Living with MCL

As Roseanne Roseannadanna, often quoting an older relative would say, “It just goes to show ya…it’s always something! If it’s not one thing, it’s another!”

Well, as you know from my last post, my company and I both dodged a bullet, by not having our AS9100 audit observed by the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board, but now something else has come up which may even be more difficult to navigate.

A good friends son died on Friday. It wasn’t totally unexpected, as he had not been doing well for the past year or two. But that’s not really the point. The point is they are having a Celebration of Life memorial for him on Wednesday, August 2, at 1 PM. That is the day of the AS9100 audit.

For most poeple that wouldn’t seem to be such a big deal, i.e. take a couple of hours off work, go to the memorial and be back in time to finish with the audit, but in my case it isn’t quite that simple.

First off, I work 78 miles (minimum 1.5 hour commute with no traffic) from where I live, and even further from where the memorial will be held. Secondly, I am typically off on Wednesday, so how would it look, the one day I have to work, a close friend is having a memorial for his son. That could look pretty tacky of me in some peoples eyes, especially since there are a few people coming down from San Francisco, who I sort of slighted on their last visit, and I’d prefer not to do that again.

So what do I do? Currently I have an email into the auditor to see if there is anything we can do to condense the audit, i.e. start Monday evening and work late finishing the audit up on Tuesday, or try and finish it up by 10 AM Wednesday, which will give me time to make it to the memorial.

Hopefully it won’t be a problem, as the auditor is pretty accomodating, but it is short notice, and if the audit doesn’t go well, well………

So here I am, still hoping a live a charmed life, and everything will work out fine. Only time will tell.

For the past month, I have been dreading my companies upcoming AS9100 audit, August 1st and 2nd. I’ve been dreading it because not only are we being audited, but our auditor was going to be audited, at the same time, by the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB). That would have made for a very hard nosed, formal audit.

Well I just got word today from our auditor, that the ANAB auditors that were coming, are needed elsewhere, and they won’t be coming after all.

Hallelujah!!!!! Life just got a whole lot simpler.

I never thought I’d be writing Part IV to the Tour d’France, but here we are, 4 days after Floyd Landis overcomes, what many would consider, an insurmountable deficit to win the Tour d’France, he fails a drug test, performed immediately after that super human effort.

What more can go wrong for this venerable race? Three weeks after the two favorites, Ivan Basso and Jan Ullrich, are barred from participating in the race, simply for being associated with an unscrupulous doctor, the ultimate winner fails a drug test.

And now what might have been considered one of the greatest comebacks of all time, will forever be marred by the accusation, even if Landis is ultimately exonerated, as most knowledgeable people concerned with drugs in sport believe he will be.

The damage has already been done, and it is not good for the sport.

My wife asked me that question the other day. She was of course referring to the fact that I have Mantle Cell Lymphoma, and she has Multiple Myeloma.

Had I been particularly sharp or witty, I might have come back with the reply, we’re going to die. It’s the obvious answer of course, since we’re all going to die eventually. But as is typical of me and George Castanza (Seinfeld), I only come up with the witty responses days afterwards.

The point is we are all going to die eventually. It’s just that we all have a different perspective on when that’s going to happen.

Some of us will die unexpectedly from some sort of accident, sudden heart attack, stroke or other similar type occurrence. Others will die after the body just gives out from old age, and still others will die after a long or short battle with some chronic disease, i.e. diabetes, obesity, cancer or other untreatable disease.

My wife and I are in the latter situation, and while it certainly isn’t an enviable position to be in, i.e. we didn’t choose to be in this position, neither does it mean our futures are particularly bleak. Our future is just more current.

I know of a few people, as I am sure many of you do also, who have worked all their lives, saving and planning for retirement, and when the time comes, they are either too old to enjoy their retirement, or die prematurely from some accident, disease etc. (as mentioned previously), never getting the opportunity to really enjoy their retirement.

My wife and I aren’t going to let that happen. I’m not going to let that happen! What ever time we have left, we are going to enjoy it. We’re both still healthy, that is we are asymptomatic, and we have enough money saved to enjoy whatever time we do have left.

For the near term, we’re going to San Francisco over the labor day weekend, and two weeks after that we’re heading to Italy, Rome and Tuscany, to savor the food and the wine, and enjoy the people and the countryside. (BTW, if any of you know of a good Myeloma or Lymphoma specialist in Italy, please let us know so we can make the trip tax deductible.)

No other specific plans yet, but what’s the point in planning. The most fun is had when you do something on the spur of the moment, because you want to.

And I would like to suggest that you all do the same thing. Take a good hard look at where you are in life. Don’t wait till the future catches up to you. You may find, the future isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.