Apologies dear friends

 My apologies for not posting sooner and as you will see in a bit this post was created on 3 different machines. Watch for the margin jumps.

Sun. nite

Back at camp and unpacked. Making notes on the iPad because both of our laptops have gone south. Teresa’s had a power cord malfunction. The tiny little pin inside it separated from the part that you plug the cord into. Mine had a software update malfunction that corrupted the hard drive. Finally this afternoon I loaded a recovery disk that breathed enough life into it for me to see that it has the ability to recover. Kinda like me now, it’s on the road, but there’s still a long haul.

Mon. nite

Well today didn’t start off so bad. The end was quite a different story. Radiation starts almost every day at 9:45. Then it’s off to see other clinics or whatever. My weekly schedule now is radiation Mon. – Fri. at 9:45, chemo PA (Physician's Assistant ) Mon. after radiation, and radiation Dr. Fri. morning after treatment. So Mon. and Fri. are long days.

Went to see the chemo people after treatment and they said they needed labs. That’s code for a blood draw. I have since learned that I need to be there an hour or so early to go to lab before I go to radiation which will cut down on the oncoming wait times. Some days seem to be clinic days where the system is swamped and some days not so much. We just have to figure out what that schedule is to be able to possibly adjust ours. Or at least know what we’re walking into. Headed to the lab where they have a take a number machine. My number was 362. They were serving number 280. That took an hour to get my number up. Two minutes for paperwork, walk 30 feet to the lab, 2 minutes to draw blood, and then back to chemo to wait on labs. Labs took another 2 ½ hours. In the meantime Teresa asked if I wanted some Sprite. I said sure so she got one from the machine. After three or four sips I let out a huge burp and then the rest of it came up. And then some. I barely made it to the restroom where I finished. The only thing I had thrown up was Sprite and saliva. I hadn’t eaten that morning so that’s all there was. An hour or so later we finally got in to see the PA. She was busy asking how I was doing and Teresa was answering. Meanwhile she shut the door and the air in the room got very still. That set it off again. All I had was saliva and then dry heaves. She immediately sent me back to the infusion room to have fluids and some liquid anti nausea stuff pumped in. While that was going on she told Teresa that she was bumping my nausea meds and adding an appetite stimulant. A live demonstration usually has that type of effect. The ride home was exhausting and we both almost collapsed when we came in the door.

Tuesday started much better. Teresa dropped me off and I went in and got my treatment. I texted her to come get me and she said she was on her way. Except for traffic, today was actually pretty good. Teresa said she spent 15 minutes trying to find a place to park and ended up in the north 40 that we had never been too. She almost got lost coming back to pick me up. Thought I was going to have to send out a search party. After a good talking to by both the PA and the nutritionist I figured I had better try to eat. Teresa was on me all day and managed to get a full can of formula in. We put in half a can, flushed, waited 40 minutes or so, and then repeated the process. In the meantime today I’ve had potato soup, pudding, ice cream and cake, sausage balls, tea, ginger ale, and finally apple juice. That wasn’t all, but nearly so. It’s not that I was that hungry, but I was determined not to make a habit of that darned feeding tube. And any of you that actually know me will know that darned is way, way too tame a word by 10. This thing that comes through my stomach and abdomen just below my sternum is the lifeline that I know will probably eventually save my life. Doctors are funny that way, if it’s a relatively simple procedure and can save a life, let’s do it. And truthfully I haven’t seen any evidence of  refusing or disreputable care. Someone is always cleaning with the biggest part of the public areas being reserved for an after hours time slot. I watched a two man crew cleaning air ducts at 7:20 in the morning and they were waiting on 8:00 so they could punch out.

