Radiation therapy to the brain

• 03Jul06 - Finally released from the hospital today, straight to radiation therapy....

• 08Jul06 - At this point, I'm facing the possibility of not having a place to live as of the 15th (staying with my dad is out, even if he hadn't had a big fight with the family and...well, let's not get into that—it's a moot point, anyways, as it isn't a possibility due to the extreme distance to the hospital—grand mal seizures plus 1.5 hour trip to hospital equals very bad juju).

• Btw, I would like to publically thank the folks at both BSafeonline (work) and the folks at the Jobs Plus location in Defuniak Springs, for their show of support throughout this ordeal (even before the seizures, brain surgery, etc., they've been outstanding, and since then, well, they still are...). They aren't alone, to be sure, but they do deserve a special mention here. And let's add another group: the volunteer drivers for the American Cancer Society who take me to/from my radiation appointments every day (remember, being subject to seizures, I'm not allowed to drive right now).

• 13Jul06 - Today has been a pretty incredible day...and that's putting it mildly! The Lord has been very busy today making good things happen...so much so that I'm just about bouncing off the walls at this point.... Let's see...where shall I start...well, let's just take things in order.
  • First, today was the first day of radiation therapy where, when the beam cranked up, it didn't cause severe pain to the most sensitive of the surgical incisions—in fact, I didn't feel anything back there this time around. That, in itself, was enough...as the pain yesterday was barely tolerable (and even that is in very much relative terms).
  • Next, I asked the American Cancer Society driver to run me by my workplace to make some arrangements for hopefully returning to work, and to talk to a co-worker about a place to live temporarily while I look for more permanent housing (somewhere where, among other things, I can have my cat, Spooky, back with me—I really miss the big monster). Talked with Jeremy first, and it's a go. Scratch one MAJOR stress item off the list. Next, I talked with our HR person about some concerns she has (safety stuff, dealing with the possibility of another seizure, liability issues, etc.). Basically, in order for me to return to work (part time—I don't know how well I could handle part time, and I KNOW I couldn't handle full time right now), and even then, I'd be limited in the types of work I could do...but fortunately, my disability pushes me towards the stuff I'm more skilled at (at least, as far as the kind of work available—the web page/tech-writing side), she needs a letter signed by my oncologist stating that it's ok (i.e., safe) for me to return to work. I, however, have some concerns over how this letter is worded, given the fact that my disability paperwork is being processed right now, and this time around, looks like a no-brainer, so I contacted my rep from the Patient Advocate Foundation.....
  • When I told my rep from the Patient Advocate Foundation the situation, and asked her about the wording of the letter, she told me to forget it, at least until radiation therapy was finished. Basiially, she told me what, were I to be honest with myself, I already knew, that this is going to get a lot worse (fatigue, nausea, etc.) before it's over, and that there's no way I would be able to handle even working part time, and also that there's no way the doctor would sign such a letter while I'm still undergoing radiation therapy. She also told me that the problems with getting my medical records to Social Security have been resolved (she's been working hard on my case all along), and that it's basically a no-brainer that it will be approved (progressive disease after chemotherapy, with metastisis to the brain, plus triple brain surgery, etc.), and that I could start seeing money from SSI/SSD as soon as the next week or two. GREAT NEWS! Now, if I could just get some clarification on the actual benefit amount (I've heard wildly varying numbers on that). But with the back pay going back to January, even if the lowest numbers I've heard are true, I should probably still have enough money to buy a decent trailer to call home and get started on setting up a place to park it, hook-ups for power, cable, Internet, water, and so on.....
  • One thing that's becoming more and more clear, btw, is that if I'm to remember anything (sometimes even for as little as just a few minutes), I HAVE to write it down...I cannot rely on my own memory for anything. My Patient Advocacy Foundatioh rep made a point to have me write down every little thing she needed me to do, and it's a bloody good thing she did, as I would have forgotten half of it otherwise.....
  • Went to lunch with my new roommate, Jeremy, and on the way, dropped of a few photos of my sister at one of her barrel races at Snappy Photo (the local professional photo processing shop—one of only two in NW FL that professional photographers are willing to use) for enlargements (including a 16x20 of my favorite (note that this has been substantially resized—atspace only allows a maximum filesize of 200 kB), and I think her favorite, too). Jamie has been absolutely wonderful to me the whole time since I was originally diagnosed, and knowing how much she likes these, I just couldn't help myself...I had to go for the enlargements for her...so I picked my favorite three, did 8x10s of the second and third place images, and a 16x20 of the best one. I can't wait to give her the framed photo tomorrow night when she and her friend come over to visit.

