So my gall bladder is gone and my body is recovering from the surgery and adjusting to my new gall-bladderless life.
I'm healing.
As reported earlier, I felt considerably worse after I got home from the surgery than I did in the hospital. A quick, downward slide on the "How-are-you-feeling?" graph. Then a day or two at the bottom of that graph and then a remarkably swift return to health. Almost every day recently, there have been things I could do easily in the afternoon that I could not do at all that morning. And there was pain in the morning that was greatly lessened or completly gone in the afternoon. It's been a wonderful chance to witness and experience the miraculous healing power inherent in the human body.
And it's given me a chance to think about healing. I'm healing now from a surgery, but when I think about it, it seems like I'm always healing from something. And, by extension, maybe all of us are always healing from something:
-- you smash your finger in a car door or catch it in a rapidly closing drawer.
-- you twist an ankle while turning too fast.
-- you strain your back picking up something that's heavier than you thought it would be.
-- you get a paper cut while paying bills.
-- you stayed up too late last night or drank more than you should have.
-- you get angry at something you read in the newspaper.
-- you feel neglected when your Significant Other forgets an important occasion.
-- your golf game falls apart. Again.
-- you get a bad haircut.
You get the idea. And one of the things that these healing experiences all (or at least most) have in common is that they don't require conscious intervention on your part. Even your golf game is likely to come back on its own, if you just don't fret about it. (Trust me on this one!)
One of the things that most (if not all) religious disciplines share is the notion that you are taken care of by a force or entity that exists 'way beyond your understanding. And for me, this morning, the whole idea of constantly being in a state of healing resonates happily with this idea.
And it feels like there are times when it is -- in an expanded sense of awareness -- a Good Thing to get dinged up a bit, just so you can experience the wonders of healing.
And be reminded of the miracle this healing business truly is.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
A Longer Leash -- and the "C" Word
Deb and I just got back from a check-up visit to our E/N/T doc, the guy who initially diagnosed my cancer and did the major surgery on my neck. Great guy, and we feel extremely fortunate to have him on the "team."
And what he did today was exactly what the radiation doc and the chemo doc have done in the last month. Which is to set our next appointment for six months instead of three. I don't think you can get a clearer signal that these guys are feeling better and better about my prognosis.
What I noticed during the visit is what seems to be a reluctance to use the word "cancer" on the part of my docs. This is something I understand a little, as I avoid the word myself. (I find myself using terms like "my illness" and "my treatments" to avoid the "c" word.) What triggered this thought was that the E/N/T doc today said something along the lines of: "Well, that experience is fairly common among folks like you who've had... had a malignancy."
And thinking back over the last several years of doc visits, I think I recognize the pattern: we simply don't want to use the "c" word unless it's absolutely necessary. In addition to "malignancy," they also seem to prefer using the word "tumor." So I understand that we do this avoiding thing, I just don't understand why.
On the other side of the equation, I don't think I've ever heard any of my docs use the other "c" word -- that is "cured" unless it's carefully couched in tentative terms.
Maybe if I start hearing my docs use the word "cured" when describing me, I will be able to start using the word "cancer" without flinching.
And what he did today was exactly what the radiation doc and the chemo doc have done in the last month. Which is to set our next appointment for six months instead of three. I don't think you can get a clearer signal that these guys are feeling better and better about my prognosis.
What I noticed during the visit is what seems to be a reluctance to use the word "cancer" on the part of my docs. This is something I understand a little, as I avoid the word myself. (I find myself using terms like "my illness" and "my treatments" to avoid the "c" word.) What triggered this thought was that the E/N/T doc today said something along the lines of: "Well, that experience is fairly common among folks like you who've had... had a malignancy."
And thinking back over the last several years of doc visits, I think I recognize the pattern: we simply don't want to use the "c" word unless it's absolutely necessary. In addition to "malignancy," they also seem to prefer using the word "tumor." So I understand that we do this avoiding thing, I just don't understand why.
On the other side of the equation, I don't think I've ever heard any of my docs use the other "c" word -- that is "cured" unless it's carefully couched in tentative terms.
Maybe if I start hearing my docs use the word "cured" when describing me, I will be able to start using the word "cancer" without flinching.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Somewhat Naive
I had my gall bladder removed last Thursday, August 26th.
Months ago, I had a severe pain in my lower right abdomen which I was sure was appendicitis. And my family doc agreed it likely was, but before someone went merrily slashing away at my tummy, she thought it would make sense to get a CT scan of the area first. Turns out that my appendix was perfectly fine, thank you, but the scan showed there was some "sludge" located in my gall bladder. As I understand it, this sludge is like having a bunch of tiny gallstones.
The pain went away, but my surgeon told me that sooner or later, the gall bladder would have to be removed. And while he was working in that area, he said he could repair the hernia located just under my ribcage. (I was tempted to ask him if he could change the oil and check the sparkplugs while he was in there, but decided not to...)
He said there was no immediate need to have the surgery, since the pain had completely gone, but that having the sludge discharge into the rest of the digestive tract (which was likely to happen sooner or later) would complicate the medical picture considerably.
Then, while on our dinosaur-hunting trip recently, the pain came back and refused to go away. So the surgeon and I decided it was time to give the gall bladder the old heave-ho. And fix the hernia.
(Dear reader, does this sound like I'm whining? Sick all the time? Complaining about my misfortune? I certainly hope not. Because I consider myself to be extremely fortunate -- to be as healthy as I am, to have such excellent docs to look after me, and most importantly to have a spouse who takes such loving care of me when I can't look after myself.)
Now here is where the naivete comes in: having survived (successfully, it would seem...) a battery of treatments for a potentially lethal cancer, I assumed that a single operation to correct a non-life-threatening condition would be a piece of cake. Just one operation? Geez, let's schedule a volleyball game next day! Overnight stay? Okay, if you insist.
The hospital overnight stay was a breeze. I managed somehow to rate a single room in the hospital. No idea how that happened. And during the night, if the nurses came in to take my blood pressure and pulse -- but saw I was sleeping soundly -- they left me alone! When I got up in the middle of the night, which I had to do several times, I made this up to the nurses by walking up to their station and having my pressure and pulse taken there. They seemed to appreciate that. And I had been told that walking was good for me.
The next day, Deb drove me home.
Oh boy. I managed to completely ignore the available documents about not driving a car for a week afterwards, staying out of work for a similar amount of time, no heavy lifting, and on and on. And while I was in the hospital, the nurses kept asking me if I wanted some pain medication. (Hmmpf. Got a lot of sissies around here, I guess...)
Since I got home, I've done essentially doodly squat except sleeping and reading. The pain for doing almost anything was really tough -- and I didn't know whether doing anything would jeopardize the healing process. On the Friday and Saturday, I couldn't bend at the waist, couldn't open or close a window, couldn't pick something up off the floor, had no interest in food, and it took considerable time for me to lie down in bed or roll over or sit back up. Deb found several websites that described how one normally feels after gall bladder surgery, and it was all there in black-and-white: this is normal and you should have expected this.
On Sunday, as the wind and rain from Hurricane Irene gradually faded, the pain gradually decreased as well. I'm much better -- but that volleyball game is going to have to wait.
Months ago, I had a severe pain in my lower right abdomen which I was sure was appendicitis. And my family doc agreed it likely was, but before someone went merrily slashing away at my tummy, she thought it would make sense to get a CT scan of the area first. Turns out that my appendix was perfectly fine, thank you, but the scan showed there was some "sludge" located in my gall bladder. As I understand it, this sludge is like having a bunch of tiny gallstones.
The pain went away, but my surgeon told me that sooner or later, the gall bladder would have to be removed. And while he was working in that area, he said he could repair the hernia located just under my ribcage. (I was tempted to ask him if he could change the oil and check the sparkplugs while he was in there, but decided not to...)
He said there was no immediate need to have the surgery, since the pain had completely gone, but that having the sludge discharge into the rest of the digestive tract (which was likely to happen sooner or later) would complicate the medical picture considerably.
Then, while on our dinosaur-hunting trip recently, the pain came back and refused to go away. So the surgeon and I decided it was time to give the gall bladder the old heave-ho. And fix the hernia.
(Dear reader, does this sound like I'm whining? Sick all the time? Complaining about my misfortune? I certainly hope not. Because I consider myself to be extremely fortunate -- to be as healthy as I am, to have such excellent docs to look after me, and most importantly to have a spouse who takes such loving care of me when I can't look after myself.)
Now here is where the naivete comes in: having survived (successfully, it would seem...) a battery of treatments for a potentially lethal cancer, I assumed that a single operation to correct a non-life-threatening condition would be a piece of cake. Just one operation? Geez, let's schedule a volleyball game next day! Overnight stay? Okay, if you insist.
The hospital overnight stay was a breeze. I managed somehow to rate a single room in the hospital. No idea how that happened. And during the night, if the nurses came in to take my blood pressure and pulse -- but saw I was sleeping soundly -- they left me alone! When I got up in the middle of the night, which I had to do several times, I made this up to the nurses by walking up to their station and having my pressure and pulse taken there. They seemed to appreciate that. And I had been told that walking was good for me.
The next day, Deb drove me home.
Oh boy. I managed to completely ignore the available documents about not driving a car for a week afterwards, staying out of work for a similar amount of time, no heavy lifting, and on and on. And while I was in the hospital, the nurses kept asking me if I wanted some pain medication. (Hmmpf. Got a lot of sissies around here, I guess...)
Since I got home, I've done essentially doodly squat except sleeping and reading. The pain for doing almost anything was really tough -- and I didn't know whether doing anything would jeopardize the healing process. On the Friday and Saturday, I couldn't bend at the waist, couldn't open or close a window, couldn't pick something up off the floor, had no interest in food, and it took considerable time for me to lie down in bed or roll over or sit back up. Deb found several websites that described how one normally feels after gall bladder surgery, and it was all there in black-and-white: this is normal and you should have expected this.
On Sunday, as the wind and rain from Hurricane Irene gradually faded, the pain gradually decreased as well. I'm much better -- but that volleyball game is going to have to wait.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
The Smell of the Sage -- Part 2 -- Revised and Expanded!
During the summer of my treatments two years ago (that is, the surgeries, the chemo, and the radiation), neither trip was possible. Hey, for several months back then, I couldn't walk around the block, much less hike the badlands of Alberta or drive 14 hours to South Carolina. In truth, I spent most of the time between doctors' visits at home either sleeping or reading -- while lying down.
Last year, the first year after my treatments, I did drive to South Carolina for a week of golfing, this time with a good friend since my brother couldn't make the trip. And while the trip was certainly enjoyable -- for the golf; the food; and most of all, the companionship, the drive itself resulted in a deep-vein blood clot in my leg that, I was told later, might have killed me. (This was Serious Deep-Vein Blood Clot #2 for me, in case you're counting.) The event put me back on blood thinners for another six months.
And my being on blood thinners made dinosaur work out of the question. Because falling down hard in the Albert badlands (which happens occasionally) could result in uncontrolled bleeding and a major medical emergency. (Since the badlands are hours away from any medical treatment.) So my being part of the dino hunting team would have made me far more a risk to the program than a dependable asset.
But in April of this year (the time of my last posting) the golf trip and/or the dinosaur work were possibilities again. But if I couldn't be comfortable making these trips this year, would I ever be comfortable doing either one of them again? If I decided not to do either or both of the trips, would those decisions be based on sensible caution -- or would the be rooted in unreasoned and unreasonable fear?
I had been long off blood thinners by this time, which reduced or eliminated the chance of uncontrolled bleeding, but it reintroduced the chance of a blood clot if I remained stationary in a car or airplane seat for any length of time. I told my chemo doc about my "no more clot" plans, including wearing compression stockings every waking moment, a liberal ingestion of baby aspirin, letting my brother drive occasionally on our golf trip while I propped my legs up on the car's dashboard, and stopping every two hours or so for a vigorous game of Frisbee (to get the blood pumping). The doc was not impressed with my ideas and wouldn't give me an okay to travel.
I "labored" (a Quaker term, I think) with the decision to go or stay home for a month or two and finally decided that the sensible precautions listed above would effectively minimize any potential risks of clotting for both trips. And that not taking whatever risks remained would be capitulating to fear.
Okay. Green lights! Let's go!!
The Golf
First of all, please understand that, based on the experience of our previous golfing outings, Warren and I knew this trip would have a profound healing effect on both of us -- individually and as siblings. So this trip was a little bit about golf and a lot about self realization and self fulfillment. It wasn't just chasing a little white ball across a big green lawn.
Warren's driving habits (car driving, that is) turned out to mirror mine exactly and I quickly became perfectly comfortable to let him drive as much as he wanted. Just keep it under 80, please. And we timed our departure (i.e., 4:00 AM) nicely so that we missed almost all of the craziness of the Washington Beltway rush hour, and pulled into Santee South Carolina at a reasonable hour. Nice dinner, early to bed.
A special component of our trip involved Warren's son Spike, who had recently joined the Navy. He was stationed in Charleston, SC, which was an hour's drive from where we were staying. (How's that for "way opening"?) Now this was Spike's first time away from home, and he had been in Charleston for several months. So Warren was understandably concerned about his physical and mental well-being.
