"Hope springs a kernel"...........Denny Crane

Millyrose informed me this evening that ‘WE’ could probably start hiding our own Easter Eggs this coming Spring........I’m pretty sure that the ‘we’ didn’t really include her but was meant solely for me.....and the truth is, she’s prob’ly right. She usually is. I blame it on the drugs but since I don ‘t really trust my own judgment in so many areas today, it could be most anything. But, I still blame it on the drugs. Like the aging hippies and baby boomers who ingested too many recreational drugs, I’m inhabiting a sort of different world today. And I don't even have the fun of recreational drugs to blame.
I have determined that driving during chemo week and the ‘tired’ week that follows is prob’ly not a good idea. That was softly pointed out to me by my friend, Nick, the retired cop. Can y' imagine? 70 years old and taking advice from an old cop on the dangers in driving while stoned. On the third week, the good week, I should be good to go.
That’d be November 12th, which will be midway in my chemotherapy. So by December, I should have my fourth treatment and be two thirds of the way. With any luck, I’ll be finished in February and mayhap my hair will begin growing back in March. I don’t look like Telly Savalas altho’ my son did give me a bag of lollipops to go with my bald pate, and I can’t remember the last time I shaved my face. Almost as smooth as a babys watchamacallit. Well, not quite but pretty darn smooth for an old fart on the downhill side.
Britney Spears released a new album on the same day that a bunch’a old farts that call themselves ‘The Eagles’ released their first album in about 35 years and Denny Crane said, “hope springs a kernel.”
Capt. Kirk rules..............David

Soda crackers and milk in the wee hours.....

.......I gave up on soda crackers a year or more ago becuz of my diabetes......they’re made of white flour and contain high fructose corn syrup, both of which have deleterious effects on BS......still, soda crackers, saltines, whatever ya want’a call ‘em, have a soothing effect on an upset stomach and Chemo can give a person an upset stomach.....sooooo, I bought a box of crackers and have been working my way thru them.........and crackers and milk have been a comfort food in my family like f’rever.......I don’t know just when that began but my Mother fed them to me and my brothers and we fed them to our children.......anyway, as my BS normalizes after Chemo week, I find myself waking in the small hours with dropping BS.....and a small glass of milk and a handful of crackers seems to be the perfect comfort food to bring the BS up and allow me to sleep out the rest of the nite......so there you have it.
Now on to other, much more mundane tho’ts......I miss my hair. I miss washing it and combing it but mostly I just miss having it.......like coffee......almost two weeks ago, I got my taste for coffee back (having lost it during the first go-round)......I was back to my routine of grinding beans and making coffe first thing in the AM when, yesterday, to my suprise, it began to taste like mud. Again! And I couldn’t even drink one small cup......Now bear with me here, people. I know coffee and hair is small stuff and one shouldn’t sweat the small stuff....I don’t know if the Devil is in the details or not but I think I’ve always fretted over the small stuff just so I wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about the big stuff that I couldn’t do anything about anyway......so as Red Skelton used to say, “G’nite and God bless!”.........David

Minimum fan............

