REST IN PEACE...ROB

Cindy & I got word yesterday that an acquaintance of ours had died about 2 weeks ago. Rob and his family lived in Lafayette in the early and mid ‘90s and then moved to Ohio.

Rob was involved with the ROTC at Purdue while also working at another job in Lafayette. I believe his wife Carol was a dental assistant for a period of time while they lived here. Their son and daughter were very small when here, several years younger than our girls.

We met Rob, Carol, Robert and Beth at First Baptist Church where we attended for many years. At that particular time, we had a good group of adults our age and a close Sunday School class that got together monthly for a meal and games and activities. The guys played on a softball team together and Rob was the coach for a year or two. Rob and Carol sang in the church choir and attempted to be very active in the church. When they moved to Ohio, we seemed to lose touch with them except for an occasional note about them that might get posted in the church newsletter.

While their family was on vacation in June 2008 in Yellowstone, Rob developed some problems on his left side. They eventually went to a nearby hospital, had a CT and MRI and were told Rob had a tumor on the right side of his brain. The family returned home to Columbus and a biopsy discovered Rob had a Glioblastoma Multiforme tumor of the brain. It is the most common and most aggressive type of brain tumor. Even with aggressive therapy, the average survival time is less than 1 year.

Over the next 15 months, Rob had surgery, chemo, radiation, and physical therapy to hopefully remove and kill the tumor and help Rob regain his physical skills. Rob’s friends, family and church family worked hard to help get them to appointments and the many ordeals they had to go through.

Apparently one goal they all shared was to celebrate Rob’s upcoming 50th birthday in October 2009. As the day approached, Rob took a dramatic turn for the worse and was placed on hospice care. As the family was told that Rob’s death was imminent, his children hoped he could make it to 12:01am on the day of his birthday so they could celebrate with him. In a terribly sad irony, Rob died at 8:07pm, the evening before. They decided he was going to have his birthday with God.

I suppose we all have people such as Rob and Carol and children in our lives. People we know, or have known, but aren’t particularly close to. But sometime during our lives, our paths crossed and we shared some common events with one another.

Even though we didn’t remain close to Rob and Carol, hearing about their challenge does make you appreciate life a little more, friendships a little more, and hope for the very best for them.

With the love and support of their family and friends, Carol, Robert and Beth will go on. The hurt of missing Rob will be severe for all of them. Robert, 19, and Beth, 14, loved their father. They are much too young to have lost an important figure like him in their lives. But he would want them to carry on, and they will.

Carol had dedicated most of her days caring for Rob since his illness in those last 15 months. Love between a couple gets amazingly strong during those times. There is, surely, mixed blessings for Carol, knowing that Rob is no longer in pain or suffering, but he also isn’t there physically any longer, either.

I will recall fondly our times years ago…with Rob and Carol...and our other church friends. Those friends at that time helped Cindy and I a lot. We shared many laughs and offered support to one another and those times will be fondly remembered.

Rest in Peace Rob…and for Carol, Robert and Beth…may God’s peace strengthen you during this time.


Dan

1000 MARBLES

Some years ago I got one of those email stories that gets passed around. It was one of those ‘thought provoking’ stories and its meaning will happen for me this weekend.

The story is written by a man who is commenting about the joy he finds with Saturday mornings. When you’re an early riser, there’s nothing like the quiet of a non-working morning…just you and your simple, quiet surroundings.

This man also happened to be a ‘ham radio’ hobbyist, and one particular Saturday morning during the quiet, he overheard a conversation on the radio of a gentle voiced older man and a younger fellow. He listened in on the conversation, absorbing the information being shared.

The older man was appreciating the hard work the younger man did and his dedication to his craft, but voiced concern over the price he was paying for his success, mainly the many hours he was working which took time away from his family…particularly his children.

The older man continued by relating how he had a similar lifestyle until one day an event occurred that made him re-think his priorities and he called it his 1000 marbles story.