Knowing this, we had arranged our timing so that we had golf on Wednesday through Friday, and then spend Saturday and Sunday with Spike in Charleston, then finish up the golf on Monday and Tuesday the following week.
It turned out that Spike was perfectly fine and well adjusted to Navy life. Not the slightest hint of "Dad, take me home, please!!" And Warren could take such a happy report home to his wife and two daughters that Spike is fine and has become a Young Man to be Proud Of. (Not that there was much doubt on the issue, but, well, you know...)
There's lots more to the story, including superhero movies, an intoxicating afternoon of birdwatching, and alligators on the golf course. And I would be delighted to tell you more when I see you next.
The Dinosaur Hunt
Dr. Brinkman, who runs our dino hunting program, has a handful of volunteers that he collects at Dinosaur Provincial Park every summer. This typically includes a wonderful young lady from Australia, a charming couple from North Dakota (he's a surgeon, she's a nurse) several folks local to the Park, and Debbie and me. Other museum personnel and/or graduate students are often in on the fun as well.
But nobody I know calls him "Dr. Brinkman." In fact, I'm not sure he would respond to the title. So it's "Don." But I wanted you to know that he's got the PhD...
So Deb and I hadn't seen our dino friends in two years -- and it was deeply gratifying to me to learn that several of them had been following this blog and knew the stories that get told here. And I felt strongly that they were sharing in my commitment to reclaim this important part of my life.
During the prospecting phases of our work over the two weeks we were there, Deb and I found some really nice Hadrosaur (duck-billed dinosaur) pieces, including a maxilla (upper jaw bone), ilium (one of the three hip bones), and a tibia (one of the lower leg bones). Each was found in a different location, but each was (at least we thought!) "museum quality," the museum had several of each of these bones in excellent condition, and therefore had no scientific value for them. So they were left to erode back into the minerals from which they were made. Dust to dust.
We also found some nice teeth (from both plant- and meat-eating animals) and vertebrae, but once again, of no scientific value to the museum. Ah well.
But other members of our team found important fossils tht did need collecting, and Deb and I were part of the "did 'em out of the ground, cover 'em with plaster field jackets, and get 'em back to the truck" team. So we contributed in a meaningful way to the success of the two weeks we were there.
Oh! And this is where "the smell of the sage" comes in.
Imagine this, if you will:
It's afternoon, and you've been walking most of the day through the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park. You haven't found anything of "scientific value" all day, and your socks are rubbing your feet the wrong way, possibly raising a blister. Which, of course, you won't know until you get back to camp. It's getting warmer, the sun is too bright and there's not a breath of wind. And certainly no shade anywhere.
You're tired and you want to call it a day.
Because you're tired, you're making unwise decisions about ascending and descending the dozens of hills that comprise the badlands (see photo) -- coming close to slipping and falling down a 20- or 30-foot slope covered with very unhospitable-looking rocks. Your pack is feeling heavier by the minute and your drinking water supply is now warm and unpleasant tasting. And the bottle has slipped to the bottom of your pack, making it difficult to retrieve.
Right now, you're walking through a patch of tall green plants (revisit photo), which are a favorite haunt of rattlesnakes. So you're listening carefully for a warning rattle emerging from somewhere down around your feet -- hoping that you can react in time if the sound appears. (Rattle on the left? Move to the right! Rattle in front of you? Stop, then walk back to a safe distance! and so on...)
And, inexcusably, you start to feel a bit sorry for yourself.
Then, without the slightest warning, you are immersed in the aroma of wild sage. Which, in case you've never had the pleasure, is such a clean, invigorating scent that you feel completely remade in a matter of moments. And the scent brings a message that "All is well. All is well."
The Smell of the Sage -- Part 1
Well, well, well... It's been months since my last entry. April 26th to be exact. But it hasn't been for lack of interest that I haven't posted. And it hasn't been for lack of things to tell you. Many times I've said to myself "Geez, I want to post this!" and had the moment evaporate. So it's just been that I've been busy living: settling back into who I was and discovering who I've become.
I don't want to sit here at the computer and tell you trivial things: "I washed my car and it looks real nice." or whatever. You're busy too, and I don't want to waste your time. Or trivialize the blog.
But it's finally come to pass that I have a significant stretch of uncommitted time early in the morning (which is when I like to write here), and I want to catch you up on some important developments. This blog entry is all about my medical condition. The next one will be an update on the fun stuff.
Of foremost importance, the scans and X-rays I've had my last postings about The Long, Strange Trip have been negative. That's the good answer: Positive = bad. Negative = good.
The "nose-to-toes" PET scan on April 6th was, as reported previously, completely clear.
The follow-up CT scan to the two-spots-in-my-lungs issue took place on July 19th, and it showed that the spots had disappeared completely. So they weren't tumors, weren't aspirated food, but probably just a touch of pneumonia. But whatever the cause, it's in the rear-view mirror now.
I've had some puzzling pains in my upper abdomen, and am scheduled for surgery on Thursday the 25th. My doc tells me it should be straightforward and include an overnight stay in the hospital. And the recovery should be quick. He's the same guy that did the food tube work with me, and I feel completely confident in what he says.
A puzzling thing has happened to my teeth. I've gone maybe 40 years without a cavity, and a recent visit to a new dentist disclosed cavities on 18 teeth. Serious brown patches at the base of the teeth. Serious erosion at the root level. And (surprise!) all of those teeth are either in front of my mouth or on the side of my face that got all the radiation. I have an appointment with my radiation doc on Monday and hope to get some clarity on what's going on and what I have to look forward to.
One of the cavities went all the way to the pulp of the tooth, which, my dentist tells me, means a 50/50 chance for a root canal job in several months. We'll see. If there's a root canal job needed and if it's not successful, then the tooth would have to be pulled. And, due to the residual effect of the radiation, that would likely mean losing all the teeth in that row. (Something called "necrosis" sets in...)
This gives me, of course, the opportunity to be angry at my previous dentist for not having found these condidtions months ago and anxious about the future of my mouth. Self-righteous indignation -- ah, feels so good!
And it's ever so important, then, to walk quietly away from such indignation, re-focus on the here and now, and be profoundly grateful for all the good health that I have.
Whew! Now that we've got that all out of the way, let me tell you about a few of the good things that have happened to me in the last 3.5 months! "The Smell of the Sage -- Part 2" coming up next!
I don't want to sit here at the computer and tell you trivial things: "I washed my car and it looks real nice." or whatever. You're busy too, and I don't want to waste your time. Or trivialize the blog.
But it's finally come to pass that I have a significant stretch of uncommitted time early in the morning (which is when I like to write here), and I want to catch you up on some important developments. This blog entry is all about my medical condition. The next one will be an update on the fun stuff.
Of foremost importance, the scans and X-rays I've had my last postings about The Long, Strange Trip have been negative. That's the good answer: Positive = bad. Negative = good.
The "nose-to-toes" PET scan on April 6th was, as reported previously, completely clear.
The follow-up CT scan to the two-spots-in-my-lungs issue took place on July 19th, and it showed that the spots had disappeared completely. So they weren't tumors, weren't aspirated food, but probably just a touch of pneumonia. But whatever the cause, it's in the rear-view mirror now.
I've had some puzzling pains in my upper abdomen, and am scheduled for surgery on Thursday the 25th. My doc tells me it should be straightforward and include an overnight stay in the hospital. And the recovery should be quick. He's the same guy that did the food tube work with me, and I feel completely confident in what he says.
A puzzling thing has happened to my teeth. I've gone maybe 40 years without a cavity, and a recent visit to a new dentist disclosed cavities on 18 teeth. Serious brown patches at the base of the teeth. Serious erosion at the root level. And (surprise!) all of those teeth are either in front of my mouth or on the side of my face that got all the radiation. I have an appointment with my radiation doc on Monday and hope to get some clarity on what's going on and what I have to look forward to.
One of the cavities went all the way to the pulp of the tooth, which, my dentist tells me, means a 50/50 chance for a root canal job in several months. We'll see. If there's a root canal job needed and if it's not successful, then the tooth would have to be pulled. And, due to the residual effect of the radiation, that would likely mean losing all the teeth in that row. (Something called "necrosis" sets in...)
This gives me, of course, the opportunity to be angry at my previous dentist for not having found these condidtions months ago and anxious about the future of my mouth. Self-righteous indignation -- ah, feels so good!
And it's ever so important, then, to walk quietly away from such indignation, re-focus on the here and now, and be profoundly grateful for all the good health that I have.
Whew! Now that we've got that all out of the way, let me tell you about a few of the good things that have happened to me in the last 3.5 months! "The Smell of the Sage -- Part 2" coming up next!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
A Sign of the Times
But the parking spots closest to the front door are posted with signs like this one -- saving those spots for cancer patients.
When Deb and I first visited this facility, I thought it was very cool and very thoughtful -- these reserved parking spots. Clearly it would make life a little easier for "them": the folks who were suffering either from their cancer or from their treatments to make the cancer go away. And I felt a distance between me and "them." After all, I wasn't suffering from either disease or treatment. So we didn't park our car in these spots.
After several visits, I felt it would be okay if we parked our car in one of these spots. I still wasn't suffering, but I had surgeries behind me and before me. And radiation treatments. And chemo. And I certainly did have cancer. So I felt I qualified.
By ten weeks after our initial visit, I was deeply grateful for having these spots available when we had appointments. I was so weak that the difference between walking 15 feet to the front door of the office or walking 50 feet to the same door was huge. And the message on the signs now said much more to me than the words indicated. They seemed to say: "We understand what you're going through -- because we've seen so much of it long before you started coming. And all we can do for you is offer this small token: we want you to park here because we understand."
And after every visit, I would forget about the signs. But then as we pulled in to the parking lot for our next visit, there they were: the signs and their offering of understanding. And it made life just a little more tolerable.
Ever since then, I've parked in these spots without giving it serious thought. Yes, I am a cancer patient. And so I'm allowed this special parking privilege -- whether I need it or not.
But something happened to me during my last visit -- a visit I made just to pick up a form. I felt I no longer qualified to park in these special spaces. Just because I had had cancer didn't mean that I was still a patient. And more importantly, if I thought of myself as a cancer patient, I was holding myself within the confines of the disease. Identifying myself with an illness I no longer had.
If I'm declaring myself to be cancer-free (see the previous posting), then I could no longer take advantage of those parking spots set aside for cancer patients.
So from now on, when I visit my chemo doc, I will park my car the extra 50 feet away from the front door -- no matter how many empty spots there are for cancer patients -- and joyfully walk the extra distance. Walking which nowadays is no problem at all.
Friday, April 22, 2011
A Long, Strange Trip -- with the Toll Booth Behind Us
I have in front of me the Final Report on the PET scan done on April 6th of this year. The scan intended to determine the nature of the spot in my right lung. For the report, the examining doc compared this scan with PET scans performed on me April of 2009 and October of that same year. (In other words, a bit before my chemo and radiation treatements started and then again after they were completed.)
And one might say there's nothing to report. And that "nothing," my dear friend, would be a Good Thing. But in truth, there are several important things to report, those things are a Very Good Things indeed.
First, there is no sign of cancer anywhere. (Here's a brief medical explanation of the PET process: The PET scan consists of being injected with a sugar solution which is radioactive. The solution is given time to circulate throughout the body, where it will be preferentially taken up by cancer cells. This is called "FDG," but I don't know why... The sensing mechanism -- that is the great big metal doughnut -- then looks for spots in the body that "light up" due to higher concentrations of this radioactive sugar. Any such spots are identified as tumors. But nothing of that sort showed up on the scan. YAY!)
Actrually, the scan was not "nose to toes," as I thought it might be. It turned out to be "nose to knees," but that's okay. Ain't nothing going on below my knees.
During a post-scan visit with my lung doc, he mentioned that there is a rare sort of cancer that doesn't "light up" on a PET scan, but there's no reason to expect that I've contracted that.
So Good Thing #1 -- no sign of cancer.
Second, the examining doc noted that the spot in the upper lobe of my right lung -- the spot that started this Long, Strange Trip -- shows up on the previous two PET scans. It was there, and it hasn't changed since 2009. And it may have been there for years for all we know.
So Good Thing #2 -- whatever's going on in my right lung seems to be inert.
(In Doc Speak, Good Thing #1 is: "No evidence of FDG avid malignancy." And Good Thing #2 is: "Two-year stability of lingular opacity [is] in keeping with a benign etiology." Pretty neat, eh?)
Good Thing #3 is not a direct part of the scan procedure or the analysis thereof.
I've had this nagging concern for the last 18 months or so that, while my cancer had shown no signs of recurring at its original location, we hadn't done any scans to see if it had metasticized to somewhere else in my body. My three main docs routinely examined my head and neck with gentle probing -- but we hadn't looked at my lungs or liver or anywhere else with a scan as sophisticated as the PET. So I might still have a cancer, but it simply wasn't where we were looking. And in this light, the original cancer that produced the bump on my neck was readily visible -- and that's how we caught it. But a metastatic tumor in the lung... or liver...
But this latest PET scan had provided the best proof available that I was, in truth, cancer free. And this awareness has helped me recognize now how much that nagging concern had been weighing on me. And it's taking some serious time to adjust. I have to see myself in this new light: post-treatment and post-anxiety.
