March 30, 2016

What a month, we have had a high of 78 degrees and today, March 24, a high of 37 degrees,  I guess winter isn’t done with us yet, no matter that it is spring.

We went to Beloit, WI for Madyson’s birthday party. Robert & Sarah had the party at the local roller rink. I hadn’t been in a roller rink for ages, it brought back a lot of memories of roller skating. I use to be pretty good at roller skating and ice skating, well at least I enjoyed it. We had a great time with the kids and Madyson cleaned up on presents, the majority of them appealed to the creative side.

I have some trouble with getting dehydrated, I drink plenty of water, most days between 60 and 80 oz. of water a day. Evidently this isn’t enough because I still become dehydrated and have to go to the VA to get fluids. Sometimes I will go weeks without needing more fluids and sometimes just days, but the VA folks are very nice and accommodating and take care of me immediately. So I was getting fluids on Mar 12 and 18, hopefully this will last for quite a while.

On the 16^th I went to the dentist for more work on my tooth implant. The dentist did some scraping of the implant and said it looked good, so she screwed in a gold screw, I wonder if I am going to get a gold tooth, anyway she said all looked good for now. I go back at the end of the month to have an impression taken for a crown and then a couple more weeks and they will put the crown in and I will have my new tooth.

Last Tuesday we went to Ames, IA to see Tiffany, Matt and Alexa, Alexa’s birthday was on Monday so we got to see them and went out to dinner. Alexa is taller than Sarah and is becoming a nice young lady. We gave her some money for her birthday, she said she was going to buy some books at a book fair at school.

She loves to read and so I am glad to give her some money to help her get the books she wants. We had a great time with them.

Yesterday we went to Des Moines, staying in a Hampton Inn. We have several people we wanted to see while we are here, we try to see everyone but we usually don’t get it accomplished. This time we did pretty good. We had lunch yesterday with Sarah’s cousin Betty and husband Bob at Panera’s. I like Panera’s they have good food and great pastries. Last night we met Dick & Judi and John & Kathy at Smoky D’s for dinner. These were the first folks we met when we moved into our RV back in 2010. They are great people and we have a great time visiting with them. For various reasons we hadn’t seen them since 2014, so we had some catching up to do. Hope we can get together with them again before winter.

We met with our accountant and had great news, we didn’t owe any taxes. People ask me why we have an accountant, Greg Dahm in West Des Moines. I use to do our taxes until ten years ago or so I screwed up our taxes royally. I was referred to Greg and he was able to get it all straighten out for me and we have used him since.

Thursday we had a meeting with our financial advisor and found out we still a small amount of money to spend before the kids get it. Mike Canney, Morgan Stanley, is a great advisor and has done well with our investments, but more than that he has become a good friend and we cherish our friendship a lot. Ashley, Mike’s daughter, works with him and we can call her with questions and she is very knowledgeable about investments and is a great resource to get questions answered. We value this relationship and thank the Good Lord for it.

We met Laurie, Marci and Marie for lunch at the Chicken Coop. This place is right down the street from Marsh where these ladies all worked. We had a great time visiting with them. Without going into details it was fun to see them and getting caught up on all the news and goings on at Marsh. Thank you ladies for taking the time out of your busy day to have lunch with us.

Tonight we were to have dinner with Orren & Norma. Orren had developed a cough and a visit to the doctor said he had more than a cough so he stayed home.; Norma came out to the hotel and we visited a bit, then we went to dinner. Monterey Mexican restaurant was our choice and it proved to be a good choice. The restaurant was busy but the service was excellent and the food was hot and good. We had a very nice visit with Norma and hope the next time we are in town Orren will be able to join us.

March 30, 2016 (cont’d)

Friday we headed for Burlington to visit with my brother Larry and his wife Kathy. We even got to see Jill and Brad, two of their children. We had a great time with them. We also saw my aunts, Millie & Marcella. Marcella will be 90 in August I believe, we took them to Mass on Sunday at St John’s, the church I grew up going to. I lived across the street from the school and church. The school and nun’s house are gone but I have some great memories of growing up there.

