Straws...

I like straws.
I mean, I really like straws.
Not for shooting spitwads.
But for drinking.
Drinking out of cans, drinking out of glasses, drinking out of almost any reasonable container.
My favorite drink here, besides the Vitamin Zero drinks you guys bring me, is Ocean Spray Cranberry juice. It comes in  these undersized containers but I can still peel the top back and drink with a straw.
I love the slurping/gurgling sound that you can make with a straw as you near emptying whatever container you are drinking out of.

What non-sensical thing do you love?

Thalidomide!!!

I'm like really old.
There's a lot of people even here in the hospital who don't remember the Thalidomide malady of the 50's & early 60's, and I suppose there be some of yous that don't either,,,but that's okay cuz I'm old, and I'm gonna get a lot older!!!!
Thalidomide was responsible for an epidemic of birth defects way back when, but it has a new use today as a chemo for certain cancers and mine is one.
Thalidomide I think was brought up at one of my first consultations I had with my Cancer Docs and it has been brought up about every time "they" go over my med lists whether it be in Ft. Collins or here. I've just kinda given whoever the RCA Dog look (People don't remember the RCA Dog either!) and they acknowledged the look and said, "You don't have it?"
And I say, "No."
Late this morning I got a call from a Pam at a CVS Pharmacy in Pittsburgh, PA saying she had some and I qualified for a grant from the Chronic Disease Foundation for $7,000 that should take care of the co-pay for the rest of the year...this having cancer and getting treated for it is reeeeeallly spendy.
I told my Nurse practitioner about it and she got a hold of one of my advocates here at the hospital and she came and talked to me and as it turned out a pharmacy here in Denver had also gotten the word that I needed the Thalidomide and they also were aware of the grant.
Oh, okay. Back to the RCA Dog look.
So apparently within a week or so I'll have the Thalidomide and it'll be shipped to my house!
Gregg will nab it and bring it down.
I've promised to use it responsibly and not get pregnant.

Yesterday and today have been really good days and thanks to Doug and my sister I can breathe a lot easier. I'm humbled and love you both.
Not that I'm not humbled by all the other people and "organizations" that have helped, offered to help and just simple stepped up to the plate be it materially, emotionally or spiritually...I am humbled, love and appreciate you all.

Today I thought that maybe i was going to go have a heart biopsy...that had been the plan for a week or so. By early afternoon that had been canceled, but bring on the MRI!
It's now 6:33pm and transport hasn't come to get me so I went ahead and ordered dinner.

You know, I get pretty frustrated frequently because it seems as if I'm out of the loop when it comes to my care and treatment, but there's this Still (sometimes) Small (sometimes) inner voice (always) that calms me (when I let it) and reminds me that I really am in good, if not wonderful hands and to just go with it...so I am!

Bad nights turn into good days!

Couldn't sleep worth a hoot last night.
Stayed awake until they switched out my chemo at 2:30am-ish.
When they say 24/7 they really mean it...as best they can.
When I got rushed back down here, for no good reason(?!?) the got me started on the 24/7 regimen again, but because I showed up, at their n"request" on Thurs. pm instead of Monday morning as planned they didn't have my chemo concocted so by the time they did that it was like midnight or later and they finally got me hooked up and IV'd that started the 24/7 and so they come in and change it in the wee hours between vitals checks! So quality sleep is not something that one gets too much of around here.
I finally got awake for good around 9:00 or so and was a grumpy person for a while, but who was I grumpy at?
Me.
Finally coerced myself into a shower and a stroll around the ward...I never made a "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest sojourn, but maybe I could do my best to make this a ward like that!...and I felt better.
Hope I sleep better tonight. I'm better'rn 1/2 way through the 24 Six-Seven-or Eight Ology so that'll keep me company for a few more nights.

I know that there are a couple of you who are reading this who are experiencing a fight with this cancer thing, and I know that I might be a little ahead of you in the Journey, but rest assured that we'll get through this and I hope that my ramblings aren't having a negative effect on your attitude...and this goes too for those of you who are reading this who are my caretakers of the caretakers of someone battling this.
I've never done this cancer thing before, so all I have at present is my present and recent past experience.
I/we are soooooooo fortunate to have the best medical care in the world, although I sometime bitch about "the system".
If it were 10 years ago I'd already probably be in Hospice care, but because of the advances that have been made and are yet to be made I have all the confidence in the world that I'll pull through this and so will you.
Bob, although I haven't talked to you much, thanks for being a survivor and I appreciate the books and I'll get them back to you.
Chuck and Carol,  thanks to you to. The bag has come in handy and I treasure it.
This certainly is a rather large bump in the road and it has been a journey and and adventure and I appreciate all your comments and e-mails.
I believe that attitude is what will get me through this and I wouldn't have the attitude that I hope I have if it weren't for having someone to mirror it back.
Yous guys are mahvelous!

Just in case...

...you read the blog this morning and wondered why it kinda left off in mid thought, it's because 'bout half of it went off into cyberspace as I was fixin' to close lat night 'bout midnight just after they got me hooked up to my 24/7 chemo so I re-finished it this AM a'waitin to be whisked off for a bone marrow biopsy so go back up a Post 'n read, pleeeeeeeze.

