<p>LTS: Thank goodness. Many prayers of many people were answered today.</p>
<p>padad: I am also a fan of Rumi.</p>
<p>Sleep well all, especially LTS. Perhaps you can sleep a less troubled sleep.</p>
<p><em>happy dance</em>!!</p>
<p>Thoughts I recently encountered concerning two of the very best healing agents (no matter what ails you) - neither of which requires a prescription.</p>
<p>On music:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>âHenry David Thoreau</p>
<p>On poetry:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>âKay Ryan (recently named the countryâs new Poet Laureate)</p>
<p>LTS, I am going to be on vacation from August 2-23. Iâve sent a number of quotes to Epistrophy, which he has kindly agreed to post in my absence. I hope to be able to keep up with the posts here while I am away. Of course, you and all others who find strength, comfort and encouragement in this extraordinary thread will be in my thoughts and prayers.</p>
<p>Thank you very much ADad, and please have a wonderful vacation. </p>
<p>Thanks to everyone else for all of your prayers and kind words. I have waited so long for some good news, and, finally it comes. Of course there is still a ways to go, but weâll get there. It helps a LOT to be able to read posts of hope, and encouragement.</p>
<p>Symphonymom, I wanted to tell you thank you for your post about you friend with small cell - that is very unusual, to be four years out. Congratulations to her. Your post made me smile and reminded me that the odds are not zero!</p>
<p>Padad, Rumi wouldnât mind, would he? :)</p>
<p>Tango14, I have read Lance Armstrongâs book, and, I have mixed feelings about it. I guess I have to default along the lines of not really having an opinion. Part of it might be my bias against him in that he starts out with a lot of advantages that the âaverageâ cancer patient doesnât have: no health insurance which an influencial friend changes asap, solid family support, inside, fast access to the best doctors, etc. Oh and his particular diagnosis had a 40 percent cure rate going in. Last, the cyclists I know swear that he was not clean when he raced post-cancer. </p>
<p>I donât have the knowledge or background to really know, and I donât want to be judgmental - and I am sure his fight was a tough one in any case. Certainly, he has built up a very respectable organization that does a lot of good - the kind I hope to have some day. </p>
<p>I find Epistrophyâs links far more satisfying and interesting. âCrazy Season Part IIâ is exactly where the five year survivor in Texas says cancer should be in our lives ⊠E hit that nail squarely.</p>
<p>Marite, it has to be telecommuting for at least the next couple of days. Thank goodness for modern technology!</p>
<p>Keymom, thank you for your posts. I wasnât given a choice; they put this on my right side. Not that I had a preference. I go back today for dressing change/cleaning.</p>
<p>Kelowna, they wanted to install one in Miami, but, I said no, thinking I could get through this without a port. Now itâs becoming difficult for nurses to find veins, so, itâs really the only sensible thing to do.</p>
<p>âpoints on the board?â I think youâve scored a touchdown, LTS! Brava!</p>
<p>and another</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Health</a> Information from KELO-TV](<a href=âhttp://www.keloland.com/healthbeat/newsdetail6387.cfm?Id=0,72110]Healthâ>http://www.keloland.com/healthbeat/newsdetail6387.cfm?Id=0,72110)</p>
<p>(P.S. Yes, as ADad mentioned, heâll be away for a while in August but - in light of his thoughtfulness and advance planning - Iâll be able to channel him here during his absence.)</p>
<p>You can hear the smiles! Lurkers and posters, I wonder how many of us there are. There is a Jewish expression: âFrom your lips to G-dâs earsâ. We must be loud!<br>
There is an interesting report of studies about prayer in healing. Iâm sorry if it has already been posted or discussed: [Researchers</a> Look at Prayer and Healing](<a href=âhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032302177.html]Researchersâ>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032302177.html)</p>
<p>LTS:
When I was pregnant with S2, I had to have bloodwork every week, and it was hard to find a vein. By the time S2 was imminent, my arms looked like those of an addict!<br>
After my first surgery, I queened it from a hospital bed at home (we rented one because it could be raised and lowered, making it easier for me to get on and off). I redesigned our whole kitchen from the bed, making great use of the telephone (it was before computers were widespread). I have a laptop now that I can use from a recliner if I wish, and my kids gave me a pad for it. Very neat!</p>
<p>Dear LTS,</p>
<p>I have tried twice to post a response and keep losing it each time. I certainly appreciate your feelings about Lance Armstrong, and I wonât bother you with my perspective, perhaps a naive one, on him.</p>
<p>However, I think every personâs success story contains a grain of something that can help others, and I am glad you have found strength in so many different places. </p>
<p>We all rejoince in your good news.</p>
<p>LTS: do the cyclists you know explain how Lance managed to fool so many drug testers who were determined to find him out? They even went back and retested all his old samples. The cyclists I know (and we run a cycling business so we know a lot of them) think Lance was clean.</p>
<p>I agree Lance had a lot of advantages, but he also has an enormous determinationâwhich he is now using to raise money to support people with cancer, including many who do not have insurance. I know several people who have gotten grants from the LAF to pay for things.</p>
