Today is my first Monday in six weeks where I do not have to spend the day at the Foothills getting chemotherapy and radiation!  Have had few side effects from this regime, still have my hair and have had few of the sub-human side effects predicted.  The one thing that is driving me crazy is an incredibly itchy back!  The radiation was targeted at the same spots each time and the skin in those areas is thin and will be sun sensitive for the rest of my life!  I just want to go out to the backyard and rub my back up and down on the apple tree like an itchy Grizzly Bear!!!  I was pretty much a grumpy Grizzly Bear on the weekend but did crash into bed early last night and have risen with my usual happy disposition this morning. We put Kelli on the plane back to Vancouver last night.  It was so nice to have her here but it is time for her to get some normal back in her life too!  She is planning to return when I have my surgery!  I am thinking that may be a time I need her more.  She told me she fully expected this past month was going to be really rough and she would be supporting me and looking after me....instead it was just a darn good visit!!!

Good news!  Bill has started his training!  Did an hour on the bike yesterday and suffered extreme numb bum!  He can't even imagine what effect 200 km in the saddle will feel like!

Came across a great quote the other day which kind of sums up what your support has meant to me.
"We are all angels with one wing - we can fly only embracing each other."   I have been embraced by so many people!  I don't think a day has passed without some good deed coming my way whether it be a phone call from someone I haven't heard from in a while, an email, a card, tickets to a Flames game, movie passes,  a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a meal, a gift, an unexpected visit, an invitation to lunch or dinner.  The list just goes on and on!  Each of you has contributed to my "positive" spirits!  You give me reason to be positive....you remind me who I am and that I am loved!  The lessons I am learning, and believe me, I have learned many will never leave me!  To say this experience is life altering is the understatement of the year!  Last year when we went to Nepal I came back with a whole new perspective on the life we enjoy here!  We have so much yet we tend to be so unsatisfied with our lot in life!  Geoff, Lindsey, Bill and I were amazed at the people of Nepal.   They have so little yet they appreciate their lives!  One day we were sitting around with our guide Davinder.  We had just seen a yak train on trail that day, all decked out in their colorful Tibetan blankets.  I  suggested to Davinder we should go into business together.  I would buy the Yak and a camera for him and he could set up a business where tourists like us could pay him 500 rupees to sit on the Yak and get their photo taken. It told Davinder I could make him a rich man.  He listened to me with a smile on his face, nodding his head and when I finished he said "Maybe in my next life!"  Davinder owned a farm which his wife looks after during the trekking season.  He is away for many many weeks at a time guiding trekkers like ourselves over the Annapurna Circuit or to Everest Base Camp.  We spent three weeks with him and he had done a previous trek to Mt. Everest before joining us so had not seen his family in several weeks.  Not once did he complain.....which was totally the nature of all the Nepali's we came in contact with,  Accept your lot in life, work hard and appreciate everything you have.  Another lesson he gave us was equally enlightening.  Whenever we entered a small town we would enter through a stone gate that invariably had three stone columns on top.  One column was white, one red and one black.  We noticed this was pretty much the norm for each community we entered and asked him what the columns represented.  He told us the white column represented the Budhists, the red, the Hindu's and the black everyone else.  Then he looked at us and said.....all the same as he spread his arms out and looked up to the sky!  Interesting!  What a place the world would be if we all embraced that attitude!

Time to get on with my day!  I have rambled enough!  Seem to get a little sidetracked at times.  Can I still blame that on the Chemotherapy!  Probably not!  But I will anyways!