Up and ready to go at 7:30. Thought I’d get my second infusion. Nope. Red blood cell count too low. Both actinium and abiraterone depress red blood cells. So a low score going in? Not good.
Turned around and came back home. Anti-climactic.
Tired from the anemia. Feel like I been rode hard and put up wet.
Mary and I have a plan. When I’m able to get back to my exercise routine, cardio and resistance, and when that shows I can drive, be independent again (keeping Melissa), it will be time for her to head south. Way south. Melbourne.
How long will that take? Unclear right now. We’re going to talk with Carol, physical therapist, this morning, see what she thinks.
I have improved, gotten better. I can walk, unaided. I feel stronger, more able. Still a long way to go, but the trajectory is up. More food. M & M. Mary and Melissa. Regular walks. A changed inner weather.
Tomorrow. Actinium 225. Coursing through my veins. Delivering alpha radiation to my tumor cells. One of the nurses will open a lead lined box. The thimbleful of liquid contained there delivers enough radiation to kill or shrink many tumors.
Wait an hour as a precaution, then head back into the Front Range. Up to Shadow Mountain Home. Stay two feet away from other mammals. Police anything that might be radioactive. One week. Powerful stuff.
Continuing to treat my stage 4 cancer.
The cage match has finished. Something got signed by the U.S. and Iran. Dopy turned 80. 250 years of the U.S.A. A big Washington week. The ironies and paradoxes have come too fast. Improbable. Inconceivable as Wallace Shaw once said.
Meanwhile oil has many pressure points. Opening the Straits. Shuttered refineries going through the expensive process of restarting. Ships confined to ports. Oil in long transit. Various reserves need refilling. Unfulfilled contracts. Jet fuel use high in busy summer travel season. It’ll be a while before prices return to pre-war levels. Maybe late in 2027.
This war has staying power.
BJ looked at a lot of houses yesterday. She and Pammy working through the web of matters that create an interstate move. Good luck to them. Not easy.
Feeling better each day. Still need the improvement that comes only with regular exercise. My walking ability, sharpened on our driveway, proves I have the capacity. Mary, I think, may be the key here.
Cool again this morning. Slept very well.
A peace framework which puts the Straits of Hormuz back to the status they held pre-war. So, no gain there. Nuclear program of Iran to be considered in future talks. So, no gain there. A 60 day cease fire. We already had one. So, no gain there.
With these kind of victories we’ll soon be a colony of Great Britain again.
Did you watch the cage match? No, not the mighty Dopy against the Iranian crusher. I mean the literal cage match that will be better remembered as a footnote to a ruinous administration. Nope? I didn’t either.
Shadow Mountain out.
Low 40’s last night. I slept well. Sunny and cool this am when BJ, who came last night, set out to look at 6 more houses.
Mary has had an allergy flare-up. No fun. A cough, too.
I’m feeling incrementally better. I’m told I look better which makes me wonder how I looked before. PSA still high. Guess the petscan two weeks from now will tell the tale.
Still very weak, but a bit of improvement from more moving around.
On June 14th, 1777 the second Continental Congress passed a resolution defining a national flag. The design has lasted.
I can’t even. I mean, come on. Where’s Jackie and her rose garden? Or, Lady Bird Johnson beautifying America? In their place: boorish thuggery. MMA=Miss My America.
Two days post-4 hour infusion. Tara thought I looked better. Didn’t feel much different. After a call to have my potassium chloride prescription sent, Melissa retrieved it. Any horse would choke on them. I mean, big.
Melissa made chili. Real good chili. Made me feel like it was fall. Pom-poms. Tail gating. Cornbread muffins, too.
Next week Wednesday my second infusion. I’m in much better shape this time around. Not looking forward to the post-infusion protocols. Who wants to be an agent of potential harm to loved ones?
This is the J. Alfred Prufrock way of life. Instead of coffee spoons, my life measures itself through infusions, scans while nurses come and go, haunted by Michelangelo.
Flag day tomorrow. The Toad Prince’s birth celebrated by violence and mayhem. I’d go with prison orange and chains, but that’s me.
A peace treaty or a ceasefire or an agreement on the steps necessary to get or renew either of them. Yes, says mayhem man. Maybe says agent of Iran.
Weather delightful on Shadow Mountain.
A very odd day. Although I’ve had cancer a long time, until yesterday I’d never been in an infusion center. Chemotherapy comes last in prostate cancer protocols.
Yesterday I stepped into a large room filled with large, lounging type chairs. Chairs had an i.v. pole next to them if a patient occupied it. Glass windows showed a blue sunny Colorado sky. A few folks sat next to the occupied chairs, holding a hand, knitting.
