CancerKitchen SinkPolitics

It’s not easy being green

No, this is not an homage to Jim Henson’s famous muppet, although little Kermie was my favorite. I don’t recall how it happened, but my wife got on Al Gore’s email list, and we’ve had the pleasure of some one-way correspondence ever since. I’m sure we didn’t do anything special to get on the list. The only qualification was probably an address… and…
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CancerWellbeing

How do you spell “irritate?”

If my skin were a character on TV, it would have to be Archie Bunker. My skin is so irritable… oh who cares, we’ll just say it’s pretty fracking irritable and move on. It turns out my skin is particularly irritated by some bandages. “Elementary my dear simpleton,” you may be thinking, “it’s the latex.” Here’s the rub, bub. Several brands of…
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Politics

Gored

I really must get over myself with these corny titles… Anyhoo, most of my pre-chemo reading this evening has been on the un-candidacy of Al Gore. It started with a reference to the Time piece, and concluded with a piece from Politico.com. Here’s a little piece of the Politico.com article: Other Democrats note that Gore’s message, with its stinging indictment of both American…
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CancerFamily and Friends

Flushed

Owing to the fact that my health has been reasonably good, and I’ve never done a drug more illicit than caffeine, we don’t have much experience with needles in the house (unless you consider the sewing kind). So it’s been a new experience having my wife “shoot me up.” When I was excused following the installation of my PICC line, I got a goody bag filled with…
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Computer

Being Googled

I didn’t start this web presence bit for “hits.” If it was all about the hits I’d have given up 7-8 years ago. Still, every now and again I get the odd “hit” which surprises, and today was such a day. My main site got a hit from Brazil… but that’s not what was surprising. The hit came from a Google search… and even that wasn’t completely…
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Cancer

What’s in store

Tomorrow I go in to have my PICC line installed. I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a needle wuss, or that this transfers nicely to long plastic tubes that snake through my circulatory system. As silly as it may seem, I may be more worried about a stupid plastic tube than the chemotherapy. The chemo starts Tuesday. I see the oncologist in the a.m. to be fitted with my porta-pump…
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Cancer

It’s official

Here’s the bottom line: the bone marrow biopsy confirms the leukemia diagnosis. But that’s not even half the story. I was leaving my house 30 minutes before my appointment with the oncologist to go over the results. The trip normally takes 10, but there was only so much waiting I could stand… I needed a little affirmative action. As it turns out, traffic was terrible – and…
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Cancer

Never wait when you don’t have to

If you’re going to schedule a doctor’s appointment to go over test results, ALWAYS try to schedule it for early morning. Any time you have between waking up and walking into that office is a complete waste of time. “Sure,” you’re saying to yourself, “that’s pretty obvious.” Take my word for it, if you’re scheduling the follow-up right after…
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