Going, going, gone...for awhile.

I'm keeping it short tonight mostly because my laptop finally bit the dust for good and I'm having to type on an ergonomic keyboard. Really ? what's so dang ergonomic about bending a perfectly good keyboard up so much that there is an actual split between the keys. Is it the part where I now have to relearn where keys are thus slowing any actual wisdom I might be able to impart. If I ever were to want another keyboard it would be a Dvorak so that I would be on the level of about 99% of the people. At any rate WE ARE HOME !!!  Thursday was the last day. They surprised me with this info that morning after looking at my labs. When I asked about how much longer I would need my PIC line the PA spun on her heel and said she would take care of it. She immediately had me set up for the removal of the line. It was weird. The tech took the bandage off and after a lot of disinfecting pulled the line out. I felt absolutely nothing and as I watched it come out it was just really strange. One thing I'm sure of is that if I ever need one again I wont hesitate to do it. That is just too easy.
   So Thursday when we got back to camp we packed a hasty retreat and beat it to the house. It felt good to be able to do things. In the trailer we were very limited in what we could do-- eat, watch TV, read, and sleep. But we are home.
   When I get another laptop going I'll put up another post. Don't worry my time in camp got me pretty used to having a laptop and here I keep one open most of the time I'm awake.
  I'm not due back for another month so I can get a little vacation before the next round of treatments, I'm finding my appetite is very slowly returning and so far my energy level is pretty good.
  Signing off for now.

Even shorter

Thur. night

Tomorrows treatment is the last this week and I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel and I know it's not a train. Two days off and 3 more treatments and then a few more ( OK, probably more than a few ) appointments and I'll be done at least long enough to be able to go back to work. And I would like to get back to work before winter. The alien has gone back into his shell or wherever he came from. Without looking hard the only visible evidence is a sunburnt looking area where the alien was. The truck has set since January with only occasional starting and hasn't moved since it was parked. I know I should move it but I was hoping to have it something to do. I'll take it out this weekend and let it get a few minutes of highway time.

As I've said before our house in Granbury is up for sale and there is always something to do to make it look better or just general upkeep.

I've been using Open Office for the last 4 weeks now. Yes I can definitely tell a difference between this and Microsoft Office. And although I would give Microsoft the edge if I were evaluating ( wait a minute, I think I am actually ) the price most definitely has to go to Open. Again I'm not a power user so it's hard for me to judge fairly. I have used Microsoft for a very long time, and I have used it through many different versions and updates. And before one of the last 2 versions I knew where everything I needed was, until they started adding so much stuff that they had to add ribbons to be able to get it all in there.

Sat. morn.

Home again, home again, jiggety jog.

Another beautiful morning at home. This getting up every morning has temporarily turned off the night owl. When I see light in the morning I find it hard to sleep anymore and if I stay in bed I just lay there thinking of what I could be doing. Or what I should be writing.

Last night a friend of ours came over and cut my hair. It's thinned out some, but I was starting to look like I was auditioning for That 70's Show. So I got rid of some of the fluff and curls. My beard is a different matter. What little of it comes in now I can run a razor over dry and it just breaks off. No resistance, no drag, nothing, Run the razor over my face and it's gone as easy as cleaning a dry erase board. ( Let's hope the hair on my head doesn't start breaking off. ) My neck is another matter. It looks diseased and as tall as I am I get noticed a bit more than the average person. It's almost funny seeing people first do the double take when they see me and then again when they see my neck. The burned area is down low on the right side - where the knot was and is a color of darkness that has never been on my body ever before. I don't tan ( other than a modified farmer's tan ), I burn and burn red. I have the type of skin that will have a water blister cover an area long before darker pigmentation sets in. The difference between the peeled area and the burnt area is striking but in a wrong way. It goes from a bright pink to the color of medium brown leather. Quite the odd color combo and only adds to the stares. I'm actually a bit surprised that more people don't ask what the hell happened.

I can already tell this summer is gonna be a killer for me. Considering the amount of weight I've lost, the meds I'm taking, and how weak I've gotten since all of this started it's gonna be a real fight to keep from falling down into a puddle. I've been outside today and its 91 in the shade. Not for long at a time,

because I get the feeling I would get before a heat stroke. We've turned on the AC when it got to 82 in the house although if we could get the humidity down some we could tough it out a bit more with fans. I know, wait till August it will be down then. Yeah and it will also be 110 or more. I said I was from Texas not Arizona.

