Field dependent

We just came from the doctor’s office, so I want to relate the latest info. The CT scan I had last week shows no change. The masses are the same size. This means the doctor will come up with a chemotherapy plan by the end of the week. We probably need some new chemos, so he will work with Stanford to see what is available, including clinical trials. I may have to go back to Stanford, either in hospital or outpatient.

We will not pursue donor leukocyte infusion until those masses in my pancreas are very reduced. My best hope right now is for a clinical trial that involves chocolate and italian food, with a side of mahi mahi, not necessarily all at once. If nothing at all happens, or chemo cannot arrest the progress of this disease, the Irish wake is planned for some time in October or so. I would like to be there, listening to you all say what a great guy I was, but every one I have suggested this to (having a wake before I die) said it would be quite weird and uncomfortable. Cowards.

All this leaves me with a lot of work to get done. Do I finish turning the blog into a book? Keep going on the genealogy project? Make the jade fountain I always said I would make? I know I have to make all the finances very straightforward, and finish my appeal with Social Security.

I will most likely move back in with my family. Dana and I have been working things out, and I love her, and she loves me, and she is very supportive and knows that I will need her support. Moving back in will be a big job, but I will just take my time. Time to shed some things, too.

It occurs to me that it would be so much easier if I knew we had no hope and how much time exactly I had, but of course there is a glimmer of hope and I am prepared to dash through the eye of the needle, again. None of us knows how much time we have, and it highlights to me just how important every day is, how important it is to tell my family that I love them, to pet my dog and throw the ball with him, and to appreciate the beauty all around me.

Dana and I went out to the east of Santa Margarita last Thursday, to Shell Creek Road, where the wildflowers were having their annual show, spectacular this year after the rains. We had a little picnic and basked in the glory of living.

I wrote this a few weeks ago, in a bleak mood, based on the weekly prompt (stranded) from Writing Through Cancer:

Empty

Vision’s getting blurry,
skin like dry cracked paper,
random pains are flaring up
in my abdomen and joints as my body
consumes itself in a fight for life.
Stranded in nowhere, rocks and sky and
scrub, rapidly fading now,
only fumes in my tank,
nothing in the bank, raided and
traded for this long shot at life and love,
for hands to ease me down,
a rock for a pillow and sand
for a blanket,
and the vultures overhead like a ceiling fan,
shade, blaze, blaze,
shade, blaze, blaze.
Relentless, relentless,
comforted that we all die,
it had to happen,
this too shall pass.
Why be thankful for the pain,
just to know there is life yet?
The accounts are drained,
the tank is empty,
and I’m stranded between
living and dying.

Cha-Ching

What a golden time we had in Las Vegas! We had a great room in Paris Hotel, beautiful views, and our package included continental breakfasts from 7-11 and drinks and appetizers from 5-8. The breakfast was bagels, lox, cream cheese, onions and capers, watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew, croissants and pastries, yogurt and granola, teas, coffees and juices, just about everything except bacon and eggs. The appetizers at night included mini-sandwiches, pastas, empanadas, and everyone was pouring themselves big stiff drinks to start their night.


We checked out the new City Center on Thursday, which MGM bought after Dubai decided they'd had enough. Pretty nice hotels and casinos, high end, and architecture reminiscent of Gehry in Bilbao.

Here I am getting rubbed out.





Thursday night we went to Palazzo to see ‘The Jersey Boys,’ but BestofVegas.com muffed our order. After an hour on the phone, I got it straightened out, and we had two premium tickets waiting for us at will call. We spent the night frittering away dollars at the slots. We never did win, but we didn’t lose much, less than planned, and we had a good time.


We rented a Mustang convertible for the last two days, so Friday we drove out to Red Rock Canyon and had a picnic.











At one of the overlooks we were by ourselves, and 'Kiss' by Prince came on, and next thing you know we are boogeying down, radio blaring, golden!







Friday night we saw a comedy act that was pretty funny. The venue was shoddy, and we had front row seats in the VIP section (Very Insultable People), but luckily there was a big baby-faced guy sitting next to me, and he was the chosen foil. Front-row seats are not what they’re cracked up to be, because you are straining your neck to see.

