I'm Healthy

I’m Healthy
Yes, I really am healthy.

After seeing my doctors this week, I know I am healthy. My regular family practice doctor said I was fine when I was in for my six month follow up visit and prescription renewal. He was pleased with my weight loss and the colostomy take down surgery.

I asked him if I was able to take a prescription for Viagra or Cialis. It has been over two and a half years since I was dating and having fun. Wearing a colostomy bag on your stomach is a relationship killer. Given my age, almost 65, I thought I might need one of these prescriptions. He was ready to write out a prescription for me; all he needed to know was which one I wanted.

I said that I would wait until I knew I needed it.

On Friday, I had my date with Dr. Karen. It was our regular once every three weeks visit only this visit was four weeks because I was in Salt Lake City last Friday with Doug.

My regular lab tests were all normal. The cancer blood marker test came back negative but then it always does. My tumor never secreted the marker so the tests are always negative. Dr. Karen runs the test every two or three months just to check and make sure everything is fine within me.

I asked her about the colorectal surgeons desire to run their own version of the test.

She giggled and said that they could have their own test in June. I have to remind hear not to order one then.

Dr. Karen giggled more when I told her how I had been abandoned by the medical student at the colorectal surgery clinic. I said the abandonment probably would not have happened if I was at the University of California Davis Medical School. Dr. Karen smiled and nodded her head yes.

Dr. Karen is a graduate of the UC Davis Medical School.

Lastly, I asked her about a prescription for Viagra or Cialis. She looked at some information about drug conflicts and said either one would be fine with my current drug regime. I thanked her and said I was only planning ahead if I felt I needed the prescription.

Teaching
The chair of the criminal justice program spoke to me this week about teaching some more paralegal studies courses for the Summer quarter. He was thinking about having me teach four morning classes.

That would be nice except that I don’t want to get too attached to any one program. Four paralegal studies classes would only leave me with one more class to teach. I am not keen on giving up the project management program since I have invested my time teaching three of the courses over the last two quarters. I am also a General Education instructor and there are a number of classes that I really enjoy teaching in that program. I don’t want to give those up because they are more fun to teach.

Teaching four paralegal studies morning classes would meant that I would have to drive to school for at least four days and possibly five days. There would a very limited likelihood that I could teach a split shift, morning and evening classes. With the school moving in a few weeks further away from me, I am going to be looking at a 70 mile a day round trip to the campus.

Oh well, I will speak with my department chair this coming week and let him know how I feel about the upcoming quarter. Then, too, I may be worrying unnecessarily since the schedule has yet to be made out.

I had arranged for an acquaintance of mine from MBA school to come speak to the school’s paralegal students on Saturday. My friend’s presentation was excellent; the criminal justice department chair wanted her to become a teacher. She would be an excellent teacher because she has a great deal of knowledge about the subject and patience with people.

Other Events
It looks like I will have to take the Pathfinder in for service this week or next. It needs an oil change. The speedometer cable seems to malfunctioning. I hope that it is only loose and not in need of a replacement. The Pathfinder also turned over 95,000 miles or about 153,000 kilometers.

One of my former students friended me on Facebook. I have no idea why this happened since I don’t use Facebook beyond having a page where several of my former students keeping inviting me to join them on their Facebook farms or participate in Mafia Wars.

I decided to drop out of my Doctor of Business Administration program. I don’t have the desire or passion for the program anymore. Sometimes, I don’t have the energy for it as well. I talked to Doug about my decision and he was very supportive. I will be saving a chunk of money from dropping out so that is not all bad for me.


Be well and stay happy.

Abandonment

Abandonment
While I was killing time on uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room, Nurse Jackie came into the room and seemed to light the room up with her cheerful attitude. Well, it seemed that way to me. Jackie thanked me for the nice words I wrote about her in my January 5th blog.

I was hoping that I would see Nurse Jackie for my appointment since this visit was to see how well my incision was healing. This was something that was well within her capabilities. I could see from my daily, post shower inspection that the wound was almost completely healed. I was just waiting for the last scab to drop off and then I was going to say that the wound was healed.

I also like Nurse Jackie because I have a great deal of confidence in her and her abilities. I also like her sometimes dry sense of humor. Nurse Jackie has a generally much better way of dealing with the patients than some of the doctors.

My wish was not granted.

I sort of felt like I had been abandoned yesterday when I went to the see the surgeons for a follow up visit to my January 29th operation.

