Are you a dog lover?

My brother Kevin is most definitely a dog lover and perhaps there are some gnetics involved here because I have redisicovered that I, too, am a dog lover.
For me, and maybe my sister Stacey it goes back to Amigo, a Bedlington Terrier that we had prior to having Charley the Beagle, the only dog who perhaps had his own newspaper column,m "Charley's Tips For People Owners" which ran in the Anacortes ____________ (I can't remember the name of the newspaper in Anacortes, WA that my folks worked at...chemo brain, you know. And I have another chemo brain incidedent coming forthwith.
Anywho, Keving has given me several books to read to help me through the drudgery and tediousness of thei cancer recovery gig.
I know Kevin is a dog lover because one of he books he gave me was, "Your Cat Is Dead."
He gave me another book...and here comes the chemo brain...but I can't remember the title and I think I borrowed it out to someone cuz I can't find it, but it's got my name in it so I hope it comes back. It was/is a marvelous book except I couldn't bring myself to read the last few pages where the dog-protagonist passes away.
The last book, which prompts this blog entry is called, "The Art of Racing In The Rain', is a marvelous x 12 read, and again, for the same reason i am holding off reading the last few pages.
In both books that artesian well of tears which wells within me spewed forth what seemed like gallons of tears as I read up to where I stopped reading,knowing what the ending was going to be.
There is a part, before the crying part, that exemplifies, perhaps, my gig with cancer...

From

"The Art of Racing In The Rain"

~~Garth Stein

pg. 257

{A novel told from the canine perspective}

     "What is the real truth regarding the death of Ayrton Senna (a race car driver in the book who died during a car race), who was only thirty-four years old?    

     I know the truth, and I will tell you now:

     He was admired, loved, cheered, honored, respected. In life as well as death. A great man, he is. A great d man, he was. A great man, he will be.

     He died that day because his body had served its purpose. His soul had done what it came to do, learned what it came to learn, and then was free to leave. And I knew, as Denny (his "master") sped me toward the doctor who would fix me (he just got hit by a car), that if I had already accomplished what I was set out to accomplish here on earth, if I had already learned wha I was meant to learn, I would have left the curb one second later than I had, and I would have been killed instantly by that car.

     But I was not killed. Because I was not finished. I still had work to do."

The saga of the big bimp (re: Peter Sellers as Inspector Cluseau) and then...

This is a picture (thanks Gregg!),  of the bump on my head apppx. 45 minutes after I fell and before Gregg

transported me to the hospital.
That was I dunno how long ago...a month maybe?
Anywho I'm still Black and Blue, but that is improving...so maybe we should call the day after Thanksgiving Black and Blue Thursday?
The bump?
I went to the Facial Trauma doc. earlier this week and he tried to drain the bump, but it's now full of congealed blood...yuk... and short of making an incision and scraping out the "stuff"...yuk...which he can't do because that would be the equivalent of minor surgery which can''t happen because I can't have any kind of surgery because of low platelets and the risk of infection so I just have to wait for my body to take care of it and that'll probably take a few months!
So my "Quasimodo" look will be with me for a bit.

Just a brief note on why Thanksgiving Day and what I had/have to be thankful for...

Day before yesterday, Thanksgiving Day, marked 90 days since my transplant.
Wow, without that transplant I'd "be a goner".
But the transplant, although it certainly made a difference it didn't make the difference.
The Great Physician played the biggest role but it was the prayers and presence of the people that made the difference.
That is not a contradictory sentence at all...but you'd have to be me to truly understand it, I think.

