Finally a blog entry without the word "puppy" in it. (Oops! Oh well!)Pictured above from left to right: Gil, me, Bonnie Opper, Mark Cornell and Kim Cornell.
(Missing is Steve Opper who spends way too much time out-of-town on business related matters. We missed you, Steve!)
Once again we met our friends from Karmanos Cancer Center for our monthly dinner get-together socializing and comparing the progress from the stem cell transplants last fall. It's almost been a full year (October) and all three of the recipients (Gil, Bonnie and Mark) have been remarkably lucky to have come through it all with hearty appetites, a sense of humor and a heartfelt appreciation for life-lived-to-its-fullest.
Mark was telling us that he is almost ready to get his "baby vaccinations" and Gil and Bonnie will be close behind. Immunizations against all those childhood diseases are important for this newly transplanted group but it doesn't happen until you are one year out from the transplant.
Marika has been doing something she really loves these past couple of weeks. No, it's not studying for the MCAT! She's been riding horses at a favorite barn (Fox Meadow) in Toledo and coming home each afternoon sore and tired and thrilled.
She rides with one of her dearest friends, Lindey, and the two of them are so much fun to be around when they are together and relating tales about riding or movies or friends.
She's also been doing Pilates at our local studio and finding it is a great way to get back in good physical shape before schools starts again the end of September. (Remember the University of California schools are on the quarter system. They start and end later than most schools across the nation.)
Our boys are staying sleep-deprived during their clinical rotations. Evan is doing trauma surgery and Adam is doing pediatrics. I don't hear from them nearly enough but I do remember so well when I was active in hospital nursing the tired and beleaguered faces of the medical students as they made rounds in the mornings and signed their patients out in the evening to the next shift of medical students.
Michigan is having a most wonderful end of summer climate. Cool nights. Sunny warm days. I think global warming may make Michigan the next "preferred spot" to relocate to if you're wanting to escape the heat in the West, South, East and Northeast. Try the Great Lakes region.
We're loving it here!
Haiku:
Dog-day afternoons
Filled with yelps and nips and barks
What could be better?
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