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Good Morning, Friends! Hope you all have a wonderful day. Got grass to mow and shade shed to work on.........

Hi, My name is Will. I'm not sure why me, but it seems I'm one of the lucky ones. I was raised in country Mississippi and live in suburban Louisiana. I like to think my self imposed refinement captures the best of both those worlds. I'm a very active Paw Paw, handyman, DIYer, Paramedic, Firefighter, Offshore Industrial Safety Advisor, and champion survivor of stage IV NSCLC. Diagnosed in March 2007, chemo, life saving medical mistake, surgeries, and more chemo, polished off with a year of Tarceva and Avastin therapies, re-insert me into the hustle of life. I drop in to Lungevity pretty regular, but more often than not, have a cinderella head to glue back on, transformer battery to change, or shelf to hang that seems to take priority over sharing my drivvel. Today, as it seems always, I'm behind schedule on getting chores done. You can always get my attention with a PM. I'll always respond. Will

Good Morning, Friends! Just saying hello and passing through. Hope everyone is having a good day/week. Hugs all around. Busy, busy, busy, gotta go. Will

Good Evening, Friends! Whew! It's been another scorcher. At least it was my last full day at work for a couple weeks. Should board the boat around 10:00 tomorrow and be on dirt by 3:00. Five hours in the truck should put me home about 8P tomorrow night. Early enough to visit with the wife a bit at the EMS station, then get home and get a good night's rest before starting on my "Honey-Do" list Friday morning. Got a ton to do these two weeks. Besides seeing a gastro interologist for the nonspecific hypermetabolic activity in my stomach wall on my last PET, I have a shade shed to build over the new 24' above ground pool, 12 yards of topsoil to distribute in holes and ruts in my yard, base board, crown molding and door and window trim to put in three rooms, a desk, gun cabinet and book shelves to build, salt water pool treatment system to install and kick start, and some plumbing to do on the pool pump. Of course there's always the three or four unexpected house hold appliance failures that someone in the family will have and I'll need to fix. Then I need to figure out when registration is for fall classes at the tech college, 'cause I am planning to try again to tackle 18 credit hours split between drafting and machine tool technology. Oh yea, I'll drive Pat to the doctor a time or two in the next two weeks. And there's my Paw Paw assginments. There's grass to be mowed and Billie, my semi pet squirrel to find, 'cause she's been missing for about five days and the last time she was seen she had blood on her nose. I'm sure I'm temporarily forgetting a thing or three but I'm sure I'll remember when I need to. So y'all don't get excited if you don't see my mug around here for a while. I'll just be livin' LARGE. Hugs all around, my Friends. Will holla when I can.

(H)ot (115*) day on steel decks.

As I was reading down the list I was thinking about the Momma on the Waltons and I still like her a lot, but after considering Grandma Walton for a minute, I have to say you're right. She really was the bomb. Absolutely right every time in every way. I remember being so sad for her during her last episodes. The strokes sapped most, (BUT NOT ALL), the fight out of her. She still ruled.

I'm with Bruce, only I use the 100. For my lady I like "Knowing". Funny thing is that it only smells that way on her. Other ladies have put it on and it doesn't smell the same on them. So I guess I have to say "Knowing Pat". LOL@me!

Welcome! Glad you joined us. Yes, this place is a great resource and refuge. In addition to the informative stuff that you can find here, there's a genuine family atmosphere here, sparked by common adversity and cemented with open hearts. About prognosis... I'm a survivor of stage IV NSCLC. My original prognosis was "Inoperative, incurable with chemo alone, and radiation an unlikely answer". So much for prognosis, eh? Although prognosis seems so important in the first hours and weeks of diagnosis, focus on the outcome robs the person with cancer and family of so much life unnecessarily. Regardless of prognosis, living during the battle with cancer is so much easier than just surviving the battle. For me, spiritual and social health became more important than my physical health. I quickly learned that the less important my physical prognosis became in my head, the better I did through the trials of the battle. Things surely became uncomfortable during treatments and physically there were some rough days, but I found that between my care givers at the cancer center and knowledgeable people here, there were multiple good answers for every single physical inconvenience I suffered. Of course, no one can tell you exactly what your own best response is in your own unique life. That's for you to decide. To be sure, we'll try, and you can listen, or not. One thing is sure though. We do understand when you want to let it all hang out. Will

Hi All! Corporate nutcases must be the worst. You take a certifiable nutcase and give him money and the ability to stop, (or start), the buck. We're about to hang anchors on a jack-up drilling rig to hold it still because we're swaying too much. HA! Corporate Nutcases! One more day...

