Horror of horrors, lymphedema appears to be creeping into my left arm. We measured this morning, my left wrist in visibly larger on the left, a full half inch by measurement. The arm has the aching, tingling and always there characteristics of my left leg, on a much smaller scale. This is a very unwanted place for the fluid to accumulate. Lymph is very inert and difficult to move about. I find my left arm more easily fatigued, and I am left handed. I am just getting paranoid to a certain extent I think. Even as I write this it kind of feels like lymphedema in my forehead. Rubbing on it makes it feel lymphy. I must be going nuts. Come on, give me a break.
He was a wealthy man, and he knew it.
6.9.10
Lot's To Be Thankful For
So today, August 30 I find myself thankful I am not a Chilean copper miner trapped 2000 feet down with a 2” hole for a life line and the prospect of being there until Christmas or beyond in an earthquake prone part of the World. Holy cow. The pictures on TV are heart wrenching to say the least. So far I have not heard any tasteless jokes.
5.9.10
Thinking Twice About Clinical Trials
I do not mean to be selfish, but I am not so sure I want to be part of present or future clinical trials. First, my veins are still very angry at me for what I have put them through. Secondly I have learned there are as many ways to draw your blood as there are nurses to do it and the skill level varies. Further a caregiver predisposed in their minds on some other place, time or person can fail to take into account needle size, make poor vein decisions, make mistakes and cause me grief. It would seem our medical schools could do a little better on standardizing procedures and teaching uniformly the correct way to penetrate a Clients person with a sharp object to remove blood, but maybe that is just me. If my experience is a measure I have to say if the nurse comes in angry ask for someone else to do the sticking.
‘So did you see that camouflaged truck for sale?’ duh
‘So did you see that camouflaged truck for sale?’ duh
4.9.10
Notes From The War On Cancer Front
Tommy Tumor and his cell mates Enda Edema and Lenny Lymph have been in communication with Sir Can in continued efforts to defeat me. Seeing my strength, size and air superiority, well organized chemical attack and so forth, these creative enemies are probing and looking for ways to entrench themselves over ever greater geography by exploiting my weaknesses and carefully trying to break my spirit.
Oh, sorry, I digress. Was I talking about Taliban, Suni’s and Afghan’s or cancer?
In any event, my enemies are creative and the cancer like any other form of life has as strong a will to live as I, but not stronger, and I have science on my side. ‘Science will save us’.
After a level 9 elliptical workout Friday and all the painting yesterday this morning, Sunday the 29th my left leg with the hose is almost the same size as the right. It’s too cool. This afternoon on the south side of Muncie some idiot was driving up and down flying a rebel flag in the back of a 90’s vintage pick up truck. Apparently this dumbass supports a plantation economy, slavery and a division of America. This is at minimum seditious behavior in my humble opinion, but the air waves are full of those proposing anarchy these days.
Something chemical is still going on. I seem to be going bald on top while the hair on my legs is getting attractive and thin. Frankly, it appears I am going bald on top and growing head hair on my legs. Perhaps this is another miracle of modern science. Do the Doctors know head hair can be grown on legs? Can it be harvested and transplanted? Is it renewable? Will it grow until I have to see a hair dresser? So many questions. For the first time in my life I have a condition that causes a serious physical reaction when I over do it. I am not saying that before I did not have physical reactions. You over do it and you’re sore, you over do it and you’re tired, you over do it and you’re over heated. You over do it and you get frost bit. I suffer a slightly different result from over doing it now, a physical reaction with the lymphedema. My left leg can become hard as a rock and swell up in a heart beat. For a period until a couple of weeks ago I lived a cycle of overdoing it until the leg gets bigger and feels tired and funny. Rest it, use a stick and get it back down. Inger says ‘it looks good’ and slaps the calf. I go about overdoing it until the leg swells back up. ‘Oh this is angry, you’ve over done it. Rest it up, don’t do so much’ Inger says and I get the stick and keep it elevated and so the summer cycle of June and July went.
I have found a couple of routines with certain machines at the gym that really seem to help keep thing under control. I started very tentatively. My routine includes 20 minutes min on the elliptical or ski machine, leg presses, the scrunches where I do my kagles while doing ab exercises on the ab table. Man, who was to know cancer would be so much work, and it is not even the cancer, but the unintended consequences that are causing me so much toil and sweat. As I write of going to the gym I have not forgotten the dark days of late winter and spring, when I though I would never return to the gym. One thing for sure, life is a good as it get’s, but it can be miserable if you don’t get to do some getting’.
Oh, sorry, I digress. Was I talking about Taliban, Suni’s and Afghan’s or cancer?
In any event, my enemies are creative and the cancer like any other form of life has as strong a will to live as I, but not stronger, and I have science on my side. ‘Science will save us’.
