Weekend Bonus Feature - November 30th

Weekend Bonus Feature - Mai Hosho
Well, gentle readers, this will be the last Weekend Bonus Feature or Woman of the Moment for the foreseeable future. I will leave these photos up for at least a week. I am wondering if I should bring back any of the Women of the Moment for the month of December.






Be well and stay happy.

Wrapping Up the Loose Ends

Wrapping Up the Loose Ends
It has rained for most of the day in Southern California.

Can you believe that? We actually had a good, for us anyway, amount of rain. We can look forward to some mudslides in the coming weeks in the areas that were burned over in the recent wildfires.

You know it is a slow day for local television news when the local station opened its mid-day news report with the “Storm Watch” segment.

I was going to go to the market today. That got rained out; I have no desire to wade through a market parking lot in the rain. I can get the food this weekend.

One of my friends sent me an email that had a link to the Chinese language school website. The school had a very good hook to catch one’s attention. They had a program that would take your non-Chinese name and birth date and would create an appropriate Chinese name. I tried the program.

My Chinese name would be Ran Sheng-han.

Fascinating.

I also started working on my Christmas cards. I got most of the cards addressed so all I have left to do is sign my name on the cards and on the Christmas letters. I hope to be able to finish the cards on Saturday.

Teaching
My school where I teach had what is called in the education game an in-service session on Thursday. This is a fancy name for teacher training. It counts for the accreditation program. It was very useful for me because I learned about the new grading and attendance system that is supposed to go live on Monday when the new term starts. They also gave a nice lunch and a nice breakfast. Food is always helpful at times like these.

The other two educational sessions were lost on me. One was on Photoshop and I was in over my head just after I logged into the test – training web site. I figured out that it would be easier to send the photo to Doug and then let him work on it on one of his Apple machines and then send it back to me as a .JPEG file.

Perfectomundo.

The other training session was how to use the function keys in Microsoft Word. I gave up on function keys when the graphic user interface came to Windows 3.0.

Still, it all looks good on the records at evaluation time.

My Friend Sharon
My friend Sharon called me on Thursday evening.

This was out first call in maybe three months. I used to call her but I soon gave up on that futile exercise. When I called her at work, she was always busy or just about to go into a meeting. I never know where or what photo to try to call her after work or on the weekends because she is doing something or going somewhere.

Anyway, we talked for about forty minutes as she drove home from her office. We talked about the Princess’ wedding and how wonderful it was. I asked Sharon to be a guest speaker for my Marketing Research class this coming term. She is a marketing professional and has won awards for her promotions and other activities. Her current promotion is running at 159% of its goal and, obviously, everyone at her bank is very happy with the results.

I will have to nag her to get her to make a commitment to speak at my class.

My Non-Haircut
I was supposed to have a haircut this morning from my favorite stylist, Amber.

I am a morning person and like to get things done early in the day. My appointment was for 9:30AM. I sent Amber an email to remind. The receptionist called Amber to remind her that I was coming in for an early appointment.

I am also a very punctual person. I arrived at the salon at 9:28. It was raining on the hard side, for Southern California, so I ran a little from my car to the salon.

Today was the first time I have been in the remodeled salon. I think the new salon is a quantum improvement from the dark old look. The new look is more open and brighter. The ceiling is exposed and this is a solid modern look without being oppressive.

I had lots of time to take in the new salon look as I waited for Amber to show up.

I also had lots of time to talk to Natalie the Receptionist. I really like Natalie; she is bright, happy, always smiling, and a great conversationalist. We talked about Thanksgiving and our holiday plans.

While I was waiting, the owner of the salon showed up and was surprised to see me waiting for Amber to show up. She apologized and suggested that I might want to go do some other things and come back in the afternoon. I thanked Molly for the suggestion but the extra trip was just so not going to happen because I had no assurance that Amber would be there and that she would be able to cut my hair. Besides, I did not want to waste any more gasoline.

Natalie spoke to the owner about having her cut my hair. I graciously declined this offer and said I would wait a little longer for Amber to show up.

At 10:35, Amber phoned the salon to say she just woke up.

