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.

Blog Date 10/07/2015

Ok, it is official, Sarah and I are here for the better part of the winter. My guess is I will have chemo with the last session the day before Christmas. We are ok with that and if all goes well we hope to go to Mardi gras the first part of February. I would like to go over to Texas on the way home but we will have to see how it goes.

I haven’t had too many difficulties with this chemo, the usual, but with this one I get some sort of prednisone which is used to enhance the chemo, that is my understanding, and it has a side effect of not letting you sleep a lot at one time. So I am getting used to being up early and napping, sometimes, in the afternoon. I’ll adjust to the schedule, actually I get a lot done in the early morning.

I did make a startling discovery today, in fact while eating lunch. Somehow my mouth moved over night. Now I have had a problem lately of getting my food in my mouth and I didn’t think much of it, but today the problem became more noticeable. Now I look in the mirror and the mouth is in the same place, at least it looks like it, but it isn’t there when I go to put food in it. I may be on to a medical phenomenon but we’ll have to do some more study on the subject. Again this time a lot of the different foods don’t taste good or have no taste at all, I thought it would take longer to get to this point, but it is already having an effect on me. The one item which tasted good the last round of chemo and does this time also are the bags of noodles, they are a dollar at most stores, quick to fix and they are very satisfying.

I have been doing a bit of reading lately. One book is about a cat and a murder, I know you may ask what am I doing reading a book about a cat, actually it is a five book series and I am trying to keep up with Sarah and besides my aunt says I need to try to understand cats better.

I have a WWII book, a Bishop Sheen book of quotes, and God Never Blinks, a group of stories a lady put together, not real sure what they are yet but will find out in the next few days. I have plenty of books to read which is good because there isn’t anything on TV at two in the morning.

I saw today where the new Microsoft windows phone may be out in December, I want one, and Sarah says I don’t need one but we’ll see. I use Windows 10 on my pc and I like it so it should be good.

I bought a Wii U so the grand kids could have something to do when they come over. Ok, I bought it because I wanted the newer cool race games. So here I am using the old bar type controller and I think there has to be a better one, something like what I see everyone using when playing Xbox etc. So I go out to Amazon and what to my surprise I find what I am looking for, so I order it. I get an email saying it will be here Oct 3, I wait and I wait, no controller but I look up the tracking and it is out for delivery by 8 pm Oct 3. It is finally delivered Oct 5, ok at least I have it. I open it and I have never used one of these before so I really don’t know what all the buttons do. I get the pamphlet out to see if I can learn to use this thing and it is in Japanese. Now I spent a couple of weeks in Japan, eons ago but not enough to read this thing. Trial and error will be my teacher or I suppose I could invite the kids over and they could teach me to use it.

I need to stay away from people for the next few days, they say the immune system gets quite low, it did this before and I didn’t have any problem so I plan on following the same routine and I should be fine.

Until later I wish you all God’s Blessings.

Update 10/1/2015

Yesterday I went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned. Now I don’t like going to the dentist and I don’t like getting my teeth clean, but now it is a necessity of life for me. So I get to the office and check in. The VA have kiosk where you check in and it gives you a printed receipt for the visit, on mine it said STUDENT. Now I know I am no longer a student, except of life, so I decided my dental person was a student. I ask, she said she was and I figured my life was over.

We get to the torture room, I mean, yeah torture room, and I proceed to tell her how much I do not tolerate dental pain. I told her since she was the only dental person in the room, she get hit if I have any pain.

So she says she will numb the area and sticks a cue tip in the back of my mouth. I forget to tell you, I am having a deep cleaning on the lower right quarter and IT IS BEING DONE BY A STUDENT, there is an instructor who checks the work and is there for questions. Anyway this young lady thinks she is going to fool me by hiding the syringe with Novocain in it behind her back until the last minute but I saw it and it wasn’t pretty. She actually did a pretty good job of giving the shot. It did deadened most of the teeth she worked on, didn’t quite make it all the way to the front but I didn’t hit anyone.

Today I had my first chemo of this go around. I take a Dexamethasone pill, four actually, the day before, the day of and the day after chemo. These are a steroid to keep the feet from swollen. Well let me tell you they may keep my feet from swelling but you are wide awake because they won’t let you sleep. I told the nurse that this morning at chemo and she said it would be that way for the three nights I take the pills. I probably won’t wake up until Tuesday when I go to sleep Sunday night.

Chemo went well, no nausea yet but we’ll see. We were there about two and a half hours, not bad. I did get breakfast, cheese omelet, hash browns and bacon but not toast, don’t know what happened there.

Bit chilly here, 46 when we woke up, high of 61 or so, I guess fall is here.

