response 222 of 480:

Nov 1 09:32 UTC 2003

I hope lynx will catch up with this stuff soon, maybe even the newest lynx
on the newest grex.  But in the meantime Opera 7 can handle it.  Don't know
about Opera 6.  There is no Opera 7 compiled for Slackware 7 (yet).

Two hours sleep.  The prednisone may be accumulating but I am done taking it.
No signs of thrush yet today, what luck.  It is a helpful sign of when to
avoid people.  I seem to be over my chills and sneezes - Jim is not.  Perfect
timing again, just before my immunity goes away.  I continue lucky.

response 224 of 480:

Nov 1 19:15 UTC 2003

I am doing better than last cycle, possibly because of the additional sleep.
We were able to go for a longish walk this morning in the triangle between
Dexter and Jackson roads.  Someone had left out a paper bag of Halloween candy
telling us to help ourselves so we did.  There are still some roses blooming.
Since Sept. 1 there has always been at least one on Jim's two bushes, one in
front and one in back. It was nice to have a rose to look at when I got back
from the hospital, through the frame of grape leaves.  (Not that I could
complain about the private room with the view of the helicopter landing
lights, but the leaves were too far away to see individually).

The local liquor store at the fork now has a separate room selling junk food.
Unlike most such stores, they also sell Eden chocolate soy milk and some very
expensive looking spices from San Francisco along with the canned spaghetti,
dog food, and jello mix.

So far this cycle no thrush - which usually starts Friday evening.  I am not
falling asleep yet from prednisone withdrawal probably because my dose was
too high.  Tomorrow should be the low point.  Muscle weakness is gone.  Weight
is down from 110 with fluid to 105 without.  Jim will make pizza if he ever
stops installing Windows repeatedly on his latest computer trying to figure
out why the Winmodem does not work.  Win98, Win98 again, Win95 in case he has
a working Win95 driver that needs to be used with an upgrade after that to
Win98........  Jim tends to get stuck in a rut sometimes.

response 226 of 480:

Nov 2 12:20 UTC 2003

The prednisone (last taken Friday) did not wake me for six hours (5:30 am)
and I am finally starting to dream again.  The drug must have been keeping
me from sleeping deeply enough to even dream.  Still no thrush and I am
nowhere near as exhausted as this time last cycle.

The pizza was pretty good.  Jim should forgive me if I wake him a bit early
to make breakfast as he was excited about downloading the drivers for all
three winmodems yesterday.  We went on FCC-ID numbers this time after the last
few drivers did not work.  If these don't work we can recycle the modems. 
He found one ISA (nonwin) modem that actually worked at 56K.  The 33K external
modem would dial and connect but drop the connection as soon as you went to
any link.  Anyone have a working 33K external they want to give us?  We gave
ours to someone to give to a friend whose ISP in some rural area insists on
their using only USR modems.

response 228 of 480:

Nov 3 00:01 UTC 2003

Despite the wobbly legs we walked around quite a bit and noticed that a lot
of the remaining red maple leaves that were on the trees are now on the
sidewalk after today's rains.  The red Japanese maple leaves are holding on
better and the katsuras still have their leaves, which are turning dark
purple.  Japan must turn colder later in the season.

We stopped at a real estate open house with a flight of steps up to the
entrance (the bottom floor is 'lower level' not basement" which I climbed.
Climbed back down the flight of steps on the inside to see the completely
finished basement, up again, up to the top floor bedroom, down two flights,
and wobbled back to collapse.  

During lunch I came to the conclusion that it has not been the thrush which
makes my tongue unable to taste much of anything, or feel much of anything,
by day 7 of each cycle. No thrush, but still a numbish tongue.  Lunch was not
very tasty.

This is probably due to the outer coating of my tongue not regenerating.  Nor
is the inner lining of my gastrointestinal tract doing very good.  The CT scan
showed it thinner.  I have had several bowel movements today (rebound from
the prednisone) with rectal bleeding and pain.  Had this off and on for two
weeks since the CT scan when nobody told me to drink a lot afterwards.  Ouch.
I hope I can heal in the next two weeks.  Platelet count is probably also low
by now, thanks to the prednisone and three traditional infused drugs.

Intestinal gas continues strong probably due to the intestinal lining not
regenerating the villi, little fingers that do the absorbing of nutrients.
THe nutrients go to nourish other things in my intestines.  I am supposed to
eat frequent small meals, not a few large ones.

After lunch I fell asleep again, deeply, for two more hours and it seems to
be night time again.  Jim is still in the tub trying to get over whatever has
been making him sneeze for a few days longer than I was sneezing.  I seem to
have a pretty good imune system again this cycle.  No more chills.  I expect
things (all but the numb hands and the funny taste) to get better for two
weeks now.

I am supposed to avoid particularly bad tasting foods.  One of them was the
jar of purchased djuvech from Hungary - made of eggplant, tomato, pepper and
some spices.  I wonder what in there tastes so awful.  Or why the Chinese
preserved eggs still continue to taste like normal preserved eggs (sort of
brie like, fermented in lye rather than salt).  I will see about soy sauce.

