Willard? Is That You?

The rats came to eat me the other night. I don’t ever remember having a dream like that before.

Unexpected Words

My excellent day nurse at Chestnut Hill Hospital, Tom Flood, was helping wait out the transfer to HUP. When food service neglected to bring me breakfast, he found one for me. When they forgot lunch, he rustled up a chicken breast and some soup. He was always apologetic for the wait and explained it was about HUP finding me a bed.
“I expected you would get down there sooner because…” he paused looking for the right words, “I don’t know a delicate way to put this but…”
I braced myself for some prognosis that I had not yet heard. Perhaps Tom knew I was more serious than I had been led to believe by my doctors. Of course I need to be at Penn immediately because my condition was so bad. I didn’t breathe for half a second.

“…you have good insurance.” I laughed, relieved. Then of course for the millionth time since my diagnosis I thanked the powers that be for the miracle of my beautiful wife who is an amazing person, a great mother, a top professional, a warm heart, the love of my life, and who has great health insurance.

Hit Over The Head By A 2-By-4

The nurse asked how I was. This was about 2 hours after the oncologist laid out the bad news.

Assuming (wrongly of course) that she had heard of my sentence, I mean, diagnosis, I replied, “Other than getting hit over the head by a 2-by-4, I’m okay.”
She immediately picked up my file and began to rifle through it.
“2-by-4? Did that happen here? Are you in pain? Does your head hurt? I can check the orders to see if I can give you something.”
“I keep forgetting you medical folks are very literal. But I guess that’s a good thing in your line of work.”
She smiled and nodded and asked, "But do you have any bruising?"
I explained I was speaking metaphorically and that I had not really been hit by a 2-by-4 but by a ton of bricks called leukemia.
She smiled again, not really getting it.

My fault. Say what you mean. Mean what you say.

Welcome Aboard The HMS ENDURANCE

The Endurance was the legendary ship Ernest Shackleton sailed on his ill-fated voyage to Antarctica. It got frozen in the ice of the Southern Sea. Shackleton and his men endured great hardship surviving on the ice until it crushed the ship, and then making their way by boat and luck and damned good seamanship to the southern tip of South America where they eventually found rescue.

My Endurance is located at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Rhoads Pavillion, 6th floor. My cabin is the Casa de la Cure and I am the captain, David Mayer Smith. I have leukemia.

I am writing this blog for various reasons, the first being to give me something to do between treatments, bleeding, and walking in circles on the floor. Another reason is to let people who are interested keep track of me on my voyage to cure. And yet another is so that I remember all the highlights and lowlights of the voyage when it is done. There are other reasons.

You are welcome to come along, stay or go as you please. But this ship moves in only one direction: FORWARD