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I’m a bit of a control freak.  Okay, maybe “bit of a” is a bit of an understatement.  Yes, someone apparently gave me OCD for my birthday a few years ago because I’m really big on the whole organization concept.

I figured out why about two years ago.  My best friend Mary was dying of breast cancer and I went to her house a couple of days before she actually passed away to stay until the end.  Part of the regimen at that point involved lots of different medications at lots of times.  To keep himself organized, Mary’s husband Steve was writing doses and times down on a torn piece of paper.  I looked at that and said, “Oh no… no, no, no.”  I then went up to Mary’s computer and made a spreadsheet with color coding.

Here’s the thing… when you are faced with things that you can’t control, things like spreadsheets can be comforting.  Spreadsheets make sense.  There are rows and columns and Auto-Sum – it adds stuff for you!  For a person who can’t do anything but the most basic of addition and subtraction in his head this is incredibly satisfying.

So that brings me to the binder.  Yes, there’s a cancer binder – it has tabs and everything.  Shut up.  It makes me feel better.