Chemo week is a week spent on Prednisone which does wierd things to body and mind.....f'r one thing, it causes N-Som which means you get to prowl a sleeping house wond'ring why you alone should be awake....so this last week, Kendra the Cancer Doc prescribed sleeping pills. The combo had me walking around in a twilight state, neither here nor there......light-headed and unable to walk a straight line.....also made my driving a tad erratic so on the next go-round, I'll be giving that up for that p'ticklar week......The steroid sends my BS thru the roof which affects the little cognitive ability that I have so no one should be surprised by what I might say (or do, for that matter).......Anyway I woke up about 5:30 or so this AM feeling a bit anxious....got up a little after 6, checked my BS to find a 'normal' reading..... hopefully, I'll be able to keep it in a normal range for the next two weeks.....this week is s'pozed to be my 'tired' week and next week should be my 'good' week and then I get to do it all over again. The good news is that the next treatment will be the halfway point.....Please don't misunderstand me.....I don't mean to whine.....a lot of the people I've met during this treatment are in really dire straits and I feel blessed to be so lucky....I have a highly curable cancer, good medical treatment, and lots of good friends wishing me well.....I AM ONE FORTUNATE PERSON...........
so I have no p'ticklar reason for ranting, I only do it for the heck of it.......
I try not to eat at fast food restaurants anymore. I don’t think they’re really healthy. Lots of calories and lots of high fructose corn syrup equal lots of rotten teeth and lots of fat bodies and Gawd only knows what all that stuff does to the already hormonally imbalanced teenagers. I’m not actually saying that it’s really bad for everyone just that I think it might be.
That said, I do occasionally eat a burger from In ‘n Out. And have a chocolate milkshake also. Their fries, however, leave a ‘hull lot to be desired. They’re like faux fries that come with li’l kids make believe kitchen sets. They’re not made of plastic but they might as well be cardboard. I think they’re really made of potatoes, I just don’t know how they take all the flavor out.
Speaking of being a minimum fan.........todays movies seem to be all about more violence, bigger crashes, and less character. You take a likeable actor like Denzel Washington, put him into a really, really bad guy and let him impart some humanity to a truly evil character. Ah well, lots and lots of bang-bang, shoot-em-up and explosions. Saves all that witty dialogue that Hollywood used to be famous for. And I know you’re not supposed to end a sentence like that but I just plain don’t care.
I think I’m a minimum fan of the current crop of television shows. None of them are very good but some of them are watchable. At least part of the time. Las Vegas, which wasn’t very good with James Caan, and hasn’t got any better with Tom Selleck, is a total waste. Caan was wise to exit when he did. There must have been contract issues for him to have stayed as long as he did. And poor old Selleck who is a very watchable actor appears to be bored almost to tears. When you’re an over the hill action star like Tommy, I’d guess you’d do almost anything for money and a few more moments in the sun.
With few exceptions, ya just gotta be a minimum fan of teevee writers. And now they’re going on strike. Boo-hoo! There are prob’ly a hundred thousand bloggers (maybe more) who are better writers. The most dreadful thing about a ‘writers’ strike is that it will undoubtedly mean more (lack of) reality shows. GAHD!

JUST A THO'T...........Justin Other Smith

I just saw in the SacBee (ain’t that a wunnerful name for a wunnerful w’atchamacallit kind’a used t’ be newspaper) heralding the fact that former Guv Pete Wilson is going to be paid $400 an hour (way less’n normal for him and peeps like him) to negotiate a new ARENA. It should be painfully, obviously clear to all the movers and shakers that the citizenry of Sactown don't want to pay for an expensive boondoggle that benefits only the MALOOF'S, OVERPAID ATH-LEETS, and all the insiders who hope to exact some sort of profit from the backs of the ordinary people. At least in ancient Roma, the bread and circus's were paid for by those hoping to keep the populace from rising up and tearing everything down. Our guys today seem much more clever. They want us to pay for our own demise.
There should be a law about putting former pols out to pasture and making darn sure they stay there. There are a few execrable examples (choose y’r own) that should have been simply put down the way society does every day with unwanted pets.

ANOTHER THO’T........
Sactown now has this almost brand new ath-a-lete named Justin Williams who seems to envision himself as much larger than he has yet to become and who evidently feels it just must be his right to pick up a star-struck idiot, take her home with his g’friend, give her a taste of GHB and after she is sufficiently woozy, he and g’friend rape her. Or attempt to rape her. Guilty or innocent? Doesn’t really matter, does it? Talk about terminal stupidity ending a career before it really begins.

BOB LYONS died this week. He was an old friend, 73 years old, given to random acts of violence and joyous abandon in his youth. He was a burly guy in black leather and boots. It was said that once he rode in an open convertible in a Lincoln Day Parade in Detroit, unfurled a large Confederate battle flag and had to flee the city. Could’a happened. Bob was fun and he had fun. Don’t know what life was like for him as he grew old but I imagine he enjoyed the hell out of it.

On the home front, I'm a third of the way thru Chemo....the 2nd time went a little easier. Or seems so at the moment. My friend, Mollie Burke Phillips is in hospital in Lexington......here's hoping for a miracle......Love to her and her family.....David

Thurs Nite Nonsensical ...............

