Secretary Sage ahs been after to begin keeping a dairy, or to use the masculine nomenclature, a "Journal" where I can record private, initmate thoughts about each day I have remaining. I hesitate to do so for several reasons.

Most important of these is my need to keep my thoughts to myself. That is bassed on a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I am basically adverse to letting anyone know what I am thinking. I have a lifetime of experience that has taught me that allowing anyone to know my innermost thoughts inevitably leads to disaster for me. I will be attacked by somone dispeased with my thoughts, no matter how private they are, or how well founded those feelings might be in my own eyes. Allowing anyone to know my thoughts almost always results in someone telling me how my problems, my concerns, my thoughts are all the result of something else I did wrong or how it is my fault that I am experiencing those feelings.

I know that Sage says the Journal would be for my eyes alone, but, again, a lifetime of experience to the contrary convinces me that won't be the case in the end. Somehow, in some way, someone will gain access to those secret writings and the downhill slide in my life will immediately begin again at that point. It is not so much a case that I cannot trust. It is more a case of me having learned the hard way to not allow me to trust.

Another major reason for my hesitancy about reducing my thoughts to written form is a simple fear - a fear of yet another betrayal. Once again, this is a lesson hard learned from harsh, brutal experience. Those elsons commenced long ago in my childhood and they have been reinforced by my own experiences over the intervening years. My last attempt at trusting lead to one of the worse betrayals of my life and the pain is still fresh in my memory, though I try to will it away.

Secretary Sage is a special lady in my life and I cannot ever thank her or "the gods" or "fate" or whatever munificient benefactor who was responsible for bringing her into my life when I would need her the most. She is truly an angel flying too close to the ground and I have been blessed to have her here with me now when another turned her back on me at one of my lowest points (or so I thought at the time). Sage's being is a special spirit that defies proper description to any other being. I am not that good a wordsmith, I fear.

Then there is the biggest fear of all that restrains my hand from the keys of this computer. As amny of you know, right now, the "undiffereniated mass" (cancerous tumor) that was attached to my bronchia has disappeared from the CAT Scan screens. A complete bone scan of my body cannot find any "hot spots" indicating the cancerous cells have taken up hiding in any hidden nook or cranny of my bones, somethign I am told is quite common with small cell carcinomic lung cancer. Neither is it in any of my lymph nodes according to all the tests the voodoo practitioners performed over me. That leaves one place left to check for a second time. Sometime in the near future, my oncologist is going to send me in for yet another CAT Sxan of my brain to determine if the cancer has taken up residence in my brain - yet another common hiding place for small cell carcinomic lung cancer. If it is there, then my projected stay here on earth will become decidedly shortened. Again, a common prognosois under those circumstances. If it is found tehre, then there will be consultations between oncologists and radiologists with the states purpose of determining if I would respond to resumption of radiation therapy, only this time to my brain. It didn't take a whole lot of Internet surfing time to learn that some potential results of such treatments would be damage to my intellectual faculties or even my subconscious motor skills, such as respiration and heart function, kidney and bowel functions.

I have faced full scaled enemy battle charges and been caught in enemy staged ambushes in my life. WHile they frightened me greatly, not one of thos events even comes near to describing the sheer terror that I am experiencing right now of learning that the cancer is still hanging around, lying in wait to devaste me farther, with little warning, at somme future date. Even more frightening to me than that possibility is that from its new hiding place, it will reduce me farther down physically, emotionally and mentally than I already am.

Each day I must face anew the knowledge that my body has betrayed me yet again. I weighed in at 196 pounds from 1992 until late last year. That's when I actually began to put on a few extra pounds that worried me greatly. I got up to a burgeoning 203 pounds and it was driving me nuts. My most recent stagger onto the bathroom scales places me in the 169 pound range aand that is dumbfounding to me. No wonder I am having problems getting my legs to lift me from a chair, from the bed when I am prone or even from the toilet when I am ensconced upon my lionly throne in the majestically appointed reading room of the Lion's hovel amongst the hayseeds.

I am struck through and through with terror when I am unable to bend over and retrieve something I have dropped or fall face first into a waste basket next to my bed. There is the terror, for certain, but there is also the frightening self awareness that I am no longer the man I know myself to be. Blurred and double vision with accompanying dizziness and swimming head bouts were bad enough. Now I am told that I have "microaneuryisms" in the optical nerve area of both eyes and that the only viable alternative to total blindness in the near future is highly delicate laser surgery that has to happen in the near future.

When any rational being adds up all those negatives in my life right now, all that fear, trepidation and caps it off with dark memories of times I would love to forget ever occurred, what else could I write in a journal than the words, "I am scared sh*tless! I am not ready to die yet!?" Or, perhaps, "I am even weaker today and cannot stand unassisted or walk the 20 feet ro so to the parking pad where my truck is parked?" That's guaranteed to boost my morale by at least a millionth of a point.

Several of you have commented on how calmly I am handling the events in my life and how "brave" I am. Were I to give into teh invitation to begin recording my secret thoughts, I would read it and see that I am not "brave" in the least. I am terrified and the nightmare just won't seem to end. I have a huge vocabulary - when I can remember even the most simple words and phrases these days - yet am having trouble understanding all that has been happening to me. I don't understand why or why it keeps getting worse rather than better.

So. I am seeking advice from you, my friends. Should I do as Sage suggests and start writing down whatever pops into my mind each day, knowing that giving voice to those thoughts could possibly steal away whatever reserves of "bravery" I have left? Perhaps it won't, but then again... Is there value to the idea that writing out those thoughts may offer me some benefit, help me retain as much control of my life as I can muster? I really don't know and I really do want your thoughts on this. It's not as if I don't value Sage's opinion, but I fear she too is far too involved in what is happening to me and simply is grasping at straws to assist me through this period. She may not be, but I no longer trust my own decision making skills - a first for me after a life in which such hesitation could mean life or death for me or for others. Please forgive my unburdening of my soul like this for all to see and pity, for that is the last thing I want to do to, or receive from, anyone. I am really undecided and want - and need - your opinions. My first instinct is to trust that strawberry haired goddess. It has always worked out well before, but now we are dealing with my own ability to convince me to continue to fight and fight hard to beat that bony bastard - Death - once again.

If you would prefer to offer your comments privately, that that is perfectly understandable and acceptable. Use my e-mail page, reached by the icon below, or use my e-mail address, which almost everyone here knows by now. I don't think Sage would be offended by my asking your advice or any advice you may offer. That's the one bright spot in this whole madness. I have learned there is one person I can trust to never betray me or do something horrific to me because she determined for herself and without consulting me that hurting me badly now was preferable to possibly hurting me more in the future. The closest Sage comes to hurting me is to turn up her nose at my speckled butterbeans and rice with stewed okra. That's alright. I have plenty of other recipes that she does enjoy so the pain is short lived as I eat my bowl of those country delicacies all alone.