A year later. President Obama is starting to turn the health/sick care machine in a new and hopeful direction. And my story has quieted to a quarterly visit to my new oncologist here in Asheville. My bloodwork is telling a story of holding on for dear life. I'm no longer being looked at as a candidate for a bone marrow transplant. The diseases are still there but somehow strength flows through me. I tell people, "The factory is, indeed, broken, but is still managing to produce a decent product." None of this makes sense, but my hospice experience tells me that most of the really big things don't. So, I'm grateful beyond words and desire to live into this time of reprieve from the horror of a transplant procedure. And so we go on. In gratitude.