381 new of 480 responses total.
My cingular plan let me call anywhere from anywhere without charging--it even worked halfway between Bismarck and Fargo, ND, which is about as nowhere as you can find. Now I have a Verizon plan (because Cingular has horrible east coast reception, and horrible customer service), which also claims to be to anywhere, from anywhere, for no extra charges.
Jor won't be making any calls from Prince Edward Island for a while but will look further into a better plan when he is well enough to be going out on his own. The checkup this morning went well and he is doing eyedrops and feels much better than yesterday (as predicted). My lips tingle and it hurts somewhat to swallow so I probably have the beginnings of thrush and am gargling and using the medicine. Good timing - finish one medicine before starting the next (and starting jor's eyedrops on schedule). Nurse Jim is making a lunch that can be eaten with one's eye's shut - if you use one eye it moves the muscles in the other which hurt. Bean stew made with little green lebanese mung beans or something similar looking with local organic celery and carrots on rice. Jor commented that he keeps getting prescription type spam including vicodin. Today I got two prescription spams including vicodin. We are explaining to him why it is not a good idea to take too much painkiller with codeine in it. That is probably why I had constipation for five days in the hospital followed by 3 days of unpleasant reaction when the codeine wore off. They said it was okay to take up to 2 every four hours, and I was taking one every 6-8 and the bottle said to take only 2 per day. Also the tylenol in Vicodin is not good to take in large quantities (liver damage).
The three of us were trying to figure out how to use the two types of eyedrops. Twice or four times a day (with meals they said ? !). Apply pressure. Shake. One is atropine for treating a couple of conditions that I did not recognize. It dilates the pupil and is also used by opthalmologists. The other is a combination of a steroid (dexamethasone = prednisone) which reduces inflammation but also reduces the immune system so they added a broad-spectrum antibiotic. So now there is a timetable for Vicodin (painkiller) and two eyedrops all of which will interfere with sleep if followed exactly but it is probably for no more than 10 days at most. By the time they got this all figured out and lunch started Jim got to market after everyone selling food there had gone home but he got mozarella and will make a whole wheat pizza. He is been somewhat less vegan than usual recently. Pizza can be eaten with the eyes shut, I think, but jor has actually been able to read today with one eye. My thrush progresses - now my gums as well as my throat hurt but it is only for 2-3 days probably. Water still tastes funny and other things don't taste much at all but at least I am not sneezing this cycle. I got my usual 2-3 hours sleep at night and now another 2 in the morning. The bean soup with a few vegetables (made in the latest pressure cooker from Value Village) turned into vegetable soup with a few beans. I can add salty pickled Indian lime to it today. Last time I was at the cancer center I paid the $4400 (discounted by ppom) bill for the first outpatient chemotherapy and blood tests. Today the itemized (nondiscounted) bill arrived. $1400 for the administration of drugs for 5 hours. (It will be shorter from now on). $73.18 for two antinausea pills (kytril). $40 for saline solution (one bag used to keep the IV line open). Supplies II $73 (?). A few lab tests. The older chemo drugs (three of them) only totalled about $200. The Rituxan was $5100! Total $7,235.16. At this rate the total treatment including hospital would come to over $80,000 (not including CT scan?). Plus probably $6500 a year in biannual CT scans and frequent blood tests until I hit Medicare age, from now on. (Or less if ppom wangles a good discount for the scans). Plus $1000 or more a year for my insurance policy. Half my earned income. Life is not cheap.
I am not having "frequent blood tests." In fact, I don't remember my oncologists are ordering any at all in the past year.
Yes, it's unfortunately costly, especially for those people who don't have any income _except_ earned income. They often have to drop certain parts of their treatment because they can't afford it.
Klg, what is this costing you per year for the tests you are having? They caught my lymphoma in the first place because of some very abnormal blood test values (cmp and cbc). The hospital seems willing to treat people even if they cannot pay, and then try to work out some payment plan later. The social worker at UM hospital said they have some financial aid for people, and St. Joes helps people to get Medicaid assistance. My thrush is now at the point where I have pain/burning in my throat (with or without swallowing), lips, tongue, gums even inside my nose, despite using the medication. Oh well, in a few days it will be better and THEN I can get a full night's sleep, I hope. It would be nice if the 3' wide mattress pad would come by then. They sent an invoice but still no pad.
I have Cingular cell phone service and find the customer service to be good, as long as you don't mind listening to the same 90 second ad loop for 20 minutes if you get put on hold. When I get a person, they're almost always knowledgeable enough, and willing enough, and capable enough, to help me.
Thanks for the information. I think jor may be sleeping again, or at least resting. He got up to do eyedrops around 10 and then crashed. I got up to eat (after 5 2-hour stretches of sleep) at around 10 and then went back to bed for 2 hours. This is the first time in my treatment when I recall getting weaker for three days instead of stronger, but things should turn around again in a day or two when my immune system and other growing tissues start to grow again. Right now my innards from the tip of my nose to my belly button feel like they are burning - probably the mucus membranes are not regenerating. Judging from last cycle, things should be much better in a day or two and I am certainly more awake now. But really wobbly on my feet (which I can't really feel too much any more as they are numb). I can't compare this with last cycle since thankfully I don't have a cold now. I feel really sorry for anyone who is doing weekly chemotherapy. Those must be the ones who lose their sense of taste and appetite full-time and for me it is only a few days when things don't taste like much and it hurts a bit to swallow. We had corn meal mush instead of oatmeal today. We got some books on tape for jor from the library, but I could not find any particularly good ones. Mostly murder mysteries there. I got one set of 7 tapes - French and Russian short stories. I could not walk to the library (could have done it Tuesday but not yesterday) and I was tired enough that I spent most of the time there just sitting instead of looking around. I got Lord Jim on tape.
Jim thinks the burning in my throat is not thrush but the fact that my mucus membranes are not regenerating. Today the angles of my jaws also hurt when I chew anything harder than canteloupe (including semi-ripe honeydew melon). This also happened last cycle but went away in a few days. I also have some muscle pains in my upper arms like last time. Luckily we have lots of ripe canteloupe, pears, and other things. I seem to have done too good a job with the thank you note to the neighbor who brought over the apples and today it was two boxes of produce. Spinach too. I made it over briefly to thank her again (she could barely hear me as the laryngitis is also worse) and held onto Jim coming back. She and Jim have been neighbors for a long time - it is good to have neighbors. Today jor is feeling well enough to go outside for a bit and I hope to feel well enough to go walking in a couple of days if the rain holds off. Jim is patching a car window before it rains. I am going back to bed again. Jim thinks I should be practicing climbing stairs instead.
$zippo. Thanks, MESSA.
What is MESSA? I got up to check email since I am again having trouble finding a possible sleeping position as my hip joints hurt when I lie on my side because of no body fat to put things in the proper position and probably something is not regenerating at the joints. The thrush seems to be slightly improved and I plan to feel stronger starting tomorrow and to regrow the things that stopped growing due to the chemicals. I will experiment with adding a few layers of blanket to the small pillow that I have been using between my knees to keep the bones from hitting each other. We all had a nice salad for supper thanks to the neighbor. Jim discovered that the bag contained not just real green (Romaine) lettuce but even croutons, powdered cheese and dressing (a salad mix). And there was an avocado. Jim had half an avocado and a muffin for supper and some popcorn while feeding his patients a more balanced diet.
Today my thrush appears to be better - my gums don't hurt and my lips do not tingle. Which implies that my immune system is starting to recover. My legs may be less wobbly but I am too sleepy to be sure as it is garbage day and the trucks start at 7:00 in Jim's neighborhood. The last one just went by and I will go back to sleep after oatmeal. Jim is taking advantage of having a temporary guinea pig (roommate) to work on the door gaskets (to block sound) and eventually will finish the ventilating system because the humidity has gone way up.
MESSA is the MEA's version of bcbs.
What is an MEA?
Michigan Educational Association.
My turn to go online. (I have a bit of competition recently). Jim is out trying to put an aluminum awning over his side door while also making supper, before it rains. Jor is continuing to improve. We went for a couple of walks today and I am back to as much strength and energy as two days ago and my gums hardly hurt at all now (at least until I eat) so this is the uphill stage again. My throat still hurts, my jaws do not, and I seem to be mostly over the hot and cold spells. I should keep track of all this to know what to expect next three times. The dogwoods are a really interesting purplish-reddish color and there are various orange and yellow and white berries, and crabapples, and still lots of petunias and snapdragons and roses in bloom along with the purple asters. The seventies chicken-coop style loop around the corner is planted to katsura, a Japanese tree that is just starting to turn dark purple. The neighbors on the corner have removed most of their yard decorations (the little flowers on sticks) and replaced them with artificial colored leaves. Jim's black currant (from Oregon) has turned pink and yellow. His 12-foot jerusalem artichoke is still in full bloom with yellow daisy like flowers. I have two long stemmed pink roses inside. (Jim swatted the third one while chasing a fly that came in because he had to open the doors to get fresh air, having put on all the storms windows last time it got cold.)
The mattress pad ordered Sept. 19 was still not here this morning but it arrived an hour after Jim called. This was the fourth time they 'sent' it. This time it is 31 pounds and quilted. In its honor I took a bath. I looked in the mirror and the mirror looks like one of those that makes everything narrower but so does another mirror so it must be me. My first bath in 9 days. I have confirmed what I thought I noticed last bath- my apocrine sweat glands don't smell any more. Odd effect. Nor is my hair getting oily. These must be other things that are not regenerating. My fingernails keep growing fast and it is still a challenge to cut them.
The laryngitis appears to be getting worse again which I think confirms that it is drug related since if so, it is said to start on day 5-10 and it got worse around day 7, after gradually a bit better last cycle. Our doctor friend wants me to be seen by an ENT specialist who will stick something down my throat. I would rather wait for it to get better without that.
Totally unrelated to the topic, but what do other people see at www.nuttybunch.com? With Arachne and Netscape 4.7 we saw 'Image Image' (which can be changed to a word and a string of peanuts). With Opera we got a blank screen. This is supposed to be a website with several links.
Most of the links lead to pages in Japanese. The main page has some random family type pictures (5 of them). One of the links "wedding" has information for RSVPing for their wedding, map to get to the wedding and reception, and places to connect for accomodation for those coming from out of town. Seems to be in New Castle, England. A lot of fluff, i.e. falling pastel hearts on the wedding page, sparkles of red/orange leafs on mouse-over of the links on the main page. It is a bit cute, but to me just another in a long line of examples of "just because you can do it, doesn't mean that you should do it" style of web design.
Thanks, all we could figure out (revealing codes) was that they wanted you to download macromedia shockwave flash - what exactly is that supposed to do? I went to their website once and learned nothing. Animation? Jim will take a quick look at the five photos at the public library some day. He thought the wedding was going to be in Ireland as the groom's parents still live there. As regards your opinion of writing this sort of web site, Jim says 'exactly'. He finds the Japanese connection funny and will look at the map too and he thanks you for 'confirming his worst suspicions'. But he supposes it is harmless. No hurry to get to the library now. Thanks. Jim says hello to people at grex and wanted to ask about the new twenty dollar colored bill, where can he learn more about it and why are they changing it every seven years to thwart counterfeiters if they can print old money still. They can't take the 50% of American dollars in other countries out of circulation.
The Flash stuff is for animations and sound. Some websites depend on it, when they should instead strive for accessibility.
resp:120 I think most local financial institutions (banks, credit unions, etc.) should have information posted. I've seen it. You might be able to find it on the web as I've seen a few articles on it.
I've seen TV ads about it, too. Why we're spending taxpayer dollars to advertise *money* is beyond me.
Jim assumes the site was not designed, just used what they found somewhere and plugged in a few things. Stupidly designed if it won't show anything at all without a plugin. Does the site have ads for the hoster? (Maybe in Japanese?). Is there some way to download the five photos using their URLs and if so what are they? (Can I somehow get at them via lynx, which shows [EMBED] before I reveal code.)
I am supposed to keep gargling salt water for the first two weeks each cycle because of my mucus membranes not growing back and therefore being more likely to get infected. This probably also explains why the inside lining of my throat and gullet feel burning and sore. It does not hurt a lot. The jaw soreness may be a side effect of vincristine. Last cycle it went away in a few days. Things still taste a bit funny.
Vincristine side effects may include transient blindness and difficulty in walking and wrist drop. Effects are worst at 4-9 days. This is day 10. Today I walked twice as far as yesterday. My wrists seem a bit weak. The symptoms get worse after three treatments. Oh well, only 3 to go. The Type I anaphylactoid reaction (laryngitis) is rare. I have it.
>123 Advertising the redesinged $20 alerts the public to the change. Hopefully, no fist fights will ensue from either customers or retailers thinking that the new bill is bogus. BTW, could you change my $19 bill, please?
Re #127: > BTW, could you change my $19 bill, please? Sure. Is six $3 bills and five 20 cent pieces okay?
Today was blood draw day. I did not bring my white slip because last time they said I was in the computer and it was not necessary. This time I was not in the computer and we had to get another white slip. While waiting I talked to someone else skinny who assumed my voice problem was the same as hers. She has a tumor of the esophagus and has a tube inserted into her stomach somehow since she cannot eat. While waiting again for blood draw I talked to someone who had breast cancer four years ago and needs to get tested once a year for five years. She had four chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, and four more chemotherapy, and said she got more tired each session but the numb hands recover six months later (except sometimes they are still numb). I should have a positive attitude and keep pushing myself to move even if tired. I have it easy. We stopped on the way there to collect pawpaws from my tree that the neighbors had gathered for us. The waist-high neighbor made me a poster that reads: Sande I hop u fel badr. Her mother objected to the badr so she explained this as fin There is also a polr br with some words in a balloon issuing from its mouth that none of us could quite figure out: TYANI HDAKO KAFA She did not want to explain what this meant. We shared some pawpaws with them. At the hospital Jim shared pawpaws with the infusion nurse interested in plants, who will plant the seeds. We then brought some to Jerusalem Market, where one of the owners will plant the seeds in a pot or bucket. They had fresh pistachios in the husk today, and fresh figs and dates and cactus pears. Ayse's was closed. We picked apples on north campus and near the hospital. I picked from a tree that appears to have been designed as a grafted crabapple that lost its graft. The tree is a bunch of sprouts with knee to waist high apples. We shared some of the less buggy ones. On North Campus we got a few monster windfalls from the Ford library and then admired the gifts to Ford (Korean lacquer, Liberian embroidery) and the centennial art (American made popsicle stick lampshade and dollar bill flag). I think I walked my 1/2 mile today. Jim is now attempting to find some compromise between how jor cooks rice (boiled in lots of water with the cover off) and how he cooks it (pressure cooker, bring to pressure, turn off). He will run the dehumidifier in the kitchen. The house is getting too humid and now we have fans blowing bedroom air to teh basement dehumidifier and bringing up cold dry basement air. This won't work in colder weather as the basement needs insulating. The insulation boards have been waiting 20 years. Maybe this is the incentive needed to get them on the walls.
Correct that KAFA to KAFR and the D in the previous line is backwards.
Monster is spelled Mastr so there could be a missing n in Kafr.
A couple of nights ago we had a friendly 3-way scrabble game. Jim played with
dyslexia and wanted to use the word PRON ('shrimp'). John played with one
eye. I viewed the letters from a horizontal position to which I had gotten
used while grexing on my back. Nobody won since we were not counting points.
We have a piece of drywall blocking the direct cold draft in my room, so that
it goes up the wall instead of aiming directly at me. Cold basement air comes
up to replace the warmer moister house air. Eventually this will all be
ducted to a small warm space with the dehumidifier in it, some year. In the
meantime I added another blanket. No point in heating the basement.
I did so well picking apples that today we will be picking grapes. Jim tried to put a friend who wants to make pawpaw wine in touch with a friend who grows pawpaws and lives way west of town, and the latter invited us all to supper and a tour of his orchard which we visited two summers ago by bike. He has variuos other interesting fruits none of which were ripe in August. A few miles from him are the grapes of another friend. The two of them may pick while I sit in a solar-heated car if I run out of energy. I am taking along a chair cushion and possibly a camping mat as I tend to conk out in late afternoon. My throat has been sore for a few days, with some intestinal symptoms and two days of off-on headache, indicating I got some infection during the low point of my immune system but the headache is gone and the throat a bit better. I have to be careful to stay warm today and maybe I should not be overdoing the exercise like I have been. Yesterday I lay down and could not move for half an hour. Looks like I will never know what the POLR BR is saying. Perhaps it ate some alphabet soup.
Just did some more reading on peripheral neuropathy = the tingling and numbness in hands and feet. For a 'fair percentage' of patients this will get better within weeks of ending therapy as the nerves regenerate. For others it will be permanent and maybe worse. I hope the latter effect is less common in those of us being treated only once in three weeks. Leukemia patients are treated weekly.
The nurse called back with my blood test results. WBC (white blood cell count) 3.8, normal being 4.0-10.00, last cycle this time being 7.2. This includes the immune system and the platelets (clotting system). Neutrophils (immunity) 2.7, normal being 1.4-7.5 so I am lowish normal, last cycle 5.4 (after a bad cold which increases immunity I think) and end of cycle 4.2. Looks like I am a day or two behind in recovery compared to the last cycle. It is safe to visit people if they are not sick, says the nurse, and I should make sure to wash my hands. The first cycle my neutrophil count was only 0.1 (which is what it felt like Sunday).
Today we went to pick grapes. It was cold and windy so I went back to the car while Jim and Peter picked, and fell asleep a few times. Then we hiked around the largest pawpaw orchard I have seen at a friend's house. He must have 500 trees planted and is evaluating them for when they lose their leaves, the size and color and taste of the fruit, etc. He wants smaller fruit clusters. He has some monster fruits up to 5" long. They are yellow or orange fleshed with various flavors - canteloupe, mango, avocado -like. The skins can be green or yellow (easier to spot on the ground). Some ripen too early or too late for here. Peter took enough fruit to make wine. He has a winery in Tecumseh that makes grape, apple, and cherry wine already. He brought lemon-flavored pickled watermelon rind and also wine jelly. Susan made supper with lots of their garden produce. I conked out on the couch after supper while the guys talked fruit. It is dark and quiet where they live - my first dark and quiet experience this year. From Jim's low traffic street you can hear I-94 at all hours.
When I threw up unexpectedly at 4 am I was worried that the chemotherapy might be responsible but Jim said he also felt queasy. He suspects that we sampled some seedling pawpaw with too much of some chemical. Our friend told us that the owner of the largest pawpaw orchard in the country is allergic to pawpaws. We also tried an underripe one that Jim dried. We have had no troubles with pawpaws from our own trees. Or it might be the latest intestinal virus that I probably picked up last weekend when my immunity was low. I am fine today. We may hike over to Eberwhite woods to say hello to the people doing the stewardship day there until noon. I don't think I can cut out buckthorn quite yet. The wine jelly actually tasted like good grapes, possibly because of the added sugar. Wine tastes just sour to me.
We hiked to the west branch library instead. They have low vision aids such as magnifying glasses and something that displayed enlarged print on a screen. And a telnet icon. Jor said he could not get telnet to work here - I suspect he could not red the little word telnet under the icon.
I was not sure I could walk back from the library but I did, and when we got back Jim went to bed. I have found my limit again. We have to process grapes now, cleaning out the spiders and stems and making juice from them. I am still getting nice emails from other translators and friends. My Hungarian friend phoned our mutual friend who is Slovene and lives in Italy and let her know I have cancer. The Slovene friend's sister finished chemotherapy in July. I will write her next week after my CT scan. A translator friend in wants to pray for me and wonders how she will be able to pay this month's rent.
We walked to Eberwhite Woods and most of the way through it and came out at the community garden. On the way saw lots of squirrels and trees, some puffballs and shelf fungus, moss on dead logs, and Jim found some pruning shears and called the leader of yesterday's stewardship day about returning them to someone who lost them. At the garden there was lots of swiss chard, arugula, mizuna, all sorts of kale, celery, lettuce, and slightly frosted tomato plants. We came back and Jim picked up more of his own tomatos from teh ground (never did put up cages) and is making instant pizza (baked tomato and cheese sandwiches) which I am supposed to go eat now. The garden has some very comfortable straw bales for sitting on, and Zion church has a pretty good red apple tree and a couple of trees with giant hawthorn berries which we thought at first were crabapples. He thinks the walk was 3/4 mile each way, with only two stops to rest, which would imply I could probably make it into town but probably not back. Maybe next week I can make it into town. I have pretty much run out of good books at the local branch library. Got out a Turkish cookbook.
I just read about a couple of studies of patients with my type of lymphoma, older than me. In the first study, of people over 60, survival rate went up from 57^ to 70% when they added Rituxan to the CHOP drugs, and 18 month remission went from 64 to 77% with 91% responding (they had fewer cancer cells but not none). In another study 63% of those receiving Rituxan had remission for a median of over 5.3 years (about as long as the drug had been around). A study of 400 elderly patients gave 1 year survival up from 68 to 83%, with complete remission up from 60 to 76%. I wonder what complete remission means - no symptoms or no cancer cells found? My chances are somewhat improved by being under 60, I think. And maybe also by the fact that my tumor could not be felt after the first session. I will know more a couple of days after tomrrow's repeat CT scan. Only three more IVs after tomorrow, with luck. My hand still aches from the last one. One person I met with lymphoma did not need a second treatment for 9 years.
Today after Jim made the fifth trip to Murray's for a belt for the car, we got me to the hospital as instructed an hour before the 5:30 CT scan appointment. They asked Jim if he was pregnant and I told them I was the patient and I filled out a form assuring them I had no allergy to the iodine contrast solution, and was not taking certain drugs, and had no heart or kidney problems. Some people have reactions to the contrast solution (barium citrate smoothie - a very cold white liquid that comes in 16 oz bottles which they tried to make me drink two of, and I managed 24 oz. The second bottle was at least not refrigerated. I was shivering for an hour after the first.) Or to the stuff they inject during the procedure through an IV. The IV went unusually badly but the technician asked if it was okay not to redo it (and start all over, forget it) due to its hurting and blood all over the place and I said yes, let's just get it over with. I only needed it in for 20 minutes while they moved me in and out of a hole in the machine and had me hold my breath. They took photos (?) before and after the iodine solution, which stings going in and makes you feel warmish. All I had to do besides ignore the pain was keep both arms lifted over my head. Jim says he saw Scott while biking to Murray's. The CT scan is based on a small dose of radiation so it is done through the radiology department. They will read it tonight and get results to my doctor in 2 or 3 days. Afterwards we visited our doctor friend who brought me to the hospital in August to share pawpaws and pickled peppers, and he also checked me out and says I still have fluid on the lungs but he can't find any enlarged lymph nodes or tumors. I hope the CT scan agrees. There are lymph nodes at all four intersections of limbs and torso, and under the ears. We then took me to the public library while Jim picked up a few things from my apartment, and celebrated at Dinersty. My arm finally stopped hurting. I make sure to wear old shirts when being jabbed.
I swig that contrast liquid like cold beer on a hot day. Down the hatch in 5 min. or less. Never have any sting from the IV fluid. Just a metallic taste in the mouth and a warm feeling, esp. in the groin, for a short time. Next picture session is the 1st wk of Nov, I believe.
It is amazing the number of blood vessels in the groin of a male. I found the iodine IV to be strangely pleasant. The drinkable contrast though...ugh.
Re #140: it could not have been barium citrate. Barium citrate is soluble in water, and soluble barium compounds are very poisonous. The usual barium compound in contrast agents is the very insoluble barium sulfate. It is possible that they suspend it in a "citrate" drink of some sort, to make it more palatable. That, however, would not create any barium citrate.
re resp:140: So, are congratulations in order? Grex wants to know, is Jim pregnant?
Re 144, No. I can look up which barium solution it was. Fruit flavored. I should also read about how CT scans work. THe technician watched the injectin then left the room to run the machine so something must be radioactive. Also Jim had to wait outside. I did not notice anyone shaking the solution to suspend anything. What was so bad about the solution when you drank it, goose? They said some people get nauseous. My big problem was the coldness and the volume.
Computed tomography (CT) a method of body imaging in which a thin [74]x-ray beam rotates around the patient. Small detectors measure the amount of x-rays that make it through the patient or particular area of interest. A computer analyzes the data to construct a cross-sectional image. These images can be stored, viewed on a monitor, or printed on film. In addition, three-dimensional models of organs can be created by stacking the individual images, or "slices." How the test is performed The patient will be asked to lie on a narrow table (gantry) that slides into the center of the scanner. Depending on the study being performed, the patient may need to lie on his/her stomach, back, or side. If contrast media (dye) is to be administered, an IV will be placed in a small vein of a hand or arm. Much like standard photographic cameras, subject motion causes blurred images in CT. Therefore, the technologist operating the scanner and supervising the patient will give instructions through an intercom when to hold one's breath and not move. As the exam takes place, the gantry will advance small intervals through the scanner. Modern "spiral" scanners can perform the examination in one continuous motion of the gantry. Generally, complete scans will only take a few minutes, however, additional contrast-enhanced or higher-resolution scans will add to the scan time. The newest multidetector scanners can image the entire body, head to toe, in less than 30 seconds. How to prepare for the test [76]Return to top The patient may be asked to drink oral contrast either immediately prior to, or 4 to 6 hours before, the CT scan. The contrast may be composed of non-reactive (inert) chalky-tasting barium sulfate, which will eventually pass in the stools, or absorbable clear Gastrografin solution. The health care provider may also advise fasting (no solids or liquids) for 4 to 6 hours if contrast dye is to be used. The CT scanner has a weight limit to prevent damage to the mechanized gantry. Have the health care provider contact the scanner operator if you weigh more than 300 pounds. Since metal is very, very dense, the x-ray beam has difficulty passing through it and results in errors in the involved constructed slices (artifact). Therefore, the patient will be asked to remove jewelry and wear a hospital gown during the study. How the test will feel [77]Return to top The x-rays are painless. The primary discomfort may be from the need to lie still on the table. If intravenous contrast dye is given, the patient may initially feel a slight burning sensation within the injected arm, a metallic taste in the mouth, and a warm flushing of the body. These sensations are normal and usually reside within a few seconds. Why the test is performed CT provides rapid, detailed cross-sectional imaging of the patient which can then be reconstructed into three-dimensional models, as needed. Intravenous contrast enhanced scans allow for evaluation of vascular structures and further evaluation of masses and tumors. CT is often utilized in the trauma setting to evaluate the brain, chest, and abdomen. As well, CT can be used to guide interventional procedures, such as biopsies and placement of drainage tubes. What the risks are CT scans and other x-rays are monitored and regulated to provide the minimum amount of radiation exposure needed to produce the image. CT scans provide low levels of ionizing radiation which has the potential to cause cancer and heritable defects. The risk associated with any individual scan is small; however, the risk increases as numerous additional studies are performed. During pregnancy, an [80]abdominal CT scan is usually not recommended, due to risk to the exposed fetus, including developmental malformations and childhood cancers. Patients who are or may be pregnant should speak with their health care provider in order to first take a pregnancy test or choose an appropriate alternative imaging modality without risk to the fetus, such as ultrasound. The most common intravenous contrast dye is iodine based. A person who is allergic to iodine (such as those with seafood allergies) may experience [81]nausea, [82]sneezing, [83]vomiting, [84]itching, or [85]hives. If contrast administration is essential for a patient with any of the prior reactions, the health care provider may choose to pre-medicate the patient before the scan with a short course of immune-suppressing steroids and/or Benadryl. Alternatively, other contrast media or other imaging modalities (such as ultrasound or MR) may be used. Rarely, the dye may cause [86]anaphylaxis (a life-threatening allergic response), usually manifested by swelling in the airway. The patient is instructed prior to the scan to notify the technologist via the intercom if he/she has difficulty breathing. If such a rare reaction does take place, the exam will be stopped, and the patient will be rapidly treated with special medication and closely monitored by a physician. Iodine-based contrast is primarily filtered out of the bloodstream by the kidneys, and thus patients with diabetes or renal disease will require continuous hydration and close monitoring of kidney function. Diabetics on certain a glucose-lowering medication (glucophage/metformin) and renal dialysis patients should speak with their physician regarding stopping the medication, and the proper scheduling of the scan in conjunction with dialysis, respectively. Consent from the patient or designated guardian must be obtained prior to the use of intravenous contrast. 63. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003330.htm#Alternativ e%20Names Apparently the IV solution can also cause nausea, not just the barium.]
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CT Scan
What is a CT Scan?
A CT (Computed Tomography) scan, often called a CAT (Computed Axial
Tomography) scan, is a painless examination that gives the physician
an unobstructed, cross-sectioned look at organs and structures that
cannot be seen clearly on conventional X-rays.
How does CT scanner work?
