omg snow

We got about two feet of snow last night. I spent pretty much the whole day today shoveling it. Baltimore County has not deemed our street important enough to plow, so I'm not sure I'll be able to get my car out when it eventually turns into ice. Here's a bunch of pictures:

New car

So I bought a new car, a 2010 Volkswagen Golf Mk6 TDI with a DSG transmission and the "cold weather package" (heated front seats, heated side mirrors, heated washer nozzles). It's a diesel and it gets good gas mileage (I averaged over 46mpg on the way home). It certainly is nice to drive. It'll be hard to ever go back to a "lesser" car now! Of course I'll probably live to regret it when the warranty ends and I have to pay to maintain this extremely complicated vehicle.

Apparently there are only about 400 of these particular vehicles on the country right now, and I had to drive 130 miles to New Jersey to get one that I wanted.

In the parking lot at the dealer. It was a cold and dreary day.

Emily took this while she followed me home from New Jersey.

The steering wheel, with multifunction controls and paddle shifters.

The rear TDI badge.

Emily is the official picture taker and she didn't take any pictures of the whole car, oh well!

A productive weekend

I've had a decently productive weekend.

On Saturday: I had blood drawn and then went grocery shopping. We didn't too much groceries, so that was nice.

Then, I raked a ton of leaves out of the yard and cleaned up the gardens a bit. I also drilled some holes in the side of the house and attached a hose holder and actually secured the faucet we use (it was just sort of sitting a whole, so the lateral force of turning it on/off was being borne by the copper pipe). Then I swept off the deck.

I worked out on "the machine" for the first time in recent memory and my muscles were certainly sore afterwords.

Emily was out at the barn with Addy since about 12:30. I was hoping to get out and do some Christmas shopping for her, but she was home by the time I was ready to go.

Saturday night we went to Trader Joe's and bought some more yummy food and got some Creme Brulee coffee things from Starbucks that Emily discovered. They were really sweet, but yummy. There is this "challah bread" at Trader Joe's which is just extremely yummy bread. I never actually use it for anything other than just eating for bread's sake.

Sunday we went to Red Canoe and got some yummy soup and lots of muffins. So now we'll have breakfast the next few days too. Something to look forward to when waking up! Sunday was an absolutely gorgeous day outside. We didn't really do very much out there though. We took Radar to an open house for a few hours which was entertaining. She really got along well with the other dogs. She seemed happier than she has been since we've had her. She'd be a good second dog, I think. After we got home from the open house I fell asleep for a couple of hours and squandered all of the good weather.

Tonight we made Indian food with some masala simmer sauce, various kinds of peppers, tomatoes, onions, and chicken. Very yummy stuff. After we ate that we walked to dog, then watched the second Top Gear episode of the season.

Tomorrow is another chemo day which sort of sucks. Oh well. I don't think I'll be working at all this week. Hopefully I remember what I was doing when I make it back.

Oh, also: I bought a car. Or at least I put a down payment on one so it has my name on it. It's a 2010 VW Golf TDI 2-door. I wanted one with Xenon HID headlights, but there are actually none in the country yet and I don't feel like waiting. I'll get the $1700 tax credit and the sales tax deduction on my federal taxes, so the federal government is giving me a sweet deal to buy a German car. This will be the first new car I've ever bought, or for that matter the first at all that I've ever bought. I suspect it will be nicer than my Saturn. The dealer guy was supposed to call me on Saturday and give me a final figure so I could deal with the bank this week, since I'm planning to pick it up the day after Thanksgiving. He didn't call me though so I'll have to hound him tomorrow (I swear I get the impression they don't want to sell any cars) so I can get the bank stuff done before the bankers leave on their holiday.

The weekend

Rob and Barb came over on Saturday for a lunch. Though it was a pretty big lunch and ended up being dinner. The day started off drizzly but it cleared up and ended up being pretty nice. We grilled some steak out on the porch, had some salad, and some yummy potatoes. Rob and Barb brought brownies for dessert. It was good to see them again. I've pretty much lost touch with most of my old coop friends even though we all live near each other. They just celebrated their three year anniversary which is pretty crazy too!

Today was a gorgeous day. It was sunny about 70 degrees outside. Emily went out and rode her pony and took pictures in the morning. I took her car to have new tires put on, balanced, and aligned. Finally, her steering seems to be mostly normal. I went to Advance Auto Parts to try and get stuff for some routine work (new distributor cap, rotor, spark plug wires, etc.) but they didn't have most of it in stock. Shortly after that we went to Patapsco for a short little hike. There were tons of people who had the same idea. Most of the free entrances were jam packed with people parked all over the place but we found a spot on the Landing Rd/Cascade Falls entrance.

My tummy hasn't been feeling good all day. I kind of want to suspect the steak since I never eat it, but who knows.

Also, we got a new greyhound Saturday morning. Her name is Radar. She is pretty cute. She had already been in a foster home in Florida so she seems to be totally acclimated to life outside the track. She's not much of a walker though, you almost have to drag her out the door just to get her to go potty.

I decided that I definitely want a 2010 VW Golf TDI though it is proving difficult to find one that I want. They're rather in demand and most of the dealers around here don't have many in stock, and none have one that I would buy. There's one in New Jersey that is getting one that I would want but I don't really feel like messing around with getting one out of state. I need to call some more local dealers tomorrow and see if any of them are expecting some more.

Lastly, the new season of Top Gear started today. I managed to already get and watch it. It was pretty entertaining, though certainly not one of the best episodes I've seen. At least we have something fun to look forward to for some number of coming Sunday nights.

