No Spring Chicken #30

No Spring Chicken #30
31/December/2014 Horrible thought for the year - we are sitting in the infusion room, both reading while the machine is pumping poison into my body and Janet turns and looks at me and says, "What if these are the good old days?" "They will be in a few years," I answer. "The old days will always be the good old days and we are spending more time together these days than ever before." "No." She says, "What if these days sitting here are the good old days?" What a bummer of a thought as the year is ending! I should mention that I spent most of the three weeks between treatments with a bad cold. Most of the days I didn't even leave the house to walk the dog. She was missing her walks so bad. So I drug myself out to throw the retreval dummy for her. Since she had missed it for three days I gave her an extra toss - more than we usually do. Well, that came back to bite me in the butt. Later that evening her left rear leg quit working so she had troubles getting up and was falling down. I helped her over to her bed by the fireplace so she could rest it and found that that leg was not moving much and stiff. When we went to bed (upstairs) we soon heard a thump-clunk on the stairs and when we looked she was part way up the first steps but had fallen back and couldn't get any further. So I went down and got down on one knee to pick her up but couldn't get my other leg off the ground while holding her (she weight around 77 lbs currently). I had to reconfigure with me standing on both feet and bending over to pick her up. I got her most of the way up the stairs before I had to sit down and helped her the last three steps up, then she staggered to her upstairs bed and layed down. By the time I got to bed I was uncertain whether we could get her into the vets the next day and what we'd find. I was lying in bed, exhausted from the cold, from doing more exercise that day than any of the previous three and carrying Clair up most of the stairs and asking myself just how much more I could take. Not that killing myself entered my mind, but giving up did. Clair is getting old (she will be 13 in February, which is over the expected age for labs), and with my medical bills we don't know how much we can afford for her treatment. So we were pretty much basket cases and decided to wait to the morning to see how she was, since she was able to walk with difficulty on the level when I got her upstairs. The good news is that she was walking just fine come morning, with a tendency to not trust her left rear leg much. It was working fine by the end of the day, so that trial has passed. I'm also a little more circumspect about the amount of retrieving if we haven't done it for a day. But we are pretty much to retreving every day, again. The two chemicals in my chemo treatment are Bendamustine and Rituxin. I noticed this time that they treat the rituxin normally with an increasing rate of flow to make sure I don't suffer from allergic response. They don't do that with the bendamustine. But what they do do is put on a protective suit so they don't get any of it on them. I'd seen them do that, but didn't notice until this trip that they do it. So, they are pumping 200mg of a juice into me (twice per treatment) that they don't want to get a drop of onto their clothes or skins. Hmm. Makes me feel real good about my survival of the chemo. I've now finished 5 of the six treatments and should be lymphoma free at this point and only do the last one to insure things stay that way for a while. I was hoping for 10-15 years between recurrances the first time, but had to settle for 3 years between diagnoses (2 1/2 years between final treatment and diagnosis). It feels good to have it down to only one more treatment st. We do some of our payments online to make paying them more accountable. Mostly just paying our creditcards. This has caused us some problems. The first two cards have to be set to pay two days before you want it deposited. They claim they need two days to process the transfer. I happen to know that the process happens before you finish the web action, so they are setting it so they can collect two days of interest on the money. Now, our third credit card has a 7 day delay. This hasn't worked its way into Janet's planning yet, so that payment is late by five days and they are calling us every other day to tell us we need to talk to them (it is an automated call and you can't talk to them if you pick up the phone). They have been called several times and we have called back so they know the problem and when the already made payments will arrive, but they are still calling. A good weekend for the Hawks just passed, and they now have home field advantage all through the playoffs. With a defense that has held the opponent to 6 or less points in four of their last five games, they are looking real tough right now. I'm looking forward to the playoffs. Both college and pro. The Dawgs are playing on the 2nd, and the Ducks are in the playoffs on the 1st! Much good football to look forward to. I got a nice note from my doctor asking if a certain medicine was working, and stating, "Wow! What a great show!" She had finally bought tickets to Kitsap Chordsmen's summer show, but she got held up at work that day and didn't get away until after showtime, and couldn't get home to change and get to Bremerton for the show before it was over. So I had loaned her a DVD of the show. The DVD sat on her desk at work (where she never had time to watch it) for months, then she took it home, but they were packing for a belated huneymoon, then were gone on said honeymoon for 3 weeks, then came back and she finally found time to watch it. Well, Search for The Ring was, indeed, a great show. I hope this will spur her to make a few more shows in the future. I know she would have enjoyed the Christmas show this year.