While I was briefly home I was asked for the blog link a couple of times.

http://petesnewadventure.blogspot.com/

So, here tis.

Please pass it on to any one who wants to know how I'm doin' and remind/have them Bookmark it or save it to their Favorites.

Some folks click on the link and then delete it after they've read it.

Thanks!

Hi there, coming to you from...

...the 11th floor of the University of Colorado Hospital, Aurora, Colorado!!!

Wellst, I was hoping to make it at least through the weekend where I cold catch up with my friends at RE/MAX Advanced...BTW, Kathy Mahaffey, you fiiiiiinalllllly made the move to the best damn RE/MAX office on the planet! Oh, soooooooo congratulations to you!...who in an undetermined large part give me the strength and the attitude to slug away at this thing called cancer, a.k.a. Multiple Myeloma.
And I'd hoped {There's Hope Here For Us Alcoholics}to get around to a few church basements and catch up with some of my alkie buds that I haven't seen for a while.
Thenst Sunday morning I was hopin' to pop in to the Evangelical Covenant Church and see some of those folks that I didn't see last Sunday/Tuesday when the most tense episode of chemo-brain yet led me there for the 9:00 service...go back a blog or two.

Cuz the plan when I came home Sunday, cast in Play Doh, was that I'd more'n likely be home a week or maybe even a few days longer, I came down Monday for labs and to set procedure for getting labs done in Fort Collins...which entailed Cindy learning how to do flush my port...the tri-fusion, a.k.a. Trifecta. No blood involved but there was some nervousness, a.k.a. shaky hands when she got to flush one of the leads...so that I wouldn't have to drive to Denver every day for something that takes 10 minutes and is "so easy a caveman could do it."
I came down Tuesday for another set of labs and to help determine the one day of the week I could go over to Front Range Cancer Specialists in Fort Collins for Labs, a.k.a. drawing 4 or 5 vials of blood rather than having to come down here.
I came down Wednesday with Doug, who amongst other things is my Dr. Lee interpreter, to meet with Dr. Lee and more labs and developed a "plan" where I would come back down Monday and check into collect  more stem cells and begin the whole rest of the 'process. There was also a conversation about the heart biopsy that was tentatively scheduled and he blew that off saying, "Need to take care of Myeloma 1st, then maybe have to deal with heart.  He also 'splained  that it seems last go-round the only corralled bout 6 million of those critters and they need between 12 and 14 million. he also said, and gave me written instructions to give om Dr. McFarland, my Oncologist in Denver, that I was to go in daily for some Saline and some Chemo.
I can live with that and that'll maybe get Cindy of the "flushing block", too.
So I be gonna come back down next Monday to re-start the process all over again. I left without asking the question of whether or not I had to go through 4 days of 24/7 "Red Bag of Death" (My declaration as when they come in to change he bag they have to suit up in yellow paper haz-mat suits...and their puttin' that stuff in my body?!?!?) and 10 days of Neupogen shots before we did the collection.


Or so I thought...


I came home comfortable that I'd be home 'til Monday cuz we had everything worked out. Had a great nights sleep, got up 'bout 8:30 and Cindy called and wanted to know if I'd checked my e-mails or calls.
I said , "No" and she told me that Dana, one of our UCH contacts told me that I had to come down and get admitted today and they had a room for me on the 11th floor!
Huh?
So I grabbed my cell and checked messages.
The 1st one was, "This is so-and-so from the University of Colorado Hospital and we have you scheduled for an urgent appointment with one of our Cardiologists at 3:00 or 3:30 today."!!!!!!!!!!!!
Doug was also involved in this cluster-mess and I can't remember whether it was Cindy or Doug who told me that Dr. Lee still wanted me to go the the Saline and Chemo at FRCS (Front Range Cancer Specialists).
Well, I've had lots of chemo there and it takes 60-90 minutes.
I putz around the house, pull out a suitcase (Cuz I'm coming down for the duration, probably 6 weeks or so.), do and start some laundry.
Thenst I head over to FRCS. I get there at about 10:30 and was told they had made an appointment for me at either 10:00 or 11:00 but I could wait and they'd try and fit me in! 
Heck-o-fire, nobody told us I had an appointment! Best of my knowledge I was told just to go on over!
Well they did get me min at about 10:40 and while getting me all IV'd I asked how long this would take, expecting 60-90 minutes as Cindy had volunteered to help me pack and I could meet her at the house.
Well when I was told that with this batch of chemo and the amount of saline they needed to give me it would be 4-5 hours!
My jaw and a few other things hit the floor and my mouth hit the fan..."AAAAARGH! This ain't gonna work! I gotta be in Denver @ 3:00 to meet with a Cardiologist and then check in to the hospital!"
My IVist just said, Well that's all going to have to wait, but I'll go talk to Dr. McFarland (F.t Collins Oncologist Oncologist) and maybe he can call down there and see what other arrangements can be done for you.) and left to, I assume, walk down the hall to see Dr. McFarland.
I thenst sit there gettin' IV dripped and my blood pressure rising to catastrophic levels. I prayed, pondered and read a bit and calmed back down.
I can't remember exactly how this came down, whether I called Cindy or for some reason she called me but I told her what was going down and she said she'd go over to the house and pack up what she knew to as she had floor (Sales talk for the person who handles incoming land line phone calls and walk-ins.) from 1:00 to 4:00.
I'm resigning myself to this all being a combination of what my recent lab results have shown, more (which is less) lack of communications and am reading along when Cindy shows up because she wanted to say, "So long, Pawdner." as she knew his adios from home was gonna be a long one.
I appreciated that and we were chatting and the IVist came over (it's 12:45ish by now) and the subject of me not making my 3:00 in Denver came up and she said, (Oh, I haven't talked to Dr. McFarland yt and I haven't called down either.)
I freaked.
Cindy calmed me down and said as she had the number for the Cardiologists office in Denver she'd call. So she walked over and around the corner to where the refrigerator and the out in the open stash of cheddar cheese 'n peanut butter crackers (yuck aw-mighty) are kept and made the call.
She came back and told me that the call had already been made, probably by Doug, the appointment had been cancelled and the Cardiologist would see me after I got here.
Whew.
So the rest of the day went smoothly of sorts, Doug drove me down here, he/we did what needed to be done and now it's now.
I had actually completed this last night at about midnight when they finally got me hooked up to the Red Bag of Death and went to Post it, but when I did about 1/2 of it went off into cyberspace and I wasn't able to retrieve it...and I so hate to re-dos. Do-overs are wonderful, but I hate re-dos.
Twas not with hate that I re-doed this though.
It's given me something pleasurable to do while I wait to be whisked away for a bone marrow biopsy!

