Chapter 25
February 2010
The call comes in! Surgery is scheduled for the 22nd. Great as I’m starting to have a few problems with my body not doing what I want it to do!
I want to stand up without the world spinning around me! I want to be in the sunlight without it hurting my eyes. I want these headaches that are getting progressively worse to stop! I want to walk without tipping to the sides!
I just want my life back as I thought it was supposed to be when I was told there was no more cancer! This isn’t fair! I’ve played by the rules and my body is taking it to another level! OK I’ll play along again!
I have decided that I will not ride the bike or drive the car as I’m having dizzy spells again but this time it’s not from vertigo but this stupid invader in my head! I just can’t take a chance of having a spell and causing an accident where either I or someone else is hurt or killed. Now this isn’t going well with Barbara as she hates to drive while I’m sitting in the car. I’m a big back seat driver! I’d be just as bad if I had a pilot’s license. If I’m not in control you ain’t doing it right!
I go in and have another MRI the week before the surgery date and then go in to see my new doctor, Dr. Scarrow, my Nureo surgeon, and he explains what they will be doing. I ask about a biopsy but he tells me due to the location and he shows it to me on the computer they have no choice but to go in and remove this lesion and then do the biopsy after they have it removed. This thing is located on the bottom of my brain sitting on the brain pan behind my right eye. It’s directly behind where the big tumor was behind my eye.
And it’s grown! It is now not measured in centimeters but in inches! It’s 1/2” x7/8” x1/2” or about the size of a jelly bean! Now it’s real, I get to have my skull split open and I have a short list of things I need to know such as what’s the long term effects of this going to do to me, how long will I be in the hospital and quiet a few other things. The main thing I need to know was the long term problems. His answer was I’d have a 10% chance of a stroke or seizures which I decide right away I can live with. He goes on to tell me that they will be drilling a series of holes in my skull and then sawing between them to remove the skull to get into my brain. This I figure out as I’ve done a little wood work in my life to understand that process. The cool part was this stage was going to be done by a robot!
Anyway all of these problems I’m experiencing are actually coming from all the fluid buildup from the lesion. Lets get this show on the road as I want my life back!
I also get measured for some special “socks” as they call them and am told all the things I can expect after I wake up and we get to go home to wait for Monday to roll around.
Monday the 22nd rolls around and Barbara and I are back in St Johns checking in at pre op. I get all the usual things done like get undressed and this time I can’t wear my jammies! I have to wear the oh so wonderful open in the back hospital gowns, but I get a break and can put 2 on one facing the wrong way to cover up the rear facing part of my body! And I can wear my socks! I get my IV inserted and I go to the bathroom so I don’t have any “accidents” and then I’m put on the bed! Bags are put up and hooked to my IV and I’m rolled out for another CT Scan before they open me up. On the way back my preacher Dennis Jennings is coming towards us and he escorts us back to the pre op room and we talk for a couple of minutes until the nurses come in to take me to surgery. Dennis offers a prayer and when done the nurses who actually prayed with us take me out for my next journey into the unknown that I’m starting to call my Frankenstein Experience!
Into an impossibly cold room that looks nothing like what you see on the TV except for the nurses and doctors and the fun begins for them because when they hit the plunger to shoot the sleepy juice in and it was lights out for me till get this, Tuesday afternoon!
I’ve been know to sleep for awhile but this was a record! I do remember someone in a dream offer me some orange sherbet. It was a great dream but when I woke up the pain hit until the pain meds kicked in. Oh crud! Morphine again! I hate morphine. It makes me try to throw up brown rings! But I have no choice in the matter. Barbara is standing there when I woke up and she asks me how I feel and I tell her like someone hit me in the face with a ball bat! The nurses are therealso and start to lok me over and ask me silly questions like what day it was which I got wrong right off the bat! It ewas Monday when they put me out but they didn’t tell me I wasn’t going to wake up till Tuesday! I did get the month and my name right which was a prize winner as I got to have COFFEE! I also got to have chicken noodle soup which is still on my all time favorites list and then someone puts a bag of ice on my right eye and side of my head. It hurt the eye but felt great on my head.
Then I notice that I need to go to the bathroom and that’s when I’m told Mr. Purdy you have a catheter in so you don’t need to go to the bath room! WHAT?? And of course I reach down under the covers and sure enough there it is the infamous tube! OH freaking great! At least I was a sleep when this one was put in but I really don’t want to go through another one being pulled out! The United Nations has a rule against cruel and unusual punishment! I guess this is going to happen tomorrow but again I’m wrong as They don’t want me up and wandering around until I’m feeling a little bit better!
The good thing about this ordeal is the biopsy of the thing in my brain came in Tuesday evening and it was great news. There was only 2 things that this could have been. One was a new cancerous tumor or it might be a radiation narcissus tumor. We were hoping for the latter and that’s what we got! Nothing now to worry about now except keeping air going in and air going out.
Wednesday rolls around and I’m moved out of ICU into another room and I fall asleep after they hit me with some more morphine and wake later and For some reason that I’ve noticed every time I wake up and a nurse is around I’m asked if I know what day it is the date and my name which is actually really funny as it goes like this,
“Mr. Purdy do you know what day it is?”
“Yep, its Wednesday right?”
“Well that’s right Mr. Purdy! Do you know your name Mr. Purdy?”
“AHHH, Mr. Purdy???” Hoping I can get a laugh out of her, but for some reason when doing the 20 questions after surgery, humor is not a good thing to be trying for!
“No Mr. Purdy, what is your first name?”
“ahhh, George???” and I get the pat on the arm reward that nurses are so good with! And that’s the end of the “Do you know show?”
Then I am asked a question I can’t answer. “Have you seen your surgery site yet Mr. Purdy?” and I have to answer no not yet but she has an ulterior motive for that question and it’s called Physical therapy! I need to get out of bed and walk so I don’t get any more blood clots and I’m ready to go exploring!
As we walk past the mirror over the sink she stops and lets me look and I’m standing there looking at someone who looks like he’s been on the loosing side of a baseball bat fight! I tell you I looked like crap! My right eye was completely red! I had a black eye the likes of which I’ve never had even in my worst fight! It was from my eye lid all the way down to below my nose and another bruise from in front of my ear to the corner of my mouth!
I turned to her and asked her if the surgery team had assaulted me or if they at least got the tag number of the truck that ran my arse over! I finally got a laugh out of a nurse!
The scar from the incision started from the center of my fore head at the hair line and went up onto my head and came around and down in front of my ear and stopped right in the center of the ear! And it was ugly! I really looked like I was in a horror movie and I was the new Frankenstein!
We finished our little walk and I didn’t even look in the mirror when we walked by it! That guy I last saw in it scared me to death!
Barbara and Jerry, my youngest, came in and Jerry looked me over going wow Dad a few times and I told him to take a few pictures which he did! I have them on my Face Book page along with a few other pictures!
They finally decide to let me out on Friday and this is when we find out a small problem. On the way home Barbara is not driving the way I would have driven home and what’s worse she pulls into the driveway of a house I have no idea as to who lives there and I’m getting really mad at her and ask her where we are and she answers me ”babe, we’re home” and now I’m panicked! WHAT? Did you sell our house while I was in the hospital? And she looks at me in fear and tells me to go in and see my sons and Abby our cat!
I go in and I don’t recognize a thing except for my two sons and my cat Abby! N3eedless this scares Barbara badly and it does have my attention! It wasn’t until later that night that I figure out that it is my house and things settle down some.
We were told that there would be a “little” short term memory loss but this was a big surprise! And it scared the hell out of us! Once I got those memories settled the rest come together!
I’m having the usual problem that brain surgery gives a person which, having been back for my follow ups Dr. Sarrow assures me is normal. Things like dizziness or vertigo, numbness of the surgical site and pressure from the fluid build up and bleeding from my ear and nose. Memory loss is making me nutts as I had written 6 chapters of a story and after the surgery I’ve been able to do ½ of a chapter! I can’t get a train of thought to come together as I’ll be going along and it’s like hitting a wall! Some call it writers block but for me it’s a complete blank wall. My spelling is terrible and because of the fuzziness in my right eye the keyboard is off center and I miss a lot of keys and even though I’m a 4 fingered typist this is terrible! I’ve spent 3 hours on this little chapter and it shouldn’t have taken me even 30 minutes.
I’ve become an old man in the last 3 months since the pressure started to build up in my brain and until it goes down I still am an old man at 55. I stand up and I’m glad that this desk is in front of me to grab hold of and I’m glad there are a lot of things in the house for me to reach for to steady myself in case I start to tip over. When I go outside I have my trusty friend Mr. Cane to keep me upright!
It’s April now and the last 3 months have been a joy to live! Yeah right! It’s been an aggravating pain in the arse! There have been some good things thats happened such as I finally got Disability which is a laugh as what I make in a month I used to make in a week! I have food stamps which is another laugh as it’s only $250 a month for a family of 3 so Barbara and I get to go to the shelters and food banks for handouts. We were able to finally pay the lawyer to start the bankruptcy proceedings after we got my tax return, and we now have the case number and a date and the phone is finally quiet! NO calls from bottom feeder collection agencies! I also sold my motorcycle to help pay on my second mortgage so we wouldn’t loose the house but getting Medicaid is a problem. My son has his and I get to pay $499 a month out of that large $1500 I get for disability unless I can rack up that same amount in doctors bills which is called a spend down which I still don’t understand!
I had someone ask me why don’t I let the house go? Well rent is about the same or more for what we need! And that’s actually taking a step down from what I have here! So I’ll keep the house thank you! Besides we were able to get a HUD help deal from the bank we have which was a surprise as this bank to remain nameless has been a PITA to work with! They reprocessed my pick up truck, hounded us to death on the second mortgage even after they heard what I’ve been through since April of 08. It’s true some banks have no heart and this bank was voted in the top 5 best banks in America this year. You’ll have to wait till I pick my arse up off the floor from LMFAO!
I guarantee if I can get someone to buy both of these loans from them I’ll jump on it in a heart beat!
I miss my bike. It’s been a great therapy group for me even if I can’t ride right now. Just going out and sitting on it helped, polishing it helped and just sitting next to it helped but now I miss just going down to the garage to visit it! Yeah Cancer the freaking gift that just keeps on giving even when you don’t want the damn gift!
Like what’s next on my agenda. Yep something else has “popped” up! If I can remember correctly back in about 1998 I went to a doctor about a little “bump” that had appears in my nose. The doc cut a bit off and when the biopsy came back said it wasn’t benign and not to worry about it. Well I didn’t and it just sat in there and didn’t do anything until all the radiation and chemo was over then it started to grow like a freaking weed! Well when they had me out on the table in Feb they cut a piece off and sent it in for a biopsy also. It came back as a type of HPV. (Human Papillomavirus) I freaked when I looked it up but they only show it as a sexually transmitted disease. OK why is it my freaking nose? My doctor can’t figure that out either as there is no sign of any “warts” on my body! But May 13th I get to go and have more sleepy juice and another knife put in me! They need to do this as this growth exploded and grew like wild fire and has almost closed off my right nostril and we need to stop it so it doesn’t get into my sinuses or throat. Another reason is it needs to be removed is it can turn into cancer. OH CRAP! There’s that “C” word again! I’m telling you I’m turning into a freaking science experiment! Here I am broke and I’m going in for more surgery! I need to get back to writing on my story and try to sell it so I can get some money in here but the funny thing is, if I do sell it and it sells a million copies and I get a whole dollar a copy I’ll loose 1/2 of it to all the banks, credit cards, hospitals and others I had to file bankruptcy on! They’ll put a hold on it till they get theirs! I love leeches! But I do have to say Chase Bank has been the best to work with! I guess because they are Springfields largest employer next to Kraft! Lets hope I can get the brain cells to working and I can get this story written as I’m pouring out tears writing the wrong things in here!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Chapter 24
Chapter 24
December 2009
Well my "employer" decided that he didn't want to take a chance of me driving his truck "in case I have another dizzy spell" so he let me go and when I tried to apply for unemployment he told DOE that I had quit! WHAT?? He was given a copy of my doctors work releease! He just couldn't pay the unemployment due to that bottom feeder he had his truck leased to and as I found out he was the one who told Randy not to put me back in the truck!Something about not wanting me to haul his freight, I think that moron better be glad I'm not one of those who sues on the drop of a penny!
But I tell you it's hard to get a job these days! I'm back to trying and I'm to experienced for most of these companies and they don't want to pay what an experienced driver is worth! It's turning out that a lot of these companies are going for the government tax money and hiring trainees so there are two money makers. One is they can hire someone for 1970 wages of 20 cents a mile AND get tax money from out of our pockets for hiring an unemployed person from off the street! The American people are getting burned on another "socialist" program! The bad thing is over half of these trainees don't survive a couple of months in a truck as it wasn't what they thought it was! Trucking ain't for sissys!
December comes and I have another problem crop up. My right leg from the knee down swells up to as big as my skinny thigh! Well this is a Friday so as usual dummy me thinks what the heck it’ll go down in a day or two.
Wrong again Einstein! By Monday I’m in tears from the pain so I head to the clinic to see what’s going on this time! Well the NP checks me out and sends me down to my most favorite hospital in the world, St. Johns for an ultra sound.
I get in there and I didn’t escape until SATURDAY! Yep once again I’m captured and placed into a room after the ultra sound finds a large blood clot in my lower leg! I have an IV with Heparin, a blood thinner being pumped into me with the usual saline. I have to call my wife to come down with my FAG bag. You do remember what FAG means right? Fast Action Bag and nothing mean towards another persons lifestyle!
Barbara walks in later and looks at me and shakes her head knowing I’m not liking being in here and starts to ask the questions that I couldn’t answer on the phone and which I really have no answers for yet. All I can tell her is it’s a blood clot and I’m getting a blood thinner and I had no idea yet how long I’m going to be in here.
She helps me get into my nice and warm flannel jammie bottoms and don’t even go there people! Hospitals are freaking COLD and get the nurse to unplug me from the IV so I can pull on my warm, yes you got it, jammie top! Along with the non slip socks!
She talks with the nurse and can’t get the answer she wants and then talks with me for a while and heads on home leaving me with the laptop and my own little world!
Then like every other time in here at 5:30 in the morning the parade starts with first vitals and then blood being pulled and a doctor I’ve never met from Jordan Valley Medical Clinic where I had gone yesterday comes in and we have a talk.
He can’t understand why I have a blood clot as I’m not the usual candidate for them as I have good blood pressure, good cholesterol and I’m not over weight.
He decides to check with Dr’s Kim and Holden to see if it might be another hold over of all things, cancer! I know he heard my heart hit the floor when he said that because I know the look on my face told him volumes.
There is that freaking word again! CANCER! It’s only been just over a year and it’s come back to haunt me for the 3rd time! “Cancer”, I think, “the freaking gift that keeps on giving! And I don’t want this freaking gift!”
Well Tuesday I have all three doctors in my room discussing what they think is going on so I get a new pill to take called Coumadin and I’m being set up for another CT scan from the neck down and an MRI of the head for Wed and Thursday!
The CT comes back clean! Nothing found from the neck down! YEEEESSSS! BUT the results of the MRI aren’t so good. Remember back when in August they found that tiny little lesion in the front temporal lobe? Well that “tiny” little thing has grown fairly fast and is just under ½ centimeter big!
Isn’t that just great! Another darn invader has assaulted me! We’re “thinking” one little cancer cell got loose from all the stuff we threw at it and for some reason traveled all around my body and came to rest in my brain behind where this nightmare started! What are the odds!
They pull all the blood thinners from me and are thinking surgery ASAP! On Friday I have 5 doctors in the room with me. From Dr’s Kim and Holden, the Dr from Jordan Valley and now a Nero surgeon and a plastic surgeon. We’re discussing which type of surgery we’re going to do. The first problem is they have NO IDEA as to what this thing which is being called a “lesion” is. They can’t do a biopsy on it as it’s in a bad place! So what are we going to do? Open brain surgery or what I was hoping for cyber knife. But genius here had to ask a silly question a question that made all 5 of these doctors stop talking and look at me as if I dropped something nasty on the floor, but then they had to think about the question which was” After all of this radiation I’ve taken to the head from Tomo therapy to the CT Scans how much more can I take?” Oh yeah I can ask some hard questions! So I get the ole “We’ll get back with you on this” answer!
Friday late afternoon comes around and I only have 2 doctors in the room with me this time the Nureo surgeon and a surgeon who is going to put a new part in me called a filter. It’s going to be placed in my Inferior vena caua vein that is the return vessel from my lower body to catch any pieces of this blood clot that might break loose as it gets smaller. This will happen on Saturday and when they’re done and I wake up from the sleepy juice I get to go home! OH YEAH!
Well I woke up and I have another new scar on my neck and Barb and I head home. We’ll be waiting for the call as to when they want to remove my new “friend” in my head.
Christmas came and went and this year was worse than last year. We didn’t even put up a tree. There was no point to it as there would be no money for presents for under the tree. But family members did send gift cards and money so the boys didn’t go completely without but it tore me apart. I’ve never felt so sad or useless as I have this Christmas. I just hope I’ll be able to have something under the tree next year.
December 2009
Well my "employer" decided that he didn't want to take a chance of me driving his truck "in case I have another dizzy spell" so he let me go and when I tried to apply for unemployment he told DOE that I had quit! WHAT?? He was given a copy of my doctors work releease! He just couldn't pay the unemployment due to that bottom feeder he had his truck leased to and as I found out he was the one who told Randy not to put me back in the truck!Something about not wanting me to haul his freight, I think that moron better be glad I'm not one of those who sues on the drop of a penny!
But I tell you it's hard to get a job these days! I'm back to trying and I'm to experienced for most of these companies and they don't want to pay what an experienced driver is worth! It's turning out that a lot of these companies are going for the government tax money and hiring trainees so there are two money makers. One is they can hire someone for 1970 wages of 20 cents a mile AND get tax money from out of our pockets for hiring an unemployed person from off the street! The American people are getting burned on another "socialist" program! The bad thing is over half of these trainees don't survive a couple of months in a truck as it wasn't what they thought it was! Trucking ain't for sissys!
December comes and I have another problem crop up. My right leg from the knee down swells up to as big as my skinny thigh! Well this is a Friday so as usual dummy me thinks what the heck it’ll go down in a day or two.
Wrong again Einstein! By Monday I’m in tears from the pain so I head to the clinic to see what’s going on this time! Well the NP checks me out and sends me down to my most favorite hospital in the world, St. Johns for an ultra sound.
I get in there and I didn’t escape until SATURDAY! Yep once again I’m captured and placed into a room after the ultra sound finds a large blood clot in my lower leg! I have an IV with Heparin, a blood thinner being pumped into me with the usual saline. I have to call my wife to come down with my FAG bag. You do remember what FAG means right? Fast Action Bag and nothing mean towards another persons lifestyle!
Barbara walks in later and looks at me and shakes her head knowing I’m not liking being in here and starts to ask the questions that I couldn’t answer on the phone and which I really have no answers for yet. All I can tell her is it’s a blood clot and I’m getting a blood thinner and I had no idea yet how long I’m going to be in here.
She helps me get into my nice and warm flannel jammie bottoms and don’t even go there people! Hospitals are freaking COLD and get the nurse to unplug me from the IV so I can pull on my warm, yes you got it, jammie top! Along with the non slip socks!
She talks with the nurse and can’t get the answer she wants and then talks with me for a while and heads on home leaving me with the laptop and my own little world!
Then like every other time in here at 5:30 in the morning the parade starts with first vitals and then blood being pulled and a doctor I’ve never met from Jordan Valley Medical Clinic where I had gone yesterday comes in and we have a talk.
He can’t understand why I have a blood clot as I’m not the usual candidate for them as I have good blood pressure, good cholesterol and I’m not over weight.
He decides to check with Dr’s Kim and Holden to see if it might be another hold over of all things, cancer! I know he heard my heart hit the floor when he said that because I know the look on my face told him volumes.
There is that freaking word again! CANCER! It’s only been just over a year and it’s come back to haunt me for the 3rd time! “Cancer”, I think, “the freaking gift that keeps on giving! And I don’t want this freaking gift!”
Well Tuesday I have all three doctors in my room discussing what they think is going on so I get a new pill to take called Coumadin and I’m being set up for another CT scan from the neck down and an MRI of the head for Wed and Thursday!
The CT comes back clean! Nothing found from the neck down! YEEEESSSS! BUT the results of the MRI aren’t so good. Remember back when in August they found that tiny little lesion in the front temporal lobe? Well that “tiny” little thing has grown fairly fast and is just under ½ centimeter big!
Isn’t that just great! Another darn invader has assaulted me! We’re “thinking” one little cancer cell got loose from all the stuff we threw at it and for some reason traveled all around my body and came to rest in my brain behind where this nightmare started! What are the odds!
They pull all the blood thinners from me and are thinking surgery ASAP! On Friday I have 5 doctors in the room with me. From Dr’s Kim and Holden, the Dr from Jordan Valley and now a Nero surgeon and a plastic surgeon. We’re discussing which type of surgery we’re going to do. The first problem is they have NO IDEA as to what this thing which is being called a “lesion” is. They can’t do a biopsy on it as it’s in a bad place! So what are we going to do? Open brain surgery or what I was hoping for cyber knife. But genius here had to ask a silly question a question that made all 5 of these doctors stop talking and look at me as if I dropped something nasty on the floor, but then they had to think about the question which was” After all of this radiation I’ve taken to the head from Tomo therapy to the CT Scans how much more can I take?” Oh yeah I can ask some hard questions! So I get the ole “We’ll get back with you on this” answer!
