It wasn't a whole lot of fun. I was rather tired and just didn't feel well at all. That's to be expected though.
I managed to get out bed today and do a few things around the house.
Tomorrow Emily's mother and sister, Erin, fly in for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. Emily has a big itinerary planned for them, hopefully I am up for participating in much of it.
I also might go buy a DeWalt 12" compound miter saw from a guy on Craigslist tomorrow. I meant to call him today, but it just didn't happen. I want a sliding one, but I'll survive with the sliding bit I'm pretty sure.
I called the deck guy today and left a message, haven't heard back. I will try again tomorrow.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Weekend before #5
This weekend was pretty eventful. I never left the house on Saturday but I spent essentially the entire day putting together a new computer. It's for upstairs in our bedroom so we can watch various things. Not sure how much we'll be doing it in the summer, but in the winter it's sure nice to be snuggly under the covers when vegging out. It has a TV tuner and I'm using some software called MythTV which is essentially an open source "TiVo". As is usually the case with open source software, it took all day long to get it remotely working. It was mostly working by the end of the day though so that was somewhat satisfying. I also reformatted my netbook with Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04, a version of Linux. It just came out, and it worked flawlessly out of the box. Everything on the netbook behaves as it should without me spending all day trying to get it to be that way. That's how Linux should be, so hats off to the Ubuntu developers. Now the netbook has more functionality than it did before.
On Sunday the following happened:
Emily went out to ride in the morning. While she was gone I went downstairs to move a light fixture in the ceiling beams. It is in the way of the Smith press which I also put together today (more on that later). While down there I was examining the insane wiring that is going on and decided I was going to sort it out. I want to rewire some of the circuits in the house (eventually) because a lot of them don't make sense. (For instance, the outlet in the kitchen that our toaster oven is plugged into is the same circuit as my room which has all of the computer stuff in the house. Plus it's not GFCIed and code requires that for counter kitchen receptacles.) It's a crazy mixture of old and new wiring and tons of "old" junction boxes where 10 wires come in and out and who knows where they go. So I started at the beginning: the breaker box. I figured out which wires coming out of it were which circuit breaker number and labelled them. Just this shed a lot of light on things and set me well on the way to getting it all sorted out. Here's a picture of the aftermath (and a hint of the craziness of the wiring):
Shortly after I finished that project Emily came home. Next I finally mounted a picture Holly sent me as a present. It looks excellent in black/white room:
A hint for people mounting things in drywall: The "Cobra" brand plastic screw anchors from Lowe's, the #6-8x1" ones. They come in white, which is great for our walls. But I have determined and am now writing down permanently the fact that a 3/16" drill bit makes the perfect size pilot hole. I'm only using anchors now that I know that. That's the most frustrating part of using plastic anchors in general. I always drill a hole too small, try and hammer it in, screw up the anchor, drill the hole bigger, etc.
After that Trevor came over and we went to the Red Canoe for lunch. I had an excellent panini (it's one of the only places I've found up here where you can get a nice hot panini) and so did Trevor. Emily had a grilled cheese on panini bread, though she actually ordered a tuna melt but was too nice to tell them. They also forgot to bring Trevor's tomato bisque soup out. I will forgive them because it's a small place and the food is great anyway and they didn't charge us for it (they just forgot to write it down when we ordered it, I guess). It's a really neat place and the food is made to order (so it takes a while to get it, but it's worth it). They also serve excellent coffee and I had a (hot, even though it was hot outside) mocha. After we finished eating we also bought six muffins (well, Trevor bought two). They have been voted "Best Muffins" in Baltimore for several years running, and they deserve it. I'm looking forward to a num num num breakfast.
Following our lunch outing we went home and Trevor was kind enough to help me put the Smith press together (since we really needed three people for the job). It was indeed tricky to get it up. It is so totally precariously close to the ceiling it's amazing. You can see the light that I "moved" (I'm going to actually move it and put a junction box and outlet in where it was, and then put up a long fluorescent light in it's place) as well as our water main line (which we had to carefully flex up a bit to get the thing put together, yikes!).
Super close! You can see the part that is actually above the beam there.
Trevor then headed home. Emily went outside and pulled out a ton of dandelions. Shortly thereafter we decided a trip to Lowe's was in order. I made a wishlist consisting of a bunch of things and she had a mental wishlist of flowers to buy. It was actually a pretty good trip. I bought some extra electrical supplies and the fluorescent light I mentioned earlier, along with a little workbench/vicey thing. One of these days I'm going to put a proper workbench in the basement... one of these days. Emily got some very pretty flowers and herbs as well. I also bought a case of 12 fluorescent 48" T8 light bulbs, which I'm pretty sure are the same ones we use in the kitchen (and for my new fixture). They were half the price of buying them two at a time and I couldn't help it. I'll have enough lights for the next 10 years now.
