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The Lottery and Mathew's Bucket List

I have been having some trouble this week working on posts for the blog.


For several reasons:
 - Jan 15th is the third anniversary of Mat’s passing.
 - The part of his journey I am at right now is a difficult time.
 - Waiting, hoping and pushing for things to get moving.
 - Mathew’s condition was so tenuous.
 - This is the time when Dr. Knight, the pain and palliative doctor, came in to tell Mathew that he probably isn’t going to survive this cancer.
 - And when Mathew made his bucket list.

This isn’t a linear process. I have copies of texts, journals, The Notebook, medical paperwork and more. Every so often I take the stack I have set aside (I have a few bins full of paper information) and am working on, sort out and rearrange by subject or timeline. Then, I make notes on the next few posts and write them.

I found myself obsessing over the exact timeline. I have to let that go and know that you will understand if I mix up what happened on Tuesday that first week at Moffitt with what happened on Thursday. 

The 5th floor at Moffitt consists of 5 South and 5 North. I mentioned this before that Mathew was on 5 South, Surgical Oncology.
Between north and south is a wedge-shaped lobby, one wall all windows overlooking the front of the Cancer Center and across the street, the University of South Florida campus, and the elevators. 
It was on one of these first days, I was standing in the lobby thinking about the lottery and that the fattest jackpot wouldn’t help. Of course, I could have used the money to provide better transportation, clothing, personal items and any material item Mathew would want or need. But all of the money in the world couldn’t change the fact, or the impact of this cancer.


That’s how I felt then. Thanksgiving weekend would cause me to change my mind about the relationship between money and survival.



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