Friday late afternoon comes around and I only have 2 doctors in the room with me this time the Nureo surgeon and a surgeon who is going to put a new part in me called a filter. It’s going to be placed in my Inferior vena caua vein that is the return vessel from my lower body to catch any pieces of this blood clot that might break loose as it gets smaller. This will happen on Saturday and when they’re done and I wake up from the sleepy juice I get to go home! OH YEAH!
Well I woke up and I have another new scar on my neck and Barb and I head home. We’ll be waiting for the call as to when they want to remove my new “friend” in my head.
Christmas came and went and this year was worse than last year. We didn’t even put up a tree. There was no point to it as there would be no money for presents for under the tree. But family members did send gift cards and money so the boys didn’t go completely without but it tore me apart. I’ve never felt so sad or useless as I have this Christmas. I just hope I’ll be able to have something under the tree next year.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
04/2008 Tuesday
As you know from reading my last blog I know that I have what is known as Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, (I'll call it NC from now on) a cancer that grows above the throat in the sinus cavities.
Dr. Highfield called me today at 1400 as I was driving on the PA Turn Pike heading west coming back home. He sounded a "little" guarded" as he spoke with me and what he told me was a little on the scary side.
He confirmed that I DO have NC and it's more advanced that he previously thought after viewing the CT Scan and from the results from the biopsy he took last Friday. It is about the size of a golf ball and has spread into the area above the throat and into my lymph system and top of the right lung. His recommendation is that surgery is out of the question as it could be to "damaging" to me so he says that chemotherapy and radiation treatments are how we will treat this invader. He has set me up for a PET scan this Friday and an appointment with another Doctor, and is still working on an appointment with an oncologist.
Dr. Highfield told me that the treatments will start with chemo and radiation to jump start the treatment and then I would be doing both over the course of 6 weeks. The radiation treatments will be 5 times a week and he was uncertain about how many more chemo's I would do.
I'm telling you, this is how I've always wanted to start a summer off, by being completely hairless and throwing up like I'm pregnant or out on a night on the town! I just hope the stupid hair that God strikes all men with in their later years falls out also but doesn't come back! And maybe my hair will come back like Tom Cruz's! Keep dreaming dude!
After talking to the Doctor, I called home to Barbara. We discussed those things we knew were about to happen. Mainly, me not being able to work, how we would pay bills, put food on the table for the boys, buy clothing for a rapidly growing son Jerry, who at 14 is now 5'8" and 150 pounds and not slowing at all! Buy meds for her and the meds we know I am about to start on!
After 15 minutes or so, Barb got to the point where it was to hard to talk about and started to get upset and cry. We said our good-byes then and I sat there and looked out the windshield for a few minutes in a kind of unbelieving trance of the immense burden I was about to put on my family.
15 years Barb and I have been married, never a single bounced check, never really wanting for anything as I did make a good living as a truck driver even though it does suck only seeing my family on weekends or MY weekend which is normally a Thursday and a Friday. Yes things had gotten a little tight the past year as it was with just about everyone else in America but this was going to be the death of a happy family!
I sat there thinking about the speal I would tell the bill collectors when they called, how I would be "Pissed off" at them and how I would have to deliver it to them!
Now it was time to call my sister Carol who lives north of Atlanta. She gave me a few tips I need to bring up with my insurance company and we talked for a few minutes until it was MY turn to let the tears flow. She and I both started and we had to hang up. It's hard to talk and cry on a cell phone.
The trees blooming, beautiful mountain views, I never saw them as my mind wasn't in the truck as I kept heading home.
I'm home now on a Wednesday night. I have a lot to do tomorrow, calling the insurance company, motorcycle title screw up and a few other loose ends and things to tie up and then see about Friday. Barbara and I have already started the arguing that goes with a high stress situation. I need to chill! The carpet can get stretched later if we can manage to keep the freakin house! Paint? Not in THIS lifetime that is turning out to be a 2 month year! Is THIS what makes normal humans go crazy? I better go back and read the ACS page about support groups!
05/01/2008 Thursday
I had a great day today just riding around on the bike. We went to Mitsubishi and traded the lease in on another as the new Lancer is cheaper than the Gallant, is brand new AND costs less on insurance than the Gallant! It also gets about 5 miles more on gas mileage than the Gallant also! Saved about $200.00 there so that helps out in the next 2 upcoming months where there won't be any pay coming in!
I also went to the bank that Pro Cycle had used MY paid off motorcycle in some kind of money laundering scheme and started the process of getting that stupid lien taken off! Can you believe that I've been riding my bike with the wrong VIN numbers on the pink slip for over 2 years! But it was better than sitting around worrying about what’s about to happen tomorrow! I hate a thief!
05/02/2008 Friday
I went to the hospital today for a PET scan. That was so freaking BORING! After they inject you with the radioactive isotope they have you lay there in a barely lighted room where you can't listen to music, read or knit a sweater! For some reason the cancer cells attract the molecules in the stuff like sugar and if you have a "stimulated" brain then it gives a false reading. So anyway, I lay there and even dozed off till the nurse came in and took me back to the PET/CT machine where she strapped me down, made sure my head wouldn't move and asked me what kind of music I liked! HUH? Oh, 80's rock will do, and she left, turned on the thing and away I go. But of course no music until the head and brain were done! Let us not stimulate that brain! As if it's NOT being stimulated! All of the questions and need to do's running around in between the ears should make it look like my brain is completely saturated with the little demon cancer cells!
The PET scan done I go home to try once again to get the title fixed on my bike, but that’s a goner because the bank didn't get it right on the lien release! I also have to go see my new bestest friend in the world, Dr. Kim. He'll be my radiologist for the rest of my life!
The first visit to St Johns Cancer Center here in Springfield, Mo. Is a little daunting, it’s a nice place to visit, but, I wouldn't want to live there as if I now have a choice!
Met a couple of nurses who will be on my "team" but ask me their names and I'll have to lie to you because I was to over whelmed by what was taking place.
Dr. Kim comes in asks a few questions and starts HIS exam. He starts with the usual feeling of the neck pokes around in the mouth a little then the fun part of squirting linolcane (?) (it’s just like the dentists uses when he pulls a tooth) in the nose and goes on safari with a nose probe! OMG! DOC! HEY! DUUUUDE! He's all the way past the tonsils and into the lung!
Ok Mr. Purdy say "E"
.... yer chitting me, right Doc?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
ok Mr. Purdy Puff your cheeks out
??????
OK, Now, just breathe naturally through your nose!
%$(()%@&@*@%*( KIDDIN!. I know he can tell what color underwear I’m wearing he’s got that scope so far down my throat!
That done we have "THE TALK"
Condensed, it's something like this. This is advanced Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma. Only about 2000 people in America get this cancer. I screwed up as I said before and didn't listen to my body! It's into the top of my throat. There is no surgery for this and the radiation and chemo therapy will be at least 6 weeks long. Because the radiation is being applied to my head I'll have to have a feeding tube and a CT port for the chemo inserted into my body. The first 2 or 3 weeks won't be to bad with the radiation as it is a cumulative thing and actually won't show any "bad" effects until that time when my body has adsorbed more of it.
I'll get to ride my bike, drink GALLONS of fluids, eat as much food as I can because, the feeding tube is because the radiation will be "destroying" my throat and swallowing will become difficult! It will start with food being creamed and blended; drinking it until I can't swallow anymore then it'll be syringe time! Right into the stomach!
When Dr. Kim told me I wouldn't be drinking any more coffee I was almost speechless! NO COFFEE? Hell Doc, just shoot me now! I don't know what will be worse, the effects of radiation poisoning or the headaches from caffeine withdrawal! But another reason for no caffeine products is that the caffeine keeps your bodies cells from retaining the moisture which I will need when I start my treatments.
I'll figure that out when the time comes! Now what was the name of that guy testing radio waves to kill tumors? (REALLY, let me know!)
Then the chemo is started! Apparently, I'm lucky here. It'll (as it stands right now) only be applied every 21 days. But I'll have lost all of my hair by then and be applying eye brow liner so it LOOKS like I have some left! He jokingly said I pretty much won't have to worry about ever having to shave around the neck (look at my pictures and tell me I'm a happy camper!)
Another bad thing with having radiation applied to the head and neck area is I will get to loose the REST of my teeth! I can expect my saliva glands to dry up and pretty much stop working for the rest of my life giving me "dry mouth" (yep, the same as a pot smoker gets, but without the munchies!) The only GOOD thing about that is COFFEE! (after treatments!) The bad thing about no saliva is it has something to do with keeping your teeth and gums moist and with out a certain amount, your teeth will decide to go bad along with the added effects of the radiation treatments doing wonderful things to the jawbone and it's almost best to have them removed before this happens as pulling teeth from "brittle" bones is NOT a good thing! Awww, whats a broken jawbone to not enjoying a good steak?
So that is my day for today. The GREAT thing is, I will be leaving tomorrow for another run to NYC and when I get back I go in for an MRI, an appointment with a dental hygienist and what ever else the doctors can come up with! I do know I'll wake up to another dawn in the morning.
I'll have time to myself to do a little crying (really needed now) figure out how to raise a 14 year old with no income, support a wife who's health is deteriorating, with no income, and help a 23 year old mentally handicapped step son get on with his life, again with no income.
Late night in bed
Barbara and I cry ourselves to sleep tonight, It's the first time we have gone to bed together in years and the first time in years that we actually held each other as we fell asleep. I'm sorry sweetheart that I'm letting both of us down and I pray that I'll be here in five years to keep holding you.
05/03/2008 Saturday
It's kind of like a reprieve. I get maybe 2 more weeks of work in before this dance starts! I really hate it that I did buy tickets for it. Hate the fact that the music sucks big time and REALLY hate the fact that someone went and locked the freaking doors to the dance hall so I'm stuck dancing with the ugly lady and I have to keep dancing until the music stops!
I'm making another run to NYC, and I'll be stopping in Williamsburg Monday evening for another night at my "home away from home" for another good dinner at a restaurant that I haven't decided on yet! I'm thinking Sea off of Bedford Avenue on I think N7 or N6. Maybe I can talk someone in joining me! I really hate to eat alone these days and to tell the truth I hate being alone even in the truck! I never got along being stuck in a closet with anyone except for Jerry my son when he was younger, and today I actually had to put the cell on charge as I had a lot of incoming calls and I think I went about 45 minutes before I would call someone else! Not to mention all of the text messages! You know texting really drains a battery! I don't know how this will work on weekdays when minutes aren't free! Maybe all of my friends and family will get on Sprint. Or maybe they'll all chip in and get me a free cell! LOL. Oh that’s right, I have the CB! Oh well drivers, the ratchet jaw rides again! LOL!
Well it's late and I've made the bunk in the truck one more time. Let’s see if I can go to sleep without having weird dreams, crying, or having more of those night sweats that have been plaguing me lately! At least I KNOW I'll wake up!
On a different note before drifting off, I'm wondering if any of you might know a tattoo artist that can come up with a tat of me about 6-8" high, standing in front of my bike, The grim Reaper in a pile at my feet (like Beetle Bailey after the Sarge has stomped all over him) with me breaking Reapers Scythe over my knee and the caption going 3/4 circle around the picture saying "What part of "NO!" did you NOT understand?" I have 2 more I want for when I have beaten this crap and I'll put them in later!
See ya'll tomorrow!
05/06/2008 Tuesday
I had a really nice day yesterday, I got my deliveries off drove over to where I like to park on Meeker Ave between N6 and N7, went on a “walk about” trying to decide on where I wanted to eat. After hitting Bedford Ave I finally decided on S&B a Polish place with good cooking and veggies! I was thinking about Sea but I guess I just wanted to watch everyone walking and so I sat in the front, looking out the windows people watching as I ate my beef stroganoff, spinach, and green beans, with of course, COFFEE! It's a different world now that you know you're not the indestructible person you thought you were!
It's funny when you watch a movie and one of the characters is dying and they talk about the colors being so much better or the look of a leaf, and it's true! You DO look at everything in a different light. Colors, shapes, textures and even people! The feelings that pass through you as you try to take it all in and the smiles that come to your lips as you remember things in your past. The thought that your life passes in front of you before you die is so much different when you've been given 5 years and then "we'll see" because you now get the chance to actually look at EVERYTHING you've done back through the years and analyzed every freaking detail! Why, why, why did you do some of the things you've done, and why, why, why, didn't you do this differently and that differently or why didn't you say this then instead of that? I guess the old phrase about horses and barn doors, huh. That’s life as the song goes.
There are so many things going thru my mind now, sitting here in Wheeling, West by God Virginia that I can't find words for or where to start to put them to words.
I'm heading home and I know this is my last run for a while. Thursday I have an MRI. Friday, the Dietitian and Dental Hygienist. Monday I get a CT port put in to a vein, fitted for a mask, I think on Tuesday, Wednesday I go in for surgery for a feeding tube and might get to stay the night there, OH Whoppie do da day! I hope I get to ride my bike after the tube is in as I know that the hard stuff is about to start. I KNOW I want a little alone time Sunday, and I pray for a beautiful sunny, warm day!
And to the idiot trucker who came on the CB while I was talking to another driver who had gone thru chemo asking why I didn't save HIM and the rest of the healthy the expense of running up HIS insurance and commit suicide. I told you on the CB and now. Kiss my royal red ass! I've got way to many people in the world I haven't pissed off yet with you being just one of them so I won't get off the merry go round just to make your silly ass happy! I'm keeping all of my toys in this playground just to make you miserable! I'll take them home when I'm ready, AND to piss you off! You and those who think like you can all take a dive off the high dive into the shallow end of life! As I've said and will keep on saying "The dance has started and they locked me in the dance hall!" This has become an exercise of mind over matter. I don't mind because you don't really don’t matter! To bad you weren't man enough to come up and introduce yourself as I really wanted to see what a moron really looked like! Coward behind the microphone of the CB! Thank you for giving me another in a long list of reasons to fight this thing that has turned mine and so many others lives upside down!
I'm hungry and the truck stop has, well, passably decent food, a shower and bed. G’Night all. :)
04/2008 Tuesday
As you know from reading my last blog I know that I have what is known as Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, (I'll call it NC from now on) a cancer that grows above the throat in the sinus cavities.
Dr. Highfield called me today at 1400 as I was driving on the PA Turn Pike heading west coming back home. He sounded a "little" guarded" as he spoke with me and what he told me was a little on the scary side.
He confirmed that I DO have NC and it's more advanced that he previously thought after viewing the CT Scan and from the results from the biopsy he took last Friday. It is about the size of a golf ball and has spread into the area above the throat and into my lymph system and top of the right lung. His recommendation is that surgery is out of the question as it could be to "damaging" to me so he says that chemotherapy and radiation treatments are how we will treat this invader. He has set me up for a PET scan this Friday and an appointment with another Doctor, and is still working on an appointment with an oncologist.
Dr. Highfield told me that the treatments will start with chemo and radiation to jump start the treatment and then I would be doing both over the course of 6 weeks. The radiation treatments will be 5 times a week and he was uncertain about how many more chemo's I would do.
I'm telling you, this is how I've always wanted to start a summer off, by being completely hairless and throwing up like I'm pregnant or out on a night on the town! I just hope the stupid hair that God strikes all men with in their later years falls out also but doesn't come back! And maybe my hair will come back like Tom Cruz's! Keep dreaming dude!
After talking to the Doctor, I called home to Barbara. We discussed those things we knew were about to happen. Mainly, me not being able to work, how we would pay bills, put food on the table for the boys, buy clothing for a rapidly growing son Jerry, who at 14 is now 5'8" and 150 pounds and not slowing at all! Buy meds for her and the meds we know I am about to start on!
After 15 minutes or so, Barb got to the point where it was to hard to talk about and started to get upset and cry. We said our good-byes then and I sat there and looked out the windshield for a few minutes in a kind of unbelieving trance of the immense burden I was about to put on my family.
15 years Barb and I have been married, never a single bounced check, never really wanting for anything as I did make a good living as a truck driver even though it does suck only seeing my family on weekends or MY weekend which is normally a Thursday and a Friday. Yes things had gotten a little tight the past year as it was with just about everyone else in America but this was going to be the death of a happy family!
I sat there thinking about the speal I would tell the bill collectors when they called, how I would be "Pissed off" at them and how I would have to deliver it to them!
Now it was time to call my sister Carol who lives north of Atlanta. She gave me a few tips I need to bring up with my insurance company and we talked for a few minutes until it was MY turn to let the tears flow. She and I both started and we had to hang up. It's hard to talk and cry on a cell phone.
The trees blooming, beautiful mountain views, I never saw them as my mind wasn't in the truck as I kept heading home.
I'm home now on a Wednesday night. I have a lot to do tomorrow, calling the insurance company, motorcycle title screw up and a few other loose ends and things to tie up and then see about Friday. Barbara and I have already started the arguing that goes with a high stress situation. I need to chill! The carpet can get stretched later if we can manage to keep the freakin house! Paint? Not in THIS lifetime that is turning out to be a 2 month year! Is THIS what makes normal humans go crazy? I better go back and read the ACS page about support groups!
05/01/2008 Thursday
I had a great day today just riding around on the bike. We went to Mitsubishi and traded the lease in on another as the new Lancer is cheaper than the Gallant, is brand new AND costs less on insurance than the Gallant! It also gets about 5 miles more on gas mileage than the Gallant also! Saved about $200.00 there so that helps out in the next 2 upcoming months where there won't be any pay coming in!
I also went to the bank that Pro Cycle had used MY paid off motorcycle in some kind of money laundering scheme and started the process of getting that stupid lien taken off! Can you believe that I've been riding my bike with the wrong VIN numbers on the pink slip for over 2 years! But it was better than sitting around worrying about what’s about to happen tomorrow! I hate a thief!
05/02/2008 Friday
I went to the hospital today for a PET scan. That was so freaking BORING! After they inject you with the radioactive isotope they have you lay there in a barely lighted room where you can't listen to music, read or knit a sweater! For some reason the cancer cells attract the molecules in the stuff like sugar and if you have a "stimulated" brain then it gives a false reading. So anyway, I lay there and even dozed off till the nurse came in and took me back to the PET/CT machine where she strapped me down, made sure my head wouldn't move and asked me what kind of music I liked! HUH? Oh, 80's rock will do, and she left, turned on the thing and away I go. But of course no music until the head and brain were done! Let us not stimulate that brain! As if it's NOT being stimulated! All of the questions and need to do's running around in between the ears should make it look like my brain is completely saturated with the little demon cancer cells!
The PET scan done I go home to try once again to get the title fixed on my bike, but that’s a goner because the bank didn't get it right on the lien release! I also have to go see my new bestest friend in the world, Dr. Kim. He'll be my radiologist for the rest of my life!
The first visit to St Johns Cancer Center here in Springfield, Mo. Is a little daunting, it’s a nice place to visit, but, I wouldn't want to live there as if I now have a choice!
Met a couple of nurses who will be on my "team" but ask me their names and I'll have to lie to you because I was to over whelmed by what was taking place.
Dr. Kim comes in asks a few questions and starts HIS exam. He starts with the usual feeling of the neck pokes around in the mouth a little then the fun part of squirting linolcane (?) (it’s just like the dentists uses when he pulls a tooth) in the nose and goes on safari with a nose probe! OMG! DOC! HEY! DUUUUDE! He's all the way past the tonsils and into the lung!
Ok Mr. Purdy say "E"
.... yer chitting me, right Doc?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
ok Mr. Purdy Puff your cheeks out
??????
OK, Now, just breathe naturally through your nose!
%$(()%@&@*@%*( KIDDIN!. I know he can tell what color underwear I’m wearing he’s got that scope so far down my throat!
That done we have "THE TALK"
Condensed, it's something like this. This is advanced Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma. Only about 2000 people in America get this cancer. I screwed up as I said before and didn't listen to my body! It's into the top of my throat. There is no surgery for this and the radiation and chemo therapy will be at least 6 weeks long. Because the radiation is being applied to my head I'll have to have a feeding tube and a CT port for the chemo inserted into my body. The first 2 or 3 weeks won't be to bad with the radiation as it is a cumulative thing and actually won't show any "bad" effects until that time when my body has adsorbed more of it.
I'll get to ride my bike, drink GALLONS of fluids, eat as much food as I can because, the feeding tube is because the radiation will be "destroying" my throat and swallowing will become difficult! It will start with food being creamed and blended; drinking it until I can't swallow anymore then it'll be syringe time! Right into the stomach!
When Dr. Kim told me I wouldn't be drinking any more coffee I was almost speechless! NO COFFEE? Hell Doc, just shoot me now! I don't know what will be worse, the effects of radiation poisoning or the headaches from caffeine withdrawal! But another reason for no caffeine products is that the caffeine keeps your bodies cells from retaining the moisture which I will need when I start my treatments.
I'll figure that out when the time comes! Now what was the name of that guy testing radio waves to kill tumors? (REALLY, let me know!)
Then the chemo is started! Apparently, I'm lucky here. It'll (as it stands right now) only be applied every 21 days. But I'll have lost all of my hair by then and be applying eye brow liner so it LOOKS like I have some left! He jokingly said I pretty much won't have to worry about ever having to shave around the neck (look at my pictures and tell me I'm a happy camper!)
Another bad thing with having radiation applied to the head and neck area is I will get to loose the REST of my teeth! I can expect my saliva glands to dry up and pretty much stop working for the rest of my life giving me "dry mouth" (yep, the same as a pot smoker gets, but without the munchies!) The only GOOD thing about that is COFFEE! (after treatments!) The bad thing about no saliva is it has something to do with keeping your teeth and gums moist and with out a certain amount, your teeth will decide to go bad along with the added effects of the radiation treatments doing wonderful things to the jawbone and it's almost best to have them removed before this happens as pulling teeth from "brittle" bones is NOT a good thing! Awww, whats a broken jawbone to not enjoying a good steak?
