Keep Laughing

Roger examined me yesterday and was very pleased with my condition. The platelet count is over 600,000! This is 10 times as many platelets in my blood as there were when my departed spleen was gobbling them up. Roger needs only 100,000 to feel safe about administering chemo, so we are resuming the healing juices next week. He also said the scar from my splenectomy looks very good and my recent ultrasound image looked fine. I have been totally off painkillers, of any kind, for four days.

A number of my friends have commented that they enjoy my attempts at humor on this blog. A great story comes from my friend John Milne in Vermont. He was laughing in front of his computer one night and there ensued a conversation with his wife that went something like this:

“What are you laughing so hard about, John?”
“This guy I know through INFORMS wrote a blog about his cancer struggles.”
“What? You’re laughing at that! Not even you are that insensitive.”
“Really, it’s funny. Come take a look.”

When they got to the part about the Chris-Elliot-Tom-Cruise doctor in Denver telling me what I was full of, she joined her husband in laughing out loud.

This is very gratifying. It might be harder to write things that make people laugh than it is to write operations research scholarly papers that colleagues (and especially students) appreciate. On the other hand, when you keep your eyes and ears open for funny things in real life, they happen, and all you have to do is tell it like it was. (Okay, maybe you should try to get away with a bit of Twainish exaggeration when you can.)

Thanks to all who have told me about their laughs. It is great medicine for me to know you are laughing rather than stressing. As always, I am filled with gratitude for your love and support.

Rick