Hi Linda Lucinda,

First, I have to thank you for the lovely message, and then comment on what a lovely name Lucinda is! I have a document that is sort of an annotated family history dating to The Virginia Colony in the 1660s, and it was a favorite name for members of my family line for at least a couple of centuries!

I'm impressed that you survived your chest wounds. I survived a flail chest in my last year in the army, one year before getting shot. My right lung was shredded by broken rib-ends (the car I'd been riding in was bouncing around with some definite enthusiasm) but I was fortunately unconscious at the time.

Please accept my sincere condolences on the death of your husband. You, Linda Lucinda, are one tough cookie and I salute you!

Welcome to the "Recurrence Club." I'm awaiting word from my medical team as to when I can start my next three weeks of rads to Zap my recently discovered 6th recurrence. This one is just a single "hot" lymph node, up on the outside of my esophogaus near the top of the stomach.

At or about the same time as we discovered that, we found (from the last CT w/contrast) and verified via ordinary Xray, that my colon was obstructing. I'm quite sure that this is a result of one of the repaired bullet holes adhering to the opposite intestinal wall (I get colonoscopies every 3 years, and they always find some that have to be pried apart to proceed up-stream.

And just to make things interesting; (old chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times") four weeks ago today, I developed a lingual hernia which had to be repaired first (we did that Monday.)

Wed, I had a consult with the GI walla who had done my colonoscopies since '02, but he doesn't have an opening until July 23, so I've emailed my med team and asked to get the rads started ASAP.

I've been pretty busy lately, never a dull moment, eh?