<p>^^dmd77, the cyclists I know think he was not so clean, but, I have often wondered if that wasnât far more envy than knowledge. And there is certainly no disputing the good work of LAF. Itâs just that when I put him in a pool with others who are also fighting various cancers, the others seem more impressive - and inspiring - in their battles somehow. </p>
<p>Perhaps I am just viewing things through the lens of those who âhave notâ and assigning them greater weight. </p>
<p>My apologies if I have caused offense.</p>
<p>While it is true that it may be more impressive when a âhave notâ is making a difference in the fight against cancer, than someone who has all the resourcesâŠI have to give a lot of credit to a person in the public eye who chooses to make a difference. A person who has some fame can just opt to bask in the glory or use their fame to advance some causes. So, I do admire when a celebrity chooses to use the power of their position to bring attention to a needy cause. It is pretty much a win win. </p>
<p>LTSâŠfeel better today!!! You go girl!</p>
<p>The thing that intrigues/impresses me about Lance is the level to which he has taken this fight against cancer, now that his own survival of the disease seems pretty sure. Many celebrity survivors (or celebrity family members of patients) go on to become advocates for particular diseases or particular types of cancer. But Armstrong has become a particularly bold advocate for government support of research on all types of cancer, and for improvements in health insurance, access to health care, and support for long-term survivors. There is probably no one in the US who has not had a family member or loved one who has had cancer. Yet no group has ever martialled all these people together to advocate effectively - to DEMAND - more money for research and improved access to health care. I think the US could do a lot more to fight cancer if there were a political organization dedicated to the cause, similar to what the AARP has managed to do for retirees. Politicians are scared of the AARP, and if LAF can muster the same level of respect in Congress and the White House that the AARP has, then more power to Lance. I was particularly impressed with a webcast I saw earlier this year of the LAF Presidential Cancer Forum, in which many of the candidates for president answered questions on what their policies would be regarding cancer and health care. >>âFor me personally, itâs just to make sure that whatever candidates we have now, and then ultimately the two who want to be president, discuss the No. 1 killer in this country, just like they would discuss war or terror or taxes,â Armstrong said.<<</p>
<p>Iâm getting tired of people/groups having events to promote â(fill-in-the-organ) Cancer AWARENESS.â Puhleeze - is there anyone who isnât AWARE of cancer? Itâs time to lobby for our tax dollars to be spent on something that will affect every American - directly or indirectly- and thatâs research on cancer, and access to health care. Health Care and Cancer research should be just as much a part of the political landscape as Iraq or Terrorism or the Mortgage Crisis. I think LAF âgetsâ that.</p>
<p>And now, I climb down off my soap box, and add my voice to the chorus of good wishes and support for our brave and enduring LTS. Your positive yet practical outlook inspires me, and I have shared many of the wonderful quotes on this thread with my mom as she continues her 4 year (and counting) journey with ovarian cancer.</p>
<p>LTSâŠI havenât posted in months but I drop in every few days to add my good thoughtsâŠ</p>
<p>As a 34 year cancer survivor and physician I will say that cancer is a great equalizer in so many ways. Is it easier to cope with nausea or hair loss or your sense of your own mortality if you are affluent? It is easier to access care, easier to pamper yourself when you can, but so many of the fundamentals of the experience are a challenge to the core of your person- not the balance in your checking account. I admire any person who has or has survived cancer by putting one foot in front of the other every day. </p>
<p>Those who by virtue of their force of personality, connections, affluence or resoluteness can, in addition, serve a role in advocacy on any level and choose to do so are important to the entire fabric of the fight in an additional manner. </p>
<p>Earlier this year my father, who had been treated for Hodgkins Disease in 1964 passed away of very, very late complications of his very primitive radiation therapy. I suspect he was among the longest surviving individuals with his diagnosis. Countless young doctors and doctors through the years âtrained at his feetâ- and in some ways this was the greatest contribution of his life. My mother, who passed away from CLL 18 years ago devoted her adult life to raising money for cancer research. </p>
<p>Each person who suffers or who survives contributes. Every life and every challenge is meaningful.</p>
<p>Iâm so glad to hear your good news, LTS! How wonderful.</p>
<p>The Journey</p>
<p>One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad adviceâ
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
âMend my life!â
each voice cried.
But you didnât stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could doâ
determined to save
the only life you could save. </p>
<p>By Mary Oliver</p>
<p>LTS, Iâm happy to hear the positive news! Go, LTS, go-o-o-o-o! Hugs and prayers.</p>