Being an adult sucks

How is it possible to have fun as an adult? It seems like there's just a never ending list of things to be worried about or spend money on. sigh.

Emily's car has been giving us fits this week. It's been out of commission all week long just to have a front brake job. Then we're replacing 3 tires, balancing, rotating, and aligning them. It'll cost a lot. I feel a bit silly given that the car is 11 years old, has 111k miles, and is worth like $2000. But then again it hasn't given us that much trouble so maybe it'll be worth it to keep it safe and running in the long run.

It the midst of my burning hatred of having car issues buying a new car (for me, hah!) has been brought back to the forefront of my thought.

I'm pretty sure I want a 2010 VW Golf TDI w/ DSG transmission. There's a $1700 tax credit for the DSG over the $1300 for the manual. That's pretty substantial money there. Plus you can write off state taxes on your federal taxes through the year. I've been in contact with the same VW guy we some months ago, he's pretty friendly and not pushy, which I really like. I still have dreams of moving to England in 2-3 years, and all VWs come with 3 year/36,000 "everything" warranties (e.g. oil changes included and stuff) (of course, you actually pay for this service in the cost of the vehicle, but whatever) ... so I wouldn't have it long enough to have to worry about insane problems!

We are very busy this weekend. Apparently we're getting our first greyhound in a long time to foster. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't think we have enough time amongst us to do all the things we want to and take care of a dog. But we'll have to. Also, Rob and Barb are coming over for a BBQ (though it might be cold and rainy). So maybe next week sometime I'll go test drive some VWs.

The 2010 VW GTI I'd like to test drive too, but it costs slightly more than the TDI, gets poorer gas mileage, and uses premium fuel. But it has 200BHP and does 0-60 in 6.7 seconds. It's probably insanely fun to drive. I drive like a granny anyway though, so who am I trying to fool?

Finished my workbench

It's been like a month and a half since I wrote anything on here. Can you tell I lost some steam? Emily and I haven't been up to a whole lot of exciting things. Pretty much the same schedule as usual, chemo every two weeks.

Emily's mom came up and visited and we had a fun time going to the Shenandoah Fiber Festival and out to Frederick, MD for a day.

The weather is certainly getting colder up here. Looks like I won't be doing any more biking and that we're not going to go hiking or camping this year. Oh well.

Last weekend I finally finished my workbench and adding a few circuits to the basement for said workbench. Emily took a bunch of pictures, which I am dutifully reproducing here:

Squirrely got into some cobwebs while down in the basement.

Colonoscopy and pictures

So I had my colonoscopy on Friday. It went well. Dr. Jani found a few internal hemorrhoids, as was expected, and some inflammation around my anastemosis (the point where the reconnected my colon after the resection). That wasn't expected and he took a biopsy. I gather it's likely not anything to be worried about... maybe they'll just give me some antibiotics or something.

I got to get doped up on Propofol again. That stuff is ridiculous. Apparently I was hilarious when I was coming out of it.

Afterwards, I ate some food finally. Then Emily and I drove out to Thurmont to watch her horse instructor give a lesson to a barn friend of Emily. It took forever to get out there and the directions were really squirrelly, but we made it. It was certainly very pretty. It was nice to get out of the house. Then we went down to Frederick and ate dinner at Nido's, a very yummy Italian restaurant.

Here are some pictures:

This is the funny shirt Holly bought me for my birthday.


This is me and a Chinese Crested, Cutie, at the farm yesterday. I hadn't been there or sitting down for more than a minute or two before she jumped in my lap.


This is the other Chinese Crested at the farm, Cookie. Apparently she was cold.

Birthday and concert

So my birthday has come and gone. It was fun. Emily bought me some presents and Holly got me a funny shirt, for which pictures exist but I don't have them yet. That night we went to Baldwin's Station for the first time to eat. It was a nice place. I've been fairly cold lately and I forgot a jacket and we ate outside, so I was pretty cold for a while unfortunately. My food was excellent and I totally gorged myself though. Emily also thought her food was very good. We'll have to add that and Sykesville to the list of places that we take people visiting.

Last night we went to see Thievery Corporation. The music was very good and the performers (there were sometimes up to 14 people on stage I believe) were all very good. But again, the same complaint I had about PJ Harvey only more so this time: the bass is mixed WAY too loud. I appreciate that they have a bajillion watts of power they can use to shake our insides, but good lord I want to be able to hear something other than deafening bass. It definitely diminished the enjoyment of the concert. I really like the Ram's Head On Stage venue in Annapolis (where we saw Marcus Miller and Ingrid Michaelson) because it's small and they appear to have competent engineers who mix things well. The sound has always been excellent there.

I was thinking last night of all the bands I have seen in concert and I think I will collect them here for posterity, in roughly chronological order to the best of my memory:

Less Than Jake (several times)
RX Bandits (opened for LTJ in like 1999)
311 (several times)
Jimmy's Chicken Shack (opened for 311)
Korn, Rob Zombie, Orgy, and Videodrone (one concert)
Bela Fleck & the Flecktones (several times)
Medeski, Martin, & Wood
Bela Fleck & Edgar Meyer
London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Gipsy Kings
Stanley Clarke, John-Luc Ponty, and Al Di Meola
Bela Fleck, John-Luc Ponty, and Stanley Clarke
George Duke & Stanley Clarke
Pancho Sanchez & the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra
Nine Inch Nails, Bauhaus, and TV On The Radio
John Scofield
Ingrid Michaelson
Marcus Miller (once solo and once opening for George Duke)
Pine Leaf Boys
PJ Harvey
Thievery Corporation


Surely there are many missing here, but I'll have to come back and add them as they pop into my head. Also can you see my musical tastes changing from 8th grade to now?

