September 2023 – Travels with Fred

Update to Part 66

30 September 2023

I have no idea what happened but after posting today’s blog, I had a burst of energy. That sometimes happens when I have hydration infusions but I was so wiped from yesterday, it was unexpected.

I went on a cleaning binge. I did my monthly deep clean of the house from top to bottom and then washed two loads of clothes. Add grocery shopping to the list and you can see it’s like someone lit a fire under me. I’ll probably crash before too long.

I was so hot after cleaning, I decided to go into the pool. The humidity was intense and it was hot outside but just as I was about to jump in the pool, I realized the heater had kicked in. Perhaps it was due to all the rain yesterday but I admit the heat from the jets in the pool felt pretty good.

The pool dip was around 6:30 am and that’s not dawn you see in the background – it’s the city lights of Fort Lauderdale

I hated to get out but I eventually crawled out and had a cold water rinse to get the chlorine off me. When I looked up, I saw an almost full moon (yesterday was the full moon).

September 28-30 is the harvest moon. It was pretty spectacular.

While grocery shopping, I remembered a recipe from Chef Jean-Pierre for chicken wings so I bought a pack. I’m cooking them now and I’ll probably have a few for lunch and save the rest for either tonight or tomorrow. He uses a dry rub at first and then coats them with a sauce.

I confess to running out of sesame oil. I usually have at least two bottles hanging around the house but I compensated by adding extra of the other stuff for the sauce. I test tasted the sauce and it’s pretty good. The recipe is below.

For the Dry Mix:

1 tablespoon Onion Powder
2 teaspoons Garlic Powder
1 teaspoon Ground Cumin
1 tablespoon Hungarian Paprika
¼ teaspoon Cayenne Powder
1 teaspoon Herb de Provence (optional)

For the Glaze:

2 tablespoons Toasted Sesame Oil
1 tablespoon Hot Sauce
2 tablespoons Acacia Honey
2 tablespoons Maple Syrup
½ cup Oster Sauce
2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 or 2 teaspoons fresh Lemon Juice
2 tablespoons Sesame Seeds

For the Dipping Sauce:

½ cup Sour Cream
2 tablespoons Mayonnaise
2 tablespoons Plain Yogurt
1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard
1 tablespoon Harissa or your favorite hot sauce
1 tablespoon Garlic finely chopped
2 tablespoons Blue Cheese
1 teaspoon Parsley chopped
Salt and Pepper to taste

RECIPE INSTRUCTIONS

Makes: 15 chicken wings or drumettes (drumsticks)

Preheat Oven to 375°F / 190°C

Make the Dry Mix:

Make your dry mixture and rub the chicken with a bit of olive oil and coat them with the dry mixture. Place on a non-stick baking sheet or parchment paper and bake them at 375°F for 45 minutes

Make the Glaze:

Mix all the ingredients and taste to make sure you can taste ALL the ingredients.
Brush some of that glaze on the chicken and return to the oven and broil them for a few minutes. Take them out and sprinkle the sesame seeds.

Make the Dipping Sauce:

Mix well using a small whisk and adjust salt and pepper to taste.

Stay tuned!

Cancer Update – Part 66

30 September 2023

I knew it was too good to be true. I went 6 days without any diarrhea. It came to an end yesterday evening after my hydration infusion. I had two explosive episodes that impressed even an old hand like me. Four days ago I went from two Imodium AD and two Lomotil every four hours (alternating) to one each. I’m now back to the 2-fer routine.

I was so tired I went to bed around 8:30 last night and then started to get chills. I put the down comforter on the bed and finally got warm. Then the aches to the long bones and joints started and I popped two Advil and a Claritin. It worked well enough to allow me to doze off to sleep but then I was wide awake (and achy) at 2 this morning. I’ll probably need several naps today.

At the moment (2:38 am) I feel pretty decent, considering, although my temperature this morning was 99.5°F. Hopefully I’ll have enough energy to do a cursory house cleaning and wash clothes. I also found out my unopened quart of milk had turned so no cereal for me. I need to go grocery shopping on Sunday anyway.