So that is my day for today. The GREAT thing is, I will be leaving tomorrow for another run to NYC and when I get back I go in for an MRI, an appointment with a dental hygienist and what ever else the doctors can come up with! I do know I'll wake up to another dawn in the morning.
I'll have time to myself to do a little crying (really needed now) figure out how to raise a 14 year old with no income, support a wife who's health is deteriorating, with no income, and help a 23 year old mentally handicapped step son get on with his life, again with no income.
Late night in bed
Barbara and I cry ourselves to sleep tonight, It's the first time we have gone to bed together in years and the first time in years that we actually held each other as we fell asleep. I'm sorry sweetheart that I'm letting both of us down and I pray that I'll be here in five years to keep holding you.
05/03/2008 Saturday
It's kind of like a reprieve. I get maybe 2 more weeks of work in before this dance starts! I really hate it that I did buy tickets for it. Hate the fact that the music sucks big time and REALLY hate the fact that someone went and locked the freaking doors to the dance hall so I'm stuck dancing with the ugly lady and I have to keep dancing until the music stops!
I'm making another run to NYC, and I'll be stopping in Williamsburg Monday evening for another night at my "home away from home" for another good dinner at a restaurant that I haven't decided on yet! I'm thinking Sea off of Bedford Avenue on I think N7 or N6. Maybe I can talk someone in joining me! I really hate to eat alone these days and to tell the truth I hate being alone even in the truck! I never got along being stuck in a closet with anyone except for Jerry my son when he was younger, and today I actually had to put the cell on charge as I had a lot of incoming calls and I think I went about 45 minutes before I would call someone else! Not to mention all of the text messages! You know texting really drains a battery! I don't know how this will work on weekdays when minutes aren't free! Maybe all of my friends and family will get on Sprint. Or maybe they'll all chip in and get me a free cell! LOL. Oh that’s right, I have the CB! Oh well drivers, the ratchet jaw rides again! LOL!
Well it's late and I've made the bunk in the truck one more time. Let’s see if I can go to sleep without having weird dreams, crying, or having more of those night sweats that have been plaguing me lately! At least I KNOW I'll wake up!
On a different note before drifting off, I'm wondering if any of you might know a tattoo artist that can come up with a tat of me about 6-8" high, standing in front of my bike, The grim Reaper in a pile at my feet (like Beetle Bailey after the Sarge has stomped all over him) with me breaking Reapers Scythe over my knee and the caption going 3/4 circle around the picture saying "What part of "NO!" did you NOT understand?" I have 2 more I want for when I have beaten this crap and I'll put them in later!
See ya'll tomorrow!
05/06/2008 Tuesday
I had a really nice day yesterday, I got my deliveries off drove over to where I like to park on Meeker Ave between N6 and N7, went on a “walk about” trying to decide on where I wanted to eat. After hitting Bedford Ave I finally decided on S&B a Polish place with good cooking and veggies! I was thinking about Sea but I guess I just wanted to watch everyone walking and so I sat in the front, looking out the windows people watching as I ate my beef stroganoff, spinach, and green beans, with of course, COFFEE! It's a different world now that you know you're not the indestructible person you thought you were!
It's funny when you watch a movie and one of the characters is dying and they talk about the colors being so much better or the look of a leaf, and it's true! You DO look at everything in a different light. Colors, shapes, textures and even people! The feelings that pass through you as you try to take it all in and the smiles that come to your lips as you remember things in your past. The thought that your life passes in front of you before you die is so much different when you've been given 5 years and then "we'll see" because you now get the chance to actually look at EVERYTHING you've done back through the years and analyzed every freaking detail! Why, why, why did you do some of the things you've done, and why, why, why, didn't you do this differently and that differently or why didn't you say this then instead of that? I guess the old phrase about horses and barn doors, huh. That’s life as the song goes.
There are so many things going thru my mind now, sitting here in Wheeling, West by God Virginia that I can't find words for or where to start to put them to words.
I'm heading home and I know this is my last run for a while. Thursday I have an MRI. Friday, the Dietitian and Dental Hygienist. Monday I get a CT port put in to a vein, fitted for a mask, I think on Tuesday, Wednesday I go in for surgery for a feeding tube and might get to stay the night there, OH Whoppie do da day! I hope I get to ride my bike after the tube is in as I know that the hard stuff is about to start. I KNOW I want a little alone time Sunday, and I pray for a beautiful sunny, warm day!
And to the idiot trucker who came on the CB while I was talking to another driver who had gone thru chemo asking why I didn't save HIM and the rest of the healthy the expense of running up HIS insurance and commit suicide. I told you on the CB and now. Kiss my royal red ass! I've got way to many people in the world I haven't pissed off yet with you being just one of them so I won't get off the merry go round just to make your silly ass happy! I'm keeping all of my toys in this playground just to make you miserable! I'll take them home when I'm ready, AND to piss you off! You and those who think like you can all take a dive off the high dive into the shallow end of life! As I've said and will keep on saying "The dance has started and they locked me in the dance hall!" This has become an exercise of mind over matter. I don't mind because you don't really don’t matter! To bad you weren't man enough to come up and introduce yourself as I really wanted to see what a moron really looked like! Coward behind the microphone of the CB! Thank you for giving me another in a long list of reasons to fight this thing that has turned mine and so many others lives upside down!
I'm hungry and the truck stop has, well, passably decent food, a shower and bed. G’Night all. :)
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
April 25, 2008
Ever wonder how you'll react when you're told that you have something wrong with your body? You know the lump of flesh you've been trapped in for, well, all of your life? You actually think that YOU are in control of it until you get to a point in life where you notice little things that you never had a problem with, having problems. And you're not controlling everything the way you used to!
Add to the fact that most men have this thing about not going to a doctor unless they have a gun held to their head or we are only bleeding out of every pore of our body, and then there are those of us where the almighty dollar says you work till you drop! I fall into all of those categories. (Try spending 3 months in an Army hospital and you'll understand the aversion to doctors and hospitals on my part!)
Well several weeks ago I went to my doctor because my wife was threatening to sleep in another zip code when I come home off the road due to my snoring!
Ok, I did have 2 lumps come up on my neck which another doctor had treated last year with some meds and they pretty much went away. Well they are back so I just decided to kill 3 birds with one stone so 2 weeks ago I'm sitting in Dr. Haversticks office doing the touchy feelie thing and he hands me a script for two meds. One is for the ear and lump infection and another for the sinus infection with the instructions to come back in a week when the meds are gone.
This week rolls around, Ok, Doc here I am and well the ear infection is gone, the sinus is kinda clear and the lumps are still there and starting to get sore. He pulls out the ole scope thing; you know the one that he uses to look into all of those dark places that you can't see in yourself! As he looks into my nose, his eyebrows go up like Mr. Spocks of Star Trek, mumbles a little and tells me that I need to go get a CT Scan. NOW! He walks out and about 2 minutes later in walks the nurse with the directions to the hospital and she tells me I need to put my helmet and leathers on and go, NOW, as they are waiting on me, NOW! All of these NOWS are starting to worry me a tad so I walk out of the doctors office and jump on the bike and head to St. Johns.
I get to the place and a nurse is waiting for me at the door having been told that I was riding a motorcycle and she had no trouble identifying me when I walked in the door carrying my helmet with all the leather draped on me!
She walks me into the area where they prep patients getting scanned and has me sign a paper and tells me we’ll finish the paper work when I’m done.
They do their deal, get an IV in, throw me into the tube and take the pictures. Done. Call your doctor tomorrow and I'm outta there after finishing the paperwork! Great, I talk to the doctor the next day and he says that he'll call me Monday.
Well Monday finds me back in NYC as I am every Monday and he calls and tells me I need to be in his office Thursday at 3:30. Now, here’s the thing about being a truck driver. Sometimes your dispatcher can't get you home exactly when you need to be home like 3:30 Thursday, so my wife goes in my place and talks to him then he calls me just after I get across the In/Il state line. After the hellos, he explains that there is a problem. He tells me that the lumps in my neck and the sinus infection are being caused by the same thing. It’s a 14 letter word that I still can't pronounce called Nasopharyngeal Cancer. Not to worry, IF, we've caught it in time there is a GOOD chance that we can treat it with out to much trouble! But you NEED to be at the hospital tomorrow so we can fast track this and get this started, see you tomorrow and goodbye!
OH FREAKIN GREAT! He DID say the "BIG C" word! BUT it's not as if you weren't expecting it! I've been alive long enough to know that when someone (A doctor) won't explain something on the phone to you unless your better half is sitting in front of him, it's NOT going to be GOOD news! Besides, you kinda expected it because the headaches were getting worse and there was a little blood on the tissues when you blew your nose and you do know how to Google on the internet!
Oh, well, I talk to my wife for a little while and hear the strain in her voice and continue to head home. After a few minutes the happy voice that I was talking to her in changed to her "worry" voice. It's starting to sink in. He DID say the "C" word.
I've always told everyone around me especially my wife that there is nothing written down, no instructions, papers, stone tablets, nothing, nada, zilch that says you HAVE to worry about a single thing in life, as worry will only lead to ulcers and a stroke! Well, it’s time to worry! Big time! All of the What Ifs start running around loose in my head. What will Barbara do? She can't work because of HER medical problems, What about my son? He's only 14! DAMN, I have GOT to be here to see him graduate from high school, get married (but not to young, PLEASE, Son!) There is a laundry list of things we haven't done together or I need to teach him about. What about my mentally handicapped stepson? He needs me as much as everyone else in the house.
I CAN"T have this cancer! It's all a bad dream and this nightmare will end when I wake up! Wake UP, WAKE, UP, STUPID!
Yeah dummy, you puffed on those cigarettes for 39 stupid years before you quit! Why did you think you were so cool smoking? Now look at yourself! You quit on February 26th 2007 and 25th of April 2008 the doctor is telling you that you have cancer. Yeah, it's not the deadliest of them, not by a long shot according to the American Cancer Society's web site, but it's enough to still screw up your life for however long it will take and that’s all that’s needed to push this household or any household into bankruptcy!
WHY is it always AFTER you quit that stupid habit that you find out the wonderful news! All of the thoughts running thru my mind and 295 miles later the tears start. I know Dad, MEN don't cry, but, screw it I'm feeling sorry for myself now. Hell yes I'm scared. There are very few things in this world I'm scared of! Police officers ink pens and my wife! No man on this planet scares me, no one alive am I scared of as I'll spit in your eye and charge hell to tear you a new ass if you screw with me or the ones I've promised to protect, no matter how much bigger than my 5'8" 150 pounds you are or what equalizer you might be holding!
But this, this, THIS, disease that I can't put my hands on and tear out of my body could take me down! I take off my glasses and wipe the tears out. Ok dummy, you've had your cry, that’s all you get for the time being! You have a son to raise, a handicapped step son to help along and a wife who will need your help in the near future! Time for crying when you grow OLDER and die!
I'm NOT giving up! Like I've been saying for years, "I'll make it to my own funeral late, sliding in sideways and yelling WOW, What a freakin ride that was!" 54 is way to young to end now!
Well Friday was better than Thursday in a few ways! After reading the CT scan and figuring that the thing is about the same size as golf ball and is around my optic nerve (the reason I'm having such killer headaches and want to pull the offending eye out by the roots!)
A biopsy was performed on the "growth" in my sinus and it's in the lab and I will be told Tuesday as to our next plan of attack! That will be on Friday at 0930 again! I do know that this is a "treatable" cancer growth, IF we have gotten to it soon enough, BUT because I am like of most males, I procrastinated going to a doctor in the first place and that will make the treatment longer! You guys and he men take note of this! Wimp out and go to the doctors when you KNOW something is wrong!
The treatment for this type of cancer is 2 of 3 things, these being surgery, radiation and chemo treatments. Hopefully we will be doing the Surgery and radiation treatment so I will be able to work, BUT, it is a 5 day a week for 6 weeks typical treatment!
I am looking at possibly going bankrupt because working as a local driver will NOT bring in the rate of pay I do need to keep my head above water, that is if I am able to work while under going treatments, but I guess the bill collectors, the scum they are, will just have to settle for $5 or $10 a month till I get back up on my feet or take the pennies on the dollar the judge will give them if I file bankruptcy! Hopefully they went to college and took preventive management and figure out the dollars a month are a lot better than a few pennies! Me I won't worry about my credit as I'd rather be alive and broke than broke and dead! Credit can be brought back to life! Medical science hasn't gotten quiet that far yet!
April 25, 2008
Ever wonder how you'll react when you're told that you have something wrong with your body? You know the lump of flesh you've been trapped in for, well, all of your life? You actually think that YOU are in control of it until you get to a point in life where you notice little things that you never had a problem with, having problems. And you're not controlling everything the way you used to!
Add to the fact that most men have this thing about not going to a doctor unless they have a gun held to their head or we are only bleeding out of every pore of our body, and then there are those of us where the almighty dollar says you work till you drop! I fall into all of those categories. (Try spending 3 months in an Army hospital and you'll understand the aversion to doctors and hospitals on my part!)
Well several weeks ago I went to my doctor because my wife was threatening to sleep in another zip code when I come home off the road due to my snoring!
Ok, I did have 2 lumps come up on my neck which another doctor had treated last year with some meds and they pretty much went away. Well they are back so I just decided to kill 3 birds with one stone so 2 weeks ago I'm sitting in Dr. Haversticks office doing the touchy feelie thing and he hands me a script for two meds. One is for the ear and lump infection and another for the sinus infection with the instructions to come back in a week when the meds are gone.
This week rolls around, Ok, Doc here I am and well the ear infection is gone, the sinus is kinda clear and the lumps are still there and starting to get sore. He pulls out the ole scope thing; you know the one that he uses to look into all of those dark places that you can't see in yourself! As he looks into my nose, his eyebrows go up like Mr. Spocks of Star Trek, mumbles a little and tells me that I need to go get a CT Scan. NOW! He walks out and about 2 minutes later in walks the nurse with the directions to the hospital and she tells me I need to put my helmet and leathers on and go, NOW, as they are waiting on me, NOW! All of these NOWS are starting to worry me a tad so I walk out of the doctors office and jump on the bike and head to St. Johns.
I get to the place and a nurse is waiting for me at the door having been told that I was riding a motorcycle and she had no trouble identifying me when I walked in the door carrying my helmet with all the leather draped on me!
She walks me into the area where they prep patients getting scanned and has me sign a paper and tells me we’ll finish the paper work when I’m done.
They do their deal, get an IV in, throw me into the tube and take the pictures. Done. Call your doctor tomorrow and I'm outta there after finishing the paperwork! Great, I talk to the doctor the next day and he says that he'll call me Monday.
Well Monday finds me back in NYC as I am every Monday and he calls and tells me I need to be in his office Thursday at 3:30. Now, here’s the thing about being a truck driver. Sometimes your dispatcher can't get you home exactly when you need to be home like 3:30 Thursday, so my wife goes in my place and talks to him then he calls me just after I get across the In/Il state line. After the hellos, he explains that there is a problem. He tells me that the lumps in my neck and the sinus infection are being caused by the same thing. It’s a 14 letter word that I still can't pronounce called Nasopharyngeal Cancer. Not to worry, IF, we've caught it in time there is a GOOD chance that we can treat it with out to much trouble! But you NEED to be at the hospital tomorrow so we can fast track this and get this started, see you tomorrow and goodbye!
OH FREAKIN GREAT! He DID say the "BIG C" word! BUT it's not as if you weren't expecting it! I've been alive long enough to know that when someone (A doctor) won't explain something on the phone to you unless your better half is sitting in front of him, it's NOT going to be GOOD news! Besides, you kinda expected it because the headaches were getting worse and there was a little blood on the tissues when you blew your nose and you do know how to Google on the internet!
Oh, well, I talk to my wife for a little while and hear the strain in her voice and continue to head home. After a few minutes the happy voice that I was talking to her in changed to her "worry" voice. It's starting to sink in. He DID say the "C" word.
I've always told everyone around me especially my wife that there is nothing written down, no instructions, papers, stone tablets, nothing, nada, zilch that says you HAVE to worry about a single thing in life, as worry will only lead to ulcers and a stroke! Well, it’s time to worry! Big time! All of the What Ifs start running around loose in my head. What will Barbara do? She can't work because of HER medical problems, What about my son? He's only 14! DAMN, I have GOT to be here to see him graduate from high school, get married (but not to young, PLEASE, Son!) There is a laundry list of things we haven't done together or I need to teach him about. What about my mentally handicapped stepson? He needs me as much as everyone else in the house.
I CAN"T have this cancer! It's all a bad dream and this nightmare will end when I wake up! Wake UP, WAKE, UP, STUPID!
Yeah dummy, you puffed on those cigarettes for 39 stupid years before you quit! Why did you think you were so cool smoking? Now look at yourself! You quit on February 26th 2007 and 25th of April 2008 the doctor is telling you that you have cancer. Yeah, it's not the deadliest of them, not by a long shot according to the American Cancer Society's web site, but it's enough to still screw up your life for however long it will take and that’s all that’s needed to push this household or any household into bankruptcy!
WHY is it always AFTER you quit that stupid habit that you find out the wonderful news! All of the thoughts running thru my mind and 295 miles later the tears start. I know Dad, MEN don't cry, but, screw it I'm feeling sorry for myself now. Hell yes I'm scared. There are very few things in this world I'm scared of! Police officers ink pens and my wife! No man on this planet scares me, no one alive am I scared of as I'll spit in your eye and charge hell to tear you a new ass if you screw with me or the ones I've promised to protect, no matter how much bigger than my 5'8" 150 pounds you are or what equalizer you might be holding!
But this, this, THIS, disease that I can't put my hands on and tear out of my body could take me down! I take off my glasses and wipe the tears out. Ok dummy, you've had your cry, that’s all you get for the time being! You have a son to raise, a handicapped step son to help along and a wife who will need your help in the near future! Time for crying when you grow OLDER and die!
I'm NOT giving up! Like I've been saying for years, "I'll make it to my own funeral late, sliding in sideways and yelling WOW, What a freakin ride that was!" 54 is way to young to end now!
Well Friday was better than Thursday in a few ways! After reading the CT scan and figuring that the thing is about the same size as golf ball and is around my optic nerve (the reason I'm having such killer headaches and want to pull the offending eye out by the roots!)
A biopsy was performed on the "growth" in my sinus and it's in the lab and I will be told Tuesday as to our next plan of attack! That will be on Friday at 0930 again! I do know that this is a "treatable" cancer growth, IF we have gotten to it soon enough, BUT because I am like of most males, I procrastinated going to a doctor in the first place and that will make the treatment longer! You guys and he men take note of this! Wimp out and go to the doctors when you KNOW something is wrong!
The treatment for this type of cancer is 2 of 3 things, these being surgery, radiation and chemo treatments. Hopefully we will be doing the Surgery and radiation treatment so I will be able to work, BUT, it is a 5 day a week for 6 weeks typical treatment!
I am looking at possibly going bankrupt because working as a local driver will NOT bring in the rate of pay I do need to keep my head above water, that is if I am able to work while under going treatments, but I guess the bill collectors, the scum they are, will just have to settle for $5 or $10 a month till I get back up on my feet or take the pennies on the dollar the judge will give them if I file bankruptcy! Hopefully they went to college and took preventive management and figure out the dollars a month are a lot better than a few pennies! Me I won't worry about my credit as I'd rather be alive and broke than broke and dead! Credit can be brought back to life! Medical science hasn't gotten quiet that far yet!
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
05/08/2008 Thursday
I got home last night about 11pm last night. Brian my oldest is outside smoking (he doesn't know it but he's going on his dads quit smoking program! Quit or move out!) and greets me at the back door.
I go into my "office" the front formal living room and there on my desk is a stack of papers and forms that need to be filled out! Geeze Louise! Ya got to be kidding me! I've got cancer here, not applying to Harvard! This is going to take some time and I hate filling out forms! I REALLY hate filling out forms! Chit, I'll be dead by the time I'm done here and over half of them are for Social Security and disability and of course, food stamps.
OH yeah, I figured that I worked my butt off over the years and I have a family to feed and it is MY tax dollars and I'm a PROUD WORKING AMERICAN, OH, HELL, YES I'll take the food stamps and DARE 1 person to look down their nose at me! Bet I can bend it a little for them! It's not like I sat around and produced a ton of kids while high on drugs and drunk! I WORKED for all of this paper work and I'll take every little bit MY government says I'm entitled to! Besides it's coming from my Republican government! Thank God Hillary or Obama isn't in yet! I'd wait for the next republican to take office! Well, I don't think my wife will let me! (Just kidding people!) I know who wears the pants in THIS household! She tells me what color to wear and how to put them on also!
Any way, I leaf through the stack wondering if I might borrow the full version of Adobe from someone and scan all of this mess into the computer to make it a bit easier to do but I'll tackle it in the morning! I read Staceys blog and shut everything down and head to bed where Barbara is tossing around. I hold her as I fall asleep.
Awake and sipping on a cup of coffee flavored with Baileys Irish Cream (Thanks Baby sister Carol!) Barb asks what to do about the tree in the front yard. I look and there is ANOTHER job on the honey do list! Damn ice storm really did the thing in and I'll have to borrow a chain saw from a neighbor and cut it down. I liked that tree even if no one knows what kind it is! And I have no idea what to put in it's place?