To have the presence of people who made the sojourn to the University of Colorado Hospital sometimes several times a week, is what made the difference. Without them I know I would not have been able to survive the ordeal...and I do know that.
To those three of you who showed up soooooo often, I salute you and I thank you for your lives.
To those of you who made the trips from far away, i.e. my brother and sister, you have always been there for me when I've needed you, you'll never know how much I love you....it's true, you'll never know, just know that I do.
To those of you who came and stayed with me at Brent's Place (the transitional housing place that I stayed a for 3 weeks after leaving the hospital), I know it must have been boring but it was incredibly comforting for and to me.
To those of you who organized, participated in and got your vehicles cleaned at the car wash, bless your individual and collective hearts. For those of you who are members of, or are not (!) I am humbled by your benevolence, your prayers and your thoughts and those incredible Birthday Cards which Bonnie affixed to the wall in my hospital room.
To you guys stationed at RE/MAX Advanced who called me, came down to see me, sent me cards, the Car Wash, your benevolence, the "Welcome Home" Sales Meeting, it's you guys who help make and keep that place the magical place that it is.
To those of you who just heard of my "plight" somehow and just jumped on the prayer/thought/cart/phone call/e-mail Pete's bandwagon.
To those of you who followed this blog and made your comments which I so appreciated and made me cry and gave me hope.
And to anybody I've missed in the above clans, Thank you and know that you indeed have saved a life.
Again, I'm not taking anything away from the Big Guy, but I know that it was the presence of people, whether they were present or not that saw me through this.

There are no words...but Thank You and Bless you, each and every one of you.

Home Sweet Home?!?!?!?!?!?

Assuming everything goes right, a.k.a. labs, I'll be outa here and home by noon!
One wouldn't think that a bump on the head would land me in the hospital for durn near a week, would ya?
But it did, sorta.

Heckuva Mugshot, eh?

Check above the budding raccoon mask and you'll see some fuzz on top of the ol' noggin!

I still don't have it figured out how a fall could poke a hole in both my kidney and my spleen, but if'n anybody can accomplish that I can and did!
They'll heal themselves just like the broken bone above my left eye will, but the jury is still out as to whether or not I'll have to have the bone beneath my left eye "repaired"...I'll know that when the swelling and bruising goes down in a week or thereabouts.
I just found out it seems like there's some issue with my blood pressure that might keep me here!
If you'd been through what I've been through in the past 9 moinths, you'd have high blood pressure too!!!!!!!!

No body has come up with a definitive explanation for my "falling" but they seem to mention my blood pressure meds and dehydration working in combination that are culpable along with one of my chemo drugs.
So, it appears that I'm gonna get to play the "find a balance" between a high blood pressure med, proper hydration and the rest of my meds including the chemo drugs that get to accompany me for the next three years...

You know, this stayin' alive ain't as easy as it once was.
Wasn't there a song about "Stayin' Alive" back in the 80's?
I think it was a Disco thing and I didn't do Disco...I did Johnny Walker Red instead.
Maybe I woulda turned out better if I coulda danced Disco in a spandex three piece suit and drank wuss drinks with umbrellas in them.

Damn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What was, "Yeah, you can go home Sunday morning" just turned into, "We'll try and get you home later today or tomorrow."
I'm not a happy camper.
As a few folks can attest I get a little testy when I'm told I can go home and then either get home and rebounded back or just don't get to go home after I'm told I can.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

My MIAness?

Hi there,

Wellst, I've done another MIA thing.
Didn't mean to, it just sorta happened.

You see, I was at the Front Range Cancer Specialists getting my last chemo of this cycle and looking forward to a week or ten days off before cycle two of how many cycles of... 22 days on, x-amount of days off,  there are in three years...

There had been some sort of emergency earlier in the day and as such I was the last person to leave and they had already shut down the front doors so I had the privilege of being escorted out by a nurse to the secret side door.

Well, knowing what to do as I had fallen three time prior to this and that my falling always was always preceded by an episode of dizziness and light headedness that happened when I stood up, I took inventory and ascertained my balance, equilibrium, dizziness and light headedness were baseline and took off after the nurse who was showing me the way out.
“Out”, is a hall and I got about a third of the way down the hall and ***damn*** the dizziness and the light headedness hit and I know I’m goin’ down. I quick look and there’s no chair or railing so I reeeeeeeealy know I’m goin’ down.
Some 25+ years ago (July 10, 1985) when I had the wreck and during OT (Occupational Therapy) in the months thereafter they taught me to “tuck and roll” on my right side so that if I fell I wouldn’t stick out my right arm to brace myself because if I did that I could/would break my right arm or wrist.
I remember my brain signaling that but the message never got to that part of my nerve system or anatomy and I said to myself…”This is probably gonna hurt.”