My toes are wiggling and I can ‘t sleep even tho’ I’ve taken the sleeping pills.......Dunno why that is.........feel like I’ve been a little drunk all this week... lite headed and bouncing off the walls......very strange and can’t seem to type.....spacing my words a litte strangely .....not sure what that’s about either.........t hink i’ll run in and have a glass of milk.....brb.......BS is out’a whack but that’s because of the Predinisone or so they tell me.........Probably a good th ing that I stuck with booze and tobacco back in the day...no tellin ‘ what chemicals mig ht’a done to me............LSD, Marijuana, all the rest of that st uff that w as floating around.......wonder what this world would’a been like if so many people hadn’t screwed wit h it.............Course, it don’t look like we did too well on booze and ‘baccy.........and we had Cannabis and Heroin and Morphine. Heck, we even put Cocaine in Coca-Cola for awhile. And old ladies used to get smashed on Lydia Pinkhams Tonic..........guess shit has been with us one way or another for a very long time..........I wonder if we invented God under the influence of drugs or maybe that’s the way He did us. Still, I don’t see that as any reason for sticking up with politicians
I can maybe understand ‘roided out athletes and greedy developers and predators of all sorts have been with us from Day One.. Heck, that’s always been part of the game.
Maybe the old-timers had it right. Maybe there’s a multitude of Gods watching on widescreen, high-defininition teevee screens as we run willy-nilly for their amusement and nothing more. Some Giant Damn
Raven somewhere quoting “Nevermore!”
In the meanti me, inbetween time, I’m hoping that soda crackers ( hig h fructose, et al) and milk will help settle my stomach and send me off to beddy -bye..............Justin Ot her SMi th

just a little politics.....skip if you like.....Zionist Creation of Israel....

Contrary to popular belief, the USA did not create the State of Israel. Nor did we help them. At that time, we were firmly in bed with Great Britain and Great Britain at that moment in time was engaged in a conflict with the Zionists over control of what was destined to become Israel.
The Zionists through determination and a successful campaign of terror finally brought the British to a bargaining table and were able to end the conflict by winning certain concessions from the military governing bodies that were ruling the middle east after World War II.
Thus was developed the State of Israel. The Palestinians living there at the time were not forced to leave; many stayed. Their homes and properties were not ceded to the Israeli’s, were not confiscated, they were in fact part and parcel of the State of Israel guaranteed the rights and privileges and responsibilities of all the other Israeli’s.
Many of the surrounding Arab States saw Israel as a threat to the stability of their own governments and encouraged the Palestinians to flee Israel under the promise that when Israel was surely to be destroyed, they would be able to return and take what was left.
Obviously, this never happened. The Jews had a huge backlog of wealthy people in the USA and GB an other countries and many of them emigrated to the new state of Israel bringing not only their accumulated wealth but their powerful contacts with other countries.
And the ancestral homeland of the Jews prevailed. As it does to this day.
Granted, Israel is a small country surrounded by large countries that hate them but they have the USA as a friend able and willing to offer friendship and material and the unwavering belief that helping Israel is the right thing to do.

more political than persona;...a letter to the editor

It doesn’t come as a major surprise that NY Dems would come up with the idea that banning the noose will put a halt to ‘hate’ crimes. The same mentality thinks that banning Nazi symbols and burning crosses can accomplish the same agenda. They talk of California as being the ‘Land of Oz’ but MiGawd, it doesn’t take a brain (Strawman) to figure out that you can’t legislate bigotry out of existence. It takes education. And with diversity increasing by leaps and bounds every year, it’s going to take ongoing education.
Little children don’t have any trouble accepting other children of different color or different religious persuasions. Childrens mindsets come from the adults in their lives. There’s a song, I think from the show ‘South Pacific’ that children have to be carefully taught to be prejudiced.
And people, not just Americans, but people seem so terribly adept at; teaching hatred and bigotry and prejudice.
But looking around , I see lots of Tiger Woods, Because after all is said and donewe are all one race ansyway. There is no white ra ce or black race or brown race. There is nos such thing as mixed race. There is only the human race. Hopefully there will come a day we we Americans, indeed the world will be so mixed that we have find other reasons to hate our neighbors.

A good line is a good line plaigarized or not...........