Back inside to the office, read the paper, funnies always first! And I look at the pile of forms, shake my head and do this entry in the journal. I have to do it, but I'll give myself a little time to sit here and pick up Abby the cat and spoil her a little and listen to her relaxing purrs.... and STOP biting me cat! She loves to bite and nibble! She wants to be scratched and I'm not the best at typing and scratching at the same time! I look at the pictures on the wall over my desk of two boys growing up, my dad holding his grandson, mom, and think back, and, ok, lets start this ball rolling as aint anyone else going to fill this mess out. I can do blogging at night!
10:27pm
Went in for the MRI today. The nurse missed on the first try when she went to insert the IV and the needle went right through the vein! NOW I see why they are going to put in a CT Port Monday! Getting stuck so much is starting to make me feel like a pin cushion!
I'll go in tomorrow for the dietitian and dental hygienist and I found out that I can get a copy of the MRI! I'll be opening a new picture folder with some of the images and I'm also going to start one with a picture a day of me each day to show the effects of losing my hair and what I look like after the radiation and chemo! HMMM, I wonder if THAT will help people to decide to stop smoking and to go to the doctor when their bodies talk to them? Dave, my dispatcher told me the other day on the Qualcomm that I had influenced him to go to his doctor and check about a lump HE has on his neck! Good, MY trip IS starting to have a positive effect on others! (JOY, sweetness....please? LOL) I wonder if there is a morale department at St. Johns? I just might volunteer!
On another note, FINALLY, the bike is legal! We got the correct VIN on the registration and now I can get stopped by the police without worrying about a free trip to the station! WHOO WHOO! I also stopped and bought a few flowers to put around the house so that I'll have something to look at while sitting on the pouch when feeling run down from therapy and to help draw a few hummingbirds around!
I cleaned out the truck and turned in my fuel card. I can't believe that I can fill up my pickup truck with all the crap I keep in the silly thing! And I USE every little bit of it too! Un-freakin believable! Talked to my sister and I also found out that Google has an on line calendar that everyone can view so I'll post that information so ya'll can see what's up from day to day. Now time to play a little Dungeon Siege 2 and then to bed.
Night all!
PS; Forgot, I got a notice from the courts today, I have jury duty for June 2nd! Barb is saying NO! I'm thinking if I do it'll wind up being the biggest murder case since JFK and I'll get out of this dance after all! .....Nah I think the boss lady just might have something to say about that! LOL Also, Jerry and I went to Lone Star after the MRI for my last steak for a while! I had the Cajun Ribeye! HMMMMM
05/10-11/2008
The Weekend!
Ok, it’s raining for most of Saturday but I still get the motorcycle washed between showers and roll it to the garage where I get a little needed alone time as I take the Speedo and seat off so I can clean and wax under them and overall detail her since she hasn’t even seen a washing since last fall! Oh, she sparkles now especially since I take a little “Fitz” polishing compound to some of her aluminum parts and have them shining like a newly polished fuel tank on a Peterbilt! When this is over I’m buying a Dermal tool!
Sunday, Jerry and I spend a little time together and I don’t even go for a ride as it’s a little cool and windy as well! Tomorrow is a new start!
05/12/2008 Monday
Barbara wakes me up at 0615 as any earlier and it’ll just mean she’s stuck with a crazy man going through caffeine withdrawal which isn’t a pretty sight! (Hell, I’M not a pretty sight first thing in the morning anyway!) Besides the doctors ordered “nothing to eat or drink after midnight!”
We get to St. Johns go up to the station I was told to report to and get the “are you sure you’re to be here today” question from the nurse! Yep, if it’s Monday the 12th , is my reply and as she’s calling around to see if I screwed up, after a few minutes and I’m thinking I did she finds what she was looking for in a desk drawer! We do the insurance thing for the 4th time and go back to the out patient surgery center.
0715
I’m the first in and I’m shown where to put my shirt and actually I get to keep my dignity by not having to take off my jeans! A new one on me! But I still have to wear that stupid, ties in the back robe! It’ got to be a hospital thing! The nurse puts in my LAST IV needle and also pulls some blood for lab work before they can do surgery. After we do the 20 questions game and shown how to work the TV, Barb and I settle in and wait for them to take me back.
0800
They’re back, wanting more blood! It seems that there is a vampire stalking the halls of St. Johns and she stole mine and they need more!
0845
Blood work done and I’m wheeled about 50’ into the surgery suite and put on the table! You know I always said it would be a cold day in hell when I PAID someone to cut on me! Well it was about 60 degrees in there so what the hay! A male nurse comes at me with an electric razor and starts cutting through all of the hair on my chest and when he’s done and they drape a sheet over my head, my newest, bestest friend, Michelle, sets me up with a wonderful cocktail of something that sends me straight to sleepy town! Jack Daniels doesn’t hold a candle to that stuff!
I wake up to a nurse asking me if I’m hungry, something I never do 1 minute after waking, but for some reason oh yeah, feed me baby. NOW! Barb has cut the French toast up and the sausages and sitting there is a beautiful cup of coffee! YESSSSS! I LIKE this hospital! Coffee and French toast done and I nod back out. I have GOT to send my newest, bestest friend a thank you note! I sleep until my snoring makes them crazy and I guess the glue is dried so they kick me out to go home at about 1100!
The procedure I went through today was to insert a CT Port into the major artery going into my heart. If you look at my Albums look in the Medical stuff type of pictures and you will see a picture of the port which is about the size of a nickel (2cm) and about ½” tall. It’s made from titanium and is fairly heavy in my chest!
The first incision is made above the artery next to my throat (see the picture of the ugly guy and the bandages are x marks the spots!) The surgeon then uses the needle end of the catheter and pushes it into the vein and down the artery close to my heart. She then makes an opening in my chest about 4” above my right nipple and makes a pocket that she will sew the port itself to the muscle of my chest. (Those are very hard to find in MY chest as they fell down to around my belt years ago!) She then pushes the other end of the catheter UNDER the skin down to the port and glues it to the nipple on the bottom and finishes by gluing my skin together over the port. You can’t see it but I know it’s there! It’s painful right now!
We go home with a few wise words from the Doctor. No lifting! No bending! No exercise! In the words of my hero Bugs Bunny: She doesn’t know me very well, do she? LOL Exercise? Lets see, I used to know what that was, is that what you do when getting out of the recliner to go to the fridge for a beer? No MOTORCYCLE riding! NOOOOO! But to tell the truth, I don’t think I could get it off of the kick stand! But I’m home again and Jerry and I have a little more time together.
It’s hard to think what it’s going to be like being home for the next couple of months. I keep thinking I’m late for a delivery in NYC as I usually should be done with my Monday by 2 or 3 and am pulling into my parking area in Williamsburg, NY and ready for a nice meal! Barb will probably get mad and duct tape my silly carcass to the wall by the end of next week if I haven’t gone cabin fever crazy by then!
On the lighter side I’m having fun with the nurses who take my blood pressure when I go in for these excursions! Most people who go into the hospital for any kind of surgery or oncology services for the first couple of times have BP’s that are in the mild high stage 1 or higher due to the stress of knowing “something” isn’t right. Barb had to go to the oncology department a couple of months ago (she’s fine, just a check) and her BP was so high it worried the nurse! I just make them do a double take at the monitor as I’m still running between 110-118/68-75! What, me worried?
I received a card from a dear friend today, Jeannie, and she wrote a few lines that I’ll share with you.
“I often wonder why God gives us such enormous challenges in our lives. But, I know you will handle this with the same dignity and grace you’ve shown while conquering all of the other challenges/obstacles in your life.”
Grace and dignity aren’t in the rules in this game! I’m playing to win and this game has no rules!
Yes, God has placed another challenge on my road of life and as usual He knows that when I need to get to the other side of a hard obstacle I’ll play by the rules He made for me. He gave me the courage, knowledge and tools to face the devil and I have the ball in this game! I’m at peace with myself and with God! I know I’ll win and He knows the score! I just do as He says and will NOT worry myself into poor health!
I will fear no evil as He walks beside me.
05/08/2008 Thursday
I got home last night about 11pm last night. Brian my oldest is outside smoking (he doesn't know it but he's going on his dads quit smoking program! Quit or move out!) and greets me at the back door.
I go into my "office" the front formal living room and there on my desk is a stack of papers and forms that need to be filled out! Geeze Louise! Ya got to be kidding me! I've got cancer here, not applying to Harvard! This is going to take some time and I hate filling out forms! I REALLY hate filling out forms! Chit, I'll be dead by the time I'm done here and over half of them are for Social Security and disability and of course, food stamps.
OH yeah, I figured that I worked my butt off over the years and I have a family to feed and it is MY tax dollars and I'm a PROUD WORKING AMERICAN, OH, HELL, YES I'll take the food stamps and DARE 1 person to look down their nose at me! Bet I can bend it a little for them! It's not like I sat around and produced a ton of kids while high on drugs and drunk! I WORKED for all of this paper work and I'll take every little bit MY government says I'm entitled to! Besides it's coming from my Republican government! Thank God Hillary or Obama isn't in yet! I'd wait for the next republican to take office! Well, I don't think my wife will let me! (Just kidding people!) I know who wears the pants in THIS household! She tells me what color to wear and how to put them on also!
Any way, I leaf through the stack wondering if I might borrow the full version of Adobe from someone and scan all of this mess into the computer to make it a bit easier to do but I'll tackle it in the morning! I read Staceys blog and shut everything down and head to bed where Barbara is tossing around. I hold her as I fall asleep.
Awake and sipping on a cup of coffee flavored with Baileys Irish Cream (Thanks Baby sister Carol!) Barb asks what to do about the tree in the front yard. I look and there is ANOTHER job on the honey do list! Damn ice storm really did the thing in and I'll have to borrow a chain saw from a neighbor and cut it down. I liked that tree even if no one knows what kind it is! And I have no idea what to put in it's place?
Back inside to the office, read the paper, funnies always first! And I look at the pile of forms, shake my head and do this entry in the journal. I have to do it, but I'll give myself a little time to sit here and pick up Abby the cat and spoil her a little and listen to her relaxing purrs.... and STOP biting me cat! She loves to bite and nibble! She wants to be scratched and I'm not the best at typing and scratching at the same time! I look at the pictures on the wall over my desk of two boys growing up, my dad holding his grandson, mom, and think back, and, ok, lets start this ball rolling as aint anyone else going to fill this mess out. I can do blogging at night!
10:27pm
Went in for the MRI today. The nurse missed on the first try when she went to insert the IV and the needle went right through the vein! NOW I see why they are going to put in a CT Port Monday! Getting stuck so much is starting to make me feel like a pin cushion!
I'll go in tomorrow for the dietitian and dental hygienist and I found out that I can get a copy of the MRI! I'll be opening a new picture folder with some of the images and I'm also going to start one with a picture a day of me each day to show the effects of losing my hair and what I look like after the radiation and chemo! HMMM, I wonder if THAT will help people to decide to stop smoking and to go to the doctor when their bodies talk to them? Dave, my dispatcher told me the other day on the Qualcomm that I had influenced him to go to his doctor and check about a lump HE has on his neck! Good, MY trip IS starting to have a positive effect on others! (JOY, sweetness....please? LOL) I wonder if there is a morale department at St. Johns? I just might volunteer!
On another note, FINALLY, the bike is legal! We got the correct VIN on the registration and now I can get stopped by the police without worrying about a free trip to the station! WHOO WHOO! I also stopped and bought a few flowers to put around the house so that I'll have something to look at while sitting on the pouch when feeling run down from therapy and to help draw a few hummingbirds around!
I cleaned out the truck and turned in my fuel card. I can't believe that I can fill up my pickup truck with all the crap I keep in the silly thing! And I USE every little bit of it too! Un-freakin believable! Talked to my sister and I also found out that Google has an on line calendar that everyone can view so I'll post that information so ya'll can see what's up from day to day. Now time to play a little Dungeon Siege 2 and then to bed.
Night all!
PS; Forgot, I got a notice from the courts today, I have jury duty for June 2nd! Barb is saying NO! I'm thinking if I do it'll wind up being the biggest murder case since JFK and I'll get out of this dance after all! .....Nah I think the boss lady just might have something to say about that! LOL Also, Jerry and I went to Lone Star after the MRI for my last steak for a while! I had the Cajun Ribeye! HMMMMM
05/10-11/2008
The Weekend!
Ok, it’s raining for most of Saturday but I still get the motorcycle washed between showers and roll it to the garage where I get a little needed alone time as I take the Speedo and seat off so I can clean and wax under them and overall detail her since she hasn’t even seen a washing since last fall! Oh, she sparkles now especially since I take a little “Fitz” polishing compound to some of her aluminum parts and have them shining like a newly polished fuel tank on a Peterbilt! When this is over I’m buying a Dermal tool!
Sunday, Jerry and I spend a little time together and I don’t even go for a ride as it’s a little cool and windy as well! Tomorrow is a new start!
05/12/2008 Monday
Barbara wakes me up at 0615 as any earlier and it’ll just mean she’s stuck with a crazy man going through caffeine withdrawal which isn’t a pretty sight! (Hell, I’M not a pretty sight first thing in the morning anyway!) Besides the doctors ordered “nothing to eat or drink after midnight!”
We get to St. Johns go up to the station I was told to report to and get the “are you sure you’re to be here today” question from the nurse! Yep, if it’s Monday the 12th , is my reply and as she’s calling around to see if I screwed up, after a few minutes and I’m thinking I did she finds what she was looking for in a desk drawer! We do the insurance thing for the 4th time and go back to the out patient surgery center.
0715
I’m the first in and I’m shown where to put my shirt and actually I get to keep my dignity by not having to take off my jeans! A new one on me! But I still have to wear that stupid, ties in the back robe! It’ got to be a hospital thing! The nurse puts in my LAST IV needle and also pulls some blood for lab work before they can do surgery. After we do the 20 questions game and shown how to work the TV, Barb and I settle in and wait for them to take me back.
0800
They’re back, wanting more blood! It seems that there is a vampire stalking the halls of St. Johns and she stole mine and they need more!
0845
Blood work done and I’m wheeled about 50’ into the surgery suite and put on the table! You know I always said it would be a cold day in hell when I PAID someone to cut on me! Well it was about 60 degrees in there so what the hay! A male nurse comes at me with an electric razor and starts cutting through all of the hair on my chest and when he’s done and they drape a sheet over my head, my newest, bestest friend, Michelle, sets me up with a wonderful cocktail of something that sends me straight to sleepy town! Jack Daniels doesn’t hold a candle to that stuff!
I wake up to a nurse asking me if I’m hungry, something I never do 1 minute after waking, but for some reason oh yeah, feed me baby. NOW! Barb has cut the French toast up and the sausages and sitting there is a beautiful cup of coffee! YESSSSS! I LIKE this hospital! Coffee and French toast done and I nod back out. I have GOT to send my newest, bestest friend a thank you note! I sleep until my snoring makes them crazy and I guess the glue is dried so they kick me out to go home at about 1100!
The procedure I went through today was to insert a CT Port into the major artery going into my heart. If you look at my Albums look in the Medical stuff type of pictures and you will see a picture of the port which is about the size of a nickel (2cm) and about ½” tall. It’s made from titanium and is fairly heavy in my chest!
The first incision is made above the artery next to my throat (see the picture of the ugly guy and the bandages are x marks the spots!) The surgeon then uses the needle end of the catheter and pushes it into the vein and down the artery close to my heart. She then makes an opening in my chest about 4” above my right nipple and makes a pocket that she will sew the port itself to the muscle of my chest. (Those are very hard to find in MY chest as they fell down to around my belt years ago!) She then pushes the other end of the catheter UNDER the skin down to the port and glues it to the nipple on the bottom and finishes by gluing my skin together over the port. You can’t see it but I know it’s there! It’s painful right now!
We go home with a few wise words from the Doctor. No lifting! No bending! No exercise! In the words of my hero Bugs Bunny: She doesn’t know me very well, do she? LOL Exercise? Lets see, I used to know what that was, is that what you do when getting out of the recliner to go to the fridge for a beer? No MOTORCYCLE riding! NOOOOO! But to tell the truth, I don’t think I could get it off of the kick stand! But I’m home again and Jerry and I have a little more time together.
It’s hard to think what it’s going to be like being home for the next couple of months. I keep thinking I’m late for a delivery in NYC as I usually should be done with my Monday by 2 or 3 and am pulling into my parking area in Williamsburg, NY and ready for a nice meal! Barb will probably get mad and duct tape my silly carcass to the wall by the end of next week if I haven’t gone cabin fever crazy by then!
On the lighter side I’m having fun with the nurses who take my blood pressure when I go in for these excursions! Most people who go into the hospital for any kind of surgery or oncology services for the first couple of times have BP’s that are in the mild high stage 1 or higher due to the stress of knowing “something” isn’t right. Barb had to go to the oncology department a couple of months ago (she’s fine, just a check) and her BP was so high it worried the nurse! I just make them do a double take at the monitor as I’m still running between 110-118/68-75! What, me worried?
I received a card from a dear friend today, Jeannie, and she wrote a few lines that I’ll share with you.
“I often wonder why God gives us such enormous challenges in our lives. But, I know you will handle this with the same dignity and grace you’ve shown while conquering all of the other challenges/obstacles in your life.”
Grace and dignity aren’t in the rules in this game! I’m playing to win and this game has no rules!
Yes, God has placed another challenge on my road of life and as usual He knows that when I need to get to the other side of a hard obstacle I’ll play by the rules He made for me. He gave me the courage, knowledge and tools to face the devil and I have the ball in this game! I’m at peace with myself and with God! I know I’ll win and He knows the score! I just do as He says and will NOT worry myself into poor health!
I will fear no evil as He walks beside me.
Chapter 4
Chapter 4
05/19/2008 Sunday
It's another wonderful day here in Springfield! I woke up which is ALWAYS a good thing! Wonderful weather of 85* and clear sky's.
First thing a friend of mine who is taking over my New York City loads calls and asks directions into his first drop which I give him and we talk for a little while filling him in on the happenings. I hang up and go online to what everyone will have to go through in their life someday....Social Security!
I went to work on these stupid on line social security forms and just got madder and madder at the stupidly of whoever set the crap up! Why aren't any of the fields linked to save on time filling them out! Geeze Louise, my 14 year old could have done a better job!
My buddy calls me again about three hours into the ordeal, just the right amount of time for him to get from Carlisle, Pa. to Brooklyn and my wife says so also! She’s real suspicious of any of the drivers who do NYC from my company as she thinks it "MY" turf and they're all after my runs! ESPECIALLY the O/O's and lease purchase guy's! Of course he didn't follow the directions quite right! He turned down the street I told him to LOOK down as he went by it and see where the dock was but to do a few other turns! I talk him in to the street where he will spend the rest of the day say good bye and hang up. Barb is standing there glaring at me and starts in on me about helping everyone who needs it.
Well, my blood pressure was already up from the forms and talking to Jim actually helped me to relax a little but when my wife starts she’s like a freaking pit bull and won't stop! Yep, I feel the BP hitting 140 over 90 and climbing! I finally tell her to leave it alone AND me and turn back to the computer to wade to the finish line in these forms!
I was so pissed when I finally finished them off and went to print them, the printer, an HP bought from Walmart, which has been a P.O.S. from day one just could and would NOT print a second page! Oh, page one would do just fine and then jam, and when cleared the damn thing would NOT take the prompt from the computer and I would have to unplug it and then clear the properties box and THEN set it all up again from where it left off and of course one freakin page later start it all over again!
Well, needless to say a fist on top of an All in One has a tendency to shatter the glass of the scanner! I'm seeing through a red tunnel as I unplug the thing and as I'm taking it out to the trash can she starts again, AND the phone rings again with another trucking friend! I don't have to tell you the look I got! Hell would and could have frozen over!
I stay outside talking for a few minutes and hang up and stay outside for about an hour in the garage to sit and stare at the bike thinking it's almost time for a ride, walk back up to the house and here we go again!
To me one of the things that really pulls my chain is when some people ask you the same question over and over, like reporters at a presidential press meeting? You know reword it 50 different ways hoping for a different answer? But you get the same one every time!
Well she does the same thing. "What do you want for dinner"?
And I answer the same way each time
"Baby, I don't care. What ever you want to cook is fine with me".
and again
and again
and again
and again
Until my answer changes!
"BARB! WHAT EVER YOU WANT TO COOK"! QUIT ASKING ME
P L E A S E, I D O N ' T C A R E"!
And that’s the end of being civil for the rest of the day. She's mad, I'm mad.
The boy's are smart enough to stay in their rooms out of the line of fire and I retreat back into the living room/office as she starts her usual "hurt feelings" routine of slamming pots and pans around and talking to herself just loud enough for me to hear!
God, please hurry and fix me so I can get back to work! That’s all I ask! I'm not worried about the bills or the treatments I'm worried about my sanity from the stress this is putting on ME! Please God help HER to relax!
I married a high stress woman. I know she worries about every little thing and I keep telling her that now isn't the time to be doing this to me as I need to remain calm and keep my "center". I don't care if there is a freaking cat hair on my shirt, don't care if there is a water spot on the bathroom floor, or if the windows need washing, or repainting the office for the 4th time because the flat paint rubs off when you wipe a fingerprint off, or the weed eater in the shop and the yard looking a little ragged around the edges. None of these things matter right now! QUIT worrying about the trivial crap such as one of Jerry's friends coming over or god forbid a neighbor were to come over and see a piece of lint on the carpet! Just relax as we work through something a little more important. US, sweetheart! ME, LIVING for a few more years! I'm NOT asking for much Baby, just for you to figure out what I've been telling you for 15 years. STOP WORRYING! I don't have the time for YOU to wind up in the hospital because you're "stressed out" meaning a stroke or heart attack!