Like me, the older man apparently liked to play with numbers and one day he stumbled across a formula. He said, on average, a man lives about 75 years. If you multiply 75 years by 52 weeks in a year, you come up with 3900 weeks, more specifically 3900 Saturdays. That’s the number of weeks (Saturdays) the average man has. He then said that by the time he had worked out his formula, he calculated that he only had about 1000 Saturdays left in his life, if he were to live until he was 75.

So the older man decided to go to some toy stores and buy 1000 marbles. He then took them home and put them is a big, clear, plastic container and he sat the container by his ham radio.

Next, he said, every Saturday morning after that, he took a marble out of the container and threw it away. He felt by watching the marbles slowly disappear from the container, he became appreciative of the value of his life and establishing his priorities.

On the specific morning of the conversation, the older man told the younger man that he had taken his last marble out of the jar that morning. He continued, if he could make it until next Saturday morning, everything that happened the rest of his life would be gravy. He closed by hoping his young friend would have a good life, re-think his priorities and enjoy his family.

Well, like the old man, I like playing with numbers and I did the marble calculation for myself.

This Saturday, October 31, I will have 1000 marbles left in my jar.

Hopefully when I take the last one out, there will still be many Saturdays left. I also hope I remember to prioritize the things in my life to enjoy every aspect of it, from the biggest to the smallest detail.


Dan

GOOD...TO THE LAST...

There is a secret battle going on at my house between Cindy & me. We don’t talk about it….but it’s happening.

This particular battle occurs every couple of months or so.

This war of the minds is about...who’s going to use that last dribble of toothpaste in the tube? When finally done, the winner will have brushed their teeth. The loser will have to walk out to the linen closet to get the next new tube of toothpaste. And no one wants to make that effort…when we can make someone else do it!

I bet some of you have been there. You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s a battle of who can last out the other. In the morning, you squeeeeeze the tube to get that last dollop of paste on your brush, and then you put the tube back in the medicine cabinet. You are sure that when you brush tonight, there’s going to be a new tube in the cabinet…there’s no way she can get more out of it. But, apparently, she squeeeezed just as hard. That evening, you look...and there it is...that same mangled tube you’ve been milking for a week.

So you lay the tube on the sink, start at the bottom and SQUEEZE and PUSH…trying to get that last microgram of paste off the inside walls of the tube and onto your brush so you can put the tube back in the cabinet to declare your win. The battle is on and you don’t plan to lose.

The battle isn’t just between Cindy & I…and not just toothpaste. It rolls over into other rooms of the house, and over other objects, and involves other people…like kids.

You go to the fridge to get some condiments for the sandwich you’re about to eat. Any one, or combination of things is about to happen. The ketchup bottle is standing on end, trying to get that last little bit to collect near the opening…and/or…the mustard bottle is laying on its side…lifeless and empty…and/or…the pickle jar is in the door, but it has no pickles remaining in it…just pickle juice.

Other jars are just the same. The mayonnaise...or peanut butter...or jelly just has those little portions on the side of the jar. Instead of a knife or a spoon, you reach for the spatula so you can hope to scrape enough off the sides of the jar to spread on your bread to, at least, give it the hint of flavor you’re after.

Drinks are no different. You remember there is some ice tea or lemonade in the fridge and it sounds sooooo good. You open the door and there are 4 drops remaining in the bottom of the jug. No one wants to make more, so they don’t drink it all, just almost all…and then put the jug back in the fridge.

And don’t forget when you need a napkin or a paper towel. You’ll invariably find the napkin holder empty and the cardboard tube the only thing left of the paper towel roll.

If we could all just have that same feeling about the money in my wallet. Let’s make it last...let’s squeeze every bit of value out of what we have in there, before we say…how about getting some more?


Dan

NAME CALLING

Our ‘given names’ and what we are ‘called’ by people vary many times. I’m sure you’ve experienced it, maybe even first hand.

