Programming Announcement/Sick Leave

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve had this monologue from Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs running through my head:

EUGENE I’d better explain what she meant by Aunt Blanche’s “situation.” You see, her husband, Uncle Dave, died six years ago from (He looks around) this thing… They never say the word. They always whisper it. It was (He whispers)—cancer! I think they’re afraid if they said it out loud, God would say, “I HEARD THAT! YOU SAID THE DREAD DISEASE! (He points his finger down) JUST FOR THAT, I SMITE YOU DOWN WITH IT!” … There are some things that grownups just won’t discuss. For example, my grandfather. He died from (He whispers) diphtheria! Anyway, after Uncle Dave died, he left Aunt Blanche with no money. Not even insurance. And she couldn’t support herself because she has (He whispers)—asthma… So my big-hearted mother insisted we take her and her kids in to live with us. So they broke up our room into two small rooms, and me and my brother Stan live on this side, and Laurie and her sister Nora live on the other side. My father thought it would just be temporary, but it’s been three and a half years so far and I think because of Aunt Blanche’s situation, my father is developing (He whispers)—high blood pressure!

I’m not the whispering type, but I’ve thought about that at least daily. And it has inspired me to whisper bits of my news just to amuse myself when I tell others about it. Early last month, a radiologist who was supposed to be looking for something else, noticed that my right kidney had a tumor on it that was most likely cancerous. The treatment for this is simple: remove the kidney. I have a spare, right? There’s no sign of it anywhere else, so this simple procedure will get set right.

By the time this posts, I should be fully anesthetized and won’t come out of it for a few hours. I’m supposed to lie low for a couple of weeks, and since I don’t know how I’ll be feeling over those weeks, I’ve arranged for some friends, acquaintances, and a stranger or two to drop by with some guest posts. Some will be a new Iteration of the All-Time Desert Island Top 5 lists from last year. Some will be other lists or posts, a guest review or two, and who knows what else? Some of the contributors won’t be strangers to readers of this blog. Some are new to this space. All of them have contributed something I enjoyed reading—hopefully, you do, too.

Also, since I can’t schedule posts there, my daughter has taken control of my BlueSky and Threads accounts. There’s a strong possibility that shenanigans may ensue there.

While you’re being entertained by my guests, I have a stack of (mostly lighter) reads to work through and a few movies I’ve been putting off while doing as little as I can. I’ll likely be popping back with a post or two (how many are to be determined) along the way, and plan on being back cancer-free and one renal organ lighter by the 20th.

I borrowed the kidney above from the blog we ran about my son’s kidney transplant, etc. So I’ll thank V.X. Blackthorne for doing that again. And clearly there is something about my family and kidneys (there’s nothing other than correlation when it comes to this and my son’s issues), but we don’t know what it is.