We left for home after lunch on Sunday. We stopped at the Iowa Veteran’s Cemetery just west of Des Moines, so Sarah could pick up some Vietnam Veteran Memorial pins from Candi a member of the DAR in Des Moines. The DAR, Sarah is a member, is giving these pins out to all Vietnam veterans.

Daniel called and said he didn’t get the turkey on the grill as soon as he intended and it wouldn’t be done until six. This worked out well for us because we arrived at his house a bit before six and was able to join them for Easter dinner. I was great and we even brought some home with us.

.

We had a great trip and planning more to come this summer.

Until later stay safe and healthy.

March 3, 2016

A couple of weeks ago I woke up with a bite of some sort. My thought was it was a spider bite. Later that day I wasn’t doing too well so we went to the ER at the VA and I was dehydrated so I’m talking with the nurse practitioner and I showed her the bite, she didn’t know what it was from either. She suggested I see my PCP, primary care person. In the mean time I put Neosporin and a bandage on the bite. On Wednesday of the same week I had an eye appointment and when I was done I called my PCP to see if I could get in to see her. I got in to see her that same afternoon. She didn’t know what it was from nor did another doctor, they suggested I go to the cancer center and see if it was something related to my chemo. I went and asked my oncology case manager, she is a nurse, she didn’t know and neither did one of the oncologist. Crystal, the clerk, said it looks like a spider bite, she said her grandmother would get them once in a while, I said I agree. My biggest concern was getting an infection, so the oncologist ordered an antibiotic for me and within a week the bite was disappearing and is now gone.

This has been a great week so far. I had a CT scan on Tuesday, lab work also and then saw the oncologist. All looked good and the doctor said “I will see you in three months”. Praise the Lord. Thank you to all who have been praying for me.

So we have a busy couple months coming up, with trips to WI, IA and MO. Granddaughters Madyson and Alexa have birthdays this month so we are going to go see them. It should be fun and it will keep us busy.

I hope all is well with each person who reads this blog. Our weather has been interesting, one day it is 60 and the next it is 30, sometimes in the same day. I do know it is March and it will continue to warm up and the weather will change from possibility of snow to thunderstorms and tornadoes, but this is the Midwest and we expect to have changes in the weather, you never know what to expect.

Hopefully I will get my new front tooth later this month. It is a strange feeling having a front tooth missing. Ice slips right through the opening, going or coming, it doesn’t make any difference. I have dribbled down the front of me more times than I care to count. My one concern is the dentist told me to be careful because my teeth are somewhat brittle. I said you mean I am old and she just laughed. So we will see how it all goes.

That is all I have for now. Till Later, stay healthy and safe. 

Update February 9, 2016

I had my sixth chemo session last Friday, now we wait until I get a CT scan on March 1 and see the doctor the same day to see what the next step will be. I pray the doctor will say “I’ll see you in three months”. The chemo will have done its job and I will be good to do a couple of trips.

This last series of chemo had their moments of making me feel lousy, but I always felt I would come out of it and overcome the side effects. The one side effect that is difficult to get rid of is the tiredness, the feeling of weakness. My legs feel weak, I attribute the feeling to not walking enough, I don’t like the cold and if it is windy forget it I don’t go out. Now we have a treadmill and I have forced myself to walk on it, it is in the garage, so the temps are in the forties, no matter the temp outside. I had the garage insulated when the house was built, best money I spent. So I just have to force myself to get out and walk. One more side effect is the effects of prednisone, I feel and look like the statue of Buddha, my face has never been this round, I don’t believe. But again, it is partially due to lack of exercise, so I am going to make a push to walk more.

I received a Microsoft Band 2 for my birthday, it has quite a few features, http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/cat/All-Microsoft-Band/categoryID.69889600?icid=en_US_Store_UH_devices_Msband.