Some people are full name people; Edgar Allen Poe, Hillary Rodham Clinton, James Earl Jones. Some use their first name but make sure their middle initial is noted; John D. Rockefeller, John F. Kennedy. Others use just their initials; P.T. Barnum, L.L. Bean, W.C. Fields. Then there’s the first initial and middle name guys; F. Scott Fitzgerald, G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt. And let’s not forget the people who are known by one name; Cher, Elvis, Houdini. The strangest name combination I ran across can be blamed on actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas. They had a son that we all know as Kiefer. But his parents went a little overboard and his given name is…Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland. No wonder the poor guy has a drinking problem. He’s still pissed at his parents!

Then there are guys who are known by their middle name. If people say their first name, we often wouldn’t know who they’re talking about; William Bradley Pitt, James Paul McCartney and Troyal Garth Brooks.

Well that’s me. I’m a middle name guy. My given name is George Daniel Clark, but I grew up thinking my name was Danny. It was the 1st day of third grade that I remember someone actually calling me George. No one ever called me George. I don’t even remember getting that ‘full name’ call from my parents when I was in trouble as a child!

I started third grade in a new school, in a new town (Vincennes), so I was an unknown to everybody at the school. So when that teacher asked if ‘George’ was present, she didn’t know that that wasn’t me. Until then, I had lived in a small town (Owensville) where the 1000 people of the town knew me and my brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents. No one needed to call me George because I was just ‘little Danny’, Wayne & Martha’s boy.

Those school years after the move to Vincennes were tough on me when ‘George’ was called. It drew the attention of my friends and classmates who would immediately remind me of the Georgie Porgie rhyme, or the funny face and…GEORGE(?) look. I’d try to ignore it but I really disliked it. Why did my parents name me George? And why did they call me Danny then? For some reason, I never asked those questions aloud to my parents, I just thought them to myself. (Of the six of us kids, 4 of us were called by our middle names).

All through my remaining school years, I was Danny. Then suddenly, in my college years, one instructor called me ‘Dan’ and, lo and behold, it stuck. From that point on, I became…Dan. After all, Danny is a little boys’ name, right? And I was now grown up and it was time to move up to ‘Dan’. After college and our move to Lafayette, the Dan just stuck. New town, new people, they didn’t know any differently.

When people would try to find me in the phone book, they’d run into problems because I was listed under my legal name, George. Whenever (even to this day) someone would call and ask for George, I know it’s not someone who knows me and is likely asking me for money. (The benefits of “George” finally paid off!)

In recent years, I took on a new approach. I go by a variety of names. To most of my friends and co-workers, I’m still Dan (although Dr. Dan the Nuc Med man is commonly thrown my way at work).

I’ve even began to use George when it’s something official, or I’m going to need to use my credit card or sign a legal document. Throwing that middle name in there just gets too confusing to them and it takes more time to explain than just saying, “I’m George.”

I also realized that, to my brother, sister, cousins, nieces and nephews, I am and always will be ‘Danny’ to them…and that’s NOT such a bad thing. That’s what they knew me as…and that’s how I want them to remember me.

Dan
Danny
George

THOSE DAMN, PRETTY LEAVES

I’m not much of a fall person. Spring and summer are my times of year. I guess I’m not crazy about fall because I know winter is then just around the corner and I’m 'really' not a winter person. The only thing that gets me through winter is Purdue Basketball. (**See prior blog**)

But, for us Midwesterners, you can’t deny the beauty of the leaves this time of year. It is gorgeous to drive through the various colors of the rainbow…the bright reds, oranges, yellows and the greens still remaining. The contrast of the colors is beautiful.

The down side to all those beautiful leaves…is that they’re comin’ down…and most of them seem to be comin’ down...IN MY YARD!

Blocks away from us, are the new neighborhoods that were stripped of all vegetation before houses were then put up. House after house built side by side within feet of one another. There are no leaves collecting in their yards in the fall…because there are NO TREES in their yards.

