4/16/24 Twitter Is Disappointing?

     I honestly added Twitter a couple years ago to my phone because that is how football recruiters were contacting up and coming prospects and Mijo really wanted to play football in college.  I thought it was a cool new way to show video of performances in both football and wrestling plus any other activities other kids might be into for prospective college acceptances.  After the hoopla and excitement of my son's senior season all that died down.  It was still fun seeing some of his other friend's that are in lower classes putting their videos out, but it's not the same.  One night I guess I fell asleep on my phone while looking thru Twitter or my hands opened it just by chance, but I guess I sent some random messages on Twitter or something that by the morning my account was banned.  I had never made any comments, and I certainly would never try to insult someone on there, that is just not my style.  The most I had ever done was post a couple of wrestling pics from my son's tournaments.  Still, I was banned.  I tried asking for reinstatement but was quickly denied, again with no reason as to why.  The only thing I can think of is that I must have sent something random to someone random by falling asleep on top of my phone.  I didn't use it much, so I let it go.

    Fast forward, a few months and I wanted back on, mostly because the same girls that flaunt as much as possible on Instagram and Tiktok will post EVERYTHING on Twitter and there seems to be no penalty for it.  If someone is showing free previews of their birthday suits, I'm there for it.  I would never pay there is too much free adult content online, but sometimes curiosity gets you.  I was able to make a new account by using my work email instead of my personal email, but can only use that Twitter account on my laptop.  My phone will only accept the first account, and since it is banned, I can only look thru but not add anything, which still works to look at the slutty girls.  I don't understand how it is okay with Twitter to allow Pornhub level material to be posted, but I got banned.  This I don't mind, especially with Texas blocking access to all the porn sites statewide.

    The straw that broke the camel's back is that getting on Twitter now just seems to be one street fight followed by another school fight and I just don't really dig it.  I want to be informed of cool new things going on, not people breaking into cars and getting away with it.  I had to just close it on my laptop last night, it was another school fight in a bathroom, a bunch of black girls cheering on their friend fight another girl in a wheelchair in the handicapped stall.  That is about as low as humanity can get.  Who the fuck fights a girl who can't even stand up, knocks her off her wheelchair and then have friends whooping and hollering like she did something?  Even if the girl in the wheelchair was talking shit, that is just trash people doing trash activities.

4/15/24 Wife Takes Over?

    There was a point last week when I wanted to throw in the towel, for a second.  I have been changing my diet, and taking two blood pressure pills to handle the chemo drug, but still, there are small side effects that feel like big inconveniences, and with everything going on, sometimes it just seems easier to give up.  It didn't help that Wife has to be a freaking super hero at work.  Out of nowhere, one of her coworker's wife sustained an injury so he couldn't go to a conference that they had already paid for.  Instead of just taking the loss on the fees they had paid, she volunteered to go in his stead.  She did ask me if it was okay to go, but I could already feel she was basically filling up her car and packing her suitcase, so I wasn't going to stop her.  This meant I was alone from basically Wednesday thru Friday, fending for myself for food and stuff.  I had been doing well with my blood pressure but living like a rabbit has its limits, so Tuesday night we decided to live dangerously, and we ordered a medium pizza to split between the both of us.  Normally, we order three pizzas, wings, and some sort of pasta, and somehow it all finishes between the three of us.  I can eat a medium Domino's pepperoni pizza, no problem.  I figured I was playing it safe by only eating half a pizza, 4 slices.  They went down okay, I don't remember suffering too much with my stomach, but this emboldened me.

    I was then alone on Wednesday night and had a pack of pork loins to cook for the two of us but it was me now.  I decided since my blood pressure read good that I could afford to season my meat like a human, so I used my favorite "Salt Lick" seasoning.  It is so good, just the right amount of heat and loaded with flavor.  I don't think the salt content is too high, so I felt safe.  This kind of started my bloated stomach feeling, or heartburn.  This wasn't just feeling full after a meal, this was going to bed with a pain and waking up still thinking about it.  Being the knucklehead I am, the next night I still had the other half of that meal, so I basically ate the same thing over again, and repeated my discomfort.  Now I am walking around for two days with a feeling like someone is stepping on my stomach and not to mention the "diaper rash" which made it painful to walk, even from my car to my place of work, which is buried inside a building, I have to walk several long hallways.  I came home early on Friday, I was in so much discomfort between my stomach and my raw "boys" down there.

    I kept using Vaseline which my mom suggested for the rash, but it wasn't doing enough.  I then tried hydrocortisone, which I bought for my scar, which looked like it wanted to open up last week.  It too didn't do much.  I was a mess and just lay in bed defeated.  Then my hero got home, I told her as she was driving back from Houston that I was in pain, she stopped at CVS and bought a couple things.  She had me try Desitin, and it helped, but then she had me add the anti chafing stuff that looks like a deodorant stick and that seemed to really change things.  I could walk from the bathroom to the kitchen and not feel like my stuff was being rubbed raw.

    We then went and got groceries at Central Market, I just wanted some bread, since it seems okay for heartburn, but we ended up getting a bunch of fruit, and then we added a couple meats so we wouldn't have to go to HEB for the week.  It was still cheaper than when we are feeding Mijo, for just the two of us.  I could see this becoming a pattern, plus the food is supposed to be healthier, if a little more expensive.  Getting back to the point, Wife helped me get rid of 95% of my rash, I haven't taken anything for my stomach in last two days, and now I have a couple snacks I'm not scared to eat.  All this and my blood pressure was lower than its been both days this weekend.  I need to keep this little woman around, she's good for business.

4/10/24 Small Things Matter In Comfort?

     I keep telling myself that it'll hurt somewhere else tomorrow and I don't know if I'm glad about that or not.  Yesterday, it seemed to be an upset stomach/heartburn was going to become the in thing.  This, along with my "diaper rash" that has set up camp and decided to stay, it seems.  Well, today the focus of my discomfort moved to my soles.  My feet felt like I had walked on hot rocks the day before and now I was all blistered and sore.  Luckily, it just feels that way.  I told my clinical study lady and she wanted a picture.  I simply said it was a feeling like they were burned and blistered, there is nothing physical to see.  I hope she is not foretelling me that things will get to that point, it'll suck.

    My stomach pain has pretty much gone away.  I don't know if it is the heartburn pill I've been taking daily or if the pain bug has just decided to move somewhere else.  Either way, I  guess I am glad that nausea feeling didn't last too long.  I don't know if it is a side effect but I was telling Wife for the first time since not knowing what kind of cancer I had, I felt a bit of depression this morning.  It feels like I am living the same day over and over.  It isn't even a great day on repeat, it's one of those shitty ones you'd rather not think about.  I tried to get excited at the idea of eating fresh fruits and veggies, but cutting out meat isn't just an easy decision here, even if it helps keep my blood pressure down, I'm fat for a reason, I love the taste of food.  I have been thinking non-stop about pizza today, I know, be strong, blah blah blah, I got nothing else to motivate me here day to day.  I keep looking at the online thing with MD Anderson and my bill is already up over $4,000.  They haven't done much more than diagnose.  I'm scared to think what the final cost will be.  I don't know how it all works, I thought I was capped out at paying $5000 a year per my insurance.  I keep dragging my feet on sending a payment, but at some point, they'll escalate up to a more formal ask of their money.  I know they don't operate for free, but damn.

    To make things worse, Wife just told me somebody got hurt at work, so she is having to go in their stead to a conference out of the blue this Thursday and Friday.  She will pack her bag, go to work tomorrow, has a board meeting, and then is going to head to Houston afterwards.  I am calling bullshit on that, she shouldn't be expected to cover both the board meeting and the conference, but it's not like she listens.

    Anyways, I also hate working 5 days a week now that I have been moved off compressed weeks.  There is nothing more soul crushing than doing this shit five days a week.  I've spent the last 25 years working some sort of reduced work week, how do so many people work 5 days and not complain, it totally changes how I feel about work.

4/9/24 Heartburn And Hypotension?

     Finding a happy medium is not that easy.  I thought I had figured out this high blood pressure thing, just cut out salt and the pressure will fall.  Another way to get there is to use medication, which I have now two prescriptions to help me keep blood pressure lower.  What nobody has told me is what happens if I actually do what I'm supposed to and my blood pressure responds too well.  Before starting on the chemo, I was walking around somewhere in the lower 130/80 something range.  When I started on it, I shot up to 170/99 and I was told to head to the ER if I did not feel well.  This was all last weekend, Easter Weekend.  I managed to get myself together and decided to cut out sodium, while the endocrinologist suggested I go get an EKG.  Getting the EKG meant talking to a doctor here, and he prescribed a 2nd blood pressure medicine.  I think it just happened that when I started making changes, I also added his blood pressure medicine, and after getting my endocrinologist to approve it, I got on a path to hit these weird numbers over this weekend.

    It kind of sucks that I have the clinical study lady Monday thru Friday, but on the weekend, well everyone is kind of off.  She does communicate, such as she wants to know my bp every morning, but I know she is probably at home with family or whatever and I don't want to be a nuisance.  Anyway, after her encouraging me to eat healthier, which I have, firstly, we are not eating out.  Everything is packed with sodium when it comes to fast food.  I don't like that the average meal is also now closer to $15 a person.  Getting off track here, but I went from normal bp to high last week, now I was teasing with the low numbers, and maybe they are still considered good, but over the last few days, I have read 113/77, which might fall in the normal range, but last night's 106/68 seemed wrong.  I did the only thing I could think of and came into the kitchen at 10:00pm, we had just gotten back from dropping off Mijo at Georgetown, and I ate both a hot dog and a sausage.  I avoided those off the grill because I'm trying to be good, but this felt like an emergency.  I waited about an hour, then checked my bp, it was 129/78, which sounded more normal to me.