Some more updates

I had a PET/CT a week ago now. I haven't seen Dr. Kasamon yet about it (and other things) but I did get an email where he mentioned that it was again perfect, which is excellent news. I also had a renal ultrasound which showed my kidneys are performing perfectly after my stent was removed.

I saw my dentist again and he fixed a filling that I had cracked. A day after that another one cracked. That's three this year. I am very unlucky. Today I had my teeth cleaned and x-rayed, and there were not any other cavities which is certainly welcome news.

Next week I have an office appointment with Dr. Kasamon and I've having another colonoscopy with Dr. Jani. Not really looking forward to the colonoscopy, but it will be first super thorough inspection of things since the surgery. It's actually to identify the source of some GI bleeding I've been having which is highly likely to just be some internal hemorrhoids. Avastin can cause that to happen in some people. Hopefully he finds them and I get a clean bill of health from that one.

I do not like Xeloda. I'm going to go back to the IV 5-FU. Yeah, it sucks having the pump for 2 days. I also didn't like the side effects of the anti-nausea and steroid, but I think I can get those waived as well and just treat nausea as needed. It sucks way more not being able to use your hands to really do much of anything for 2/3 weeks and not being able to walk straight because your feet hurt. That sucks a lot more. I have pictures of my peeling hands that maybe I'll put up one of these days. I tried it at least. It was more convenient in some respects, but all in all seems to be the less good option for me. At least with the IV I have basically no side effects at all and am good to go once I get disconnected.

How exactly I'm going to live with this in the long term is an interesting question. I'm eventually going to have to start working full weeks again, and the IV is going to be annoying. I'll just have to go into work with the pump with me and probably work some time on Saturdays now and again. Sucks. Oh well. The textbook treatment scenario is that I continue taking 5-FU and Avastin indefinitely. Well, for most people that means at most a couple of years (then they die). If indeed I am still a paragon of not having cancer in a couple of years, I think I'm going to give some push back as to whether I really need to be taking this stuff all the time. No doctor is going to take me off of it because they don't want to be responsible should it come back. Since I am such a statistical outlier anyway though, nobody really has any idea what I should do. I think after I've put with this for a while I'd be willing to roll the dice and see if it comes back. If it does, oh well, I'll go through treatment again. If not, great.

Emily and I were planning to go to a demolition derby last weekend, but it was rained out. This weekend we're going to see Thievery Corporation in concert. Hopefully that is fun!

It's almost an afterthought to me, but tomorrow is also my birthday. Emily has bought me some presents, so I get to open things too!

Long time no post!

It seems like it's been forever since I've made a post on here. I'm losing steam of keeping this thing up to date. Seems like I just write the same thing over and over. I forget where we left off, so I'll just guess rather than take the two minutes it will take to read the last post.

I have had one cycle (which is two weeks on, one week off... I'm on the off week) of Xeloda. I like it from a convenience perspective. It definitely made me more fatigued than the two day IV did. I also developed much more severe hand and foot syndrome by the end of it. It wasn't too bad up until the last couple of days. By the last Sunday and the first Monday off (this Monday) I basically couldn't walk straight because my feet were so sensitive. I talked to Dr. Kasamon about it today and he said my symptoms "weren't that bad" and he is right given how much worse it could be, though it still sucked. There is a fine line to draw between managing symptoms and killing cancer. We're going to work through a few more cycles titrating the dose down until we can get it so that the irritation doesn't get quite to the point it did this time.

We also (again) discussed how weird my particular presentation of rectal cancer was. He commented that if my primary tumor had been higher up in my colon it likely would have taken 10 years to metastasize it's way out. It's probable that mine took a lucky quick route out of my rectum into this peripheral lymph system that runs up and down your spine, which could explain my distant metastasis in my neck. Nobody will ever know for sure though, not that it really matters either. We also talked about Horner's symdrome (one pupil bigger than the other), which is what they're calling what I have. Apparently there are two sets of ganglions (like mini-brains, just a big ball of nerves) running up and down your spine on each side that perform a sort of first-pass processing of nerve signals before getting to your brain. Well it turns out that one of the ganglions that control some muscles in the face and eyes is right next to your subclavian vein where central lines (e.g. a port) are placed. It's odd that it took so long after having a port and what-not that this happened, and it's also odd that it's on the opposite side. But interesting nonetheless. I'm going to see a neurophomologist sometime in the near future who specializes in this sort of thing. I doubt there's anything really to be done about it, but we'll see. For whatever reason this month is absolutely ridiculous in terms of doctors visits and things of that sort. I count about 15 appointments that I have over the month of September.

I went for a bike ride today, first one in quite some time. It didn't go so well. I'm in terrible shape, and I had a milkshake at lunch. That was also a bad idea. I hope that I can make it out to ride at least vaguely more often. Even the 45 minutes today was a hell of a lot better than the nothing that I usually do. I want to go camping this weekend, though I haven't yet shared this fact with Emily. Maybe we'll drag Pat and Minh Chau along too! The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous the last few days and will continue to be as such for another week or so it seems. A cold front came through. Lows at night in the 50s, highs in the day low 70s. It's like Fall only earlier!