I had previously set a mental time limit of leaving at 10:45 if Amber had not arrived at the salon. It was easy for me to put on my coat and walk to the Pathfinder in the light rain.

Natalie tap danced over the eggshells to tell me that Amber was just getting out of bed. I think she was expecting me to get furious and blow up. I remained calm and collected. There was no need for her to apologize for Amber’s nonperformance today. I said that I would call Natalie in a couple of weeks, after I start my second chemotherapy cycle, and reschedule the haircut. I said I wanted to see how the next cycle would affect me.

Natalie wanted to know if I was OK. I explained a little about the cancer and the treatments. I didn’t want to go into a long explanation as I was in the process of leaving the salon.

I had some time this afternoon to think things over about my feeling toward Amber and the Molly Moon Salon. I don’t think I want to go back to Amber because she and I are completely opposites when it comes to time and commitments. I suppose I could try the owner since she offered to cut my hair today.

In the end, I concluded that the only reason why I continue to go to the Molly Moon Salon or consider going there for a haircut is Natalie the Receptionist. Natalie is the only reason why I would drive twenty five miles – forty kilometers to the Naples section of Long Beach for a haircut.

Natalie makes it all worthwhile for me. The amazing aspect is that all Natalie does is talk to me while I wait for Amber. That and take my appointments and call to remind me about the appointments.

Absolutely fascinating for me.


Be well and stay happy.

Random Thoughts and Bad Karma

Random Thoughts
I made our lunch reservation at Morton’s on Sunday evening. We will have lunch around 1:00 PM and that is not too late. This will be more like my dinner so I will be having a light dinner that Thursday. The receptionist who took my reservation did not know Lily the Server so she may have gone off to bigger and better things. For all we know, Lily could have graduated from California State University Long Beach by now.

Doug and I have learned to handle a new server. It is not the end of the world for us.

I saw Sharon Tay on the local television news broadcast on Sunday night. She was reporting from the Hollywood Santa Parade. That was not the big news story of the day in Southern California. The big news story for the last few days has been the wildfire in Malibu.

Sharon’s web site is still not functioning. I guess she is taking her time to build the site properly. Maybe it is not that important to her now.

On a related note, the Speed Options web site is not functioning properly either. It has not been updated since July 2007 and that would seem to indicate that there may be some trouble with Speed Options itself. This is not a major concern for me since I am no longer having a Woman of the Moment feature.

I contributed my part to Cyber Monday and made an online purchase from Amazon.com to purchase some software that would run on Windows Vista Business. The old software was designed to run on Windows 98 and it died when I tried to load onto the new laptop.

I weighed myself this morning. I tipped the scale at 174 pounds / 79 kilograms. I am up two pounds / one kilogram from last week’s measurement. I figure that the Thanksgiving Holiday played a part in the weight gain. My quart and a half / one and a liter of Haagen Daze super premium mocha ice cream with chocolate chunks in it certainly did not help my plan to stabilize my weight around 170 – 172 pounds / 77 – 78 kilograms. I ought to be able to lower my weight in the next week or so.

Recovery – Part 7
I finished my first chemotherapy cycle on Monday. So far, so good; I feel fine.

I started walking for exercise. I am walking about a mile; I didn’t bother to convert the distance into kilometers. I am planning to walk three times a week and then work with weights on the off days. I think the exercise program will help my recovery.

The exercise program is based on the weather. I won’t be walking in the rain in the Winter. We have a tentative Winter weather forecast of a La Nina Season; that generally means a drier Winter so walking ought to be fairly steady for me.

Bad Karma
I usually teach a class on Monday nights. I have missed the Monday night [American] professional football games until this week.

I think I should have been in class. The football game was crummy; the field was a near swamp with almost steady rain and cold. Horrible conditions to play the game under. But, it was Monday night football so I settled in for a nice game.

The game was a scoreless tie until the 59 minute and 43 second mark of the 60 minute regulation play period. One team kicked a three point field goal and the final score was 3 – 0.

What a terrible waste of my time. I could have been reading a book. I could have even gone to bed early. Everyone makes bad decisions from time to time. This was one of my bad decisions.

