The Longevity of a Blog

   Connie asked me yesterday how much longer I was going to be using this blog as a platform to keep my friends and family updated regarding my health.  It is a fair question at this point because the updates have been quite mundane lately and progress towards complete recovery has been slowed just as we had anticipated.  I stand at Day +63 since my transplant and I am recovering well.  The major stepping stones of this journey with lymphoma seem to be behind me.  God has led me through this crazy episode and I am looking forward to more years of health.  
  To answer my wife's question, I don't know.  This writings collected here have served the purpose I had hoped.  It allowed so many people to be updated without me having to field constant phone calls and texts.  It gave people the opportunity to pray for specific details of my recovery process.  It allowed me to offer others the insights of what God was teaching me through his word and through this experience.   God has been so good.  In many ways, I am almost to the point of being ready to change my focus from being a person with cancer who is struggling with the pressures of life to being a person without cancer who is working at being a better dad and husband and teacher and friend.  For so long my outlook on life of who I was and what I needed was colored by my health status.  Since the end of October, my health has been the overriding demanding factor that dictated how I had to live. That overwhelming characteristic is soon to be in my past.  I can focus my attention on other matters and not so much on my blood counts, my weight, and my doctors' appointments, and my meds.  I want to be normal again.
   How much longer will I produce the entries for this blog?  I don't really know.  I don't feel the need to notify the world in a continual fashion that I am still tired and I am still skinny and I still have to wear my gloves and mask.  At the same time, there will be a moment when God really shines through, or a prayer concern that arises that I would like to pass along to people.  I think I will keep the option open because this blog project has become a friend of mine, something I look forward to tending.   I have been blessed through it and I don't think I want to give it up completely.  The catharsis I have found in writing has been good for me.  For now, let's keep it going.  Soon school will start and I will be just a normal teacher again...too busy planning and grading to be concerned with blogs or cancer.  I will be a normal teacher, but one with a new perspective on the value of life and the power of God -- and if I forget any of those lessons I have learned, I will have this collection of writings to remind me.

   (By the way, Connie and I celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary tonight.  I had a five-ounce "taster" beer, my first beer in almost a year.  I love my wife.  I might even learn to like beer again. The next challenge is to regain the taste for coffee...)