Emily and I bought a "real" bed finally this Monday. No more sleeping on a futon, though I have come to rather enjoy it. I suspect neither of us is sleeping all that well thanks to it though. As several of you have figured out, we spent an obscene amount of money on a queen size Tempur-Pedic "RhapsodyBed". We've slept on one before (at Emily's former Florida neighbor's house) and it was pretty amazing. Tempur-Pedic pillows are also very nice and they kindly threw a few of those in to sweeten the deal. But good lord does the stuff smell terrible out of the factory! We've got a pillow in my room airing right now so it doesn't gas us in our sleep. So we skipped from futon to one of the most expensive "sleep systems" you can get! Woohoo!

Here are some pictures from our Florida trip:

This is me sitting under an umbrella at the pool.

A big old Florida banana spider

A couple of big ole' Florida banana spiders

Back from a vacation to Florida

My blogging has been getting more and more infrequent it seems. Mostly because there isn't a whole lot to report. All the exciting stuff happened months ago, and I would be perfectly fine if no more exciting things ever happened to me.

Emily and I spent the last eight or nine days in Florida visiting relatives. We rented a condo on (well, near) St. Augustine beach. My family had a condo in the same building for a few days overlapping as well. So on Saturday night we had a big family-family get together and a faux, belated wedding ceremony.

We spent the rest of the time just doing not much of anything and eating. I spent a total of about two hours on the beach. I really just don't like it all that much. It's really hot and the sun is beating down on you, and I dislike putting on lots of sunblock over and over again. Emily had a good time though. We went out at night once and watched a storm over the ocean which including much lightning. I like that. No sun.

It was excellent to see all of my nieces and nephews, and everyone in my family again as well. It would be great if we could make a habit of it but I just don't see it happening. Neither of us can plausibly get enough time off every year to take a week in Florida and do something else (and there is a huge list of things we want to do). Oh well. We also went to Gainesville for a day to see Dragon's Lair farm again (and Randal and Celia and all the pets). Later that night we caught up with Chelsea and Steve and ate dinner at Satchel's Pizza. Even though I grew up on the east side of Gainesville and remember Satchel's opening and thinking "what a weird place to put a crazy pizza place", I never manged to eat there until now. It was great. Emily took about a thousand photographs over the course of the trip. Sometime I'll put some highlights on here.

Today was a chemo day, though we were only at the infusion center for about an hour. All I received was an Avastin drip. This morning and evening I took my first dose of Xeloda. The pills aren't too big, but I get to take seven of them. It's still way more convenient than the alternative. It's still way too early to tell how I'll tolerate it. Right now I feel fine. I even went for a 15 mile bike ride this evening, which was nice. My feet are peeling, which is part of hand and foot syndrome. It's probably from all of the walking and sand I encountered in Florida. It doesn't hurt, but I can easily see how if it keeps up it could. I didn't know how I'd feel for the day, but it ended up being very good.

I got a call from my boss while I was on my bike ride about payroll for the week. My "vacation" is at the moment an unpaid one it seems. I suspected this was going to happen, and it did. "They" (work in the big sense) think I don't have any annual leave to take, which I don't according to the system. But my understanding of the sort of disability system I'm on is that out-of-band from that I can accumulate 40 hours of annual leave and then use it accordingly. I thought I coordinated it with the leave people, but apparently they don't think so. So it's entirely possible I took a one week unpaid vacation, but it was worth it. It would be nice if in the end I get paid though.

Oh and one more thing. This morning we bought tickets to see Thievery Corporation play in Baltimore. They don't have concerts all that often and I seem to miss the ones around here. But not this time! We got excellent seats (second row from the front, dead center) since we bought them about 30 seconds after they went on pre-sale. We almost got the first row, but they were sniped out from under us! They were expensive too, but we never go see concerts anyway so it's okay (way to rationalize!). The concert is the day after my birthday, so maybe it's a birthday present to myself.

Been a while

It's been a while since my last post. Not a whole lot has been going on. Just normal "life" things.

Last weekend Emily and I went out to Frederick and ate at a Cuban place for lunch (which wasn't altogether impressive). Then we drove up to Catoctin Mountain Park and hiked around for a couple of hours, nothing too serious. Though it was good to get outside. We missed a turn or something and ended up on a mountain road and had to walk a few miles back on it. The route was supposed to be a loop through the woods. Oh well. The original plan was to drive back to Frederick, waste some time, and eat dinner at Nido's, a nice Italian restaurant. It seemed a little silly to eat out twice in one day, but whatever. We were still quite stuffed, and I honestly wasn't feeling all that good, after our hike so we just came home.

I continued to feel worse and it culminated with some stomach emptying in the wrong direction in the middle of the night. I felt pretty terrible on Sunday as well. I thought I might have been constipated, because when you get really constipated your tummy rejects more stuff being put into it. I took several methods to alleviate this which eventually worked, but honestly I'm not sure I really was all that constipated. I didn't see it coming and usually I can. I think I just got a stomach bug or the Cuban didn't agree with me. I went to work on Monday though.

In fact I went to work all week long and it was mildly eventful. I finally finished my "performance review" documents that one must fill out to theoretically get promoted at some point in the future, though I am under no pretensions that I will get a promotion this year. I felt like just putting "Got cancer, had chemo, un-got cancer" on it, but refrained.

This Saturday we went out to Red Canoe for lunch. I really like that place. I think it might be my favorite place to go eat in this area. It just exudes small-town local charm, even though it's square in NE Baltimore. The owners are extremely friendly too. I find myself wanting to go there and buy lunch, coffee, dessert, and muffins for breakfast all at once. (and I usually do)

I have chemo on Monday again. Saturday we leave for Florida for a whole week, which will be great..

