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.

3/13/24 I Saw A UFO, I Swear?

     Nowadays, the government is not even denying it anymore, but back in the 90's, I swear we saw something I can only assume was a UFO.  I am not one to believe in fairies, or even much of religion, the supernatural, as great as it is for stories, does not fit into day-to-day life.  The idea of a UFO is a possibility in my brain, because they are just a life form more advanced than us who have figured out space travel better than we have.  If we didn't spend half of our collective human energy trying to kill each other in stupid wars, we would probably be that much closer to figuring out how to have our own space fleet, much like in our movies and dreams, where we could then go and kill each other against other life forms on other planets, just saying how we are.

    But back in that evening, I was in Crystal City, maybe it was Christmas break or Spring break, but I was there enough days that going for a cruise seemed like a good idea.  Back home, that is about the best thing you can do as a teenager, to get out of the house.  It is a small town of around 10,000 people, so drive for 5 minutes in one direction and you go out of town, same for any other direction.  We have certain roads we all know that take you around the outskirts of town.  We probably went and picked up an Icee or a queer (honest name of the ice cream treat, Icee with soft serve ice cream on the bottom), then would drive through downtown, then make our way through the parks, then out of town, listening to the radio or some CDs, back in the day.  To this day, drive into Crystal City and within 5-10 minutes you will drive by someone blasting Metallica or Ozzy Ozbourne, the city is like a time capsule, things don't change in a fast pace.  I mean honestly, this is the time we would find a place to do it, but we didn't even get that far.  We drove past the Crystal Ballroom, the dance hall where proms and weddings are held, then continued out of town, there is a road that turns hard left and in 5-8 miles over brings you back into the city by the high school.

    I swear, and Wife was with me, we saw what we can only describe as the UFO from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, disk shaped.  It had the flashing lights across the fattest part of the belly and was easily the length of a football field to either side of the road.  It was hovering over a hill and in a tree line, we only saw the upper part in shadow, but the lights were real, and they were blinking.  Wife told me to turn back and let's go get my mom, so that they would believe us.  I told her, and she was not wanting to believe me, but she went, and upon seeing the same lights, she panicked too and told me to turn back.  I don't believe I needed more proof than my mom to see, so I turned back, but Wife swears that as I turned, it lifted up into the night sky and took off.  I can't say I saw that.

3/12/24 Sleep?

     I am slowly realizing that what I thought was a cute response to maybe getting older and suddenly loving a nap might be tied to my thyroid issue.  I worked nightshift from about 1995 to around 2016, loving it, for the freedom it gave me, but realizing that working that way allowed me to only sleep around 6 hours a day.  When I was in my twenties and thirties it didn't even seem to be a problem.  As long as I got to sleep late once or twice on my weekends, and since I worked 3- and 4-day weeks on a 12-hour shift, I could always catch up, or so I told myself.  Suddenly, about 8 years ago I got whiny about being on night shift, it was almost an overnight thing maybe if I hadn't thought it was my body just getting tired of being a night shifter, I would have gone to the doctor.  I was at the point where we would go to the movies and I would almost instantly fall asleep, if we went to a restaurant and things weren't fast paced, like having the boys arguing with friends with animated conversations, I would surely fall asleep.  The big one is that I could not drive long distances, going out of town would put me in a trance, it worried me a bit, but best I did was let Wife drive, which she would push back at first saying I was just being a baby.  It wasn't until we had a few scares, where I almost hit other cars that Wife figured out I wasn't playing, and at least now she will drive if I tell her I don't feel right.