The CT scan combines a sophisticated X-ray system with a high-speed
computer. The scanner obtains slices (blocks of image data that can be
viewed on an end to end projection) of information that will assist
the patient's physician in making a diagnosis and planning a
treatment. This combination produces a picture of the body, allowing
the physician to see tissue and bone structures in fine detail. The
imaging procedure and the images are best described thinking of a loaf
of bread. The entire loaf being the part of the body that is scanned.
Anywhere in the loaf of bread a single slice can be picked out and
looked at end to end.
Why is CT important?
CT offers a non-invasive way to obtain information about the patient's
body that may otherwise not be as easily seen. It can lead to early
detection and treatment of disease and pathology by a physician. CTs
can make it possible to see various types of tissue and can provide
important information about the brain, spine, joints and internal
organs. The CT scan is a "window" into the body.
What can I expect?
When your physician refers you for a CT exam, it is important to talk
to him/her about all of your questions or concerns. It is important to
tell your doctor if there is any chance you could be pregnant or
trying to get pregnant. You also need to inform your doctor if you are
allergic to iodine or presently taking a medication for diabetes
called glucophage. If abdominal imaging is planned, tell your doctor
if and when a previous barium exam was done. A recent barium exam
could interfere with a CT procedure.
When you arrive, a technologist and or nurse will ask you certain
questions pertaining to your medical history and explain your
procedure. You will be asked to change into a hospital gown and be
given a secure place to store your clothing and valuables. Any metal
or plastic objects will need to be removed before your scan.
[Nobody asked questions, it was just a sheet of paper. No hospital gown
was needed. They just checked that I had no metal snaps or buttons or
anything else metal. I wore loose knit cotton pants, and long-sleeve
t-shirt that pushed up above my elbow for the IV, and Jim's sweater
because mine would not push up far enough. I had no valuables but Jim.
I had no buttons either.]
Some CT produces require two sets of scans. The first scan will be
without IV contrast and the second scan will be with IV contrast. This
is a normal CT technique that helps differentiate tissue types. The IV
contrast is injected into a vein in your arm. For abdominal /pale CT
procedures, you will also be asked to drink an oral contrast (liquid
barium). The oral contrast will highlight and abnormal in your
digestive tract.
[This did the procedure twice for the abdominal scan, before and after
injecting the iodine dye solution. These people should have proofread.]
Must I do anything to prepare for the exam?
Yes. All contrast exams require that you do not eat or drink anything
4 hours before the procedure. You can take your prescribed medicines
if needed, under the direction of your physician. This can be
discussed when your exam is scheduled.
[6 hours, or 4 if you are diabetic.]
What happens during the examination?
In the scanner room, there is a patient table and a structure with a
big round hole in the middle called a gantry. Before the scan, a
technologist will assist you onto the scanning table. Depending on the
type of CT exam being performed, you will be positioned either head of
feet first and in your back or abdomen.
[on not in, or not of. I would not have needed assistance had I been able
to use both arms, but the left one was not able to bend and it hurt.]
When you are comfortable, the technologist conducting the examination
will move the table into the gantry opening until you reach the first
scan position. You will be given specific instruction about how to
breath during the scan, depending on the type of scan you are having.
At that point, all you have to do is relax and remain still while each
scan is being taken.
[And hold your arms stiff vertically for the whole procedure. The machine
had a recording telling me when to breathe. You have to hold your breath
so that your diaphragm does not move, spoiling the picture.]
You can think of the CT scanner as a fancy X-ray machine. Other than a
sound like a clothes dryer, you won't even notice when the system is
on and taking pictures. Several scans are taken while the table is
moving; when the table is moving it is allowing for a different scan
location.
[The machine makes noise when it is on. When the noise stops you are
done.]
How will I find out the results?
When the exam is complete, you may leave the facility. If IV and or
oral contrast was used, it will be necessary to drink additional
liquids, preferably water, throughout the day of the examination to
help eliminate the contrast from your system.
[They never mentioned that I should drink anything so I did not drink
anything for a few hours afterwards. I should read up on tests before
going to them. I drank 1/2 glass of water at supper.]
All procedures will be read by the Radiologist on staff after the scan
is completed by the technologist.
The final report will be available for your physician within 24-72
hours.
[Read the same night, available in 2-3 days.]
Last Updated October 1, 2002. Unauthorized reproduction of this
material is strictly prohibited.
Copyright 2002, St. Paul University Hospital
References
8. http://www.stpauldallas.com/index.htm
CT Scan (or other x-ray exam) Tip- If you need to disrobe for the procedure, you'll probably be given a locker for your stuff. However, it probably won't have a lock. So, unless you are accompanied by a relative/friend who can hold your valuables it's a good idea to bring a padlock for the locker to safeguard your possessions whilst in the procedure room.
Depends on the facility, probably. When I had my shoulder scanned a few years ago the UM hospital had lockers, with locks, and the locks used brass keys so you could bring it into the lab with you.
If all that is a CT scan, what is a CAT scan? (I had what was described above, with an IV contrast agent, for a renal examination. I think I had a CAT with a californium injection for a bilary inspection. The latter was detecting the radiation from the californium and the former was using x-rays from an external source. Is that the substance of the differences, or is there more?)
RE#145 -- It kind of tasted like warm yogurt, mixed with chalk. Even thinking about it now induces a nausia...I really would have appreciated it if it were cold, but I drink cold things all the time.
I think CT and CAT are the same thing - computed tomography and computer assisted tomography. The former name is preferred now, at least that is what they call it at U of M hospital. Maybe goose had the unflavored stuff. My first time in July my urine smelled like the stuff I drank for 10 days afterwards but this time I don't notice any smell in it. I had a MUGS exam in which they took some of my blood and added something radioactive to it and injected it back. I don't know the details as I was half asleep at the time. It was done by Nuclear Medicine dept.
CAT - computed axial tomography. I could not find MUGS so perhaps I got the term wrong (unless you want a mug from a company called nuclear). MUGA?
The MUGA scan
The MUGA scan (MUltiple Gated Acquisition scan) is an extremely useful
noninvasive tool for assessing the function of the heart. The MUGA
scan produces a moving image of the beating heart, and from this image
several important features can be determined about the health of the
cardiac ventricles (the heart's major pumping chambers).
How is the MUGA scan performed?
A MUGA scan is performed by attaching a radioactive substance,
Technetium 99, to red blood cells, then injecting the red blood cells
into the patient's bloodstream. The patient is then placed under a
special camera (a gamma camera), which is able to detect the low-level
radiation being given off by the Technetium-labelled red cells. (The
level of radiation to which a patient is exposed during a MUGA scan is
felt by experts to be minimal - it is in the same general range as the
level of radiation received with a chest x-ray.) Since the red blood
cells (including those that are radio-labelled) fill the cardiac
chambers, the image produced by the gamma camera is essentially an
outline of those chambers. With some fancy computer manipulation, the
the final product is a movie of the heart beating.
What can be learned from the MUGA scan?
Several important features of cardiac function can be measured from
the MUGA scan. If a patient has had a heart attack, or any other
disease that affects the heart muscle, the MUGA scan can localize the
portion of the heart muscle that has sustained damage, and can assess
the degree of damage. But more importantly, the MUGA scan gives an
accurate and reproducible means of measuring and monitoring the
ejection fraction of the cardiac ventricles.
The left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is an excellent, and the
most commonly used, measure of overall cardiac function. The ejection
fraction is simply the proportion of blood that is expelled from the
ventricle with each heart beat. So, for instance, if the left
ventricle ejects 60% of its blood volume with each beat, the LVEF is
0.6. (A normal LVEF is 0.5 or greater.)
[Here is why they did this scan on me. Adriamycin is what is causing my
laryngitis. They only did the MUGA once while I was in the hospital,
after the first chemotherapy. I was wondering about the purpose of it.
Nice to know my heart is okay, even though my pulse still goes way up when
I bend over.]
A common clinical situation in which repeated MUGA scans are useful is
in following a patient's cardiac function during the delivery of
chemotherapy for cancer. Some chemotherapeutic agents (adriamycin
being the most notable) can be quite toxic to the heart muscle. By
measuring the MUGA ejection fraction periodically during chemotherapy,
oncologists can determine, on an ongoing basis, whether it is safe to
continue with the therapy, or whether certain medications need to be
stopped. The MUGA scan is accurate and reproducible enough to detect
subtle, early changes in cardiac function that might easily be missed
by other techniques. It is a highly effective, noninvasive means of
monitoring one of the worst side effects of chemotherapy, and allowing
that therapy to be delivered more safely and effectively than would
otherwise be possible.
~ [76]Richard N. Fogoros
63. http://results.about.com/health
I am starting to find out what other tests were done in the hospital as the
bills come in. I think they checked my lymphoma cells to make sure they were
displaying the correct antigen before treating with Rituxan.
Are u gettin a PET?
klg: No PET that I know of. Did you get one and if so why? My good news for this week: Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 09:07:07 -0400 To: keesan@cyberspace.org Subject: Re: CT scan Your CAT scan shows a very nice response. Enlarged lymph nodes previously seen in the chest have resolved. In the abdomen the lymph nodes have also pretty much resolved and the spleen has returned to near normal size. Looks good! Judy >>> Sindi Keesan <keesan@cyberspace.org> 10/21/03 12:04PM >>> Please can you let me know the results when you get them today or tomorrow. The scan was Monday evening. Sindi Keesan -------- Sounds like I still have some abnormal lymphocytes (tumor cells) but less of them in fewer places. Hopefully the next three treatments will shrink everything back to normal size. I wonder why the Rituxan does not get all the cells on first exposure. The other drugs only get cells while they are dividing, which they must not do every day. Yesterday's walk was around the neighborhood. It was too close to rush hour to cross the main streets but today we might try to get across Liberty for a walk. Just a block down Jim's street he nearly stepped on a large garter snake on the sidewalk adjacent to the yard where they do a burn every year and plant prairie vegetation. The hand where they put the IV last treatment has finally stopped hurting again. It started to hurt again about the 10th day of the cycle, maybe from scars forming? I asked the CT nurse to spare my hand as I needed it for infusion. Anyone know why the infusion people insist on using hands? (It is more convenient as I can keep my shirt rolled down to stay warmer.)
Now that I have been pronounced okay (moving in the right direction) Jim accepted a couple of translations for me this morning. I still have the problem of pain in the sit bones if I try to work for long, but my brain seems to have recovered at least. The shaky hands are less shaky while typing but I still make more mistakes. The first job is something interesting about a gadget to help heal broken bones, which I hope I never need to use. It is not clear from the drawing or the text whether something is a plate or a strap - maybe Jim can figure it out from the other drawing. Got to get to my apartment somehow for a better dictionary.
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A lot of cells go through a "lag" period before starting the "log" period (division), so you may not always catch cells via their method of reproduction. You are also dealing with "immortal" cells (which cancer cells are). I should research how Rituxan is supposed to attack these cells. It is difficult to attack eukarotic cells that are attacking the body because you are made up of eukarotic cells, bacteria (prokarotic cells) are much easier to deal with.
Re 158 - Russian. Re 159 - the body is set up to attack abnormal body cells because they put out a sort of distress signal in the form of a protein on the surface which Rituxan helps the body to recognize by binding to it. Some cancer cells probably stop making this signal - I hope I don't have any of those. Anyone know how often cancer cells reproduce and how long the drugs are in effect? Today's exercise was a car ride downtown and some walks around the bank and farmer's market. We ran into friends twice, one of whom had gone to Croatia for tests when she got sick because one test here costs more than a bunch of tests there and airfare both ways. One farmer told me about her sister who died of cancer in her nose, but only after 18 years of treatments. We then visited a friend who isolated me in a room behind a glass door. His resident child and her two friends kept coming by to wave at me. They know all about white blood cells because they studied AIDS in elementary school. I had better get back to translating before the next one arrives. There is a sideways view of the thing that is either a strap or a cover plate and it could still be either one. The funny taste that I notice when I eat fruit was also there when I tasted a tootsie roll at the bank (Jim ate it for me) so maybe it is the sugar in the fruit that is tasting sort of sour. Odd. Water also tastes funny. We have two buckets of grapes to clean and juice after this translation. Lots to accomplish before Monday when I am out for a week again. Another apple tree to pick Saturday when they have scheduled warmer weather again. Are there any stores near Briarwood that sell cheap writeable CDs? A friend will trade us a working CD writer (probably antique) for a package of them. It is such a pleasure not having to take any pills or gargles for a whole week. Or move over 12" every time I roll over on the new 3' wide mattress pad. We stopped for a receipt for the first one (I must have lost mine) and got a tour of the future Sleep Shop next to the birkenstock store - bare walls and a just-sanded floor that will unfortunately need to be covered. Grand opening Dec. 5 (just before my last session).
Today I can taste the cider and my finger has stopped bleeding next to the nail. I have 5 fingers and a thumb with shredded skin or healed bleeding, one of which was bleeding just last night. And the big news is I slept 8 hours only waking once in the middle (which probably means I am not forcing enough fluids but it is nice to sleep more than 2 hours at a time). My doctor friend sent me a copy of the actual CT scan report, which says that ALL my lymph nodes are back to normal size. The formerly huge masses in the spleen are greatly shrunken. The fluid is gone from around my right lung but it is still there around my left lung and is consolidating (which is not good). I also still have sore ribs due to pleural effusion on the left side. My friend listened to my lungs by tapping on them while I breathed in, and you could hear the difference in pitch between them.
I was so whacked out by the chemo I used to sleep 12 hrs at a stretch. (Still woke up tired, tho)
During what part of the cycle? The first week the prednisone keeps me from sleeping more than 3 hours at night. Were you as bony as I am? I am still getting hot every once in a while, which I don't think I found as a side effect of any of the drugs. Perhaps this is hot flashes due to my period stopping in July when I lost weight down to 103. It is distinct from the night sweats I had in July which were caused by the tumor, where I was sweating all night without even any blankets or top sheets, in just a t-shirt, at 78 degrees. Those stopped with therapy. But I have to take off blankets or clothing once in a while for a couple of minutes to cool off, then I get cold and put it all back. It is still 65 degrees in Jim's house and I am wearing a thin wool sweater, wool vest, and fuzzy bathrobe, with cotton long underwear and thin wool socks and wool cap. I wore a wool sweater at 73 degrees. Still no body fat - I wonder where the 12 pounds went. Back to looking up the structure of a thigh bone for my translation. Boy am I glad I don't need to fix any broken bones.
all during the cycle, from about December - March thin, but not bony never had any of the classic lymphoma symptoms
Did you find that you were sleeping more after the last few therapy sessions? I slept a lot during the day during the first session (2-3 naps) and have needed to nap during the first two weeks of this session, but don't sleep more than 8 hours at night.
no
Today we walked across Liberty and then back, and around some new areas. We found a rose tree with large fruits which Jim sampled, and nearby a large paper wasp nest high in a tree. Still no frost. Jim says he is getting out of shape as I get into shape because he is not biking many places, or working on the house. These short slow walks with me are not exercise for him. He wants to go dig up the yard (burdocks). First he is looking over my translation to help figure out if things are slots or notches (I apparently have both), explaining the use of a cam, and pointing out that the drawing of the gadget is missing a few lines and could not possibly work as drawn. I finally sent the insurance company receipts for the mattress toppers (but forgot to include a copy of the prescription).
Jim helped me turn a socket fork wrench into a spanner wrench and then went to bed complaining he felt sick. I feel fine and am about to start a second translation, also medical. Finally sent off two receipts and a prescription for mattress toppers. We discovered that if someone sends something on the superfine setting to a fax machine without this setting it reverts to standard setting. You learn something every day. So we plugged in another 'broken' machine from the same friend that does superfine. He did not want it back after Jim got it going. I am back on vacation starting Monday. If anyone wants to visit do it before then.
Jim's brother the radiologist tells me that lymph cells divide as often as once a week and that it would take 20 weeks for one abnormal cell to grow to a 1 cm tumor. In July I had a mass (tumor) in the spleen 8 x 13 cm which is now down to 4 x 5 cm, implying that the tumors started at least 6 months before that CT scan was done, back in the winter or before that. He says good CT scan results are necessary if a cure will be possible. What is a cure? 5 cm is 2 inches. When this was larger I did not feel like I had much space in my stomach. The spleen lies on top of the stomach (from the front view). Jim and I have been trying to make sense of a translation where they kept changing what was 'down' or 'under' depending on the viewpoint.
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I was wondering if a cure was lack of tumor cells or lack of symptoms. Today Jim wore a pedometer when we walked to the Chinese buffet west of Stadium Blvd. 3/4 mile there, 1.9 miles total including walking around in the restaurant and to the library. I could probably make it the mile to Main St. but might have trouble coming back, plus there is nothing much to do on Main St. and the library and market are still further away. Next cycle? There are irregular quarter-sized black spots with white borders on many of the Norway maple leaves again this year. Some fungus? Jim sampled the red sumac flowers and says they taste lemony. We said hello to a neighbor on his street whose husband died of liver cancer 12 years ago tomorrow. Jim sorted half the grapes (removed stalks, moldy ones, and beetles). I may try turning the handle of the squeezo juicer for arm exercise. I was able to crack my own fresh pistachio nuts (in the husk) using both hands. I have been doing occasional vertical pushups against the wall or door, and leg lifts. I tire quickly (and get bored too). But I no longer get exhausted just trying to sit up in a chair. It gets easier.
I just did some more online research. Rituximab targets not just cancerous B-lymphoma cells but regular ones as well, if they have CD20 marker, which over 90% of lymph cells have. I think they tested my abnormal cells to make sure they had CD20. So this explains why my blood lymphocyte count (which is small and medium lymphocytes, while the tumor cells and other lymph cells in my lymph system are large-cell lymphocytes) is continuing to be slightly low. It will take 9-12 months after therapy for my lymphocytes to recover, meaning I am more susceptible to infections until then. There are two types of lymphoma - indolent or slow growing or follicular is the first, and often they don't treat that until the symptoms become a problem, and what I have is called aggressive or diffuse which grows faster and can be fatal in six months if untreated. (I would have either starved to death or stopped breathing due to fluid around the lungs.) But the latter is potentially curable and chances are up to 90% if I make it for two years without any 'events' (recurrence of symptoms?). My chances of making it event-free for two years are higher with the Rituxan (57%). Two year survival is 70% on average but higher for me since I had a good CT scan. It sounds like 'cure' means all the tumor cells are killed. These statistics are for people over 60 and my chances are higher since I am somewhat younger. If there is a recurrence of symptoms then they treat you again, often with different chemicals than before, and your chances of being around five years afterwards are not so good. My mother made it about 3 years after the first treatment and 2 or less after the second, with just radiation for brain cancer (which I think cannot be treated with chemotherapy due to the blood-brain barrier but I am not sure.) I guess I will know more after 3 more treatments. I fell asleep in the early evening again yesterday and today. I wonder what causes the fatigue. My hemoglobin is back to normal, that can't be it. Tumors cause loss of 'lean body mass' (muscle). I am back up to 107 or 108, same as in April when I had plenty of muscle, but I still don't have much muscle. I cannot figure out where the weight is going. Maybe internal muscles? Internal fat?
I checked my blood counts and my lymphocyte count is within normal range at the end of each cycle: absolute count is 1.1 and normal is 0.8-5.0. So I am low normal already and therefore will not need 6-9 months to return to normal. The other counts are also low normal but monocytes (neutrophil precursors) and neutrophils (fight off infections) were normal-normal.
I forgot there are two types of lymphocyte and I probably have plenty of T-cells and not many B-cells. The counts do not distinguish. I just got an encouraging e-mail from the author of some DOS software that I use, who went through two years of hormone therapy for prostate cancer and said he had male menopause - hot flashes, emotional instability, etc. I am still getting hot flashes (having to take off a layer for a few minutes every hour or so). What other symptoms are expected from menopause? I don't think I have any of them so maybe the hot flashes are related to the drugs? I did not have them before chemotherapy and I think it has been only a few weeks. Apparently each type of cancer is treated differently.
We had a nice visit with polygon and Sarah. Sarah drew us a rainbow and some poems (which only she could read) and enjoyed Jim's collection of assorted toys, shells, feathers etc. Larry tried a pawpaw and we discussed fruiting trees and life in general. He will bring over a computer for Jim to fix. Jim was supposed to fix a floor lamp but it insisted on working on arrival. In the middle of the visit we got a phone call from another grexer who just gave us two computers and had a third, which Jim biked over to pick up. Sarah would like to use it for email but she can't read many words yet. Next year?
In addition to reducing swelling, prednisone suppresses the immune response which includes keeping lymphocytes from replicating as fast, which is why they give it to cancer patients with lymphona or leukemia. Says Jim's brother the radiologist, who also explained why I am getting so many different drugs - each lymphocyte reacts differently to each drug (some probably developed resistance to one or more of them). I will ask tomorrow if I can reduce the dose and still get the desired effect.
We took advantage of the dry weather on my last 'normal' day to check out the parking lot apples that we usually pick last day of October. Most of the good yellow ones must have been early as they were gone. We got some small red apples off two trees and some sour green ones. Jim picked while I stayed in the car out of the wind. Then he wanted to check CD-R prices so we went to Sam's and Meijer's and also a new Chinese Foodland store on the way, which had green mung bean noodles, and jujubes, and taro root, haw candy, preserved duck eggs, shrimp chips and squid chips (to impress his sister with at Christmas - she liked the duck eggs last time despite the brown whites and blue yolks). He got parts to fix the vacuum cleaner that our friend ordered and that we found on yesterday's walk at the curb (needed a new belt and bags). I got my exercise walking from one end of Meijer's to the other. A friend writes that her father in law has leukemia, which is much harder to cure and he is also 78. I keep feeling lucky. What is a good price for CD-R's? Is there some way to use driverguide with lynx? You need to copy some code number and in lynx it looks like 2D&3F&.... not a code number that they would want. Jim is trying to get an Aztech winmodem working. I have to go order supper now and pack for tomorrow's therapy session. They provide radios with CD players to each chair and we have CDs from krj.
Common retail prices include $12.99 for a spindle of 30, and $19.99 for a spindle of 50. I wait for no-rebate sales to get the spindle of 50 for $12 (sometimes Target) or $9.99. I got a price check to get the spindle of 100 at Office Max for $14.99.
But for quite a while it was pretty common to see ads (office supply stores, etc.) for them at about those prices, but with a mail-in rebate for the entire amount. I haven't seen one of these for a few months now, but I got both CDs & jewel cases almost free through these. (free less tax & cost of mailing in, also inconvenience of copying/mailing and waiting for refund)
Thanks to all, and we may check Target. Sam's was $13/50 plus 10% and $23/100 plus 10%. Today I got two emails both Nigeria spam. The author of one of them said he selected my name by praying over the names. I have three other people also praying for me: a translator who needed my Hebrew name for the prayer, a dairy farmer friend that we met in 1991 while biking who is Protestant, and now Jim's Catholic sister. I told them to go ahead and pray if it made them feel better. Yesterday I got an email from a high school friend, whose father in law age 78 was just diagnosed with acute leukemia. A phone call from a friend who offered to fetch me food and library books and has a friend with cancer. A phone call from my aunt who keeps calling on the rare occasions when I am not there in the evening. Her daughter died of Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 30 in about 1985, and her husband of prostate cancer shortly after that. She tells me how lucky she is to have such good sons. A phone call from Jim's sister who says his nephew still has tongue cancer. His father the radiologist has been explaining to me how prednisone etc. work. There must be someone somewhere who does not have a friend or relative with cancer. On the way to pick apples we stopped and got figs at the Produce Station and discovered that my former neighbor across the street sells bread there. She and her partner wondered why they had not seen us since July before they moved. They will bring over some home canned produce from their garden, canned with a pressure canner we gave them after we decided canning was not worth the bother since we have a dryer and three freezers. Got to pack up the mortar and pestle (took three tries to type that one) and applesauce for the seven pills, lunch, CDs and books, maybe a blanket as I seem to have some virus that makes me cold, and go give blood etc. before the fourth infusion this afternoon.
For the Hebrew prayer for healing of the sick, the "Hebrew name" generally consists of the sick person's Hebrew name and that of his/her mother.
I hope you don't mind that I've prayed for you Sindi, not to make me feel better however, but to make you feel and get better.
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I feel better to know that people are doing what they think will help me, even though I am not religious myself. All this support is wonderful. And I am definitely getting better. Today was the fourth infusion. I had hoped to sleep an extra hour but woke up on daylight savings garbage truck time at 6:30 am. We packed up bread and apples and a mortar and pestle for the premedication pills, got blood drawn (painlessly this time), and waited from 12:00 to nearly 3:00 for the 12:30 doctor's appointment. Not-so-good news: I need to have four CT scans/year for 2 years, then 2 for 3 years, and then 1 for a few years as checkups to make sure treatment was succesfull with no regressions. Ouch, and it will be expensive (up to $6500/year at $2500 per scan plus doctor's visits but I only pay the deductible of $6500). Which means about 20 more IVs and 20 32-oz barium suspensions to drink. Things that went wrong today: The infusion nurse, though I told her the last three attempts to put IVs in my lower arm all had to be redone, tried again, and had to take it out. She could then not use that same hand so had to put the next one in my right hand. It was medium tolerable for the 4.5 hours and I made a mess eating left-handed. Then Jim found a flat tire as we were about to leave. He put more air in. We got back okay. Things that went right. The doctor says my CT scan results were amazingly good, so good that the radiologist phoned to let him know. No enlarged lymph nodes, and the residnal masses might not be cancerous, just voids or scar tissues. If they don't enlarge (or if they srhink more) we can ignore them. Good early results increase chances of a cure. The funny taste (acidic, metallic) is from some drug. The laryngitis might be due to nerve damage from the Vincristine, which is also making my hands numb, so he cut that does in half and will send me to an ENT specialist. The chemicals should be out of my body in 1-2 days so I don't have to drink large amounts of water after that. If lymphocytes replicate once in 7 days, each treatment will only catch a fraction of them, but the Rituxan should tag them all. Someone else came in for interferon, a 5 minute procedure. My neighbor on the other side was getting 20 min of donorubicin ? for Leukemia, four days in a row every week for a few weeks, then after a month and some tests they give her pills. Last time she had those pills all her skin peeled off and she had a fever. She lost 25 pounds, is still chubby, but was advised to regain the weight. She cannot understand why. She also still has trouble with stairs after a month in the hospital. Everyone I talk to has some different diagnosis. Klg, exactly what were they treating you for? One patient, age 90, has to come every day three weeks out of four for treatment of incurable skin cancer. I played some of the CDs that krj made me on their player with my headphones, to help mask the TV noise on both sides. I was going to read a good book on that Jim rounded up.
Something got lost in the typing of the last paragraph to the effect that it is hard to concentrate on serious reading (the book was a scientific study of the harmful effects of genetic engineering) when your hand aches so I looked at a bunch of pointless magazines that Jim borrowed from various waiting rooms and attempted to talk to my neighbors but my voice was too weak. I just realized that, unlike the previous CT scan when they fed me artificial banana flavored barium drink, this time it was artificial fruit flavor and the smell is NOT coming out in my urine and sweat for ten days. I am really sick of banana flavor but have to use it again next weekend for the thrush. So I don't have to look forward to 5+ years of stinking for ten days at a time. I was having hot flashes for the past two weeks, about one every hour, but chemo seems to have eliminated this. I noticed this last cycle, too. Prednisone (decadron yesterday) might be responsible as it is hormonal, but it also eliminates the ability to sleep. Got to take the first one in half an hour. The third pill before the traditional chemo drugs was Ativan, which is normally given for antianxiety but also is anti-nausea, like the two Kytril pills (at $73). Still no nause. I can remember most occasions in my life when I was nauseous and it was never from drugs - I had altitude sickness twice (Colorado and a Bulgarian post office across the street from a clinic that treatment me for free), heat or sunstroke in Ann Arbor, flu but not for many years, when cigar walked by me in an airport after 10 hours in a plane where smoking was allowed (I threw up into a large ashtray). What makes other people nauseous?
What goose said: I also pray for you, Sindi.
Medialstinal non-hodgkins lymphoma Wow. A lot more CTs than my drs are ordering. My drs. & txs are a lot more prompt.
Can you tell us something about mediastinal lymphoma, which I have not even heard of before? Perhaps it grows slower than what I have, which I am told can double every week, which is why they would want to check more often. THanks to everyone for good wishes of any form, including prayer. Today I still have the muscle strength to walk 1.5 miles to the library and back. Sort of dreary and drizzly out so we did not spend much time admiring the trees. The wet leaves on sidewalks are pretty. Jim will be busy making me low-sodium high-fiber meals for the next week (and he still has not juiced the grapes, having become distracted by three new computers with bad software on them.) We found two possible winmodem drivers at the library and looked at his daughter's website complete with falling hearts (flash macromedia) that interfere with reading the text. She has links to lots of hotels and B&Bs in Newcastle Ireland, and offers wedding attendees a vegetarian menu. Jim checked off Not coming and Vegetarian Menu at the RSVP page. If we can finish building the house in two years, then I can go on a vacation of up to 6 months between checkups. Wishful thinking. The second checkup each year would be in July. I have an uncle who spends winters in Jamaica.