I understand, by the way, that this anxiety is perfectly normal for folks whose cancer is in remission: (as in: "Sure, things look okay right now, but...")
So while my body will always have telltale signs of the cancer and its treatment, I'm now giving myself permission to consider being cancer free for the rest of my life. And I guess that should feel wonderful, and maybe it will sometime soon; but right now it just feels... well, unusual.
So this Long, Strange Trip is at an end. And the rest of my life awaits. The concern about the spot on my lung proved to be unnecessary. But the Trip itself has been immensely helpful:
I've come a long way 'round to wind up back where I started. But I'm in a wonderfully different place.
And one might say there's nothing to report. And that "nothing," my dear friend, would be a Good Thing. But in truth, there are several important things to report, those things are a Very Good Things indeed.
First, there is no sign of cancer anywhere. (Here's a brief medical explanation of the PET process: The PET scan consists of being injected with a sugar solution which is radioactive. The solution is given time to circulate throughout the body, where it will be preferentially taken up by cancer cells. This is called "FDG," but I don't know why... The sensing mechanism -- that is the great big metal doughnut -- then looks for spots in the body that "light up" due to higher concentrations of this radioactive sugar. Any such spots are identified as tumors. But nothing of that sort showed up on the scan. YAY!)
Actrually, the scan was not "nose to toes," as I thought it might be. It turned out to be "nose to knees," but that's okay. Ain't nothing going on below my knees.
During a post-scan visit with my lung doc, he mentioned that there is a rare sort of cancer that doesn't "light up" on a PET scan, but there's no reason to expect that I've contracted that.
So Good Thing #1 -- no sign of cancer.
Second, the examining doc noted that the spot in the upper lobe of my right lung -- the spot that started this Long, Strange Trip -- shows up on the previous two PET scans. It was there, and it hasn't changed since 2009. And it may have been there for years for all we know.
So Good Thing #2 -- whatever's going on in my right lung seems to be inert.
(In Doc Speak, Good Thing #1 is: "No evidence of FDG avid malignancy." And Good Thing #2 is: "Two-year stability of lingular opacity [is] in keeping with a benign etiology." Pretty neat, eh?)
Good Thing #3 is not a direct part of the scan procedure or the analysis thereof.
I've had this nagging concern for the last 18 months or so that, while my cancer had shown no signs of recurring at its original location, we hadn't done any scans to see if it had metasticized to somewhere else in my body. My three main docs routinely examined my head and neck with gentle probing -- but we hadn't looked at my lungs or liver or anywhere else with a scan as sophisticated as the PET. So I might still have a cancer, but it simply wasn't where we were looking. And in this light, the original cancer that produced the bump on my neck was readily visible -- and that's how we caught it. But a metastatic tumor in the lung... or liver...
But this latest PET scan had provided the best proof available that I was, in truth, cancer free. And this awareness has helped me recognize now how much that nagging concern had been weighing on me. And it's taking some serious time to adjust. I have to see myself in this new light: post-treatment and post-anxiety.
I understand, by the way, that this anxiety is perfectly normal for folks whose cancer is in remission: (as in: "Sure, things look okay right now, but...")
So while my body will always have telltale signs of the cancer and its treatment, I'm now giving myself permission to consider being cancer free for the rest of my life. And I guess that should feel wonderful, and maybe it will sometime soon; but right now it just feels... well, unusual.
So this Long, Strange Trip is at an end. And the rest of my life awaits. The concern about the spot on my lung proved to be unnecessary. But the Trip itself has been immensely helpful:
I've come a long way 'round to wind up back where I started. But I'm in a wonderfully different place.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
A Long, Strange Trip -- on the Exit Ramp
We had a regularly scheduled visit to my radiation doc on Thursday the 14th. One of those "every three (or six or whatever) months" visits that my chemo doc, my E/N/T doc, and my radiation doc have called for. Normally, he probes gently around my neck area and looks into my mouth -- checking for a local recurrence of the cancer. I really like this guy in any case, and it's quite likely that his design of radiation treatments is largely responsible for my continued cancer-free contition. So it's perfunctory medicine, but a chance to reconnect with someone who was there for me at a critical time in my life.
This time around, though, he was also the first medical person I was scheduled to see who was ready, willing, and able to take a look at the PET scan (done on the 6th). Now you might well have thought that I would have been anxious to have a qualified person look at the scan results as soon as possible and tell me what they show about the spot on my lung -- which has turned into the principle reason for this Long, Strange Trip coming home from Baltimore.
Well, I certainly would have guessed that I'd be anxious in such circumstances, but I felt remarkably at ease. I had kept the PET scan disk sitting on the dining room table -- right next to the CT scan disk from Jennersville Hospital -- and so I felt that I had the answer in hand. And I felt that it didn't matter what the result was, just that I had one. Kinda strange, but then that's the kind of trip it's been...
Anyway, we showed up at the doc's office early to give him time to review both disks if he had a chance to do so. Turns out he didn't. That he was, in fact, backed up by other patient consultations. But that was okay too. It gave Deb and me a chance to sit in the examining room-- quietly -- and recall the times two years ago when such visits were fraught with anxiety. And so it was a chance to be thankful for the restitution of peace in our lives.
When he did show up -- with apologies for our being held up, because that's the kind of guy he is -- he had not only examined the PET scan, but had compared it to a CT scan of mine from two years ago. One that I had completely forgotten about. But I believe that it was taken before my treatments started -- kind of a base-line exam for future reference. And what he told us about what he saw was wonderful:
He saw that the spot currently residing in my lung had been there for at least these two years, and may, of course, been there a lot longer. And he listed for us several possible reasons for the spot being there -- all of which were non-cancerous.
Now my doc is Asian and his face reflects that marvelous sense of tranquility that one sees so often in so many Asian faces. But on that Thursday, you could see that he understood what this news would mean to us, and that he shared in the joy that the news brought with it. He had, of course, been with us since the start of my treatments and has been for me such a source of strength and comfort for years now. And so this day was a victory for the three of us (that is, him, Deb, and me): the spot's been there for a long time and hasn't changed in years. (Note: we still don't know what the spot is, and maybe never will, and maybe it doesn't matter now...)
I've got an appointment with my pulmonary doc next week on Tuesday the 19th -- and I expect him to give the PET scan disk a thorough going-over. And I'm feeling that his analysis is somehow more "official," since he is the lung guy and he is the one who ordered the PET scan in the first place. And for that reason, I feel that my Long, Strange Trip is still in progress.
But I also feel that I'm on the exit ramp and slowing down.
Anyone got change for a $10 bill?
This time around, though, he was also the first medical person I was scheduled to see who was ready, willing, and able to take a look at the PET scan (done on the 6th). Now you might well have thought that I would have been anxious to have a qualified person look at the scan results as soon as possible and tell me what they show about the spot on my lung -- which has turned into the principle reason for this Long, Strange Trip coming home from Baltimore.
Well, I certainly would have guessed that I'd be anxious in such circumstances, but I felt remarkably at ease. I had kept the PET scan disk sitting on the dining room table -- right next to the CT scan disk from Jennersville Hospital -- and so I felt that I had the answer in hand. And I felt that it didn't matter what the result was, just that I had one. Kinda strange, but then that's the kind of trip it's been...
Anyway, we showed up at the doc's office early to give him time to review both disks if he had a chance to do so. Turns out he didn't. That he was, in fact, backed up by other patient consultations. But that was okay too. It gave Deb and me a chance to sit in the examining room-- quietly -- and recall the times two years ago when such visits were fraught with anxiety. And so it was a chance to be thankful for the restitution of peace in our lives.
When he did show up -- with apologies for our being held up, because that's the kind of guy he is -- he had not only examined the PET scan, but had compared it to a CT scan of mine from two years ago. One that I had completely forgotten about. But I believe that it was taken before my treatments started -- kind of a base-line exam for future reference. And what he told us about what he saw was wonderful:
He saw that the spot currently residing in my lung had been there for at least these two years, and may, of course, been there a lot longer. And he listed for us several possible reasons for the spot being there -- all of which were non-cancerous.
Now my doc is Asian and his face reflects that marvelous sense of tranquility that one sees so often in so many Asian faces. But on that Thursday, you could see that he understood what this news would mean to us, and that he shared in the joy that the news brought with it. He had, of course, been with us since the start of my treatments and has been for me such a source of strength and comfort for years now. And so this day was a victory for the three of us (that is, him, Deb, and me): the spot's been there for a long time and hasn't changed in years. (Note: we still don't know what the spot is, and maybe never will, and maybe it doesn't matter now...)
I've got an appointment with my pulmonary doc next week on Tuesday the 19th -- and I expect him to give the PET scan disk a thorough going-over. And I'm feeling that his analysis is somehow more "official," since he is the lung guy and he is the one who ordered the PET scan in the first place. And for that reason, I feel that my Long, Strange Trip is still in progress.
But I also feel that I'm on the exit ramp and slowing down.
Anyone got change for a $10 bill?
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
A Long Strange Trip -- Is This My Exit?
So at the start of this LST, I stopped into an Emergency Room to check on a sharp pain in my chest. (Which was never really explained, but that's all right since it hasn't re-occurred.) And I get diagnosed with pneumonia. (Which I still don't totally believe, but I've stopped coughing, so that's all right too.) But the spot on my lungs that showed up on a CT scan kept this trip going. It wasn't all right...
So now on the next leg of the trip (and maybe the last one?), Deb and I have just come home from the PET scan facility with a CD copy of the scan results firmly in hand -- a scan of my lungs and everything else. A CD I hope to present to my radiation doc late next week for analysis. So that's as right as it can be at the moment.
If the scan proves to be negative, then I will feel comfortable in declaring this Long, Strange Trip -- that started driving home to West Chester from visiting my Dad in Baltimore over three weeks ago -- declaring that trip to be over.
A few recollections from today:
The scan itself:
The PET scan technician was great. A very upbeat, positive young man with a handful of useful euphemisms. Step one in the process of PET scanning is injecting a radioactive substance into the patient's arm and waiting for an hour or so until the solution travels throughout the body. Now he might have told me: "I'm going to inject you with a substance so dangerous that it gets delivered to the office and stored in a heavy lead container. It will react with cells throughout your anatomy, producing matter / anti-matter particles that will, in turn annihilate each other in a microburst of energy." Because that's what will happen. In fact, he told me, "I'm going to inject some sugar solution into your arm, then we wait until it circulates everywhere." Because that's what will happen.
And he might have told me: "Then we're going to strap you down to an uncomfortable table and run your body through a huge, ominous-looking plastic doughnut that is likely bring up any feelings of claustrophobia you've ever had. And the doughnut will catch the radiation particles as they are emitted from your body." But instead, he told me: "Then we're going to place you on the bed of the camera."
Pretty cool, eh?
(In fact, I've now become pretty much inured to getting scanned in giant plastic doughnuts, and have fallen asleep in the middle of the scan. In the middle of the doughnut. Truth.)
Breakfast at 11:30:
I was not supposed to eat anything after midnight before the scan, so by 11:30 or so, I was quite peckish. And there was a really nice diner (run by a Greek family, of course) close to the scan center. So Deb and I stopped for a bite. Actually quite a lot of bites... Great food, good service, and really nice coffee.
And one of the things that made the stop all the more special was the coffee mugs, which were quite heavy (as in sturdy) with the intriguing shape shown in the photo attached. Now, the shape of the mug won't mean anything to any of you -- until you read the name of the diner. And then it will only mean something to the folks here in the lower right-hand corner of Pennsylvania.
So let me fill in the rest of you. The restaurant is located in the town of Limerick. And the most notable feature in the town is the two gigantic cooling towers of the nuclear power plant which happens to be located in the town. And the shape of the coffee mugs (the gentle curve inwards on the lower half matched by a gentle curve outwards) closely mimics the shape of said cooling towers.
We did not ask the owner of the restaurant if the mugs were chosen for their similarity in shape to the key feature of the town's largest employer. We'd rather just keep the mystery going... (But we did buy a pair of the mugs. Kind of a memento.)
How I feel now:
I had not consciously felt any anxiety leading up to today's scan. As in, the scan will show what the scan will show and worrying about it is the worst thing I can possibly do.
I did, however, suggest to Deb that we have wine with dinner the last three nights in a row. Which is unusual for us... And I did finish my wine before she did, which is also unusual. So I guess there was some subliminal anxiety I wasn't aware of.
But!! On the drive home, I felt somehow ever-so-much lighter -- as if the seat belt in the car was holding me in place. That I might float away if I wasn't wearing it.
Which was a not-so-subtle reminder that what we tell ourselves is not always the total truth.
And I'm telling myself that I'm not really that anxious about the result. And I almost believe it.
So now on the next leg of the trip (and maybe the last one?), Deb and I have just come home from the PET scan facility with a CD copy of the scan results firmly in hand -- a scan of my lungs and everything else. A CD I hope to present to my radiation doc late next week for analysis. So that's as right as it can be at the moment.
If the scan proves to be negative, then I will feel comfortable in declaring this Long, Strange Trip -- that started driving home to West Chester from visiting my Dad in Baltimore over three weeks ago -- declaring that trip to be over.
