The Wisdom of Trees

After an eye appointment, chest x-ray, bone marrow biopsy, bone density scan, multiple blood draws, and a pulmonary function test, the results are in...

My doctors have determined there is no detectable evidence of residual disease - I'm cancer free! This doesn't mean that the leukemia won't return. In fact we received this same news last year after my transplant. However, I'm in the clear for now and you better believe I'm going to enjoy it!

For those of you that want more detail (Mom this is for you) the bone density scan revealed my bones are weak for someone my age. This is not surprising considering all the chemotherapy and radiation I've endured. 

We also found that the transplant stifled my thyroid's ability to produce the hormone thyroxine. This is a fairly common ailment known as 'hypothyroidism' and can be treated with medication. Ugh, another pill - two steps forward and one step back I suppose ;)

Sounds good Mr. Johnson. No wait, that's my iPod... 

I was walking my dog earlier this week when I decided to turn off the music and just enjoy the quiet of the morning. A bright fingernail of a moon hung in a cloudy blanket of stars to the West while a vague halo was building over the silhouette of mountains to the East. As I walked through the strange valley that separates night from day I was taught by the wisdom of trees.

I pondered the absolute strength of a massive tree along my path. I marveled at how it stretched in a constant desire to gather light, how anxiously it must anticipate the rising of the sun! 

Awed, I contemplated it's perpetual resurrection. In Spring it toils in steady slow motion, swelling forth, each budding branch expanding into the heat of longer days. Struggling in splendor, reaching its zenith only to whither and burn out in a flash of autumn brilliance, to fall to the ground and decay. An arctic skeleton - is all this effort wasted? 

No! It has stretched the tree's capacity for grandeur. As the earth swirls back into Spring it strives again to reach a fraction higher. By increments invisible it climbs into the heavens.