Hope is the thing...

"He also serves who also stands and waits" is often quoted in military contexts, or long checkout lines, but it was written by Milton in a lamentation over his blindness, which required that his daughters read to him and made writing a struggle.

Our wait remains over the sale of our Midtown house, which has us in limbo (another term made famous by Milton) between two homes. I'll be in Phoenix most of next week, so let's hope for developments this weekend. We will be working to set up John's space in the basement so that he can begin moving in.

Courtney says her stomach is doing better, but perhaps we can be more sure if we stand and wait a bit longer.

John's report card from his doctor's visit yesterday turned out to be better than I thought. His doctor said that he is pretty much "fully recovered." (They never use the word cured with a cancer patient.) The doctor even asked if John would be willing to come answer questions from his medical school class, which pleased John a lot.

After the last trial test next week, John will move to MONTHLY doctor's visits, unless something starts to bother him. I'm sure there was more, but I couldn't hear because my smile was even wider than my ears.

We had the house walk through today and John got to scope out his space downstairs. These pictures are the two entrances to his space at "232 1/3 Superior Avenue." He is wanting to move already. Afterwards, we went shopping at IKEA for bedroom furniture for him. All in all, for a cold and windy winter day, it has felt pretty warm inside.

I realized that it was this time last year that I began using this blog to update everyone on John. There has been a lot to cover in that time and plenty ahead, I'm glad to say.

John will soon end his participation in the anti-fungal medication trial, successfully no less. He will then be down to blood tests every other week. More markers of progress. He did have a bad day yesterday, when he had to take Elvis, his cat, to the vet to be put to sleep. I was sad too. Elvis lived his full nine lives and never took orders from anyone, although he was partial to Bonnie, loved to spend the day under Courtney's quilt and was best friends with John. After the past year, I'm sure we all think a bit longer and deeper when a friend is gone.

As I was dealing with the effects of a stomach virus yesterday, Courtney reported that she has been suffering from what seems like dyspepsia for a while. When she first arrived in Peru, she was served guinea pig and ended up with the "Revenge." This seems (to Dr. Dad) to be a chronic version of the same bacteria. Courtney went to the doctor yesterday and was told it was nothing, which is probably true to someone born in Peru.

I spent time online and on the phone with medical types here getting the test and treatment information and then finding Spanish translations to email. I haven't heard anything more sense. I feel better anyway, being able to do something.

We close on the new house on Wednesday. Nothing to report on the sale of ours in Midtown yet. It's a beautiful old house though, so we get lots of traffic coming through. More like tourists perhaps. I know, I'm going to put up velvet ropes and charge admission!