    I am not quite sure of the heartburn, but I have a heavy feeling in the center of my stomach/chest.  It's not over the heart, plus I see my bp pressure and heart rate every couple hours, those are fine.  I decided it must be some sort of heartburn, possibly because we are trying to put flavor in our food with maybe too many other seasonings to avoid salt.  I tried a Pepcid AC to see if it would help, but the instructions say it could take up to four days.  I'll probably take another today, see if it helps.

    I'm sure in a couple more days, it'll be something else that is bothering me.

4/8/24 Total Eclipse Of The Cloud?

     Who knows what actually happens on the day, but as of this past week, they are predicting a more than 50% chance of showers for Monday and Tuesday.  This is kind of funny after hearing about the big eclipse activity happening around here.  It gets ridiculous when they start covering stories with people from around the world coming over here to get a best look at something we're not supposed to stare at in the first place.  Wife's school, for example spent a huge amount of money on those special solar eclipse glasses for every student, they cost a little more because they are getting personalized with the school name or some crap like that.  It's funny to me that after going thru that ridiculous expense, that the sun will play shy guy and hide behind the clouds during it's most interesting day of the next decade, according to some.

    I still don't understand why the governor was already calling for a disaster declaration for a few minutes of night time during the day with an easily explainable reason, but we are still a very primitive people when it comes to rituals.  Some geniuses online are declaring end times, some are declaring that a portal to another dimension will open, which obviously happened during Covid and the reason for all the nonsense we now seem to live in, or so "they" say.  I guess that by declaring it a disaster, the governor then has options like the use of the national guard.  A story I read said this means he will have access to blackhawk helicopters from the military, if needed.  I do kind of like the idea of a few of our military choppers full of missiles and power be at the ready if some fools want to act up.

    Another facet of this is that school will be canceled for some, even Mijo at Southwestern University.  He said we could drop him off Monday, but before practice, he doesn't understand that during the week, we are both at work, so we will still drop him off Sunday night.  I think school back home is also going to be closed for the day, according to my mom.  This didn't make sense until you add in that there will be an extra few hundred thousand people meandering through the thin area of the country where the eclipse will be a thing, and we just happen to live in it.  With up to a million new strangers driving around, maybe keeping your children safe at home is the best thing, because people suck when given the chance, not because some spiritual shit will happen.

    I am pretty sure I've experienced a few eclipses and it's always the same thing, it gets dark for a few minutes, you're not supposed to look at the sky, but come on, we all do, if for a second, with or without those goofy 3-D looking glasses, then within a few minutes it wears off and the day continues as if nothing happened.

4/7/24 Might Develop Some Empathy?

     I know I'm a fat ass, but still, I have been lucky enough to walk around feeling well, most of the time.  I know I could be better, but as much as I may try, I don't think I'll ever walk around at a "perfect 180 pounds" as the medical books seem to think that's what healthy men should weigh.  Before the whole cancer thing, I hadn't gone to a doctor in maybe five years, and that is because I feel good most of the time.  Even without monitoring it, my blood pressure was a decent 133/86, starting to climb, but not in the category of needing medicine or even cutting my weight to control it, but it would help, I know.

    Just this past week, with all the changes the chemo drug has been doing to my body, I can see how some people are just miserable all the time.  I am not letting it get me down, I still believe as they told me, for every negative side effect, they have something to counter it, I just have to be positive and continue working.  Cutting out too much sodium had me feeling like I was going to cramp up every time I moved outside of my comfort zone, from stretching my legs, to stretching around to wipe my butt.  One muscle group or another does not work well when it is not supplied the nutrients it needs.  I drove as passenger with Wife last night to go pick up Mijo in Georgetown and the whole way I was in discomfort, my back was tight, I couldn't really reach around for fear of an arm cramp, and even after we picked him up, we tried eating at a restaurant up there and getting off, I just felt like I had a backpack on with 500 pounds in it.  I was not feeling up for anything.  Luckily, the wait was going to be an hour, so we left.  We decided on our old trusty Whataburger and I said F it, I am eating a big boy burger, let the sodium consume me, I just felt bad.  It was great, but even getting home, I lay in bed and felt my lower back flinching as I lay in bed, facing up, our bed has lifting abilities, so I lifted the feet up to give my back a little natural curve, and still I fell asleep kind of tense.

    Now that it is morning (writing this Saturday morning), I feel like a cloud has lifted.  I haven't felt any cramping or tightness and the world just feels better.  I can say the same thing about all the rash I was feeling a few days ago.  My mom just suggested a big dollop of Vaseline and sure enough, by morning my boys downstairs feel almost good as new.  The little ulcer next to my leg scar is also looking like it's drying up, I have been applying hydrocortisone to keep it moist.

    It is sad to figure that some people do live with these "side effects" without being on chemo, because of genetics or bad diets, and I can see that it must suck to be in some people's shoes.  I used to kind of sneer when people say they have fibromyalgia, this from listening to too many episodes of Loveline, and Dr. Drew never seemed to believe the callers when it came to that one.  I'm not saying I have that, but the symptoms are similar.  If these people would maybe adjust their diets, maybe they could find some relief.  Life is so much better when your body is quiet and not constantly calling for attention.

4/6/24 New Side Effects Arriving Daily?

     Just when I think I am doing alright, something new reminds me I am ingesting a chemical that is designed to kill inside the body.  Not to be dramatic, but I am not used to feeling this and that.  I have now started feeling cramps pretty much all over my body.  I noticed it last night, while eating dinner.  I had a small bowl of those bland beans Wife made on Sunday, and every time I lifted the bowl up to my mouth, to avoid spilling them on myself or the carpet, my hand would want to cramp up as I was holding the bowl.  I thought it weird and Wife noticed right away I was fidgeting with my hands.  She thought it was the numbness I felt the first few days, which I said no.  I just shook my hands a few times and they settled down, but something is there.

    It happened again Friday morning, I stretched in bed and my leg locked up and woke me.  I moved back and it sort of let go, but the cramp was there.  I decided to just get up at that point.  Every time that I stretch though, I feel like I could cramp.  In the shower, I was stretching my arm to wash my armpits and again, my whole shoulders felt like they wanted to lock up, I had not felt that sensation, it was not fun, it seemed almost suffocating, but it let go.  It has been like that all day, every time I put my body in a different than normal position, such as reaching under the cabinet at work to get bottles, my stomach area wanted to lock up.

    Because of all this, I am going to go back to eating normally.  I am trying to help keep my blood pressure down, but I am not going to be cramping up like this and accept it.  I have to find a happy medium where I can help the blood pressure pills some, but also not feel like I do.  As soon as I get this back under control, I am sure something else will sprout up to annoy me.  Oh well, if it helps in the long run, I guess sacrifices have to be made.

    I would like to add that we stopped at ole Whataburger when we got back from picking up Mijo, we had not eaten dinner and I was set on eating a burger to try and relieve these cramps I've been getting all over.  I enjoyed a patty melt, but only ate about half the fries.  It was delicious and great, but I waited to look at the sodium content and to find out it was like 1700 mg when I had been trying to consume less than that per day the rest of the week, I was a bit scared to check my blood pressure.  I was then glad to see it hadn't changed drastically before bedtime, still hovering around 134/79 and then 130/91 in the morning, before the blood pressure pill.  I'll be drinking plenty of water to wash that extra sodium out, but at least last night I was not bothered by threats of my body cramping up on me.

4/5/24 New Meals?

     I've never been one to keep a salt shaker at the table, I always thought the flavor of the meat should come through, but apparently, I don't know what I was talking about.  Since actively trying to reduce sodium, I am discovering some foods aren't even interesting to eat.  Wife made a crock pot of beans over the weekend, but without salt, it was like a pasty mulch.  She had her little hunk of pork she usually throws in there, but it is full of sodium and then she did not flavor it as normal, and I could not find enough interest to even finish the bowl I served myself.  I have to say it was the same for the meat we grilled for Easter Sunday.  We had fajitas, chicken and a couple of random small packs of beef with rib bones (Wife went shopping, so she bought different stuff than I would).  Normally, Mijo and I fight over the chunks of fajita meat even before we serve our plates, but this time he even said "if this is what we're eating, I think I'll just stay in the dorms on the weekends."

    Enter Wife and her "Can Do Attitude", she has been mixing different spices to try to make the meals still good enough to eat and she has impressed me twice now.  We had burgers on Tuesday, and she was mixing 4-5 different bottles of spices, but the end result was pretty freaking great, after eating through the lame BBQ meat.  I think it helped that the patties were a little burned, the crispness added to the flavor.  I then ate the patties on one piece of bread at 120 mg of sodium each and one slice of cheddar cheese, another 140 mg of sodium.  So with the two burger patties, I still say I stayed under 800 mg of sodium.  I ate it with a side of salad, if a bunch of spinach leaves counts as a salad.  I noticed I wasn't drained of energy the next day too, which I barely had any energy on Monday and Tuesday, I just wanted to sleep.

    Last night, we ate chicken, it just went from frozen to made crispy in the oven with whatever magic she put on it, but I was worried she had said F it and loaded it with salt, but she said she used that Nusalt, the sodium substitute, and it really added flavor, although she said she had to go heavy handed on it.  A light sprinkle is not enough.  I was worried my blood pressure would show some trickery afoot, but I was pleasantly surprised.  My bp that night was 119/75 and this morning it was 134/81, which is probably better than when I started the chemo drugs.  