She's gone to bed and as usual in our 15 years of marriage, when I'm home she didn't tell me good night, didn't come in for a kiss, or a hug. I guess I'm the touchy feelie kind of guy. I'm the one who goes for all of the mushy stuff, except for chick flicks! Yes I do like to hug and kiss, always have and always will. I guess I shouldn't feel any different except I think when your partner is in a life and death struggle you'd look for a touch even after an argument. I know I always do when she's down and when she's been in the hospital and when she's mad at me. I'm the one who will go the apology route and hell I'M always the one at fault (what husband isn't?) but then, I'm an ass, so I guess it just comes natural for me!
I guess I'll go to bed. I've got a full day tomorrow what with taking my dentures down and giving them to my dentist so he can fill all the places where teeth poke through with ceramic or whatever they are made of and then head to the cancer center for work up's and to meet my oncologist for the first time. It's just another $2000.00 day and I've been having a few of them this month as the bills started coming in yesterday.
Anyone have any money tree seeds?
5/20/08 (7:30pm)
We’re back! I lost a few more ounces of blood to a nurse and her needle then went to meet my oncologist Dr. Holden. After the usual poke, cough and prod He have me GREAT NEWS!
I get 6 weeks of radiation treatments and during that I get 3 chemo treatments! Then I get 3 “more intense” chemo treatments after they stop shooting me full of radiation! The good news about the extra 3 treatments is I will go down to the cancer center where they will start the IV’s and then I get to go home to get sick and sleep in my own bed! I do thank the nurses at St. Johns on the Cancer ward. You guys took great care of me on my last visit but I hope you don’t mind if I don’t come back! As much a I “LOVE” hospitals (ROFLMBO!) there’s nothing like your own bed and family around and I know you guys would rather it be that way and probably wish all of your patients could have that luxury!
The stress of the past few days almost poured off of us when Dr. Holden told us the way things would go for the first 6 weeks! We’ll see how long the lst 3 treatments will take or the amount of time between them. I’m hoping a week but I know that ain’t going to happen!
At least the pain of yesterday is behind us. The pain of tomorrow we face. And the whatever’s of the next weeks I won’t ponder till the time comes. I’m putting on the binders and looking forward and when the “it’s” get within reach I’ll look at those problems and solve them then. I won’t fall victim to the anger that my enemy stress throws at me! I can’t afford it. I’m too good to forget my simple lessons about dealing with stress!
05/20/2008 Tuesday (2:00pm)
Of course I was up at 6am to make it to the oral surgeons today. I'm walked in to the room and am taken care of by 2 sweet young ladies who do my BP, stick ANOTHER IV in and put the sticky pads on my chest to watch the ole ticker do its thing while I'm under.
The Doc comes in and says hi and he says “I'll give you your meds now”. I tell him ok and nite-nite and oh yeah it was lights out but not as usual! I woke up at 1315 (1:15pm) to the phone ringing! HUH! What am I doing in MY bed? Then I realize that I have my lower plate in. Barbara isn't at home so I float, yes, I said float into the kitchen fix a cup of coffee as it's my 1st of the day step out to the porch and call my wife.
It appears that I had a GREAT time this mourning! Kinda like one of those drunks where you have to have a friend tell you how much fun you had! You know those nights! Well the oral surgeon used a smidgen too much of the happy juice! Apparently I'll make a great comedian someday as after they "woke" me up I was joking and kidding with the staff in their recovery room, and then passed back out. Then they have to help Barb get me to the car and Barb drove me over to my dentists office, with me still out like a light, and they have to help her get me into his office where I "came to" and started my routine again!
She said I was a big help with telling him where the dentures were a little tight and passed out again! They help Barb stuff me back into the car and when she got home my oldest had to help her get me to the bedroom where I slept blissfully until Social Security's automated appointment computer calls and after I hang up I'm looking around with that "WTFAI" (where the **** am I) look! And we’re back to me calling my wife! She's NEVER seen me drunk! I gave that up a few years before we met. She thinks it's so cute that I tell her great, let’s go out and get drunk some night! Well, that won't happen but If they give whatever Dr. Meyer gave me it'll be a great drunk as there is no headache or puddles of smelly stuff laying around! But OUCH! They DO use the really sticky tape over the IV hole! There go 40 more hairs off of the arm.
Now to see if Barb will let me go on a mission tomorrow. I would like to make it to Topeka, Ks. for SP4 (ret) James E Main, Sr., PGR/Army, The home of the WBC and I know they will show their ugly face in their own home town!
05/19/2008 Sunday
It's another wonderful day here in Springfield! I woke up which is ALWAYS a good thing! Wonderful weather of 85* and clear sky's.
First thing a friend of mine who is taking over my New York City loads calls and asks directions into his first drop which I give him and we talk for a little while filling him in on the happenings. I hang up and go online to what everyone will have to go through in their life someday....Social Security!
I went to work on these stupid on line social security forms and just got madder and madder at the stupidly of whoever set the crap up! Why aren't any of the fields linked to save on time filling them out! Geeze Louise, my 14 year old could have done a better job!
My buddy calls me again about three hours into the ordeal, just the right amount of time for him to get from Carlisle, Pa. to Brooklyn and my wife says so also! She’s real suspicious of any of the drivers who do NYC from my company as she thinks it "MY" turf and they're all after my runs! ESPECIALLY the O/O's and lease purchase guy's! Of course he didn't follow the directions quite right! He turned down the street I told him to LOOK down as he went by it and see where the dock was but to do a few other turns! I talk him in to the street where he will spend the rest of the day say good bye and hang up. Barb is standing there glaring at me and starts in on me about helping everyone who needs it.
Well, my blood pressure was already up from the forms and talking to Jim actually helped me to relax a little but when my wife starts she’s like a freaking pit bull and won't stop! Yep, I feel the BP hitting 140 over 90 and climbing! I finally tell her to leave it alone AND me and turn back to the computer to wade to the finish line in these forms!
I was so pissed when I finally finished them off and went to print them, the printer, an HP bought from Walmart, which has been a P.O.S. from day one just could and would NOT print a second page! Oh, page one would do just fine and then jam, and when cleared the damn thing would NOT take the prompt from the computer and I would have to unplug it and then clear the properties box and THEN set it all up again from where it left off and of course one freakin page later start it all over again!
Well, needless to say a fist on top of an All in One has a tendency to shatter the glass of the scanner! I'm seeing through a red tunnel as I unplug the thing and as I'm taking it out to the trash can she starts again, AND the phone rings again with another trucking friend! I don't have to tell you the look I got! Hell would and could have frozen over!
I stay outside talking for a few minutes and hang up and stay outside for about an hour in the garage to sit and stare at the bike thinking it's almost time for a ride, walk back up to the house and here we go again!
To me one of the things that really pulls my chain is when some people ask you the same question over and over, like reporters at a presidential press meeting? You know reword it 50 different ways hoping for a different answer? But you get the same one every time!
Well she does the same thing. "What do you want for dinner"?
And I answer the same way each time
"Baby, I don't care. What ever you want to cook is fine with me".
and again
and again
and again
and again
Until my answer changes!
"BARB! WHAT EVER YOU WANT TO COOK"! QUIT ASKING ME
P L E A S E, I D O N ' T C A R E"!
And that’s the end of being civil for the rest of the day. She's mad, I'm mad.
The boy's are smart enough to stay in their rooms out of the line of fire and I retreat back into the living room/office as she starts her usual "hurt feelings" routine of slamming pots and pans around and talking to herself just loud enough for me to hear!
God, please hurry and fix me so I can get back to work! That’s all I ask! I'm not worried about the bills or the treatments I'm worried about my sanity from the stress this is putting on ME! Please God help HER to relax!
I married a high stress woman. I know she worries about every little thing and I keep telling her that now isn't the time to be doing this to me as I need to remain calm and keep my "center". I don't care if there is a freaking cat hair on my shirt, don't care if there is a water spot on the bathroom floor, or if the windows need washing, or repainting the office for the 4th time because the flat paint rubs off when you wipe a fingerprint off, or the weed eater in the shop and the yard looking a little ragged around the edges. None of these things matter right now! QUIT worrying about the trivial crap such as one of Jerry's friends coming over or god forbid a neighbor were to come over and see a piece of lint on the carpet! Just relax as we work through something a little more important. US, sweetheart! ME, LIVING for a few more years! I'm NOT asking for much Baby, just for you to figure out what I've been telling you for 15 years. STOP WORRYING! I don't have the time for YOU to wind up in the hospital because you're "stressed out" meaning a stroke or heart attack!
She's gone to bed and as usual in our 15 years of marriage, when I'm home she didn't tell me good night, didn't come in for a kiss, or a hug. I guess I'm the touchy feelie kind of guy. I'm the one who goes for all of the mushy stuff, except for chick flicks! Yes I do like to hug and kiss, always have and always will. I guess I shouldn't feel any different except I think when your partner is in a life and death struggle you'd look for a touch even after an argument. I know I always do when she's down and when she's been in the hospital and when she's mad at me. I'm the one who will go the apology route and hell I'M always the one at fault (what husband isn't?) but then, I'm an ass, so I guess it just comes natural for me!
I guess I'll go to bed. I've got a full day tomorrow what with taking my dentures down and giving them to my dentist so he can fill all the places where teeth poke through with ceramic or whatever they are made of and then head to the cancer center for work up's and to meet my oncologist for the first time. It's just another $2000.00 day and I've been having a few of them this month as the bills started coming in yesterday.
Anyone have any money tree seeds?
5/20/08 (7:30pm)
We’re back! I lost a few more ounces of blood to a nurse and her needle then went to meet my oncologist Dr. Holden. After the usual poke, cough and prod He have me GREAT NEWS!
I get 6 weeks of radiation treatments and during that I get 3 chemo treatments! Then I get 3 “more intense” chemo treatments after they stop shooting me full of radiation! The good news about the extra 3 treatments is I will go down to the cancer center where they will start the IV’s and then I get to go home to get sick and sleep in my own bed! I do thank the nurses at St. Johns on the Cancer ward. You guys took great care of me on my last visit but I hope you don’t mind if I don’t come back! As much a I “LOVE” hospitals (ROFLMBO!) there’s nothing like your own bed and family around and I know you guys would rather it be that way and probably wish all of your patients could have that luxury!
The stress of the past few days almost poured off of us when Dr. Holden told us the way things would go for the first 6 weeks! We’ll see how long the lst 3 treatments will take or the amount of time between them. I’m hoping a week but I know that ain’t going to happen!
At least the pain of yesterday is behind us. The pain of tomorrow we face. And the whatever’s of the next weeks I won’t ponder till the time comes. I’m putting on the binders and looking forward and when the “it’s” get within reach I’ll look at those problems and solve them then. I won’t fall victim to the anger that my enemy stress throws at me! I can’t afford it. I’m too good to forget my simple lessons about dealing with stress!
05/20/2008 Tuesday (2:00pm)
Of course I was up at 6am to make it to the oral surgeons today. I'm walked in to the room and am taken care of by 2 sweet young ladies who do my BP, stick ANOTHER IV in and put the sticky pads on my chest to watch the ole ticker do its thing while I'm under.
The Doc comes in and says hi and he says “I'll give you your meds now”. I tell him ok and nite-nite and oh yeah it was lights out but not as usual! I woke up at 1315 (1:15pm) to the phone ringing! HUH! What am I doing in MY bed? Then I realize that I have my lower plate in. Barbara isn't at home so I float, yes, I said float into the kitchen fix a cup of coffee as it's my 1st of the day step out to the porch and call my wife.
It appears that I had a GREAT time this mourning! Kinda like one of those drunks where you have to have a friend tell you how much fun you had! You know those nights! Well the oral surgeon used a smidgen too much of the happy juice! Apparently I'll make a great comedian someday as after they "woke" me up I was joking and kidding with the staff in their recovery room, and then passed back out. Then they have to help Barb get me to the car and Barb drove me over to my dentists office, with me still out like a light, and they have to help her get me into his office where I "came to" and started my routine again!
She said I was a big help with telling him where the dentures were a little tight and passed out again! They help Barb stuff me back into the car and when she got home my oldest had to help her get me to the bedroom where I slept blissfully until Social Security's automated appointment computer calls and after I hang up I'm looking around with that "WTFAI" (where the **** am I) look! And we’re back to me calling my wife! She's NEVER seen me drunk! I gave that up a few years before we met. She thinks it's so cute that I tell her great, let’s go out and get drunk some night! Well, that won't happen but If they give whatever Dr. Meyer gave me it'll be a great drunk as there is no headache or puddles of smelly stuff laying around! But OUCH! They DO use the really sticky tape over the IV hole! There go 40 more hairs off of the arm.
Now to see if Barb will let me go on a mission tomorrow. I would like to make it to Topeka, Ks. for SP4 (ret) James E Main, Sr., PGR/Army, The home of the WBC and I know they will show their ugly face in their own home town!
Chapter 5
Chapter 5
05/23/2008 Friday
It started out as a great day! Then fell off rather quickly but I really didn’t care! I remembered how to start the truck! I even remembered how to shift it! But all the time the Freightliner sat at the yard they didn’t touch it or do any of the repairs it needed! My email didn’t make it to the person in charge! So they decided to fix what “needed” to be done and they will do the rest when I come in again and I am off for a few days or when I can’t drive because of the treatments that will start SOMETIME in my LIFETIME! HELLLLOOOOO! ROFL
Ok, here’s what is happening as I thought I would be doing treatments by now. They (the Doctors) have to wait for my gums to heal and I have no problem with that! I left Saturday to go to Russellville, Ar. to start getting loaded and it took them most of the day to load due to them running out of product, then cutting it later and not bothering to tell the truck driver (ME!) sitting in the truck hooked to the trailer that he could go! If I hadn’t had to go pee I would probably still be sitting there for them to finish! Thank God for weak kidneys! LOL!
I headed on over to Rogers, AR. Get the rest of the load and get home about 0430 on Sunday. I fall into bed after a long and hot one. Shower people a shower! And sleep till 1 pm!
My joke here is, at my age what do you call an all nighter?
Any night you sleep all the way through without having to get up to go pee!
Sunday was a wet one and we watched water start to head up to the garage when the sun finally came out and we had a nice evening! Barb cooked scrambled eggs and sausages for me. The boys had pizza (cry!) and we pretty much just enjoyed playing on the computer the rest of the evening. I love to watch my youngest go crazy in WOW as he has several 70 whatever beasts in there and I laugh at him as he gets mad at people who can’t figure out how to play! It’s so funny about that game. I bought 2 “learn to type” programs and where did he learn? Playing WOW! His grandmother would be so proud of him as she worked for the GSA and could type like 80 wpm! This little speed demon is doing a good 30 wpm and for a 14yo boy that’s good! I guess I’d better start playing WOW so I can quit doing the hunt and peck!
05/24/2008 Memorial Day
Memorial Day the past many years has not been what you would call a “Holiday” for me. Yes it’s one, but I guess 9/11 shook me and put me back on my feet and made me remember Why we have this one day to remember those who served MY country and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for OUR country. It galls me when I see people come on line or anywhere and abuse the freedoms that many in other countries can only hope to have someday. They use these freedoms as a sales pitch for crap, they use them to belittle the memories of the dead and they think they have a RIGHT to be heard because they have the right to speak! Not so! I still can’t find the amendment that says they have the right to be HEARD!
I went to the new National Cemetery in Nixa, Missouri, for the first memorial service held there. There was a small crowd as the weather was bad most of the day so that kept a lot of the crowd home.
There were about 40 Patriot Guard Riders and Combat Veterans there and maybe 200 civilians. The service was somber and I cried as I sang the National Anthem. I met a few new people and headed on home in a drizzle. Thank you God for letting the service stay dry!
Dave my dispatcher called after I got home with a short run for me to do in the morning. I go to Nixa and back then to Siloam Springs, Ar., Carthage, Mo. and then all the way over to Olney, IL. To a Wal-Mart warehouse then back in time for my Thursday appt to finally get my mask made!
The rest of the day was another one for the ducks till about 5 and Mr. Sun did show!
05/27/2008
It’s been a really nice day after the drizzle stopped at noon! I did my Nixa drop came back to Springfield and did a drop and hook and jumped into the pick up to go to the supply house to get a few new 70cc feeding syringes and tape. I can’t believe the costs here! The 2” silk tape is $4.35 a 30’ roll and the syringes were .50 a piece! I kind of figured because the syringes were made from petroleum products they would be in the stupid range! Fifty freakin cents! ROFLMAO! Want to remind me why gas is so high!
I headed on down to Siloam Springs and after getting emptied there I headed north on hwy 59. That is such a beautiful ride along the Elk River and into Missouri! I would love to take a bike ride through there someday! The valleys and low hills were awesome!
I get here at about 1730 and am still waiting for the call to go down into the caves. I HATE Americold! Want to sit for unreal amounts of time? Get an Americold load!
Oh, well, I have till 1700 tomorrow to get to Olney!
05/28/2008
Wednesday 0730
Yep I just got home! Stupid Americold! Got out of there at 0500 this morning! No one likes to go to either of their warehouses in the Joplin/Carthage, Mo. area as they are NEVER on time! They could care less about the drivers and even less if the driver has to run illegally to get to whoever was dumb enough to buy their products! Or if the product gets to the receiver on time! Once on the truck it’s yours and you can do what you want!
I did! Took it to the yard and dropped it! There is another driver who will take it to Olney, Il, and he can get there on time and then go for another load. Me I have an appointment tomorrow that I can’t miss!
If Americold had gotten me in and loaded when they made the appt for I could have made a little extra money for these bills, but oh well! There isn’t anything in the trailer worth dying for!
Now, try this. Go to your doctors office or dentists or a job interview, get there late and see what happens! You’ll sit at the doctors and dentists until they can get you in and you damn sure won’t get the job!
But shippers and receivers have the trucking industry over a barrel when it comes to appointment times! Make it there on time and you can either get right in and unloaded or be unlucky and sit all day! Make it there late and you’ll have to reschedule even though there are 20 trucks still sitting there for their 0300 appt time and it’s 1030! This is another reason you the public are paying a little extra for your food and other products. The trucking industry, in an attempt to get the receivers and shippers to honor fast and on time appointments and keep from losing revenue that they could be making hauling freight instead of warehousing it, are charging these places hundreds of dollars for detention times starting usually after the second or third hour! Some of these they actually have to take to court to get the charges and of course it just gets passed on to the rest of you! That’s your transportation lesson for today! I’m finished venting for today!
Now to go out and wash the truck, car and bike! Yes it’s another drizzly day but I have to take the P/U down to get a piece of trim replaced from it’s recent tornado experience and it needs to be clean where the piece goes! And while the hose is out get the rest of the motor pool here at the house washed too!
2230 I think!
Time for bed! What a day! Took the P/U down for a piece of trim to be put back on, then to Wal-Mart, then to my stepsons store at Popeye’s where they didn’t have enough money in the bank for his pay check last week! And, “Oh, we didn’t know you were coming in to get it today”! Geeze Louise he’s a little slow, not stupid! You don’t have to be completely brain dead not to want the money you worked your butt off for! Especially at the Popeye’s here in Springfield where they treat the mentally handicapped like chit!
The funny thing is Brian has managed to outlast every single manager, assistant manager and employee for the last (almost) 6 years and everyone else in the Popeye’s “now almost extinct” franchise except for the owners!! He’s slow but one of the smartest kids I know! I Love you Brian! He’ll out last the owners, I bet, as looking at their “moves” in the business world, it’s less than impressive such as not having enough cash in the bank to cover a paltry $150.00 paycheck, or pay for the garbage to be picked up or keeping the water heater repaired to clean chicken prep areas clean! And now they are going to remodel the store on Kearney St and turn it into a day care? They can’t run a fast food business how the hell do they think they can run a day care! This I give 4 months and it to will close! Any 1st year BA at college knows the employees come first THEN the owners! No employees, no income! And, they’re putting up Obama posters so that should give you a hint at to their intelligence level!
Anyway, LOL, we get home and I wash the car and the bike, and as the sun starts to peek out from behind the clouds I start to wax the car with the buffer for the 1st coat of wax and when I got done went down to the garage and pulled the seat off of the bike and did a good buffing on the tank and a hand job (lets get your brains out of the gutter!) on the rest!
Now, I know there’s a bed in the house somewhere! Night all!
05/29/2008 Thursday
Finally got my mask done today! It’s a very interesting process. I was startled to find out that the mask starts out as a sheet of plastic about 24”x24” square and looks like those basketball shirts with all the holes in them with a frame around it. The nurses have already started the process by putting the sheet in a hot bath that’s about 180* and as it’s getting warm they get me set up on the table of a CT scanner. I have to hold the handles of a bungee cord that is attached to a sheet of hard plastic that is under my feet and this pulls my arms down and my shoulders to the table top.
After making sure I’m straight and lined up on the table they get the sheet that is now nice and toasty and put it over my face and try to suffocate you with it! Just like holding a pillow over your spouses head to stop the snoring! Well it seemed like that but with 2 women doing it to you! They have to work fast before it cools and work it down your face around the jaw and snug around the neck and across the chest and then use the plunger snaps to hold it to the table until it’s completely cold. The table top is set up with holes set into the table and apparently set to a standard in this field. It is actually down and across my upper chest down to my nipples. As it cools it becomes rigid and hard the nurses are putting markers on the mask on the forehead and both temples and then they cover me with a blanket and run me thru the CT scanner so they get the locations of the markers and they can now set up the programming for the radiation treatments.