I’ll let you read about it if you want. The interesting thing about it to me is it tracks how well I sleep and then compares the results with others of my age group, if they can find someone still alive. I use a CPAP and it is supposed to put you into deep sleep, this device is indicating I am not getting to that point. Of course the fact that I am up three to four times at night to go to the bathroom just might be a factor in all of this. But then the consequences of not getting up to go to the bathroom are more unappealing to me than the lack of some sleep. Besides I can fall asleep in my chair during the day if I want too.

When my grandmother was still alive I remember going to her house and it would be 100+ degrees in there, or so it seemed, and she would be wearing a sweater and have a blanket on her. I always thought it was strange, not any more. I don’t have the house at 100+ degrees but I do wear a sweater and at times put a blanket over my legs. As I have mentioned before a side effect of one of the drugs I take are hot flashes and when I get one of those I take off the sweater but as soon as the sensation stops I get cold and put the sweater back on. I had a friend tell me once the best relief she found from the hot flashes was a cold shower, I haven’t tried that yet.

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday already, where does the time go. I know a lot of people will be walking around tomorrow with a black spot on their foreheads, to remind us “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”. Here is a great explanation for the day, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_Wednesday.

I had a phone call yesterday from a social worker at the VA. She said the oncology clinic had given my name to her as a cancer survivor and she wanted to know if I would be interested in taking part in a cancer survivor support group. I told her sure and she will be sending me information on the meeting.

This got me to thinking, when does a person become a cancer survivor? Is it after you have X number of treatments and you are still here or is it a certain number of days or years. For me I know I will never be free of cancer unless the Good Lord cures me of it. I will always live with the cancer, I accept that, and believe if I am ever free of it then I will have witnessed a miracle.

We were at our son Daniel’s for my birthday last Sunday and to eat smoked ribs, they were very good. We also watched Super Bowl 50. We had a great time and thank you Daniel for cooking the ribs.

A few years ago Sarah and I were in Green Bay, Wisconsin for a wedding. The only camp ground we could find was about thirty minutes south of Green Bay. One day we were looking for something to do and I came across a notice about a Shrine dedicated to Mary the Mother of God. Well being raised Catholic I thought we should go see it. I put the address into the GPS and we headed out, the location is out in the middle of nowhere and without the GPS I would have been hard pressed to find it, but it was worth the trip. Even if you don’t believe in miracles the story surrounding the events of October 8, 1871 make interesting reading. There were two events that are interrelated the Peshtigo fire and the survival of individuals who took refuge in a church while the fire surrounded them. Here are two links to offer more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrine_of_Our_Lady_of_Good_Help, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo,_Wisconsin.

Reading about fire and talking about hot flashes makes me drink more water than I have ever drank in my lifetime. I haven’t had the problem of dehydration lately and I always wondered how I ended up with it to begin with. I have switched over to just bottled water now because I can measure how much I drink. Some days I feel like if you poked me in the gut I would spray water at the point of the poke.

We have quite a bit of snow on the ground right now but next week is supposed to be warmer so with any luck we will get rid of ALL the snow and not get anymore. Ha-ha, I know we will get more snow and have been known to get it all the way into April, don’t remember any in May but I wouldn’t doubt that it could happened. I just keep telling myself I don’t have to go out in the cold weather and the snow unless it is absolutely necessary.

I have been reading a lot  of books these past few months. Sarah got me started on a series of books where one of the main “characters” is a cat. They are mysteries, not difficult reading and usually I haven’t figured out the killer until the author reveals it at the end. The books are an enjoyable read, the authors are Sofie Ryan and Sofie Kelly, interesting enough the same person writes under both names. The other is Miranda James.

I am also playing the stupid Candy Crush Saga, Soda and Jelly, I have to quite playing them because they are so frustrating. However, my sister is ahead of me in Jelly and I am trying to catch up with her. She plays it a lot more than me so I don’t know if that will ever happen.