Sun. night

Back again, back again, ( and I don't know the rest )

Three more treatments. When I was in the Army and there was a short timer, he was generally not good for much other than to run around, get in the way, and holler SHORT!! every chance he got. The shorter he got the louder and more obnoxious he was. This mostly applied to those who were getting out of the military, those going back to the "world" ( the US ) from overseas, or those going to a better duty assignment. And to be fair this was only people with the rank of sergeant or less. Those of any higher rank had the same feelings but were afraid to act out due to command looking down their nose at you. Now I can't run around there hollering SHORT !! because someone would tell me in a not so gentle way that that is really rude. You know it was rude in the service but who gave a damn. You were done, you were outta there !! Well I feel short. And I'm damned well more than ready to be outta here. I have had the best care that I believe was possible ( DDS excepted ) with what they had to work with. But there is still only so much poking, prodding, and irradiating that one soul should have to take and I'm at my limit. Well, that's what the Dr. said anyway. He said that I have reached the max amount of radiation a person can receive on any one area of their body. Any more and they would start to make me sicker. Hmm, yeah doc I think we should stop right there. Right now the knot is only visible if you get really close and chances are one would be looking more at the burn than for a knot.

Monday

Went in early to do labs and then headed for treatment. Finished that and had to go to the clinic that installed my PIC line to have the dressing checked. When you shower with a PIC line you are supposed to cover it with a waterproof barrier of some sort. The VA gives you a thing called a shower sleeve which is a plastic sleeve and has elastic on both ends to seal the water out. This weekend after I had showered the edge of the shower sleeve had released the edge of the PIC line dressing and scratched the area. After a day it looked like a raw area so we put some ointment on it and covered it with a bandaid. The nurse that checked it today said it should actually stay open and uncovered as much as possible. Oh good, now I have to get a Larry the Cable Guy shirt. And I really don't have the physique for showing off my arms. As my 1st ex wife was fond of telling me " You're coming to the gunfight unarmed ". Gee honey I love you too ( NOT!! ). When I finally got back to chemo for my weekly Dr. visit she said my creatinine was still too high so she sent me to the infusion room to get a bag of saline. One exceptionally nice thing about the PIC line is that it only takes an hour to get a liter of saline as opposed to an hour and a half with just a regular IV line.

Well I'm going to end this one and see if I can get it posted.

SHORT !!! ( Yeah, I'm shoutin' it )

Tuesday

Single digit midget 6 treatment days left

In case you're wondering the reason I put the days and/or the time of day in the posts is that evidently I'm easily confused. I name each of the files as I write them with the date I start them. I had to start doing that after I opened a file and started writing only to find that I had been writing in a blog that had been posted a week or so earlier. Luckily after I had found the right one all I had to do was copy and paste to get it all in the right place. Ahh, the magic of word processing. When I was in school a few teachers tried to get me to take typing class. Of course we're talking 1963- 1968 time period and a boys mind is on other things. as elective classes I took commercial art, wood shop ( twice ), metal shop, mechanical drawing, TV and radio repair, and finally settling on auto body repair. Now most of these classes were all guys since people had yet to realize that girls might like wood shop etc. And I had not figured out like one of my friends did that I could have taken cosmetology. When I asked Roger why he was in a class of nothing but girls he just looked at me as if I must have just landed from the moon. He said something to the effect of " Duh, I get to play with girls hair for half a day and when we're through with that I'm playing with their hands and feet." And I'm thinking now who's the idiot. But to be fair I had a lot more than that going on in my life at the time. And hindsight is always 20-20.

All that to say that the typing classes were mostly girls and the whole curriculum was centered around graduating secretaries, which I could never see myself being. Later in life the Army thought they were going to teach me, until I reminded them that I had a contract with them for a different school. So, all of this is brought to you by the school of hunt and peck. I had to get somewhat better due to working on computers. I used to type in code back when that was the only way you could get a computer to do anything at all. I have tried different people through the years taking dictation to enter code or help organize my thoughts since they could type without looking at the keys. The problem there is twofold. One, I think faster than some can type and if I have to stop to let someone catch up my train usually gets derailed and it might not ever get on track again. Two, I tend to edit as I type and it gets hard to say wait a minute I want to change that. But then I usually proofread it all two times at least before I turn it loose. I check my writing for spelling, grammar ( actually I run grammar check ), and flow. I try to make this more like a conversation, which means I have to imagine what you are asking. See what I go through for you ??

