Update on last blog: on Saturday, a couple of hours after I had posted my last entry, the oncologist e-mailed.  He's scheduling a CT scan for my next visit on the 22nd.  Dr. Van didn't seem particularly concerned about my worries, but thought a scan was worth the time just to be sure.  I feel relieved.

Yesterday we went to my lawyer, who had rewritten and updated several documents, including my trust agreement and durable power of attorney for health care decisions.  Until the changes, the decisions about end-of-life care were in the hands of my attorney.  I thought this was a good decision that spared Mohamed the anguish of having to make such painful choices.  But since my medical care is at KU Med in Kansas City, the chances that Mohamed will be there when decisions must be made are greater than that the lawyer will be there.  Moreover, as we prepare (slowly) to apply for a green card for Mohamed, all these documents can be added to the file to prove the "reality" of our marriage.  I also want to get photocopies of the original documents filed over two years ago at the Med Center, where they listed Mohamed as "life partner."  Although after six years of being a couple and after all that Mohamed has been through in also being a caregiver, I can't imagine how any official could question our marriage, I'll have to admit that I keep putting off accumulating and arranging all the material, downloading all the instructions for the four forms we have to fill out (the instructions are longer than the forms), downloading and completing the forms, soliciting attestations from friends, writing the checks, and sending everything to an anonymous bureaucrat in Chicago.  Fortunately, the interview part of the application takes place in Kansas City.  We'll do it, of course, but so far we've made only very small, reluctant, and tentative steps.

After the lawyer, we had a very late and heavy lunch, which soon gave the lie to my claims of G-I improvement.  I managed half a plate of sushi as a late dinner, but that was my limit, and I was up at 2 a.m. paying the consequences.  I did have a culinary pleasure a few days earlier.  We were at our go-to restaurant, where an unfamiliar server was very aggressive.  She told Mohamed that he should have a pork dish, and when he said he didn't eat pork, she suggested pork chops as an alternative.  He settled for chicken puttanesca and a salad.  I had fish which came with alligator croquettes.  And the alligator was delicious; it tasted rather like chicken livers.  Mohamed had a croquette and then worried that alligator wasn't halal.  A web search revealed that it isn't.  Nor is it kosher.  While he was looking at lists of what was halal and what was haram, I found a site with a list of about 1500 foods, divided into kosher and treyf.  What a lot of work it must be to worry about this!  And the reasons for distinctions were so complicated and often contradictory ("this food is technically forbidden, but since Jews have been eating it for many centuries, tradition has now deemed it kosher") that I had further occasion to mutter about the irrationality of religion.  At least, I ate my alligator guilt-free and enjoyed every bite.