Teaching and More Bad Karma
I went to school today to turn in my grades for the term. I only had one student fail. Actually, the student failed himself because he did not complete most of the homework assignments. If the student had completed two or three homework assignments, he would have passed the course. I don’t feel bad about the failure since I gave him extra time to complete them and email them to me.

When I was at school this morning, I checked on the tentative enrollments for my courses for next term. My Tuesday morning class is scheduled to have ten students and my Thursday morning class is scheduled to have four students. Those classes will be fun to teach since I can approach the course like a graduate level seminar with lots of student contact and discussion.

My Saturday writing class is scheduled to have 30 students. This will be a killer class for me; I will be reading and grading writing assignments every weekend. I know that some of the students are very weak writers who have trouble spelling properly and do not know how to write a proper English sentence.

I guess the Saturday class is my bad karma for having two fun courses this coming term.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - November 25th

Weekend Update
I wrote a Christmas letter for the first time. You gentle readers know what has happened to me so I don’t need to print it here next month. I have a number of friends that are not blog readers. They should be. I had the Princess and Doug take a look at it and they made a few minor suggestions to make it better.

I worked on my course grades over the weekend. I have a make up class on Monday to replace the one that was cancelled on Thanksgiving. I also have to create a quiz for my Monday class. I won’t be having a two week break between terms now. This allows the school to shut down for two weeks at Christmas and still have four, twelve week long terms in the year.

Doug and I were talking at Thanksgiving about going to Morton’s. Doug said going to Morton’s was an exception to his plan to avoid red meat starting now. He was saying that his friend Natalie was wondering what I was going to have a Morton’s. Natalie thought I could finish a small lobster tale and that any of the regular beef dishes would be too much for me.

Fortunately for us, I received an email from Morton’s that advertised special holiday lunches in December. This will be perfect for Doug and me. They serve everything we like for lunch and our favorite Morton’s is open for lunch Monday through Friday. We decided to go on a Thursday in early December before I go into my second chemotherapy cycle. Thursday also works well for me since I will be at school on Thursday morning. I will save some on the gasoline to get there.

Now, all we need or want is to have Lily the Server work there when we have lunch and have her for a server.

Visitors
We had visitors from Canada [7], Germany [2], Australia [4], Korea [2], Italy, Singapore, United Kingdom, India, Finland [3], Texas, Japan [5], Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Romania, and Brazil.

We also had one visitor who found what I wrote worthwhile and stopped by for 14 minutes.

I do appreciate all of you who took time out of your busy schedules to visit the blog during the week.

Football
Our University of Utah Utes lost to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah on Saturday afternoon 17 to 10. I suffered and watched the entire game on television. It was a depressing way to spend a perfectly nice Winter day at the beach.

I think the Utes lost the game rather than BYU beating the Utes. The Utes played like the Oakland Raiders and amassed almost 100 yards in penalties. Most of the penalties were key ones that kept BYU alive and in possession of the ball. In addition to sloppy play, the Utes had more mental lapses than a first time SAT test taker.

The Utah coach didn’t help matters any with his less then creative play calling. The only plays that seemed to work were play action passes. There were very few of those. The coach, for some reason, is in love with gadget plays such as triple reverses that ended up losing 10 or more yards.

Our Utes ended up with a season record of 8 wins and four losses and third in the Mountain West Conference; good enough to make it into a post season bowl game. BYU won the conference and should play in the Holiday Bowl in San Diego unless they get invited to a BCS game. I doubt that will happen.

The Utes will probably end up in a second tier post season bowl game. It will be one of those middle of December, middle of the week games to be shown on cable television. One of the possible bowl games that was mentioned was the Poinsettia Bowl; that came from the football game broadcast commentary.

On the plus side, a post season bowl game is likely to help the Utah recruiting effort.


That was my weekend. I hope you had a great weekend.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Bonus Feature - November 23rd

Weekend Bonus Feature - Mai Hosho
I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving. I did. I went to my ex-wife's house for dinner wit her and Doug. It was the first time in thirty years that I have not cooked the Thanksgiving Dinner.

We have some more Mai Hosho photos to help celebrate the weekend.





Be well and stay happy.