I am very grateful and thankful for a supportive family firstly and a great many supportive friends. And certainly not to mention all of the people who have prayed for my recovery. I know I could have gone this far without them all, but it would have been a more bitter and just not as easy as it has been on me. My wife has been by my side every day, through some of the grossest things, and if it weren't for her the dental surgery clinic might have had a few DDS's going AWOL. Seriously, they have been the only clinic in which I haven't been treated like someone who is still paying for the care -- and paying well. Back to family and friends. One friend loaned us the use of a travel trailer. My brother is paying the rent on the space so we can be 14 miles away instead of 75 and having to make that round trip every day. Friends and family have helped us in so many ways and we have been truly blessed by them. We've gotten more cards than we have ever gotten Christmas cards. I'm going to try to capture the images of some of my favorites and pass them along. Don't expect them before a couple of weeks because this has to be done back at home base where I have access to my wife's prized office where I have the capability to actually scan something instead of taking a picture of it and email it to me so I can download it and then publish it. Wheewwww. Her office is much easier. Although I set her office up, I am only allowed limited use. I am allowed to do maintenance on the network, but only because I promise her doom and gloom may visit if I don't. And I'm allowed to install all of the absolutely necessary software. Usually I am camped in my chair with this laptop other times. This machine is set up on the home network and will print in the office. Every so often I'll hear " Did you print something ? ". To which my reply is usually " Whazzit say ? ".

Hmmmm. Family, friends, grateful. Blah, blah, blah. Computer stuff blah, blah. You can't leave this train unattended !!! It will jump the track !!!

Another thing I've been blessed with is that the VA went after this rather aggressively and with very few problems and now the knot is barely visible. The thing that is most visible is the apparent sunburn in the general area where the skin is peeling. The radiation Dr. had said to expect this. Of course Teresa noticed it and kind of had me wondering when I saw her reaction to it. I thought maybe the alien had popped out or something. No, it was just the skin flaking off in rather large sections. We have been putting some stuff on it recommended by the rad Dr. He has said to stick to this stuff till I have finished radiation because anything else might just act like Crisco and aid in the frying process. Uhhh, OK Doc, I'll make sure to use your stuff only.

Wed.

Today marks the one week left point. Five more radiation treatments and one more chemo to go. Of course there will be follow up appointments for at least a week but it won't be every day. Had labs done this morning. My creatinine was still a bit high but they said push fluids and go. As I was leaving I was lucky enough to be able to side track the pharmacist. One of the flukes in the VA system is that to get another problem addressed you are supposed to see your primary physician to take care of that. I told him of the trouble I was having trying to get medicine for my gout. He asked if I wanted to see a Dr. and I said yes. He said he could line me up with a doc Friday. I said great and we left. We hadn't been gone much more than ten minutes when he called and said that he had discussed it with a nurse practitioner and they came up with some medicine that wouldn't interfere with the chemo. The biggest reason I go to this guy is so that any meds that I take can't interfere with the chemo and he's the one who figures out what chemo you're going to get. He makes a point of knowing your body chemistry so who else would you go to?

Thu.

It was raining today and as I came into radiation I noticed that the TV's were both looking for the satellite. So it shouldn't have been any great surprise that in the middle of my treatment that the electricity went off. I was strapped and clamped to the table and in my happy Zen place when all of this happened. Talk about being jerked back to reality. The lights were only off for a half of a second, but the machine had to be reset and I wound up staying strapped and clamped for an extra 20 minutes or more. They did come in and cover me up to keep me from freezing in the 60 degree room. After I finally got up my hands were numb from the lack of circulation due to having my hands strapped. It's not that uncomfortable for the 10 minutes or so that you're getting your treatments. But after about 20 minutes or so it starts to get that way. Today they were rapidly approaching the point of let me the hell up from here when they said they were starting it back up. By the time I got up off of the table I had to shake my hands to get feeling back in them. Lately I've been carrying my jacket in and almost always by the time I'm leaving I'm putting it on at least till I can get outside and then I'm looking for a sunny place to stand. Today it took me nearly 2 hours before I could take my coat off and 2 cups of hot tea before my hands completely thawed out.