    Now that I have been diagnosed with the bad thyroid, it could explain why I seem to always be sleepy, why I am holding on to so much weight, maybe why I even drool so much in my sleep, if everything is swelled up, there is no space in my sinus cavities and the drool is just coming out, which is another gross thing I have noticed lately.  A couple years ago, when Covid showed up, I was able to lose around 80 pounds fairly quickly by going low carb/Atkins, but we have been trying to get into it and I am not seeing hardly any improvements, which I am going to tie to this as well.  I read that having the thyroid hormones in a hypothyroid condition, where I am not getting enough of them it could slow the body's metabolism, but upon correcting it, the body could lose around 10% on its own, which on a 400lb person, would be 40 pounds or so.  I would love a cheat code to help get me close to 350, then I could try and diet down to 300, that would be a fairer fight.  The surgeon mentioned sleep apnea, which I said I had never done a sleep study, but surely just removing the huge mass from my neck will open up my airway and just allow me to breath so much better was his thought.

    I decided to talk about sleep because yesterday was an especially lazy day, or I might be starting to get worse.  I woke at 715am, drank my morning coffee with toast like I do most days.  Then I went and worked out, the surgeon said the operation was going to be tough on my body, it would be good if I started walking, so I am trying to at least walk a mile on the treadmill, maybe I'll increase it, since I have a couple months before the surgery.  I lifted some weights and then came back down, ate some fruit, then Wife came down.  She reheated up the leftover brisket which did turn out well under the care of Mijo, by the way, but like mine, it is still not perfect.  I then showered and was in nap mode until almost 5:00pm.  We went to my in-law's house for my father-in-law's 81st birthday.  I let Wife drive, I just didn't feel the oomph to drive, maybe because it is her family.  I did stay awake all the way up there, but I could not stay awake on the way back.  This happens a lot, especially after I eat, I seem to fall into some food coma, most of the time.  Food makes me sleepy, and they certainly had a lot of food.

    Either it is the thyroid working improperly, or food just knocks me out.  My mom also adds that my grandfather on her side, her dad, used to eat then take a nap, that was how he operated, which again can mask the reality of a bad thyroid when other reasons seem to make sense as to why I am behaving a certain way.  I guess at this point, I only have to wait a couple more months to figure out some realities.

3/11/24 Southwestern University And Mijo?

     Now that I feel caught up with what has been going on with me, I can dive into some of the current few months that just past.  Mijo going to school at Southwestern University and being a Pirate seems to be a great choice and a perfect fit for how we are.  I say how we are, because we are a close-knit family and I know some people want their kid out there growing up and experiencing life, we like our boy to come home on the weekends and still be with us.  On the worst of days, it might take an hour and a half to go get him during the busy hours, but if we plan it right, we can also be up there in 45 minutes.  Georgetown is a world away, he needs to stay in the dorms, we couldn't possibly drive him there and back every day, but it is also minutes away, when he has wanted to come home, I can be up there in less than an hour and if need be, I can jump on the toll road and drive 80-85 both ways to be a little faster.

    This positive aspect of location has allowed Mijo to still have come and seen about half of the Cougar's games in the fall (because they played Thursdays or Fridays), and then he and I attended about a quarter of the wrestling events.  A few were on Wednesdays, and I would rush up and pick him up, we'd go watch some wrestling, then I would take him back to campus.  What more could I ask for than hanging out with my kid mid-week, usually ending with some dinner, to make the night complete.

    Another positive to SU, is him being an athlete, it becomes a whole lifestyle.  Every week, he is working on something, there is very little downtime to just lay around and be lazy.  I know that this fits his mentality, he would almost fit in a military lifestyle.  He likes the structure of getting up, sometimes very early, to work out before going to classes, then doing it again in the afternoon.  The coaches leave it up to them right now in the offseason and he is trying this best to be proactive and bring others out to join the group and workout, voluntarily.  I love that he has a sense of belonging, every shirt he wears has gone from Cougars to Pirates.  His brother Boy went to Tx State, and I don't think he owned or wore more than maybe 1 shirt that said Tx State, and both him and his mom went there.  Mijo is just very group oriented, and I am glad he has been accepted and liked by the other guys, he works hard to impress and belong.

