Not Much to Report

I finally dug the car out of the ice block it was encased in yesterday. Freckles needed food. He's on a special prescription diet. His 20-pound bag of food costs more than 50 dollars. You'd think he'd be a little more friendly.

He seems to recognize and probably smell the big, new bag of food sitting in the back sun room, and that seems to make him happy and excited. But he still promptly greeted me first thing this morning by vomiting all over the floor.

Thanks Freckles. Good morning to you too.

I woke up again at 1:30 a.m. last night. But last night, miraculously, for the first time this week, I fell back to sleep. I slept until five a.m. so I was quite thrilled.

Barb woke up an hour later and is sipping coffee and watching Lucy on TV. She loves Lucy. I'm sorry, but I just don't get Ricky Ricardo. Does anyone really think this guy can sing? He makes me cringe.

I'm working myself into breakfast time since my morning steroid has to be taken with food. Barb's homemade English Muffins just keep getting better and better. I'll toast two of those puppies up, then fill them with ham and cheese and heat them up in the microwave for 30-seconds and breakfast is brewing.

I consider myself a pretty good cook. But Barb is a much better baker.

Baking requires precise measuring and consistency and that's how Barb cooks. She follows directions.

Me? Well, for me recipes are generally only guides. I guess I always had problems with directions. I color outside the lines.

When I cook I kind of wing it and feel my way through dishes. Actually I cook a lot by smell, as odd as that may sound.

But we make a good team. I take care of the entrees and sides. She takes care of the breads and desserts. And we're the best place to eat in town.

I am very excited about a new pizza shop in town. I don't get very excited about pizza shops unless it's a shop that makes their own dough every day, and this shop reportedly does, pizza dough, rolls, everything. I always like to be near a good cheese steak.

We've had two other pizza shops in town since we've lived here but they were both miserable. So I have high hopes for this new one that just opened, that we've yet to try.

When opening a business, location means a lot. And doing business inside Marietta Borough limits is tough because we do not get much traffic. That makes it a nice place to live. But virtually every business that has tried to open here in town has failed, except professional services like realtors and graphic artists who do not depend on traffic as much.

Marietta is only about two-miles long and about a quarter-mile wide. There is no room for expansion or new building so it's a challenge to the municipality to find new revenue sources.

The new pizza shop is in a brand new little strip mall that they built onto a very large townhouse development that was constructed this summer just outside of town. There's plenty of traffic there. So they should find success. If their cheese steaks are quality, I'll probably keep them in business alone.

Sleep

Last night, just like every night this week, I woke up around two a.m. and was wide awake.

I try my best to sneak downstairs without waking Barb up but boy are our steps squeaky. They seem to squeak even more when you're trying to walk with Freckles meandering around your feet.

I managed to be fairly quiet this morning, stirring Barbie a bit, but letting her fall back into her dreamland.

After about two-hours I successfully went back to bed. Something that hasn't happened most days this week.

It's the steroid. I need it to control the brain swelling from the radiation. I like the energy it gives me, the appetite, the weight I've been able to gain. But I'm not real thrilled about what it does to my sleeping patterns.

It's a difficult sensation to describe. But the steroid kind of leaves you artificially wired all the time, while in reality your body and mind are exhausted.

Once I finally pull off the steroid completely, hopefully in the next two-weeks, I'll probably just collapse with exhaustion for a day or two.

But I have to keep juiced through next week. Barb's birthday is next week and something always seems to happen at this time of year that impedes our ability to celebrate her birthday appropriately or as planned.

Barb's starting to walk around here all cocky and full of herself because she's going to be the same age as me for a couple of months. LOL

She already was more mature.

We're planning on going to the Catacomb's at Bube's Brewery in Mt. Joy. I've already decided that I'm getting the Chicken Costello.

Her birthday is on Thursday, the regular night that Alyssa and Charlie come over for dinner and a visit each week, so we're going to take them along. Alyssa's eyes will be the size of basketballs when she reads the menu and she'll order way too much...lol...she always does. And that's just fine. That's why we're going out and treating ourselves.

I'm very thankful that Alyssa and Charlie take the time out every Thursday to come over and visit us. It means a lot.

Even though Charlie doesn't like any vegetable but corn - those two are great kids...umm...young adults.

Salesmanship

I once worked for a fellow who sincerely wanted to give me a piece of coveted advice, a secret to success in life. He wanted to help me out.

So he pulled me aside and said, "Jim, the secret to life, to everything in life, is learning how to sell."

And he meant it, and not just in business. He played every angle, every time, with everybody, with the sole goal of getting what he wanted. And with employees, customers, wive(s), family, friends, waiters, whatever, he usually did.

I didn't like that advice.

I hate selling anything. I'm a terrible actor.

