I could pussyfoot around about this or try "cutesy" language, but I really am not up to very much "cutesy" at the moment. It is Wednesday night, shortly after 9:15 PM EDT and I am exhausted from what turned out to be a 2 hour drive that took us over 3 hours to complete.

I have small cell lung cancer and it is inoperable and incurable. A very caring young doctor told me today as gently as she could that my days here on this plane are now numbered... probably six months, no more than nine months. Unfortunately, the sentence is non-negotiable and all but certain.

Until the end, I AM ALIVE and I WILL STAY ALIVE --- as alive as I can be! If you wish to help shoulder some of my worry and burdens, concern yourselves with Secretary Sage and her needs right now and in the months to come. The cancer will become painful for me, in a physical way, near the end, but there are potions and nostrums and pills for those pains.

There is no pill or potion or magical elixir anywhere on earth that I can find to soothe the pain I see in her eyes when she thinks I am not watching her. Some of you might be shocked just how hard I did pray for such a pain reliever for her. There will never be an anesthesia powerful enough to mask the pain I saw in her eyes when I had to break the news to her this afternoon that the Lion's luck has finally run its string. I will be dead in 6 - 9 months or so and I'll have to wait for her to catch up with me again farther on down the line.

I often joke that, were it not for bad luck, I just wouldn't have any luck at all. That's not true, however. I have Sage and I have you guys. I got to tell my son how much I love him again yesterday and to hear him talk with me as if I were worthy of being his father... though I am probably not. I get the last laugh on him though. As long as he lives, I have come as close to accomplishing perfection that any man can even come close to accomplishing on this earth. One day, he will hold his child and know I speak the truth.

There is much to "tidy up" in the detrititus of a human life. Mine is no different. I shall spend as much time as I have left to me thrilling in the sight of Secretary Sage fuming over some "bone-head stunt" I plan to pull off as soon as I dream it up and collapsing with her in piles of laughter and memories that will have to last both of us an eternity. I will post here, as the mood moves me and the strength remains. I refuse to allow anyone here to cut me any slack because of an inconvenience. Don't even try it! It's not a pretty sight, at all. In fact, they believe that the last two emergency disaster drill alerts they had at the hospital yesterday were actually me commenting (rather forcefully, I guess) on the food and a nurse with a dull needle.

As for the nurse who rubbed the Betadine on me despite all the warnings and cautions against doing so, I am told that just before losing consciousness, I looked at her and asked if she had taken extra class credit for "stupid stunts." Then I asked her if she could read the sign she had ignored and don't remember much after that. I do remember coming to and seeing Sage standing there protectively hovering above me, feet well spread in a solid-as-a-rock-fighting-stance and one hellaciously angry fire beam coming from each of her eyes! Had that thought been my first in eternity, it would have been very simple. I would have faced eternity thinking, "Boy! Am I glad she's not that mad at me!"

Thanks for inviting us into your thoughts and prayers. Thanks for being our friends. We both need all of those thoughts, prayers and friends we can get right now.

j (laf)