It seems my “to do” list is piling up. I need to return a volume of Flora of North America for a refund, I need to recycle my Apple Watch and iMac computer and all three necessitate a trip to UPS which can be a pain. Additionally, even though I purchased the iPad Pro with cellular capabilities, it has yet to show any inclination to provide those services. It’ll probably result in a series of phone calls to Apple and AT&T, both claiming it’s not their fault. It’ll all get done but I’m an impatient person (I’m sure that’s news to you).

Apparently, Fort Lauderdale went through a deluge yesterday. When Joel picked me up to carry me to the cancer center, it had not rained at the house but when we got closer to the center, most strip mall parking lots were under water. By the time I got back home (4 hours later) the deluge had hit my neighborhood so everyone got a pretty good soaking. Add to that and we are due King tides so things may get a little squishy around South Florida.

I may post an update to my update sometime today between naps and household chores. Then again, I may just crawl back into bed and stay there.

Stay tuned!

Cancer Update – Part 65

29 September 2023

The muscle relaxer did a number of me. I was in a daze all day yesterday not sure whether I was coming or going. I ended up napping for a couple of hours after doing some small stuff around the house but definitely didn’t feel like doing the morning walk, yoga, or swimming. I don’t know if the drug had anything to do with it but the numbness in my fingers and toes is much worse. I’ll be curious to see if they do the ice treatment today for the hydration infusion. I’m still pretty wiped out today but that could be the effect of the fourth day after chemo.

I did manage to straighten a few things out with the Apple Watch and McAfee Antivirus program. Of course, I managed to remove the new Apple Watch from the system and then had to re-install. Perhaps not a good idea to do computer things while in a drug fog.

I didn’t walk this morning, do yoga or swim laps. I was doing good to get out of bed. I did manage to clean the pool filter this morning but that was only because I could sit down while doing it. I missed last week and definitely needed to get it clean today.

I realize the chemo is cumulative in its effects but this week has hit me pretty hard. I suspect I’ll be hit harder yet. Strangely, in addition to the numbness, the muscle tics, bloody nose and shortness of breath, I seem to be developing little red spots all over my body.

The large spot is an old bruise but it won’t heal. The little tiny red spots are on both arms and my torso. They really don’t itch, *per se* but look a little strange.

My energy level is pretty low. I haven’t done a morning walk in a while and I’m not sure when I’ll be doing it again. The only good news is that there are only three more Taxol treatments. My last is on October 17. Of course, I’ve been receiving Herceptin every three weeks and my next Herceptin + Taxol treatment is October 3rd. After the Taxol, it’ll be Herceptin only until August 21, 2024.

Around 10 am I realized I was not in any shape to drive to the cancer center. I called Joel and he was free to take me. I didn’t want to chance it. I still felt dizzy and a little disoriented. Joel showed up early and delivered me in plenty of time. I’ll call him when finished. I couldn’t give him an estimate of when but usually the hydration runs three or four hours.

Phailia is my nurse today. She’s very efficient and had my blood drawn for testing within a few minutes of sitting down. I’m awaiting the test results but I suspect it’ll be saline and magnesium, like every time before.

So far, it’s pretty quiet in the infusion center and there are a lot of open chairs but I suspect it’ll pick up a little later. Phailia said they had 97 patients through so far. The typical number is around 85. Today while I was waiting, they rang two bells to denote two people had finished their chemo.

2:18 pm
The CBC with Auto Differential came back. The white blood cell was low (5.0) but in normal range. The red blood cell, hemoglobin and hematocrit, as usual, were low. The neutrophils relative were high but otherwise the other parameters that are usually off are back to normal.

Mia the nutritionist stopped by to check on me. She’s always up and always has a few suggestions!

2:34 pm
The Comprehensive Metabolic Panel came back with the usual low sodium. Glucose was typically high for this time of day at 167. Magnesium was 1.4 (normal 1.9-2.7). Situation normal. Funny how some things never change and others have subtly gotten better. My blood results are certainly much better than when I first started chemotherapy

The hydration finished around 4:30 and Joel picked me up and dropped me home. As you can probably tell, today has been a little of a downer. I’ve never had to have anyone drive me to an infusion. Hopefully, by Tuesday’s chemo, I’ll be able to drive myself. I hate to depend on someone but I know I have plenty of people who will volunteer to drive me if necessary.

The good thing is that the hydration infusion made me feel much better than when I went in. Go saline! Go magnesium!

Stay tuned!