31/December/2014
Horrible thought for the year - we are sitting in the infusion room, both reading while the machine is pumping poison into my body and Janet turns and looks at me and says, "What if these are the good old days?" "They will be in a few years," I answer. "The old days will always be the good old days and we are spending more time together these days than ever before." "No." She says, "What if these days sitting here are the good old days?" What a bummer of a thought as the year is ending!

I should mention that I spent most of the three weeks between treatments with a bad cold. Most of the days I didn't even leave the house to walk the dog. She was missing her walks so bad. So I drug myself out to throw the retreval dummy for her. Since she had missed it for three days I gave her an extra toss - more than we usually do. Well, that came back to bite me in the butt. Later that evening her left rear leg quit working so she had troubles getting up and was falling down. I helped her over to her bed by the fireplace so she could rest it and found that that leg was not moving much and stiff. When we went to bed (upstairs) we soon heard a thump-clunk on the stairs and when we looked she was part way up the first steps but had fallen back and couldn't get any further. So I went down and got down on one knee to pick her up but couldn't get my other leg off the ground while holding her (she weight around 77 lbs currently). I had to reconfigure with me standing on both feet and bending over to pick her up. I got her most of the way up the stairs before I had to sit down and helped her the last three steps up, then she staggered to her upstairs bed and layed down. By the time I got to bed I was uncertain whether we could get her into the vets the next day and what we'd find. I was lying in bed, exhausted from the cold, from doing more exercise that day than any of the previous three and carrying Clair up most of the stairs and asking myself just how much more I could take. Not that killing myself entered my mind, but giving up did. Clair is getting old (she will be 13 in February, which is over the expected age for labs), and with my medical bills we don't know how much we can afford for her treatment. So we were pretty much basket cases and decided to wait to the morning to see how she was, since she was able to walk with difficulty on the level when I got her upstairs. The good news is that she was walking just fine come morning, with a tendency to not trust her left rear leg much. It was working fine by the end of the day, so that trial has passed. I'm also a little more circumspect about the amount of retrieving if we haven't done it for a day. But we are pretty much to retreving every day, again.

The two chemicals in my chemo treatment are Bendamustine and Rituxin. I noticed this time that they treat the rituxin normally with an increasing rate of flow to make sure I don't suffer from allergic response. They don't do that with the bendamustine. But what they do do is put on a protective suit so they don't get any of it on them. I'd seen them do that, but didn't notice until this trip that they do it. So, they are pumping 200mg of a juice into me (twice per treatment) that they don't want to get a drop of onto their clothes or skins. Hmm. Makes me feel real good about my survival of the chemo.

I've now finished 5 of the six treatments and should be lymphoma free at this point and only do the last one to insure things stay that way for a while. I was hoping for 10-15 years between recurrances the first time, but had to settle for 3 years between diagnoses (2 1/2 years between final treatment and diagnosis). It feels good to have it down to only one more treatment st.

We do some of our payments online to make paying them more accountable. Mostly just paying our creditcards. This has caused us some problems. The first two cards have to be set to pay two days before you want it deposited. They claim they need two days to process the transfer. I happen to know that the process happens before you finish the web action, so they are setting it so they can collect two days of interest on the money. Now, our third credit card has a 7 day delay. This hasn't worked its way into Janet's planning yet, so that payment is late by five days and they are calling us every other day to tell us we need to talk to them (it is an automated call and you can't talk to them if you pick up the phone). They have been called several times and we have called back so they know the problem and when the already made payments will arrive, but they are still calling.

A good weekend for the Hawks just passed, and they now have home field advantage all through the playoffs. With a defense that has held the opponent to 6 or less points in four of their last five games, they are looking real tough right now. I'm looking forward to the playoffs. Both college and pro. The Dawgs are playing on the 2nd, and the Ducks are in the playoffs on the 1st! Much good football to look forward to.

I got a nice note from my doctor asking if a certain medicine was working, and stating, "Wow! What a great show!" She had finally bought tickets to Kitsap Chordsmen's summer show, but she got held up at work that day and didn't get away until after showtime, and couldn't get home to change and get to Bremerton for the show before it was over. So I had loaned her a DVD of the show. The DVD sat on her desk at work (where she never had time to watch it) for months, then she took it home, but they were packing for a belated huneymoon, then were gone on said honeymoon for 3 weeks, then came back and she finally found time to watch it. Well, Search for The Ring was, indeed, a great show. I hope this will spur her to make a few more shows in the future. I know she would have enjoyed the Christmas show this year.

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