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 )
No comments:
Post a Comment