Putting my chemistry set away

I just took my last dose of mecaptopurine (I hope). No more prednisone, no more vincristine, no more methotrexate. I have taken 21,600 mg of mercaptopurine, 9000 mg of prednisone, 2835 mg of methotrexate and 180 mg of vincristine in the last 18 months. I feel good. No worse than Halloween at URI, and only mildly stranger. I won't get that bone marrow biopsy until April, give the cruel flowers time to bloom if they are there growing in me, which they aren't. Fer cryin' out loud, nothing lives through this shit, I haven't had a cold or the flu while people drop like flies all around me, knock on wood. I have never seen flies drop, hmmmm.

Anyway, I am trying to throw a golf game back together, an old man game that doesn't go for power. It's been about a year since I gave it up. I've been hitting the shag bag and the putting green. Hit the driving range yesterday to get some tips from Jack Leary, and now my hip and back are hurting. Surfed yesterday, really badly, first time in 5 months or so, then hit the driving range, so maybe that was too much. Or, I can't ratchet down to the old man swing and overdid it. Golf is a strange game in that you can quit for a while and lose some bad habits, so when you restart it seems easier. Of course those old habits will sneak back and the nasty cycle begins again. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. A new hip is cheaper; I see they have this new way to recoat hip joints with titanium, gotta check into that.

Looks like I made it through leukemia, and it isn't going to kill me, at least not just yet and hopefully never. It certainly has made me change my basic outlook of the future, but I haven't taken the big step of changing my life to reflect that. My guess is that most of us will die leaving behind grandiose schemes, plans, ideas, unrequited loves, regrets, novels in our heads, gifts never given, travels never travelled, words unspoken. Reminds me of a section from the book of Bokonon from Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle:
Tiger gotta hunt. Bird gotta fly.
Man gotta sit and wonder why, why, why.
Tiger gotta sleep. Bird gotta land.
Man gotta tell himself he understand.
I think that's where it's from. I keep talking to myself but I still don't understand.

I will post one more time, after the April tests, and then it will be time to put this blog to rest, we hope for good.