    The Fall was a blur, he was technically on the JV team, which was alright for his freshman year.  He dressed out for the home games and was on the sideline, which had him looking like the real deal. There were a couple of games where he did play, a scrimmage in Ft Worth, a JV game (where he did get a slight injury) but played extensively, and then another game in Missouri where he got on the field, towards the end of the season.  He has found a core group of husky guys to hang with, the linemen are all friendly, bonded by their love for Whataburger, which they would go to eat on "Thick Man Thursdays" and they generally tend to stick together.

    His roommate has also been good, they get along enough that they go work out in the regular gym once in a while, but that kid lives a whole different lifestyle, he is not a jock, so he gets to stay up late, party a bit, then sleep late in the mornings.  Still, Mijo hasn't said there are problems, they are friendly enough.  He says he felt bad in the fall because he would only see him running out in the morning going to workouts and late in the day, coming back to bed.  There is more free time now in the Spring to slow down and get to know each other.

    I like that the coaches are another set of adults keeping the boys in line, making good choices, plus Georgetown is a sleepy town with not much of a party scene.  The University only has 1,900 students, a lot by high school standards, but Tx State has near 40,000, and UT has over 50,000, so the shenanigans are going to kept to a minimum.  I love that.

3/10/24 Smoking Time?

     I love a good smoked brisket on a Sunday afternoon.  This time it is a little different, Mijo said he wanted to cook a brisket for me now that we have heard some good news on my thyroid situation.  I went shopping for food a couple days ago (it's just easier for me to go alone, Wife spends so much time on the road and at work), I really hadn't in almost three weeks because we had gone to Houston for doctor appointments both weeks and we kind of thought as fast as everything was moving that I might even be rushed in and put through surgery a day or two after meeting the doctors.  Well, I walked out with almost $400 in groceries, but that included this $47 brisket, a package of NY strip steaks we ate on Friday night that was $30, and a large tub of Tide pods, which runs almost $27.  That is already over $100.  I'm not complaining, the steaks turned out great and the Tide pods will last more than a month, but anyways.

    I would have preferred to have done this on Saturday, we are on Spring Break, but Mijo had plans to go to the movies on Saturday evening with a couple of buddies, they saw Dune 2.  I vaguely remembered Dune from the 80's, but like all big movies, it was redone.  We saw Dune 1 Saturday afternoon so Mijo would understand what he was going to go in and watch.  I guess his friends made the movie selection, but the theatres are bare bones on the selection, I couldn't get myself excited to see any of the other offerings.

    Here we are now, Sunday morning, I woke at what I thought was 5:30am and it feels like it, but we just had the time change, so it is actually 6:30am when we got started.  I went and woke Mijo, came down and started the grill.  If we had to do this by chopping logs, I would not even entertain this idea of cooking for 10-12 hours outside.  This only works because the pellet grill does all the work.  I set it to 220 and came back inside.  It is a chilly morning; the phone says it is 40 degrees outside right now.  While Mijo opens the brisket and picks out what seasonings he will use, and I suggested what we use and why, the grill has a chance to come up to temperature.  He was very studious about how he applied the seasonings; I just shake the containers over the meat, he was trying to massage the seasonings in by rubbing them in with his gloved hand.  Right at 7:00am, we went out and put that big boy on the grill.

    There is not much for us to do until around noon, when we will go and wrap it in the butcher paper to protect it and try to prevent it from drying out.  I might have to pour another bag of pellets in the hopper, it was about halfway full, but since it felt cold, I didn't want to be out there messing around too much.  The general rule I go by is cooking at 220, starting the meat naked and wrapping it about halfway through.  This being a 10lb. brisket, I think it'll take about 10 hours of smoking, so we wrap it at the five-hour mark, so noon for this one today.  A 6lb. brisket would take about 6 hours, so I would wrap it around the three-hour mark.  I am trying to stay awake and keep an eye on the grill, the last time Boy came over and tried smoking a brisket, he put it in overnight and it started a bit of a grease fire, which not only ruined his brisket, but could have burned the house down, as my neighbor texted me, we were out of town.  I then had to call Boy and wake him to go and save my house.  He got the fire under control but lost his brisket to the fire.