 I’m writing on a desktop that I breathed a small amount of life into. NBC nightly news tonight was ranting on about how XP could be your ruination for your computer and your only hope was to buy another with Windows 8 on it. The story was probably released by Microsoft to generate sales. Here’s what they won’t tell you, as long as you keep a decent firewall on board, you’ll be alright. And if you do like I’m doing now, typing on a machine that can’t even see the internet, have absolutely no fear. It’s not going to sit and fester in your garage and suddenly go bring in the Decepticons. Seriously though, if you have an older machine sitting idle, give it to someone or some organization that could use it. Plan to spend an hour or so looking it over before you send it off making sure any personal files and pictures you may want to save. Or take the hard drive out of it and store it or smash it with a hammer and recycle it. Hard drives are cheap and a free OS like Ubuntu Linux is perfect for a donated machine. Ubuntu is so like Windows now that it’s doubtful that if you weren’t paying close attention now you would never know that you were on it. And depending on how generous you’re feeling with your time and pocketbook replace the hard drive or don’t. I just hate to see good machines going idle.

I am NOT asking you to give it to Goodwill. Goodwill is a FOR profit company and the owner makes a couple metric tons of money each year and spends very little on his employees. The American Red Cross is a much better solution where only 10 % of the money (and other donations ) donated to it goes to the employees payrolls. The storefront Santa’s are all volunteers. That job has to have a person that can somehow turn off the bell in their brain to be able to ring that for whatever the time period they do that. Whereas almost 100 % of donations sent to Goodwill go into one guy’s pockets. If you believe in karma and reincarnation this guy has a long, long, long way to go.

If you would rather not hear my opinions about things by all means comment on it. I probably won’t listen, but I won’t hold you up to public ridicule either. Believe me I know I need all the friends rooting for me that I can get. And I don’t change subjects so much as ramble on about whatever I’m talking about. As I write I have both eyes on the keyboard with an occasional glance to the screen to see where I missed a letter or somehow managed to get the cursor half a page away from where I was a second ago. That has gotten better with practice and identifying what keypresses it was that precluded the suspected WTF moment. I also tend to reread what I’ve written every time I stop writing and go back and interject things. That is the beauty of a word processing system over pen and paper or typewriter.

And now a word about smells. I really don’t know if it’s my quitting smoking, the chemo, or even possibly the radiation, but smells have really gotten to be a problem with me. When you walk into the Dallas VA there is a popcorn vending kiosk that is located in the hallway of the main entrance and you are forced to walk past to get to pretty much anything in the hospital. I’m not much on popcorn, but lately it’s about all I can do to hold down whatever I might have to get past it. Now popcorn isn’t the only smell that bothers me, but it’s something that is there almost every day. Other smells are car exhaust, peoples cologne, different food smells and really just too many to list. It’s irritating to me and totally unpredictable when it may affect me.

Smell is one of your senses that are supposed to keep you out of trouble. Yet now it’s causing me no end of trouble. And they had already told me that I would lose my taste with the radiation, I just wasn’t really expecting it to be so quick. Taste and smell are connected, you just don’t really expect it to be quite this way. I really love chocolate, yet a Hershey’s bar now tastes like so much sugar and lard. Yes there is still some cocoa flavor, it just ain’t as grand. I’m waiting to get some dark chocolate to see how that is. Smell and taste of food and foodstuffs has now gotten to where I can no longer smell the coffee or taste it. Nor can I tell if it has sugar in it or not. I wish I could find that mess Sgt. that so many years ago told me I didn't need to taste it.

   YUUCCKKK ALERT ( I have been told I need to put this in)

The Salmon story

Normally I love salmon, and I may have contributed to this unwittingly, but now the smell of almost any fish is enough to all but run me out of an area. The night that I had chemo I was still hungry and they had warned me about losing my appetite. Knowing that I liked salmon and that we had a can I figured why not. Teresa was letting me eat anything I could get down and so there wouldn’t be the normal teasing over what was going to happen to that can of salmon.( I threaten to eat almost every can that comes into the house. She threatens to not feed me the planned salmon croquettes. So I give in and shut up. ) So, I ate it all. Like the old commercial I ate the whole thing. I didn’t feel bad, but I was glad to be finished with it. The next morning was a different story. We were out the door and about to load into the truck when I stopped, steadied myself on the side of the trailer, and spit up a couple of tablespoons of mostly clear saliva. But it had a nasty fish taste to it. Radiation on your throat gives you mucositis which is a thickening of your mucous and saliva. Between the mucositis and spitting up that mess it’s all I can do to get the thought of it out of my head.