After all that I did a tiny little workout on the bench and discovered how amazingly weak my pectoral muscles have become. That will change, hopefully! Then I went outside (it's dusk by this time) and did a 3/4-hearted effort mowing the lawn, which really needed it. It'll make it another week or two now at least. We still don't have real grass coming up everywhere, just weird patches here and there.
Oh, also, we're deciding on a deck person tonight. I'm likely to go with the last person we saw, from the Fence and Deck Connection. He was a bit more salesman-ey than all the other people we saw, but this is also the only company that I had a personal recommendation from (a coworker of mine knows the owner well and has had two decks built by them). His price was very reasonable, and in fact one of the lowest and it included a black aluminum picket fence rather than just 2x2 wood pickets. That'll be easier to maintain and look nicer. I feel a bit torn because I really liked the second to last guy (the owner of Frontier Deck Builders). He was a very affable fellow, but I guess affability doesn't really matter when it comes to having someone build you a deck. Tomorrow or Tuesday we'll sign and fax some paperwork around. Hopefully have a deck by June! Sweet. We also upped the size to 22'x12'.
This is a long post! *phew* Now doesn't everyone feel like they just spent the whole weekend with me?
Oh and also, Mom: no, there was no reason we were looking at the PET/CT other than I wanted that image. Also there are a few interesting things to point out in it. Obviously you can see my port clear as day and the stent. But you can also see my colon. It's a sort of splotchy thing starting a little above where my bellybutton is. The splotchiness is in fact poop in my colon, exciting! But you can also see that I don't have a "normal" colon. Most people, it goes left-right, goes straight down, then goes left again before connecting to your anus. You can see mine goes left-right, then does a diagonal to my anus. That's because they removed about 20" of it right near the rectal verge and had to reconnect it. Up in my chest, where my heart and lungs are (the lungs are the big black voids) you can see these sort of spidery vein looking things coming out from the center of my chest. That's actually scar tissue from the radiation I had for Hodgkin's disease. I've been told that normal people don't have this (I've never seen anyone else's before). It's not really a "big" deal or something to worry about, but I just have to be careful to be sure I stay current with my health in the future as it can lead to some respiratory problems late in life. I think I am more proactive about my health care than 99.99% of the population though, so no worries. Plus late-term respiratory problems are basically one of the least worrying things for me at the moment, hah!
On Sunday the following happened:
Emily went out to ride in the morning. While she was gone I went downstairs to move a light fixture in the ceiling beams. It is in the way of the Smith press which I also put together today (more on that later). While down there I was examining the insane wiring that is going on and decided I was going to sort it out. I want to rewire some of the circuits in the house (eventually) because a lot of them don't make sense. (For instance, the outlet in the kitchen that our toaster oven is plugged into is the same circuit as my room which has all of the computer stuff in the house. Plus it's not GFCIed and code requires that for counter kitchen receptacles.) It's a crazy mixture of old and new wiring and tons of "old" junction boxes where 10 wires come in and out and who knows where they go. So I started at the beginning: the breaker box. I figured out which wires coming out of it were which circuit breaker number and labelled them. Just this shed a lot of light on things and set me well on the way to getting it all sorted out. Here's a picture of the aftermath (and a hint of the craziness of the wiring):
Shortly after I finished that project Emily came home. Next I finally mounted a picture Holly sent me as a present. It looks excellent in black/white room:
A hint for people mounting things in drywall: The "Cobra" brand plastic screw anchors from Lowe's, the #6-8x1" ones. They come in white, which is great for our walls. But I have determined and am now writing down permanently the fact that a 3/16" drill bit makes the perfect size pilot hole. I'm only using anchors now that I know that. That's the most frustrating part of using plastic anchors in general. I always drill a hole too small, try and hammer it in, screw up the anchor, drill the hole bigger, etc.
After that Trevor came over and we went to the Red Canoe for lunch. I had an excellent panini (it's one of the only places I've found up here where you can get a nice hot panini) and so did Trevor. Emily had a grilled cheese on panini bread, though she actually ordered a tuna melt but was too nice to tell them. They also forgot to bring Trevor's tomato bisque soup out. I will forgive them because it's a small place and the food is great anyway and they didn't charge us for it (they just forgot to write it down when we ordered it, I guess). It's a really neat place and the food is made to order (so it takes a while to get it, but it's worth it). They also serve excellent coffee and I had a (hot, even though it was hot outside) mocha. After we finished eating we also bought six muffins (well, Trevor bought two). They have been voted "Best Muffins" in Baltimore for several years running, and they deserve it. I'm looking forward to a num num num breakfast.