I have been chilled (temperature 96) since the weekend - is this some new virus going around? Together with the prednisone (which kept me going to the toilet every half hour from about 10:30 to 2:30 am) this kept me awake until around dawn. I think I fell asleep at 7:00 which gave me almost two hours sleep before the neighbors' cars in the driveway woke me. Good thing I don't need to concentrate between now and Sunday. Next prednisone in 20 minutes (with food) since I took the prilosec 40 min ago, then an hour's nap before it takes effect again. I can stop drinking so much this evening - 48 hours after infusion. Jim wants to try making tapioca from the pear juice. The nasty tasting pills taste a lot less bitter in pear sauce than in apple sauce. I wonder why. I am up to 111 pounds on one scale and 109.5 on two others, of which 5 must be fluid retention. It goes back down by morning. We have not yet made grape juice because the kind grexer who gave Jim one computer a day for three days just gave him three more while I was taking a bath last night. Yesterday I got another hospital bill for $138 for Jim's lab tests. Turns out the doctor's accounting person never did send in the correct code numbers for preventive (wellness) instead of diagnostic and PPOM won't pay anything. She says she talked to the hospital and they told her it was going towards the deductible. I tried, very slowly, to explain that our policies allow up to $400 for preventive care (of which PPOM pays 80% and we pay 20%) if she would only bill it as preventive and she refused to do so and said I was taking up too much of her time. I pointed out that she was at least getting paid for her time and I had wasted at least 10 hours trying to deal with at least three different billing errors already. She said to have the insurance company phone her and I should never phone again and she hung up on me. I am thinking of writing PPOM suggesting that they drop this doctor from their list as they cannot follow the rules. I will call the insurance company again today to find out what happened. And maybe PPOM as well. I had explained the insurance policy before we ever made an appointment.
My pulse was down to 70 when they measured it Monday. This is good. But it still goes over 100 when I go out walking. I think we can trade our 40G drive and 17" monitor for all these computers that Jim keeps receiving. Nice to find a home for them.
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This may sound cruel, but you can also report that physician's office to the insurance company as incorrectly coding. This may instigate an audit. Which billing companies hate.
Liscenced practical nurse, they are the peons of RNs
On the tier of nurses:
CNA - certified nurse assistant
LPN - liscenced practical nurse
RN - Registered Nurse
CRN(insert speciality) - Certified Registered Nurse of (Speciality)
These include specialities in Anesthesia, Physician
Assistance, Pediatrics, Neonatal, Midwife, etc.
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The doctor's accountant specifically told me she wanted me to call the insurance company, tell them what happened, and have them call her. I told her I had hoped we could get things fixed without making trouble for her doctor with the insurance company. This could results in PPOM dropping them as there have been 3 or 4 things wrong with the bill already. It appears that I am the only patient who ever got to them with PPOM insurance anyway. What bothers me most is that the accounting person refuses to accept any responsibility for making mistakes or to fix them. Hanging up on a problem is not going to make it go away. Jim bought 50 CD-R's for $16 including about $1 tax and gave them to a neighbor who has been making us CDs and is trying to find an old CD-R drive that he has somewhere. Are all ages of CD writers suitable for copying music CDs? Jim is busy making chickpea flour pancakes for lunch (cheese is too salty) and cauliflower soup with Chinese dried vegetables - lily flowers, shelf fungus, shiitake - and green mung been noodles. This weekend I switch from low sodium to things that don't need any chewing for a few days. Meaning we cook the apples.
Around 6:30 we set out for a walk before it got pitch dark. Stopped to talk to a neighbor. At the first corner Jim complained of his knee hurting and said he had been falling asleep all day. I had a sort of cramp-like feeling in one calf yesterday and in both thighs today (muscle weakness from prednisone most likely) but could have kept going, but we came back for Jim. He went to sleep. We seem to have some virus again. I keep catching viruses from Jim. My immune system may be doing better than his, or at least he is running around more getting exposed to things. He biked to Comp USA today. The grapes are still not juiced. Friday will be two weeks from picking.
I did some web reading on hot flashes. Chemotherapy can kill enough ovarian cells to produce permanent menopause. Also tamoxifen given as a sort of chemotherapy for breast cancer can cause hot flashes by blocking the effect of estrogen. Hot flashes usually last 2-3 years and occur at least twice a day. They can be brought on by activities such as eating, exercise, or sleeping under a blanket. They are often accompanied by headache and nausea (again I am lucky in this respect). Some people treat them with chamomile tea. Soy protein can also help. There is a new drug venflaxine which is nonhormonal but causes loss of appetite and nausea. Tamoxifen causes weight gain. Hot flashes can last seconds to minutes. I fix the problem by removing a layer of clothing or all the blankets for a few minutes. So many other things are keeping me awake that I would not notice if the hot flashes contributed to the problem but when I wake up (sometimes as infrequently as every 2 hours) I am usually hot. For the last four days I have been chilled instead - some virus. This is distinct from elevated temperatures due to the body fighting off an infection (which I think includes the night sweats characteristic of cancer). These last all day. I have been sneezing today and hope that my virus will be at the runny nose stage before my immune system conks out this weekend.
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I think the ovarian cells produce eggs. Dorland's medical dictionary: hysterectomy - excision of the uterus (womb). Not having had one I can't tell you any more about it. Ovaries also produce estrogen. Anyone know more? Back to gargling salt and soda for the next 10 days or so. My tongue is starting to feel a bit numb as the cells on its surface stop replicating. So far this week things have not tasted funny at least. They will start to do so again in a couple of days. It is harder to gain weight when things taste funny (and when you cannot safely chop things or approach a hot pan or burner). At least I am still hungry.
(My understanding is that hysterectomies often (always?) include removing the ovaries and Fallopian tubes.)
Nope, they don't. Some Drs will remove the ovaries with the uterus as a precautionary measure against ovarian cancer later. They are often left to reduce the amount of hormone replacement therapy needed, depending on the woman's age, etc. My mother and all three sisters had hysts. One sister had the ovaries removed, the rest didn't. She was in her mid 40s when hers was done, Mom and the other girls were younger.
Thanks, Glenda. :)
What was the purpose of the hysterectomies, if it is not a secret? I got around four hours sleep, a vast improvement. Woke up hungry. I have been trying to keep drinking all night but still have hard stools probably by now from the prednisone not the chemotherapy drugs. Since the drugs prevent my gastrointestinal lining from replicating much this hurts but things will improve in a few days (some things, anyway).
Hysterectomies - or the removal of the uterus (and/or fallopian tubes and ovaries) maybe removed for a variety of reasons. Cancer, chronic scarring, prolapse, excessive and/or uncontrolled bleeding, and the list goes on. Just depends on what is going on, most are scheduled, in the younger patients, they usually are done under emergancy situations. Sounds like that billing person is a rude witch with a "b". I do medical billing, and I will apologize if we or the physician makes a mistake.
I called the insurance company again today and they called the doctor's office again and told me that the accounting person has resubmitted the bill with the proper coding. When I make mistakes I apologize and try harder (and fix them). This was three mistakes already from the same doctor's office. The first only cost me $7 so I just paid it. The second cost me a few hours on the phone calling two hospitals. The accounting person complained that this was taking up HER time. She hung up when I pointed out that she was at least being paid for her time. The doctor was nice. I got another hour of sleep in the morning. Jim finally juiced the grapes.
I hate dealing with health insurance companies. They use a jargon that initially seems incomprehensible and, even worse, different companies have different jargons. I have recently been trying to resolve a insurance claim that had to go through our "primary" carrier, MCARE, and a secondary carrier for students in colleges, PIONEER. They seemed to speak different languages. PIONEER did not accept a claim when submitted to them after MCARE had paid what they allowed because MCARE had not indicated in their statement the amount they DID NOT pay. MCARE was very unhelpful on the phone, saying they could not issue any other kind of statement. So, back to PIONEEER...who at least said they would contact MCARE themselves to try to resolve this seeming "Catch 22". What a waste of everyone's time.
We are getting 380 dollars back from twilas oral surgeon after the insurance companies adn the drs. office screwed up. Took them 2 years to figure it out, and they had gone to court against us even though they knew the insurance had screwed up.
I hope the insurance company has fixed this problem. Today we went for a walk along some side strees to Happy Wok on West Stadium. An area of 60's 2-stories with very little flower planting and hardly even any pumpkins. I noticed a new hybrid type of commercial plastic decoration,. Along with the white plastic bags with leaves stuffed in the upper half and a tie around the middle, hung from bushes, as 'ghosts'. Now there are larger orange versions with happy faces - pumpkin ghosts? Happy Wok made us salt-free chicken-free eggrolls and gave us brown rice instead of pork white rice with our vegetables. On the way back through Eberwhite Woods Jim pointed out that there are not only the usual brown fox squirrels but also some grey ones and even one completely black one (including the belly). Faz Pizza is using the imitation spiderweb stuff that people are stringing around bushes as a new place to stick their advertising materials.
(Black squirrels were common in Oscoda, Michigan. I've seen one in Brighton, too. Nice to know their range is expanding. :)
The next posting is a very long one about hot flashes including the fact that
they can be worse after chemotherapy and if you are thin.
[A friend who will be taking tamoxifen after radiation for breast cancer
told me about this site.]
All About Hot Flashes
If you've had one, there's no mistaking it: the sudden, intense, hot
feeling on your face and upper body, perhaps preceded or accompanied
by a rapid heartbeat and sweating, nausea, dizziness, anxiety,
headache, weakness, or a feeling of suffocation. Some women experience
an "aura," an uneasy feeling just before the hot flash, that lets them
know what's coming. The flash is followed by a flush, leaving you
reddened and perspiring. You can have a soaker or merely a moist upper
lip. A chill can lead off the episode or be the finale.
What causes them
Hot flashes are mostly caused by the hormonal changes of menopause,
but can also be affected by lifestyle and medications. A diminished
level of estrogen has a direct effect on the hypothalamus, the part of
the brain responsible for controlling your appetite, sleep cycles, sex
hormones, and body temperature. Somehow (we don't know how), the drop
in estrogen confuses the hypothalamus--which is sometimes referred to
as the body's "thermostat"--and makes it read "too hot."
The brain responds to this report by broadcasting an all-out alert to
the heart, blood vessels, and nervous system: "Get rid of the heat!"
The message is transmitted by the nervous system's chemical messenger,
epinephrine, and related compounds: norepinephrine, prostaglandin,
serotonin. The message is delivered instantly. Your heart pumps
faster, the blood vessels in your skin dilate to circulate more blood
to radiate off the heat, and your sweat glands release sweat to cool
you off even more.
This heat-releasing mechanism is how your body keeps you from
overheating in the summer, but when the process is triggered instead
by a drop in estrogen, your brain's confused response can make you
very uncomfortable. Some women's skin temperature can rise six degrees
Centigrade during a hot flash. Your body cools down when it shouldn't,
and you are miserable: soaking wet in the middle of a board meeting or
in the middle of a good night's sleep.
Who gets them
Eighty-five percent of the women in the United States experience hot
flashes of some kind as they approach menopause and for the first year
or two after their periods stop. Between 20 and 50% of women continue
to have them for many more years. As time goes on, the intensity
decreases.
If you have had breast cancer, your hot flashes can follow the same
pattern as for women in general, or they can be more intense and last
longer, particularly if menopause was premature, or if you are taking
tamoxifen and your body hasn't adjusted to it. Rarely, women may not
have hot flashes until they stop taking tamoxifen--an unpleasant
surprise. In these women, tamoxifen develops an unusual estrogen-like
ability to combat hot flashes.
There is considerable variation in time of onset, duration, frequency,
and the nature of hot flashes, whether you've had breast cancer or
not. An episode can last a few seconds or a few minutes, occasionally
even an hour, but it can take another half hour for you to feel
yourself again. The most common time of onset is between six and eight
in the morning, and between six to ten at night.
How hot is hot?
Most women have mild to moderate hot flashes, but about 10-15% of
women experience such severe hot flashes that they seek medical
attention. For women who have had breast cancer, the number who suffer
debilitating hot flashes is probably much higher. Randomized studies
provide the most objective data: about 50-75% of women taking
tamoxifen will report hot flashes, compared to 25-50% taking placebo.
The faster you go through the transition from regular periods to no
periods--the peri-menopause or climacteric--the more significant your
hot flashes will be. Hot flashes are severe after surgical menopause,
and they can also be quite difficult after a chemotherapy-induced
medical menopause. If you haven't been warned about hot flashes, a
sudden severe episode can be frightening; you might even confuse the
flash with a heart attack.
The intensity of hot flashes accompanying treatment with tamoxifen
eventually improves for many women after the first three to six
months. Because of the conversion of androstenedione from the adrenal
glands into estrone by fat and muscle cells, heavy or muscular women
experience less severe hot flashes than thin women. If you smoke, your
blood vessels lose some of their ability to radiate heat, so you may
suffer more severe hot flashes.
Beating the heat naturally
The best way to beat a hot flash is naturally. Hot flashes have a lot
to do with the low levels of estrogen in your body, but other factors
can cause your temperature control to go out of whack. Instead of
estrogen therapy, look at less drastic measures first, partly because
estrogen therapy is not known to be safe for women with a history of
breast cancer--but also because you should always begin with the least
aggressive approach to treating your menopausal symptoms.
Avoiding triggers
If you can identify the things that trigger your hot flashes, you've
made the first step in getting the upper hand. Keep a record of when
they occur and what you were eating or doing, or how you were feeling
at the time. Many women find that stress tops the charts as a trigger.
Was that hot flash in the boardroom a random hit, or were you feeling
under pressure at the time? Was it a full day of pressure without a
break?
Solution: Ease the pressure. Give yourself more time to plan your
work, to rehearse your presentation, to deliver your assignments, to
arrive where you're going. If you are doing a series of presentations,
give yourself a chance to relax and cool off between sessions. And
plan your schedule so you avoid meetings or decision making when
you're most likely to be in a sweat.
Other hot flash triggers:
* alcohol
* caffeine
* diet pills
* spicy food
* hot food
* hot tubs
* saunas
* hot showers
* hot beds
* hot rooms
* hot weather
* smoking.
Hot flash survival tips
* Dress in layers, so you can peel off one layer after another as
you get warmer.
* Don't wear wool, don't wear synthetics, and be wary of silk. That
leaves cotton, linen, rayon, and more cotton. (Look at the bright
side: You'll save on cleaning bills, and you can stop worrying
about moths.)
* Avoid turtlenecks. Stick to open-neck shirts.
* Keep ice water at hand that you can sip to cool down your insides.
* Where possible, lower the thermostat. Maybe it's time for a decent
air conditioner or a ceiling fan. Or maybe you'd prefer one of
those little hand-held battery-operated fans or the foldable kind
you flutter in front of your face. You can find perfectly adequate
paper fans for about a dollar.
* Wear cotton pajamas or a nightgown. If you perspire a lot at
night, your nightclothes are easier to change than the sheets.
* Use cotton sheets only, not synthetics.
* Get a bigger bed if you and your partner are on different heat
planets but you still want to stay in close orbit.
* Take cool shower before bed.
* Try a mild medication like Tylenol
* Arrive at meetings early so that you can get the coolest seat.
* Use your freezer liberally. A number of women talked about opening
the freezer at home (or in the supermarket) and sticking their
head in when a hot flash hits.
Lifestyle changes to alleviate hot flashes
Exercise: Increasing your level of activity (for example, taking the
stairs instead of the elevator) can reduce hot flashes and have a
positive impact on just about every other symptom attributed to
menopause and growing older, including:
* insomnia
* mood swings
* eroded self-image
* loss of libido
* fatigue
* elevated cholesterol levels
* heart, bone, and muscle health.
Exercise also increases endorphin levels, increasing your threshold
for pain.
Relaxation and stress reduction: It isn't unusual to have trouble
dealing with stress, especially if you've undergone treatment for
breast cancer. You may find that one of the following techniques will
help you minimize the devastating effects of stress on your body:
* relaxation exercises
* breathing exercises
* meditation
* visualization
* massage
* hypnosis
* yoga
* biofeedback techniques.
Changing your diet: Over time, a low-fat diet helps some women with
hot flashes. Losing excess weight helps, but losing too much weight,
or being too thin, can worsen symptoms. As you consider other food
changes, keep in mind that natural doesn't mean harmless. Herbal
remedies and soy preparations may work because of their plant
estrogens, but you can't assume that just because an estrogen comes
from a plant it's a safe remedy.
Chinese medicine: Chinese medicine has a long tradition of treating
hot flashes. There are all kinds of hot flashes, and the Chinese have
descriptions for all of them. Before treating you, a Chinese doctor
takes a full history and performs a complete physical, with particular
attention to your tongue and your pulse. He or she then determines
whether you're suffering from a "hot" menopause or a "cold" menopause.
If you have gone through a surgical or medical menopause, Chinese
herbs are usually not considered strong enough to eliminate your
menopausal hot flashes, but they can help.
Chinese medicine usually involves:
* acupuncture, which moves your Xi (your inner wind, energy, or
spirit). For every woman who's skeptical about this approach,
there's a woman who's found acupuncture helpful for hot flashes.
* herbology, in which many different herbs are cooked together to
make a tea customized to your particular symptoms. Common to all
Chinese herbal mixes is dong quai, thought to be a plant estrogen.
More plant estrogens that women have found effective in treating
hot flashes over the centuries can be found in ginseng, evening
primrose oil, licorice root, red raspberry leaves, sarsaparilla,
spearmint, damiana, motherwort, chasteberry (also known as Vitex),
[44]black cohosh, and wild yams. These herbal remedies, Chinese
and other, may be effective at reducing hot flashes but, again,
their relative safety in women who have had breast cancer is not
known. Avoiding, or using plant estrogens with great caution, is
best, and never try them without telling your doctor. Even leading
Chinese medicine practitioners caution women not to self-treat
with Chinese herbs.
Vitamins: Some women find that taking vitamin E every day (800 I.U.,
range 400-1000) helps. Actually, a placebo works almost as well. The
National Cancer Institute's/National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and
Bowel Project's Tamoxifen Breast Cancer Prevention Trial also
recommends vitamin E, or one of the following: vitamin B6, 200-250
milligrams daily, and Peridin-C (containing antioxidants), two tablets
taken three times daily. If vitamin E helps you, great, but if you
have significant hot flashes, you will probably need something more
effective.
Relieving hot flashes with medications
If you have tried these lifestyle, nutritional, and alternative
medicine recommendations, and they have not helped, you may feel
compelled to go on to stronger remedies, available only through your
physician.
Blood pressure-lowering medication
Blood pressure-lowering medications such as clonidine (Catapres-TTS,
0.1-mg patch applied once weekly) and Aldomet (250 mg twice daily) can
lessen the severity and frequency of hot flashes. They modify how the
blood vessels respond to the brain's command to give off heat quickly.
These drugs must be prescribed and adjusted carefully by your doctor.
Antidepressants
Low-dose antidepressant medication may help forestall a hot flash by
rebalancing or intercepting the chemicals in the brain that transmit
the hot flash alarm, epinephrine and serotonin.
Effexor (venlafaxine) can reduce hot flashes by about 50% in nearly
60% of women with breast cancer according to a study done by Dr.
Charles Loprinzi at the Mayo Clinic. Improvement happened relatively
quickly: 80% of the eventual decrease in hot flashes occurred within
the first week of taking the medication. Side effects, when they were
noted, were mild. The dose used was 12.5 milligrams taken twice daily.
A more recent study showed that some women may need a higher total
dose of 75 milligrams daily to get significant relief.
Extended-release preparations are available. Paxil (paroxetine) works
in a similar way to Effexor and is a good alternative. Some women
tolerate Paxil better. Its recommended dose is 10 mg once a day for
the first week, then 20 mg once a day thereafter.
Mild sedatives
Bellergal-S simmers down overactive chemical activity in the brain.
Taken occasionally, once or twice a day, it can be quite safe and
effective--but not with alcohol. (It contains belladonna,
phenobarbital, and an ergotamine.) Phenobarbital can cause drowsiness
and, if you use it regularly, you can develop a dependency for it.
Progesterone-like products
Megace (megesterol acetate) can reduce hot flashes in approximately
80% of women who take it, and it is also considered a treatment for
breast cancer when taken in high doses continuously. Megace is usually
started at 40 milligrams daily, and it may take a few weeks to start
to work. After a month the dose is adjusted up or down. The maximum
dose is 80 milligrams per day. Those who reap its benefits and can
tolerate its side effects (fluid retention and bloating) may do well
on this medication.
Estrogen therapy
[45]Menopausal hormone therapy, or estrogen therapy, is probably the
most effective way to relieve hot flashes, but its use is highly
controversial in women who have had breast cancer.
Most physicians would not recommend estrogen therapy to remedy severe
tamoxifen-related hot flashes because estrogen is not known to be safe
for women who have had breast cancer, and may reduce tamoxifen's
effectiveness. Estrogen therapy may also add to the potential side
effects from these combined drugs--such as blood clots forming and
traveling to the lung, and increased risk of endometrial cancer.
However, if your hot flashes are severe and you have not had adequate
relief from lifestyle modifications or non-hormonal remedies and
medications, your doctor may suggest a limited course of low-dose
menopausal hormone therapy to ease your transition into menopause.
The therapy should last only several months, depending on the degree
of your symptoms, tapering off over the last month. Dr. John Eden of
the Royal Hospital for Women in Paddington, Australia, studied
simultaneous estrogen replacement and tamoxifen therapies in women
beyond menopause. The study showed no short-term problem from combined
side effects. The Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) is trying
to launch a study that combines the two drugs. Share this information
with your doctor, and decide together what you want to do.
This page was last modified on March 26, 2003
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re 209: the bad news is that they're non-native and they drive out the native species due to being more aggressive...like starlings. re211: do they live on gov't commoditty cheese? :)
Interesting. I'd thought they were just a darker phase of a native squirrel, not a different species. Are they native to Michigan?
I thought it was those little squirrels that were driving out the fox squirrels and that the local grey and black squirrels are also fox squirrels. I have seen the black ones north of here (Saginaw?). We noticed no red leaves in the woods. Does the red pigment require direct sunlight to form? The leaves were mostly maples, but only yellow ones. We downloaded the 'correct' winmodem driver for an internal modem but Win98 seems to think it is an external modem. Jim suspects a dead modem. One other driver to try next. Donated computers are such fun. Jim is now learing to use Opera because Lynx won't do driverguide codes - or does someone know how to decode a long string of characters to a three digit code number such as 987?
What is php? The 'image' is a long string of numbers with php? in it. I slept nearly 4 hours and am hungry but don't want to wake Jim who was up late with the computer. Got to take one pill before eating and then wait an hour before eating with the last prednisone this cycle. It was pointed out to me that the extreme exhaustion following this is due to discontinuing the prednisone. It is probably only accidental that it coincides with the lack of immunity. I guess an inability to walk very far will keep me from going too close to other people who might have the flu, which I am not supposed to catch before January.
php is a programming language used on the web server to generate web pages. Unlike Flash and Shockwave it doesn't require any special software on the web browser.
Black squirrels from Quebec were released (by accident?) near the north edge of the MSU campus, near downtown East Lansing, I think in the 1950s. When I was growing up there, black squirrels dominated in the neighborhood from Harrison Road to about Bailey Street, north of Michigan and Grand River. The surrounding neighborhoods had a mix of black and red squirrels, and further away areas had nothing but red squirrels. (Some people have said they had seen halfbreed squirrels with both black and red features.) The red squirrels are larger and more muscular, but supposedly not as agile in climbing as the smaller black squirrels. A somewhat similar story is told in the excellent book "Rats, Lice, and History". The black rat used to be the dominant rodent of every European city. At the time of the Black Death and other plagues in Europe, the rats were black. In the 1700s and 1800s, Europe was invaded by the brown or so-called "Norway" rat, which came from Asia. (Black and brown rats can interbreed but choose not to.) In city after city during the centuries of transition, the brown rats took over and drove out the black rats. Today black rats have a few footholds in some urban waterfronts where agile climbing is critical to survival, but brown rats dominate in cities worldwide.
So we have red squirrels here, not fox squirrels? The fox squirrels must be those smaller grey ones that I grew up with in the east. I got about 10 emails from another translator who is about to start tamoxifen. They do blood tests first. She is also a medical translator and came up with various articles on how it works. Someone is also trying to develop a drug which instead of blocking estrogen receptors, stops breast cancer cells from producing a lot of estrogen. Less side effects. Estrogen is also produced in fat and muscle cells (things I am short of). Even by men. So hormones used to treat prostate cancer also block the reception of some hormone (estrogen?) and cause hot flashes and associated symptoms in men. I got two more hours sleep after 8:30. One more prednisone this week. Three days of rebound following. Got to go see if any of the beans we planted in May actually grew and made seeds today while I have some energy. I may try to attend the next grex meeting in mid-cycle. And walk there. Jim keeps downloading more potential winmodem drivers. What is an 'upgrade' driver - for 56K or for Win98 (from Win95)? He has to find the other half of the pair based on this information. Re php - Lynx does not seem to be one of those browsers that works with it. Arachne crashes when it hits that page. Opera worked. Is there some way to download that image with Lynx?
For the past couple of days the side effects have been building up again. Sour taste is starting to come back. No thrush yet but slightly numb tongue. Throat feels a bit swollen today and the laryngitis has been slowly getting worse for a couple of days. Last time it was worst on day 7 (Sunday). Muscle soreness in my legs for a couple of days but I can walk anyway. A bit of pain in my upper arms as in a previous cycle but only today. Hands continue to get even number, with numbness now spreading to the second joint and the middle part of the palm and a bit of write. I think it got slightly better near the end of the last cycle, with wrist numbness going away. Someone else said after 6 months the numbness was nearly gone but sometimes it comes back. It has been five years for her with no breast cancer recurrence so she is happy anyway. Slight constipation (hard stools) all week from all the drugs. Gastrointestinal lining thinned according to the last CT scan. Ribs are hurting again for the past 2-3 days (pleurisy) - I wonder why? Fluid retention? My weight has not gone up, in fact is a a little down again. It was 104 morning and 107 evening instead of 110. Slight burning sensation in my throat and esophagus - don't know if due to thinning lining or thrush or maybe both. No nausea or vomiting or any new symptoms. Jim has determined that the model number of the modem that he wrote down (some program must have determined it) is not the number on the actual card so he fetched a few more drivers. In the meantime the grexer who gave us all those computers decided he did not want any of them fixed up for him, he wants a Mac instead and a friend will sell him one that works and has a CD burner. Win98 thinks the modem is a third model number.
And a few hairs at a time are coming out again if I pull on them but I am unlikely to go bald at this rate. You can see a bit of skin along the part on the rare days warm enough to take off my wool cap. Tomorrow I should probably start eating salt when the prednisone wears off as I will probably be losing sodium instead of retaining it. Jim wants to bring over my BasicLinux computer and copy files to one of his 500MHz models. Basiclinux is designed to work on a 486 with 16M RAM and I even got Opera 6.03 to work on it but ran out of space on the 125M drive because I left all the installation files there. It is a subset of Slackware 7. I put on Kermit, Lynx and some other useful programs not found on any of the commercial Linuxes.
(php is just used to generate web pages... so maybe they're using php to generate a lynx-incompatible web page.
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.
I just did some reading on chemotherapy and taste loss. The chemotherapy interferes with replication of sensory receptors (taste buds and smell receptors) and may also be in the saliva (for a couple of days only). Recovery is usually within a few weeks of ending therapy but can take longer. Radiation damage can last up to a year. The problem does not develop for the first couple of weeks. I notice it starting to get better near the end of each treatment but it lasts longer each time. The nurse kept saying people talked about metallic tasting foods but I have not noticed this, only that things taste sort of sour. Now I now why. The metallic or bitter taste is from meats, which I don't eat. Various websites suggested substituting chicken, fish, cheese or eggs. I notice that eggs taste normal but potatoes and fruits and vegetables taste sort of sour. Tofu is also okay. They suggest adding cheese or bacon to foods if they taste less rather than odd, and that is important to do so if it will help you to eat more and gain back weight. Starting today I can put soysauce on foods, or pickled Indian limes, or feta cheese (all with sodium). Prednisone causes sodium retention and potassium and calcium loss. Prednisone is supposed to be adjusted to the lowest dose which has the desired effect as it has lots of bad side effects. Muscle weakness, muscle loss and nitrogen loss, interference with carbohydrate metabolism (I am supposed to gain muscle and weight). Gastrointestinal symptoms. Increased alkaline phosphatase levels. Impaired wound healing. Convulsions, vertigo, headache, cataracts, glaucoma (due to fluid retention which is not happening to me - I don't eat salt). Urticaria and other allergies. The desired effect: reduces lymphocyte levels. Also erythrocytes (red blood cells) - not good. But it raises neutrophil and monocyte levels (increases that sort of immunity). I will have to read more on immunity types. Endocrine effects, menstrual disorders, need for more insulin. Masks signs of infection and interferes with fighting infection. I ought to eat some funny-tasting food now. No wonder I am not gaining weight as fast as I was the first cycle, even tho I have more energy to eat and an appetite again.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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").