Saturday we drove out to the Pinball Hall of Fame, a big hall filled with machines from all the eras of arcades. We played a few of the old classics, and some of the newer styles, Dana held her own while exclaiming ‘Ohh!’ repeatedly, and all at a cost of $10. We probably saved $100 by not gambling. We then drove downtown and gambled a bit at some of the older casinos, the ones with lower limits and better odds. No comment.

Back to the Palazzo for ‘The Jersey Boys,’ and we had tenth row center seats, perfect. The show was fabulous. It is the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, music slightly before my time, but most of the songs were very familiar. The show was great, the guy playing Frankie Valli was voted best singer in Vegas, a very crisp production. We had some drinks in the nightclub, and then drove off-strip to dinner at Envy, a noted steakhouse. Dinner was excellent, and after dinner we cruised up and down the Strip with the top down and rock and roll blaring from our radio. We were voted the ‘Coolest Cruisers’ by Las Vegas Review, capping off a great last evening in Vegas.

The most important thing for me on this trip was that Dana and I reconnected in some ways, and I feel hopeful that the future includes our relationship. It was also important for me to have a good time without the travel angst I often carried around, and I succeeded to some extent.




When we got back, lovely Lia had an Easter dinner of roast lamb ewe could die for, scalloped potatoes from Eden, and asparagus spears on a bed of angels and baby hair. Mmmm, delicious, and so beautiful it was difficult to eat.

I will get a CT scan on Thursday to see if the reduction in immunosuppression is having any effect, reducing the leukemic masses in my pancreas. I do feel slightly more anemic, sleeping a little more, not much energy. Press on.


Poem I wrote called

Flea Market in My Head

The full moon charges up the sky,
lands right in my eye,
and I think, ‘Where am I?’
Then I sense my being,
my pains, my scraping hip sending
groans out of me,
my swollen gut, cramped and gassy,
the aches in my back from my misfiring pancreas,
and I realize I am still alive.
In full moonlight, I give thanks
for another day, for family
and love and friends and doctors.
I try not to count the days remaining,
who knows anyway, miracles happen,
and once that starts my mind is
a flea market, and once inside I am
jumping from booth to booth.
I am at Rocky Hill flea market, and the flea market in Monastiraki in Athens,
and the Rastro in Madrid,
and the big one outside Valencia,
and the one in Malaga with all the African stuff,
and I am searching all the booths
for that special something,
cheap tools, organic vegetables, drums that smell bad,
antiques, the love of a woman,
local jewelry, counterfeit brand name clothing,
around I go, did I pay Mastercard,
how should I have played those pocket Jacks,
can the Celtics still win?
The moon stares me down and charges me up,
around the market I go,
doughboys covered in confectionary sugar like
Jonathan Winter’s hair, caramel apples that can
take out your fillings and remove crowns,
is my Mom alright,
fried snickers, kettle corn, bad bad things,
what does it matter, they can’t kill me.
Booths filled with cheap CDs, old vinyls,
racks of mystery novels, Harlot’s Kin romances,
what is that thing on the dog,
titillation, porn mags if you’re bold enough to ask.
Inside my head it all swirls around,
can’t be stopped, the earth is a big spinning flea market,
and I am drawn into booths that have what I need,
what I love, old broken-down things,
who knows what they were used for when complete,
but they could not be discarded,
someone might want them, they are here to
swirl around my brain,
to glisten in the moonglow, to ride a beam
into my eye, into my head.
In my brain I am hoarding things,
I am moon-addled, making piles in the
corridors of my mind, stacks of National Geographics and
New Yorkers, I love the cartoons,
did I lock the car, what is that scraping noise,
is that a mouse, I am
making piles of memories
and images and moments and faces and voices,
and I worry that if there was a fire in my brain,
could I get out, or would I
trip on a ferry ride to Greece, or over that dog Chip
we had for a few weeks,
would I burn up in the fire of my swirling mind,
and the moon won’t let go, so I
get up and make some tea and browse
the flea market in my head
until the sun finally comes up and
I start another day.

