Santa Baby

More progress: I can tie shoelaces and wear button-fly jeans again. I am typing this with two hands, though somewhat clumsily. I go out now without my cane. My blood sugar continues to be low.

I went to physical therapy on Monday and Sara taught me some exercises to strengthen my fingers, using rubber bands and playdough.

I really don't have any right to ask Santa for anything more this year, but I have a few requests, as you might imagine, which I'll keep between him and me.

I'm looking forward to getting the staples removed next Monday, as they are starting to hurt when I lie down and it wakes me up several times during the night.

I've disconnected all the old computer equipment and my desk looks much nicer. My new Apple wireless base station is also a 1-terrabyte backup drive that automatically backs up everything on my Macbook every hour. I hope to get more decluttering done this week, if my energy level allows.

A Good Purge

I don't know exactly why I'm so consumed by the task of decluttering my lived-in-for-eighteen-years apartment,but I am. Decluttering started officially today when Kevin and Rene took 18 boxes of books and CDs to the Friends of the SF library book donation center. Next, week, Kevin and I will box up clothes and miscellaneous crap from my hall and bedroom closets, and I'll get the neighborhood thrift shop to take away all of those boxes as well as the bookshelves emptied by today's hauling out. Then there's all my old computer equipment to recycle.

On the health front, I'm off the decadron now and my blood glucose level is going steadily down. I've had a couple of really fatigued days,and I'm taking these as reminders to nap more. My body is very slowly returning to its normal shape.

The arm and hand are stronger every day. I can turn and pull on a doorknob with my left hand provided the door itself isn't too heavy. I now consistently use both hands to wash dishes. The hand seems to remember what it used to do and I just let it try. It isn't always strong enough, but it often is. I hope this rapid improvement continues. When I can manage shirt buttons and touch-typing with two hands again, I'll know I'm fully back.

New Toys!

I think I overdid it yesterday. I've been a limp rag all day today, and felt very lucky to have Kevin and Robert to help me get my new Apple toys up and running and get files copied over from the pc, which only Robert was able to figure out.

I'm typing this on my iPad, which is a wonderful little device. I see much fun ahead with it.

As far as progress with my hand, it is much stronger in its grip and I can zip up jackets and pull up pants and I've even started giving Junie her shot using both hands. I didn't do my exercises today, but I will tomorrow. Happily, I can report that I took no insulin today, so perhaps my body is already detecting the reduction in decadron dosage.

Meanwhile, i have the diversion of new toys!

The latest feat

(taken while we sat in Peet's Coffee waiting for the house cleaners to finish my apartment.)

Just to show my progress. Today the hand can grasp and put thumb to each finger, but not with any real strength. Kevin scored me some free barbells from a neighborhood gym which will help me build up that arm soon.

I can walk almost normally. My arm automatically starts to move when I'm doing some action it would normally participate in and my hand no longer feels heavy and dead. I'm able to do way more with the therapy dough (roll, grasp, pinch) than I could before. And by the way, I zipped up that jacket by myself!

All my new Apple stuff has arrived. Kevin and I are going to tackle the cutting over project together tomorrow.

I'm exercising faithfully, so I really expect some new gain in the hand each day.

Dr. Liu Visit

I said I would blog after my appointment, though the real point of the visit was for Dr. Liu to see me in person and assess my condition. It was fun to see his delight when I showed him what my arm can do. I'm back to about the level of function I had just before the arm shut down last time, so any improvement from here on is function I haven't had in a long time. He approved my exercise plan of gradually increasing reps, weights lifted with the left arm and walking ever longer distances. He also reviewed and approved the decadron tapering schedule and devised a similar, though quicker, tapering for the dilantin, to commence a week after the last dose of decadron. As, for monitoring my blood sugar, I'll keep doing it beyond the last dose of decadron, and once my before-meal number is consistently below 126 for a week or two, I can stop monitoring. The septra to prevent pneumocystis can be discontinued once we've allowed my immune system to regenerate a bit after the decadron. I'll have a blood test in a few weeks to confirm my t-cell count has risen. Really looking forward to not having to keep track of so many meds, so many therapy apptmts, exercising twice a day, etc,

Questions I had for him:

Q: Why did they suddenly started giving me salt tablets the day before I was discharged?

A: Because of having gone through brain surgery, I somehow developed Hyponatremia. My discharge-day sodium level was normal, so I recovered very quickly from it, after two positively nauseating doses of salt tablets.

Q: Why didn't the nurses monitor my blood sugar while I was in the hospital?

A: It's a surgical service. The surgeons don't like to take responsibility for medical issues on the ward unless they have to, though Dr. Liu believes they should. This explains why a nurse actually did test my blood glucose one time. I imagine it was below 250 and so regarded as not worth dealing with.

I guess that's all I have to report on the doctor visit. I'm very excited about getting more arm strength and control and hoping for at least a little bit of progress every day.

Well, here I am

(Photo taken by Kevin today at Woodhouse Fish Company, where I can't get enough of the clam chowder nor of the lobster roll and fries.)

It's hard to believe I've survived three separate surgeries to my head in two months, let alone all the ups and downs of varying degrees of left-side disability. The human body is truly amazing. I was a bit nervous about the actual surgery this time. Last time, I mentally checked out to another plane as soon as the ER doctor told me I needed surgery, so poor Robert, as my medical power-of-attorney, was tasked with signing the consent form. At least he had the knowledge that that first tumor was life-threatening to guide him. I was choosing to gamble that Dr. Lavery could remove that little fluid sac without harm against suffering worse brain injury and losing even more left-side function. I'm not a very lucky gambler, based on my one trip to Las Vegas, but this time fortune smiled. Now that all of the mass that was pressing on my control center is gone or going, about 50% of my hearing, 30% of my arm and 70% of my leg are back.

I'm having to limit visits and outings with visitors to one lunch plus one dinner each week depending on how many med apptmts I have that same week. There are a lot of sweet, caring friends that want to visit right now, but I'm having to be chintzy with the social so I can get lots of napping in. Kevin is my virtual sleep-out roommate for the near-future anyway, and I have him in just about every day to cheerfully perform most of the little chores and errands around the place. As my arm improves, I'll need him less, and around that time my capacity for visiting will increase, too.

Yesterday's hand grasp breakthrough punctured every remaining pessimism balloon about my chance of full recovery and I can really envision myself back to normal, both in physical and mental abilities, enjoying life and creating art again.

My walking has really improved and I'm able to push myself on that front a little more each day, both in the distances I walk and in the number of reps of the leg exercises I do. Same with the arm exercise reps, but I have a lot more function to gain back there and until I get more muscle tone back from what was lost during the totally dead time, the regained neural control doesn't have the supportive strength to continue developing. I do the exercises twice a day without fail, because I am the model patient, after all, plus I'd really like to have most, if not all, of the hand back by the end of the year.

As a special treat for the "poor li'l boy who had to spend Thanksgiving in the hospital" I went online shopping the other night and bought my self a new Mac Book and an iPad. I'm switching teams, and going Apple. I can't believe that five years ago I had to buy a huge Dell tower to get the storage of something that is now the size of a notebook. I'm looking forward to getting rid of all that equipment and all the cord and wire mess, and having a nice clean surface to my desk again.

I see Dr. Liu for surgery follow-up tomorrow, so I'll post again after that.