• 14Jul06 - more stuff continued from yesterday. Jamie won't be able to come out to visit after all—looks like my little brother and his wife are having their baby! I'm about to be an uncle! Jamie's friend Aaron is still coming out to visit, though. We're going to pick up my truck (a friend from amateur radio is driving us out to the hospital, and Aaron is driving back—I'm still not supposed to be driving).... I picked up the enlargements from Snappy Photo today, and their new printer is every bit as good as they told me it would be when they still had it on order.... Combine Nikon glass and electronics (my digital camera) with their printer, which, if I remember correctly, was somewhere in the $150,000 to $250,000 range, and the 16x20 looks absolutely incredible. Jamie's going to love it...can't wait...no idea when I'll see her next, though.

• 15Jul06 - or more to the point, yesterday, continued, as I haven't gone to bed yet (it's those steroidsÔthey make me very restless...for example, they drive me to walk several miles/day, often several miles at a time, several times per day, even though I don't really have the energy to make it much past the front door...it hurts like hell to walk that much, and yet, I can't stop myself—apparently, it's a standard side effect of this steroid). Just got moved in at Jeremy's place. Well, sort of moved in...most of my stuff is still in the truck, as we're just taking it easy today, and I'm in no big rush...but still, it's going to be cool. I haven't asked him yet if it's ok with him, but there's a nice big deck out there that I'm thinking my pepper garden (mostly in five gallon buckets) could be put on...this would get my peppers here in town...and some of the folks reading this page definitely know how I am about my pepper garden every year..... He's asleep right now (and I probably should be, but again, it goes back to the steroids), but we're heading for the beach in a bit...gonna be a nice afternoon.

• 16Jul06 - was in the store buying some stuff for breakfast this morning...scratched my head, and noticed a bunch of hairs flying.... Yep, I'm going to lose my hair again. This sucks...I HATE the way I look without hair (and I mean NO hair...eyelashes, eyebrows, mustache, all of it went away the last time, and I looked goofy as hell).

• 17Jul06–28Jul06 - I am bald now, btw...but I still have the eyelashes, eyebrows and the mustache, and it's not so bad this time around.... But the hair on my head is the least of my worries right now. The big things hitting me these days are lack of sleep (or more to the point, lack of a regular sleep schedule), loss of both memory and cognitive ability, screwed up vision, stress, screwed up memory, among other things (e.g., wanting to store a phone number in my cell phone, and trying to remove the battery from the back as a first step in doing so ... and I did that three times right back to back, then rejoined the rest of the real world). Lack of a real sleep schedule is part of it (I never sleep...ok, that's not true, but that's how it feels---in fact, I am able to sleep---just in little bits at a time). And then, on top of all of that, there's the 24x7 pain (even with the percocet, which the doctor {\italic REDUCED\/}\ my level on)---in fact, I really wanted to get some good updates online, particularly after such a long gap, but thanks to the pain in my scalp (radiation burns from the radiation therapy),

• 24Jul06 - Last day of radiation therapy ... YEAH!

• 28–29Jul06 - Well, so much for getting away from the steroids (decadron, aka dexamethason) that I hate so much.... Last night (28Jul06), the first day that the steroids were cut all the way back to one tablet per day (was originally four, two in the morning and two in the evening), the pain in my head shot WAY up.... On the scale of 1–10 that the hospital loves so much, it stayed at, at a minimum, 6, and sometimes went right off the scale up to about a 20...particularly if I bent over to a point where my head was below the level of my heart. Can you say, swelling of the brain? Yep, thought you could.... At least, that's what I was worried about (the steroids are there to prevent exactly that). And, it turns out that I was right. The doctor had me take the dosage all the way back up to four tablets (he had me take the remaining three for today immediately, forget about one now and two later), and switch to two in the morning and two in the afternoon tomorrow. The (internal) pain in my head is now gone, and my mind is a lot clearer. I have to wonder, though, how close I came to brain damage, an aneurysm, or a stroke.... So, I have to deal with the side-effects of the steroids (restlessness/hyperactivity even when there's no energy to back it up, constant appetite resulting in gaining back all the weight I worked so hard to lose, etc.), but basically, I'd rather have my gut balloon up than my brain! The former I can deal with later—I've already proven that rather conclusively...the latter, well, with it, there may not be a "later" to work with.