Dang it, I'm back

Dear blog readers, I am sorry to say that I have to now reopen the blog, and rename it again. This is like an episode from the Twilight Zone - twice I have entered the ‘final’ blog post, and each time I have relapsed within a few months. In other words, I have relapsed again! Three strikes and you’re out! Third time is a charm! Third on a match gets pregnant! Three’s a crowd!

I was supposed to be getting my hip replaced around March 22, and in preparation we did a bone density scan. My bone density is fine, but some gray areas were seen in and around my pancreas. Ultrasound showed these to be 2 masses in my pancreas and a third in my kidney. The largest, in my pancreas, is the size of a small potato, about 3”x2.5”x1.5”, and not as tasty. CT scan showed it even better, and a taste test proved that a potato is a better baker.

A biopsy of the mass in the pancreas showed this to be made of leukemic cells, and the assumption is the other 2 masses are also leukemic cells. We followed up with a bone marrow biopsy last Wednesday, and I received the news Monday that there are leukemic cells in my bone marrow, but in very small quantities. My blood tests have not changed, with slight anemia and no other abnormalities.

So, the leukemia is back in spite of a successful BMT. It is back in an abnormal way, but it is back. Grrrrrrr, give me a break, this isn’t fair, where is God?, etc. etc. As much as I tried, all the ranting and raving and tears and wailing and gnashing of teeth won’t change anything.

The action plan is as follows: Stop the prednisone immediately, and cut the prograf to 1mg every other day. This should allow the immune system to fight harder and hopefully kill this cancer attack. The minor graft v. host I have had for over a year was not a good thing, after all, so we need to stir up this immune system into attack mode. Chances of this succeeding are not that good, but it could happen.

In ten days we do another CT scan to see if the masses are shrinking. If so, great. If not, we move on to chemotherapy. You know me, I love some red death and numb me up. Actually, I may get new stuff, as I may have reached my lifetime amounts of the old chemos. Seems odd that they'd worry about that, just give me what works best. Additionally we may want to harvest leukocytes (WBCs) from Lisa and transfuse them into me, for an extra boost of cancer fighters, henceforth called DLI (donor leukocyte infusion). The docs are also looking into clinical trials.

My body is responding either psychosomatically or for real, with backaches, joint pain, stomachaches and lightheadedness. I am chilled a lot, and my #$%@^ing hip is killing me, but that is not getting replaced any time soon, and I limp on. I walk around like I am drunk, careening into things.

So fellow wanderers, here we go again. Needless to say, I am shattered by this news, and worrying how much is left in my tank of will and positivity. I am trying not to dwell on this, and mostly succeeding. In the back of my mind I am developing a bucket list, but you didn’t hear that and I didn’t say it, that is too gloomy a thought. We all will die, I am ok with that, but I thought I went through some agony to gain ten more years, won that bet, and now feel shorted.

To add to this, the Social Security people sent me a notice that they had overpaid me, and to please send them a check for $85,000 in 30 days. I filed my appeal Monday morning. Since I am feeling so lucky these days, Dana and I are going to Las Vegas for the anniversary trip we didn’t take last November. We’re leaving today and coming back Sunday. I have a plan to drop $85K on black at the roulette wheel, and see what happens. Wish me luck!

Peace Out

It’s been a long time since I posted, and this will be the last post of Holy Cow. There may be some new blog coming, I don’t know. So much has happened since the last post. I will try to be brief and kind.

First, my health is OK, I went to Stanford yesterday to see my BMT doctor, specifically to see how he felt about me getting a hip replacement. He told me about 50% of long-term steroid users suffer bone loss and need joints replaced, and he encouraged me to get a MRI and see if the hip is fractured; he thought it probably was. He also recommended the bone loss medications – Fossamax, Citrical, and vitamin D. I am an old lady. My blood pressure continues to run high, and he wants me to go on medications to lower that. I probably should cut back on the 5 cups of coffee I am drinking first, and see what that does. It is the only drug addiction I have left, so I am scared.

Right around our 24th anniversary, November 23, Dana and I decided we needed a separation for a time, a ‘trial’ separation, so I no longer live at Wavertree, I now live in a very serene place on the outskirts of SLO, with a 5-acre field out my front (only) door, nice views in every direction from every room, a nice garden, 3 quiet and studious students as neighbors, lots of critters, and beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Great place to think and ponder and write, and that’s what I am doing.