My first sense of abandonment came when the medical student came into the examining room. Previously, I had been seen by either surgical residents or Nurse Jackie. The medical student was in a surgical training rotation; she wanted to go into either family practice or pediatrics.

So much for interest in a cancer surgery patient.

The medical student took the time to glance over my file to gain some understanding of my condition. I sometimes worry when I am more familiar with the course of my treatment than the doctors who are supposed to be managing it. She asked me a lot of questions which I duly answered.

I asked her about a reaction that I had been having intermittently when I drank a large glass of cold liquid. She asked some more questions as she thought I might have lactose intolerance.

Not likely; I have been enjoying milk and cheese since I can remember.

She went off to ask her supervising physician about my question. She said she would be back in a few minutes.

That was not to happen.

I knew this was going to be more than a few minutes. But, after 40 minutes of waiting on a modestly comfortable chair, I got up and stood in the doorway as Nurse Jackie came by. I asked her if I had been abandoned since I had been waiting so long for the medical student to return.

Nurse Jackie took charge; she asked me to have a seat in the waiting room while she straightened things out for me. It is nice to see a woman take charge. I had barely gotten comfortable in the waiting room when a nurse called my name and gave me my next appointment, a follow up appointment in June.

Thanks Jackie.

I’m not too thrilled with the next appointment since the surgeons want to run a cancer marker blood test. Dr. Karen has one scheduled for tomorrow. I will ask her if I need to have another one in June or not when I see her on Friday.

The Fraternity
This past weekend was a Fraternity weekend for Doug and me. We flew to Salt Lake City on Friday morning after spending a near eternity going through the passenger screening process. The Los Angeles terminal for Delta Airlines was not running smoothly Friday.

My old chapter had been suspended five years for a variety of problems. It was reinstalled over the weekend; Doug and I participated in the reinstallation ceremony although Doug’s participation was unplanned for.

Because the chapter was being reinstalled, we initiated a group of undergraduates so they could take over the chapter operation. Doug and four other men were initiated into the Fraternity as special initiates.

Since the ceremonies are secret, I can’t really write very much except to say that Doug had a great time and was really glad he went through the ceremony. We have even made plans to go to next year’s Founders’ Day.

My Friend Sharon
My friend Sharon phoned while I was writing the blog entry.

Sharon wanted to know why I hadn’t written a nice recommendation for her for her Linked In page. She complained that I had done it for others.

Fair question I guess.

I said the others had asked me to write a recommendation for them and that I had. I pointed out that she had not asked me.

Oh. Yes, I will write a recommendation in a day or so. Sharon is now happy or will be after I write and post it.

I asked Sharon about getting together for lunch in May. School is moving and the campus will be closed for five days so I have time on my hands. Sharon thought this was a good idea and that I should sent an email out to her and Sue to confirm things.

More work for me.


Be well and stay happy.

Haircuts and Teaching

Haircuts
I went to see Molly on Wednesday for a haircut. It was my first Wednesday of the month session.

My hair was starting to get ratty again. By ratty, I mean it was starting to develop curls or waves and not lay flat on my head. I think I make a bad visual impression when I have this large cowlick standing out on my head.

It was on the warm side in Southern California and I was running ahead of my scheduled appointment time. I decided to stop at my favorite coffee shop, the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and pick up my favorite large ice blended drink. When I got to the Bean, I phoned Molly to see what she would like to drink.

Molly said thanks, through Lindsey the receptionist, and asked for an iced vanilla latte. Since I was drinking a large, I got Molly a large one too. This insured the carrying tray was at least weight balanced.

Molly enjoyed the ice blend latte. This was my first ice blended drink in two and a half months; the last one was just before the surgery in January.

Molly also thought I was a hero for not looking at the Hershey’s and See’s Easter chocolate candy catalogues that came to my house and then ordering something for the Salon.

I can be a nice guy when I want to be.

Molly had Lindsey take a photo of the two of us for the Salon’s Facebook page. I am now a friend of the Salon. I think our photo will be a bit out of place since I was wearing a suit and most of the other photos on the page are casual.

After the photo opportunity, I drove off to school.

Teaching
I met one of the Career Services [job placement office] workers in the hall as I was on my way to the faculty lounge and work area. We spoke briefly. The worker told me that one of my students said that “I was the only instructor who knew what he was doing at school” and that the other instructors were idiots.

She asked me how I felt about the comment.