    I'm even excited about the sirloin we are trying tonight, who knows, maybe she releases her own low sodium line of spices.  With meat that good, I don't even mind the side of veggies I am now consuming regularly.

4/4/24 It's Gonna Be A Long RIde?

     After a couple days, I thought I had this chemo drug figured out.  My heart rate went super low, fine, blood pressure went up, no problem, I'll take not one but two blood pressure pills to bring it back down to even better than I had it before.  I was not expecting this, but when I went to get an EKG on Monday after the weird heart rate and high blood pressure, the doctor I saw prescribed a second blood pressure pill, he did not like my blood pressure, even in the 140s/90s, which I thought wasn't that bad, considering the chemo drug is known to raise it a bit.  I told the clinical study lady, who talked to my endocrinologist, and she agreed I should take the extra blood pressure pill.  I was hesitant, but after seeing a blood pressure of 119/75, what can I say?

    Other than that, I have already experienced a few days where I just felt drained, I had no strength on Monday and Tuesday, then I woke today and I felt fine, with regard to that.  Tuesday, I was also super gassy at work, I am not sure if that is from the medicine, or a side effect of me eating big bowls of oatmeal and a lot of fruit in the morning.  Either way, I also had a big bowl of oatmeal on Wednesday morning, I find it delicious even if I have never been an oatmeal kind of guy.  I wasn't as gassy on Wednesday, but I still ripped a couple when left alone at work.

    Now a new one I wasn't expecting.  I think my skin is getting super delicate.  I noticed my testicles are both rashy, maybe it's because I've been walking every day on the treadmill, but they feel raw, and that kind of sucks.  Even scarier, my scar on my leg, which I have not had any problems with in the last 6-7 years looks like it hit something and there is a little bleeding/moisture on the skin.  The skin around the scar never really healed, it stayed dark and nasty, so I don't know what it's ability to heal will be, but I am a little worried about it.  The side effects do include possible ulcers in the mouth, so maybe this is some form of that, like I said, to my knowledge, I have not hit the scar, and I do put lotion on it every day to keep skin moist and as healthy as possible.

    So far, every side effect comes and goes, I hope this heals up and goes away, but for now, I know I will have a hard time not worrying about it.  All I can do is keep going, I know this is for a finite time and won't last more than a few months, but man, it still all kind of sucks.

4/3/24 Cougars Are Possibly Increasing at SU?

     I was excited to hear Mijo say that his lineman friend who is graduating from Crockett might be joining him at Southwestern University.  This was Mijo's wrestling sparring partner his Junior and Senior year and they were pretty close since they met when Mijo was a Sophomore at Crockett.  The kid is near the top of his class, last I heard he had around a 4.0gpa, so it should be no problem for him to succeed at the school.  He wants to continue playing football as well, and this would probably be his best shot.  A couple years ago, Mijo was thinking this kid could play at a D1 school possibly, he is 6' 2" and moves very well, but he has been obsessed with losing weight, and is now walking around at less than 200 pounds.  This makes for a very light weight lineman, Mijo right now tips the scale at a beefy 273 pounds and of course, all things being similar, heavier is going to win most of the time when it comes to pushing each other.

    Today was a good day for the kid though.  He went to visit with both his parents who Wife and I like, they always come around and hug us and thank us for Mijo being such a good friend to their son.  They just loved our boy.  He also took the head coach which I thought was a cool move, and Mijo said he went and joined his tour, hanging with them when he was shown a short video showing the schemes they prefer to run and a tour of their facilities.  Cougar coach thought the school was very nice and the place just reminded him of Crockett with its cozy feel.  The kid's parents told the Pirate coaches giving the tour to expect their boy in the fall, they were sold.  It also helps that his mom had told us that two of her sisters had graduated from Southwestern, so the family is a legacy of sorts.

    Mijo has forged his own path and I think it has been great, now that football season is over, he is over there with all the husky linemen boys hanging out in their dorms playing video games.  I think the campus is pretty chill, with only 1900 kids, but if there were to be any trouble, who wants to mess around with the bigger of the football players who seem to be a friendly unit that sticks together with their Thick Man Thursdays at Whataburger and their constant off season workouts?  I like that this is the company he keeps.  This new Cougar kid could fit right in, if he is willing to bulk up a bit, otherwise he might have to think about converting to possibly a defensive end, or maybe a tight end.

    It would be exciting to me anyways that Mijo becomes an anchor and a steady stream of Cougars started following him to SU.  They might not be the best team and I do think they're getting better, but the education will be a good one, and that is the reason people go to college.

4/2/24 Something Seems Afoot?

     I don't know if I tripped something in regards to my treatment, but things have changed.  Over the weekend, I got some higher than what had been normal blood pressure readings, on Friday I measured 171/94 with a heart rate of 60.  I had been more like 140/85, if I had to average the readings from before the drug.  I also noticed heart rates of 46 and 53, Thursday and Friday.  I was worried about this, but my study coordinator lady (I am in a study which allows the chemo drug to be free) was more worried about the higher than normal blood pressure.  I thought about my actions and deduced that the crap I ate Thursday and Friday probably did not help my readings.  I then took to cleaning up my act, sodium wise, and honestly, the last few readings have been much better, the last one being 132/67.

    Because of what happened over the weekend though, my endocrinologist recommended I get an ekg, to make sure my heart is okay.  I then went to Victory Medical, what I am calling my local clinic and got an ekg done today.  It showed that my heart was okay, other than the doctor/PA who talked to me said I had a heart murmur, but they are very common, and medically they are not treated.  My Mom says she has had a heart murmur since childhood, so I guess they run in the family.  This doctor did add another blood pressure pill, since he thought my reading of 144/94 there at the clinic was a tad high, even though I was explaining that the chemo drug was partly to blame.  I thanked him, I figured having something else to combat a rising blood pressure is a good thing, if I need it.  But of course, I was not going to take it unless my endocrinologist agreed with it.  I told them and she said to go ahead and add it in.

    I thought this would be the extent of things, but then I got a call for a cardiovascular consult from up there in MD Anderson.  This kind of scares, are they just being good at their jobs and covering all their bases, or did they notice more from the ekg, and now I need my heart studied better.  He scheduled a visit for April 22, I figure if it was an emergency, it wouldn't have been scheduled for three weeks from now.

    They keep telling me to try and relax and be stress free, but shit like this just kind of scares me.  I was angst-y the rest of the day and felt nausea and generally not well.  It also doesn't help that I am trying to eat healthier, but damn bland food is almost not worth eating, and I have never been one to add more salt while I'm eating or anything, but I do appreciate some flavor profiles to my meat.  We ate the rest of the chicken and fajita meat with a salad tonight.  I'm sure it was great sodium wise, but eh, I didn't even finish my plate.

    I need to talk to my clinic study lady, see if she can give me some piece of mind about the cardiac appointment, hopefully it is just another way MD Anderson is better but right now I am just nervous.

4/1/24 Learning About High Blood Pressure And Diet?

    Saturday was a bit of a rough day, probably because of my actions on Friday.  Wife was off on Friday and I told her to run to the store and get food for the weekend, since I was at work and the plan was to have a relaxing weekend at home while I get through my chemotherapy time (hopefully it'll only be 2-4 months).  When I got home after work, she had just gotten home and the kitchen was fully loaded, tons of fruit, bags of chips on the counters, meat for Sunday, new new cases of sodas, I mean $500 of groceries is a nice pile.  I thought it easy to open a big bag of potato chips and tear in, why not, I've done this before, and I ate a good amount of the bag while talking with Wife about my day and busting balls with Mijo about his mediocre grass cutting efforts outside, all good fun.  Wife made sandwiches of ham and bologna and we added more chips.

    Time passed, I might have taken a quick nap after work, I had gotten out of work around 3:30 pm, and then we were here putzing around while Wife helped Mijo write a paper of some kind I was of course sampling the Easter chocolates by the handful).  We didn't end up leaving the house until after 7:00 pm, we took Mijo to San Marcos, he was going to go spend the night at his friend's apartment as it was one of their birthdays.  We came back, and then ate some sandwiches of tuna which Wife made earlier, it was supposed to be salmon patties, and the tuna was for Mijo who doesn't like salmon, but since it was late and he left, we ate the tuna.  Again, more potato chips were included, and since the bag was empty, I switched to tortilla chips, and just used the tuna as dipping material to change it from boring sandwiches.  I am taking my chemo drug around 7:00 pm, I like it better in the evening when I am going to be home, in case anything weird happens, I am not at work.  Because of the medicine, I am supposed to track my blood pressure at least twice a day.  I have become obsessed with the blood pressure monitor, as I tend to do with new things.

    After eating all that salty stuff and the chemo drugs, I should not have been surprised my readings came in about 170/94 at night before bedtime.  I went to bed a little worried, but I had already dealt with a heart rate in the low 50s and even 40s and was told "it's the medicine, give the blood pressure medicine a chance to do its thing."  All day Saturday, it was still high, 164/95 when I woke, and 160/96 before bedtime.  But I started reading about sodium and it really is the worst for blood pressure.  I talked to my clinical study lady and she said if it doesn't come down or I feel sick, go to the ER.

    After eating a bunch of fruit all day and too much water, not to mention some romantic time since we were alone, I did get my blood pressure to read 133/84, so it shows I can bring it down.  This then prompted Wife, we went for a drive and ended up at a weird HEB, but now we are focusing on low sodium foods, and reading on potassium chloride, a salt substitute which is supposed to be good for you, potassium replaces sodium and it doesn't seem to be bad like sodium is.  I am now in a new mindset of trying to lower my blood pressure by reducing sodium and increasing potassium.  Sunday morning my blood pressure was 154/95 with a more normal heart rate of 67.  I realize it is still high, but better than 170/94.  I will keep working on it, Amazon just delivered some Nusalt, a sodium replacement, so we'll see.

