Rodney Curtis

One of the mind excursions I used back when I didn’t have a handle on leukemia was to think about the long-term future. I’d fantasize about anything I could velcro my soul to. That way, if I cemented a future far enough ahead, I was sure to move toward it as opposed to slipping into the muck of the moment or worse, watching CNN and worrying about the larger things I couldn’t control on top of the other smaller things that I couldn’t even contain.

Here was my favorite future flight of fantasy: I’m rolling in the grass next to our home with one of my daughter’s kids. We laugh, get dirty then flip onto our backs and look up at the clouds.

Pointing up at a thick, robust cumulus I ask, “do you know what that cloud’s called?”

Without missing a second, my grandchild, (son or daughter), answers, “Marvin.”

We laugh like hyenas then notice my wife over bending over in the tall grass, pulling out weeds and we instantly become lions stalking our prey. As we move closer to the lone animal, separated from her herd I realize that absolutely no good will come from the scenario but I’m powerless to stop the slaughter.

Attitude’s everything: Every single doctor, nurse, clinician and dietician I run into tells me a positive mental attitude is the number one key to beating disease. I’m glad to hear that but I also know cancer has become so much less of a death sentence these days than it was even ten years ago. I can’t tell you the number of people that have said, “Oh my sister, or wife, or husband or sous chef had cancer and are completely cured, living exciting lives.”

Here are a few more funky odds and ends, previously un-reported on this blog.

The most outrageous mistake I made with my jumbled up chemo-brain: I was telling my cousin and niece and sister-in-law about the bone marrow donor questions we had and as I was walking in the lovely park — the evening I heard about remission — I informed them, “Yes, we’re looking for a perfect boner donor.”

The most competitive I’ve ever felt while going through a medical procedure: When I was in the Muskegon hospital and the funny Dr. Mallon was prodding my veins with a plastic line to destroy the blood clot in the Operating Room he asked if I knew any jokes. My mind went to the un-published portion of this blog and dug up some of my bluer material and laid one on him. He countered with something just as risque, (two nurses were snickering in the room by the way). I hit him with another, he retaliated. By the time we got up to about five or six jokes each I was feeling the effects of the anesthesia and had to back out gracefully, (okay, he totally won).