Still plugging away. Still working to finish the story. It's just moving along at a somewhat slower clip than I'd hoped at the beginning of summer.

In no particular order, this first song to share -- Patti Smith's Piss Factory -- came from a compilation album, Just Say Yesterday: Volume VI of Just Say Yes. It’s one of several similar Sire Records compilations I'd borrowed from Aaron when we were roommates together at Carleton, during both of my senior years.

Just absolutely love this song. And thanks to YouTube, I never knew that this was the "B" side to her cover of Hey Joe (which is another song on my playlist, the Jimi Hendrix original, for a couple of different reasons).

No great surprise: the consistent advice I heard through all of those discussions was to finish the book.

Simple.

I don’t know exactly how far away I am from finishing the narrative. Feels like maybe halfway, maybe a little more. If I trust that I’ll want to do some extensive trimming of what I’ve already written, then I’m sitting at somewhere in the vicinity of 50,000 words. So let’s say that 40,000 more gets me to where I want to be.

40,000 words.

Between now and the end of summer is just about 12 weeks. 40k/12 = 3,333 words/week. Divide that by six days of writing each week gets me to 555 words per day.

After crunching the numbers, I realize that this is absolutely within reach. Just this past week (when I wasn’t even thinking about a word count, or goals, or anything other than trying to write) I’ve had sessions of 1100, 650, 680, and 560 words. It’ll take some discipline, to be sure, to carve out time to write every day. But it doesn’t take much to get to 500. Heck, even though it won’t count toward my daily total, this post is already getting close to 300.

So that’s the goal: finish the manuscript before Labor Day.

Ended up writing out three different timelines. Variations on a theme: one with precise dates and milestones, from 02/19/1990 all the way through my last (non-chemo-related) visit to the hospital on 09/25/1990.

Another with the same dates but instead of milestones I wrote up date ranges.

Finally, the last timeline I put together is one I’m copying below. Took the same date ranges but instead of showing dates I wanted to simply show how long the main stretches of my spring and summer were. After fleshing out some additional details, I think there’s an interesting story quietly hidden within the numbers.

• 7 weeks in the hospital – “Round One”
• 1 week of chemotherapy (7 days daunorubicin with 3 days Ara-C)
• 1 week of observation
• 1 week of chemotherapy (3 days Ara-C with 7 days daunorubicin)
• 4 weeks of recovery
• 3 weeks at home
• 4 weeks in the hospital - “Round Two”
• 1 week of chemotherapy (7 days daunorubicin with 3 days Ara-C)
• 3 weeks of recovery
• 4 weeks at home
• 6 weeks in the hospital - “Round Three”
• 1 week of chemotherapy (high-dose Ara-C)
• 5 weeks of recovery

In other words, my first and last rounds of chemotherapy were not without their fair share of complications.

In any event, while going back to double-check that I remembered the name of the exit to the UWMC from Hwy 520, I decided to zoom into Google’s street view to see if I could virtually relive some of the scene I’d just written, where mom drives me back to the hospital to begin my (scheduled) second round of chemotherapy.

I initially thought the street scenes were pretty gloomy. Typically dark and overcast and stereotypically Seattle.

But I remembered that day being a beautifully sunny spring day, flowers blooming, bright sunshine. Imagine my surprise, then, when I clicked ahead to the next intersection.

Funny vagaries of Internet maps. Would that the seasons changed as quickly as walking across the street.

Not at all true. In fact, within the past few months, I've celebrated nineteen years in remission, as well as my fortieth birthday. I am returning my focus and attention here after a very long absence.

Unfortunately, while attempting to clean things up a bit, a few things were inadvertently broken along the way. I apologize for the mess. Should be able to muddle through the updated MT templates over the next couple of weeks and put together a serviceable design.

This is a brief note. Funny, in hindsight, given some of the other more recent entries about cleaning up and updating and whatnot. I've finally implemented a more permanent solution to the comment spam that's been the scourge of a neglected site, so I trust that things will remain fairly stable here for awhile.

But the reality is that telling the remainder of this story needs to be a full-time commitment, and that kind of time is a scarce commodity for the forseeable future.

