Personal Note: Cross Post

HERE.

Enjoy your holiday (and summer) folks. 

Tom

Changing Affiliations.

A short note to advise that I have left the Hacienda CDC Board of Directors and have begun service as a member of an advisory group to the Clackamas County Housing Authority Director, Trell Anderson.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

A Personal Note: 40 Years Ago Today.

Not to get all Sgt. Pepper's X 2 on you, but 40 years ago today I left the Pacific Northwest for the first time, after processing through Ft. Lewis on my way out of the service, after finishing a year and a half of service in Vietnam.

I was just a month shy of enrolling in college for the first time and also my 21st birthday. (The pic on the left is my Northwest Orient ticket holder for my flight home from Seattle --notice that as a parting shot the military provided only a standby ticket for those leaving the service. I found the ticket in my Army uniform jacket pocket where it has been for all of these years).

I really remember just two things about being in the Northwest for the first time. First, it took two days to get through all the paperwork to get out of the service (that should have reminded me of the slowness of government). Second, it was gloomy as hell and rained almost constantly for the the two days I was in Ft. Lewis. Even going back home to the snow in Detroit (of all places) I wondered "Who in the hell would want to live here?".

Well, 40 years (and unfortunately 40 lbs) later, there are two decisions I made that I never regretted.

1. Talking my first job offer from HUD a few years later.
2. Coming west to Portland in 1980.

A Personal Post.

Subscribers may have noticed a recent uptick of postings to this blog (www.oregonhousing.blogspot.com). To some extent that was in anticipation of the likelihood that I will need to scale back my postings in the coming months.

The short version of “why?” ... I have newly diagnosed lymphatic cancer of the neck and chest and will be starting chemotherapy the first week of November, with a current scheduled completion date of sometime next March.

The long version…..Out of the blue In September I found a lump on my neck.After a biopsy [a polite way of saying the doc cut into my right neck and removed lymph nodes ] and several scans over the last month the diagnosis is that I have lymphatic cancer. The treatment is a beefed up chemotherapy called R-CHOP with radiation therapy perhaps thrown in afterwards for good measure. [With scans to date, future scans, and possible radiation I may glow enough to light my own Christmas tree by the time this is done].

Therapy will start in early November, and will likely continue until March. The “cure” or “remission” rate for this type and stage of cancer can vary widely for a person of my age , as can the adverse effects of chemo.

I have spent the last couple of months undergoing various tests and medical procedures and scans, reviewing treatment options and complications and completing a will and advance medical directive that I was hoping to put off for quite some time.

Prior to my 60th birthday in January, this is not the way I would have chosen to begin my retirement. I have never had a major health problem until now, so in that respect I have been very lucky. I hope that luck continues, and I intend to do my part to give myself the best chance I can to be a cancer survivor.

Health permitting, I do expect to continue to make at least occasional postings to this blog, if for no other reason than as therapy and to keep my spirits up through the winter months. While I will be protecting against infections, I will on occasion be out and about, so keep an eye out for with me with my likely new “bald brotherhood” look.

Some of the few positives of having cancer are a greater connection to the personal struggles we all face during the course of our lives, and the renewed importance of making each day count.

I am thankful that I was able to enjoy most of the last two summers away from work--until this happened I was enjoying retirement a lot. I very much hope to have several more summers and years in which to enjoy that retirement.

(Feel free to pass this post along to others who you think may know me and have an interest).

TC