and BTW, I ain't seen hide nor Drs. gown of that pesky Cardiologist yet.

Well, ...

...if youv'e been with me for any length of time now you know that my treatment plan has been changed more times than the mother of twins changes diapers, and the metaphor paints a pretty accurate picture.
Well, change is on the horizon again.
I finally got to come home Sunday, and thank you Darlene sooooooooooo much.
I had a kabillion things planned for Sunday, but I had to go back  to the hospital for labs, a short little vampiric word for drawing 3 or 4 vials of blood.
I was non-scheduled for "in the morning" and showed up 'bout 9:30 and they did their thing but when the Vampiric walked out of my curtained cubicle she pulled it shut which piqued my curiosity. So I sat, and I dozed, and I sat, and I dozed, and I cleared my throat gently, and I sat, and I cleared my throat ungently, and I sat, and I harumphed at the hour of 11 and shortly the vampiric blood drawer and one of my Nurse Practitioners came in and started to talk to me about how my white blood cell count wasn't where it should be {Talking to Nurse Practitioners and Doctors is like talking to techy people...they speak in a language that you don't understand and when  you say, "Huh?", they respond with a silence during which they look down at you as if you are the RCA Dog and then talk down to you in a very condescending manner still using terms that you don't understand.} and thought that maybe it would be a good idea if I checked myself in again.
To which I responded, "No" in terms that they could understand and I left and drove myself home.
I got home too mentally, which transcended, into physical energy left so I just parked myself and crashed.

Now, we get to the part in this blog entry which is really scary/interesting/terrifying if you will.

Yesterday is Monday and around 9:30ish after doing some chores around the house I went to bed and set the alarm clock for 6:30 so I would have ample time after doing pre-shower preparation (I have to make a cover for one of my ports out of tape and Saran Wrap...just a kick in the arse for a one-armed guy with palsy).
So I got up after two snooze taps ...Why are alarm clock snooze durations 9 minutes...Isn't that strange? Shouldn't they be less questionable numbers like 5 or 10?... .), showered, got dressed, got my Bible and drove to Church at 8:45 for Sunday service which is at 9:00 because after all, "Isn't it Sunday?
I got to church and there were no cars to speak of in the parking or where I normally park along the road in back of the church.
Thinking that a little bit odd, I walked up to the back door and opened it...I have a key to the church...and standing near the kitchen were two friends of mine who attend the Tuesday Morning Mens Breakfast, and have for many years and we strike up a conversation around my cancer, etc. During this conversation I realize that something is terribly wrong!?!?!?!?!
So at the end of the conversation they asked me why I wasn't coming to the Men's Breakfast...I did many years ago for a few years...
Well, not wanting to appear the fool that I was, I lied...Right there in church I lied!
I'm sorry, Rob and Gregg...I think they both get this blog.
I said, "I woke up early and decided to come over and read a bit."
Wellst, it wasn't a real lie because after I met with Tom, one of the Pastors and someone who has comforted me through this Adventure, I did go into the sanctuary and read and ponder...a.k.a. meditate.
Even thought I have been away from Chem for about a week, that doesn't mean that Chemo-Brain is not alive and well.
This attack of Chemo-Brain is the worst one ever and has just terrified me to the bones.
Whilst I was in the Sanctuary I got chills as it sooooooooo reminded me of when I got sober.
Somest 23+ years ago when I came out of the only blackout I had ever had, I realized that Mr. Booze (A spirit) had beaten me physically, emotionally, relationally and financially It had finally taken over the very last thing I had---my mind. Mr. Booze controlled everything I had and everything about me. The awareness and acceptance of that terrified me in no other way I had ever been scared or worried.
I was no sissy that moment, I skipped right over fear, which is for sissies, into total unabated terror.
That terror happened on a bed in Lake Stevens, Washington and this one happened in the Sanctuary in  church in Ft. Collins, Colorado---go figure.

