The Best Laid Schemes Of Mice And Men Gang Aft Agley

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

From Robert Burns’ ode, To a Mouse.

You ever remember some of that stuff you learned in government school; sometimes when you least expect it?

I was planning on doing some housework today. I slept in until noon! I got up to take my meds and get some sustenance and spent the day riding the recliner.

I wish my doctors would talk to me about what it is that I should be doing to bring myself up-to-speed, but all they can do apparently is to make me sick. They can’t be bothered to help me get better.

So I spent the day wondering about my low-grade fever, the hot flashes and then the chills, and the dizziness I experienced almost every time I got up. I checked my blood pressure and it was fine for me, but my pulse rate was 105. I know that 60-100 is normal for normal adults but it is still somewhat fast for me.

My assumption is that as I recover from the ritualistic poisoning of my body in hopes of killing my illness I will be experiencing situations that are outside my normal experience.

Like my peripheral neuropathy, my feet are feeling more like normal, i.e. they feel like they were cold for some time and have just started to warm up. They still have the “pain” sensation, just not as bad as before. But my hands have increased the “pain” sensation. The two small fingers of my left hand are feeling numb. When I tried to talk to someone about this before, I fond that it strikes everyone differently, and therefore, the medical community can’t tell me anything that can help.

~~~~~~~~~

I miss not being able to talk to my radiation technicians. I ran across something by Neil Young that I wanted to tell RT Amy, the younger, when I realized that I may not even see her again. We had talked about music, especially CSNY. I was surprised that someone so young would listening to music that I liked.

I had checked my iPod and didn’t find any CSN or Y. And yet I have such vivid memories of listening to Neil Young’s work. And I’m not just talking about his duet with Emmylou Harris. So, checking my Windows Media Player I found that I do have at least one of his albums, I mean CDs, transferred to computer. Now I need to figure out why it hasn’t gotten to my iPod. That means I have to create a library of all my music and where it is stored. More work.

I was going to listen to some Santana the other day and found out that he didn’t even make my computer at all!

I’m losing it. Or so it would seem anyway.

Please remember, this is my diary as well. I put things here to help me remember things at a later date.

Let me leave you with the words of Emmylou Harris:

Soul mate
The blues are deceiving
It keeps us believing
We're on the wrong road
One side is just like the other
Except for the color
And size of the load
And just how much it shows

But you're supposed to be feeling good now
Cause everybody said you would
Honey, does it blow your mind
That the prophets would lie
You're supposed to be in your prime now
Not supposed to be wasting your time
Feeling like you're down and out
Over someone like me

Kunolunkwa, y te quiero

"As a juror, I will exercise my 1000-year-old duty to arrive at a verdict, not just on the basis of the facts of a particular case, or instructions I am given, but through my power to reason, my knowledge of the Bill of Rights, and my individual conscience. When needful, I will judge the law itself." -L. Neil Smith

Babies Faces 'Make Us Want To Care For Them'

At least it works that way for me. I ran across an article today that states:

Dr Kringelbach said: "We found a very specific, rapid signature of the activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex in response to infant faces.

"This provides evidence in humans of a potential brain basis for the 'innate releasing mechanism' described by Lorenz for affection and nurturing of young infants.

"Although the degree to which these responses are innate rather than learnt is unknown, these specific responses to unfamiliar infant faces… occur so quickly that they are almost certainly quicker than anything under conscious control."

The medial orbitofrontal cortex is at the front of the brain, just above the eyeballs, and is known to be important in regulating emotions.

Mine must work in overtime as much as I like kids. So there is a valid reason for my response to children and babies. Now you know why I like seeing baby pictures.

~~~~~~~~~

I’m at a loss; I don’t know what to do. There should come a time when I need to get off my sick, or lazy, butt and DO SOMETHING. I just don’t know if I know when that is just yet. One the one hand, I need to husband my strength to heal my body. On the other hand, I will need to get up and exercise to develop my muscles to build my strength.

I don’t know if I know when that will be. Since I still have pain upon eating, I’m letting things slide for a while. But maybe I’ll start cleaning house this weekend.

~~~~~~~~~

BTW, that was my hand in the video yesterday. Did you see how white it was? I almost had to turn off the lights in the room it was so white. :-)

Kunolunkwa, y te quiero!

"As a juror, I will exercise my 1000-year-old duty to arrive at a verdict, not just on the basis of the facts of a particular case, or instructions I am given, but through my power to reason, my knowledge of the Bill of Rights, and my individual conscience. When needful, I will judge the law itself." -L. Neil Smith

That’s Strange!

Staying home, that is. It’s not usual for me to not be anticipating getting up. So maybe that’s why I had so many dreams.

But Ben had to get up early to play at the DMV. With my white noise generator going I barely heard him leave or get back home. So I slept until almost 11:00AM or thereabouts.

I’m still having pain associated with eating, but I’m expecting that to go away in the near future as I heal.

~~~~~~~~~

I had mentioned that my daughter had sent a present along with the belated St. Valentine’s Day Hershey’s Kisses. I am including a video of her gift to me. Some of you may recognize it and the tune.

