Well, now that al-Zarqawi is dead, we will see if he was an indispensable leader or if others will immediately take his place.  I have my doubts - I'm glad that he's gone, but I think the problems in Iraq go much, much deeper than one person ( Read more... )

Mom was able to get an appointment at Dana Farber, but not until next Wednesday.  The doctor at Worcester Medical center who diagnosed her is apparently going to try and appeal for an earlier appointment.  If this is really what they think it is, it tends to get  worse quickly and there isn't any time to lose ( Read more... )

Mom learned today that she probably has one of two closely related conditions - Acute Megakaryocytic Leukemia or Acute Panmyelosis with Myelofibrosis.  They are basically rare forms of leukemia.  The prognosis for them is usually not good ( Read more... )

Well, they still aren't really sure what's wrong with mom.  After doing a preliminary examination of a sample of her bone marrow, the hematologist said that he "wasn't sure what he was looking at" and that more tests needed to be done.  Apparently, it didn't look noral and healthy under a microscope, but it didn't look exactly like any obvious ( Read more... )

A long commute is kind of like a part-time job, except that you have to pay to do it instead of getting paid.

Type your cut contents here.

Yesterday evening, light through clouds in the evening - and I even accidentally got the silhouette of a bird flying through the picture!

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Now, mom is up and walking around again with very little pain.  The problem is that she needs some pretty strong painkillers to get out of most of her pain attacks.  Then, she will feel all right for a few hours, and if things follow the pattern of the last couple of weeks, the pain will come back ( Read more... )

This afternoon, Mom, Dad, and myself were all outside doing various lawn and garden chores.  Mom was feeling OK.  This evening, though, she started to hurt more (see my previous post), but thought that it would go away when she took some painkiller.  It didn't get any better.  Half an hour ago, my father and I had to support her as she went ( Read more... )

I like taking landscape photographs if I happen to see something that looks interesting and I happen to have a camera.  I doubt that I have any particular talent, and it would be accurate to say that I am more amateur than most amateurs.   My camera is a 4-year old, relatively cheap digital model, and I am probably not even using its best features ( Read more... )

Mom had a bad pain attack last night.  The combination of Advil and Vicodin isn't working well anymore, so she just got a prescription for a morphine-based painkiller.

She gets the biopsy on her bone marrow next Thursday.  It stinks that she can't get it done sooner.

God, please let this be something that can be treated quickly.