Hi everyone, just got back from our quickie escape to Seattle, where Ellen and I spent three blissful days and they had to forcibly escort me from the Experience Music Project, a music museum so totally cool I just wanted to move in. Great food, nice weather (sun!) the trip went by too fast, but as promised, here is the report after the meeting with the doctor this morning. Which is: we'll have another discussion after my other doctor returns from his vacation on Monday, to include his input. But we did learn a few things today. Among these were the official name for what I have. They don't want to call it cancer. They don't want to call it a tumor. To them it's an "abnormal brain lesion." Here at Euphemisms R Us, we're going to go with that until further notice.

We also confirmed that I'm going to get some sort of biopsy, possibly at the end of next week. Part of the upcoming discussion will be to determine which sort of biopsy (I guess they come in different sizes or something) is indicated in my case. I don't yet have the specific information that I'll need to make my choice, but I'm leaning towards having them take as much as they want, if they can save themselves a trip later. We'll know more Monday.

Meanwhile, I'm making some little lifestyle changes that might not be such a bad idea in any case. I've got some green tea and a little press-pot, I picked up a video on Qi-Gong, a Chinese self-therapy that seeks to optimize the flow of energy in the body, and I'm sifting through all of the helpful suggestions and resources I've received from you...my family, friends and online newsletter subscribers. (If anyone is here by mistake or finds this tedious and/or boring, please let me know and you will be removed from the list with no bad karma attached.) I've also been training myself to think of the glass as half full as often as possible. I may have lost my driving privileges, but I've gained a full-time chauffeur.

Which reminds me. I realize how lucky I am to have my sweet little "chauffeur." This morning we sat across the waiting room in the UCSF Oncology office from a woman about our age, by herself, there for probably the same reason I was. I hoped maybe her husband or friend had to work and that she could get there herself, but it might have been that she had no one to go there with. How incredibly harder it must be for her than for me, with the love and support of Ellen and all the rest of you that I am blessed to receive. Feeling all of your caring and good thoughts during these weeks has been tremendously helpful.

So stay tuned. I realize these last couple of messages I've been sort of vamping, as opposed to having some significant new information to report. But it's coming. And then it's: On with life. Which is true for all of us.

Peace and love,
Dan
(oh oh, am I having a flashback?)

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