Everything Fred – Part 131

28 September 2023

Yesterday, I managed a walk, yoga stretches and to swim laps. I didn’t do my usual 100 strokes of the breast stroke – too out of breath but at least I got the rest of the exercise in. I felt really good for the day after an infusion and my energy level was up.

I made it to Walgreens to pick up the muscle relaxer prescribed by Dr. Velez and it cost me all of $0.27. I kinda hated to use a credit card but to be honest, they prefer it to making change.

The rest of the afternoon was spent working the kinks out of the new computer. One problem I finally solved was decommissioning the old computer and iPad with McAfee Antivirus and adding the new computer and new iPad. McAfee requires you to contact them personally to do this but once I got an agent on the phone it went pretty smoothly – except-they always have some issue that needs to be resolved with an Apple product.

In this particular case, I have a McAfee alert notice that appears on my computer screen and will not go away. The agent promised me the technical team is working on it and will soon have a solution. That’s not gonna happen. I had an issue with them before with the old computer that anytime you loaded McAfee is told you the fire guard was not engaged although it was. That never went away either. Still, I had rather have McAfee as an extra layer of security with the Apple security features.

Today I need to work with Apple to make sure my Apple Watch works with my old phone number. It’s nice to be able to answer phone calls on the Apple Watch instead of trying to pull your phone out of your pocket.

I did take a muscle relaxant last night and slept well (they make you drowsy). However, I feel very hung over this morning. I decided not to walk because I didn’t want to stagger around the neighborhood like the local drunk. If I’m up to it later, I’ll head to Walgreens to pick up another prescription. If it affects me so much the next morning, that will be one prescription to join the others that I no longer take due to side effects. I’m not sure it prevented any muscle spasms anyway.

As I wrote about before, I am building a collection of the Flora of North America. I just recently received two volumes and then I received duplicates. Apparently my standing order is still in effect even though there’s no way for me to check on that. In any case, I had to return one and now I need to return a second volume. Strangely, if you have a standing order for the volumes you get them later than if you order them directly online. In any case, I get to stand in line at the UPS store to return the second duplicate. Hopefully they will remember to credit my credit card for the amount.

Today is another dreary day in Fort Lauderdale, again with rain predicted. So far, it’s been every day this week with some of the downpours pretty heavy. Usually by September I’m having to add water to the pool so I should be happy I don’t. For some reason I received duplicate water bills yesterday. Duplicates seem to be standard for me these days with books and water bills. Hopefully, they’ll automatically deduct only one amount and not deduct both bills.

Poor Fort Lauderdale. It’s had its troubles lately when someone fooled them into paying invoices of $1.2 million dollars in a phishing scam. Of course, everyone is standing in a circle and pointing fingers at each other as to whose responsibility it was. The annual budget is for $458 million so I guess $1.2 million isn’t too bad. I think they caught the scam in enough time to recoup some of the funds.

Thursdays have become days waiting on hydration sessions on Fridays, much like Mondays have become waiting days for chemo infusions. At least, I have more scheduled now and I’ve got all 9 sessions on the calendar for Taxol. I’ve also been scheduled through January of next year for Herceptin and have an echocardiogram on October 5th to check my heart from the effects of Herceptin.

I really cannot tell whether I’m adapting well to the chemotherapy or not. Some days are really good and some weeks are really bad. I do seem to have a good team in the surgeon, Dr. Burgers, Dr. Velez and the Nurse Navigator Kathy. I also seem to have become a favorite of Mia, the Nutritionist who keeps giving me things to help with the diarrhea. Maybe I can weather the storm after all.

Stay tuned!

Cancer Update – Part 64

27 September 2023

What a difference a day makes. I got out of bed around 4:45 am this morning and actually felt really good. I’m usually just OK after a chemo treatment but Julianne gave me a whole liter of saline and that seemed to make a difference. I think I can even tell a difference in the numbness of toes and fingers from the ice baths. I hope they continue these even when I go in for hydration on Friday. The use bags are painful but if it helps the numbness, I’m in.

Most importantly, in the last two days, I’ve had four bowel movements: 1 semisolid and three solid stools (I know, TMI). I haven’t gone three solid stools since my first chemo treatment on June 5th which put me in the hospital because of diarrhea. The only thing I can contribute the change to is the Metamucil. Soluble fiber is now my mantra!

