You’ve heard that before after working way too hard. You make the slightest of moves and feel like you just got hit by a truck or played on the offensive line for the Dallas Cowboys. You’ll be glad to know, no cuts, bruises or mangling of flesh (is that even a word?) I have three new gardens/planting beds that together are actually larger than our entire house. As I type, my hands feel like this keyboard is vibrating. Maybe I spent too long fighting with the tiller. But, on a good point, I’ve got a decent size veggie garden now going (about 10 ft by 14 ft) and two nice size flower gardens. The lady that use to live here (about three years ago) was a master garden who won many city awards. We are finding plants and bulbs everywhere that we are able to transplant so we aren’t having to spend much of anything to have nice looking gardens.
On the medical front, a couple of minor things have come up. The IVIG transfusion was last Monday. As you know, I was pretty sick Monday night and most of Tuesday. On Wednesday, I developed a rash on my left hip. It has increased in size and now is on my right hip as well. I’ve also developed some minor sores in my mouth. I know to stay on top of those (right, Shaylor and Susan?) so I’m trying to take care of those with a mouth rinse.
Here’s my little political comment for the day. I’ll say up front I’m supporting McCain. Not so much that I really like McCain, I just don’t like some of the things Obama wants to do. I watched the debate as many of you did. I then watched the commentators on many different networks talk about the debate. I felt like both McCain and Obama made some good points. They each had their good and bad points. I honestly felt like Obama came out a little ahead of McCain but not by much. However, you watch the experts talk about it and it just ticks me off. Each republican commentator feels like McCain was great and Obama stunk up the place and each democratic commentator feels that Obama did great and McCain was terrible. I couldn’t believe the number of times each side would start with “Now the FACT really is….”. How many sets of facts are there? Is there any wonder so many people are so frustrated with the whole lot of them?
Heading to Houston Thursday at lunch for my next visit. I now get to move to monthly visits instead of every other week. Yippee
Brad
September 28th, 2008 at 11:03am
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you know the rest from your childhood. I’ll get back to that later.
As I mentioned in my last post, I wasn’t feeling too good after that IVIG transfusion on Monday….Tuesday wasn’t really any better but the last two days have shown marked improvement. Last night was my last night of chemo for the next seven days (yeppie) so I’ll start feeling even better in about 48 hours if this round is anything like the first two.
I’ve also been sleeping better at night which as many of you that follow this know, that has been a real problem. Last night was all together a different story. As most of you know, Tami and I bought a very small house….building…cabin…well, just call it a home. It is very old and has most of the old, wooden structure problems. We have seen the leftovers from the mice and have seen a few roaches but nothing too out of whack for an old house. I woke up this morning around 2:15 with something on the back of my neck…figured it was the cat walking around and after hitting at it, turned back over. A few minutes later I felt it on my FACE….I slapped at it, jumped up and grabbed the flashlight sitting beside the bed. What did I see? A medium size roach crawling on the wall above my head. I tried to knock him off as he tried to hightail it for the relative comfort of the small crack between the bed and wall. Now I’m sure there is some formula for mass and velocity that should have applied here but I swear to you that this large mass (my fat $#%#) moved at a velocity that was physically impossible (they should do a show about it on that MythBusters show) Needless to say, as I lay there trying to go back to sleep…realizing that I’m breathing through my open mouth (since this cold has my nose blocked up), all I can see is one of those old horror movies where the dead guy has bugs crawling in and out of his mouth…ONLY I”M NOT DEAD! Sleep did eventually come, but wasn’t too relaxing for some reason. For all of you that love all of God’s creatures, skip this sentence. I went to Walmart after school. I have roach traps and mice traps all around our kitchen tonight. I’m sure it’s not as exciting as hunting moose with Sarah Palin, but hunting is hunting…right?
Back to the stove comment. I knew that I had a few mosquito bites on my legs but I had no idea just how many. I was scratching them tonight and stopped to count. I can’t see all the way around my calf on either side but I stopped counting at 42 rather nasty looking bites that, well…look nasty. I guess a bite takes a little more toll on the body when you don’t have much of an immune system. Yeh, if they keep getting me on the legs, why not wear long pants? Geeze, why didn’t I think of that?
Tomorrow is Friday. I’m planning on tilling up a large section of our back 40 this weekend for a garden. That’s right…Brad + a gas engine + spinning tines of metal. Anyone want to start a pool on how long it takes me to do something really, really stupid?