My front yard









Typical sunrise








I am working on my serenity, my quietness, muting my trumpet, and I am delving into my Tao. I am taking Tai Chi, and Pilates, and volunteering in a few places. I have gone to some poetry readings and shared some of the stuff I have written lately. I spend an hour each morning writing, whatever pops out, and I have a number of projects I need to get going on once I finish the office this weekend. I have internet only through a Droid phone, and that is a pain at times, and I am struggling to put together a decent PC.

Settling into another house took a lot of work, been at it since Dec. 20 and it’s just about done. I was a vagabond for a few weeks in early Dec. - thank you Lia for the use of your house. Life is serene.

Gutted

When they tore me apart,
look what fell out,
green fields and hills,
pink skies, dog fur and
womens’ rounded butts,
hair and teeth and old sutures,
benign cysts, red death,
an Ipod and old hiking shoes,
bad poems and cowboy music,
stale and moldy love,
misplaced blame, lost trust.


All of Us

Been through it all now,
been through some anyhow.
Compressed, indented, insulted,
infuriated, enraged, encaged.
Poked, prodded, tested,
abused, teased, squeezed, diseased.
Ejected, rejected, selected, disinfected.
Gloved and loved, hugged and bugged
Body burned and broken, drowned, irradiated,
parts falling out, poisons pouring in,
my own Three Mile Island,
Chernobyl, Bhopal,
Think global act local.
I tamped down the fear, the pain, the anger, the memory,
to cope, to hope?
To feed my ego, my addiction, my inferno.

Been through it all now that
you cracked the egg
of my comfort,
spilled the stuffing of love
from my pillow, tossed
me out of bed.
I flailed in the yolk of my sins,
bits of feather and shell stuck
to my knees and elbows as I crawl
from the wreckage and the fire, back from Hell.
Am I Lazarus, or the Phoenix, or Sisyphus?
Or just not here, not now?

Dispose-All Pain

The dispose-all is broken,
so the dregs and sins of my cooking,
egg shells, celery ends, burnt toast,
apple cores and carrot tops,
are piling up in a bowl on the countertop.
The ill-fitting lid doesn’t hold back the decay
while they wait to be buried.
The fruit flies have found it,
and fly in my face to thank me.

It’s like Haiti in this bowl.
I don’t have a lid that fits,
and the dispose-all is broken.
I have to see the refuse,
can’t just flush it away,
get it out of sight.
They are cutting off
limbs like carrot tops
and celery ends, no anesthesia.
Do the carrots cry out in pain
in a language I don’t understand,
or I just can’t hear them?
I empty the bowl into a hole
I dig in the yard,
and go to the store
for a new dispose-all.

Burrito of Love

All those tragic love songs,
poems about broken hearts,
true loves torn asunder –
their tears cover the earth.
I fold them all into a
giant burrito of love for you,
rice and beans to show how
I’m stuck on you,
cheeses and sour cream to show how
our love has aged but must stay fresh.
I add some chicken to give
my love burrito some more protein,
so you’ll have the power
to love me back.
Tomatoes, avocados, lettuce and onion,
plus a little cilantro and salsa,
all of the earth as is our love, organic and
eternal, all-powerful,
filled with god,
all wrapped in an
extra-large tortilla,
zero grams trans-fats.
I fold the ends,
trying to contain all the
love and emotion of
all those love songs,
all those poems,
‘Somewhere I Have Never Travelled Gladly Beyond,’
and ‘Love, Love Me Do,’
without spilling any rice
or leaking any salsa passion.
I give you this burrito,
but then you say,
‘No thanks, I already ate.’

I love my dryer

My major appliance just can’t get hot.
It could be her igniter is shot.
If that isn’t it, it might be the fuse,
or the optical sensor’s seen too much abuse.
Is she set up for propane
and I’m giving her gas?
I’ll have to convert her,
what a pain in the ass.
Could be she’s electric
and just not plugged in,
or she tripped the breaker –
I’ll flip it and try agin’.
If she’d just get hot
I’d live a clean life,
My major appliance
Would become my wife.
Whirlpool, Amana, Maytag, GE,
Spinning and heating and tumbling me.