My testosterone test came back in the low range of normal. My score was 194 and the normal range is 175-781. I’ll be curious if Dr. Velez decides to provide injections to boost the testosterone.

I need to head to Walgreens today to pick up the muscle relaxant. As you might guess, I had narry a muscle spasm after the treatment. I did have restless leg last night and downed a Xanax and 2 Advil and that quieted down by the time I turned in a little after 10 pm. I’ll definitely try the muscle relaxant if it calms down the spasms.

I managed 1.45 miles on my morning walk with a sprinkle of rain accompanying me on the walk with 98% humidity. It was pitch black at 5:30 am and there were very few house lights so I assume most people have their alarms set for 6 to go to work. It’s taken me years to get used to EST and EDT. I remember in Mississippi in the Central Time Zone how weird it was that national news came on at strange times, ball games started at weird times, and many tv shows were a little off kilter on the time due to the influence of the eastern US.

It got worse when I moved to Montana for a job with the Bureau of Land Management in the Mountain Time Zone. Strangely, as a consequence, Montanans often followed Ole Miss football since Ole Miss played a lot of night games during those years. It was pretty much the only option in the Mountain states and the team had a real following. I’ll admit that it opened some doors to me that would not have been open if I hadn’t been an Ole Miss graduate.

My plan today is do yoga, try to swim laps, get the prescription at Walgreens and then bundle up my old computer for recycling. If anyone wants it, I’ll be happy to send it to you. It’s an iMac 27 inch screen which they don’t make any more with at least 1 terabyte of memory. I’ll miss the 27 inch screen. The only real problem is Apple does not provide any iOS upgrades to the operating system and you are stuck with the last one they supported. Email or text me if you want it. Otherwise, I’ll ship it to be recycled.

We are on a timer and people forget to shut the timer off in the rainy season. Of course, when the rainy season is over, I’ll have to go around and check sprinkler heads that are stopped up from lack of use. It’s part of the homeowners game. Sprinkler heads always need work.

I hope this week is better than last week. When I broached the subject with Dr. Velez and I suggested the cumulative effects of Taxol, he just nodded his head. He’s scheduled me for my Taxol infusions through October 17 and then every 3 weeks after for Herceptin. I assume I’ll be getting echocardiograms about every three months to check for heart damage. At least, the week has started well.

Stay tuned!

Cancer Update – Part 63

26 September 2023

I finally figured out what I did wrong in trying to transfer files from the old iMac to the new iMac. It was a simple solution where I had clicked the wrong thing. I left the house this morning with the files almost all done. After that, I need to decommission the old iMac. Anyone want it? I’m only going to recycle it if no one wants it.

They took me back around 9:20 this morning and Julianne is my nurse again. I really like her. She said she’s celebrating three years as a nurse this week.

Julianne inserted the IV to the port and then flushed it. She’s administering the saline and magnesium. The blood tests are next.

The CBC with Auto/Differential came back at 9:50 am. The white blood cells are still normal, the red blood cells, hematocrit and hemoglobin were low.

Neutrophils relative were high and lymphocytes relative were low – the usual. The lymphocytes absolute and monocytes absolute were both low – again as usual.

The Comprehensive Metabolic panel came back as usual with low sodium, high glucose (212) and low magnesium. I assume the high glucose is due to having had breakfast before I came. It tends to be high anyway because they keep giving me steroids during the infusion.

The nutritionist, Mia from Sweden, came by and offered me some samples of Enterade, a new product that helps with diarrhea and other digestive issues.

She gave me 8 of these and the brochure on it. That’s really nice of her. It’s a relatively new product with lots of amino acids and helps with a myriad of digestive issues.

Dr. Velez stopped by just a little before 11 am. I had my four questions ready. As to the numbness, a clinal study found that dipping your toes and fingers into ice baths 15 minutes before the Taxol and 15 minutes after the Taxol stopped the numbness. We may even try that today.

As far as the muscle spasms, he’s prescribed a low dose muscle relaxant. I’ll probably pick that up later. The Nurse Navigator, Kathy, is now working on getting the echocardiogram scheduled. She got it scheduled for October 5th.

When I asked about scheduling after the October 3rd date, Dr. Velez sent Emma, the scheduling person, to work on everything after Oct 3rd. I may find the results of that today as well.