    I guess I'll report tomorrow if brisket turned out well.  He is supposed to invite a couple of friends over and that will be good.  I like his boys; I find them entertaining to hear their stories.  We might invite a friend or two as well, but this is his big cooking moment.

3/9/24 Team Sports Can Be A Beautiful Thing?

     We can sometimes get fooled into thinking what we know is everything, but there is always more to experience.  Yesterday was just a perfect day where I am not working right now and Mijo is off for Spring Break.  It was Friday and upon searching for activity on Instagram, I saw his "little brother" (best friend who kind of looks like him with the big hair) goofing in pictures with a tennis racket out playing somewhere.  I asked Mijo if he wanted to go try and watch him play, he thought that would be cool.  Since he wasn't answering his phone, I texted his grandma and aunt to find out where they were playing. Turned out, they were at Akins HS, which is about a mile from the house, so we went over.

    Little Bro (everybody needs a nickname) has wanted to play tennis since freshman year, but he kind of got persuaded to first join wrestling (As Mijo jokingly said "we told Little Bro to join wrestling or we would kick his butt"), then on to track and field to throw shotput and discus.  This left no time for tennis which happens in the spring.  Now that Mijo and his classmate aren't there to bully Little Bro into joining their reindeer games, he is finally playing tennis as a junior.  Little Bro did say his favorite sport is wrestling (wrestling is special for those that end up doing it) but he liked track and field when he could hang out with my son and his other classmates, it is boring now with the new group of guys.

    It is a whole new world, where football is played in a stadium that could seat thousands and maybe close to 1000 people are involved per game, when you consider about 100 players per side, the big 100 plus player bands, then the cheerleaders, dance/drill teams, and finally the spectators.  Tennis, at least at Akins HS does not even have bleachers to sit in.  We drove over and kind of had to figure out where to park, it is during school hours and the parking lots are assigned to the teaching, staff, or kids.  I ended up parking by the side of the road and walking in towards the courts.  It was a small tournament, maybe six schools were involved, but everything is managed between the kids.  I didn't even see referees or umpires, not sure what they are called.  The kids were calling their own games.  It felt a little strange, the coach was sitting in a chair behind us, we were leaning on the fence, and I guess after he figured out who we were there for came up and shook our hands.  I was more like who are you?  Because of Mijo, I thought I knew all the coaches, over the last four years, he was in football with like 12 coaches, then wrestling, with two coaches, then track and field with another variety of coaches.  This was not one of those, but I guess there must be some we never met, even though Mijo was Superjock.

    This being tennis, it was a whole different vibe.  All the kids were kind of happy to just be out there playing, which is not like football, which is taken way too seriously, and of course wrestling, which is an actual combat sport.  All the kids were trying their best, the coach was laid back complimenting their efforts and being generally encouraging.  I don't know if it is because this is not a team sport where either all or none do well, as far as the scoreboard, or if the other sports not named football are allowed to be what they were intended, just an outlet for the kids to do something they enjoy.  I left kind of feeling good for Little Bro, he was in a safe space, nobody was going to grab him by the facemask and yell at him.

    In the afternoon, around 5:30pm, we went and saw Little Bro's sister who had invited us to see a softball game last week and I enjoyed it so when I saw on the calendar they had a game, I suggested to Mijo we go.  It was nice, the crowd was a little bigger than tennis, mostly parents and friends.  The weather was about as nice as Texas can offer, with a cool breeze as the sun is going down.  There is a clumsiness to the game, them being JV, but still, it was entertaining with some of the girls hitting the ball with some real power.  I took my glove, why not, the previous game had a foul ball land near us, Little Bro's uncle was teasing me to protect them with my glove, but he was just jealous he didn't have one (just kidding).  The Crockett girls won again, and one can tell Little Bro's sister has found her group.  She looked happy singing the little softball chants they do in the dugouts while someone is at bat.  She was telling us at the beginning of the school year she didn't feel like she had friends, but this was not the same girl as she was surrounded by teammates who all seemed to get along.