My target date for completion has simply been pushed much farther into the future. At some point during the next several years, I hope to be able to carve out a significant chunk of time to be able to dedicate to the retelling (reliving?) of my leukemia experience.

I'm a sucker for milestones: in March of 2010, I will not only be 40 years old, but I'll also have been in remission for 20 years. Half my life. So that's the target. About five and a half years away.

For example, here is a paragraph from my first entry that I'd never edited beyond cursory first draft changes:

Then I will be talking with Mom. We are standing in the kitchen at the new house. She is writing a grocery list. I'm swishing a glass of ice water around, listening to the ice clank against the sides, asking her about insurance. We talk about this fairly often. It concerns me, my ability to find insurance with such an ominous "pre-existing condition." I'm not even paying much attention to what I'm saying, just random questions for her to field. Suddenly she'll start crying. Real tears, running fast, and they make me uncomfortable.

Maybe it's 1992; I would be talking with Mom. We'd stand in the open kitchen at the new house, the cleaner, newer, more spacious house that she and Paul had moved into after Laura and I had gone away to our respective colleges. Mom is working on a grocery list, standing in front of the refrigerator with a small notepad, opening and closing cupboards almost at random. I'd be leaning up against the corner by the double sinks, swishing a glass of water around, listening to the ice clank against the sides, asking her what she thinks about insurance. We've talked about this fairly often since graduation: it concerns me, my inability to find insurance with such an ominous pre-existing condition. COBRA won't last forever. What am I supposed to do when I finally get a real job?

I'm not even paying much attention to what I'm saying, just random questions for her to field. She's The Mom, the solid, strong business woman. She knows these things. But suddenly she'd start crying. Real tears, running fast, and they would make me uncomfortable.

There's much more to come. Much more new prose to follow, even though it won't be in the form of any brand new entries. I'll keep trying to get these templates to work the way I'd like, to better highlight new writing in old entries. Until then, the table of contents on the left, or the more printer-friendly version of the story remain the best ways to keep up-to-date.

At the same time, I will need to make some template modifications (again). After I finish with the manual revisions, I will want to implement the changes. I'd like for those changes to be reflected as "recent updates" without necessarily changing their intended chronological order. I'll try to figure that part out later.

But for now, I'm keeping busy with editing. For any regular (or even semi-regular) readers out there, fear not. I am committed to finishing this story.

But he is home now.

The house has two levels. The young man has grown up in this house, has lived there all of his life. The front door opens to a splitting staircase. One set of stairs, eight, maybe ten steps, lined by a wrought iron rail, will take him from the landing up to the living room, kitchen, bedrooms. The other stairs, lined by a wooden rail, lead down to the garage and the unfinished basement.

When he was younger, maybe a handful of years ago, lean times, his mother and sister had learned to make do with less money. His mother would order a cord of cut wood -- or maybe half, depending on how long the wood from the previous year had lasted. They would see how long they could go without ever turning on the heat. A contest. The wood was stacked outside, along the west side of the house, protected from the Seattle winter by a thick green tarp, held down at the edges by rocks pulled from the terraced front yard. Once a week, at least, he would push a full wheelbarrow through the garage, down through the narrow basement hallway, creating a second, smaller stack in the southeast corner of the house, piled on the cool concrete.

He had fashioned a work area in this corner. He cut the firewood. He broke apart the larger pieces so they'd fit into the fireplace. With the larger pieces, he'd start the maul into the top, tapping it down, then swinging the wood and the ax together in one wide sweep, splitting the wood against the hard concrete floor of the basement. There was a smaller hand axe that he'd use to break the smaller pieces into even smaller pieces, and then pieces smaller still. His hands would blister. He would sweat. More often than not there would also be a battered boom box plugged into one of the outlets in the corner, music for the workout, tempo for the chopping.

His arms were never very large, but they were strong. His legs, too, from all the wheeling and lifting and squatting and bracing for the wide swing of the maul. It wasn't so many years ago -- wasn't even a year ago -- that he would bound up and down these steps two or three at a time.