The real estate handout speaks of hardwood floors throughout.  They were
actually, along with the steps, yellow pine.  They want $300,000 for 1000
square feet and no basement or garage, with an architect-designed exposed
joist ceiling (you can see the same metal hangers that we used).  The views
are lovely and it is way back from the street.

response 230 of 480:

Nov 3 15:04 UTC 2003

I have ten seeds from the pawpaw Jim gave me (which I ate and enjoyed). 
Should I save them?  Should I try to plant them?  Pawpaw seeds look like
watermelon seeds, but much larger.

Last night, I powered up the computer which needs to be fixed.  The hard
drive is formatted into two virtual drives, c: and d:.  There are still a
number of items I'd like to retrieve from the disk, but I can't get the
zip drive to work.  The "guest" program, which I had used before to assign
a drive letter to the zip drive in DOS mode, doesn't seem to work.

Getting started goes as follows: turn the machine on, it attempts to boot
into Win95, and goes automatically to "It is now safe to turn off your
computer" screen.  Restart, get the menu, and select "command prompt" 
(otherwise it goes into "safe mode").

response 232 of 480:

Nov 4 14:21 UTC 2003

Sindi, while I'm sure in many ways you do feel grateful, at the same time,
it's ok to not be 100% thrilled with your situation.

response 234 of 480:

Nov 5 03:32 UTC 2003

The achey area on my left hand is also pink and a bit swollen so I suspect
some vein is leaking a bit of blood, which will eventually get absorbed.
This evening I compared experiences of how to get along without full use of
the left hand, with another attendee of a lecture at the Science Research Club
(first Tuesday of each month at the dental school).  She had broken a wrist
and her most recent inconvenience was that the wrist still does not let her
flatten her hand out so that she can use it to stand back up from a crouching
position.  She needed to get back up while cleaning the gutters.  I suggested
that people whose wrists were healing might not want to clean the gutters,
but she said they needed cleaning.  Luckily I don't need to do much with my
left hand this week and I can still type despite a bit of pain.  Jim and I
are the two youngest members of the group and she is, I think, in her early
sixties.  She came over to ask if I was doing yoga exercises on the large
cushion I brought along to sit on (on the floor).  The president gave us two
bags of chocolate trick or treat candy to take home to fatten me with.  It
tastes sort of sour, and salty.  I suspect Jim will eat much of it.  

I have had practice getting out of bed with only one hand.  I used my right
hand and my left elbow, but still nearly fell out of bed one time.  You don't
think about how you use your body until something stops working as expected.

The dental school door has a particular strong door closing mechanism, and
it took me a few minutes to get the door open far enough to wedge in my foot,
and then somehow wedge in enough to lean against it and push against the jamb.
I don't have enough weight to lean against door hard enough to open it.  I
finally got through just as a student was coming after me.  She opened the
next door for me.  Architects might want to choose easier-opening doors.
At the public libraries they have awful doors (embedded handles that hurt to
pull on them) but automatic openers.  

After the lecture someone started to talk about musical events that he thought
might have lured people away from the lecture, including 'Boris Gudenov' (with
initial syllables stressed).  A very popular mispronunciation.  We left early
because it was hurting to sit or stand.

I think I am losing weight again.  Down from 107 after supper to 104.5.  Part
of it could be fluid loss due to not eating salt.  Got to force foods.  Jim
keeps trying to make attractive meals.  Tonight was stir-fried daikon and
black-skinned winter radish with the last garden red pepper and tofu on rice.
The tofu and daikon tasted normal, the rest sort of sour.  Then he brought
me the back of chocolate kisses to stick next to the bed.  I had started to
feel a bit queasy after eating a few so that won't work.  We may try making
rice pudding once we get more milk and eggs.  

Jim now wants to learn Lynx for DOS with which to test the external modem that
would not work with Win95, Win98, Opera, Linux, Links but did work with
Arachne (DOS browser) on a 486.  Some people don't get bored easily.

response 236 of 480:

Nov 5 21:42 UTC 2003

There is along discussion of this in another item in Agora, but the correct
pronunciation is approximatly Baris Gadunof, final stress on both names,
a as in father, i as in machine, u as in lunar, o as in how we pronounce o
in Boston - all vowels as in Italian.

Today's hike was to the west branch library via a street  with a mountain ash
in fruit (big orange berries), a sweetgum with star-shaped leaves and spiny
fruits that I had never seen before, a crabapple with enormous glowing red
fruits, one of which Jim immediately put into his mouth (he says it is not
as bitter as most crab apples) and a kitchen cabinet store. The latest fad
seems to be cabinet doors that are painted and then fake beat-up to have paint
rubbed off around the edges, skin-deep cracks, and even crinkly paint.  I did
not see any peeling paint on the doors.  Jim admired the different woods. 
We noticed that some of the cabinet doors are being mounted inside out so that
the panels project to the inside, also probably a fad.

We lunched at the Chinese Buffet, where I determined that the only things that
tasted nearly normal were the asparagus, cucumber, and tater tots.  The
strawberries and watermelon tasted out of season but also looked it.  I made
myself eat two ice cream cones.

