The cancer beast has struck our street again. This time it's our neighbor Darryl who has been diagnosed with colon cancer and had a section of his colon removed two weeks ago. His prognosis is good, but he will have several months of low-dose chemo once he gets stronger from his surgery.
Joy Hartsfield continues to recover from her tongue cancer surgery and is back at work with limited hours. So far there is not talk of chemo or radiation, so please send her some good vibes to let her not have to go through that shit. She is a very small woman, and those treatments would be very difficult on her.
My left jaw is still swollen, so there is still a fragment there--but no sign that it's coming out any time soon. I have made some changes in my diet to eat only soft foods that require no hard chewing. Lots of soups, cheesesteaks and ice cream. Eating is a real chore, so I have cut down the volume of my food intake quite a bit, and have lost some weight. The cheesesteaks and ice cream are there to help my calorie count--that's my story and I'm sticking to it...
Every year Terry enters the Atlanta Botanical Garden's Scarecrow contest. She placed second this year in the professional competition with a huge scarecrow shaped like a two-handled corkscrew, and covered with over a thousand corks. She had another entry, also covered entirely with corks, but that didn't place. She got corks from friends, family, and a few restaurants--and more than a few right from home.
Demonstrating her versatile talents, last weekend she placed third in a chili cooking contest in Cabbagetown, a funky neighborhood in ATL. While she was on stage getting her award and I was in front of the stage taking her picture with a guy in a pink bunny suit and a woman in a green cabbage outfit (that's the back of my head in the top picture), they announced the first place winner--me! I was so excited for Terry that I almost didn't hear my name being called. There were 99 cooks in the contest, and it was judged by professional chefs from ATL restaurants, so this is a huge accomplishment for both of us to be in the top three.
The point of all this is that cancer can invade one's life in many ways, as a patient, a caretaker, a friend, and as a neighbor--but you need to keep fighting the Prarie Dogs every day, whether they are in your body or that of someone around you. If you fight hard enough and long enough, you can increase your chances of kicking their asses, and getting back to a near-normal life...well as normal as it can be with two "corkscrows" in your back yard and getting your pictures taken in a place called Cabbagetown next to a guy in a pink bunny suit and a women imitating a head of cabbage.
Mike
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