Cooking

We had an uneventful Stanford visit last Thursday, everything is pretty normal, magnesium and potassium are at normal levels, blood work is fine, slightly anemic. The cold is still lingering. Did I say it had legs like Paris Hilton? More like a centipede, legs and legs and more legs.

We got out of Stanford around lunchtime, so we went to get lunch in downtown Palo Alto at a restaurant Dana said was nice. I had meatball parmesan sandwich and it was good, but I only ate half, putting the other half in the cooler we had with us, for later. I ate that other half for dinner. Woke up at 3am with the trots, and started puking at 5:30. Apparently food poisoning! I had three great vomiting sessions, and my stomach is still unsettled four days later. I am down to 157 pounds, holy shnaynkie! Right now I am cooking dinners.

Dana left me a list of dinners I could make and I misunderstood that one was a side dish that she wanted me to add kielbasa to to make an entree, so I cooked the side dish and the pork roast, and now I have two dinners, one of which is also a side dish. Tomorrow all I have to do is add the kielbasa. This roast should come out good if the built-in thermometer pops out when it is supposed to.

I had lunch with Cyle from TEC today, and he has some pretty good office equipment he needs to liquidate, PCs, monitors, phone systems, and furniture. If you are interested let me know and I will hook you up.

I figured out what my graft versus host is when I didn't take immunosuppressant (Prograf) for a day due to vomiting. I woke up Saturday with very itchy legs and a mild rash, and I confirmed today with my local doc that the lack of suppression probably let the immune system cause the itch. I have that to look forward to, but then I always was an itchy dry-skinned type.

I began the transition back to the local doctors with a visit yesterday morning, and I will be alternating Stanford visits with local doctor visits, with the visits getting further apart, like the edge of the universe. For those who hadn't noticed, I changed the blog title some weeks ago to Holy Cow I beat leukemia; 'beat' where 'have' used to be.

On the Job Training

I have never been that interested in food. If I could have just taken a pill that gave me all my nourishment, that would have satisfied me at most times in my life. Needless to say, I have learned over time to be more appreciative of the efforts Dana makes in the kitchen. She is a very good cook, in spite of the lack of support she gets from the three males she is forced to live with.

The tables have turned. Now that she is going back to the classroom, and I am scratching my belly, it falls on me to make at least some of the dinners, or to at least make some attempt at making some of the dinners. And what I am discovering is, I have no training, no education, no aptitude, that has prepared me for this.

She has always been in charge of aesthetics, shopping and food, and I get all infrastructure and maintenance. The lines often blur depending on who is working the most, but generally I have finances, cars, house repair, laundry, and some cleaning (we have had outside help there, but that may change). Dana often does laundry and cleaning, and the power struggle is ever present over who does more. The cease-fire created by cancer treatments is ending though.

Yesterday I did the laundry; watched the inauguration; went to Best Buy, Costco, Home Depot, CVS and Vons for various things; replaced the PC monitor; mounted an outside thermometer; fixed the window in the bathroom; walked the dog; and made dinner. That's where it all started to fall apart. I made the mistake of being in mid PC monitor replacement when I decided I needed to get the marinade going for the garlic chicken I was going to cook later, meaning I couldn't Google key words like 'mince' or 'clove'.

So, we ended up with a whole head of garlic, about ten times more than was called for. Well minced. This left me with the feeling that there was no way I was up to this task without frozen foods, I was too far behind. I last felt like this when we lived in Spain, and I would yell at drivers that cut me off "Was I born stupid or do I practice?" My brain's cooking area was like my brain's Spanish area, ossified. I could get a beer in Malaga and I can make a burrito or an omelet, but don't get complicated with me by using terms that you learned from your mother while I was mowing the lawn.

Anyway, this is probably going to be good for my brain plasticity, and we'll eat smaller quantities or suffer from garlic breath. Tonight I am preparing chicken parmesan, which should be okay as we rinsed off the 15 cloves of garlic marinade sauce from the two breasts nobody ate last night. I imagine this post will generate lots of helpful advice from all the chefs out there, but remember, I am ossified, I only absorb this info like I absorb new bone marrow, slowly and painfully and after months of beat-down. Bear with me, or beer with me.

