GRAY GOOSE GETS WINGS OF HOPE

Well, okay, I agree:  Time to update the winged saga of the Gray Goose, sometimes feeling like an old Coot*. 

Friends follow their greeting these days with "How are you?"  They didn't use to ask, not so intently and sincerely at least.  "Fine," I say, wishing I could explain that.  Maybe I should hand out a small printed paper.  Prostate Cancer is a strange bird.  A Crow, a Raven, maybe.  What's its purpose?  He designed the bird and the disease which at first glance has no constructive purpose.
Wrong.

I see life much more clearly now.  At first, the renewed PC got my attention.  Fourth stage with spots on a rib and a glowing lymph node got way more than my attention.  Not tears (well, Carolyn a little as she processed what the Urologist was explaining in his very best bedside maner learned from experience, not Oncology 101).  It got me thinking and--stand by for this one--planning and smiling.

"So this is 'it,'" I mused.  Cool.  Now I know.  My days really ARE numbered.  BUT, the doc nor the Lord, two of my three best care givers, will tell me exactly what number.  DANG. 

Then he said in tone so upbeat he had me leaning into the end of his comment, "Great.  You are a prime candidate for Provenge," and he hand drew a chart showing the cancer's progress (lowered PSA but climbing).  It's a new, expensive but radical and highly acclaimed innoculation.  They take my blood, rev it up somehow then a couple of days later return it to me for these gung-ho white corpuscles to attack the black bad guys.   Not like chemo (that's still a later option), but I do sit for a couple or three hours for a slow transfusion.  Cool again.  I will be catching up on my high stack of books in prep for my own. 

I'm ready to journal this more faithfully for those of you who care (or are simply interested).    

 This old Gray Goose* ain't falling out of the sky any time soon. In fact, I believe I've got new wings.

*("Coot" is commonly known as a Mud Hen.  Odd, mostly unattractive, version of the wondrous Duck.  I know, cause I'm seeing a flock of them right now out my window looking at them pooping all over the fairway AND the green.  Black without color except a silly little white beak.  They fly, but barely, looking really stupid.  Who designed these guys anyway?  Oh, sorry, Lord.  They mingle with the Ducks standing out for their colorlessness. THEN the Canadian Geese fly over.  They almost never land on the pond. Too, well..."common" and plain a setting.  But they signal their mystery and majesty in their honk and their exquisite formation.  I DO NOT WANT TO BE REMEMBERED AS AN "OLD COOT."  Lord, only you can give me wings of the Wild Goose and the haunting, alluring voice of wonderful promise as if the future were a life to be cherished.  And so it is...and shall be.)