I was sorta right.

I didn’t loose consciousness and remember my head bouncing and hitting the floor (carpet over cement) twice and it stung some…which is past tense of sting, I know and there was no sting but I think there is a sensory difference between sting and stung… . It, my face, didn’t hurt for a few minutes.
That few minutes was occupied with getting to Urgent Care which was/is right next door.
Got there and they cleaned me up a bit cuz’ after all, you cant fall face down and not create a cut above/in your eyebrow, right?
I/they had me call Gregg because they didn’t think it a “well” idea that I drive myself home and as he only lives a short distance away he was there in a hurry. So much of a hurry that they weren’t really done assessing me.
They did some “look at my finger” things and decided I should go to the hospital.
As I agreed, Gregg said there was “that look” on my face indicating that I really didn’t wanna go, but I did.

He, that would be Gregg, called up a couple of the Book Study group that was, coincidentally meeting at my house that night, and they got my car and got it home.

So, we headed over the ER at the hospital and got there somewhere before 7:00 ~ the fall happened sometime after 6:00 ~ and they started the assessments all over again…and came up with the conclusion that I should stay overnight for observation. It is now Friday, the fall was Monday and the “overnight” for observation has now turned into, “We think you should stay at least through the weekend”, which certainly is longer that I expected…
Why that’s nearin’ a week!
And why so long you ask?
Well, seems that in their thoroughness of seeing if or not I had a concussion, they discovered that during the fall I had damage, slight, to my kidney and my spleen and had internal bleeding!
As a matter of fact, as I write this at 9:31am on 11/13/2010 I two units of blood yesterday and I had 2 the day before. I wonder if'n I'll get any more...time will tell, huh.

OK, we’ll get to the prognosis/bottom line.

The spleen and bladder will heal themselves.
I broke the bone above my eye and below. The bone above will heal itself, but the bone below which I also broke may require some fixin’ up, but that decision won’t be made officially for a day or two but it appears likely when the swelling and blood pools (a.k.a. blackeye(s)), go abate a wee bit, they will make their final recommendation.
Soooooooooo…

Seems I’m gonna be here for another day or two because my primary physician, as far as the hospital is concerned, is my local Oncologist, is off on Fridays and told me on Thursday that I should expect to see the weekend from here. There is disagreement, as well as Drs. can disagree, whether I should spend the weekend…or not! The Pulminary doc assigned to me sez, “As far as we (who ever “we” is) are concerned I can go home, the Renal docs seem to be stuck on Sat. or Sun., the facial trauma doc doesn’t care…he just wants to see me in a week, ad a doc who stumbled into my room by accident thinks after the first of the year.

All I know is I look like a raccoon.

Waaaaaaaaa...but it could happen to anybody?

...probably not anybody.
Friday I was over at a
friend's house gathering with a bunch of guys (and one gal) who used to drink to much and when the gathering was over I stood up, took two steps forward, got bubbly light headed and down I went...soooooooo reminiscent of one time prior and early in my chemo recovery that the same thing would happen.
At that time the Drs. came up that one of my meds was an alpha blocker and what it would do was upon standing up my blood pressure would go in the tank an down I would go.
That was probably in June and it hasn't happened until recently................
..............time to fess up............it has happened a couple of times since I got home from the hospital and prior to this "episode" on Friday, but at home.
I was able to get myself up which is different than the previous "episodes" that happened when I couldn't get myself up and needed help..."Help, I've fallen and I can' get up!", so I just blew them off as I dunno what.
Now I have to come clean and call/tell my Drs.
It hasn't happened since I quit taking the med which contained an alpha blocker so I dunno...