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Last night we walked to Zion church to a talk about computers and machine embroidery. The speaker started by removing her jacket 'because of hot flashes' then telling us she had had a hysterectomy (probably also ovariectomy) and that she had been 'child-abused' and that her mother and grandmother had breast cancer and she was sure she had a 90% chance of it. She brought in her 'breast cancer' dress with cutouts to represent a mastectomy and machine embroidered text about breast cancer arond the middle. Then showed us how to trace a scanned pattern with a mouse after choosing the type of stitch and color for each area, which was time consuming but you could make a painting into an embroidery by then setting the machine to embroider from a floppy disk, and changing the thread whenever the color was done. She said half the screen on her computer went blank recently so she needs a new computer. Jim said it must be a laptop - we have never seen half a screen go blank on a regular monitor. They had refreshments. I ate a bit of cheese and crackers and tried the grapes, which tasted horribly sour, and a bite of apple (ditto). The water fountain was broken, the cheese was salty as were the crackers. Today we are picking up the CD writer software from the neighbor for whom Jim dropped off the 50 CD-R's. After I answered his email, Jim remembered that we also need to get back a few of them to learn on. Jim was so happy that this is all in progress that he went out and cleaned the gutters and then fixed the hallway light. Every cycle my spleen starts to feel sore (mostly to the touch, but also if I move) about 2 weeks after the chemotherapy. I wonder if this is because my T-cells have recovered enough to be killing off all the antibody-labelled B-cells from two weeks ago. Maybe the swollen glands in my throat a week ago are also related to that? I did not have them the first cycle when I did not take Rituxan. I will probably never know what causes all these symptoms. The spleen is on the left side started just below the ribs and extending beneath them. Sometimes my ribs also hurt around this time or before. The liver is somewhere lower. I should look at an anatomy chart.
Today's exercise was not a walk but two hours spent cleaning up my apartment. Jim was too busy during the month he cooked there to do more than wash the dishes. I was too tired or too bedridden from May through August and have not lived there since. The kitchen table no longer is covered with a computer and tools. The sink is as white as a 1920 porcelain and cast iron sink will get. The bed is now visible and the sheets are there for my guest to put on. Jim managed to use almost every bowl I own. I will never understand how he managed to take the out but did not know where to put them back. I think dyslexics have selective memories. The computer workshop has moved from there to here. Polygon is supposed to bring over a computer that won't boot into Windows tonight, and another grexer wants to learn how to take computers apart tomorrow night, and we have orders from them for working computers. No deadlines, which I cannot yet handle ;=) We are recycling anything slower than a P133 - anyone want the parts?
Totally off topic (not that I am often on topic) but Jim discovered that the CD-ROM drive in one computer will read stamped CD-ROM disks, and some CD write disks but not others. Why?
The drive was reading one CD write disk only some of the time. This is apparently a symptom of the cable not being plugged all the way in.
How does one alter a Win2000 installation so as not to require a password, without knowing the password. Today I figured out why I had pain in the spleen area on both sides while I have a spleen on only one side. This is actually sore muscles from cleaning up the apartment. I also have sore hands from scrubbing the sink. Cancer causes you to lose muscle. I still cannot easily cut my toenails with a clipper. I am cracking walnuts for exercise. As an experiment in how to eat foods when things taste sour, we made me some pomegranate juice out of syrup and a bit of honey. The syrup is naturally sour, so even if it tasted more sour than usual it did not bother me. Then we added some salty pickled lime to my supper so that I would expect supper to taste salty and that worked too. I will be eating lots of pickled lime for a while. The tops of my legs are sore, probably from crouching while cleaning. I should do more of this as I am now strong enough to get up again.
Hi Sindi. Sorry that this has been my first for a long while. Glad to see you're feeling stronger. Sounds like the sour + salt experiment worked a treat; brill! You might be able to copy the registry of a vanilla W2K installation w/o passwords enabled to your W2K machine. If you need to know how, I'll get back to you as I'll have to look up the whys and the wherefores (not to mention the how) myself.
We don't have any other Win2000 installations, just one that came on a computer given to us (via some other people) that requires a password. Perhaps you can check your registry and see where the password is kept, and also let us know which file is the registry and where to find it. Jim's solution is to pass this computer along to a neighbor who also just acquired a used Win2000 hard drive and let him figure it out. Along with the 56K winmodem that would not work with at least 5 enormous downloaded drivers. I am supposed to go for a walk today. Should be fun in the snow. First some hopefully fattening macaroni and cheese. The sour cheese tends to drown out the sour macaroni flavor. 110 today with lots of warm clothes.
Not a whole lot to look at on our walk besides the snow and some fat squirrels. The only deciduous trees with leaves on them are the katsuras. I just got a bill from U of M Hospital for another $3000. I had paid $4500 and thought I paid $6500 total. So called the insurance company and they explained that I pay NOT the first $5000 and then 30% of the next $5000, but 30% of the next $10,000, or a total of $8,000. Time to cash in a savings bond. Next year should be about $5000 plus 30% of $3000 for four CT scans. Looks like medical expenses will total about half my earned income for the next few years. I have to learn to fill in Schedule A.
I was thinking of the "friend of yours who has w2k installed" route. I've no objection to giving you one of our registries, but there are two potential problems: To be safe, you need to make sure said registry came from a machine with no software or changed settings (the "vanilla" referred to in #255 We have WinXP - which I'm not convinced won't be a whole hell of a lot of trouble if you put its registry on a w2k box. Still, I'll poke around and let you know the result tomorrow (Friday). Schedule A?
(Schedule A of IRS Form 1040 is Itemized Deductions. It's used when listing every deduction will result in a smaller tax bill than the standard deduction.)
You get to enter medical expenses on Schedule A if they are more than 7% of your income. This year my medical expenses are more than my earned income. Then you subtract the total on Schedule A from your total income. If you don't have anything to put on Schedule A, you subtract $4500 instead. The Win2000 computer has gone to a friend who has a Win2000 hard drive but also no installation files, and who says he knows how to edit the registry. We also passed along two winmodems for him to play with. He got one of our previous failures working but I think one of these is dead. Tonight we combined parts from a PB 100 and a PB 233, on the theory that the older CD-ROM drives and sound cards were built better and will last longer. Not only that, but Windows actually comes with drivers for SB 2.0, and not for all the fancy new pci sound cards. I just got a nice 'speedy recovery' wish from a complete stranger who ran across my website and also happens to translate Russian. I have been getting lots of nice emails from friends who keep checking up on me. My turn to send postcards to a few older friends who are in nursing homes or hospitals. It helps to add peanuts to the funny-tasting rice because nuts all seem to taste normal. This week my fingers are shredding and getting a bit infected around the nails - so far two fingers and a thumb. Last time 7 fingers were infected. I cannot figure out why this waits 2 weeks after treatment to happen. It is the skin just behind where the nails grow. My nails are growing fine. I was supposed to expect problems with the nails.
Re: schedule a: thanks. medical expenses: ouch. That infection doesn't sound too rockin' either.
]The infection is minor, more of a scientific curiosity. The missing piece of case on the P233 was identical to the one on the P100. Today my left palm has more sensation that for the past few weeks. I get to enjoy this for three days, along with increased sleep (I have been waking up every 2-4 instead of 1-2 hours) and a tongue that does not feel like I just ate a raw pineapple, and things are starting to taste closer to normal. This must mean the chemotherapy is wearing off and I am starting to regenerate. Same thing happens every cycle. Monday I get more chemotherapy. Four weeks from now I will be done with the drugs and only one more IV to go this year (unless of course they decide I need 8 instead of 6 sessions). The more accurate scale is a few pounds lower than the one I have been using and says I weigh only 103.5 pounds, with clothing, before breakfast. Three weeks ago at the hospital I weighed the same after breakfast. The doctor said at least don't lose weight when I had gained only 1 pound, but I think they are disappointed. Some of what I eat must go into replacing all those cells killed by the chemicals. No wonder I am not able to walk any farther as I have not been eating enough to make more muscle. If I contine gaining only 1 pound every 3 weeks, it will take six months to get back to the 112 I weighed last January. Got to work harder at this. Today is Jim's birthday. Maybe we can get his CD-writer working for it. Can you install Win98 over Win31 to keep the settings for the sound card? This is an odd one, used by PB, which is SB 2.0 (8-bit) with a 14.4 modem which we are encouraging the recipient to use for dialing grex directly as the other modem will be a winmodem and it is much faster to dial from DOS. But he would need a phone line Y splitter.
I must have read the scale wrong (a 3 for a 5). It is a nonilluminated grey on grey digital model, and there is only a 2 lb difference between scales. I weighed 108 after eating on the lighter scale. I still don't know where the weight is going. My hip measurement is 2" less than it used to be (down from 35.5 to 33.5") and my waist measurement has not changed (29") I can still reach around my thighs with two hands and touch thumbs and middle fingers. I bet no other grexer can do that. I should try calculating body fat percentage from the pinching the underarm method and report back. Tonight the refreshments at the Kelsey Museum tasted nearly normal (except for the horseradish cheese) so we went to Dinersty for Jim's birthday dinner and had water spinach with fermented tofu sauce, which tasted about the way we expected it to taste (not that we have had this combination before). I looked at a few books on cancer at the library and learned that lymphoma is more common among Russian-origin Jews. I wonder why. Maybe we produce more B-cells to fight off the bacterial infections in ghettoes? What sorts of diseases are bacterial other than strep throat? I also learned that many people on chemotherapy are worried about gaining weight. There were two copies of one paperback on how to cope with chemotherapy, with a large section on nausea and also one on insomnia. Apparently some people lie awake worrying. My problems in sleeping are more due to boniness. They did not deal with that as it is not a symptom of chemotherapy. I left the books there and brought home more cheering subjects such as environmental degradation, a scientific explanation of diseases related to mad cow disease, and a history of the first 3 billion years of life on earth. Jim got two books on CD and realized that you need more CDs than you do cassette tapes to record a book because you can record books on tape in mono and get up to 240 minutes per tape, but CDs only 80 min per disk. And he does not know of any way to make the CDs talk twice as fast like he does with the tapes. Can you record a CD to hard disk and then listen to it faster? If so, can you lower the pitch? Maybe the books for the blind people will special order CD players that play half as fast.
Some bacterial diseases: Anaerobic (Bacteroides fragilis) Infection Anthrax Aquarium Granuloma Bartonellosis Cancrum Oris (Noma) Cellulitis (Aeromonas) Cellulitis (Streptococcus) Chancroid Cholera Diphtheria Erysipelas Erysipeloid Gas Gangrene Gonorrhea Granuloma Inguinale Impetigo Legionnaire's Disease Leprosy Leptospirosis Ludwig's Angina Lymphadenitis Meliodosis Meningitis Pertussis Phagadaena Tropical Ulcers Plague Pseudomonas Infections Rhinoscleroma Salmonellosis Scarlet Fever Shigellosis Staphylococcal Infection Syphilis Tetanus Toxic Shock Syndrome Tuberculosis Typhoid Vincent's Angina Yaws
...Republicanism?
Now I know why I have not had anything on this list for a few years - I had an excess of B-cells to fight off all the bacteria! I think infections of the mucus membrane of the mouth are bacterial and I was getting sores in my mouth the first three cycles when my B-cells were killed off by the chemo. Yesterday evening grapes tasted normal (slightly more sour) but before some grapes at a reception tasted awful. I tried an orange and it tasted more awful. Jim tried it and pointed out that it was spoiled. Spoiled oranges don't normally taste this awful to me. More bitter than sour. Is this just due to losing some taste buds, or might I have become more sensitive to the byproducts of whatever organism spoils fruit (some fungus? - there was no blue fuzz on the skin, just that taste). People with less resistance would benefit from avoiding spoiled foods. This seems to be one of these mornings when I don't get back to sleep. Maybe if I climbed lots of stairs (three times up and down?) I would get more tired and sleep better? Scrapie/BSE/kuru/Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (caused by prions, a type of protein that folds wrong and causes other proteins it encounters to do the same) somehow affects its victims by causing them to lose appetite and waste away. I wonder how it does this. Cancer does the same. Appetite suppressant. If you are a sheep, you are likely to get scrapie if you eat the placenta from a ewe with scrapie that has given birth. It is not destroyed by normal sterilization techniques or by the formaldehyde used to make vaccines from attenuated viruses so a bunch of sheep got scrapie from a vaccine against something else. I am glad not to be a sheep.
Prions destroy neurons, and the symptoms (and death) follow from that. There has just been a report of an experiment in which mice were made "immune" to prions by genomically changing them so neurons expressed an enzyme that destroyed the *normal* prion protein. Without the normal protein, the prions can't misfold anything, so neurons were not destroyed. However at the same time the prions in other cells created the misfolded protein, but that created no symptoms: other cell types were unaffected by misfolded prion proteins. A rather ingenious experiment. This doesn't provide directly a practical vaccine, much less cure, of course, but tells a lot about the process of this disease.
Apparently the normal prion protein is not essential, as someone was also able to breed mice without the gene to produce it and they seem okay. If you don't have that protein, it cannot be converted to prions. The protein resides in the cell membrane until it is converted to the misfolded prion form, then the cells die and the protein gets loose and converts proteins in other cell membranes. The prion form of the protein has a section converted from irregular to flat-sheet, which renders it inaccessible to the enzymes that normally break it down, so it accumulates. About 100 people (as of 2002) had died of BSE. About 100 people a year die of salmonella poisoning in Germany, frequently from eating factory eggs. Genetic engineering is saving people from this disease because it is no longer necessary to process pituitary glands from dead people. One in 10,000 people die of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease and companies used to process 20,000 pituitaries at a time to make human growth hormone. I think genetically engineered bacteria now make it instead. They also make the drug which is killing my B-cells (Rituxan). (Someone wants to chat now).
This cycle I have only four fingers with only a little bit of shredded skin and only one was bleeding at all. Last time I had 7 total that were more infected. I still don't know what causes this. This evening I timed the hot flashes. Every 45 minutes exactly. I could almost set a clock by them. At night I wake every hour feeling hot so perhaps they slow down then. I put together a list of side effects for the doctor and was surprised to find at least 15 side effects other than blood counts going down. Some of them are no longer recurring this cycle. Some occur only the first week (with prednisone) and some only the last week (pain in the spleen and ribs). The laryngitis gets worse around the second week then a bit better each time. The odd taste gets worse a few days after therapy, then somewhat better by the end of each cycle, but overall is getting worse, along with numb hands. The 15 side effects do not include those of prednisone. Non-Hodgkins lymphoma is more common after age 50 and may be caused by Epstein Barr virus but they tested and I don't have that. They tested for lots of viruses and I don't have any of them. I wonder why they tested. One more 'normal' day before chemo on Monday. Last time they said they did not have a free slot for me but would notify when they found one. I have a 12 pm doctor's appointment and presumably a blood draw before that and they will have to find a spot for me after those. Today we did computers instead of walking. Jim is fixing polygon's Windows problem by reinstalling Win95, using the serial number from the original installation which he found in one of the files. The monitor that had some problem or other looked like it was going to explode (and sounded that way too) so Jim unplugged it. Larry picked up a computer we put together for Sarah to play games and learn to write on, and when she learns to write we will add a modem and Kermit.
An eventful day. Got polygon's coputer working after downloading the video driver, and got it up to normal speed by restoring CMOS to default values. It had been running at about the speed of a 386 and it was a P200. Jim has been struggling all day with a winmodem that gets put onto Com1, which is the only serial port available on the computer. It works in another computer on Com4 if you fiddle with things a lot. We have an order for a grex laptop from a friend who would like to read about cell biology online and has no computers. We have a lovely little 286 for her to dial grex with and use lynx. Due on Tuesday. On Wednesday (busy social schedule) we plan to go walking with the older neighbor down the block who does a double block every dry day but is afraid of falling. She had several strokes and some surgery. Some time after that we promised (again) to show our 81 year old friend how to use the printer we set up for him. His wife called to check on me and called back to tell me it was Ostromeria she had brought me in a vase from her garden. These flowers last several weeks. This leaves us five weeks (before I stop being retired) to put together a few computers for ourselves. I am still using a 486 here. Being retired is time consuming. Tomorrow is another chemotherapy day and since they told me three weeks ago that there was no free slot, I expect to be there until closing time. Last time we did not pay for parking because the cashier had turned off her cash register at 9 pm. I will try to think of other things so as to get some sleep tonight. I hate needles.
Good luck, Sindi. Hmm, never heard o Ostromeria. American native?
Perhaps its alstromeria, also known as Peruvian Lily. See
http://www.freshroses.com/alstro.html
Yes, alstromeria sounds right. Leslie already told me the name of this flower after it came in a bouquet from someone I translated for and I keep forgetting. It does look like a lily. Jim made flat bread in the breadmaker last night so he suggests we buy some that rose on the way to the hospital. We are supposed to be there at 11 and I have not eaten breakfast yet. Got to remember to take CDs along to drown out the TV noise, and a few books that I can read with one hand. I printed out for the doctor two pages describing all my side effects.
This response has been erased.
What sort of luck do you mean? We just got to my apartment after finishing chemotherapy at 9:15. They close at 9:00 so we were not required to pay for parking. Five hours in the infusion area after waiting five hours in the waiting area (a small amount of this being blood draw, talking to a nurse, and 2 minutes with the doctor, who read my two page summary of events and had no questions.) After the sixth infusion Dec. 8 I get another CT scan and possibly a PET scan as well. Has anyone reading this ever had a PET (positron emission tomography) scan and does it require an IV. The CT scan won't show the difference between scar tissue and tumor. Today I had lower than usual blood pressure and my neutrophil count is still 2.7. It was over 4 on the day of the last infusion, perhaps because I had some virus. We had time to talk to lots of people in the waiting room. A retired man who has a very slow leukemia being treated just with pills, indefinitely. He says they only make him nauseous in the morning. He feels sorry for the young kids who come in. I talked to a girl who needs to come in every day from 2 hours away and has a port. To the parents of a 2 year old who had a bone marrow transplant for neuroblastoma, diagnosed at age 1. She is two months ahead of predicted progress and could be done with the three times a week visits by Christmas. Her parents found an apartment here for the duration and cannot go anywhere as she must not be exposed to any microbes. The boy we met the first time, skinnier than me, has gained more weight and can walk 2 miles. He has to keep going to school (night school in his case) in order to receive insurance benefits. Someone showed me the afghan she knit during her frequent long waits. Someone in with her husband (who has blood problems) told me all about her breast cancer, which has returned twice with puzzling symptoms and caused fluid around the lungs and a cough that they thought was pneumonia. Someone else was looking unhappy at the results of a CT scan - she had been in remission. Most of these eople have to drive 1-3 hours to get here and half of them have to come 3-5 times a week (and wait around all day). A girl from Chelsea was there with her mother and I asked her what fourth grade was like. She has asthma and needs to be especially careful during chemotherapy. My roommate during chemo was there with his girlfriend (hoth in their 70s) who told us about her knee replacement and heart surgery and latex allergy - she is also allergic to formalehyde (plywood) and curtains and acrylic and acetate. Her boyfriend was getting 5 hours of blood transfusion for low hemoglobin. He could not hear well and was playing the TV loudly. Finally they moved him to a bed as he was not feeling well. This time they are letting me cut the prednisone dose from 100 to 70 mg but they infused the higher amount today of something similar (decadron). The vincristine is staying at half dosage - this is letting my numb hands recover, and also it is what caused sore jaws the previous times. The brought me 2 Benadrysl but let me take just one (patient right of refusal) and will throw out the other and not charge me $4.19 for it. I had three nurses on different shifts, including the one that we gave the pawpaw to. She told us how she brews beer - tried using tap water and bottled water and gypsum added to the water to remove calcium. We were the second to last to finish and were not charged for parking at 9:15. The ENT exam for the laryngitis could not be scheduled until February, which the cancer doctor agrees is pretty pointless in case it is caused by a drug reaction, since I will be done with drugs by then. He wondered whether to reduce the dosage of whatever caused it. I told him it keeps getting worse after therapy and then better again. The pharmacist commented that my voice sounds a lot stronger today. The mother of the boy who lost more weight than me and is a bone marrow candidate told me my hair was looking nice (short and rather skimpy) and her son showed me his head without any hair to explain why she liked my hair. The blood draw was nearly painless - I hope I get her again - and the IV was as good as they get, worked first time and did not hurt too much for 5 hours. My blood pressure was fairly stahle but low - 102/80 and then 102/64. I can now look forward to maybe 6 instead of 4-5 hours per night sleep for the next week.
re: "Has anyone reading this ever had a PET (positron emission tomography) scan and does it require an IV." Had one, I believe, after final chemo tx. Pretty sure an IV was involved, but they don't bother me. Nice thing was that there was no massive piece of eqpt, such as for a CT or MRI.
I just caught up on this item after not being on Grex for more than a month. I'm glad to hear things are going well, Sindi.
[26]Lymphomas
Contents:
* [27]Introduction
* [28]Diagnosis
* Treatment
* [29]Follow up
* [30]Example Study
* [31]More Information
___________________________________
Treatment
The doctors diagnose the cancer and determine what kind it is by
looking at a sample of the tumor under a microscope. This alone does
not determine what treatment you should have. Before treatment, your
doctors must determine how much lymphoma you have. This is called
staging the cancer.
Treatment options as well as the outlook for your recovery depend on
both the exact type and the stage of the lymphoma.
Once identified, a suspected lesion is biopsied. If it is found to be
melanoma, it will be surgically removed-often with surrounding lymph
nodes. A number of diagnostic tests may be performed, including a PET
scan and a sentinel node biopsy.
Tests used to gather information for staging may include:
* A physical examination
* Blood tests
* A bone marrow aspiration and biopsy
* A lumbar puncture (spinal tap)
* Imaging tests including a PET scan
PET is the most useful test that you can have when doctors are staging
or re-staging lymphoma because it accurately shows the extent of the
spread of the cancer.
How PET works: In cancer, cells begin to grow at a much faster rate,
feeding on sugars like glucose. PET works by using a small amount of a
radioactive drug called a tracer in combination with a compound such
as glucose. Once you are injected with the tracer and glucose, the
tracer travels through your body. It emits signals as it travels and
eventually collects in the organs targeted for examination. If an area
in an organ is cancerous, the signals will be stronger since more
glucose will be absorbed in those areas.
In tissues or organs affected by lymphoma, more of the radioactive
glucose will be taken up as compared to normal lymph nodes and
tissues. This helps the doctors understand exactly where the lymphoma
is. Proper staging of the location and extent of the tumor is the
first step in appropriate treatment. Moreover, once treated, patients
are often re-staged to determine the effectiveness of the treatment.
In addition to providing basic staging information, the initial PET
scan provides a baseline for subsequent evaluation of whether the
therapy was effective or not. Whole Body PET may be particularly
useful in detecting extra nodal sites of disease such as bone marrow,
liver and spleen.
The treatment of lymphoma has been one of the true cancer success
stories of the last 20-30 years. Continued improvements in
chemotherapy and radiotherapy have resulted in better survival rates.
After first showing the doctors where the cancer cells are, PET can
also see if the therapy has been effective at killing them.
Call the doctors at the [32]PET center nearest you if you have
lymphoma and would like to discuss your treatment options or whether
PET would be useful in your care.
References
1. http://www.petscaninfo.com/zportal/portals/pat
PET scans can be used to distinguish between dead and live abnormal lymph
cells, unlike other methods. So if my spleen masses do not shrink to
nothing but continue to be 1/4 their original size, they need to find out
if they contain live tumor cells this way. I think they would do a CT
scan first and then a PET scan only if the CT scan is ambiguous.
I looked at blood count numbers. As predicted, my bone marrow is starting
to wear out a bit.
Hemoglobin is 13.6 this cycle, 12.9 mid cycle, and 14.3 last cycle. At
this rate it could drop to 12.4 before I finish chemo but 12 is
acceptable.
Platelets were 568, 428, 351 and now 312. At this rate they could drop to
about 249 but 150 is acceptable.
Neutrophils (fight off infections) remain low all cycle. Last three
cycles they were 8.3, 4.2, and 3.9, and they are now down to 2.7 (up from
2.6 in mid cycle). Not so good if they keep dropping. Normal is 1.4-7.5
Lymphocytes have been 1.5, 1.1, 1.6 and now 1.0. Lower than 0.8 is bad.
They are being specifically attacked.
Perhaps the drugs are killing the cells in my bone marrow which make all
of the above and they also need time to regrow.
.
kep up the good medicine ...
I looked up the decadron that they give me the second part of the cycle (along with two antinause drugs in pill form and three traditional cancer drugs intravenously). It prevents nausea and is antiinflammatory. It is used against certain cancers as well, and for arthritis and lupus and asthma and psoriasis. It suppresses the pituitary. Sometimes it keeps people awake but it does not affect me that way. Or if it did, the Benadryl counteracted it (but the Benadryl was given much earlier and did not make me sleepy). I just took my Prilosec (prevents stomach acidity) and we will walk to the pharmacy for my prednisone that I can take with breakfast. Got to remember to drink lots of liquids for a few days, and lots of fiber all week. My right hand is definitely regaining sensation now. I suspect both hands will be worse again in two weeks and then start to get better again.
After decadron at 8 pm and prednisone at 9 am I got one hour sleep the next night (2:30 to 3:30) and lost four pounds of fluid between morning and 3:30, then got up and ate breakfast at 4:30 and slept part of the time from 7 to 11 am. Good thing I don't need to go to work this year. Even tho the prednisone dose was cut from 100 to 70 mg it is additive to the decadron. Next dose coming up. My numb hands continue to get less numb, including the right hand now. Our Chinese guest arrives tomorrow. Good thing I still am not in the middle of the cycle where things taste worse - I may just risk exposing myself to her imported (from Chicago) viruses as she is a really good cook. My aunt (whose daughter died at age 30 of Hodgkin's lymphoma) wrote that when she had TB she lost 30 pounds and had to eat lots of small meals. My Macedonian friend wrote that her boyfriend of five years tested positive (in Bulgaria) for stomach cancer and plans to come here where he has a doctor friend. I have no idea how he could afford treatment here. My latest full-body CT scan was $3800 (before discount). My friend makes $300/month. I offered to help pay for her daughters' college expenses of $200-1200/year tuition and room and board in a few years - wish I could promise to be around until they graduate. My Slovene friend writes that her sister is getting stronger after stomach cancer treatment. My oldest cousin, whose mother had breast cancer at age 86 shortly before dying of other caues, that she also had breast cancer. Everyone (under 80, anyway) seems to be surviving cancer nowadays. Except for brain tumors (my mother, mother in law, and a 20 year old daughter of a friend). I don't know if they can be treated with chemotherapy.
My those chemotherapy drugs work fast. I have lots more hair coming out today. About 10-15 hairs each time I pull on a new section of head. Apart from sleeping odd hours I still feel fine and hope to go for a nice long walk in the park while it is still sunny. Jim just biked off to deliver a computer and pick up potatoes from a farmer friend who gives us his culls, leaving me with oatmeal and prednisone in pear sauce. I am starting to get used to the bitter taste. Our Chinese cook arrives tomorrow and I can still taste things properly.
My mother has had two brain tumors (both noncancerous, thank God) and had surgery and radiation and some chemo for them. A friend of Rhiannon's from high school that I met earlier this year also had a brain tumor (cancerous) but will be five years in remission this spring. I believe she said she had chemo. Unfortunately, she seems to have ended up permanently bald.
I am very glad to hear that they are doing better at treating brain tumors. By noncancerous I think you mean nonmalignant (did not spread). My mother's started as a pituitary tumor and spread. It is always encouraging to hear that people have been successfully treated, baldness or not. I still have hopes of regaining my voice. Yesterday I could actually sing low notes (softly) and a friend commented how much stronger my voice was. Today (less than 48 hours after treatment) it is much softer and higher pitched again. Which sort of implies that after the last treatment it wil stop getting worse and continue getting better. But as I tell people, I can live with laryngitis (or baldness). How does one administer chemotherapy for a brain tumor? It is supposed to be difficult to pass anything between the brain and the rest of the body, and they usually inject chemicals into a vein on hand or arm. My mother was told that her tumor could not spread outside the brain or spinal cord, all of which they irradiated. Two other people have told me they had surgery for nonmalignant brain tumors and they never recurred. The potatoes just arrived - a bushel full, by van. Too much for a bike basket (too much volume, tho Jim has carried 100 pounds before - he once biked into the local brick place and told them to load up a 100 lb sack of mortar). I traded a few jerusalem artichokes to our farmer friend so that he can sell their offspring at $6.50 a pound. He gets $2 for organic potatoes (or at least the coop sells his potatoes for that). Also a green sweater that Jim says makes him itch from a foot away (and through three layers of shirt).