Cindy & I have been blessed to have a nice home in an older, established neighborhood, with lots, and lots of trees. There are approximately 85 different types of trees in Indiana, according to the internet site I visited. We have 15 trees on our lot alone. Most are maple, but there are elm and crabapple among others. They vary in age from 20 years old (I assume, since it was about 5 foot tall when we moved to our current house 17 years ago) to probably 75 years. They range in height from 15 feet to probably 60 feet with some that look 40 foot wide. Some lose their leaves early and some hang on until late fall, even after the first snow has fallen.

Sunday, I performed my first ‘gutterectomy’ of the fall. (That’s when I climb up on the roof and clean the leaves and crud out of the gutters.) I probably do that 10-15 times a year. Half in the spring, when the little ‘whirligigs’ from the maple trees act like helicopters and dive for my gutters, and the other half in the fall when the leaves begin to drop.

Yesterday, I noticed my neighbor to the north had used his riding lawn mower to sweep his yard clean of leaves. It really looked nice. Really nice. I don’t use a rider, nor have a sweeper. No, it’s a good old fashioned rake for me. On a good day, I can rake my yard in about 90 minutes. But I don’t want to get too early of a start on raking leaves, because just one look up tells me there’s still a zillion more to fall. If I rake today, I’ll be unable to tell a difference tomorrow.

So, for a few more days anyway, I’ll just admire my neighbor’s yard.

Hey, if the wind helps me out, my leaves will end up in HIS yard anyway!!

Dan

PET PEEVE.....Number 1

You know, I’m pretty sure I know how I’m going to die. Yep, and it’ll be my own fault. The person involved in my death is even going to be kind enough to try to warn me, but I’ll have not paid any attention to their warning. And my death is going to be attributed to one of my pet peeves.

I have several pet peeves, and more will probably be discussed in time, but the one I’m recognizing today, that’s going to contribute to my demise, is the ‘HONK’ that people’s car horn delivers when they use their little remote door lock device on their car keys. The little button that reads ‘LOCK’ and ‘UNLOCK’ on your remote.

I truly understand the reasoning behind that invention and think it’s great. In fact, I use mine 99% of the time when I am “UNLOCKING” my car from a distance. I admit it is very handy. If you have an arm full of things that you would have to, otherwise, sit down to unlock the car, it’s great. Or, if it’s pouring down rain outside, using it allows you to unlock the car as you’re rushing toward it and then you slide quickly in the car out of the rain. Otherwise, you’re standing there getting soaked while you fiddle with your keys and try to find the door lock beneath the cascade of water pouring down on you. So, for uses such as those, I love it, and see the benefits of the ‘UNLOCKING’ feature.

It’s not those times that irk me. It’s when people use the ‘LOCK’ feature to excess. They abuse it…and drive me nuts in the process.

Here’s why.

First, you don’t ‘need’ to use that function to lock your car. As you exit your car, you HAVE to open the door from the inside. Near the handle that you used to open the door, is a button that LOCKS and UNLOCKS the doors. If you simply reach down and push the LOCK function, you can unmistakably here the ‘CLICK’ as the doors lock. Not a “HONK”, a simple ‘CLICK’. If you look closely, you can probably even ‘see’ the locks move into position, locking your doors. Done. Simple as that. No HONK!

But no. That doesn’t seem to do it for way too many people. They have to…HEAR…their car tell them it’s locked, and they seem to want to HEAR it multiple times, making sure everyone in a one block radius hears too. It’s as if they are saying to me, “Can you see how important I am? I just have to push a button in my hand and my car tells me it’s locked. Look, it works when I am 5 feet away. Hey look, it also works at 10 feet, and 20 and when I’m all the way across the parking lot. Aren’t I cool?”

Give me a break you self-absorbed brat. More and more cars have this feature these days. Get over your self-importance. You’re a flippin’ moron who’s driving me nuts because you need to draw attention to yourself.

Maybe I’m just overly sensitive to it. Maybe my undies are in a bunch, I don’t know. But I just cringe when I get out of my car in a parking lot because I know I’m going to hear somebody, ‘HONK HONK’ before I can safely get inside.

Just test it yourself. Next time you’re in a parking lot heading inside the store or school or work, just listen to hear how many “HONKS” you hear before you get in. Do they do it once, or a couple of times for good measure?