A few recollections from today:
The scan itself:
The PET scan technician was great. A very upbeat, positive young man with a handful of useful euphemisms. Step one in the process of PET scanning is injecting a radioactive substance into the patient's arm and waiting for an hour or so until the solution travels throughout the body. Now he might have told me: "I'm going to inject you with a substance so dangerous that it gets delivered to the office and stored in a heavy lead container. It will react with cells throughout your anatomy, producing matter / anti-matter particles that will, in turn annihilate each other in a microburst of energy." Because that's what will happen. In fact, he told me, "I'm going to inject some sugar solution into your arm, then we wait until it circulates everywhere." Because that's what will happen.
And he might have told me: "Then we're going to strap you down to an uncomfortable table and run your body through a huge, ominous-looking plastic doughnut that is likely bring up any feelings of claustrophobia you've ever had. And the doughnut will catch the radiation particles as they are emitted from your body." But instead, he told me: "Then we're going to place you on the bed of the camera."
Pretty cool, eh?
(In fact, I've now become pretty much inured to getting scanned in giant plastic doughnuts, and have fallen asleep in the middle of the scan. In the middle of the doughnut. Truth.)
Breakfast at 11:30:
I was not supposed to eat anything after midnight before the scan, so by 11:30 or so, I was quite peckish. And there was a really nice diner (run by a Greek family, of course) close to the scan center. So Deb and I stopped for a bite. Actually quite a lot of bites... Great food, good service, and really nice coffee.
And one of the things that made the stop all the more special was the coffee mugs, which were quite heavy (as in sturdy) with the intriguing shape shown in the photo attached. Now, the shape of the mug won't mean anything to any of you -- until you read the name of the diner. And then it will only mean something to the folks here in the lower right-hand corner of Pennsylvania.
So let me fill in the rest of you. The restaurant is located in the town of Limerick. And the most notable feature in the town is the two gigantic cooling towers of the nuclear power plant which happens to be located in the town. And the shape of the coffee mugs (the gentle curve inwards on the lower half matched by a gentle curve outwards) closely mimics the shape of said cooling towers.
We did not ask the owner of the restaurant if the mugs were chosen for their similarity in shape to the key feature of the town's largest employer. We'd rather just keep the mystery going... (But we did buy a pair of the mugs. Kind of a memento.)
How I feel now:
I had not consciously felt any anxiety leading up to today's scan. As in, the scan will show what the scan will show and worrying about it is the worst thing I can possibly do.
I did, however, suggest to Deb that we have wine with dinner the last three nights in a row. Which is unusual for us... And I did finish my wine before she did, which is also unusual. So I guess there was some subliminal anxiety I wasn't aware of.
But!! On the drive home, I felt somehow ever-so-much lighter -- as if the seat belt in the car was holding me in place. That I might float away if I wasn't wearing it.
Which was a not-so-subtle reminder that what we tell ourselves is not always the total truth.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
A Long, Strange Trip -- Checking the Map
What I'm doing in this posting is "pulling off to the side of the road and hauling out the Rand/McNally..."
Here's a capsule summary of the trip so far: Driving home from visiting my Dad in Baltimore two weeks ago, I felt a sharp, intermittent pain in the area of my heart. Given my issues with blood clotting, this could have been extremely serious -- possibly lethal.
On the advice of my family doc (who is absolutely terrific), I drove to the closest hospital and went to the Emergency Room. The hospital was in Jennersville, PA, and the staff there got me an X-Ray and CT scan remarkably quickly. Since J'ville is a small, regional hospital, they didn't have anyone on duty capable of reading the scans, and so sent them off to a facility in Michigan for analysis. When the results came back, the ER doc announced -- rather happily, I thought -- "Good news! It's pneumonia!" The consequences of which, when you think of it, are much less severe than having a blood clot lurking around your heart. So it certainly did qualify as "Good news."
The doc then told me he wanted me to stay at the hospital for a day or two for treatment and continued monitoring. While I thought this was excessive (I'd been treated for pneumonia before as an outpatient back home), I didn't feel qualified to argue with the doc, so I signed myself in as an inpatient and spent the next two days cooling my heels in J'ville.
The doc also mentioned that the CT scan showed a spot in one of my lungs that was somewhat worrisome: the formal report on the scan mentioned that this type of structure could have been caused by a tumor. And, quite frankly, I'd been concerned for some time about the possibility that my cancer from two years ago might have metastasized elsewhere in my body -- and I thought I recalled some doc mentioning that the lungs were a likely target. So "Good news" was really "Good news / Bad news."
When I (finally!) got home, I got a recommendation for a pulmonary (i.e., lung specialist) doc from my family doc, which was a group practice that other members of my medical "team" knew well and respected highly. And we made an appointment. And the appointment was last Friday.
And the doc was very good. He spent considerable time looking at the CT scans by himself, and then invited Deb and me to look at the CT scan along with him on an office computer while he explained where the spot was (actually, there's two of them...) and what it might mean.
He was nowhere near assuming that the spots represented cancer, and explained that spots like the ones on the scan had numerous possible sources, including bacteria (a number of which carry pneumonia-like names), viruses (which require a considerably different treatment regimen), and environmental causes (such as dust from the 50-year-old paper from my Dad's house that I had been shredding for days just before I got sick...). Or metastatic cancer.
And the way this was coming together for me, the likelihood of the spots being cancer seemed more and more remote: in addition to the paper shredding extravaganza I had recently completed, I had been performing at the Academy of Natural Sciences for two straight days, playing with a lot of germ-laden kids. So the lung doc put me on (yet another) regimen of antibiotics -- and this one carries some pretty dire warnings, so it must be powerful stuff -- and told me to arrange a PET scan for several days after the antibiotics were all consumed. And then make an appointment to see him again.
The PET scan, I was told, "lights up" around a tumor -- although other conditions could also cause this "lighting up." So if the scan comes back negative, I'm in the clear -- just recovering from pneumonia. If the scan comes back positive, then a biopsy will be in order. And the doc says that, given the fairly small size of the spot, the biopsy might be able to remove it completely.
Oh, and the other good news is that a PET scan covers the entire body, so that if there were any other "hot spots," (i.e., potential metastatic tumors) they would also show up. Nose to toes.So Deb and I left the doc's office with a much clearer picture of things -- and a plan for the next couple of steps.
And with that, I will fold up the Rand/McNally and get back on the highway. Thanks for coming along!
Here's a capsule summary of the trip so far: Driving home from visiting my Dad in Baltimore two weeks ago, I felt a sharp, intermittent pain in the area of my heart. Given my issues with blood clotting, this could have been extremely serious -- possibly lethal.
On the advice of my family doc (who is absolutely terrific), I drove to the closest hospital and went to the Emergency Room. The hospital was in Jennersville, PA, and the staff there got me an X-Ray and CT scan remarkably quickly. Since J'ville is a small, regional hospital, they didn't have anyone on duty capable of reading the scans, and so sent them off to a facility in Michigan for analysis. When the results came back, the ER doc announced -- rather happily, I thought -- "Good news! It's pneumonia!" The consequences of which, when you think of it, are much less severe than having a blood clot lurking around your heart. So it certainly did qualify as "Good news."
The doc then told me he wanted me to stay at the hospital for a day or two for treatment and continued monitoring. While I thought this was excessive (I'd been treated for pneumonia before as an outpatient back home), I didn't feel qualified to argue with the doc, so I signed myself in as an inpatient and spent the next two days cooling my heels in J'ville.
The doc also mentioned that the CT scan showed a spot in one of my lungs that was somewhat worrisome: the formal report on the scan mentioned that this type of structure could have been caused by a tumor. And, quite frankly, I'd been concerned for some time about the possibility that my cancer from two years ago might have metastasized elsewhere in my body -- and I thought I recalled some doc mentioning that the lungs were a likely target. So "Good news" was really "Good news / Bad news."
When I (finally!) got home, I got a recommendation for a pulmonary (i.e., lung specialist) doc from my family doc, which was a group practice that other members of my medical "team" knew well and respected highly. And we made an appointment. And the appointment was last Friday.
And the doc was very good. He spent considerable time looking at the CT scans by himself, and then invited Deb and me to look at the CT scan along with him on an office computer while he explained where the spot was (actually, there's two of them...) and what it might mean.
He was nowhere near assuming that the spots represented cancer, and explained that spots like the ones on the scan had numerous possible sources, including bacteria (a number of which carry pneumonia-like names), viruses (which require a considerably different treatment regimen), and environmental causes (such as dust from the 50-year-old paper from my Dad's house that I had been shredding for days just before I got sick...). Or metastatic cancer.
And the way this was coming together for me, the likelihood of the spots being cancer seemed more and more remote: in addition to the paper shredding extravaganza I had recently completed, I had been performing at the Academy of Natural Sciences for two straight days, playing with a lot of germ-laden kids. So the lung doc put me on (yet another) regimen of antibiotics -- and this one carries some pretty dire warnings, so it must be powerful stuff -- and told me to arrange a PET scan for several days after the antibiotics were all consumed. And then make an appointment to see him again.
The PET scan, I was told, "lights up" around a tumor -- although other conditions could also cause this "lighting up." So if the scan comes back negative, I'm in the clear -- just recovering from pneumonia. If the scan comes back positive, then a biopsy will be in order. And the doc says that, given the fairly small size of the spot, the biopsy might be able to remove it completely.
Oh, and the other good news is that a PET scan covers the entire body, so that if there were any other "hot spots," (i.e., potential metastatic tumors) they would also show up. Nose to toes.So Deb and I left the doc's office with a much clearer picture of things -- and a plan for the next couple of steps.
And with that, I will fold up the Rand/McNally and get back on the highway. Thanks for coming along!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
A Long, Strange Trip -- with a Rest Stop
Well, well, well... things are starting to settle a bit:
My dry cough is pretty much gone -- replaced by an occasional "wet" cough, which is to be expected if one is recovering from pneumonia. (If that, in fact, was what was going on with me in Jennersville. I'm starting to wonder... Reading the X-Ray and CT scan reports, it surprises me that I don't see any mention of a pneumonia situation in either report. But maybe that's to be expected. How would I know? I'm just a passenger on this particular trip -- albeit a front-seat passenger. I'll ask the lung doc on Friday -- as described below.)
The antibiotics are a thing of the past and either:
(A) they worked and I feel much better or
(B) they had no effect on my illness but I feel better anyway.
But in either case, I feel much better. And the diarrhea that the antibiotics did cause is almost completely gone. At least now, I don't have to make sure I'm within sprinting distance of a bathroom at all times.
And people that I know and love dearly have been so supportive -- and their wishes and prayers are almost palpable. I know people who, when they are ill, do what they can to keep their condition a secret rather than letting their friends and family know. And I feel sorry for them, that they've decided to isolate themselves from such a powerful source of healing and strength. Yes, it takes a village to raise a child, but when do we truly stop being children in this context? My hunch is never...
I had an MRI on my head (Including my brain! I'd like to say it tickled, but it didn't.) and neck areas late last week, and everything came back normal. Further proof that the cancer has not returned locally.
Deb and I visited my chemo doc yesterday, and we talked extensively about the CT scan from Jennersville. He's dubious that a CT lung scan of someone who is suffering from pneumonia can give a totally accurate picture of what's going on. He supports our upcoming visit to a lung doc on Friday, and expects that he/she might well have us wait another couple of weeks to let my lungs return to a condition as normal as possible before any further investigation takes place.
He also suggested (this is important! pay attention!) that the cancer I had has a reputation of recurring locally, but not so much metasticizing elsewhere. So he's looking askance at the notion that the thing in my lung is another tumor. (Pretty cool, yeah?)
I then got a phone call from my E/N/T doc -- who left a message on our home phone -- asking what was going on, and would I please call him on his cell phone? Oh yes! So we talked for 5 or 10 minutes, and he seems to share the scepticism of my chemo doc: there's no reason yet to assume that the inclusion in my lung is cancerous. And then, he all but implored me to call him on his cell phone whenever I wanted to talk something over. I mean, geez!!
You know how, when you've pulled the car over into a rest stop off of I-95 or other major thoroughfare, got out of the car, filled it with gas, visited the bathroom, picked up a snack and/or some coffee, walked around for a while -- you know how you can wind up feeling totally refreshed and ready to hit the highway again? And that you've decided that life is good and that you're one lucky person to be who you are and where you are?
Well, that's how I feel right now. Let's hit the highway!
My dry cough is pretty much gone -- replaced by an occasional "wet" cough, which is to be expected if one is recovering from pneumonia. (If that, in fact, was what was going on with me in Jennersville. I'm starting to wonder... Reading the X-Ray and CT scan reports, it surprises me that I don't see any mention of a pneumonia situation in either report. But maybe that's to be expected. How would I know? I'm just a passenger on this particular trip -- albeit a front-seat passenger. I'll ask the lung doc on Friday -- as described below.)
The antibiotics are a thing of the past and either:
(A) they worked and I feel much better or
(B) they had no effect on my illness but I feel better anyway.
But in either case, I feel much better. And the diarrhea that the antibiotics did cause is almost completely gone. At least now, I don't have to make sure I'm within sprinting distance of a bathroom at all times.
