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Grex > Health > #87: Sindi Keesan's Lymphoma Journal |  |
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| 25 new of 480 responses total. |
keesan
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response 225 of 480:
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Nov 1 23:13 UTC 2003 |
This evening I took my first unassisted shower since about June. It is much
quicker than a bath (which Jim had been filling and emptying for me) so I can
take them more often. But it requires standing, keeping your balance
sometimes on one foot, and using more energy at once. In July and August I
did not have enough body fat to take showers in my cold basement bathroom and
there was no way I was going to heat it when the upstairs was 80, so I did
washcloth washes at the kitchen sink.
Jim is making pizza. This cycle I may not get thrush. My mouth is not even
sore, my gums feel pretty normal, no jaw pain. Maybe the half dose of
vincristine is responsible. Prednisone withdrawal has still not hit - not
sleepy but also no longer jittery. Amazing what the body can accustom itself
to eventually. Maybe I will get used to potatoes tasting funny.
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keesan
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response 226 of 480:
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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.
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keesan
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response 227 of 480:
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Nov 2 17:55 UTC 2003 |
I was able to nap this afternoon, finally. Today I had a couple of slight
foot and calf cramps. Don't know if this is because I am now losing salt or
because I ate some cheese last night on Jim's pizza.
We got one pci winmodem to work. Another wants a file not on any of the 3-5M
drivers we downloaded, so we download a 9Mb driver which everyone said
contains all the needed files and worked for them. The contributor called
his HP Riptide Conexant Smart Technologies etc. modem/sound card a 'stupid
thing' twice and had obviously tried lots of other drivers as well. How can
a modem/sound driver be 9Mb?????
The third winmodem (ISA) apparently had the right driver but Windows says it
cannot open the port. It put the modem on Com3. We deleted all other modem
definitions. Rebooted a few times. Is this a dead modem? I would like to
resolve it one way or the other so we can move on to other things.
Jim wants to drag me out walking while it is not raining despite wobbly legs.
Last cycle this day I could not walk more than a few minutes and had to hold
on to Jim to get back here. Got to go.
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keesan
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response 228 of 480:
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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.
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keesan
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response 229 of 480:
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Nov 3 00:13 UTC 2003 |
We stopped during our walk to talk to Jim's neighbor, who used to be out
nearly every day with a power mower but now is having a paid power mower
service. He was slowly raking wet leaves. He asked how I was feeling. Jim
made him admit that he was no longer supposed to be doing anything strenuous.
Last fall the doctors gave him a year and a half to live after his first and
only heart attack. He says he has to die sometime. He is only 90. He is
a lot stronger than I am at the moment. They could not clean his blood
vessels out from whatever is clogging them due to his age, he said. He is
still taking care of his wife because she has weak bones. We never see her.
Maybe I should go to chair exercises. I am supposed to be 55 first. Problem
is I can't sit in the chair long enough.
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polygon
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response 230 of 480:
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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").
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keesan
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response 231 of 480:
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Nov 3 23:45 UTC 2003 |
As I try to eat food that mostly tastes funny and will probably continue to
taste funny for 2-3 months, I can at least feel grateful that I no longer have
to deal with thrush, sore gums, mouth sores, sore jaws, sore throat, sneezing,
or runny nose at the same time. Sometimes I forget to feel grateful.
Jim finished the soup for me. I wonder if anyone has written about which
foods are likeliest to taste funny (other than meat). Squash tastes fine.
Bread moderately so. I think the cabbage family is a problem.
I have to be careful now not to bend my elbows or knees too far (it is easy
to do since there is not much flesh in the way) because they hurt. This may
mean that the joint linings are not regrowing either.
The back of my left hand has now started to feel a bit numb. I keep thinking
it is due to lost circulation, but it is probably the nerve damage. And my
leg muscles also feel a bit numb. I hope this does not keep spreading, but
I think the leg problem went away last time.
Jim is still stuck on modems. We have an external one (on its third power
supply now) that will dial the ISP, go to one website, then hang up as soon
as you click on a link to another URL. With WIn98/Opera, and also with a
floppy disk Linux and Links browser. We tried two computers already and now
Jim wants to try a third, with Win95. I think the modem went bad. It dials
grex okay. Why would it work with Kermit but not a PPP type dialer?
On today's walk we looked for signs that people had added onto their houses.