Gotta go do some of those kabillion things on my list because I might go into the hospital late tomorrow afternoon...or not.
I've got a 4:30 apt. tomorrow with Dr.Lee, my Oncologist and primary Cancer Doc in Denver.

I'm.......

.....free!
Good Gawd awmighty I'm free!

Darlene should be here any minute and I'm outa here!

'Ceptin I'm monly gonna believe it when we're out of sight of the parking lot guards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those people behind the curtain...

Lied!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


After getting the final "approval', my Nurse Practitioner told me that my abc123 renal counts were too high and they wanted to keep me "another day" and my leaving tomorrow would depend on  ho my counts read.
What if was the abc123 counts of the person(s) whose blood I got yesterday and my 123abc counts are just fine.
I ain't counting being outa here until I'm in the parking lot...but even the I suppose they could send the Parking Lot guards after me.

For 2 days, 3 Days, a week?

I dunno!!!!
But I'm going home today...as of 8:37...but that's of 8:37!
We all know better, huh?

Well, learned after yesterdays harvest/collection/defusion that Dr. Lee (Who I actually saw yesterday!) wants more stem cells so I have to present my body to the harvest/collection/defusion four (4) more times... as an outpatient,,,which means I get to come down here 4 days in a row. And I'll learn, I hope, when that is scheduled when I come back with Doug on Wednesday so he can interpret Korean Medicalese and 'splain what he said.

Yesterday was interesting. Before we started collection I was told that because my red blood cell count was down I needed a transfusion! So for the second time n my life I was going to be transfused, the 1st being the wreck in '85.

So along with the two units of O+ justified and homogenized fresh blood, I was jacked with two magnesium drips!

Hey, I just passed the approval of my Nurse Practitioner for going home today now I just have to pass the Rounding Drs. test (They have different Dr.s who make rounds)and I can shower get dressed and leave the house!

But that's up to change...NOT!

He just came in and "released" me!

I'm outa here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Ides of July...

...find me getting defused again.
I figure if the procedure than reintroduces my stem cells back into my bod is called "infusion" then this process whereby they are collecting/harvesting my stem cells oughta be called "defusion", huh?
I'm 2.5 hours into todays defusion and the approximate length of defusion is 6 hours.
So, along with periodically checking e-mails, Pete@LivingIndoors.com , I think I'll go back to work on "I Don't Do Rough Drafts", my autobiography.
I started it years ago and then it went into cyberspace but I was able to retrieve some of it.
I started  writing again a couple of years ago but only sporatically, kinda like I do my journal only I'm more faithful to my journal than I am "I Don't Do Rough Drafts".
I've been journaling...Hey, I'm a macho dude. I don't have a diary, I have a journal...for about 200 some years now and one day I spent about 2 hours or more scanning and the e-mailing it to myself so I could have it electronically and I need to infuse (clever use of the word, huh?) it into the journal that I began doing on the computer rather than handwritten. That's a possible job for me whilst I'm imprisoned getting well.
I just thoughta something! When I get up to this point in my life I can just copy and post this blog into my autobiography!
Kewl.
I wish I had the E-Z chair I had in my old room to sit or recline in. After 3ish hours in this rather uncomfortable chair my back and butt are starting to hurt.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Later.

Just when you thought everything was...

...settling in.
Wellst, I thought I had a pretty firm grip/calendar on what was going to take place in the near future...then things get all buggered up.
I'm maybe not looking at a week or so at home but more likely just the weekend or?. Seems that "they (those behind the curtain kinda like the Wizard of Oz)" are thinking that, once again, they want to speed things up.
Soooooo, as we speak I am on the machine that is collecting my stem cells.
I knew that it, the collection process, was going to take 2, perhaps 3 days but initial "response" from the machine is that it may take as long as 5!
Then almost immediately they want to begin "conditioning" me for the infusion (re-introducing the stem cells).
I guess that means that best case scenario I'll be able to come home for the weekend, worst case scenario it'll be during the weekend or the beginning of next week and they've cut my time home to maybe 3 days.
But the decision on when is on a day by day basis and at least this time I'm not "counting" on anything, I'm just gonna ride it out odaat (one day at a time).

Seems I'm gonna need a barber (they provide one here a the hospital) today after stem cell collection or tomorrow!
In spite of being told that I would probably skate through this with no hair loss, the committee behind the curtain lied.
Whilst in the shower this morning and shampooing my hair it seems as if little clumps of hair were deciding they no longer wanted to reside on my head!
It wasn't a mass migration, but enough to tell me that the defoliation of my head was more'n likely gonna take place.
Should be pretty interesting because waaaay back in my drinking days I had a propensity for wrecking cars vehicles and going through windshields head first. So there's a few scars and bumps up there.
I hadn't thought through the vanity part of loosing my hair yet and I'm not pondering it at the moment so I don't know whether I'll do the baseball cap thing...visor in front, thank you...or some other hat. I ain't/can't do the bandanna thing. There are some drawbacks to being a uniplegic.
Well, think I'll pick up a book (Thanks French folk, and Abby too...We're still talkin' now 'n then) and read for a while.
I got started on the collection about 9:00 and the guestimate is I'll be done by 3:00ish...and I get to do this for another 2-5 days!