Our neighbor down the block called to remind me that we had a date to go walking together. She gets out on good days and watches the cracks in tbe sidewalk very carefully so as not to trip and fall. We spent 30 min going around the block, including a chat with some men waiting to repair the asphalt in the road. There was a large construction vehicle parked over the spot to be repaired, with a very tall pumping crane coming out of it and descending into the cellar of a house under construction. One friendly man exchanged farm stories with our neighbor and called us both 'young ladies'. We then stopped to see what she meant by having such a mess in her house that there was no room to set up a computer. Former reference librarian who cannot bear to part with anything printed and has bookshelves over every door and some narrow passages between things to walk through. The 70s duplex street (that we walked on without her) is now lined with red and yellow katsura leaves. One tree had small green fruit - they must come in female and male varieties. The fruits hang on the tree all winter and are edible later on when they are black and wrinkled. While watching for cracks, we read the names or initials of many companies that had built or replaced sidewalk in this area since 1941. There is always something new to look at. The neighbor would like to go walking with us again but I may be taking a few days off first as my legs are feeling numb again. My hands have also gone from nearly normal to tingly all over (from vincristine) since yesterday. I can now be grateful that I can walk more than a block, don't need to worry so much about falling, and don't have a colostomy and have not had five strokes. One cannot bend at the waist with a colostomy so has to bring a chair out into the garden to weed. Next time it is too cold or icy to walk to the library, I can walk to the reference librarian and borrow some Kipling. Time to feed and water myself.
I managed to sleep part of the time between 2:30 and 7:00 am. It is sort of hard to tell whether or not I have been sleeping because I am so jittery from the prednisone but I remember dreaming a bit before 7:00. Something to do with the book I was reading - Two Years Before the Mast - about a freshman who took a couple of years off to recover from measles by becoming a sailer in 1831. It was a five month trip around South America from New England to California. They made sure to round the Cape during the worst winter weather (mid-summer here) and then spent a couple of years trading things for hides at the 'ends of the earth' - California - where the Spanish-speaking rulers all had Indian slaves and bought Massachusetts wine, shoes (made from their California hides) and clothing. Sailors had to wash and mend their own clothing, kill and chop up their own cows, and work about 16 hours every day. They got to California during the northern winter and their only time off was after dark, with no artificial lighting provided. I have not yet figured out from context the meanings of loose, reef, double reef, and furl - can anyone explain? These are verbs that take as their object about ten types of sail. I just got an email inquiring about a Bulgarian translation and had to explain that I would not be awake to do it until maybe Tuesday. Friday's prednisone may wear off by Sunday night but Monday is garbage day and the trucks start on Jim's street. We are finally working on a computer for Jim. First we installed a 2M Linux that includes a dialer and browser and can be used for downloading any files that might be needed for Win98 to run the CD writer and scanner. I have nearly forgotten how to use that linux since July. The chemotherapy interferes with memory but I think it is only recent memory (I am losing my vocabulary and need to talk around missing words once in while, like the neighbor who had five strokes).
"to reef" is to shorten a sail with the use of a row of short lines, reef pendants, that are sewn into the sail. The sail is lowered a little and the reef pendants are tied around the boom. This reduces the sail area, which becomes necessary in high winds. There are parallel rows of reef pendants so the sail can be shortened different amounts. A "double reef" uses the second row up of reef pendants. "to furl" a sail is to lower it completely and fold it up and tie it to the boom. The sailor will say to furl the sail you stretch out the foot and then flake down the sail by the luff and leech backwards and forwards onto it. I'd have to see "to loose" in context, but it can refer to shaking out a reef or unfurling the sail.
"Reef" is to make the sail smaller, so it catches less wind. Every sail had sets of reef-points at different distances from the foot of the sail, so to double-reef was to shorten it to the second set of reef-points. "Reef-points" are short bits of rope attached to a sail, used to lash the sail to the boom (the spar along the bottom of the sail) or yard (the spar at the top of the sail) when reefing. "Furl" is to store the sail against the yard, removing it from the wind's effect completely. "Loose" meant what it means now: to set free. (Trivia: A 'loose cannon' was one that had broken its restraints and so went rolling across the deck as the ship moved.)
Thank you both. The book will make more sense now. Can you translate the following passage about stringing up wet hides to dry them? Apparently they made the ship into a giant clothesline. We got up tricing-lines from the jib-boom-end to each arm of the fore yard, and thence to the main and cross-jack yard-arms. Between the tops, too, and the mast-heads, from the fore to the main swifters, and thence to the mizen rigging....tricing-lines were run. The head stays and guys, and the spritsail-yard, were lined, and we got out the swinging booms and strung them and the forward and after guys with hides. Our ship was nothing but a mass of hides, from the cat-harpins to the water's edge, and from the jib-boom-end to the taffrail. Is a yard a sail? I think stays, lines, and guys are ropes. The sailers spent a lot of time unravelling old rope and making it into newer rope. Today I walked the neighbor again. We spent a lot of time looking at rough spots on the sidewalk. She cannot handle downhills or steps well. We passed the same black cat three times in three places. We also passed people out walking a baby and a dog. My legs are really wobbly and sort of numb today. My hands are getting numb again and I am dropping things but I don't care as I know it is temporary and Jim is still doing the cooking. He has discovered that if you leave out the 'online signup' from the Win98 CAB files it will install without AOL and Compuserve advertising, and that WORDPAD will not read WORD files, all of which helps make Win98 smaller. None of this, of course, gets us to being able to use the CD writer any quicker so I think I may copy the ten nearly due library CDs to tape. I was going to record some information about them via a microphone but I can't hear myself too well. There is an interesting section of my novel in which the incompetent captain manages to sail into two of the other three ships in harbor and break pieces off of them, and is headed for the third one (while trying to anchor) when the captain of the latter rows over and politely takes command of anchoring the rogue ship. 'Our captain gave a few orders, but as Wilson [the other captain] generally countermanded them, saying, in an easy, fatherly kind of way, "Oh no!. Captain T-, you don't want the jib on her" or 'It isn't time yet to heave!" he soon gave it up.' The author eventually transfers to another ship and sails home earlier.
We say there are no ropes on sailing craft: they are lines in general and otherwise they all have names according to their functions (stays, shrouds, halyards, sheets, lifts, --hauls, etc). The fixed rigging, which holds up masts, are stays; lines used to set sails are halyards; and lines used to control sails are sheets. A tricing-line is a short line used to fix something to something else. I didn't know the term so had to look it up. I guess an outhaul - used to pull the sail taught along the boom - is a sort of tricing-line, but since it has its own name, that is used. A yard is a spar (pole, rod) set at right angles to a mast, usually holding the top and bottom of a square-rigged sail on both sides of a mast. (A "yardarm is an end of a yard.) There are specific forms of "yards" that are just on one side of a mast, such as the boom (holding the bottom of a sail) or a gaff (holding the top), or spreaders (holding the shrouds (which are the side supports for the mast) away from the mast near the top. This nomenclature is great fun for sailors as it is so unique to ships.
No so, rane. The soap in the head is still "soap on a rope" and not "soap on a line" ;)
In 1831 I bet they had no soap on a rope. There was never any mention of washing bodies, just clothing. Once in a while half of the crew was chosen to get a day free on shore and would borrow pieces of their 'fitout' from everyone. I wonder how this became outfit. Stays are another word for corset. I suppose a corseted torso might feel like a mast in being just as inflexible. Today I took another bath and noticed that when I rubbed the bottoms of my feet large flakes of skin came off. The tub started to look like a fish tank at feeding time. I looked and an entire layer of skin is peeling off my soles, exposing a new layer beneath. A leukemia patient said she got this effect from daunorubicin. I get doxorubicin. In her case it hurt, probably because the skin peeled before a new layer grew in. I also noted a light sprinkling of very small raised red dots on my torso, which may be broken blood vessels. Maybe the fluid retention from prednisone causes this and then they don't heal properly because nothing is able to grow back for a few days. The shredding skin near my fingernails may be the same phenomenon as my feet but it happens more frequently so the skin underneath is not grown in and bleeds. Jim thought a yard was a sail, as in 'the full 9 yards' being a ship under full sale. There were starboard and larboard on ships, not port. I wonder if port got to be the name for the left side of the boat because that is how the boat was always oriented towards the land when sailing downwind on trade winds in the Atlantic. What are the etymologies for all these terms? scudding-sail fore scuttle hawse-hole lee scuppers sky-sail fore-topmast staysail, balance-reefed trysail reefed forespencer. How many different sails could a ship have?
Doxorubicin can cause swelling, pain, redness or peeling of skin on the soles of the feet and palms of the hand. Not related to the numbness, which is from vincristine. My palms are not peeling.
How many different sails could a ship have? Lots.
A "ship" has three (sometimes more, but generally three) masts. Each mast
has a lower course, a top course and a royal course, each with its own yard.
Three masts, each with three yards, is nine yards. So one theory of the
origin of the "whole nine yards" is all nine yards flying sails.
So. Just on the masts:
foresail fore topsail fore royal sail
mainsail main topsail main royal sail
mizzensail mizzen topsail mizzen royal sail
Plus, staysails are flown from the stays holding up masts, named for the
mast they support:
fore staysail fore top staysail fore royal staysail
Additionally, studding sails are flown outboard of the regular sails,
and skysails are flown above the royals. Then add another mast or two,
and a few gaffs, and have a grand old time. :)
One theory is that "starboard" came from "steering board", on the right
side of the vessel, and "larboard" came from "lading board", where the
vessel was loaded. After sufficient confusion of larboard and starboard,
larboard became "port," since it was next to the port.
Thanks, Joe, for taking over! Sindi was starting to exhaust my knowledge of big ship terminology as I only sail small ships..... But I happened to hear on TV, and just looked up with Google, that the "whole nine yards" comes from the nineyard "length of a Browning .50 cal. machine gun ammunition belt" - so if you shoot off the whole belt, you have given the enemy the "whole nine yards". Joe, you have to have twelve (12) yards to rig nine sails on a square-rigged ship. Right?
Jim also read something about a bolt of cloth holding nine yards. What is a gaff? Do I correctly understand that there are three masts (fore, main, and in the rear mizzen or formerly spelled mizen). On each mast is a lower sail, a top sail, above that a royal sail and sometimes above that a skysail, and to the outsides of these sometimes a staysail? So what is a balance-reefed trysail? What is a top-mast, as in fore-topmast staysail or main top-mast-head? A marline-spike? I still don't think I have staysail distinct from studding-sail. The only sailboat I have ever helped sail had only two sails - main and jib, I think they were.
I leave most of that to Joe, who seems to be into big ships.... 8^} But a "gaff" in the sense I used it (not a hook for pulling fish aboard) is a spar that supports the narrowed top of a trapezoidal sail rather than a triangular sail. This allows the same sail area but without the height of a triangular sail. However it is not as efficient for the same sail area. The gaff supports the top of the sail like the boom supports the bottom. Staysails (pronounced staysals) are clipped onto the fore-stays that support the foremast from before. The jib is a staysail, but larger ships have many forestays and sails can be put on all of them. A marlinspike is a tapered rod put into a hole on the railing of a largish ship to which a halyard can be cleated. It provides a temporary cleat. Sindi, it is time for you to check out a book on sailboats, which will give all the names of the parts. Let me know when you learn what the gungeon and pintle are - you'll be ready to take the UM Sailing Club exam.
How do you count four yards for three sails, Rane? I've also heard that the belted plaid was nine yards of cloth. So the three explanations (and I've heard all of them) are: the length of the cloth used in the traditional Scottish costume, the number of yards on a three-masted ship, and the length of a machine-gun's ammo belt. A belaying pin is used as a temporary cleat. A marlinspike is used to separate the strands of a rope when splicing. A good unabridged dictionary will probably have an illustration of a fully rigged ship.
I have never met a bolt of cloth (other than, maybe, a specialty handwoven) that was under 25 yards, with everything but the heaviest wools and fake furs being closer to 50 yards.
Joe is right. I think I've not been thinking sailing for a while and the old grey cells are luffing a bit. I was, actually, visualizing a lower yard, below the lowest sail, to better set it, especially when beating, but I reviewed a number of square rigged ships online, and they sheeted the lowest sail to the rails. I suppose if they didn't set the lowest sail, four yards would be used for three sails, but....oh well.
Is the poop deck used for what it sounds like?
This has been a very enjoyable set of responses...thanks Joe and Rane.
I know, at least, what beating is - going against the wind. It took the ship 3 weeks to beat north 100 miles along the CA coast and 1 day to return. Today Jim has a sore throat and runny nose and I have been sneezing for two days. Not sure who got this cold first but the timing could have been better as my immune system is scheduled to conk out today. We are avoiding our visitor from Chicago so as not to get her sick. I was going to avoid her for a few days in order not to acquire imported diseases. She offered to cook and drop off some chicken soup but we don't eat chickens. Jim is going to treat his cold with a hot bath after he finishes trying to fix the boiler of a friend who is practically living in another city while his mother is recovering from hospitalization. She and the nursing home hate each other. They sedate people who don't cooperate. They put them on chairs with alarm cushions so they won't try to get up and go to the bathroom on their own and maybe fall. They change their clothes to pajamas at night (I wear my pajamas all day) whether the patients want this or not. This makes the patients' children feel guilty for putting them into the nursing home but what else can they do with parents who are not thinking clearly and are very weak? They also make them do 2 hours a day of physical therapy and I am going to write the friend's mother and encourage her to exercise hard so that they will let her out sooner (or at least let her walk around on her own). Please share your ideas on nursing homes. The patient in question lives alone and has been refusing to take insulin, drinks a lot of soda, is incontinent, and is not acting very logically. She had to be hospitalized because of extreme weakness following weight loss and high blood sugar. Medicare will pay for a nursing home but not for a nurse to come by to give insulin because the doctor is trying to force her into a nursing home, probably so he cannot get sued for not doing so.
"The 'poop' deck on a sailing ship is the aftmost deck at the ship's stern, and takes its name directly from the Latin 'puppis,' meaning 'stern'" (http://www.word-detective.com/100297.html#poopdeck).
It might be added it is a raised deck, above the main deck. Joe, do you know why early warships, in particular, had poop decks? Later commercial sailing ships didn't. Was it to provide something like a castle tower that could be defended more easily when boarding was a part of warfare at sea?
Here's a bit about "the whole nine yards". http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/nineyards.htm
No, I don't know why a raised deck was added. However, I seem to remember seeing it on the great rowing ships of the Mediterranean: galleys, biremes and triremes. I'd never thought about the 'why' of it.
The captain had a nice stateroom underneath (according to the movies) - with stained-glass windows sometimes. Maybe with merchant ships the captain had to lump it with the crew....
I suspect even merchantmen had at least one (relatively) decent stateroom aft, for the captain.
On this ship (in the book) the senior crew had their own little badly lighted room and the officers slept somewhere else. The junior crew slept in steerage without permission to put nails in the wall to hang their clothing. There was one 10 year old and two 19 year olds, 4 other crew (and one who drowned) and three officers, a nigger cook, a steward, and a carpenter. The crew spent most of their time rowing to and from shore and carrying hides, once they reached California. Food was salt beef, salt pork, biscuit, and for a treat something made with flour and molasses, and grog, and tea. The cook had a pet pig.
Sings: "Oh, a life on the ocean wave, is better than being at sea..." No, I don't know what my grandfather was on about when he used to sing that, either.
After you finish this book, Sindi, you should try Patrick O'Brian's series that begins with _Master and Commander_ (the movie is, apparently, based on a later book in the series). It's fiction, but he uses period records as the background and for a lot of the details.
I just saw _Master and Commander_ tonight. It is pretty good especially for anyone interested in things nautical.
Jim just had out Master and Commander on CD, to try reading books on CD. Her prefers them on tape so he can speed them up. I will ask him about it. I liked a book about how the Chinese discovered America in 1421, also Australia, Antarctica, and lots of Pacific Islands. They spent a few years. We are apparently going to have a Chinese Thanksgiving dinner, possibly at the house of some Macedonian friends with our imported cook. Jim is trying to come up with appropriate cooking utensils such as a large steamer. She brought him her castiron wok (not very useful on an electric stove) and assorted other little gifts such as three bags of split peas, some duct tape. We like people who don't waste things when they are moving.
Sindi, you should read Sailing Alone Around the World, by Joshua Slocum - see how it's done by a real salt.
I am not all that focussed on sailing, actually. Now I am reading a book on the first three billion years of life on earth, which discusses how people are related to sponges and corals, and to starfish, and how giardia probably used to have mitochondria but the RNA (DNA?) from them moved to the nucleus. And fungi are closer to animals than to plants. Slime molds are in there somewhere. Grex is a slime mold. I have started taping the 12 library CDs that we have been renewing for two months, but today we might try to get the CD writer working. I am avoiding crowds and individuals until at least Monday so we have the time now. I am feeling a lot less tired than this time last cycle because of the lower dose of prednisone so I can still go on long walks. Only 1 or 2 pounds instead of 5 pounds fluid retention means I am not up most of the night urinating and I have slept as late at 7 am. With the usual awakenings from hot flashes of course, but only once an hour or so. No more prednisone until December. I am trying to find out how many square meters of body surface I have. I just learned that they usually give everyone the same amount of vincristine despite theoretically adjusting for body size, but now they have cut my dose in half. The max dose is 2 mg and that is what they give everyone. I want to check whether everyone also gets two syringes of doxorubicin, the one the causes the laryngitis and peeling feet, in case they can cut that back too. Maybe the tables linking height/weight and body area are online somewhere.
I found a site for calculating body surface area at www.halls.md/body-surface-area/bsa.htm. Mine is 1.5 m sq, with average women being 1.6. At 93 pounds I was 1.4. The vincristine dose is 2 mg. My lean body weight is 90 lb and ideal 131 lb (mine is probably lower than that since I have small bones). Weight at 10th percentile. When I weighed 93 lb my lean body weight was 82 lb, which explains why I did not have much muscle strength. The body apparently preserves about 10 lb as fat and sacrifices muscle instead. At 120 lb I would have lean body weight of 98 lb (another 8 lb of muscle) which I could certainly use. My current BMI is 17.1. Low normal is 19. I am up from 2nd to 10th percentile in weight versus height. All these figures are automatically calculated when you type in weight and height and use a javascript browser to calculate. This site is full of ads for pills to lose weight. It is not a good idea to eat breakfast at the keyboard after having taking vincristine as the oatmeal is not good for the keyboard (shaky hands). If I can continue to gain one pound a week by January I will be somewhat better insulated as half the gain will be fat. I was 112 lb for the three years before getting sick and could sit comfortably and did not need to wear two sweaters at 70 degrees.
Today is probably the low point in my cycle. My tongue and throat feel raw but I still don't have Jim's cold so we took me out for a walk in the balmy weather. Two cycles ago on this day I barely made it across the street and back. Today I made it to Eberwhite Woods and around the woods and back and a few additional blocks. I had to stop and rest a few times. Jim would sit on a log breathing downwind while I sat on him facing the other direction, as I still am too bony to sit directly on logs. We have confirmed that the grey and black squirrels are smaller than the brown ones and do not have the white fur on the underside. THe former are probably Eastern grey squirrels in two color variations, the latter fox squirrels. We did not see the small (red?) squirrel in the woods. Not too much greenery left to look at. The trees can be identified by their bark but I only know black cherry, white and red oak, and hickory (shaggy). We admired a lot of shelf fungus on fallen and standing dead trees. The shelf fungus is found on the bottoms of logs and mosses on the tops. We also saw some rounded largish stones in the mostly dried up creeks, granite. My elbow and knee joints feel sort of loose - perhaps some connective tissue is not regenerated. My leg muscles feel somewhat numb. Different from the numbness in hands and feet (numb/tingly), more that I cannot feel the usual feedback when I use them. The short-term pain in my upper arm muscles has returned. Things are still tasting relatively okay. I have been losing hair in places other than the top of my head, but not leg hair, which must not grow as often. My eyebrows and lashes are much sparser. My fingernails persist in growing strongly and I still have a struggle cutting them with one hand. If I put my finger on the table and prop the toenail cutter against the table and lean on it, it cuts the nail.
Lots more hair coming off my head today and I hope last night was the low point because I had aching insides of my knees, elbows, upper arms, spleen, and ribs, and raw tongue and throat. I finally had an interesting dream around dawn before the 7:20 garbage truck woke me up, which involved among other things Marcus Watts with a beard that covered all but his eyes. I had been reading someone's travel stories about Afghanistan, where the women went out dressed in large bags, I think without anything showing but hands. And the dream involved our neighbor (who called late to help with geting our CD-R drive to work) starting up a restaurant with a Korean cook - I had also been reading travel stories about South America, where the Korean immigrants own lots of restaurants like they do in Ann Arbor, and we now have our own Chinese cook (who promises to send over some good leftovers until I get well enough to visit with her). I don't like Mondays - garbage trucks, blood draws, infusions, CT scans are all scheduled for Mondays. The sailors have just weathered a 3 day gale that blew away or shredded every one of their sails. Luckily their sailmaker had prepared a few new ones for their return voyage. I have out a library book on atlases of exploration with several illustrations of sailing ships. It looks like the large square sails (used for sailing downwind) are normally hung down from the boom (yard?), not attached to it at their bottoms like the mainsails in smaller sailboats. The triangular sails can be attached along one of their two upper edges, or attached only by their three corners (sometomes to a piece of wood that projects forward - what is that called?). There are lots of words for rope - tack, sheets, halyards, hanks, frapping lines, bolt-rope, footropes. What are brails and gaskets and gaff? spritsail, martingale guys.
Right: the spar at the top of a square sail is a "yard." Ships with square
sails (known as "square-rigged ships", or "square-riggers") could sail
*slightly* upwind, maybe to within seventy degress of the wind.
} Brail \Brail\, n. [OE. brayle furling rope, OF. braiol a band
} placed around the breeches, fr.F. braies, pl., breeches,
} fr.L. braca, bracae, breeches, a Gallic word; cf. Arm.
} bragez. Cf. {Breeches}.]
}
} 2. pl. (Naut.) Ropes passing through pulleys, and used to
} haul in or up the leeches, bottoms, or corners of sails,
} preparatory to furling.
A gaff is a spar at the top of a sail. It differs from a yard in
projecting only aft from the mast, rather than across the mast. It sets
a sail fore-and-aft, rather than across the ship.
The "piece of wood sticking out", from which a three-cornered sail is
flown, should be the bowsprit. It is at the front of the ship, right?
Yes the bowsprit is in front. The sail on it must be the spritsail. What is a gaffer, if a gaff is a spar at the top of a sail? The Polynesians had sailing ships up to 100 feet long, with a platform resting on two dugout canoes. I think they had only one sail. In the 1830s a lot of the sailors were natives of the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). They were very good swimmers. Sailing ships included merchant ships, military ships, privateers (pirates), slavers, and whalers The author said that the whalers were very good at rowing but not very good at working with sails, and that they did not wear the usual matching outfits (white cotton in summer, blue wool pants in winter) but dressed like farmers or fishermen in all colors of pants, with suspenders. The crews amused themselves at times by having rowing or sailing races, they sang while hoisting up the anchor, fiddled, and told tall tales. They also traded books between ships and read a lot. The author got a packet brought to him by another ship containing cloth to make a new Sunday best outfit, and one year old letters, and one year old Boston newspapers. He read every word including the auction sales.
Sindi, borrow "harbors and High Seas: An Atlas and Geographical Guide to the Aubrey-Maturin novels. The Third Edition contains the maps and charts that cover all 21 books.
What is an Aubrey-Maturin novel? I don't think I need an Atlas to understand the book I am reading right now, just some detailed drawings of ships. Jim went over and made two attempts to provide our guest with a working washing machine. The replacement control (switch) worked worse than the old one and the backup machine no longer works (after sitting about 10 years in the basement it does not even fill). Our grateful guest sent back her equivalent of chicken soup for a cold (it has large chunks of ginger in it) and some boiled peanuts with anise, and a type of pudding made probably out of sticky rice flour (it is nearly as sticky as taffy) and dried chestnuts and jujubes. I have just been offered more translation work. I had to explain that I might be about to get an awful cold (with no immunity - but Jim has been sick for a few days and I am still okay) followed by three days of headache, and I wanted to have the option of returning it a couple of days late. We might be going to a potluck Thursday on the organic farm if we are all well. I cannot plan life very far ahead yet.
I made it through only a couple of the Patrick O'Brian books. They seemed to be a lot more about the main character's social life on land than about anything having to do with water. The Hornblowers were much better.
Sindi, Jack Aubrey is the captain in _Master_and_Commander_; Stephen Maturin is his ship's surgeon. The books about their adventures were written by Patrick O'Brian. A friend pointed out that Hornblower was a 20th-century man placed in the early 19th century. Aubrey and company seem much more to be men of their times. In what context was 'gaffer" used?
Gaffer as in making movies. Is it related to sailing terminology?
Then a gaffer is a lighting electrician on a motion-picture or television set.
I wish I knew where my book on ships is. It has detailed drawings on various ships and their riggings. Ill have to see if Ican find it.
(The current issue of _Smithsonian_ has an article on the Aubrey books & their author, FWIW.)
Re #294: Is sailing also the origin of the expression "three sheets to the wind"? I've always wondered about that.
Yup. From the web: "To be 'three sheets to the wind' is to be drunk. The sheet is the line that controls the sails on a ship. If the line is not secured, the sail flops in the wind, and the ship loses headway and control. If all three sails are loose, the ship is out of control." I would only add that only some boats have three sails (and sheets), so you can also be out of control with one or two - and more - "sheets to
the wind".
"Gaffer" usually means "boss"; Sam Gamgee's father and predecessor as Bag End's gardener in Lord of the Rigns was known as Gaffer Gamgee, on account of his being an authority on all things gossipy, probably.
} Gaffer \Gaf"fer\, n. [Possibly contr. fr. godfather; but prob.
} fr. gramfer for grandfather. Cf. {Gammer}.]
} 1. An old fellow; an aged rustic.
}
} Go to each gaffer and each goody. --Fawkes.
}
} Note: Gaffer was originally a respectful title, now
} degenerated into a term of familiarity or contempt when
} addressed to an aged man in humble life.
}
} 2. A foreman or overseer of a gang of laborers. [Prov. Eng.]
The definition of gaffer I gave in #327 was #4 copy/pasted from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. At least they have caught up with the "times".
I wasn't disagreeing with your definition, Rane; I was responding to the response immediately before mine.
I have also come across 'gammer'. Jim says the electricians are the ones who are in charge at construction projects because they are there throughout most of the job. He was once an apprentice electrician for a year. This year he might get around to switching from fuse box to circuit breaker panel. The insurance company says that can cut the rates 30%. It will also cut our heating costs by 2/3 if he finishes the wiring.
And 'gammer' is the feminine equivalent of "gaffer": "prob. fr. grammer for
grandmother. Cf. {Gaffer}."
Today I read an Agatha Christie novel whose blurb starts off: For thousands of years the ancient city of Baghdad had been the scene of every kind of evil known to mankind. The book continues with something about a secret organization stockpiling nuclear weapons somewhere in the mountains in some place like Baluchistan.....There is a band of men, mostly young men, so evil in their hearts and aims that the truth would hardly be believed....Antichrist!.... There must be total war--total destruction. The small chosen band of higher beings...when destruction had run its course, they would step in and take over. Apparently the current paranoia is not recent. Today my legs are still so wobbly that I did not go for a walk. It feels as if I would pull a muscle in my calves if I tried, or my knees would bend the wrong direction. This seems to be getting worse each cycle. I was warned the side effects could be cumulative. Some people do eight cycles somehow. But I am much better than in July-September. They told me things would average out between getting generally stronger and the side effects getting worse in some ways. Hands are shakier than last time.
I didn't realise Agatha Christie lived long enough to see nuclear weapons, certainly not to fear rebel terrorist groups (not states) getting hold of them.
This group was supposedly trying to set the Americans against the Russians (in 1951, McCarthy era) so that they could take over the world after both sides lost. Agatha was still writing novels in 1973 and died in 1976. The Baghdad novel was slightly autobiographical in that she really did go to Baghdad and she also met and married an archeologist there, as did the heroine. There was reference to avoiding charming and lovely men - her first husband must have been both, and he fell in love with someone else after they married and moved out. She wrote a 1973 Hercules Poirot novel in which the main character is an elderly lady with a servant who writes murder mysteries and is friends with Poirot and hates to give speeches. The heroine of the Baghdad novel likes to invent stories about herself.
Whore's trying to take over the world, keesan?
