The Game Is On...

This is a recap of Bird's posting to Facebook. He forgot his blog password at home, so I've copied and pasted his ramblings here.
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The game is on...I am hooked up and the poison has started the cell slaughter. So far, I feel fine. I left my info book at Kai's house, so I will have to wait until tomorrow to update the blog. There are, however, four weeks worth of emails for me to open, so I do not have to worry about being bored during the next five days.

There are many contenders for brother of the week for the last seven days. Willy came up a week ago Friday and joined the Lund family circus. We worked on a lot of projects, but more importantly had a lot of fun. It is a full time job finding activities to keep my mind away from dwelling on my condition. Willy set up his work station in my office and did the part time thing during the morning hours.

My day typically begins at 11:00 am, so after my breakfast time, we would head out and work on miscellaneous projects. On Tuesday the Big Guy Club (Bullwinkle and Kai)+Wally T Grovel arrived to take on some of my larger projects such as a storm drain pipe with no outlet, the 4'x4'x75' ditch and associated piping (including stubbing water and electric into the cabin), and placing and energizing the radio dog fence.

All projects were finished and the four of us left Wednesday night. I stayed with Bullwinkle and his family Thursday and Friday while going to U of M Cancer Center for treatment preparation. Talk about a skate, my own room, shuttle service to and from, and the sausage and pepper pasta dinner. On Friday, No Mercy Percy snatched me from the hospital and after a brief visit to his office, started north toward Maple City, and along the way we plucked Messiah from the side of the road to join the caravan. Of course company was a-plenty considering the fourth passenger, No.7 AKA Dr. Jack Daniels. After a very fun ride, we arrived at our destination where we spent the next two days working on the garden area and doing what we still do best. In fact, Air Bando arrived Saturday afternoon to join the Garden Fest and showed us how to do things best, in his own special way. Allen's waste basket will never be the same.

So Sunday came way too quickly, but we all loaded up to install the folks dock at the lake as well as experience (for those who dared) Dad's fiery chili burgers. However, there was no time for desert as a critical and much anticipated event was nearly to transpire (see Highlights-mobile uploads on Facebook). Now during the previous night, Messiah had been painstakingly working on me to shave the head, but this plan of attack was temporarily put to rest as Barb informed him the kids wanted to be present. However, after dinner on Sunday there was no more time and no more excuses.

Cameras rolling and clicking, children a giggling, and razor a buzzing, my four plus years of hair growth started to become forever detached. My oldest daughter Christine first braided it into a long rope with bands at either end to keep it intact, then, while I held the braid straight up into the air, the Lawnmower man, sporting a 1960s vintage razor/trimmer began to cut the tethers connecting the braid.As you can see in the picture the rest is history.

Anyway, Air Bando skated me to a landing strip less than one mile from Kai's house and the Jensen family has now adopted me for the first few days of this treatment. The flight was awesome, unlike the holy caravan of No Mercy and Messiah, the latter of whose newly acquired vehicle decide to take a dump out of the transmission tail shaft, leading to a prompt return to home base via the same flat bed that plucked it from the side of the road two years ago with another problem.

In a nutshell, the last week or so has once again shown me the power of the brotherhood and its abilities to make a terrible situation much less painful and scary. I think it was Bando I was talking to when I mentioned "when I get better, I am going to have a lot of cars to wash and shoes to shine". I am still trying to find the right words to express my thanks and appreciation for everybody's support.

In a nutshell, Thank you.