Well that is enough for now.

Until later.

Update 01/21/2016

My last three days of chemo ended Jan 8 and it seems like the recovery time keeps getting longer. I don’t think it does but it seems that way. During this last batch of chemo, I watched a BBC television show called The Vicar of Darby. It was about a female vicar for the church in the small town of Darby, UK. I enjoyed watching it, the British have a bit of a different sense of humor than we have but it was still fun watching the show. During one chemo session one of the nurses came in and wanted to know what I was laughing at, I told her. I felt a bit guilty because I didn’t want to upset any other patients but then I thought maybe by my laughing someone might feel a bit better knowing life needs to be enjoyed.

We haven’t been doing much, it has been too cold and I haven’t felt like getting out in it. I have read a lot; I have five or six books in various stages of being read. I get magazines on my IPad through the library, that is a great service. The Omaha Public Library has a little over a hundred magazines available for download to read. Most of them I don’t read, I have no interest in their subject matter, but it is still a great service.

I am waiting for the new Bond movie, Spectre, to be released. I don’t go to the theater to see movies anymore because I end up missing too much of the movie with my frequent trips to the restroom. I wait for them to go to DVD sales and then I either rent or buy. I have found renting the movie is a lot cheaper than go to the theater, although there is a theater here in town where seniors pay only $5 and then if you want popcorn etc. it will cost another $20+. Movie going isn’t cheap anymore, actually hasn’t been for some time now.

We are being buried in political ads. I know most of you think you are also, but we are getting hit with the national ads and the Iowa caucus ads.  Only two more weeks and it will calm down a bit, hopefully. I don’t mind politics; I just don’t like the meanness of it. I don’t believe half of what any of them say and whatever they claim they will do if elected has to be taken with a grain of salt because once elected their job becomes the job of getting reelected.

So I think this is very true:

“No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.” – Mark Twain

I have always enjoyed Mark Twain’s humor, I have been to his home in Hannibal, MO, he wasn’t there at the time but it was still nice to visit.

We all need to have laughter in our lives, I have known too many people in my life who took everything too seriously or maybe I didn’t take things serious enough, I don’t know, I just know you have to have laughter in this life or it will get you down.

The internet has its place in our lives and probably takes up more of our lives than it should but I have found it to be a great place to find humor. You Tube is a great place, I love to go there and watch all the comedy, old comedy, that I want. I read somewhere everyone should have a good deep down belly laugh at least once a day. I try, I don’t always succeed but I try.

I subscribe to The Joyful Noiseletter, it is a publication of great humor, 

https://www.joyfulnoiseletter.com/. It was founded so the clergy could have humorous stories and anecdotes to tell from the pulpit on Sunday mornings. The contributors are from all denominations and all the articles are a great read. It has never failed to make me laugh.

Took the car into get the thirty-thousand-mile service done on it. I try to keep our vehicles serviced and I probably spend more than I should but I take them to the dealer of the manufacturer of the vehicle. I have done that for most of the vehicles we have owned. We just have the one car now, haven’t come up with a reason for two yet. Since neither one of us works and I don’t seem to get out much these days it just seems a waste of money to have two vehicles.

Speaking of money, I wonder what the actual price of a gallon of gasoline should be today, with the price of oil being so low, based on the value of the dollar versus when we were younger. I did see where a gas station in Michigan, I believe, had regular for eighty-four cents per gallon the other day. I am not sure I understand why the market is going down because of the price of oil. It would seem to me the low price of oil would cut transportation costs and most likely some costs elsewhere so this should bolster the economy not hurt it. Oh well, I am not an economist so I really don’t understand all that is involved in these numbers. I do wonder if I will have to be looking for work anytime soon.