One duplex down the street (the only duplex on this street) has aluminum
sliding windows downstairs but newer windows upstairs that may be casement.
First time I ever heard of someone converting their house to a duplex.
Lots of houses around here have had house-sized additions added to the back.
Jim says that would be nice to do to his house. I suggested owning fewer
modems instead so he would need less storage.
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edina
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response 232 of 480:
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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.
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keesan
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response 233 of 480:
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Nov 4 15:28 UTC 2003 |
I do understand that and was trying to be funny, but thanks. I am about 95%
thrilled to be so much better than before treatment. I just realized that
I have not had to nap at all this cycle (except for the day when the
prednisone wore off) whereas the first cycle or two I kept suddenly falling
asleep for an hour up to three times a day.
Today my leg muscles feel less odd but I think the tops of my feet are
starting to get numb. My wrists feel better. My left hand is acting like
last cycle about this time - it has throbbing aches in it especially when I
move it or let my hand hang down. Last time this went away after about a
week. Hurts where one of the more painful IVs was two treatments ago.
Since Thursday bits of hair have been exiting at an increasing rate but I
expect to still have a fair amount of hair left in January, unlike the
leukemia and bone marrow patients who need weekly treatments for longer. I
just realized that my hair is no longer than two months ago when Jim gave me
a quick and sloppy haircut (I could not stand for long) to make it easier to
wash and dry. It is still sloppy and short. The hairs must fall out whenver
they start to grow. Only a fraction of hairs grow at any one time.
My hands still shake but I can type okay. Only very mild shaking. The doctor
keeps asking if I have trouble with buttons. I don't wear buttons, just knits
without them. I had a bit of difficulty getting a floppy disk into the slot
on the first try. I don't try to use a knife. Less shaky now than before
I got some strength back - this is now only from slight temporary nerve
damage.
Apart from the numbness spreading, only symptom that is getting worse each
cycle is the odd taste. We went to a little gathering at Clonlara school last
night about old phonographs (78, 90, and 138 - windup, played quite loudly
on wax cylinders and very thick black acetate disks) and all the refreshments
tasted rather odd. The pumpkin bread tasted salty to me. Jim said it tasted
salty to him too. He finished my cookies but the fruit tea tasted okay.
I fetched a couch cushion to put on my chair. I could sit upright with no
trouble for several hours. I could not be heard very well. The laryngitis
which started on day 10 of teh first cycle keeps getting worse from day 5 on
of subsequent cycles then better near the end. I have stopped feeling so
silly when I try to talk to people but when they dont' understand Jim has to
interpret (especially older people with hearing aids).
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keesan
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response 234 of 480:
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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.
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davel
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response 235 of 480:
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Nov 5 20:02 UTC 2003 |
Those of us who know no Russian may be interested in how "Boris Gudenov"
*should* be pronounced. (Initial syllables stressed is the only way I've ever
heard it, but my knowledge comes entirely from radio announcers, I think.)
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keesan
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response 236 of 480:
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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.
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keesan
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response 237 of 480:
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Nov 6 23:31 UTC 2003 |
Mid-treatment-cycle blood tests today went well. Last time the phlebotomist
(lady who draws blood) wanted to know why I came in with a large brown dead
leaf stuck to my sweater. I did not know either but promised her a leaf this
time. She was not there but someone else will give her the red and yellow
sweetgum leaf. Not much else is still colorful except katsura trees all over
downtown (dark red, yellow, and green on the same tree), English ivy (ditto)
and 100% golden yellow gingko trees, the most spectacular being in front of
the Union. There is an area near Arborview where female gingkos were planted
as street trees. THe nuts are edible (tho the fruits have the same active
ingredient as poison ivy), but the fruits are quite smelly so that female
trees are not normally planted.
Blood test results for the past two cycles:
10/06 10/16 10/27 11/07
#3 #3 mid #4 #4 mid
White blood 6.1 3.8 6.3 3.7 Normal is 4-10, this is low
Neutrophils 4.2 2.7 3.9 2.6 Normal is 1.4-7.5
Platelets 428 261 351 264 Normal is 150-450
Hemoglobin 13.7 13.3 14.3 12.9 Normal is 12-16
You can see that things are halfway back to normal by the middle of
each cycle, and then they got knocked out again by the chemicals.
My hemoglobin started at 7.8 in the hospital (after transfusions!)
and went up and down a bit and probably reached its peak 10 days ago.
