Dear Friends,

After a short battle with COVID in April that required me to postpone scans, we finally got around to getting those interior pictures made this month. These were the "little scans," the ones for chest, abdomen, and pelvis, but no brain MRI, as we're saving that one for December. And once again, the pics show no evidence of disease from neck to pelvis. So big yay there! I like having boring scans.  I was down with COVID for about a week and was worried some residual inflammation would show up on the scans, but nope! I took an anti-viral, which I have no doubt helped me clear the virus. Still there were two scary days in that week, with a high fever and what felt like an anvil on my chest. My O2 saturation dropped to a scary level, and if it had stayed there more than the few hours it did, I probably would have needed an ER visit. John got COVID too, and had one day of terrible chills followed by flu-like crumminess. He took antivirals as well and recovered relatively quickly.

 I feel ever more grateful. Also, for me, having relative good health allows me to do some work on behalf of lung cancer patients and lung cancer research as part of my gratitude practice. So, as I did last summer, I'm taking that good health and putting it to work for the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program as a consumer reviewer for the Lung Cancer Research Program. That means I get to read cutting edge research proposals and give my feedback on their potential impact for lung cancer patients should the proposals get funded by this government program.

I'm fortunate to get to do this impactful work on behalf of the lung cancer community. It fits well with my other work (freelance writing and assisting college students in developing online portfolios). I like to think that each little gig makes maybe a small good difference in someone else's life, which, after all, is probably the reason we're all on this planet together.

I've also started taking some art classes at a teaching studio here in Nashville. The studio focuses a lot on developing creative process, so we play a lot and just try things out. I've tried my hand at some paper marbling (super fun), painting (abstracts), and have continued to work in collage. I feel a little like a kid at a Montessori School.

So, while all the health things are going pretty well, one of challenge I've had in the past few weeks has been fatigue. It's been worse than usual since I had COVID back in April, so I'm guessing having the bug exacerbated my existing issues around being so tired all the time. That also makes it hard to focus. I'm hoping some of the art practice I've been doing will help out with that. But maybe what I really need is just another nap, which I've read is also good for creativity.