I found a video of Johnny Cash singing this song so I looked up the lyrics and I liked them so here they are:

Ragged Old Flag

By Johnny Cash

I walked through a county courthouse square,
On a park bench an old man was sitting there.
I said, "Your old courthouse is kinda run down."
He said, "Naw, it'll do for our little town."
I said, "Your old flagpole has leaned a little bit,
And that's a Ragged Old Flag you got hanging on it."

He said, "Have a seat," and I sat down.
"Is this the first time you've been to our little town?"
I said, "I think it is." He said, "I don't like to brag,
But we're kinda proud of that Ragged Old Flag.

"You see, we got a little hole in that flag there when
Washington took it across the Delaware.
And it got powder-burned the night Francis Scott Key
Sat watching it writing Say Can You See.
And it got a bad rip in New Orleans
With Packingham and Jackson tuggin' at its seems.

"And it almost fell at the Alamo
Beside the Texas flag, but she waved on though.
She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville
And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.
There was Robert E. Lee, Beauregard, and Bragg,
And the south wind blew hard on that Ragged Old Flag.

"On Flanders Field in World War I
She got a big hole from a Bertha gun.
She turned blood red in World War II.
She hung limp and low by the time it was through.
She was in Korea and Vietnam.
She was sent where she was by her Uncle Sam.

"She waved from our ships upon the briny foam,
And now they've about quit waving her back here at home.
In her own good land here she's been abused --
She's been burned, dishonored, denied, and refused.

"And the government for which she stands
Is scandalized throughout the land.
And she's getting threadbare and wearing thin,
But she's in good shape for the shape she's in.
'Cause she's been through the fire before
And I believe she can take a whole lot more.

"So we raise her up every morning, take her
Down every night.
We don't let her touch the ground and we fold
Her up right.
On second thought, I do like to brag,
'Cause I'm mighty proud of the Ragged Old Flag."

Songwriters: JOHNNY CASH

© BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC

For non-commercial use only.

Data from: LyricFind

Being a veteran this may have more meaning than to someone who has never served, I hope not but it is possible. Some say it is just a piece of cloth, but it is a piece of cloth many have died to preserve the freedoms it represents. I believe it is time for all of us, elected officials and the general public, to look at history and see what it tells us. Whether the general public believes it or not history does repeat itself and not always for the better. It seems to me the rhetoric in the political commercials are getting out of hand more so than in the past. The problem I see is a commercial says whatever they want without regard if it is the truth, half-truth, or blatantly false. Which poses the problem of what to believe or not to believe. I don’t believe a person should take at face value what is said by their choice of candidate, I believe it is the duty of all voters to research the truth and then decide who they want to vote for. Does this happen, maybe in less than ten percent of the voters. Even with that said this Ragged Old Flag gives everyone the right to choose who they want as their candidate and I stand behind that one hundred percent.

It is now almost two weeks since chemo and I am feeling a bit stronger. I hope I keep from getting dehydrated which as I have found out before can happen anytime. Hopefully my immune system is beginning to repair itself and the other systems are striving to get stronger. One more chemo on Feb 3,4 and 5, then we are done until tests indicate the need for another round of chemo. Our goal is still the same as when we began this journey, keep the cancer under control for as long as we can. God willing it will be for a few more years.

Thank you for all your positive thoughts and prayers, they mean a lot to me and I know they help.

Till later, Stay safe and healthy.

Update 12/22/2015

The last couple weeks have been quite interesting to say the least. I try to keep a record on my calendar of how I feel each day after chemo so I can try to avoid the same side effects as before. Well this last chemo sent me for a loop, I had the exact opposite problem from the first time. So as the TV commercials claim I didn’t have bricks I thought I had solid cement in my gut, but I was to eventually remove it with a couple magnesium sticks of liquid dynamite.