It’s now time for the Taxol infusion. I’ve already had my saline and magnesium IV’s. The Taxol should last 1 1/2 hours from now. That means I be sprung from this place sometime after 1 pm.

They decided to do the ice bath. First, they added water and when I tried my hands, I couldn’t keep my hands in very long. Another patient came by and said use only ice and not 15 minutes before the Taxol and 15 minutes after but instead to the ice bath for toes and feet all during the Taxol infusion. I had a bevy of nurses around me bringing me ice baths and towels, and a new warm blanket. They suggested I wear gloves. The problem is all the nurses have small hands and I wear large in glove size.

When was the last time you wore gloves on your feet? National Institutes of Health.

Even with just ice (and not ice water) it was torture keeping the hands and feet in the water, even for short periods of time. Everyone promises me this works.

Julianne decided to give me an addition 500 ml of saline to help with the dehydration. She’s pumping that in at the rate of 700 ml/hour so I should be done around 1:30 pm

Now it’s back to work on files on the new computer.

Everything Fred – Part 130 Update

25 September 2023

Well, they delivered! The Apple Watch came first around 5:30 pm and then the iMac was delivered around 6:45 pm. Things must be very busy for both UPS and DHL. Both arrived in good shape. Apple does very nice packaging.

New Apple Watch Ultra – Jeez, talk about crepe skin!

The watch face is larger than I expected. It was a pretty quick set up but there was one glitch about using my home phone and allowing it to connect with the Apple Watch. I think it automatically corrected itself.

I think you can see there is a size difference here. That’s a good thing considering my eyesight seems to be getting worse.

I’m waiting to use migration assistant on the iMac to transfer the files from the old iMac to the new iMac. The new iMac hasn’t seemed to recognize the old iMac yet so I’ll just let it run a while.

There’s definitely a size difference in the screens.

I’ll be curious as to how easy it’ll be to transfer files. I may have to call their help desk if the new iMac doesn’t recognize the old one. In any case, I have a Time Capsule backup and iCloud backup of the old computer, so I’ll get there eventually.

Tonight I made Chef Jean-Pierre’s honey garlic chicken. It’s an easy recipe as long as you do your miss en place.

Here’s my version of honey garlic chicken with rice

You can get the recipe and see his video below.

I’ve attended a couple of his cooking classes before he retired from that. He has a YouTube channel that has become very successful. I can certainly recommend this dish. It comes together really quickly so cook your rice first. You can freeze servings for up to 3 months.

Stay tuned!

Everything Fred – Part 130

25 September 2023

Another 11 hour night of sleep. Yet, I’m exhausted to the point I didn’t even try to walk this morning. My nose is running like a faucet and I’m having tiny muscle spasms.

To be honest, the spasms/twitches started after the mastectomy but seem to have gotten worse since I started chemo. It is mostly on the left side of the body (where the mastectomy occurred) and mostly clustered on the left part of my left hand, my left side of the left biceps, and just above the mastectomy scar. It was so bad one night, I was on my stomach and I could hear the twitching hitting the sheet and mattress. Other than it seemingly makes me look and feel like I’m doing a St. Vitus dance (and keeping me awake for a while) there doesn’t seem to be any harm.

There are three things I wish to discuss with Dr. Velez tomorrow. He usually stops by during the infusion. The first is the muscle spasms. The second is lack of libido and the third is the echocardiogram. Actually, there’s a fourth thing – why am I scheduled for only 7 Taxol treatments and not 9. Looks like I will keep him busy tomorrow. The good news is that I’ve had 2 semisolid stools the last two days and no diarrhea. I opted for only 1 Imodium AD this morning. I may pay for that later.

Last night at 12:45 am we had an electrical storm. It was impressive in that a clap of thunder waked me and then it proceeded to entertain me for about an hour. I actually got out of bed and went to the front porch and did a video of it.

This was the non-threatening type of storm where you could just watch it, enjoy it and not be worried that it was gonna tear the house apart. I started out listening to it in bed and watching the lightning flashes and then counting 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi… and then dividing by 5 to get the distance. You could hear and calculate it getting closer and closer.

Since sound travels slower than light (767 mph on average) , it takes 5 seconds for you to hear the sound after seeing a lightning flash. I learned this as a kid, probably from some comic book (educational reading). It’s pretty accurate. By the way, you say 1 Mississippi because it takes one second to say the number and the state.