But now.

Now his legs have dwindled away to almost nothing, and there are eight, maybe ten steps in front of him. He needs to hold onto the rail. He pauses at the fourth step, surprised that neither his lungs nor his thighs are able to move him any farther than this. His stepfather is at his side, offering assistance. The young man shakes his head.

No, no.

This is his home. He will do this thing. He has been so dependent on so many people for so long already. These eight steps. Ten steps. A hundred? He will do these on his own.

I can hear Dr. Doug explaining things to the collection of interns in the hallway outside my door. I'd been pretty upset, earlier, when he first told me that they wouldn't release me from the hospital if my counts remained low. It didn't make any sense. I'd beaten the leukemia, right, beaten it twelve ways from Sunday, and I wasn't going to bleed anymore, and I'd be able to fend off any new infections with my new healthy polys, and all the other white and red blood cells, and... and... and everything.

Didn't they understand that I had a birthday coming up? I mean not just any birthday, but the big two-one, legally an adult now? Doesn't that take precedence over any stupid low stupid potassium stupid counts?

He didn't budge.

"It's all or nothing," he'd said, "you don't leave until all of your counts are back."

Now, outside, he's talking just above a whisper, the quick huddle outside my room before the team comes in to let me know where everything stands. He tells them that I was angry about this as he's ever seen me, so close to the finish line, only to have it move back another hundred yards. Just be prepared he says.

So they bring me these potassium pills. Huge fucking pills that are easily the size of a grape. I'm supposed to take them two or three times a day. The team nods wisely. These will help, they say.

I'm so very glad that I've been able to work on my pill-taking technique over the past month or so, because without all that practice, there's absolutely no way I'd be able to force one of these monsters down my throat. But force them down I do, with a cold shotgun glass of apple juice.

Within a matter of days -- running right up against the deadline Dr. Doug had drawn in the sand -- my potassium counts shoot ahead.

I'm golden.

It's April 23rd, 1990, exactly one week before my twenty-first birthday, and I'm finally going home.

He does the standing at the foot of the bed thing as well as anyone. He's got the clipboard that may or may not have anything about me written on it. His arms are folded. The clipboard is pressed against his chest, held there by the folded arms. He dips his chin toward one of his exposed hands, kind of brushing at his lips with his thumb.

"Well, you see," he says.

He's young. Working on his bedside manner. It will get better, I'm sure, but I can already tell from his body language that it's bad news -- he's practically staring at his feet, shuffling them back and forth, aw shucks, too shy to ask the pretty girl next to the punch bowl, the one in the short summer dress, too shy to ask her to dance.

"We know how much you're looking forward to going home, Robert," he says.

"Next week," I tell him. "Next Monday. That's the plan."

"Yes, yes. Umm... well... about that."

Uh-oh.

Dr. Doug continues. "Your counts have made a wonderful, remarkable comeback, Robert. We're very excited for you. All your numbers are good. Umm... I mean... except for one."

Dammit.

"Which one?" I ask.

The clipboard is freed from the confines of his arms. He holds one end of it close to his stomach, tilting the top outward, as if he's holding playing cards and doesn't want me to see his hand.

"Potassium," he says.

"Potassium."

"Yes. It's coming up, just not as quickly as the others. It's still very low."

"Potassium," I say again.

He nods.

I never even knew we were tracking my potassium counts, and even if we were, they wouldn't matter nearly as much as all of my others. I'm not going to bleed to death with low potassium. I'm not more succeptible to infection. It feels like they're picking nits, now, trying to come up with reasons to keep me in the hospital longer than necessary.

"So who cares about potassium, anyway?" I ask.

"We do."

Dr. Doug has folded his arms over the clipboard again. His feet are solid. There's eye contact this time. Good, solid, eye contact. He's not smiling.

"You're not seriously gonna keep me here just because of that, are you?"

"I'm really, really sorry..."

Me? Who knows why, but I actually preferred the ice-cold glass of milk. At home, especially over the summer, I'd sometimes even put a glass into the freezer before dinner started so by the time the meal was on the table, I'd be able to enjoy a truly frosty cold beverage. All this means that I had strong fucking bones. My bone marrow might have managed to get all messed up, but the bones themselves? Solid.