Brad
September 25th, 2008 at 10:20pm
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I’m feeling much better today. I imagine most of you could tell that after that IVIG transfusion, I wasn’t feeling to well. I’m not sure what it was…I felt fine during the transfusion and even an hour or two afterwards I was doing ok. I even went by Home Depot and bought seven 40 pound bags of different planting mixes and soils to use in the small garden I’m starting at home. However, by the time I arrived at the house with the materials, I wasn’t feeling so good and went inside to rest. Over the rest of the evening, I felt more and more sick to my stomach (and when you have a stomach the size of mine, that’s a problem) and also more and more tired. I woke up yesterday feeling about the same. Then around 5pm yesterday, I started to make the turn just as suddenly to where I was feeling much better. Thankfully, I feel even better today. I’ve still got that crud that is causing me to cough but the bad effects from the IVIG are gone and now I’m waiting on the good side that should help my immune system fight.
There is a scripture in John that says in part “I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly” or something similar to that. I remember watching Mark Lowry, a Christian goof ball of a comedian, once when he was talking about that promise. He said that Jesus never promised us a rose garden, just life that was more abundant. And with that, he moved his arm up and down like it was riding on a roller coaster. “Life more abundant”. His point, for those of you that are visual learners and needed to be there to get this, was that we are going to have very high highs and some very low lows. I’m sure this applies to many parts of life but I’m not sure how it could apply to anything more accurately than dealing with cancer.
The depths you experience when you are first diagnosed….the peaks when you are told you are in remission…the depths when they tell you the drugs they are giving you are getting rid of the cancer but appear to have been so strong your body might not survive them…then pulling through to fight another day…then you relapse…then you find a perfect match for your transplant…. You get the picture.
By now you might be able to tell why I gave my blog the title of “This is the Great Adventure….Life is a Hoot”. Life, even when dealing with cancer and the treatments for the cancer, can be exciting if we allow it to be. Granted, I certainly enjoy the mountain peaks better than the valleys but then again I probably wouldn’t enjoy the peaks near as much without spending a little time in the valleys, would I?
Things are looking up.
Brad
September 24th, 2008 at 08:07am
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Some of you that don’t really know me might consider not reading to the end today because of the way it starts. I ask that you stick with it. My mind is a scary place and sometimes gets from point A to point D by going through points S and T. Don’t you have a new found respect for Tami?
Our baby girl turned 21 on Friday. It got me to thinking back over those 21 years, some good and some, well….how would Anthony Robbins or Zig Ziggler put it…..some times were opportunities for future success based on the valuable lesson of what not to do.
I’m thinking specifically of the night we brought Katie home. Tami and I agreed to take turns staying up with her because, not a lot unlike now, she likes to exercise her lungs. There came a point sometime during the night that I was crying uncontrollably because she wouldn’t just shut up that I woke up Tami and said “I have to walk around the block before I do something I shouldn’t”. Now, we all know I wasn’t going to harm her..probably or to borrow the title of a current movie “Definitely, maybe” not. But it did explain something to me (and here is where some of you will simply quite reading). Hurting a child is a horrible thing..but for a moment, just a moment, I at least understood how someone could get to that point…a point that until that moment, I never understood how one human being could do that to another that was so helpless. There is NO excuse to harm a child, no matter what they have or havne’t done. I’ve never gotten even close to that point since then but I’ll never forget that feeling.
For those of you still reading, what does that have to do with cancer? Good question. Last year when I was living down at MD Anderson, I met two people that I can remember that told me that they were tired and had enough. They were telling the doctors to stop all treatment and they were going home. I remember thinking “you’re kidding”…FIGHT! I still think that, but something strange happened yesterday on a very simple day of a transfusion. I understood them. Don’t panic. I’m no where near that point. I’ve got tons of fight still left in me….but for a time, I understand what I thought I would never understand. I’m tired of treatments just like that night 21 years ago when I was tired of listening to Katie cry and scream.
Here’s the good end to the story. As I mentioned earlier, I never even came close to getting that mad at her again (although a few times I should have!) and it all worked out. All of the cancer treatments are like that too. I’ll look back on this a few years from now and say the same thing. I’m actually glad I experienced that so many years ago. It gave me some understanding about others that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. The same thing has now happened with all of these treatments for the treatments of the other treatments of cancer. I’m so tired of all the treatments but I know it will make it even sweeter on the other side.
Here’s to “The other side”
Brad
September 23rd, 2008 at 08:46am
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Our little girl is 21 today. Yeh, auto insurance goes down! I don’t think I want to know about how you celebrated so I won’t ask…somethings are better that dad’s don’t know.
