Dank je, Mijke!

Sunday Father's Day.

Today my daughter surprised me with this.

Status report

The tumor that was removed from my cerebellum turns out to have been denign (as was expected). It was a known quantity and as such I will make a full recovery from it, with no chance of return. Of course, as Walt Kelly says: "You shouldn't take life to seriously, because it is in no case permanent." but still it is nice to hear it out loud from a man in a white coat.

I am not going to spend all evening telling everyone about my good fortune, so feel free to spread the word. Next time, more pretty pictures.

Hi, guys. I am back home again. The tumor in my cerebellum has been cut and the cup of liquid that was causing all the problems has been removed. All symptoms immediately disappeared and all I am left with is complete loss of balance while my brain resettles. The lack of balance is not a real problem, as I have been doing a lot of yoga over the years, but it seems best to everyone (including me) to recuperate slowly , since the restructuring of the brain has to be as evenly as possible. I also have to wait to next thursday to hear if the tumor itself was indeed benign as we all now expect and presume. The doctor doing the asessment is away for a conference this weekend, so I may either get a phone-call next thursday or have to wait to monday to meet with him. Or they'll forget to notify me at all, which in my experience isn't unknown in the medical world.

Contrary to the information in the previous post, the new series of S1ngle will probably start in February next year, but the link I provided to the end of the second season is still a favorite. I will keep you posted of all developments and try to throw in a pretty picture every now and then. And let's hope it's what it seems right now, a blip in the story of my life; the year I turned fifty and didn't die.

By the way, I am really enjoying Bill Willingham's ew Fables novel Peter and Max.

I typed up a whole new status report on my illness last sunday and lost it to password trouble. Still, everything changed since then so now I have another chance.

I had been feeling dizzy a year ago, but it left. I chalked it up to hypertension and booked weekly sessions wth a very mellow psychiatrist. Works very well for me. Still, this summer the trouble reurned and got worse. Since there is a history of brain seasures in my family, my wife and I reteatedly asked for an MRI scan to eliminate anything like that. But all quick and easy tests suggested there was nothing wrong in that department, so no (expensive) MRI scans for me.

When two weeks ago I started slurring and falling to the lef and started losing my typing skills on the left hand, they finally sent me to a neuro-surgeon. He suggested concentrating on the cerebellem where motor skills and coordination are situated.Well, you can see where this is headed. But it didn't. The scan showed I had a huge growth on my upper right cerebellum. Possibly a cyste resultion from a smaller growth bu probably some sortof new an quite rare non tomurous growth that woul have to be taken out completety. A doably operation, but I would see quite a long perioe of recovery while I was to retrain my brain.

Today went back to the first diagnosis - I seem to have a small growth combined with a huge cyste. This has had the result that the fluids in the rest of my brain aren't draining properlyWhich resulted in neausinous and more slurring than necessary (most of which is currently being held in check by medication).

They are going to cut next week. The good news is that they are going to cut less, the bad news is that they have to take a look at the tumor to see if it is malignant (it probably isn't, but they like you scared so you can't sue). How the revalidation wil be is unknown.

Out For A Week

I have not been feeling well and I am saving my energy for my work rather than this blog (scanning for typo's can be exhausting). I don't expect to be able to pick up until next weekend. Sorry for the delay, guys.

First post.

I am still trying to decide if I am going to do this in Dutch or English.

Heck, I am still trying to decide what I am going to use the blog for. I wanted to secure the name, but in fact writing about my life as a sitcom writer here in Holland is just one of the things I could make this about. I have written sitcoms for almost twenty years now, so that would qualify as a subject or at least a title. In which case, it probably should be in Dutch, because I don't see why it would be of interest to anyone abroad.

On the other hand, I also write about television and humor for several magazines here in Holland and I could use this blog to give all my writings a permanent home. Again, Dutch would be the main language used.I could also use it to publish some of the interviews I did with some of the American sitcom writers I have not yet sold or had to bring down to their absolute minimum for publication. Last year I talked to Ken Levine, Jim Burrows, Rob Long, Lee Ahronson and Ian Gurvitz. Here's Ian, by the way. I also have an earlier interview with Phoef Suttton about his Cheers career and more.

But I also collect American comics and newspaper strips from the fifties and write about comics for the Dutch fanzine Stripschrift. I have been writing about comics (from all over the world) for more than 30 years now and have interviewed such greats as Will Eisner, Jean Giraud (Moebius) and Jeff Jones. I have found rare war material from Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman, which I could share. Or long runs of Stan Lee's comic strip work. I regulary send stuff to Roy Thomas to use for his excellent publication Alter Ego (a fanzine from Twomorrows about comics and comic creators from any period Roy likes or worked in). And I collect and scan rare art from various artists, which I could share here as well. All this would be in english, of course.

But... the main reason for me to pick this up right now is because I did my spring cleaning early this year and need a place to sell my surplus stuff. I will be listing all my double Timely books here to sell. You will have to add postage, but so had I when I bought them. It's usually best to buy a few at the time. I'll list the possibillities when I get back to post the list.

So, to lure all you potential buyers in, I will start by writing about the comic books and newspaper strips I like or have something interesting to say about. I'll start with Stan Lee and Dan DeCarlo's forgotten early sixties newspaper strip Willy Lumpkin. Which, due to the bloggers tradition of having the last post first, you will already have seen.