Gratitude 1

It has been six years since I was operated on for large B cell lymphoma and I survived that cancer.  I am grateful to Dr. Lawrence Kaplan, a brilliant oncologist with the University of California, San Francisco, for his efforts in keeping me alive.  I underwent surgery for a massive tumor in my chest and intense chemotherapy.  I still have CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia) but it is in remission and I am currently cancer free.  In fact, although it has taken the full six years to get where I am now, cancer feels far away and not anywhere involved in the “now” of my life.  Before cancer, I had pursued careers in teaching at every level, including college level, and started a creative writing department at John F. Kennedy University. That was before I decided that I needed more money than a teaching profession would provide and changed course into a career path of computer technologies and entrepreneurism. But I still kept writing, and finished a novel, too. I was engaged in promoting my book and was chairman of the board of a computer software company. When cancer struck, all of that life disappeared. I had a really busy life at that point that was dramatically altered by cancer. I did not know what the future held. But my life was saved.