So, like I say, it will be my demise. I’m going to be walking through that parking lot and I’m going to hear that annoying “HONK HONK” and I’m intentionally not going to look because I just know it’s that idiot showing off.

But that one time, it’s going to be a guy trying to warn me that he’s about to run me over but I’ll have paid no attention.

Sir or Ma’am…thanks for at least ‘trying’ to help me save my life…I’ve just grown a little cranky in my old age.

And as they lower the lid on my casket, just laugh a little to yourself if you hear a “HONK HONK” as I make sure it’s locked!!

Dan

Happy Birthday JOAN

Birthdays…we all have them…some wish they didn’t…some take real offense at being reminded they’re getting older…many say “it’s just another day.”

In recent years, I’ve tried to be a birthday well-wisher to my friends and family. I’ve created my own little calendar with their birthdays written down on it. As the day approaches, I try to send them an email, or a card, or give them a call to let them know ‘somebody’ remembered them on their special day.

I even have some of our deceased family members on the calendar…my grandparents, parents, brother, sister. It’s a good way to make sure they are ‘not forgotten’. I usually send an email to my remaining siblings, nieces, and nephews as well, just to remind them too. We each then have the chance to recall fond memories and special times with the person, or, if we never knew them, at least appreciate that, without them, we might not be here.

This Sunday, October 25, will be Joan’s (pronounced Jo-Ann), my oldest sister’s. birthday.

There were 6 of us kids, with the youngest 3 still living. Our ages were spread over a full generation, in that, Joan the oldest, had 2 children of her own before I, the youngest, was even born. Joan served not only as a big sister to me, she played the role of a mother at times too.

Joan and her husband, Elvin, were farmers, and I spent many occasions on their farm. I was little enough and immature enough that I didn’t do much farm work. The phrase, ‘worthless as tits on a boar hog’ would have applied to me regarding my help on the farm. Now Dave, my brother, did quite a bit of work on the farm and still to this day, recalls many fond memories of those times. He holds Elvin in high regards for teaching him some ‘life lessons’ that he holds very dear.

After Elvin’s death, Joan stayed on the farm for a few more years, but eventually, moved to town where she remained until her own death. Joan died of complications from breast cancer.

I can still remember going to the hospital the day she had surgery. I met with Diane and Kim, (her children), and we sat in the waiting room while Joan was to have, what we were told, would be a simple removal of a non-malignant lump in her breast. When the surgeon came out to tell us that it was more involved than thought, that it was ‘cancer’ and she had to have a mastectomy, it came as quite a shock to us. I next remember letting Joan sleep in her room while Diane, Kim and I went to a nearby restaurant to get a bite to eat, still trying to absorb what the surgeon had told us. I recall after we were seated at our table, Diane paused a second, and then said, "well…shit". Diane’s not a cusser, so that was out of the norm for her to say, but it represented the shock that we had all just been hit with.

Joan went on to recover and have a good life, although at about her 5-year anniversary, she was found to have a return of her cancer and over the next several years, her health gradually declined until her death.

Joan was a wonderful, beautiful woman. I have never known a person who was a better Christian example of what we should ‘all’ be in life, than Joan. Family, friends and townspeople still speak kindly of what a wonderful person she was.

Outside of my wife, I would consider Joan the favorite family member in my life. I can say that knowing I won’t offend my brother, Dave, and sister, Jean, who will likely see this, because I know they feel the same way about her.

If all of us could live life as Joan did, the world would be a better place.

Happy birthday sis. We miss you and love you…and won’t forget you.


Dan

FAULTS

One of my faults (of which there are many!), is that I can sometimes be too quick to make a judgment about some of our younger people these days.

I see them every day, and so do you. Upon spotting them, I might snicker to myself or just shake my head. I want to ask them, “What were you thinking?” You know the ones. They may be black, white or latino. They may be male or female. We’ve seen them all.

