My daughter, her husband, and their two children moved in with us while their new house was being built. This physical closeness (there were six of us in a very small house!) gave us all a chance to develop a spiritual closeness as well.

My daughter has a wonderful heart and cares deeply about almost everything. I, of course, already knew this – I raised her after all – but living in such close quarters I was reminded of it.

One evening in particular we were watching a movie in which the main character got cancer. When I see such a movie of course it makes me think of my situation with leukemia. But I’m still at a stage where I feel pretty good most of the time and I don’t have to always focus on my health. So I forget that others are affected by my illness, in someways even more deeply than myself.

Anyway, after the movie was done I went into the kitchen to get something and she followed me in. Her eyes were wet with tears as she hugged me saying she didn’t want to lose me. We stood there hugging for a short while and I tried to reassure her that I had many years left and everything would be okay.

But this loving moment she gave me served to remind me how deeply this leukemia thing is affecting my family. When I’m having good days I wish there was a way to really make them understand that I’m doing well. I mean, I do have days when I get tired easily or have other annoying issues, but the leukemia is a part of me now and, fortunately for the time being, Leuk is taking it relatively easy on me.

So I forget the reality of it all. It might sound strange to those who don’t have leukemia, but there are times when I feel quite normal and forget I have it. But my words are never adequate to express how I’m thinking inside. And naturally no one has the ability to really feel what I’m feeling.

I guess what I’m getting at is this wonderful woman, my daughter, was expressing with tears and worry and sadness, her love for me. I will be forever grateful for that love, and the love I receive from all my family. But my hope is that my daughter, my son, my wife, and the rest of the family can somehow really understand where I’m at.

I love them all so much and I must remember that Leuk has invaded their lives too. My loving daughter’s tears made that very clear.

How to have a spiritual life when you have leukemia.

I just came up with the perfect distraction to take my mind off leukemia. Although I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else.

Last week I was trying to unhook a utility trailer from my car. As soon as the trailer left the car's hitch it rolled forward and, like the idiot I am, I tried to stop it.

The next thing I knew the tongue of the trailer fell, crushing the little finger of my left hand.

My wife rushed me to the emergency hospital and they sewed me up, but they said I had to see a hand surgeon as soon as possible because it was a crush injury with a severed tendon and broken bone.

Yesterday, the hand surgeon operated on my finger, trying as best he could to reconnect the tendon and repair the bone. He even had to remove some dead skin. Yuck.

Needless to say, it's going to take quite a long time to heal before I can do much with that hand. If you want to get really grossed out you can see photos of my injury on my blog at meandleuk.com.

Tomorrow our band is getting together to practice. So I’m gonna be a one-handed drummer. That’ll be a new thing.

Yeah, so I guess that's one way to take my mind off Leuk, but I hope you come up with a less painful solution!

Throughout this podcast I've tried to encourage people with CLL leukemia that they can have a well-lived life in spite of their disease. Well, now it's time for me to take my own advise as I face a new challenge: bladder cancer.

Like so many things in life, leukemia brings change. When CLL came into my life, I still felt the same physically. But in my head I felt suddenly different. I knew the future was no longer going to go as I'd planned. The question was, and still is, how will I deal with that change? Do I fight it or embrace it? Do I let fear and doubt rule me, or do I push through it -- acknowledge my new life and move forward. Hopefully this podcast will have some answers.

Don't let leukemia stop you from enjoying life. One of the best ways to do that is by setting and accomplishing goals. The aim of this episode to to encourage you to live a full life, no matter how long you have.

Yes, you have leukemia, but if you allow yourself to take your time you can accomplish more than you think. It's okay to take longer to do a project than it did before you had CLL. On today's episode I talk about my adventure tiling our bathroom. It took me three weeks! A job that most would do in a few days. Now, some of that time was spent learning how to do a job I'd never done before. But I also had to work at a slower pace. But I did it. So don't give up on yourself. And don't let Leuk convince you that you can't accomplish things.

CLL leukemia, it ain't fun. Though my leukemia can seem like an invisible disease, sometimes leuk raises his ugly head and I just have to take a day off. That happened a couple days ago. So, of course it was a bit frustrating, but I didn't let it get to me. I didn't let leuk control my thoughts. It's okay to take some time off if you need to. Tomorrow will be better. Don't be hard on yourself if you can't accomplish ever thing you want to in one day. It's okay. You're okay. And, you are not alone. The rest of us deal with it too. I hope this episode will encourage you to keep on being who you are and not let leuk weigh heavy on your mind.

Visit my blog at: meandleuk.com