No Spring Chicken #15

No Spring Chicken #15
I've been known to make mistakes, on occasion.Ê That makes it very handy that I wear orthotics in both shoes. They give my extra high arches the support they need, and one adds the quarter inch that leg is short so my back will quit complaining. Quite literally, I stand corrected. The current mistake was that I thought they were doing a PET-Scan today before the chemo treatment. It turns out that I didn't hear correctly, and they did a CAT-Scan. Quicker and easier, and less expensive. Still got to drink the barium, though. They put in a touch of coffee flavor and called them "Mocachino Smoothies". Yeah. Sure. Whatever. I liked the orange flavored ones I had last time better. The official reading from radiology didn't get back to me before I left (three hours later), so I don't have the final report in yet. But the doctor and I went over the pictures from the PET-Scan they did originally and the pictures from the CAT-Scan taken today. We couldn't find any of the lumps that showed up before. That is wonderful news. We agreed to set it for two more treatments (only one after this weekend), unless the official reading shows something that we didn't see. So, all this means that I'm actually ahead of schedule on the treatment thing. I am so ready to have no more of these little trips to Seattle to get poked (IVs) and pumped (liquid pumped in) and drained (blood taken out) and bloated (drinking barium milkshakes). So, I'm in a good mood, if tired. The chorus (Kitsap Chordsmen - I find there are still people who don't know I left NWS in '97) is getting ready for a contest this coming weekend. The District Quartet Prelims and the Division II Convention. I won't be at my peak for this, but I'll be there with them on stage. If I haven't got it in me I won't sing, but I'll be performing my best. Tish & Jeff are coming up the weekend after that. I should be feeling a lot better by then. I suspect they are coming because Tish is afraid she won't have much longer to see me. The news today should allay her suspicions on that front. But we'll have some fun while they are here. I suspect there will be some Euro-Game activity. :-}) I mentioned last time that the mind is a funny thing in how it approaches life. The first two treatments I was OK with. It didn't seem to be a big deal. Then I was dreading #3 for some reason - I still haven't figured out why. This time I'm just blah about it, but not blase. I'm tired of getting poked with IVs. I am not sure how I'd handle having to do this for years at a time. The Dragonflight website is almost complete, and should be by Tuesday. I've begun working on the next project, a Court Reporter Continuing Education website. I'll update the HCNW website this week, and add the one additional change to the NHMGS website. Isn't retirement nice? I get to do what I want - the programming I didn't get to do much of the last years with the Navy. Janet & I managed to get the boat out sailing earlier this week. We were scheduled to go Sunday afternoon, but we were both pretty tired, so we took naps and went sailing Monday. It was great to get out and let the wind push us around for a while. It is quiet and restful on the boat when you are sailing. More so this time of year when there is almost always enough wind to move, without powerboats kicking up wakes all over the place. I've still got a lot of interior work to do on the boat after the refit, but that takes a lot more energy than sitting in my chair and programming on my laptop. So it will have to wait until I'm pretty much recovered. Which may mean I get to work on it in the warmth of the summer, where it can actually be hot below decks. But I'd rather be warm than cold. Once again, retirement seems to be the way to go here, too. My grandfather was an interesting man. I've regaled you with tales of Pop before. But if you look at his life in toto, he had an interesting time. He played basketball in high school, and was tall enough he could have gone to college on a scholarship, but he fell and was knocked out in one game and his dad wouldn't let him play after that. As a young man he was working in a gas station in California when it was held up. He told me that the barrel of a .22 looks like the barrel of a .45 when it is pointed at you menacingly. Somewhere in his younger years he married my grandmother, who had been a Yeomanette with the Navy in WWI, then an undercover investigator for the Postal Service. He ran a still during prohibition. He was also an alcoholic, but kept it under control by eating fruit. He told me that when he got the cravings he found that eating a piece of fruit or two would take them away. So he always carried fruit in his pockets when he was out working the fields. I know his cars always had a jar of water and a bag of raisins under the seat for emergencies. He owned the land that the Hanford Nuclear Plant was built on, and the government condemned it and paid him less than he got for the apricot crop that year. The apricot trees are still standing on some parts of it. I wouldn't eat the fruit, though. He then worked in the Hanford plant for a while and he told us about the continual testing for radiation. He taught Jeff and I to arc-weld when we were 11 and 10 (respectively). He could make just about anything he needed, and did most of the time. As he got older and couldn't keep up with the active dog he got (a malemute) he built her a hamster running wheel (scaled up to a 9' diameter) and taught her to run in it when she needed exercise. Pop told me about a deer hunting expedition where he and a friend had shot one way off the road and had to cut it up there and carry it out on pack-boards, so they cleaned it on the spot and got it quartered and tied on just as it was getting dark so they loaded up and were just about to go when they heard a "meow". They turned and saw a full grown cougar (not a college kid type) sitting at the edge of the clearing watching them. So they cut off a hunk of meat and tossed it to the cougar and took off down the trail. Pretty soon they hear another "meow" and there is the cougar again. Just sitting the watching them. They cut off another piece of meat and tossed it to the cat. This went on for some three miles back to the road then the cat disappeared. But so had one entire haunch of the deer. I find it interesting that here are two guys armed with high power rifles for hunting deer, and they give in to the requests of a mountain lion for their meat. I venture to guess that less than 5% of the hunters in the woods in this day and age would not have shot the cougar. But it never occurred to them to do so. I think this comes from a different attitude about nature - an acceptance of the fact that when we leave our cities behind we need to leave our city attitudes behind. When we go into the woods we go because of the way the woods are, and we should not try to change them to be more like the city. Enough drivel for now, since I really can't remember anything exceptionally funny to report. I thought I'd send out provisional good news, though. April 8 & 9 should be my last chemo treatments! Yay! Tom the Corrected

I've been known to make mistakes, on occasion.Ê That makes it very handy that I wear orthotics in both shoes. They give my extra high arches the support they need, and one adds the quarter inch that leg is short so my back will quit complaining. Quite literally, I stand corrected. The current mistake was that I thought they were doing a PET-Scan today before the chemo treatment. It turns out that I didn't hear correctly, and they did a CAT-Scan. Quicker and easier, and less expensive. Still got to drink the barium, though. They put in a touch of coffee flavor and called them "Mocachino Smoothies". Yeah. Sure. Whatever. I liked the orange flavored ones I had last time better.