Following our lunch outing we went home and Trevor was kind enough to help me put the Smith press together (since we really needed three people for the job). It was indeed tricky to get it up. It is so totally precariously close to the ceiling it's amazing. You can see the light that I "moved" (I'm going to actually move it and put a junction box and outlet in where it was, and then put up a long fluorescent light in it's place) as well as our water main line (which we had to carefully flex up a bit to get the thing put together, yikes!).
Super close! You can see the part that is actually above the beam there.Trevor then headed home. Emily went outside and pulled out a ton of dandelions. Shortly thereafter we decided a trip to Lowe's was in order. I made a wishlist consisting of a bunch of things and she had a mental wishlist of flowers to buy. It was actually a pretty good trip. I bought some extra electrical supplies and the fluorescent light I mentioned earlier, along with a little workbench/vicey thing. One of these days I'm going to put a proper workbench in the basement... one of these days. Emily got some very pretty flowers and herbs as well. I also bought a case of 12 fluorescent 48" T8 light bulbs, which I'm pretty sure are the same ones we use in the kitchen (and for my new fixture). They were half the price of buying them two at a time and I couldn't help it. I'll have enough lights for the next 10 years now.
After all that I did a tiny little workout on the bench and discovered how amazingly weak my pectoral muscles have become. That will change, hopefully! Then I went outside (it's dusk by this time) and did a 3/4-hearted effort mowing the lawn, which really needed it. It'll make it another week or two now at least. We still don't have real grass coming up everywhere, just weird patches here and there.
Oh, also, we're deciding on a deck person tonight. I'm likely to go with the last person we saw, from the Fence and Deck Connection. He was a bit more salesman-ey than all the other people we saw, but this is also the only company that I had a personal recommendation from (a coworker of mine knows the owner well and has had two decks built by them). His price was very reasonable, and in fact one of the lowest and it included a black aluminum picket fence rather than just 2x2 wood pickets. That'll be easier to maintain and look nicer. I feel a bit torn because I really liked the second to last guy (the owner of Frontier Deck Builders). He was a very affable fellow, but I guess affability doesn't really matter when it comes to having someone build you a deck. Tomorrow or Tuesday we'll sign and fax some paperwork around. Hopefully have a deck by June! Sweet. We also upped the size to 22'x12'.
This is a long post! *phew* Now doesn't everyone feel like they just spent the whole weekend with me?
Oh and also, Mom: no, there was no reason we were looking at the PET/CT other than I wanted that image. Also there are a few interesting things to point out in it. Obviously you can see my port clear as day and the stent. But you can also see my colon. It's a sort of splotchy thing starting a little above where my bellybutton is. The splotchiness is in fact poop in my colon, exciting! But you can also see that I don't have a "normal" colon. Most people, it goes left-right, goes straight down, then goes left again before connecting to your anus. You can see mine goes left-right, then does a diagonal to my anus. That's because they removed about 20" of it right near the rectal verge and had to reconnect it. Up in my chest, where my heart and lungs are (the lungs are the big black voids) you can see these sort of spidery vein looking things coming out from the center of my chest. That's actually scar tissue from the radiation I had for Hodgkin's disease. I've been told that normal people don't have this (I've never seen anyone else's before). It's not really a "big" deal or something to worry about, but I just have to be careful to be sure I stay current with my health in the future as it can lead to some respiratory problems late in life. I think I am more proactive about my health care than 99.99% of the population though, so no worries. Plus late-term respiratory problems are basically one of the least worrying things for me at the moment, hah!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The last PET/CT I had
During my last visit with Dr. Kasamon we played around with the PET/CT viewer from Advanced Radiology for about ten minutes. We were trying to figure out how to export a very high resolution JPEG image of my "pilot" CT image (the image of my whole body, created via image processing from the many discrete "slices" of CT data). I know the actual image is something huge like 40 or 50 megapixels. We could only figure out how to get one the size of window we were looking at, but it's good enough. I'm going to request a copy of the CD sometime so I can play with it on my own.
Here's a picture of it. It's pretty neat and impressive looking. Modesty did overcome me though. My private parts were pretty ostensible!
Taken 2009-02-20
Here's a picture of it. It's pretty neat and impressive looking. Modesty did overcome me though. My private parts were pretty ostensible!
Taken 2009-02-20Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Dentist
I've been more tired than usual lately. Can't tell if it's just me getting used to sleeping a lot again or what. I just haven't been able to pull myself out of bed in the morning. It could have something to do with the cats waking me up every morning at the crack of dawn demanding food. I want to blame it on them. It's probably not their fault though (they are still annoying).
