Not good news

We had hoped our kids would be able to come back home tomorrow. Instead they'll head back to the hospital for another round of chemo. Apparently the little feller didn't respond all that well to the standard treatment. The regular approach is supposed to knock the lymphoblast count down to zero. Ours is still high. So instead of a week off, they'll start a new mixture.

We were there for the weekend. He didn't have much energy but we did get a smile or two. Those smiles are precious.

Turkey at McDonalds?

Our world changed on November 12th when our grandson was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL–http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_lymphoblastic_leukemia). The “acute” describes the aggressive nature of the disease. I was floored by how fast things moved. Our five year old (he’d say “almost 6”) was diagnosed on a Friday. They sent him to a major children’s hospital on the same day. Treatment began within 24 hours of diagnosis. They began his treatment on a Saturday. I’ve spent a lot of time visiting hospitals. In my experience it is very unusual to do surgical procedures on the weekend. I was glad they were able to get things started. But I was also very concerned that they thought it necessary to move so quickly.
Alarms were going off in my head. I’ve spent a quarter of a century visiting folks in hospitals and in my experience cancer treatment moves slowly. Usually, a person starts out feeling lousy. They finally go to the doctor. Diagnostic tests begin. Eventually, the doctors decide that it is cancer. A referral is made. Then the patient waits for an appointment. Finally, options are discussed and treatment begins. So, moving from nothing to hospitalization and chemotherapy in a single day boggled my mind.
We were worried. Like other families we waited eagerly for any encouraging words from the medical team. We tallied the risk factors. We took comfort in the ones we didn’t have and tried to ignore the ones we did. We scrutinized the doctors and nurses for clues–dissecting both words and demeanor.
We hoped that the little rascal would be in the group which responded most rapidly to treatment. We settled for being in the standard risk group until the third bone marrow test. That one moved us into the high risk category. There is a higher risk group but missing that designation didn’t comfort us. We had expected better. We were disappointed and trying hard not to be worried.
The little feller left the hospital after about 12 days and joined the rest of his family in the Ronald McDonald House just in time for Thanksgiving. Family friends brought our turkey dinner. I guess you could say we had turkey and dressing at Ronald McDonald’s house.

The Garageable Airplane

Well they won't tell us the top land speed, but the soon to come Transition offers us a chance to have a genuine fly/drive vacation.

http://www.terrafugia.com/photogallery.html

Harry Potter did it with magic. This US company has already tested their car-plane. Looks good, too.

Hmmm.

Not sure what just happened. I accessed the dashboard. Changed the background. And previewed a new post.
But when I "published" the post. It disappeared and I got a message that I needed to sign in again. Hmmm.

It isn't working

Oops, this isn't meant to connect to the previous post. Instead It's about a book I saw in the bookstore tonight. My wife and I have a ritual on Friday nights. We eat (out) and then invade a bookstore. In Abilene we have 2 choices. We then select reading material and veg for an hour or so.
Tonight's discovery was this one.

Because I didn't find it until after I'd scanned a couple of other books I stayed in the shallow end. Moving beyond material mentioned in Gladwell's Outliers, author Tony Schwartz delves deeper into the study of thirty young musicians to show that excellence wasn't simply predicated on much, much more practice. Those who excelled also slept and napped more than the "normal" bunch.

Perhaps humans aren't so much like mechanical brains after all. Instead we're more like the created world. We have cycles. Productivity is enhanced by relaxation.

This is one of those insights we need to be applying to the church. The biblical worldview rests on such cycles. Our modern approach reflects too much dependence on mechanical or business models.

I'm not saying that Jesus wouldn't have used allusions from machinery or the business world. But I believe that his agricultural allusions were more than just the result of his agrarian culture.

PUNdaMental Revisited

I wanted to be the Pundamentalist but that was already taken so here is PUNdaMENTAL. While I enjoy puns, this blog doesn't focus on them. That this blog has a focus is in fact questionable.

Starting tomorrow I'll be using Adwords (May 21 - 31). This is mostly a learning exercise. I don't have any thing to sell but I'd like to develop some expertise in this field. Currently I'm averaging 1 to 2 visits per day on u-lo-g.com. The Adwords experiment will send folks to only one page so a rise in visits will almost certainly be a result of the ad. As suggested in Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords by Perry Marshall and Bryan Todd, I'm running a split test. Here are the two ads

Preach Your Own Funeral

Do-it-yourself

Save to Video

Make the Funeral Special

No Preacher Needed

How to prepare a eulogy

I'm guessing that "Preach Your Own Funeral" will win the contest.

Both ads will point to u-lo-g.com/DoItYourself.aspx. You do realize that by clicking on that link you're gonna skew my results, don't you? Let me know if you'd be interested in the figures.

Perils of Enumeration

This week I began calling on homes in order to collect data for the US 2010 Census.
Today a resident told me: "Thank you for doing this." So maybe there are more blessings than perils.
When I was recruiting folks for this job several voiced their concerns. Many were worried about personal safety. That's worthy of concern. I learned today that Census workers have already died as a result of traffic accidents. But that's not what people were worried about. They were worried about the people inside the houses. I was worried about the dogs outside the houses. So far, no big problems.

Garage doors

We don't have a garage,
but if we did I'd want the garage door to look like this:

or this:

or even this:

for other options see: http://style-your-garage.com/us/appliance.php

The Blind Side

Since I've commented on "The Blind Men and the Elephant" how about an observation or two about "The Blind Side"?
Michael's essay about honor and courage is nice but what the story really describes is the tremendous power of active compassion.

Less than 360 days until Christmas

So if you want to be ready a little bit early this year. . . Or if you have a birthday or other occasion you want to commemorate, consider these gift ideas:

Give the gift of LISTENING. Really listen. No interrupting, no daydreaming, no planning your response. Just listening.
Give the gift of AFFECTION. Be generous with appropriate hugs, kisses, pats on the back and handholds. Let these small actions demonstrate the love you have for family and friends.
Give the gift of LAUGHTER. Clip cartoons, share articles, funny stories and a good clean joke. Your gift will say, "I love to laugh with you."
Give the gift of a WRITTEN NOTE. It can be a simple "Thanks for the help" or an "I appreciate you" note. A brief, handwritten note may be remembered for a lifetime (and may even change a life).
Give the gift of a COMPLIMENT. Everyone needs encouragement. Mark Twain said, "One compliment can keep me going for a whole month."
Give the gift of [ALLOWING SOMEONE TO DO YOU A FAVOR. Accepting such a blessing will felicitate you both. -- I'm adding this because it may be even more important than the original which suggesting going out of your way to do a favor for someone else-- ulogtwo].
Give the gift of SOLITUDE. There are times when we want nothing more than to have some peace and quiet. Be sensitive to those times, and give the gift of solitude to others.
Give the gift of a CHEERFUL DISPOSITION. The easiest way to feel good is to extend a kind word. It's not hard to be polite and courteous, to say "hello" or "thank you."

***

This is one of those "wish I'd said that" pieces. I've tried to make my emendations obvious and would be happy to give credit but it came to me as a "someone has written . . ."
This is also a great game plan for anyone seeking to avoid stocking coal in 2010 and beyond.
Happy New Year, reader!