    Football is so emotional, and the stakes seem so high, I understand why Mijo's older brother never liked sports.  Too much is expected of any individual who puts themself out there.  Boy (older brother), always complains that Mijo is going to get injured and get nothing for his injuries.  I can see that from an outside perspective, but I also know that Mijo gets something from putting himself in harm's way.  Some people have that need for the adrenaline rush of competition, to feel the raw power of defeating and making someone bend to your will with nothing but your physicality which you hone on your own.

     I enjoyed both events even if I had to temper down my expectations from what football makes the norm.  Sports are supposed to be to grow comradery, and maybe get some physical activity.  The coaches were great, seeing the wrestling coach now with a soft touch, coaching the girls' softball team was awesome.  The other team's coach, from the 1st base sideline coaching his girl to just wait for the ball, not to force it, not to swing at the ground, there was so much patience in his voice, it is just a world away from what I have heard on the football field.

3/8/24 Ego And Pride Drive One To Greatness?

     Last night around 9:30pm Mijo texted and asked if I could go get him, his Friday class was cancelled so he was done, and it was Spring Break time.  I was half asleep laying around waiting for Wife to get home from a late activity at work.  I told him it was late, and he should just hunker down one more day, I would get him in the morning.  He gave me the "come on Dad, I'll talk all the way home and keep you awake."  This is as close as Mijo will beg to come home, so he must really want to leave campus, which he even added that he was burnt out and just wanted to get out of there.  That's about all it takes to rile me up, I don't like hearing my baby is uncomfortable.  Wife got home just then, and she wanted to go with, so we went and picked him up.  Our thought is that he quietly has been stressing about all the stuff going on with me and just wanted to come home to see that I was fine.

    On the drive home, I filled him in on all the latest information, that I'll be taking some form of chemotherapy and it'll be a few months before the surgery, but the doctors seem to have everything under control.  Once I finished talking, he slowly started going, even apologizing for kind of starting, but realizing I still had stuff I was saying.  I do always ask him how it is going and how was your week, so he can get stuff off his chest, but I guess he figured I should go first this time.

    Eventually, we got home, and this is when he finally took off.  He said he mentioned to a friend on the team that so and so was not coming back next year.  The guy casually said "Oh, that's a shame, he was our best freshman lineman."  Mijo could just bite his tongue and ball up his fists because he was at some meeting where his advisor, professor, and several other faculty people he is working with were at, so he could not really argue the point without getting a couple of "Fuck that Shit!" out of his system.  He said he understands that he won't ever be the greatest lineman, his height will always limit him, but when talking about his peers, he feels he should get a nod of recognition because he is always working his ass off to be at the top wherever he is at. 

    I told him that took me right back to high school, when in my junior year a new freshman came in that played the saxophone and everyone started saying he was the best and he would probably go to state, I swear even Wife was on that bandwagon.  As it was, nobody spent more time practicing during and after school, between marching band, symphonic band, and jazz band, I was playing my sax 2-4 hours a day most of the year.  Still, the audacity, it can sound offensive when random people who you respect and like don't place you at the top.  All that did was drive me, the school had bought a brand-new baritone saxophone, those things run like $6000, and I kept is as mine until I graduated.  Everyone else shared the school instruments, but I didn't play that shit, that was my instrument.  I made it to state and that kid was never even that good that I remember, he never played alongside me, like in the jazz band or anything like that.

    I told Mijo ultimately this kid that bothers you impressed people with his size, he came in looking the part standing 6ft 4in which in itself will impress, especially when Mijo is only 5ft 8in, but you've been there before.  There were a couple of kids even in high school who were bigger, but they just didn't have his drive or work ethic.  A person's output is not just the one metric, but the totality of his output.  The bottom line is the kid quit, so he didn't have your passion for the game.  Mijo said that kid lost an uncle or someone, so that had made him a little depressed, I said you lost your grandfather last semester, it was sad, but you hung in there.  

