Long Shot

Check out my new lens.  Check out my new FREE lens. Well more accurately, check out my free/$15/$190 new lens.

My friend Wes is a bargain hunter, sometimes to ridiculous extremes.  He is one of those people that won't buy something unless it is on sale.  I think it must be some of that hunter instinct left over from the caveman days, but instead of using a spear he uses the computer.  

So one day while Wes was out "hunting" he came across this Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM Telephoto Zoom Lens for $15 on Amazon.  $15!!!  He immediately ordered 15 lenses. After about 10 minutes Amazon fixed the price, but they had to honor the price they had posted.  Wes is a good friend so he gave me one of the lenses for free.  He sold the rest on Craigslist.  I offered to pay, er, you know, the $15, but he wouldn't take it.  So this is my new free/$15/$190 lens.

This is a great addition to my lenses because I don't shoot telephoto very much, so I don't really need a high end telephoto.  My heart lies with wide angles. In fact this lens is probably one of the last things I would buy myself, but it is something that I could use from time to time.  It was fortuitous.

Wes is a bit of a long shot himself.  He was diagnosed with leukemia in the summer of 2007. He is a teacher at my school and missed all of that school year.  He had a successful bone marrow transplant in December and returned to work this year. 

Unfortunately he called me today from the hospital.  Some tests that he took over thanksgiving  break concerned the doctors so they took more tests and got the results today.  The leukemia is back.  He will start chemo on Wednesday.  Right now I feel like I'm looking down a long, LONG tunnel.  Having to go through all of that the first time is one thing.  There is always the hope at the other end that things will work out and life will return to normal.  And it DID and it was great.  But now we are back to square one again.  And this time we know how long and how hard the journey is.  But he will make that journey with his friends behind him.  I believe in long shots.

Comments

[Christine]

Ooooooh.... awesome lens - especially for that price! Wow, what a deal!!!

So sorry to hear about Wes, I know you were concerned last year when he was first diagnosed. My friend Deb is also back at MD Anderson now, her leukemia has returned too after what was a successful transplant. Ugh. So very hard...

[laanba]

I'm sorry about your friend Christine. That is *exactly* what he is going through. So frustrating after it is so successful the first time.

[jkirlin]

My thought and prayers for Wes.

[Network Geek]

When I was in the clinic, I found out that lymphoma is very much like leukemia. We get the same kind of language. We're never "cancer free" only "in remission". I live in fear of getting news like that, thinking I'm in the clear only to have to face that all again. It's why I eat better and have been exercising and why I can manage to keep from going back to smoking. It's also why I spent the money on my camera and will be buying a big telephoto lens to take pictures of surfers in the Spring and Summer. I've always wanted to do that, so now I'm going to do that before it's too late.

If you can, go spend time with him in the hospital when he's getting treatment. On good days, when the side-effects weren't making me miserable, it was nice to have the distraction from the milder side-effects. I promise, he'll appreciate it.