I went to the dentist today after an astonishing 2.5 hours at work. It was a blast. I had two cavities filled (#4 and #5, D.O. and M.O., don't know which was which) and #30 M.O/.D.O., which wasn't actually a cavity but actually an old filling that cracked. That was the reason I went in, I noticed it was a bit painful to bite down and there was some weird protrusion that I couldn't remove with floss, and it was very difficult (and painful) to get floss in there. The dentist extracted the cracked filling with some carefully placed floss.
My mouth hurts like crap right now. Hopefully those nerves in my teeth calm down. I do not like hurting teeth. I don't really like going to the dentist either, seeing as how it always means I'm going to get drilled for something.
I went to the dentist today after an astonishing 2.5 hours at work. It was a blast. I had two cavities filled (#4 and #5, D.O. and M.O., don't know which was which) and #30 M.O/.D.O., which wasn't actually a cavity but actually an old filling that cracked. That was the reason I went in, I noticed it was a bit painful to bite down and there was some weird protrusion that I couldn't remove with floss, and it was very difficult (and painful) to get floss in there. The dentist extracted the cracked filling with some carefully placed floss.
My mouth hurts like crap right now. Hopefully those nerves in my teeth calm down. I do not like hurting teeth. I don't really like going to the dentist either, seeing as how it always means I'm going to get drilled for something.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Weekend
I slept a lot this week. I made it in to work for about 5 hours on Friday.
Emily and I had a long day on Saturday. We did all sorts of stuff. Emily took her car in to have some work done. A fellow from Frontier Deck Builders came out and gave us estimate on a deck as well. He's the third person we've seen thus far and I think I liked him the best. There's a fourth person that we're supposed to meet (from Fence and Deck Connection) but we've had some issues getting it scheduled. I'll try to get a meeting arranged for the next couple days but if not, we might just pull the trigger on one of the first three. Anyway, after that we went to Scittino's and had some excellent pizza. Then we went to downtown Catonsville and walked around. We went into some antique stores and generally explored. We had never bothered to do that before. There are some neat restaurant/deli type places we'll have to try and check out sometime. Then we picked Emily's car up.
Later on in the day we went out to see Addy's new farm. I had never been there before. It's huge and extremely nice. There were all sorts of people out there riding. I'm very glad she finally has a new home. I'm very happy about the change. Emily sure seems happier too. Then on the way home we went to Opie's and gorged on some soft serve.
We were both pretty exhausted after that day!
Today I didn't really get out of bed until about 2:00PM. Totally crazy. We vowed not to drive anywhere or go too far from the house, and we have thus far succeeded. We did finally organize the basement. I picked up some more wire shelves (I love those things!) and we consolidated a ton of empty boxes and what-not. Then we began planning to move and assemble the Smith press finally. I don't think we're going to be able to do it ourselves, we're going to need a third person. Also there's really only one spot I can put it, and I think one of the five basement lights is in the way. I don't really want to move it, but I will if I have to. It'll add another month to the timelime I'm sure because I'll never get around to actually doing it. I'll have to scope it out again some other time and see if I can squeeze it all in somehow.
The basement looks good though. I guess that counts as our spring cleaning!
Emily and I had a long day on Saturday. We did all sorts of stuff. Emily took her car in to have some work done. A fellow from Frontier Deck Builders came out and gave us estimate on a deck as well. He's the third person we've seen thus far and I think I liked him the best. There's a fourth person that we're supposed to meet (from Fence and Deck Connection) but we've had some issues getting it scheduled. I'll try to get a meeting arranged for the next couple days but if not, we might just pull the trigger on one of the first three. Anyway, after that we went to Scittino's and had some excellent pizza. Then we went to downtown Catonsville and walked around. We went into some antique stores and generally explored. We had never bothered to do that before. There are some neat restaurant/deli type places we'll have to try and check out sometime. Then we picked Emily's car up.
Later on in the day we went out to see Addy's new farm. I had never been there before. It's huge and extremely nice. There were all sorts of people out there riding. I'm very glad she finally has a new home. I'm very happy about the change. Emily sure seems happier too. Then on the way home we went to Opie's and gorged on some soft serve.
We were both pretty exhausted after that day!
Today I didn't really get out of bed until about 2:00PM. Totally crazy. We vowed not to drive anywhere or go too far from the house, and we have thus far succeeded. We did finally organize the basement. I picked up some more wire shelves (I love those things!) and we consolidated a ton of empty boxes and what-not. Then we began planning to move and assemble the Smith press finally. I don't think we're going to be able to do it ourselves, we're going to need a third person. Also there's really only one spot I can put it, and I think one of the five basement lights is in the way. I don't really want to move it, but I will if I have to. It'll add another month to the timelime I'm sure because I'll never get around to actually doing it. I'll have to scope it out again some other time and see if I can squeeze it all in somehow.
The basement looks good though. I guess that counts as our spring cleaning!
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Still here!
I suspect some people are probably freaking out because I didn't post anything! Well I'm still here.