Wherever you go, there you are........(attributed to Linda Ellerbee but I’m pretty sure she lifted from someone else).......w’ot the heck? A good line is a good line................
So today, where I wuz......wuz the oncology dept at KP doing my second chemo day.........two down, four to go.........just found out that one of my upcoming appt’s is for Xmas Eve.....and since no one will be working, that’ll have to be changed......just as well, I don’t want to be Zonkered on Xmas Day any hoo..............
Had some interesting conversations with a couple upbeat chemoyans?
chemoites? fellow travellers, as it were.......nice people.....reminded me again how much I have to be thankful for......my p ‘ticklar cancer is spozed to be ‘highly curable’..............a lot of other people have considerably lower odds.......BUT they all seem to be fighters, determined that they’re going to win out in the end.......
Second chemo was a piece of cake.....went in at ten in the AM, out by three PM......Millyrose was there and Cary came.....I sent them out for lunch and they brought me an In and Out Burger (no onions) and fries and a chocolate milkshake......probly a little too much lunch but what the heck?......after I left, I felt a little dizzy and was staggering slightly as tho I were a little drunk so Millyrose drove home.......other than that, I felt good......I took my pill, incl my new sleeping pill and went to bed shortly after nine PM.....couldn’t sleep tho so I did some blogging and took another sleeping pill as per instructions........next morning, I didn’t go to Kelleys in the AM......Milly went by herself and then drove to work......she came home for lunch and asked if I wanted the car but I turned her down ........I still felt lightheaded and was staggering slightly as tho I was still a little drunk.......didn’t feel bad, just a little high......went to bed a little after nine but couldn’t sleep so I st aggered out to the ‘puter.......gonna take another sleeping pill (as per instructions) hopefully conteract the prednisone.........Hope I c’n get up in the morn and go to the gym.....need’a get some sun on this bald pate.......O by the way, coffee tastes good again....hope it sticks around

Talked to my friend Nick today.......he’s just home from hospital with a new knee......looking forward to some good conversation with him now that we can both drink a little coffee.........Nick is a retired policeman and a retired Crimonologist and a bit of amateur historian AND possibly a little strange ‘cuz he likes my poetry. He sez he can’t always figger ‘em out but here’s one for you Nick.

A Poem for Manvil Nicolai Hendrickson

Memories linger..............
whether you want them to or not,
good ones and bad ones
all jumbled together,
like a stew slow cooking in your head.
And like murder,
one day must come out.
Justin Other Smith
October, 2007

Just a short note............

Long beautiful hair, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen, down to there hair, shoulder length or longer, hair.........show it, long as i can grow it, beautiful hair........”
Now it’s gone, gone, gone..............well, there’s a stubble left but it’ll go also.......I just got really tired of drifting hair. Seemed like ever’ time I moved, ever’ time I scratched my head, ever’ where I looked, there was flying hair. Hair on my pillow. Hair on my sweater........
Except that was old used to be.......
.And every time I saw my g’daughters, one of ‘em would run up and snatch off my cap to see how much hair I had left.....and I think they were disappointed every time that I still had some............Well, as Roberto Duran one famously stated, “No mas....No mas.”

Thru the looking glass........

Seems like every time I look in a mirror, my forehead gets larger. I’ve spent a big chunk of today just watching my hair fall out. It ain’t like it’s coming out in patches, it’s just sort’a thinning, thinning, thinning. My hair just keeps on thinning....Rawhide!.........Thru rain and wind and weather, we’ve always been together, my comb ready at my side.........Rawhide......Or at least, naked hide.......nude hide......ah well, I think my hair likes my comb better than it does my head. At any rate, they seem highly attracted to each other. .maybe I’ll get one ‘a them temporary tatts..... that’d be a kick......
I go see my oncologist this afternoon to get my marching orders for my second round of chemo. I think it’s all gonna be pretty much the same as the first time. Maybe it’ll go better. Hopefully, it won’t be any worse. I’ve been fortunate so far. Some people get really sick.
I watched ‘Desperate Housewives’ where wot’sername was taking chemo. Nice private room, big comfy-lookin’ recliner, and her friends came and threw her a ‘chemo party’.........I’m in a big room with a bunch of other bald people squirming in the most uncomfortable recliners it was ever my misfortune to recline upon.......a more comfortable chair would be nice but otherwise I wouldn’t trade.........especially not for a party. A chemo party would be like attending your own wake....only SOBER!
I gave a passing tho’t this morning to making some coffee. That was one of the first things I did every morning. Measure the water, grind the beans, sighhhhh.......I miss coffee........there’s no prohibition on coffee like there is on booze but it just tastes really bad now and I couldn't drink it and I’d hate to throw it out.........maybe when my hair comes back in all thick and red and curly, I’ll recover my taste for java......
In the meantime, in between time, ain’t we got fun???????
David

When the brain is sleeping...........