In Boy Scouts, towards the close of a meeting, the scoutmasters tried to calm us down a little before sending us home. One technique was to play a quiet game at the end. I remember Sgt. Stokes, our assistant scoutmaster, having us all sit around in a circle and estimate how long 1 minute took. When you thought a minute was up, you would stand up. I knew the 1 Mississippi trick and I won that game every time. No one figured out how I did it. Better education through comics.

I received a notice this morning from UPS that my Apple Watch would be delivered sometime between now and 7 pm tonight. Right! Strangely, I also received a notice from DHL that my new computer would also be delivered today. It wasn’t supposed to come until September 27th and the last time I checked it was still in China somewhere. DHL says they’ll deliver it between 1 and 3 pm today. Looks like it’ll be a busy day today. I need to back up everything and then start transferring files.

I like my old desktop. However, it’s been through the wars. I had to replace the hard drive once and Apple has quit doing iOS upgrades because the computer is so old. The new desktop has a smaller screen but I can compensate by enlarging images pretty easily. Then there will be the usual getting accustomed to the new formats.

Last night I decided I actually needed to eat something of a real dinner. I bought a chuck roast at Whole Foods yesterday and made Dad’s pot roast. I’ve had a lot of pot roasts over the years and none can touch Dad’s.

You first salt and pepper the roast and then sear it on all sides in a cast iron skillet. I then sprinkle a packet of Lipton’s Onion Soup mix over the roast and add 3/4 to 1 cup of water around the roast, cover with a lid and then slow cook it at 320°F for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. At the end of two hours, I take it out and add cut up potatoes, carrots, and onions, salt the vegetables, and then put the whole thing back in the oven, covered with a lid. The roast comes out fork tender and the vegetables are perfectly done. The roast was much more than I could eat (again, not much appetite) so I froze the rest for when I don’t feel like cooking. Dad would sometimes use a crock pot but I prefer the cast iron skillet version.

Hopefully, my energy level will pick up today. If not, I’m not adverse to crawling back into bed and reading and napping. Stay tuned!

Everything Fred – Part 129

24 September 2023

Nine hours! I’m really sleeping a lot. Not sure why. It’s not depression. Maybe I just need it. Of course, those nine hours were interrupted every hour for a trip to the bathroom. I assume that’s because they keep pumping me full of saline.

I actually feel better than yesterday although that’s not saying a great deal. I only started feeling better yesterday around the time I made a chocolate malt. Hmmm! Cause and effect!

I feel up to a walk this morning but of course, it’s started to rain. Maybe I can get one in between rain showers. There’s certainly been a difference in temperatures and humidity. It’s almost like it’s fall in South Florida. You can’t really go by leaf drop since most of our subtropical trees drop leaves in the spring or summer. It took me a while to get use to that concept.

Just as I thought I might make it out the door for the walk, this happened.

It was accompanied by a lot of wind, lightning and thunder. The walk is postponed until tomorrow.

I wasted a lot of time yesterday watching college football. Just as I thought Florida State had lost and turned to the Ole Miss/Alabama game, FSU pulled it out. Ole Miss lost. Never bet against Alabama when coming off a loss and playing at home. College football has lost a lot of its allure for me as it has become more and more commercial and as the athletic departments more and more drive the institution instead of the other way around.

On a more positive note, Ole Miss is considered academically the best four year public institution in the state (not that is saying much). I’m not familiar with Niche but this is the second time I’ve seen the rating for Ole Miss (from a different source). As far as private, my vote goes to Millsaps.

Speaking of Ole Miss and football, years ago when I was an undergraduate, the Chancellor, J.D. Williams, got caught in an elevator with a legislator in the capitol building. The legislator asked Dr. Williams why Ole Miss didn’t give out complimentary tickets to legislators like Mississippi State did. Dr. Williams replied that Ole Miss would provide free tickets when it could no longer sell them. In essence, he was saying that Ole Miss sold all their tickets and didn’t have any left over to give away. You gotta love the rivalries between state institutions.

Dr. Williams was interesting. You would see him walking around campus with his wife and he would always make a point to stop and talk with students. I met him numerous times outside the Lyceum as he cut across the campus heading to one place or another. Since that time, I never ran into another Chancellor again. Too isolated.