It went pretty well. I have 10ml or so of 5-FU left in my portable pump which I am going to have removed around 1:00pm today. I've found that the biggest side effects I have to deal with are constipation, which seems to sometimes be followed by a small bout of diarrhea, and some horrendous stomach acid reflux. I've got an appointment with Dr. Kasamon for next Wednesday so I am going to bring that up and ask for something prescription strength. Maalox and acid reducer tablets have their place, but this can be pretty uncomfortable. My netbook/laptop is both a blessing and a curse. I need to sleep more, but I spend tons of time playing on the interwebs in bed rather than sleeping. I almost feel like I'm back in college, with lots of free time to just go read stuff online and play with things. But I'm trying to make a more concerted effort to just put it down and sleep. I felt pretty crappy yesterday (not enough sleep, acid reflux) but today is good so far. Except I am freezing. I spent 2-3 hours on the toilet this morning and it sapped all the warmth out of me.
I am now 1/3 done with my treatment. I'm two cycles into the six cycle treatment (for some reason two doses is considered one cycle). That's pretty cool I suppose.
The bleeding from the stent stopped on Sunday night so that wasn't a big deal either, other than the somewhat severe discomfort it put me in.
We cleaned up our yard a bit last weekend. For some reason a lot of our grass is still brown and many people have green yards now. One of these days I want to just till it and put down a uniform coat of fescue or something. It's a patchwork of like 6 different kinds of grasses and grassy weeds now. Last year I let this hill get out of control with weeds because I was afraid of erosion. Not anymore, I weed whacked the whole thing down. I also let some plants and clover invade various parts of the yard last year because I either didn't feel like mowing or I thought it was pretty. That got to be crazy too, so not this year. The whole yard is staying mowed and free of plant creep.
I have to pay some medical bills today. For whatever reason I've just been putting off mailing them in. I owe Dr. Somerville $260, but I've only been billed for $230 (insurance lag). I guess I'll just send the $260 and save myself a stamp. There has also been a long running dispute with Patient First that I need to get sorted out. Having experience dealing with insurance companies in the past, I am fairly certain the insurance company is losing/misfiling/ignoring this paperwork that Patient First has sent twice now to enable a claim to be settled. Yay!
Also I bought a black and white laser printer (a Brother HL-5250DN, which was on sale at the time for like $150). I've always wanted a laser printer. They just print text so crisply. Now I will have to find things to print. I almost bought a color laser but just couldn't justify it. This printer can automatically print on both sides of the paper though ("duplex" printing). It's almost too exciting for me.
Anyway, I am now off to play more on the internet. I think today I will set up an asterisk server on Steven's virtual server and move my VoIP stuff in the house to point to it. More reliable than having the central server be at my house here.
It went pretty well. I have 10ml or so of 5-FU left in my portable pump which I am going to have removed around 1:00pm today. I've found that the biggest side effects I have to deal with are constipation, which seems to sometimes be followed by a small bout of diarrhea, and some horrendous stomach acid reflux. I've got an appointment with Dr. Kasamon for next Wednesday so I am going to bring that up and ask for something prescription strength. Maalox and acid reducer tablets have their place, but this can be pretty uncomfortable. My netbook/laptop is both a blessing and a curse. I need to sleep more, but I spend tons of time playing on the interwebs in bed rather than sleeping. I almost feel like I'm back in college, with lots of free time to just go read stuff online and play with things. But I'm trying to make a more concerted effort to just put it down and sleep. I felt pretty crappy yesterday (not enough sleep, acid reflux) but today is good so far. Except I am freezing. I spent 2-3 hours on the toilet this morning and it sapped all the warmth out of me.
I am now 1/3 done with my treatment. I'm two cycles into the six cycle treatment (for some reason two doses is considered one cycle). That's pretty cool I suppose.
The bleeding from the stent stopped on Sunday night so that wasn't a big deal either, other than the somewhat severe discomfort it put me in.
We cleaned up our yard a bit last weekend. For some reason a lot of our grass is still brown and many people have green yards now. One of these days I want to just till it and put down a uniform coat of fescue or something. It's a patchwork of like 6 different kinds of grasses and grassy weeds now. Last year I let this hill get out of control with weeds because I was afraid of erosion. Not anymore, I weed whacked the whole thing down. I also let some plants and clover invade various parts of the yard last year because I either didn't feel like mowing or I thought it was pretty. That got to be crazy too, so not this year. The whole yard is staying mowed and free of plant creep.
I have to pay some medical bills today. For whatever reason I've just been putting off mailing them in. I owe Dr. Somerville $260, but I've only been billed for $230 (insurance lag). I guess I'll just send the $260 and save myself a stamp. There has also been a long running dispute with Patient First that I need to get sorted out. Having experience dealing with insurance companies in the past, I am fairly certain the insurance company is losing/misfiling/ignoring this paperwork that Patient First has sent twice now to enable a claim to be settled. Yay!
