Mets Day 746: Days of future past

As I find common in my life, these past few weeks have had no momentous happenings; rather, the steady pace of life marches on day by day.  I give thanks each morning for another sunrise, and thanks at the end of the day for another day with my family.  During the weekdays, I get to spend time with my granddaughter, aware that she, as well as my daughter and son-in-law, soon will be moving 2000 miles away.  We've already booked out flights to visit her (and a few others) in early July. 

This evening my younger daughter returned home from her first year of college, and immediately went to bed.  I suspect she will stay there for several days as she recharges from finals. It will be nice to have her home for the summer. Meanwhile, my youngest son is learning how to drive, and I'm bracing for the financial hit that comes when a 16 year old male is added to the car insurance.

April 11 marked the date in 2012 that a CT scan revealed that my BC had metastasized into my lymph nodes, and the day that I started my "mets day" count in the titles of each blog. I've thus entered my third year of mets BC. This puts me past the median of historical durations for overall survival.  Every day is another little victory in my personal battle. I keep count in each blog post as a way of reminding myself, and perhaps others, that there is ongoing hope.

Each Monday, I get an email from BCAN with links to questions from people about bladder cancer. Sometimes its the patient, sometimes its a relative of a patient. I look through the questions for those that I might be able to add something. About 70% of people diagnosed with bladder cancer have a relatively minor type that can be treated by TURBT procedures and BCG washes of the bladder. While many of those patients are freaked out at the idea of a cancer diagnosis and are coming to BCAN for information and reassurance, they are the lucky ones. I ignore their questions, and instead plunge into those dealing with chemotherapy issues, or recovery from radical cystectomy (bladder removal) surgery, or dealing with neobladder troubles, or confronting a diagnosis of metastatic cancer.  I usually spend several hours each Monday answering questions from my perspective, adding links to my blog, and inviting one-on-one follow-ups. I know how difficult it was when I was going through all of those challenges, and found comfort in the collective wisdom from others in the BCAN community. I try to add a little light to the community, in hopes that it will aid and comfort others.  I usually get several follow-up emails each week from my postings.

Last week, one of the people who reached out to me was a patent attorney from Ohio with whom I had done some work several years ago.  He said he had read through most of my blog before he figured out who I was, and reached out to me. It's a small world.

As an aside, yesterday one of my friends emailed me and said that I was named in Sunday's Washington Post Magazine as a "Super Lawyer" for 2014 in Intellectual Property Law. I was amused to learn that, since I haven't had a consistent legal practice for a while. I was aware that I had been so listed last year, but didn't think it would be continued. Maybe I was so named because slowing my practice has raised the average for other IP lawyers.

This weekend is the BCAN walk -- if you're still reading, it's not too late to make a donation by going to this link. For those of you who have made donations, thank you.