    I wrote this Sunday morning, but I am adding that the changes in diet already seem to be helping, in real time.  Last night my readings were 129/83, with a hr of 73, and this after taking Mijo up to Georgetown and back in shitty traffic.  Monday morning, my readings are 147/86, with a hr of 63.  The meds are supposed to elevate the readings, but this is before taking my blood pressure medicine.  I hope I have this thing under control, the weekend was a bit stressful.

3/31/24 Quiet Easter Weekend?

     This will be the first Easter weekend we do not spend at my Mom's and I feel bad that we didn't go, but since I just started my new chemo drugs, and with the blood pressure medicine, it feels like too much newness to go and put myself on the road for such a long time.  Some of the side effects are feeling possible nausea, diarrhea, chills (which I have already felt), and just general tiredness.  That is from the chemo drug, the blood pressure medicine will make me possibly light headed, dizzy, I could faint, I'm not supposed to drive, and a host of other possible things.  Honestly, I have felt pretty much normal since I started the chemo, but I don't want to push it.  There are also some logistical problems to deal with.

    Since Easter is on Sunday, we would have to celebrate early because not only do we have to drive back early, it's a three hour trip, but then we have to take Mijo back to Georgetown that night because he has school on Monday morning, so we then have to think of it as a five hour drive when we add the hour from the house and the hour back from Georgetown.  Even if I didn't have the chance of diarrhea, I don't really want to be in the car five hours, only to have to go to work on Monday morning as well.  Wife is the only one that has an off day on Monday, but she is always getting her butt kicked by the traffic driving back and forth from Austin to San Antonio.

    Given that we will then be home, I had Wife run to the store on Friday and buy us some Easter goodies while I went and worked on Good Friday, again, she was off, like everyone used to be.  It was kind of a funny experience for her, going to the store.  I called her as I was leaving work and she said she had just finished at the store and was in a little shock over spending more than $500.  She was like "I did not mean to, but I had to use the credit card, I wasn't sure even how much money we had in the bank, but this just seemed like so much.  I told her that was fine, we can pay the credit card with the money from the bank on Thursday after I get paid, or we move a little money from the savings.  Spending over $200 last week on Boy's dinner at Saltgrass last week unbalanced our weekly allotment for money in our checking, not a big deal, I would have also stuck closer to $200 at HEB.  The funny part is she always gives me a hard time about spending so much on our groceries which I tell her everything has gotten more expensive, she finally felt it.  She was like "I could tell I was already over $150 just in getting toiletries and things like that before I even started getting any food".  She was a little shocked my bottle of Head and Shoulders was over $10.  At least it lasts over a month, but it is a lot.

    It was a lot, but now we have chocolate Easter stuff, which I had to sample right away, some meat to cook on Sunday, several options for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday and a bunch of fruit since I am trying to add more fruits and veggies to my daily intake.  We may be here alone on Sunday, but I think we will be okay, and at least it will not be as stressful as putting ourselves out on the road which I need while I am going through my situation.

3/30/24 Always Something New?

 I took my second chemo pill last night (Thursday), I thought the first one wasn't too bad.  The idea is that I need to find my dosage, they start me at what is high for this medicine, 24mg in this case, then when my blood pressure goes high, it is reduced to find something I can live with.  I took the 24mg and sure enough, my blood pressure went up, but only about 10 points on both, so the clinic coordinator talked to my endocrinologist and I was told to start the blood pressure medicine, fine.  Apparently, both my manager and my coworker both take or took this Lisinopril and they both said it's fine, not too bad on side effects.  I took my first one and my blood pressure is holding steady, now I know it's still a little high ( I had no idea what was good or bad blood pressure), but good enough for now.  After waiting around for over an hour I decided I couldn't just be a little bitch and stay home, I headed off to work.  The bottle says to beware about driving as the medicine can cause dizziness and fainting spells, but so far, I feel fine.  Work went off without a hitch, other than we just seem to have too much work, being short handed by two people now.  I still managed to come home by 7:30 pm.

    I decided to let Wife drive to go pick up Mijo in Georgetown since it is a much longer drive and sure to suck because of too much traffic at all times here, specially around downtown, man does it suck.  Anyways, the only thing I noticed is that I was cold, and as usual, when we labor too long without moving I just get sleepy, but Wife was driving, so no big deal.  We did have to laugh that like Wife doing the phantom stops with her foot when I am driving, I was doing the same thing as I thought she was not slowing down and giving us enough room in traffic.  It kind of sucks to be the passenger princess when you are used to being the driver.  Eventually, we picked up Mijo and decided to come back instead of eating up there.  I would have preferred to eat, so the food could settle down on the drive back, since it was almost 10:00 pm when we got him from campus.

    By the time we got back home, we ate and I didn't read my blood pressure until almost 11:30 pm.  I was a little worried to see not the blood pressure being high, but my heart rate being low at 53, when it has been around 68 when I wake up over the last few days.  I looked on Google, of course, and it says anything under 60 can be cause for concern, unless you are a world class athlete, which I am not.  I was hoping it was the meds and by morning I would see an improvement, but again this morning I am still in the low 50s, so at this point, I am sitting here nervously waiting for instructions on what to do.

    By 8:20 am, I started getting texts from the clinical study lady and she said it was just the meds doing what they do, hopefully the blood pressure medicine starts doing its job and normalizes me.  We went back and forth, I thought she was just focused on the blood pressure and not noticing my concern for the low heart rate.  She said it wasn't uncommon for people on the meds to go down to heart rates in the 40s and 50s, so just relax and try to get through the weekend.  She did talk to my endocrinologist, which made me feel better since she is a doctor, but all that was said is that she wanted me to get an EKG on Monday morning to make sure my heart was okay.  I guess I just woke up (Saturday morning), so I'm still here and breathing, so I will trust that I am indeed still okay.

3/29/24 Started My Chemo Pills?

     It has been over a month from wondering what I have on my neck to being diagnosed, and passed off to bigger and better doctors, but here I am, finally starting the healing process.  When it was first discovered, I think they were hoping it was something else, it was so large.  Upon doing a biopsy that showed it was thyroid cancer and a big one, over 9cm wide, I was passed off to MD Anderson, a name synonymous with cancer, as far as my limited knowledge about the subject was, I had always heard it was the best place for treatment.  Never looking into it, mostly because we don't really have cancer running in our family, I assumed that cancer was an automatic death sentence.  It is certainly one of the scarier words to hear associated with oneself, it brought me to my knees and had me crying at all sorts of times during the day until I was told by these new doctors that they deal with people in my situation all the time and not to worry.

    When I first started dating Wife, in high school, it seemed every other year they were dealing with yet another member of the family in the final stages of some cancer or other.  But these were grandparents that were already old, I convinced myself, until one of her aunts who worked for the local paper and everyone knew and liked also got it and passed away, leaving her cousin, a classmate of mine without a mother way too young, maybe we had just started college, early 90's timeframe.  That was my association with cancer, but times have changed a lot.  I have heard a ton of stories of people beating cancer, my son's fiancee's grandma is fighting it for a fourth time and she showed me pictures of her having the time of her life in Vegas just recently.

    Anyways, I got my pills in the mail last night (Wednesday) when I got home from work, but waited until Wife got home to take them, around 7:30 pm.  I had this built up worry since the side effects of the pills are an increased blood pressure and 100 possible side effects, such as diarrhea, and bleeding from any orifice, to name a few.  I took my blood pressure before bedtime and it was a few clicks higher, went from 137/74 to 149/83.  Wife was worried, I could tell, she wanted to sleep with me downstairs, we sleep in separate beds because I used to stay up until midnight screwing around, and she has to get up at 5:20 to be out the door by 6:00 am.  I told her I would be alright, she needs to rest too, I don't want her getting poor sleep and then being tired during the day.  I made it through the night, this morning my pressure was 148/98, so the bottom number is still rising, but I was also given blood pressure medicine to counter that.  I am sure I'll be told to take it either today or tomorrow.  I am only doing this chemo drug for a few months to shrink the tumor and then hopefully it can all be removed and I can go about my life normally.

3/28/24 Cake And A Handshake?

    I don't know if there is a better way to leave a place, but cake and a handshake seems to be it.  Yesterday, our senior chemist left for a new job at another company.  He had been looking for some time, was not happy with the environment at our workplace, and because of that, I wish him the best.  I guess he is a bit younger than me, he still believes in climbing the corporate ladder and was looking for a promotion to some sort of manager.  I get the want to get ahead, I once felt more like that, but I guess I have accepted my role and am not looking for big changes to my routine.  I wish I made a little more money, but other than that, I get to roll into work whenever I feel like it, usually between 11:00 am and noon, I don't have to get up with an alarm, which I always hated (probably the worst thing for everybody), and I like the people that I work with, the thought of having to prove myself to a new group just sucks the life out of me.

    It felt a little infuriating yesterday, it being his last day, he was actually relaxed and joking around a bit.  I had not seen this side of this dude, he was sitting with the other chemist, my old weight lifting buddy, he and I are the last two of the group still doing the job, but the guy leaving was teaching him a few tips on the tool, and all I could think was "goddamn it, you could have been doing shit like this all along."  The guy came across as a bit standoffish, maybe it was more that he was shy or very reserved, but I could not make small talk with him.  When he did talk, he had such a soft voice, I couldn't make out but about half of what he said, kind of like my father in law, who I love, but the man has such a low and soft voice, I always have a hard time making out what he is saying.  I usually just smile along with the conversation and try not to get into too much detail, with either of them because of this.  But yesterday I realized we could have learned from this guy if he had been a little more animated.  Oh well, we will carry on.