I thought for a moment and said that “I was embarrassed and disappointed.” I don’t think this was the answer she was expecting. I went on to say that the school should be doing a better job of finding and hiring quality instructors for the classrooms. Then, we went our separate ways.

This is the end of Week 4 of the term. I have quizzes to grade in four of my five classes. The fifth class has a midterm examination in two weeks. I don’t like to give quizzes because I do not believe that they can accurately measure what the student has learned.

I am having some trouble with one of new classes. We have unit plans that outline what we are supposed to teach and include teaching ideas. This past week, none of the week’s student learning objectives was part of their reading assignment. It is difficult to prepare lecture notes when the material and objectives do not match. The course plan calls for spending three weeks, almost 30% of the course, on one chapter. This seems dreadfully excessive and forces me to pass some really interesting topics like international marketing which could be very helpful in Southern California since it is the Gateway to the Pacific Rim.

One of my evaluation factors is class attendance. With three small classes, one absence can kill that week’s evaluation. I have already had two absences in my class of three so that makes my average attendance around 83% or below the standard which is about ten percentage points higher.

Visitors
Surprisingly, the visitorship to the blog hasn’t really fallen all that much.

We had 642 visitors in January; 478 in February, a much shorter month; and 507 in March. The most popular page is January 1, 2007, one of the last of times that I had a Woman of the Moment feature running. The periodic posts are the second most popular page. Maybe if I posted more frequently, I would have even more traffic.

I will try to post more frequently. That will be a challenge since Summer is just around the corner in Southern California and I am easily distracted by young women in bikinis.


Be well and stay happy.

The Missing March Post

The Missing March Post
I went to see Dr. Karen towards the end of the month just before I flew to Seattle.

Dr. Karen is going to keep me on the Xeloda for as long as I can tolerate it. She thinks it has greatly helped me with the cancer fight. Easy for her to say, she doesn’t take it. My hands are still drier than the Mojave Desert in Summer. I am still just as sensitive to the cold.

Although, on the plus side, I no longer have the colostomy bag glued to my stomach. I have a rapidly healing scar to replace the bag. I know the scar will be completely healed in much less than two and half years. I can actually look forward to having a social life very soon.

Dr. Karen said that my cancer is “very stable” and “well controlled” now.

Dr. Karen does not use excessive adjectives when discussing my medical condition. I guess those adjectives are not terribly bad when you consider all of the other ones that she could have used.

Doug went with to see Dr. Karen. He wanted to come along since it had been a while since he last participated in a clinic visit. I like it when Doug comes along because he asks some very interesting questions and thinks of ideas that I have overlooked.

I saw Nurse Vhrunda and Nurse Wendy when I saw Dr. Karen. They both thanked me for the last tub of Hershey’s chocolate candy. Nurse Vhrunda said that the last time she saw me that “I looked like death and now I looked much better.” I guess that I will take that as an improvement and a complement.

I guess Vhrunda’s comment was true since a lot of my current and former students have made the same or similar observations. Some of my students have asked what happened to my cane. I used a cane when I first came back to teaching because I hadn’t recovered my full strength. I am close to being at my full strength now.

Molly was nagging me about how long and ratty my hair looked when she cut it this month.

It should have looked long and ratty. It had been two months since she had previously cut my hair. I had my hair cut during quarter break so I wore a plaid shirt again to her salon because it was on the cool side; Molly had on a plaid blouse too. We both kidded the receptionist about not reading the memo to wear plaid to the salon.

Molly said she loved me and hated me, all at the same time. She loved me for the Ethel M chocolates. Molly has a sweet tooth the size of a T. Rex incisor and a near incurable addiction to chocolate. She hated me for the chocolate because she plans to look stunning by the time warm weather rolls around and she fits into her bikini.

Personally, I believe Molly will look stunning by Summer regardless of how well she does at fighting the chocolate addiction.

I have five classes to teach at school. I was going to teach a course in Research Methods but that got changed at the next to last minute. I am teaching a new course in Integrated Marketing Communications instead. The schedule change was the result of an instructor deciding at beyond that last minute to not return to the campus; this resulted in a major schedule rework.

My Group Dynamics course and my Microeconomics course are both large classes with 36 and 31 students respectively. My other three classes have a total of 16, combined enrollment. All of my small classes are new classes to me. It takes me about four hours or more to prepare for one of my new classes.

The school has an instructor measurement program. We are expected to achieve half of scores. In my case for last quarter, I had five classes with three evaluation factors. I hit 12 of the 15 scores so I considered by this measure to be a good instructor. I would have done better if I had not been for four weeks following my operation, attendance in all of my classes dropped off in varying degrees.