As time went on I had the tired feeling almost every day without any improvement. Finally I accepted that this must be what I should be feeling. I had a bloody nose each time I blew my nose and it would get plugged up especially at night when I used my CPAP I would get to the point I could hardly breath. I couldn’t understand what was going on. Finally a week ago I started feeling very tired and weak, I thought I was in the downside of my chemo treatment. Friday I was so tired, I even let Sarah drive me to the dentist. On Saturday Sarah and her sister Cynthia went shopping, I began feeling better so I thought I was on the upswing of feeling better. Both days I had a difficult time keeping my eyes open, all I wanted to do was close them and not sleep but just keep them closed.

Sunday I got up, showered and dressed for church. By the time I finished breakfast I didn’t feel lot going anywhere. After lunch I still didn’t feel any better so Sarah took me to the ER and the VA and they said I was dehydrated. I have never, to my knowledge, been dehydrated but it feels terrible. They gave me two bags of fluid and after the first one I felt a hundred percent better.

It was a lesson well learned, I now believe the stuffed up, dry nose was a symptom of the dehydration.

So that brings us to today. We are in Beloit to see a Veterans program put on by granddaughter Madyson’s class. I am really looking forward to it. We will be here until Sunday and then head for Ames, IA to see granddaughter Alexa and family. Heard from Tiffany today saying Alexa made the honor roll at school. I am very proud of her.

(I stopped writing here for a bit, will continue now.)

December 22, 2015

I don’t know where this year went but it is only three days until Christmas and I have all my shopping done. Thank you internet.

I just about didn’t get my last chemo session because my blood count was so low. For you medical types my WBC was 2.2, and RBC was 2.91, both are supposed to be above 4.0. I hope the numbers will be better for the next chemo, Jan 6, I will have gone 5 weeks between treatments and hopefully the numbers will be higher. I have felt weaker this go around but this again is due to the chemo and the low numbers. We have a treadmill now, it is in the garage, and I have walked on it several times, it takes a lot out of me but I know I have to do it. The garage is usually 50+ degrees when it is in the twenties and thirties outside. So not too bad.

I took care of the bloody nose situation, we had a humidifier installed on the furnace and it has made a huge difference. No more bloody nose in the morning and the little cuts and splits on my fingers are not as numerous.

Last Wednesday I was trying to open a soda bottle, I have stopped drinking soda for the most part, but every so often I crave it so I buy the little 10oz bottles. Anyway, I was trying to open the bottle and my shoulder popped, it hurt like the dickens. So we made a trip to the ER at the VA, don’t you just love abbreviations. They took x-rays and didn’t see anything but put in a request for physical therapy and orthopedic appointments. We’ll see what happens from them. I took some hydrocodone when I got home and the house could have burned down and I don’t think I would have cared. I took it again the next morning and haven’t had any since. I know it can become addictive but I have a problem with how it makes you feel; you have to really be in pain to take too much of it. Anyway, I have been getting by with Naproxen for inflammation and the shoulder still hurts depending on what I am doing but it feels much better.

In a moment of weakness, I bought an Xbox One because it had this great racing game on it, also a game called Fallout 4. I get the Xbox and load the Fallout game and I am lost I don’t understand the concept of the game and what do you do. So a week later Carl & Merilee and Rusty come down for a visit and Rusty gets on the Xbox and begins to show me how to play the game. It seems you just go with the flow and sort of make up the game story as you go along. We’ll see how this goes.

I still have the WiiU and Eli can still best me on the racing games on both the WiiU and the Xbox, he’s only five. Maybe I need more practice.

We didn’t make it to Wisconsin to see Mason & Madyson perform in a skit at church, but their mother, Sarah Ann, sent us a video clip of them doing their thing, we loved it. I have to admit I didn’t recognize Mason right away until Sarah Ann told me which shepherd he was. I love the internet, a week or so before this we were able to watch Madyson’s class Christmas program. I would still rather be there in person.

Thursday night we are going to go see Emily, Isabel and Eli in their Christmas program at church. It should be fun.

If I can get up early enough we are going to go to watch the kids open their gifts Christmas morning and then we will go to church.

Sarah and I want wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a BLESSED NEW YEAR.