    The cake and handshake was a little weird too.  Like I say, I come in most of the time around noon, I rarely socialize with the group as a whole, so to be in the break room with what is left of the group felt a little uncomfortable, but then again, one can see we are becoming less and less, there were less than 10 people in the room.  Our manager came in, and he is cool enough to be "one of us", which is why I like him, but our CEO and other management types did not bother coming around, which I thought was a bit shitty.  I remember my cake and a handshake, when I left the fab and came over to the lab, about 22 years ago, most of the fab people came out to the lunch room, that was a bigger group of maybe 20-30 people (the group of people was bigger), they came mostly for the free pizza and cake, but still, it feels nice to get a send off.

    Our manager sent us a text in the evening, he was setting a new text group, removing him from the group, and giving us a few words of encouragement that we have been kicking ass given our being short handed.  I told him we will be much less able once he leaves, he had turned in his two week notice, but gladly, he said he was not leaving, he was going to stick around and see us through these changes coming around.  In the next few weeks, the lab is getting new hoods, which starts this week, new tools, and with people leaving, new people.  In a moment of unity, he sent a Youtube video of REO Speedwagon's Roll With The Changes, which seemed appropriate for the moment.  It is all we can do.

3/27/24 They Say They Worry About My Blood Pressure?

     Stupid shit really annoys me more than anything.  Last week, there were issues with reading my blood pressure when we went to Houston.  As a result, I was not given my chemo medicine in my hands as I expected and I was told it would be mailed to me.  Fine, I can live with that.  By the time I left, I gave them several good readings, as they changed where they were going to read my blood pressure (on my forearm instead of on my bicep and with the arm slightly elevated so the forearm was at heart height).  This then gave readings of 119/70, which seemed too good, and then a 132/74.  I had read about 131/71 at the clinic here before this all started, so I thought that was a fair reading.  I texted this information to the coordinator of the clinical study, but maybe because she already had the bad readings, these needed to be approved by her superiors, or maybe if the readings had been good from the beginning, they would have still needed approval, not sure.  Either way, we left Houston Thursday with a reassuring "you should be approved for the study and I'll mail you the medicine, probably tomorrow."

    The weekend came and went and nothing happened.  Monday morning I finally got a call from the coordinator that I was approved and she was putting the medicine in the mail for next day delivery.  I thought great, the next big thing will be me monitoring my pressure and dealing with all that.  I did my little workout, ate my lunch, then headed to work.  When I got there, I got a text from her asking if I could go up there and give my lab work again, she was saying I needed to go give blood again.  I reminded her, in case she didn't realize that I had just driven up on Thursday and given blood, urine and done an EKG.  She said her people were just being difficult.  Being in the study means I get the medicine for free, so I shouldn't complain if they want me to spend a little more gas money, but it also entails losing another day to running back and forth, and that is quite tiring too.  I asked for an alternative location, if I could possibly do blood work here at my clinic where I go, or if there was a closer location.  She suggested Katy has an MD Anderson location, that is still two hours away, but I guess a little better than downtown Houston, if I am expected to just drive up in the afternoon with no preparations.

    I was trying to get an extra day, telling her I need to tell my Wife so she can go with me, and it sounds a bit condescending to me but I've now been asked twice "can you drive?"  Yes, I can drive, better than most people, but it is still a 3 hr drive one way, only to do a 5 minute activity and then turn around and drive back home another 3 hours.  Why do people act like this is no big deal?  Surely, six hours on the road is tiring to most people.  Yes, in my 20s-30s I would probably have done it without thinking about it, but I am older and feeling tired is a thing, not to mention I do get sleepy at times when I drive, still not sure if it is related to the thyroid, but I don't really risk driving more than an hour from the house, even Georgetown is pushing the bounds of my comfort, even if I have done it a few times already.

    After having me sit on the edge of my seat whether I was going to have to go or not, she finally texted back that I did not have to go and repeat my blood work another time in five days.  I guess I will be getting the meds in the mail and starting this next part of my recovery now, we'll see how it goes.

3/26/24 Saltgrass Steakhouse On A Sunday Night?

     It isn't my choice to do things on a Sunday night, I prefer to grill and chill at home, but sometimes things come up and we must be a little fluid.  This past weekend was one of those times, we tried getting time with Boy on Saturday, but he already had plans.  He did text during the week that he would like to get together on Sunday, early if possible.  Early turned into 6:30 pm, which turned out to be normal dinner time.  It was a bit funny, but he chose the restaurant, he made the reservation, then he was the one that got there late because he just entered the name of the restaurant in his car and it chose the one up in Round Rock.  This would have been a little better for us in that it is closer to Georgetown, and we did have to go drop off younger Mijo back at campus afterward.

    We got to the right location based on Google Map at 6:20 pm, they had a table waiting for us, which was nice, but the restaurant was maybe 70% full, we would have been sat quickly either way.  Birthday boy and his fiancee were not there, I texted them, he wrote "just pulled in", but 20 minutes later he still wasn't in the door.  They walked in maybe 30 minutes later and he admitted the car map took them to the wrong location, which I just thought "you didn't realize you were headed to Round Rock and not Research Blvd?"  But at this point, why argue, I was just glad we were all there, even if younger Mijo spent those 30 minutes in the bathroom, he said his stomach was not right, so there was that too.

    We got caught up with their stuff, we filled them in on what we've been up to, then I gave him his gift.  I thought it was a good time to get Mijo a nice gift, 30 being an important birthday, as he has transitioned from a boy trying to figure out the world into a successful young man.  We both have a love for nice watches and we frequently text and talk about liking this watch and that one, it is one thing we both love.  He can pull the look though because he likes to dress up and down and he hangs out with other people of means.  He has mentioned some of these friends are sporting crazy expensive watches, so getting him a Cartier is in line with him and where he fits in.  His face was that of full surprise and a bit of a shock to receive this, which I liked.  We took some pictures as he opened the box then we moved on to dinner and steaks.

    We all had the sirloin steak, except for younger Mijo who had a chicken burger, I guess his stomach was still not 100%.  I would say it was good, but I ordered a medium steak and it was almost burned or past well done, there was no red line or juiciness, but I ate it, I hate being a complainer out in public, I just won't go back for a long time.  We finished the meal with some desserts, Wife and I shared the pecan bread pudding thing with vanilla ice cream, Mijo had the chocolate cake, and Boy and his gal had the cheesecake.  All were giant sized portions and delicious.  We sang Happy Birthday, took a couple more pictures then we moved along.  We still got home at almost 10:00 pm, after driving up to Georgetown to drop off Mijo, but that is about our normal routine.

3/25/24 Look Up When You Cross The Street, Jackass?

     I was going to label this "People Suck" but there are too many reasons and this doesn't even make a top 20 or 50 of why people suck, but it bothers me every time.  When did people stop looking both ways before crossing a street and I am including places like outside a store where people walk and cars are driving by?  Few people probably spend more time on their phones looking at stupid videos than me, but I will not do that out in public, you have to keep your wits about you and as I tell Mijo "keep your head on a swivel".  Bad shit can happen to anyone at any second.  Crossing the street without looking up and establishing some sort of eye contact with the drivers is asking for trouble.

    I get that the walker has the right of way, and yes, if you get hit or run over, it would be the driver's fault, but who is going to sit in pain or worse, die on the ground?  There is then a good chance the driver just floors it and disappears, especially with all the drivers running around without insurance or even licenses.  I don't think the pedestrian has ever won in a collision against a vehicle, be it car, truck or SUV.  Another thought to consider is that there is a chance the driver is also distracted, whether it's a parent arguing with a shitty kid in the backseat and they are reaching back there to whack them, or a driver headed to a party looking at Google Maps to make sure and head out the right way from the store.

    I was leaving HEB yesterday morning after filling up tank with gas and then getting groceries.  I was leaving the parking lot and it's a big place, I turned out into the main lane which goes past the front of the store and has a light to make it easy to jump out to Congress Avenue and then Slaughter Lane.  Not that I was speeding, you really can't but just as I was starting to move past 5 mph, an idiot employee comes literally running in front of my truck with maybe 20-30 store carts to restock the front.  Good for him for doing his job and for even hustling, but as he ran in front of me and I hit my brakes hard, he never even looked to either direction, he just rode the last cart he was pushing, it had enough momentum to keep rolling across the lane.  Had I been distracted, I might have hit him.

    As a matter of fact, I did hit a guy one time.  We pulled into our condo one time in Florida and it was one of those mega sized places with guys that help you unload and direct traffic, so people all over the place where there are cars.  This guy was directing traffic, I had driven like 23 hours straight and was mostly out of it.  I guess I lost him between the huge rear-view mirrors of my Excursion and the A pillar (metal frame between windshield and door, and before I knew it, he was walking backwards and I was trying to curve my vehicle into the roofed area in front of the doorway and boop.  I shoved him lightly with my rear-view mirror.  I quickly realized, stopped and rolled the window down to apologize.  I can still hear his Jamaican accent "you hit me, Mon."  He kind of smiled and looked startled, I sincerely apologized, it scared me awake.  It doesn't relate exactly to A-holes crossing the street, but it does show that sometimes drivers are distracted and even though it was my fault, it was the guy on the street that got pushed sideways.

