Sent: Monday, October 25, 1999 2:36 PM Subject: T+4, midday Check out the attached picture file. I laughed so hard that my first response was to send a note to the perpetrator warning him that in the future things like this could injure my health. My caption is: I didn't know he was Jewish. This is not going to my head. I had nothing to do with it. I think some of you have too much free time on their hands. There is also a rumor of a similar picture of me as a hooker, but I haven't seen that yet. Maybe we can have a contest, Zelig for amateurs. Here goes another reasonably serious one. But first, another word from our sponsor: Talking to people, I realize that not everyone out there is up on the latest that I have been sending out through email. In particular, I get frequent requests for the web site address. I think I will try to put it in every message, as this is really the repository for what's been going on with me, and some interesting pictures too. http://www.goss.com/david/ Still 0 cents, Cheap??? I just finished some of my morning extracurricular activities. Mouth care, working out with my hand weights and juggling practice in preparation to impress and amaze the docs. My juggling skills are rusty, and my arms actually got tired, but I've got enough left to freak them out. Tried birdwatching, a little hard through the commercial glazing with the integral mini-blinds, which get in the way. Could not see any birds, but did catch a Boeing 747/400 coming north out of DIA. Couldn't find any details about it in my Peterson's Guide. I feel the same as yesterday, just great. They gave me a hit of a chemo drug last night, the same as they used a few days ago. The only effect so far was that it put me asleep in the middle of a real interesting PBS show on the Russian's secret moon project to beat the Americans. Nerd heaven, with great films I've never seen before. I didn't catch the ending. Can anyone let me know if they made it there first or not? Now, on with the show. I thought so last night, and confirmed with the docs this morning, that I have a mouth sore. It is a line parallel to my right teeth line. It seems to mostly likely have been caused by chewing or talking motion, mechanical abrasion from the teeth, oral tribology for you ME's out there. Maybe I've had too much of a good time lately. This may be equivalent to the mother of all hangovers for enjoying yourself. Maybe it was inevitable, given the geometry of my mouth, that simply eating is the cause. Who knows, but the effect is there. This has been expected, but will mark a change in my behavior. Frankly, I may have been talking too much, and further I think my talking should be reduced in the future, just to minimize any possible mechanical abrasion on my mouth lining. I request that you stop outside calls and visits, unless I specifically request such from certain people. There are some of you who I have made specific requests to get in touch (you know who you are), and if you haven't made it through, keep on trying. I will keep the conversations short, to your detriment, since I have feedback indicating that my previous conversations have been, if nothing else, extremely entertaining. If I stay otherwise healthy, this will actually help me in a strange way, as I will be able to spend more time on my email and other cyberworld activities. You can expect more jokes, movie reviews, web page references, etc., as I will still devote my energies to keeping in touch, just not by talking on the phone or receiving visitors. I have a backlog of projects and half finished documents that I have not been able to get to. I actually had a Freudian slip yesterday, telling a nurse that I had to get back to my office, er, room. This is the work I have chosen to do. In reference to an earlier email, it sure beats lying here and watching Jerry Springer all day long. Besides, I've got to start working on the movie deal. Have your people call mine, and we'll do lunch. I appear to be entering another phase of my time here. The possibilities range from not much different than the last 11 days, to a real uncomfortable period. This news may sadden many of you, and I have certainly not been looking forward to it. At worst, I have been told to expect to be real sick for maybe the next two weeks once it really hits the fan, if it ever really does. The changes my body are going through are a necessary part of the treatment. They are normal for the folks in my neighborhood here. If I appear to be suffering when going through this, again, just consider the alternative of not going through this; a whole lot of suffering with no possibility of getting through this. My future is still as bright as it was yesterday. I am climbing the next mountain, perhaps several of them in parallel right now. I still look forward to the views from the various peaks. Considering what I came down with last summer, acute myelogeneous leukemia, things are still as good as they possibly could be. My survival chance graph is inching up every minute I am here. In particular, I could have been real sick, suffering, depressed, frightened, in acute health crisis, etc., for the 11 days that I have been in Hotel Pres. Instead, I have had one of the best times of my life. Considering the possibilities here over my recent past in this place, this time has been better than a similar time on a certain beach on north Kauai, relatively speaking. Hell, I even got a suntan here, of sorts. I knew what was coming the moment I walked in the door here on Oct 15 ( I actually knew about it way back in the summer). Just like people say in the movies they don't know if they can stand up to torture (except for Woody Allen, of course, he tells you that he can't), I really don't know how well I may put up with the physical discomfort that may present itself to me. I've simply never been through anything like this before. Maybe a bad flu here and there. The marathon training was sometimes tough, but never really that uncomfortable. You know, I used to tell people about my running in a way that could help here. When they asked how I put up with the training I told them this: You just have to accept the discomfort level for what it is, get used to it and get on with the training. Then you reach your next level of discomfort and do it again. Training for running a marathon was just accepting everything you had to go through. That goal, a 2:57 time in the 1984 Humboldt Redwoods Marathon, was certainly worth the effort. A good metaphor?? I think so. The people here have the best and latest drugs and anything else to get us folks through the coming times. I've talked to several people who have gotten through this discomfort and they are doing great today. It's just a phase, maybe like acne. I am in the best possible position to deal with any coming problems as well as possible. My physical, mental, psychic, emotional, support, karmic and any other energy levels are as high as they can possibly be, maybe as high as anybody as ever been in when facing my same future. One of my more ethereal friends suggested that I have been preparing for this for years by donating all that blood. Who knows? Please continue to devote whatever strength and thoughts you can in my direction. You guys out there, including all those amazing people I have never even met, have been a real source for me to draw upon. Keep those emails and, and if you have nice, appropriate ones, pictures coming. I got a real nice one with somebody's dogs on it yesterday. JoAnne really liked that one too. In other news. I received a real touching email from my neighbors last night, actually from my younger neighbor's, Eliot and Lilly. They are 7 and 4. Thought you might like to see that you adults don't have the exclusive rights to trying to keeping me happy: Dear Dave, I know you have cancer. I know a friend who had cancer that didn't die. He's in my class. He's not at school very much. He now doesn't have cancer. I know you got shots. . got shots. Get well soon. Call me if you can at ???