  On another note, I upgraded Cygwin on my desktop machine today. I'm hoping that the new release has in.telnetd (if so, the upgrade goes to my laptop, too, so I can telnet in to my laptop when I need to do stuff that doesn't require the windoze gui (i.e., when I can use Cygwin for everything I need to do, which is about 50% of the time)). I'm also hoping (and cox.net and their SMTP policies will ultimately decide this) to configure a much better (than the web-based yahoo mail) e-mail setup, using SMTP for outgoing and POP3 + fetchpop + procmail + mutt for incoming.

  Got some cleaning done around the apartment today.... My roommate, Jeremy, bought this really cool air mattress (not the type you take to the beach...the type you put in your hurricane supplies) for me to sleep on—he didn't like the idea of my sleeping on the recliner—bad for the back, whereas, in fact, my back absolutely loves sleeping on the recliner (it's far more comfortable, before, during, and after sleep), not to mention the fact that sleeping inclined like that prevents problems with waking up with a throat-full of stomach acid (NOT a good thing!). Well, with the stress, steroids (do I really need to repeat this list again? I think not)...I've barely been able to use the air mattress, but did last night, and one thing became instantly clear: I can't use it until the radiation burns on my scalp heal. Laying my head down was very, very painful (granted, part of that was swelling of the brain, but a major part was still radiation burns). So, I deflated the air mattress and put it in a closet. The living room looks SO much better (not to mention, bigger) now.....

• 31Jul06 - I actually got a decent night's sleep! Nice feeling.....

• 01Aug06 - Another decent night's sleep (about 5 hours, normal for me). And what do I wake up to? The NHC/TPC has upgraded TD Three to TS Chris. Here's an image from JStrack, the freeware hurricane tracking program I wrote (and still am writing...): chris-01-0900Z.gif.

  On another note, we just got a really nice thunderstorm (too bad my 35mm is still at my dad's farm, where it didn't do me a bit of good (lightning photography is one of my favorite hobbies).

  Btw, since I mentioned lightning photography, it would be highly irresponsible to note also state that I have formal NWS training as a Skywarn spotter, and years of experience, all of which I use to help stay relatively safe while photographing lightning. I also have a healthy respect for the danger associated with the hobby, and know when it's time to give up that great set of lightning shots in favor of safety. If you don't have that kind of experience, start out working with someone who does...do NOT go out solo without the proper training.

• 02Aug06 - Had a little fun today...planted some seeds from some of my favorite peppers (tabasco, cayenne, Chiltepin aka Chilepetin aka Chile Pequin aka Petin aka ... it's thought to be the original wild chile that everything else evolved from, and this mystery pepper I have---very mild[1], coffee/chocolate brown color, nice flavor---I'm going to have to send a photo to a few chile-heads I know and see if I can get an ID on it), in random spots in the ground around the apartment...they're in plain sand (what we have that passes for soil here on the coast), so I had to stick with the ones that are really prolific, stubborn plants that grow with an attitude...and added the mystery brown (I don't know how much of an attitude it has---only had the plant for a short while, and it was basically destroyed by wind damage driving it from a friend's house to mine), but I kept some of the seeds in Miracle Grow in a planter on the deck, too.... The same goes for the Chiltepins---I know they'll grow anywhere, in anything (boy, will they ever!), but I have some seeds going on the deck, too.... I'd love to see the face of anyone (of the non-chile-head variety, that is) who decides to swipe some of the Chiltepins after they eat one (or for that matter, even after they've picked some if they rub their eyes, etc.) ... those little, red berry-shaped peppers, only about 1–1.5mm in diameter, are a nice blast of heat, and to the non-chile-head type (I know this from when I was a kid) are pure fire from Hell itself.