3/24/24 Boy Is Turning 30 Today?

     Our older son turns 30 today, it is a milestone, I believe.  I am so proud of him, he has managed to forge his own way through life and that is not always easy to do, nowadays.  He is employed at one of the larger semiconductor places here in Austin and has managed to get promoted to Engineer 2, so he is on pace for a comfortable life.  He is engaged at the moment and they are fixing to get married here in a year or two.  They have been together for a good 5-6 years and living together the last 2-3 years, which I would have preferred the marriage first, but times, they are a changing.   She has an equally impressive job working for one of the bigger gaming platforms writing code as I understand it, but she gets to work from home, giving them another level of freedom.

    We don't see him as often as I would like, considering we all live in Austin, but he is young, has money, and a good circle of friends that keep them busy, so we have kind of learned to back off and not expect so much of them.  For his birthday, Wife texted him last week about getting together and initially his response was "well, you didn't get on our calendar early enough, we got plans, sorry."  I think he realized that came across super douch-y and he texted us this past weekend that he would like to get together, maybe early on Sunday.  This works for us because we always have to take the younger brother back to Georgetown on Sunday evenings.  We went back and forth a bit and decided on dinner at Saltgrass Steakhouse.  He then called and made reservations for 6:30 pm, which is nice, we should just roll in there and have a table waiting for us.  Plus it's steak, who doesn't like a good steak?

    I was getting thoughts of maybe a nice watch since it is a big birthday, but because of the mountains of medical bills that are sure to rise from being treated for my stuff, Wife says maybe we should skip the expensive gift and just pay for the meal.  I don't like doing it this way, but sometimes, Wife is the smarter more responsible one of the two of us.  I don't know, maybe I'll swing for the fences here in a minute and we go to the Domain shopping, we'll see (writing this on Saturday afternoon).

    (It is now Sunday morning) I have always been irresponsible with money in certain situations and I did convince Wife to go and swing for the fences.  I know everyone I know will call me dumb, but this is my oldest and this is how I show my love.  I am now excited to go meet them tonight and see what he thinks of the gift.  If you read this Boy, I love you, and Happy Birthday.

3/23/24 New Toy- Blood Pressure Monitor?

     Who knew?  I still don't understand how a blood pressure machine works.  I remember going to the doctors growing up and there it is on the wall, the old manual variety.  You place the cuff around your bicep, close a valve, then blow it up well above where your higher reading will be.  This is where the magic happens, usually the nurse would take her stethoscope and listen to your heart for a few seconds and figure out what the pressure is as air is being released from the cuff around your arm.  Seems a bit subjective to me, but I'm not a medical professional.  Nowadays, the same thing is done with these big wheeled carts with an array of cuff choices and fancy buttons to keep track of everyone a doctor might see in a year, or probably more.  I was told I would need to buy my own blood pressure monitor machine and since I am in a do or die situation, with cancer it's not like I can say "nah, I'm a pass on this, Doc."  Doctor says you need so and so, you say "yes sir/Ma'am and hope the request won't be in the thousands.

    I honestly had no idea, I was thinking I would be investing in something about the size of an old DVD player, it would need to be plugged into the wall and I would have to go to a medical supply store.  Nope.  Nowadays, you can order a defibrillator for the house, if you want from Amazon.  While driving home from the doctor visit on Thursday, Wife had already looked them up and had some pre-chosen for me.  I just told her to pick the one with the biggest cuff she could find and with overnight delivery.  This fancy new contraption cost me a whole $59.99.  I mean things are just getting cheaper and more convenient by the year.  This little box is about the size of a can of Spam and runs on 4 AAA batteries.  I think everyone should have one and should be checking their blood pressure every once in a while, you never know.  I wouldn't feel this way a week ago when I thought these things were only for medical professionals to understand, but this one does all the work for you, you just sit there and get the data about 30 seconds after pressing a button.

    I am kind of glad there is a little delay on receiving the chemo drugs, it allows me to create a bit of a history or baseline of my blood pressure on this particular machine.  So far I have read my pressure three times, twice after waking up and once when I got home from work.  They have all been pretty much around 141/79 with a heartbeat below 70.  The perfect reading is closer to 120/80, but I think I'm ok, considering I weigh 400 lbs.  The upper end for the clinical study where I get the meds for free is 150/90.  This is supposed to be because this medicine is known to increase the blood pressure, which is why this has become topic number 1 all of a sudden.  At this point, I have shown to have good readings, the doctor even prescribed me blood pressure medicine for when I start taking the chemo drug and my blood pressure does start going up, I have something to counter the effects.  I guess we can get this show on the road here starting this week.

3/22/24 Third Houston Trip?

     This third time to Houston's MD Anderson was supposed to be an easy run, do some blood-work, pee, check my heart via EKG and scoot on out with my chemo meds in my pocket, but life is never that easy.  First off, the doctor changed the time of my appointment from a relaxed afternoon visit at 3:00 pm, to a more prompt one at 11:00 am.  I got home Wednesday night from work and I had a message to see if I could be there at 9:30 am or 11:00 am.  I told them this was very last minute notice, had I known, we would have planned accordingly and gone up Wednesday evening to be there early on Thursday.  Fine, we had a quick dinner, came home and forced ourselves to go bed as quickly as possible so we could turn around and leave a lot earlier than we had planned, ended up being before 7:00 am.

    We got there with about 15 minutes to spare, but it was a downpour and of course, the parking garage was full until we got all the way up to the topmost floor, so we got drenched just getting off the car.  We then had to walk the length of the parking garage, across the street and find the entrance to the hospital about 100 yards away.  Once we were in the building, we were still about another 100 yards from the correct elevator, so we marched on.  We walked into the endocrine center about 10:55 am, still on time, we thought.  The receptionist did not have the time change, she said my appointment was for 3:00 pm, I said "No, I was sent an email to get here early."  I did not even get to sit in the lobby, was still dripping from the rain, and the nurse called me for my vitals.  Of course, my blood pressure was something like 220/120.  The nurse was like that is too high, what is your normal readings like.  I told her last time it had been 139/84, in Austin I had read 131/75.  She re-read my arm after a few minutes and it was still like 179/99.  This set everything back, I was taken to the room for evaluation and the clinical study coordinator came in and said "I'll give you the meds before you go, or I will mail them, if we can't get your blood pressure down.  Part of the problem is they did not have the extra large cuff, but how do they function in Texas, half the people are walking around overweight, I am certainly not an anomaly.  There was a lot of back and forth, with the doctor getting involved and how else they could get a good reading.  They even tried talking to the cardiac unit figuring they would have better equipment for this, but there larger cuff is tied to a tool that was down at the moment.

    I was told to go give my blood, urine, and EKG then come back to see if they could find a better solution.  I came back and the waiting around probably helped me to relax, as I finally gave decent readings of 119/68 and 132/72.  The hesitation is because the chemo drug is known to cause hypertension so a candidate cannot have high blood pressure to do the study.  

    I even learned more than I expected, being part of the clinical study means I get the medicine for free without having to involve my insurance.  I also learned that this medicine has been used for cancer patients for over 10 years and it works very well.  Its mechanism blocks the creation of new veins where the cancer is trying to grow, halting it in its growth.  I also learned this is not the BRAF mutation gene therapy I had been told about.  They were trying to go this route because this medicine has been better at shrinking tumors and faster at it.  It is a clinical study medicine because normally it is used on cancer patients who have wide spread cancer and this slows down the growth all over the body.  The study is to show it can target a specific cancer and shrink it prior to a surgical procedure.

    The doctor did not expect to be cancelled from the study, but if that were to happen another option would be to get my insurance to pay for it and we still use it outside of the clinical study, or she said a third option is to go with the BRAF gene therapy.  I believe if I do the gene therapy, I have to keep taking it, while this one in the study will be a more concentrated medicine than given to those with wide spread tumors, but for a short period of time.  Max amount of time I can be on it at the higher concentration is 6 cycles and each cycle is 28 days, so about 6 months.

    Although I left Houston with no medicine to take, I did order a blood pressure monitor machine and have started keeping track of my personal BP daily.  My first reading this morning was 141/78 with a heartbeat of 68 on right forearm.  Left forearm was similar at 141/79 with a heartbeat of 68.  I got home from work and sat and checked it, I got 139/81 with hb of 75 on right and 140/81 with hb of 74.  I'm going to enjoy checking it throughout the day, after I walk on treadmill, after lifting weights, eating.  Who knows, it gives a little insight, maybe.

3/21/24 MD Anderson Might Get Expensive?

     If they can fix me and keep me going for a couple more decades, I guess it's worth it, but man, it is going to get expensive, even with insurance.  So far, I have been up there twice.  The first time was a Friday and they did blood work, a CT scan, then ultrasound with a biopsy.  These are procedures, I expect them to cost money, no problem.  The following week, we then went up to meet the surgeon and doctor and some of their staff that will be taking care of me.  I didn't expect this to be a huge cost, I guess the surgeon did have his resident look down my nose at my vocal chords with a little camera on a bendy stick through my nose (a little uncomfortable, but not the worst thing in the world).

    This week, I started seeing costs on MyChart, which is the web portal thing we communicate through.  On Sunday, I owed like $1300 or so.  I figured it could wait a day or two, I get paid on Thursday, I'll ignore it til then.  By Tuesday, the amount is now up to $1629.  This is my part of the bill, I expected some of it, I guess it's not too bad, but the breakdown on the itemized sheet is a little much.  If the insurance were to not pay, so far I would owe $19,965.  I guess this is why insurance is so expensive throughout our younger years, because once we get old, there will probably be some big procedure like this.  If I understand correctly, I am supposed to max out on my out of pocket at $5000, so hopefully, that is as much as I'll be expected to pay, out of pocket.