Update 12/01/15

Haven’t been on here for a while so let’s get caught up, but first I want to remind you of my: Our Go Fund Me site; https://www.gofundme.com/db7q945h. Please send this to all of your friends or any social sites you might be on. We want to raise enough money to supply all the vets with t-shirts. Thank you for your help.

Since my last post, we have been to Beloit to see the kids. Madyson’s class had a veteran’s day program and so we went to see it. Carl & Merilee went with us, we had a great time. The program was about forty minutes long and very well done. What impressed me was the class, second graders, memorized the songs of each of the five services. I wish I had a recording of the program. Excellent performance for all of them.

On our way home we stopped in Ames, IA and had a nice visit with Tiffany and her family. We met at the Hilton Garden Inn and visited for a bit and then went to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse. Great time and good to see the kids. Alexa surprised us by telling us she had made the honor roll at school. Very good Alexa keep up the good work.

Back home I went in for another chemo and the doctor said the chemo I was on wasn’t doing the job so they changed me back to the three day chemo treatment. I don’t have much trouble with it so it didn’t bother me to change.

Nephew Rusty came for a visit. He is a traveling OR nurse and is in between jobs so he came for a visit. It was great seeing him and he kept me company while Sarah and Daniel went to Des Moines to move Cynthia to Omaha. Cynthia sold her house in Des Moines and bought one here in Omaha, about six miles from us.

Thanksgiving was at Daniel’s house, he has a big house. My aunt and uncle, Shirley and Ernie and their kids Mike & Dan and their kids plus Marie’s folks, Cynthia, Sarah and I. Daniel smoked a turkey and grilled a turkey and we had a ham, plus all the trimmings. It was quite a feast and very delicious. The weather was not very good but everyone ate their fill and made it safely home.

The weekend before Thanksgiving I ended up in the emergency room dehydrated. I was feeling well and I was tired plus I had forty-five minute episode of constant shaking I couldn’t stop. So anyway we went to the VA ER and they took care of me. It was interesting because when I got to the ER I couldn’t keep my eyes opened, it wasn’t that I was tired I just wanted to close my eyes. After the first of two bags of fluids my eyes popped right open and the feeling of wanting to close them went away.

I had my doctor visit today for my chemo tomorrow, but that isn’t going to happen. He is putting me on the four week schedule of chemo so I will have it next Wednesday and then the next one will be Jan 6, 2016 and then four weeks after that. I don’t have a problem with this schedule, it worked well for the last treatments and I pray it will work well this time also.

The schedule changed does keep us from doing a couple of things we wanted to do but I don’t worry about that I just do what the doctor tells me to do.

I bought an Xbox One and am trying to learn how to use it, it has a great racing game and a couple other games I will have to take some time to learn. I think I am going to enjoy it a lot, just wish they had some flying games for it.

I finished a great book, “Chickenhawk” by Robert Mason. It is a true story about the author’s experience as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam in 1966. I recommend it, it is good reading.

That is it for now.

In case I don’t get another post out, Sarah and I want to wish each and every one the best of the Holiday Season.

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Veteran's Cause

As some or most of you know I am trying to raise money for t-shirts for veterans who complete chemo therapy.

This is from an email I received from the VA nurse who ordered the last batch of shirts;

"Just want to let you know I ordered 131 shirts today @ little over $9 a shirt! This company was terrific working with me. Free shipping and should arrive the first week of December. Ironically I had a flurry of emails today wondering why Lincoln and Grand Island didn't get any of the first 27 shirts we got. So I have already sent a message to them asking what their need is for shirts. I gave one to a patient today and he cried - I cried too!"

These shirts mean a lot to these veterans, it fulfills a sense of accomplishment in a time of seemingly unaccomplshments.

Please spread the word of our campaign so we can continue to buy more shirts and continue to help these veterans feel a good sense of accomplishment.

Our Go Fund Me site; https://www.gofundme.com/db7q945h

Thank you for your support.