I saw Dr. Kasamon again on Friday. I have a prescription for Xeloda (oral 5-FU) which we're going to try out starting with the next treatment. That means I will come in on Mondays for a 30 minutes infusion of Avastin and that's it. I don't have to take a pump home either. Because Xeloda works over a longer time they can take my blood on Mondays as well, rather than me having to go in on Fridays or to Quest on Saturdays for blood work. It promises to be a great way to transition back to more normal life. It is possible it will have worse side effects for me though. Won't know until I try. I know John S., whom some of you have seen in his blog, has had terrible problems with Xeloda. But he seems to have exactly the opposite sorts of problems as me. Anyway, like I said, I won't know until I try. It'll have to be pretty bad to get me to sign back up to a 4 hour injection, 46 hours of home-pumping, and constipating for the next 5 days.

Also, Xeloda is about $3,000 a month! The IV 5-FU (which has been off-patent since like 1960) is like $50/month (not including the cost of getting it into me via IV). I met my catastrophic deductible for the year long ago so I am in the strange position of not caring how much anything costs because it costs me effectively nothing.

It's been ten days since my last post!

I finished that plumbing project. Nothing like necessity to speed things up, eh? I've now snaked the drain a few times and it appears happier. One of these days I should probably get a real plumber in here to auger the whole underground pipe. But why pay for something now that I can to get much worse later?!?

Well I had a pretty uneventful week up until Thursday night when my mom and Holly flew in. We hung out for the whole weekend and it was fun. Emily and I introduced them to Top Gear and they thought it was hilarious, as all real human beings should. We ate lots of yummy food. We went to Ackbar's for dinner Friday night (their first Indian food, I believe). We ate at Red Canoe for lunch on Saturday, Indian food (leftovers) for dinner Saturday. Sunday we amazingly got up the energy to go into DC, walk to Georgetown from the Foggy Bottom metro stop, explore the cozy expensive neighborhoods, and went to Dumbarton Oaks (definitely a worthwhile trip, especially during flowering season). After that we had some much needed ice cream based food-like things. Then we stopped at Metro Center and ate at Chef Geoff's again. Sadly mom thought the bun on her crab cake was stale, which was certainly very disappointing. I ordered the same thing I did last time (basically Indian-style chicken) and it was just as good.

Didn't do much in the way of work or exercise by virtue of all these things.

Last Friday I had appointment with Dr. Kasamon (just a regular one). Mom and Holly came along. I was going to have them sit in with me, but he was running unusually late by 10:30AM so I decided against it, he came out and said hello at the very end though, so at least they know what he looks like or something. Another reason is that I didn't want crazy questions from mom getting in the way of my pre-prepared list of questions and concerns. My mom had pointed out (first thing upon seeing me at the airport) that one of my pupils was hugely dilated compared to the other. That's generally not good and nobody has ever pointed it out to me nor have I ever noticed it myself. But it's definitely true. So Friday Dr. Kasamon had me go to a STAT brain MRI. (MRIs are neat). Apparently there isn't anything seriously wrong. At least no masses or edema or blood clots. I haven't seen the MRI report yet so don't know if contains any other little notes. I have persistent headaches that occur right behind my right eye (the screwy pupil one), nosebleeds in my right nose, and earaches in my right ear. Something seems fishy. I kind of thought it was some kind of new found allergy, which maybe it is. I am going to see a neurologist recommended by Dr. Kasamon some time though, so maybe we will sort out my crazy brain.

I had another treatment on Monday. I didn't feel too hot at first, but not too bad. I slept marginally better than the week before. My brain wasn't running at a million miles an hour, but I kept waking up some rather bad acid reflux which is quite painful. I still haven't quite mastered the right cocktail of drugs to try and bring that under control. Then I just felt awful for all of Tuesday. I can't put my finger on it, but it wasn't right. I had a big headache and my stomach just felt bad. I took an Ativan (along with an Aspirin) before bedtime and I slept like a baby. I feel pretty good right now.

I put a feeler out to Pat to see if he wanted to do something this weekend. I kind of want to do something outside involving hiking and/or camping. I was looking at kayak stuff too. Emily seems pretty keen on kayaks though I've never really been in one. Not sure we want to blow a substantial amount of money on yet another hobby that we'll indulge in once in a blue moon ;) Though I think hiking might be all we accomplish (this weekend at least). Biking would be good too, but I'm the only person with a bike so meh.

We're back in St. Augustine from August 8th through August 16th. We're certainly looking forward to it!

This is me hiding in some bushes at Dumbarton Oaks.


How is it that chipmunks are so cute?


A bird of some sort hopping along a water feature at Dumbarton Oaks.

Stuff

So another week has gone by. It was a chemo week. I had fewer side effects this time around than before. I still couldn't sleep very well on Monday night and had some pretty bad stomach acid in spite of the Protonix. I actually suspect it is the Aloxi (anti-nausea) that is giving me the most problems. I don't think I really need it but they seem to continue to think so. I will discuss it with Dr. Kasamon at my next appointment. I slept a decent bit on Tuesday and didn't feel so hot, primarily thanks to the night before. Wednesday I had the port out and, well, that was about it. The hand and foot syndrome was not as bad this time around as last.

We still don't have any furniture for our porch and Emily is getting a tad cranky about it. I'm not paying $100 to have $120 worth of flat-pack furniture delivered though. We are both sitting out on the hammock now. Emily is reading a book and I am obviously on the laptop.

