Dreams

Something fundamental has changed in my life - I remember dreams, often as though they are real.  I woke this morning to the sound of someone violently retching in the bathroom next to my room.  I looked out my window to see if John had come back early from his GF's, and then looked in his bedroom.  I went downstairs and asked Dana if she was alright, and she was.  It was raining outside, and my brain converted that into an imageless dream of violent retching sounds.


Now I have to speculate that other events that have driven me nuts were actually dreams.  I searched high and low for $200 I thought I had stuffed in a toilet paper roll before the Yellowstone trip.  Was that a dream?  Maybe the sheaths that were stripped from my neurons were guarding a border between reality and fantasy.  Am I actually awake now?


I had a second MR of my skull last week, and that shows no difference from the one a month ago.  This is a good thing as it means there is no progression of any disease, leukemia or MS, in my brain.  MS gets a guess because of the stripped neurons.  This MR is also a bad thing, because we have no explanation for why I am getting vertigo sensations on standing, increasingly so, and now even when sitting at times.  These sensations are followed by an instant headache of about 2 minutes.


So, lucky me, I will go to my docs today and get a lumbar puncture (this is spinal tap) with an injection of methotrexate into my spine.  The methotrexate will travel into my brain and kill any leukemia it finds.  This is akin to setting off a bug bomb in your kitchen - make sure your good stuff is hidden away.  This is about the 20th time they have done this to me, but this time the doc will insert the needle 'blind', so to say.  Most other times the perfoming doc would use fluoroscopy, to see where the needle was going.  I guess my doc has done this 1,000 times, so I am not too worried.  In the worst case he hits the sciatic nerve, I jump 2 feet, and the needle breaks in my spine.

These are pics from the great dinner we had at Randy's:

Earl checks Paul for ear wax, and Kim checks Paul's muscle tone.  Paul chuckles

Randy is amazed that Gail ate the whole thing

Cathy licks her lips thinking how handsome Earl is, while Kris thinks she can kick Cathy's butt

Paul is about to eat all the bruschetta.  I am tellling him not to do it, or I will pour water on his head.  Dave threatens to punch Paul

Pat, Maurice and I are stunned at the bad joke that we just heard

Jeanne and Paul are freaked that Dave just sneezed into the salad

As for the RV, I met with a Chevy big engine expert in Bakersfield last Saturday, a retired man that had worked on these engines for many years.  As feared, he told me the RV had a thrown rod, and it would be about $4G to fix.  I talked to another Chevy big engine expert, man who actively repairs these, and he guaranteed he could fix it for $3G.  What to do, what to do.

I think I will have to try to unload it as is, take the beating, move on.  Anyone want an immobile RV?  Fix the engine and you can get in cheap!

So today I get a spinal tap, and tomorrow I meet with an oral surgeon about setting an implant in my jaw for a crown, then next week I see my dentist to put 2 crowns on, and start prepping 2 other teeth for crowns.  After we ruled out chemo or dental hygiene as the cause of all this new decay, my dentist asked if I used Tums or Rolaids.  I do, lots of them, because of acid reflux.  He said those are almost all sugar!  Quit them now.  Great.

Also, on Monday, to celebrate Columbus Day, I will get a cortisone injection deep into my hip, done under fluoroscopy and damaging enough that I need a driver to get home.  So waah, cry me a river.  It's just one thing after another, and the only way to make it stop is to not wake up.  I am not going there yet, my doc always has one more thing to try, and I am always curious to see what is a dream and what is reality. 

Plus, I have all this work to do before I croak.  I started back in Physical Therapy yesterday, as I want to look better before I go.  And to be able to get off the toilet without help.  I made a list of items, which Dana saw and said, 'Gee, this is grim.'  It is, but these things must be done - write a last will, a living will, get the finances straight so that Dana can handle them, write an obit (I am not leaving it up to anyone else to say nice things about me after I am gone), clean up all the messes I left in the garage and yard, make sure any assets are held in the most tax-advantaged way, and other stuff I haven't thought of yet. 

I think this is the way to do it, if you have some time.  If I could get a more precise time from my doctor, I would plan a pre-death memorial service, where you all could say nice things about me (since I would be there), and I could drink a beer or two and go out in style.  I better wake up.