    Bottom line, like I told you in the summer, everyone is here playing D3 because there was something stopping them from being D1 level (I mentioned this when he was getting it in his head that he wouldn't be good enough).  Your something was just height, and we wouldn't let you entertain schools outside the state, everything else you bring to the table is top quality.  You will always carry that chip on your shoulder and that is good, it will drive your competitive side and make you work even harder.  The other guys have noticed your work ethic in the weightroom, you've impressed a number of players with how strong you are, and you are already pushing other players in running the drills you're doing voluntarily right now in the offseason.  People are inherently lazy, and unless there are more of you, than more of those that think I'm good enough as is, you will never get better as a team.  You have to be one of the igniters in pushing the masses forward, that is what leaders do.

3/7/24 Second Houston Trip?

     Sometimes it is better to leave well enough alone.  I had a "meet the doctors" day on Wednesday, March 6, so we headed up there Tuesday night, since the appointments started at 8:30am.  Everything was tense but going according to schedule, we even checked in early enough to take a couple of hours to unwind after our long drive.  Before heading out to see where the hospital was, since we were a good five plus miles away, and looking for dinner, I got an email saying new test results were in my online connection thing called MyChart.  I logged in out of curiosity and I thought it weird that it said CT scan and ultrasound results were available.  I didn't immediately see images and thought it would take too much for the actual images to just be posted willy nilly.  On the bottom though, there was a button and because I had to, I pressed it to see what would happen.  It started downloading the proper software or took me to the site where all of a sudden, I was looking at my tumor.  Once in, it is really hard to stop, I wanted to see what else would be there.

    I cannot tell you what a bad idea this was.  I have no formal training, but there was all my detailed information, with notes from the technicians and thoughts on everything.  Something about growth producing pressure on the jugular vein, cysts on the facial features, lesions possibly extending into the chest cavity, and other things I decided I must interpret in the worst way possible.  The rest of my night was ruined.  I drove with the thought that the best outcome of meeting the doctors would be to be told it was too late for any surgical procedures, I mean the surgeons in Austin already had washed their hands of me, and this data showed why.  We ended up eating at Olive Garden, I don't think I have ever been less interested in the food while trying to remain present with Wife.  Getting back to the room was just as hard, I didn't want to go to sleep at the thought it would surely be bad news in the morning.  There we were at 5:45am, getting up and having yet another meal, this time the complimentary breakfast in the hotel, feeling like the only people in the world, we ate at 6:00am without any other hotel guests, then up to shower and get ready.

    I tried keeping it together, but driving Wife told me the hotel clerk said if we come back, since we have a couple nights, the next one after one more would be free and if I registered my name, he would get us another $50 savings on our next stay, he was trying to help us, since he knew we were going thru a hard time.  This got me all teary-eyed, and I almost snapped at Wife to just stop.  Today was going to suck, I don't want stories of pity and death, keep it light.  Traffic is no joke there in downtown Houston, but we got to the hospital and found a parking spot in level 3 of the garage.

    We made our way up to the 10th floor where my doctor's office is, and I was asked to fill out yet more questionnaires.  This got me weeping again, as it asked me something about what do I do as a hobby or for leisure and I started thinking of Mijo playing football and what if I'm not there next year.  The nurse checking my vitals there was very good, she made light and got me laughing and told me to get my Wife and bring her in with me.  After a few more minutes, we finally went to the small waiting room and before meeting the doctor, we spent some time talking with his fellow, another doctor still in residency, studying under my doctor.  She asked me how I was doing, and I had to say the truth, "Not good, actually.  Last night I got access to my CT scans, and I don't think I should have read them, in my mind I read the worst out of them."  She smiled softly and said, "I was looking at your files and here let's look at them together."  She pulled them up and made everything better by being the first to say "we are going to manage your care and I believe you're in great hands here.  She then mentioned the type of cancer, or maybe the doctor came in and did that (papillary, which is the most common of the thyroid cancers), but I had already asked her "I'm not dying in a month or two?"  She laughed a little and said no, this is very manageable, you will be fine, or that was what I took from her response.