Guess What.

Survived another one!

I came home from the hospital today and it feels SO good to have indulged in a large latte and a good hot shower, which, surprisingly, included washing my head. Seems as long as I don't soak my head, a little shampoo and water does no harm. I got my first good sleep last night because my nurse practiced proactive pain management and gave me the maximum dose of Percocet I'm allowed. I've had bad headaches since the surgery, especially if I do something thhat changes the pressure in my head, such as standing or sitting or lying down. Yesterday's on-call neuro doctor told me that was caused by the air that had taken the place of the removed cyst. Today, I woke up feeling generally more stable and clear-headed than I had felt since the operation. I sat in a chair to eat my breakfast and moved around the room a lot and later got in and out of bed to use the bathroom by myself. I saw the neuro on-call doctor at around 11:30 and he agreed that I could be discharged today. Imagine my supreme delight to read in the discharge instructions that I will be tapered off Decadron completely by a week from Tuesday followed closely, I hope, by the end of having to monitor my blood glucose and the end of having to take a sulfa drug called Septra as a prophylactic against pneumocystis pneumonia. (You see, Decadron does its work by destroying the immune system. My t-cell count has plummeted, but luckily my viral load is still undetectable.)

No improvement in the arm or leg, but I didn't get that until about the third day after the last surgery, so maybe tomorrow. Cross your fingers.

I continue to be utterly astonished at and grateful for the immensity of practical and emotional support I've received from a group of friends and family that anyone would be proud to be surrounded by. It spurs me on to recover so I can enjoy these relationships longer. My cheif occupation for the next few weeks is resting and napping between short strolls.

Craniotomy, Resection, Stereotactic Biopsy.... Whatever you call it, it's on for tomorrow!

These are the three options Dr. Lavery offered today when Robert and I met with him:

• another small aspiration like last time

• an aspiration with a permanent shunt in my head leading to a tube that drains to my abdomen
  

• a stereotactic biopsy where he'll cut from the front of the mass/fluid sac to avoid going into the "control core" of my central cortex and "peel off" the sac and get out without causing excess bleeding
  

As I've stated, I'm not interested in enduring another procedure for limited benefit. The shunt idea repulses me. I don't think it's a good idea to have brain tumor fluid seeping into the rest of my body, perhaps spreading cancer cells. So I'm going the third route tomorrow at 2:30 PM. I'm expecting to come home before the weekend is over.

Robert will broadcast updates via the yahoo UnkaDee group. until I can resume blogging. Until then, it's been a very long day, and I need to relax. Wish me luck!

One adjusts

Over the weekend I learned to monitor my glucose pretty well using just my right hand. There are four numbers I need to remember:

--Before meals my desired number is <=110mg/dll (This morning was the first time I came even close to that @111)

--I only take insulin if my reading is over 150, and then there is a range of associated glucose levels and insulin doses I follow

--2 hours after meals my desired level is <=140 (I've managed this once)

My friend Abby took me grocery shopping on Saturday and we got all kinds of good things for one-armed diabetics. For example, I'm supposed to eat a lot of vegies, but I lack the ability to cut up whole vegetables, so we bought pre-cut, bagged mixed vegetables, that I can microwave with one hand. So far, I'm doing pretty well at correctly eating well enough to at least avoid taking the insulin, and managing the blood sugar level has made for fewer bathroom trips at night and therefore a better night's sleep.

I'm coping with the effects of the doubled Decadron dose. However, today I woke up completely deaf in my left ear and I don't know whether that's tumor, radiation, Decadron or congestion. I haven't had the sniffles or anything, so I doubt it's congestion. I sent an email to Dr. Gillis about that.

Radiology just called me and set up a ct scan for 12/1. I also asked Dr. Gillis about that in my email, since this is the first I've heard of it. Tomorrow Robert and I go down to Redwood City to see Dr. Lavery, who, according to Dr. Liu's report of his and Dr. Gillis's conference call with him on Friday, is inclined to do no more than what he did before, i. e, just aspirate a little of the fluid. They pointed out to him how short-term the beneficial effects from that were, but he remains cautious. So now it's up to me and Robert to find out what he's concerned about if he does more, and weigh that against the benefits and risks. While I certainly don't want to end up having a stroke or going into a coma, I'm not sure it's worth doing just the aspiration for the results I got last time.

More when I know more. I mainly wanted people to know that I've stopped despairing over the diabetes. It's amazing how much crap a body can take. One really does adjust.

Mixed news

Today I saw Dr. Liu. It was a good news/bad news sort of visit.

The good news:
--Yesterday's PET scan didn't show any cancer in my body.

The bad news:

-- The MRI showed that the tumor that remains in my brain has gotten much larger and has a lot of inflammation around it. This explains why my arm has shut down and why my left leg is now threatened.

-- I have to double my Decadron dose for now to try to reduce the inflammation.

-- The Decadron has turned me diabetic. I had to meet with a diabetes counselor to learn how to test my blood sugar and give myself insulin injections. Like I needed something else to keep track of, and another medication. I'm going too have to pay close attention to what I eat. No sweets. No juices. No soda. No booze. Not too many carbs. Hoping this high blood sugar will go away when I stop taking that damn devil drug.

Hopeful news:

Dr. Liu thinks Dr Lavery will want to move quickly on the new surgery. I'm not that excited about spending Thanksgiving in the hospital, but if that's what it takes, oh well.

All in all, I'm pretty devastated this time. A person can only take so much, but I'm doing my best to adjust to the new situation. Kevin got to witness me having several meltdowns today, especially after we got home and I tried to practice the whole blood sugar testing/insulin taking. The tools for these things are not really designed for a person with only one functioning hand
and it was quite frustrating at first. After lunch, I was a little calmer and practiced with greater success.

Kevin has a visitor from Japan until Wednesday, so anyone who wants to take me grocery shopping and help me with my meals is my savior.

All hugs are welcome,

Scan-Crazy

I'm taking it as a good sign that both of my oncologists and my neurosurgeon moved my MRI from 11/21 to tomorrow. I think Dr. Lavery wants the images asap so he can decide about doing another surgery, and perhaps the scan will show that the inflammation is reduced enough that I can stop taking the Decadron . However it means yet another appointment in a week when I''m starting to feel what I think is post-radiation fatigue. Thursday I have the PET scan and Friday the appointment with Dr. Liu to go over the scan results. I'd prefer to just nap all day for a few days, but in a way, it feels good to be doing something every day to try to get back my arm and to heal enough to get off the damn dreaded Decadron, and push being a person with cancer into the background again. I hate having it so much in the foreground. FYI, I'm dutifully doing my exercises twice a day, like the model patient I've always been. ;-) And I nominate Kevin for sainthood. He makes my life possible these days.

Safer

As a result of my home healthcare evaluation on Saturday, I purchased a cane and a stool for my bath today. They both make me feel a lot safer. The therapist also gave me some leg-strengthening exercises to do a couple of times a day. She'll be coming back on Wednesday for follow-up and then I think that's it as far as she goes. Today I went to the office of the physical therapist I met in the hospital, and she gave me a surprising number of exercises to strengthen my dead arm which I really didn't think was possible. I'll see her again in 3 weeks. All in all a productive exercise. No negative side effects from the radiation yet.

Radiation DONE!

