Hello! Oh, how I just cringe when I realize that it's been several days since we've "chatted". I miss chatting with you - so many of you come to mind while I'm typing and I want to ask...Peter, how's the neck/back coming along?...Fonda - how's the pain?...and so on and so on. Things have been so "up and down" with how I'm feeling that I dislike having to keep saying "today I'm fine" or "not so good today"...but that's just how it is. Having said that, one of my desires with this blog-thing is that it be so much more than how I'm feeling. There is just way more to life than that...however, one of the things I have discovered is that when the pain and discomfort come in to roost for awhile, they sort of takeover everything. It is most difficult to lay aside the physical pain, though I will tell you I have not suffered pain like others of you have. Mine just throws me for a loop and I have a hard time getting around and through it. The drugs work for awhile, then not so much...I lay off of them, then the pain comes and we're in this predictable cycle over and over again.

I began another cycle of treatment last Friday and saw the doctor also. He is sending me on to a pain oncologist (I think that's what he's called anyway). He/she is a doctor that deals with pain in cancer patients...a little bit more focused than a pain-management doctor. Perhaps we can get things figured out through him/her. My doctor just said he's at a loss as to what other meds to try...I've run the "normal" range of meds. Problem is that while some of them help with the pain, I have a very low threshold for the side-effects and it is the side-effects that seem to swamp my boat these days.

We have decorated our home for the holidays and many of the items we put out have such fond memories of precious family and friends and good times gone by. If I could just leave you with one thought this season, it would be this...that each of us focus on what's really important and it's a "who" not a "what"...Jesus Christ. May He be honored by the lives we live and the faithfulness to His purposes this season...God bless you!

Love you, each one...
Don & Deb