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! [Reply]
You can't enjoy the good times if you don't feel the bad times. This thread hurts my physical body but spiritually I know that there is no beginning or end. He will just be posting on a message board that we can't see. I think he says that his back feels better and he is glad that this whole process is over. [Reply]
I find myself at times thinking of Ed which is odd, because we never met. It takes a rare person to have an impact on total strangers without a real platform to do it. Just by sharing so much of himself and his journey with us he has had a positive effect on many of us here. How many of us will leave that type of legacy without compromising who we are or what we believe? Honestly, what more could a person hope to leave behind? Well done Ed. [Reply]
I was greatly encouraged by Ed's messages recently about his talks with his pastor and the joy and purpose he'd found in Christ, and that Ed felt he was living out that purpose in his final weeks. To me this has both a tinge of sadness and of joy, because Ed is free from the cancer that had ravaged him for so long, more free than he has ever been. For that I think we can all be proud to have known him. [Reply]