Had my last treatment today. The home health care evaluation is happening tomorrow. I saw Dr Gillis today after the treatment. She was in Redwood City this morning and spoke to Dr. Lavery in person. He was open to the idea of doing another surgery, but, of course, wants to see a current MRI before deciding, so that should be happening soon. After the MRI, based on how much inflammation is still there, they'll start tapering off the Decadron (Yay!) I'll have to resume taking it if I have another surgery, but that should be just for a short time, mercifully. Meanwhile Kevin continues being my trusted chauffeur and helper. I have physical therapy on Monday, a PET scan on Thursday, and possibly the MRI sometime next week, so I'm pretty busy for a gimp.

Ups and Downs

Over the past week, as my arm has continued to remain useless, it's occurred to me that, while staying focused on a positive outcome is still the best mindset for me, exploring a plan B is equally necessary for my peace of mind.

Since Wednesday is the day I see Dr. Gillis after my treatment, I asked Kevin to join me in that appointment. I told Dr. Gillis about how discouraged I've been about the arm and the weakness I feel when I'm walking. She remains confident that the radiation will kill all the cancer cells in my brain, but thinks the arm issue is caused by the fact that there is a little sac of fluid in there which the radiation can't dry up. She thinks that I either have to wait for that fluid to get re-absorbed or Dr. Lavery needs to go back in and aspirate some more of it. I see him on 11/23, so he and I will discuss that then. I recovered from the little surgery he did there before very quickly, so I'm not averse to another procedure if it can help.

As far as my concerns about my own safety when I'm alone in the apartment, Dr. Gillis brought in Renee, a social worker, and she had all kinds of ideas about resources available to me. We'll start with having someone come to the apartment to do an evaluation, and based on that, I may be hiring aides to come and do various tasks. Renee even let me project further into the future, and we discussed the options for long-term care. It wasn't morbid, rather I felt comforted being able to discuss it openly. Renee and Dr. Gillis did one thing for me immediately; They called and arranged for a much better arm sling at the SF Injury clinic. Kevin and I had lunch with Rene and he drove us there after we ate. I was fitted with a very nice sling in 5 minutes. It's much more comfortable than the Walgreens one. Kaiser continues to be good to me.

Addendum 11/11: I forgot to mentiom that Dr. Gillis ascribes what I call my "puppet with sagging strings walk" to the steroid I'm taking to fight the inflammation in my brain caused by both the surgery and the radiation. It's called Decadron and it's a bad muthuh, and the sooner they can take me off it, the better. It screws up my sleep, and gives me a wolfish appetite and makes me pee every 30 minutes and makes me jittery in addition to the puppet walk. Bleah.

Radiation - Halfway Home

Today marks the halfway point with radiation. So far, no side effects, neither has there been any improvement. Unfortunately, my left arm has deteriorated to the point where it is completely motionless and I've lost all the finger control I had gained in the first couple of weeks at home. I'm now wearing the arm in a sling to keep it from swinging around and slamming into doorways, etc. On the 15th, I start having physical therapy, which I'm hoping will, in conjunction with the shrinkage of the tumor, result in a usable arm and hand very soon. Keep your fingers crossed for me please.

2 down, 8 to go

Radiation treatment started yesterday, and I've already had my treatment today. The Zip car arrangement is working out nicely and now Kevin knows the route and the routine. These treatments are very quick. I was in and out in 15 minutes today. I have a little ritual of chanting internally "Die, you f###ing cancer cells!"each time the machine zaps me. It helps me feel actively involved in the process. :)

Yesterday I saw my neuro-oncologist, Dr. Liu, for the first time since all this latest drama. I was heartened to find that he has the same focus I do, i.e. we get rid of all the cancer cells in my brain with this radiation round and get back to a period of stability and surveillance. There is one spot on my right gluteal area that appeared thickened to him on the last full-body CT scan, and he wants to do a PET scan to further investigate that once I've finished treatment, but he wasn't able to feel anything there when he examined it. He told me to avoid reading about my condition on the internet, because I would see a lot of stuff like "once the cancer is in the brain, the patient has x months to live,"and we're not there yet. I am certainly on board with that. I just want my arm and balance back. I'm not looking for a countdown *shudder*

I'm slowly getting used to my left arm limitations and learning to ask people to do stuff for me. I'm a supremely self-reliant person, so this takes a real effort, but it is better in the long run to ask for help than to frustrate myself needlessly. I reach a point inevitably every day when I am just sick of the dead arm and want to stamp my foot and whine about it, but I try to do that when I'm alone so others don't have to deal with it. I will be starting physical therapy for the arm soon. It hasn't made much progress in the last week.

Kevin is my angel and helps me in a thousand ways, enduring my moods with good humor.

I LOVE having the house cleaners in every week. Since I spend so much time just sitting around the apartment, it's important that it's all clean and tidy. Last week, I discovered the joy of the mani-pedi at a little nail salon around the corner (nail care with one functioning hand is impossible) What a treat! I wish I'd started that long ago. My feet have never been so pretty.

In other news, Junie the cat that used to hate everyone but me has had no choice but to mellow out what with all the traffic through my place. She actually seeks affection from Kevin now.

Radiation is a go

I got extra special good care from my radiation oncologist, Dr. Gillis, today. She saw me on the schedule with a different doctor for tomorrow and, wanting to care for me herself, juggled everything so that I would be seeing her today. She also arranged that they would do the treatment preparation today, and knowing about my arm, had the receptionist arrange for me to be picked up by cab and driven there (on Kaiser's dime). It was a long afternoon, but Dr. Gillis was very optimistic and pleased to tell me that so far the cancer is staying out of the rest of my body. She thinks we can really shrink down the remaining tumor and expects me to get the full use of my left arm back. She also said that my hair may grow back.

I'll be having just 10 treatments , starting Monday, 11/1, ending 11/12. I am hoping Kevin will be able to get a Zip car account and drive me every day, but if that doesn't work out, I may be putting out a call for chauffeurs. Thanks in advance, my would-be drivers!

I feel more hopeful than I've dared let myself feel after today's visit.

Oh the places you'll go!

As most of this blog's readers know by now, on Oct 9, I went to the ER after weeks of being listless and rather fuzzy in the brain. That last week before the 9th, my left arm and hand were weak and difficult to control and I was starting to lose urinary continence (!!)

At the ER, they did a CT scan of my head and discovered there were two masses in my brain, one of which they deemed life-threatening, and so I was sent to Redwood City, where they perform all of their neurosurgeries, and that one mass was removed. I stayed in Redwood City for almost a week. A few days after the first surgery, the surgeon performed a procedure to the other mass. He could only remove part of it, as it's attached to an important part of the brain (like where my left arm controls are). I was finally moved to a hospital room in SF last Wednesday, so my friends didn't have to travel so far to see me. The next day, the oncologists got the lab report that told them the masses in my brain weren't some rogue bacteria or fungus as they had been trying to do cultures for; it was the cancer. However, that same day of imparting rather grim news, they sent me home, my incontinence was cured, and I got to take a shower in my own apartment. A mixed day. Having the masses be caused by the cancer makes more sense to me anyway.