And people that I know and love dearly have been so supportive -- and their wishes and prayers are almost palpable. I know people who, when they are ill, do what they can to keep their condition a secret rather than letting their friends and family know. And I feel sorry for them, that they've decided to isolate themselves from such a powerful source of healing and strength. Yes, it takes a village to raise a child, but when do we truly stop being children in this context? My hunch is never...
I had an MRI on my head (Including my brain! I'd like to say it tickled, but it didn't.) and neck areas late last week, and everything came back normal. Further proof that the cancer has not returned locally.
Deb and I visited my chemo doc yesterday, and we talked extensively about the CT scan from Jennersville. He's dubious that a CT lung scan of someone who is suffering from pneumonia can give a totally accurate picture of what's going on. He supports our upcoming visit to a lung doc on Friday, and expects that he/she might well have us wait another couple of weeks to let my lungs return to a condition as normal as possible before any further investigation takes place.
He also suggested (this is important! pay attention!) that the cancer I had has a reputation of recurring locally, but not so much metasticizing elsewhere. So he's looking askance at the notion that the thing in my lung is another tumor. (Pretty cool, yeah?)
I then got a phone call from my E/N/T doc -- who left a message on our home phone -- asking what was going on, and would I please call him on his cell phone? Oh yes! So we talked for 5 or 10 minutes, and he seems to share the scepticism of my chemo doc: there's no reason yet to assume that the inclusion in my lung is cancerous. And then, he all but implored me to call him on his cell phone whenever I wanted to talk something over. I mean, geez!!
You know how, when you've pulled the car over into a rest stop off of I-95 or other major thoroughfare, got out of the car, filled it with gas, visited the bathroom, picked up a snack and/or some coffee, walked around for a while -- you know how you can wind up feeling totally refreshed and ready to hit the highway again? And that you've decided that life is good and that you're one lucky person to be who you are and where you are?
Well, that's how I feel right now. Let's hit the highway!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
A Long, Strange Trip -- Chapter 2
The story at the end of the previous chapter/posting looked like it was ready to close out: Randy gets sick, Randy goes to the hospital, Randy gets better and goes home. Geez, I wish...
The wheels started to fall off that story during a visit with my family physician on Friday morning. (That would be March 11, for those of you keeping score...) She looked at the reports of the X-Ray and CT scan and just shook her head and said: "I don't think pneumonia had anything to do with your chest pain." While that was a bit disturbing (missed diagnoses are never reassuring!), it sounded "right" somehow. I had pneumonia several years ago and what I was feeling on Tuesday during my drive home to West Chester was totally different from what I felt back then. But I guess I was so relieved that there was no sign of a blood clot that I wasn't really paying close attention to what the pain was (as opposed to what it wasn't).
But more important than the chest pain issue was the wording in the CT scan report. And I was hoping that she would be familiar with a couple of terms that I had never heard, but which didn't sound very encouraging. (And Google searches on the words in question were even more alarming.)
The report said my lung(s) might have "primary or metastatic neoplasm; [and that] bronchioalveolar carcinoma often contains [such structures as those identified in the scan]." I won't bother putting in links here for the puzzling terms -- you probably recognize the "hot button" words the report uses...
So, just in case you're losing track here (which would be perfectly understandable), allow me to summarize where we are: I go to an Emergency Room because of a pain in my chest. The pain is (quite possibly) misidentified as caused by pneumonia. But the lab tests to help diagnose the source of the pain show up the possiblility that my cancer has spread to my lungs.
So that was last Friday, and it's now late Wednesday. And I've been trying ever since I got home to get the attention of one of the doctors who treated me for cancer: What does this all mean? Has my cancer metastasized? Why haven't we ever scanned my lungs or liver or anywhere else to check to see if it's moved to somewhere else?
My family doc has been terrific, but she readily admits that the terms in the scan report are beyond her training and experience. (That's one of the things I like so much about her! She will readily admit that there's stuff she doesn't know and needs to find out about.) I've taken copies of the scan reports to my chemo doc and my E/N/T doc, but haven't heard back from either one of them. So she's put in a separate "professional" request to my chemo doc to try and get his attention. My specialist docs are busy people -- and I think they're pretty well convinced that I'm out of the woods on this cancer thing.
And I hope and pray they're right and my anxieties are baseless.
Oh yeah, one more thing: the treatment I got at the Jennersville hospital (which included up to three different types of antibiotic at the same time), seems to have wiped out all the "good" bacteria in my digestive tract, leaving me with a severe case of diarrhea. I kind of wish I had the time and energy to get annoyed at that...
And what, pray tell, caused the serious chest pain that started all this?
More later when things clarify.
The wheels started to fall off that story during a visit with my family physician on Friday morning. (That would be March 11, for those of you keeping score...) She looked at the reports of the X-Ray and CT scan and just shook her head and said: "I don't think pneumonia had anything to do with your chest pain." While that was a bit disturbing (missed diagnoses are never reassuring!), it sounded "right" somehow. I had pneumonia several years ago and what I was feeling on Tuesday during my drive home to West Chester was totally different from what I felt back then. But I guess I was so relieved that there was no sign of a blood clot that I wasn't really paying close attention to what the pain was (as opposed to what it wasn't).
But more important than the chest pain issue was the wording in the CT scan report. And I was hoping that she would be familiar with a couple of terms that I had never heard, but which didn't sound very encouraging. (And Google searches on the words in question were even more alarming.)
The report said my lung(s) might have "primary or metastatic neoplasm; [and that] bronchioalveolar carcinoma often contains [such structures as those identified in the scan]." I won't bother putting in links here for the puzzling terms -- you probably recognize the "hot button" words the report uses...
So, just in case you're losing track here (which would be perfectly understandable), allow me to summarize where we are: I go to an Emergency Room because of a pain in my chest. The pain is (quite possibly) misidentified as caused by pneumonia. But the lab tests to help diagnose the source of the pain show up the possiblility that my cancer has spread to my lungs.
So that was last Friday, and it's now late Wednesday. And I've been trying ever since I got home to get the attention of one of the doctors who treated me for cancer: What does this all mean? Has my cancer metastasized? Why haven't we ever scanned my lungs or liver or anywhere else to check to see if it's moved to somewhere else?
My family doc has been terrific, but she readily admits that the terms in the scan report are beyond her training and experience. (That's one of the things I like so much about her! She will readily admit that there's stuff she doesn't know and needs to find out about.) I've taken copies of the scan reports to my chemo doc and my E/N/T doc, but haven't heard back from either one of them. So she's put in a separate "professional" request to my chemo doc to try and get his attention. My specialist docs are busy people -- and I think they're pretty well convinced that I'm out of the woods on this cancer thing.
And I hope and pray they're right and my anxieties are baseless.
Oh yeah, one more thing: the treatment I got at the Jennersville hospital (which included up to three different types of antibiotic at the same time), seems to have wiped out all the "good" bacteria in my digestive tract, leaving me with a severe case of diarrhea. I kind of wish I had the time and energy to get annoyed at that...
And what, pray tell, caused the serious chest pain that started all this?
More later when things clarify.
A Long, Strange Trip -- the Beginning
(I get the feeling this is likely to be a long story, so I thought I'd better break it up into chapters.)
Okay, this story starts with a head cold. Nasty, but simple and straightforward. It's the cold I mentioned in the previous post about the Turks Head Jugglers practice session. Lots of coughing, bringing up that greenish yellow glop, sinus cleaning (for some details, see http://www.webmd.com/allergies/sinus-pain-pressure-9/neti-pots) and related activities. Tedious, but nothing worse.
On the Saturday described in the previous posting (that would be March 5th), I felt that I was coming out of the cold and should be fine in a couple more days. And on that basis, I scheduled a trip to Baltimore on the following Tuesday to be with my Dad and brother to finish some paperwork. (I had delayed this visit because of my cold, and was eager to get this paperwork stuff out of the way. You see, my Dad's in a retirement facility, and the staff there really doesn't want to see you if you're possibly contagious.)
So on the Tuesday, suffering from nothing other than a dry cough, I packed the paperwork into the car and headed south. After 20 minutes or so of driving, I felt a pain in my chest. Right over my heart. It came and went sporadically, and on a Pain Scale of 0 to 10, it was about a 3.
(Bit of explanation might be helpful here: You may recall that I've had some blood clot issues over the last several years. And the really dangerous part of these "Deep-Vein Thrombosis" episodes is that part or all of the clot might break loose and travel with the blood flow back to the heart and/or lungs. This can be fatal and, in fact, killed a nephew of mine just six months or so ago. So unexplained pain in the chest is something that calls for close attention. Especially if it's camped out right over the heart. And now back to the story.)
As I drove, I decided that the chest pain might simply be a muscle spasm caused by several weeks of inactivity. Because of the cold. And that spasm might be aggravated because the spot in question was right where my seat belt crossed my chest. Or it could be a blood clot broken loose. Not a nice set of choices.
I drove to my brother Warren's house in suburban Baltimore and found, after walking aroud for a while and having lunch, that the pain disappeared completely. So I decided to forget it. I mean, you can't live your life chasing down every little ache and pain and assuming the worst. You know? You'd wind up living in a sterilized plastic bubble, afraid to do anaything at all... But, come to think of it, I did tell Warren what to do in case I collapsed. Just in case. I mean, you can't just ignore the signs your body gives you that things aren't right. You know? There's a balance here.
So Warren and I drove to Dad's facility and got the necessary paperwork squared away. And all this time, my chest felt just fine -- much to Warren's relief. Oh, and mine too.
On my drive back to West Chester, the pain in my chest returned, but it was registering a 6. I called Deb on my cell phone and asked her to get in touch with our family doctor and ask for an opinion as to what to do. The answer came back quite quickly and was unambiguous: find the closest Emergency Room and sign in.
Mildred, my GPS system and close companion for occasions like this, told me that the closest hospital was in Jennersville, and so we left the road for home and started off towards J'ville.
Fortunately, the ER had little ongoing business when I showed up. So I got an X-Ray and a CT scan of the area around my heart in short order. Since J'ville is a rather smallish hospital and I had shown up after 5:00 PM, they had to send the CT scan to Michigan to have a radiologist there analyze what was going on. (They used to send such things to India, but had too much trouble with the accent...) But hey, isn't technology wonderful? Sometimes? Maybe most of the time? I mean I'm sitting in the ER of a small-town hospital in the late afternoon getting (what I hoped was) high-quality analysis of my scan in real time!
By this time, Deb had driven to J'ville -- God bless her! -- so the two of us waited for the 30 minutes or so it took to get the analysis done. And the ER doctor came back and said: "Good news! It's pneumonia!" Not something one hears often, I will grant you, but given the alternative (i.e., a life-threatening blood clot), pneumonia was, in fact, good news. He told us the scan showed no trace of blood clotting aroud the heart. Yay!!
The doc told us that they wanted me to stay overnight -- and possibly two nights -- just in case. This seemed excessive to me, I mean I walked in under my own steam and felt pretty much okay, except for this dry cough. But he rumbled on and on about "leaving against medical advice" and having to signing releases and so forth, so it seemed easier just to stay.
Which I did. And during the next two days, I received antibiotics via IV's and nebulizer treatments for the cough. And other than that, I just tried to figure out how to stay sane. Because as far as I was feeling, I was still just going home from Baltimore, and taking 48-plus hours to drive 80 miles seemed a bit much. But Deb had brought me books and sudoku puzzles, and that was a big help. And the food was actually pretty good.
So that might have been the end of it. The antibiotics clearing out the pneumonia bacteria and I leave J'ville on Thursday, feeling great.
It hasn't worked out that way. More in the next chapter. Stay tuned. (Geez, I wish I knew what to do about this dry cough!)
Okay, this story starts with a head cold. Nasty, but simple and straightforward. It's the cold I mentioned in the previous post about the Turks Head Jugglers practice session. Lots of coughing, bringing up that greenish yellow glop, sinus cleaning (for some details, see http://www.webmd.com/allergies/sinus-pain-pressure-9/neti-pots) and related activities. Tedious, but nothing worse.
On the Saturday described in the previous posting (that would be March 5th), I felt that I was coming out of the cold and should be fine in a couple more days. And on that basis, I scheduled a trip to Baltimore on the following Tuesday to be with my Dad and brother to finish some paperwork. (I had delayed this visit because of my cold, and was eager to get this paperwork stuff out of the way. You see, my Dad's in a retirement facility, and the staff there really doesn't want to see you if you're possibly contagious.)
So on the Tuesday, suffering from nothing other than a dry cough, I packed the paperwork into the car and headed south. After 20 minutes or so of driving, I felt a pain in my chest. Right over my heart. It came and went sporadically, and on a Pain Scale of 0 to 10, it was about a 3.
(Bit of explanation might be helpful here: You may recall that I've had some blood clot issues over the last several years. And the really dangerous part of these "Deep-Vein Thrombosis" episodes is that part or all of the clot might break loose and travel with the blood flow back to the heart and/or lungs. This can be fatal and, in fact, killed a nephew of mine just six months or so ago. So unexplained pain in the chest is something that calls for close attention. Especially if it's camped out right over the heart. And now back to the story.)
As I drove, I decided that the chest pain might simply be a muscle spasm caused by several weeks of inactivity. Because of the cold. And that spasm might be aggravated because the spot in question was right where my seat belt crossed my chest. Or it could be a blood clot broken loose. Not a nice set of choices.
