Laughs

I indulged in a couple of hours of laughter. At the suggestion of friends I went to "Tuna Does Vegas" at the Paramount Theatre http://www.austintheatre.org/site/PageNavigator/venues/paramount/history

( http://www.tunadoesvegasthetour.com/photo_slide.htm ) It is a show for people who are fans, love the characters created over the past 20 years plus and love to laugh.

I guess it might be the last play that comes out of Greater Tuna. Apparently Vera Carp's Smut Snatchers have run out of smut to snatch in Tuna. Other signs of closure were DiDi Snavely found a man in Vegas, Aunt Pearl rescued a peacock , Inita Goodwin and Helen Bedd and Bertha Bumiller is getting over being shy.

All in all it was a fond portrayal of the Tuna characters and Southern Baptists without the darkness of the dishonest judge or the KKK.

Aunt Pearl reminds me of my fifth grade teacher.

Thankful for Suport

I am especially thankful for the support of friends and family this Thanksgiving.

I am also thankful for the cancer support and treatment professionals and volunteers who have smoothed the way to survivorship. Most notable are the Seton Cancer Care Team, Shivers Clinic, medical staff and students with University Medical Center Brackenridge, Cancer Connection hospital visitation volunteers, Breast Cancer Resource Center volunteers, and UT MD Anderson Adult Sarcoma Center medical staff.

I am thankful that a young relative of mine checked into a drug and alcohol treatment center for alcohol treatment.
It's a long and complex road ahead that will take all of us working together to change history.

Fighting an addiction is a fight for life.

Fight For Life

The way I feel now is that no matter what, I am for treatment versus uncontrolled cancer for as long as my body can survive the treatments.

I was distressed to hear of someone with brain cancer who has determined that they will go ahead with radiation treatments but want to stop treatments if the radiation doesn't work.

I don't know the aggressiveness of her brain tumor(s) and I am not a doctor, but determining that one will take one shot at treatment is not my way.

When I was diagnosed with cancer I was impressed with how painful cancer was and how it had messed with my mind.

When patient advocates of the Liddy Shiver Sarcoma Research Center asked if treatment is worse than cancer, Dr. Paul Meyers observed that "My experience teaches me that no matter how bad things are with treatment, to have cancer out of control is worse than any treatment that we could devise. And the vast majority of side effects that we're talking about are transient and reversible, but the benefits are permanent. And I would urge you to continue treatment as long as you possibly can, because every day you stay well is a day we may get closer to a true cure for your disease."

There are treatments for sarcoma, but no "cure." Some treatments do result in long-term survival.

I Think I Know

I was listening to my sweetie relate that almost every holiday I seemed to have an emergency or hospitalization associated with a holiday during my first year of cancer.
Several times during trips to the ER he thought I was going to die.
I can't recall impending feeling of doom or death.

On one occasion I was hospitalized with a high fever and low blood pressure. He thought I was not going to make it.

I think that if each wrote out our stories it would be quite a " Rashomon" moment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon_(film)

In my version I was just following orders to call the EMS when my temp exceeded 101. The low blood pressure was kind of a surprise to me. I was more focused on the fact that I was reconnecting with the child of friends that I felt certain my daughter would like to reconnect with. That is one of the ER nurses was that child (now grown-up).

I was pretty happy and peaceful through all the "fuss." In my mind I had a fever because my white cells were low. When the white cell count rebounded, I would be well. This was a side effect of the chemotherapy I was receiving.

I recall thinking that it took a long time to receive the two units of blood from the blood bank and wishing they would use my portacath instead of hunting for a vein.

If this is what it was like to be near death, then it was not what I expected. I was unafraid, happy and sorry I was inconveniencing my sweetie with the long stay at the ER on the day before Thanksgiving 2008.

I have to give credit to my sweetie's belief that I was near death since he was conferring with the medical staff, in his right mind and not on morphine like I was.

If I had died then, I don't believe I would have felt afraid or doomed. I think it would have seemed like a natural phase of life at the time.

Don't misunderstand. I am not ready to go. I have much to do, love life and wonder about the future too much to want to leave now.

It's just amazing to me that near death was not frightening or colored with feeling of doom.

Turkey Day Plans

I have decided to cook the turkey. I can fix the stuffing the night before, get the turkey started early, start cooking the giblets for gravy and rest up until it's done.
Someone else can do the side dishes while I have my feet up.
Sounds like a plan to me.

I used a turkey roasting bag last time with lots of success. I think I will do that again.

I can not recall Thanksgiving last year. I was pretty sick and weak.

Blue Bell Ice Cream recently came out with a no sugar added homemade vanilla flavor. I am going to try that, too.

I Dropped the Angel

Today I broke the angel Christmas coffee mug. I am not sure exactly what I did to drop it, but it felt like my fingers closed over the handle and bounced open as I was pulling it from the shelf.

It seems to be part of the chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy. I think the cumulative doses of cisplatin is the culprit.

It should improve as I am able to excersie more and has less of the chemo in my system. Some estimate improvement in 6 to 12 months after chemo ends. I hope it clears up sooner.