When they took me out of the scanner and unsnapped me from the table and after I was dressed I got my glasses on I looked at the thing and she asked how it felt and I suggested maybe a little more air through the nose would be nice and she cut that out as breathing is kinda nice! I asked when I get my “tattoos” and she told me I wouldn’t get any as the little makers now in the mask were all that was needed. I’m STILL mad about that as I was promised tattoos and now I don’t get them! ROFL!
I finished up and met still another nurse, “Beki” who filled me in on another process that I’ll go thru about 30-45 minutes before I start my radiation treatments. I get a drug called Amifostine.
As she put it I’m still “young” enough (she almost got a kiss for THAT one!) that I don’t want to go through the rest of my life with no taste buds or saliva glands working and this stuff will help to protect them. That’s great till she tells me that I have to take these shots of about 8ml, which is actually 2 shots, EVERY DAY of treatments! Whoa, there Doc! What about this high dollar port I have here?
Her reply was these shots have to be subcutaneous (I had to look it up to spell it!) and I’m thinking great, MORE freakin needles! I’m wondering if I survive this do I get some kind of college credits to use somewhere as I’m learning so much medical stuff it should be worth something somehow, with what it’s costing me so far!
Turns out this stuff lowers the blood pressure, can cause nausea and irritation around application sites! If she didn’t have the most beautiful brown eyes and perky nose I’d have started crying! How about a degree in math? That’s 60 freakin shots on top of some more that they haven’t “warned” me about! HMM take stock out in a needle manufacturing company maybe? LOLOL!
I make a stop at the American Cancer Society and the lady up there gives me a couple of brochures for a few of the up coming ACS happenings around town and I talk to her for a few minutes and she gives me a “kewl” do rag to wear when my hair starts to fall out! It’s a patriotic one with stars and stripes and “Easyriders” across the front!
I go home and put on my PGR vest and head to the new Missouri Veterans cemetery for a “Flag Line Mission” for an Air Force Vet who just passéd, Gregory (Ski) Kobierski. It was a beautiful day, nice and warm which made it a fitting parting for his family.
That done I came home finished painting a screen for the front door and did not much of anything for the rest of the day! Yes, I said paint a screen! If you spray paint a screen black it’s actually easier to see through!
I should wake up in the morning and see what tomorrow brings!
06/01/2008
Friday morning I get a call from Dave my dispatcher, with a load going to Bass Pro in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for 0500 Saturday morning. Not a problem as I don’t do much on Friday except to work on balancing my check book which I have pretty much not looked at since November of last year! Thank God for Quicken! I do a few pages and then get my shower and get ready to head out. I do notice that I’m a little sore around the Peg (feeding tube) and a little red but shrug it off.
I get hooked up and head on to OK City and after a couple of hours I realize that moving is becoming a problem! After I get to OK City and figure out where I need to park I pull out my “Man Purse” and get my “medical kit” as I call my temporary cleaning supplies for my second mouth!
Taking my shirt off I realize that maybe doing all of that car washing and waxing wasn’t such a good idea as I’m really red and sore as hell!
I clean everything and then use the alcohol swabs and apply mass quantities of Neosporium and cover it all up and send a message to dispatch about getting me back when empty as I’ll need to go in and see the doctor.
The next morning my alarm goes off and as I get up I’m not as sore get dressed and check in with the guys at Bass Pro. I swap trailers and head to the Petro truck stop just down the street and lay back down waiting for dispatches decision on what to do. 0900 and they send a message for me to return back to Springfield.
I get back and call the doctors off and while talking to the nurse I’m looking at my stomach and realize that the infection is pretty much gone and she tells me not to worry about it this time BUT next time call so I can be given more antibiotics! I have to agree with her!
I go back to Quicken and listen to it laugh at me as it boots up and do a little more work on the check book! Note to self: Every month dummy!
Sunday is a laze around the house day. That is until I agree to help my wife highlight her hair!
05/23/2008 Friday
It started out as a great day! Then fell off rather quickly but I really didn’t care! I remembered how to start the truck! I even remembered how to shift it! But all the time the Freightliner sat at the yard they didn’t touch it or do any of the repairs it needed! My email didn’t make it to the person in charge! So they decided to fix what “needed” to be done and they will do the rest when I come in again and I am off for a few days or when I can’t drive because of the treatments that will start SOMETIME in my LIFETIME! HELLLLOOOOO! ROFL
Ok, here’s what is happening as I thought I would be doing treatments by now. They (the Doctors) have to wait for my gums to heal and I have no problem with that! I left Saturday to go to Russellville, Ar. to start getting loaded and it took them most of the day to load due to them running out of product, then cutting it later and not bothering to tell the truck driver (ME!) sitting in the truck hooked to the trailer that he could go! If I hadn’t had to go pee I would probably still be sitting there for them to finish! Thank God for weak kidneys! LOL!
I headed on over to Rogers, AR. Get the rest of the load and get home about 0430 on Sunday. I fall into bed after a long and hot one. Shower people a shower! And sleep till 1 pm!
My joke here is, at my age what do you call an all nighter?
Any night you sleep all the way through without having to get up to go pee!
Sunday was a wet one and we watched water start to head up to the garage when the sun finally came out and we had a nice evening! Barb cooked scrambled eggs and sausages for me. The boys had pizza (cry!) and we pretty much just enjoyed playing on the computer the rest of the evening. I love to watch my youngest go crazy in WOW as he has several 70 whatever beasts in there and I laugh at him as he gets mad at people who can’t figure out how to play! It’s so funny about that game. I bought 2 “learn to type” programs and where did he learn? Playing WOW! His grandmother would be so proud of him as she worked for the GSA and could type like 80 wpm! This little speed demon is doing a good 30 wpm and for a 14yo boy that’s good! I guess I’d better start playing WOW so I can quit doing the hunt and peck!
05/24/2008 Memorial Day
Memorial Day the past many years has not been what you would call a “Holiday” for me. Yes it’s one, but I guess 9/11 shook me and put me back on my feet and made me remember Why we have this one day to remember those who served MY country and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for OUR country. It galls me when I see people come on line or anywhere and abuse the freedoms that many in other countries can only hope to have someday. They use these freedoms as a sales pitch for crap, they use them to belittle the memories of the dead and they think they have a RIGHT to be heard because they have the right to speak! Not so! I still can’t find the amendment that says they have the right to be HEARD!
I went to the new National Cemetery in Nixa, Missouri, for the first memorial service held there. There was a small crowd as the weather was bad most of the day so that kept a lot of the crowd home.
There were about 40 Patriot Guard Riders and Combat Veterans there and maybe 200 civilians. The service was somber and I cried as I sang the National Anthem. I met a few new people and headed on home in a drizzle. Thank you God for letting the service stay dry!
Dave my dispatcher called after I got home with a short run for me to do in the morning. I go to Nixa and back then to Siloam Springs, Ar., Carthage, Mo. and then all the way over to Olney, IL. To a Wal-Mart warehouse then back in time for my Thursday appt to finally get my mask made!
The rest of the day was another one for the ducks till about 5 and Mr. Sun did show!
05/27/2008
It’s been a really nice day after the drizzle stopped at noon! I did my Nixa drop came back to Springfield and did a drop and hook and jumped into the pick up to go to the supply house to get a few new 70cc feeding syringes and tape. I can’t believe the costs here! The 2” silk tape is $4.35 a 30’ roll and the syringes were .50 a piece! I kind of figured because the syringes were made from petroleum products they would be in the stupid range! Fifty freakin cents! ROFLMAO! Want to remind me why gas is so high!
I headed on down to Siloam Springs and after getting emptied there I headed north on hwy 59. That is such a beautiful ride along the Elk River and into Missouri! I would love to take a bike ride through there someday! The valleys and low hills were awesome!
I get here at about 1730 and am still waiting for the call to go down into the caves. I HATE Americold! Want to sit for unreal amounts of time? Get an Americold load!
Oh, well, I have till 1700 tomorrow to get to Olney!
05/28/2008
Wednesday 0730
Yep I just got home! Stupid Americold! Got out of there at 0500 this morning! No one likes to go to either of their warehouses in the Joplin/Carthage, Mo. area as they are NEVER on time! They could care less about the drivers and even less if the driver has to run illegally to get to whoever was dumb enough to buy their products! Or if the product gets to the receiver on time! Once on the truck it’s yours and you can do what you want!
I did! Took it to the yard and dropped it! There is another driver who will take it to Olney, Il, and he can get there on time and then go for another load. Me I have an appointment tomorrow that I can’t miss!
If Americold had gotten me in and loaded when they made the appt for I could have made a little extra money for these bills, but oh well! There isn’t anything in the trailer worth dying for!
Now, try this. Go to your doctors office or dentists or a job interview, get there late and see what happens! You’ll sit at the doctors and dentists until they can get you in and you damn sure won’t get the job!
But shippers and receivers have the trucking industry over a barrel when it comes to appointment times! Make it there on time and you can either get right in and unloaded or be unlucky and sit all day! Make it there late and you’ll have to reschedule even though there are 20 trucks still sitting there for their 0300 appt time and it’s 1030! This is another reason you the public are paying a little extra for your food and other products. The trucking industry, in an attempt to get the receivers and shippers to honor fast and on time appointments and keep from losing revenue that they could be making hauling freight instead of warehousing it, are charging these places hundreds of dollars for detention times starting usually after the second or third hour! Some of these they actually have to take to court to get the charges and of course it just gets passed on to the rest of you! That’s your transportation lesson for today! I’m finished venting for today!
Now to go out and wash the truck, car and bike! Yes it’s another drizzly day but I have to take the P/U down to get a piece of trim replaced from it’s recent tornado experience and it needs to be clean where the piece goes! And while the hose is out get the rest of the motor pool here at the house washed too!
2230 I think!
Time for bed! What a day! Took the P/U down for a piece of trim to be put back on, then to Wal-Mart, then to my stepsons store at Popeye’s where they didn’t have enough money in the bank for his pay check last week! And, “Oh, we didn’t know you were coming in to get it today”! Geeze Louise he’s a little slow, not stupid! You don’t have to be completely brain dead not to want the money you worked your butt off for! Especially at the Popeye’s here in Springfield where they treat the mentally handicapped like chit!
The funny thing is Brian has managed to outlast every single manager, assistant manager and employee for the last (almost) 6 years and everyone else in the Popeye’s “now almost extinct” franchise except for the owners!! He’s slow but one of the smartest kids I know! I Love you Brian! He’ll out last the owners, I bet, as looking at their “moves” in the business world, it’s less than impressive such as not having enough cash in the bank to cover a paltry $150.00 paycheck, or pay for the garbage to be picked up or keeping the water heater repaired to clean chicken prep areas clean! And now they are going to remodel the store on Kearney St and turn it into a day care? They can’t run a fast food business how the hell do they think they can run a day care! This I give 4 months and it to will close! Any 1st year BA at college knows the employees come first THEN the owners! No employees, no income! And, they’re putting up Obama posters so that should give you a hint at to their intelligence level!
Anyway, LOL, we get home and I wash the car and the bike, and as the sun starts to peek out from behind the clouds I start to wax the car with the buffer for the 1st coat of wax and when I got done went down to the garage and pulled the seat off of the bike and did a good buffing on the tank and a hand job (lets get your brains out of the gutter!) on the rest!
Now, I know there’s a bed in the house somewhere! Night all!
05/29/2008 Thursday
Finally got my mask done today! It’s a very interesting process. I was startled to find out that the mask starts out as a sheet of plastic about 24”x24” square and looks like those basketball shirts with all the holes in them with a frame around it. The nurses have already started the process by putting the sheet in a hot bath that’s about 180* and as it’s getting warm they get me set up on the table of a CT scanner. I have to hold the handles of a bungee cord that is attached to a sheet of hard plastic that is under my feet and this pulls my arms down and my shoulders to the table top.
After making sure I’m straight and lined up on the table they get the sheet that is now nice and toasty and put it over my face and try to suffocate you with it! Just like holding a pillow over your spouses head to stop the snoring! Well it seemed like that but with 2 women doing it to you! They have to work fast before it cools and work it down your face around the jaw and snug around the neck and across the chest and then use the plunger snaps to hold it to the table until it’s completely cold. The table top is set up with holes set into the table and apparently set to a standard in this field. It is actually down and across my upper chest down to my nipples. As it cools it becomes rigid and hard the nurses are putting markers on the mask on the forehead and both temples and then they cover me with a blanket and run me thru the CT scanner so they get the locations of the markers and they can now set up the programming for the radiation treatments.
When they took me out of the scanner and unsnapped me from the table and after I was dressed I got my glasses on I looked at the thing and she asked how it felt and I suggested maybe a little more air through the nose would be nice and she cut that out as breathing is kinda nice! I asked when I get my “tattoos” and she told me I wouldn’t get any as the little makers now in the mask were all that was needed. I’m STILL mad about that as I was promised tattoos and now I don’t get them! ROFL!
I finished up and met still another nurse, “Beki” who filled me in on another process that I’ll go thru about 30-45 minutes before I start my radiation treatments. I get a drug called Amifostine.
As she put it I’m still “young” enough (she almost got a kiss for THAT one!) that I don’t want to go through the rest of my life with no taste buds or saliva glands working and this stuff will help to protect them. That’s great till she tells me that I have to take these shots of about 8ml, which is actually 2 shots, EVERY DAY of treatments! Whoa, there Doc! What about this high dollar port I have here?
Her reply was these shots have to be subcutaneous (I had to look it up to spell it!) and I’m thinking great, MORE freakin needles! I’m wondering if I survive this do I get some kind of college credits to use somewhere as I’m learning so much medical stuff it should be worth something somehow, with what it’s costing me so far!
Turns out this stuff lowers the blood pressure, can cause nausea and irritation around application sites! If she didn’t have the most beautiful brown eyes and perky nose I’d have started crying! How about a degree in math? That’s 60 freakin shots on top of some more that they haven’t “warned” me about! HMM take stock out in a needle manufacturing company maybe? LOLOL!
I make a stop at the American Cancer Society and the lady up there gives me a couple of brochures for a few of the up coming ACS happenings around town and I talk to her for a few minutes and she gives me a “kewl” do rag to wear when my hair starts to fall out! It’s a patriotic one with stars and stripes and “Easyriders” across the front!
I go home and put on my PGR vest and head to the new Missouri Veterans cemetery for a “Flag Line Mission” for an Air Force Vet who just passéd, Gregory (Ski) Kobierski. It was a beautiful day, nice and warm which made it a fitting parting for his family.
That done I came home finished painting a screen for the front door and did not much of anything for the rest of the day! Yes, I said paint a screen! If you spray paint a screen black it’s actually easier to see through!
I should wake up in the morning and see what tomorrow brings!
06/01/2008
Friday morning I get a call from Dave my dispatcher, with a load going to Bass Pro in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for 0500 Saturday morning. Not a problem as I don’t do much on Friday except to work on balancing my check book which I have pretty much not looked at since November of last year! Thank God for Quicken! I do a few pages and then get my shower and get ready to head out. I do notice that I’m a little sore around the Peg (feeding tube) and a little red but shrug it off.
I get hooked up and head on to OK City and after a couple of hours I realize that moving is becoming a problem! After I get to OK City and figure out where I need to park I pull out my “Man Purse” and get my “medical kit” as I call my temporary cleaning supplies for my second mouth!
Taking my shirt off I realize that maybe doing all of that car washing and waxing wasn’t such a good idea as I’m really red and sore as hell!
I clean everything and then use the alcohol swabs and apply mass quantities of Neosporium and cover it all up and send a message to dispatch about getting me back when empty as I’ll need to go in and see the doctor.
The next morning my alarm goes off and as I get up I’m not as sore get dressed and check in with the guys at Bass Pro. I swap trailers and head to the Petro truck stop just down the street and lay back down waiting for dispatches decision on what to do. 0900 and they send a message for me to return back to Springfield.
I get back and call the doctors off and while talking to the nurse I’m looking at my stomach and realize that the infection is pretty much gone and she tells me not to worry about it this time BUT next time call so I can be given more antibiotics! I have to agree with her!
I go back to Quicken and listen to it laugh at me as it boots up and do a little more work on the check book! Note to self: Every month dummy!
Sunday is a laze around the house day. That is until I agree to help my wife highlight her hair!
Chapter 6 The Wifes new hair do
Chapter 7
The Wifes Hair Doo
Sunday is another rainy day and I’m tired of doing the books. Then, I make the BIG mistake of agreeing to help my wife highlight her hair!
To you guys out there. What ever the beauty parlor wants to charge is perfectly fine!
DO NOT stand there thinking this will be easy!
DO NOT think you’re saving money!
We are NOT wired for this!
Run away as fast as you can, screaming at the top of your lungs like a little girl if you can!
Let those who like that line of work have at it!
Let’s put it like this:
Pulling little strands of hair through little tiny holes in a cap isn’t as easy as you might think! THEN there is the stupid deal where you have to do every 3 holes on the cap and as you are going thru this tedious chore you realize that a rocket scientist will have a problem of figuring out that sequence on a not so round head on a not so round cap!
It’s not like the holes are all lined up in perfectly straight lines! One look at that cap and I almost fell to the floor in a fetal position crying! The engineer in me was freaking out!
It simply can not be done!
Even the mixing of the bleach or what ever that goop turned into smells worse than fiberglass mix ever wanted to smell like, but then again I LIKE the smell of a good fiberglass mix! Thrust me on this!
That stuff out of the box off of the shelf is DEADLY!
No wonder we never found WMD’s in Iraq!
They’re all over here being sold over the counter!
And our wives, daughters and yep some sons are buying them in large quantities!
As I’m applying this smelly crap that’s taking the hair out of my nose to her head, another thought hits me.
What if I screw this up?
What if her hair falls out?
I again almost fall to the floor in a fetal position crying!
What’s worse than your wife being mad at you?
Your wife being mad at you for screwing up her HAIR!
AM I COMPLETELY OUT OF MY MIND? What the HELL was I thinking?
Oh that’s right you WEREN’T!
What REAL man would think of going through this torture!
If I screw up this head of hair I’m a dead man!
This is something the Military might consider for their boys at Guantanamo Bay to use on those terrorists! Have them do a woman’s hair and live with the threat of ruining her locks! They’ll sing like canaries! No, that would be against the Geneva Convention! Cruel and inhumane treatment of POW’s!
Well I’m committed! All I can do is keep putting this stuff on wearing those plastic gloves trying not to breathe too deeply!
Finished, I RUN, not walk, back to the safety of my office to the laughter of Quicken and bury myself in the books, when I “feel” her behind me.
I KNOW it’s her!
Every husband knows when his better half is staring at him!
Well I might as well face the music. The couch is pretty comfortable and is really good for long naps so it might be a nice bed for the rest of my life.
I shudder as I slowly turn thinking I’ll never feel her “loving” touch again!
She’s standing there brushing her hair which thankfully didn’t wash off into the sink and smiles at me and tells me I did a great job that it’s beautiful!
I’m ecstatic!
I get to sleep in my bed!
No wondering what she might have put in my food or coffee!
I’m SAVED, until she says I did it so well I get to do it the next time!
Do broken arms hurt?
The Wifes Hair Doo
Sunday is another rainy day and I’m tired of doing the books. Then, I make the BIG mistake of agreeing to help my wife highlight her hair!
To you guys out there. What ever the beauty parlor wants to charge is perfectly fine!
DO NOT stand there thinking this will be easy!
DO NOT think you’re saving money!
We are NOT wired for this!
Run away as fast as you can, screaming at the top of your lungs like a little girl if you can!
Let those who like that line of work have at it!
Let’s put it like this:
Pulling little strands of hair through little tiny holes in a cap isn’t as easy as you might think! THEN there is the stupid deal where you have to do every 3 holes on the cap and as you are going thru this tedious chore you realize that a rocket scientist will have a problem of figuring out that sequence on a not so round head on a not so round cap!
It’s not like the holes are all lined up in perfectly straight lines! One look at that cap and I almost fell to the floor in a fetal position crying! The engineer in me was freaking out!
It simply can not be done!
Even the mixing of the bleach or what ever that goop turned into smells worse than fiberglass mix ever wanted to smell like, but then again I LIKE the smell of a good fiberglass mix! Thrust me on this!
That stuff out of the box off of the shelf is DEADLY!
No wonder we never found WMD’s in Iraq!
They’re all over here being sold over the counter!
And our wives, daughters and yep some sons are buying them in large quantities!
As I’m applying this smelly crap that’s taking the hair out of my nose to her head, another thought hits me.
What if I screw this up?
What if her hair falls out?
I again almost fall to the floor in a fetal position crying!
What’s worse than your wife being mad at you?
Your wife being mad at you for screwing up her HAIR!
AM I COMPLETELY OUT OF MY MIND? What the HELL was I thinking?
Oh that’s right you WEREN’T!
What REAL man would think of going through this torture!
If I screw up this head of hair I’m a dead man!
This is something the Military might consider for their boys at Guantanamo Bay to use on those terrorists! Have them do a woman’s hair and live with the threat of ruining her locks! They’ll sing like canaries! No, that would be against the Geneva Convention! Cruel and inhumane treatment of POW’s!
Well I’m committed! All I can do is keep putting this stuff on wearing those plastic gloves trying not to breathe too deeply!
Finished, I RUN, not walk, back to the safety of my office to the laughter of Quicken and bury myself in the books, when I “feel” her behind me.
I KNOW it’s her!
Every husband knows when his better half is staring at him!
Well I might as well face the music. The couch is pretty comfortable and is really good for long naps so it might be a nice bed for the rest of my life.
I shudder as I slowly turn thinking I’ll never feel her “loving” touch again!
She’s standing there brushing her hair which thankfully didn’t wash off into the sink and smiles at me and tells me I did a great job that it’s beautiful!
I’m ecstatic!