I drove to my brother Warren's house in suburban Baltimore and found, after walking aroud for a while and having lunch, that the pain disappeared completely. So I decided to forget it. I mean, you can't live your life chasing down every little ache and pain and assuming the worst. You know? You'd wind up living in a sterilized plastic bubble, afraid to do anaything at all... But, come to think of it, I did tell Warren what to do in case I collapsed. Just in case. I mean, you can't just ignore the signs your body gives you that things aren't right. You know? There's a balance here.
So Warren and I drove to Dad's facility and got the necessary paperwork squared away. And all this time, my chest felt just fine -- much to Warren's relief. Oh, and mine too.
On my drive back to West Chester, the pain in my chest returned, but it was registering a 6. I called Deb on my cell phone and asked her to get in touch with our family doctor and ask for an opinion as to what to do. The answer came back quite quickly and was unambiguous: find the closest Emergency Room and sign in.
Mildred, my GPS system and close companion for occasions like this, told me that the closest hospital was in Jennersville, and so we left the road for home and started off towards J'ville.
Fortunately, the ER had little ongoing business when I showed up. So I got an X-Ray and a CT scan of the area around my heart in short order. Since J'ville is a rather smallish hospital and I had shown up after 5:00 PM, they had to send the CT scan to Michigan to have a radiologist there analyze what was going on. (They used to send such things to India, but had too much trouble with the accent...) But hey, isn't technology wonderful? Sometimes? Maybe most of the time? I mean I'm sitting in the ER of a small-town hospital in the late afternoon getting (what I hoped was) high-quality analysis of my scan in real time!
By this time, Deb had driven to J'ville -- God bless her! -- so the two of us waited for the 30 minutes or so it took to get the analysis done. And the ER doctor came back and said: "Good news! It's pneumonia!" Not something one hears often, I will grant you, but given the alternative (i.e., a life-threatening blood clot), pneumonia was, in fact, good news. He told us the scan showed no trace of blood clotting aroud the heart. Yay!!
The doc told us that they wanted me to stay overnight -- and possibly two nights -- just in case. This seemed excessive to me, I mean I walked in under my own steam and felt pretty much okay, except for this dry cough. But he rumbled on and on about "leaving against medical advice" and having to signing releases and so forth, so it seemed easier just to stay.
Which I did. And during the next two days, I received antibiotics via IV's and nebulizer treatments for the cough. And other than that, I just tried to figure out how to stay sane. Because as far as I was feeling, I was still just going home from Baltimore, and taking 48-plus hours to drive 80 miles seemed a bit much. But Deb had brought me books and sudoku puzzles, and that was a big help. And the food was actually pretty good.
So that might have been the end of it. The antibiotics clearing out the pneumonia bacteria and I leave J'ville on Thursday, feeling great.
It hasn't worked out that way. More in the next chapter. Stay tuned. (Geez, I wish I knew what to do about this dry cough!)
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Just another Saturday morning...
at West Chester Friends School Gymnasium: time and place for our regular Turks Head Jugglers practice session. And here's a report on that:
I'm battling a nasty head cold and probably wouldn't have gone to the gym at all this morning(too little energy to practice much and fear of infecting someone else), except that I hadn't arranged for someone else to unlock the door and monitor the group's activities. So I grabbed a sudoku puzzle and headed out. (I didn't take my prop bag, as it would only provide temptation to start practicing in earnest, and I didn't want to expend the energy.) Picked up a coffee on the way, and promised myself I would cruise back on home as soon as another member of the THJ Executive Committee (i.e., someone else with a key) showed up to run things.
So at 8:45 AM, I was sitting on a chair in the gym with the puzzle in my lap, sipping my coffee. And that's when the magic started.
Travis was first to show up. We exchanged a few pleasantries and he began unloading his prop bag. He's a long-term member of the Committee, and with the gym safely under his supervision, I could have left then and there. But I hadn't finished my coffee, so I decided to hang around for a while. At least until I finish my coffee.
Christian showed up next, and even though it wasn't the "official" 9:00 AM starting time, we already had 2.5 jugglers in the room. ("Hmmm," I thought, "at this rate, we're going to have a nice-sized crowd!") He smiled at Travis and me and started practicing. As is so often the case, Christian spent his time polishing juggling patterns that were already beautiful. And the beauty comes not from the patterns themselves, but the way in which Christian performs them. The elegance and (seeming) simplicity with which he juggles is unlike anything I've ever seen. He's a tall, slender young man who appears to be several centuries away from where he really belongs -- which is in a midaeval King's throne room dressed in jester's livery, accompanied by musicians on lutes and recorders. I could watch him all day...
Travis, in the mean time, was tossing his 4-ball shower pattern much higher than necessary -- a good practice for polishing a 5-ball shower. And preparation for tricks beyond. Unlike Christian's jewel-like juggling, Travis brings power and accuracy to his practice. A lovely study in contrasts.
David and his son Eli are the next to arrive and, after quick greetings all around, they too unpack and start to work. Eli (who's been a protege of mine on diabolo for several years now), decides to stand in front of me and demonstrate his ever-expanding repertoire of tricks. I feel honored and grateful. And amazed at what he's learning and how quickly he's progressing. When he and I started working together, I thought that, with enough practice, Eli would become competent. Silly me. He's now blossoming beautifully and developing his own style. I tell him that I am truly impressed with what he's doing, and he beams.
David's working with his (newly acquired) poi swings, making huge circles around his (very tall) body. His patterns are slow and deliberate. Carefully executed. It occurs to me that this controlled, mental approach to juggling is the way he gets to be so good at so many juggling props. Much to be admired -- and, perhaps imitated!
I make a suggestion to Eli (from a germ-proof 10 feet away) about stick positioning on several of his diabolo tricks. He listens politely and nods. David asks him if he understood what I told him and he answers, "Yeah, Randy told me that stuff a year ago." (But Eli is much too polite to have mentioned that fact to me!)
Travis begins working on a 4-club pattern, which is quite smooth and looks nice. But the pattern is only in preparation for his continued assault on a 5-club cascade. It's taken him roughly a year to get this far with the 4-to-5 club transition, and his efforts make you want to stand up and cheer him on. Yes, Travis, it's closer now than ever before!
Rich shows up with his two charming daughters. The oldest one (who's 12ish) has the "forward cross-follow" poi pattern absolutely nailed and is working hard on the "reverse" version of the same trick. When she gets both versions of this trick down cold, she will be able to dance across the gym floor freely with her poi swings surrounding her in big, colorful circles. I've told her several times that, if she slowed the pattern down, it would be easier to find and fix the problems she was having. Hard advice for a 12-year-old. But I think she's been watching David and his progress with large, slow, deliberate movements and taken a lesson from that. Once again, doing and showing prove more successful that telling and explaining.
Rich and his younger daughter are working on her 3-ball cascade pattern. And it's coming along just fine.
Christian has picked up another ball and has started polishing his 4-ball Mills Mess pattern -- something that maybe 3% of all active jugglers can do. I can't do it and I don't think anyone else in the club can either. Rich stops what he's doing and walks over to me to ask -- in a low voice, "It looks like he's doing Mills Mess, but with 4 balls rather than 3. Is that right? Can you do that?" (Ah! Time for some community building!) I call out, "Christian, could you please explain that last pattern to Rich?"
Christian (who seems quite shy) is quite pleased to be consulted (and now, thanks to me, he and Rich know each other by name). He comes over to Rich and me and begins an articulate and detailed explanation of the trick. As he begins this talk, half the gym stops what they're doing so they can listen in. As he talks, Christian's voice gets a little firmer and a little louder. He demonstrates the left-hand portion of the trick, then the right-hand portion, which is a mirror image of the left. When he puts the two halves of the trick together, the balls seem to resonate in the Harmony of the Spheres. You get the feeling that they would continue to perform the trick all by themselves -- even if Christian were to walk away from them. They would just stay suspended, moving through this elegant, weaving pattern with no human assistance or intervention.
Rich's younger daughter walks into the kitchen area adjoining the gym and returns with two books from our small "how-to-do-it" juggling library. I am impressed that someone so young would find value in researching juggling tricks in books rather than just flailing away with the props themselves. But I refrain from telling her this -- you never know but that she might stop reading immediately.
A little later, Rich and Eli fall into a very intense 2-person diabolo workshop. Each knows tricks and techniques that the other doesn't, and each is delighted to share. After 15 or 20 minutes of watching this, I walk over to them for a bit of a chat.
Eli asks me about a stalling problem he's encountered with the elevator trick. I assure the problem was not with him and not with his diabolo, but with his diabolo string. I explain that different types of diabolo string have different coefficients of friction, and that the elevator trick requires a unusually high coefficient. I promise to bring in some fresh string with more friction so he can try it out. This leads to a 10-minute, 3-person discussion of diabolo string and (as you probably guessed) diabolo sticks.
I look over to the other end of the gym and see that Rich's older daughter has found the school's (ground-level) balance beam and is walking it while doing the forward cross-follow, then spinning around and walking the other direction doing the reverse cross-follow. Wait! 20 minutes ago, she couldn't do that reverse pattern at all, and now she's transitioning smoothly from forward to reverse while walking a 4-inch wide beam! It looks great -- and I tell her so.
David and Eli begin working on their ball-passing skills. Eli drops a ball and, without interrupting the pattern in the least, picks up the ball and returns it to the pattern. I had no idea he could do that. Or anything like that.
It occurs to me that few if any of these delightful people would be practicing their juggling if it weren't for the Turks Head program. And that they wouldn't know each other. And therefore be unable to share and learn and grow.
Travis has picked up his 5th club and is patiently working with the complete set. One of the toughest parts of large-number juggling (that is, five and up) is just getting the pattern started and smoothly running. Travis is getting 8 to 10 throws per try, which means that the majority of his 5 clubs are getting two tosses apiece. It's dizzying to watch.
Rich and his youngest daughter are now playing catch with a diabolo -- tossing it from dad's string to daughter's string and back again. She's having a wonderful time, and certainly no one wants to spoil it by pointing out the terrific eye/hand co-ordination she's developing or the patience she's learning, or... you know, all that other stuff.
Paige and her son and her son's friend show up. And it's good to see them. Over the last several years, her son has made considerable efforts to find "his" juggling prop, but it just wasn't happening. But he recently discovered yo-yo's and is making formidable progress therewith. Like Eli, he wants me to see what he's doing and allow me to provide lavish "attaboy's" in response. Easy to do -- and an honor.
The Saturday sessions of the Turks Head Jugglers are scheduled to run from 9:00 to 11:00 AM. And my original plan was to be home and tucked up in bed by 9:45 at the latest. I look up at the clock and find that it's now 10:45 and the practice shows no sign of slowing down.
But if the practice is not slowing down, I certainly am. With a bit of reluctance, I bid everyone a good day, thank them for coming, and ask that they stay well.
As I put away my folding chair, pick up my coffee cup (which has been empty for well over an hour), and my (barely touched) sudoku puzzle, it occurs to me that everyone there -- with the exception of me -- would be leaving the gym as a significantly better juggler than when they showed up that morning.
And I had the deeply gratifying experience of watching it all happen -- and now, the pleasure of reporting it all to you.
I'm battling a nasty head cold and probably wouldn't have gone to the gym at all this morning(too little energy to practice much and fear of infecting someone else), except that I hadn't arranged for someone else to unlock the door and monitor the group's activities. So I grabbed a sudoku puzzle and headed out. (I didn't take my prop bag, as it would only provide temptation to start practicing in earnest, and I didn't want to expend the energy.) Picked up a coffee on the way, and promised myself I would cruise back on home as soon as another member of the THJ Executive Committee (i.e., someone else with a key) showed up to run things.
So at 8:45 AM, I was sitting on a chair in the gym with the puzzle in my lap, sipping my coffee. And that's when the magic started.
Travis was first to show up. We exchanged a few pleasantries and he began unloading his prop bag. He's a long-term member of the Committee, and with the gym safely under his supervision, I could have left then and there. But I hadn't finished my coffee, so I decided to hang around for a while. At least until I finish my coffee.
Christian showed up next, and even though it wasn't the "official" 9:00 AM starting time, we already had 2.5 jugglers in the room. ("Hmmm," I thought, "at this rate, we're going to have a nice-sized crowd!") He smiled at Travis and me and started practicing. As is so often the case, Christian spent his time polishing juggling patterns that were already beautiful. And the beauty comes not from the patterns themselves, but the way in which Christian performs them. The elegance and (seeming) simplicity with which he juggles is unlike anything I've ever seen. He's a tall, slender young man who appears to be several centuries away from where he really belongs -- which is in a midaeval King's throne room dressed in jester's livery, accompanied by musicians on lutes and recorders. I could watch him all day...
Travis, in the mean time, was tossing his 4-ball shower pattern much higher than necessary -- a good practice for polishing a 5-ball shower. And preparation for tricks beyond. Unlike Christian's jewel-like juggling, Travis brings power and accuracy to his practice. A lovely study in contrasts.
David and his son Eli are the next to arrive and, after quick greetings all around, they too unpack and start to work. Eli (who's been a protege of mine on diabolo for several years now), decides to stand in front of me and demonstrate his ever-expanding repertoire of tricks. I feel honored and grateful. And amazed at what he's learning and how quickly he's progressing. When he and I started working together, I thought that, with enough practice, Eli would become competent. Silly me. He's now blossoming beautifully and developing his own style. I tell him that I am truly impressed with what he's doing, and he beams.
