Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the music!

BOX SCORE	11/5/24
Element	Current	Std. Range	Trend
Hemoglobin	12.7	13-17	v
Platelets	165	140-375	v
ANC	2860	1800-8300	v

Well, 'tis the season!  Most of the pumpkins in our neighborhood have disappeared, along with the spider webs, witches, ghosts and goblins of all sorts. The rain is falling frequently, much to Jill's chagrin. She is using the treadmill as I write this, in lieu of our daily two mile constitutional around the 'hood. (She campaigned for a treadmill last year and is mostly glad to have it for days like this, but confidentially, she really hates using it. She'd rather walk outside, as would I.) 

The Christmas commercials have begun popping up on TV... en masse! I will be really disappointed this year if Santa (or one of his helpers) doesn't bring me a new SUV, a new Rolex, a new pair of diamond stud earrings with matching pendant, an iPhone, a gaming computer, a puppy, and a partridge in a pear tree. Can you believe the amounts that advertisers suggest are appropriate expenditures for Christmas gifts?  What ever happened to just remembering "the Little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay"? Now there is a Christmas present...priceless!

It seems to me that in the leap from the weird celebrations of All Hallow's Eve (Halloween) to the celebration of the birth of the world's Savior, we sort of skip over a couple of other celebrations, without much fanfare. The first of these happens to be today, Veterans Day. 

Veterans Day was formerly known as Armistice Day. It began as a holiday in celebration of the de facto end of  The Great War, now called World War One. Then after the second world war, the name in the U.S. was changed to Veterans Day, in celebration of the brave men and women who have defended our nation in armed conflicts throughout its history. This is a cause worthy of celebration. At the risk of getting a little maudlin and repeating a cliché, freedom is not free. Thousands have made unimaginable sacrifices so that we may enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I was proud to serve in the US Naval Reserve Dental Corps during the Viet Nam conflict. Granted I was never in harm's way, but somebody had to, as my commanding officer liked to say, "just patch 'em up so they are fit for combat." 

Today also happens to be the de facto end of active leukemia treatment for me. I swallowed my last leukemia related capsule this morning; a little pill called Tacrolimus, designed to prevent my newly implanted bone marrow and the immune cells it produces from identifying my own tissues as invaders in need of destruction. Sure, I will go on being monitored, probably for the rest of my life, but I am no longer receiving any active treatment specific to leukemia. I would never compare myself to a combat veteran, but three and a half years of battling this nasty cancer has been harder than anything I faced in the Navy. So, on this day, I declare an armistice in my war with leukemia. 

Oh, and by the way, in a couple of weeks we will observe the second celebration to which I alluded above: Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving has been a focus of celebration in Christendom for centuries and in North America at least since the sixteenth century. How appropriate that this day of expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for his unimaginable goodness should fall so soon after Armistice Day (and my armistice day). We as a nation have so much for which to give thanks. I know I have. So, let me encourage you, as you gather 'round the family table to feast on succulent comestibles, or in front of the TV to cheer your favorite NFL team on to victory, to take time out to thank the One who invented freedom and sent His Son to deliver it.

I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. (Psalm 69:30)