  [1] What? A chile-head wanting a mild pepper? Hey, you saw cayenne in that list, right? There's another mild pepper, as are the jalapenos, serranos, banana peppers, red chile peppers, etc., in the pepper garden---we love the heat from the big monsters, but we also love the FLAVOR of our peppers, and some of the mild ones do have really nice flavor. :-)

• 04Aug06 - Had a little more fun today...planted some additional seeds...habaneros, this time. I also worked on JStrack some—working on adding a user-configured set of city names to the chart, and am still debating over the general design. I think I've got it, though—it'll look something like this (this is as much for my reference as it is FYI):
  • City names will be from the NHC/TPC's list of official watch/warning breakpoints (i.e., the locations they use as the two ends of watches and warnings), with, perhaps, a few other cities added (e.g., if College Station, TX, aka Aggieland, isn't in there, I'll HAVE to add it and have it drawn on the chart by default...and Austin will probably be left off...after all, there's nothing there but a little community college called "tu" where the school's mascot is basically a bunch of steak dinners waiting to happen). Ok, enough with the old college rivalry.
  • Latitude/Longitude for each city will come from the NHC/TPC's list.
  • A unique identifier will be assigned to each city (e.g., city001, city002, etc.), and when a city is drawn on the canvas, the text item will be assigned a tag with said identifier. If, while configuring city names, the user makes a change which causes the city name to need to be removed, a simple ".c delete withtag city001" should do it.
  • The user will be presented with a scrolled set of city names which will be adapted to the map that's on the screen at the time (e.g., if the East Coast close-up map is displayed, city names for locations not on that map will not be listed). Each city name will have three radiobuttons: Left Side, Right Side, and Do Not Display. If the user chooses to display the city name to the right, the code is already done. If they chose to display it to the left, just change the sign on the math for calculating the x value and change the anchor from left to right. This gives the user a bit more flexibility in adding city names that might otherwise overlap.

  This is the sort of thing that should only take a half-hour or so (with Tcl/Tk, anyways...it'd take a LOT more time in most other languages), if that, except for the aftermath of the tumors, brain surgery, stress, steroids, lack of sleep...or at least, lack of the ability to consistently get a full night's sleep, as opposed to a half-hour to an hour here, there, etc...., more stress, and so on...all of which leaves me totally scatter-brained right now.

• 11Aug06 - oops.... As some of you know, I have really bad allergies. REALLY bad allergies. An even smaller number of you know that, to make things worse, I'm also one of that small percentage of the small percentage of people with the most severe allergies who have what's called Oral Allergy Syndrome. To make it even more fun, I'm part of the small percentage of people with OAS who tend to have systemic reactions, up to and including Anaphylaxis or Anaphylactic Shock.

  Well, during the last week or so, I've been enjoying some really great peaches (nice and crispy, not too ripe...just the way I like them). Today, I had another...except this time...... Yep, you got it, the previous peach was the sensitizing exposure...the one where my immune system decided that some specific protein in peaches (I don't know which one it is) resembles a protein in one of the pollen allergens that I'm allergic to enough that it must BE that protein. So, this time (the next exposure), it launched what is basically an all-out chemical warfare attack (like using VX or GB/Sarin nerve agents as a counterattack against an invading army in your home-town...you may kill the invaders, but you'll also kill the very people you're trying to protect...stupid...very stupid). Within a minute or two of eating the peach, I was already at the point of anaphylaxis, and very shortly after that (while I was trying to get to my EpiPen), I was in anaphylactic shock, barely able to get air into my lungs due to the airways collapsing, heart going nuts due to the crash in blood pressure, unable to stand for more than a second...and then only with great difficulty, and usually ending up with my face smashing into something on its way back to the floor.... I did finally get to my EpiPen, but due to O2 deprivation to the brain, couldn't figure out how to use it (and couldn't read the instructions...not even the ones that are big pictures on the side of the EpiPen). I ended up dropping it while trying to read it, and it somehow managed to fire into my finger on its way to the floor. This is one of the "DO NOT DO THIS" kind of things with an EpiPen, as it can result in loss of the finger. In my case, however, I probably only got a very tiny amount of the .3mg dose into my finger, and it's ok....

  What I did get right was the call to 911 (which you're supposed to do AFTER using the EpiPen, as seconds count with the Epinephrine, and if you call 911 first, you may not be able to use the EpiPen later—kind of like how parents are supposed to put the oxygen masks on themselves before their kids in airline disasters).... The EMS units (two of them) arrived, and were in the apartment, within a minute or two of my dialling 911. Now here's where things start to get screwed up, and I'm more than a bit ticked off.... First, I asked them, not once, but several times, to take my cell phone and call my roommate to give them a sitrep. They didn't.... I could understand if they waited until I was in the ER being treated, but they didn't call at all. Not good....