The boy has his baseball cap on sideways. His shorts are baggy and the bottom hem hangs to nearly his ankles. The beltline is in the middle of his butt, but fortunately his boxers or silk gym trunks he’s wearing underneath hides his butt crack.

The girls aren’t much better. She has a skin tight knit top on, that doesn’t reach her waist line so her belly is showing. Many of them can’t afford to pull the top down further to cover the belly because it is also low cut. If they pull the top down any more, there’d be no questions to ask about her boobs because they’d be hanging out for all to see. And many times, that belly really needs covered. It has several rolls that just aren’t attractive in that type of clothing.

And don’t get me started about the tattoos and the piercings. The eyebrow rod, the earlobe hole big enough to stick your finger through. I want to say, “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror?”

I just don’t get it !

Ah…but they can snicker right back at us ‘older folks’. You’ve seen us too. The guys that, in summer, like to wear sandals with white socks on. Or the shorts and dress shoes with black sox pulled up to our knees. The younger crowd probably want to say, “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror?”

ALL adults aren’t like that…and ALL kids aren’t like that either. There are a lot of great kids out there…black, white, latino, male, female…who are good students and have desires to do great things with their lives and for other people. They do community activities that we don’t hear about. They work at jobs to try to better themselves. They help their parent(s) take care of little brothers and sisters. They study and get good grades and apply for, and get accepted at, colleges that we could only dream about. They play instruments and compose their own music. They use their athletic talent to run, play basketball, baseball, football, soccer, swim. Some set school records, win state titles, earn scholarships to colleges. Some are preparing to enter medical school, law school, become engineers, learn a trade.

And some of these same kids wear their hats sideways, and their shorts hang too low and their belly hangs out of their tops.

I still don’t get it, but I’ll work on trying to be less judgmental.

Oh, please do me a favor. If you ever drive by my house and see me walking out to the mail box in my shorts and black sox to my knees, roll down your window and shout, “Dan… have you looked at yourself in the mirror?”


Dan

PROCTOBER....Cancer Awareness Month

Yesterday, I had my annual physical with my doctor. Casey is a young guy with young kids. His dad was a doctor and Casey followed in his footsteps. I’ve known Casey for 10 years, maybe more, and we have a good doctor/patient/friend relationship. When I see him in the halls of the hospital, it’s usually just a quick “hi, how are you” kind of thing as we pass on our way to somewhere else. But when I see him for my physical, we get a chance to catch up on what’s going on with each other. We talk about kids (his), grandkids (mine), family, sports, and hot topics. Besides listening to me talk, Casey listens to my heart, lungs, and belly. He pokes, pushes and prods. Lastly, he reviews my lab results including my cholesterol. He tells me I have a young person’s cholesterol level…for which Cindy hates me. I am a well known snack food junkie…cakes, pies, candy, you name it. If it’s sweet and bad for you, I love it. And my cholesterol levels remain low. Cindy, on the other hand, only has to look at sweets in a store window and her cholesterol level goes up. Thus, her hatred for me and my damn normal cholesterol.

One other lab value Casey checks is my PSA. Prostate-specific antigen is a protein produced by the cells of a mans’ prostate gland. It’s normal for men to have a low level of PSA in their blood, however, prostate cancer and some non-cancerous conditions can cause a man’s PSA level to increase. As men get older, both non-cancerous conditions and cancer become more common. For the many years I’ve seen Casey, my PSA levels were always around 1.0-1.2, normal for a man my age. Since my dad died of complications of prostate cancer (mom and a sister died of breast cancer), it was always good to hear ‘my’ numbers were normal.

At last years’ physical, everything was good except my PSA level had doubled to 2.4. Casey told me to have it repeated in 3 months. When I did, he called me to say the PSA had risen to 4, and he was referring me to a urologist. Weeks later, I met with the urologist whose comments were pretty short-and-sweet. “Given your family history and the gradual increase in your PSA numbers, I can’t rule out that this may be cancer. The best way to find out is to do a prostate biopsy.” We scheduled the date to have my biopsy and I left the office…a little anxious, to say the least. I tried to not say anything to Cindy, but as I mentioned in a prior blog, we’ve been together long enough that my body language gave me away. I confessed what the doctor told me and now ‘we both’ had the chance to worry.