This will be my first attempt to include video in my blog, so I hope it works out well.

Kunolunkwa, y te quiero!

"As a juror, I will exercise my 1000-year-old duty to arrive at a verdict, not just on the basis of the facts of a particular case, or instructions I am given, but through my power to reason, my knowledge of the Bill of Rights, and my individual conscience. When needful, I will judge the law itself." -L. Neil Smith

I GOT HUGGED!

I don’t normally kiss and tell, but today was kind of unusual for me.

They say that mixed emotions consist of watching your mother-in-law drive your new car over a cliff. Although I am happy to be leaving radiation therapy behind me, I am sad that I won’t be seeing the radiation technicians any more.

Two of the RTs, Paula, and Amy, the younger, presented me with a certificate on the occasion of my last treatment today. OK, it was a little corny but I didn’t mind. Besides, it appealed to my emotional side today, since we are in the sign of Pisces right now. But then they both gave me hugs. Totally unexpected! But very sweet, none-the-less. I will miss talking to them.

When we did talk, I wasn’t always up to my normal witty banter, what with the cancer and the side effects of the cancer and all. But they did their job well, worked well together, and most of the time they were cheerful. Hey, they’re human too!

“Research shows that the female brain naturally releases oxytocin after a 20-second hug.” OK, so there wasn’t any oxytocin released, but it did make my day, heck my week, brighter. And it needed brightening.

I’m still sleepy-tired, but not as physically fatigued as I was. I was able to walk to Kwik Trip today to get some ice cream. If only I could eat, I think I’d start to build up my strength. I had forgotten about ice cream being my “best friend” according to one of the oncologists. Why the ice cream?

I stopped after radiation to get some Chinese food, but could barely eat it. It hurt going through the Lower Esophageal Sphincter. And I had had my pain meds earlier. But I have been expecting it. So I thought I’d try the ice cream and see how that works for me.

The diarrhea and the gas have slowed down considerably, although I needed my white noise generator last night to keep me from waking up everytime I “rumbled.” But today has been pretty good.

But I get to sleep in the rest of the week. And I can use my sleep to heal! And don’t forget my supplements! I don’t have a doctor telling me I can’t have them now!

Kunolunkwa, y te quiero!

"As a juror, I will exercise my 1000-year-old duty to arrive at a verdict, not just on the basis of the facts of a particular case, or instructions I am given, but through my power to reason, my knowledge of the Bill of Rights, and my individual conscience. When needful, I will judge the law itself." -L. Neil Smith

One To Go!

Ordinarily, I’d be a lot more cheerful about only having one more day of radiation therapy. But I don’t feel so cheerful right now. I was up and down all last night just trying to get rid of the gas. Which meant that I didn’t sleep as well as I would have liked. So I slept in until 11:00AM or so.

After Ben left for work, I laid back down. The pain meds adds another dimension to the “sleepy” side effect.

I got up, showered for my 5:00PM radiation appointment, and ran off to do that. I came home and just “sat” for a while. I can’t tell you how many Sudoku puzzles I have done today.

It seems like my body is so used to the chemotherapy now that it is responding just as if I’d had chemo on Monday. I have the diarrhea that just won’t quit. I have intestinal gas that gives new meaning to “Blow it out your ***!” If it builds up on the topside, I have to sit up or stand to get rid of the gas and the pain. If it builds up on the other end, I have to be very careful!

So why now? I’ll have to call in tomorrow to ask the nurses since the meds I’m currently using don’t seem to work. And the supplements that I have taken before to reduce the gas don’t seem to working, either.

I don’t feel much like eating and the liquids I take to keep hydrated add nothing but ammunition to my system.

I’ve been trying to read, but can’t seem to keep my mind focused. That means I didn’t get to any of my emails today either. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

As I’ve said, chemotherapy is nothing more than a battle of competing side effects. Usually they balance out. Sometimes they don’t. But there is a reason that the epidemiological studies give mortality figures for 30 days AFTER the last treatment.

I just reread this; I hope that it makes sense. I stopped before leaving the VLCC to sit in the waiting room after radiation treatment. I was anticipating that my stomach was going to act up like yesterday with the hiccup/ palpitations. I explained to the receptionist and the office manager (I believe) that I just wanted to sit awhile before I went out to my car. I was heartened that the OM enquired if I was driving and what it was that I was feeling. I appreciated the concern over me driving myself while I was impaired. But I explained that I was fine in that regard; it was just that my stomach sometimes gave me fits.

Kunolunkwa, y te quiero!

Good News / Bad News

I have some good news and I have some bad news tonight. Which do you want first? OK.

The good news: I didn’t have chemotherapy today.

More Good News: I don’t have Radiation until 5:00PM tomorrow, so I can sleep in, after getting up to belch and take more pain meds.

Wait! No more radiation after Wednesday! That’s good news as well.

Now the bad news: No chemo means that my blood tests weren’t good enough to support adding more chemicals to my body. Didn’t I bring this up before, 3 on and 1 off? Looks like 4 on and 2 off doesn’t work for some of us.

