Monday, February 15, 2016  2:21 p.m.

Brain cancer is...

...healing nicely.

Darrell chose today's entry.  He was sure you'd want to see how the incision is healing.  I wanted to zoom out so you could see his smile, but he said, "No!  Give the people what they want!  Staples!" So even if you didn't want staples, feel free to make an appreciative noise here.  Also appreciate how clean his hair is.  Can't tell you how great he felt to wash his hair after a week.

You can see that the cut is about 4 inches in length. Under the incision is apparently the round piece of skull removed during the craniotomy, then returned to its place and held there with little titanium plates and screws.  He can (and did) still have an MRI, no problem.  And they say it won't be a problem at airports. As Darrell's thinking of lots of fun trips, we'll have ample opportunity to test this assertion.

We did lots of cancer errands today (dropping off paperwork, making appointments, ordering chemo meds), and it gave me another way to complete our blog prompt today:  Brain cancer is... a reason for people to be nice to each other.  Everyone we talked to was so nice:  polite, friendly, and patient.  One even said, "I'm sorry for so many questions.  This is the last one, I promise."  

I'm thinking it might be a good rule to guide my behavior:  "Be nice to strangers.  They might have brain cancer."  I know you're thinking that the staples give a good clue, but I'm thinking we can't always rely on the visual hint.  And why wait for a diagnosis anyway?  I'll try this rule out and let you know.