Here’s the basics of my biopsy: drop my shorts, lay on my side, have an ultrasound probe inserted in my rectum which creates an image for the doctor to look at which helps him decide where he’s going to inject Lidocaine to numb my prostate (BTW…it doesn’t TOTALLY numb it!), have the probe reinserted for use to cut samples of my prostate to be tested for cancer cells.

As the doctor was starting the procedure, he told his assistant, “we will be getting six samples.” Immediately upon inserting the probe and looking at the image he said, “no. we’re taking 18 samples” (ended up being 20). Ouch! When done, I was told to sit up and I sat there trying to decide if I wanted to pass out, throw up or run. The doctor then said, “the prostate was larger than it felt” and “come see me in 2 weeks and we’ll go over the results.”

As I gingerly walked to the car, two things ran through my head. 1) His comment that it was larger than what he initially thought and, 2) his 6 samples turning into 20. My mind was busy thinking those were not good signs. When I told Cindy that I would get the results in 2 weeks she scheduled the time off to be there with me. We were going to hear this… ‘together’.

The remaining days were spent with my mind going many directions. If it was bad news, what were we going to say to the girls? What was I going to be able to do for Mason, our grandson that lives with us? What would I say to my brother and sister? (We had a family reunion coming in less than a month and I knew my girls wouldn’t be able to keep the news to themselves and I wanted my other family members to hear it from me if there was bad news to share.) What would I do about work? Which friends would I tell? Would I have to have chemo or radiation? Would the surgery be painful? What would my sex life be like? Should I check out my retirement plan? Should I check into a cemetery plot? This was all new territory I had never been to before.

I then realized these type questions were the same ones going through the minds of many of the patients I care for every day. I take pride in being a very good technologist. I care about them and most realize that and thank me when their test is done. Now with questions about my own health, it gave me a new perspective. Can I be even ‘more’ caring…a better listener, share, care, laugh, cry with them if that’s what they need. Indeed, the whole ordeal made me a better person and better technologist.

In July, just before the reunion, Cindy & I got good news…it wasn’t cancer. But they still wanted to keep an eye on me and there may be future tests to run if there are more changes. A follow up visit was scheduled for November. The reunion was much more relaxing with that news.

Yesterdays’ visit with Casey brought even more relief. A PSA drawn 10 days ago showed my numbers had dropped to 2.75. Casey said, with prostate cancer, the PSA does not go down. I most likely had a case of prostatitis, an inflamed prostate, which raises the numbers temporarily, and it just took time for it to go back down. I will still follow up with the urologist next month but I expect to hear that same good news. And it was sure good news to hear.

Closing comment: The CDC reports that in 2007 (the most recent year resulted) that heart disease and cancer were the 2 leading causes of death, accounting for nearly half (48.5%) of all deaths in 2007.

For your sake and your families, get your checkups, see your doctor, and take care of yourself.

Dan

The "Other" Love

Most everyone who knows me, knows my wife and I are best friends. When you’ve been around someone for over 40 years, you tend to know even the smallest of details about that person. Having been married over 35 years, Cindy & I can read each other’s body language to know how the other is feeling before they say a word. We’re one of those couples who can finish each other’s sentences. Maybe we get along so well because we married rather young and grew up together, growing to like, and love, one another more as the years passed. And just maybe, we continue to get along so well because we each have ‘another’ love.

No…not that. Our other love is “Purdue University Basketball”.

Having moved to Lafayette from southern Indiana, where most folks grow up cheering for Indiana University, we eventually grew to love our local university team, the Purdue Boilermakers.