So anywho, this last fall on Friday caused me to wrench my bad knee pretty good. As I was going down I heard/felt a ripping sound in both my ankles and both my knees but i was able to lie there, take a couple of breaths, refuse any help getting up...I might fall but I'm not a wimp(?!?) and I can get myself up... .
Both my ankles and my knees had an ache after I got up and when I got home it seemed to be gone.
So I watched some mindless TV and then went to bed. I like going to bed now because I've been sleeping the night through...except for a potty break because my labs have shown that I'm still not hydrated enough so I'm drinking a lot, of water and juice(!).
So, I awoke at straight up 3:00 and went to roll over to get out of bed and OUCH!
Holy sharp pain in my bad knee, Batman!
It was 3:00 in the morning and I had to pee really bad so I hobbled/hopped to the bathroom and back and sat on the edge of the bed and pondered the situation.
I took a couple of Extra Strength Tylenol, lifted my bad leg with the bad knee up on to the bed and tried to go back to sleep but I couldn't find a comfortable position for my leg/knee so I sorta dozed, kinda.
Saturday I spent mosta the day in my chair reading and watching TV.
Connie, one of God's Agents came over and flushed my ports, yeah I'm still getting chemo and labs thru them so they need to be flushed every other day, and fashioned an ice pack out of a Zip-Lock bag and ice cubes...duh? Ice for pain and swelling?
Cindy, another one of God's Agents who has gotten me to this point in my/our(?) adventure came over to walk Rosie and dug my walker out of the garage...duh! I have a walker? which gave me some mobility.
Last night wasn't too bad and Gregg...yes, another one of God's Agents...came and took me to church where both of us had an "Aha" moment!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll speak of that when the times come and maybe blog/write about it later.

And speaking of "write about it latet, I really need to get started on re-fashioning my real estate self, so I best get goin' on that.
Peter Procrastinator needs to get to work...

Another new life...

I'm gettin' a little frustrated, but not in an antagonistic way. Ever since I left the hospital and came home I've had this "nagging (politely so)" feeling that I couldn't identify.
The last time I had a feeling like this it was after my bypass surgery in 1999 when I came away feeling much the same as I do know, re: phantom feeling.
Howsomever with the help of someone...and you know who you are...those feelings were deciphered and the conclusion was that a) Something in my life was undone, and b) I hadn't made my mark.
Of course during the discussion surrounding all this the first thing my mentor said was, "Pete, you egotistical S.O.B.. It's probably true that you've got something undone, but to be concerned over 'making your mark' is egoistical if not narcissistic. Don't you remember what Ben (one of my heroes said) when you first got sober? Didn't he say, "Pete, your job is to do the most you can for (fill in the blank) and keep the lowest possible profile while you re doing it."
Yeah, he said that and, for the most part I've tried to live up to that.
Even before I began my cancer treatment, I was given the thought that, a) I was going to make this cancer experience an adventure, and b) I was not going to let it go to waste.
Well, it certainly been an adventure but I still don't know what "not letting it go to waste" really means.

Now somehow, and I haven't made the connection with that yet but it has something to do with the phantom feeling that I'm currently having...

I'm not being entirely forthright here, because I have an inkling of what this feeling is but the problem is that I can't pin it down exactly....

...     “My problem is that I don’t know what my problem is. I think my problem is the problem…but that’s not the problem at all. My problem is not the problem, and that’s my problem!”     ...
            ~~A quote I picked up somewhere but without an author credit

I don't know if there is any truth to the "9 lives" schtick, but I've certainly used up a few...
Not the car wrecks or getting shot or getting stabbed, as my sister recalled when she was taking care of me while I was still in Denver...but more like the opposite, if you will, in that I have been born and then reborn so to speak.

• Born September 10, 1948
• Born again March 7, 1987 when I got sober
• Born again April 22, 1991 when I set foot in Pilchuck Valley Chapel
• Born Again August 30, 1999 when I had my bypass preventing a heart attack that I would not have been able to survive
• August 25, 2010 when I had my Stem Cell transplant.

This last one, as opposed to all the others has made me think that I, indeed, am embarking on a new life...but I can't put it into words...imagine, me without words!

Something is different, but I can't "place" what it is.
It has something to do with an awareness and an appreciation of everything about me...people, places and things.
But that doesn't "fit the bill".
Just saying that comes woefully short of being to 'splain my "phantom feeling(s)."