We go back up to Stanford tomorrow for a checkup. I am fine except for the lingering cold (Dana's cold lingers also), so I expect more tapering of meds and Stanford visits. I have decided to ignore the cold, it's mostly just congestion. I actually played nine holes of golf on Monday. I had practiced my chipping three times in the prior week, so I totally sucked at chipping. It was great to get out on the course though, and 18 holes is not far off. I have to take a cart, but I'll be walking the course by July, I hope.

Paris Hilton has legs

This cold has legs like Paris Hilton. It seems to go away, and then the next day comes back for more paparazzi attention, if paparazzi means kleenex. Dana is suffering still too, so I think it's got nothing to do with me personally.

I continue to work on reorganizing my house so I can find things, but things are breaking as fast as I fix them. Today I had to reorganize the power supplies on this desk, so I could add a couple as needed. Mundane stuff. Yesterday I took my supposed healthier self to Dairy Creek driving range; hit 100 chips shots, 60 iron shots, and putted for half an hour. When I got home I hit the weights a little bit, light weights, and then we walked the dog. I groaned around the rest of the day with an aching back, and woke up pretty sore all over. Feels kinda good.

It's going to be a long way before I can get in the surf, but the golf course looks a lot closer. Thankfully I sucked before, so I don't have that far to go to get back to a 16 handicap. I sucked at surfing too, but I don't want to drown. I bought a Wii game system, and the WiiFit balance board workouts are tough; I was surprised. The fitness test said I was 63 years old, because I am weak and unbalanced. I have this hot Wii trainer that calls me names and makes me work harder. She reminds me of Nick B., if he were an animated female trainer figure in a game system. When I was a softball pitcher, if I walked someone I would hear from shortstop, "Jeez Fiore, pull your head out, for crying out loud!" I miss that.

Anyway, the victory party is going to have to wait for the death of this cold. I am looking forward to it. I've been getting weekly blood tests that show I am fine. I go back up to Stanford for my next checkup on the 22nd. The meds list is getting shorter, as are the side effects. It's time to work on the taxes, arrrghhh!

Demon Spawn Cancels Party

Just about the entire Fiore clan, and local relations, have come down with a nasty cold, so it seems wise to cancel the open house victory party for now. Hence, no celebration on the 9th, but hopefully we can reschedule soon. We want to see how long this sucker lasts.

My doctor is keeping his eye on this, and is worried that pneumonia could move in. He brought out some big guns, Tamiflu and Zithromax, just to blast the demon spawn back to hell. The collateral damage will be survivable. We went to Stanford yesterday, had some tests and met with the doc, and everything is groovy, blood counts are solid and the annoying creatinine has come way down.

So, back to bed for me, I will sleep and drink this cold away. Everybody, wash your hands!

BMB Dud

My doctor, realizing my anxiety level wouldn't be relieved until the bone marrow biopsy was declared free of cancer, went into the lab on New Year's day and got the results. He called me to say the biopsy shows NO CANCER! I have officially beaten the big C, took my 1 in 15 chance, dodged every bullet, and here we are. There will still be physical challenges, the possibility of graft versus host disease as they reduce the immunosuppressants, but so what, I'll take it. Weekly visits to Stanford will turn into monthly visits and then no visits.

Maurice summed up beautifully the question of my life in this poem he wrote in the comments on the last post, repeated here:

John's big new year adventure,
who are you now, becoming?

do not take a picture of me
capture me
forever frozen
as i was for a moment
let me paint a picture of myself for
you
as i am now
in this moment with you
becoming

are we who we think we were?

peace time
what to do
after the celebration
rest a bit let your soul catch up

Just answering the question 'Who do I think I was?' is near impossible. I keep morphing. There must be some core element to each of us, and I feel I've boiled off a lot of the fat surrounding that element by sitting too close to the fire. The smell of burning hair still fills the air. I keep feeling around myself to get at the core of me.

Winter is over here in SLO (two brutal weeks), so we are throwing open the doors and windows and airing out our lives. I have hacked through some of the jungle that grew up in my absence, and now that living seems likely, greet each day with thanks to God for a chance to start anew.