Giving thanks

Just over a year ago, on November 11, 2015, a Memorial Sloan Kettering doctor told Teresa and me, explicitly, that I had cancer. The exact diagnosis required a biopsy and took a little longer; we learned that the cancer I had was cholangiocarcinoma on November 25, 2015.

It is now a year later and I am still here. I’ve had some ups and downs but the latest indications are that my current chemotherapy is degrading my tumors. Meanwhile I’m still able (except when I’m recovering from surgery) to research and write, and (even when I’m recovering from surgery) to enjoy happy times with my family and my friends.

So I give thanks, deep thanks, for this year that I’ve enjoyed, and for each individual day along the way, and hope for many more days and years to come.

Thanksgiving

To celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends, with an abundance of food and in a house with power, is to have a great deal to be thankful for. The assault of Hurricane Sandy on New Jersey and New York has been a reminder, an all too vivid reminder, of how fragile the elaborate social and technological systems are that maintain us. Some people lost their lives as a result of that fragility. Many more people suffer daily around the world in circumstances that are fragile, or worse, all the time. As we enjoy the return of our normal life, we have plenty of reason to recommit ourselves to building a world in which everyone’s normal life is worth giving thanks for.