Wed
    Today was a much better day. We’ve gotten into a groove. Teresa dropped me off, I went in, checked in, had treatment, came out, texted Teresa and we were headed back. The whole thing takes a little more than an hour. Just as long as it’s not Mon. or Fri. My appetite is back up. That’s not to say that things are tasting better, just mostly I know I must eat. I’ve eaten a lot today and took a can of formula by tube.

Thur.

  Another great day in the neighborhood. Got up this morning at 7:30, a full hour before I had been getting up. Teresa made me coffee and then some Malt-O-Meal. It’s a hot morning cereal like cream of wheat, but with a slightly malted flavor. It’s the closest thing to grits I’ve ever had. My appetite is back and if not with a vengeance then at least it’s back. The ever present cotton mouth has arrived and I find I’m drinking a lot of ginger ale now. We left camp and arrived Dallas VA at 9:23. I checked in, got treatment, met T back in the truck and on our way out 9:46. That’s clockwork and it’s taken us till now to get it down to 23 minute days.

  Tomorrow won’t be so lucky because it’s a Dr. visit day. Your Dr. has weekly meetings with you and all of his patients. Face to face, for about 15 to 30 minute meetings. Since mine is a throat cancer he touches the area and assesses the knot as to size and solidity. He is expecting the mass to “ reduce dramatically “ in the next couple of weeks. Asked what that would mean to me is the difference between now and then with then being not being able to see it at all, even when standing close. The radiation Dr. has been in this for over 20 years. I have every confidence that whatever he says I need to do, I will.

  I can already see what tomorrow will be like
  Fri

  Got up early, had breakfast and went to the VA. Back at camp by 11:30. Packed the truck and finally made it back to Las Rio Casa by 1:30. Unload, check plants, and general condition of the place including what groceries we have. Mailbox outside and a run to the Post Office to pick up mail there. Let neighbors know we’re home and it’s not someone who looks like us but are really there to steal everything we have. In someone’s version we will have been kidnapped or abducted. Sit down and check the recordings on the TV. Then figure out what to do with this 48 hour pass. I quit smoking in Feb. after the tonsillectomy. Now with chemo I’m not supposed to drink either. I think a Baptist preacher got into the healing doctrine somewhere. I understand my liver and kidneys and every other filtering organ I have are filtering and flushing things through. I will testify. But I may have to start my chip stuff over this weekend.

  So that’s how Friday is going to go.

I’ll try to put something else in before post.

Fri. went much like that with very few differences. We had stopped at the Post Office on the way home, but got home by 1:30.

Well I'm gonna post this and hope and pray that the mailman will be nice today and bring my Windows 7 DVD like the nice man at the store said so I can breathe life into my laptop and once again have margins and so forth that I control.

One of my secrets to being able to get along on the information superhighway is to use software that is new enough to be usable, yet old enough for me to figure out what to do with the magic toolbar that some software developer decided to put in so he could upsell you this years model. I actually have somewhere in what one of my kids call my museum computers that still run Windows 3.11. Of course I also have a Commodore 64, an old Tandy RL 1000 (286), and a Mac that I haven't done much more than powered up to see that it does run, And somewhere in my old and crusty stuff I still have 2 286 based laptops. I'm still looking for a TRS-80, mostly because I have books of software for it, the kicker being it's great software but you have to type in the code yourself.

As far as software I have Windows 3.11, 98, and DOS 5.0 and 6.2. Word and Excel before it was office. So if anyone needs any of this let me know. I seem to be holding the keys to the kingdom of  " Where did that crap go anyway".

Till next time