Hello Mr. Anderson

If the title of this blog eludes you, then you'll have to take it up with Phil. His sense of humor these days seems to revolve around many of his favorite movies. It has been good to hear him joking around again after so many days of both of us being Debbie Downers (sorry all you Debbie's out there!) For instance, in the midst of recounting the whirlwind of bad news he can often be heard quoting Bill Paxton from the original Aliens movie "this can't be happening man!"

Yesterday he had a port put into his chest to deliver his chemotherapy. Basically, the port is a catheter that is surgically implanted under the skin then tucked up under the rib and inserted into the superior vena cava so the medication can go directly into his circulation. When I dropped him off to the surgery center he said he was going to be "Matrix-ized". He will wear the port throughout his entire chemo regimen and let me tell ya - if it could teach Phil that cool martial arts stuff he'd do it!!

Prior to his surgery he had to be NPO which means nothing by mouth after 6 a.m. His procedure wasn't until 2:30 (and didn't actually happen until 3:15) and for a guy, let alone a diabetic, that is a long time to go without! When I joined him in the recovery room around 5:30 he was asking the nurses for margaritas and chips and asking when he could go dancing!! Classic Phil.

The recovery room nurses told me he'd charmed the surgical staff and he'd even had time to counsel a young volunteer on her career path. Even though the surgeon was running behind, his counseling session and the smoking and joking he was doing in pre-op made him so popular they didn't want to let him go. The feisty Latina nurse and he were flirting over the sexy tight white compression hose he gets to wear every time he has surgery too. So all things considered he could be doing much worse.

This is serious business, no doubt. But I don't want to paint a picture of utter despair and hopelessness here. Any of you who've seen Phil do a commando roll know he's got some surprise moves on him and the man has fought through some serious shit and won. This is Team Conrad we're talking about after all and the sun does rise again. We just needed a minute to catch our breath.