After a level 9 elliptical workout Friday and all the painting yesterday this morning, Sunday the 29th my left leg with the hose is almost the same size as the right. It’s too cool. This afternoon on the south side of Muncie some idiot was driving up and down flying a rebel flag in the back of a 90’s vintage pick up truck. Apparently this dumbass supports a plantation economy, slavery and a division of America. This is at minimum seditious behavior in my humble opinion, but the air waves are full of those proposing anarchy these days.
Something chemical is still going on. I seem to be going bald on top while the hair on my legs is getting attractive and thin. Frankly, it appears I am going bald on top and growing head hair on my legs. Perhaps this is another miracle of modern science. Do the Doctors know head hair can be grown on legs? Can it be harvested and transplanted? Is it renewable? Will it grow until I have to see a hair dresser? So many questions. For the first time in my life I have a condition that causes a serious physical reaction when I over do it. I am not saying that before I did not have physical reactions. You over do it and you’re sore, you over do it and you’re tired, you over do it and you’re over heated. You over do it and you get frost bit. I suffer a slightly different result from over doing it now, a physical reaction with the lymphedema. My left leg can become hard as a rock and swell up in a heart beat. For a period until a couple of weeks ago I lived a cycle of overdoing it until the leg gets bigger and feels tired and funny. Rest it, use a stick and get it back down. Inger says ‘it looks good’ and slaps the calf. I go about overdoing it until the leg swells back up. ‘Oh this is angry, you’ve over done it. Rest it up, don’t do so much’ Inger says and I get the stick and keep it elevated and so the summer cycle of June and July went.
I have found a couple of routines with certain machines at the gym that really seem to help keep thing under control. I started very tentatively. My routine includes 20 minutes min on the elliptical or ski machine, leg presses, the scrunches where I do my kagles while doing ab exercises on the ab table. Man, who was to know cancer would be so much work, and it is not even the cancer, but the unintended consequences that are causing me so much toil and sweat. As I write of going to the gym I have not forgotten the dark days of late winter and spring, when I though I would never return to the gym. One thing for sure, life is a good as it get’s, but it can be miserable if you don’t get to do some getting’.
3.9.10
Every Disease Is A Profit Center
One of the marvelous lessons I have learned is the breadth and depth of the health care industry. Just my little tiny speck of involvement reveals much more than hospitals, clinics, nurses and doctors. In my case there are those that make special lights, chairs, infusion devices, bags, pumps, hose, compression devices, electrical devices, the list goes on. All of this employment, research and resource aimed at bladder cancer and lymphedema. Each an industry in and of itself. And so it goes with every other body part and the body as a whole. This does nothing for energy independence, defense, or to cloth, shelter or feed us. It is an industry built around the old and feeble among us.
It is still happy face time. Things are going pretty good today as August fades. It’s early on Saturday as I catch up on this among other things. The air is cool, 50’s and dry. Sunrise appears to be a spectacular one in the making. The next few weeks will go quickly with anticipation of the next scan. I will continue to assign little importance to this event, considering it just another step in the process that is so well practiced and delivered by the cancer center.
It is still happy face time. Things are going pretty good today as August fades. It’s early on Saturday as I catch up on this among other things. The air is cool, 50’s and dry. Sunrise appears to be a spectacular one in the making. The next few weeks will go quickly with anticipation of the next scan. I will continue to assign little importance to this event, considering it just another step in the process that is so well practiced and delivered by the cancer center.
2.9.10
Summer Projects As War Is Raged
August 26
Where have the days gone? I am working my tail off for few orders, a common complaint these days. I am enjoying the quoting, researching, problem solving stuff that is getting thrown at me. I even have a shop project going on a data logger. Me, no sparky for sure with burnt screwdriver tips and multimeter probes now a master of the 4-20 amp loop circuit and all the components contained therein. The recorder is awesome and something no competitor offers in a little box, but there is that thing of making it work. Modern technology has made it safer than it was for me the last time I tackled a similar project involving electricity. I think I was 12 and then it was a shortwave radio. Failure then meant blowing a fuse up at the house, the kind you screw in carefully, made of glass with a light bulb like base. Dad shown darkly when I blew fuses and was capable of blowing one of his own. Today my excursions in power are protected by a GFCI. With a flash and a pop I am not electrocuted, the equipment is not damaged and the building does not burn down. Then one has only to step over and push the reset. No one is the wiser. Wonders of modern science, not that any such thing ever happened to me.