    Once I heard that, a mountain of stress fell off my shoulders and knowing I did not have a death sentence necessarily made the rest of the day a good one.  The doctor did say the only way out of this is surgery, and it will be lengthy, up to 12 hours or more, he suggested doing some chemotherapy before to try and reduce the size of the tumor, which he said has probably been growing for 8-10 years.  Reducing its size will make it easier to remove and possibly save some muscle as it has grown intertwined with many of the muscles in my neck.  There was a lot of technical jargon thrown my way, such as checking if my genetic content has the B-Raf mutation which is found in this type of cancer.  They are testing my biopsy material for it.  If I have the mutation, they have a specific chemotherapy for it, but the endocrinologist was suggesting I hold off on doing that.  They will go back and forth and decide which way to go.  Whatever makes the surgery easier and/or better, it's not like I have an option not to get the surgery.

    At this point, I was just happy there is more than one option for me.  I mentioned to the surgeon's fellow that I was really worried because two surgeons up here in Austin opted not to touch me and they said they were happy about it.  A lot of times, a surgeon will go in there trying to do more than what they can and just do a half job, only to then send them there.  This is better that they didn't go in there chopping haphazardly.  Some surgeons might see a case like mine once or twice in their life because they are a smaller practice, so it seems daunting, while someone like the surgeon there might do three cases as serious as mine a week, there is just so much more experience and knowledge there at MD Anderson.  I feel like I am where I need to be for the best results.

3/6/24 What Happened to Winter?

     I know we are coming up on Spring Break next week, but I also remember there have been many times we planned or went to the coast only to be there in the middle of a cold front.  My question is what has happened to Winter?  There are a few days requiring a sweater but the last few years there is maybe one or two days that actually require a heavy jacket and I don't know if that has always been the norm, or we have entered into some weird pattern due to "El Nino."  I can't say I am mad at the weather; we are fixing to go back to Houston for another round of visits at MD Anderson, this time to get some answers as to what I have, and having nice weather makes it easier to drive in and out.

    There is always a reason for my thought, this one being since we have nice weather, I should go get the Expedition washed before we leave.  Wife got lucky, her boss has been quite cool in the past, letting her leave a little early here and there to get to our son's football games and stuff, now they told her to work from home for half a day, instead of driving to San Antonio working until noon and driving back, only to then drive to Houston in the afternoon.  It's not that Wife loves work that much, but she has a finite amount of time she can take off, so she must make the days stretch out, whenever possible and I understand.  A friend asked if she was going to pamper me after surgery, and honestly, I am not sure how much she will be able to.  We are being asked to drive up randomly for tests and consultations before the surgery even happens and that is consuming some of her days, and I'm sure the surgery will take up a few more days, so we will have to see where post-surgery leaves her at.  Luckily, I have family to come and stay with me, and plenty of friends have offered, although it would be weird to be at the beck and call of some of our newer friends when we have been the ones always out in front offering the help and stuff.  I guess I feel weird being the one that might need help, even if temporary.

    I love the idea of being able to hang out and taking it easy as being on short-term disability has offered, but it just seems to be putting off the inevitable, and the longer it waits, the louder the silence feels.  I want to be on the other side of recovery, although that is scary in itself because I've been told this will be a challenging thing I will go through.

    I guess in retrospect and the famous words of Game of Thrones, I hope that Winter is NOT Coming, I hope this ends up being an easier challenge than has been built in my head and I can get to the point of fantasizing about which Rolex I will buy on Wife's next promotion instead of the scary decisions my mind has been making in response to current events.

3/5/24 Where Does Faith Fit In An Atheist's Life?

