This was a mixed week for me. On Monday, I got some labs back that continue to look good. The PSA dropped to a 2.7 and the Alk Phos finally came back down from 242 to 140 (25-140 normal). So while it is still on the high end of normal, it is officially normal. I was very happy with this news until I found out the same day that a very good friend of our family, Kenny, passed away early Monday morning in Florida. My Dad and Kenny were best friends and he had been "family" since before I was born. Kenny was a good man with a great heart. He called me a few times during my treatment in Reno and after to check on me and let me know he was there for anything I needed. I was hoping to see him over the summer or next fall. He will be greatly missed and I hope wherever he is, they serve Imo's pizza and Steak -n-Shake. Love ya Kenny. I also found out that someone I used to work with is suffering from Cancer right now, too. I have spent most of the day worried about him, which takes me out of myself. It's funny how you get wrapped up in the semantics of your own decisions, but if you are able to help someone else by showing them options, it crystalizes your thinking about them and you. It caused some reflecton on my situation. Seems like I do a lot of that right now. I am in a good place with this lately, but it obviously monopolizes a lot of my active thought. As I thought about Kenny, I kept thinking about my own mortality. Not that I feel like I am dying, because I don't. That's the point I kept coming back to. I realized that I won't ever be dying. As long as you can breathe and your heart is beating, you are living, not dying. You still have experiences to relate, laughs to share, and as my friend Annette Koob says, show tunes to sing. I choose to look at life this way now. Each day is a blessing. I will die someday, but I will never be dying, only living. A note to friends and family, don't let me forget this when the chips seem down. I hope I don't need reminding.