A rainy eve in old Fair Oaks......calls out for a cracklin’ fire. S’pity progress has all but eliminated real cracklin’ fires but (sigh) too much pollution. We’ve lost a lot of time-honored things to progress; roaring fireplaces, bonfires, burnt marshmallows. We’re prob’ly goin’ to lose a lot more as the world continues to change around us. S’pect we’d better adapt or we might find ourselves on the (gasp) Guv’mint Endangered Species list.
I just saw an article that they are digging up one of the worlds largest dinosaurs. Poor fellow! I wonder if he had a clue what done him in? I don’t think most of us have a clue what is doing us in.
A few years ago, I was working at the railroad yard. Away down at the western end of the yard, just off the property, a group of ‘bummies’ (railroad slang for tramps and hoboes) were huddled around a blazing fire taking whatever nourishment they could get from an assortment of cans and bottles, almost every one of them smoking a cigarette. One of the rails commented that the ‘bummies’ were doing more damage to themselves huddled around the creosote-soaked ties they were burning than with all the booze and tobacco.
I commented that in countries where starvation was the norm, diabetes was almost unknown. The rail looked at me then went on to explain in detail just how poisonous creosote could be.
A lot of people can become so engrossed in a movie that they are willing to suspend belief. Some people can sit thru showing after showing. Often, they brag about it, quoting chapter and verse from the memorized movie. Or television show. There are ‘Trekkies’ that actually speak Klingon. Heck, they can barely speak English and they understand Klingon. I guess for some people, reality sucks.
And I prob’ly shouldn’t make a connection between reality (or the lack thereof) and politics. Politicians seem to make their own reality, apparently rooted in a state of suspended belief.
And talking with friends and relation elsewhere, a big part of the USA seems to believe that’s a fair definition of California. A State of Suspended Belief.
Ya gotta wonder why so many of ‘em folly the yellow brick road to get here.
And remember, “Oz never did give nuthin’ to the tin man that he didn’t already have........”

Blogging the nite away.........

My Aunt Eunice died this morning. She was 88 years old, the youngest and the last of my Dad’s family. She was married four times, had two daughters by her first husband and a son and daughter by her third. She raised tobacco, drove a school bus and worked in a convalescent hospital and I don’t know how many other jobs. I won’t be attending her funeral but I bet it’ll be something.
This is my third week of chemo, what they said would be my ‘good’ week. The first week, you’re full of chemicals that have differing side effect; the second week is fatiguing. Really tiresome. The third week, this week for me, is s’pozed to be my good week so I can, as my kids used to say, get ‘guts up’ so I c’n do it all over again next week.
I felt so good this last weekend that I even watched some political nonsense. We have such a lot of buffoonish poseurs running for the office of President that it’s impossible to really satirize them. Most of them have already turned themselves into the caricatures that the least talented political cartoonists have envisioned.
And of the pundits who report their doings, only Stewart and Colbert, who in reality are imitation pundits and in danger of hurting themselves with all the winking and nudging, seem to understand that it’s a joke and everyone is in on it but the candidates.
Of the real pundits, (is that like the real tinsel and glitter beneath the phony tinsel and glitter of Hollywood?) I’m surprised at their ability to keep a straight face in front of the cameras. Of course, in fairness, I’ve caught a few winks and bemused expressions there.

“There are two ways of getting along in this world. You can be oh so very smart or oh so very pleasant. I reccommend pleasant.” Elwood P. Dowd

a little magic............

So, I haven't been keeping up with my posting. I guess I was too dependent on the N-Som and was writing in the wee hours of my sleeplessness and when that passed and I began sleeping 15 or 20 hours a day I just couldn't find the whatever to sit down and say something clever. I finally realized I wasn't all that clever to begin with and while this blog is about my tho'ts and my reaction to events in my life, it really isn't about me. Or at least, it ain't spozed to be just about me.
I'm a 70 year old Diabetic with cancer, undergoing chemotherapy which tends to focus my tho'ts pretty much on myself. I'm sorry but that's what humans pretty much do all the time. On the other hand, I have every expectation of beating the cancer and dragging out my unexceptional life for another 10 or 20 years. 30 may be pushing it but what the heck? I just saw a 97 year old woman on the telly that just ran for Congress. She seemed a heckuva lot smarter (wiser?) than her opponent and it's a shame she didn't win. God knows that she couldn't have done worse than the nincompoops that presently represent us.
Anyway, back to me. I'm a lot better off than a great many people. I know what I'm fighting and I have the help of a lot of friends and family and the resources of a great medical center (Kaiser Permanente) to help me so in many respects, I'm way ahead of the game.
I have a long-time friend in Kentucky named Mollie Burke Phillips who needs a liver and it seems to be touch and go whether she's going to get one in time. Mollie and I share a birthday tho' she's several years younger than me. She's a curly headed blonde with a big smile and a bigger heart. Up until a few years ago when her liver began to kick her butt, Mollie cooked apple butter every Autumn. She did it the old way, the way my Grandma Smith did it, outside over an open fire, in a large iron pot. Now I don't know that cooking apple butter in that fashion imparts any special flavor but I know what you do get is magic. And the world needs magic.
And for the magic to work, you need to believe.

