Winter and the waxing Imbolc Moon
Thursday gratefuls: Golden Solar. Finally. Solar power. Running the meter backward. Kate’s better day yesterday. Up until bedtime. Sleep. Exhaustion. Thoughtful gifts from Mary and Diane. Brother Mark. Alan. Tatiana. New West Physicians. Coffee. Did I mention coffee?
Another good day for Kate yesterday. Until bedtime when nausea and chest pain came for a visit. The damned feeding tube now leaks worse than it ever has.
To compound this situation we have the retirement of our primary doc, Lisa, as of January 1st and a confusing, still not resolved hand off of us as patients to a new doc. Health care reform. Police reform. Racial and economic justice. Hear my cry, oh Congress. Hear my cry, oh Biden.
Golden Solar picked yesterday morning to come and replace two microinverters that have been dead since our solar installation. The inverters report to the makers of our solar panels and we can download the reports through our own webpage. They have nothing to do with actually producing electricity. I’ve been asking them to do this for almost five years. Why now? No clue, but I’m glad it’s done.
On a personal note my PSA test results from Tuesday came back. No detectable psa. This is the test that comes after Lupron has truly left my system. It could signal a cure.
That is, I had a recurrence. My psa went up. That triggered the radiation in 2019. Coincident with the radiation I began Lupron injections. The Lupron, as I have said, suppresses psa, but does nothing directly to the cancer except deprive it of the cells it prefers. Lupron does not not cure. When it stops, the cancer can begin to grow again.
Unless it died in the radiation bath I had over 35 treatments. With the Lupron now gone, the cancer could have begun to grow again, but this test results suggests that it didn’t. That could mean that the radiation did in fact kill the cancer that had reemerged.
How will I know? I won’t. If I continue to get undetectable results for a couple of years, they’ll move my psa tests from every three months to every six months. If I continue to get undetectable, at some point, five years or so, I’ll have a presumptive cure. But. I had one of those in 2015 with my prostatectomy. So…
I’m planning a celebratory meal anyhow. Probably Sushi Win. I’m cured until I’m not. That’s the way I want to think. Not always possible, but it’s my goal.
My deep exhaustion continues. Not sure there’s a way around it until the vaccines. Naps. Long night’s sleep like last night. Ten plus hours.
Biden. 46. 45 a painful memory, but a memory. Microinverters replaced. Kate’s having good days. I have the psa result I needed. There are bright spots. And, you, dear reader, are one, too.
An interviewer on a later NPR program contacted a Wisconsin woman, a Trump voter. She didn’t like the violence at the capitol, but she understood it. It was people frustrated about the blatant election fraud. I see the news, I listen to the news. I see both sides. But I understand the anger. My whole family, all my friends feel the same way.
This is a classic solipsism. It starts nowhere and ends nowhere; and, it is an impenetrable mobius strip of an argument because it denies the possibility of contradictory evidence.
I’m looking forward to having her back home though I’m grateful she’s had this chance for scrutiny, especially on the feeding tube. The higher calorie feeding liquid is here, delivered on Wednesday. With this she should be able to lower the flow rate of the pump which might also reduce leakage.
