles lit in their homes, fires in fireplaces if they have a fireplace, warm drinks, and get togethers with family and friends. There are Christmas meals at pubs like the Duus, where I am known as I am a lifetime member of the King Christian IV Guild which has their HQ there. It's a medieval pub with an atmosphere that is hard to beat.

The past few Christmases for me have been good, but lacking that special feel, that magic of the season. I am sure I'd find it over there, especially in my cousin's little castle he bought and lives in now called Rosvang. I am not a citizen, but my family and friends tell me that I am part of Aalborg where my pubs are, and part of Løkken, where I am referred to by some as the "May Resident." They tell me when spring comes and it will soon be May, they say, "The sun is coming soon, and Ed, too!" I do feel so very much at home there, I feel loved and welcomed, and like I am part of the places I love to stay. Add that Christmas joy and magic to it and that could well be one of the highlights of my life.

There's a hurdle ahead of me in August that I have to vault over first, and who knows what hurdles between now and then, but if I make it, I think I have to go over there for Christmas.
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