Medically Speaking

This might be a little slow and painful. I have a new laptop and the key board doesn’t fit as well as the last. My old laptop was really that, old, and slow to make up for it. But I knew it. It was comfortable. So last evening in the height of my angst and frustration I went outside all the while talking to myself and Jade saying, “I didn’t use to be technologically challenged, now I seem to be technologically challenged, is it age? Chemo brain? Maybe just a piss poor attitude and resistance to change? Maybe all the above? Change sucks! Obama sucks! Agent Orange sucks! Chemo really sucks!!! Older ain’t so bad. I get to be a lot more dependent than I use to be, Senior discounts are cool, I always wanted to have white hair like Spencer Tracy (you young folks will have to look him up), now I do. Ouch!! Maybe I should say I use to, see the previous ‘Chemo sucks!!’ Mostly I get to be as curmudgeonly as I want to be and pretty much get away with it. So I got frustrated, had an attack of curmudgeonly, and went outside and carved. No Windows that didn’t open, files I couldn’t find, shortcuts I couldn’t manage, icons that disappeared or programs I didn’t understand. Just simple tools with a business end and a handle. And I was equipped with an opposable thumb and one pretty good eye. The other eye, not so much. What a relief it was. I became one with my tools and wood.

But its day two of the new laptop and I’m gaining slowly. Bear with! Together we’ll get through this. I didn’t buy this. Wasn’t even wanting one yet. But Kat got tired of me throwing the old one around (true story) and yelling and screaming. It was a piece of excrement, but it was a comfortable piece of excrement. I’ll adapt. But ya’know, I can’t even set my coffee cup in the right place ‘cause the power cords on the wrong side and it doesn’t fit on the cooling stand, and I get all these corrections to what I write, that’s fragmented, this is spelt wrong, where in the hell were you educated you redneck son of b#$&gun? I was a little offended at the last one. I mean how in the heck did this computer figure out I was a ridge runner with one leg shorter than the t’other? There it goes again, correcting my stuff.

On the medical side. I left off with getting all of my appointments scheduled. Oncology ordered a PET scan and right after that I got called in. A little scary! So we got there and I asked ‘what’s the bad news?’ Dr Harrington said there is none. But there are some spots we want to look at on your lungs and then we might want to do some more chemo. Aarrgh!!!! Chemo sucks!! So I had a biopsy for that. And right at the biopsy the doc said and I quote “this looks like a cyst and I think pathologically it’s no big deal”. But we haven’t got the official report yet. We’ll see? As to the chemo, Dr Harrington said they would likely use a different formulation and this one might even be just one visit a month. That part sounded good, but then, we don’t know yet. A week before my biopsy I had my uretal stents exchanged. That went OK. I was having some pain that I thought might be related to the stents but it was not elevated by the exchange. The urologist thought I might have a little irritation from the tumor rubbing on stuff and causing a little nerve damage. When it didn’t get better Kat called and got me in to see oncology right away. To their credit they did see me within the hour when they found out I was in pain. So now I have a big bottle of hydrocodone and the doc said use it liberally. It helps a lot.

So things are going good. I’m walking some now. Kat walks every morning before dawn even makes a little crack. Good on her. I go a little later and I’m working up. No Pickleball yet, but I’m not going to rule it out. We go swimming most days and try to get a little exercise. Kat more than I. But I am feeling better and I think the exercise helps. It’s been a few months since I’ve been able to do anything. I am getting some carving done. I thought for a while I was losing my touch.  Chemo brain!  But I find, ‘I still got it’. So I’ve been doing a bit more woodcarving.  Of course we still enjoy our new car and we take a road trip once in a while. Phoenix is easy to get around in, unless you’re directionally challenged like Kat, but she’s getting it. With the news that we might be stuck here for a while and chemo will be in the Phoenix VA (assuming I will get it), then we may very well move a little north into the Prescott or Camp Verde area where it’s 3-4000’ higher than here and considerably cooler. So we’ve been checking RV parks out. The drive from there to here from there, for the chemo, would be worth it.  But!  You guessed it.  Chemo ………….  I knew you could finish that one.