The odd thing is, that years before I was sitting in the office of the President of Lebanon Valley College, interviewing him for the newspaper on how he had turned around the campus. And he really had done quite a job, making vast building improvements while finding ways to pay for them, and growing enrollment.

I asked him what his secret to success was. He smiled at me and just said, "The secret to life is acting Jim."

That's all he would say about it.

I didn't care for that advice much either.

Is that the secret to life? Is it all fake? Acting?

INTRODUCING THE NEW SCHICK RAZOR WITH 16 BLADES FOR THAT ULTRA-CLOSE SHAVE!

I mean how far away can it be? My razor has four blades. Do I need four blades? I don't know. I didn't buy it. I think it was a gift/hint from my Mom.

Yesterday I saw a TV commercial for the "Slap It," a fruit and vegetable chopper that I would place on top of something and slap like crazy to pulverize my food. Some guy was yelling at me about how this would change my life. I'm still trying to figure out why he was wearing a headset microphone.

Salesmanship is certainly a big part of America.

And from what I'm to understand bartering in general is a big part of many countries.

It's a delicate balancing act. I'm honest to a fault and prefer genuineness to salesmanship. But sooner or later you have to fit into the game and play along Ii suppose.

Ronald Reagan once told a reporter that acting prepared him for politics.

I like direct and straight forward, no hidden agendas. I always firmly believe that two people can work anything out if they're just honest with themselves and one another.

My Dad always taught me to shut up and listen. My Mom always taught me to speak my mind.

Acting was just not part of the curriculum.

Wonder Woman

Wow! My wife is incredible.

I mean super hero status here. Wonder Woman status. Watch out for the "truth lasso."

It's a miserable, cold, snowy, icy mess in Marietta this morning. And she's out there with a shovel and an industrial broom and a bag of salt attacking the front walk to ensure her husband doesn't try to get out there first.

Man, she's amazing.

I'm speechless.

Too Many Comic Books

For someone who has already gone through Gamma Knife radiation treatment of a tumor in the brain, you'd think I'd be smarter. Or at least you'd think I would rely on my past experiences to guide my current experiences a little more.

The Gamma Knife is such a wild, science fiction type thing, that it seems right out of the pages of a comic book. So I seem to forget certain realities.

The Gamma Knife is a huge machine, in the middle of a large empty room, hidden behind huge radioactive proof doors and walls. It's shining silver metal with highlights of gold and copper. With one metal frame screwed to my skull another globe like metal crown is attached to my head as I lay on my back and am slowly drawn into the massive machine.

Everyone leaves the room and the radiation is turned on, many tiny strong beams of radiation all intersect at the tumor. And it all occurs in complete silence.

By the time all that is over I'm walking out of there thinking, "Well that's that." It just seems like such a wild, out of this world experience, I just walk away thinking well the tumor is gone. Zap! They got it! That's it.

Yesterday I was getting impatient with my lack of success at being able to wean off of the steroid Decadron. I started taking it only every other day and I started to feel poor effects from that - some cloudiness, lack of coordination, both signs of brain swelling.

So I figured I'd call the radiation oncologists to see how they would take this news, guage their reaction.

I wasn't told to back off the Decadron. I did that on my own. They told me to get back on it right away. They told me I'm being impatient and forgetting how all this works.

That was good to hear.

The radiation agitates and poisons the tumor so it slowly dies away. It's not a comic book. It's not an instant-working, science fiction, laser beam that just zaps it away. Most of the time, I was reminded by a nurse, the Gamma Knife will first make things feel worse before things start getting better.

It made me feel better to be reminded of all that. It has only been a couple of weeks. And the neurologist doesn't even want to see a follow-up MRI for six weeks. So...

I'm going to try to be a patient guy and ride this out as it should be, follow the doctor's orders, stay with the steroid and see how things turn out.

Why would I want to get off the steroid if it takes care of brain swelling, helps me feel better, gives me a huge appetite that results in weight gain? Because you can forget about sleep while taking this steroid. Last night I spent half the night with Freckles in front of the TV. I think I'm even starting to keep him up now.

The View is Fine

Last night Barb asked me how much I weighed when I was born.

"Oh, I don't know," I answered. "Just shy of nine-pounds I think.

She made an excruciatingly painful face.

Well I was all head, I told her. I was born with one big, gigantic, fat, pumpkin head.

Most kids had to grow into their baby fat. I had to grow into my big giant head.

Barb started laughing hysterically.

"Sorry," she said, "I was just imagining you learning to crawl or walk and you keep tipping over because of your giant head."

I like being tall. I always have liked being tall. It has its advantages. And, of course it has its pitfalls.

When I played basketball in high school, for away games our team would be set-up in the women's locker room. Well in the women's locker room the shower heads only come up to about my chest.

