5098 March

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Trying to get rich by playing the lottery is like 
trying to commit suicide by flying on commercial airlines. 

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 I an in the midst of an  ocular migraine right now.  It started with the small circle of zig-zags about 10 minutes ago, and has grown to the full field already.  No headache, just the visual disturbance.  We'll see where it goes.

I looked up my past ocular migraines:
1996
02/25/06
12/05/06
05/12/07
07/20/07
11/11/10
10/13/11
06/06/14
03/05/17 (today)
This blog has a real use after all!

I thought I'd had three - the first when I was helping a friend move, the one where I'd lost names for a while, and this one.  I'm a bit shocked that there have been so many.

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Our weather has been weird.  We'll have three days in the mid-70s, and then it will suddenly drop back to freezing for four days.  Rinse, repeat.  I don't understand, and I'm very tired of it.

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I have an appointment with the radiation oncologist at Monmouth on Wednesday the 15th, to start radiation planning.  

Sloan Kettering has opened a cancer center only seven miles from my home, and I wanted to switch to Sloan Kettering for the radiation, because Monmouth would involve an eighty minute round trip every day for something like six weeks, bleck.  But Sloan Kettering doesn't accept my insurance.  I made some calls, back and forth between S. K. and my insurance to try to get authorization to go to S. K., and it might have happened, and then one day I realized I was avoiding making the calls.

I don't know why.  Maybe I'm just too tired.  I hate the telephone.   And because it would be out of network, I'm pretty sure the out-of-pocket would be a lot higher.  (Not that cost matters that much.)  And it's only about six weeks.  I don't think I'm depressed, but, well, I just don't feel like fighting.  I quit trying.  I'm just tired.

My final chemo infusion was February 14.  Every cycle has been different - some easier than others, some harder, but in almost every three-week cycle I was feeling lots better within a week, and much better within two weeks.  This last cycle knocked me out.  I'm not sure I could handle another.  Every previous cycle, the onco doc asked me if I had any mouth sores or extremity numbness, and I'd always said no.  This time I had about a week of some kind of tender sore on the roof of my mouth, and a few days of intermittent numbness in the tips of my fingers.  That's all better now.

I still feel awful, and I'm starting the third week.

Nausea has not been a problem.  That problem seems to be solved, but you still feel crappy all the time.  An acquaintance who is in chemo tried to describe how it feels:  it doesn't really feel like you're sick, or even like you're coming down with something, it just feels like something is terribly wrong, and you can't put your finger on it.  (Not surprising that something feels wrong - every cell in the body is being poisoned.)

After thinking about it, I can describe it for me.  It feels like I've been pumped full of air, like a bag of potato chips, and it's causing pressure on everything inside me.  Pressure on my heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, intestines, muscles, everything, everything being squished, and the excess "air" itself makes me weak.  I ended up giggling thinking that, because ever since starting chemo I have had a lot of flatulence.  A LOT!  So the thought of being full of air was, um, interesting.

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It is now much later.  The ocular migraine finished quickly, but midway through the above paragraphs, I discovered I couldn't write.  I couldn't put together sentences that made sense.  I knew what I wanted to say, but it came out wrong.  After my last ocular migraine I couldn't remember or recognize proper names for a half hour or so.  This time I could compose sensible sentences in my head, but when I tried to write/type them they made no sense.  Words were mixed up, spelled wrong, and for some reason every third word was "feel".  Weird.  No problem with names like last time - I tested me a little.  

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I've been sleeping badly lately, and I don't know why.  I do know I involuntarily wake up at about 6:45 every morning, and I wake up furious.  Absolutely spitting mad.  The neighbors across the street have a totally untrained pit bull, and I guess they put him out in the morning (fenced yard), and the damn dog barks CONSTANTLY and angrily and insistently and loudly at something, maybe another dog in a yard on the next street over, for an hour and a half.  No breaks.  Constant.

I doubt that the township has effective animal control, and I doubt I could get anyone to come out to hear him at that hour anyway.  I can't be the only person disturbed.  On the other hand, most other people are getting up to go to work then.  It's bad enough that I have toyed with the thought of doctoring some hamburger (no, that's not something I could do, but it's nice to think about it).

I'm mad at them anyway.  They have made no effort to train the dog in any way.  When the dog is outside, the woman will open the door and yell, "Cody!  Stop jumping at the fence!  Get in here!  Go in the house!" and gets angry when he doesn't obey.  Does she really think the dog understands random English sentences?  I've noticed that trait with most dog owners around here - they have no concept of how to train a dog.  Or even why.
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