confusion

BTW, I meant the expression "there is not a lot left to my life" to refer to the fact that I can't do a lot of things I used to do or would like to do, not the length of it, whatever that may be.

bad

All right already, enough with the bad days. I should be due for a good one any time now. C'mon, gorilla, give me a break! Actually, it's not real bad, just a fair amount of discomfort, sometimes rising to the level of pain, hanging around my chest. Today it's the left lung area.

Rain last night, most of the night. Real nice sleeping weather with the windows open and the rain coming down.

The medical center is messing with me. Boy, am I tired of fighting with them. Last week I met with J the PA and thought we had a plan to have the next treatment in 3 weeks. I never did get an appointment. Yesterday I got on the web site and found I have an appointment for a treatment in 2 weeks. I never got a phone call or anything. This would put me in Philly for the ACS the week after the treatment, when I'm at my worst. Like, now! I sent an email to Dr W, but no answer. The problem is the medical center is so big that they tend to forget there are people on the other end of things. Medically they do fine, but everything else is a battle. I think I mentioned before that they tend to treat the disease, not the patient. There is not a lot left of my life, and now they want to take some more of it away without even talking to me. They are supposed to be on my side, but sometimes they act as if they are in cahoots with the gorilla.

comment

Thanks to cousin S for a very nice comment. I don't know how to respond to comments, S, so this will have to do. This blog started out as an email way to keep off-spring informed, then of course it occured to me share it with anyone interested. I'm sure I get as much out of writting it as y'all do reading it, maybe more. I try not to descend into self-pity and whine, but sometimes it's hard. This is not, in general, a fun time although there are fun times to be had along the way.

Had a bad night last night, gastric distress and then trouble sleeping. I'll probably need a nap today. Good days and bad days, right? This too shall pass.

pain

I guess I hadn't hit bottom yet yesterday. That ol' gorilla decided to slap me around a bit. More pain last evening, mostly in the chest, so much so that I had to take some more oxy. That stuff really works! Pain subsided and I was able to sleep. I feel pretty good this morning. The grass didn't get cut either; weather was fine, but I wasn't. We'll see what today brings.

I'm starting to put things together for the Philly trip. My blazer, which fit fine several months ago, is now too big. Not much too big, so I guess I'll wear it, but still a nuisance. And I'm having the usual issues with getting everything I want into my small rolling bag, plus the suit carrier which will take the blazer and pants, maybe shirts too. The laptop has it's own bag too, my ex briefcase, which straps to the rolling bag very nicely. I spent 5 days in Germany with that small rolling bag and briefcase, doing business calls, so I should be able to spend 3 days in Philly.

I'm starting to put a plan together for a trip to the Northern Front for JEB's birthday on 9-9. We'll probably be there for the prior weekend. We figure on 3 days, about 4-5 hours a day, should do it. I found it's actually less miles to go across northern Vermont on highway 2 than to go via Windham. So the tentative plan is to stop in Windham to visit going one way and do Vermont for the other way. You will not be surprised to hear that Excel is getting a workout! I always did think planning for a trip is half the fun, and Excel makes it really easy.

bad

There are good days and bad days, as we know. Yesterday and today qualify as "bad", probably due to the chemo treatment on Thursday. I generally hit bottom the weekend after the treatment, and this is it. So I have some discomfort (but not to the level of pain), gastric distress, and sleeping problems related to the first two. This too shall pass.

I got my electronic issues solved. A phone call to Direct TV took care of the receiver in the office. She said it was a technical glitch, and fixed it in a few seconds. And I solved the blog issue yesterday.

The papers for the ACS meeting are on line, and searchable. How cool is that? Back in the day, we had to read all the titles and try to decide if a given paper was of interest. Searchable is much cooler. So I set up a bookmark in the laptop so I can do it on site, or at least from the hotel. On the other hand, the first paper I found that I would have liked to see is a poster on Wednesday evening, and I need to be home by then. I also set up an account on STN so I can read abstracts. It costs $2 for a search, which is not bad if you only want a few. I miss having the company account and be able to search a lot! If anyone wants to know, I think we emeritis members should be able to do a limited amount of searching free.

Weather in the EF is outstandiongly nice. After the rain yesterday AM, it dryed out and a light breeze came up. Really nice. I may get to cutting the grass today, on the once a week schedule. We'll see how I feel later.

wet

It's a wet morning in the Enchanted Forest. Early, like about 6 or 6:30, I woke to the sound of thunder in the distence. Our bedroom has two nice windows next to the bed (or maybe the bed is next to the windows) which look out into the forest. Windows are open this time of year; we don't have AC except for the trees. The sound just kept getting louder and louder until it was on top of us and the rain was coming down. This was about 7, our usual get up time, but I managed to talk to dog into going back to bed until the rain stopped, which was about 8:30.

Yesterday I went to Geisinger for my shot, a total non-event, then on to the Lycoming Mall for shampoo and to continue the quest for the double shafted skewers. Couldn't find any double shafted skewers, clean forgot the shampoo, but did pick up a pair of 32 x 32 Dockers. Par for the course.

My energy levels etc are gradually decreasing due to the fresh chemo, also par for the course. No news on the CT scan or the next chemo.

I seem to have forgotten to spell check the blog yesterday. Sorry! Also, I couldn't open the blog last evening or today on either of my machines, the XP desktop or the VISTA laptop. I deleted the Java script thing which was counting the number of hits, and now it works again. So if any of you got caught in that, sorry!

The satellite dish controller for the TV on my desk has an issue. It tells me I inserted the wrong card. I didn't insert any card. Dunno what that's about. The one downstairs works fine. I tried the cold boot, which usually fixes anything, but no joy. So I have a project.

lentils

The 800 lb gorilla in the room doesn't like them. Boy, does he ever dislike them! Massive gastric distress. Perhaps I should start at the begionning. I went for my Geisinger appontyment yuesterday- J the PA says I'm fine, as I said yesterday. Then I sat for several hours with the IV of one of the chemos going in. (I take the other orally.) While the IV was running, we eat lunch, which we bring. So I asked Mom to go down and get me some soup to go with the sandwich. She brought back lentil soup, which was excellent. It was a mass of damp solids, not runny at all. Then later, in the evening, after dinner (tortillini with tomoto sauce w/ red wine) the gastric distress started. It went on all night, even with the a little this morning. The gas was especially painful. As a consequence, we got up at almost 8:30 this AM.

Later today I go back to Geisinger for the shot which stimulates my bone marrow to generate white blood cells. This is the one which would cost thousands of dollars if the give me a script to self-inject and costs nothng if they do it in the clinic. Don't mind a drive for that kind of money. I may come back via Williamsport and do a little shopping on the way.

Saw a little piece on CNN this AM regarding the polution in Peking. High particulate matter, in the 200s, about 10x what they have in Chicago. They say the masks work. Might that be helpful on the Western Front?

Gotta love them Cubs! Brewers were hoping for a sweep of the 4 game series at home, instead the Cubs swept, and by big differances in the scores too.

By the way, there is another 800 lb gorilla in the room nobody ever mentions. It's called "Spontanous Remission" and is what they call it when cancer goes away by itself. Yesterday J the PA confirmed what I understood- at best the chemo will stop the cancer in place, but not remove it or be in any sense a cure.