  Next, we get to a major problem, which I am going to have a serious chat with my oncologist about.... We've known, for some time, that my veins are basically shot thanks to chemotherapy. My oncologist's nurses refer to me (and one other guy) as "no-veins" ... it's a nickname we've gotten.... Even since chemo round two, we've known that something had to be done. My oncologist's solution was a PICC line...but that got infected. He did not want to go with a port (I believe LifePort is the full name). Since then, my veins have just gotten worse...to the point that basically, nobody but the oncology nurses at either the hospital or my oncologist's office (they know my veins) can ever get an IV site started or, in most cases, even draw blood. This is annoying enough for cancer-related treatment (e.g., when I was in the ER and ICU after the brain tumors revealed themselves, and even the oncology nurses sometimes have trouble finding a useful vein...and many of those failed attempts HURT). But it gets worse when I'm in the ER (already somewhat stabilized by the EMS units who, btw, were unable to get an IV site started and had to rely on what they could give by injection, but that's not as effective as via IV at all, or by breathing treatments, such as Albuterol) after having gone into anaphylactic shock.... The EMS teams and the ER team NEEDED to get IV sites going, both to administer critically-needed meds and also to draw blood samples. One nurse did manage to get about 1mL of blood...and that was the giant exception. Ultimately, none of the nurses was able to get a site started, and none paid any attention to my repeated suggestions that they get one of the oncology nurses, who KNOW my veins and can usually get an IV site started within a minute or two, usually only in one or two attempts. Oh, no...these ER nurses kept insisting that they could get a site started anywhere in anyone...shortly before they gave up and sent in the next nurse to poke more holes in me in vain (pun intended).

  At this point, if I don't get a port, I want something on record with EMS, the ER, and the ICU that if they need to get an IV started in me, they MUST get an oncology nurse from either my oncologist's office or from the cancer care unit in the hospital, in other words, someone who at least has a chance of getting a site started. Spending hours, sending in one nurse after another (most of which tried about three times and then gave up), trying to get an IV site started is beyond absurd...it's beyond insane...and all the while, my life is still in danger from the allergic reaction (and by the way, even after anaphylaxis has been stopped, it can still come back as much as several hours later, so I was NOT out of danger by any stretch of the imagination). Frankly, I'm fed up with it.

• 14Aug06 - Something that's been in the works has finally materialized.... The Kendrick Group, one of my JStrack users, has donated a rather large amount of space (250MB, expandable to 500MB ... I only asked for 50MB, and even that was more than I expected to need) and a domain name (jstrack.org). So, the JStrack pages will have a new home, and my other stuff (including these pages) will also be online there soon....

• 24Aug06 - Had another seizure last Friday...didn't wake up until sometime Saturday, and have basically felt like sh*t (weak, tired, dizzy, mentally gone) since.... And to make matters more fun, my roommate picked that time to tell me that, now that he's got a girlfriend, he needs his privacy. In other words, he needs his place back. I've got my two-week notice...and nowhere to go. Two weeks from today, I have no idea where I'll be living, except that it won't be here....

• 04Oct06 - No updates for a while...I know.... I haven't had any big seizures, but I've been having a bunch of "mini" seizures, as I call them, that still end up wiping me out (cumulative effect), and as a result, I haven't really felt like doing much on the computer.

  For those who may be familiar with them, these "mini" seizures are the ones that last about 0.5s, and consist of about 5–15 very bright flashes (like what you see if you slam your eyelids shut really, really hard) in rapid succession. It's like getting hit in the face with a 2x4, minus the pain (i.e., shock/impact only, no pain), except that, as I mentioned above, the cumulative effect is to completely wipe you out, physically, mentally, and along with all of that, your vision gets nuked, too (oh, and so does your sense of balance, particularly when you first stand up).

  I haven't had nearly as many lately, thanks, I'm sure, to my doctor raising my dilantin dosage a couple of times since these things started. I've got an appointment with the doc' in a week or so, and from there, I'll be going to a neurologist.

• 04Oct06 (cont'd) - On the brighter side, a recent MRI came back negative (i.e., clean), and my tumor markers are very, very low (near zero, i.e., extremely good).

