Monday, June 13, 2016

Flying High

I think I am finally back to "normal" relative to my chemo regimen. In my last posting (back in May), I reported some hassles relative to the blood tests they give me before each treatment. I think I am now stable. There were no problems during the cycle that started three weeks ago.

I am still giving myself a shot of Lovenox every day. This is for the blood clot that I got as a result of the PICC line they installed for the anti-biotic. By now you realize that these shots have nothing to do with vodka or anything good like that. These are a real pain in the neck - or more precisely, the belly, but actually, they are a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things. I am meeting with a doctor next week who will hopefully move me to something I can take orally.

Cycle 34 starts on Wednesday. I am really not looking forward to this. It has nothing to do with the chemicals I am due to take. It is that I have to face the Clinical Study Nurse and report that I messed up my pill taking. I got confused one day and accidentally took two of the experimental pills (Panobinostat). I am afraid I will get yelled at. Well - she won't really yell, but I am still not looking forward to it. I feel like a kid who has to go to class without his homework. And not only do I feel silly about screwing up the pill taking, I also feel silly about being so worried about facing the teacher - I mean the nurse. I hope I don't get detention.

I had one really fun adventure back in May. For quite a while, it has been bothering me that I had never been in a helicopter. I decided that it was high time I did something about this. And I decided that if I was going to do this, I wanted to drive it myself. But it turns out that they would not let me rent one without training and a license and stuff like that. So we compromised and I took a lesson. It was really fun and looking back on it, I have to agree that it was probably better that I had an instructor along for the ride.



Barbara has successfully moved the cats to New Hampshire and they seem happy to be here and so are we. She has arranged to be in two Mah Jongg tournaments. My energy level continues to be better now that I am on a lower dose of Revlimid, so we can get some chores done.  Life is good.

One thing I should probably do is to get the boat launched. I figure I should probably try to get it running first. So far, I have managed to uncover it. The next step is to replace the gasoline in it and see if that helps. Wish us luck.

You may recall the PassePartout, the tracked snow machine that I bought to use for gathering maple sap? You know - the one that stopped running deep in the bowels of my grove of maple trees in the middle of last syruping season? I winched it onto a trailer and managed to get it back to "Clark Gables" (our NH house). I tried to start it - initially without success. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a "Vintage Snow Machine" swap meet where I found a new carburetor. I also went to the airport and bought some 100 octane, ethanol free, aviation fuel. And it started. Hooray!

I then put the old carburetor on it and it ran with that as well. Apparently, all I had to do was to try fresh gas. But then I tried it a couple of days ago and it ran, but not very well. It has occurred to me that I need to find a real old-timer who used to work on these and really understands them. You know what I am talking about. An "old timer" who is probably a guy about my own age . . .