As predicted, got swollen glands in my throat and a headache yesterday evening but they went away overnight and with luck will not come back. I want to thank whoever entered invisible-to-me responses in the last ten items for treating this one seriously. I plan to post it at my site after I am done with therapy for other patients to read. Which is why I continue to discuss side effects even though it must be dull for grexers. My tongue is working better than last cycle and I plan to enjoy our Chinese Thanksgiving dinner today.
RE #340 Agatha Christie died in 1976.
(I think certain people may be unclear on when nuclear weapons became an issue, as well as on when Christie was writing.)
Today I got what is probably my fifth bill from U of M for Jim's routine blood
test done July 7 (he passed). First time I called and asked them to fix this
to 'preventive' so that the insurance would pay. They billed me again. Next
I asked them what happened and they said the doctor had to fax them the
correct code number for preventive. They billed me again. I had them talk
to the doctor's accounting person. They billed me again. I called the
doctor's office. She said not to call her again and the amount was supposed
to go towards insurance deductible. Our policy is such that routine exams are
exempted from the deductible (if billed properly). I had the insurance
company phone the doctor's office. I phoned the insurance company. They said
they had explained it all. I wonder who did what wrong this time. I will
have to wait until Monday to call U of M Billing and the insurance company.
I think it might be time to recommend to PPOM not to use this doctor. Three
separate billing problems already.
What really bothers me is that the accounting person refuses to accept
any responsibility and hangs up on me and says not to call again. The
insurance company is being rather helpful.
This is the time in the cycle when the side effects start to go away. My legs are less wobbly, as oftoday my hands are much less numb. This cycle the headache lasted only one evening instead of 3 days (cycles 3 and 4) or 6 days (cycle 2). My left hand only had a few twinges of pain instead ofbeing swollenfor 3-7 days. The pain in my ribs due to pleural effusion is less frequent and less severe. The laryngitis wasa bit better but is worse again now. Jim has been sick for 10 days now - muscle aches, very hoarse,says he feels awful or terrible, sneezing, coughing... I sneezed a few times this week but don't have his cold or flu. Amazing. I have gained only 1 pound in 2 weeks because he does not feel like cooking and I did not feel like standing on wobbly legs, or cutting with shaky hands (which are also getting a bit better now). There is still no sign of any body fat or increased muscle mass. I must have lost a lot of internal fat. I am strong enough to sit putting linux on a computer for hours, but it still hurts to sit. We are getting Chinese food delivered daily or cooked here since Wednesday. Jim ordered more sticky rice pudding with jujubes. I may go for my first walk in a week today while the sun shines.
Today my voice is nearly normal and I can even sing. Jim also feels enough over his flu that he volunteered to walk me. First I need to make lots of phone calls about insurance.
I phoned U of M Billing and they put me on hold for a while to check why I was being billed more than 20% of $138 and then told me the insurance company was paying part of this and someone at U of M had 'posted' it wrong. Who? 'The poster'. I owed $43. This is actually 30%, meaning the insurance company also made a mistake (it is 70% of amounts over the deductible but 80% of preventive care up to $400 that they pay), however I decided to pay the extra $15 since this had been going on since July, just to end it. I paid by credit card over the phone. I will check my statement carefully. My hands continue to feel a lot better and today we went out walking in the cold and wind, and even took a shortcut through an area overgrown with trees and a bit hilly. It still wears me out. But my legs no longer feel numb. My feet don't feel anything but pressure. I am hungry again. My big chance to gain 2 pounds this week to keep up my average. Jim feels like cooking again. He is happy with the linux computer I am making him to use for photo editing and browsing (five browsers). He is also happy that he was able to break a piece out of his printer so that it would work with the same cartridges as a friend's printer that he is doing refills for, and that lets him test the refills. And use the friend's old cartridges for everyone.
With Grace's arm we also, several times, just gave up & paid things. I think that they dig in their heels knowing that many people will do that. I suspect that it's not cost-effective in the end (for them), though. <sigh>
Today I seem to finally have whatever Jim still has. I am coughing and my throat is sore. I emailed the nurse to ask if I should delay Monday chemotherapy so as not to infect other people. Jim had muscle aches, very hoarse throat, and exhaustion as well as the usual respiratory symptoms. We have been putting off visiting mutual friends with our visitor until Jim was better and now we are both sick. She continues to cook for us. I will try peppermint tea to stop coughing.
My sore throat has passed but I am still coughing. I think this is not what Jim has/had but something new. Today U of M Billing phoned to say that my credit card number did not work. Turns out they don't have a way to deal with debit cards over the phone. My debit cards work fine for internet purchases. Also turns out that the $43 I tried to pay is not 30% of $138 but the discount off $182 to $138 and they are still billing the full amount. I phoned the doctor and was told he must have had some reason for billing this as non-preventive but he was not going to talk to me and I was hung up on. I phoned the insurance company and got the name of someone that the doctor' refused to talk to. I phoned ppom and someone spent half an hour trying to help and phoned the doctor's office and was told he 'exercised his professional judgment' in refusing to bill as preventive a blood count and PSA that he had recommended to Jim because he is male and over 50. If this is not a routine test, what is? PPOM said I could send them a letter of complaint and they also gave me the address to send an appeal to the insurance company to get them to pay this even if it was billed wrong. I just wrote up 1.5 pages for each. I hope that this doctor will be removed from the ppom list and that the insurance company will take responsiblity for fixing the problem he has caused. The former might help with the latter. If these were not routine tests they should not have been done at all since we made it clear that we were there because the insurance paid for routine tests. I am getting tired of this but not tired enough to pay the full $138. If the doctor refuses to cooperate, who is responsible for the problem?
(Have you stopped using that doctor?)
You may have covered this previously, but why are you receiving bills for Jim's medical tests?
We went to this doctor just once. I pay Jim's expenses. He is taking care of me. Is there some virus going around that starts with three days of scratchy throat and coughing so hard you almost throw up? I thought I had what Jim used to have but it is acting differently. I would like to be able to predict if it will be better by Monday. I started coughing Monday and thought I had a strep throat last night (which stopped hurting so much by morning).
You pay for his health insurance? Even so, wouldn't the deductible/co- insurance be billed to the policyholder?
Sounds a bit like that I had a few weeks ago... never did figure out if it was a really nasty cold or the flu.
How long did the nasty cold last? Yes I pay for Jim's insurance and his medical expenses as well.
Not quite three weeks, I think.
My strategy for a while now has been, whenever I feel unexpectedly cruddy for no good reason, I take a day off work and sleep a lot. So far I've been successful in avoiding getting truely sick this way.
I had a pretty nasty cold in October that lasted for the better part of two weeks.
I hope this does not last three weeks as I cannot postpone therapy for two weeks. Does it get somewhat better after the first week? So far it is just four days of lots of coughing and scratchy throat, complicated by the pharyngitis so at night I am wheezing trying to get enough air. Okay when I am standing up. The week after chemo the pharyngitis is worse. Scott and Slynne, do you recall how you felt after just one week?
Mine doesn't sound exactly like yours. First couple days maybe I felt a little lower energy, and then a sore throat started to show up. The night that I knew I was sick I had a fever over 100, then normal the next day. Then a milder fever that night, after which it settled down to a bad cold. Colds do tend to throw off my internal temperature regulation, though. After some unremembered amount of time I developed a really bad cough, which at times seemed like I was about to pull a muscle. Eventually things tailed off, but the cough stayed on for a few more weeks until I went to the doctor. That's when I was on prednisone for a week, to reduce thoat inflamation.
After a week, I still had a cough but I felt well enough to go to work. Mine started with lots of sneezing and a stuffed up nose. By the third day, I had a slight fever and a cough. The cough is what lingered but it went away around two weeks after the initial illness.
Maybe we all have/had the same thing but responded differently? I have been coughing for four days now, no stuffy nose but a sore throat two nights ago, and no fever. I sneezed maybe five times the week before it started. I will be on prednisone for five days next week. My big concern is that the pharyngitis will interact with the infection and I will be choking on mucus like I was second cycle when I had a cold. If I have a very runny nose next Monday I might ask to postpone a couple of days. Today I got notice from the insurance company that they are not reimbursing me for the mattress pads recommended to prevent bed sores because they are 'for comfort and convenience'. Yes, it is convenient to be able to sleep. I am now exchanging emails with someone who supports one of my favorite programs, whose brother had lymphoma 25 years ago and refused to be treated again after it recurred. Chemotherapy was apparently quite a bit worse then, and the second time you get it they use worse poisons. His mother was cured of leukemia for 15 years then died of a stroke. Leukemia is usually harder to cure than lymphoma. His brother had an advanced case. They decided against surgery after taking a look inside. We are discussing hospital diets and the advantages of having a Puerto Rican restaurant across from the hospital so visitors can bring cooked food. He said his mother never regained her sense of taste. Mine is cyclical and is worst just about now and returns around the beginning of the next cycle. The other side effects are worst shortly after treatment and my hands are hardly numb now. I have had only one finger with shredded skin at a time this cycle (maybe 4-5 total) and no hand pain. The laryngitis was nearly better until I started coughing a few days ago. Leukemia treatment is more frequent so the side effects are worse and probably longer lasting. I would REALLY like to get the last treatment over Monday. The thought of this has been sustaining me recently through eating sour-tasting potatoes and drinking sour-tasting water and walking 3/4 mile each way in the cold on feet that I cannot feel, and pulling out clumps of hair when I know it is about to get a lot colder. The hot flashes don't seem to be quite as hot or frequent (down from every 45 to every 60 minutes?). One leukemia patient said she had chemotherapy for a whole year and it did not help. She was pretty cheery about it all, relative to how she could have been. Her next step was a bone marrow transplant within 2 weeks. It must have been nice to have that decision over with. I am not coughing quite as much (yesterday I coughed so hard I nearly threw up) but now my head hurts a bit. My eyes are sill runny. Jim made me some more salt water gargle, which when I used it almost made me choke. But it is much nicer tasting than the thrush treatment was. Our visitor made a special trip here and tried to tempt my jaded appetite with stir-fried bitter melon. It is green and has scalloped edges. I grew some once and it had gelatinous looking red seeds. I tasted one piece and it tasted exactly like prednisone and benadryl. Apparently bitter things all taste the same, at least to me, right now. Jim put lots of chili pickled cabbage on it and ate it all including mine. I managed to eat a preserved egg and 2 small sour-tasting potatoes and some cocoa and baby cereal and steamed bread today. As long as I don't lose weight for three more weeks I am not going to worry. Jim wrote his first program in C and compiled it on the basiclinux computer. It is named 'hello'. Today we also got a script for reading man pages with man2html going. After three hours of testing different parts of the script separately (someone else wrote it) we reported that zcat does not operate properly for us on strings surrounded by ' '. Turns out the characters should have been 1` ` (back quote) which is located under the ~ - first time I ever realized that character existed. I spent most of the day on the couch under a warm down sleeping bag suggesting things for him to try, in between coughs. My head has finally stopped hurting enough to read the bbs. Jim read it to me earlier, and answered my email, and reported our problem to basiclinux, and learned how to do all sorts of other things I had been doing for him.
A brief introduction to how quotes work in shell scripts:
Single quotes (' ') tell the shell "pass this on as a unit without
changing it." This is handy if you're passing arguments with special
characters in them, like filenames that contain spaces or ampersands.
(For example, rm File With Spaces.txt will try to delete three files,
"File", "With", and "Spaces.txt". rm 'File With Spaces.txt' will
remove one file called "File With Spaces.txt".)
Double quotes (" ") allow some processing, like replacing variables with
their values, but otherwise they act like single quotes.
Backquotes (` `) tell the shell, "run this command and used the output
as an argument." This is a very powerful feature and is used a lot in
shell scripts. It's as if you'd copied the output of the command and
pasted it onto the command line.
Very helpful explanation. Jim said with single quotes it would tell him 'file or directory not found' since what we had in there was a command and argument. He got all excited about this and wants to write a script with back quotes now. He was about to go shopping (by bike) before it snowed. Somehow computers don't seem to save any time. It is now snowing. So now we have a very small program and a one-line script that accomplish the same thing as the man package and the groff package (8 MB). Today my head does not hurt and my eyes are not as runny but I am still coughing. I expect I will be enough better to do chemotherapy Monday. My legs are much less wobbly than last week. My hands are less numb. My voice is less weak. In three weeks I should feel the same but I won't have to go back to square zero again if I am lucky. Jim says 'works fine'. Must have been a very small script that he wrote. He wants to try dosemu (Do I need to compile it?) and run his editor under dosemu. Does dosemu work with programs that call BIOS and DOS functions? The alternative is to rewrite his editor in C and recompile it. Maybe I will try compiling lynx while Jim is out. He does not let me near the computer when he is in.
It's been a long time since I used dosemu. I think it works with programs that use BIOS calls. It'd be pretty useless if it didn't.
Do you need to recompile the DOS programs or just load dosemu?
No need to recompile. You might try www.dosemu.org for details.
We downloaded BOTH the required files (after I read the README of the first one I pointed out the need for the second one to Jim). Now he thinks it will only run as some user other than root due to file permissions. ??? You can configure it to run with two monitors plugged in at once. I never got DOS working that way, just linux - vga and ttl (hgc). I am still having coughing fits. Right now the left side of my throat is scratchy and my left eye has been runny most of the day. I just realized that the hot flashes slowed down yesterday and decreased in intensity (not as hot and not as long) and today they seem to have stopped. I wonder if being sick makes me underheated and therefore no hot flashes. I have spent most of the time under a feather sleeping bag trying to stay warm. This temperature instability has been keeping me from sleeping very soundly and it is nice that it stopped but now the scratchy throat and cough have taken over the job of keeping me awake. I seem to have lost at least a pound, maybe 2-3. Things taste worse than last week. I read about an English man who tried to prove something by traveling through the desert of Mali with two camels. To get to where he was starting he took trains, buses, and trucks and when the sandstorm stopped the truck he switched to a local sailboat with one mast that looks like a local treetrunk in the photo. The truck was delivering charity rice to Timbuktu. The sail was made of rice sacks sewn edge to edge and it came apart at the seams during the storm and when it was repaired, the rigging ripped and the mast came down. I think you are not supposed to sail during storms. I may have just had a mild 10 sec hot flash or else I got warm typing. It does not feel like a blast furnace is emitting heat at me when I pull open my shirt collar to let the heat out, nor is there any sweating.
Any DOS program that works with *documented* system calls from Microsoft will work on DOSemu, or that's the plan. DOSemu does *not*, afaik, attempt to work for any program that uses *undocumented* DOS calls (nor, it has to be said, did M$ ever support programs that did, since they reserved the rught to change those syscalls from version to version of DOS). DOSemu also does not, according to the authors, attempt to work for any program that uses features of the 386 and higher processors (so presumably the DOS Protected Mode Interface and any program that use it [Windows 3.x in enhanced mode?] are useless under DOSemu. Finally, since UN*X only uses the BIOS to boot, I believe it's unlikely any program which makes BIOS calls will work, or work correctly.
Jim wants to try dosemu on a little 4K text editor that he wrote in assembly language which will work on an 8088. Dosemu claims to work with freedos and dr-dos as well as msdos. I am interested in using WP51/DOS, which worked (from two floppy disks) on my 8088. No protected modes needed, text only, fast (except it took a while to read off floppy disk). I will warn him about the BIOS calls - his editor uses them, does WP51? Jim thinks he needs to have a user other than root for dosemu so he is installing shadow.tgz (419K zipped) to get adduser and password programs. Something about permissions. I don't understand. He is having fun. If this does not work he may learn enough C to rewrite his assembly language editor, which he likes better than pico or even joe.
'permissions' just refers to file protection.
You can set files and directories to be readable,
writeable, etc. by certain users or
groups of users.
But apparently root cannot run dosemu. So he installed shadow.tgz with adduser, made a user jim, and tried to run dosemu. It told him he could not run it on that terminal, seemed to run anyway, worked with his text editor that makes BIOS calls, but would not save the file he edited. Or let him access the rest of the computer, just the freedos directory. This is not a major improvement over rebooting into DOS on the same computer. His next approach is to read about Linux assembly language. The assembler and linker do not seem to be included with our CDs. He thought it might be relatively easy to rewrite his DOS assembly language code. So far no progress. The other option is to learn to write the program in C, but it will be larger and a bit slower (larger than 4K and slower than instant, that is). I am back to going online with my DOS computer.
It sounds as if there are a couple of problems here. Firstly, in order for
a program to be used by a user, either the user must "own" the program, or
the user must have rights to run ("execute") the program. Most proframs are
owned by root and can be executed by anyone, as the following listing shows:
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 807k Apr 14 2002 /usr/bin/vi
This information can be obtained by using a file manager or by typiing "ls
-la" in a terminal or terminal window (similar to a DOSbox on Windows).
For our purposes the important parts are:
-rwxr-xr-x
and:
root root
The first line shows us the type of the file (marked by -, meaning a regular
file such as an executable or a text file), then the permissions, three each
for the "owner" (usually the person that created the file) the owner's group
(people other than the owner in a defined group who may have more rights than
everyone else) and "others", or everyone else. In this case, the owner has
permission to read, write, and execute file; the group and "others" have
permision to read and execute but not write to the file (only necessary if
we wish to change or delete the file).
The next line (or third and fourth colums in the original) show the owner and
the group of the file, both of which are named "root" (in WinXP terms, the
Administrator). So in this case, even though root owns the file, everyone can
use it.
if the third character in any group of "rwx" characters is "-", then the
relevant use, group, or others do not have the permission that would be
represented by the appropriate letter if they *did* have it; thus:
-rwxr--r-- 1 root root 18:49 29 April 92 /sbin/mkfs
Here the root user can read, execute, or write to the file "mkfs", but no-one
else may execute or write to it.
Sometimes files need to be run by "ordinary" users, but need special access
to some feature owned by root, such as a device (the screen, a disk, etc.).
In this case a program will be "setuid" or "setgid" root. In this case the
"x" for the owner or group will be replaced by an "s".
The upshot of this is that this sounds like what neeeds to happen for dosemu
to work properly.
To change dosemu to setuid root, find out where the binary is by typing:
whereis dosemu
at a prompt. If there is more htan one file, the first file ~or the first file
that has "bin/dosemu" as part of the name) should be the name of the file you
need. If you have x, you should be able to change the permissions by logging
in as root and right clicking on the file in a file manager, then putting a
tick mark beside the setuid option in the properties dialog box.
If you don't have the X Window System, it's alittle more complicated. The
permissions on files can be represented by a number, where for each group of
three permissions, a "mark" out of seven is given, calculated by adding
together:
read permission (score 4)
write permission (score 2)
execute permission (score 1)
so a file with the following permissions:
rwxr-xr-x
Would score 755.
added to that, setuid programs sscore another 4, and setgid programs two, so
the preceding file with setuid permisions would score 4755, represented as:
-rwsr-xr-x
To set permissions, look at the permissions of the file and prepend a 4, so
that to change the preceding file /bin/mkfs to setuid, type:
chmod 4744 /bin/mkfs.
This should also solve the problem of saving the file once you've dited it.
the reason why you can only see the dosemu directory is because dosemu
emulates a complete (legal) dos environment. dos cannot access linux
partitions, so the dosemu environmeent is essentially "black box" inside the
linux operating ystem. However, since linux can access both dos filesystems
and filesystems created in a file (which is what the dosemu environment looks
like to linux), it shold be posible to access files created in dosemu by
mounting the file as a loopback device (/dev/loop) with type "lo". Full info
on the "mount" command can be found by using the command "man mount".
Yea. It's simple. :|
jimd Re: dosemu dosemu would not let a user with root privelages create a freedos environment. adduser did work, but with a warning that it would not run on this display." DOS programs did work but couldnt access any disk or drive. Now that I've seen how it works I doubt that dosemu affords me any of the advantages I'd hoprd for. Time to put my efforts into learning C and loading linux from DOS. Sindi: I wonder if we could use dosemu in terminal 1 and linux in terminal 2 and write up something in 1 and access it from 2. Quicker than rebooting to use DOS.
:-0
I forgot to mention that we cannot take your advice literally: We don't have whereis. We use find -name. We don't have the usual man command, which requires groff and takes up 8MB total for all the required programs. We have a little script that someone just wrote, which combines zcat, find -name, man2html, and lynx. We don't have the man pages for mount, which came with busybox, only --help. We have about 120MB of useful programs plus a compiler. This includes X and Opera and four other browsers and lots of documentation. photopc antiword two console mode viewers kermit two X-mode image editors spreadsheet calculators Have we missed any good console mode programs? Today I am still coughing a lot. Jim finally started sneezing. I may have sneezed twice in the middle of coughing, hard to tell.
Hope your colds clear up quickly. I think you're very courageous about all of this. Hmm, I understood it was linux you were using; it doesn't sound like it, unless it's a very old distro. Never heard of a version w/oi whereis before, but, at least the fact that you're having to use don't seem to be causing you too much trouble. Is that an accurate perception?
'basiclinux' based on slackware 7.1. A selection of useful files and we can add whatever else we like if we install it to hard drive. There is one way to find things instead of three ways. Today we downloaded a couple of DOS C compilers so Jim can learn to write C in DOS with his editor that works only in DOS. One produces assembly language that you can then assemble and link (link and assemble?). I coughed from midnight to 3, and from 6:30 to 7 am and for a while again when I woke up again at 9 but since then the coughing has been less intense and once this afternoon I actually sneezed and my nose is getting slightly runny so maybe things will progress enough that I can get infused tomorrow on schedule. Jim started coughing a bit two days before me and today has stopped coughing and starting sneezing a bit and blowing his nose so when the pharyngitis hits on Wed. I hope to be at that stage. The problem is where are they going to put me for infusion for 5 hours where I will not be likely to infect people with low immunity. Maybe the hallway, or an examining room somewhere? By the time they start me it is usually 4 pm and the doctors tend to go home by 5. We went walking yesterday and today and admired the squirrels and the new additions on the backs of old houses. My legs still feel wobbly, which I don't think was the case in previous cycles after the first ten days. They said side effects might start getting worse after cycle 4. I can walk anyway, and don't feel about to pull muscles. Yesterday we saw the neighbor in her 80s out walking alone and Jim apologized to her for me that I was contagious and did not want to get her sick by walking with her. Since we will be using the car tomorrow for the first time in three weeks, Jim fixed a tape deck and two boomboxes to drive to Kiwanis on the way to the hospital. Today a broken vacuum cleaner arrived.
While I understand your "doing more with less" philosophy, I'd like to suggest that you'll have an easier time learning Linux if you start with a full distribution like everyone else is using, and *then* try to whittle it down after you know how things work.
We tried full distributions of redhat, caldera, and suse. The first two were unbearably slow to load and the third was still slow and they all put all sorts of things on that we did not want such as KDE or GNOME. I could put ALL the files from Slackware basic installation but I don't want most of them. Easier to add than to subtract things like running processes at the same time every day, loading random number generators, etc. I am back from the hospital. They said to come again Wed. 8 am for my infusion, agreeing with me that I should not be coughing at the other patients or risking additional health problems until my cough is getting better. I might need two more infusions after this, depending on the Jan 5 CT scan, which they will evaluate Dec. 29. Someone will call me when they find me an earlier CT scan, but they were booked solid. I should schedule these things more than 2 weeks in advance, such as last time.
Sounds like some fancy diagnostics to evaluate a CT scan a week before it's taken! Do they perform any other paranormal testing?
With luck they will get a cancelation or decide to cram me into an already full schedule. I think the CT scan machine is in use 24 hours a day, like the X-Ray machines. The problem is that they are closed Dec 24 and 25 so things filled up fast for the other three days that week. They decided they did not need to take my blood again this Wed. before I saw the doctor so I don't need to be there until 8 am. Three things could happen on the next CT scan (assuming they find a time for me): 1. No changes since last time, when they found no enlarged lymph nodes but the two masses in the spleen were still there, but 1/2 the original diameter. This would mean that these masses do not respond to treatment - either they mutated or they are not tumors. It might be possible to distinguish the two cases by a PET scan. If not tumors, I don't need more therapy. 2. The masses are smaller, in which case they continue therapy for two more sessions since they have been responding to treatment. 3. The masses have disappeared, in which case they might still continue therapy but maybe not ? I lost two pounds since 3 weeks ago, not good but they forgave me since I have been sick. Today we went to the Chinese buffet and I made myself eat a plate of food including noodles and potatoes, and two ice cream cones, and a cream puff. And Jim bought me juice so I would not drink calorie-free water. Today I tried to get permission to put one of the comfortable chairs from teh waiting room into the hallway (against regulations), the phone area, or the video area (always empty) but was not allowed to do this. So I asked if I could sit and cough in patient library, at which point the librarian went to argue my case, but while she was arguing it the technician called me to be weighed so I got to wait in an exam room and we brought a chair there. For once everything was practically on time instead of 2 hours late for the doctor and 3-4 for the infusion. A pity I had to postpone but Wed. I have 8 am doctor and 9 am infusion and they cannot have gotten too far behind yet. I may know by Dec. 24 whether I am done with chemotherapy this year. It will be a lot easier to gain weight afterwards, and to walk, and talk, and breathe properly. And maybe eventually even sing and dance again. In the meantime I got some more library books and Jim brought home a curbside laser printer to keep busy at home when he gets tired of learning to program in C. We stopped at my apartment and I did a bit of organizing. Jim cleaned up for our visitor by piling things from the kitchen and bedroom neatly in one corner. Sheets, jars, clothing, broken stereo equipment, books, a can of pens and pencils, telephone, sewing kit..... No wonder our visitor thought I was rather a packrat. She helped by leaving us a broken boombox, a bag full of straws in paper wrappings, her collection of free chopsticks, a few pots, the remains of some sweatpants..... I brought the collection of headphone parts here and hope to recycle most of it, along with the basket cases among the portable tape players (the ones we gave up on three times already). Now that we have a CD burner Jim might just want to concentrate on the crate full of broken portable CD players instead.
I was thinking of you last night, Sindi, as I'm reading "Every Second Counts" by Lance Armstrong. It's his second book, talking more about life after cancer. It reaffirmed to me how really brave you (and anyone going through cancer) really is.
People keep saying I am brave but I am really a coward. I don't have a lot of choice about going through with this. Other people go through much worse. I do have some choice about my attitude towards the treatment and how hard I try to eat properly and get my strength back by exercising even though I am tired. I find it helps to admit I am a coward. I bring Jim with me when I give blood and hold his hand. Nobody else there is holding anyone's hand. Yesterday I held the padded chair arm instead as Jim was not there, and I joked with the technician to distract me as I have always been afraid of needles. All of the infusion patients have some friend or relative with them, not just to fetch things (the nurses will do that) but to relieve the stress. It helps to share your problems by talking with the other patients. They all have it worse than me and they are mostly pretty cheerful about it anyway. In our case the alternative to therapy is much worse than therapy. I would have either starved to death or stopped breathing by now without therapy. Today I am not coughing as much and I expect to do infusion tomorrow. They rescheduled the CT scan for Dec. 24. I hope someone will be able to read the results before Monday the 29th. I go at 2 pm. I don't eat or drink for 6 hours before that, so either I get up to eat at 5 am, or I go 14 hours without eating or drinking. Today I get a sample of what I will feel like after therapy ends. This is my first day not to have had an infusion for more than 21 days. My hands feel even better than yesterday - numb only at the very fingertips and along the sides of my thumbs. Starting tomorrow they will be number again for 2 weeks. My feet still feel like my socks are pasted to them. I can feel only pressure. My tongue feels less sandpapered than it did yesterday. They have timed the treatment interval really close - let people start to recover a bit but not too much. Treatment for five days a week for 3 weeks at a time must be worse. They will continue using a half dose of vincristine so my hands will be only half numb. I told the nurse I would expect to need two additional treatments so that I would be pleasantly surprised if I did not, rather than disappointed if I did. I will try to look forward to six additional weeks of vacation if needed. I wonder who is going to shovel the snow for me at the house we are building. Usually the neighbors and I try to be first to do everyone's walk. They are going to get WAY ahead this year.
In my eyes, you are far from a coward. Far far from it.