Another thing about milk is that it's the only beverage I'm ever able to drink when I'm eating Hot Dish. Please don't ask me to explain these things. It's the same Pavlovian response I have to watching a movie in a theater; even if I'm completely stuffed, I absolutely cannot watch the movie unless I've got a bucket of popcorn and an equally large (and overpriced) gallon or two of Coke. Dr. Pepper. Whatever. Milk and Hot Dish go equally hand-in-hand. It is the way the world works.

So when Dad and Jane come into the room first, smiling, holding what appears to be still-warm baking dish of grilled onions and fresh ground beef and creamed corn and noodles and tomato soup, and it's that familiar, comforting smell that I haven't smelled in probably close to a year, at least well before I'd left for Lancaster, I know that I'm going to want to wash down my first few bites with only one particular beverage.

"Shelby is parking the car," Dad says. "She'll be up in a minute or two."

He starts to unpack a grocery bag. Napkins and bowls and some plastic forks and spoons. One of those little travel-sized salt-and-pepper shakers we'd bring on camping trips.

"Do you want something to drink?" Jane asks.

"Some milk would be great. I think they have some in the fridge down the hall."

"Are you sure?" she asks. She knows. She knows that maybe it's not such a good idea.

"Yes," I say. Definitely. There aren't any options in my mind. I'll drink it slowly. I'll give my stomach a chance to welcome these old tastes.

"I'll get it," Dad says.

Jane lifts the foil from the glass baking dish. Steam escapes. She folds the foil in half a few times, placing it back inside the grocery bag. She brings out a large spoon. She stirs the Hot Dish. More steam.

Dad returns with a couple of cartons of milk. The little cartons, half pints, that we used to get from the school cafeteria. The kind that has that little extra funky taste, especially when they've only just been recently put into the refrigerator.

I thought the nausea had passed. I thought it was so totally and completely rear-view mirror by now. But there's something. I'm not sure what's happening, but I recognize some of these sensations, and they're most definitely not the kinds of sensations I want to be emanating from my stomach when I'm about to partake in a victory dinner.

How many bites do I get in? Three? Six? At least a few for the taste, I'm sure, before I grab a carton of milk. I somehow think that drinking milk will help with the naseau, even with all evidence to the contrary.

Plus I'm a little embarrassed. I'm supposed to be better. An old family friend is here with us, and we're celebrating.

It's no use.

I excuse myself as I rush over to my bathroom, letting the door shut behind me.

It doesn't take long. When I come back out, Jane is already packing up the dinner. She knows how smells have affected me. Everybody's apologizing at once, then forgiving, saying "no, no, it's okay," then laughing, then trying to figure out what to eat for dinner instead.

I end up going with saltine crackers. Mmm. The crispy taste of victory.

More on that later.

Had I not grown up in Seattle, I probably would have realized that "Hot Dish" wasn't some clever name that Jane had come up with for a taste sensation that's served, well, hot, but that it was the ubiquitous name for an infinite number of variations of the noodle/meat/vegetable casseroles that are served at potlucks and church socials and company picnics all across The Land of 10,000 Lakes.

But I didn't know. To me, this was a special recipe, a super secret family recipe, so simple and quick and easy.

Here it is, from the kitchen of Jane O'Dell. I actually had to call home my freshman year at Carleton because I'd forgotten one of the ingredients. Twice.

1 lb ground beef
1 med yellow onion, chopped (Walla Walla sweets are my personal favorite)
1 can tomato soup
1 can cream corn
1 16 oz pkg egg noodles

1. Boil the noodles as per the package instructions.
2. Brown the beef.
3. Either grill the onion in the fat from the beef, pushing the nearly-browned meat into a wide circle around the outside of the pan, or -- my preferred method -- grill it in a separate pan with a little butter.
4. In a large baking (or casserole) dish, mix all of the ingredients together, including the cooked noodles.
5. Cover the dish with foil, and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Salt to taste