Category: Health & Aging
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Welcome Home, Veteran Heroes
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn the book I’ve recommended several times on this blog, The Women by Kristin Hannah, there is a scene where the main character, Frankie, an Army Nurse, rotates back to the United States in 1969 after 2 tours in Vietnam. She is wearing her uniform. The Los Angeles airport is filled with… Read more
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A Deluge of Emotion
Reading Time: 6 minutesThe Honor Flight Randy and I were privileged to be selected for took place a week ago today. Since that day I’ve been racking my brain to think of a word to describe how overwhelmingly emotional it was. It is with 100% certainty I tell you I am still not recovered from… Read more
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The Cancer Life Rollercoaster
Reading Time: 5 minutesI’ve never liked roller coasters. I’ve ridden only a few by choice, and those were pretty tame considering some of the coasters open to the public in 2026. I could go off on a tangent here and tell you about roller coasters with names like Tormenta Rampaging Run, Wonder Woman Flight of… Read more
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(It’s Our) Honor Flight
Reading Time: 5 minutesBeing a military veteran in the United States defines you in many ways. This is especially true as you age and think back on what you accomplished in your life. There’s a generation, now almost gone, who served in World War II. I always thought the soldiers who fought in WWII were… Read more
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Feeling the Love
Reading Time: 5 minutesIn day-to-day life in America in 2026, we throw the word love around like a politician throwing candy in a local small-town Memorial Day parade. We’re trained and conditioned to hear and say we love or are loved so often and so easily that it pops out of mouths automatically, sometimes at… Read more
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The Secret to Happiness
Reading Time: 5 minutesNearly 4 years ago (I can’t believe I’ve been writing this blog that long!) one of the first blog posts I wrote here at 68andcounting.com was called There IS a Secret to Happiness. You’ll find the link to that post here. In it I said, essentially, that the secret to happiness is… Read more
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Theo of Golden
Reading Time: 5 minutesMy friend Michele received a copy of Theo of Golden for her birthday last month. She read it quickly, then loaned it to me when she went to Guatemala on her memoir writer’s retreat earlier this month. I’d never heard of the book, but when I looked it up, I was interested… Read more
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An Existential Monologue
Reading Time: 5 minutesI wanted to call this post An Existential Soliloquy which I think sounds interesting, though a bit pretentious. But as I so often do when I write this blog, I looked up the word soliloquy to make sure I am using it correctly, lest someone who cares about that sort of thing… Read more
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A Holding Pattern
Reading Time: 2 minutesLast week’s post generated an outpouring of support and response that completely overwhelmed me and Randy. So, first and foremost, thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. It was a good week, with a lot happening with Randy’s medical support team. He met with a local oncologist on Wednesday. We… Read more
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A Diagnosis, Play by Play
Reading Time: 5 minutesFair warning: Last week I promised I’d break down everything we know so far, and what the doctors are going to do about the cancer diagnosis Randy received a few weeks ago. I know I should document all of this so there’s a good record. And I know there are people who… Read more