Apparently the ringing in my ears is part of that. They do expect that to improve.

I guess I am getting well enough be more concerned about the side effects instead of just lying around with my feet up.



One of the nurses recommended 15 mg glutamine twice a day. I need to get some and do that. I think they sell it at Whole Foods.

Now plan for Thanksgiving!

Happy Anniversary

This week my sweetie and I celebrated our 42nd anniversary with dinner out.
We are grateful to have this next year to look forward to after having survived the past year.
That was a tough one.

By chance we ran into a couple at the restaurant that were at our wedding. They have been married 45 years. I recall 42 years ago thinking that they were an old married couple. I was child and knew nothing.

Barb and Strick graciously picked up our tab. It's great to have such supportive friends.

This past year has devastated our pocketbooks, but we will swim on and not sink. Getting a chance to restore my health is priceless.

A Sad End To The Day

I am in shock and saddened over the shooting deaths at Ft Hood Today. I am glad that the shooter was captured and will go through a judicial process. It might help us understand what happened and he will live to be accountable.

I saw one report that seemed to say that because Killeen was the site of another mass killing, they were somehow less shocked?
That makes no sense to me. The 24 people killed at the Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen were normal civilians killed by a madman in Oct 1991.

I don't know who was killed and who was shot but I'll bet that most of them were either just born or very young children in Oct 1991. Many are unlikely to have ever heard of the shooting.

When our friend Jim Groenewegen committed suicide in November of that year, a Victim Services counselor was sent to the scene. Jim had shot himself rather than continue to die of the pancreatic cancer that had metathesized through out his body. We knew how ill he was and sadly accepted that he wanted control over his death. We were in much better shape than the counselor who still needed to work through the trama of providing services to so many people who were either shot and lived or had suddenly lost a love one to the Luby's mass killing.

My Dad was a psycologist in the Army during WWII. He used to tell me that his job while in the Army was to weed out the soldiers who were more likely to kill their own than kill the enemy. After the war, his job was helping to repair the damage that fighting and killing the enemy had done to normal soldiers who stayed to fight and watched their friends die, too.

What ever was going on with the shooter at Ft Hood, I think killing the people within the army he belonged to was a different kind of statement and craziness than going to Lubys and killing a bunch of strangers. Killing people who were part of the group he belonged to was like a final tearing himself apart. Too bad he didn't tear himself instead of killing and wounding so many people.

Its all sadness and pain.

I Am Not That Brave

This evening someone commented to me how brave I was and observed that I had been through so much. I guess I really have. I have also come to know a number of people who have been brave through so much more than I have experienced.

I was at a memorial service for one such person. In the end chemo and stem cell treatments were not able to tame her cancer. The symptoms became unbearable. She was in hospice care and heavily medicated with a morphine combo to relieve her pain and discomfort. She died with family around her and friends thinking of her and doing for her family.

I suppose one reason I tend to diminish my bravery and all is that none of the chemotherapy I have had was as bad as uncontrolled cancer. Cancer hurts. Well, the breast cancer hadn't started hurting, but the osteosarcoma was very painful. It was like having my bones broken from the inside.

Hope and purpose are strong therapies, too. I used to wonder how cancer patients could go through amputations, organ and tissue removal surgeries, and poisonous therapies. Now I know. Its the hopeful and less painful path.

Not Normal Yet

Its been a week of gasping for air.

My red cell count has been down for awhile. Last Wed I received a shot to stimulate red cell production. I don't think it has taken yet. I am still fatigued and the slightest activity leaves me gasping.

I have been re-reading "Into Thin Air" by John Krakauer, but those folks while gasping are climbing Mt Everest. I am just walking to the kitchen.

(I really like the snapper in the photo at right taken by my friend Bill Bryant on Walnut Creek in Austin. It's a wonderful photo.)

My car is fixed. The transmission was rebuilt and main seal replaced. Hopefully its good for another couple of years.

I had another bit of luck in the face of disaster. When the transmission rebuilder put the car back together a bolt remained loose in the right front wheel and the brake lines were not bled. I first experienced it as soft brakes. Then over the weekend we took it to friend's who have a very steep driveway and live up a steep twisty road. The car was making noise. It sounded like a bad bearing.

The luck was that the wheel didn't fall off and crash the car. Anyway, we returned it to our mechanic who returned it to the rebuilder who called and took full responsibility for the mistake, fixed it promptly and delivered the car to me.

I was so happy to have wheels again that I did a grocery store trip at 5:00 pm. That's something I would never do normally.

The parking lot and store was packed with tired working parents and bored, frantic kids that were all hungry.

I was stomping around with my cane and chemo side affects grinning like an idiot.

Besides the low red cells, I have ringing in my ears and periodically experience something like fire ant bites on my arms and legs. They aren't bites, just my poor jangeled nerves. Still I stare at my arms wondering why they aren't covered with blisters. You can't see any effect on my skin, it just feels like a bunch of fire ants biting all at once. Fortunately it does not last and it is supposed to go away.