Still no forward progress on that workbench.

Wednesday night we ate at Akbar's, an Indian restaurant in Columbia. The food was excellent. I never knew I liked Indian food so much. Our server guy was hilarious but I think he forgot we were there for a while. I was in no hurry so I didn't care. There were very few people there.

Saturday we did absolutely nothing. We never started the cars, which was a nice change. Emily weeded and generally kept her gardens, I mowed the lawn. We both worked out later that night too. I've got some sore muscles around my dorsal area.

Today Emily went out to the barn and rode Addy and I went with her. But this time I brought my bike along and went for a ride from there. I have never explored out that way before so it was an adventure. I did a nice little 13 mile loop that wasn't overly hilly but plenty to give me a workout today. I'm pretty sure there is just no substitute for getting on a bike and doing hills. Lifting weights and cross training just doesn't equate. I can do 3 sets of whatever quad exercises, but climbing one hill I must do the equivalent of a 100 reps. It was a good ride. I felt stronger already than the week before. I also passed a house whose owner must be a Ham Radio guy because he had literally the biggest antenna field I have ever seen before. There were like 7 towers and at least 14 antennas. And the towers were not short. I wish I had taken a picture with my cell phone. Another time perhaps.

After we got home and cleaned up we went to Scittino's for some super yummy pizza. We skipped Opie's this time. But we did get some lunch meat for the week and Emily bought some canolis and canoli filling (her original reason for wanting to go).

Mom and Holly come up for a short visit this week. We'll be no doubt gorging ourselves on yummy food since it's about the only thing Emily and I know how to do.

edit: we have this annoying drain in our basement (for the kitchen sink and the utility sink in the basement and hence the washing machine as well) that clogs up. I have a snake and it has worked like a charm in the past, but there is no easy access so I have to disassemble things to get the snake in. I bought the PVC to put a snake entrance in, but haven't actually put the PVC in yet. I might do it tonight because it's clogged up again.

Also here are some pictures from recently:

Getting ready to ride out at the barn; notice the scrawny legs.


Off I go!


This isn't from this weekend but is typical weekend behavior for me. Notice Squirrely slumbering as well.

edit 2: I started working on the pipes, cut one in half and then realized I only have CPVC cement and this pipe is PVC. *sigh* Going to Lowe's first thing in the morning to buy the right cement and put it all back together permanently. Also, the reason it clogged is because the new lint traps we (were) using on the washing machine suck and were letting a ton of lint down the drain, so it all piled up and there is presumably some really nasty ball of crap about four feet down the pipe. I got it opened up to some degree I believe with the snake.

Three (six?) day weekend

It was a three day weekend (Friday) off. Maybe it's a six day weekend for me, though I'm not inclined to count M-W of this week as vacation.

Friday we didn't do a whole lot. I went for a bike ride, first one since the stent came out.

Saturday we had a 4th of July party/BBQ thing. Pat and Minh Chau came, as did Trevor and Dave. We've never had that many people over at once. It was nice to have people over. We're basically shut-ins the other 90% of the time. We had all sorts of food that my mother and sister wouldn't approve of. There were shrimp, a flank steak, hamburgers, and franks. I was the only one who ate franks because I wasn't really all about the rest. I hear it was good, though! Minh Chau is very good at cooking things. She was in charge of the shrimp (which I did have a few of) and the steak, which came out a lot better than the hamburgers which I was in charge of. It was good fun though. Amazingly Emily didn't take any pictures though, so nothing to share graphically!

Dave brought over his extra software-defined HF radio, the FlexRadio SDR-1000. I've got a stack of cables and stuff now. I need to fashion an antenna. I'm thinking a T2FD antenna, or perhaps an inverted V/sloper. I also need to open my computer up and install a card and get a bunch of software installed and working first. Dunno when I'll finally get around to doing all of that! I also am not allowed to transmit since I've never bothered to upgrade my Ham license above Technician. I've been reading the question pool for the General class exam so I'll probably take it at some point in the future. Then Dave and I can talk to each other without the use of any infrastructure, even though we only live about 30 miles away from each other ;)

John is a guy that I've never met, but Emily met his wife at a yarn store and it came out that both of their husbands are young and have colon cancer. He has a blog which I have been following. He's been dealing with it longer than I have, and his had metastasized to his lungs (and maybe some other stuff as well). I think I will have to do without dairy and start Xeloda eventually because I can't really return to a somewhat "normal" life if I have to spend half of every other Monday getting infusions and then haul a pump around for 2 more days, then go in and get it removed. Unless I take up working on Saturdays, I'll never be able to work full time again.

I wouldn't say that it was particularly painful (other than the last 2 seconds of it) having the stent removed. It was just very uncomfortable and after 10 minutes of it you get all jittery. My urinary tract has returned to normal though.

On Sunday Emily and I walked the #9 Trolley Trail from Catonsville to Ellicott City and ate lunch at the Bean Hollow. Then we went home and both of us didn't feel all that well. She thinks she is sick. I just didn't feel good. Later that day I went out for another bike ride.

