Don’t Trade with Merle
I received a comment today from a former colleague of mine (Dr. Barbara Funke — pronounced ‘funky’), who just found out about my condition. For those of you who don’t know, once upon a time, I was an academic (tenure-track assistant professor, to be exact) in the Department of Psychology at Georgia College & State University (Factoid: the ampersand I used is actually an “official” part of the name of that academic institution). I (largely) really enjoyed my time at GC&SU, but I would not change how things worked out for anything. I am much happier as a federal employee being paid to work on interpersonal violence related research rather than teaching 4 or 5 classes a semester (though, I must say that I miss the “theater” of teaching, but that is for a post at a different time). But I digress…
Dr. Funke (which is almost as bad as Dr. Hamburger), along with Dr. Craig Turner, were particular friends of my family’s during our time in Milledgeville and we would regularly get together for poker nights. Well, we used to play a game in which each person was dealt a single card. People bet on their card and they could then decide whether to trade with their neighbor or not (so if you were dealt a 5, you could decide to trade with your neighbor on the hopes that your neighbor would have a larger card than yours). Unfortunately for me, whenever we played this game, people would trade with me and I, invariably, had a smaller card than they: so much so, that the game, in our circle, was renamed “Don’t Trade with Merle.”
Thinking on my current circumstances, I would argue that the moniker is still pretty apt. As much as there are people out there in the world with whom I have disagreements, I do not think I would wish what I am dealing with on anyone. I hate that I look towards each time Dr. Kauh orders a CA19-9 test on me that it will reveal elevated levels (signalling that a tumor had recurred). I hate that I get nauseaus just by entering the Winship Cancer Institute; and I hate that I do not know what the future holds for me.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. I still have a wife and children that love me (if not in their own idiosyncratic way); I am gainfully employed (thank you for paying your taxes) studying topics that I truly enjoy studying; and I have the opportunity to volunteer my time to help others (and according to the Wii Fit, my age is 31 — fully 11 years less than my chronological age, meaning that I am in good shape; we all want to get in shape, it’s just the shape I’ve chosen is an oval)! All in all, I remain hopeful that 2009 is less traumatic than 2008, but whether it is or is not, I am grateful for all of you who continue to be supportive of me (if only by reading my blog).
Warmest Regards,
Merle