David's working with his (newly acquired) poi swings, making huge circles around his (very tall) body. His patterns are slow and deliberate. Carefully executed. It occurs to me that this controlled, mental approach to juggling is the way he gets to be so good at so many juggling props. Much to be admired -- and, perhaps imitated!
I make a suggestion to Eli (from a germ-proof 10 feet away) about stick positioning on several of his diabolo tricks. He listens politely and nods. David asks him if he understood what I told him and he answers, "Yeah, Randy told me that stuff a year ago." (But Eli is much too polite to have mentioned that fact to me!)
Travis begins working on a 4-club pattern, which is quite smooth and looks nice. But the pattern is only in preparation for his continued assault on a 5-club cascade. It's taken him roughly a year to get this far with the 4-to-5 club transition, and his efforts make you want to stand up and cheer him on. Yes, Travis, it's closer now than ever before!
Rich shows up with his two charming daughters. The oldest one (who's 12ish) has the "forward cross-follow" poi pattern absolutely nailed and is working hard on the "reverse" version of the same trick. When she gets both versions of this trick down cold, she will be able to dance across the gym floor freely with her poi swings surrounding her in big, colorful circles. I've told her several times that, if she slowed the pattern down, it would be easier to find and fix the problems she was having. Hard advice for a 12-year-old. But I think she's been watching David and his progress with large, slow, deliberate movements and taken a lesson from that. Once again, doing and showing prove more successful that telling and explaining.
Rich and his younger daughter are working on her 3-ball cascade pattern. And it's coming along just fine.
Christian has picked up another ball and has started polishing his 4-ball Mills Mess pattern -- something that maybe 3% of all active jugglers can do. I can't do it and I don't think anyone else in the club can either. Rich stops what he's doing and walks over to me to ask -- in a low voice, "It looks like he's doing Mills Mess, but with 4 balls rather than 3. Is that right? Can you do that?" (Ah! Time for some community building!) I call out, "Christian, could you please explain that last pattern to Rich?"
Christian (who seems quite shy) is quite pleased to be consulted (and now, thanks to me, he and Rich know each other by name). He comes over to Rich and me and begins an articulate and detailed explanation of the trick. As he begins this talk, half the gym stops what they're doing so they can listen in. As he talks, Christian's voice gets a little firmer and a little louder. He demonstrates the left-hand portion of the trick, then the right-hand portion, which is a mirror image of the left. When he puts the two halves of the trick together, the balls seem to resonate in the Harmony of the Spheres. You get the feeling that they would continue to perform the trick all by themselves -- even if Christian were to walk away from them. They would just stay suspended, moving through this elegant, weaving pattern with no human assistance or intervention.
Rich's younger daughter walks into the kitchen area adjoining the gym and returns with two books from our small "how-to-do-it" juggling library. I am impressed that someone so young would find value in researching juggling tricks in books rather than just flailing away with the props themselves. But I refrain from telling her this -- you never know but that she might stop reading immediately.
A little later, Rich and Eli fall into a very intense 2-person diabolo workshop. Each knows tricks and techniques that the other doesn't, and each is delighted to share. After 15 or 20 minutes of watching this, I walk over to them for a bit of a chat.
Eli asks me about a stalling problem he's encountered with the elevator trick. I assure the problem was not with him and not with his diabolo, but with his diabolo string. I explain that different types of diabolo string have different coefficients of friction, and that the elevator trick requires a unusually high coefficient. I promise to bring in some fresh string with more friction so he can try it out. This leads to a 10-minute, 3-person discussion of diabolo string and (as you probably guessed) diabolo sticks.
I look over to the other end of the gym and see that Rich's older daughter has found the school's (ground-level) balance beam and is walking it while doing the forward cross-follow, then spinning around and walking the other direction doing the reverse cross-follow. Wait! 20 minutes ago, she couldn't do that reverse pattern at all, and now she's transitioning smoothly from forward to reverse while walking a 4-inch wide beam! It looks great -- and I tell her so.
David and Eli begin working on their ball-passing skills. Eli drops a ball and, without interrupting the pattern in the least, picks up the ball and returns it to the pattern. I had no idea he could do that. Or anything like that.
It occurs to me that few if any of these delightful people would be practicing their juggling if it weren't for the Turks Head program. And that they wouldn't know each other. And therefore be unable to share and learn and grow.
Travis has picked up his 5th club and is patiently working with the complete set. One of the toughest parts of large-number juggling (that is, five and up) is just getting the pattern started and smoothly running. Travis is getting 8 to 10 throws per try, which means that the majority of his 5 clubs are getting two tosses apiece. It's dizzying to watch.
Rich and his youngest daughter are now playing catch with a diabolo -- tossing it from dad's string to daughter's string and back again. She's having a wonderful time, and certainly no one wants to spoil it by pointing out the terrific eye/hand co-ordination she's developing or the patience she's learning, or... you know, all that other stuff.
Paige and her son and her son's friend show up. And it's good to see them. Over the last several years, her son has made considerable efforts to find "his" juggling prop, but it just wasn't happening. But he recently discovered yo-yo's and is making formidable progress therewith. Like Eli, he wants me to see what he's doing and allow me to provide lavish "attaboy's" in response. Easy to do -- and an honor.
The Saturday sessions of the Turks Head Jugglers are scheduled to run from 9:00 to 11:00 AM. And my original plan was to be home and tucked up in bed by 9:45 at the latest. I look up at the clock and find that it's now 10:45 and the practice shows no sign of slowing down.
But if the practice is not slowing down, I certainly am. With a bit of reluctance, I bid everyone a good day, thank them for coming, and ask that they stay well.
As I put away my folding chair, pick up my coffee cup (which has been empty for well over an hour), and my (barely touched) sudoku puzzle, it occurs to me that everyone there -- with the exception of me -- would be leaving the gym as a significantly better juggler than when they showed up that morning.
And I had the deeply gratifying experience of watching it all happen -- and now, the pleasure of reporting it all to you.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
I'm okay. Really! Well, pretty much...
First of all, I feel I should apologize to you for not posting more often. Important stuff has been happening, and I want to document it all here. Truth is, life has been busy -- and happily so. And I want some "space" and peace and quiet (internal as well as external) around me as I write to you. So I haven't been posting much...
I've been volunteering at the Academy of Natural Sciences pretty regularly for the last several months, and enjoying that immensely. One of these days, I hope to post about what that experience means to me.
And, after cleaning out my Dad's house, I wound up with 14 boxes of documents and memorabilia, which now decorate our living room in a most unbecoming manner. Among other things, I found my Mother's 3rd grade report card; my varsity letter from high school (for tennis -- never got a sweater on which to wear it, though); Dad's income tax return from 1972 (along with hundreds of other financial returns and receipts); dozens of greting cards of the birthday / Christmas / anniversary variety; (I never really understood how deeply my parents loved each other, as they never allowed themselves to show it. But the truth is written in the cards!); a box full of WWII pamphlets, newsletters, military orders, etc. -- from the 1940"s and 1950's; and on and on.
... and I've been performing a bit and working out at the gym and having music lessons and practicing on my keyboard and doing morning meditations and stuff like that. But it's not that I haven't had time, I just haven't had quiet time.
So there. But anyway, I'm okay medically. Pretty much, that is:
A Visit with My E/N/T Doc
Deb and I visited with my E/N/T doc yesterday for a routine check-up that proved to be exactly that. Routine. Nothing new. Everything seems to be fine.
In the process of telling me how good I looked, he muttered about "that nodule in your cheek seems to have dissolved" or something like that. Hmmm... he hadn't mentioned anything about a nodule before. So I have a choice of being happy that it's gone now or anxious that he's not telling me about everything that's going on.
I think I'll choose the former course and just let it go.
Blood Clots, Anyone?
I mentioned in an earlier posting that I was about to have some comprehensive blood testing done -- including DNA analysis -- to try and pinpoint the issue(s) associated with my blood clots. The results are in -- have been for a considerable time, in fact -- and there's something of a path forward emerging from the data.
All of the blood chemistry numbers were within normal range except one. Something called "antiphospholipids," or "APS." Here's a link for that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiphospholipid_syndrome. My chemo doc tells me that a single test for that is not conclusive for anything and that a second test roughly 12 weeks later is highly recommended. And I'm scheduled for that testing Thursday, March 5th. Results to be posted here after that date, of course.
The genetic testing did not identify any DNA markers for clotting, but that part of the story has a new and interesting facet. My cousin Frank (who's an MD practicing in Kansas) wrote me an e-mail recently that lists a number of relatives who have had blood clotting issues. And those that have had DNA tests for clotting have also come up negative. So he's suggesting that there is a genetic origin for these conditions, but one that hasn't been identified yet. So who knows?
I'm still wearing compression stockings every day, but have now been off of blood thinners for months and months. And Deb and I flew to Key West several weeks ago without incident. (The flights were quick, but I got up several times to walk around -- get the blood flowing -- and I had taken aspirin before each flight -- just in case.)
So the idea of flying to Alberta to do dinosaur work this summer is back on the table! (Lemme hear you say "Yay!")
Thyroid Status
I went to my GP several weeks ago with a set of symptoms that she identified as possibly related to a thyroid condition. More blood tests. And they showed an overabundance of TSH (don't ask), which suggests an underactive thyroid (please don't ask).
Like the APS testing above, a follow-up test is strongly recommended, and that testing will take place in a week or so as well.
All of Which Means...
When I look over the outstanding medical issues above, it becomes clear to me that I should expect issues like this because I'm 64 years old. The previous encounter with cancer notwithstanding. Deb will still need me, Deb will still feed me, but she can't undo the wear and tear on my body that 64 years of living has left within me.
So I'm good. Really.
I've been volunteering at the Academy of Natural Sciences pretty regularly for the last several months, and enjoying that immensely. One of these days, I hope to post about what that experience means to me.
And, after cleaning out my Dad's house, I wound up with 14 boxes of documents and memorabilia, which now decorate our living room in a most unbecoming manner. Among other things, I found my Mother's 3rd grade report card; my varsity letter from high school (for tennis -- never got a sweater on which to wear it, though); Dad's income tax return from 1972 (along with hundreds of other financial returns and receipts); dozens of greting cards of the birthday / Christmas / anniversary variety; (I never really understood how deeply my parents loved each other, as they never allowed themselves to show it. But the truth is written in the cards!); a box full of WWII pamphlets, newsletters, military orders, etc. -- from the 1940"s and 1950's; and on and on.
... and I've been performing a bit and working out at the gym and having music lessons and practicing on my keyboard and doing morning meditations and stuff like that. But it's not that I haven't had time, I just haven't had quiet time.
So there. But anyway, I'm okay medically. Pretty much, that is:
A Visit with My E/N/T Doc
Deb and I visited with my E/N/T doc yesterday for a routine check-up that proved to be exactly that. Routine. Nothing new. Everything seems to be fine.
In the process of telling me how good I looked, he muttered about "that nodule in your cheek seems to have dissolved" or something like that. Hmmm... he hadn't mentioned anything about a nodule before. So I have a choice of being happy that it's gone now or anxious that he's not telling me about everything that's going on.
I think I'll choose the former course and just let it go.
Blood Clots, Anyone?
I mentioned in an earlier posting that I was about to have some comprehensive blood testing done -- including DNA analysis -- to try and pinpoint the issue(s) associated with my blood clots. The results are in -- have been for a considerable time, in fact -- and there's something of a path forward emerging from the data.
All of the blood chemistry numbers were within normal range except one. Something called "antiphospholipids," or "APS." Here's a link for that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiphospholipid_syndrome. My chemo doc tells me that a single test for that is not conclusive for anything and that a second test roughly 12 weeks later is highly recommended. And I'm scheduled for that testing Thursday, March 5th. Results to be posted here after that date, of course.
The genetic testing did not identify any DNA markers for clotting, but that part of the story has a new and interesting facet. My cousin Frank (who's an MD practicing in Kansas) wrote me an e-mail recently that lists a number of relatives who have had blood clotting issues. And those that have had DNA tests for clotting have also come up negative. So he's suggesting that there is a genetic origin for these conditions, but one that hasn't been identified yet. So who knows?
I'm still wearing compression stockings every day, but have now been off of blood thinners for months and months. And Deb and I flew to Key West several weeks ago without incident. (The flights were quick, but I got up several times to walk around -- get the blood flowing -- and I had taken aspirin before each flight -- just in case.)
So the idea of flying to Alberta to do dinosaur work this summer is back on the table! (Lemme hear you say "Yay!")
Thyroid Status
I went to my GP several weeks ago with a set of symptoms that she identified as possibly related to a thyroid condition. More blood tests. And they showed an overabundance of TSH (don't ask), which suggests an underactive thyroid (please don't ask).
Like the APS testing above, a follow-up test is strongly recommended, and that testing will take place in a week or so as well.
All of Which Means...
When I look over the outstanding medical issues above, it becomes clear to me that I should expect issues like this because I'm 64 years old. The previous encounter with cancer notwithstanding. Deb will still need me, Deb will still feed me, but she can't undo the wear and tear on my body that 64 years of living has left within me.
