Danny,
I really appreciate that you intend to share your ongoing story with us. I,like all of your friends here am pulling for you to get better. However I think that it is so gracious of you and so "Danny-like" of you to be willing to share with us whatever it is you will go through in the near future. I am sure that most of us (including me), for all that we have been through, have no idea what it is like to deal with cancer beyond the original radiation, chemo and surgery. Thank you for being the great guy that you are.

It is obvious how loved you are here.

Danny G.

Dear Danny Boy,

I am so glad to read your post and know how you are doing. I've wanted to write but I figure you have all kinds of red-heads doting on you already....

I know you will cause some kinda stir in Vegas. I wish I could go but my teaching schedule will not allow it after missing a whole semester this spring while I was out with Scott.

I do want to share some of Scott's words with you and others here. He always kept a personal journal and I have been comforted by reading them after his passing. I will share an excerpt here that he wrote three days after finding out he was "terminal" and 7 weeks before he died.

"...My heart is so full. I do not want to leave this life. I have such a feeling of joy and of purpose, although the latter is vague. So much I want to say, to tell, to write. So much I want to do with my wife and family, living and loving. So much of the world I want to see. I want to tell people that love really is the answer and that one of the best routes to that knowledge is literature, in its broadest category. It is always better to know than not to know.

I want to live and keep working and to do all the new work I now see could be mine to do. I want to warn people, poignantly and practically, against smoking and drinking.

It is hard, so hard to die when my heart and my head are so full of love and of life. I sense the joy. It is in me. It is in my love for Christine and the girls and my friends and loved ones. For my work. For literature, for life itself. I've had a good life.

A word has been the theme of my thoughts lately: Apotheosis. I think it means spiritual transformation. That has been happening to me, I believe. I will look it up exactly:

'Apotheosis--the culmination or highest development of a thing; the ultimate, quintessential, or final form; the exaltation of a person or a thing to a final state of triumph or glory, the ascension of a person or a thing from earthly existence to heavenly glory.'

Yes, that's right: Apotheosis of myself, of ourselves!"

Danny, I wanted to share this with you and others because even after a "terminal" diagnosis, Scott continued to amaze us with his many gifts of fierce heart and spirit.

And I recognize this in you, and I applaud you for being--as a friend described Scott--a light-bringer, a swift human current.

Christine

Danny and Christine,

Thanks so much for sharing yourselves, and Scott, with me (us). I applaud you for your courage and the spirit to fight this terrible beast. May God bless you both and keep you both safe from harm. Danny, keep fighting the good fight. I know you have it in you.

Hugs, Nancy

Dani. Sorry I did not get back to you. We are away from the computer all week because of the HBO treatments. It is a 3 hour drive so we stay there until Fridays. The pain my husband has where the bone is exposed is just extreme soreness. Nothing like the original pain. He swabs with Lidocaine and that takes some of the pain away for a little while. Too bad it does not last longer. The treatments are going well and the doctors say that new tissue appears to be starting to form. Charlotte caregiver

My husband is interested in going to Vegas also, is it too late? He has not been on the site, but I share it all with him.
Would someone let me know if its still a possibility?

Hey Danny,
I hope the rain we got in Spooner got to Eastern Wisconsin to wet down your sod. What a huge project! My husband just bought a new crossbow and shotgun. It makes me feel good that he is planning on sticking around a while to use them. I wish I could talk him into the Vegas gathering. He feels that when you can't eat or talk it's a waste of time to be at social functions. He won't go to his 50th class reunion either.

You're still on my prayer list.

Lowanne

Dear joansieny,

It's not to late to attend the reunion in Vegas. Go back in the General Posts and find a reunion thread started by JetAgehobo. It will give you all the details. If you can't find it email me and I will answer right away.

Your Friend, Danny Boy

Dear Dan

You are a remarkable and inspiring human being. I think of you often and am sorry I will not be able to get to Vegas to meet you and other OCF members. Keep up the attitude and thankyou for sharing your thoughts.

With love from your downunder friend, Helen

Joansie,

Of course you can bring anybody you wish. We are all one big happy (most of the time, anyway) family.

Ed

Joansieny, the only time it would be to late to make arrangements would be afterward. Heck even I don't have my arrangements all made yet and I live several thousand miles away. Check the latest reunion thread on details, for reservations, etc. I'll move it back up for those that have lost track of it.

Bob