So I found out after I posted yesterday that I’ll be starting the IVIG transfusions once a month until I have my transplant. To find out more about IVIG transfusions, go here. My immune system just isn’t doing the trick and needs some help. The best way I can thinkn of to describe this 4 hour transfusion is that they take the best of the best of the immune system from about 20,000 donors and pack in to one reved up…Tim the tool man Taylor kind of package and hope that all of the supermen do their jobs. Not sure what my final cost will be but when I looked it up on the internet, the cost for an adult was listed at around $10,000…geeze, and I have to do this once a month. Thankfully insurance should cover most of it.
The trip was really quite uneventful. I didn’t see a single line at any gas stations. I know they are there somewhere, but I saw people getting gas as if it was no big deal. I’m sure there are pockets of areas where it is still bad. The area around the med center had some trees down and most of the signal lights didn’t work…but other than that, everything I saw looked normal. Having said that, if I would have gone farther south toward Galveston, I know that wouldn’t have been the case.
I start my IVIG treatments Monday morning and from what I’ve read, I should feel the effects within 48 hours. It will be nice to be able to breath again and not cough my head off.
Until then….
Brad
September 19th, 2008 at 11:00am
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I’ll get back to that later.
I’m sitting in the dining room of MD Anderson waiting on my doctor’s visit. First, the trip down here. It was absolutely normal until I turned off of 610 and on to Bellaire (Holcumb). Trees were down on the sides of the roads, no power to any of the traffic signals, etc. It didn’t look terrible, but you could tell it had been a mess.
I had my blood work done with no unusual things happen. They added a chest xray because of this cough I’ve had for four weeks now. They called three of us men back at the same time. As is normal, we changed and started talking. The two other gentlemen were around 60 or so and seemed nice enough. One man spoke of politics and so I made a safe comment. We’re in a small room and no need in getting in an argument. The one gentlemen that professed his love of Nebraska football asked what I thought of McCain and Obama and then he stuck in that he thought McCain was a little…well, not too bright. I said that I agreed but that I felt Obama would be worse for the country and stated my reasons. I thought I was very specific and non emotional about the whole thing. All he could say was that McCain was an idiot. He asked what I thought of Sarah Palin. I said I thought she was a breath of fresh air. His response? “She’s an idiot”. He then brought up she went to five different colleges. “What idiot does that” he said. I didn’t mentioned how I think I had credits from 7 different schools leading up to both my BBA and my masters degree but hadn’t thought of myself as an idiot. (yes, it’s getting interesting in the room and the other man is just looking down at the floor, searching as if he’ll find a trap door he can escape through) The talkative gentlemen says then that I must think our current president is smart. I answer, absolutely. I quickly mention that I don’t agree with much of what he has done, but I do think he is a smart man and that I find it hard to believe any democrat or republican that made it to the white house is not smart. His response was fascinating “He’s an idiot”.
At this point, those of you that know me know I’m loving this. I love to have political discussions and I don’t get emotional about it. I like to discuss these things and see what people believe. I think it is interesting how diverse our opinions are and who knows, maybe you’ll say something I’ve never thought of or I’ll say something to get you thinking. Either way, at least it gets people talking.
At this point, I couldn’t resist any longer. I was going to take my first opportunity if it presented itself….it didn’t take long. He was trying to get to the internet from his phone to check stock quotes. He stopped the political conversation and asked me if I could help him. I said I would love to…but, seeing how it took me 7 colleges to graduate, I probably wasn’t smart enough to figure it out. …silence….a really strange silence. By now the other gentlemen is cleaning his fingernails with a pocket knife. I don’t think he struck blood but he was digging hard enough to.
We discussed a little more about politics before I left. My last comment to him was something I hope he thinks about for a while. As I left, I simply said “If everyone that doesn’t believe what I believe is an idiot, then I’m telling the world that I’m ALL KNOWING. I don’t think I’m quite there”. “oh, and good luck with figuring out that phone thing”.
I’m not picking on liberals (I promise, Susan), conservatives can be just as ridiculous. But until we can get where we can discuss things and provide real alternatives instead of blame and accusations, we’re simply…well, screwed.
September 18th, 2008 at 03:45pm
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I’m not really sure how to take it. The emails come in after a few days of not writing. “Are you ok?” “Has anything happened?”, etc. At first I just thought “How sweet, they all want to make sure I’m doing ok since I haven’t posted in a while”. About that time, I was given another version that, now that I think about it, is more likely. It would appear that people can’t believe I can go this long without doing something really stupid to injure myself. I’m not saying I haven’t been tempted. My back neighbor and I were talking across the rather large fence between us (the one used to keep the goats and other animals in) and he asked if I wanted some more fresh eggs and peppers. Shoot yeh, I said. His response? “Just jump on over the fence and come and get them”. I slid my hands on the top rail and was about to do the ole’ fosbury flop over it when pictures of ambulance lights, sounds of sirens, having to listen to all of the ladies from MD Anderson yelling at me…all of that stuff went rushing through my mind. In a rare moment of clarity of thought, I suggested I wait right there until he got them and brought them to me.
