Many of you out there probably never saw my wonderful catheter, and certainly not the 90% of it that stays under the skin. It’s been my unfortunate pal since mid-November. Anyway it’s coming out finally on Monday morning. That will leave me almost completely normal and almost done with treatment. Apparently they don’t even have to put me under to pull it out. And my skin which has been bandaged around it will finally get to breathe. You can get some pretty cool blisters having your skin bandaged up like that so long. The picture is from a medical supply company, so 90% of that stays under your skin.

As many well know the old internet of my college days and before was based upon mass sharing and everyone assumed for the best. I still pretty much adhere to that formula, but I’ve had to turn off my comments on this blog because of spammers. In fact I had to dig through some PHP to turn off all entry points to comments. Some Russian spammers kept adding random comments which were just links to gambling sites. Too bad really, but better than allowing it. At one point I had over 3000+ comments.

On the cancer front today was a good day. I haven’t even had a nap yet, I went for a 50 minute walk after two straight days of missing it, and I talked to a very old dear friend from 6th grade of all places who’s doing well and glad to here I’m well on the way to being completely mended. For those who pay attention my WBC as of yesterday was 2.1, my hemoglobin is 10.0, and my platelets are 82. So it’s all still outside the normal range, but the doctor said to go ahead and schedule to get my port out. Boy, I won’t miss that thing, and back to normal showers.

Joe and Tom and Scum visited today. It’s nice to see family and friends. We had a good time and played our way through a game of Munchkin which Tom eventually won. For some reason Tom also had an itching for Jack in the Box (as I call it Jack in the Crack) which they got lost finding for lunch. And they like good uncles they brought presents for their nieces Molly and Kassie.

I’m feeling really good. About the only pain I experience anymore is when the nurses doing my port cleans pull a little to hard on the lines. And the whole port comes out in the next week or two probably. Tomorrow my Mom comes in for the grandma swap off. They’ve been great throughout the ordeal.

Looking back on the year its been a lot different then expected. I found pretty much my ideal job at EDFUND managing software developers for a non-profit company, Molly showed up a little early as a bundle of joy, and all the Gibbs brothers got together for Joe and Ghen’s wedding. Then of course the cancer relapse, RICE cycles, and the stem cell transplant. I realize I spent 29 days in the hospital, almost an entire month in the last 3 months. I’m very, very glad to have survived everything intact and be happily back in remission. Cancer though is a bitch. As I ring in the new year I look forward to a lot of things.

• Finishing the stem cell transplant and going back to work
• Micki finishing the BAR
• Molly’s first birthday
• A trip to the redwoods in March/April
• A Gibbsmen trip.
• A new niece or nephew to be a fun uncle too
• My birthday Jan 31
• GT winning the Final Four (well I can hope)
• Many more exciting adventures

After 24 days inside, I got permission today from my doctor to go for walks. I took him up on it this afternoon and walked for about 25 minutes with the new iPod. It felt great to stretch the legs again. I actually sweated, which I haven’t done since I had a fever. For the statisticians my WBC is up to 1.6 and my platelets are up to 66 so I’m in little danger of bleeding to death. I can feel my vision expanding again. It’s less day to day and more what am I going to do next week or next month. I’m looking forward to a trip to the redwoods in Northern California. I always had trouble believing that picture of the highway going through a redwood tree, and now I finally get a chance to see it.

I feel exceptionally lucky to have gone through this pretty much unscathed with a great amount of help from my wife, my Mom, my Mother in law, my Dad, my Father in law, my brothers, all the members of Gibbscrew, the many people at EDFUND who have only known me briefly, and the neighbors here in East Sac who have baked for us, babysat the kids, and generally raised our spirits. I’ve even been helped by my little 4 year old nephew who drew me a wonderful robot picture for my hospital wall. Then my doctors and nurses who have done there jobs and more.

And tonight I have a favorite job to do, Micki and Joan are making me cookies, and I am in charge of quality control. You have to sample at least 1 or 2 from every batch with a large helping of milk.

Oh I even got my story added to a site to encourage blood transfusions.

The doctor just came by, and said I could go home tomorrow assuming when they pull my antibiotics today that I don’t develop any fevers! Yes, escape!!! If it works out Dec 28th would be exactly the day I predicted for getting out. I’m doing my happy dance now, and no it won’t be recorded.