Did ya miss me ??

   Back at the keyboard after a vacation. A vacation from what one might ask. Pretty much everything. Doctors, needles, telephones and anything to do with the Big C. Well almost anything. I'm still feeding through the feeding tube but I'm up to six cans a day. I had lost down to 189 lbs. But now I'm back up to 200. We went up to the north forty for almost 2 weeks and got a lot done. I did find after 5 days that I'm not the he-man I thought I was. We had been getting up early and going to bed early due to not being in contact with the outside world and no TV. So of course one day while I was at Home Depot when I saw an antenna I bought it and after hooking it up and moving it around 15 or 20 times we were able to get 3 channels. I suppose if I were to put it up on a tower a hundred or so feet in the air I might be able to get OKC or Tulsa, but for all of that trouble I'm sure we will still be getting Dish when we actually move there ( along with a land line and a very slow DSL ). We have learned that when we're on the road we need a DVR to record our shows and to be that far out in the country the only option is satellite and my personal preference is Dish, mostly because my Tivo works with it and I have a lifetime subscription with it.

My health seems to be coming back up slowly. My energy levels are still greatly reduced from what it was this time last year although after radiation and chemo the doctors are happy with how I'm doing overall. Monday was my first visit since the end of treatment and their only complaint was that I wasn't eating enough. I don't know how to explain this, but if you can't taste food and it has to be the consistency of baby food it's really hard to get interested in eating. One Dr. seemed to be worried that I would forget how to swallow. Really ? I drink coffee in the morning and 2-3 liters of water during the day. How is that getting past my mouth if not from swallowing ? That really is the farthest thing from my mind. The other thing is without teeth it becomes a problem trying to figure out just what I can eat. Or I should say swallow. Try getting through one meal without chewing and while you're at it make it the blandest most tasteless thing you can find, and then imagine having to do that for the better part of a year with the hope that at the end of it you might get to taste some of it. Now before you go thinking that I'm having my own little pity party I'm not. Every time I go to the VA I see people in way worse shape than I am and I truly know how lucky I am to have caught this when we did and especially lucky to have so many friends and family that are praying and pulling for me. I'm just playing that old recording of “ I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired “. And I know Teresa is getting tired of my crankiness and other traits I seemed to have picked up with this.

Another thing that nobody bothered to warn me about is memory loss. I'm not talking about where I left my keys. The other day I went to take a shower, turned the water on waiting for the hot water to come up. After a minute or so when no hot water came out I turned it off and went to check the water heater. The pilot light was on and it seemed to be working. I turned the heat up and the fire came on. I went back to check and still no hot water. After one more check of the water heater I went back to the shower and Voila! hot water. The difference ? I actually turned on the hot water. I had been turning on the cold water. For as long as I can remember the cold has been on the right and the hot on the left, yet I was turning on the handle on the right and expecting hot water. This is not the first time this has happened but it's the one that went on the longest. It's also quite disconcerting to put something away and two days later have no idea where to begin looking for it. I put a saw up several weeks ago in my storage shed. Now the shed is only so big, but I'll be darned if I can find the thing.

6-20

Today was one of my off days. I had a couple when we were up in Oklahoma but they weren't as bad as today. I mostly sat in my chair all day and watched TV and slept. Around 6:00 PM I finally got enough energy to move around. I hate days like this. I feel so useless. It's like someone decided that all you could do today was watch the world go by. As I've mentioned before I'm ADD and about the hardest thing in the world for me to do is sit and do nothing. Writing this seems to be a decent outlet, yet I would much rather be out working on some project or another.

Well I know this is short for having been off so long but I'm going to see if I can remember the password to put this up.

6-26

As you can see it took me a bit longer than I anticipated to get this up. I did however recover all of my data from the other computer which is what took me so long. All of my passwords and email accounts were in a file on it. Note to self : keep all of that info somewhere besides on the machine you're using it. We're going to the north forty for the day to drop off some guineas we bought here. They need to get used to the place before they get big enough o turn loose. They're supposed to eat fleas, ticks, grasshoppers, and small snakes so it seemed like a really good idea to have some. If they work out I'm sure we'll be getting more. OK so now I'll be posting.