• 04Oct06 (cont'd again) - On the living situation, I've got a place to live. It's nothing fancy (I live in one bedroom of a 3BR trailer), but it's cheap, and will allow me to save up to make a down mayment on something nicer.... With my disability payments coming in, I'm a lot better off financially than I was just a few weeks ago, so that's a Good Thing. I'm still accepting donations via [that site whose name consists of the words "pay" and "pal"] (see the JStrack page for the link...atspace will not allow links to the aforementioned site (or even its name!) on their site.....)

• 04Oct06 (cont'd again) - Also, thanks to my sister, Jamie, I've got my older cat, Spooky, back with me again (thanks again, sis'!!!). Another Good Thing. Spooky and Tux didn't get along well (ok...at all) at first, but they're doing fine now. Spooky has either gotten a lot bigger than before (quite possible), or I've forgotten just how BIG he was (roughly 20 lbs)...and Tux is heading in the same direction. She's lean, but at about 12 weeks old, she's already more than doubled in size (more like quadrupled in size) since I got her....

• 04Oct06 (cont'd again) - One more bit of non-cancer-related news (that does, or will eventually, have an impact on this site, as it'll be moving there): Thanks to the Kendrick Group, one of my JStrack users, I now have a rather large area of space for web pages, and a domain of my own, at jstrack.org. When asked how much space I'd like, I said that 50 MB would probably be more than I'd EVER need...so they gave (yes, gave, as in donated) me 250 MB.... Check it out.... This page will eventually move there, but before it does, I want to fix some CSS problems (if you print it now, you won't get all of the pages of any multi-page link, due to my not putting in CSS rules for print media). This will require some serious re-work, and I'm not up to that now (I did it for the JStrack pages, though).

  Today's run-in with the assinine policy about the site I mentioned earlier, the one with "pay" and "pal" in its name (not in a link, mind you...just in PLAIN TEXT!) is, however, making me seriosly consider moving the site now, and fixing it later.... I would say that that policy must have been written by morons, but I'd be insulting all of the morons of the world, who are far too intelligent to do such a thing (it's bad enough not to allow the link...but to forbid even its use in PLAIN TEXT?)!

• 04Oct06 (cont'd again) - One final bit of non-cancer-related news.... Some of my best (IMNSHO) lightning photos (and two waterspout shots, too) are now online. You can find them at "Photos from spooky130" on flickr.com. I'll eventually be adding some of my stereo (i.e., 3D) work, but you'll have to have the red/cyan glasses (available for free at www.rainbowsymphony.com (specify "anaglyph red/cyan glasses"). For other options, just do a search on Google for "3d glasses" and you'll come up with all kinds of sites offering free 3D glasses. The stereo stuff I'll be putting online is, IMNSHO, well worth the effort, so send for the free glasses now if you don't already have any (doesn't everyone have at least a dozen or so pairs of 3D glasses laying around?). If you look a bit harder, you can probably find a much nicer pair of plastic 3D glasses (what I use). I got mine from 16SOW/Intelligence, when I worked there, but they are available online, either for free or for $1.00...I can't remember which.

• 17Dec06 - I know...I know...the updates have been few and far between lately...but it has mostly been business as "usual" (or rather, what has become "usual").... MRI (brain) results:  negative. Tumor markers:  low end of normal (i.e., very good). CT scan results:  still showing improvement...except....

  There is one change. The latest CT scan (last week) showed improvements on all of the old areas where there were tumors, but there's a new one (1cm). My doctor said that if that one grows, they'll have to open my chest up and remove it. I can't say more on that right now, because that's all we know about it at this point. I will say, though, that the thought of having that surgery scares the hell out of me (more stress/anxiety...just what I bloody well need, right?).

  There's another update—one that I really hate having to make.... They cancelled my Medicaid...seems my disability check disqualifies me. Time to get a lawyer.... This is just more stress to pile on top of the rest...which was already too much.

  On the seizures, I still (superstitious types might want to knock on wood about now) haven't had a Grand Mal seizure since about mid-August. This is a Good Thing. I have, however, continued to have the "mini" seizures (my name for them—I have no idea what the real name for them is). After talking with the doctor last week, I gather those are probably caused by the "hole" (lesion) in my brain that was left when the 2.5cm tumor was removed from the occipital lobe (in the area that deals with vision), which has now filled with fluid. I gather these will just be one of those things that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life.