July 10, 1985

Today is the 25th Anniversary of  which, for me, was the mother of all car wrecks....

Okay, so now it was yesterday.
I got sidetracked...

Anywho, back to the mother of all car wrecks.

Seems that around 5:30ish I was coming down the Creedmore Lakes Road in Red Feather and didn't negotiate the corner just west of the Pot Belly Restaurant and hit a logging truck head on.
Why didn't I negotiate the corner properly?
Cuz I was drunk.
Several hours later in the ER at Poudre Valley Hospital in Ft. Collins they gave me a blood alcohol test and it came up .028...today .008 is the legal limit!
I don't remember the accident, and it's not because I was drunk. The body and mind have marvelous coping mechanisms and one of them is amnesia. I suffered what's called both retro and antegrade amnesia, meaning that I don't remember anything for 3 days before the accident nor 3 weeks after.
I was member of the Red Feather Lakes Fire Department EMT team, the first responder team that was called in to the wreck and I was sooooo mangled as was my car that the first two on the scene did not recognize me.
Huh, drunk driver in Ford Escort vs. logging truck...drunk driver looses.
I believe they extracted me from the car and prepared me as best they could with the resources they had for the paramedics who arrived in the Flight for Life helicopter that whisked me away to PVH...my only helicopter ride and I don't remember it!
They got me to the hospital and on the gurney between the helicopter and the ER my heart stopped for the first time so they had to jump start me once they got me inside. That was the first of three times that the ol' ticker said, "Enough!"...well, it warn't exactly old at the time, I was only 36.
'Bout two hours into emergency it quit again so they jump started me again.
While they were assessing and treating me they discovered that I had:

• Smashed the kneecap on my right leg so they just took it out, hence I still have no kneecap on my right leg. Do you know what they call that operation? I didn't, but then again why should I or you have known unless we were prepping for Alex Trebec and Jeopardy...it's a "pattelectomy"...just sorta rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?
• Snapped my right femur, a.k.a. thigh bone, in half, dang 'neer right in the middle. So they but a stainless steel rod, called a nail, into the length, but not breadth of my femur. My son Matt doesn't know this but when I croak he gets it and maybe he can use it for shish-ka-bobs.
• Broke the pinky finger along with several other bones in my right hand so they put a cast ... nothing dramatic here...yet.
• Had what's called a commuted fracture of my right hip, meaning that the femur, I'm assuming prior to being snapped in half or this is what caused the snap, was jammed up into the hip socket so that it caused a fracture.
• Broken my jaw in three places...I ain't never going back to those places! Think about it...get it? It's a joke!
• Had actually pulled the nerves out of my spinal cord that control many, but not all of the motor and sensory functions of my left arm, hence I'm a "Uniplegic"! In the medical texts I'm really a monoplegic meaning that I have paralysis of one limb...a paraplegic would have lost the use of two limbs, a teraplegic would have lost three and a quadriplegic four. I just like "uniplegic" better cuz I made it up.
• Probably the most debilitating thing was a "closed head injury" with some minor, although some people would say major, brain damage. All the other things healed in time as best they could and I have learned to live with as I have learned to live with the whack on the head and the ensuing cognitive defects which I still have and haunt me at times...but good things come in weird packages. Some 20 years after the wreck I got to play in the sand and be sort of a research subject for my friend Dr. Lorraine Freedle.
• Many years after the wreck it was determined that I had actually broken my neck where the nerves were pulled out so the went in and took a bone chip out that was pressing on my spinal cord causing me a lot of pain beneath my left shoulder blade, fused a couple of vertebrae and stuck a couple of rods in my neck.
• And there were some other things which left some scars and such.

We're missing the third time my heart quit, aren't we?
And you thought I wasn't paying attention!

At 2:04 in the morning, and I can picture this without closing my eyes and, no this is not an out of body experience, I can see myself in intensive care all bandaged, intubated and hooked up to one of those machines that monitor sinus rhythm {I think that's the term for one's heart rate} and it's going along fine going "blip" and peaking, "blip" and valleying, up and down, up and down when all of  sudden "bzzzzzzzzzzt", a.k.a. flat line. So they came a runnin' and jump started me again.
now the lesson that I have learned from this is invaluable and has kept me going through some pretty tough times.
"The lesson?", you ask.
The lesson being that lifes ups and downs are normal and that "bzzzzzzzzzzz", a.k.a. "things" just going along "just fine" is pretty dangerous.

Now, y'all, remember the retrograde and antegrade amnesia?
Lemme 'splain, Lucy...