-???. And I'll send you another e-mail. Eliot Dear Dave, I love you. I'll make a picture for you.I know you are sick in the hospital. Lilly Actually, I've got a picture on my wall here from Lilly, showing her family coming to visit me. Sort of early Picasso cubist period, I think. For you non-spreadsheet types. Clint Goss, my great friend, and keeper of my web page, has put the graph sent out earlier today on the web page. I haven't checked if he can update things frequently, but it is likely. You can keep track of some of my insider information here. I just had my morning rounds with the docs. Dr. Brunvand told me that everything is as perfectly normal as they could hope for. He further stated that the every day I get through here and in the apartment afterward represents a roughly 1% improvement over the remaining problems I face to beat this. I figured my chances at 65% when I walked in the door. I leave the obvious graphs as homework for the reader. I may publish the worst solution!, just kidding. An east coast friend is taking printouts of my emails to her gym, she reads them while on the stairmaster each morning. Another exerciser asked what she was reading, and after an explanation, asked to read it. I am apparently now the main interest of a group of ladies exercising every morning about 2000 miles away from here. Better than a soap opera. Hello to you ladies out there, you know who you are. I caught parts of Rainman and parts of Soapdish on TV yesterday, between phone calls. The former is a truly great movie, with one of the most amazing performances ever. Even Tom Cruise appears to be able to act in it. The latter is a smaller film, with Sally Fields, Kevin Klein, Whoopee Goldberg, Elizabeth Shue and others. It's like a Moliere farce, based on the goings on in the background of a daytime soap opera. I highly recommend it. Catch any movie with the Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau combination in it. I especially like Grumpy Old Men. If you have any sense of humor this one will crack you up. Another very funny movie is Dumb and Dumber, filmed at least in part in Aspen. I didn't think I would like it, but what a gas. The Honeymooners is on the TV and Ralph just threatened to send Alice to the moon for the millionth time. Things could be a lot worse. I might have to stop watching or even thinking about such things if I start feeling bad, as the laughing might hurt too much. My information here comes from anywhere I can get it. The normal guy who cleans this place, Otis, has been on vacation since I got here. I was really looking forward to meeting him, as one of the survivors and her husband who went through here last year said he was a real character and a real lot of fun. Apparently, he is an avid football fan, but for the Vikings, not the Broncos, go figure. Anyway, there have been three different substitute cleaning people here, each with their own perspective on things. They, like all the other staff, have seen it all. The door opens yesterday, and a new guy comes in with the cleaning stuff. We make small talk, and then he asks me when I am getting out of here. I asked him what he means and tell him that I have been in here for 10 days, only a few since transplant. He is noticeably taken aback by that, and says that I look like the people do when they are ready to get out, not when they're still getting into it. What a lift. Another subtle indication of good news. The beds in these rooms are adjacent to the door to the hall. The hallway doors have windows, with internal mini-blinds, like the exterior windows. When I first came here, they kept the mini-blinds open so that people could look in on me without opening the door. I noticed on my walks that some of the blinds on the other patient rooms were open, and some were closed, and that the open ones looked like really sick people. A few days after I got here I also noticed that they had closed my blinds, which is controlled only from the hallway side of the door. I interpreted this as indicating that they don't think they need to check up on me unnecessarily, that I just need the 47 other, but normal, medical, food, cleaning, etc., visits that I get every day. More good new. About the blood count graphs. I just asked my day nurse when to expect the counts to start coming back up. I could keep you in suspense, but I won't. She said that I should expect lab test to show better counts in about 14 days. She also said that the actual counts of certain cells will rise before they can be measured, and the first indication will likely be the healing of any mouth sores. Hurray. Your body certainly knows how to take care of itself. I had a little trouble with Robbie yesterday. He was begging food at lunch, so I told him to go lie down in the corner. Bad dog. One last thing. A friend with cancer in the family sent me this. She said that It's what they give out to folks like me to lift their spirits and to help them make it through the bad time. She goes on to say that I don't need it, and that I have written better stuff myself in the last week, out of what I have gone through. No comment on that. I read it, and it got to me. Not to lift my spirits, as they are already up so high that my hematocrit can't support the rest of me up there, but to again try to throw some of what I have really learned this week out to the rest of you. READ THIS. LET IT REALLY SINK IN...THEN CHOOSE HOW YOU START YOUR DAY TOMORROW... Michael is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!" He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Michael was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Michael and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?" Michael replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Mike, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life. "Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested. "Yes, it is, "Michael said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situations a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life." I reflected on what Michael said. Soon thereafter, I left to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that Michael was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Michael was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. I saw Michael about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied. "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?" I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon to be born daughter," Michael replied. "Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live. "Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Michael continued, "...the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man." I knew I needed to take action." "What did you do?" I asked. "Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Michael. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. "Yes, I replied." The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, "Gravity." Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead." Michael lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything. "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."