Despite the severity of these procedures, having them done not only saved my life, but brought me back to my senses, truly. I feel better than I've felt in months, including having a lot of energy. I hate not having my left arm in full use, but I plug on doing what I can with it. Fortunately, I am dexterous enough with my right hand to give my cat her twice daily insulin injections using that hand only. She indulges me in taking her pill from one hand too. I hired a housekeeper who will be coming every week, which will be lovely. Kevin, who returned from several years in Japan last month, helps me with practical things on almost a daily basis, and he and I are going to work on purging my apartment of junk over the next few weeks.

This is the plan: I rest and heal, and in a few weeks, I'll start radiation treatment on the brain. I'll lose all my head hair (permanently) and brain radiation is said to be the most fatiguing kind, but if that second mass can be shrunken, I can get all my left side control back. I'm glad I have all my caps from chemo because my surgery scars are straight out of Frankentein, and soon I'll be a skinhead baldy and need them for warmth.

I am not devastated by this new development since we all knew the merkel cell cancer would work more mischief eventually. I only cry when I reflect on how lucky I am in my family of friends who have all helped me so much, and have done whatever they could to make me comfortable and safe. I think I must have done something right in my life to have so many stalwarts around me, and that's very precious to me.

I probably won't blog very frequently at first, since I hate typing with only one hand, but I'll try to keep it up to date with important news.

My newest acquisition

David Imlay's art show at Blackbird ended and I got the oil painting I'd bought from it.

His painting technique is so photo-realistic that you'd almost think you were looking at a photograph. But on closer inspection, you realize it's just really fine brush work.

This painting is about 18" x 24". Well worth finding a spot on my crowded walls for.

I can report no improvement on the fatigue front. I'm going to Costonoa with Robert for a couple of nights. I think a change of scene might help and certainly can't hurt.

Not much to report

This is my latest linocut print. I finished another 6-week course last night. I think it's interesting to compare it to my very first linocut that I did in my first class:


My new tulip at the top has much more detail and was carved in much less time, so I definitely know I've made progress. I now have a break from linocut for a couple of weeks, one night of open studio printing, then another couple weeks off, and then another 6-week class commences.

I wish I could report that the fatigue is gone. I hangs on stubbornly, varying somewhat from day to day. Somedays it fairly incapacitates me from the moment I wake up, somedays it doesn't appear until late in the afternoon. I meekly obey it whenever it crops up, as I have found that defying it and being active in spite of it reaps bitter rewards.

Meanwhile, I have managed to keep to my daily habit of lunching out. In addition to that, I walk as much as my body will allow. I did not actually walk the AIDS Walk this year, but I was the 34th top earning individual and my one-person team was the 110th top earning team. Holly and her helpers made some delicious tamales, so that part of the tradition was upheld, thank god.

July marked 18 years in the same apartment. Amazing.

Printing again

The fatigue is very slow to leave me. Wah wah wah. I'm so sick of complaining about that, I could puke. But there you are.

Thanks to the fatigue, I had to skip the first session of my new linocut class last Wednesday, because I was pretty sure I couldn't stand on my feet for 4 hours, which is what I have to do when I'm printing all evening. However, I was able to attend it this week. This lino plate took quite a lot of carving time, as you can imagine. Very creative people in my new class. I look forward to getting ideas and inspiration from them. It's also great to see Katie (the teacher) again. She and I are such kindred spirits.

So what am I doing now...

As I wait for the fatigue from the radiation to lift (no it hasn't yet), I'm getting a little bored. I only have a few minutes each day when I have enough energy to do art work, so the other activities I find to preoccupy myself have to be rather passive, like reading, doing crossword puzzles, or watching TV.

God knows I already watch enough TV, my brain can only function in crossword land for so long, and I own a tremendous number of books I've never even read. Shopping in used book stores used to be a great passion of mine, back in the days before Amazon, when it was a real challenge to find anything not currently in print. I'd try to keep the names of authors and books from the past that I was interested in or had seen referred to in other books in the forefront of my mind, and scan the inventory of each used book shop I went into, hoping to find one of my must-haves. It was fun, and whenever I found something from my mental list (or better, something related to something on the list that I didn't even know had been written) I felt a great sense of victory.

I no longer buy books. I live one block from my local branch of the library, and there just isn't that much in print that I need to read more than once. However, there are still a great many untouched volumes from my voracious used-book-shopping days on my shelves.

This one by Elizabeth Bowen is proving to be very enjoyable. I was last in Rome 16 years ago, and although she provides no maps or illustrations in this slim volume, her descriptions of the city are so lucid and rich in detail that I can picture where she is in each chapter perfectly well, my imagination combining her experiences with my memories of each place.

And don't you wish they still took author photographs like that one for the dust cover? So clearly posed and so clearly designed to show off her credentials as an intellectual (she's reading James Baldwin's "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and in her lap is Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex"). This is the kind of thing the Kindle cheats you out of.

I still go out to lunch every day during the week, and I try to see Della and Rene at least once a week. Cito has such a busy social life of his own these days that I don't see him as often, but when I do, it's always fun. He's grown into the dearest little boy, much nicer than I was at his age.

My old scooter got repaired after all, and good thing, since the new one is held up in Chicago getting inspected by the EPA, with no projected or promised release date. My linoleum block print class starts again this week. It's going to be tough to get through Wednesdays until this dadburn fatigue wears off, but I'm going to force myself, because it's so worth it.

I went ahead and signed up for the AIDS Walk, even though I doubt I'll have the energy to walk it this year. I've already met the goal I set, but I like to try to raise more money each year than I have the year before and I'm not there yet this year. If you 'd like to sponsor me, here's the link.

Good Good Good

My scan results were all that we wanted them to be. I am in remission and it's even possible that I could be in complete remission, if, when my cancer was detected, it was in fact stage 3, and not stage 4. This is something we will know only with time. If I go past 3 years with clean scans, I'm sitting pretty. If I go past 5 years, then I'm probably really home free.

So I'll be having blood tests and getting scanned in 6 months. He told me that getting this CT scan is equivalent to having 1000 xrays, so he doesn't want to scan me too often, but 6 months seems reasonable at this point... After that we'll probably be on an annual schedule.

He told me not to be discouraged about the fatigue, that it sometimes takes 2 months for it to go away completely, and I'm only 2 weeks from radiation completion.

So.....Yay! I'm gonna go out and live.

(The photo is from my celebratory dinner at Paulines. Cito is wearing the Ralph Lauren shirt I gave him for his bd. :) )

One year ago today

I was glancing through my flickr stream and noticed the date on this photo. Exactly one year ago. It's hard to imagine a time before...well...before, but here's the evidence.

I seem to have hit a wall on my energy level. It's discouraging, but I'm trying to react to it only by resting and eating well, and making myself take at least one short walk a day. After my Tuesday appointment with Dr. Liu I'll know if I should be worried about this slow return to vigor.

Robert hosted a family night dinner the other night, and I made a coconut layer cake from scratch for it. In the old days, I could have done that, prepared a whole dinner and cleaned my apartment and hosted the dinner all in the same day. As it is now, making the cake and walking the few blocks to Roberts pretty much shot my wad. Even worn out as I was, it was nice to have a social event to attend and to see everyone.