Also I bought a black and white laser printer (a Brother HL-5250DN, which was on sale at the time for like $150). I've always wanted a laser printer. They just print text so crisply. Now I will have to find things to print. I almost bought a color laser but just couldn't justify it. This printer can automatically print on both sides of the paper though ("duplex" printing). It's almost too exciting for me.
Anyway, I am now off to play more on the internet. I think today I will set up an asterisk server on Steven's virtual server and move my VoIP stuff in the house to point to it. More reliable than having the central server be at my house here.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Went for a bike ride
I went for a bike ride, even though it's only 54 degrees outside. It wasn't too bad, the cold. It sure would have been nicer if it were warmer. I did about 8 miles at an average speed on 13mph and an average cadence of 75. Not stellar by any means, but I wasn't completely exhausted by the time I was done, so that's good.
I forgot my water for one thing, though it was so cold I didn't even sweat and didn't really need any for such a short ride. The worst part though was this constant feeling that I had to pee. Turns out I aggravated my stent. I was warned that this can happen. I have this amazingly uncomfortable sensation of having to pee, though I don't. And when I do there is an unhealthy tinge of blood to it. I'm not worried about it since I've seen that before and was warned about it (the stent can sort of knock around inside and scratch blood vessels, so you get some blood in your urine).
But I think it does mean that I will not be doing any more bike riding until that stent is gone. Oh well. I need to call Dr. Fenig again soon. He was going to call me after conferring with Dr. Kasamon about things, but never did. This is typical doctor behavior ;) He wants to change it out in May last I heard. I want to wait until I've had my mid-chemo PET/CT and have the results. I am of course hopeful that they will be positive. Then Dr. Fenig can go in, take the stent out, poke around, take whatever biopsies he wants, examine the situation again, and hopefully determine that indeed I don't need a stent anymore at all. That would be good.
Also, last Tuesday I saw my cousin Heather (from my dad's side of family). That was nice, I haven't seen her in a while. We didn't have long to hang out, but she, Emily, and I ate some dinner out and she spent her last night here.
I forgot my water for one thing, though it was so cold I didn't even sweat and didn't really need any for such a short ride. The worst part though was this constant feeling that I had to pee. Turns out I aggravated my stent. I was warned that this can happen. I have this amazingly uncomfortable sensation of having to pee, though I don't. And when I do there is an unhealthy tinge of blood to it. I'm not worried about it since I've seen that before and was warned about it (the stent can sort of knock around inside and scratch blood vessels, so you get some blood in your urine).
But I think it does mean that I will not be doing any more bike riding until that stent is gone. Oh well. I need to call Dr. Fenig again soon. He was going to call me after conferring with Dr. Kasamon about things, but never did. This is typical doctor behavior ;) He wants to change it out in May last I heard. I want to wait until I've had my mid-chemo PET/CT and have the results. I am of course hopeful that they will be positive. Then Dr. Fenig can go in, take the stent out, poke around, take whatever biopsies he wants, examine the situation again, and hopefully determine that indeed I don't need a stent anymore at all. That would be good.
Also, last Tuesday I saw my cousin Heather (from my dad's side of family). That was nice, I haven't seen her in a while. We didn't have long to hang out, but she, Emily, and I ate some dinner out and she spent her last night here.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Almost to round #4
This has been a pretty normal week. I think I worked about 38 hours, so very nearly a 40 hour week! Exciting! I am still trying to fight off this cold I've had since last Tuesday or so. It just doesn't want to go away. I don't feel too bad, but I'm still hacking and have a mildly sniffy nose. Very annoying. So things have been going pretty well. I knocked a bunch of stuff at work that I had been putting off and buttoned a few things up, which was productive and good. Hopefully it all works while I skip out for the next 3-5 days! Round #4 is this Monday. Hopefully it goes well. I'll be 1/3 of the way through after it. Bowel function has returned to normal pretty much. I'm off of laxatives (except around chemo days where I think I still need them). So I'm pretty much pill free lately. I'd say drug free, except of course for the chemo which I think counts as drugs.
We have not put any holes in the wall nor have I put any effort into putting the Smith machine together! I pretty much never do anything on weekdays other than work, eat, play on the computer a bit, and sleep. So weekends are the only feasible time to get anything like that done. We didn't really clean the basement all that much last weekend either which is preventing me from moving the Smith machine around. I think I know where I want it, and there is a huge pile of junk there right now. We have no major plans for the weekend so hopefully that will translate into getting some more stuff organized around the house. I finally called some other contractors to come out and give us some quotes on a deck. I got ahold of 3 more and have a marathon the next week of meeting them. I look forward to seeing what they have to say.