Ole Miss had a reputation of being a little snobby. I guess that happens when you have all the Delta boys and girls coming from their plantations to go to school. One joke that made the rounds on campus was a Mississippi State student was on campus and asked “Where is the student union at?” An Ole Miss student replied, “Here at Ole Miss, we don’t end our sentences with a preposition.” The State student then rephrased the question “Where’s the student union at asshole.”

As a freshman, I liked to hang out at the old student union building. They made great hamburgers for a decent price, it also had the post office, and that’s where the barber shops were located. To go to the bathroom, you either had to go in the basement or up to the second floor.

The second floor bathroom was fascinating. Someone had taken a pencil and the beginning of the semester and written on the wall as you entered the door “Why?” The next week, someone had written “Because.” Over the next two semesters the writing continued and completely filled all the walls and stalls in the bathroom with philosophical arguments. People would visit to just see what the next statement proclaimed. Anyone could add to the discussion. Even more important, the college didn’t bother to repaint the bathroom until the walls were completely covered and there was no more room to write anything.

The physical plant at Ole Miss had an interesting attitude. Any time a new building went up on campus, physical plant never put sidewalks in until a year had gone by. The placement of the sidewalks was determined by the natural paths students took to the building. I always thought that a smart idea. Why put sidewalks where architects thought they might need them but actually where students walked to and fro to the building?

It’s time to go grocery shopping, then lunch, then a nap, then my phone conversation with Jimmie. I guess this is another recovery day. Monday should bring the new Apple Watch to my door (fingers crossed) and Tuesday is my 6th chemo infusion. Wednesday, my computer is supposed to arrive (although it was still in China earlier this week). Friday is hydration infusion. As a retired person, I seem to have a lot on my plate.

Remember, you can order free test kits for Covid starting tomorrow at https://www.covid.gov/tests.

Stay tuned!

Cancer Update – Part 62

23 September 2023

Stella was my nurse yesterday. They were a little late bringing me back and a little late getting started. Stella’s computer had died and she had to use other nurses’ when they weren’t on them.

The CBC with Auto Differential showed white blood cell count normal, red blood cell count, hemoglobin, and hematocrit as low. Interestingly, only the Neutrophils relative were high and the lymphocytes relative, neutrophils absolute and lymphocytes absolute were normal. Strange.

The Comprehensive Metabolic Panel showed my sodium low, my glucose high (197) my ALT (SGPT)) as high (liver function) and total protein as low. That’s a little different from last time. For some reason, they didn’t check my magnesium level but gave me the full dose.

I finished both saline and magnesium IV around 4:15 pm so that was around 3 hours at the infusion center. It certainly made a difference from how I felt when I went in and when I came out.

While getting the infusion, someone completed their chemo and got to ring the bell.

I made it back to the house around 5 pm and UPS had not delivered my Apple Watch. Who knows when it will get here. They allow you to actually track the UPS vehicle but it never seems to get anywhere close to my house. Later, they sent me a notice it would be delivered on Monday. Perhaps.

Today is the first time I’ve felt the chemotherapy is cumulative. I slept eleven hours last night. Usually, the day after a hydration infusion, I have a burst of energy but not today. I didn’t do my morning walk and I probably won’t clean the pool filter today (I was supposed to yesterday). Hopefully, I can do a touch up house cleaning and get the clothes washed.

My peripheral neuropathy is worse. It started as just some numbness in the toes and now its spread to all the toes and the soles of my feet. I think I have some in my hands as well.

I continue to have bloody discharge from the nose. It’s not really a nose bleed like I had as a kid but a lot of blood when I blow my nose. I still have my eyebrows, at least. I don’t have to break out the sharpie yet.

Tuesday will be my 6th treatment with Taxol. Strangely, they have me booked only through October 3rd to make 7 Taxol treatments. I’m supposed to have 9. I’ll have to ask Dr. Velez about that. I assume they only book a specific number in case the situation changes. Taxol is the anticancer drug and I’ll be glad to be through with that with either 7 or 9 treatments. In reality, the every three weeks of Herceptin (monoclonal antibody) has some of the same side effects as Taxol (including diarrhea). Looks like I’ll be wearing adult diapers for at least a year.

Looks like napping during some football games is on the agenda for this afternoon. Stay tuned!