Ozark Oddments: The long walk

Today was the follow-up visit with the oncologist.

Our boy has a habit of charging off...

with me bringing up the rear... .

and struggling to keep up.

As usual, he is the youngest person in the waiting room.

The oncologist, Dr Rajesh Nair, is a lovely, sweet man, and very kind.

He had good news for us today.

The MRI scan from last week is clean. Our son's brain is free of cancer. The laboratory results of the blood they drew came back within normal reference ranges.

“Awesome” was the word Dr Nair used.

Awesome indeed. Even though I have been lectured about taking notes at these visits, I failed to write down what Dr Nair said, except that we will see him again next month. And there will be PET scans and CT scans coming up in a couple of months. And MRI scans every 3 months. They are going to keep very close tabs on our boy.

I am so thankful for this caring team of physicians. I am so thankful for God's mercy.

Thoughts to ponder

Most of us go through life so absorbed in the cocoon of ourselves that we rarely stop to consider the other. Of course, we think that we do; indeed, we may pride ourselves on our capacity for empathy; we may be considerate and thoughtful in our dealings with others, but how often do we stand before them. so to speak, and experience what it is to be them?--Domenica Macdonald

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, by Alexander McCall
Smith

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Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering -- because you can't take it in all at once. --Audrey Hepburn

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I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all, I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.--Agatha Christie

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Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.--Katharine Hepburn

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One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

"Two people... told me that the word "Christian" would turn people off. I wouldn't mind if to be a Christian were accepted as being the dangerous thing which it is. I wouldn't mind if, when a group of Christians meet for bread and wine, we might well be interrupted and jailed for subversive activities. I wouldn't mind if, once again, we were being thrown to the lions. I do mind, desperately, that the word "Christian" means for so many people smugness, and piosity, and holier-than-thoughness. Who, today, can recognize a Christian because of "how those Christians love one another"?--Madeline L'Engle, "A Circle of Quiet"

Friday, September 10, 2010

The long walk

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