Tuesday update on Rocky……..he is doing well. He is eating good and very sensibly….he is active in his recovery. For a little treat he rode up town with me this morning to the Post Office and a stop at the Drug Store. We are getting information on Medicare prescription benefits and trying to make a good choice to benefit our needs. Not an easy thing but we’re working on it.

When I finished the Andersen-Stricklett saga and wrote of my own life…….I wondered what I would write about next. Well, I didn’t have to wait very long to find a new subject. It seems the timing was perfect for me to begin the journey for Rocky and his battle with cancer.

We have all been saddened by Ellen’s plight with cancer as well as others we know and it just seems such a terrible waste of those we love the most. Hardly any of us can claim it hasn’t touched our family or friends…..even acquaintances……and how thankful I am that we are living in a time when medical strides are overcoming several of the varieties of cancer.

I was young when cancer first came to my knowledge….an aunt died of breast cancer when I was so small I just remember the one night we went to the hospital and stayed out on the lawn to wait our turn to see her. Only one or two at a time and certainly not children. The one thing I remember most is the attitude of my parents and the other relatives. I deducted that this was a very serious thing to make them all so quiet and sad. Misery was on every face.

In a time when there was no hope and contracting the disease meant certain death it would have been impossible to imagine someday there would be cures. Yet, here we are, within one lifetime……there is hope and there are cures. We live in a great time for overcoming many illnesses.

Whatever we face as we grow older, it is comforting for me to know “hope” is alive and well. Cancer cannot conquer what hope can keep alive.

Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther