Sigh…We can’t be that old, can we? I guess apparently we are! I didn’t think so. In fact I still consider us a young couple but several recent incidents seem to belie that perception.

Grandma Oddball received an urgent call from our youngest grandson (age 6) the other day who wanted to know if we had seen that “new joke” “Who’s on first?” by Abbott and Costello.

“Yes”, she replied but just in case he had to tell her all about the routine . Since we’re old and perhaps somewhat senile he not only had to explain each and every joke in great detail in case we didn’t get it but he also had to tell her how he would explain the situation to someone that didn’t get the joke. This phone call caused grandma to pull off to the roadside for half hour while listening to him. As a result she was late to work but that was okay because it made the whole day worthwhile.

Reminds me a bit of George Burns years ago when he would sing song after song from the 1920′s. At the time they were new to us and we were greatly entertained (if you don’t remember Burns and Allen then you’re really too young – Gracie Allen was an original and no one except possibly Pauline Collins on No Honestly has been able to match her).

This post originally was going to be a medical update (which I’ll include at the end – it’s been a hectic week for me) but I got sidetracked by a visit to our insurance agent. While discussing various insurance options we mentioned that because of my MS and other medical problems I’m not eligible for most insurance. In fact we mentioned that I may die by bleedout at any moment so we’d already made arrangements for cremation.

Of course this reminded grandma and me of several old old jokes on the subject which apparently our agent hadn’t heard:

Bill was happily and passionately married to Brenda when an aneurism suddenly and unexpectedly bust a brain vein causing instant death. Bill was inconsolably grief-stricken and couldn’t bear to be separated from Brenda even in death. After Brenda was cremated Bill installed the open top urn as the center piece in his living room where he could be with Brenda constantly as he lived the life of a virtual hermit.

After a few years his grief began to diminish and he started inviting a few select friends over from time to time. A non-smoker Bill often forgot to put out ashtrays for his guests. Rather than just drop ashes on the floor Bill’s friend started flicking their ashes into the Brenda’s open urn.

This went on for a number of years until one day Bill had some friends over to watch a ballgame. As one of his friends started inspecting the now overflowing urn he told Bill, “I see your wife has been putting on weight lately.”

Commenting through her laughter we were informed that that was “terrible” so of course grandma had to tell another story!

Mary’s father died and was cremated. Since no will was made out Mary elected to keep his ashes on her fireplace mantle. One day one of Mary’s friends stopped by to visit and during the visit got very excited because the urn was missing. This was awful. Poppa had to be found but searching the house as thoroughly as they could the couldn’t find him until they went into the backyard.

There they found Mary’s children playing with grandpa’s ashes. They’d dumped the grandpa’s ashes on the ground under a rose bush where they’d been busy making elaborate designs on the dirt.

Mary’s friend was aghast! What a dreadful sacrilege but Mary took the news in stride. “Aren’t you upset?”, her friend wanted to know and how will you ever recover the ashes mixed in with all that dirt?

“Well”, Mary answered, “he never played with the grandchildren while he was alive so it’s only fitting he play with them after his death!”

sigh sigh sigh, It seems that more and more people we know don’t remember the “recent” past. I want to ask,”What’s happening to us?”, but unfortunately I think I know the answer! Guess I’d better let sleeping dogs lie.

Enough of that. I promised to do a medical update so here it is. We received some possibly good news lately. According to the IR doctors the odds of a bleedout have decreased. Veins seem to heal themselves easier than arteries. The possibility still exists but every day that passes without the Portal vein bursting lessons the odds of death.

In addition we now have a tentative plan of action to solve my pancreas problem that doesn’t involve risky surgery. Currently the guesstimate is about an 80% chance of success but no one can be sure because no one has ever tried this before (once again I’ll be the guinea pig). I’ll be undergoing a course of radiation therapy to try and shut down the part of the pancreas that is causing my problem.

This treatment will not be finalized until after the GI and radiation doctors return from a conference on the pancreas where they will discuss my case with other members of the medical community. If it still looks promising after the conference then we’ll proceed with the proposed treatment. One way or another everything should be completed by June 9^th. I’ll keep you posted unless I suffer some side effects from the radiation.

Tags: family, Humor, medical update

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 at 7:58 pm and is filed under family, Humor, Medical Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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