More bad news: The pain is getting worse. I left Radiation today and started out to my vehicle. My stomach started doing flip-flops; kind of a cross between hiccups and palpitations. I went back inside to wait for the stomach to subside. It finally did, but it still hurt. Dying muscle cells still trying to function don’t feel real nice.

More bad news: I don’t know if my body is now trained by the chemo I’ve been getting, but my diarrhea started today, along with the gas. I’m going to wake myself up tonight just from the rumbling NOISE!!!! And I’m not even kidding.

The buildup of gas in my stomach, which I can’t get rid of while lying in bed, causes the GE Juncture to hurt. So I’m taking a full dose of pain meds at night. But I’m willing to bet I’ll be hurting by morning.

More bad news, possibly: The doctor told me I wouldn’t have any more radiation after Wednesday or chemo at all, unless we decide to do something after more imagery which is actually good. But, the nurse has me set up for chemo in two weeks. I wonder if someone isn’t getting the message. Probably me, I should know that by now. :-(

BTW, I’m down to the last three personal emails in my inbox. I’m hoping to get to them tomorrow! Then I’ll be caught up. With me feeling somewhat better I hope to do a better job in the future.

I was more cheerful this past weekend, less fatigued (I may even start cleaning my house soon), but I’m still tired/sleepy. I take that as a good sign. Kids grow while sleeping; I’m hoping that adults heal while sleeping. My body, trying to replace the needed blood cells takes the energy right out of my body!

Kunolunwa, y te quiero!

You guys know all about jury nullification by now, right?

What To Say…

….what to say. You know there are times when I just don’t have a lot to say.

For whatever reason, I woke up at 4:00AM on Saturday morning. Wide Awake! So I jumped on the computer while I was thinking clearly and tried to clear up my backlog of emails. Did get a pretty good amount done.

I don’t know why I have a system of First In, Last Out. I don’t know how it got started, but there you have it. If you have emailed me, and I haven’t responded that might be a reason why.

I have quite a few emails (20) in my inbox going back to 2006 (1) of articles that I want to read. But since they require my full attention and my full capacity to understand—most are from Mises.org—I don’t always have the ability for both. Especially with chemobrain lurking over my shoulder. If I put them somewhere to clear out my inbox, I’ll forget about them like I forgot about the 36 items in my Follow up Folder that have already been archived!!

At some point yesterday morning, I pooped out and went back to sleep. I think I got up long enough to let Ben know I was still alive, to see him off to work, then I went back to sleep. So I got a bunch of sleep in yesterday.

I slept in today as well. At least I wasn’t awake at 4AM!

~~~~~~~~~

Got a call today from Nancy. She and her daughters, Shelly and Dee, stopped by to see me around noon. We looked at wedding pictures I took at Tim’s wedding last year. It was kinda fun to have some folks around who weren’t afraid to speak their mind. Family!

BTW, I loaned my Dumbing Us Down by JT Gatto to Shelly. She’s a schoolteacher and we’ve discussed Gatto’s work before. When she’s done, I have his The Underground History of American Education for her to read as well. You can read it online by clicking on the link.

Meanwhile, Dee brought me a book on the Oneidas and how they fared between 1860 and 1920. I’m already seeing red reading about the governmental acculturation of the Indian kids. And the government isn’t doing this to our own kids still? Check this toy out!

~~~~~~~~~

After Ben got up, we ordered pizza. This is the longest it’s been in a while since I had chemo--almost two weeks--so I was waiting to see how the pizza tasted. What a waste of time! While it’s not the “Kleenex tissue” taste, the taste just wasn’t there. I had the honey mustard dip for the chicken strips. I could taste the sweet, but the mustard just didn’t come through at all.

I tried some Kung Pao Chicken the other day. It is funny that my stomach didn’t react to the spice, but my mouth felt pretty warm. That’s not usually how it works. My mouth wouldn’t normally feel too terribly warm due to Kung Pao Chicken. And my stomach has never been bothered by spice. So there are some side effects affecting my mouth in addition to lack of taste. But it’s strange that it hasn’t affected my sense of smell, I don’t think. Those are neurons too.

I need to be back on my pain meds just to eat. I had to get up from the table today, take my pain meds, and wait for them to kick in before I finished my piece of 6-Cheese pizza. Now, it’s understandable. They are killing cells at the gastro-esophageal juncture where all the food passes through before hitting the stomach. So if the tissue there is in any pain or irritated at all, my pushing food by that point is going to have some negative impact.

But I think I might end up on a soft food or liquid diet here real soon. But after Wednesday, I’m off Radiation and Chemo!!! Yeah!!

Kunolunkwa, y te quiero.

"As a juror, I will exercise my 1000-year-old duty to arrive at a verdict, not just on the basis of the facts of a particular case, or instructions I am given, but through my power to reason, my knowledge of the Bill of Rights, and my individual conscience. When needful, I will judge the law itself." -L. Neil Smith