At one point soon after the kids had arrived, everyone was crowded in the kitchen. It was the usual family night pandemonium that I love. Robert was cooking, Holly and Emily were chatting, Cito was trying to do something on the kitchen computer and Della was wandering around the kitchen holding a rubber spatula and looking for something to get into. Rene wasn't arriving until dessert, so I was keeping an eye on Della, making sure she stayed away from the stove, etc. This involved talking to her constantly over the din, so she'd know that she was being observed. Suddenly, she walked up to me and without making a sound, took me by the hand and pulled me off the kitchen stool toward a clear patch of floor space. We stood there holding hands for a moment. I assumed she wanted me to lift her for a somersault off my shoulders, but then I noticed that she was moving her feet like a tap dancer and grinning at me. (I often tap dance for her to distract her from getting fussy, or just as something to do when we walk down the street.) This is the grin she had on her face:



I know some of my readers must think I'm irrationally fond of this little girl, but come on! How can you resist a child that does that for you? I would have had a lot harder time this past several months without her and Cito brightening the corners.

Scanticipation

This pic was taken a few weeks ago at Crissy Field during Cito's birthday party. Della likes the backward somersault. I think she will be a stunt person one day.

I had the post-radiation CT scan this morning. I have an appointment with Dr. Liu next Tuesday afternoon (6/8) to review the results.

I'm happy to report that the fatigue is lifting. My energy level isn't back to what it was before radiation, but it's getting there. I can take longer walks now when I go to lunch. Going to lunch was the one thing I managed to keep doing through the worst of the fatigue, although it was always to somewhere nearby. Last week I went shopping for a new scooter and over the weekend I even found enough sustained focused energy to work on some art.

I am on the waiting list for a Stella scooter which is expected to arrive at the dealers mid-June. Good thing too, since I took my 10-year old Italjet Torpedo 50cc in to get its brakes looked at, and the problem may be too expensive to fix, considering this scooter is no longer manufactured and that parts have to come from Italy and are always difficult to find. Ah well, she gave me 13,100 miles and the only damage to her came from getting knocked over when she was parked. Not bad for an initial investment of 3K.

Cat-like Existence Once Again

I have been suffering from post-radiation fatigue, and so have spent most of my time sitting in my armchair looking at these two, reading, watching TV and dozing.

I think the worst of it was late last week. Since Sunday, I've noticed that the heavy, sore, tired feeling arrives a little bit later each day.

Incredibly tedious and boring that this fatigue takes so long to lift, but it is lifting and that's encouraging, and it's still nowhere near as bad as how I felt from chemo.

Looking forward to doing some serious Spring cleaning and shopping for a new motor scooter when I am over this.

Radiation - DONE

Nuff said.

Happy Mother's Day

Here's a photo of my mother and me, taken in June, 1969 when we were both in the Fresno Community Theater production of "Gypsy".

Coincidentally, the movie "Gypsy" is being broadcast on Turner Classic Movies as I type this.

The radiation fatigue has really gotten bad in the last couple of days. These days I wake up tired and am pretty done in shortly after lunch. I don't know if it's because the booster treatments started last week or whether it's just the cumulative effect of all of the treatments so far. It's still not as bad as the chemo ugh, but it's rather debilitating.

Only five more treatments! Looking forward to having more energy again. I need to keep up with Cito and Della, after all.

Rounding Third

Pardon the sports metaphor. As of today, I'm 25 radiation treatments down and 7 to go. I saw Dr. Gillis today and she was very pleased at how well my skin is doing. Starting tomorrow, the rest of my treatments will be "booster" treatments, meaning the beam will be less widely focused and instead center specifically on the area where the formerly swollen-from-cancer lymph node is. This means my neck and upper chest may start to experience sunburn-like symptoms a week from now, since there is frequently about that much delay between the end of radiation treatment and that reaction. And then of course, I can expect the same a week later when the rest of my upper right torso has been rested from treatment for a week. The area on my back is now behaving like sunburn, but she thought it looked really good, considering, and in fact looked better than last week. Treatment ends a week from Friday. Then I get a few weeks to recover. Then I have a CT scan for followup (based on what she can palpate, it should only show good news, but I'll have a followup appointment with Dr. Gillis, just the same). Then I have the usual battery of blood tests and see my regular oncologist, Dr. Liu. At that point, assuming everything looks good, and I expect it to, I guess I live my life as best and as long as I can, monitoring everything every few months. I can't help thinking of a TV series from the mid-sixties starring Ben Gazzara, called "Run For Your Life".

The weekend was somewhat social and active for me considering my currently sluggish state. I dined with a friend visiting from Chicago on Friday, and on Sunday rode my scooter all the way over the Divisadero hill, then through the Presidio to Crissy Field for Cito's 5th birthday party. What a scene. A gorgeous sunny day on grass near the beach with the GG Bridge right there, and just about every single kid in Cito's preschool class and their parents and dogs, and the rest of us...family members and their dogs, the friends from the pre-marriage, pre-children days and our dogs. Very big, very busy, very fun. I don't know how Holly and Rene have the energy to pull such things off, but I'm glad they do.

The photo was taken yesterday. I had lunch with Della and Rene and Rene's mother Julie. Della can say her own name now in addition to a few other words, and seems to me to be very close to really speaking. She makes a real effort to repeat things that are said to her. And as always, her default attitude is "DELIGHTED". She's a real pleasure to be around.

Just more of the same

There's not much to report, but I know my readers get worried if they don't see regular posts, so I'll just report that my 5-minute exam with Dr Gillis this week was that short because it's all good news. The growth is smaller each week, and so far, the skin in the radiated area is fine, which means my twice daily slatherings of aloe, followed by Eucerin have been effective. The only thing is this weird rash on my back, just outside the radiated area, which just looks hideous, and doesn't hurt or itch, and for which we are trying various over-the-counter unguents.

Renecito and I share April as our birthday month and he turned five this week, which blows my mind. This little figurine is part of his birthday present that I based on an image that Rene created for Cito's bd party evite. The party is this coming weekend and the theme is "Citolympics". We, the guests, are going to have to compete for prizes in various contests of skill and prowess. I'll mostly be trying to keep the sun off me.

The fatigue is about the same, but I'm learning to work around it. I very much enjoyed Meg's visit, and thanks to last week's rain making people who'd signed up cancel, Meg was able to participate in the open print studio at Somarts with me. I was very happy with my week's work, which included these images of my parents based on their high school graduation photos.

I signed up for the Linocut class again, starting in late June, but I'm enjoying the little break from having linoleum shreds all over my table and pencil smudged fingers.

Another candle

I had a birthday last week and celebrated in a quiet way. Renecito helped me blow out the candles on my birthday cake, as you can see here.

Radiation is progressing. I'm almost halfway through, and other than some weird acne on my back near the zap site, my skin is doing fine, now getting slathered twice a day with aloe, then with Eucerin. When I compare the side effects with chemo, radiation is a piece of cake. I saw Dr. Gillis for my weekly exam this morning and she was pleased with my progress. She can feel a definite diminution in the size of the node since we started radiation treatment. In fact, it's so small now, it's getting rather uncomfortable to have her dig around trying to find it each week. Very promising.

However, the fatigue is really bumming me out. It doesn't seem to matter if I get plenty of sleep and rest, I'm just tired from the time I get up, and other than the lunches I still go out for in the 'hood, and the small birthday outings recently, I mostly sit around and read and do crossword puzzles, and doze. I have managed to get three lino plates carved in the moments of energy (consequently my apartment is not white-glove clean), which is good, since tonight I have the open studio time at Somarts to print them. When I have energy to leave the apartment for something more stressful than lunch, I try to spend it on being with Della, because, though extremely exhausting, she is going through such an adorable phase right now that I hate to miss a moment of her cuteness.