As to bike riding, wow, I've lost a lot of muscle. I pretty much lost most of the muscle in my legs and I especially feel it in my quads. On Friday I did about 15 miles and on Sunday about 8. Both times I averaged about 13 MPH, a cadence of 75, and a heart rate of about 150. My average heart rate is about 15 bpm higher than what I used to consider normal. Which is problematic because my max heart rate is about 178, so I don't have all that much wiggle room between maximum exertion and average. Aerobic fitness will decrease average heart rate though, so hopefully in time it goes back down. I also discovered that I just don't have any leg muscle every time I hit a hill. It wasn't so much an issue of being tired as it was just not having the strength to do it. Oh well, just have to stay at it. I remember it wasn't that long ago that I couldn't get up most of the hills around here thanks to my weak Florida legs!

I'm sitting at COHA now getting my infusions. It's a blast. I have all the wood I need, mostly, to make a big workbench. I just haven't bothered to build it yet. I also need to put in some outlets in the basement. I haven't done this yet either. I must have several hundred dollars of stuff just sitting around unused because I never feel like putting in the effort to utilizing it.

Stent removal (a.k.a holy crap)

Holy crap. That was not as easy as advertised. Next time they can knock me out, thank you very much.

It's out now though, so that's the important part.

It was harder and took a lot longer than they expected to get it out, of course (though it still only took like 20 minutes I think; feels a lot longer when you're laying on the table).

That is all.

Another week gone by

So it's been nearly a week since the last post. Like I said in the last one, the chemo went better, as in I didn't feel as bad. But I've had some crazy side effects (or just unlucky problems) this week. I couldn't sleep at all on Monday, literally. And I've had some crazy constipation and hemorrhoid-like problems as well. And lots of stomach acid. I have some other prescriptions now that help greatly with the stomach acid and apparently sleeping too. There's this somewhat new drug called Rozarem which is supposedly completely non-addictive (i.e. unlike every other sleeping medication in existence). I took it Tuesday night I think? I slept like a baby, but was totally groggy for basically the whole next day. I haven't needed it again yet though. It's possible the Decadron I get during chemo is what is keeping me up or it could be something else totally unrelated.

I worked out yesterday, first time in quite a while. I was exhausted afterward and took a nap. I mowed the lawn too. Later in the day we trekked down to Alexandria and met up with Pat and Minh Chau. They moved into a new place which we went to go see. It was nice. Their three cats are adorable. I am going to catnap them. We went to old town Alexandria and had a totally surreal experience. I wanted pizza so we found this one pizza place but it didn't look super awesome so we walked like 7 blocks back to where we started and went to an Indian place because naan and curry sounded awesome. So we went in and sat down. And we sat, for a long time. No food ever came. Sometimes we would get a drink refill maybe. After like 40 minutes two plates (there were four of us) were delivered, but no food. So we sat some more. Eventually Minh Chau took charge and we just left after wasting about an hour. There were at least three people who had been there longer than us that also had no food. Their chef must have had a seizure or something, but it would have been nice for them to share that information with us. I was still in a good mood, miraculously, despite being hungry. So we had a good hilarious laugh about the situation. Then I got cranky. We went to Dairy Godmother which is a neat creamery type place in Alexandria (I think that's where we were at least) and I got a shake, but I needed actual food. After that we went to a different Indian place, which is actually on the first floor of the apartment they used to live at. It was excellent. It was apparently Emily's first time ever having Indian food and she liked it as well. I'm pretty sure it was actually good food, but I would have eaten anything by that point in time. It was fun hanging out with Pat and Minh Chau. We really need to do it more often; too bad it's at least a one hour one-way drive :(

Today we might have a BBQ with Trevor.

Tuesday I am having my stent removed. I'm a bit apprehensive about it as there is no anesthesia involved, but I'm told by several doctors who have presumably never had anything 30cm long removed through their urethra that it is not painful and is a routine procedure.

I am looking forward to biking again and hopefully even going for another camp/hike excursion or two before winter sets in again.

Other than that I am planning to have a nice quiet week at work. We get Friday off for the 4th. We might go into DC for the 4th. The fireworks are nice, but that's about it. I just feel like there is something a wee bit special about being in "our nation's capital" for Independence Day.

First treatment with new cocktail

Today was the first treatment with my new reduced cocktail of drugs. I certainly feel better than I have historically on Mondays and Emily says I look at lot better (I never look in the mirror as I'm generally occupied with finding a bed to sleep in). I was still rather tired. I don't know if it was just expectation of being tired, or what. I don't believe any of the medication I received is supposed to make me sleepy. I only slept for maybe two hours though, so much better than my normal take. I have huge headache right now though. This is probably attributable to my right nostril still being perpetually upset and the gash over my right eyebrow.

Seems like things are going well, then.

The person next to me had their first infusion of IV Iron, and possibly had an allergic reaction to it (this is not a common occurrence). She was all freaking out (pain, trouble breathing, etc.) and the paramedics came and took her away in a stretcher. That was too much excitement for the infusion center! There were a bunch of people there initially as well, not too sure why. They're usually very quiet on Mondays and I get to monopolize their time. I was the only there by the time we left though.

The first episode of Series 13 of Top Gear aired Sunday night and I grabbed it and Emily and I just watched it. Entertaining as usual.

And lastly, here's a picture:

Sham-Wow!
(I've actually never seen that infomercial, but I've seen the guy on the side of a box and this picture mildly reminds me of that.)

I look incredibly pale; but, then again I am pale. Also, this is the pump I keep talking about that I have to carry around with me. And you can see my accesseed port on my left (right of picture). The tiny little infusion cord is probably hard to make out. Also you can see my "sleepy hair cowlick" in the back.

I am not planning to go to work tomorrow, or Wednesday. Though if I feel very good tomorrow I might plop by work for a few hours after I have my pump out on Wendesday, as I will be basically halfway there.

