Detailing aspects of my life from rare disease and cancer to family culture, and lots of fun things in between them
Gaze at the moon through a telescope, and you’ll experience the amazement of an object you can’t touch or feel. It’s our closest celestial body, yet it’s so far away. Think about our vast universe. We are just a miniscule spec in comparison to its infinite size. Try to dream of what might be going […]
Fresh Summer Guacamole
A Foreshadowing Of My Future It’s odd how beautiful it always seems to be on my days of surgery. This day did not disappoint. I think it was a Wednesday and the month was June. I love May and June. They’re the best months of the year. It feels so nice to leave behind the […]
This Is Getting To Be A Real Pain In The Neck The next step of my adventure led to an Eye and Ear Hospital at a local health system. It was a teaching facility that is a well-known part of a local university. I’ve developed the opinion that if you are a complicated patient, then […]
Moving Forward With Life I had the surgery in the month of June and resumed golfing a few weeks later. Per my physicians, there was now a much higher risk of getting a repeat occurrence of melanoma. Because of this, I was advised to completely protect myself from the sun. My boss even used the […]
Recover and pathology Work was a pretty good place for me to be on a daily basis. I received wound care as needed. My boss and one of the wonderful nurses checked me regularly. At this point, two events occurred which in retrospect were foreshadowing my future. First, as time progressed, my forehead stitches became […]
This is my family’s version of Italian Wedding Soup. My Grandma Leandra always called it Endive Soup. Her choice of greens to use in the soup was endive instead of spinach or escarole. So that is what led to the name. It was a staple at most cold weather events and holidays. We were NEVER […]
An Unnerving Experience The events of my surgery day are stored vividly in my memory. I recall arriving at the surgery center, talking to the reception workers, and filling out paperwork. Never having surgery meant not knowing what to expect that day. Having had 21 surgeries since this; it’s all “old hat” to me now. […]
A simple yet tasty and versatile recipe that can be used as an appetizer or main dish. This was created by my friend Mark. He showed it to my friends and I about ten years ago. And we now eat it quite often and have adapted it to be a main course in addition to […]
The Longest Weeks The weekend and Monday passed by, and Tuesday brought the results from the clinic as follows: NOT likely to be melanoma, rather it is “favored” to be a severely atypical dermal Spitz nevus. What the hell is that? Answer is….. it’s a whole lot of craziness. I ended up at a melanoma specialist at a local […]
An Introduction to Life and Science Now….what was malignant melanoma? Again, not being too knowledgeable; I knew it wasn’t good, but I really didn’t know how bad it could be. This being the case, I showed it too one of our nurses. Wow, did that cause a ruckus! Within three minutes there were four co-workers around me looking […]