    I was kind of chuckling at first sight, the charge for the surgical visit was $1325, like wow, and all he did was shake my hand, but this had a sub charge of $751 for the laryngoscopy, the bendy tube with camera going down my nose.  I guess ~$500 for the surgeon's time is fair.  There was another charge for the endocrinologist of $777.  It all seemed so nice and clean when I simply swiped my card and they charged me $25 apiece.  

    I want to, but I can't complain.  I am paying not just for the techniques, but also their expertise and knowledge.   I have to remember I paid about the same for the CT scan here, but then all it did was scare the surgeons here to send me there.  If anything, this is when I realize all the bitching and moaning of having to pay for expensive ass insurance finally pays off here.  I just hope it works like it is supposed to and they take care of me.  I want to get to Christmas time and have all this be just a bad memory, with a cool ass neck scar.  My brother always said scars are cool.

3/20/24 Changes at Work?

     Seems like nothing of interest happened for the last five years, then all of a sudden, we have been in a thunderstorm of changes in the last couple months.  I don't know if our company will survive in the same capacity once things settle down.  I went back to work after being out for almost a month dealing with my discovery of cancer in my neck.  I almost wish I had stayed home after the one day back, but I don't want to live on 60% of my normal take home pay.

    First off, for our chemistry group, we had the lady that had trained me, and pretty much our floor leader, retire.  She kept things going by being a whip of a worker, jumping from running the tool to cleaning the piles of collected boxes of wafers and other used up samples and generally doing all the little shit jobs to keep us moving forward in a smooth flow.  Since she left, I have been given the task of keeping up with the used wafers and after being gone for a month, they are piled to the ceiling, I'll have to spend a couple hours sometime this week throwing away wafers and sorting things out.  The other two guys that are left were also assigned some of her little duties, such as going and getting new chemicals about once a month, which we source from the fabs, washing and keeping track of the bottles a couple of our customers send us samples in, then disposing of the chemical leftovers we analyze for yet other customers.

    Just as we were finding a flow for the remaining three of us plus our manager, I went and got sick, which sucked, but eventually I was going to return.  In the meantime, this might have helped to break the camel's back as they say because while I was gone, our most senior chemist decided to take another job elsewhere, leaving just myself and the other guy that were in imaging just a few years ago to run day to day operations.  This guy, our senior chemist has been looking for other opportunities for a long while, he was not happy that there weren't many chances to climb the corporate ladder.  Add to that, we are still waiting for a promised bonus from last year, a cost of living increase and possibly a merit based raise.  If our management had come through with these things, he might have sat comfortable for another year.

    As it is, this lack of bonuses has now also caused our manager to turn in his two week notice.  I heard of this last week and thought he might be looking for more money since so much is expected of him, but talking to him yesterday, he said all he was asking from our CEO was the promised things.  We sat in a meeting last Fall and those things were discussed, I remember asking after the meeting "these are not theoretical ideas, we're going to get extra money for all we do?"  Our CEO said yes, but here we are in March still waiting.

    The other guy went and talked to our CEO after he heard our manager might be leaving  and told him, if he leaves, you might as well disband the chemistry group, collectively, the two of us do not have enough knowledge to keep things going.  I don't know if our CEO realizes how specialized the work is.  Sure 50% or maybe more is the wafer stuff, we can more or less handle that.  The rest of it is split between tools we don't even normally run, I've been trying to get time to learn how to run two of them, but I am kept busy with ICPMS, the normal stuff.  Not only are there tools we don't run, but samples come in as clumps of dirt, pieces of iron ore and they'll want the concentration of Lithium or some rare metal.  Some samples are just clumpy liquids, he's mentioned some are volatile and need to be heated to prep, but not too much, they could explode.  I'm not fucking with any of that dangerous shit, risk blowing a finger or more off.

    If our manager leaves, we are going to need a PhD level chemist who doesn't mind running samples, not sitting on his ass writing papers, which is going to be a hard find, I think.  Maybe it's all a bluff, our CEO releases some money our way and things settle down, I don't know, the last couple of days I was still trying to get back to normal, we'll see what happens.

3/19/24 Took A Month Off?

     Honestly, I don't understand why we don't have a system set up where we can be off for more than a week or two at a time.  With my sudden scare of cancer, the first thing management told me was to not worry about work, take some time off and deal with my sickness.  I was uncomfortable the first few weeks, like I said, I haven't had any negative effects, such as headaches or pains to deal with, luckily.  I did have a few trips to Houston, which were overnight events and then the quiet part, dealing with our own mortality is tough, tougher than most think.

    I have never liked discussing death, Wife wants to bring it up sometimes, she wants to know what would be the best thing for me, to be buried or cremation.  If it's burial, do we do it here, where my boys are, or in Crystal City, where my extended family is.  I honestly don't care, but my family really seems to, they want all of us stacked in the same 20x20 plot of earth that some of us have already started.  Wife just thinks if we go this way, they would never come visit, we barely go visit right now that I am alive, I doubt the boys would go down on their own, just facts, as I see them.

    There were so many scary thoughts though and I guess it was better to have time to clear my head without the responsibilities of day to day work.  My biggest fear right now is not having enough time to help Mijo finish college, I really want to be there and be a part of his final phase of education and seeing what he does, if he does end up coaching and leading young kids into adulthood.  Just this past week, it was Spring Break, we didn't go anywhere, but it was fun being home, having him here, we made a brisket together, he wants to learn.  He also got around to using his new weights as he tried to do the Power Clean out in the yard with 225 lbs.  It was kind of fun watching him be pissy that he couldn't do it, I looked at a couple of Youtube videos, picked up a couple tips, then he did do it, but he was still pissing and moaning.  It's fun to tease him, I was saying there was a girl in the video doing 300 lbs, it can't be hard, meanwhile I pulled my shoulder just trying to show him how he's supposed to whip the weight, it was all good times, he is so competitive.

    All this to say that the surgeon wants me on chemo for a couple months and he seems to think I should be fine to go back to work, in the meantime.  I have loved and hated being off, watching our workload get backed up really is stressful, not that I care for any particular job to get done, but the idea of coming back and having a mountain of work to catch up on, when we have now functioned on just doing the work that comes in that day because we were so on top of the workload.  I do swear that I will not kill myself trying to do too much, but we all gotta do something.

3/18/24 Condoms, Plague or Playful?

     This is probably the biggest cause of stress in my life right now.  I can't control cancer, so there is no reason to worry about that outcome, I must just trust that I will be alright in the end.  The problem with this is that I have been told I will be on chemotherapy from now on, and this will start on Thursday.  As I understand it, this will be a simple pill I will take for the rest of my life, fine.  In a perfect world, this will allow me to heal and I will live the rest of my natural life as healthy as I can muster.  All of this still sounds honky-dory, I should be ecstatic to live in a time where all this might work out, but...

    The first thing I went and read on my own, it's hard to bring this up as the first question to the doctors, but will my ejaculate be contaminated from now on?  Am I now stuck in a latex world, as it were?  Is my Johnny not going to be able to swim in the world without protection?  From a selfish perspective, I could do as I want and just do what I do, but I would not want to unintentionally hurt Wife, so am I radioactive down there?  Chemotherapy is such a heavy word, and I must admit I don't know everything yet.  I don't really know if I will be taking the chemo stuff for the rest of my life, or if there will be a lighter dose that doesn't affect the surrounding neighborhood, it is just for my well being.  I know I am ultimately happy that this is the worst thing to worry about, my selfish pleasure, I have never liked condoms and have rarely had to use them, but it is still concerning.  Yes, worst case scenario, I will be using a Trojan sheath from now on, but that means I get to keep fighting the good fight, but isn't freedom what we all live for?

    I am trying to make light of a very real and delicate situation.  I'll just have to get used to a little extra, in the end, it'll all be alright.  If I was in my 20's, this would be devastating, back when this was a day to day concern, I don't know how I would have carried on.  Now, in my 50's, this is more of a once a week concern which very easily translates to eh, twice a month thing, I should be strong enough to survive it.  

    As people tell me, I'll find other hobbies, I do have a saxophone upstairs, maybe I'll start playing my old horn again my fingers will remember what to do, making beautiful music by myself, that should be harmless and fun.  Another friend suggested I pick up painting, I guess I can work on my soft stroke, see what I can lay down on a canvas, I'll draw you a portrait of your melons with my brush, just give me a minute or two to examine them.  I've started lifting weights again, it feels good to get a good sweat going by myself, see my muscles get pumped up, nice to know they still work, even when I'm by myself and not in a room with other sweaty people.  More simply, my new hobby is slow cooking meat, at least I can still get to share my smoky meat with friends, who doesn't love it when it just falls with off the bone?

    Sorry, I couldn't resist.

3/17/24 Happy St. Patrick's Day?

     I am not sure we will do anything different today, but it is a holiday of sorts.  Growing up, March 17 was an excuse to pinch someone if they didn't happen to be wearing green, which as a kid, was just a cute excuse to come up on a random person of the opposite sex and interact with them, I don't see a good enough reason for this to have become a thing otherwise.  As a holiday, it falls right after Valentine's Day and Spring Break, and then Easter is mixed in sometimes before and sometimes after.