P.S. Yes, Judy, you've been doing a wonderful job with the "Airs". You're AWSOME!

Good evening, All. It's been another scorcher on the iron island. Y'all stay out of the heat as much as you can. Fixing to lay it down for the night. TWO MORE DAYS!

Thanks for sharing such a personal moment, Ned.

Another lovely day in the gulf...

OMG! Did you really ask that? I typed. I considered that I might really be the problem. I deleted. The End

Do you think I'm sexy. It had really good timing

Good morning, Friends! Hope everyone is having the best day possible. Hot? Yea, we got that. Just 'cause I really do not like being cold, I won't complain about the heat. You'll not mind me talkin' from the shade will ya?

If We Quit Voting, Will They All Go Away?

Hello My Fine Friends! I do hope you are all operating at full potential today. It's been a bit since I was by and wanted to stop in and say hello. Hello! Times are so very busy. Currently I'm in the gulf. Go home Thursday. Go to court Friday. Been preparing for that. Saturday and Sunday I guess will largely depend on the outcome Friday. Monday morning PET scan. Monday afternoon, take Pat to neurologist to get pain therapies squared away. Tuesday morning, Oncologist appt and I guess the direction of that visit and the following days will be somewhat dependant on the outcome of Monday's PET. I really need to get a lot of work done on the house. Ain't got time to be sick! Here's a picture of some visitors I had out here about a month ago. I had intended to share it before now and just haven't taken the time to do it. So anyway, enjoy!

Within me is the ability to survive and defeat torture for special information. Within me is the weakness to succumb to the same pain. The balance is in the pain I think during torture that I likely will feel from the results of my submission versus the perceived pain of the torture. I suspect the same is true for everyone.

Judy and Sandra, my prayers be with you. Been thinking about one of them topsy turvys myself. I do so love vine ripened tomatoes. Makes my mouth water just thinking on it. Beautiful (HOT) day in the gulf. Looking forward to going home Wednesday morning.

I know I'm a little late in the day but I sure hope all the Mommies had a great day! You are wonderful treasures of the human race. Without you we could not be. God Bless You!

Christine, I find your post here in ironic step with my life. See(?), I'm one of the lucky ones. At least so far, I have survived my cancer so well that there are actually days that I forget that I am a lung cancer survivor and don't even think about that fact through the whole day. The quality and quantity of that luck cannot be realized without considering the chances I had of doing that. Pretty slim. Even so, I did and I'm grateful that I did. I remember having the thought that concern for all of the drama amid those around me was not a luxury I could afford and that they were lucky to be able to worry about such petty things, like bad jobs, bad bosses, bad spouses, mortgages, car notes, etc. Now there are days that I find myself very absorbed by such "luxurious" drama. Some of the drama so bad that it's not even speakable to closest dear friends or family. As the average Joe goes, I've had some really bad stuff happening around me lately. Even so, I am one of the most Divinely Blessed persons on earth. It is good to remember that. Thank you so much for posting this. Will

Have fun, Denise. Y'all have a happy Easter tomorrow. Will

LOL, no, I hae used the manual stuff and continue to experiement with that but these and most of what I take is using automatic settings. Thanks for the compliments.

Thanks Y'all. Patti, I'll try to do better but sometimes there's just no time for many days or even weeks. Good to see you too. Lily, actually right now I'm boating out from Grand Isle. I recently got a new camera and it has 40x zoom on it, so this picture of Fourchon is actually taken from south of Grand Isle. Something I hadn't noticed until last evening, in the last picture, if you zoom in an look to the left of the water tower, you can see the infamous highway to the gulf. Our previous governor and the current one have both had to defend it's construction. It's a major elevated highway that serves few residents but is HUGE to the oil and gas industry, which is a major tax contributor to the state of Louisiana. Only a small section of it can be seen in the picture where it gets about 80 feet high over the heavily used bayou LaFourche.