With luck it will stay high enough for the next two months. 10.6
is apparently acceptable. Jim is going to feed me mashed vitamins
with iron.
Platelets hit a high of 721 Sept. 11 and are drifting downwards but
I seem to have a normally high count.
The nurse said my counts are excellent, I am tolerating therapy well,
but expect my bone marrow to get more and more tired with lower counts
in the next two cycles. I won't need more than two unless the masses
in the spleen are not gone (but maybe they are not masses just scar
tissue - there was something about it being okay if they stayed the
same size from now on).
My legs feel more tired than a couple of weeks ago, maybe because I
have not gained and have maybe lost a bit of weight. I feel like I am trying
to carry 50 pounds more than my legs were designed to handle. Can't run.
Still hard to get up from a crouch - I need to help with my arms.
The nurse never had anyone tell her about a sore hand, but I expect it has
something to do with my platelets being the lowest for a few days before each
time the hand started to hurt, and blood leaking from a vein and lack of
clotting until platelet count got back up yesterday to normal. Last time the
count was slightly lower and my hand hurt for longer.
Today's walk was around the art museum and the hospital. Getting colder out.
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keesan
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response 238 of 480:
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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.
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keesan
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response 239 of 480:
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Nov 7 19:17 UTC 2003 |
Yesterday when we picked up mail at my apartment there was another (3rd, 4th?)
bill from St. Joseph's for a pap smear that was supposed to have been done
at U of M. I phoned and they wanted my insurance information, which I pointed
out would just waste more time. Today I called the U of M pathology
department again and the very helpful person there who had offered to pay the
bill (the U of M probably sent my sample to St. Joe's trying to be helpful,
since the doctor had used the St. Joe's form instead of U of M form), said
that St. Joe's needed me to authorize him to receive a 'detailed statement'
of payment, which I am about to fax. He thought it would have been a lot
cheaper for St. Joe's to simply write off the $38 instead of issuing bills
every month and talking to me and him every month and doing research into the
problem.
I was about to fax this information but when I picked up the phone to call
for the fax number someone was calling us about her problems with AOL. For
some reason she prefers to keep paying $23/month for poor service.
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keesan
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response 240 of 480:
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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.
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keesan
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response 241 of 480:
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Nov 8 15:39 UTC 2003 |
Today I woke up early with a headache and swollen glands, which I would not
normally think of as due to the chemotherapy except that I also had them last
two cycles about this time. I will keep notes this time. I had diarrhea for
a few days all three cycles too, this time starting three days ago. Maybe
the chemo knocks out my immunity enough to let bacteria colonize my gut and
those cause the headaches? Nobody seems to have answers to these things, but
headaches are listed as side effects of chemotherapy. Last two times the
headaches mostly started in late evening and went away by noon or so.
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keesan
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response 242 of 480:
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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.
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keesan
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response 243 of 480:
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Nov 9 15:25 UTC 2003 |
No headache today, just swollen glands. Yippee! And I think my laryngitis
is starting to get better again. So does Jim.
Yesterday we inventoried the six computers given to us recentlya nd found a
CD-RW in one of them. I found the 500K driver for it. Is there some small
downloadable free program you can use to just copy music CDs without moving
pieces of them around? Preferably DOS? (I think there is an item in agora
about this.) If not, a friend offered to use HIS CD writer to copy the
program that came with it. He says there have been updates - do we need
updates for a five year old writer? First we need to figure out if it will
even read CDs.
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keesan
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response 244 of 480:
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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.
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keesan
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response 245 of 480:
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Nov 10 01:02 UTC 2003 |
Our Chinese visitor emailed that she is not coming today (after we waited all
day) and it will be some time after the 19th, which is right in the middle
of the week I don't want visitors. I hope she can wait a week. I never
expected to be running my life in 3-week cycles.
I think I have figured out why I get a headache this time each cycle.
Last weekend was my low immunity, which knocked out my T-cells that fight off
viruses (along with the rest of my immune system). This let the viruses that
happen to be hanging around all the time in me multiply for a few days,
causing three days of diarrhea eventually (Wed-Fri) while the lymph cells
started to recover, and by Saturday I had lots of lymph cells which
accumulated in my lymph nodes as swollen glands causing a headache. But my
immune system is recovering faster or not going down as far each time (no
thrush expect from now on) so the headache is for fewer days each time and
maybe I won't have one next time at all.
