Dammit, this month started out looking pretty good! It began with The Giants sweep in the World Series, was followed by Obama’s re-election (Yeah, I’ve read the ridiculous comments, like “The Day America Died,” well suck it up, losers!) earlier this week, and on top of that, my gig diary not having the monstrous gaps that have been plaguing it since mid-May. Today being my birthday, and given the positive vibes that I’d been feeling, it seemed almost natural to assume that the news from Eileen’s oncologist would be something along the lines of “The cancer’s done died and gone to whatever hell cancer can go to.” A trifecta would have made the perfect birthday present, but NO!

                         This is not to say the cancer has rebounded, either! Let’s make that perfectly clear, and say those last two words without going into a Nixon impression. What’s really clear is that we’re not sure, and let’s see if we can confuse things a bit more. We met with the oncologist this morning, one day after Eileen had done a blood test. The first thing she asked Eileen was about her general health, and she mentioned having had a cold since last weekend. The oncologist, being very skilled in the art of spin, was able to use that as a reason to discount anything negative that the test results showed. In this case, the phrase “the numbers are up” referred to the white blood cell count, as that number automatically increases when the body is ailing. (At least she didn’t say “Your number’s up!”) Those numbers would be up if she had cancer, or a cold, or Mad Cow Disease, or whatever. Bottom line is, we left her office knowing nothing more than we already did, because the blood test was not able to reveal what infection the increased number of white blood cells was fighting. We can only hope they were fighting the cold, and there’s reason to believe that, for her stamina and overall health had been on the upswing in recent months.

                       Earlier this week, she went away to a friend’s house in Worcester for three days. This was a milestone, as she had not left London nor slept anywhere but her own house since her operation in May. The whole trip ran smoothly, and there were no complications other than that cold. She managed a train ride on Monday, then four hours back to London in my car Wednesday, as I’d driven up there on Tuesday. I was confident her Worcester trip would be fine, since there had been many other positive signs along the way, such as increased appetite and more positive energy. That cold presented an obstacle, and just to complicate things for our Worcester host, I got there suffering from a milder form of the same cold. Last I heard, she hadn’t caught it.

                        Where do we stand now? We’ll only know after the cold is gone and she can take another blood test, most likely within the next two weeks. But damn, I wanted the birthday present of knowing my lady’s gonna beat this thing! Now we’re looking more towards Thanksgiving, which isn’t a holiday over here, and which I haven’t celebrated in traditional US fashion since 2001. Perhaps by then, in addition to the outcomes of the World Series and the election, I’ll have one other thing to be thankful for.