Big Scary Day Eve

Trash at Cruz de Pinto


I woke up at 3:30 this morning with my legs just starting to cramp, especially my calf in my left leg. That was enough to keep me tossing and turning until I surrendered at about 4:30. I can really feel the lack of RBCs, of hemoglobin. I get two units of blood today at 11:00. While I am there I have to get the test results from when I first went into the hospital on 2/9 and see if my blood counts were lower than they are now. I am guessing I was in worse shape then, because I was cramping all the time and my ears were pounding with my pulse, and I only have those symptoms slightly now. Curious to see.

Frigiliana from Cruz de Pinto



We had a quiet family Bday dinner last night. We are waiting to celebrate this weekend, after Big Scary Day Thursday. Dana cooked brasciole, my favorite meal, which I only get about every twenty years or so. She cooked it to perfection, and it is not an easy dish, and she needs a new kitchen. Our boys reminded us they are still teenagers after dinner, at clean-up time, until we were kind of annoyed with them.

I read some of the tons of letters that you all sent to Dana with all the illegal and ethically questionable stunts WE pulled in the past; I was never alone, and I have audiotape of a lot of this, Donald, so be careful what you say. Anyway, there are some funny stories buried out there, buried FOR A REASON. Thank God I am not running for office. Young Mike Fiore bet his brother that his letter would make me cry; that kid is rotten, a real politician, knows how to pull all the strings. Reminds me of me. Nick B. and I once made a bet on who could make Heather S. cry. I tried everything, and she finally squeezed out one tear of rage when I asked her, “Did you stop going to the gym?”



Cruz de Pinto
From Frigiliana, the little mountain village where we lived in Spain in ’02-’03, you could see this little monument on this distant hilltop, maybe a mile or two away. I was told this was Cruz de Pinto. The story was that these sailors were lost at sea in a big storm in the Mediterranean off of Malaga somewhere, back in the 18th century. They promised God and the Virgin Mary they would climb the nearest hill and erect a monument to Jesus if they made it to safety. They landed at Nerja and climbed this hill on their knees, and at the top they erected a simple monument. Over the years, people made pilgrimages to the site and have maintained and reconstructed the monument many times. The truly penitent will climb the hill on their knees as penance for some sin. The boys and I hiked to this spot one day, on our feet, and were smitten by the odd conglomeration of artifacts and trash. The site was a garbage heap of old candleholders and junk, but there was religious iconography, statuary positioned in the rock piles, and a small chamber in the monument filled with statues and a burning candle.

These are some of my favorite photos from all Spain.







I tried to talk some of the locals into changing the Cruz de Pinto tradition a little, so that someone would make a pilgrimage taking a plastic bag up the hill and carting some of the empty candleholders off the hill. We should’ve returned and done it ourselves. When I go back to visit after I am all healed, I will climb and clean up Cruz de Pinto, to thank all of you that have been praying for me and to thank God.

I just got back from French Hospital, where I was given 2 units of blood. I got there at 10:30, got the blood flowing at noon, done at 4:00. I read and had lunch during the first unit, and took a nice nap during the second. Now I am trying to figure out if I feel any better. They told me my WBC was at 2.2; I was surprised it was that low. I have to ask the docs at Stanford tomorrow about the yo-yoing numbers. I know some of this is expected from the chemo, but all in all I like my charts to show positive trends. Tomorrow is of course Big Scary Day – bone marrow biopsy and spinal tap, and then the determination that I am in remission or back in the hospital.

Just finished packing for BSD, have to have plan B ready. If I am staying for a bone marrow transplant, I want all my guns to make my stay successful. I pack for a week, and I leave behind a lot of the stuff I brought first time – everything I never used. I probably won’t get an isolation unit this time and I’ll be sharing a room, so I plan to make it a short stay. I have to think this stay is not going to happen at all, and it is kind of annoying to have to plan for it.

We still had a Mardi Gras Ball in SLO this year. The parade was canceled because last year 500 Cal Poly kids rioted 3 miles away from where the parade was held, 5 hours later. So, logically, the problem wasn’t underage drinking (55% of those arrested) but the parade, because the parade inspires a girl to show her breasts for beads. This in turn causes underage alcohol abuse and rioting. Therefore, cancel the parade.

My wife loves Mardi Gras. She and her sisters get together and come up with great costumes for us all to wear, and the men generally have to suffer with little say for the price of not having to work too much on costumes. Grin and bear it, I am a turkey roast, a Wild Thing, a Flame, a Pirate multiple times, and this year, a stylized white tiger.
This is me at Mardi Gras pre-Ball party, on the 15’ long red couch. I look sick.




I knew I was sick at the Ball; I couldn’t dance for more than one minute really, and I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack. So, today’s Eyebrow LowBrow.