My left hand is feeling nearly better today.  Last night I was careful not
to move it.  I managed to sleep on my back by putting a chair cushion under
my bottom for extra padding.  Sleeping on my back let me cool off from hot
flushes by rolling over away from the edge of the bed to ventilate, and then
roll back to replace the blankets.  The previous night I had been trying to
put the blankets back on with both hands.  This not only made my left hand
hurt but made a mess of the blankets which kept me up half the night.

Jim is now (I hope) out digging up burdocks in the front yard.  He would
probably try to cook the roots except our farmer friend already gave us some
domesticated burdock roots.

The only color left in the landscape (not counting what is on the sidewalk)
is various red or orange berries and crabapples, a few pink leaves on burning
bushes or cherry trees, and half of the Japanese maples have kept their
leaves. Plus pumpkins.  A lot of people still have Halloween decorations out,
including lights, and there are a few Christmas lights already (still?).
I feel lucky that it has been such a mild fall, with no frosts yet.

response 238 of 480:

Nov 7 05:24 UTC 2003

Hemoglobin is a protein that binds oxygen and includes iron in it.
They also measure hematocrit, which is the percentage of the blood that is
red blood cells (I presume not counting the water).
Mine has been from 24 to 42 and tends to be about three times the hemoglobin.
In high school I measured it at 45, which the teacher said was high.
Normal values are listed as 36-44 on my result pages.
A website lists normal values as:
Male - 41-50  Female 36-44  

Right now I am probably at about 40, which is good enough.  The numbers have
been heading upwards on average, with a drop after chemotherapy each time
because I stop making red blood cells for a few days.

I did some more reading on lymphocytes.  B-lymphocytes attack bacteria outside
of cells.  T-lymphocytes attack cells which are not behaving properly because
they contain viruses, fungi, or are cancerous.  The Rituxan they are giving
me attacks all B-cells whether or not they are cancerous but leaves T-cells
alone (I hope) so I still have the T-cells to fight the cancer.  In klg's
case, he had mediastinal lymphoma which involves the T-cells, and this might
have been a reason to give Neupogen to stimulate the bone marrow to produce
more of them (or are they produced in the thymus?).  

Someone just phoned Jim and said ever since she installed the latest AOL on
her not-so-late computer, things have been going a lot slower.  She has 48Mb
RAM and 350Mb free disk space.  WOuld it help to get rid of the latest AOL?
(If it were me I would get rid of AOL entirely.)  

In HIV I think it is the T-cells which are attacked and destroyed, but it is
also the T-cells which attack cells harboring the AIDS virus so the body loses
the ability to defend itself against HIV.

Luckily for me the flu is viral, not bacterial.

response 240 of 480:

Nov 8 01:28 UTC 2003

Today we walked to a church near Pauline and Seventh, via a park attached to
Eberwhite Woods.  We looked at the crafts sale there and explained to several
of the older volunteers that we were mainly stopping to rest me.  Jim had to
repeat what I said, louder, for the first three, then I heard one explainng
it to another.  Lots of volunteers there.  Someone had made snowmen out of
odd-shaped interlocking concrete bricks and there were snake-like objects made
of fabric from men's ties.  We declined an invitation to stay for their turkey
dinner and walked back in strong winds, looking at yellow gingko and green
and red katsura trees in people's yards and the last of the flowers.

Jim's neighbor left us 12 packages of cheese.  Got to go eat some now.

response 242 of 480:

Nov 8 20:56 UTC 2003

My headache eventually got somewhat better with the help of a down quilt and
a hot water bottle.  Jim started recycling 486s.  I suggested that polygon
bring his nonworking computer over this weekend.  Just after I emailed him
our Chinese friend living in Chicago phoned to say she could come to visit
for 10 days (she has been offering to come cook for me, too bad I won't be
able to taste her cooking too well) while waiting for some legal matters. 
Her husband was transferred to Beijing by his American company and I suspect
she may be getting a bit bored by herself.  We have been friends since the
year after her husband was one of my roommates in 1985.  He was a good cook
until she arrived and he forgot how to cook.  So I just emailed polygon to
suggest today would work better than tomorrow for his computer because our
visitor is coming tomorrow.  Jim volunteered to clean the kitchen at my
apartment so she can cook meat for herself there.  He was the last person to
use it, for all of August, and for some reason could take dishes out but not
put them away.  
        Perfect timing on the visit as this is my week of immunity and with
luck my taste buds might even start growing back.
        We are about to inventory the 12 or so remaining computers here.  I
will skip today's walk.  Too cold and windy.
        Amazing how busy you can stay after 'retiring'.
        I notice that the skin on my fingers near my fingernails has again
started to shred and one finger is again infected.  Last time it was 7 fingers
by the end of the cycle, at which point it suddenly all healed.

response 244 of 480:

Nov 9 16:04 UTC 2003

I found a DOS driver for an older HP CD writer (28K) and a lot of information
on several linux CD recording programs.  The best is supposed to be cd-record.
Version 4 is up to 337K plus some other files are required.  The Windows
software that our friend has needs 100Mb free disk space.  I think cd-record
is non-gui but xcdroast is X based (gui).  Maybe we can find a precompiled
older version that is smaller and does less.