There's No Place Like Home

After another long admission of about three weeks, my leaves of absence went well and I've finally been discharged from the hospital. Again.

I've been down this road before, but really, I hope this is the last time. Barring major illness or catastrophe, it should be.

It feels great to be home. Playing with my kids. Hugs every day. Sleeping in the same bed as my wife.  I'm already getting stronger and steadier, packing in calories, moving around more.  Don't get me wrong, I still move around like a drunken, wobbling disaster, I can't stand for more than three or four minutes at a time, and can basically accomplish nothing that can't be achieved from a seated or prone position, but it's getting better.

And in a couple of days I'll finally be starting the Ottawa Hospital's excellent rehab physio program - an intensive, full time, affair. It will be rough, but much needed to restore all I've lost from the steroids and from the generally sedentary period in the hospital.

I'm also off almost all of my meds, too, which feels great. I'm down to three pills: Ursodiol for my liver, Acyclovir for shingles/chicken pox, and Pantoloc to protect my stomach from all the meds. Though as I'm writing this I'm questioning the need for that last one now...

Cancer Risk Assessment

Cancer Care Ontario has this great guide for assessing and lowering your risk of various cancers: breast, colorectal, cervical and lung. Please tell me if I ever get preachy, but as a guy with a randomly occurring, unpredictable cancer that has no real risk factors, it's important to assess your risks for these kinds of cancers when possible, and to talk to your families about it. Have a look. 

Cancer: the Emperor of all Maladies

I recently mentioned the Ken Burns/Barack Goodman upcoming PBS documentary, Cancer: the Emperor of all Maladies, and I highly recommend the website and short video profiles. But the short I Loved it All, particularly moved me, and absolutely crushed me. I tweeted the other day about how these days everyone's a photographer. But there still remains an art to it that rests in rare, gifted hands, and that's telling moving stories through nothing but stills.

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BLOG MOVING

Please note this blog will be moving soon. This is taking longer than expected, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks. Forwarding information will of course be made available. Thanks.