Update, last weeks. Detail

The entire reason that I came to DC for what is now almost 4 weeks, flight leaves early morning Tuesday, was to support the great and good man I know whose young son is in a terrible medical situation. The weight of the world is on my friend's shoulders but I have been able to see him and I'm so glad that happened. My sense is that his young son has entered what is likely to be a long battle and at this point all that can be known is that the best medical teams in the world are working with great Passion on his case under the watchful eye and skilled hand of his dad and mom.
It was not my expectation to receive extensive medical care of myself but in fact that has happened. Quite an extraordinary blessing. There are at best Band-Aids on our unforgivable cultural sin of allowing poor in our society, but in Washington DC those Band-Aids exist, put forth by many good people doing the best they know, and I have been a tremendous benefit these recent weeks of that. Long overdue and terribly expensive full body CAT scan with contrast, multiple blood work, and finally a colonoscopy at Georgetown University Hospital several days ago all indicate that in fact no cancer is to be found in this tired old body. Statistically there is a 30% chance that there will be a recurrence of cancer in my colon but a check every 5 years might be sufficient to catch that in time. A place called Christ house is not designed for me, a highly functioning individual, no credit to me, but it is what it was available and it was a tremendous help. All made bearable and productive despite being unable to use internet, because one of the top 10 books on my long waiting list was available and 1/2 of 800 pages are now read, behave, Robert sapolsky, a Must-Read. And although I thought it was far more than necessary, being sequestered for 4 days in a fairly intensive medical facility for the homeless, passing out upon arriving back there after the procedure due to extreme stomach pain, certainly validated that I was there. Several visits have been to my primary care doctor, a combination of Teresa of Calcutta and Paul Farmer, a brilliant extraordinary channel of good into the world. I am alive in significant part due to her and we both really enjoyed seeing each other. She seems genuinely amazed and extremely pleased at my physical strength and health and everything right down to the blood work indicates that this old body is very very very very healthy. And they have a new Young dentist pretty much of my primary doctors caliber, never had better dental service in my life, and probably not as good, tremendous pain management, great care, very respectful explanations, and now four fillings that had somewhat degraded are now replaced and he thinks that these poor old teeth might last me quite a few more years. The previously owned bicycle purchased was quite a wonderful thing. Must be returned on Sunday afternoon. They will buy it back for probably a third of what I paid for it plus accessories that I purchased,. It was very useful to understand what a conventional bicycle feels like under these quite strong thigh muscles carrying not 80 lb of a 750 lb bike but probably 20 or 30 lb of stuff plus me. It's unclear to me how permanent it will be the offline of the last 4 days and the focus on my reading list. It is so hard for me to satisfy my conscience that the right thing to do is to detach from the ongoing minute-by-minute Horror Story, the unnecessary destroying of the Titanic right underneath us but it clearly is not something that I'm going to have any impact on, and I just have to run the risk that people are going to wonder if I really think that maybe things are going to be okay? They are not. All that is possible for any of us is to Channel A little bit of good in the world that the rare individual susceptible to that might be encouraged to find the goodness in themselves and to live out of that. This dictates that I try and find the fortitude, courage, and compassion, to leave the sinking of the Titanic to everyone's apathy, and to see what I can do about becoming better able at channeling goodness into the world for the susceptable One in a Million. This has been my intention quite a few times now before and I failed. Maybe a little more success this time. And last but not least two things. I saw my oldest acquaintance who has become a good and maybe my best friend. It was an extraordinary several days, and I got to see a family that is so dear to me and has been so dear to me up in the Philadelphia area for an evening. That was quite a wonderful gift as well.