     About the first thing to happen upon finding out I had cancer was my in-laws wanting to get together for brunch.  I thought it was nice, we see them from time to time, and usually we do it by meeting somewhere in between Austin and San Antonio to eat.  I did not expect to be ambushed this last time and it was only because I know it came from a place of love that I didn't get up from the table and leave.

    We met at a random Mexican restaurant there by the Buc-ee's in New Braunfels for lunch about two weeks ago and everything was going fine.  My father-in-law has always been a quiet man, usually it is my mother-in-law who does most of the talking, plus I like the banter between my brother-in-law and myself.  We both have a love of nice watches, and he is usually quick to bring up the topic.  This meal had a long wait for a table, I guess we got there right as breakfast was ending and lunch was starting.  We even asked, I believe it was about 20 until noon or something and the hostess said, "as long as you sit and order before the hour, maybe it was fixing to be 1:00pm, you should be fine."  Unfortunately, at 5 minutes before sitting us down, the hostess disappeared to go wrap more silverware in napkins and by the time they sat us it was a couple minutes into lunch, I just remember that annoying me.

    Anyways, as soon as we sat down, I felt the hard sell start.  My father-in-law sitting directly in front of me saying something to the effect that "come on, we've all been Atheists in our youth, let's stop playing games and come to Jesus, now that you are going to need all the help you can get."  He didn't use those words, but that was the message.  My response was "whoa, I've known I have cancer for like two days and I'm supposed to fall to my knees and start begging God and Jesus to save me?  That first of all feels hugely hypocritical for me to do that."  My mother-in-law quickly added in "No, it is not, God is always waiting for you, he loves you and he believes in you..."  At this point I did feel like getting up and leaving, but I said "look, I came here to eat lunch with y'all because I love you and enjoy your company.  I might come around and find some sort of faith, but it can't be forced upon me.  Maybe I come around, maybe I don't, but it'll be my decision."

    I have always sat with the notion that God accepts all, theoretically, it doesn't seem to matter how much of a mess they make of their lives, and some people really push boundaries by taking life and just being animals their whole lives.  Yet a simple begging of forgiveness and they are "saved" sounds like so much BS to me.  If so, surely, there has to be a place for the likes of me, who has never done wrong to people, who of my own free will, not because I am trying to gain brownie points with Big G, I give and help those around me, at least the ones that become part of my world.  I have made it a point to just love and accept people in my life as they are.  Whatever your vices, fine, I have my own.  I cannot believe that if there is a God, he places us on Earth and then expects us to live like action figures that were never taken out of their packages.  We need to get dirty to experience the essence of existing, what is the point of living a sin free life, did you even live, at that point?

    I then had to take one more side shot from my brother-in-law, he said he wouldn't preach to me but that ever since he had been convinced to take the path of faith, his life had turned around and things were going much better for him.  Every time he thinks he can fall off the path, his life quickly starts turning to shambles, but upon walking in the light, all goes well.  I said I was happy that he had found something that worked for him, I too should be left to find what works for me.  How about you give me an actual week of living with this new diagnosis to see what I might choose to do?

    I have always said that I don't know what is right and what is wrong, but if we look at religion through history, they can't all be right.  When the Greeks believed in Athens and all the gods, were they wrong or were they right?  When indian tribes also believed in a polytheistic god system, were they wrong?  My mom and mother-in-law both swear that the only right religion is Christianity and Jesus Christ.  Great, so you're willing to say that all other religions are wrong, that is pretty convenient to have been born when the right god for you was in his prime.

    A coworker/friend from work also reached out and mentioned her beliefs.  I have read some on them when I was trying to be a masseur and I want to believe in everything, but I also find it hard to believe that we have super abilities.  I do believe that touch can be helpful, humans need human touch, there have been studies even of babies that grow up without human touch in places of war versus babies who are unconditionally loved and held and there is a difference in how they grow.  Being full grown and married, the concept of being held is silly, but there is a lot of comfort and warmth from loved ones coming up wishing warm gestures and having a moment of human contact, be it a handshake or a hug.  That does feel human and special at the same time.