Happy Thanksgiving - November 22nd

Happy Thanksgiving
I want to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving. I hope that you can share and reflect on the meaning of the holiday. This is a quintessential American holiday and has it roots in the early European colonization. The holiday is especially important to me because I can trace my ancestors back to the Puritans who formed Massachusetts Bay Colony.

One really nice thing about Thanksgiving is that there is very little commercialization of the holiday. It is a good holiday about food and celebrating with family and friends.

This is the first year in a very long time that I have not cooked a Thanksgiving Day meal. I was unsure about my recovery speed when I came home from the hospital so I am going to have my dinner with my ex-wife and son at their house.

Christmas dinner will be at my flat again.

Recovery – Part 6 or maybe Part 5A
I don’t have a lot to add to my recovery progress today. I am now half way through the second week of my first chemotherapy cycle. I have had no adverse affects so far. I will finish this cycle on the 26th and then I am off chemotherapy until I see the doctors again on December 7th.

Teaching
It looks like I am going to have some students fail one of my classes. They will fail for the same reason; they did not complete the assignments. Two of the assignments count for 52% of the course grade so it is impossible to pass the course if you don’t complete those elements.

I suppose that I should feel sorry for the students. I can’t feel sorry; after ten weeks of constant nagging there is nothing left to do. The students have to take some responsibility for their results.

The school revised my teaching schedule for the next term. I will only be teaching three courses instead of four that were originally in schedule.

Life and schedules happen.

I lost my Saturday afternoon class. I think that is a good outcome because Saturday afternoon classes are difficult to teach because the students don’t want to be there. They leave at the middle of the course break and do not return. The course would have been a new one for me and it did not look all that interesting from an academic point of view.

One of my students did not complete all of her assignments because she went into labor. Now, I will have to go talk to the Dean about how I handle an incomplete grade for this student.

If I was heartless, I would argue that she knew she was going to deliver at the same time as the term ended and that she could have planned ahead for the assignments. Pregnancy, after all, takes time to develop so it was not a sudden event like my emergency operation last month.

Asian Personal Computer Keyboards
This has always made me wonder. I know that almost all keyboards are based on the Western alphabet and are very limited in size. I have seen Korean reporters, in this case, typing on a western sized laptop at a news conference and then having the traditional Korean character appear on the monitor screen.

My question is this. How do the computers process the typing? I am sure that there is a simple answer that is obviously eluding me right now.

Anyone out there have an answer for me?


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - November 18th

Weekend Update
I got a reminder for my high school class’s 45th reunion next year.

Wow, that makes me feel old. That also means in another five years and change it will be time for my class’s 50th reunion. I will be going to the reunion, all other things being equal and my health permits me to attend the event.

Something to look forward to for me; I might meet or, better, reconnect with a woman from my class. At least, we would have a few things in common to talk about.

Visitors
We had a pretty good week for visitors. We had visitors from Japan, Canada [3], Australia [6], Poland, Latvia, Russia, Ireland, Spain [2], Singapore [2], Jordan, United Kingdom [3], Korea, Texas [2], Guam, Yemen, Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Hungary.

We had no visitors that came and stayed around for more than ten minutes this week. I guess everyone was busy this week.

I do appreciate all of you who took time out of your days to visit the blog.

The Princess and the Golfer
I phoned the Princess this week to update her on my recovery. She was happy that my chemotherapy was going well and that I was eating well. We talked for about 25 minutes and most of the conversation was about me for a change.

I shared a Clemson University joke with her that made her very happy. She does not care for Clemson at all.

The Princess surprised me when she said she would not come home for Christmas as she has every other year since graduation from the University of Utah. While I will miss her, it is not like I have not had a chance to spend a lot of time with her recently. The Princess went on to say that she and the Golfer were moving to Seattle where the Golfer has a new job there at a great golf club.

On balance, the move to Seattle is positive. It is much easier to fly up and down the Coast than it is to fly across the country. It is also less expensive. The Princess will also be closer to her friends in Salt Lake City and Southern California. Her cousin, the Nutritionist and her husband, live in Seattle. The Princess will have some family there for her.

Happy Days Are Here Again; the Sky Above Is Blue Again
That happy sounding shouting you may have heard on Friday afternoon came from my wallet.

