Check.

We took a ride down to Pittsburgh this morning. The doctor removed the drains. I could see a noticeable difference on her face. She looks so much better without those two foot long plastic tubes that look like air pump lines from a fish tank with little clear hand grenades hanging off the end sticking out of her body. Two on each side.

We went to Ritter's Diner around the corner to celebrate. She has not been anywhere in two weeks, other than the patio behind our house. She was so happy she almost cried. She is sleeping now. She needs to sleep.

I don't know if I mentioned this before. Two weeks ago, on 01MAY08, when I had to leave Pittsburgh after taking her to the hospital for the double mastectomy. I stopped at Ritter's for breakfast and coffee to get me back home. When I was at Ritter's I had to utilize the facilities. I walked through the two way swinging door at the end of the counter to the rear of the diner and turned right to enter the Men's Room. The Men's Room at Ritter's consists of one stall located to the left as you enter. A sink stands to the right of the stall and two urinals are mounted to the wall to the right of that sink. The first urinal, the one closest to the sink, is much closer to the ground than the second urinal. The first urinal I suppose is placed at the proper height for small children, midgets and maybe the handicapped. The second urinal seems to be set for the average adult male, height. I'm talking height here.

So on that Thursday two weeks ago, as I stood in front of that second urinal I looked up the ceiling for no reason at all. On the ceiling directly above was one word scribbled in pencil. Keep in mind that the Men's Room at Ritter's is not littered with graffiti. That one word that I saw written on the ceiling above me was;

HOPE

I saw it there again this morning. I saw the word HOPE looking back down at me.

Hey Tommy. I don't know man. I do know that it makes me feel better. I mean, HOPE. Who can argue with that?...........................No word on those biopsy results yet. We do know they found cancer in the Sentinel Node, that's why they removed all of the Lymph Nodes in that cluster. They said it would take about a week to get those results. They said that almost two weeks ago. I'm holding on to what I saw above me in that latrine at Ritter's Diner in Pittsburgh. I'm holding on to that real hard.