Is it laziness or lassitude????????

They told me that a couple days down the road I would feel fatigued. I've claimed to be lazy all my life so I warn't sure that I'd be able to tell the difference. And sho nuff, I cain't tell the difference. Just feel like taking a long Autumnal nap, maybe wait for the holidays. Of course, anyone my size might be taken for a hibernating bear. Pr ob'ly a Hibernian Bear, all that Irish whisky over the yearssss......I think it's what they told me tho'......fatigue over the chem's.....I don't seem to have much of a whatchamacallit, a sense of continuity.....I'm losing track of whatever it is I was gon na do next......watch ten mins of Andy Griffith, read three pa ges in a book, go to make coffee and drink somethin' else instead.....mind is wan dering like a black Lab..........I started out to t ake a nap is how I got here in front of this puter.........just a ramblin' man, I guess..........David

.....and the sky is a hazy shade of winter.........

Even tho' it ain't even cold, it looks like it ought'a be....but, that's NorCal for ya........temp is gunna be in the 70's today...they say if you c'n remember the 70's, you weren't really there.....thanks be to a higher power, I have spotty mem'ries of the 40's. 50's,6o's,70's & 80's, 90's and the 21st Cent as well.....and all w/out the use of recreational drugs......that is if you don't count the whisky, gin, vodka, tequila, various and sundry beers and ales and the lunch and dinner wines.....that stuff does tend to fog a body's brain just a bit......

WARNING: from here on out the rest of the stuff is just me venting about cancer stuff!

I ain't even going to try to tell ya the names of all the stuff they're shootin' me with today.....#1, since I can't remember 'em all, I'd have to transcribe 'em from a list and that means I'd have to compile a list....it's difficult enow just to count 'em out every day and then swallow 'em.....and that's not counting the ones they stick in my arm in the Chemo Room altho I do have a list of them as well.....Still, I don't take as many as some do and I'm not having any radiation.....I have my hair shorter now than I have for years but I'm just preparing for when it falls out;
I've met a lot of bald-headed people and most of 'em got it worse than me but they're all hopeful either of a cure or remission. For the most part, everyone seems to have a positive attitude and all the Dr's & nurses I've met seem to be wonderfully patient and caring people.
And I've yet to meet anyone who seems to feel that the Lord has a p'ticklar & personal bias 'gainst them tho' I feel that someone, somewhere, must feel that way.
Cancer comes in odd ways. Sometimes you c'n pinpoint what caused it in a p'ticklar case but most often you're just left to wonder about it.
My Dad died from Mesothelioma. That's lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. He smoked when he was younger; cigarettes, cigars, and he chewed tobacco for a long time but it was the asbestos that got him.
I smoked pretty heavily for about 35 years and I have Hodgkins Lymphoma. 'Course that doesn't mean that if I live long enuff, I c'd still come down with lung Cancer.....fearsome thing, Cancer. Sneaky. Lies in wait for years then kills you off before you get the chance to die from old age.
Of course, people don 't really die from old age. They die from complications of old age. The complications being that you get sick from other causes and you're too old and too tired or maybe just too damn cantankerous to fight 'em off.
Anyway, that's enuff for one day. The dogs want'a go for a walk.........Later, David

Somewhere over the rainbow.........