Cindy & I got our first season tickets, nearly 30 years ago and have been going to games ever since. As our daughters were born, going to games became our ‘date night’ for just a little chance to get away, if only for a few hours. In fact, we still laugh about those early years, when Cindy was pregnant with our 2nd daughter, Julie. I can remember tugging, pushing and coaxing Cindy up those Mackey Arena stairs to the next-to-the-top row of seats with a belly that looked like she was sneaking in her own basketball. Many of the folks we passed on our way up, especially the sympathetic women on the end of the aisles, would comment, “we thought maybe we wouldn’t see you tonight, that you’d be having that baby instead”. But no, we had important matters to attend to first….cheering on our Boilers.

We still occasionally recall some of our favorite players we cheered for over the years …Scooby Scearce…Steve Scheffler…Ricky Hall…JJ (Justin Jennings) and Bryan Cardinal…just to name a few. But some of our most favorite, are the kids that are playing now. Keaton Grant, E’Twaun Moore, Robbie Hummell, JuJuan Johnson, Chris Kramer and Lewis Jackson. To them, we’ll add a few promising freshmen and sophomores this year and Cindy & I can hardly contain our excitement.

Cindy is crazy about Chris Kramer. She even has his jersey to wear to some of the games. Chris is one of those in-your-face defensive players with a little swagger to his walk. The kind of guy you love-to-hate when they are on the opposing team, but you love-to-love when he’s playing on your team.

In a 10-year span, from 1987-1996, Purdue won 5 league championships and should have won a 6th if not for a terrible call from the referees. Then came some lean years. At the end of Gene Keady’s coaching career, our teams really struggled, finishing near, or at, the bottom of our league. That was hard to take after enjoying such great success earlier. But each game Cindy & I made that long walk to the arena, in those lean years, we’d assure one another that ‘one of these days’, we’ll be good again and those other teams better watch out.

Well, ‘one of these days’….is here !

After coach Keady retired, Purdue hired former player-turned-coach Matt Painter as the new coach. Matt had a great 1st and 2nd recruiting class, players who are now juniors and seniors on the team. Not only are they good players athletically, they are good academically. They go to class, they do things in the community, they enjoy being together both on and off the court, and they will graduate with degrees. They are kids you just can’t help but cheer for. Not all schools can say that. Many have poor graduation rates. Some schools go after players who are great athletically, but don’t do well in the ‘school aspect’ of school. They are the so-called, ‘one-and-done’ players. Players who will play one year, then leave college at age 19 to go to the pros in hopes of making it big. Purdue doesn’t have that type of player. Players like Robbie Hummell and JuJuan Johnson (both juniors this year) will likely end up in the pros, but hopefully after they’ve played 4 years of college ball and received a degree. They may not need it, but it’s a great feeling to walk across the stage and have the school President hand you the diploma that you earned.

Cindy & I are excited for our Boilermakers this year. Ranked as a likely top 10 team, we can’t wait to see them play, and hope that those dreams we shared during those long, cold walks in those lean years, truly turn into that something special we hoped for.

Our ‘other’ love…has got us as excited as that first love…long, long ago.

Go Boilers! Boiler Up!!

Here we go....Post #1

Well... this should and could be interesting. I've decided to join the "BLOG" world. Do I have anything of interest to say? Can I come up with subject matter that might be of help to someone else? I hope so, but time will tell.

My brother Dave has a blog site. Dave is well-read. Dave has traveled the world... well part of it... thanks to Uncle Sam and the United States Navy. Dave has opinions... and he's not afraid to share them. I am not any of the above. For the most part I don't like to read, unless it's of great interest to me. I haven't traveled far because I'm either cheap, broke, or a combination of the two. I have opinions, but I'd consider myself open minded enough to listen to the many sides of an issue and then form my own opinion, that may then change if I hear something else that makes sense.

A few months ago, my wife Cindy & I saw the movie Julie & Julia. A part of that story is about Julie Powell and her effort to cook and document Julia Child's 524 recipes in 365 days. Along the way, Julie found out about blogging... and about herself. I think I may be more like Julie.

This will be a learn-as-I-go on how to use a blog site, how to properly reference, good writing skills and along the way, maybe even learn more about myself.