The official reading from radiology didn't get back to me before I left (three hours later), so I don't have the final report in yet. But the doctor and I went over the pictures from the PET-Scan they did originally and the pictures from the CAT-Scan taken today. We couldn't find any of the lumps that showed up before. That is wonderful news. We agreed to set it for two more treatments (only one after this weekend), unless the official reading shows something that we didn't see. So, all this means that I'm actually ahead of schedule on the treatment thing. I am so ready to have no more of these little trips to Seattle to get poked (IVs) and pumped (liquid pumped in) and drained (blood taken out) and bloated (drinking barium milkshakes). So, I'm in a good mood, if tired.

The chorus (Kitsap Chordsmen - I find there are still people who don't know I left NWS in '97) is getting ready for a contest this coming weekend. The District Quartet Prelims and the Division II Convention. I won't be at my peak for this, but I'll be there with them on stage. If I haven't got it in me I won't sing, but I'll be performing my best.

Tish & Jeff are coming up the weekend after that. I should be feeling a lot better by then. I suspect they are coming because Tish is afraid she won't have much longer to see me. The news today should allay her suspicions on that front. But we'll have some fun while they are here. I suspect there will be some Euro-Game activity. :-})

I mentioned last time that the mind is a funny thing in how it approaches life. The first two treatments I was OK with. It didn't seem to be a big deal. Then I was dreading #3 for some reason - I still haven't figured out why. This time I'm just blah about it, but not blase. I'm tired of getting poked with IVs. I am not sure how I'd handle having to do this for years at a time.

The Dragonflight website is almost complete, and should be by Tuesday. I've begun working on the next project, a Court Reporter Continuing Education website. I'll update the HCNW website this week, and add the one additional change to the NHMGS website. Isn't retirement nice? I get to do what I want - the programming I didn't get to do much of the last years with the Navy.

Janet & I managed to get the boat out sailing earlier this week. We were scheduled to go Sunday afternoon, but we were both pretty tired, so we took naps and went sailing Monday. It was great to get out and let the wind push us around for a while. It is quiet and restful on the boat when you are sailing. More so this time of year when there is almost always enough wind to move, without powerboats kicking up wakes all over the place. I've still got a lot of interior work to do on the boat after the refit, but that takes a lot more energy than sitting in my chair and programming on my laptop. So it will have to wait until I'm pretty much recovered. Which may mean I get to work on it in the warmth of the summer, where it can actually be hot below decks. But I'd rather be warm than cold. Once again, retirement seems to be the way to go here, too.

My grandfather was an interesting man. I've regaled you with tales of Pop before. But if you look at his life in toto, he had an interesting time. He played basketball in high school, and was tall enough he could have gone to college on a scholarship, but he fell and was knocked out in one game and his dad wouldn't let him play after that. As a young man he was working in a gas station in California when it was held up. He told me that the barrel of a .22 looks like the barrel of a .45 when it is pointed at you menacingly. Somewhere in his younger years he married my grandmother, who had been a Yeomanette with the Navy in WWI, then an undercover investigator for the Postal Service. He ran a still during prohibition. He was also an alcoholic, but kept it under control by eating fruit. He told me that when he got the cravings he found that eating a piece of fruit or two would take them away. So he always carried fruit in his pockets when he was out working the fields. I know his cars always had a jar of water and a bag of raisins under the seat for emergencies. He owned the land that the Hanford Nuclear Plant was built on, and the government condemned it and paid him less than he got for the apricot crop that year. The apricot trees are still standing on some parts of it. I wouldn't eat the fruit, though. He then worked in the Hanford plant for a while and he told us about the continual testing for radiation. He taught Jeff and I to arc-weld when we were 11 and 10 (respectively). He could make just about anything he needed, and did most of the time. As he got older and couldn't keep up with the active dog he got (a malemute) he built her a hamster running wheel (scaled up to a 9' diameter) and taught her to run in it when she needed exercise. Pop told me about a deer hunting expedition where he and a friend had shot one way off the road and had to cut it up there and carry it out on pack-boards, so they cleaned it on the spot and got it quartered and tied on just as it was getting dark so they loaded up and were just about to go when they heard a "meow". They turned and saw a full grown cougar (not a college kid type) sitting at the edge of the clearing watching them. So they cut off a hunk of meat and tossed it to the cougar and took off down the trail. Pretty soon they hear another "meow" and there is the cougar again. Just sitting the watching them. They cut off another piece of meat and tossed it to the cat. This went on for some three miles back to the road then the cat disappeared. But so had one entire haunch of the deer. I find it interesting that here are two guys armed with high power rifles for hunting deer, and they give in to the requests of a mountain lion for their meat. I venture to guess that less than 5% of the hunters in the woods in this day and age would not have shot the cougar. But it never occurred to them to do so. I think this comes from a different attitude about nature - an acceptance of the fact that when we leave our cities behind we need to leave our city attitudes behind. When we go into the woods we go because of the way the woods are, and we should not try to change them to be more like the city.

Enough drivel for now, since I really can't remember anything exceptionally funny to report. I thought I'd send out provisional good news, though. April 8 & 9 should be my last chemo treatments! Yay!

Tom the Corrected

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