I did talk with MD Anderson today (at least I know Kim was at work) and I’m still on for Thursday. I’m not sure how the drive will be going or coming back but I guess I’ll find out. I’ll be taking a couple of 5 gallon gas tanks with me just in case and I’ll stop about half way and fill up just in case. I’m also going to take my 89 Chevy pick-em-up truck so that if something does happen to it…well, Tami would just call it a mercy killing.
As to my physical health…I get tired quicker than I would like. By the end of the school day, I’m beat. Tomorrow will be exactly 4 weeks ago that this cough/runny nose thing started and it still won’t go away. We’ve thrown just about everything at it except maybe some buttermilk pie and vanilla ice cream….hmmm, guess I’ll be stopping by the store on the way home! Anyway, I think I’m just getting run down with being sick for so long on top of the chemo. The chemo is really very easy to do and keep up with. I can see how people do this for years if their cancer stays away. It’s just that not feeling well on top of that is just starting to take a little bit of a toll. I’ll get better though, I always do. (insert superman music here)
I’ll have an interesting post I’m sure on Friday. The trip on Thursday to Ike ravaged Houston should be interesting.
Brad
September 16th, 2008 at 11:57am
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I’ll get back to that later.
This visit was my two month visit where I had to do the re-staging for the cancer. I had CT scans, blood work and chest x-rays. No, I didn’t get the pleasure of the bone marrow this time. Too bad…I really enjoy that juice they give you to knock you out. That’s some good stuff. Anyway, I wanted to post a little about CT scans this time. They sound so innocent.
With all of the technological improvements in medicine, surely someone would have invented a pill you could take that would coat your insides sufficiently in order to take CT scans! Obviously the inventive kind of people haven’t been blessed with cancer or they would have immediately gone home and begun work on a way around drinking those “Smoothies”. Those of us who have this tasty treat thrust upon us have actually turned this into our own sport of Smoothy Tossing. If you ever have the pleasure of visiting a CT waiting room, you’ll immediately be able to identify them.
The sprinter just goes in for the kill. “Straws are for woosies” is his cry. He shakes the bottle, peels the protective covering back ( Lord knows we wouldn’t want something nasty tasting to fall in before we get to drink it! ) and then chugs. You can tell these folks even after they have finished their treats….they look like models for a “Got Milk” campaign. The marathoner just takes it slow and easy, sipping almost as if it is tea time in England. The pinky is usually in its properly elevated position. Then there are the decathletes. We, yes I belong to this category, must vary our approach to just how our stomach feels and if anyone is watching. I must admit, I have on occasion, felt that a potted plant in the waiting room appeared to be lacking in essential nutrients. What could have been better for it than a little of my “smoothy” poured on the roots. I’m a sharing kind of guy, what can I say? I almost forgot about the taste. I’ve tried to think of a way to explain it and this is the best I can come up with. Take pancake batter, stir in some dish washing detergent and the add the flavoring of your choice. In order to do that, get a ladder and go dig around in that junk that has been stuck in your gutters for the last few seasons. Find a berry, pine cone, anything that came from a plant or tree and stir it in to the mixture and there you go.
Once you drink the stuff, you might be ok unless you are having a full lymphoma screening. In that case, you must answer one additional question that you would prefer not to hear. “Mr. Williams, you understand that you’ll be having a rectal barium contrast, correct?” What do you say to that? Uh, I understand it alright but does that make a difference? Once you’ve changed, a nice lady comes and introduces herself to you. “Hi Mr. Williams, I’m Cora” she said with a smile. She seems sweet enough. She leads you into a room where you aren’t even completely on the table when you hear “please pull your pants down to your knees”. Next thing I know there is a tube going where no tube should go. Shouldn’t we have shared a drink together first? Got to know each other a while? I’ve never smoked a cigarette in my life but maybe even that could have broken the ice.
I miss bone marrow.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:55pm
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I’ve got more interesting comments to make later tonight about some of the testing this time but I have a few minutes while I wait for my chemo RX to get filled so I’ll just say that my numbers are good enough to continue so on we go. We hope to get out of here within the hour and be back in Dallas around 4pm today.
The CT’s show that the cancer appears to be gone. There is one very small lymph node showing up that was one of the two earlier problems but it is within the “normal” size range so we’ll not worry about it. As long as I can stay like this, we’ll be able to put off the transplant until Spring.
Until later,
Brad
September 4th, 2008 at 11:22am
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