Seems like three (3) days before the accident I had spent the entire day going over my subdivision, Mountain Meadows (the 9 hole sand green golf course in Red Feather) with the Larimer County Health Department and no, I was not drunk and I don't remember that or taking Matt down to Fort Collins and dropping him off with Linda for a few days...I wasn't drunk and not in a black out. I've only had one black out and that was a couple of years later on my last drinking binge!
I don't remember where or how I got so intoxicated on the fateful day of the wreck, either.

Antegrade  amnesia.
Apparently I had been throwing a hissy fit in the hospital after they moved me out of Intensive Care and into a regular room. I think this was may have been week after the wreck, or sooner.
They had not put me in a cast for my broken hip and femur but had me in this elaborate splint held together with Velcro. They wanted to start physical therapy on my "knee" as soon as they could.
I wanted to go back to work and they people trying to care for me weren't hearing me...so I tried to escape!
They found me in the wee hours of the morning crumpled up in front of an elevator!
So it was back to the Operating Room to redo my leg & hip and they went ahead and put me in a body cast.

Sidebar (Had anybody ever heard of a "sidebar" before the OJ trial?): When they took out the pieces of a once splendid kneecap and stitched up the incision they left about  4 or 5 inches of what appeared to be fishing leader that they used to stitch with on neither side of the incision, and for the almost 3 months I had that body cast on I had a constant itching where the suture material was rubbing on my skin under the cast. Because while I was under the influence...chuckle, chuckle...of the antegrade amnesia I was such a boisterous chronic malcontent, everybody just blew off my b****ing {I just noticed that "itch" centers in the word "bitching"...isn't that interesting. Maybe not to you, but now to me as that was the "problem".}. I'm lucky I didn't get some sort of gangrenous infection from my attempts to scratch that itch by cramming an unfurled coat hanger down the cast.

Remember my broken jaw? And how they set and hold it together with what looks like braces?
Well, a few days after the foiled escape attempt I must have had something terribly important to say because somehow using my casted right hand I managed to rip out/off a good portion of the "braces". That had to have been really tricky because I was then in restraints...I had both arms tethered to the siderails of the bed.
So, another trip to the OR, not Oregon...although that might have been a thought and my brother Kevin who lives in Portland could have become one of Americas Most Wanted for harboring a fugitive...to rewire my jaw together.

After that incident and until I "came to" I was moved to what was then called the Evergreen Unit, known on the inside as the psych ward and I had to be guarded 24/7. They actually hired an off duty Deputy Sheriff to help shoulder the burden!

Now, remember my chronic malcontentedness?
This is all taking place in July of 1985 and I didn't quit smoking until January of 1991.
Poudre Valley Hospital had just gone non-smoking but I raised such holy hell that they allowed me to smoke! They still p***ed me off by rationing me to one pack a day.
Now, remember I'm still being restrained so whenever I wanted a smoke, or to suck on a straw to down my broth (Remember my jaw is wired shut...), my "guard" had to untether my right arm and stood close by while I finished my smoke or my broth.

Remember that closed head injury?
One of the immediate problems I had was that my short term memory was, and still sometimes is(?) shot. One of the things that I could have to "eat" were milkshakes.
Hospital meals, and milkshakes do not appear in real time. There's a delay of at least 30 minutes or so. So I'd hit the Nurses help button and they would respond and I'd order a milkshake. She or he would politely say, "Coming right up!" or some such uplifting response and walk out of the room.3.6530293687 minutes later I'd forget that I ordered a milkshake and place another order and the nurse wold come in, take my order and say, "Coming right up!".
And this would go on until I got my milkshake.

There's more "stuff", but originally I thought I'd just comment on what went on July 10, 1985 but I got sidetracked and then I got sidetracked again so as you can see this is posted on July 12...
Oh, well.

Anywho, thanks for accompanying me down Memory Lane...or the Creedmore Lakes road.

If I was gettin' fancy about this I'd have to thank some Dr.s and Nurses for telling me what went on during that 3 weeks after the accident where I was conscious but have no recollection of what happened.


You know, if I survived all that, beating this cancer thing is a piece of cake!

Emotions?

There are time when I think I am a very stoic person and then there are times when I know I wear my heart on my sleeve.
Many of you saw me right after my cancer diagnosis when I was an artesian well of tears...that hasn't changed much it's just that I can "control" it some and prefer, macho dude that I am, to cry alone.
I've talked, hopefully candidly about my reaction to the diagnosis and how I just went home and holed up primarily in my bedroom and cried, yelled, fought with myself, argued with God, argued with Rosie and asked God to do something...and He did.
I was diagnosed on a Wednesday, I believe, and sequestered myself for the next two days and after a particular nasty rant I stepped outside onto the little patio off my bedroom and everything changed...that's when, instantly, the thought(s) were planted in me that:

• Let's make this an Adventure
• Let's not let this go to waste

The Adventure part has realllllllly played out.
I still don't know what the "not letting this go to waste" looks like, but I'm clinging to what my friend Brad told me after my heat surgery in '99 when I was having a different sort of melt down that, "It just might be any of your dang business and you might not even know know when it (and "it" was something similar but yet different) happens, so quit worrying about it and just go about your business."

At that moment on the patio things changed and my attitude, for the most part, about having cancer changed and I think, again for the most part, that my attitude about this whole thing has been positive.
I've had my down times, but for the most part I think I'm dealing with this okay.

