Yesterday we went back to KU Med to see Dr. Templeton, the orthopedic oncologist who performed the surgery on my right femur and hip in May of 2011.  Our friends Scott and Kelly (she's a pediatrician at the Med Center) were there to greet us and have a short chat before it was time for x-rays of the femur.  Everything looked good: "no new holes in the femur," as Dr. Templeton breezily put it.  I pushed her hands apart with my knees; I pushed them together.  I pushed her hands up with my extended legs.  And then she said I was doing well and looking good, and that was that.  It seemed like a long trip for such a short consutation, but it's always worthwhile to get good news.  On the way home, I was feeling fine and thinking that I really should drive more since I was alert.  Mohamed asked whether I was tired.  I said a little, and then promptly fell asleep for the rest of the drive back to Topeka.  The fatigue is constant in that I know that a couple of times a day I'm going to crash.  What's unpredictable is when, and what's frustrating is how suddenly and completely it comes on.

Classes started last night for Mohamed, and he has two more this morning.  Friends always ask whether I miss teaching, miss the excitement of the first day of classes when there are both fresh and familiar faces and when one of the pleasures is discovering who's in the class and what kind of students you're going to have.  Maybe my dreams indicate I do, and maybe if it weren't for the cancer, I'd have a different reaction, but I don't really think about teaching very much.  As much as I hate to say it (and despite the fact that everything is going well), my primary sense of myself went overnight from being composed of various facets, including teacher, to one.  From the moment I wake up and sort through a dozen pills and then wait for Mohamed to give me my morning anti-coagulant shot through every time I go up the stairs or rush to the bathroom and fall into bed, I'm aware of the diminished quality of my life.  More than the actual limitations, I hate the feeling of dependence, the fact that the one subject of conversation I always have at the ready is my health.  And after 15 months, that's an awfully boring topic, especially since there's rarely anything new to report. 

So this'll be a short posting--and a boring one.