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Hi there!

I concluded my last post 2 weeks ago by telling you I thought the next 2 weeks would be uneventful and I was pretty much correct. My birthday was in there on the 30th of April so there was a little bit of excitement for the weekend. No cake for me but I got a candle in a cupcake with ice cream that I watched my wife eat! No, she wasn't torturing me, she was just making sure that I didn't miss out on the traditional birthday songs. I say songs because in our house we have the birthday song that everyone knows plus we enjoy the McManus birthday song that my sister-in-law Terry brought to us when she married my brother Jerry. Some no-fun people hear it and say "oh, that's awful" so I will not share the lyrics here but you can email me privately and I will send them to you. It's much more fun than the other one - start a new tradition in your home! Anyway I had visitors every day over the weekend, our good friends and former neighbors from North Prairie Chris & Lori stopped with their daughter Caitlyn on Friday night, (congratulations on the new job Chris!), brother Jerry came over Saturday night while our wives went art crawling (we had the better deal - we watched Tora, Tora, Tora!) and finally Pete came over Sunday night. So I got to extend my birthday over 3 days! Thanks to all of you who remembered me! I had a couple requests to throw another party like last year but sorry, that was a once in a lifetime event. If you missed it I feel sorry for you, just ask anyone who was there.

The only other excitement for me during the last 2 weeks was a few trips to the hospital. I have been dealing with a lot of stomach pain & digestion issues and have been working with the doc and nurses trying to get that straightened out. I'm sure no one wants to hear the details of my bathroom issues so I'll just say it is a process and we are working through it. I did get a new g-tube (feeding tube) installed last week, as I learned it is supposed to be replaced every 3 months. Mine had been in over 4 but I always take good care to keep it clean so no harm done, but I set an appointment for 3 months to get it changed again so I don't forget. My shingles have been clearing up nicely, they are almost all gone. As I said before, they never really bothered me in terms of pain like a lot people suffer from. But I am glad they are gone so I can move on with my other treatments.

Which brings us to tomorrow. I have to be at the hospital at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am to start on my brachytherapy. The full description of what I am getting is High Dose Rate Endobronchial Brachytherapy. Instead of me trying to describe how it works you can click here and get a much better description than I could give of how the process works. The only additional part for me is they will first do a bronchoscopy to provide a path for the catheter. I will be getting 2 treatments on Thursday and 1 more on Friday morning, so hopefully I'll be released by mid-day Friday. I'll try to get an update posted as soon as possible but I am not sure when that will be. I don't know how active I can be in between treatments, but I'll get something up by the weekend anyway.

One last thought - don't forget that this Sunday is Mother's Day! All you sons and daughters work hard to make Mom's day special for her! She deserves it! And as my Mom told me when I was younger - "Remember, I brought you into this world, I can take you out!" I think she was just kidding. I think......

Be Well - Be Blessed!