Chapter 3.1

Yesterday I mentioned that I would have additional information soon.  Well, here is some of it.  More "additional information" will come next week after I start radiation treatments for the third time.

Our first appointment today was with Dr. Hitchcock, the radiation oncologist who figures that I will need five radiation treatments to cut the bone tumors down to size and eliminate the major source of pain in my hips.  After several minutes with her, we were interested how the next hour would play out, because we had two appointments (set up by folks at Huntsman) at the same time.  One was with the radiation oncology folks (under Dr. Hitchcock's direction) to get my tattoos, etc. (as I mentioned in the last blog) and the other was with the clinic where I was supposed to get some fluid removed from my lungs.  This fluid has been building up for a while, and is evidently caused by the cancer, but is not part of the cancer.
I am not sure what criterion was used to determine where we were to end up at 10:00 am, but it happened to be in the office of Doctor Reddy, who extracted 4 liters [correction: 2 liters] of fluid from my lungs.  Yes, approximately four pounds of liquid was in the plastic bag that he showed me after he completed the procedure.  He went in through my back with a long needle after jabbing me a few times, and saying that it would be quite like a bee sting . . . which it was.  Well, kind of.  This was quite a bit milder than what I remember of bee stings.  And I have had several of them.  For two summers in my late teen age years I worked for a bee-keeper.  In the hot summers in Wyoming and Montana we would help the bees meet their production quotas by removing the honey they produced and giving them empty boxes to fill up.  They didn't all like that so they would sting us, right through the jump suits we wore, supposedly for protection. The weather being 90 plus degrees in the shade - and there was no shade -  we would sweat, and the cloth would stick to our skin. The stinger would go right through the cloth and we would get the full dose.  The jump suits were white, and made a stunning offset to the rest of the ensemble of pith helmet, dark, 360 degree veil and high top boots.  But I digress.  Suffice it to say that what Dr. Reddy did to my back with his little needles does not qualify for being compared to a real bee sting.
This procedure is supposed to help me breathe a little easier, and indeed it has.  I can walk up a flight of stairs without being "short of breath" by the time I get to the top.  My cough has diminished as well.  So I figure this was a good thing.
Since the appointment with Dr. Reddy won for our attention, we had to re-schedule the appointment to get me measured and set up for the radiation treatments.  This will be on Monday next week.  I don't know if we will start the radiation on Monday also, but it can't be too bad.  It is just that we will be doing a lot of traveling.  Maybe I should buy stock in Exxon or Sinclair.  Speaking of stocks, we had a bunch of stocks in a company that shall remain un-named.  Shortly after we acquired the stock, the price dropped significantly.  It has been struggling to get back up to where it was when we acquired the stock, and last week it made it.  In fact, rose a little above our acquisition price.  So, I sold it, getting more than our money back.  It was a nice return.  But this week, the price has gone even higher.  I jumped too soon.  How does one know when to jump?  Whoops, again I digress.  Sorry.  But, as they say, "digression is the better part of valor."

Have a good day all you wonderful people out there who care about what happens to one ordinary feller who happened to get stage four mucoepidermoid carcinoma, and is crazy enough to try and write about it.