I do have to buy at least extra-large size shirts so that the shirt will have enough length, even though width wise that usually means I'm swimming in it a little.

People have come up to me already in crowd situations and have asked me if I can find their friends in the crowd.

Once I was out at a crowded club, and I overheard one girl give her friend directions to the bathroom using me as a landmark. I was quite flattered to be a human landmark.

One gentleman I used to work with taught his eldest son to call me "Uncle Tree."

I guess I cast a long shadow.

Being tall does not mean you're tough or strong. It just means you have longer to fall. But there is an intimidation factor that does come with being tall.

I'll never forget being at a party my friends were throwing once. One invited guest had too much to drink and was beginning to become aggressive and destructive. They decided to all grab him and lead him out the door.

Three of my friends jumped on him and somehow steered him outside. There was no sense of confidence in me that this was going to turn out real well. So against my better judgement I said, "I better go see how this is going."

I walked outside to see the drunk bent over like an angry bear with my three friends all hanging off of his back. The drunken angry bear looked up at me, stopped shaking my friends about, and said, "Oh, OK, send the big guy out."

I looked around. What big guy? Oh! Me!

He agreed to sleep it off in his car. Whew, I thought to myself, that guy could have snapped me in two.

Until I bought the FJ Cruiser I never had head room in a car. My head always pressed right against the roof lining.

And planes? Yeah right. I can't afford first class seating and let me tell you those coach seats are not built for people my size. I press into the seat once before take-off and squeeze out after landing, checking how bruised my knees got along the way from the person in front of me smashing their seat into me.

But I like it. The view is great from up here.

Over Christmas we hang our cards along some crown molding between two living areas. Alyssa was looking at the cards when she turned around and asked, "How did you get those up there?"

I walked over and reached up, "Which one do you want to see?"

Back to the Chemo

The new chemotherapy Sutent calls for four weeks of one pill a day followed by two weeks off. Today ends my two weeks off, to end my first "cycle." Tomorrow evening I'll start taking the chemo again for the next four weeks, followed by another two weeks off.

During the first six weeks Sutent has already made a difference. Typically it would be tough to measure this without a CT scan. But since I ended December with two topical lumps on the back of my head and an enlarged lymph node in my neck, I've had visible stuff to keep an eye on. And since starting Sutent it's all shrunk. Actually it's all shrunk to nothing or virtually nothing.

The side effects of the chemo, so far, have been pretty easy going. But I've learned from past treatments that the side effects build up over time.

So far my beard has changed once again from brunette to blonde. Sutent is famous for something called hand/foot syndrome, which is extreme sensitivity in the hands and feet. I've gotten a little of that so far, but so far it's no big deal.

Beyond that there are daily battle zones that emerge in certain parts of the body, but that's all part of living with chemo. All in all, so far, Sutent hasn't been too bad.

But helping all of that along has been Decadron, a strong steroid prescribed to control swelling in the brain. Decadron gives me a big round Barry Bonds face. It also gives me quite an appetite. I've gained 20-pounds. I'm a little upset about that. Not about gaining weight, but gaining so much, so fast. I can't imagine that kind of weight gain is in my best overall health interest.

But "Barb's Diner" has been kicking out a lot of good stuff around here lately. It's tough to resist.

I am in the process of weaning off of Decadron. The body becomes so attached to this steroid that the drug cannot just be stopped. The body has to be eased off the drug. It's not easy. I've been here before.

Friday was the first day I completely skipped Decadron. Saturday morning I felt terrible and took one. This morning I feel great and am planning on skipping again. Tomorrow morning I'll probably feel terrible again.

There's nothing like the feeling of a little brain swelling.

The brain swelling is from the one tumor in the brain, and the treatment of that tumor via Gamma Knife radiation during the first week of January. The radiation continues to poison the tumor for weeks and weeks until it's gone.

I'm betting on that swelling starting to subside by lowering my dose of Decadron. There's only one way to find out.

The hip bone is still sore too. But it seems to get a little bit better each and every day. The radiation is working on the cancer in the hip bone there too. Those radiation treatments ended in the second week of January and will be working to poison the cancer for the weeks ahead.

Everything really did go a bit nutty in December. The cancer ran a bit wild.

But we set a gameplan in place to get everything back under control, and so far everything is going according to the gameplan.

Somedays I feel great and somedays, well, not so great. But, with Barb's help, I'm pushing myself when I feel up to it, and relaxing when I should take it a little easy.

The painting of the upstairs hallway, down around the stairway, with the two landings is virtually done. I just have a few edges to tidy up. Considering it involved a 16-foot extension pole, a ladder and a stairway, I'm quite proud...and I found a couple muscles that haven't been used in awhile.