Not much else is going on as you can see. Most anything I do now for the next month or so will all be medical and I doubt many of you want to hear about those exploits so I probably not write anything for a while unless it is out of the ordinary.

Update 09/28/2015

I am doing well with the tooth situation. I haven’t had any pain or other problems, went back last Friday and the dentist said it all looked good. So other than a cleaning this Wednesday I don’t go back until March and then they do something with the implant and we go from there.

Last Tuesday I went in for my regular oncology visit. My PSA has been rising but last week it was above eight so the doctor order a CT scan and bone scan. I had been having pain in my back and he wants to rule out bone cancer. Well today they called and he wanted to know if I could get down to see him this afternoon. We had hoped the no news is good news adage would apply here but no such luck.

Two lymph nodes in my stomach had increased some in size and he said we could wait for three months and see what they looked like then or we could begin a chemo treatment right away, a different drug. So Thursday I begin treatment, Thursday every three weeks, should take 2-3 hours. Side effects will be similar to the last treatment and my hair was just beginning to look good. According to the doctor the drug they are going to use Docetaxel has been very effective in the treatment of prostate cancer. So we will see where it takes us.

So our plans to go south in January are out the window, we’ll see if we can make it somewhere in February or March.

I feel truly blessed to be given these chances at having these treatments, I would rather not be going through any of it but I am very thankful I am at this VA Hospital, they are very good at what they do.

So unless something earth shattering comes out of the bone scan I probably won’t write for a while, I’ll wait to see if anything interesting happens.

Please keep me in your prayers and send me lots of positive thoughts, I know they all help.

Later.

Not much going on

It is interesting living in a stick built again. I find neighbors are still nice and I enjoy the surroundings but when I get the urge to move on I find the house no longer has wheels, so I am somewhat stuck where I am. I don’t find it distressing but it was fun when we could pick up and go wherever we wanted. More on this later.

August was a busy month. We returned from our train trip and immediately went to Wisconsin to watch Mason play baseball. Sadly Madyson didn’t have any activities for us to see but we did get to spend more time with her.

Mason is improving his game every time I see him. I believe he will be very good when he gets to high school. The group of kids he plays with will all go to the same high school, if that coach isn’t watching them now he better begin because he is going to have a great core of players all trained and ready to hit the diamond hard. I really enjoy watching these kids play.

Madyson, even though she didn’t have any dances, she was showing us what she does in gymnastics. She is trying to perfect the cartwheel without touching the ground. She is good, I believe she will surpass her aunt Catherine before long.

We stopped in Des Moines on our way home, we were able to have lunch with Tiffany, Matt and Alexa, we don’t see them as often as I would like but it is always great to see them.

We also had a chance to visit with our friends Orren & Norma, Mike & Sheri and Russ & Candi, and Cynthia as usual it was great to see them. We still have to get back to Des Moines to visit a few others we haven’t seen for a while, hopefully we can do that soon.

Back in Omaha we were able to visit with Rick & Jana and John & Cindi. Rick & Jana are still on the road and traveling this summer then will continue with working somewhere this winter. John & Cindi are heading south this winter to the Benson, AZ area, I don’t remember the name of the town.

We had some doctor appointments and my urology visit wasn’t with the results I wanted. My PSA is climbing, I know it isn’t supposed to do that, so we will see what can be done about it when I see the oncologist in a couple weeks.

I broke a front tooth last April and last Friday the dentist finally pulled it. Now I do not like going to the dentist but I have to admit it wasn’t a bad time but not pleasant. The dentist did everything she could to make it as painless as possible and other than being put to sleep I think she did a good job of it, except that during the procedure one of the dentist took a 20# sledge hammer and was pounding on my face to help loosen the tooth, I guess, but I thought they were trying to break open my face. I can’t imagine anyone going through all that without Novocain.

Last Saturday Carl and Merilee came down and picked us up in there new motor home and we headed for Kansas City to visit Steve & Lynne and kids. We had a great time. We got to meet Zack’s girlfriend Olivia, very nice girl. Allison and Nick are well, they both doing good and growing up to fast.

It was fun being in the camper again but it made me truly realize I wouldn’t be able to do the job of seting up and tearing down the camper anymore, my strength is not there to do it. The thought of washing the bugs off the windshield wears me out. I did help with that job when we stopped for fuel and it was all I could do to get my side of the windshield done. So it comes down to when we travel we will stay in motels, which is ok because I still want to travel.

Hopefully we will get to see some of our friends this winter as we hopeful will be able to go south. Our plans are to head to Florida for a few weeks if we can find a place to stay.

Until later be safe.