Mighty Mice, Telly Savalas, and More

Hello everyone:

I'm sitting in the basement with Kathleen and Lucy (the dog), watching "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and getting myself ready for the start of chemo tomorrow. The dog always preferred George Lazenby's Bond to Connery or the others. You'll have to ask her why.

Thanks to all of you who sent me emails or voice mails as we got ready to talk to the boys about all of this. The bottom line is that they did fine, all things considered. I met with my guys this morning along with their mom and the talk went well. We focused the conversation on what they need to know right now, which is that I have this disease but that we also have a solid plan of attack. I reminded them of famous and not so famous people we knew who have successfully beaten cancer. This is just one conversation in what is likely to be an ongoing series. They're concerned, and there will certainly be other conversations during the rough days we'll go through to get to the other side of this. But there will be another side, and that was the main message. The boys' mom has been extremely generous and supportive through this, for which I'm very grateful.

Kathleen also sat down with her boys, Lucas and Theo, to share the news today. They wre quite supportive, and I know that they'll do whatever they can to help us get through this.

I'll be honest and say that getting the "mediport" put in my chest on Friday was not fun and still hurts like a son of a bitch. That said, I can now say that I have four nipples. How many other bipeds can tell you that? The discomfort was a sobering reminder that regardless of my attempts at false bravado and compartmentalization, this disease is going to extract its pound of flesh from me before I'm rid of it. I have this odd sense that as we have become increasingly aware of the intruder's presence, it is shedding its stealthy ways. We're about to have war out in the open, without the cold war subterfuge of the last few months (ok, maybe that image came from watching Lazenby foil Telly Savalas on the TV)...

So tomorrow, I start my chemo with a 5-hour dose of Rituxan, which is derived from mouse proteins and attacks the outer lining of the lymphoma cells. At 9:40 a.m., I'll be singing the theme to Mighty Mouse ("Here I come to save the day..."). If you want to sing along with me, you know, as a sign of solidarity with super hero rodents the world over, not to mention solidarity with yours truly, that would be most welcome.

Hugs,

Steve