So I'm good. Really.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The Selling of 1209
My youngest brother has sort of a "hands-on" theological issue he's trying to resolve: either Dad has an angel riding on his shoulder or Dad is riding on an angel's shoulder. Neither he nor I know have figured out how to resolve this. But it's sort of fun to think about...
And the issue of the sale of his house (i.e., 1209 Tupelo Place) brings this issue to mind.
As reported in a previous posting, my Dad had come to understand that the house he had owned and lived in for more than 50 years would have to be sold. None of his kids wanted to or was able to live there and the money from the sale would be critical in paying for his assisted living accommodations.
So we found a realtor who put the sign up in the front yard -- and that's when the magic started to happen. First of all, the guy we chose to represent us turned out to be wonderful at his job. He understood immediately how the four of us siblings felt about the place -- and how those feelings could interfere with the sale: "When the four of you look around this place, you see your childhood come back to life. Each room, each piece of furniture brings back memories, and you probably wish that nothing would ever change. But anyone looking to buy the house has no such attachment. To them it's just another house -- probably one of many they've looked at. So you have to start looking at this house the way they are going to look at it." That basic idea was a huge help all the way through the preparation and sale.
One of my brothers had a wonderfully romantic idea about the sale. He suggested: "We need to find someone who understands how special Wilson Point is -- and specifically this neighborhood on Wilson Point. We shouldn't sell the house to someone who will just 'flip' it for resale. And we shouldn't sell it to... well, the wrong kind of person."
I tried to explain to him that being selective as to who we would sell the house to was not only unreasonable but illegal. If someone met our price with a legitimate offer, it didn't matter whether they were the "right kind" or not. (See "redlining real estate" for an explanation of this.)
Anyway, we cleared the house as explained in the December 2010 posting. And we gave our realtor an initial asking price that was probably unrealistic in this current market. (He had given us several sets of Competitive Market Analyses to help us set this price. But realistic or not, however, the realtor was smart enough not to argue or propose a lower number. If that's what we wanted to ask for the house, that was our business.)
And over the next several weeks, several prospective buyers came through. And everyone's impression seemed to be the same: The house is a wreck. It needs too much work. The price is much too high. (Well, the house wasn't really a wreck. It had, what our realtor called, "good bones." But the carpeting was shot and all the windows needed replacing and the basement was only half-finished and the kitchen was decades out-of-date and so forth and so forth. Got the picture?)
Now I had taken the lead on the sale process for several reasons. One, I was the oldest surviving sibling. Two, I had a legal Power of Attorney over Dad's financial and legal matters. Three, I had more spare time than anyone else. And I felt it was critically important that, no matter how the sales process went, the four of us needed to be comfortable with what took place and be at least as close as we were before -- and hopefully even closer.
So I had to relate these dismal reports on the house via e-mails and try and coordinate the responses from my siblings. And I was mentally composing an e-mail to them suggesting a revised strategy: lower pricing and investing in substantial renovations.
But then the miracle happened:
The realtor called and said that a couple who had lived on Wilson Point for several decades had been looking for a home for their parents/in-laws. They thought that 1209 (which was a block from their house) was exactly the right place and were anxious not to let the house get away from them. So they made an immediate counter-offer astonishingly close to our asking price. And they would accept the house without a thorough inspection and take it "as-is." Lousy windows and shredding carpet and everything. (Which would, of course, allow them to upgrade the house exactly the way they wanted to!)
Oh yeah, and they were already approved for a mortgage by their bank, so money wouldn't be a problem.
Now let's count up the blessings here: Dad now has the financial resources to meet his needs for the forseeable future. And the four of us did not have to spend weekend after weekend painting, pulling out old carpet and putting in new ones, learning how to replace windows (or hiring someone to do that for us). And my brother got the new owner he had hoped for. Exactly what he had hoped for. And the new owners get a chance to "feather the nest" of their own parents to meet their needs exactly. And Wilson Point doesn't have to put up with "the wrong kind of people." And our nice young realtor make the commission he richly deserves. And none of the four of us needs to worry about Dad's finances.
So the aforementioned theological issue remains. But it doesn't really matter that much, does it?
And the issue of the sale of his house (i.e., 1209 Tupelo Place) brings this issue to mind.
As reported in a previous posting, my Dad had come to understand that the house he had owned and lived in for more than 50 years would have to be sold. None of his kids wanted to or was able to live there and the money from the sale would be critical in paying for his assisted living accommodations.
So we found a realtor who put the sign up in the front yard -- and that's when the magic started to happen. First of all, the guy we chose to represent us turned out to be wonderful at his job. He understood immediately how the four of us siblings felt about the place -- and how those feelings could interfere with the sale: "When the four of you look around this place, you see your childhood come back to life. Each room, each piece of furniture brings back memories, and you probably wish that nothing would ever change. But anyone looking to buy the house has no such attachment. To them it's just another house -- probably one of many they've looked at. So you have to start looking at this house the way they are going to look at it." That basic idea was a huge help all the way through the preparation and sale.
One of my brothers had a wonderfully romantic idea about the sale. He suggested: "We need to find someone who understands how special Wilson Point is -- and specifically this neighborhood on Wilson Point. We shouldn't sell the house to someone who will just 'flip' it for resale. And we shouldn't sell it to... well, the wrong kind of person."
I tried to explain to him that being selective as to who we would sell the house to was not only unreasonable but illegal. If someone met our price with a legitimate offer, it didn't matter whether they were the "right kind" or not. (See "redlining real estate" for an explanation of this.)
Anyway, we cleared the house as explained in the December 2010 posting. And we gave our realtor an initial asking price that was probably unrealistic in this current market. (He had given us several sets of Competitive Market Analyses to help us set this price. But realistic or not, however, the realtor was smart enough not to argue or propose a lower number. If that's what we wanted to ask for the house, that was our business.)
And over the next several weeks, several prospective buyers came through. And everyone's impression seemed to be the same: The house is a wreck. It needs too much work. The price is much too high. (Well, the house wasn't really a wreck. It had, what our realtor called, "good bones." But the carpeting was shot and all the windows needed replacing and the basement was only half-finished and the kitchen was decades out-of-date and so forth and so forth. Got the picture?)
Now I had taken the lead on the sale process for several reasons. One, I was the oldest surviving sibling. Two, I had a legal Power of Attorney over Dad's financial and legal matters. Three, I had more spare time than anyone else. And I felt it was critically important that, no matter how the sales process went, the four of us needed to be comfortable with what took place and be at least as close as we were before -- and hopefully even closer.
So I had to relate these dismal reports on the house via e-mails and try and coordinate the responses from my siblings. And I was mentally composing an e-mail to them suggesting a revised strategy: lower pricing and investing in substantial renovations.
But then the miracle happened:
The realtor called and said that a couple who had lived on Wilson Point for several decades had been looking for a home for their parents/in-laws. They thought that 1209 (which was a block from their house) was exactly the right place and were anxious not to let the house get away from them. So they made an immediate counter-offer astonishingly close to our asking price. And they would accept the house without a thorough inspection and take it "as-is." Lousy windows and shredding carpet and everything. (Which would, of course, allow them to upgrade the house exactly the way they wanted to!)
Oh yeah, and they were already approved for a mortgage by their bank, so money wouldn't be a problem.
Now let's count up the blessings here: Dad now has the financial resources to meet his needs for the forseeable future. And the four of us did not have to spend weekend after weekend painting, pulling out old carpet and putting in new ones, learning how to replace windows (or hiring someone to do that for us). And my brother got the new owner he had hoped for. Exactly what he had hoped for. And the new owners get a chance to "feather the nest" of their own parents to meet their needs exactly. And Wilson Point doesn't have to put up with "the wrong kind of people." And our nice young realtor make the commission he richly deserves. And none of the four of us needs to worry about Dad's finances.
So the aforementioned theological issue remains. But it doesn't really matter that much, does it?
Saturday, January 15, 2011
A posting slightly out of order, maybe...
I had a revelation about holding onto things and letting things go. It happened late last year as my siblings and I were clearing out our Dad's house.
I started writing about the insight back then, but wanted the message to season a bit before posting it. When I finished it and posted it this morning, I was surprised to see that the posting showed up in last year's lists rather than sequentially as the most recent posting.
Because (it seems) Blogspot says: "If you started to post something in December 2010 -- even if its only a draft -- it stays in December 2010." And a Blogspot dictum is not to be trifled with or changed.
You might like to take a look at the posting. To make it easier to get to it, I've put the link here:
http://randyshealth.blogspot.com/2010/12/clearing-1209-with-buddhist-overlay.html
Comments are, as always, welcomed and encouraged and taken to heart. So please feel free to do so -- either here or there.
I started writing about the insight back then, but wanted the message to season a bit before posting it. When I finished it and posted it this morning, I was surprised to see that the posting showed up in last year's lists rather than sequentially as the most recent posting.
Because (it seems) Blogspot says: "If you started to post something in December 2010 -- even if its only a draft -- it stays in December 2010." And a Blogspot dictum is not to be trifled with or changed.
You might like to take a look at the posting. To make it easier to get to it, I've put the link here:
http://randyshealth.blogspot.com/2010/12/clearing-1209-with-buddhist-overlay.html
Comments are, as always, welcomed and encouraged and taken to heart. So please feel free to do so -- either here or there.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Health Update 1/13/11
Geez, I wanted to get this information posted for you a couple of weeks ago, but life has been hectic. Pleasantly hectic, but hectic nonetheless.
It's about the results of the blood tests that I mentioned back in early December. Well, that and a general "How're things going, Randy?"
So, how are things going? Pretty well, thanks for asking. My strength is probably close to what it was before the treatments started, but my stamina is still lagging. (I often find myself panting after walking up a flight of steps or breathing hard for no reason I can identify...) This stamina thingy may, of course also be related to my age. But either way, I remain deeply grateful for being so wonderfully normal. Normal for a 64-year-old coot, that is.
Oh yes, and the blood test results. Well, the genetic marking came back negative: I'm not carrying any of the genes currently linked to blood clotting. And that's a relief -- and a message I need to get out to people in my immediate family who might be interested in that. Especially people in their child-bearing years.
And all the other tests -- except one -- came back negative as well. Meaning all the numbers --except one -- came back within the normal range.
The exception is something called "Antiphospholipid." As I recall, my chemo doctor told me that the normal range was 3 to 12 and my test came out with a 20. However, he also said that a single test for this was unreliable, and that one should be tested a second time, roughly 12 weeks after the first test. Which, of course, I will do. And (as I further recall), if the second test continues to show a positive result, he will put me on blood thinners for the forseeable future. (He used the term, "for life," but I think I prefer "forseeable future." Somehow, it sounds more hopeful.) But if it comes back negative, I may be able reduce my concern for clots by a major amount.
I Googled a couple of websites about this, including http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiphospholipid_syndrome
and, as is so often the case with Googling medical stuff, the information on the sites was frightening and made me feel old, weak, and very vulnerable. So I stopped reading. And started feeling better almost immediately.
I think what the doc is hoping for is something like: The chemo treatments threw Randy's blood way off kilter, and it's been gradually recovering for the last 18 months or so. And once it gets back to normal, it is likely to stay that way.
Nice thought, don't you think?
Oh, and one more thing: there's no indication of cancer recurrence.
Almost forgot to mention that...
It's about the results of the blood tests that I mentioned back in early December. Well, that and a general "How're things going, Randy?"
So, how are things going? Pretty well, thanks for asking. My strength is probably close to what it was before the treatments started, but my stamina is still lagging. (I often find myself panting after walking up a flight of steps or breathing hard for no reason I can identify...) This stamina thingy may, of course also be related to my age. But either way, I remain deeply grateful for being so wonderfully normal. Normal for a 64-year-old coot, that is.
Oh yes, and the blood test results. Well, the genetic marking came back negative: I'm not carrying any of the genes currently linked to blood clotting. And that's a relief -- and a message I need to get out to people in my immediate family who might be interested in that. Especially people in their child-bearing years.
And all the other tests -- except one -- came back negative as well. Meaning all the numbers --except one -- came back within the normal range.
The exception is something called "Antiphospholipid." As I recall, my chemo doctor told me that the normal range was 3 to 12 and my test came out with a 20. However, he also said that a single test for this was unreliable, and that one should be tested a second time, roughly 12 weeks after the first test. Which, of course, I will do. And (as I further recall), if the second test continues to show a positive result, he will put me on blood thinners for the forseeable future. (He used the term, "for life," but I think I prefer "forseeable future." Somehow, it sounds more hopeful.) But if it comes back negative, I may be able reduce my concern for clots by a major amount.
I Googled a couple of websites about this, including http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiphospholipid_syndrome
and, as is so often the case with Googling medical stuff, the information on the sites was frightening and made me feel old, weak, and very vulnerable. So I stopped reading. And started feeling better almost immediately.
I think what the doc is hoping for is something like: The chemo treatments threw Randy's blood way off kilter, and it's been gradually recovering for the last 18 months or so. And once it gets back to normal, it is likely to stay that way.
Nice thought, don't you think?
Oh, and one more thing: there's no indication of cancer recurrence.
Almost forgot to mention that...
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