    These all seemed like lesser holidays than the big three, which are almost directly tied to the first half of the school year.  The school year would start and it would be serious business until Halloween, Oct 31.  From there, it would be a quick 2-3 weeks to Thanksgiving, which used to only be two days off from school, but now has become a week off and a much bigger deal.  This, of course was capped by Christmas/Winter break.  Christmas was and is the biggest thing because not only do we get off for a couple weeks (I have even made it a regular thing to take two weeks off from work), but Christmas is in there which is a time for gifts and visiting loved ones, then New Year's, which adds to making that time special.

    In today's environment, for us at least, the fall is filled bric-a-brac with football.  No particular game matters greatly personally, except for the ones where Mijo is playing, and they only matter in that we sit there worried he doesn't get hurt.  Added all together though and most every weekend in the fall is occupied with either a high school game from his alma mater (Go Coogs!), his college games (Go Pirates!), the Longhorns and other college games that seem important that weekend, and then whatever NFL game gets the biggest hype on any particular Sunday/Monday night.  Either way, there is always a reason to be tuned in and cheering.

    The Spring just does not have that intensity.  First off, it starts in the tail end of daylight savings time, so it still gets dark too soon, we tried getting excited for wrestling, but without our son doing it, it isn't the same.  Even this sport ends in early February, right as Valentine's Day rolls around.  Wife has never wanted me to splurge on gifts for her, so it just comes and goes, maybe I buy some chocolate but usually it's just a lukewarm fart of a holiday.

    Spring Break is usually our first big hooray of the Spring with a week off from school, but this year with my diagnosis, we didn't even get out of town, so it was just meh.  We don't really drink, so the green beer and other green activities will most likely just get lost in translation.  I am hoping Easter will be a little better, we usually do spend that holiday at my mom's house.

3/16/24 Feeling The Empty Nest?

     I am honestly not used to Mijo going and spending the night at Friend's houses, it was never a thing he did while in school.  This is really only the 2nd or 3rd time I can remember him choosing to do it, but either way, here we find ourselves again, just Wife and I in the house.  Mijo is over in San Marcos, three of his high school friends live in an apartment together, which is great because it makes for a destination where he can go and hang out and feel generally at home.

    Another friend of his called him up midway through Spring Break, he suggested they go hang out at the mall during the week and they did.  This is not one of the regular jock boys that we would see almost daily back in the Crockett days, but he did hang out with him often enough that they have managed to stay friends now in college, even with this kid being up at UNT near Dallas (I believe).  This is one of his few friends that actually drives, so it makes it easier when they make plans, because he can come and pick Mijo up.

    So there we were yesterday afternoon, just Wife and I.  She wanted to go for a drive and then I remembered she's been asking about Trader Joe's, the store.  I don't know why, but she got an itch in her butt, some friend of hers up in San Antonio told her it was a great and cheap place to shop, so she asked me a couple times about it.  I remember walking into one, accidentally, one of the times we were in San Antonio.  I think we had a set time of meeting at the Brazilian Steakhouse and we got there early and it was in the same parking area.  Either way, I was not impressed then and after looking for one in Austin, I was not too impressed with it last night.  It is an okay store, but there were maybe 4-5 aisles, about half as long as the ones in HEB.  Everything is then a much smaller selection, except for the alcohol.  they seemed to have the whole back and side wall decorated with different bottles and cans.  We don't drink enough to even look that way.  We ended up getting a few things and after we talked about it, we decided this could be our dinner, we would just go home, heat this stuff up and watch a movie.  We got a pizza with BBQ sauce and chicken on top, no red sauce.  There was also something Greek with spinach and something buttery cheesy inside and it had a crust that was very flaky, made it so good.  Wife then chose some middle of the road rice and Chinese type chicken, with veggies.  Wife grabbed a small vanilla cake and I grabbed a frozen dessert that had like a dozen bite size little square cake pieces.  I was impressed when we paid and it was all under $50, with prices nowadays.  The best thing and I just ate it this morning as I am writing this was the cinnamon bread which is real dense and tasted out of this world simply toasted.

    We went back home and watched a lame rom-com, followed by another and called it a night.  Mijo texted when he got to his friends which is all we ask, to make sure he got off the freeway okay.  He should be back today, and then he goes back to campus tomorrow.  Spring Break might have gone too quickly, even if we didn't do much, it has been nice to just hang out around the house and be lazy before I start my chemo next week, which has me nervous and a little happy to finally start treating this scary thing.

3/15/24 Cheap Computers, Who Knew?

     I am replacing my laptop after a good 7-8 years.  I originally bought the laptop for Wife, when She was going to work in La Pryor, I wanted her to have a nice new computer capable of doing any modern day activity.  If I remember correctly, it ran about $900, more or less.  I figured that is what computers cost, that seemed like a nice round number.  She was issued one at work, thus it became my home laptop.  We have bought a few more computers since then.  I am sure Boy got a last computer from us in the last 8 years and now Mijo just got a new one when he started college.  There is a real difference between those two boys.  Where Boy is a serious gamer and was constantly pushing for the latest and greatest possible laptop money would and could buy, Mijo just needs it to run the basic app to write papers, some day he might need a spreadsheet or two.  Mijo never really became a gamer in the same sense.  He will play online with his friends, but it is mostly the popular games that come out for Playstation or X-Box and he admits it's more to socialize with his friends than to save the world.

    I believe his laptop cost us under $500, which was good because we were buying him a new fridge, microwave, and so much more stuff.  I thought it might be a problem, we told him if it wasn't enough computer to let us know, we would buy him something better, but it has seemed to work out just fine.  Yesterday, I ran into the same dilemma.  I am not a gamer and only use my laptop to pay some bills, look at Youtube, and Twitter videos, and maybe write on my blog.  We went to Best Buy yesterday and I looked at everything they had.  I wanted a big screen, at least 16 inches, they go down to around 8 inches in some cases.  I also wanted number pads to the right of the keyboard, not because I am that fast, but I am so used to having those number keypads there.  My last thing I wanted as a superficial thing was for the keyboard to light up.  I don't believe it does, and that is its only drawback to choosing this HP Chromebook, which cost a measly $379.  It does have some shortcomings, like it only has one USB port which is owned by the mouse connector, and it does not have a disk drive, but I guess those have just about disappeared on all laptops.  The battery is supposed to be good, lasting over 10 hours on a single charge.  I'll have to make some concessions, such as learning to use their version of Excel, but that should be fine, I'm just keeping track of our bills that way.

    There were still plenty of laptops above $2000, and have fun if you can afford them, but why?  Aren't laptops almost disposable in this day and age?  I'll be happy if this one gives me three good years.  I loved the quickness of connecting to it.  Once I turned it on, I connected via my Google account and the mail looks the same, Chrome is the same, all my pictures were already backed up on Google photos and even a lot of Mijo's videos from wrestling were in the video section.  Youtube recognized me and opened with my type of videos that I normally watch, it was an easy transition.  This was my first blog written on the new laptop and the only thing I wish was better is if the keyboard had some sort of light, in poor lighting, it is still hard to see which key is which, even if I can almost type with all 10 fingers.

3/14/24 I Love This Country?

     I got up at the crack of 9:00 am and went to HEB to get one of my medicines refilled.  I have barely been on prescription meds for 30 days and have already been seen and diagnosed by two surgeons here in Austin and then a team from MD Anderson, but that is not even what makes this country great.  I picked up some supplies, Mijo wanted French toast yesterday, so I bought the fatter bread (Texas toast), it holds up better in the egg and milk soak, then of course I figured I'd buy real maple syrup and some more meat to grill tonight.  It was actually nice; I like going to the grocery store when it isn't full of people and the energy level feels is subdued.  Anyways, I figured I'd fill up the truck, with traffic being chill, then headed back home.  

    I was listening to the late great Toby Keith (gone too soon) as I was driving home, and I noticed when I turned up my street an older Toyota 4-Runner.  Wife had one of these as her first car, when she came up to Austin after we got married.  I noticed a couple of 20-something year old kids either helping them move in furniture or they were house cleaning, but it took me back to our start.  After graduation, I didn't have daddy's company to join and become instantly set.  I was lost for a few years, Wife was pregnant, and my first son was coming, whether we were ready or not.  I found a job at a warehouse and did that for a year.  My pay was $8 an hour, and I don't think I ever complained, even with the warehouse temperatures ranging from upper nineties in the summer to probably down in the 30's during the winter.  It was a warehouse, and the big doors were almost always open during working hours.  I did that job for a year until I figured I needed better, so I quit and looked for better.  A friend from back home worked at LCRA in a chemistry lab and he got me in, but it kind of sucked.  The work was "better" in that it was working with my degree, in a chemistry lab, but I was still only getting $8 an hour.  I figured this would not work for me, people weren't promoted on ability, or everyone was good enough (everybody hired had a chemistry/science degree), but on time spent there, so I would always be below my friend, and I didn't like that idea, I wanted to make more money now.   This is when I made another bold move and quit there and ended up at AMD, the rest is history, I moved up to a great opportunity by going to night shift and never looked back.

    I guess I saw those boys working as representing who I was just a few short years ago and now here I am, living in what most would call a very nice housing community.  I have always loved my house, to me it represents what this country can do for you.  Through hard work and sacrifice, we have moved it on up, as the Jefferson's intro song sang back then.  I don't think it makes me better than anyone, it is just what one can aspire to and achieve in a few short years of just shutting up and working hard.  I hope if those boys are on the beginning of their journey, they too one day find whatever success is in store for them.  I don't know what is in store for us tomorrow, maybe we stay here, maybe we move to San Antonio, or maybe we do the dream plan and move down to the coast and buy some sort of waterfront property, either way, I can't complain of the life we have been allowed to forge for ourselves.