I knew my hospitalization was going to be expensive because I was uninsured at the time of the operation. I was thinking it would be more than USD$100,000. So naturally I was very happy when the bill came in at only USD$76,700. The fourteen page bill, full of codes and words that I could not understand, had a notice that there was a discount if I paid in thirty days.

Discount.

Excellent.

So I phoned the hospital about the discount on Friday. I had spent some time looking at the bill and found some questionable charges on the bill. I saw some medicine that I take regularly now. The hospital was charging me USD$124 a pill when I pay about USD$1 at my local pharmacy.

I was ready to argue and arbitrate the bill.

Then, the hospital representative said that, with my cash, pay in full, discount, the bill would be reduced to USD$23,000.

So much for arguing about a pill or two.

She went on to say that she wanted to check on another discount for me. She would have to call me later on Friday afternoon and would I be home. Of course, I would be home and I would be waiting for her call.

The representative called me after lunch on Friday with more good news. She found another discount for me. My bill from the hospital would now be only USD$18,100. I will still have a couple of bills from the urologist and others to pay but they are relatively minor in comparison to the total hospital bill. It is extremely difficult to complain about a bill after the creditor gives you a 76% discount.

Teaching
I got my teaching assignments for the next term last week. I will be teaching four, new to me, classes. I am teaching Human Resource Management, Market Research, Composition II, and Professional Presentation. I have a Tuesday and a Thursday morning class and two classes on Saturday. A Saturday morning and afternoon classes mean that my Saturday, for other activities, is fairly well shot. I am at school from 8:00 AM until 4:30 or 5:30 PM.

On the plus side, I will save on gasoline since I will only be going to school for three days a week.

Human Resource Management and Market Research will be fun courses for me to teach. I know the subjects very well and can bring in a great deal of outside material to add to the course text. Composition II will be a painful course. The students are weak when it comes to writing. I will have to read student papers every week. I don’t know anything about the Professional Presentation course. It should be fun and not very difficult to teach.

One good thing about the courses is that most of them will be small classes. I think two of my classes will only have four students that I have had before. My composition class will be on the large side because it is a general education course.

I had a chance to talk to some students who will be in two of my classes and have been in my classes before on Wednesday. They were looking forward to having me as a teacher again. One of the students I was talking with got married during the last term. I thought it was not a one of the best ideas since she is more likely to drop out. I was right; the student is now rather pregnant will probably go on maternity leave hopefully after the term ends. It is unfortunate because she is now even more likely to drop out of school once the baby is born. Her life responsibilities will increase and I wonder how mature she and her husband are.

I am not going to work myself into a lather about their decisions. My life is busy enough as it is now.

Football
Our University of Utah Utes have played very well over the last two Saturdays. They now have a record of 8 wins and 3 losses. They play the final regular season next Saturday when they journey to Provo to play BYU. I think the team is coming together at just the right time.

Last week, our Utes beat an admittedly poor University of Wyoming team in Salt Lake City 50 to 0. The good thing about the victory was that the team played all aspects of the game very well.

The Utes beat a slightly University of New Mexico team at Rice – Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City by a score of 28 to 10. Again, our Utes played well in all areas of the game, allowing New Mexico to score only in the third quarter while our Utes scored in every quarter.


That was my weekend and other stuff.

Be well and stay happy.

The Recovery - Part 5

The Recovery - Part 5
I will be the first to admit that I was rally apprehensive about undergoing chemotherapy. I had heard horror stories about severe and adverse reactions to the medication regime. I knew that some patients had lost their hair or their appetite or their energy.

So far, I am very pleased with the medication outcome. I hadn’t noticed any adverse affects of the Xeloda. My appetite is back to normal or at least very close to normal. I wonder how the other two medicines will affect me. I should start them in the medication cycle in early December.

I have lost a lot of weight this year. I have lost somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds / 14 and 18 kilograms. Some of the loss was obviously planned by me when I was eating less and fewer sweets and empty calories. And, another large part is due to the surgery and recovery.

One bright thing going forward is that my doctor won’t be asking or telling me to lose weight when I see him for my annual physical exam next year.

