HOME!

When I was growing up, anytime I had something to celebrate or needed cheering up, my mom would make my all-time favorite treat: Apple Dumplings.  This was a family recipe from my Grandma Nichols.  Warm chopped apples in flaky pastry baked in a cinnamon sugar sauce.  I don’t make them very often in my adult years; they seem almost too decadent. And obviously I had not had them since my sugar-free diet began.  But nonetheless they remain my ultimate comfort food.

So after my Saturday-Tuesday starvation ended with disappointing hospital cafeteria food today, imagine walking into the house to smell apple dumplings baking in the oven, made—believe it or not—by my two sons! They called Aunt Mindy and got coached through the process and had them ready and waiting, as good as the ones my mom made.  Nothing has EVER tasted that good!

I have the best kids on the planet.  Samantha had stayed up late the night before we left making a welcome home poster for me and then she came along for the two long hard days in Buffalo.  She rubbed my back on the nerve-wracking drive to the cancer hospital at 4am.  And then she say by my bedside all day yesterday while was zoned out on drugs. Kudos to Olga also who drove through a blinding snowstorm to get us there safely yesterday morning and has been looking out for me throughout this whole process. 

I am a blessed man indeed. I have six holes in my stomach where my little robotic friends went in for their cancer search and destroy mission.  I feel as though everything at Roswell went as smoothly and painlessly as possible under the circumstances.  Everyone there is so friendly and helpful.  Yesterday afternoon I felt like I had gotten run over by a fleet of cement trucks, but by today I am up, walking around (albeit like an octogenarian) eating apple dumplings and counting my blessings.