What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger

Monday morning will mark the beginning of the truest sense of the phrase in the title, at least insofar as my own life has been concerned for a while.

I will begin my treatment. It has equal chances of a great and positive outcome as it does of generating a more permanent final solution, so to speak. However, the negative outcome is more and more guaranteed each day that passes without my treating, so I am actually looking forward to making a positive decision with regards to my health. Even if the solution were to not spiral out of control, if it does not work it will certainly place me in a more precarious situation than I am currently, possibly accelerating the degeneration by a few months to years.

The negative will happen eventually if I don't slow this degeneration down, but there is a 50% chance that the positive will happen, and this will be a major step towards health...and at the moment I really like those odds - given that doing nothing is 100% guaranteed to end badly if given enough time.

On the bright side, my brother is responding VERY well to this treatment - so we know it is of benefit to him, though to what extent we won't know in time to predict my own. He did report the negative side effects that concern me, but his health has much more "wiggle room" around things like heart congestion and the like. However, I trust that we will be able to manage with the appropriate countermeasures, as long as we know what to expect.

I appreciate all your prayers thus far, and will keep everyone updated over the next few weeks. From what I can tell, the first month will be the most critical. If things are not looking dangerous after that time, I think I will be confident that we have passed the most dangerous phase.

Thanks to all who follow/care/pray. God bless you all, and I'll post updates as I have them. Granted, in light of my uncle (previous post) and what his whole family will have to go through, I am thankful at the small scale of my own problems - and that any radical changes in my life will not imperil the well-being of an entire family as his did. Please keep HIM in your prayers more than me...and especially his family,



--
The Old Fool

“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.
-

Luckiest man alive

I am the luckiest man on the planet.

1)     If I'd gotten what I thought I wanted - young, stupid, and maybe married to the wrong person - I would be doing everything I could to make it work, even humiliate myself and be miserable. I would be unable to admit I'd made a mistake. And even that probably wouldn't be working. And I'd be in some dead-end job in engineering (even if I was advancing in the company as well as I should) that I hated, just to support a family. INSTEAD I was able to finish school focused on the TOUGHEST senior design course available-Dr. Gonzalez. I picked a tough course to make sure I'd be busy. It changed my academic life and led to my going back for a Ph.D. and discovering my TRUE passion: Teaching.

2)     If I'd been healthy I would never have learned to appreciate the time I DO have. I would be too focused on the tough grading and the being rough, mean, and the best at what I do, and not enough time thinking about how everything I do, I should do wondering if I'd be proud of that being the last thing I did for someone. It's been a shift of focus that's also cleared some moral cobwebs out of my life.

3)     If I'd been able to take the job at Orbital Sciences instead of "forced" to take the job near Gonzalez, I would never have found my house, I would not have come to Tech, I would not be planning on teaching at LeTourneau, and I would never have met this new slew of wonderful friends.

4)     If I'd never become poor again after having good engineering money, I would not have remembered to appreciate all I have, and gone home and appreciated even MORE those who do NOT have but still find the moral courage to be happy and content. I'd just continue enjoying my luxury without considering what it took to get there.

5)     If I'd never lost my faith (temporarily, albeit), I would never have been a critical enough thinker to be able to do well in academia. Regaining faith AFTER learning to think even more critically has allowed me to do 100x better at dealing with these matters than I would EVER have before.
 
Yes, I am the luckiest man alive.