“I’m Melissa and I’ll be your nurse today.” Melissa was young, blonde, with an air of experience. “Pick any open chair you like.”
I chose a chair against the far wall. Isolated. Melissa inserted a butterfly i.v. in my left arm and connected me to a bag of saline solution preloaded with four aliquots of potassium. One aliquot requires an hour to deliver, drip by drip. Four aliquots, four hours. At 11:40 am the dripping began. It would not end until just past 4 pm.
Most of the chemo and other infusion patients stayed no longer than forty-five minutes, some far shorter than that. The infusion room filled and emptied several times over my four hours. Potassium has to be given slowly or it can affect your heart. Potassium chloride has a spot in many lethal injections. It stops the heart.
As the minutes and hours dripped away, I witnessed the treatment of so many cancer patients. Each patient embedded in a family, in a friendship network, their journey affecting others. The infusion signifies one step in the struggle to overcome, outwit an inner assassin.
When the saline bag finally emptied and my electronic controller gave its finished bleat, I raised my arm, “Winner, winner, chick dinner.” Happy to have finished the four hours and twenty minutes
Melissa unhooked me and wished Mary and me well. A sweet lady.
So. Oncology visit. Blood draw. Later in the day. Calling with test results. I thought: PSA. Testosterone. Nope. Potassium level. Critically low. 2.9. An emergency. I sat up at that word.
You have to come in tomorrow for a four hour infusion of potassium. 11:40 appointment. Oh. First thought. How am I gonna get there? Still. Emergency. Heart related. OK. Call Tara first.
She said yes. Bless her. Probably Uber home. Mary will go with me.
Move forward. Head down. Stay calm. Working so far.
Didn’t sleep well. Up several times for the bathroom. A bit foggy this am.
Fun talking to Mary. She knows so much about Asia after 39 years in Malaysia and Singapore.
Closing in on Flag Day. The Toad Prince will have sat on 80 mushrooms. His big day will occur in “The Claw,” a cage match stadium built on the front lawn of our house. How low can we go?
Visit to the oncologist today. Rich Levine took me. Mary went along. Saw Christina. I got clearance for my second infusion, which was my goal. Success.
Three vials of blood later, I got to the lobby where Rich helped me fill out trial questionnaires. How bad is your dry mouth? Are you in pain? Bad and no.
One appointment knocks me out for the day. More movement and interaction than I can handle.
Back home it was nap time. Shadow and I snuggled in for a long summer’s nap.
Meanwhile in the Middle East. A cage fight to determine the winner of the war. No. Wait. That’s the White House lawn. In the Middle East both sides sent missiles, drones, bombs toward enemy targets. Meanwhile saying, “The cease fire holds.” I don’t get that.
That Donald.
Mary and I watched an episode of Grace on Britbox. Stars John Sims, a favorite of hers from the mind-twisting, post-modern Life on Mars.
She made a list of cleaning supplies. I ordered them and Melissa will pick them up. Not sure what she means to clean since she’s done nothing else for the last few days. But, go Mary.
So the Toad Prince glared out of his bullet-proof terrarium as the Spurs extended the finals by beating the Knicks in the Garden. Didn’t protect him from the boos.
Meanwhile on Shadow Mountain I grow a bit stronger each day. First working session of PT today. Looking forward to gradually regaining some strength. OT on Thursday.
Ruth’s coming up today. Her surgery is tomorrow. It will shorten her too long ulna which has caused her a lot of pain. This past weekend she returned from her week long stint as a camp counselor in Wasilla, Alaska. A camp for hemophiliacs.
Shadow loves the sunny, low-70s days. Lounging. Barking at intruders. Coming in only to go back out.
Looks as though winter has given way to summer, transiting from low 40’s night time to high 50’s. Spring sprang, retreated, and never returned. The vagaries of climate-change inflected mountain weather.
Mary continues her clean sweep (literally) of all my cabinets. Madam librarian brings order out of kitchen chaos. I have not yet seen her work. Soon.
Meanwhile my muster dog goes out and in, in and out. She’s a sweet presence in my life, affectionate and mostly calm.
Have now completed the length of my driveway and back. Ready for my appointment. I’ll walk in. Walk to the phlebotomist and to Christina’s office. Oh, yeah!
The angle of my recovery has increased a bit, gains coming faster. A virtuous circle of eat more, do more, eat more. May it continue.
In my day (ha) Gillette sponsored fight night. Now its POTUS. With ceremonial weigh-ins at the Lincoln Memorial. Jesus and Abe wept.