Good news today!
EXTRA! – 6/19/07 11:00 A.M. – I drove Dianna and Mark to see her surgeon at M.D. Anderson this morning, and she got the good news that the pathology reports show no cancer in the tissues surgically removed, including lymph nodes. She is now considered to be equal to a Stage 1 patient, and may not have to have the scheduled radiation treatments. The nurse told them and said someone higher up had helped her, and she wasn’t talking about the chemotherapists up on the 8th floor. Thank you for all your prayers.
Resuming regular blog, written earlier:
June 19, 2007 (Tuesday) – Dianna had to go in to the hospital last evening for some tests, and I drove her. We left here at 4:00 p.m. and got back at 11:00 p.m. The tests showed she is doing fine. She has an appointment again this morning, so her close friend and neighbor will drive her and Mark while I stay here with my grandchildren. It is 40 to 50 miles from the house to the hospital, a journey better left to younger drivers, during rush hour.
So far I’ve managed to get lost in the Medical Center twice, during my present sojourn in the big city. I am just amazed and flabbergasted at the size and scope of the medical center in Houston.
My cousin and I used to ride the bus to Herman Park and rent bicycles. We would buy a pint of ice cream for each of us and ride on to the woods across the road from the drug store. We would ride over trails in the woods to a pond, where we sat down and ate our ice cream, occasionally skipping a rock across the water in the pond. Yesterday I drove through busy streets and parked in a gigantic garage in about the same place that was virgin forest when I was a teenager. In the place where we threw rocks across the pond, I slipped my credit card into an automatic pay machine in the garage, charging myself $10 for 5 hours parking. The woods were free.
As we were driving to the hospital, I told Dianna we were driving over the site of a house we lived in, while I was growing up. The freeway was built over Jarrell Street . When I was five years old, that’s where we lived for a while. That’s where I lit a firecracker while holding it and it exploded in my hand. It’s also where I fell and broke my collar bone. I refused to go to the doctor, but relented and went when I was offered an ice cream cone as a reward.
Tomorrow is the birthday of my sisters, Elva and Melva. I am almost 3 years older than they. Maybe some of the readers of this blog would like to know more about my family. I remember (yes, I really do) seeing my new twin sisters, lying in the bed with my mother, one on either side of her. My parents later divorced and remarried. My mother and stepfather had two boys and one girl, born in 1944, 1949, and 1953 respectively. My father and stepmother had one girl, born in 1945. I am occasionally asked how many were in my family. The answer is, seven children in all: I had two full sisters, two half sisters and two half brothers. The heads of the tribes of Israel were brothers, but not all had the same mother, so some were half brothers. But they are always called brothers in the Bible. That’s the way it is for me. My brothers are Joe Heim and Jimmy Heim (deceased). My sisters are Elva Underwood, Melva Keil, Brenda Jones, and Mary Sanders. Each of them is special. I love them all.
I’m not promising never to write like this again. In fact, I probably will. Boring for you. Fun for me.