The Gift of Life

Treatment is going well, and I feel OK. Will be home by tomorrow night, and then in bed for a few days of sleep.

This morning, because my hemoglobin is still low (a normal chemo side-effect), I received the gift of life, granted by one of my oldest and closest friends Neil Schwartz, who donated a pint of his finest for me last Sunday. The blood has been irradiated to make sure that his strain of cooties doesn’t get passed on to me.

So thanks Neil, I am deeply touched by your gesture and your generosity. As a lymphoma survivor I am ineligible ever to give blood again. What can I give you? You’ve also got a full head of hair, so a hair transplant is out of the question. Hmmmm, I’ve only got one kidney so I can’t spare one of those. Tell you what, if you ever need some extra back hair, I am happy to share. Just let me know.

The only strange side effect of the transfusion so far, is that I’ve found myself calling Neil’s college girlfriends just to say hello. Hi Stacy Sager. Hello random girl at The Jumbo.

In college, if you put Neil, myself, and a guy named Brett Ruth together it looked like we were related by degrees with Brett being the missing link between us. But after the transfusion, I’ve been through a bit of a metamorphosis and now look like this…