I decided to give up smoking cigars now. My doctor and my dentist won’t be able to urge me to stop smoking when I see them.

I used to be obese. Now, my weight has dropped into the desired Body Mass Index [BMI] range for my height.

I wonder what my doctor will talk to me about when I see him.

One obvious result of the weight loss is that all of my clothes fit loosely now. It is strange to have to use a belt to keep my pants up at waist. This all leads me to wonder what to do with my dress suits. They were all made to measure by my Hong Kong tailor Andy Sippy. I could have the suits altered to fit me better but what happens if I gain some of the weight back.

Probably, the better alternative is to wait until after I finish the chemotherapy cycle.

I am going to have to watch my eating so that I do not quickly balloon back up to what I used to weigh. With my appetite coming back, I have to be careful so that I do not lose all of the weight loss gains in a matter of a few days. I am eating well at all of my meals. I am planning to cut back on my noon meal. I will switch from a sandwich and soup to something with fewer calories like an energy drink such as Ensure Plus or an energy bar like a Balance Gold Protein bar.

All in all, I think it has been a good week for me and my recovery.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Bonus Feature - November 16th

Weekend Bonus Feature - Mai Honsho
Well, here it is the weekend and time for another Weekend Bonus Feature with Mai Honsho. I had a great week that I will talk about on Sunday.






I happen to like this combination of photos.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - November 12

Veterans’ Day
Veterans’ Day was yesterday. The holiday was organized to honor all of those who served and those who died during the Great War. The Great War is now known as World War I. it was also know as “the war to end all wars”; so much for that noble idea. It was renamed following Word War II and now we commemorate all of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our country.

If you love and enjoy your freedom, be sure to thank a veteran.

Visitors
Since I have been more occupied with my recovery than tracking visitors, this list is or is highly likely to be inaccurate. Life happens; we deal with it as it comes along to us.

We had visitors from Canada [3], Germany {3}, Belgium, United Kingdom, Korea [3], Luxembourg, Singapore [4], Slovakia, France [2], Philippines, Japan [3], United Arab Emirates [2], Taiwan [3], Brazil, Australia [2], Spain, and China.

We also had a first time visitor from Brunei Darussalam.

I do appreciate all of you who take time out of your busy schedules to stop by and read what I’ve posted.

Weekend Bonus Feature – Mai Honsho
I know it is a little late for last weekend’s bonus feature and way too early for this coming weekend’s bonus feature. Since there is only time, now or today or tonight is as good a time as any for the Weekend Bonus Feature of Mai Honsho.




After today, there will only be three more weekend bonus features.

The Recovery – Part 4
My recovery is going to take much more time than I thought. I failed to realize just how major my surgery was in October. I thought I could be back to work and full of energy in a month or so.

Not very likely to happen that soon.

My surgeon made a six to seven inch / 15 to 18 centimeter long incision in my abdomen. She started just above my navel and went straight down. I never realized how important your abdominal muscles are until now. Then, she took out 10 to 12 inches / 25 to 30 centimeters of my colon – intestine. She said not to worry because I still have plenty of intestine left.

Comforting of her.

I am guessing that a lot of my weight loss came during the surgery with the intestine removal. I think the surgical team also cleaned out my intestines since my colostomy bag didn’t get very filled while I was at the hospital.

I did see the surgeon last week. She was pleased with my progress and recovery. I also got to have my twenty one staples removed from my abdomen. The technician who did the removal did a very good job because there was hardly any discomfort.

Doug was with me and we joked that I needed to get some tattoos for my new scar. Having served in the Marine Corps Reserve, I suggested that maybe I should get an Eagle, Globe, and Anchor or an Iwo Jima Memorial tattoo. Doug thought that I should get an Oakland Raiders; that was when I came to my senses and decided to put the tattoo question off until I finish my recovery which should be in the Second Half of 2008.

On Friday, I went to the Oncology Clinic at Harbor – UCLA Medical Center for my first appointment. Naturally, Doug went with me. Harbor – UCLA is a public hospital, operated by the County of Los Angeles. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages. Lower cost is the big advantage for me and it is close to my flat.

