Quick Checklist-Style Update and a Cool Poem

Hey all... I'm extremely exhausted, but I figured I'd throw something together before bed... Thanks for all your patience as these updates have become less frequent (and this one significantly less detailed. As you know, I must be patient with the healing process, and therefore I require you to be patient with me. However, here's the short version of what's going on, followed by a poem I scrawled together back in high school while on a trip to the Monastery at Gethsemane in Kentucky. It got published in a book called "In All Things - Everyday Prayers of Jesuit High School Students", edited by my former Religion teachers Michael J. Daley and Lee P. Yeazell. Anyway, here's the checklist:

1. Hyperbaric (HBO) treatments are still going (treatment 23 of 60, possibly as many as 90, is tomorrow). I will find out how effective HBO has been after an MRI on the 28th of June. It basically involves me lying in a glass tube sucking in ridiculous amounts of Oxygen while I watch a movie or listen to music. I don't really feel anything besides occasionally bored.

2. I recentlky was diagnosed with mild sleep apnea so now I look like a fireman (thanks, mom) when I'm sleeping because I have to use a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine to help keep my airway open while I sleep... yay for more oxygen!

3. One of my best friends (who I met online and I'm going to visit this weekend) just found out Monday that she is officially breast cancer free after a pretty tough fight... congratulations Tara, I'm so proud of you for winning the fight and doing it your way... and as always thank you for always being there for me to talk me through my rough days.

4. Well, I'm drawing a blank on a fourth (stupid brain damage)... so here's the poem, which I hope you enjoy (I think it describes well my feelings about the power of prayer... it was a very powerful experience):


At Gethsemani Abbey's Door

I entered the church
More or less a normal church
The monks faced each other
A gate separated us

And then they sang...
Their voices resonating
In the presence of God
Praising Him beyond anything
I had ever experienced

And then they bowed before His altar...
Their hands drawn to their feet
Humility, vulnerability
Announcing subservience
Love...

"Praise to the Father, the Son
And the Holy Spirit
Both now and forever
The God who is
Who was
And who is to come
At the end of the ages."


Oh yeah! a 5th: October 2nd is the second annual Walk Ahead for a Brain Tumor Cure, and thus the return of Matt's Matter Matters! I'll let everyone know when I get a team started up (I don't think they're ready yet).

Anyhow that's it for now!

Wishing you all the very best!