I get to sleep in my bed!
No wondering what she might have put in my food or coffee!
I’m SAVED, until she says I did it so well I get to do it the next time!
Do broken arms hurt?
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
June 2, 2008 Monday
Today I finally found out when this ride really gets under way! That date is June 16th! On a calendar I’ll be making up for the occasion it will be Day 1! At 9am I’ll be sitting in the chemotherapy room at St. Johns Hospital Cancer Center hooked up to an IV of Cisblatin that’s actually going to be inserted in my new port! WHOO WHOO! The bad thing about it is that I’ll be there almost all day! I start Chemo in the morning and then after 4 hours I’ll walk half the building north and ride the elevator down stairs to the Radiation Department! I get to receive 2 shots of Amifostine and then get mounted to a table for the radiation! I will receive Chemo on days 1, 22 & 43 then the 3 extra after the radiation is over.
My part in this besides bringing a few billion cancer cells to the party is to be sure I have drunk? drank? drinked? 2 full liters, MINIUMN, of WATER a day! That’s more water than I would drink in a year! I usually get my liquids in coffee or at times beer and maybe wine if at my sisters or even a Jack Daniels and coke! But water? That’s for bathing in right? When did we start drinking it?
All joking aside the water is crucial for the Amifostine to work properly to protect my salvia glands and taste buds from the effects of the radiation. It’s supposed to be a wonder drug that will also have the side effects of lowering my blood pressure and making me want to throw up! As if the Chemo and Radiation isn’t enough! I’m going to have to look up that Jeff Foxworthy skit about the effects of drugs! I remember that as a great funny!
Barbara and I got back home and I get a call from Dave the Dispatcher asking if I wanted to work a little today and of course I did! I moved a few trailers around and then go home knowing I have to be back in the morning at 7am to take a load to St. Louis and return! Money$$Money$$Money$$$$$$MOOONEY$ Money!
06/03/2008 Tuesday
Just an average day in a trucker’s life! I loaded here in town and then went to St Louis to a place that makes soap bases and other chemicals and unloaded and reloaded to go straight back to where I loaded this morning! I got back about 7 pm due to me needing to stop and take my afternoon “old man” nap! That was about an hour after I had stopped at Wendy’s and got a LARGE Vanilla Bean Frosty Shake! HMMMM 410 wonderful calories! 1 hour later I’m out like a light! And that’s why I can’t eat during the day and try to drive any great distances! Besides I need to rest up for my upcoming trials! LOL!
I also need to eat as much as I can and put away as many calories as possible to gain a few pounds before we start dosing me up with things God never intended to go into the human body! I know that I’ll loose some weight and both Doctors Kim and Holden say I should or should loose about 25 to 35 pounds. That’s about two or three pants sizes and could be expensive buying new jeans! I think I’ll just get some suspenders to hold them up till I can put the weight back on!
June 2, 2008 Monday
Today I finally found out when this ride really gets under way! That date is June 16th! On a calendar I’ll be making up for the occasion it will be Day 1! At 9am I’ll be sitting in the chemotherapy room at St. Johns Hospital Cancer Center hooked up to an IV of Cisblatin that’s actually going to be inserted in my new port! WHOO WHOO! The bad thing about it is that I’ll be there almost all day! I start Chemo in the morning and then after 4 hours I’ll walk half the building north and ride the elevator down stairs to the Radiation Department! I get to receive 2 shots of Amifostine and then get mounted to a table for the radiation! I will receive Chemo on days 1, 22 & 43 then the 3 extra after the radiation is over.
My part in this besides bringing a few billion cancer cells to the party is to be sure I have drunk? drank? drinked? 2 full liters, MINIUMN, of WATER a day! That’s more water than I would drink in a year! I usually get my liquids in coffee or at times beer and maybe wine if at my sisters or even a Jack Daniels and coke! But water? That’s for bathing in right? When did we start drinking it?
All joking aside the water is crucial for the Amifostine to work properly to protect my salvia glands and taste buds from the effects of the radiation. It’s supposed to be a wonder drug that will also have the side effects of lowering my blood pressure and making me want to throw up! As if the Chemo and Radiation isn’t enough! I’m going to have to look up that Jeff Foxworthy skit about the effects of drugs! I remember that as a great funny!
Barbara and I got back home and I get a call from Dave the Dispatcher asking if I wanted to work a little today and of course I did! I moved a few trailers around and then go home knowing I have to be back in the morning at 7am to take a load to St. Louis and return! Money$$Money$$Money$$$$$$MOOONEY$ Money!
06/03/2008 Tuesday
Just an average day in a trucker’s life! I loaded here in town and then went to St Louis to a place that makes soap bases and other chemicals and unloaded and reloaded to go straight back to where I loaded this morning! I got back about 7 pm due to me needing to stop and take my afternoon “old man” nap! That was about an hour after I had stopped at Wendy’s and got a LARGE Vanilla Bean Frosty Shake! HMMMM 410 wonderful calories! 1 hour later I’m out like a light! And that’s why I can’t eat during the day and try to drive any great distances! Besides I need to rest up for my upcoming trials! LOL!
I also need to eat as much as I can and put away as many calories as possible to gain a few pounds before we start dosing me up with things God never intended to go into the human body! I know that I’ll loose some weight and both Doctors Kim and Holden say I should or should loose about 25 to 35 pounds. That’s about two or three pants sizes and could be expensive buying new jeans! I think I’ll just get some suspenders to hold them up till I can put the weight back on!
Chapter 8
Chapter 8
The week of June 6 – 13, 2008
I’ve been a little remiss in updating this blog this week and I’ll explain the what’s and wherefores now!
On Thursday the 5th I had a thought that as long as I was driving I could take my son Jerry with me for a few days and hopefully get through the Atlanta area to see family.
Well, I was able to get to see my sister for a little bit, but not my brother and his wife as there wasn’t time or actually enough time to let them know that I was going to make it by. They would have had to drive from Douglasville to Woodstock and for my brother who had a stroke not so long ago, in that heat and humidity it would not have been a nice trip. I was just hoping that I could stop by on the way back through but in this business sometimes you go where the dispatcher sends you and at almost $5.00 a gallon for diesel going out of route can become very expensive!
Anyway, as I said, I had my TEENAGE son with me and as soon as he got in the truck, World of Warcraft came on (I use a broadband connection!) along with HIS My Space and a few others and trying to get MY computer back was next to impossible! So, no updates! We got back I think Tuesday and I threw him out and as he really wanted to get home to his own computer and I kept on working but by then I was in “get it there and keep going mode” so I really didn’t turn it on till Thursday and then just to watch the weather!
On Friday the 13th and it WAS a Friday the 13th here in Springfield, Mo.! It rained and we got a record rainfall at Bingham Elementary School official city gauge of 5.37 inches! That school is just at ¾ mile from my house and due west, which makes it on a line before the rain gets here and it was coming out of the west Friday! I posted more pictures of the neighborhood and all of the water we have! My garage and the new shelves I built worked as I hoped! The water level in the garage was at 31” My bottom shelf is at 33”! But still I have to pressure wash the floor but we’re supposed to get MORE rain tomorrow and it just might flood again! GREAT! I was told in 2000 when we got flooded the first time it was a 500 year flood! OK, then I’m what, 1500 years old now? It’s flooded me out 3 times since then! And it might do it again 2 MORE times in this coming week! I’m just thankful I’m not in Iowa or Indiana! Those people really got it bad! Anyway there are more pictures in my “the flood” album! You’ll also notice a new album titled “Hair today gone tomorrow”!
While at my sisters I had decided that I would let my son cut all of my hair off! Yeah, I did! I wanted to get a little sun on my cue ball before I started my treatments so I figured that a week before would be a great idea. Hot and muggy until I shaved it off and then I never saw the sun again until today! I managed not to burn it but there is now a wonderful pink tint up there where the white was! I just had to be careful to stay away from pool halls! I have pictures and as soon as I can get one of these movie maker programs to keep running long enough to edit down an 8 minute video I’ll post it as it’s kinda funny watching!
It was also kind of funny on Wednesday as I was walking across the parking lot at the TA truck stop in Gainesville Texas. A guy asked me where all of my hair went! It was a big black dude, as some of you know I’m NOT PC! I grew up in a time where we were black, white, Chinese, Russian ect., and we didn’t have to know if you were African or Italian, Japanese with American thrown in at the end to make government and employment forms longer and so as not to offend anyone! Get a grip America! Of course you’re American! If you can speak English! You know what I mean!
Anywho, (that’s actually a word down south!) I sit down next to him on the bench and explain why this skinny old farts head was tan where there hadn’t been hair in a while and a sickening grey tone where the hair had been cut off on Sunday! He got a laugh out of it and we talked for about 15 minutes and again I have to explain to someone again why I was joking and carrying on (another southern term) that I WASN”T dead, I had NO plans to die and until I WAS in the pine box I would joke until there wasn’t a breath left in my body!
He didn’t understand, as with most people, cancer is something that happens to others or is more of a word to them. They think you’re supposed to be down in the dumps or morose or grey and sad. Well, that actually does happen to every one of us when we get faced with the stark fact that we have something we might not walk away from! But for some of us it becomes a big inconvenience or more of a bump in the road of life! I don’t have TIME to be down in the dumps! I’ve been there done that! It’s NOT a nice place to be! Ain’t going there again if I can help it! I’ll let others go there for me if you don’t mind!
I have one My Space friend, a young lady in Reno “sucre et épice” is her My Space name, who has been fighting cancer since she graduated from High School. She is a big influence, not only for me but some of her other friends as she has a very rare form of cancer that only affects about 50 people a year! Cancer researchers don’t even think about looking for a cure for it as there is no MONEY in that rare of a cancer as 50 people can’t spend enough cash for the cure so they don’t look at it! Yes it’s ALL about the money! She has had relapses 3 times I believe! She’s lost most of a leg. Then a relapse and part of a lung is removed. Then another relapse and more chemo and radiation! All before she’s 24 years old!
Her last blog was about her being “conflicted” because she’s a workaholic and can’t stand the fact that she had to take FLMA so she could do maintenance on her body and not cover the news as a reporter and producer! This CHILD (to me) is stronger than a lot of adults I know at 50! I know grownups, who, whine and complain about every little pain, cough and sniffle, and walk like they are falling apart! And it pisses me off to no end! At 50 you’re still young, it’s called MIDDLE AGED! Not DEAD! I don’t even complain to my wife about my headaches or pains from my tube or port! I just pop a few Tylenol and keep plugging away! I guess I have too much of my father in me! That’s why I’ll laugh myself to the grave and NOT complain about 5 little tumors!
In the business world it’s called PMA. Positive Mental Attitude! If I can keep a good PMA and make those around me giggle and laugh and look at life in a different way then I’m happy! As I told my new friend on the bench in Texas, laughter IS the best medicine and I have enough to share!
Even after a little rain floods out my garage!
06/15/2008 Sunday
I cleaned the garage out AGAIN! This time I didn't pressure wash the floor as it just might flood again this week! No since in wasting the gas!
Barb and I went to the farm store to get another finch feeder. The woodpeckers have totally destroyed the cheap plastic feeder we had up so I got one that has metal feeder holes in it. Now Woody, try your best!
Other than that I started drinking water and have downed ½ liter so far. {Slosh} Still wish I could do the beer or JD and coke instead but that's not in the cards! LOL!
I'm getting excited about starting my treatments (who'a thunk someone would be HAPPY to start that crap!) and I'm about to go and pack my carry bag filled with amongst other things, a liter of water, a sweater or 2 as they keep that place a tad on the chilly side, a good book and of course my laptop and a DVD movie!
I'll let you know how my first day went!
06/16/08 Monday 0745
Awake! Nervous and excited! It’s almost like I was going on a date with an extremely beautiful woman!
My check list is finished and my “FAG Bag” (Don’t get bent out of shape! It’s a military term! Fast Action Gear Bag!) is ready to go filled with a flannel shirt, sweater, undies, socks and extra T-shirt in case of an explosive case of “hurling” due to the effects of chemo! I also have my “purse” with my meds, bandannas, book, note pad and pen, and my “peg” gauze and tape kit and a few other items a “metro” man like me will need! ROFLMAO! And let’s not forget my already hated friend the 1 liter jug for water. I’ve tried to make it a habit to not drink before going to bed but that liter last night broke my “all nighter” record last night! I had to go twice! Geeze Louise! I KNOW it’s not from being nervous! I LOVE to sleep!
OK “I got’s to go” as Jerry Reid said in “Smokey and the Bandit”
C-Ya all later!
2045
Today was an experience to say the least. I met a few more people from nurses and specialists and other cancer patients. I started off my day in the cancer ward paying my $30.00 co pay and doing a couple of maze puzzles until I was called back to the Chemo ward where I was finally able to watch the first stick in my otherwise unused high dollar CT port!
The nurse was trying to lift my pullover shirt up so she could get to my port, I just took the thing off and joked with her as I "covered" my self up to my "breasts" and pleaded with her not to look! No, really, don't as you'll fall to the floor laughing your self at where my chest used to be! It's fallen around my belly! She probably heard it before but what the heck she still laughed which is a good thing when nurses have a sense of humor!
She then comes at me with the needle which we all think of as 3' long and dripping fluids! Well actually this thing is about ½ inch long and at the end opposite the pointy end it makes a 90* angle in a piece of plastic and turns into a tube with a threaded end to hook the drip line into. She tells me to take a deep breath and stab, OUCH, and it's in!
I put my shirt back on and she takes the running end to my shirt and away we go to the lazy boy recliners in the "quiet" room!
We set the pull up the built on table arm and I set my laptop up and get the first of 2 liters of water ready to go. I've already drank about ½ liter since I woke up this morning and it's already worked it's way thru, and Hold the Fort, I have got to go! Back and I sit and another nurse starts me going by making sure I'm who I think I am. BTW, I didn't get a silly hospital ID bracelet this time, HMMM I wonder if it's because it's made of petroleum products and they're trying to save money or because no one in their right mind would try to get dosed up with chemo?
I get over 2 liters of liquids pumped into me in a 4 hour period and add to that the 2 liters of water I drank! Talk about peeing! I think I won the fire hose contest as I went 5 freaking times while in Chemo and 4 times while waiting on radiation! If it was snowing I could have written War and Peace in the snow!
The stuff did give me a headache to the point I really couldn't see to read the screen on the laptop so I gave up and put my sunglasses on and then Barbara came in for the last hour and we talked with the other cancer patients in the room till I finished up all the good stuff they had to offer!
We took my FAG bag to the car and walked over to the oncology department and when they finally called me back Barb headed on home and I got to see the new Tomo Therapy Treatment machine!
This thing look exactly like a standard CT Scanner with the exception of the alignment laser shining across the bed about 2' out from he opening where the target marks are set on my mask (See the pics in my album titled "The medical stuff type of pictures")
We get going after I’m all snapped in and covered up with a nice toasty blanket. After the machine has done it’s alignment scan it starts the radiation treatment and it’s actually kinda weird as there are these weird blue lights flashing all over and I'm thing oh cool a light show! And after several minutes they go away and then I start smelling something that smells a little like hot brakes kinda then that goes away when I start tasting something I can't explain and wouldn't want Rachel Ray or Bobby Fray cooking for me! Just unpleasant!
The whole affair lasted about 40 minutes from the time I walked into the room till I walked out with the actual "treatment" lasting just over 11 minutes. The girls tell me that will improve as they "learn" me better! Now that sounds like fun! (Remember I've got to keep a good PMA going here! ROFL)
As I was getting my shirt on Stephanie asked me what I thought and I told her I really liked the light show and she tells me that there were no lights in the machine! I looked at her and told her that there were what looked like blue neon lights flashing all around the top and then Tracy comes on over the intercom and says that some people do see lights when the beam crosses the optic nerve. Well that's pretty cool and I ask her if it does the same thing when crossing the smell and taste nerves and well yes again in "some" of the cases! Gosh, do I feel special!
I hop on the bike for the ride home after confirming I have another "date" with those two lovely ladies tomorrow!
Hey, us old folks gotta use every excuse in the book!
Right?
06/17/2008 Tuesday AM
Last night wasn’t a good one for a first day after! I really didn’t go to bed till about 0300 and was back up at 345 to attempt to throw up but I guess it was more of an acid thing so I attempted to drain my peg and got a little out that way waking Barb up by running water in the sink. We both went back to bed and I was back up at 0445 and this time I take my nausea pills with a couple of crackers and milk and head back to bed again. I tossed and turned and finally gave up at 0900 and got up took more pills as I have to take 1 at 230 (1430) for my Amifostine shots as I don’t want to get nauseous when they put my mask on! That ought to be fun throwing up and almost drowning before Stephanie and Tracy can get in there to get the thing off! I can see that on the tombstone! LOL… NOT!
So far I’ve drank,drunk, drinked(?) ¾ liter of water getting ready for today and I feel like I’m sloshing already! Only 5.4 weeks left! Crap!
It’s been all week and I’m really sorry about not updating this.
Tuesday I didn’t feel to “chipper” or my usual self. More like a flu bug had attacked! I didn’t do much more than feel listless all day till I headed down to St. Johns and my next treatment.
I get in early so I can get my first Amifostine shot. Beki the nurse is there and as she’s weighing me in little Tammy has some fun with me by sneaking up and tapping on the scales and making the numbers go up and down on the digital scale making me a little nutty till she giggles! I love a good giggle! LOL. Then Beki pulls out her 2 syringes and tells me to pull my shirt up! WOAH THERE FILLY! WHERE? Yep in the belly! 2 below the belly button the next higher and then the BACK side! I thought shots went in the freakin arms! So ok she gets her way with me and a little burning below and to the sides of the belly button and I get to go sit for a few minutes while it starts to do it’s magic with my saliva glands!
30 minutes later Tammy and Stephanie are doing their thing snapping me to the table and away we go watching the pretty blue light dance around for a few minutes. This session went faster than Mondays and I was off the table in 20 minutes and after putting teeth, shirt and glasses back on I head out and make a quick left turn into the bathroom and don’t make it past the sink! Oh I never liked throwing up when drunk! But after Chemo and radiation it’s even nastier! I pull the alert plunger and have a nurse in there in a few seconds and she’s already prepared with a handful of towels!
These people At St. Johns know the drill and apparently when I made a hard left they knew and were prepared! I have some wonderful people on my team here!
Dr. Kim comes to see me and he thinks that the Chemo yesterday and the Amifostine today was a little more than I need and I won’t take any more shots this week. Oh well as long as I don’t dry out I’m ok with that!
I get in the truck and go to Lowe’s and then to Wal-Mart for some needed things and as I heading home I’m on Lone Pine which is a 2 lane street and the traffic coming at me is heavy with everyone coming home from work when it hits me again and I just stop in the street and barely get the door open! Nice picture for those looking at me from the other lane but the thing is the idiot behind me starts to blow his horn at me! OK YOYO can’t you see I’m a tad bit busy here! I heave again pull the truck down the street again and oops again but manage to get it on a side street and of course the truck making sure that I’m not going to get thrown through the windshield locks the damn seatbelt and I can’t get far enough out of the truck for the crap to go anywhere but on the running board! GREAT! But I do manage to unlock the buckle and finish this job!
I get home drink a small can of Ginger ale (I LOVE Ginger ale!) and eat a few Ritz crackers and have Barb just make me a can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup! I don’t know about the rest of you but when I feel like I’ve been beaten down by some little virus, Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup ALWAYS does it for me! I mean it’s like magic the way it makes you feel! Wonder drug! And then that night there is a news article on the news from Science about some molecule or other in Chicken that works against one in OUR bodies that makes you feel like crap! Go freakin figure! But, Hey, Grandmother and Mom always made Campbell’s and so does my son’s mom!
I do sleep a little bit better tonight. Not like I slept all the way through but 2, 4 hour stints was a lot better than Monday!
Wednesday and I still feel “dull” AND my mouth feels like it’s still asleep! I use my baking soda and salt solution and it tastes like crap! My 1 cup of coffee tastes like crap and even ginger ale tastes, like no not ginger ale! Even my oatmeal is more of a tasteless paste than what I want to eat but I need those calories and force it down! I have the feeling that everything wants to come back up and I manage not to fall for the old run to the bathroom reflex my body keeps sending me! I’m not kneeling down to Johnny! I take my pills and wait till my appt time. I ride down and I feel much better after the 15 minute ride on my bike! It’s another amazing thing about the simple things of life how they make you feel and perk you up! Soup or a ride on a motorcycle! Even watching the baby cottontail rabbits in my flower garden is so relaxing.
Barb called me this morning telling me to look at the big rabbit bouncing along behind the porch and as I watch it goes into my flower bed and then the cutest thing happens, out from under my Hosta’s one at a time come 5 little baby rabbits! They all jump around on mommy and she plays for a few minutes till she shoos them back and heads on over to my next door neighbors veggie garden! Little bouncy bundles of fuzz is what they look like!
Yep, Cancer lets you look at things a little bit differently and in a better light! Even the lightening bugs last night were dancing for me in a ballet that has never ceased to amaze me! So many of them and so few of us!
Anyway I get my treatment and head home to see if the rabbits will be out or if mommy will move them to another home when she figures that I like to sit on the stoop next to that flower bed. Time will tell.
Thursday I still have the same feeling but at least it’s the same feeling and not worse! And the constant feeling of nausea is gone. I’m up and doing my morning routine when I notice that the lump in the side of my neck isn’t poking out like it had been! HMMM, well let’s not read anything into it as it hasn’t even been 4 full days yet! I still have that listless feeling and I’m having trouble wanting to do any one thing for more that a few minutes and those of you who know how I love to game on the computer might wonder what’s going on! I don’t know and I might need to talk to the doc about it, if not go in for a “skull” session with yet, another doctor I haven’t net yet!