Four treatments left.

SHORT !!! ( If you don't know what it means ask a veteran )

The countdown begins

Wed. morn,

Today I get my treatment and then head back up to day surgery to get the dressing changed on my PICC line. They had told me to get it changed today and then once a week after that. They take care of the dressing and check the wound care. ( Later ) The same RN that put in the the PICC changed the dressing and I was just a little concerned when she pulled off the dressing an it was covered in old blood. I had told her that I now had to give myself heparin injections and she said that would account for the blood in the dressing. It really wasn't a lot, but enough that I'm glad we changed it. The last couple of days the PICC hasn't bothered me and she said it really shouldn't. The first day it ached a bit but after that it settled down.

Thur.

Quite cool this morning in the trailer as we didn't think we were going to need the heat this morn. I've given up trying to taste anything, but the coffee in the morning helps to strip away the nights paste that some rotten fairy has deposited in my mouth. It really feels like a cross between several things. It starts with when I breathe out feeling like an acid fog or a dry dust being blown out with every breath. After coffee it's much better.

One thing I never reckoned on nor even thought was possible is that I can smell something like chicken soup, and it smells really good, but never be able to taste it. How is that even possible ???

Another thing that I so totally don't understand is that my grump factor has gone up. Teresa is taking the brunt of it and usually calls me on it.

Friday

Today was radiation Dr. day and we talked about the rest of the treatment program. May 14 will be my last dose of radiation while my last chemo will be one day earlier. He said that the radiation can keep working for up to 6 weeks after so they will be monitoring me through July. Evidently the radiation works very similar to a microwave. You take something out of the microwave and are supposed to let it sit for a minute or two before you eat it. Also the chemo will be at work for 3 weeks or so. Hopefully some of my appetite will return or at least maybe the feeling of fullness will leave me. That's the main reason I'm losing weight right now is that I never get hungry and when I do eat I feel full for 5-6 hours.

Monday

Well as it always is we never get everything when we come back. Last night we came back late. It was 9:30 when we got back. And it's almost a guarantee that when we leave late we will leave more behind. I left my travel bag behind that has my razor and brush etc. and my good tennis shoes. Teresa left her brush and comb. And I'm sure we'll find more as the week progresses.

We had had my daughter and granddaughter up visiting Friday and most of Saturday. The powers that be at Home Depot ( yeah I said it ) evidently absolutely can not function without her for an entire weekend. She works at HD as a second job. And evidently she has made herself so invaluable there that they can't ( or won't ) function without her. I'm thinking it's about time someone told the store manager that we have spent over $ 15,000.00 in just one year with HD. Now I realize that probably not much to a manager who is seeing millions of dollars a year in sales. I know I'm just one guy. But Lowes is just down the street and I'm sure they would love the business.

We also had my brother and sister in law over Sunday. And of course we had several different neighbors over to check my condition. My brother in law was nice enough to donate 3 laptops to my cause and so now I'll have my hands full for a while with factory resets and the like. The harder part is trying to match up these machines with a deserving donor.

So before I break into song ( I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in ) I'll let everyone know that I'm doing quite well. The knot on my neck is much smaller ( YEA ) and about the only complaint that I really have is that my neck looks sunburnt and itches like crazy. We have to put cream on it now because the skin is so dry. More good news, only one more full week of radiation and three days of the next week AND I'M DONE !!!!!! Well I still have a lot of follow up stuff, but the initial course of treatment is done.

This morning they took labs and said my creatinine level was up so they hooked me up to another bag of saline and said to stop by in the morning for another. Then labs again Wednesday so that the PA will have a fresh set of labs to go by. Everyone in the chemo infusion room has been so nice but it's hard to say I'm going to miss them. Of course it would be hard to say that I would miss any of this. You can be as nice as pie but when you're drawing blood or poking or stabbing me I would think you would have to be borderline psychotic to enjoy any of it.

Now as soon as I can come up with a title I'll post it .