I am a coward but I try not to act that way when other people are around. I have screamed when the IV went in, but not near other patients. To celebrate this bonus day, we went for a walk in the drizzle. Jim showed me a path around the local apartment complex, through a small overgrown patch of woods with green horsetails and ice and lots of vines and black raspberry shoots (purple bark). There is a wooden bridge (slippery when wet) over a small creek which contains a supermarket shopping cart and three bicycles. We decided to leave them all there. The banks are steep. We continued to a very small park consisting of a sidewalk between back yards and a half basketball court (you reverse direction frequently). There was a crow cawing in a treetop and a few very chubby squirrels who could not be bothered to run very far from us. It started to rain harder so we came back. My muscles are behaving today. Maybe the weight loss was what made them misbehave longer than usual last cycle. The author of Two Years Before the Mast wrote about how they just got through their hardest two months. They had to make one more trip along the coast of California, then unload all 40,000 hides and everything else, and fumigate the ship by burning charcoal and brimstone to kill the rats and cockroaches, then beat the dirt off the hides and put them back onboard and stuff them into as little space as possible with help from song. Another related ship lent them some crew members who brought new songs. The old songs were worn out and not working too well any more. Yo heave ho variety. After the really hard two months, they have 6 months of travel back around South America to Boston. I am on pretty much the same schedule but I don't need to get my feet as wet. Jim just fell asleep in preparation for getting up and leaving at 7 am tomorrow after packing breakfast and lunch. This time we won't need supper. I typed up a summary of things that chemotherapy has cured, to make the nurse and doctor happy. They really liked my summary of side effects during cycle four. I had one rather strange symptom since 1995 - sort of an allergy to cold with flu-like symptoms. I was sleeping in socks whenever it got under 75, and in long sleeves and long pants in all weather, and I no longer have this reaction to cold. (Of course it is winter so I am sleeping in warm clothing again). Before developing this symptom, suddenly, I had three weeks of what I thought was the worst flu in my life, following several months of working on the house we are building, in the cold. Lymphoma can follow viral infection. I don't know if the virus itself causes the lymphoma by inserting a DNA copy of its RNA into the cell's DNA, or whether my own immune system was just so worn out that it could not do its usual job of killing cancer cells. But I think I have had the lymphoma for 9 years. Maybe it won't come back for at least that long. I will not be working at 20 degrees again.
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My mother also slept in socks. But I did not need to do that until 9 years ago. Can you inherit things suddenly at age 45? And then uninherit them 9 years later?
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Chemical changes in your body occur every day (every second too).
Heh. Even if you're dead ...
Re resp:391: I have the same problem, but I drape a folded blanket over the end of the bed to keep my feet warm. I find caffiene aggravates the poor circulation so you may want to avoid it close to bedtime, even if it doesn't keep you awake.
Sissies.
I have never used caffeine. I will try being barefooted next time it goes over 70. Today we got up at 7 am. I put batteries in a rooster alarm clock and when it went off I thought at first it was me wheezing really loudly. We got there at quarter to 8 and saw the nurse practitioner at 8:15 and then waited until only 9:30 for the 9 am infusion. Lost of empty seats but not many nurses yet. They let us be #1 so as to cough on other people in only one direction. The first two people next to me did not blast the TV so we played some back oboe concertoes. Three of the nurses stopped by to appreciate them. My nurse said she had been to a meeting where she and some others urged that they require headphones for people listening TV, for the benefit of both other patients and staff. 10 hours of screaming and banging is hard on my nerves. My first neighbor left as I was getting my IV. My second one had breast cancer and spoke Greek. This was her first therapy after surgery and she would also have radiation. She had diabetes. The nurse spent about an hour explaining what was happening and what to do at home. The third had multiply myeloma and had to have infusions every month, forever, recently upped to every two weeks,. Only 2 hours at a time. And then four steroid pill days, four off, four on, four off. She has trouble walking as a result. She said when someone in the room happens to have their last therapy everyone cheers. Nobody will be cheering for her. It is apparently up to the doctor to decide whether I get two more sessions if every sign of the tumor is gone. Probably I will get them since it shows I am responding, and we can go after any invisible ones. If there is no sign of change maybe I won't get two more sessions, but perhaps a PET scan will reveal surviving tumor cells. I won't know much until the 29th. With luck a doctor will come in day after Christmas to read the results of my Dec 24 scan. Jim is supposed to get a flu shot (not oral live vaccine) after he gets over his current infection of 3 weeks duration so that I don't get flu from him. He boosted his immunity by sampling all the cupcakes. I ate tylenol, benadryl, kytril and some other pill in applesauce. My blood pressure today started at 98 over 52 and went down to 92 at one point. The benadryl does that. My pulse gradually drifted down from 100 (when I walked in) to 82 (after sitting two hours). We wound down by taking a few photos and checking out C++ courses at WCC with Glenda, who runs the lab there. We will go back tomorrow to their annual holiday buffet banquet, cooked and served by students and with lots of vegetables.
Today we signed Jim up at WCC for a C++ programming course and got him a half-price textbook (used) at half.com. I eventually figured out how to unsubscribe him from all the junk mail that they warned us about, and we did not fill out the survey to get $10 off the next book he buys within 3 months because that also signs you up for something else that costs $9/month if you forget to unsubscribe after the first month - half price meals at Pizza Hut, etc. He got the professor's signature to override the prerequisite, which was some type of high school algebra. He mentioned he had already taken a course in programming assembly language. The banquet included mushroom soup, pineapple lime soup, cactus leaf and squid salad, fried plantains, green beans, artichoke-cauliflower-celery, squash, potato croquettes, two types of noodles, some meats, and cheesecake. My sense of taste comes back at the end of each cycle and lasts a few days into the next one, also the prednisone has restored my appetite which the couch took away, so I disregarded the fact that I should not be eating salt. It helped me to get down three glasses of water (needed to flush out the chemicals). Jim does not eat cheesecake (milk and eggs) unless it gets close enough. The other side of the room was close enough. We sat at a table with one of the cooks, who is 19 and really enthusiastic about opening his own restaurant some day. The culinary arts program first teaches the students how to clear tables, then how to serve soups and entrees wearing white jackets and tall white hats, then how to cook, and only then how to wait tables. He also took a course in 'drinks' in which they went on winery tours but could not sample the wines. He is 19. They are allowed to sample wines in class for educational purposes. The waiters need to be able to recommend wines to go with different dead animal dishes. He is also working in a local restaurant where he says everyone takes turns doing everything. That way the cooks don't make too many dishes dirty since they have been dishwashers. Also at our table was an art professor who donated the WCC sculpture. On arrival home a friend called to let us know she had dropped off a small apple pie so we had that for supper (with two more cups of liquid for me). WCC has buffets every Wed and Thurs (starting again in Feb.) but fewer courses and about half the price. Same menu both days. And sit-down meals Mon and Wed. Today we had two tablecloths, cloth napkins, fancy water glasses, bread and butter plates, and a jazz band. This was the international banquet, which included Europe and Mexico. Jim still has a bad cold. I wish I could lend him some neutrophils as my count was more than double last time. Today's exercise was walking around three buildings at WCC and climbing some tall stairs a few times. The place is really overheated.
It depends on where you go. The classroom you saw me in yesterday is usually very cold. The one I spent today in was the hottest on campus, until they finally figured out what was causing the air conditioner to not work, now it is almost as cold as yesterday's.
The thermostat in the hallway outside the computer lab was set at 74, which is pretty warm for winter. The computer lab felt even hotter. U of M Cancer Center is 70. You need air conditioning in computer classrooms in winter? We used to air condition the gym in winter for folk dance classes because if you turned the heat below maybe 75 the air conditioning automatically came on. In the old gym we only had to open the window - no window in the new gym. I got about 5 hours sleep after 3 am. This was the two days I had to drink a lot and it comes back out when the prednisone wears off in the evening. I should still drink a lot and eat lots of fiber while taking prednisone. My other side effects have not escalated again yet. Hands still have sensation, leg muscles still work pretty much okay. Probably by tonight my hands will be numb again. Laryngitis hit yesterday morning, which made it even harder to talk to people over the loud jazz band. My tongue and throat are not feeling raw yet or my hands shaky. Jim has not been feeling well enough to drag me out walking recently, but of course that did not stop him from dragging us all over WCC for two days. Everyone keeps telling me to get a flu shot except my doctors who tell me specifically not to because I am likely to get flu from it with a weakened immune system. One friend called and said Washtenaw and Oakland counties are out of the nasal spray, which Jim is not supposed to get either because it is live vaccine. Is the dead vaccine (the injection) free somewhere?
If you put enough computers in a room it heats up pretty good. My office is in the server room at work and it hovers around 80 degrees in there, year 'round. I've been trying to get them to put a separate A/C system in here but they keep putting it off because they don't want to spend the money.
Depends on how they tend to cool the room. The server room where I work is freezing, because they have the temperature way down to off- set the heat from the computers.
I used to have this huge old compaq file server running in my apartment. When I finally managed to offload all its functions onto other computers and turn it off, the average temperature in that room dropped at least 5 degrees. Not to mention the noise level.
Can WCC take the heat from the computer labs and move it to where it is wanted? For a start, they could turn the hallway thermostat down to 70 and run a fan in the doorway of the lab.
There isn't much that can be done. The power plant is old and outdated. It was going to be replaced with a modern, more efficient one when the state budget cuts hit. That caused a cutback in a lot of planned renovations to avoid huge tuition increases. We deal with it. We have learned to dress in layers in the winter and to carry a sweater or long sleeved shirt in the summer. We run fans when necessary, but they don't help much and add to the electricity bill. Most people don't complain about the heat until it gets closer to 80, and complain when it goes much below 72. I have called about a room being too cold when the thermostat read 75 because most of the workstations in it were directly under a vent. So we just cope.
The timing was just right on postponing chemotherapy. Wed chemo, Thursday pharyngitis and less coughing, Friday stuffy nose, today sneezing, which means I am finally fighting off that cold before my immunity is gone tomorrow. The side effects come back within a couple of days of therapy - hands are a bit shaky again (but still not numb), laryngitis hit the morning after. Today I managed to sleep from 1:30 to 6:30 and another 2 hours in the morning and feel the best in a couple of weeks. I took a bath yesterday since the water was already hot from Jim soaking in it. His cold is still worse than mine and he is also eating lots of grapefruits. Grapefruits don't mix well with baths - the oil gets in the water and burns. I noticed in the bath that all the skin had finished peeling off my soles, that I have very small red speckles all over my front torso where small blood vessels are not healing, and that my upper thighs are now actually larger than they were and I can no longer reach around them with thumb and middle finger -there is a 1" gap. Last night I was able to sleep without a pillow between my knees as cushioning, and I have gained back enough muscles and/or fat around my shoulders that I also don't need a pillow under my upper arm to sleep. It was rather a nuisance having to rearrange all this whenever I wanted to turn over, or when I woke up every hour to throw off the blankets due to hot flashes (which are also much better). Sleep is nice. I have to get back to exercising but perhaps had better wait until I stop sneezing since it is unlikely to get warmer soon. We are finally going through the last 20 or so sets of small headphones that we took home four years ago to fix from Kiwanis. Made four pairs into one good one since they broke in different places - plastic things that the actual speakers fit into tend to break easily, the cords break in multiple places and cannot always to diagnosed to solder them, and sometimes the speakers themselves go bad. Jim has been making new foam pads, too. We have one pair with purple foam, and one with green foam. Jep stopped by yesterday and we confirmed that his vacuum cleaner did indeed need a new roller because it was made of plastic and the race for the ball bearings had worn out from friction. It was nice to see him. He said he had already had our cough/cold. I am now going to avoid people for about five days until my immune system comes back. Only today and tomorrow and I am done with prednisone for a while, and only two more months of therapy. It was nice of the doctor not to let me know at first that it was likely to be 8 sessions total. My hair is coming out faster again. My leg muscles are still not weaker. I have an occasional shooting pain in my left hand where the IV was but otherwise am feeling pretty good for this time of cycle. My sense of taste is getting worse again but the prednisone at least makes me hungry. I still have a chance of hitting 110 by Jan 1, but not a high chance since I lost two pounds instead of gaining last cycle. I will aim instead at 115 pounds by the end of therapy in mid February. More than I have weighed for 4 years.
I got four hours sleep (prednisone keeps me up late) before waking at 5 with a long hot flash and sweating. I don't know why it let up for a few days - either the cold was keeping me cooler, or the chemotherapy has knocked out whatever estrogen-producing cells were starting to recover. I am hoping for the latter, because it implies that I will recover again shortly after about Feb. 20. My bone marrow is 'depressed' again. I am blowing my nose a lot and getting a bit of blood on the ripped up old sheet that I am using instead of good handkerchiefs. It is odd to be off the usual weekly schedule, since I expect my bone marrow to be worst from Friday to Monday and today it started on Sunday instead. By next Friday I should be back to normal blood counts again. Luckily there is only one more day of prednisone so not too much overlap with the hot flashes and I hope to get some sleep Monday night (the garbage trucks will wake me Monday morning). My hands and leg muscles are still not numb. It is nice the side effects are somewhat spread out. Jim spent two hours on the phone talking with his sister in Warren. We are probably not going to have Christmas dinner with his family there since I may be continuing infusions the 29th. I don't want to risk catching any illnesses first. It would have been cheaper to drive to Detroit and back than talk two hours on the phone, but she likes talking on the phone anyway. And it is warmer than driving 3 hours in late December. The small nephew with hemophilia has not had any problems with it yet, or needed treatments yet. When babies get bigger they start to injure themselves. It is nice not to be up half the night coughing (and the other half of the night with hot flashes and prednisone side effects). I am too hungry to fall back asleep because prednisone makes me hungry. My mother (with a brain tumor that you cannot treat with chemotherapy because of the blood-brain barrier) was given prednisone indefinitely and at the nursing home would eat double meals. I wish my taste buds would keep working during the hungry period. Lima beans taste fairly normal. Rice/bread/noodles do not. Tangerines tasted better three days ago. I will try a warmed up glass of milk. The pharyngitis makes me cough if I drink cold things. How long does this cough/cold last? It is two weeks now and I still feel contagious.
Jim still feels more awful than I do but he went out to help his next door neighbor finish shoveling off Jim's walk. The neighbor is a nurse and said flu shots may be rationed to babies and the elderly and we might need a prescription for Jim since he was told to get one to protect me because I should not get vaccinated until I finish chemotherapy since I could get the flu from even a weakened vaccine. I hope my neighbors are shoveling my walk where we are supposed to be building a house. Usually whoever gets there first does both walks. It will be more difficult for us to reciprocate this year. But they do seem to think they owe Jim something for the plumbing repairs besides a watermelon. Jim is fixing headphone radios while waiting for the water to get hotter for his daily boiling bath. I am learning to make slackware packages. We got dosemu to save files to D: (/home/user/).
yay slack, and yay dosemu.
Yay linux but I just failed to compile lynx. Echo: command not found ??? I think I have to manually edit makefile before I can do make. configure seemed to work except for not finding a directory that I know is there. The author of a small free linux wordprocessor is letting basiclinux (or me, anyway) test his latest beta version. To read online documentation from the program do I just dial the ISP before accessing the 'help' menu item? He added four new mysterious features that are not on the menu, just on the toolbar, with cryptic icons for them. There is also an arrow that is chasing its own tail, which is different from the back arrow which lets you write from right to left.
(In your error message: was the capital "E" in "Echo" in the original message? There's probably not a command "Echo" - it's "echo".)
When I typed make all I got: /bin/sh -c' .cfg -defs.sh make: echo: Command not found [upper case C in command, lower case e in echo] make *** [help-files.sed] Error 127 I think I need to edit makefile to tell it where to find my source code and where to put the output files.
Makefile does not need to be edited except for changing shell from sh to bash. I have been given instructions how to test by typing 'type echo' and then invoking /bin/sh/ and doing it again. What is this all about? What is sh, a simpler shell than bash? We have bash, which does echo. Today I don't need to take any more prednisone which is nice for both of us since I did not need to wake Jim up to mash pills for me. I woke up at 4 (after 3 hours sleep) with hot flashes back full blast, digestive problems (due to the chemicals acting like a broad spectrum antibiotic) and a runny nose (probably normal with this cold, but I am in my second of four days of little immunity). It is all uphill this cycle starting tomorrow when I can get a full night's sleep. This morning I fell back asleep before the 7:30 garbage truck and actually slept through the next three for two hours to get a grand total of about 5 hours sleep. Linux seems to work okay on 5 hours. Hands are getting numb again gradually. Laryngitis is at its worst now. Legs are not yet wobbly/numb for a day or two. I emailed our doctor friend asking his opinion on whether JIm's five lab tests were 'routine annual exam' type tests so that I can have this info when I call the insurance company to ask what happened to my written appeal. This would be a good year to cash in a savings bond to pay for the rest of this year's expenses and the $5000 for the 8th chemotherapy in January and the first couple of CT scans next year and our property taxes in June, since I doubt I will be paying any income tax this year with no work earnings and high medical expenses. I am lucky I don't need to work during chemotherapy. This week I have been receiving lots of mail. Frequent little emails from a Macedonian friend whose boyfriend was recently diagnosed with stomach cancer, more from the older daughter of another Macedonian friend whose mother died of it, snail mail from someone who is about to go to Florida to care for her daughter who is being treated for it, email from a high school friend whose father in law is in the hospital with leukemia and her father is also in the hospital after his second stroke and now they put in a pacemaker. I am very happy not to have stomach cancer. So what if things taste funny. Or leukemia that needs to be treated forever. A friend in Trieste writes that her sister finished chemotherapy and surgery for stomach cancer in July and was able to go on summer vacation. The friend was taking care of her while working full time and was exhausted and taking sleeping pills but is better now. Jim is lucky he is not working full time and I hope he will get over his cold soon. It is discouraging to make nice meals for someone without a good sense of taste.
I changed SHELL = /bin/sh to /bin/bash in the configuration script, as instructed, and it compiled for about 15 minutes of making .c files and produced 1M of lynx that works!!!!!!! It sure helped to have this supervised by a world expert in compiling lynx for DOS and other systems. All I need to do now is install the executable, config file, manual and doc pages with make install and then create a lynx package for basiclinux. The next three garbage trucks after 7:30 did not wake me because they did not come by until after 9:30. My hands are shaky again. Jim is playing with a slide scanner. At 1200x800 dpi it scanned a slide to 340Mb, which I think is too big for our computer that has a 1G drive. I suppose he could make a CD from each slide but why bother?
Today's mail brought a letter from the insurance company for Jim. This is an adjustment of a previously processed claim, they say. They agreed to pay 80% of the $138, or $110.66, leaving $27.66 for us to pay. Hooray! We have to check my mail at my apt to see if they will also pay for my mattress pad that Medicare would have paid for. Just got both an emailed and a snail mailed photo of Jim's niece's really cute kid dressed in a Santa hat. He can sit up by himself. He does special exercise for kids with Down syndrome because they have joint and muscle problems. I am not the only one working hard to get better. Jim is thinking of something yummy to do with last year's frozen zucchini and I think I may have regained two pounds unless it is still fluid retention. The 340MB slide was scanned at 400%, which increased it from 5MB.
My immune system ought to start coming back tonight or tomorrow. I am coughing and have runny eyes again. My hands are numb all over. But I managed to sleep, on and off, a large part (3/4?) of the time between 11 pm and 8 am. My hair is coming out faster. Jim says he is interested in knitting but I already have enough wool caps. Today we hope to make me the start of a linux/DOS computer. I discovered that I cannot put in a sound card to play with in that computer unless I give up the ISA modem or the Hercules Graphics Card because it has only two ISA slots. A previous computer would not work at all with HGC in any of its three ISA slots. What do people put into FIVE pci slots? Winmodem, windows-only sound, network card, and what else?
Hmm...the PCI slots in my desktop computer contain a video card (which is also a TV tuner and video capture card), a sound card, a DVD hardware decoder card, and a network card. If I threw in a modem I'd have five slots full. Of course if I bought a motherboard now it would probably come with video, sound, and a network interface on-board, so I wouldn't need to use slots for those unless I wanted something better than what was built in.
FireWire cards, IrDA cards, IRMAboard 3270 terminal emulation boards; someone somewhere has probably come up with a board with PC Card slots; the Amiga 1200 desktop computer had a PC Card slot built in; someone developed an external SCSI + NIC card for it.
Wow, there are PCI 3270 terminal emulators? The last one I saw was 8-bit ISA, and was in an IBM XT. Boards with PC Card slots not only exist, many PCI wireless network cards are actually PC Card-to-PCI bridge cards that you slide a PC Card wireless adapter into. Some of these are more full-featured than others. The one that's sold for Orinoco cards is actually a full-fledged PC Card bridge that you can plug any PC Card device into.
I don't know that there are specifically PCI 3270 cards, no.
We don't have any TV or DVD cards, or any need for network cards, and as far as I know all the pci modems and sound cards only work with Windows. I don't really need sound for anything, I guess. The video card in there is AGP. So I have five empty pci slots. Jim went off to pick up some books on C++ despite feeling like his cold will never end. He dressed in a goretex raincoat instead of a warm jacket so he would not get overheated biking. He can get a flu shot even if he has a cold, as long as he has no fever, if he gets to the County Health Dept. in Ypsi before they run out, because as a pair we count as 'high risk'. I am not supposed to catch flu from him and I can't get the shot myself. Maybe we will take the car to Ypsi Thursday if he feels better since my immune system is due to come back by then. There is also a holiday party at the Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled, where he gets his books on tape, halfway to Ypsi, which would be our big event of the week. I am getting a bit tired of having to avoid people. My friend in Macedonia writes that her boyfriend has been to Greece and Serbia for medical reasons. He got his stomach cancer diagnosed in Bulgaria. Macedonia does not have a lot of medical equipment. He has a doctor friend in Toronto where I think he might get treated. He has to continue working until spring first. I sure have it easy. So what if my ankles and wrists are numb today and my tongue feels sandpapered again. The reason for the narrow stripes in the darker areas of scanned photos is scanner noise. Jim thinks he has a way to fix this by setting the black and white somehow. The library book also explains how to use a black and white scanner to scan color by scanning three times with colored filters and then combining the outputs. The noise is amplified when the signal is weak (which it is in the darker areas). At least we won't run out of toys. Are the latest computers now coming with TV tuners and DVD players built in? I thought PCI cards (PCMCIA?) were only for laptops.
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I meant are PC-cards the same as PCMCIA. Typo. Yesterday we hooked up some low technology to our high technology in the form of a boombox with 'line in' plugged into the sound output of our Windows computer and tried to listen to Realaudio. I think it sounded better a couple of years ago with a slower modem. The sound keeps cutting out now. And there are too many formats - streaming MP3, Windows Media Player (somewhere it said this is also MP3), Ogg Vorbis (????), and Realaudio, and lots of required plugins and things still don't work unless I download the latest WMP for 60 minutes - forget it. I am taping CDs instead. Radio Swiss had nice music. Jim fixed a couple of computer speakers to sound slightly better by stuffing them with old orlon socks. The Linux Realaudio software appears to be about 2 versions out of date. Can Linux do the other streaming formats? (In a computer with more ISA slots, of course).
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Part of the standards for PCMCIA cards were upgraded after a couple years for better drivers, more funtionality, etc. They also decided that "PCMCIA" was too hard to remember or say, and created the term "PC card" as a replacement.
We have discovered that of our 11 pci video cards, only 2 of them will work in our 300 MHz pentium. So will an AGP card. The AGP card is S3 and my DOS ghostscript works only with Trident, Tseng, ATI or SVGA16. Does anyone know if linux ghostscript has VESA or S3 support? One of the working PCI cards is a Tseng but it has only 1M RAM in VESA mode and 256 colors in Tseng mode. Why won't the other cards work here????
ghostscript should work with any card you can get the X window system working for. I haven't heard of ghostscript being used with the text interface of Linux, but again, it should work with any card that the text interface works with, if you can. (The reason why DOS ghostscript only works with a few cards is probably because many DOS cards do nasty hardware-dependent things with the hardware, and they'll have only programmed it to do those things on those three cards. In Linux, "ordinary" programs (like Mozilla, lynx, OpenOffice, pine - an emailer - etc., *can't* do "nasty hardware-dependent things".
s/many DOS cards do/many DOS programs do/
Re resp:425: "Cardbus" works into this somewhere, too. I know that the Cardbus cards I've seen are keyed differently than older PCMCIA cards (the ridge on the side is a different height) and won't fit in some really old laptops. I think this is a 5V vs. 3.3V distinction. We have two laptops at work that will only take the older cards, which I can no longer get. Fortunately one of them just died in a way I can't fix, so I may finally get a budget to replace it.
Regarding ghostscript, I installed the console version of it, not X. In DOS, it works properly with Tseng but with Trident it displays and prints sideways. I set -sDEVICE=tvga as instructed for Trident. With ega and vga the Trident card also displays sideways. I will experiment with S3 and linux console ghostcript. Jim disconnected that computer from the monitor that works with S3 so he could experiment with scanners and Win98. I will put it back. Got to learn to print with linux soon. Last night, I hope, was my low point for immunity because I was up again coughing my head off until after 3 am. Jim was also up late but he says this is because he was testing a CD that turned out to be defective (the copy). We also have an ISA 56K modem that works perfectly with basiclinux but Win98 says it cannot communicate with it. I will stick that in the linux-only computer. Standard non-winmodem. Jim says if you make three primary partitions (for Windows, DOS and Linux) Windows will not recognize the other partitions - is this correct? Linux will recognize all of them, and DOS two of them. We have one 20G drive. I would consider putting in a Windows-only sound card and using Windows only as an internet radio since the Linux Realaudio is out of date.
Windows will recognize a DOS partition, but not a Linux partition.
DOS won't recognize a linux partition either, but will Windows recognize a SECOND primary partition? I really don't care, won't be using Windows for much of anything except to play with realaudio. Today we went through our CD-ROM drive collection. One requires a SONY controller, another might also require something odd as it worked in the 486 it came out of but won't work with a regular IDE controller. Recycled them both. We chose a drive that has little tabs that slide over the CD to hold it in place when the drive is vertical instead of horizontal because I want to put the tower computer under the monitor to save desk space. If i put it under the desk I cannot get at the back of it. Jim is thinking of putting in a second CD-ROM drive in teh computer with the CD writer but someone said it makes more accurate copies to copy to hard drive first and then CD, rather than between CD-ROM reader and writer. ? The second drive will be a challege since he used the space where the floppy drive was supposed to go to attach a hard drive after the previous owner put this out at the curb with the cage removed, and then put in a 5 1/2" version of a 3 1/2" floppy drive in the large bay where the CD-ROM drive is supposed to go. He will improvise a floppy drive cage somehow if it is really better to copy between drives. It might at least be less confusing. I read up on ghostscript and it looks like you might need to run it under X, which is a nuisance. Since this is my 'journal' I guess I can post anything I like in it, meaning whatever I happen to be doing while surviving chemotherapy, but this is certainly drift. Today I swept snow off the neighbor's walk and discovered that I get out of breath really fast. I have a long way to go before I feel physically normal again. Supposedly it takes 6-12 months after therapy ends. The neighbor is out now getting even with us.
By al means keep up the drift if you want to. I'm finding it
interesting to keep up with your everyday trials and tribbleations,
myself.
My understanding re: primary drives is this:
Linux or Windows, or just about any OS can be installed on a primary
partition. non-MS OSes can also be installed on logical partitions.
Most non-MS OSes can be coerced into reading Windows/DOS partitions,
although not all can read and write NTFS paritions (the type used by
NT, W2K, and XP.)
Further, an MS OS will recognize other primary or logical partitions
on the same drive, if they are formatted by an MS OS (caveat: DOS
cannot understand filesystems formatted for NT and versions of Windows
later than 3.1, at least not without added drivers). If >1 MS OS or
=>1 MS OS and OS/2 are installed on primary partitions, each OS will
see its own drive as C: and number the rest accordingly.
MS-OSes (anmd OS/2) number all primary partitions before all logical
partitions, thus with two hard drives in the same computer, each of
which has 2 primary and two logical partitions, the numbering for MS
OSes and Linux will be as follows:
Drive 1: MS Linux
Primary 1: C: /dev/hda1
"" 2: D: /dev/hda2
Logical 1: G: /dev/hda5*
Logical 2: H: /dev/hda6
Drive 2:
Primary 1: E: /dev/hdb1**
"" 2: F: /dev/hdb2
Logical 1: I: /dev/hdb5
"" 2: J: /dev/hdb6
* Linux reserves partition numbers 1-4 to primary partitions, whehter
or not there are four primary partitions, and always numbers logical
partitions from 5.
** This assumes that Drives 1 and 2 are on the same IDE channel. on
systems with 2 IDE channel, Drive 2 may be hdb, hdc, or, rarely, hdd.
If you use DR-DOS the partitioning gets further complicated (things are numbered in an unexpected order in linux). DR-DOS also won't recognize a FAT32 partition so if Windows shares a computer with DOS it needs to be Windows (MS) DOS. It should be interesting to have three partitions each formatted differently, on the same computer. I got 2 out of 3 ESS pci soundcards working with Win98. The third was dead but it took a while to figure this out since you cannot hear anything at all with headphones plugged into the speaker hole like you can with Creative sound cards since they have no amplifier (except the dead one did, and it probably burnt out). Also finally found the right video driver but did not think it was working until restarting Windows. It improved from 16 color VGA to 256 color 1024 and after restarting to 1600 res and 64K colors. Jim somehow managed to get a second CD ROM drive in his computer with the hard drive/floppy drive cage missing. I saw him doing something with a hot glue gun to cover up the surgery. He now has four CD burner programs to play with and will compare them and try to make two CDs into one 90 minute CD - is it possible to make a 90 minute CD? I made a 90 minute tape of them already. We are hoping tomorrow to be able to get Jim his flu shot. My cough continues to be pretty annoying - this morning I nearly threw up coughing again - and the platelet count is still down so I am still using old sheets to blow my nose into. I think I gained back the weight I lost during the first 10 days of the cough. It helps to drink orange juice with everything since everything tastes sour and orange juice is expected to taste sour. We mixed it with pineapple juice. Somehow the basement is not getting insulated. It has only been 21 years since the materials were purchased. Maybe when Jim feels better? The bill for the latest chemotherapy arrived. The cost of my miracle drug went up this time from $5000 to $5900, wonder why. This means I will be paying the full deductible next year for four CT scans and one chemotherapy since they add to at least $15,000. Two tylenol pills are $4.29. I was thinking of bringing my own to save the insurance company some money but it seems to upset the nurses when you even take your own vitamin pills.
