No news is good news

I get worried when friends don't post for weeks on end. I fear they are not wanting to share challenging news. They are hiding something perhaps.

I can too quickly envision the worst.

So I should be more sensitive and empathetic about what others may be thinking when my posts go cold for weeks on end.

In my case, no news is good news. Labs are not trending any way, up or down. Nodes aren't gone, but aren't growing. Energy is still low, but not lower.

Boring boring boring, which is perfect! I love it.

There is little new to write about from the CLL perspective, but I have a bone marrow biopsy scheduled and a few new thoughts on how I plan to handle imaging studies and maintenance therapy all that need to be formulated and posted before the end of the month.

Mostly I have some internet access issues, and it will be a short spell before they are all resolved, so my next post is likely at least a week away.

So no worries, mate.

Where I go when I'm not here

There are many reasons I disappear from the blogosphere for days at a time.

The first is that I am swamped with other writing and editing with due dates and time lines - mostly medical, and occasionally related to leukemia, and have no wisdom or beaux mots left to share for my own projects.

The second is that I am awash with life- kids, patients, friends, plans, music, others with CLL, air hockey. My energy is easily sapped.

Remember my middle name is Tired and I am much slower since my CLL diagnosis.

The third is that I have nothing new to share. Writing is hard enough with pressing issues, but with nada to report it is by definition an empty effort. "It is a tale... full of sound and fury signifying nothing" but Macbeth already nailed that one.

Another is that I have gone fishing - well actually more likely hiking and sight seeing and my internet connection is blissfully crappy. But the trees are green and the air is sweet.

A rarer cause is that my news is bad, and I am waiting like the president's press secretary to give it the right spin before I blast it out on its irretrievable one way journey into the ether.

And sometimes. not often, but not never, I just don't feel like writing. It is more than fatigue- more like ennui - looking for meaning in all the wrong places. And while I feel it is my G-d given option to despair, it is never right to inflict my black mood on others, unless you can do it with wit and humor and grace, as does Woody Allen at his best. And if I can do that, I am half way out of the hole

Most often I am just lazy or hungry or sleepy or or distracted or gone.

So when I am not here, don't fret. Imagine me writing up a storm on anemia or obstructive sleep apnea, or picture me hiking on the John Muir trail in the high Sierra or more likely, taking a long nap.

My latest disappearance was due to a lovely trip to Mammoth Lakes and Yosemite with challenging glacier paced internet connections, but also with wonder filled glacier carved cliffs and forests and meadows and rivers and waterfalls and lakes and skies and ghost towns.

There have been a few minor twists in my lab that are starting to look like nothing. No sinister trends. No dark clouds.

Last platelet count was a robust 348,000 just before I left town, and I see Kipps tomorrow.

It is all good, except for all the non blog writing I need to do.