What are people expecting?

Was visited by a couple of old friends this weekend. They seemed surprised, perhaps disappointed, that I wasn't more fragile. Of course I don't feel fragile at all - the cough that started late last week persists but the lungs are clear and I'm coughing up nothing and the days of crawling to the bathroom to, quite literally, puke up bits of my guts are (I hope) way behind me.

So when asked these days

'How are you coping?'

I usually say

'With tremendous elan'

And people know to leave it be.

That's not to say that the whole thing is worry free, as I said I'm so suspicious of this cough I could be a hypocondriac Hettie Wainthrop but generally life goes on, the dog demands walking, the bills require paying and the clients - whilst sympathetic - demand the same value for their monies.

The truth is it's a bit like having a cold - but being told to watch for signs of bird flu. Your antennae is up but you just keep trucking along.

We hit Chemo Three (the halfway point) this week; a couple of weeks later it's scan time and we'll have an indictation of how I'm responding; and to what to expect post Chemo 6. The likelihood is radiation therapy, I had a big mass and standard procedure is to radiate, but who knows? It could be good news and May 5th sees me done with treatment or bad news and 2006 sees the world done with me. Such, as they say, is life.

Anyway enough early morning musing from me, I've breakfast to eat, a dog to walk and a wife to pack off to Albany.

Later