As I get ready to head to the Center the weather alerts start going off and we’re under another tornado and flash flood alert! GREAT! Barbara drives me down the center and goes to pick up Brian our oldest at work. We get hit pretty hard with rain and a tornado does tear up a couple of buildings around town. I get about 3 inches of water in my garage, AGAIN! Third time this month by the way! So that’s going to be another wash out of the place! I get home and the boys and I pull the bikes and lawn mowers out of the garage along with the pick up as it’s not hailing anymore so no fear of damaging it! It’s just another night at home and tomorrow Jerry wants to go down with me as they said he can come in and actually watch them set me up and program the Tomo while he watches!
Friday and I feel the same in all aspects! Just, B L A H. I guess I’ll need to remember that feeling or actually never get over it! I know I’ll be feeling this way and even worse as this goes along so get used to it dude! Buck up and hold on is all I can do and it’s going to get worse! I have 5 more chemos and 26 radiations left! TGIF! Survive today and you get the weekend off! I never thought I’d actually look forward to a weekend like I am this one!
Jerry and I ride down to St Johns and we go in. I get called back and we start. Jerry’s watching and even asks a few questions and after Tammy and Stephanie get me locked down they take him out so he can watch the part I don’t get to see!
20 minutes later and we’re done, Jerry has this weird kind of smile on his face and I ask Tammy if he learned anything and it pours out of him like a river! “DAD! Dr. Kim says your tumors are shrinking! I got to see what they looked like every day this week, it’s soo freaking kewl!” Right then and there I knew my son would know that dad would be here for a while longer! I didn’t see any tears but the smile alone was worth the memory I’ll hold for the rest of my life! The past few weeks has been hard on a boy or young man of 14 years not really understanding what something like cancer or any thing that can take the “the guy who can fix anything, can do anything and is the coolest dad in HIS whole school” down like it’s taken me and my family down. I’m ok, he’s ok! He and I head on out and we stop at Wendy’s for their new Frosty Vanilla Bean Shake to celebrate!
Saturday and Sunday find me being lazy, an unknown side effect to this ongoing medical problem! Barb and I go to the store as I really want some fresh squash and butter beans! I need the vitamins and hell I just miss a good boiled squash and onion and I love butter beans! Especially the next day when the pot liquor gets thick! Look out tummy! Sunday Brian and I pressure out the garage and then do the outside of the thing as it’s starting to look a little dingy and that’s about all we do for today! Tired, beat and I want more squash, onion and butter beans!
I’m sitting here looking at the screen and see my game icons and ya know what, later. I just don’t feel like slaying monsters and dragons just yet. I’m doing enough of that in real life!
The week of June 6 – 13, 2008
I’ve been a little remiss in updating this blog this week and I’ll explain the what’s and wherefores now!
On Thursday the 5th I had a thought that as long as I was driving I could take my son Jerry with me for a few days and hopefully get through the Atlanta area to see family.
Well, I was able to get to see my sister for a little bit, but not my brother and his wife as there wasn’t time or actually enough time to let them know that I was going to make it by. They would have had to drive from Douglasville to Woodstock and for my brother who had a stroke not so long ago, in that heat and humidity it would not have been a nice trip. I was just hoping that I could stop by on the way back through but in this business sometimes you go where the dispatcher sends you and at almost $5.00 a gallon for diesel going out of route can become very expensive!
Anyway, as I said, I had my TEENAGE son with me and as soon as he got in the truck, World of Warcraft came on (I use a broadband connection!) along with HIS My Space and a few others and trying to get MY computer back was next to impossible! So, no updates! We got back I think Tuesday and I threw him out and as he really wanted to get home to his own computer and I kept on working but by then I was in “get it there and keep going mode” so I really didn’t turn it on till Thursday and then just to watch the weather!
On Friday the 13th and it WAS a Friday the 13th here in Springfield, Mo.! It rained and we got a record rainfall at Bingham Elementary School official city gauge of 5.37 inches! That school is just at ¾ mile from my house and due west, which makes it on a line before the rain gets here and it was coming out of the west Friday! I posted more pictures of the neighborhood and all of the water we have! My garage and the new shelves I built worked as I hoped! The water level in the garage was at 31” My bottom shelf is at 33”! But still I have to pressure wash the floor but we’re supposed to get MORE rain tomorrow and it just might flood again! GREAT! I was told in 2000 when we got flooded the first time it was a 500 year flood! OK, then I’m what, 1500 years old now? It’s flooded me out 3 times since then! And it might do it again 2 MORE times in this coming week! I’m just thankful I’m not in Iowa or Indiana! Those people really got it bad! Anyway there are more pictures in my “the flood” album! You’ll also notice a new album titled “Hair today gone tomorrow”!
While at my sisters I had decided that I would let my son cut all of my hair off! Yeah, I did! I wanted to get a little sun on my cue ball before I started my treatments so I figured that a week before would be a great idea. Hot and muggy until I shaved it off and then I never saw the sun again until today! I managed not to burn it but there is now a wonderful pink tint up there where the white was! I just had to be careful to stay away from pool halls! I have pictures and as soon as I can get one of these movie maker programs to keep running long enough to edit down an 8 minute video I’ll post it as it’s kinda funny watching!
It was also kind of funny on Wednesday as I was walking across the parking lot at the TA truck stop in Gainesville Texas. A guy asked me where all of my hair went! It was a big black dude, as some of you know I’m NOT PC! I grew up in a time where we were black, white, Chinese, Russian ect., and we didn’t have to know if you were African or Italian, Japanese with American thrown in at the end to make government and employment forms longer and so as not to offend anyone! Get a grip America! Of course you’re American! If you can speak English! You know what I mean!
Anywho, (that’s actually a word down south!) I sit down next to him on the bench and explain why this skinny old farts head was tan where there hadn’t been hair in a while and a sickening grey tone where the hair had been cut off on Sunday! He got a laugh out of it and we talked for about 15 minutes and again I have to explain to someone again why I was joking and carrying on (another southern term) that I WASN”T dead, I had NO plans to die and until I WAS in the pine box I would joke until there wasn’t a breath left in my body!
He didn’t understand, as with most people, cancer is something that happens to others or is more of a word to them. They think you’re supposed to be down in the dumps or morose or grey and sad. Well, that actually does happen to every one of us when we get faced with the stark fact that we have something we might not walk away from! But for some of us it becomes a big inconvenience or more of a bump in the road of life! I don’t have TIME to be down in the dumps! I’ve been there done that! It’s NOT a nice place to be! Ain’t going there again if I can help it! I’ll let others go there for me if you don’t mind!
I have one My Space friend, a young lady in Reno “sucre et épice” is her My Space name, who has been fighting cancer since she graduated from High School. She is a big influence, not only for me but some of her other friends as she has a very rare form of cancer that only affects about 50 people a year! Cancer researchers don’t even think about looking for a cure for it as there is no MONEY in that rare of a cancer as 50 people can’t spend enough cash for the cure so they don’t look at it! Yes it’s ALL about the money! She has had relapses 3 times I believe! She’s lost most of a leg. Then a relapse and part of a lung is removed. Then another relapse and more chemo and radiation! All before she’s 24 years old!
Her last blog was about her being “conflicted” because she’s a workaholic and can’t stand the fact that she had to take FLMA so she could do maintenance on her body and not cover the news as a reporter and producer! This CHILD (to me) is stronger than a lot of adults I know at 50! I know grownups, who, whine and complain about every little pain, cough and sniffle, and walk like they are falling apart! And it pisses me off to no end! At 50 you’re still young, it’s called MIDDLE AGED! Not DEAD! I don’t even complain to my wife about my headaches or pains from my tube or port! I just pop a few Tylenol and keep plugging away! I guess I have too much of my father in me! That’s why I’ll laugh myself to the grave and NOT complain about 5 little tumors!
In the business world it’s called PMA. Positive Mental Attitude! If I can keep a good PMA and make those around me giggle and laugh and look at life in a different way then I’m happy! As I told my new friend on the bench in Texas, laughter IS the best medicine and I have enough to share!
Even after a little rain floods out my garage!
06/15/2008 Sunday
I cleaned the garage out AGAIN! This time I didn't pressure wash the floor as it just might flood again this week! No since in wasting the gas!
Barb and I went to the farm store to get another finch feeder. The woodpeckers have totally destroyed the cheap plastic feeder we had up so I got one that has metal feeder holes in it. Now Woody, try your best!
Other than that I started drinking water and have downed ½ liter so far. {Slosh} Still wish I could do the beer or JD and coke instead but that's not in the cards! LOL!
I'm getting excited about starting my treatments (who'a thunk someone would be HAPPY to start that crap!) and I'm about to go and pack my carry bag filled with amongst other things, a liter of water, a sweater or 2 as they keep that place a tad on the chilly side, a good book and of course my laptop and a DVD movie!
I'll let you know how my first day went!
06/16/08 Monday 0745
Awake! Nervous and excited! It’s almost like I was going on a date with an extremely beautiful woman!
My check list is finished and my “FAG Bag” (Don’t get bent out of shape! It’s a military term! Fast Action Gear Bag!) is ready to go filled with a flannel shirt, sweater, undies, socks and extra T-shirt in case of an explosive case of “hurling” due to the effects of chemo! I also have my “purse” with my meds, bandannas, book, note pad and pen, and my “peg” gauze and tape kit and a few other items a “metro” man like me will need! ROFLMAO! And let’s not forget my already hated friend the 1 liter jug for water. I’ve tried to make it a habit to not drink before going to bed but that liter last night broke my “all nighter” record last night! I had to go twice! Geeze Louise! I KNOW it’s not from being nervous! I LOVE to sleep!
OK “I got’s to go” as Jerry Reid said in “Smokey and the Bandit”
C-Ya all later!
2045
Today was an experience to say the least. I met a few more people from nurses and specialists and other cancer patients. I started off my day in the cancer ward paying my $30.00 co pay and doing a couple of maze puzzles until I was called back to the Chemo ward where I was finally able to watch the first stick in my otherwise unused high dollar CT port!
The nurse was trying to lift my pullover shirt up so she could get to my port, I just took the thing off and joked with her as I "covered" my self up to my "breasts" and pleaded with her not to look! No, really, don't as you'll fall to the floor laughing your self at where my chest used to be! It's fallen around my belly! She probably heard it before but what the heck she still laughed which is a good thing when nurses have a sense of humor!
She then comes at me with the needle which we all think of as 3' long and dripping fluids! Well actually this thing is about ½ inch long and at the end opposite the pointy end it makes a 90* angle in a piece of plastic and turns into a tube with a threaded end to hook the drip line into. She tells me to take a deep breath and stab, OUCH, and it's in!
I put my shirt back on and she takes the running end to my shirt and away we go to the lazy boy recliners in the "quiet" room!
We set the pull up the built on table arm and I set my laptop up and get the first of 2 liters of water ready to go. I've already drank about ½ liter since I woke up this morning and it's already worked it's way thru, and Hold the Fort, I have got to go! Back and I sit and another nurse starts me going by making sure I'm who I think I am. BTW, I didn't get a silly hospital ID bracelet this time, HMMM I wonder if it's because it's made of petroleum products and they're trying to save money or because no one in their right mind would try to get dosed up with chemo?
I get over 2 liters of liquids pumped into me in a 4 hour period and add to that the 2 liters of water I drank! Talk about peeing! I think I won the fire hose contest as I went 5 freaking times while in Chemo and 4 times while waiting on radiation! If it was snowing I could have written War and Peace in the snow!
The stuff did give me a headache to the point I really couldn't see to read the screen on the laptop so I gave up and put my sunglasses on and then Barbara came in for the last hour and we talked with the other cancer patients in the room till I finished up all the good stuff they had to offer!
We took my FAG bag to the car and walked over to the oncology department and when they finally called me back Barb headed on home and I got to see the new Tomo Therapy Treatment machine!
This thing look exactly like a standard CT Scanner with the exception of the alignment laser shining across the bed about 2' out from he opening where the target marks are set on my mask (See the pics in my album titled "The medical stuff type of pictures")
We get going after I’m all snapped in and covered up with a nice toasty blanket. After the machine has done it’s alignment scan it starts the radiation treatment and it’s actually kinda weird as there are these weird blue lights flashing all over and I'm thing oh cool a light show! And after several minutes they go away and then I start smelling something that smells a little like hot brakes kinda then that goes away when I start tasting something I can't explain and wouldn't want Rachel Ray or Bobby Fray cooking for me! Just unpleasant!
The whole affair lasted about 40 minutes from the time I walked into the room till I walked out with the actual "treatment" lasting just over 11 minutes. The girls tell me that will improve as they "learn" me better! Now that sounds like fun! (Remember I've got to keep a good PMA going here! ROFL)
As I was getting my shirt on Stephanie asked me what I thought and I told her I really liked the light show and she tells me that there were no lights in the machine! I looked at her and told her that there were what looked like blue neon lights flashing all around the top and then Tracy comes on over the intercom and says that some people do see lights when the beam crosses the optic nerve. Well that's pretty cool and I ask her if it does the same thing when crossing the smell and taste nerves and well yes again in "some" of the cases! Gosh, do I feel special!
I hop on the bike for the ride home after confirming I have another "date" with those two lovely ladies tomorrow!
Hey, us old folks gotta use every excuse in the book!
Right?
06/17/2008 Tuesday AM
Last night wasn’t a good one for a first day after! I really didn’t go to bed till about 0300 and was back up at 345 to attempt to throw up but I guess it was more of an acid thing so I attempted to drain my peg and got a little out that way waking Barb up by running water in the sink. We both went back to bed and I was back up at 0445 and this time I take my nausea pills with a couple of crackers and milk and head back to bed again. I tossed and turned and finally gave up at 0900 and got up took more pills as I have to take 1 at 230 (1430) for my Amifostine shots as I don’t want to get nauseous when they put my mask on! That ought to be fun throwing up and almost drowning before Stephanie and Tracy can get in there to get the thing off! I can see that on the tombstone! LOL… NOT!
So far I’ve drank,drunk, drinked(?) ¾ liter of water getting ready for today and I feel like I’m sloshing already! Only 5.4 weeks left! Crap!
It’s been all week and I’m really sorry about not updating this.
Tuesday I didn’t feel to “chipper” or my usual self. More like a flu bug had attacked! I didn’t do much more than feel listless all day till I headed down to St. Johns and my next treatment.
I get in early so I can get my first Amifostine shot. Beki the nurse is there and as she’s weighing me in little Tammy has some fun with me by sneaking up and tapping on the scales and making the numbers go up and down on the digital scale making me a little nutty till she giggles! I love a good giggle! LOL. Then Beki pulls out her 2 syringes and tells me to pull my shirt up! WOAH THERE FILLY! WHERE? Yep in the belly! 2 below the belly button the next higher and then the BACK side! I thought shots went in the freakin arms! So ok she gets her way with me and a little burning below and to the sides of the belly button and I get to go sit for a few minutes while it starts to do it’s magic with my saliva glands!
30 minutes later Tammy and Stephanie are doing their thing snapping me to the table and away we go watching the pretty blue light dance around for a few minutes. This session went faster than Mondays and I was off the table in 20 minutes and after putting teeth, shirt and glasses back on I head out and make a quick left turn into the bathroom and don’t make it past the sink! Oh I never liked throwing up when drunk! But after Chemo and radiation it’s even nastier! I pull the alert plunger and have a nurse in there in a few seconds and she’s already prepared with a handful of towels!
These people At St. Johns know the drill and apparently when I made a hard left they knew and were prepared! I have some wonderful people on my team here!
Dr. Kim comes to see me and he thinks that the Chemo yesterday and the Amifostine today was a little more than I need and I won’t take any more shots this week. Oh well as long as I don’t dry out I’m ok with that!
I get in the truck and go to Lowe’s and then to Wal-Mart for some needed things and as I heading home I’m on Lone Pine which is a 2 lane street and the traffic coming at me is heavy with everyone coming home from work when it hits me again and I just stop in the street and barely get the door open! Nice picture for those looking at me from the other lane but the thing is the idiot behind me starts to blow his horn at me! OK YOYO can’t you see I’m a tad bit busy here! I heave again pull the truck down the street again and oops again but manage to get it on a side street and of course the truck making sure that I’m not going to get thrown through the windshield locks the damn seatbelt and I can’t get far enough out of the truck for the crap to go anywhere but on the running board! GREAT! But I do manage to unlock the buckle and finish this job!
I get home drink a small can of Ginger ale (I LOVE Ginger ale!) and eat a few Ritz crackers and have Barb just make me a can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup! I don’t know about the rest of you but when I feel like I’ve been beaten down by some little virus, Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup ALWAYS does it for me! I mean it’s like magic the way it makes you feel! Wonder drug! And then that night there is a news article on the news from Science about some molecule or other in Chicken that works against one in OUR bodies that makes you feel like crap! Go freakin figure! But, Hey, Grandmother and Mom always made Campbell’s and so does my son’s mom!
I do sleep a little bit better tonight. Not like I slept all the way through but 2, 4 hour stints was a lot better than Monday!
Wednesday and I still feel “dull” AND my mouth feels like it’s still asleep! I use my baking soda and salt solution and it tastes like crap! My 1 cup of coffee tastes like crap and even ginger ale tastes, like no not ginger ale! Even my oatmeal is more of a tasteless paste than what I want to eat but I need those calories and force it down! I have the feeling that everything wants to come back up and I manage not to fall for the old run to the bathroom reflex my body keeps sending me! I’m not kneeling down to Johnny! I take my pills and wait till my appt time. I ride down and I feel much better after the 15 minute ride on my bike! It’s another amazing thing about the simple things of life how they make you feel and perk you up! Soup or a ride on a motorcycle! Even watching the baby cottontail rabbits in my flower garden is so relaxing.
Barb called me this morning telling me to look at the big rabbit bouncing along behind the porch and as I watch it goes into my flower bed and then the cutest thing happens, out from under my Hosta’s one at a time come 5 little baby rabbits! They all jump around on mommy and she plays for a few minutes till she shoos them back and heads on over to my next door neighbors veggie garden! Little bouncy bundles of fuzz is what they look like!
Yep, Cancer lets you look at things a little bit differently and in a better light! Even the lightening bugs last night were dancing for me in a ballet that has never ceased to amaze me! So many of them and so few of us!
Anyway I get my treatment and head home to see if the rabbits will be out or if mommy will move them to another home when she figures that I like to sit on the stoop next to that flower bed. Time will tell.
Thursday I still have the same feeling but at least it’s the same feeling and not worse! And the constant feeling of nausea is gone. I’m up and doing my morning routine when I notice that the lump in the side of my neck isn’t poking out like it had been! HMMM, well let’s not read anything into it as it hasn’t even been 4 full days yet! I still have that listless feeling and I’m having trouble wanting to do any one thing for more that a few minutes and those of you who know how I love to game on the computer might wonder what’s going on! I don’t know and I might need to talk to the doc about it, if not go in for a “skull” session with yet, another doctor I haven’t net yet!
As I get ready to head to the Center the weather alerts start going off and we’re under another tornado and flash flood alert! GREAT! Barbara drives me down the center and goes to pick up Brian our oldest at work. We get hit pretty hard with rain and a tornado does tear up a couple of buildings around town. I get about 3 inches of water in my garage, AGAIN! Third time this month by the way! So that’s going to be another wash out of the place! I get home and the boys and I pull the bikes and lawn mowers out of the garage along with the pick up as it’s not hailing anymore so no fear of damaging it! It’s just another night at home and tomorrow Jerry wants to go down with me as they said he can come in and actually watch them set me up and program the Tomo while he watches!
Friday and I feel the same in all aspects! Just, B L A H. I guess I’ll need to remember that feeling or actually never get over it! I know I’ll be feeling this way and even worse as this goes along so get used to it dude! Buck up and hold on is all I can do and it’s going to get worse! I have 5 more chemos and 26 radiations left! TGIF! Survive today and you get the weekend off! I never thought I’d actually look forward to a weekend like I am this one!
Jerry and I ride down to St Johns and we go in. I get called back and we start. Jerry’s watching and even asks a few questions and after Tammy and Stephanie get me locked down they take him out so he can watch the part I don’t get to see!
20 minutes later and we’re done, Jerry has this weird kind of smile on his face and I ask Tammy if he learned anything and it pours out of him like a river! “DAD! Dr. Kim says your tumors are shrinking! I got to see what they looked like every day this week, it’s soo freaking kewl!” Right then and there I knew my son would know that dad would be here for a while longer! I didn’t see any tears but the smile alone was worth the memory I’ll hold for the rest of my life! The past few weeks has been hard on a boy or young man of 14 years not really understanding what something like cancer or any thing that can take the “the guy who can fix anything, can do anything and is the coolest dad in HIS whole school” down like it’s taken me and my family down. I’m ok, he’s ok! He and I head on out and we stop at Wendy’s for their new Frosty Vanilla Bean Shake to celebrate!
Saturday and Sunday find me being lazy, an unknown side effect to this ongoing medical problem! Barb and I go to the store as I really want some fresh squash and butter beans! I need the vitamins and hell I just miss a good boiled squash and onion and I love butter beans! Especially the next day when the pot liquor gets thick! Look out tummy! Sunday Brian and I pressure out the garage and then do the outside of the thing as it’s starting to look a little dingy and that’s about all we do for today! Tired, beat and I want more squash, onion and butter beans!
I’m sitting here looking at the screen and see my game icons and ya know what, later. I just don’t feel like slaying monsters and dragons just yet. I’m doing enough of that in real life!
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