The weather is chilling off again for the weekend (< class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">oogling at computer parts. I have a strange inclination to build another computer. We already have plenty in this house. But I want more! I'm sure I could find better things to spend the money on though. Currently I am listening to Squarepusher. I highly recommend it to everyone, though I imagine I might be the only person to actually like it. He once played a concert in Atlanta (he rarely tours, and even more rarely comes to the U.S.) which a couple of friends of mine were going to. I was all set to go, and it turned out to be on the same day (a Saturday, of all days) as my CHM2045 (General Chemistry I) final. I could have skipped the final completely and gotten a B+. I sat for the final and got an A. I wish I had seen Squarepusher ;)
Last weekend we went and ate some pizza at Scittino's in Catonsville. They have extremely excellent pizza. Best I've had up in Maryland so far (though to be fair I haven't tried many other places.) And best of all, Opie's was open next door!
Mine, before.
Emily's, before.
Ours, after. I ate more!
Here are some kitty pictures. Emily took them (actually she takes all of the pictures). She might use them in her blog too, but I'm first!
Squirrel is extremely happy in the sun.
(possibly the first cute pose he's ever had)
We have not put any holes in the wall nor have I put any effort into putting the Smith machine together! I pretty much never do anything on weekdays other than work, eat, play on the computer a bit, and sleep. So weekends are the only feasible time to get anything like that done. We didn't really clean the basement all that much last weekend either which is preventing me from moving the Smith machine around. I think I know where I want it, and there is a huge pile of junk there right now. We have no major plans for the weekend so hopefully that will translate into getting some more stuff organized around the house. I finally called some other contractors to come out and give us some quotes on a deck. I got ahold of 3 more and have a marathon the next week of meeting them. I look forward to seeing what they have to say.
The weather is chilling off again for the weekend (< class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">oogling at computer parts. I have a strange inclination to build another computer. We already have plenty in this house. But I want more! I'm sure I could find better things to spend the money on though. Currently I am listening to Squarepusher. I highly recommend it to everyone, though I imagine I might be the only person to actually like it. He once played a concert in Atlanta (he rarely tours, and even more rarely comes to the U.S.) which a couple of friends of mine were going to. I was all set to go, and it turned out to be on the same day (a Saturday, of all days) as my CHM2045 (General Chemistry I) final. I could have skipped the final completely and gotten a B+. I sat for the final and got an A. I wish I had seen Squarepusher ;)
Last weekend we went and ate some pizza at Scittino's in Catonsville. They have extremely excellent pizza. Best I've had up in Maryland so far (though to be fair I haven't tried many other places.) And best of all, Opie's was open next door!
Mine, before.
Emily's, before.
Ours, after. I ate more!Here are some kitty pictures. Emily took them (actually she takes all of the pictures). She might use them in her blog too, but I'm first!
Squirrel is extremely happy in the sun.
(possibly the first cute pose he's ever had)Sunday, April 5, 2009
Can't sleep
I cannot freaking sleep. This has been happening to me every 4 days or so. I just cannot fall asleep. Believe me, I want to be sleeping. I love sleep. I'm going to take some NyQuil after this (I have a cold still, so it's okay!) and hopefully finally slumber.
I was exhausted earlier today and took a short one hour nap. I doubt that did me in, but maybe.
Trevor and I went and retrieved the Smith machine from Virginia today. It took FOREVER. The cherry blossom festival was this weekend so I am guessing the traffic was much worse that usual for a weekend thanks to that. Also, Trevor's GPS had a brain fart and sent us all the way through the city on Route 50 to get down to VA. We ignored the GPS on the way back and stayed on the Interstate. The thing weighed a ton (actually more like a quarter ton, but still a lot!). I was totally exhausted after we were done hauling it up the hill at the guy's house and then back down the hill at my house into the basement. It's in quite a number of pieces at the moment. It just barely fits in the basement. I didn't bother to ask or measure the ceiling height of the basement. It's 6'10" to the floor joists and the Smith machine is 6'8" for most of it, except for a little part that is about 7', which will have to go between the floor joists. It will be fun trying to put it together again down there.
I'm cleaning the basement tomorrow too. It is brimming over with a bunch of junk. It needs to be organized before I will even consider picking a place to leave this huge weight thing permanently. I might have to go to Target and buy more wire racks! You can never have enough wire racks. Or junk to put on them, apparently.
Good night, hopefully.
I was exhausted earlier today and took a short one hour nap. I doubt that did me in, but maybe.