Waffle Break is Over

The finches are telling me
what to do,
prune the tree, move the feeder,
add some seed,
hurtle headlong through space,
find a friend, call your mom.
What happened to that
finch I loved,
golden feathers, smelled like flowers,
sang so sweet?
Oh, here is another,
golden feathers, smells like flowers,
sings so sweet.

Thank you all for your support through the leukemia ordeal. Life goes on, and then it ends. Be at peace.

TNT speech and race pics

I promised to post the speech I gave Friday night, so here it is.

Hello, my name is John Fiore from the SLOHS team. I am living proof that your efforts save lives. I am very glad to be here among so many of my heroes, and I am so happy to be able to thank you all for your outstanding effort. You helped to save my life, and the lives of many others. You have raised money to help the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and it is your effort that compels me to be here today, saying thank you.

Here in this room we see one response that people have when friends or family are stricken. They bond together to find solutions, to do what they can. They undertake great efforts and withstand great pains so that others can have a better chance at life. We have gone through the massive effort of raising donations in a tough economy, asking everyone we know, and some we do not, to donate to the LLS. Tomorrow, while you are walking or running the race, and you start hurting, think of the people that you have already helped with the monies you have raised, go to a peaceful place in your mind, and take another step.

When they told me in Feb.’05 that I had acute lymphocytic leukemia, I was stunned. The next day my wife and I were on our way to Stanford Medical Center, where I was treated with a cocktail of drugs called CALGB8811. That stands for Cancer and Leukemia Group B trial number 8811. Research by CALGB is sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and in part funded by the LLS, by monies raised by people like you.


F Ground is the ward at Stanford for cancer patients with compromised immune systems, and this would be home for 4 weeks or so, while they slammed me with the chemotherapies that would shock my bone marrow back into line. This was the room they first gave me;

Just kidding, this was the actual room, all to myself because of my low immunity, with a nice garden just outside.

Every six months or so a patient comes into F Ground, takes all the chemo, and for some reason, does not get very sick – little nausea, minor illnesses, generally healthy. I was that patient.



I roamed the halls of Stanford Medical with my IV pole, imagining I was in a big art gallery, looking at the artwork that lined the halls.

When family came to visit, we meditated in the meditation room.

When your life is threatened by cancer, you have time to ponder your existence and your mortality. At sleepless moments, you ask ‘Why me?’ The answer is of course, ‘Why not you?’ You ask yourself, ‘Why go through this?’ The answer is that while I don’t mind the fact that I will die, I am not done living yet.

I want to see my sons pursue their dreams, and I want to travel the world with my wife, so I needed more time. I thought if I had a few more years, ongoing research could help me keep going. Thanks to all of you and those like you, that research has given me that gift of more time.

You can walk around for hours in the hospital halls, and that is what I did, pushing my IV pole and wearing my HEPA mask

(show the mask). Since I was in an isolation room and effectively isolated when outside the room by the HEPA mask, I resolved to be this lone warrior, this monk trekking to health.

I settled into my isolation room with a laptop, and quickly tired of sending multiple emails to people saying the same things over and over. When someone suggested I write a blog I jumped on it.

“Holy Cow I Have Leukemia” was born, and there I documented what it was like to be in the hospital with leukemia.



The blog would be my job, and I took my job seriously. For my blog profile, I used the poop catcher as a hat;

it reminded me of the hat worn by The Flying Nun on TV when I was a kid, and later it figured prominently in my stay.

The way it is supposed to be used:

(quickly to next slide)

Of the 22 people on F Ground, I saw one other actually walking around; the rest were too sick. I walked all around that hospital, day and night. During all my walks, I saw lots of things in the hospital, and I wrote about them in my blog.



I wrote about the gardens, especially the rooftop garden of the Children’s Hospital, and all the sick and frail kids in the Childrens Hospital.