THis could be totally incorrrect. I will have a chance to test it.
Watched a movie in which the pet dog got cancer and refused to eat so the
owners killed and buried it. I promised Jim to eat supper.
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keesan
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response 246 of 480:
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Nov 10 16:29 UTC 2003 |
Headache came back at night. I have a second theory about it. I get similar
symptoms (loose stools for a few days then headache) just before and during
my period, so perhaps they are due to estrogen levels dropping and then
rising, as the chemotherapy drugs kill off any developing ovarian cells then
more start to grow. The confusing part of this is Jim always starts sneezing
and taking hot baths around the time I get the headaches.
So I am having not only drug-induced menopause but also drug induced symptoms
similar to those I would get without having menopause. Also cyclical bleeding
the week of the prednisone which today has finally stopped (during
defecation). I hope until next treatment. It started a week before the last
one due to the barium sulfate for the CT scan. I am taking iron pills. Maybe
this is why my hemoglobin was a bit lower than last time.
I can still (or again) feel friction (not just pressure) on the middle of my
left palm and the arch of my left foot. Not my right palm. The pharmacist
keeps warning me that the next development could be dragging feet.
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keesan
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response 247 of 480:
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Nov 10 23:29 UTC 2003 |
Today we walked to the Maple Village shopping center and back. Jim found a
treasure while picking up trash - a yellow solar-powered LED light that only
needs something plugged into the two plug ends, such as a battery. There is
always lots of trash wherever we walk. The A2 News dumps more every Tuesday.
A friend stopped by to bring me walnuts (in the shell, good hand exercise)
which taste slightly salty and oranges (in the skin) which taste more sour
than I recall oranges tasting. She wanted to bring me pie and chocolate bars
and was disappointed that I don't seem to have a craving for sugar. So many
people would like to feed me the foods that they wish they could eat without
gaining weight.
I think things are tasting slightly more normal today but my tongue still
feels like I ate a couple of raw pineapples and the orange stings a bit.
Our friend described one allergy to something or other that lasted a year and
caused her to lose her fingernails. The skin peeled off the bottom of her
hands and feet. Sounds like a leukemia patient described her reaction to
daunorubicin pills. Much worse than laryngitis.
Our Chinese visitor is coming just after my last prednisone next cycle and
will stay at my apartment until I am sleeping better and probably send over
home cooked meals here. We have to get the kitchen back to usable condition.
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keesan
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response 248 of 480:
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Nov 11 02:34 UTC 2003 |
Apparently we have to put together a few computers before working on making
my apartment livable again. Jim has been trying to figure out why the 300MHz
curbside find won't work with any CD-ROM drive using any controller or cable
- anybody have any ideas? I have decided to use this computer for DOS, in
which case it does not need a CD-ROM drive - this will save a lot of time
trying to fix the drive. We have another 500MHz curbside find that won't take
ISA cards (the case blocks you from putting them in the ISA slots - clever
of Compaq) so will only work with either an external modem (which Jim has
already wasted days on) or a pci winmodem, so that is going to be Jim's Win98
computer to use with the CD-RW drive and scanner. We have to figure out what
is wrong with three other computers given to us recently - probably just dead
CD-ROM drives and super-slow onboard video - and then decide how to work
around that. This will save making lots of decisions.
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keesan
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response 249 of 480:
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Nov 11 19:15 UTC 2003 |
Today I can feel a little bit with the middle of my right palm, which leads
me to believe that once I finish therapy I will be one of the lucky 'fair
percentage' of people who recover from the nerve damage.
For Jim's birthday (this week) I offered to help him set up a Win98 and a
Slackware 7.1 computer. We just ordered the 3-CD Slackware (installation
files, source code, and something else) for $1 plus $5 shipping instead of
downloading, because the compiler is 120 M and it would therefore cost more
to download (at 50 cents/hour). Something to keep me from being bored until
January when I hope to be working again.
I have been having a harder time finding books to read at the library that
I can walk to. This time I looked in the Russian book section and found three
Harlequin romantic novels in translation. The translation is interesting but
the plot is not. The main library is twice as far.
Opera 7 lets you choose an 'accessible' screen without images (large black
typeface, pale green background) or a lynx-style text-only screen.
I wish I were strong enough to help clean the gutters. Can't risk it.
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