Anywho, back to "emotions"...

My brother Kevin came out and stayed with me for the first week I was in the hospital, and I didn't know what a blessing that was until late last night when I sorta put things together.

Yesterday morning 5:30am-ish, the nurses came in to do there check and see if I'm still alive thing, and Kevin was rousted as well and adiosed to catch a plane back to Portland.
He leaned down as he was leaving to hug me and all was well for 5.37629 seconds until the door closed behind him and the floodgates opened...the artesian will was uncapped and the tears flowed like Niagara Falls. When I cry, I am incapable of pulling out all the stops...we do runny snot, we rack and hack, we are unable to open our eyes and we just have to weather it out...and that's how I fell back to sleep.
I woke up again to another "vitals check" at 8:41am and as per usual opted out of breakfast, got up to put in the first DVD of 24 and spent the rest of he day tossing in my bed, being angry that I had cancer and was imprisoned against my will getting up only to powder my nose and to change DVDs.

Sooooooooooooooooooooo, late last night as I toss and turn I have this "I've been here before" feeling and then it comes to me...it's the same feeling/emotion that I went through after my diagnosis.
It warn't Kevin's fault that he came and stayed and left, twas me experiencing terror over having cancer.
I mentioned to both Kevin and Doug that I was taking this whole cancer thing a lot more serious since I moved in here to UCH. People, a.k.a. Dr.s, Nurses, Physician Assistants all talk about how serious my cancer is and how people die from it. I walk the halls and see people in wheelchairs hunched over with bandannas covering their bald heads and others pushing along their chemo delivery poles and it get's pretty depressing.
What I have to remember is that I'm not alone and that somehow I'm gonna get through this.....
.................................................................................................and then I get a call from my insurance company just now telling me that I'm approaching my "gap" in coverage and that I'm nearing the point where I'm going to be 100% responsible for 100% of my prescription drugs for the rest of the year!
Ouch.
I pressed "2" to request that a real person, not the digitalized voice that I'd been listening to, call me to discuss this and how I could maybe switch some of my meds to generics, and the digitalized voice told me that they would have a "Pharmaceutical Mentor" call me back within two weeks!


Oh, my. Now I have to figure out how to shut down my magic magnifying mind that will no doubt tell me at 3:12am this morning that seeing as how I don't have the prescription coverage I need I will cease getting the meds that I need and I will die.


What a ride.


I think tomorrow I'll ask to see the Social Worker assigned o me and see if'n she's got any ideas.
This could get  scary!


And the nurse who gives me my Neupogen shots just brought in the two little vials and told me she'd be back in 10 minutes to give me the shots. They refrigerate the Neupogen and then like to let it get to room temperature as it supposedly won't hurt as much.
I was told that Neupogen was a pretty expensive drug. I wonder if its a "prescription drug"?

Dang.

Anybody got calendar?

It appears that, depending on my continued good reaction to  the Neupogen shots that I'll be gettin' harvested (where they'll collect my stem cells) next Tuesday, more like Wednesday...my phonetical favorite day of the week!
That'll make  it Wednesday, July 14, 2010!
July has seemed to be a month of rememberences in my life...Twas Friday, I believe, July 10, 1985 that I had that 'll fender benderinnRed Feather that made me a one-kneecap uniplegic...but let's wait a couple of days to ponder on that one!
So, I'm pretty stoked that the whole transplant thing appears to be coming to fruition...I had my doubts for a while.
I gotta run as one of the meds they give me here to bring down my blood pressure is working which means I have to go powder my nose...who'd-a-thunk that having a shiny nose would contribute to high blood pressure!

Later...........

Be careful what you pray/ask for...

Ever since this Adventure began the "game plan" has changed, often times several times in the same day. I've been wanting a definitive "schedule" so hat I could make appropriate plans...and I finally got it, sort of.
Seems that I'm gonna be staying here for at least another week and finish out my Neupogen shot(s)(s) here. I'm still unclear, of course, whether I get a 7 or a 10  day regimen of shots but at least I know where I'm gonna be for a while.
What I think happens now is that I finish out this regimen of Neupogen here and then get to come home to FTC for a day or two, and get to pop in to the office!!!!!!!!! and then I come back for the actual collection/harvesting of my stem cells that the Neupogen have driven out of my bone marrow and into my bloodstream where they thenst get collected/harvested.
I am then impatiented here for 2-4 weeks and then I get adiosed to an as yet undetermined 2bedroom suite within 30 minutes of the hospital for 2-4 weeks and then I get to come home to Fort Collins and get back to work!
Whilst I'm in the two bedroom whatever 30 minutes from  the hospital and after I come, I'm needin' somebody with me 24/7.
Don't have that logistically worked out yet, but I am going to be lookin' for some folks who can stay with me. I think Kevin is going to be able to..........
.................................................................pause........................................................I just got my 2nd Neupogen shot(s)!....................
.................come back and stay a few days after I'm evicted from the hospital.
He's been scouting some of the places I might go to, and Cindy has been helping with that effort from afar. So, if'n you have any ideas/inclinations on how to help me out there I'd appreciate it! I don't think "we" know exactly how to set that all up, but I 'spect it'll be a calendar available for one(s) to sign up on, maybe on the net...maybe not!
BTW, I'll have the entire 1st season, and maybe it's more of 24 to watch so together we can count the number of bad guys Jack Bauer offs!
Anywho, not only did I get my 2nd Neupogen shot(s), Matt showed up for the 3rd time in 4 days!
Life don't get much better'n this!?!

