So I walk into work, and everybody looks at me like they expect a beard and a robe.

It's like I've risen from the dead, or something. "You're back!"

Yeah, I'm back. I'm not sick; I just have cancer, okay? Seriously.

It reminds me of when my old, old (in duration and age) friend Cenobio got lymphoma and was still mackin' on the ladies in the middle of treatment. "It's just cancer," he'd tell them. "It's not like it's catching."

God, it was nice to get back to work. I've never been so glad to have to start difficult IVs or draw skrinch-knuckle Z48 whammalamma labs before. I've never been so glad to assess patients with various neurological infirmities. I even enjoyed doing chart audits.

Nobody had any crises. Only one thing got set on fire in the hospital yesterday, and nobody got hurt from it. No codes, only a couple of response-team calls, an interesting approach to decompressing a Chiari malformation, only one frontal-injury patient who kept getting out of bed, and he was sweet and charming. So a good day.

My throat was sore from explaining, over and over, how I was *not* going to have to will my shoe collection to anybody, and why I wasn't particularly worried about who would take care of the dog.

And today, a shout-out to my pal Cap'n Obvious, who's taking his boards THIS VERY MINUTE. Go get 'em, Cap'n! Show 'em what you know in whatever field it is you're expert in! Rah! Rah!