What a Trip!

I am at Boston's Logan airport, Friday night, January 15, waiting for Denise to fly in from Rochester.  Tomorrow I go to the ALA (American Library Association) midwinter meeting; at 4:00 I am giving an "in-process" paper on European Privacy Laws.  In addition to general interest in privacy laws I have been researching the topic to assist my friends at InCommon, an organization associated with Internet 2, with the international connections that they have and continue to make, not least with Europe, which like much of the developed world, has comprehensive and more restrictive privacy laws regarding personally identifiable information.  On Sunday I will go to a completely unofficial meeting of some fantastic people: Susan Perry, Harry Lewis, Karrie Peterson and others, to talk about blow-your-mind new approaches to teaching and learning ... from the student perspective is the only way I can begin to describe what we hope to discuss.  More on all of that later, and probably in a venue other than this blog.

Things are looking up!  Over the holiday I talked first with my primary doctor in Ithaca and then my attending physician in Boston at the Amyloid Research and Treatment Center.  Together we have determined I may not need to undergo quite the wide range or number of tests so frequently ... at least insofar as I have no other symptoms of amyloid deposition in vital organs.  Rather than quarterly, annually I will have the blood and urine tests for lambda light chains and/or other signs of vital organ damage; a belly fat pad aspiration (because if amyloid is found, the probability of organ deposition is great) and maybe another bone marrow aspiration.   We'll see about that one; it kinda hurts!  Anyway, the presentation of the original amyloid in the nerve is rare that no one knows exactly what do to or say about it going forward.  Lucky number 13 in the medical literature of U.S. cases!  So until there is more evidence of either amyloidosis or other diseases caused or related to the excess production of lambda light chains (multiple myeloma, for example, which was Dr. Law's original concern when the results of the first bone marrow aspiration following the surgery came back showing abnormal plasma cells), then perhaps I can put my children through college instead of going into debt paying medical bills.  And after three months of demurring on a new medication (one I lost the script, another time I let it expire and a third time I put it through the wash; I did not like what I read about its side effects), I have finally tried it and, low and behold, it seems to help.  By 5:00 pm every day, when usually the pain is about a 7, now it is down to 3 or 4.  That's improvement!

Other good news:  Bonnie has a job that she loves!  Rob said good-bye to college and within a week had two job offers!  He will take the state test for fire-fighters and aspires to work as a fireman; currently he is doing volunteer fire fighting with the Pittsford crew.  The Rochester Institute of Technology not only accepted Nikko via early admission but offered him a scholarship.  We are delighted for him and believe RIT is perfect fit.  Sam hangs with the cool kids at school while maintaining good grades and a good heart; he will do Festival for piano next month and go to spend some time with his Uncle Art and Aunt Heidi in Indiana this summer.  Sam is taking German and Aunt Heidi, a native of Germany, will sharpen his language skills as well as tell him stories of what it was like to be in Germany during World War II.  Now that's cool!

The summer after I graduated from Cornell Law School one of my classmates, who had gone to Harvard as an undergraduate, invited me to his wedding.  He was marrying a woman he had met during college and they had their party at the Marriott on the Charles River in Cambridge.  Nikko was three and a half, and I decided to take him with me.  My college friend Judy, who was from Newton and had moved eventually back to the area, found a babysitter for Nikko during the evening reception, but otherwise he came with me to the wedding held in Harvard Yard and all of the day activities.  It was a wonderful time.  What I remember most right now is sitting in the back of the propeller plane in Rochester where we boarded and telling him everything about how a plane flies and how we would lift off and where we were going.  So now an hour ago Denise boarded a plane in Rochester, probably also a propeller, and she is in the air on the way here to share the non-work parts of the weekend.  Having just finished an intensive, successful week course on Interfaith Studies at the seminary for doctoral students, she is exhausted but also pumped and energized.  Boston will forever be the city love of my life; I have more stories about my experiences here over the years than this blog is fit to reveal.  Tonight we will add one more, a simple story of love, fun and celebration of life.

Oh, got to go, she just called.  Believe it or not by Ripley, the flight arrived early!