{"id":987,"date":"2010-09-11T09:03:58","date_gmt":"2010-09-11T15:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/?p=987"},"modified":"2010-09-11T09:03:58","modified_gmt":"2010-09-11T15:03:58","slug":"surprise-explaination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/?p=987","title":{"rendered":"Surprise (& Explanation)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This may turn out to be a long and disjointed post so be forewarned.<\/p>\n

At this time (mid-September 2010) Jan and I should have been well into our visit to Australia.\u00a0 I’ve always, since I was a teen, wanted to go there and when we learned the 2010 Worldcon<\/a> was to be held in Melbourne, we decided that we would go whole-hog and attend the convention, and then tour Australia.\u00a0 All plans were made well in advance and we were set to go.<\/p>\n

Then Real Life\u2122<\/em> intervened.\u00a0\u00a0 In April I learned that my lymphoma had returned and I began another course of chemotherapy.\u00a0\u00a0 The conclusion of that process was a round of high-dose chemo followed by a bone marrow transplant.\u00a0 Needless to say, the Australia trip had to be canceled.<\/p>\n

Countless friends provided tremendous support both for myself and Jan during all of this. I received\u00a0 cards from all over and even more emails with good wishes and encouragement.\u00a0 On August 10th I was able to return home after 28 days in the hospital.\u00a0 Even after coming home, my friends continued to provide support and encouragement.<\/p>\n

In particular members of the\u00a0 on-line community, sff.net<\/a>, were a constant source of support.\u00a0 A number of them are part of an organization called The SFWA Musketeers<\/a> which I have been involved with for a number of years.\u00a0 I have worked as an ‘Auxiliary‘ <\/strong>and assisted them in their charity fund-raising activities at various SF conventions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>All this is a way of explaining the wonderful gift I received in today’s mail.\u00a0 To help cheer me up and partially make up for the missed Australia trip, they sent me this:<\/p>\n

For those of you not in on the scheme, it was a plush toy Platypus<\/strong> (Mortimer Gervias Platypus) <\/em>who is dressed in a costume like those the SFWA Musketeers wear for their performances.\u00a0 In addition\u00a0 it came with an extra special bonus, a one-of-a-kind booklet, “The Platypus Diaries<\/em><\/strong>“, which explains how Mortimer came to Iowa.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, I’ve been grinning from ear to ear since this arrived and I’m looking for the perfect place to display this treasure.<\/p>\n

So first let me thank everyone who was thinking about me through my recent ‘adventure.’\u00a0 I can’t say it enough, but all the cards, emails and even phone calls helped me get through everything with a positive attitude.\u00a0 And special thanks to those who were responsible for Mortimer.\u00a0 You know who you are!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This may turn out to be a long and disjointed post so be forewarned. At this time (mid-September 2010) Jan and I should have been well into our visit to Australia.\u00a0 I’ve always, since I was a teen, wanted to go there and when we learned the 2010 Worldcon was to be held in Melbourne, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-around-the-house","category-health","category-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tom.hise.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}