Tripping merrily over the yellow-brick road the day after the day after the day...........Chemo Day #1 was not the worst day of my life. Heck it didn't even hold a candle to some of the not so bad just generally pissy days I've had over the years.....mostly it was boring, hooked up to an IV that I had to haul around with me on my uncounted trips to the patients restroom where the most interesting thing that happened was the one time that I peed red. And it wasn't even a bright red at that. Certainly nuthin' to ri te home about......
I don 't know if all the books I took w/me were all boring or if they were boring 'cuz of the pills & chemicals I ingested whilst sitting there in one of the most uncomfortable recliners I've ever met.....( prob'ly a combo of both)
I understand that a big part of my N-Som has been the result of the prednizone but I slept well last nite which is why I'm posting at this time of day....it's also s'pozed to gimmee more energy but I don t' feel like running 'round the block tho' I might take the dogs for a stroll later this AM.....and maybe, just maybe, I'll go swimming this afternoon. They tell me that some people don't get really nauseous (thanx to the anti-N pills) but that fatigue sets in two or three days later and that is sposed to be difficult to deal with...altho frankly since I've been lazy all my life, I don't know that I'll be able to tell the difference.
Still, it's a lovely day here and while I have no interest at all in cleaning the yard, a little stroll around town with the dogs doesn't sound at all bad......wish you could join me whilst I still have hair on my head.........David

The first BIG C day is over and done.........

from 9:45 in the AM to 6:30ish in the PM is a longish day. 'Course goin' into the first day they fill you up to the brim with information and by information, I mean they tell you everything that could possible go wrong so that you go into this type of stuff just plum full of trepidation. And try as I might to be the Cool Smith, I don't think I fooled Millyrose at all, at all. So, I'm pretty sure it was harder on her than it was on me. She'd picked up the virus or whatever that Sophie had and spent the previous day in bed. I told her I'd go alone but they had informed me that I would probably need a driver to get home afterward. (NOT TRUE AS IT TURNED OUT) Then I told her to go home and get a nap but she refused (STANDIN' RIGHT BESIDE ME, LORD, THRU EVER'THING I DONE)....'Course when we did get home, she was in bed before 8:00 PM....plum' wore down to a frazzle, she wuz.........I was kind'a tired myownself especially after I took the Atavan.....tho't I'd sleep the 'hull nite thru but the N-SOM grabbed me and shook me awake so here I is......this first session is spozed to fry up a lot of things inside me, good and bad, including my hair.....Millyrose asked Kellye to take some pix of me with and without that I will hopefully be able to post on this blog......if not, maybe y'can get 'em from Kellye.....if you're interested, that is...if not, well I ain't the prettiest thing that ever came down the pike anyway so you won't be missin' much.
So, while I was tied up in the Chemo Chair, EMMMMMMMM got a taste of what Sophie had t'other day and came home sick....she didn't get to hang w/me however....she had to get Kellye to come home and I'm pretty sure that Kellye didn't have a freezer ful of fudgsicles & popsicles etc......which come to think of, I no longer have either since they were over here t'other day and wiped me out. I didn't hardly eat any of 'em myself.........anyway that circumstance calls for a trip to WINCO.....Grampa's house w/out various ice cream treats is just wrong........besides, it's October and time for a trip to Apple Hill and everyone knows that all apple desserts go better with a big scoop of ice cream.....remember, when you're past 70, eat your dessert first 'cause you just never know............David
Got a Post -Script here : Millyrose went over to Kellye's this mornin' to get the kids off to school as one of us normally does. She was taking pity on me cuz my N-Som kept me up all nite long which is prob'ly the real reason for this p'ticklar post....and found that all five of 'em are down with the Sophie Virus..........So I reiterate: In this world today, you just never know. .........David

Cancer and chemotherapy.......

go together like love and marriage.....horse and carriage......donutz and coffee......coming up for a rhyme for chemotherapy is beyond my poor talent this AM.........anyway, today is the day I begin CHEMO!.......calloo, callay, he chortled in his glee.....and Millyrose isn't feeling at all well....I think the stress of coping with me has finally gotten to her....
They told me to dress comfortably (hell, I'm 70 years old, I allus dress for comfort now).....bring a snack and a book, or for the young and more gifted 'mong us, one of those doo-hickeys you strap on your arm and plug in your ear that enables you to listen to Gawd knows what......I'm told that I c'n expect to be there for 5 to 8 hours which pretty much uses up a day.....
I tell ya, time flies whether you have fun or not....if I was still working and had to find the time to do this, it could pretty much mess up a day......
Jerry Lee just had a b'day.....Happy Birthday to THE KILLER!.............David