I'm sure it has something to do with coming close to dying in that awful week/10 days after the transplant.

I soooooooooowish I could adequately explain, to myself and to others my new attitude towards life and those people, places and things.

About as close as I've come was today when I went in to the office and wound up sitting in the Principals office (Boss Lady, Fran, of Re./MAX Advanced) having what at times seemed like an animated conversation about next year.
I believe next year is going to be a grrrrrreeeaat year in spite of the economy, the elections and the hangover of the past couple of years.
And this grrrrrreeeaat year is but the beginning of the future depending, of course, on attitudes, ethics, morals and principles in both our personal and professional lives.

I've been basically out of the Real Estate game since March and a lot of that time wasn't even on the sidelines and so I've come to the conclusion that I need to "re-invent" my self after 36 years in the biz...more about that in a future Post, but I do have a plan and I''m excited about it.

But that's just my "professional life."
My "official" return to work date has been bumped from Dec. 1st 'til Jan. 1st, and that's OK...it'll give me more time to work on my reinvention.

I am equally excited about all other facets of my life...our lives,  because at some level we are connected and as such we work and live together.

OK, so it's getting late and I have not even been even close to trying to verbalize my "phantom feeling" about this new life that I have.

Life is a good thing.
I guess maybe, and this applies to me, that one doesn't realize how special and wonderful something is until one almost looses it...

It's really windy/blustery out side...that's way cool.

Musings on dying...

Below please find a blurb I was asked to do for my Church newsletter.
Please to understand that with minor editing I could write it for a number of other "groups" and individuals...

                                                      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Musing on almost dying…

            As a lot of my ECC Fellowshippers know, for a lot of years I’ve been a card carrying member of Alcoholics Anonymous (Shhhhhh! Don’t tell anybody unless you want to or think I might be able to be of help to someone!!), the Granddaddy of all 12 Step Programs.

            The Third Step of which is, “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

            My first near death experience came as a direct result of my alcoholism back in 1985 when, drunk, I got into a horrific car accident which nearly cost me my life.

            My most recent was/is Multiple Myeloma…an incurable form of blood/bone marrow cancer and I’ve gone through the disease and the treatment thereof sober, although not always of sound mind.

            After several months of chemo and other preparation, on August 25^th I had a stem cell transplant, which the Drs. say will statistically give me another 10 years!

            The period of time leading up to the transplant was a piece of cake.

            The week or 10 days after was a nightmare.

            A combination of chemo, my body writhing trying to accept the stem cells, even if they were my own and an extended visit by the Dark Side dang near did me in.

            I got to the point where I wanted to die and to the point I was transferred to intensive care. I remember pretending to be asleep and there were two nurses hovering around and one said to the other, “Is he going to make it?”

            The response was quick, “We’re not sure.”

            I can remember thinking, “Oh, good. This might all be over soon.”

            At that moment and for a period of days before and after I was under the influence of a power/spirit greater than myself and I was the soccer ball in a soccer game called Spiritual Warfare.

            Had I not taken that Third Step and made that part and parcel of my life I would have not survived this ordeal.

            Even at my lowest when I was telling relatives and people that I was wanted to and was going to die, the bilateralness of pact I made with God proved itself. He kept His Word and even though I wanted to check out, He held me tight and protected me from the Dark Side and from dying.

            How’d He do that?

            Through you guys and others who lifted me up in prayer, came to see me, called me, e-mailed me and sent me all those fabulous birthday cards which one of you taped to the wall of my hospital room directly across from my bed.

            Perhaps you have never been aware of God the Father acting in behalf of, in protection of and fighting to keep you whole…I have.

            Coming up on two months since my transplant I am home getting well enough to return to work and having a lt of time to reflect on this new life that I have been given and knowing exactly the Source of this life.

           

Sidebar, sorta: I thank God for this life and I thank you for this life. But a simple thank you seems sooooooo woefully inadequate.

                        I don’t have the words.

                        As Agents of His Goodness, He, through you saved a wretch like me.

                        Thank you.