Getting back to our new normal

I've been neglecting this blog lately. I apologize and promise that there is at least one great restaurant review coming and a cookbook to review as soon as I get back in the kitchen for real.
There is no small amount of personal irony that, while our elected representatives are deliberating over or obstructing health care reform, my husband and I have been learning just how many issues there are to be reformed in the health care arena. My husband has Stage 2 follicular b-cell lymphoma. It is amazing how many processes are involved in the diagnosis and staging process! And it is frightening how many places along the way that things can go wrong in terms of health insurance! There was a snafu or mis-communication or something that meant we had no referral to the surgeon who did the biopsies. We are still waiting to see if the insurance will cover both the in-office biopsies and the surgical biopsy.
Looking on the positive side, Robert's lymphoma is a relatively easy one. He has no sign of the disease either below the diaphragm or in the bone marrow. He will have 6 rounds of chemo, three weeks apart; a PET scan and at least two more doses of Rituxan (one of those miraculous new anti-body treatments"), before the next new normal of 4 weekly rounds of Rituxan every 6 months thereafter as a maintenance treatment.
Now that he has started chemo, there will be, we hope, fewer trips running from doctor to doctor and procedure to procedure and I will get back to blogging and cooking.
Thank you to those who have offered prayers and positive thoughts in this past couple of months.