John’s thoughts, rants, and crazy ideas
For a variety of reasons, we all celebrate ‘Hump Day’, that day that falls in the middle of a string of days that we are working our way through. The most commonly celebrated is Wednesday, the middle of the workweek, and the day most associated with the term. Today is Suzanne’s Hump Day. She is officially past the halfway mark with her radiation treatments. Actually, she gets to celebrate two Hump Days this week. On Monday, she passed the halfway…
Up here at Rush and on the campus of the University of Illinois, masks are required at all times, indoors or outdoors. Tough one this old guy that loves the fresh air. Beyond that, when you enter the Rush complex even if you have a mask on, you are given a new mask for the day. I guess they don’t want Suzanne’s fancy ones to cause anyone else to be jealous. Watching her sew during Chemotherapy treatments is a hoot….
I’ve been to Long John Silvers when someone who walks out the door rings the bell to say they had good service. Raising our kids, we had an old schoolhouse bell that we would ring to announce mealtime. Every Sunday, as church begins, someone rings the bell announcing to the town that it’s time to bow our heads in worship. Now there’s a new bell in my life. This bell hangs in the hallway just outside the waiting area where…
I can’t tell you how many times someone has said ‘didn’t your first wife die from cancer”? Responding yes, I then proceed to tell them the Cliffs Notes version of 32 years ago. Then I try and share our current situation. So what is my current situation? My current wife has cancer and my first wife died from cancer. An unusual situation I have to admit. The other truth in this situation is I am the only common denominator that…
Home again this weekend and Suzanne refers to this time spent in our own home as ‘Vacation’. For her, it is the time away from all the reminders of treatments, meetings with doctors, finance & insurance challenges, and the strains of living in our tiny apartment. Not that we don’t appreciate the place we have to stay in Chicago, can’t imagine what it would be like without it. But it’s not home. As we pull into the driveway we’re able…
Everyday chores, like mowing the yard, are those tasks we usually don’t look forward to. I’m sure the reason is we don’t have a choice when or if it has to be done. Weeding the flower bed, feeding the animals, canning the fall harvest, we are all responsible for these kinds of tasks in our life. In many cases, we each have our assigned (or sometimes, assumed) responsibilities around the house. Someone cooks, someone makes sure the car has gas,…
Thursday is the only day after radiation that Suzanne doesn’t have other appointments; Doctors, bloodwork, nutritionist, or therapists. That means we got a full day of nothing to do after 7:45am so we decided to go to the Chicago Botanical Garden. Neither of us has ever been there, although we do go to botanical gardens whenever we can. We enjoy walking the paths, looking at all the different plants, trees & flowers; and creating new ideas in our mind of…
Every morning we take a 20-minute stroll through the streets of Chicago. Leaving our apartment at 6:45 a.m., elevator down to the ground floor, through the double set of security doors and down the stairs to Damen Avenue. Our building is on the corner so it’s only 50 yards north to Polk Street where we head east. As the sun is just rising at this hour, it stares us in the face hovering above the city horizon. I usually walk…
Last week I shared that I didn’t like the emphasis that was placed on the word ‘believe’ when used with Christianity. Believe connotates that something is true even without any evidence. Although my religious faith is a combination of biblical history and scientific fact, it still leads me to one conclusion, I don’t just ‘believe’, I know there is a God. As a child, I struggled with the concept of God but as a Catholic, that was taboo. I didn’t…
I started writing about our journey the day we found out that Suzanne had cancer, but you might not know how we got to that point. Let’s just say we both believe the hand of God pushed many people in our direction. Back in January, the Parkland Dental school noticed that Suzanne had a small bump on the side of her neck just below the jawline. Checking in with the local clinic, they believed it was just a swollen gland…