Trevor and I went and retrieved the Smith machine from Virginia today. It took FOREVER. The cherry blossom festival was this weekend so I am guessing the traffic was much worse that usual for a weekend thanks to that. Also, Trevor's GPS had a brain fart and sent us all the way through the city on Route 50 to get down to VA. We ignored the GPS on the way back and stayed on the Interstate. The thing weighed a ton (actually more like a quarter ton, but still a lot!). I was totally exhausted after we were done hauling it up the hill at the guy's house and then back down the hill at my house into the basement. It's in quite a number of pieces at the moment. It just barely fits in the basement. I didn't bother to ask or measure the ceiling height of the basement. It's 6'10" to the floor joists and the Smith machine is 6'8" for most of it, except for a little part that is about 7', which will have to go between the floor joists. It will be fun trying to put it together again down there.
I'm cleaning the basement tomorrow too. It is brimming over with a bunch of junk. It needs to be organized before I will even consider picking a place to leave this huge weight thing permanently. I might have to go to Target and buy more wire racks! You can never have enough wire racks. Or junk to put on them, apparently.
Good night, hopefully.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
It went well enough
Chemo was actually not too bad this time. I didn't sleep all day Tuesday, though I wish I had slept more. I woke up in the morning when Emily was leaving and stayed awake for most of the day after it. Seems like the effects of the Irinotecan were less this time.
I did discover Tuesday night that I have a cold though, which really sucks. I'm staying home today and taking it easy, trying to get over it. I don't have a fever and my blood counts are okay so being sick should not be a huge deal. I'm hacking up all sorts of yellow stuff though so hopefully this gets sorted out soon.
We had a fellow come out, J.D. from T.W. Ellis Contractors, to give us a quote on putting a deck on the back of the house to fill in the abyss that is our french doors. I had absolutely no idea what the cost of putting a deck on would be, but had some numbers in my head that were "acceptable" should the numbers given to me fall within that range. J.D. was very friendly and not pushy at all, which was very nice. In case anyone is curious, a 22'x10' deck built 9' or so off the ground on our crazy hill will run you about $6,000. That's less than I figured. I think we'll have a deck installed! I almost don't want to bother calling anyone else for competing quotes, but feel as though I must.
Also this weekend I'm going to pick up an exercise set from way down in Woodbridge, VA (thanks entirely to the graciousness of Trevor, who agreed to waste half his day and use his F150 to bring it back here). It's a Smith machine, which I know lots of exercise specialists/body builder types hate because it "forces you into an unnatural movement" or something, but I've used them before and like them and you can get away with using a spotter. It also has a cable system so I can do several of my favorite exercises. Hopefully I actually use it when I'm feeling well. It's been 2 or 3 years since I actively worked out, but I'm trying to put weight back on and just eating a lot is going to cause it to come back in a way I'd prefer it not. Hopefully this way I can put some muscle back on. I'm waiting for warm weather too for biking! My legs lost a tremendous amount of muscle, probably because that's where most of my body weight was stored up. It will take a long time to be back in shape enough to not dread riding around the hills here.
I probably had more things to share with everyone reading this, but I've got a headache so I'm going to be moving along now.
I did discover Tuesday night that I have a cold though, which really sucks. I'm staying home today and taking it easy, trying to get over it. I don't have a fever and my blood counts are okay so being sick should not be a huge deal. I'm hacking up all sorts of yellow stuff though so hopefully this gets sorted out soon.
We had a fellow come out, J.D. from T.W. Ellis Contractors, to give us a quote on putting a deck on the back of the house to fill in the abyss that is our french doors. I had absolutely no idea what the cost of putting a deck on would be, but had some numbers in my head that were "acceptable" should the numbers given to me fall within that range. J.D. was very friendly and not pushy at all, which was very nice. In case anyone is curious, a 22'x10' deck built 9' or so off the ground on our crazy hill will run you about $6,000. That's less than I figured. I think we'll have a deck installed! I almost don't want to bother calling anyone else for competing quotes, but feel as though I must.
Also this weekend I'm going to pick up an exercise set from way down in Woodbridge, VA (thanks entirely to the graciousness of Trevor, who agreed to waste half his day and use his F150 to bring it back here). It's a Smith machine, which I know lots of exercise specialists/body builder types hate because it "forces you into an unnatural movement" or something, but I've used them before and like them and you can get away with using a spotter. It also has a cable system so I can do several of my favorite exercises. Hopefully I actually use it when I'm feeling well. It's been 2 or 3 years since I actively worked out, but I'm trying to put weight back on and just eating a lot is going to cause it to come back in a way I'd prefer it not. Hopefully this way I can put some muscle back on. I'm waiting for warm weather too for biking! My legs lost a tremendous amount of muscle, probably because that's where most of my body weight was stored up. It will take a long time to be back in shape enough to not dread riding around the hills here.
I probably had more things to share with everyone reading this, but I've got a headache so I'm going to be moving along now.
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