Meg is visiting starting today, but staying at Robert's. Fortunately she is used to hanging out and being a lump with me, so I won't have to try to be more energetic than I feel. The fatigue can last for as long as two weeks after radiation treatment ends. Since I finish 5/15, I guess I can look forward to feeling normal again by Memorial Day if not before.

Put your tulips together...

I didn't have a new plate carved and ready for printing last night in time for the last session of "Luminous Linocut", as the class is called, so I used the studio time to do viscosity prints of my existing plates. This is the parrot tulip I carved on the first night of class. I'm going to miss the weekly routine of the print studio. Being there is both stimulating and soothing. We bring snacks and music to share with each other and we help each other print (when you do double drops, someone has to lift your paper for you while you slip out the monotype plate inked with the solid color and replace it with your inked lino plate). Everyone is very courteous and methodical, so we don't get much in each others' way and we don't misplace tools, don't create unnecessary messes, etc. Then we do cleanup together, which can take up to 30 minutes. Then, my favorite part, we sit down together at the clean work table and go through everything that was printed that night and discuss the various effects achieved and techniques used. It's extremely satisfying, on an artistic as well as on a social level.

My teacher, Katie, was very excited to have done shrinkydinks all Easter weekend with friends and family. (Last week I brought a bunch of the blank sheets to class for her.) She made me this tiny little representation of a linocut carving tool and my print from last week. :) I was very touched.


I'm well established in my new routine of daily radiation treatment. (6 down, 26 to go!) Using ZipCar has been very easy, and I haven't run into bad traffic. Unfortunately, I'm already feeling a little fatigued, and had to forgo some planned socializing over the weekend. The cold and rain we had here over the weekend certainly didn't help. It's a little easier to rouse myself now that we have sunshine again, and I've been trying to stick to my other new daily routine of lunching out and walking.

As it was Wednesday, I saw Dr. Gillis after my zap yesterday. Nothing much to report. She was unsurprised about the fatigue. My skin is normal so far, but she said to expect some redness by the end of next week. I'm prepared with unguents of aloe and such. So far, the axillary mass has not started growing again.

If you're interested, this is the routine for radiation: The receptionist at the front desk buzzes me in, and I go to the men's dressing room and change into a gown and put my clothes (top half only) into a locker. Then I sit and wait for a few minutes until one of my radiation therapists (either Ann or Barbette) comes and gets me and takes me to "Tahoe", as my particular radiation machine is called. Tahoe lives in its own huge room, with an l-shaped hallway and thick doors between it and the control room area where Barbette and Ann make it do its thing. I sit down on Tahoe's platform, untie my gown and lie down on the little sheet covered form they've arranged for me to maintain my position during the treatment. (If I were standing, it would look like I had my hand on my hip.) Either Ann or Barbette pulls my gown down below my waist and then they both use a light grid emitted by Tahoe over my torso to line me up, using those little tattoos I got. They tug on the sheet I'm lying on, tell me to relax my shoulders, say things like "And there I'm at 91" and "91 check" to each other. When they're happy with my position, they disappear down the hallway, and I hear the thick door close, and then Tahoe starts to whir and click and twirl, letting out with a sustained beep every so often as it zaps me. It positions itself at different degrees around my body for a series of 7 beeped zaps, and then it stops making noise and stops moving and Ann and Barbette come back and help me sit up and tie my gown back up for me, and one of them walks me back to the men's dressing room. On my best day so far, I was in and out in just about 10 minutes.

Lunches so far this week:
Starbelly - crab salad (duh)
Chilango - duck flautas and a surprisingly complementary merlot
Monk's Kettle - really good burger and fries and a nice bitter Rye IPA

ZAP!

Radiation treatments have begun! According to my appointment slip, they were just supposed to do a verification x-ray today, but it turned out they were starting treatment as well. I am scheduled for a total of 32 treatments, ending on Friday, May 14th.

Tomorrow and most of next week, my appointments are all either 8:15 or 8:30 (!!!!). After that, it's 9:00 every day. So much for my requested window of 10-12. I may have to deal with some rush hour traffic, but it's such a short leg of the freeway, that I doubt it will delay me much.

I have already made my ZipCar reservations for each of my treatments. I'll be driving the same car (a Scion TC) every time.

The print in the photo is my latest exercise for my linoleum printing class. One more class session next week, and then an open studio session on 4/21 and I'm done for awhile. I didn't sign up for the next block of six class sessions, since I don't know whether I'm going to be fatigued or not from radiation. But I definitely want to do a lot more in this medium. And I'd definitely like to work some more with Katie Gilmartin. She's a great teacher.

Home Again, home again

This is the view from Donald's bedroom in Manhattan (looking east from Amsterdam). Notice the twin towers of the San Remo apartment building (where Stephen Sondheim lived as a boy) on the right, and just to the left of center, the plant leaf seems to point to the tower of the Carlyle Hotel. On the extreme left you see one of the turrets of the Natural History Museum.

This was one of my most enjoyable visits to New York ever. It was without a doubt the spendiest, between my shopping for clothes in the meatpacking district and having dinner at Jean-Georges (where my niece Alison and I were both cruised by Martha Stewart), and flying first class on Virgin America. However, I didn't do my usual theater-going marathon. The trip was planned around the date of the 80th birthday concert for Sondheim (it was great!), but I didn't have advance tickets for anything else. Near the end of the week, Donald and I decided to use some of the discount coupons he gets by belonging to the Theater Development Fund for tickets to "Next Fall" and "A Behanding in Spokane". We quite enjoyed both plays.

A great discovery this trip was a new gelato store in Donald's neighborhood: Grom. It was as good as any gelato I had in Italy and I tried to eat it at every opportunity.

With all the nice weather, we did a lot of walking and I think I might have lost a little weight despite the gelato and the expensive French food. Guess I'll have to eat a lot of lunches out to gain those pounds back. No problem.

I came home to annoyed, but affectionate cats, and a big pile of mail.

Tomorrow I go to the radiation oncologist again for a pre-radiation CT scan and to get tattooed (just little pin dots) so they know how to position the radiation beamer thingy when I go for treatments, which I assume will commence next week.

Here's to the ladies who lunch

I've gone clothes-shopping almost every day this week. I am so not a shopping person, but I feel very deserving of expensive and modish garments these days, so I've persisted in my quest for wardrobe amelioration.

At the beginning of the week, I decided that since I was entering the demimonde of the almost-extinct lady-who-lunches, I should, in fact, lunch to round out the experience. Shopping and lunching really is an enjoyable lifestyle, I've found.

One unfortunate aspect of dining alone is that it leaves one at the mercy of the conversations taking place nearby. When I was lunching at Nieman-Marcus, I tried to shut out the mundane blather of the two ladies at the next table (using email, how fun Netflix is to use, what to order on the menu that wouldn't drip on their Ann Taylor suits, etc) , but my ears couldn't help but perk up when I heard one say to the other, "Do you like sex?".

"Oh, I used to, but I haven't gone there for years."

