H. Benjamin B.?

Well, I’m a four-legged critter now! Yup, I’m on crutches. The docs want me to keep as much weight off this hip joint as possible, so I stopped by St. Vincent De Paul and found a pair for $5. Have you ever tried to get around on crutches? Especially when it entails holding one leg in the air? Did I mention that it hurts to hold the leg up in the air like that?

I figure that for all the stuff I’ve given SVDP over the years I could use some of their help now. I still have a bunch of stuff to go over there if I ever get it all pulled together.

But, I may just have to move the computer back into the bedroom. I’ve had a low-grade fever again today, and slept quite a bit this afternoon. And then there’s the “keep off my hip” thing going on.

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Maybe you girls out there can help me. I’ve discussed the Beau lines on my finger nails before. The chemo has really weakened my nails. I keep them trimmed as short as I can and they still split, or maybe I should say “flake.” Is there anything that I can do, something that I can buy and apply, to help keep the nails from coming apart so easily?

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I got my “You Don’t Have To Be Afraid Of Cancer Anymore” book today. Now where have I heard that theme before? :-P

There isn’t a lot in it specifically about esophageal cancer, but they do cover quite a lot of the rest of them. So it looks like I’ll have to get some reading in.

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BTW, I figure if I commit myself, I’ll try harder to get something done. So, with Ben’s help, I plan on posting my PET Scans tomorrow so you can see that I’m not pulling someone’s leg through all this.

If I don’t get it posted, bitch at me about it, will you? “Bitch avoidance” is a good source of motivation, but you have to bitch occasionally to make it work!! But the carrot works much better than the stick most of the time!

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BTW, I didn’t mention that yesterday I was awakened from a sound sleep about 9:00AM by a group of people at my front door. I got up, answered the door, and was about to point out my “No Soliciting” sticker on the door, preparing to do battle with a group of Jehovah’s Witness folks who don’t believe that I mean what I say when I post the sign, when I recognized my aunt and my mother in the group! I was too focused on the guy in front.

Turns out I was half right; the guy in front was my Aunt Bert’s husband, and I apologize that I can’t remember his name, but he is/was a pastor of a church out west of the Fox Valley.

So, I invited them in, ran, OK hobbled, off to the bedroom to put some clothes on, and came back for a chat. It was heart-warming that, in these days of high gas prices, they would travel all that way, stop by to pick up my mom, and then to drive up here to GB.

They invited me out to dinner, by then it was 11:00, but I still hadn’t taken all my meds yet. I had grabbed my pain meds right away. It’s amazing how quickly we become addicted to those darn things when we have severe pain on occasion.

I had to regretfully decline. Without being prepared ahead of time to go out, I can’t just grab my coat and go anymore. I have some meds that I need to take on an empty stomach. Then I have to wait an hour before there are meds that I have to take on a full stomach.

I don’t know if you remember my ‘Carafate fiasco;’ Carafate 4 times a day, nothing to eat two hours before and one hour after, meant that for 12 hours a day I couldn’t eat, OK, make that suck Ensure. And, as sick as I was, that was about all the time I was awake!

So, although things have gotten somewhat better, it isn’t by a whole heck of a lot. And I do notice when I miss my pain meds, now! Like today! Oh, well.

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“H. Benjamin B.” That’s how they have me listed now at the Aurora Baycare Medical Center. Somehow, they’ve combined my name, H. Benjamin, along with my father’s name, Benjamin B., into one multi-purpose name. I suppose, if my father ever came back, that they want to have all their bases covered. It gives me shivers all over to know that they are on the ball, paying so much attention to the details of my medical treatment.

So, I’m off to wait for Ben to come home and to browse my new book. But one question I have on my mind is, how are you prepared for cancer if it should ever show up in your life? Most of what Conventional Medicine does is move money from your insurance company’s pockets to theirs and does little to prolong your life. Read the medical journals, or read the journalists who report on them. Then start taking the vitamins and herbals that are recommended to prevent cancer. You don’t want what I have, trust me!

Kunolunkwa, y te quiero mucho!