I wrote about some of the experiments I performed while in the hospital. The best experiment was double Menu Day, when I tested the limits of the kitchen. Here is the menu,

here is the lunch

As I reread the blog looking for pictures and funny stories to bring to this podium, I realized how crowded it was in that isolation room. All sorts of friends were reaching out to me through the blog, the phone and email, writing comments, offering support and inspirational quotes, and writing crazy stories and cool poems in the comments. The lonely trekking monk, me, was actually part of a large group making a push up Everest. If I wobbled toward a crevasse, many hands held me up, and with this great support, I kept trekking to this point. Here we all are again, a large group that has come together to conquer a mountain, to hold up those that need our support.

With the support of my friends and family, I did go home after three weeks, a little ahead of schedule, and then went through two more years of chemo and radiation.


Since leukemia tends to hide in the skull, around month 4, mid-May ‘05 , I wore this great-looking mask [show mask]

and was strapped to the table for cranial irradiation. I like to wear the mask every now and then, it makes me look like I am going fast, but kind of freaks out the neighborhood. [put on mask]

When I asked the doctor about side effects from cranial irradiation, he told me ‘Oh, you will be stupider, but you won’t notice.’ What was his name?




The radiation did strange things to my hair

When it all fell out, I got some new headgear

And when the eyebrows fell out, I just pasted on some tomato hornworms I found in the garden.

My friends joined in at a big BBQ and changed their eyebrows – these are Bushy eyebrows

I think most of us who have had cancer live with the fear that the cancer will return. I know I did. Last July ’08, I was training for the Nike half-marathon as an honored teammate of the SLOHS TNT team, when leukemia returned. I had relapsed. This time, I would need a bone marrow transplant.



Twenty years ago, I would have had no chance of getting a bone marrow transplant. At age 53, they would not have even tried it, as such a person could not withstand the rigors of the entire procedure. Thanks to continuing research funded by efforts such as yours, the regimen called CALGB9511 was ready to save me.




When you are preparing for a bone marrow transplant, the first thing is the induction phase, just as when leukemia first struck, to stop the leukemia from progressing while you wait for a donor. This is 3-4 weeks of intense chemo.

Back I went to Stanford, back to F Ground, back in time two and a half years. Thanks to new drugs, I was healthy, but the anxiety of finding a bone marrow donor was ever-present. Some patients die while waiting for a donor match.

After the 4 weeks of induction, I went home, and waited for a donor. On August 14, I found out that I had a great match in my sister Lisa. She is an identical twin, so my sister Leslie was my spare! I had some time to kick it, so I went to a music festival, and then to Yellowstone for some hiking in the backwoods with a friend who is a doctor, and a pirate.

When everything was ready, I went back to Stanford. This treatment was much tougher than the first go-around. This time they kill the bone marrow and completely replace it, starting with out-patient radiation and some very nasty chemo four days before you go into the hospital.

Here I am in the total body irradiation booth. Behind me are little dinosaur stickers that kids have put up while they are being irradiated, and that always inspired me to be strong! Four days of this and I got glowing reviews!



Here is my sister Lisa donating her bone marrow through the relatively painless apheresis method.

Thank you Lisa, you are a superhero.

This is how I looked just after I checked into the hospital, and 5 days later, when the chemo and radiation started to slam me.

I received that bone marrow transplant, a simple transfusion, on September 30, and then the effects of the chemos and the irradiation took hold. I lay in the bed for almost 20 days, fed by an IV of what looked like chicken broth, unable to eat and barely able to drink, barely alive with no white blood cells, red cells or platelets.



On the eve of the Nike marathon in San Francisco, Oct. 18, my wife and son were at the pasta party with the TNT teams. She felt guilty for being there and not at my side, but there was nothing she could do for me. The Central Coast team cheered when my picture came up on the screen. Later the emcee called for a few moments of silence and reflection about the reasons they were all there.


Back in the hospital that very night, the doctors came and told me that my blood counts had ticked up slightly. The bone marrow transplant was engrafting and my new marrow was making blood cells. I would probably live.

I would live to enjoy Thanksgiving with my family.

I would live to visit Zion and Bryce Canyons with my brother.

I would live to see my son Mike graduate from high school.