My daily routine begins with Inger, our Family scripture time and our MLD session. Then it is on with the rubbers and off with the day. Last night I showed my stockings to a young man with a broken back, likely from sports, who must wear a special device for several weeks. I am not sure it made him feel better. I just wanted him to know wearing stuff is something lots of folks go through. I failed to mention while he can retire his in a few months I will wear mine for the remainder of my life as the prognosis now stands. We shall see. War on lymph is the name of the game. These lazy ass lymphers just do not want to go back up hill once they get down to my left leg. Must be like the Taj Mahal for lymphers is all I can figure. Anyway you gots to keep em’ movin’ no matter, cause if you don’t stuff gets hard, bigger and pretty soon you might be back in engineered sandals and taking pain pills. I still remember as I laid there and looked down on the examination table concerned about my grapefruit size jewels of the Nile I realized my left leg was swelling before my eyes, even as we spoke. ‘Part of it.’, the doctor said. For a few moments I accepted it, but my Women did not accept it.
So war it is. Take no prisoners, wake up them lymph nodes first thing, start the calves pumping. Four to six days a week I am at the gym, usually before 6 AM with a crowd for the most part my senior I think. The oldest I know is in her mid 80’s doing the elliptical at level 80 for 30 minutes keeping pace and barely breaking a sweat. If that is not an inspiration what possibly could be?
Where have the days gone? I am working my tail off for few orders, a common complaint these days. I am enjoying the quoting, researching, problem solving stuff that is getting thrown at me. I even have a shop project going on a data logger. Me, no sparky for sure with burnt screwdriver tips and multimeter probes now a master of the 4-20 amp loop circuit and all the components contained therein. The recorder is awesome and something no competitor offers in a little box, but there is that thing of making it work. Modern technology has made it safer than it was for me the last time I tackled a similar project involving electricity. I think I was 12 and then it was a shortwave radio. Failure then meant blowing a fuse up at the house, the kind you screw in carefully, made of glass with a light bulb like base. Dad shown darkly when I blew fuses and was capable of blowing one of his own. Today my excursions in power are protected by a GFCI. With a flash and a pop I am not electrocuted, the equipment is not damaged and the building does not burn down. Then one has only to step over and push the reset. No one is the wiser. Wonders of modern science, not that any such thing ever happened to me.
My daily routine begins with Inger, our Family scripture time and our MLD session. Then it is on with the rubbers and off with the day. Last night I showed my stockings to a young man with a broken back, likely from sports, who must wear a special device for several weeks. I am not sure it made him feel better. I just wanted him to know wearing stuff is something lots of folks go through. I failed to mention while he can retire his in a few months I will wear mine for the remainder of my life as the prognosis now stands. We shall see. War on lymph is the name of the game. These lazy ass lymphers just do not want to go back up hill once they get down to my left leg. Must be like the Taj Mahal for lymphers is all I can figure. Anyway you gots to keep em’ movin’ no matter, cause if you don’t stuff gets hard, bigger and pretty soon you might be back in engineered sandals and taking pain pills. I still remember as I laid there and looked down on the examination table concerned about my grapefruit size jewels of the Nile I realized my left leg was swelling before my eyes, even as we spoke. ‘Part of it.’, the doctor said. For a few moments I accepted it, but my Women did not accept it.
So war it is. Take no prisoners, wake up them lymph nodes first thing, start the calves pumping. Four to six days a week I am at the gym, usually before 6 AM with a crowd for the most part my senior I think. The oldest I know is in her mid 80’s doing the elliptical at level 80 for 30 minutes keeping pace and barely breaking a sweat. If that is not an inspiration what possibly could be?
1.9.10
Gym Update For The Record
August 22
Been to the gym 4 days straight. I have the good fortune of living one mile from a small 24 hour gym. An early riser, I find the facility populated with a few hearty soles my age or older between 4 and 6 am on the week days. Must be a getting old thing. In the late afternoon the flavor is more muscle beach. As a senior citizen (imagine that) I get a great rate. Today it was 20 minutes on the elliptical, little over a half a mile at level 5. on the weight loss program. Some upper body work. Lifing 100 lbs, 110 lbs pushing with leg and chest press, curling 50 lbs. Work out times 30-40 minutes. No signs of trouble so I will continue. It makes me feel good as long as I have enough water.
Been to the gym 4 days straight. I have the good fortune of living one mile from a small 24 hour gym. An early riser, I find the facility populated with a few hearty soles my age or older between 4 and 6 am on the week days. Must be a getting old thing. In the late afternoon the flavor is more muscle beach. As a senior citizen (imagine that) I get a great rate. Today it was 20 minutes on the elliptical, little over a half a mile at level 5. on the weight loss program. Some upper body work. Lifing 100 lbs, 110 lbs pushing with leg and chest press, curling 50 lbs. Work out times 30-40 minutes. No signs of trouble so I will continue. It makes me feel good as long as I have enough water.
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