A Matter of Perspective

At times, it is difficult to be calm, cool, and collected. I received a phone call a few minutes before 5:00 this afternoon from Trish, Dr. Beck’s secretary. Dr. Beck wanted to cancel my surgery on Monday. Seems he forgot to tell me on Tuesday to quit taking my Plavix (a blood thinner) so I have been taking it all this week, not knowing the wiser. Caren even confirmed that he did not tell me to quit taking it, as she sat there with her trusty note pad and bright pink Sharpie taking notes while Dr. Beck acted like a hummingbird on crack! Turns out this would have caused some major issues on Monday. Not wanting me to “bleed out” on the table on Monday, he pulled me from the surgery schedule, and it looks like Friday, June 27, will be Leon’s last day with us. Me? I am a little irked. Leon, well, all I can say he is no longer singing the Blues.

Part of me is frustrated, as I mentally had my mind prepared for Monday. I mean I know that four days is not going to make a difference at all in the whole scheme of things, but still, when you have it in your head the battle for your very life begins on a certain day, having that date suddenly changed is a bit unnerving.

So, I begin the battle for my life on Friday, June 27, 2008! Now mind you, Trish is going to call on Monday to let me know if she was able to get that date confirmed, so who knows by Monday what the actual date might be.

All in all, it doesn’t really matter. I’m not going anywhere. The cancer is not going anywhere. And most importantly, Leon is not going anywhere.

With that said, I have to say I met a woman a little bit more than a week ago who has helped me put things in perspective. As some of you know, I occasionally read grant proposals for the United States Department of Education. It is a fascinating experience just to go through the whole process. I receive a box of about 12 proposals. I read them and then I score them in certain categories. Then I get online and enter my scores and comments in the D.O.E.’s program that manages all of their grants and proposals. During all of this, I work with one or two other people on my “panel” reviewing the same proposals and then we have an impartial panel moderator who acts as babysitter to make sure we talk things out if our scores differ drastically, and the moderator also handles all the paperwork and logistics of the whole review process. Okay, I am really digressing here.

Anyway, this past review (finished this morning about 10:00) I worked with Karen, a superintendent from Iowa. Karen’s school district is located down stream to the south and to the west of Cedar Rapids. One day before getting together for a conference call, Karen had been out sandbagging the downtown area. Before the next conference call, she had spent the morning cooking hundreds and hundreds of eggs for the National Guard helping with the sandbagging and flood control. Now mind you, the National Guard had already taken over one of her school’s for their “headquarters” and staging area. Karen even met for a conference call while the town and National Guard were sandbagging one of her schools! The waters are NOT expected to crest in her area until Sunday – and the rain they are expected to get today and tomorrow will not help. But in all of this, Karen was extra worried about me. While I was amazed she was still doing these grant reviews, she was amazed I was doing the grant reviews.

It is funny how a little perspective can alter your own reality.