"The future is just a concept we use to avoid living today." Brenda said that to Nate on an episode of Six Feet Under. At the time it seemed so profound, I have never forgotten it. Today it has even more meaning.

Getting a terminal illness isn't something I would wish on anyone (well ok, maybe that's not exactly true , but...), but still it shouldn't take contracting a terminal illness for anyone to realize that life is fleeting. People work all their lives, foregoing many pleasures now, expecting to benefit from that sometime in the future.

Oh, if only we could count on that future being there, when we're ready. But we can't! From the moment we’re born, we start to die, and we hear about people dying unexpectedly all the time on the news. Some die in auto accidents, others from work related injuries, some just keel over from heart attacks, and then others contract terminal illnesses too late to do anything about, never fulfilling their dreams. Some lucky ones, at least IMO, die doing something they truly enjoy.

I was lucky, sort of. About 4 years ago, I contracted one of those terminal illnesses, (you can read more about my trials and tribulations dealing with this diagnosis by reading my personal blog), but fortunately it turned out to be a slow progressing variant of a generally fast progressing variant of non hodgkins lymphoma.

The only reason I bring this up now is, since my disease has been progressing so slowly, I have started falling back into that rut so many of us are stuck in, and have started to lose site of what Brenda said to Nate. But recently a number of other things have occurred to some people very close to me, which has managed to shake me up a bit, and put things back in their proper perspective.

The first was great concern for my wife. Without boring everyone with all the details, I'll just say that the results of her latest biopsy, in her T2 vertebrae, indicated a diagnosis of plasmacytosis. The oncologist described it as a low grade cancer, easily treatable with radiation. I'm not so sure that treating anything with radiation is easy, but we'll know more after her bone marrow biopsy this morning to rule out any more diffuse spread of the disease.

At this point I have to add a plug for all the doctors, nurses and staff at Kaiser Permanente. They have been exceptional. I experienced the same treatment, when I was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma 4 years ago, but now I realize it wasn't just my bubbly personality which resulted in that great care.

Within the past two weeks, since my wife's MRI revealed an anomaly in her T2 vertebrae, she has had lots of blood work, a CT scan, bone scan, appointment with an oncologist and a biopsy of her T2 vertebrae. Today she has a bone marrow biopsy scheduled, to check for any spread of the disease, and tomorrow she has an appointment with the radiation oncologist.

I can't imagine that anyone could possibly receive better service from any other health care provider. Thank you Kaiser Permanente!

Then on top of that, an old friend and colleague in the bike business, which I dabbled in for a brief time several years ago, called to get information on building up a new $4000 Colnago carbon fiber bike frame he was purchasing. I hadn't talked to him in awhile, and since I wouldn’t spend more than $3000 for an entire bike, I had to know more.

He informed me that he was just diagnosed with NHL, and was currently undergoing treatment. I was taken aback quite a bit, and of course had to inform him of my situation. We both talked about how this has changed our lives, and made us realize just how profound that statement was that Brenda made to Nate.

We ended by agreeing to keep in touch more, and to go for a bike ride as soon as he gets his bike built.

So getting back to my point of this post, which is to say, there's no time like the present. Don't let life pass you buy. If you want something, buy it. If you want to travel somewhere, go there. Do the things you've always dreamt of doing.

As for me, it may just be time to speed up the retirement plans, or even reduce the amount of time I spend at work, and start spending more of that money that we’ve managed to save.

Note: You can find the original version of this post on my personal blog, which was posted prior to receiving the latest results of my wife’s biopsy. It was the latest results that prompted me to post a revised version here for more people to hopefully benefit from.