Did a bunch of junk outside

*phew* I'm pooped out after working outside. After I finally got out of bed around 10:00AM I spent about3 hours working on a programming project (that I'm doing for fun; a budgeting application). That project is coming along very well actually. I can and have already used it to analyze my spending in the way that I want to.

After that I went outside. Got out the weed whacker and trimmed up all the hedges and knocked some crazy weeds in our "no go" areas. After that I got out my new wet/dry shop vac and emptied both Emily and my cars and vacuumed them out. Probably got a few pounds of sand out! They were both pretty dirty. After that I mowed the lawn and now it looks pretty and nice (nicest yard in the neighborhood! We are keeping up with the Jones'). After that I spread some of this "seed" which is actually insecticide. I put it in all the gardens (except Emily's new hill one, because I forgot about it until just now) and all around the base of the house and deck. Hopefully it rains (it has been pretty regularly) and gets it all soaked in and nukes those ants and whatever other baddies are in there. I got it all over me too, I'm sure that's healthy (not that I don't have things more important than that to worry about!).

Then I finally started the job of finishing replacing/burying all of the gutter downspout pipes. I need to dig a 16' x 7" ish sized trench for one. I didn't do that. But I did measure it and cut the huge roll of pipe that's been in my basement for a year down to size and put it out there, above ground. I got to replace some older yucky stuff that way there too. I took the extra pipe I had and put it on the back of the house downspout and ran it a good way down the hill. I doubt I'll ever bury that one, though it sort of annoying to walk over. Maybe someday.

After that I finished it all off by actually attaching a screw/hook to the outside of the deck to properly-ish suspend the defunct telephone wire (I ought to just cut the thing) and our cable modem incoming wire. They've basically been hanging on the ground since the deck went in. Got the screw in, managed to get the wires back up to deck level, attached guy wire to screw, routed the wires under the deck, and properly put a drip loop on each of them prior to the service entrance to the house.

I will relate something that I thought was hilarious. Last time I was at Lowe's in Catonsville here, I was buying a Sqaure D QO series 20 amp GFCI breaker because I am going to be adding some outlets to my basement. Of course this is against the law because I'm not going to pull permits for it, since only real electricians are allowed to do this in Baltimore county. Well, I sure felt good about my knowledge. There were these two guys there, I'll say they were from the country (if you catch my drift). They have a Lowe's guy there, and the Lowe's guy is on the phone (presumably to another Lowe's guy) and they're talking about what the guys have in their hand. They have a 100 amp subpanel breaker box, empty, and some breakers. They had absolutely no idea how to wire it up. And they were installed a subpanel somewhere. They were taking the advice of a Lowe's person on the phone to understand how the grounding, neutral, and hot bus bars worked. Wow. No wonder county codes and code enforcement exists. I'll probably read about the dying a fiery death in their sleep in the not to distant future.

I knocked the crap out of my head when I was in the basement looking at some stuff, the very corner is sort of stupidly laid out with a bunch of house stuff and then the weight machine ("the Borg cube"). I was crouched over trying to look at something for some random reason and as usual came up real fast and went about moving to somewhere else really fast. Well I came up and put my head right into the side of the weight bar. I got a nasty gash on right over my right eyebrow, missed my eye by about an inch. I made quite a racket about it, but Emily didn't know where I was so she was running around outside and what-not trying to find me. It'll be alright though.

Ewww! Blood!

I haven't been terribly hungry the past few days for some reason. I did all that on a granola bar and a muffin (a good Red Canoe muffin!) for breakfast. I finally came in and ate (lunch?) at about 5:30PM, which was the other half of my (actually, Emily's, but she gave it to me) panini from yesterday. Now I'm not hungry again. Not tired either, surprisingly. I need to go shower and get the funk off of me.

Insomniac

I dunno what it is but I have had quite a bit of trouble sleeping lately. My mind just feels like it's 1000 mph. After all the gadgets and lights go off and I am actually planning on going to sleep, I'm happy if it takes less than half an hour. This happens about every 1/3 days. Sometimes it takes less than an hour and a half, about another 1/3 days. Other days it feels like I will never go to sleep. I'll lay down trying to sleep at about 10:00PM, which is pretty normal for me. I roll and roll and roll until finally looking at the clock and seeing that it's 2:00AM. Usually at this point I just get out of bed and do something for a few hours, then I'm able to sleep.

I have used my oral Ativan prescription twice now for this, once last night. I am a bit leery of doing this, though that is it's purpose. When I get chemo I often can't go to sleep at night when I'm home the next few days, probably because I sleep so much in the day. But I still want to sleep at night, and the Ativan just calms my whirling mind down and I can sleep after that. I don't know if it's the same reason, being at the very tail end of my last treatment. I hope it goes away. I am not enamoured with the idea of getting addicted to something like Ativan or needing permanent sleep aids.

If you need fiber in your diet, Dave pointed me to an awesome thing: Quaker Chewy Oat Granola Bars, Fiber & Omega 3. I have the dark chocolate chunk flavor. One bar has 35% of your fiber for the day, which is honestly more than most people ever get in a day. And they taste great. I have mounds of Benefiber and Metamucil in various forms and I think they both taste just terrible. I need fiber in my diet, so this is great. There's another brand called Fiber Plus right next to these in the breakfast isle, but Dave says he think that the Quaker ones taste better. I also highly recommend them.

Also, Emily just caught some hilarious pictures of the kitty cats going at it:

The prequel...


The execution...