Then, there are the disadvantages. Since it is a public hospital, there is a great deal of “hurry up and wait.” We were there for almost seven hours of which no more than two hours at the most were spent with a medical professional.

My doctor is a resident from the UCLA School of Medicine and she is supervised by a staff oncologist from the hospital. She is very friendly and eager. This is good for me because assurance at a time like this is important for my recovery. Like every other doctor, she wanted to take a look at my scar. I’m not sure why she needed to see the scar since she was going to be concerned with fighting the cancer on the inside of my body. I said to go ahead and take look; there was no sense in declining her request. I don’t want to upset the doctor on the first visit.

My treatment does not currently call for radiation. I guess that is nice. I will be taking three prescriptions plus having chemotherapy infusions periodically. I will start my first drug therapy cycle on Tuesday of next week.

Last week, I was really tired. I was taking and enjoying and looking forward to an afternoon nap. I usually dozed for about two or three hours. This week, I have been able to go without a nap since Saturday. I think I have more energy now. I am also eating more. Most of my eating is an adventure in finding foods that I seem to be able to tolerate and keep down in my stomach. The best foods for me seem to ones with a high liquid content although I have no idea why. I did enjoy my Rice Krispies with fresh strawberries this morning.

Well, I started the first cycle today. I am taking Xeloda, a colon cancer drug. It comes in 500 mg tablets and I have to take three in the morning and three at night. That is a lot of Xeloda. I have to take the Xeloda for two weeks and then I am off the prescriptions until after I see the doctors again in early December. So far, I have no complications or adverse reactions from the first dose.

Doug
Doug stayed at my flat for most of last week. He has been very helpful in making sure I got the appointments on time and that I understood what the doctor was saying to me. He also did a great job of nagging me to eat my food. I can’t afford to lose much more weigh; I was down to 171 pounds / 78 kilograms on Monday. I haven’t weighted that much since I was in either high school or college and that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

I finally nagged Doug into copying his photos of the Princess’ wedding onto to CDs for me. I knew that he had taken over 850 photos and I had expected that he would have done some editing and cutting of the photos. My expectations were misplaced. I now have to cut and edit the photos. I think I will be able to get the photo file down to a more manageable level over Thanksgiving weekend.

Doug is letting me live on my own this week. He will stay out behind the Orange Curtain until Sunday when he plans to come to my flat for a few days.

Vivian and Lisa
I am scheduled to have lunch with Vivian and Lisa on Sunday afternoon at our favorite restaurant. I think I am going to ask them to postpone the lunch for a while until I can figure out how my chemotherapy is going to affect my appetite and eating habits.


I am feeling good and positive about my future. I have some very good doctors and medial staff on my side. I know there is uncertainty and risk whenever cancer is involved. That was also most of my life from last week.

Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update - November 4th

I told you that my postings would be irregular for a while. This week should bring more organization to my life and the blog.

Recovery Part 3
I went to see the urologist who put a stent into a urethra to improve the drainage from one of my kidneys. This was a side benefit from the blocked intestine operation I guess.

The procedure seems to have been a complete success for me. I have no irritation from the stent and no discomfort. I have to go back in six months for a follow up appointment. The stent is a metal one that can last a year or so. It is less susceptible to failure than a plastic stent. Unfortunately, the stent only lasts a year before it has to be replaced so I can look forward to a replacement procedure next October.

I ordered some medical supplies that I need. I placed the order on Tuesday. The supplies were shipped from Southern California. They were here when Doug and I returned from the urologist’s office. I thought that was good, prompt service. I had an email from the medical supply company when I got home from dinner with Doug. The email said the order had been shipped today.

One of the nice things about my stay in the hospital was a self regulated morphine drip for pain. I could push a button whenever I wanted to and get a supply of morphine through an intravenous tube. The supply was regulated naturally to prevent abuse and potential addiction.

I could push the button as often as I wanted but the pump would only allow me to have a morphine dose once every twelve minutes. Still, that was very, very nice and much appreciated by me.

Shelly the Nurse was a true angel of mercy. She adjusted the morphine dose from a twelve minute cycle to an eight minute cycle.

Epic.

Unfortunately, Shelly was my nurse after the bulk of the pain and discomfort from the operation had subsided. By then, I didn’t really need the morphine.