Gone there? That seemed a rather hip locution for someone of her age and class. When I glanced over, they were both looking out the window across Union Square to the building housing Saks Fifth Avenue. I went back to shutting them out and reading my New Yorker.

Today I had to take something back to Bloomingdales that I bought yesterday when I was too tired to assess its fit appropriately. I ventured out in the rain and accomplished the exchange quickly, then took the subway back to Hayes Valley and shopped some more there. I made some extremely unnecessary but entirely satisfying purchases at Nomads, then walked toward the subway. After trying to hold my umbrella and walk in such a way as to keep my "Big Brown Bag" from Bloomingdales dry for a couple of blocks, I found myself in front of Absinthe. The prospect of a solitary French meal while seated on a red velvet banquette, surrounded by a warm, lush, art nouveau interior was too cozy and too decadent to resist. I went in and had the most delightful lunch with a nice big glass of Syrah.

The rain had not let up by the time I finished lunch, but I was ever-so-slightly tiddly and warmed from within, so I really didn't care.

Here are the places I've lunched this past week. I had Rene and Della as companions on Monday and Thursday, otherwise, I was alone:

Starbelly (that crab salad I can't get enough of)
Wexler's (brisket banh-mi - very good)
The Rotunda at Nieman-Marcus (lobster club sandwich, a classic)
Out the Door at Westfield Mall (imperial rolls, chicken clay pot, bbq pork on vermicelli)
Absinthe (caesar salad with fresh white anchovies, croque monsieur)

Printing hands are happy hands

I started my linoleum block printing class last week. Tonight was my second class, and I spent most of the time printing this image of my cat Violet. I had carved it over the past week (it's based on a photo that my friend Donald took years ago) so I could spend tonight's valuable studio time just printing it. I think linocut is going to be a new addiction for me. I'm anxious to do more.

I'm trying to cram as much fun and interest into these few weeks before radiation starts. I don't expect to feel bad from radiation, but it will be a daily chore. I've joined Zip Car, a car sharing service, so I'll be able to drive myself to and from my radiation treatments.

I know many of my readers would like to know more about my cancer. It's not a topic that I enjoy discussing very much, but here's what I know: my cancer is a fairly rare type called "Merkel cell" or "neuroendocrine cell" carcinoma. There are only about 1500 cases diagnosed each year in the US. Merkel cells and neuroendocrine cells refer to the same cell type. These aid touch receptors in the skin, but Merkel cells exist throughout the body, especially in the lymph system. Generally, this type of cancer is first noticed on the skin, but in my case it was not noticed until it had metastasized, so its primary origin is unknown. (Believe me, at my age and with my skin type, I have a dermatologist go over me from head to toe each year, so you think we would have seen it, but it apparently is often mistaken for some other skin condition, and sometimes remains undetected even when a suspected lesion is biopsied.) If you want to know more about this cancer, there is a ton of information here. If you read up, you'll understand why it is so important to me to enjoy myself now, while I feel good.

Today was a lovely day, apart from my printing class. I started out with lunch at Nieman Marcus in the Rotunda restaurant (cucumber martini and a lobster club sandwich) and then went shopping in every designer sportswear department of every big store downtown. I didn't buy anything at those stores, as it turns out, but it was an important exercise for me, since I don't really keep abreast of current fashions. It gave me an idea of what was out there this season (and the subway ride gave me time to evaluate which of those trends were ridiculous for a 52-year-old man to consider wearing). I came home rather discouraged that I hadn't bought anything, but decided to stop in at Rollo, a men's clothing store just a couple of blocks from my apartment. I ended up buying everything I needed there. :)

I leave for NYC on Sunday night. I'm very excited to fly first class for the first time.

From this to this

It's hard to believe that yesterday morning I was sitting on our terrace looking out at Banderas Bay, and now, 24 hours and a rather annoying airport experience later, I'm looking at the wet schoolyard of Everett Middle School.

What a lovely trip, and how I needed it. The temperature was about 80 every day. We spent most of every day at the beach, usually at the Beach House on Los Muertos, where Marco, Esther, Jerry and Roberto saw to our every need (towels, iced tea, blackberry daquiris, beers, cheeseburgers, salads, moving our seats to more shade, etc) with great care. One day Robert rented a car and drove us to Sayulita, north of PV, around the other side of Punta de Mita, which you can see jutting into the bay from the right side of the first pic.

Robert, Marjeanne and I have been good traveling companions to each other for nigh on to 20 years now, and this trip continued our convivial tradition. We did crossword puzzles together, cut up, explored the town, soaked in our private dipping pool, made fun of each other's bad Spanish, ate, drank and laughed (a lot). Like I said, I really needed it, and I'm eternally grateful to both of them for giving me such a week of fun.

I'm equally grateful to my friend Astra, who conquered Junie's recalcitrance and made sure both cats got their meds, leaving me free to enjoy myself in the sun.

In a couple of weeks, my little town shoes will be straying to the city that never sleeps.

The Pause that Refreshes

Here's Violet indulging in her drug of choice: a recently worn shoe. I walked around a lot yesterday, so my shoes were probably extra funky. I don't judge.

I met with my radiation oncologist, Dr. Gillis, on Tuesday. She took me through my diagnosis CT scan side-by-side with the post-chemo CT scan, so I could really appreciate the differences between the two and the amount of tumor shrinkage that chemo achieved. Very encouraging. She also explained the radiation treatment process in excruciating detail, since I had to sign a release form saying she had done so. There are some side effects listed in the "common" column (they were grouped by "common", "less common", "uncommon" and "extremely rare") that I hope I don't get. Shingles, for example. I had that about 20 years ago and it was not fun. Anyway, I liked Dr. Gillis a lot, which mitigates somewhat my annoyance at having to go so far for the treatment.

I go back again on 3/24 to have a CT scan that will determine the position of the radiation beams, and they'll tattoo me then with little registry pin dots. Starting (probably) the following Monday, I'll go every day, Monday-Friday for 30 treatments. Most visits will last 10 minutes, except for each Wednesday's visit, when Dr. Gillis will examine me.

Meanwhile, I have a pause in treatment that I'm only just starting to appreciate. My energy level is a little better this week, and on Monday, I leave for my week in paradise (Puerto Vallarta). My catsitter, a former coworker, came over last night for dinner and gave Junie her shot like a pro with no drama from Junie, so that's a worry off my mind.

The Best of All Possible News

Dr. Liu seemed very excited to share the CT scan results with me. It showed, as we knew already by sight, tremendous shrinkage of the lymphadenopathy under my right arm, and no new spots anywhere else in my body. My internal organs all appeared normal on the scan and my lungs are clear.

So I'm a candidate for radiation therapy, but that won't commence until 3/23 at the earliest, in order to get my scheduled trips out of the way. I have an appointment with the radiation oncologist next Tuesday, 2/16. She and Dr. Liu have determined that I should have 30 treatments, so that's six weeks, every day, M-F. I'm not quite sure how I'll get to Oyster Point every day. Apparently there is some sort of shuttle from the South SF BART station to the Kaiser Cancer Treatment Center. I'll try it for my appointment next week, but if it takes too long, I may have to join a car share program.

This is the best possible news in this crappy situation. It's news I didn't dare hope for, but am very grateful to have received. I'm celebrating by doing a little dance in my head (oh, and maybe by lighting up the hugest doobie I can roll).

