May Ends - Does C Mean Contagious?

May has ended and my e mail reply to a friend sums it up for me;
Thanks Kathy for the cheer up video and your continued spiritual support. My cancer has not improved, however it has not gotten any worse. I am adjusting to very limited mobility for the first summer of my life. I can now park in the handicapped spaces without remorse and legally and I have even negotiated a few stores on the provided hover round or wheel chair. My how life changes. We continue to hang in and await what tomorrow will bring. Hopefully improved mobility as time goes on. In the immortal words of Super Chicken 'We knew the job was dangerous when I took it.' And there is no such thing as fail to Tom Slick
The neighborhood has proven to be such a family. Dale has taken over lawn mowing and never has the yard been so well quaffed. Bob and Jim are in the wings ready to jump in whenever needed. My Shop seems to be itching to help with whatever is needed. Given this static situation I will likely scale back on this diary until I have some other profound thought or something new to report. Each day without progress is a day of additional risk of complications, from infection to heart failure, I run the gambit of possibilities at this point. This I do not discuss with Vanessa or the Daughters. Sometimes I cannot help but think the continued misery I am put through is a prelude for what is to come in my closing days and weeks on this earth. I wonder if I will be here to feel the autumn breeze.
Only time will tell.
Last night after therapy on the pump we rode with the top down. And in the late night went home that way, what a treat. My emotions got the best of me when I had to face retaping, and I made Vanessa sad because nothing she could do could make it better and all she could do was make me uncomfortable, because that is part of it. Compression bandaging is not meant to be easy on you.
It has been a few days since I wrote last and some things came up worth mentioning. First, there are a lot of people that look at you with disdain as you maneuver the aisles in the store provided electric vehicle, straining under the 220 lb load, far beyond it’s design but well below what it has seen in it’s day for sure. On the other hand there are those that give a kind smile or feel good about helping if called upon. Don’t be shy with cancer is key here, or with any handicap. Second, some treat me and Vanessa as if we were contagious. Talking with Jared I found it impossible to put into words what it is like to have a foreign body growing in your body and spreading microscopically clones of itself to neighboring body structures. Vanessa has sensed in many encounters with acquaintances a certain remoteness. Do not feel bad about being contagious in some folks minds. The very fact it is in their minds is reason enough not to associate with them and this C word solves the entire problem for you. This week Hollywood mourns the passing of Gary Coleman and Dennis Hopper, there are a bevy of Troops marching at the 500 and life goes on.
Stopped and saw David, curled in a fetal position in a room at 100 plus under a blanket in full long sleeve dress. The drugs were holding back his pain. Yet he recognized my cane and asked me if I was in an accident, an old standing joke he loved to hit me with.
Vanessa and I dined with the Nieces and Sisters at Dave and Julie’s place in the shade with melt in your mouth barbeque and the race on the radio, Wow. Met up with my cousin Jeff C briefly at his place where he had a major party in progress, his annual Memorial Day Ride crowd. Another unintended by delightful consequence of the disease is developing a friendship with Jeff.
‘Do you feel cancery today?’ ‘No,’ came the emphatic answer. But that is just not so, and he knew it.