My trip to Seattle for the Princess’ birthday went very well for me until it was time to fly home.

I had told the Princess that I didn’t feel up to eating at Morton’s where we, the Reinhardt clan, usually go for birthdays. I didn’t think I could eat all that Morton’s will serve because my appetite had not returned to its pre-surgery level yet.

The Princess got together with the Nutritionist and decided to try a new place, called Salty’s, which featured fresh seafood. That made a great deal of sense since we were in Seattle after all. Salty’s is located on Puget Sound in West Seattle. This gave us a great view of downtown Seattle since the clouds had lifted for the afternoon.

The Nutritionist and I ended up with scallops for our dinners. The Princess and the Golfer had grilled salmon. My nephew had a lobster; his girl friend is not a fish lover and elected to have a slab of beef. I am certain that I can have one of the clan vote for a return to Morton’s The Steakhouse for next year.

My flight home was an E-Ticket ride. It was very turbulent for the first hour or so and then the turbulence tapered off for the rest of the flight. The woman in the seat behind me was traveling with two pre-teen girls and a two year old. The two year old practiced her tap dance lessons on the back of my seat for most of the flight. I was tempted to say something but chose not to; the woman had enough trouble without me making it worse. Because of bad weather in San Francisco, she missed an earlier flight that would have end up taking her to San Diego so the group could sail on a weeklong cruise to Mexico.

Because of the change in flights, my flight was leaving two hours after her original flight; she was going to be landing in Los Angeles. She had to deal with getting her bags without any help, get the kids and bags to a car rental agency, drive to San Diego, turn her rental car in, and board her ship before it sailed at 5:00 PM. Our plane landed in Los Angeles around 1:20 PM.

If I were betting, I would have bet that she would not make the ship’s sailing.

I did my taxes and Doug’s taxes to end the month. Doug was very happy when I told him that he didn’t owe any money for taxes. I was surprised at the size of my tax refund. It was much larger than I thought it would be.


Be well and stay happy.

The Lost February Blog Post

The Lost February Blog Post
I was in the hospital for a week after the surgery and then I was home for week before I could even think about writing for the blog. By that time, my email in-box was overflowing with student emails asking for help with assignments, copies of homework that they lost, and requests for more time to complete their work. With 100 students, the pile of assignments to read and grade managed to climb to just over an inch tall.

When I went back to teaching in February, I had two weeks to go until the end of the Winter term. Students who had previously been excellent students had slacked off and were cutting class. I had to struggle to get them ready for their final exams and course project presentations.

Using a liberal interpretation of “minimally demonstrating competency” in a subject, I was able to see that all of my students were able to pass their courses. Some passed with a grade of “D” which some of the instructors and I like to think of as “D stands for diploma.”

I think I will go back to writing in the blog beginning next week and ease into the writing. I will have to balance the blog with the new courses I am scheduled to teach this term.

This is our Spring Term and I am scheduled to teach five classes, the most that a part time instructor may teach. Three of my courses are ones that I have taught before, Microeconomics, Group Dynamics, and Research Methods. I have two new courses, Introduction to Paralegal Studies and Project Management Communications and Documentation.

Spring cannot arrive soon enough for me. My cancer medicine makes me very sensitive to the cold. I have been wearing long sleeved shirts and then a sweatshirt on top of that just to stay comfortable and I have been sleeping with two comforters on my bed. I know that I could turn on the heat in my bedroom but then I will be heating a room that may not need to be heated except for the times when I have to get out of bed in the night.

Of course, I still have my once every weeks visit with Dr. Karen the oncologist. I also have periodic, post-operation follow up appointments with the surgeons. Most of the time, I end up with Nurse Practioner Jackie who has a much nicer demeanor instead of the surgeons.

I managed to lose more weight with this surgery. I now weigh 175 pounds or 79 kilograms. I don’t think that I have weighted this much since I was in high school, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Doug was over on Thursday afternoon. He seems to be concerned about my current weight. He said, “Uh Dad, do you think you could put a belt or something? Your pants are too low on your hips and it’s creeping me out.” I told him that I would think about it.

With the weather improving here in the States, I am going to be traveling. I will go to Seattle the end of March to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. Then, in April, Doug and I will go to Salt Lake City for a fraternity event. After those trips, I am going to wait and see what happens next for me.


Be well and stay happy.