Bummer about the bills, the pills and the cough. Bummer about hte insulation, yay for the weight gain. I believe the limit on CD-R(W)s is 80 mins, if you get ones that are specifically meant to last 80 mins, and you're lucky. I never tried DR-DOS (my first IBM-compatible was a Win95 machine. It is now rebranded as OpenDOS, I think, might try it out. I regularly have (more than) three partitions on my computer. Assuming I have Windows on at all, I usually have 1 partition for some flavour of Windows, 1 foran "expirimental" OS/Linux distro (slack, at the moment), and a couple for my main Linux distro - at the moment I have /, swap, and /home partitions though I plan to reformat and probably have /, swap, /home, /usr, /usr/local, /opt and /var. This is turning into Sindi's Lymphoma and Sindi and Jeff's OS Journal. Oh well.
We put all of our linux partitions into one ext2 partition which we formatted all at once. Why do you have separate ones? The weight gain was probably just clothing. Right now I just weighed in at 104 pounds, which after eating breakfast might be back up to 105. I think my neutrophil count might finally be going up slightly today. Got to sleep at a reasonable hour, woke coughing at 2:30 and again at 5:30 and then sneezed three times, which is a sign of some progress except I sneezed blood (low platelet count). I probably should not go sneeze at people at the library for the blind party. We will reevaluate the situation around noon and maybe vaccinate Jim tomorrow instead. I have been a 'virtual person' for 2.5 weeks now and would like to stop avoiding the rest of the world soon. I think Scott and Slynne said this cold lasts just under 3 weeks but without an immune system I bet it lasts a bit longer. I just washed four more handkerchiefs and filled a fifth. Cough cough, cough cough. I think my legs and knees and elbows are a bit less wobbly today, right on schedule, and my hands not quite as numb. I am a bit sore in the spleen area again (I was sore all last cycle but it improved for ten days now) probably from the coughing. My tongue even feels a bit less sandpapered and my throat is not raw. I get to feel better again for ten days now and after that it is only two more treatments and I will feel just as good as today in six weeks. Assuming I avoid the flu successfully. Some of the side effects have disappeared or are less severe. This cycle only one very small area of shredded skin around one fingernail. No jaw or upper arm pain (which occurred this time of previous cycles). Occasional aches in the IV hand but previous cycles it hurt for 1-7 days straight. No peeling skin on my feet. No thrush or mouth sores. Things still don't taste very good but no nausea. No headache (yet) this cycle, maybe in a few days. Hot flashes continue and it still hurts to sit. I should go lie down again for a while as the coughing has stopped.
Reasons to have separate linux partitions: 1. If you have an old BIOS, and more htan 1 OS on the same disk, you might need to make sure that all bootable partitions are under the old 8MB limit, in case the BIOS cannot boot partitions above 8MB. So you would need a x00MB /boot partition for Linux. 2. If you need to reinstall, or switch to a different distro, and want to keep your data and any programs you may have installed that aren't part of the standard distro, you can make separate /usr/local (that's a separate partition "local" under "/usr") and /home partitions that you tell the installation program not to format, thus preserving those progs and data. You can also have a couple of distros/UNIX-like OSes and keep all your data on one partition - though you'll probably have to have different user accounts on each, as each seems to store slightly different config files which could mess up your settings if you try to keep them together. For example, you could have accounts "debu", "slacku" and "rhu", for Debian, Slack, and RedHat, and on each distro create a group "user", writeable by al members, and create aa folder /home/data, onwed by group "user", with links to it in /home/rhu/data, /home/slacku/data, and /home/debu/data; or you could just use two of the distros for "bumming around in", and do any real work in one distro anmd not bother with the whole /home/data thing. 3. By separating / (or / and /usr) separate partitions, you lessen the chances that these partitions are going to be messed up if you mess up, say, the partition with /home in it; also, if you make /usr a separate partition, you can make this partition read-only, increasing security still further. 4. The other reasons all relate to servers. If you have, say, separate /, /boot, /tmp, /usr, /usr/local, /opt, and /var filesystems, users cannot accidentally or deliberately fill up the whole system by, say, keeping huge mail files in /var. (Although this is most useful in servers, nothing prevents you from doing it on desktops or single-function boxes like a computer set up to act purely as a firewall.) (Note that you can have a separate partion, for any or all of /usr and /usr/local). 5. One other reason that may not relate to servers. If you have two or more disks, and want to use more than one disk for linux, before Linux version 2.4 it was not possible to make a partition that covered all or part of more than one disk; thus you had to (and stil can) split partitions off so that, for example, / is on /dev/hda1 and /usr, /var, etc, are all on another (presumably much larger) hard disk. (Unix puristsmay replace the word "partition" with "filesystem" in mine and Sindi's last responses, passim.)
I think you mean the 8 *giga*byte limit, not 8 megabytes. Technically the BIOS limit on older machines is at 1024 cylinders, if I remember right. For home systems I often just create /boot and put everything else in /. For servers I like to seperate out /var, /usr, and /tmp, and sometimes other filesystems depending on the function. There are other good reasons for creating multiple partitions. Some boot loaders have trouble booting systems where root isn't one of a few specific filesystem types -- for example, some Linux distributions can't boot with a ReiserFS partition as root. But you might have reasons for wanting to use that filesystem for other parts of the system. Also, if a filesystem gets corrupted the damage is limited to one partition, so for example having / seperate from /home means if you blow up /home, you can still boot.
I do indeed mean the 8 GIGAbyte or 1024-cylinder limit, and thanks for clearing up the bit about blowing up /home.
I thought it was a 1G limit - is 1024 cylinders 8G? We boot from the DOS partition with loadlin and make DOS the first partition (or Windows 98). I am still operating as root except when using dosemu (which requires that it be used by 'user') but someone said to be 'user' when going online with a browser. I think you can dial as root and then switch to another terminal and be user before loading the browser or telnet program. I have not managed to get the dialer working except as root. What is the purpose of using three different linux distributions? Fun? We were going to go on our big adventure but I started coughing again. I cough so hard that my stomach contents starts rising - I can taste it. This never happened before - is it specific to this particular cold? How difficult is it to get a CD writer working with linux?
I usually do what I suggested in my earlier response - use one as my "main" (production/work) OS, and try out other distros on other partitions. I'm using Slack at the moment to get a more "hands on"/"Unixy" feel to things - slack is closest among Linux distros to what many consider to be "real distros", with RedHat/Mandrake/Xandros/Lindows being progressively less "Unixy" as you read from right to left. I'm having terrible trouble deciding between Slack and Debian. I was previously leaning towards Debian, as it comes with tons of software (so I wouldn't have to download much over dialup), and as I was afraid of compiling packages, which iirc recall correctly never worked properly for me before. (I might have needed to comile from source as not many people release software as Slackware .tgz packages anymore). However, the position is now more complicated as I have succesfully compiled a few packages (on Debian), and there is now the prospect of getting broadband fairly soon.
Re resp:441: No, 1024 cylinders is not the same as one gigabyte. Hard disks are physically laid out in cylinders, heads, and sectors. For example, a hard disk with two platters might have 600 cylinders, 4 heads (one for each side of each platter), and 63 sectors. Cylinders are like tracks on a floppy disk -- they're called cylinders because of using multiple platters. (Visualize projecting a cylinder down through all the platters, picking up one track on each one, and you get the idea.) In the days of MFM hard disks, the cylinder/head/sector settings in the computer's BIOS would correspond to the actual physical layout of the drive, but these days they're a fabrication of the disk controller -- they simply form a useful coordinate system for identifying specific bits of information on the disk. But the total capacity that a computer's BIOS can handle is limited by how big these numbers can get. This is where the limits on what the BIOS can boot come from -- it can only find boot sectors that are on the part of the disk it knows how to address. The limit used to be around 540 megabytes, but it was pushed out to 8 gigabytes by BIOS changes. Once the operating system is booted, it has other ways of addressing data on the disk, so the limitations imposed by the BIOS disappear. Re resp:442: If you like to tinker, you might want to try Gentoo.
I managed to compile three programs for Slackware and I also managed to unpackage a Debian package and use it with Slackware. You type ar -x filename.deb and it produces three files one of which is data.tar.gz and can be unpacked in the root directory. You can also use RPM packages with slackware if you unpackage them (using mc-menu or unrpm). SuSe 6 and Caldera 2 programs work with Slackware 7.1 in theory, but they might try to put things into nonexistent directories. Redhat has /usr/share/ and Slackware does not, for instance. Today we copied two music CDs to one 79 min CD (copied all but one piece, totalling 71 minutes). Jim put a second Cd drive in the computer, an 8X. One CD went into the CD writer, which reads 24X but copied the CD at 5X, and the 8X player copied a CD at 2X, both to hard drive. We may put in our 40X CD. I presume software and data files can be compressed so would copy faster. After we made the CD we tried to play it on the CD writer and it skipped, so we tried playing the original and it stopped after 30 sec or so at the part where it had skipped. We thought maybe we had made a bad copy but both the original and the copy play fine in the 8X player, so apparently the writer will copy files to hard drive just fine but not play music CDs properly. We wondered why someone put it out at the curb in a computer. To celebrate we walked to the library and supermarket, first time we had gone anywhere for a week. Jim carried back 16 pounds of grapefruits, a pomegranate, some brazil nuts and some ice cream. The latter two taste funny to me but I am trying to eat more calories. Jim offered to help eat them. The supermarket was full of turkeys, hams, electric roasters and broiler ovens, cookies, pies, and lots of cream cheese in two locations. They were playing some awful rock music rather than the expected Christmas music. I got back to the warm house and immediately started to cough, then was okay for the evening until I went to bed at which point I coughed to the point of almost throwing up again. Since I don't want to lose any calories, I got up for a while. I think my immunity goes down in the evening, also the mucus does not drain as well when I lie down. Jim's C++ book from half.com arrived. He loves reading computer books. I got some more CDs. It was actually faster to tape them because first teh program tested both drives, then it copied from them to hard drive, then it wrote from hard drive to CD (at 2X). Next Jim wants to try making a CD into some MP3 files. What compression rate is good for Beethoven? We may try variations and listen to the results.
Your best bet is to try some settings and listen to the results, because what sounds good varies greatly from person to person. MP3 is a lossy "psychoacoustic" encoding method; it relies on how your brain processes sound, and compresses files by dropping information where your brain won't notice it. A good lower end for testing stereo MP3s is 128 kbps. I find artifacts distracting at that bitrate, and consider my personal minimum to be 160 kbps, but some people can't hear any problems at 128. Encoders also vary a lot in quality. Bladeenc should be avoided, as it's one of the worst in my experience. LAME is pretty good. I haven't tried any commercial encoders so I can't comment on them. If I'm not concerned with fitting a lot of music into a small space, I'll sometimes use MP3 at 256 kbps. At that rate it's essentially indistinguishable from regular CD audio, to me.
Realone (realaudio) comes with a music CD maker that offers three settings for realaudio quality, one of which was 160 (168?) kbps and was chosen as the default. So we could also make our own .ram instead of .mp3 files. I think they also offer mp3 and wav. Does ram sound different from mp3 and do you know how that is encoded? I presume what they are transmitting at 20 kbps is encoded that way too. Some stations send at 64K (half of 128) or 48Kbps. Hard to tell if the cheap speakers or the encoding are what make it sound not so good. We might hook up a receiver and good speakers. This morning I woke coughing at 7:30 and got lots of blood on one of my improvsed hankies but then no blood on the next two, which suggests my platelets have gone up and maybe neutrophils will be numerous enough now too to shake off this cough. This particular virus appears to depress the immune system though, since Jim has had mouth sores and an infected fingernail that won't heal. Must be how viruses help cause cancer - they stop your body from fighting things off. Some of them also cause mutations. I keep getting emails from concerned translators and agencies, most recently from one in Texas where I used to do lots of medical translating. She says another of their translators died suddenly of cancer and she knows several other people dealing with it. The new epidemic. A library book said 43% of men will get cancer in their lifetimes and almost as many women. Lung, prostate, and colon are more common than lymphoma. You can reduce chances of some common cancers by eating properly, not being obese, and not smoking. This is a book on exercise that says exercise is good for the immune system (except when you have a fever). A library magazine suggested that you try to get exercise while doing chores, in order to lose weight, by wearing a 15 pound vest. Jim suggested gaining 15 pounds instead. Chores used to imply exercise. Another suggestion was to pace while on the phone - it finally struck me that the phone must not be attached to the wall likes ours are. SOmeone in the basiclinux mail list posted a link to WORD 5.5 for DOS, available for free download now from MS. 3.5MB. Supposedly makes smaller files than WP, but since it is gui I don't know if I can use it on a TTL monitor to translate with a gif on the VGA monitor of a 2-monitor system. With dosemu if I can figure out how to mount DOS drives to dosemu. Last time I tried to mount the C: drive under /usr/jim/ it acted like /tmp instead - listed me all the files in /tmp but in 8.3 format. There is a SUBST command - how does this work? http://download.microsoft.com/download/Word97win/Word55_be/97/Win98/EN-US/W in5 5_ben.exe I have no idea why WORD 5.5 for DOS is filed under Word97 for Win98 or what is be(n). Someone says if you omit the help files it fits on one floppy disk. Without dictionary. I will try WORD first in plain DOS, VGA and then HGC.
Leafing through the newly-arrived Winter 2003 issue of Cure magazine (www.curetoday.com): Ortho Biotech Products offers to send "valuable information on managing chemotherapy side effects." Send in the postcard or call 800.776-8998. Sidebar on "Unraveling DNA." "Gene analyzing techniques" have found a way to "(predict) the response to chemotherapy treatment." This "may help identify patients . . . who are unlikely to be cured by conventional therapy A Q&A on radiation therapy answers the query, "Will I be radioactive?" "Tumor Humor?" "Cancer isn't funny, but . . ." Book suggestions: "Not Now . . . I'm Having a No Hair Day" and "I'd Rather Do Chemo than Clean Out the Garage" Registration form for the first Patient & Survivor Forum, May 22-23, Dallas TX. $50 registration fee before 4/1. "Bexxar: Birth of A Drug" About a new radioactive adnitbody based therapy for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). Reader's Forum article by Doug Strawn, a NHL patient who played back-up with The Carpenters for 10 years.
Re resp:446: RAM probably is a different encoding scheme than MP3. I can't say whether it sounds better or worse at the same bitrate because I haven't tried it.
Ghostscript for linux DOES work in console mode using svgalib but there is no support for newer S3 cards. I could view as plain vga (illegible). When I tried to print the same way I do in DOS (-sDEVICE=deskjet) it took a few seconds and sent the pages somewhere but they did not print. I tried to understand the book about how to print but I could not, something about a print spool. How do I print things from a print spool? I ended up printing the four page file with DOS ghostscript. Someone sent me a translation.
I apparently need to install lpd - what then? Today things no longer taste odd, they taste bad and my tongue is sore and there is still slime on my teeth. In just six weeks things will start getting better for good. We are playing Beethoven's 9th Symphony and someone sent me a short translation (about bronchial asthma) to distract me. Jim is bug hunting because his little text editor does not scroll properly on wide files. First things first.
Re: #443: I do like to tinker; Gentoo is off limits until i get broadband; I get moaned at enough for taking up the phone line as it is. Re: #444: Slackware has no /usr/share? Hmm, have to lok at that again. Re: #450. With lpd installed, you should be able to pipe ghostscripts output to lp (a la "ghostscript somefile.ps | lp").
So if I do that (pipe to lp) will it automatically print? The format is gs -sDEVICE=deskjet -r300x300 filename.pdf I wish people would send me gifs instead of pdf files as they are easier to display and move around in and I don't need to print them. There is no point that I know of in making an image into a pdf file when there is no text in it.
Yes, the lp command says "print this"
Thanks. Today I only woke up twice coughing and then slept 6 hours straight without waking for anything but hot flashes and then even sneezed! This is the day in the cycle that they used to test my blood and discover my blood counts were back to normal. They could have been back for three days before that - no tests then. So I am still hoping the cough will go away soon. My tongue feels less slimy than it did. I noticed yesterday that there is a largish area of numb skin where they did the spleen biopsy. I wonder if anesthetic can have lasting effects? I am told there is some disagreement between grex's vt100 and the vt102 used by my xterm, which makes lynx display links double. Where might I go for definitions of the two of them? When I run kermit from xterm lynx is not usable, when I run it from console it is.
Your xterm may be using "vs100" instead of "vt100". If so, you can change
it with an option when the xterm you connect to grex from is started up.
Something like
xterm -tn vt100
Hmm, interesting. what's a "vS100"?
Among other things, it uses an "alternate screen" for less, vi and the like. so your command-line text is hidden while paging/editing, and the paged/edited text disappears when the pager/editor exits.
The xterm is defined with -tn vt102 - should I change to vt100? I am using one that was supplied to us with a few modifications to make it full-screen and have a scrollbar. I tried vt300 and it made things even worse - Pine displayed the cursor one line or two lines down from where it should be. In order to see things at grex without them wrapping I needed -geom 78x25, anything narrower made it wrap. But 78 cuts off the vertical right line of the terminal, not that I care. I can see all the characters. The scrollbar takes up a space or two but I need it to scroll back when using kermit. Kermit works fine without xterm but no scroll buffer that way. A friend offered to drop us off some Christmas cookies, on the porch.
AFAI am aware, if it has modifications then your terminal (a) only has support for them compiled in for vt102, or (b) should present a scrollbar with all vt types, so sswitching to vt100 would be a good idea.
I suggest reading the man page for xterm, Sindi. You can probably find the command line options you need, like "-geom 78x25". (I'm surprised your screen can't display an 80-column terminal, though.)
I fixed the problem with lynx by changing the font from 10x20 to linux8x16 but now bbs is messed up. Someone suggested specifying -fb (boldfont) as well as -fn since the links in lynx are in bold. Will try that next. To print I need to install lpr.tgz (contains lpd) and three parallel port modules parport parport-pc and lp. Will be back when I fix my terminal.
If I use -fn 10x20 the bold parts (links) in lynx are doubled. If I use -fn linux8x16 lynx is okay but bbs is scrambled. Someone suggested setting -fb (bold font). I could not find 10x20 bold but I did find 9x15 bold and set -fn 9x15 and -fb 9x15bold and it all works now but the print is awfully skinny. I will keep experimenting. Maybe I can mix 10x20 and 9x15bold or some other bold?
Today we learned to make mp3 files from Bach and Dvorak music CDs. Roxio and RealOne both have audio to mp3 conversion programs. RealOne converts at about 3 times as fast, Roxio at 1X but offers a few more sampling speeds. We tried 32 (sounds really garbled with sort of a whirring sound) 48 (which I think was a bit buzzy on the violin), 64, and 128, the latter two indistinguishable from the original to both of us. Jim now wants to record 10 CDs worth of music to one CD and play it all day long on the computer, which he hooked up to the stereo system with a very long cable. A couple of blocks from here we saw a discarded rubber thing that is used to go over electric cords so you don't trip over them - might go look for it again. Burn4Free free CD burning software, about a 1M download, will let you copy tracks from audio CDs, rearrange the order, rename the tracks, and burn them, and you can do almost all of this without a mouse (except for moving files around into different orders). We will use this and RealOne. I am putting ice cream on my oatmeal and eating it again for supper. The coldness sort of numbs my tastebuds. Jim is eating the chocolate with soggy rice crispy candy ice cream. The rice crispies taste sour to me. Anything starchy tastes sour, including cookies. A friend brought us cookies. I put cheese on the potatoes and managed to eat two bowls of them. I continue to shed. Jim had some old photos of me in the hospital with thick hair and very skinny arms. I would rather have thicker arms and thinner hair. I might try some exercises from the library book tomorrow.
Cough seems somewhat better this morning!
Goody! ;-)
It has changed into sneezing, hooray! I guess my immune system does not work instantly. If it gets better by Tuesday we may take the risk and go to Jim's sister's annual family get-together in Warren on Thursday. Jim is also sneezing and he is supposed to have a normal immune system. Today we went for a walk in the slush and looked at tree trunks. There was a burr oak with some unusual thick bark that was peeling off it from the bottom up, and the trunk of a huge willow (the branches fell through the nearby roof and were removed) with large round gnarly areas all over it and short skinny branches growing off the top in all directions. The lucky owners put a bench in front of it. Two birches. A variety of evergreens. One neighbor out shoveling slush for a 3-way shared driveway because one of the other neighbors (that we know) was in the hospital with a really bad sinus infection. We did not find the rubber thing to go over electric cords but Jim brought home a somewhat droopy abandoned poinsettia plant. The adjustible flagpole was still there next to it. I have been translating, one page at a time because it still hurts to sit. I think that is the symptom I would most like to go away, but it requires eating more so I guess I need my taste buds back first. Jim kindly ate the whole 2 half gallons of chocolate ice cream when I complained the first bowl tasted funny (it was the rice crispies in it not the ice cream). It took him under 48 hours. Not bad for a vegan out of training. I am reading Chaucer in modern translation (all about sex and violence and religion, with some drunkenness thrown in for laughs) and a good book on medieval art. Clothing styles closely paralleled architectural styles. People in the Romanesque period wore rounded hats, in the Gothic period very tall pointy ones, and they tried to pose in ogee shapes, and then in the Renaissance they tried to look short and squat and square with flat topped hats and squared shoes and super-wide shoulders. I also noticed a lot of parallels between 30s glassware and sweaters in two other books - both were relatively plain shapes decorated with narrow stripes or other fine patterns, as opposed to bicolor designs in the fifties.
ogee shapes?
The shape of the top part of a Gothic arch, somewhat S-shaped. They would pose with their torsos bent backwards and their heads bent forwards.
I have linux to the point where it sends the printer a page feed but it won't print. I installed lpd, insmod three needed modules, typed lpd, changed sh to bash in printcap for generic printer, and tried to print with lpr filename.txt Nothing appears to have gone to the print spool. lpq - no entries. What did I miss? The book says to use Redhat printtool. I don't have that.
Try rebooting; lpd should come on on its own. try lp instead of lpr.
There is no lp command on my computer. I also tried another method of printing that is supposed to send files directly to the printer and again I got just a paper feed. I then tried to print a test line with Jim's text editor and it printed the linux file I had been sending it instead. !? Seems like the file was sent to the printer by linux, but did not print until I tried to print something else. The printer works fine with DOS (unless it was first sent a linux file, apparently). I can print my files this way (typing lpr and then switching to DOS) but it is rather time consuming. May as well just copy them to the DOS partition and print from there.
cat myfile.txt > /dev/lp0 do anything for you?
I will check tomorrow on the linux computer. DOS is so much easier to use for connecting to grex since you don't need to fiddle with fonts and xterms in order to get a scroll buffer. Or change X resolutions and virtual screen sizes..... Console C-kermit has no scroll buffer. I think I already tried the cat to lp0 approach with nothing happening as it was in a book. I might try a different printer next, dot-matrix instead of HP540 (DOS inkjet). The latter might not be sufficiently 'generic'. I tried some other setup that sends things directly to the printer and it also just put out a blank page.
Sindi, you probably need to set up a printcap file (/etc/printcap) with a proper entry for the type of printer & some other stuff. (That's part of what printtool does for you.) There also are other things, which depend on what lpd you're using. (Likely alternatives include (but aren't limited to) CUPS and LPRng.) This gets complicated & messy to debug. But quite possibly some filtering is set up by default which assumes that the printer wants some particular type of input (such as PostScript) and converts what you send to that. Stairstepping text is also a likely problem. printcap & other configuration files control all that kind of stuff.
The problem might be that I was trying to print a DOS file with linux so I will try printing a different file that I write with pico. There is a default printcap file set up for generic printer that should have printed text. Today I am coughing but much less. It would have been no fun to cough during my CT this Wednesday because they make you lie down and keep still and lying down is what made me start coughing. I also just realized that my breathing has been okay for the past week and no rib pain, which means the fluid around my lungs has finally gone away after four months. Now if only fruit would stop tasting awful. Jim brought me frozen blueberries as a treat and I forced myself to eat four of them. He had to finish my small orange, much too sour. I think my sour taste buds must be the only ones not killed off. We might get Jim a flu shot today if he is also sneezing less.
We got Jim a flu shot. He was number 2 but they had to get to 25 before they started over again with 1. The waiting room was full of people aged 6 months to 2 years, talking to everyone, and their parents, who were talking about nothing but babies. I went out in the hallway to wait so I would not cough on them. On the way we stopped at Dynasty Chinese Buffet in Ypsi and I sampled the various fruits and vegetables. All the fruits tasted sour except the bananas and the unripe canteloupe (which did not taste at all, just crunched). They had four vegetables dishes, which don't bother me much. I made myself eat a few greasy things for calories (deep fried cream cheese in a crust, fried noodles with soup). Jim sampled the egg rolls and spring rolls several times each and ate what I could not manage to eat. We were there once just a year ago and were forced to listen to a CD of bad Christmas music (Silent Night in 4/4 time, other things jazzed up) but this time it was Nutcracker Suite and Night Music reorchestrated for the masses. The salad section was outstanding for a Chinese restaurant, not just iceberg lettuce. I ate cucumber, tomatoes, seaweed with too much garlic, carrot and daikon shredded with rice vinegar, some sort of cole slaw with minimal mayonnaise. Skipped the chocolate pudding and yellow jello and pizza and mini hotdogs. On the way back I climbed three sets of stairs at the library. Puff puff. It hurt a lot to sit for that long so we probably won't go to JIm's sister's place Thursday (3 hours of sitting to get there and back). I hope I did not catch the flu on our big adventure of the month.
Have you tried sitting on one of those funky pillows that is like a piece of foam in a wave, you know for better neck support? You might be able to get it so that the sore part is not in most contact.
Yesterday someone sent me a translation in the form of a zipped file containing two files whose names come out the same when truncated to DOS (one of those files named with a sentence including spaces). Jim suggested when it asks to overwrite the first file with the second file of the same name, to answer NO the first time, rename the first file, then unzip again and answer yes so that the second file overwrites the first one of the original name. I got two 1.2M files and converted to 10K text with Antiword. This seemed wrong, so I converted to postscript (after moving over a missing mapping file from the previous version and renaming the directory so it could be found). Still looks the same. Somehow MS converted two pages of text with a lot of blank spaces to 1.2M of WORD. I will download the free WORD viewer and take a look some day. The text is Polish and displays just fine with a VGA screen font. It won't import into WP51/DOS because they use a different system for symbols so I could not print it that way. I checked the printer manual for our HP 540 and unlike the manual for the HP 500 at my apartment it won't tell you how to access the built-in fonts for things like E. European (CP1252 or CP852) - use the software with your DOS program, its says, or order another manual by its part number. So I could not print out the file on my HP. My dot-matrix printer can't print Polish unless I design my own font for it and load it. I once designed a lambda for my 9-pin Star printer. So I translated between the Polish lines with Jim's text editor. I could have displayed the Polish and one document and translated to another document while switching between screens, but this was easier. At the other end they won't be able to print the Polish unless they have a printer with a good manual, because it does not import into WORD, which uses a different method of displaying and printing fonts. Or I could have tried to translate in Linux with a computer that had two video cards and two monitors (display the text on the VGA monitor, translate on the TTL monitor with any text editor) but I don't have this set up yet here. How else might I have done this other than downloading MS's free WORD viewer (does that also print?). Or using two side-by-side DOS computers. I woke up only once coughing my head off and today am not coughing yet.
Re 477, no I have not, and I just remembered that my 2" foam camping mat actually came with one and I have it in the closet. Thanks.
Major events of today: Hospital called to remind me to arrive at 1 pm tomorrow for CT scan and not to eat or drink anything after 6 am. I am debating whether to get up and eat in the middle of the night like people do for Ramadan. A friend who brought cookies stopped by again with fruit cake but would not come in so as not to infect me. We went for a walk in the rain and looked at Christmas lights. One house had a striped red and green effect on their bushes. Another had a 'tree' consisting entirely of a metal frame with pink lights. There were at least four styles of reindeer. The pumpkins were more interesting. It is getting harder to find things to look at. Maybe we will look at porch steps next.
You have several choices: