You will all be pleased to know that my mother can now look at the blog.  Not being computer literature she has a Macintosh laptop set up so that we can skype with her and all she needs to do is press one button but it was only yesterday that someone showed her how simple it was to log onto the blog and follow progress - Duncan did that on one of his visits to her and she's been reading the blog ever since.  So, "hello Mum".  Mum also write a very nice letter to us which we received today.  A lot of the time when we are troubled by the future, we look back at the past because the past is known and comforting.  I will reiterate to Mum and others that we had a terrific childhood surrounded by loving parents and that served as the foundations for later successes.  So, from my point of view, I don't have a single complaint about my developing years.  Lots of memories.  I remember Mum coming in at night and having us say a little prayer.  She often said it with us.  This must have been when I was still in early primary school I guess.  The prayer is as follows ..

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

This is a simple memory but one which has lasted over the years.  I'm not sure it was exactly comforting when I was 6 years old but nevertheless there's a simple message.  Anyway, Mum did that every night - just one of the many things she contributed to our upbringing.  So, thanks Mum, we're very proud of you for all the things you've done and continue to do.

Received a surprise parcel in the mail from Ed Jones and Elizabeth Hardebeck who are grandparents to our son-in-law Cameron Cooper.  Liz wrote a very nice letter indicating their continuing support for our predicament and we're very grateful to hear from them.  There was also a package which contained a jar of homemade plum jam.  We haven't opened this yet but will shortly.  Only in the midwest could this happen - just quite remarkable.  I might post a photo of the plum jam.  Ed and Liz are avid readers of the blog as well - there seems an amazing number of people who read the blog regularly that have not logged in as official members.  That seems perfectly ok.

An interesting day.  Slept well last night.  Got into the chemotherapy day center for blood transfusion at around 11 am.  This all went very smoothly and the staff were fantastic.  Brenda Duello came to visit and explained her fundraising process for the named pulmonary fellowship and possible chair in my honor and we had a good discussion about some good potential serious donors.  So far the response has been apparently very good initially.  Kim Baker visited and bought some more Lebanese food which we have not enjoyed yet.  Joel Kline appeared and bought coffee which actually tasted quite good to me for the first time in several weeks.  Eric Hoffman came along also with coffee which I gave back to him to have and for about 30 minutes there was a 3-way conversation with Kline, Hoffman and myself.  Then Jessica Sieren came over for a social visit - she is due to deliver her first child in a week.  Her mum and dad will be here in August from Adelaide.  Julia Klesney-Tait came with some delicious smelling banana bread that she had just made - most banana bread that we've had has been kind of solid but she explained how she makes it to be quite fluffy - a little later in the day we had banana bread and ice cream which was a terrific and much appreciated combination.  I asked Julia to mention "blackberry pie" to Dwight Look as he had indicated he knew a great source of them and I was just feeling like blackberry pie and ice cream as well.  Julia did so and at around 6 pm Dwight turned up with 2 pies, one blackberry and the other cherry.  We have had pie now with ice cream as well so eating pretty well.

After the transfusions we went over to the lab and met with Ryan, Alyssa and Maged.  They are all doing just terrific work and now primarily under the supervision of David Stoltz.  Maged had made some soup for us which we took home with us.  This was very generous of him and we thank him very much.

Met with Tony Fanchi - he's almost completed his revision of the lung cancer paper figures and should have that finished today so that I can insert them into the text.  Met with Amanda Smith who is doing summer rotations before she starts her MD PhD studies - she's going to revise some of the figures in the paper as well as that, she has provided a bit more information about how she acquired the images.  She will also give her paper related videos to Tony so we can post them for the journal editor to review.

Talked with Kim Glynn later in the day to offer support for some recent and unexpected family trauma.  Met with Anita Kafer and had quite a long conversation with her and I think it was good to do that with such an old work colleague.  Anita used to be the division co-ordinator in the Pulmonary Division but hasn't done that job for probably 15 years.

Felt pretty good leaving the institution which we left at around 4 pm and decided to have Thai take out for dinner.  So we did that.  It wasn't very spicy and was nicely freshly cooked but shortly after having that I developed more shortness of breath and thats possibly now related to the spices.  So we've found that now with spicy Indian, Chinese and now Thai food so I guess we might be slow learners but not having any more of any of that.  Ice cream and pie or ice cream and banana break seems to go an awful long way.

Alan and Mary Beth Ross came around after work and helped us eat some of the Thai food as well as some of the pie but my breathlessness was worse so they stayed a little longer to see if there was anymore we could do.

For the first time I couldn't get up the stairs to the upper bedroom where we sleep so this is now around 10.30 and I got to the top of the stairs but then breathlessness stopped me and I had to lay down on the floor.  Chris called Alan Ross by phone back to help and we called Jeff Wilson to come and see if they could get me from the floor into bed.  (see photo of the heavy lifters).
They did this quite well and, at rest, my breathing has now settled down although I still get this exertional shortness of breath which is quite debilitating.  We're very grateful that Jeff Wilson and Alan Ross came quickly in response to our needs and we were very humbled by their care in what was rather late at night.

Still coughing brown chunky material which occurs from time to time and I think that actually is coming from the non-functional right lung and may reflect a bit of tumor necrosis or that sort of thing.  In any event using a nebulizer the material, which is quite sticky, becomes quite liquid and is easily coughed out.

What an interesting day.  We did a lot.  We may need to look at putting a hospital bed on our ground level so that I don't have to get up the stairs but we'll see if the breathing problem is cleared by tomorrow in which case we won't be eating any more spices.

After the trauma of the late evening, my breathing is now very good and I think we'll end up having a good night's sleep.

Happy Birthday Bob.