Ports calling

Looks like a few different ports are in our immediate future.

First, we leave tomorrow for our Caribbean cruise, which will hit several other ports after we depart from San Juan Sunday. St. Thomas, Grenada, Dominica, Bonaire and Aruba are the others, before we head back in a week.

Next, many of you have suggested that getting a port inserted into an artery is the best solution to the problem of finding new veins to use in my chemotherapy treatments it seems likely I'll get one put in before we start the next round. The risk seems minimal and the advantages obvious.

The first kinds of ports, I'll admit, are a lot more fun to think about.

Blogging for the next week is up in the air, since it's not clear we can connect to the Internet from the ship for a reasonable price and we don't know about wifi in our ports of call. I can't spend too much money on connection fees since advertising revenue for the blog has taken a hit with the recession. I've already squeezed the overhead down as low as I can.

Finally, I forgot to pass along the most poignant remark I heard during Christmas. When I mentioned to my nephew Pat Pramas that treatment I had gotten in Boston seemed to be successful and could lengthen my life, he said, "Boston owes us one.''

That was a reference to his mother (my sister) who was hospitalized for nine months at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston (right next to Beth Israel-Deaconess, where I have been treated) before dying in July of 2008 from complications resulting from what was supposed to be a largely routine kidney-transplant operation.

May she rest in peace.