The latest

11-2

Another round of the latest stuff today. I found out today that each infusion of this stuff is actually only half of a round, so with today’s dose I’ve only had two actual rounds. I’m not complaining about this stuff, mostly because I’ve had very few side effects from it other than a really mean dose of acne. That really isn’t much to complain about, but it’s on my head and itches like crazy. My son came up from south Texas today and brought his tractor with a brush hog, front end loader, and a 3 point blade.

11-3

Called a driver to deliver three loads of crusher run. To the uninitiated, crusher run is just crushed rock that hasn’t been cleaned yet to remove sand and to size the rock. As he brought it in my son, Wes, spread and bladed it into a driveway. In case you don’t remember or haven’t heard the story, I got stuck in my front yard a couple of months ago. The truck didn’t sink, it just sat and spun, just absolutely no traction. I might as well have been sitting on ice. On the second day I got a winch and spent almost four hours winching it to a spot where I could get it to move on it’s own. So, to make sure we didn’t have to worry about it anymore this will be an all-weather road surface. We have a very hard layer of clay underneath all of this, hence the need for rock, so this should do us for quite a few years. Wes is leaving his tractor here for a while, so I’ll be able to get a few more things done around here and be able to dress the new road up if it needs it. Hopefully, somewhere in the near future I’ll be able to get our tractor up and running soon. Mostly all it really needs is some TLC, but making time for it is another thing, not to mention all of the other projects that still need attention. We’re still in the discovery stage of finding all of the stuff that got moved and trying to find a place for all of it.

11-4

Loaded up and headed to the Granbury place for a day or two. Several projects left to have it presentable and ready for sale. All of it is cosmetic, but we’re not quite ready to show it yet. A stuck door, a dab of paint, that kind of stuff. All minor, but all still require time. We only have a day or two here before we head to Houston for a couple of days. Tomorrow I go to the VA for one last checkup for my dentures. The dentures by the way, have been mostly a blessing. The positioning of the teeth have taken a little getting used to. I have bitten my cheek or lip many times. But they do work extremely well and there’s not much I won’t tackle. Sadly, a large juicy cheeseburger is not one of them. I don’t have enough bone left in my jaw to support the denture enough to take a bite out of anything much larger than a slider or a donut. Once I get a bite though, it’s all mine. My saliva glands seem to be able to keep up much better now and for the most part I enjoy eating.

11-5

A trip into Ft. Worth to the VA to see the best dentist I have had the pleasure to know. This woman has singlehandedly renewed my faith in both the VA and dentists. A very tall order to be sure. If she were to go into private practice I’m sure she would soon have as big of a practice as she wanted. The one thing that becomes immediately clear is that she cares. She takes the time to not only take care of the patient’s needs, but to get to know the patient and what they need.

A few errands later we were back in Granbury. One of the stops was by an AT&T store to have my phone checked out. Their first question was do I want a new phone. No, I just want this one fixed. Sorry, your iPhone 4s is too old for us to do anything with. So it’s back to Dr. Frankenstein’s lab to see if we can bring it back to life at least long enough to get the contact list and pictures off of it. And, no, I didn’t have it backed up. Yes, I know how important it is to back up, but I’ve been a little busy lately. I miss the days of my Rugby phone that saved all of it’s info on a chip. At least that way if your phone dies you can still get your info off of it. Ah, but Apple in it’s infinite wisdom has decided that all of this should be uploaded to their cloud. That way they can charge you for storage.

11-6

Packed up and loaded up, again, heading south on our way to Houston. We’ll be stopping by some friend’s house on the way for a little R & R.

11-8

On our way to Houston. We’ll be staying with Teresa’s brother and sister in law. They live about a half an hour away from MD Anderson ( not counting traffic problems ). Our trip this time is only two days, but when we’re through there we’ll be headed back to the Austin area to meet up with all of Teresa’s brothers and sisters for a family get together.

11-9

In Houston for blood work, CT, and a Dr. visit. Everyone at MD Anderson seems to have made it their own personal mission to help everyone they can. It almost makes cancer tolerable. I say almost for me because cancer has taken away from me my strength, stamina, and my way of earning a living. My strength and stamina are returning slowly, but trying to get by on what social security doles out can get a little trying. Here’s a problem for one of your friends that has a kid that’s a math genius. Your monthly pension check is $1100.00, your house payment is $600.00, your car payment is $300.00, leaving you $200.00. Utilities are $150.00 leaving you $50.00. The question now becomes how to buy groceries, pay for insurance and everything else. Dip into savings ? That will only last so long, especially since you had just gotten to a point in your life where most stuff was paid for and you could actually afford to put something away. And before some little genius says get a job, go put on an old man suit and see how many people will actually talk to you about employment. Employers are looking for someone young so they don’t have to pay for all of your experience, and of course if you’re young you just don’t have enough experience.

11-10

Got results from the CT today. The demon is still growing, which means that the current round of chemo isn’t working. The plan now is to get radiation on the lymph node in my chest to see if we can reduce the size of the tumor there. The doctor said it was cutting off one of the airways in my lung enough to be a problem in the future. She said she saw what looked like the beginning of infection and that if we don’t take care of it now that it could lead to pneumonia. I’ve had pneumonia three times in my life and don’t want it again. If you think flu is bad, you ain’t had nothing till you get a good case of pneumonia. The worst case I had took me a month to get over, and I was in my 20’s then. I don’t even want to think about how it would affect me now.

Back on the road and headed to Austin for a couple of days to visit with one of Teresa’s sisters. All of her family will be there for a short get together.

11-12

Back to Granbury to try to do a few more things before we have a realtor come over for a look. We’re beginning to miss our bed at home greatly now.

11-14

Met with the realtor today and listed the house. Packed up a few more things and headed north. A late start what with the realtor and trying to get everything ready to show the house. Back in the Oklahoma place at 11:00 PM or so.

11-17

Met with doctors today to set up the radiation treatments. I should be getting about ten treatments. Like the first time, it will be a Monday through Friday thing. This time instead of a mask, they made a cradle of sorts to make sure I’m in the same position every time. And like the last time they put three tiny tattoos on me to insure correct alignment.

I seem to be falling into the same trap of trying to wait to post to let everyone know what’s going on. I will try to do better, but no promises. We still have to install the wood heater here and the weather people are calling for freezing weather by this weekend. On top of that, we still have a ton of work to do around here, so there’s not a lot of time for reflection and writing.

So, off this goes to the interweb cloud thing for all to see.