There have been very few comments on the blog lately, and I suspect that many of you are sitting out there in front of your computers with your jaws hanging onto the keyboard in disbelief. New baby. My dad’s death. Finishing chemo. Neutropenic fevers. Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.
I’ve even heard from a few of you who have wondered aloud if I am now feeling like Job, or that Jacqui and I must be crazy to maintain such an optimistic world view in the wake of all that is in our life.
Well, I don’t feel like Job, and I certainly don’t think I am crazy.
I am clearly not shy in sharing my deepest emotions on all that has gone on in my life these last six months. You all know exactly how I feel. You know exactly what I am going through and what lies ahead. And I am ashamed of nothing and glad that I have held nothing back from you. It has been cleansing to share all that I have gone through, and I am looking forward to turning this all into a book someday so that others who have faced tragedy and difficulty can perhaps take something from this.
But please don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t feel pity for us. Life can be rough sometimes. It can be messy. It can hurt. But it is still life. And I have an amazing wife and daughter and family. And the promise of a healthy life ahead, albeit with some potential speed bumps down the line, both as a lymphoma survivor and all that entails, and just by being a human being and all that entails.
So I am glad you are along for the ride. It is getting easier now, at least in terms of my health. Time will never completely heal the loss of my dad, but he is with me, in my heart and my mind always, and one day I will know just how lucky I am for that.
Bald Mike's Blog 
You want comments, eh? Be careful what you wish for…First, I repeat my offer to loan you my (autographed!) copy of Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner’s Our Cancer Year, which is funnier in some places than others, though not overall as funny as your blog. It was the source for the Oscar-nominated screenplay of American Splendor, however.Second, you’re free to borrow any of the other cancer memoirs I’ve picked up and read myself in the past 15 months, including Gilda Radner’s It’s Always Something, which (see above) is not always exactly a thigh-slapper but is well worth a read. Best part I recall: Gilda tells how a radiation tech she met during treatments was literally the funniest person she’d ever met, not excluding the SNL crew. She learned this man had actually been told several times, “You should be in show business, and she was certain he could have had a career as a comedian, but she concluded his gift was best served where he was, helping patients in a cancer clinic and actually making them laugh. I found that beautiful.Third, the other cancer memoirs I have really aren’t very good. Or they’re certainly not funny. There’s: Why I Wore Lipstick to my Mastectomy, which happened to get turned into a Showtime movie last year, but I didn’t like it. Lance Armstrong’s first book has some good passages, but it’s certainly not strong on humor. I admire the man but he’s too self-involved for real humor, to state the obvious.Fourth, a movie you simultaneously should see and should never see: The Brood. The only horror film ever made based on the lymph system! http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0078908/ Maybe you’ve seen it already. Directed by David Cronenberg in 1979, and reportedly based on his nasty first divorce. And the lymph system. It’s really disgusting, don’t see it. You also might want to skip It’s Alive while you’re at it: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0071675/Fifth, The title Marrow Me is a licensed and registered trademark of me. Any unauthorized reproduction and rebroadcast without the express written consent etc. etc.Anguilla here I come!
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The Second Love Call…is this: deep in the night, upon realizing that the time for a second love call had passed, came to the area of the world wide web logs, there placing the caring, knowing and wise words he would otherwise have shared via phone with his dear friend on the other side of the digital divide. And it was good, and it would suffice, if only for this one last time that said friend found himself lost, once again, in some beautiful, mysterious, unforgiveable ocean of love. Accept a few gallons of that ocean.k
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OK- no sorrow. no pity. We do certainly admire your upbeat attitude despite everything. If anything, you, Jacqui, and Sophia have helped to keep all of life’s other nonsense in proper perspective. By the way, have I told you today how ridiculously cute your daughter is? If you think she’s fun now, it just keeps getting better and better.Talk to you soon,v
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