I would live to hang out with my family on Penny Lane, and roam around Scotland and Ireland.

I would live to visit my Mom for her 86th birthday.

I am now cancer-free and leukemia will not kill me. Once again, thanks to all of you and those like you that have made the efforts to support this worthy cause. Some day I believe this disease will be cured with a shot in the doctor’s office, a shot that will have been created from research funded by people like you that come together and make a great effort.


I did have to change the name of my blog

I would like to thank my fantastic wife Dana, who has been my primary caregiver and who made many sacrifices to keep me going, and the medical teams at Stanford Medical Center and at the Oncology Hematology Group of San Luis Obispo, for keeping me alive.



I have been on this journey now for almost five years, and I have met people that fought valiantly against this disease, but were not lucky enough to find a donor match, and died. So please, if you can, sign up for the National Bone Marrow Registry. Donating bone marrow is now a nearly pain-free procedure, and you can save a life. Again, thank you to all the heroes out there who helped save mine, and good luck in tomorrow’s race!

Thank You, and GO TEAM!

That is the speech and all the slides, just about as I delivered it.  The remote for advancing the slides failed me because of distance, so I had to signal (slap my ass) one of the TNT people (Stephanie, thanks Stephanie) to advance the slide.  In the end it all worked out.  If I can clean up the audio portion of the video I will post it, but probably not here, just a link to it.

Alien vegetables

"Romanesco" cauliflower

I can't wait for this weekend to be done.  It should be a great weekend, but I haven't been able to sleep a whole lot, tossing the whole speech around in my brain.  Today, Dana and I will drive down to Santa Barbara, about 90 miles south, to the Fess Parker Resort.  We will check into a garden suite for 2 nights, which we get because I was one of the top 3 fundraisers for the SLOHS team.  How nice, thank you donors!  Check in is around 4:00, get all the race stuff, Inspiration dinner at 6:00, give an inspiring speech at 7:30 or so, and asleep at 10:00.  Get up and walk 13.1 miles starting at 8:00, nice cool weather, and the walk is along the beachfront.

It is going to take me about 4 hours, anything less is fine, anything more is fine too.  This has been a taper down week, and my hip feels worse than ever.  My body is trying all kinds of tricks to get out of this, faking a cold yesterday, ankle aching every day under no strain, body bullshit and I am calling it a liar and a fake.

We get this box of organic vegetables every Thursday from a local farm, filled with good things.  This week we had "braising" mixed greens (a bunch of oriental stuff), green colored "Romanesco" cauliflower or broccoli florets, celery, carrots (thick manly tubers), lipstick peppers (to go with the carrots), salad mix, butternut squash, "sierra gold" potatoes, a bag of "Valencia" oranges and a pomegranate. 


Every week we struggle to eat all of this, and I end up having to make things I have never tried before.  A couple of weeks ago I made apple cobbler and apple pie - the cobbler was good, the pie just ok.  Last night Dana braised the braising vegetables in oil and garlic.  She ate hers like a bowl of spinach, and I wrapped mine with roast turkey and cheddar in a burrito.   I think she had it right.


I started my Literacy Council tutoring this week with a student from Mexico City.  He speaks okay English, but needs reading and writing skills.  We had some mix-ups on scheduling, and I had to find him parked out fron of the meeting place, in his Lexus.  He has been here 7 years and works (worked) in construction, now unemployed and waiting out the economy.  Smart of him to upgrade his skills during the lull.  We will have a good time getting this done.


I am stepping up and volunteering at the Hearst Cancer Support Center also.  I have been going there and meeting with a support group, and started taking Tai Chi Chen.  I am the only guy, and the youngest, but it is a lot of fun.  Maude from Harold and Maude is in the class.  I also went to a laughing class last Monday, and it was a lot of fun practicing laughing.

Saw my Doc yesterday and all is OK.  Testosterone level is trashed and I will be supplementing as soon as we get prescription straightened out, so this may be my last week in choir.  Steroids are still kicking my butt as far as sleep cycle, but oh well, maybe I should quit all the coffee and Cokes, duh.  So, good luck to me, bon chance, buena suerte, I will post the speech with pics when I get back.