I'm just along for the ride...

...however.
Wellst, the journey/adventure continues!
Went to bed last night after finishing up my 4 day 24/7 chemo and slept like a baby...'cepting for the coming in every 37.432 seconds to check for vitals and draw "labs", a.k.a. blood, but it doesn't hurt cuz they take it from my port.
The next step in the treatment plan is either a 7 or a 10 day barrage of something called NEUPOGEN®, which is the thing that evicts my stem cells from my bone marrow, where stem cells reside, into my blood stream so they can be "harvested"...we're back to that word...but I'm figuring this is the point of no return!!!!!
I still don't know where I'm gonna finish up this round of NEUPOGEN® because they've teased me with checking out today, or tomorrow, or staying here for the duration...but I'm just along for the ride!

...however, after being told yesterday and this morning during rounds that the NEUPOGEN® regimen was going to start today (because they want to see how I react to it because it has a tendency to reek havoc with one's bod) and give me two days of shots...the NEUPOGEN® is a shot(s) which they give me in my belly, but it/they didn't hurt, not like the rabies shots I had to get in my belly when I was a kid and from which I still have the scars!...Kevin {did I tell you my brother is here with me?} and I kept a waitin' for the grand entrance of the NEUPOGEN®" Nurse, but she never came!
So finally at 4:00ish I called in my day nurse to ask her about when I was going to get my NEUPOGEN® shot to which she turned on the charm and said, "Huh?"
She went off to check on it and sure 'nuff I was supposed to get it, but had I not called I wouldn't have, so Ivy, you're right!

I feel soooooooooooooooooooooooo happy as I truly think this is then point of no return and I wish I could call each and every one of you and thank you for hangin' in there with me, your thoughts and your Prayers.

Wow, like I've said before there is no where in me, although this cancer is incurable, that I even began to think that it was going to kill me...the caveat being that I got treatment and my magic magnifying mind has had that in doubt a time or two...but now I am getting exactly what I need.

I owe you guys big time, not just for being my Care Givers, lawn mowers, house cleaners, brush pickin' up, financial benefactors but my Partners in Life and I'm glad Kevin snuck out to get us some non-hospital food dinner 'cuz a a 'lil brotherr shouldn't see his big brother cry...or, heck, why not!

Trampolining Cancer Treatment...

...controlled by the Insurance Racketeers.
I discovered something yesterday, Health Insurance Companies have a ton of power when it comes to dictating cancer treatment and therefore I can only assume all treatments.
No wonder our President and the majority of conscientious people in this country have, and do wish for Health Care Reform, a.k.a. Health Insurance Reform.
AS of now, 3:51pm MST, I have passed all the necessary steps it takes to have a Stem Cell Transplant...I think.
I came in here day before yesterday with the "We're proceeding as if..." mentality of the docs down here and I wasn't too worried when I arrived.
We started the 24/7 Chemo and all was going well until yesterday when I was informed that I needed to have two more "tests" which would determine my eligibility for transplant. Those two tests, pulmonary and cardiac would let the Insurance company know I was healthy enough to have the transplant...that I needed to be healthy and not too sick to have the transplant!
Too healthy or too sick...go figure.
So they scheduled the tests for today...providing the Insurance Company would authorize and pay for them!!!
No tests...no transplant!
So, as I have discovered, Hospitals have staffs of people who fight with Insurance Companies and Insurance Companies have staffs of people who fight Hospitals. And as I really don't understand the rules of certain games like hockey and soccer I just sorta figure I'm like the puck or the soccer ball and I just get slapped and kicked around and hope that the better team wins!
So, as it turned out today I have already had the necessary cardiac tests up in Ft. Collins @ PVH and they counted!
But, although I have had pulmonary tests and treatment both in Ft. Collins and down here they, the Insurance Company wanted another one...which I summarily passed or appropriately failed! But I still, now need a Pulmonary Doctor who is employed by the hospital to come in and give his blessings that I am sufficiently sick or well as the case may be to proceed with the transplant and that is a lock(!), so I'm told.
So from having a sleepless night in Aurora, Colorado at the University of Colorado Hospital because I'm terrified I've come this far only to be dropped to an almost guarantee of a decent night's sleep.

I've believed, and have Faith in that this cancer was not gonna kill me...well, at least since the first two days after diagnosis when I spend sequestered in my bedroom crying an fearing the worst...the caveat being that I got treatment for it.
Well, part of this journey that I'm taking is that treatment is being threatened by the Insurance Racketeers and thusfar, a.k.a. to this point the Power that be and the Fighting Staffs (That oughta be a good name for a sports team, don't ya think?) seem to be the winning teams and I'm goin' with it!

Gonna go order dinner now and turn on the tube and see what's goin' on with that part of the world outside me!