  Two final notes before this get FTP'd to the atspace web server:

  • Check out the short bit I wrote on attitude, Attitude and Knowledge Are Critical!. Comments and suggestions are not only welcome, they're invited (send e-mail to "spooky130u AT gmail.com").
  • On the cats: Spooky is doing fine (except when getting attacked by Tux, who is considerably more playful than the Spookster is, but six YEARS old vs. a six MONTH old kitten will do that!).

    Tux, my six month old kitten, continues to grow rapidly—in many ways, he's a LOT like Shadow was...solid black (except for the white spot around the bottom of his neck that got him his name), the runt of the litter, neglected by the mama cat—doesn't even know the right way to bury his sh*t, skinny but very muscular, HUGE—at six months, he's 18" from head to butt, and 30" from head to tail, and weighs in at 9 lbs (right about where Shadow was at that age). There's one major difference, though: Tux won't fetch at all...just sits there looking at me as if to say, "Daddy, why did you take my fuzzy-ball away from me and throw it over there? I was working on shredding that!".

    Tux is also a very protective cat. I have strong reason to believe that I am severely allergic to bee/wasp stings (runs in the family, and I got all of the others to the extreme). Tux saw me react in a combination of shock and fear when a wasp flew right in front of my face, and from that moment on, has made it his mission in life (when not trying to beat up Spooky) to utterly torture and destroy (not just kill) any wasp that gets in here. He's already got several kills and even more assists (i.e., warning us with a specific meow and pointing the wasp out by staring directly at it...he does this, for example, if the wasp is on the ceiling). When he gets one on the floor, he tortures it before he kills it. One stung him a few times more than he was ready to put up with, and he bit the wasp's stinger right off. Btw, Spooky has shown in the past that he is just as protective—one night, in my old apartment, I apparently didn't close the front door completely...I woke up the next morning to see Spooky staring intently (with a "come on...I dare anyone...step through that door..." look on his face, and didn't a muscle until I closed the door. Both cats have been observed watching over me while I sleep (they sometimes even rotate in "shifts").

• 15Mar07 - I know (sound familiar?) ... a long time without updates. My roommates (all but one, who we're getting away from) and I (well, mostly me since I don't work) have been very busy working on moving to a new place. I've been doing an a**load of cleaning in the kitchen for the past...ummm...how long has it been, anyways? It was filthy, but now is all nice and shiny. Now for the rest of the place.....

  The Medicaid people are still on crack...but I won't go into that here (I've already written that story up in "my latest (mis-)adventure with Medicaid." Read it when you have a chance...you'll be laughing (at their insanity) and screaming (at their insanity...again, and at their cold-hearted don't-give-a-rat's-ass nature) at the same time.

  As far as the cancer goes, I think I mentioned the small spot on my right lung found in the most recent (until now) CT scan. Well, my tumor markers are going up again (large p*ssed off scream in background), and there's pain in that area of my chest (which could easily also be from moving). I've got a new CT scan within the next couple of days, and an appointment next week to find out what's next. It could be anything from just keeping an eye on that area to major surgery (open the chest/remove the bad area of the lung) to massive chemotherapy (24 hours/day for five days, rest two weeks, and repeat a few times). Am I taking the full prescribed dose of my Xanax (anti-stress/anti-anxiety)? You bet...I'll run out later because of doing so, but everyone around me will just have to tolerate me being a stress-demon for a while....

  Anyways...it's time for me to upload this and start working on getting stuff ready to move to the new place. More later, when I can.

• 20Mar07 - It's official: round 3 is here, in the form of new tumors in my right lung. Starting 02Apr07, I'll be undergoing much, much more intense chemotherapy than before (24 hours/day for five days, rest two weeks, repeat two or three times...or something like that...I'm not sure I got it all straight). I will be getting a port, at least that's what I'm told...so you shouldn't have to read anymore griping from me about being a bad stick, getting stuck over and over again every time access to a vein is needed to draw blood and/or give medication, etc.... If I don't get a port, I'm going to be asking very seriously "why the fscking hell not?".... The doctor was also talking about a bone marrow transplant...don't know what's involved with that, but it doesn't sound particularly pleasant....