As Gail works her magic as my official spokesperson, I do find it a bit humbling… the responses, the number of people who speak fondly, kindly, charitably…And I’m astounding by where all these friends are… Michael in Germany; Lee and Stancil in Cairo (of all places!); Dick in Thailand; the English crowd… I am astounded and humbled. Continue reading They’re everywhere, they’re everywhere!
Today was day two of the three day ITIL V3 course that I’m presenting… a nonstop, all day training event where I get to do most of the talking… pitching brilliant concepts in a questionably designed syllabus using an ‘okay’ curriculum in a time frame that is half a day too short.Last night my throat was very tender. I grabbed some lozenges and some non-alcoholic antiseptic spray and self medicated most of the evening. One of the lozenges I used was Thayer’s Slippery Elm… not bad, actually, but pretty mild and didn’t have an immediate effect. I followed up with … Continue reading Last kick at training for a while…
Years ago, when Gail had some of her first surgeries, when Gord had his little trauma, and when the girls got sick, the big thing that I tried to do was to ensure that they (and some other interesting people along the way) got teddy bears. And not just the cheapo kind! They got, as often as possible, Gunds, or some other personality bear. At one point, Gord got a Humphrey Beargart… you know the type of thing.Well, I told Jennifer and her buddies Leisha and Lane tonight, that they weren’t allowed at the hospital without a teddy bear. But … Continue reading The Price of Admission
As we lead up to the surgery on the 26th of November, there are still a number of things that need to be done.Thursday morning at 0900 I spend time with the audiologist, at which time they will take yet another baseline reading of one of my critical senses. I’m kinda looking forward to that one ’cause I’ve come to suspect that the sensitivity of my right ear has dropped a bit, and I’d like to know for sure.Immediately after the audiologist (1000), I get to spend some time with Peggy Nesbitt, speech pathologist extraordinaire. She is the supervisor of … Continue reading Next steps…
Last night we took advantage of the firm’s skybox at Rexall Place to watch the Oilers get soundly trounced by the Minnesota Wild. Not the best hockey I’ve ever watched, and the first time in ten years that I’ve been to a live game. I was quite surprised by the level of ‘commercialization’ at the game: the car and boat that were driven onto the ice between periods; the almost non-stop games and competitions (random draw to move two fans to a position immediately behind the home team bench, trivia, on-ice dash not unlike musical chairs, roulette wheel); the video … Continue reading Just stuff…
I am finding that there is a certain amount of guilt associated with having cancer. But its not my guilt; its the guilt of those around me! It seems that people feel guilty ’cause they can’t see a truly constructive way to do something to help, to make the cancer go away, to make me well. And because there are really no outward symptoms that they can grab onto and offer comfort for, they flounder. I’ve mentioned in a previous post or two that Gail feels particularly helpless at this point because of this very thing; how do you help … Continue reading For all its worth!
I will be editing this post ‘on the fly’… so check it again later; it may have changed.To begin with, I ran into Mike N. Friday afternoon, and let him know that I expect to be able to at least ‘consult’ on his black tie event. He then told me that just that morning his contact at the Boyle Street Centre had called to let him know that the author of the book the event was to showcase was found dead of an apparent overdose of prescription drugs. Mike was still showing signs of disbelief. All I could think of … Continue reading Friday was an interesting day…
Yesterday I had an appointment with the C.O.M.P.R.U. Team at the Misericordia (have ya noticed how I’m not getting anything posted on the day?). My particular therapist is Irene… a very nice young woman, fabulously blue eyes. I was expecting that I would be taught several exercises to strengthen my tongue and throat, but all they really did was get another of those mysterious ‘baselines’. Now, to be fair, I know that they will use the baseline if I require therapy after the fact…We did a number of things:A barium swallow. This was kinda cool. They had me drink the … Continue reading Speech Pathology
A good friend gave me a bag of apricot pits the other day. His uncle, who is battling lymphoma, is using them. Apparently they are a natural source of laetrile (did I spell that correctly?). Some practitioners, including the American FDA, classify them as some sort of poison ’cause they produce cyanide. Notice how I said that; they produce cyanide. The chemistry stuff that I’ve managed to winkle out of the Internet indicates that one of the compounds in the pits, when it comes into contact with one of the sugars in the cancer, combine together to make cyanide, which … Continue reading Apricot Pits
Yesterday we met the Team… and for the first time in this process I had a few moments of despair. This overwhelming sense of gloom settled in later in the evening, after things had had time to percolate a bit. I took myself off for a walk down to Big Lake and back to think. And what I realized was creating this new and unexpected cloud was the sudden realization that, in spite of the Team, the love of my family and friends, and all of the support workers, I am really alone at the centre of this challenge.What drove … Continue reading The day after the big meeting