And now we are one

Della turned 1 yesterday and her parents had a few of us over for a small celebration in her honor. I can't believe she's only been in our lives a year. She is almost talking (she says "ba-ba" for "bottle", and "a-da" for "all done"), which seems a bit advanced to me. She also speaks some mysterious language that involves a lot of fish-lipped vowel formations.

My brothers, Tim and Jim, and Tim's wife, Cathy, came up from Fresno on Saturday and we had lunch at Starbelly before they checked into their hotel, and then dinner at Chez Papa Resto that evening. It was nice to see them.

I'm a little worn out from my very social weekend, and I guess my digestion still has a ways to go to get to normal, because I find that small meals are still best for me. I do miss pigging out, but I guess it isn't really good for anyone, no matter how hard the marketplace tries to "supersize" us.

I probably won't post again until after my oncologist appointment on Wednesday.

Here's a video of the big moment after dinner last night:

Scan-dalous

I had my post-chemo CT scan today. Went fine. The CT department is run by a guy who doesn't let them get even a minute off schedule. I was there on time for my appointment and back out on the street 20 minutes later.

I have an appointment with the oncologist, Dr. Liu, next Wednesday to discuss the scan, and shall of course, report results and findings here.

Otherwise, I'm continuing to nap every day, but I am still lunching out and walking every day as well. My left foot's sole is numb, but there is no pain. The best thing is that my digestive system is getting back to normal, and I find I can eat a bit more at one time than I've been able to in awhile.

Today marks the longest I've gone without being poisoned since 9/29. During the chemo cycle, today is when a new round would have started. I did have to swallow the awful barium stuff in preparation for the CT scan, which I think they make worse by adding banana flavoring, but heck, that's nothing compared with etoposide and carboplatin.

Public Display

Rene was asked to contribute to a "pop-up" art show at 1035 Market this weekend and borrowed the portrait I commissioned since he didn't have many readymade pieces in his studio that could be said to fit the theme of the show, which was a combination of art, fashion, and ephemera entitled "Man Up". We (Rene, his sister Cathy, and Renecito) went to check it out last evening. I'm glad the show is just for the weekend, because I miss the painting terribly. I have a big orange blank spot on my bedroom wall.

It's been a rather busy week. Every day I feel better and more recovered from chemo. The only thing, other than my hair, that hasn't come back yet is my energy level. I find that I still need to doze in the armchair for at least an hour every afternoon. I haven't been blogging because I've mostly just been taking care of mundane chores. However, I guess that's kind of a nice change from scheduling everything around chemo. Here's the summary of my big accomplishments this week:

• went to Kaiser optometry for an eye exam and new eyeglass prescription
  
• had lunch downtown with Kevin, picked out new glasses at Optical Underground, bought underwear
• took Violet for her dental procedure (she's fine, but we have a new vet and she is perhaps a bit ... thorough She expects me to dose Violet twice a day for two weeks with antibiotic pills. So far, she's swallowed one and spit two out. I only struggle with her so many times and then give up)
  
• went to the gallery to see my painting on public display
• had dinner at the Garcias with Holly, Della, Robert, Kevin and Emily while Rene, Cito and Cathy went to the motocross show at AT&T Park.

I think I had lunch at a restaurant every day, which afforded me the opportunity to walk, and got me out of the apartment. It's been rather chilly and rainy here and I tend to want to stay in the chair under my throw and read the letters of Virginia Woolf. However I lost most of the sensation in the sole of my left foot with this last chemo round, and I really needed to walk every day to get it to stop hurting. I think the muscles needed to get used to the lack of sensory input from the foot. Now I think everything has adjusted as much as it can. I have to be a little extra-conscious of that foot's placement when I stand and walk, but no more soreness.

Della can walk up to three steps before collapsing!

My new passport arrived!

Della Visits

Della and her parents and Aunt Cathy dropped by for a visit this afternoon (Cito had a play date). She continues to be delighted with the world in general. She's this close to walking for real. Watch out world.

I'm continuing to recover from the last chemo. Boy does my body feel beat up. I look forward to feeling less bruised all over so I can have some kind of detoxifying spa treatment with massage. Right now, I don't particularly want to be touched.

Looking forward to getting some household chores done this week, and to getting my sewing machine repaired so I can finish my new roman blinds.

New Painting

After getting home from having my blood drawn (yay, I made it all the way on the scooter and back without getting rained on!), I decided to tackle the hanging of the new painting and the subsequent necessary rearrangement of other paintings.

I'm reasonably happy with it (the rearrangement - I LOVE the painting), mainly just glad it's done.

The rain is falling again, and I'm so ready for Mexico. Too bad it's still a month away.

Hissy fits

As soon as the ugh started lifting, I came down with a cold, which, though aggravating, is not nearly as bad as experiencing chemo ugh. The cold seems to have limited its mischief to some minor nasal and chest congestion and is moving its way on out of my body.

Today's big outing was to the vet's office. Both cats were due for checkups back in December, and I just had oh, other things going on. Before leaving them in the care of sitters when I start traveling next month, I figured they should be checked out.

The cats vocalize so much that the 5-minute cab ride seems like an hour. Junie is fine. Violet, however, has a big abscess above one of her canine teeth. She is having a very expensive dental procedure under general anesthesia to address it next Friday. Since they have always detected a slight heart murmur in her, they wanted to do a cardiac sonogram before submitting her to surgery. So I waited while they performed the ultrasound. She's fine. No need for concern. Really, after this, Dame Fortune? Our household has had enough to do with medical procedures and the like for a good long while.

Of course the drama associated with a trip to the vet is never over when we get home. We've been home for 4 hours and the cats are still hissing at each other about it. Whatever Divas. Honestly!

I picked up the newly framed ersatz Mark Ryden painting today. It looks really great. However, since my using tools and moving around a lot disturbs Lady Violet, and she's had so much emotional turmoil already today, I'll wait until tomorrow to hang it.

Ugh lifting

It rained very hard and very long without interruption today, which isn't exactly conducive to my sense of well-being, but I made the best of it. Had horrible "morning sickness" today, but managed to get my laundry in to the fluff 'n fold by 9, and spent the day alternately napping, and shuffling around trying to get exercise by walking around my apartment. Good thing I don't have a downstairs neighbor at the moment.

About an hour ago, I felt that first vague sense of lift, like a cool breeze that comes after a heatwave. The ugh is departing, and I don't have to dread its return. I expect tomorrow to be a day of fatigue, but that toxic feeling I really hate is draining away.

As far as other things that make life worth living, aren't my fellow Project Runway fans so happy that the new season has started and that they are back in NYC? Do you think Heidi will ever stop pootying out Seal's babies?

Rainy Day Ugh

The rain and the ugh commenced at roughly the same time. Slept pretty well, but woke up early and could feel the bloat and the fatigue, despite which, I couldn't stay in bed.

Started puttering around the apartment and had a light breakfast. Then I noticed a break in the rain and decided to walk to Robert's. It's just a few blocks, but slightly uphill. I had some letters to drop in the mailbox and a New Yorker to drop off with him. It was slow going on the walk, and I had to sit and chat for a few minutes to get a second wind before making the trip back. I managed to get home just as the rain started up again.

I think I'm in for the day. Me and the ugh, looking out on the rain. It really isn't too bad. I think knowing it's the last makes it endurable.