I think Shelly was my favorite nurse. My next favorite nurse was Cecile. They were both great with me. I should have had Doug take a photo of Shelly and Cecile for me when he was visiting me at the hospital.

I received an appointment notice at the oncology clinic for next Friday. My intestine was blocked by a cancerous tumor and I am facing some radiation and chemotherapy over the next few months.

I was talking with the Princess about my oncology treatment and the possibility that my hair may fall out. The Princess said the shaved or bald look was a great time saver in the morning and I could cut down on hair care products as well.

The Princess would know about the benefits of lack of hair. Her husband, the Golfer, shaves his head.

October Visitors
We had 512 visitors to the blog for the month of October. I consider that result to be very good, especially when you realize that I wasn’t posting for the first two weeks of my recovery and that I have stopped posting the Woman of the Moment.

I do appreciate all of you who stopped by the blog.

The Princess
I received the Princess’ Wedding video DVD on Saturday. I was amazed that the final version was cut, edited, had sound added, approved, produced, and delivered in only three weeks. I have seen reports on the local television station about wedding video production that take forever to produce a terrible product, ruining the couple’s wedding experience and memories.

The music selections were excellent. I particularly liked the opening music selection of Louis Armstrong singing “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

I was very happy with how my portions turned out. I wished I had smiled more but I was in some pain and smiling was a challenge for me. I was able to smile at the important parts. My father of the bride speech came off very well and I was able to have the guests laugh at several of my jokes. The jokes were safe ones because the Princess had approved of them before the speech.

Some of the bonus selections featured Doug dancing and rocking out with some of my cousins and some of the Princess’ friends from graduate school. He seemed to be having a lot of fun. I was not dancing because I felt so bad and weak. I would have liked to have been able to dance with the guests.

I would have really liked to have some of the wedding cake. I am told that it was great. I was surprised to learn that my niece the Nutritionist was sucking all of the icing off of the wedding cake and leaving the cake behind.

So much for healthy eating and buying dolphin safe tuna recommendations from her.

The wedding video DVD runs about an hour and twenty minutes and includes a bunch of bonus features.

Nina the Server
Doug indulged me on Thursday when we went to dinner at El Gringo. For Doug, El Gringo is only “ok,” he prefers to go to El Burrito Junior instead. But, El Burrito Junior does not have Nina the Server working there.

Nina did remember me and that was a high point for Thursday for me besides seeing the urologist and getting a clean check up. Unfortunately, we had a late dinner and Nina was busy with other customers so we did not have much of a chance to talk. I am planning on going to El Gringo on next Thursday to see Nina and have some dinner.

I had a Number 2 Combination and so did Doug. I had soft chicken tacos and Doug had soft carnitas tacos. The combinations come with fried rice and refried beans. That really filled me up. I felt full until Friday morning.

Visitors
We had visitors from China [4], Indonesia [3], Netherlands Antilles, Japan [4], Texas [5], Canada [7], Egypt, Netherlands [2], United Kingdom, Korea [2], Ireland, Thailand, Germany, Spain [3], Italy, Australia [2], France [2], Portugal, Macau, Poland, Belgium, Malaysia, Austria [2], Singapore [2], and Mexico [2].

We also had one visitor who stayed around and visited the blog for thirty two minutes.

I do appreciate all of you who took time out of your schedule to visit the blog.

Weekend Bonus Feature – Mai Hosho
According to the Internet Movie Database, Mai Hosho had appeared in fifteen films and televisions series in her career. I stumbled across Mai when I saw a Japanese film SUICIDE CLUB where she plays a nurse along with Tamao Sato.

These photos seem to be from a set or series of images. I’m not sure what they are supposed to represent. I just thought they were very interesting. Interesting images are almost always good for the blog.





Doug
I talked to Doug on Saturday. He went to see the new film AMERICAN GANGSTER on Friday night. Doug really liked the film and is ready to go see it again if I want to go see it this week. I think I will be able to see it this week or next week, depending on how things go with school on Monday.


That was my weekend and part of last week. I think I could write a few more things. I will save them for later when I run into a mental block.


Be well and stay happy.